The Sandman had a specific method of operation. In each case, he would select his victim and break into their house multiple times to sing to them in their sleep. He induced an alert yet immobile state – I still wasn’t sure how – so his victims could do nothing about their predicament. Once he’d toyed with them for long enough, he kidnapped and killed them. Or, at least, that was my best guess. Like I said, he left very few clues.
After three weeks of patient research in between my other cases, I still hadn’t found any more victims I could be certain were his. I found one early on by the name of River Tam. She was found in a field, posed as if sleeping with a pillow and blanket. She’d reported dreaming about the Sandman on a website for insomniacs which was how I could be fairly certain she was one of his, and it was her face that took me a stage further.
She resembled Karen Gilbert so closely the two could be sisters. When I started looking for other women with the same features, who were roughly the same age, and were also missing, I found a trail going back three decades.
It was chilling and I had little doubt I was going to be right about a great number of them because he wasted no time in threatening to sing me to sleep as well. The way he had just spoken to me made it sound like he believed he was doing his victims a favour.
With no clock and no sun, I had no idea what time it might be or how long I had been unconscious before I woke up here. I wasn’t tired. In fact, I would go so far as to say I felt refreshed. Given how tired I had been before, did that mean I had been asleep for hours? I was certain I’d been grabbed in the middle of the night. Was it afternoon now?
These were good questions, but not ones that were going to get me free. The first thing I wanted to do was lose the gag. Maybe doing so would cause my kidnapper to come to the room. The thought was terrifying, but I also recognised that I needed him to open the door if I was ever going to escape, plus finding out who I was dealing with sounded like a good idea.
Even if it made me want to wet my pants.
The gag felt like it was a piece of rag. I couldn’t see it, and with my hands behind my back, I couldn’t touch it either. Or could I? I backed against a wall, folding my arms up at the elbows until my hands were between my collar bones. Then I tilted my head back to bring the back of my skull down. After a few deep breaths, I sunk my weight down the wall. I was attempting to force my fingertips upwards to get to the material as it went around the back of my head.
I can report that this is not something that a human can achieve. Not a normal one with bones anyway. I got close, which is say maybe less than two inches away, but close wasn’t going to win me any prizes.
Changing tactic, I got onto the floor and pulled my knees up to my face. I had to shuffle a little but found that getting my arms out from behind my back was far easier than I thought it would be.
Now with my arms in front of my body, reaching up to my face to lose the gag was equally easy.
He must have seen me remove my gag. How quickly would he react?
Working my jaw and lips around to loosen them off once I got the awful ball of cotton wool from my mouth, I waited for the sound of feet outside or for his voice to boom over the speaker again.
No footsteps or voice came.
I couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.
Listening to my heart pound in my chest, I waited what had to be another minute before I moved again. He was able to see me, and hear me, but only if he was watching. Maybe the other things he needed to do took him away from the screen.
He could be watching TV or doing the ironing. Or sitting with his family for all I knew. Was I in a secret room in his basement and the psycho had a wife and kids who were oblivious to his murderous nature? I could keep on guessing or I could focus my efforts on something constructive, so that was what I did.
My wrists and ankles were bound with rope that had then been wrapped in duct tape. Starting with my wrists and using my teeth, I worked a corner of the tape free and started to unwind it. I could only do so by yanking it with my head. The process soon gave me neck ache, yet I ignored it much as I was certain Tempest would.
I wanted to stop glancing at the tiny camera lens, but it was the only thing in the room worth looking at and it drew my attention. My imagination conjured all manner of images, picturing the Sandman sharpening an evil-looking knife or fiddling with the piece of rope he planned to use to strangle me.
My pulse refused to slow down, and the damned duct tape was getting stuck to my hair. That was a trivial concern, of course, but another one on my list.
Finally, after several minutes of effort that made my teeth hurt even more than my neck, the last of the duct tape came free. Now able to see the rope binding my wrists together, I could see
