Sharp Teeth

           Samantha rang the doorbell a second time and looked at her watch. It was 10:23 a.m. She was nearly an hour late. Perhaps the man had grown tired of waiting and had split. Then she heard footsteps on the other side of the door and heard a deadbolt being thrown back. A tall, stocky man opened the door wearing paint-spattered blue jeans and a dirty white tank top.

           “Yeah?” he asked gruffly.

           “Hi, I’m Samantha.”

           There was no recognition of the name.

           “From the Cedar Falls Review,” she added.

           “Oh, yeah. You’re late.”

           “I’m so sorry about that. I didn’t hear the alarm and I’ve been running late all morning. You’re… ah….,” she trailed off, trying to remember his name; she had it written in her appointment book, but she’d left that in the car.

           “You can call me Ned.”

           “Ned, right. Do you still want me to take the pictures?”

           “Yeah, just go around back. I’ll meet you there.”

           He shut the door then, right in her face.

           “Rude,” she whispered.

           Samantha walked around the side of the house, stepping over scattered auto parts that were strewn in the overgrown grass. When she got around to the back Ned was waiting there for her. He was standing next to a blue 1976 Chevy Nova. The car was in surprisingly good condition.

           “Is this the car I’m supposed to get pictures of?” she asked.

           “Yes. Why else would I bring you back here?”

           She blushed slightly in embarrassment.

           “Do you need me to give you all the details on it?” Ned asked.

           “No, they already have all the info from when you called in. I just need to take a few pictures, and they’ll pick the best one and print your advertisement.”

           “All right, then. Go ahead and do what you have to do while I step inside for a minute.”

           He went back into the house, the screen door squealing on rusty hinges. Samantha unzipped the camera bag hanging from her shoulder by a strap and took out the Nikon. She was old school and still used film. Digital photography seemed somehow cold to her. She slipped the cap off, wound the camera and took the first shot. She wound it again, took a knee and snapped a second shot from a lower angle. She stood up, brushing some dirt from her knee. She moved three paces to the right. She held the camera up to her eye and adjusted the focus slightly as the screen door squealed again. She snapped a third shot and turned to tell Ned that he’d done a great job keeping the old car in such good condition, but she never got the chance to say anything. Something struck her in the back of the head and she went out like a light.

           When she came to she was in a dark room. She was sitting on a concrete floor, and her hands were chained together above her head. There was a bit of faint light high up and far to the left of her. It looked to her like a window that had been boarded up, but haphazardly, so that some light still seeped in. Her jaw hurt; her mouth was gagged with a piece of cloth that was tied in a knot at the back of her head. Speaking of which, her head felt like it had been split open and put back together. The back of her head was still throbbing.