A car speeds though the dark, December evening, interrupting the cold stillness of the winding semi-rural road.Heather was, in a word, pissed. This was a fact that quickly became apparent to any casual observer as she maneuvered her BMW around the curves at more that twice the speed that could safely be called insane. She gritted her teeth as she more or less flung the car around another curve specifically designed not to be flung around and thought about the reason she was so pissed in the first place. The reason was simple.Ross. Ross, the weasely, low down, underhanded, conniving, little rat-fink of a man she had made the mistake of trusting was the problem. Oh sure, he seemed perfect when she hired him on to be her assistant, allowing him to do more and more,trusting him with privileged information, he excelled at helping her look good. But the second he had the opportunity he went behind her back, did work on his own and stole the biggest account that year right out from under her. She had all but handed it over to him without realizing what he had been up to. He had, in effect, stolen her career. Well, he wasn't going to get away with it.Deer. Deer? The word deer drifted around in her head for a fraction of a second, looking for something to connect with, until it finally met up with, and took it's place at the end of the phrase "you're about to hit a..." Oh Shit!Heather slammed on the brakes and wrenched the wheel to the left to avoid clobbering a deer that had chosen that exact moment to bound up onto the road and freeze. The BMWsquealed and swerved, fishtailing within inches of the petrified animal. Heather tried desperately to regain control of the car by cranking the wheel the other way,which managed to cancel out the fishtailing but sent the car into a spin. Heather's world was a blur of dark, smeared colors as she realized she was heading straight for the ditch."Please not the trees.. Please not the-" Whump! She was suddenly interrupted by the vehicle coming to a sickening stop. For a long while all was darkness, she couldn't see a thing before she finally realized she had her eyes clenched shut. Mustering the courage to open one she looked out to survey the damage, and was surprised to see the trees which she had been dreading were a good five feet away. More in control now she blinked and looked around. It didn't look like she had hit anything, on top of that the engine was still running, the headlights were still on, and all her limbs seemed to be in their appropriate positions."What the-..." She said aloud.What the hell stopped me? She thought quietly to herself, so as not to tempt fate. Opening the door she quickly found out exactly what it was had stopped her as she took one step outside, and promptly sunk up to her ankle in mud.It had been a rather unseasonably warm December so far, and any snow that did have the courage to show it's face, usually at night, melted by about 1 o'clock the next day. Result- Mud. Correction.. Now that the sun was down it was freezing cold mud. Heather quickly withdrew her foot, nearly pulling her high heel off in the process.Damn! These were new! Heather slammed the door shut and put the car back in gear."Maybe.." She said as she eased on the gas.. Nothing, the tires spun, the car stayed put. She tried rocking it, It wouldn't rock an inch either way. She tried slowly easing on the gas. It was hopelessly stuck in the mud. Out of frustration she slammed on the gas, almost instantly the side windows were coated in thick semi-frozen muck.Useless.Why did this have to happen today? Why me? Why did she have to get her car stuck on the one day she left her cellphone at home? For a long while Heather simply sat there, feeling sorry for herself with one foot covered in mud and the beginnings of what promised to be the mother of all headaches setting up shop in her head. After about five minutes of self pity she decided action must be taken. She was only about a quarter of a mile from home, she could easily make that. It was either that or sit here and wait for someone else to drive by. That wasn't too likely, this wasn't exactly the beaten path. That's why she had bought a house out here. It was so secluded and relaxing she simply couldn't pass it up, even if it was a bit of a dump. That was no problem though, the first thing she had done was to hire a contractor to fix the place up. Contractor. Shit. The man was incompetent. She only hired him because Jannie had recommended him so adamantly. Every time she turned around, though, he seemed to do some other bone-headed thing. Last week she had come home to find he had torn the ceiling open in the entry way. He also had the annoying habit of starting several projects at the same time, resulting in utter chaos throughout the house instead of one room at a time, which would be the sensible way to do it. When she asked him about it he had simply said "Jus'the way I work.". That was another thing. His accent, she couldn't quite place it, but it made him sound illiterate.She couldn't stand the man. She could worry about that later though. Turning the car off, Heather once again pulled the door handle to survey her situation, this time the door refused to open. She tried again, throwing her weight against it,causing it to open about a quarter of an inch and allowing mud to ooze in under the door. It suddenly occurred to her what had happened. When she hit the gas she had caused the front tires to spin, and dig themselves even deeper into the mud, so deep, in fact, that the car had sunk to down to the doors. The same mud that trapped her car also trapped her... In her car. "Shit!"Taking a deep breath and trying not to think of how humiliating this was, Heather rolled down the window and crawled out, being careful to track as little mud on theupholstery as possible, until she was sitting on the roof with her feet resting on the door. The mud pit seemed to extend about six to seven feet in any direction, which she was sure she could hurdle (all those hours on the stairmaster were about to pay off.. And here she thought it was actually a torture device invented by fitness-hating engineers). What was troubling her the most, however, was that it was really getting cold out, and she only had her heels and a light coat. She couldn't rely on her knee length skirt or silk blouse to provide that much insulation,but what other choice did she have? Heather grasped the top of the door and stood on the edge ofthe frame. With a mighty lunge she threw herself toward the"bank" of the mud pit.. and might have actually made it if her heel hadn't caught in the window crevice at the last second. With a wet plop she landed face down in the murk,the semi-frozen edges poking at her, as if to mock her pathetic situation.With a scream of rage she stood up and made for the edge. Her heels acting a a wedge, driving themselves deep into the mire. It was all she could do to pull them out again to take another step, when, only about one foot from the edge of the road, her feet sank up to her shins. She struggled to free them but they were disinclined to move. She was stuck! At least her shoes were. She felt that she could probably get her feet free of the sticky muck if she slipped her feet out of them. Damned if she was going to do that,though. Instead she continued to struggle, pumping her legs up and down in the mud, reaching down to try to pull them out, to no avail. The mud held them in a vice like grip,they seemed hopelessly stuck. It wasn't until she had sunk almost up to her knees that she finally resigned herself to the inevitable. The shoes were a write off, so she slipped her feet out of them and tugged at her feet, which finally came free with a sickening slurping noise. After a lot more struggling and cursing, she finally managed to make it to "shore", and spun around just in time to see the last remnants of the holes close in over her precious shoes."What next?!" She said out loud and instantly regretted it. People who say 'what next' generally end up finding out. As it was she was going to have to walk a quarter of a mile barefoot in the middle of December. She didn't need any more problems.The walk was hell. The road was fairly old, rough, and cold. Each step felt like someone was pressing a frozen cheese grater against the bottoms of her feet. Heather tried walking along the side, but when she spotted the broken beer bottle, she decided that the road was the lesser of the two evils. She didn't need tetanus to add to her list of things to worry about. At least one thing going for her was with the pain in her feet, the seemingly bittercold, and the knowledge that her future held a conversation with tow-truck driver, Ross simply popped out of her head.Not all together, but at least he was lurking in thebackground now, much as he had done in real...No.Worry about what to do about him later. For now she had to concentrate on getting home. Heather had tried running, but the impact on her sore feet had been too great. A good brisk walk was about all she could manage. When she got home, she estimated that it was about five thirty. That was one thing she hated about Winter, it always got dark so early. Here it was, half past five, and it was almost pitch dark! Wait, that's not right, she thought. It was too dark. Why did that seem odd? The porch light. She always left the porch light on and it wasn't on. She could only envision two reasons why it wasn't on. One: a burglar had broken in and shut it off for some reason. Two: That idiot of a contractor Parker (that was his FIRST name... who names their kid Parker unless they have Hollywood dreams for the him?) was still there and had shut off the electricity again. The looming shape of a large rusty white pickup truck with the words "Parker Renovation" crudely stenciled on the side confirmed the second possibility. Hell, in the mood she was in, a burglar would almost be preferable if not merely for the fact that anything she did to an intruder would be considered self defense. And she was in the mood to hit something.Heather hobbled up the front steps and saw the house wasn't entirely dark after all. A dim light emanated from the window in the door. At least she wouldn't have to walk into a completely dark house. The door was standing a fraction of an inch ajar, another act of stupidity that she would have to bring up with Parker (preferably while running his belt-sander over his head). Heather pushed the door, which opened only with some resistance.Pop!She had just enough time to catch a flash-frame of the room,with the floors covered with plastic (blocking the door abit), a ladder standing in the middle of the room, and a trouble light, which until a moment ago had been hung fromthe top of the door, topple to the floor, burning out it's bulb upon impact. She was standing in the dark again.Correction: She was standing in the dark with a blue line infront of her eyes from the light making it impossible to see anything other than a blue line.Heather did the only thing she could think of doing. She walked in and shut the door. This evening was just getting worse and worse, but at least now it was over, she thought as she removed her mud encrusted jacket and simply droppedit on the plastic. She then sat down and began massaging her much abused, and dirty, feet until the feeling came back. When it finally did the feeling turned out to be pain. The soles were almost raw from the cold road, but at least they were starting to warm up now. With her feet at least partially satisfied, she was now free to address the darkness problem.Flashlight. There was one in the kitchen. Heather blindly started to fumble her way though the room, nearly knocking over a plastic covered table. Suddenly she ran into something. Something large and suspiciously ladder-shaped. Her arms shot out to prevent it from suffering the same fate as the trouble light but as she did something fell off the shelf of the ladder and dropped on her. Or rather dumped on her, all over her. Instinctively her head ducked down as a metal five gallon bucket followed it's contents down, striking her on the back of the skull. The pain was intense but quick.Heather held the back of her head as tears welled up in hereyes. She tried to feel to see if it was bleeding but her hair was all slimy and it was difficult to tell. What was this stuff? It seemed to be causing the chemical smell.. a familiar smell.. Oh hell!When she was in high school her father used to restore furniture in the garage. She remembered watching him do it when she was a little girl. One time when she was about 16 and her parents had left that afternoon on vacation, she hada bunch of friends over for a little "get together". She had already had about 5 Rum and Cokes when one of her friends produced a joint. They had decided to go out to the garage to smoke it (she had been rather wild a teenager.. by her standards anyway). She recalled she had sat on hood of her car, her best friend sat next to her, and the othersstood in a rough circle except for one (she couldn' tremember her name). She had sat down on an old chair that happened to be sitting there on top of a layer of newspaper. They had passed around the joint and decided togo back in and eat some cereal or something when the girl (Mary was it?.. She didn't think so...) stood up, taking the chair with her. It seemed stuck to the seat of her pants."I'm stuck." She had said and fell back down sitting in the chair giggling. Everyone had gotten a good laugh, until they discovered that Melenie's (That was it!) jeans weren't coming off the chair, no matter how much she pulled. They all tried to pry her butt off the chair, with out actually touching the chair but she had been sitting too long. In the end they had to cuther out of her pants, which was no easy feat when you're stoned out of your gourd. Later came the heavy explaining to her father.It was shellac, or varnish, or some other wood finishing product that had done it. The point was this stuff tended to get rather sticky. Heather had always remembered that smell though. And now she was covered in it. She knew she had to get it off of her immediately, or her clothes would stick to her skin and she'd probably have to take a bath in turpentine to get them off again. She knew she had better get to the shower fast, but didn't want to track shellac all over the house. So she did the most sensible thing she could come up with, removed her blouse and skirt and used them to wipe as much of the thick substance off her as possible. The fabric had already started to adhere to her skin, but came off with a little coaxing. She decided to leave her underwear on, in caseParker was still around she could at least keep a little dignity.When she had wiped herself as clean as she could, she set off fumbling for the bathroom, unaided by the fact that the plastic was sticking to her feet every step of the way. She made it to the living room and found that the carpet stuck just as well as the plastic, but at least it was getting easier. With every step she took, carpet fibers stuck to the bottoms of her feet and she was convinced she wasleaving little shellac footprints behind.Finally she made it to the bathroom, but when she did she found a strip of masking tape blocked the doorway. Parker. She was going to kill him when she found him! She simply ripped the tape down and stepped into the bathroom. It was something of a battle getting to the shower, she had to peel each foot off of the linoleum floor as she went, even on tiptoes it was rather a sticky trip.Finally she arrived at her destination. Heather fumbled around and found that the shower door was missing. Visionsof butcher knives embedding themselves in Parker's skull began to flit dangerously through her mind. No better yet,she thought as she stepped under the shower head, ram that damn belt sander that she had tripped over last weekend up his-... What the hell? Heather had been fumbling around for the shower knob all this time and was puzzled when her search had revealed nothing but a small pipe coming out of the wall. She ran her hands up the wall and discovered that the shower head was gone as well."Parker!" She yelled. Why couldn't he just work on one thing at a time? He probably even forgot to turn the water off before he took all the fittings out, that would explain why the floor was all wet. Now she would have to walk all the way back through the living room, up the stairs, and down the hall to the other bathroom, dripping shellac all the way. Hopefully he hadn't gotten to that one yet. Heather was about to start feeling her way back out again when she discovered her feet wouldn't move. They seemed fused to the spot. She gave a harder tug, but her foot didn't move. Damn shellac! She pulled harder, putting herweight behind it. Her foot remained stuck to the floor. She reached down and grasped her ankle and pulled again, tono avail. The only result was that now her hand was stuck to her ankle. Dammit! She said as she tugged her hand harder, it finally came off but left sever sticky stands behind."What the hell? I'm stuck!" She said angrily to no one inparticular."Miss Heather?" came a voice from the next room. "Parker!" She yelled as she saw the beam of a flashlight suddenly drift into the room."I was in the basement wirin' up the entry way light and I hear you callin' my name. What'chu you doin' home so early?" "Never mind that you idiot! Get me out of this!" She screamed back, not bothering to hold back any of the rage from her voice.The beam of light suddenly stopped. "You aint in the shower, are ya Miss Heather?""Yes! What the fuck does it matter?!?"The flashlight moved forward once again, followed by a large silhouette of the contractor himself. He shown his light on Heather's face, causing her to hold her hand up and curse athim again. The light moved down her body (it was only at this point she remembered she was semi-naked, but damned if she was going to feel embarrassed in front of this Neanderthal) to her feet. The first thing that was obviouswas the regular plastic shower floor was gone, the second thing was the wood floor that was there seemed to glisten."I aint laid the new shower floor yet. I did put the layer of glue down to cure while I was wiring up that light." He suddenly grinned, "looks like it's cured all right!" And burst out laughing."GET ME OUT OF THIS YOU ASS HOLE!" Heather screamed, her eyes tearing up with rage."Ok, Ok.. let me get some solvent out of the truck. You're lucky I have this stuff around, it takes a week to get it otherwise, even in an emergency. You have to special order the glue too. But it's the best they-""I DON'T GIVE A SHIT YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF CRAP!! GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR AND GET ME FREE!" She was trembling now.He turned to go, still chuckling under his breath.Heather was angrily rambling now. "I can't believe any bodycould be this stupid! You have got to be and some kind of moron to not at least warn people not to go into the room.I shouldn't even pay for this level of incompetence, everything you do you find a way of screwing up! Worthless bastard!"Parker stopped cold. An erie relaxation seemed to move across his body and she heard him take a deep breath and let out a long sigh. An almost world weary sigh. Slowly he turned, his flashlight reflecting of the floor casting a pale, uniform light around the room. His eyes were closed,and his hand was tightened into a fist. Heather was afraid for a moment that he might hit her, but instead he slowly opened his eyes, took another deep breath and spoke."You know Miss Heather, I been real good to you. I gave youa price that barley allows me to cover expenses, I show up early before you leave to answer your questions, I bust my ass all day to make this place look good. And all you do is bitch at me and ask me to do the impossible. When you said you wanted that chandelier in the entry way, I told you the ceiling wouldn't take the weight, you said 'find a way'. SoWhen I open up the ceiling to reinforce it you come home and yell at me for that too. I said nothin'. When my son was going to move down to my mother's house in Mexico to get his leukemia treatments, you made me work the last weekend I could have spent with him. I didn't say a word.""..." Heather tried to interject. Parker wasn't going to be interrupted though."I didn't even complain when you broke my belt sander. Hell, I even stayed calm when you yelled at me for leaving it in the room I was working on, the one I had warned you not to go in. Now you come home earlier than usual and stumble into a situation that someone half as smart as you would have to work at getting themselves into, and then you bitch at me again. Well guess what? I don't care anymore."Heather was speechless. She didn't even know he had a son.(then again she didn't even know his last name)Parker turned to go. "Have a nice life Miss Heather. Or at least as nice as you can stuck in a shower.""You.. You can't leave me like this!" She pleaded, all rage suddenly falling away like a veil."Sorry.""I'll.. I'll press charges! I'll sue you for everything you've got!""Gonna be kind of tricky to do that if you don't know where I am, or for that matter I bet you don't even know my last name." He said as he walked toward the door. Heather was desperately grasping at straws now "You're going to Mexico-""Big country, Mexico is." "You can't.." But obviously he was. "You.. you bastard.." She said feebly.Outside the room the unmistakable sound of tools being packed up could be heard. Heather, still somewhat blind from having a flashlight in her eyes, began struggling again, tugging at the glue with all her strength. She refused to believe this stuff was inescapable, however reality seemed to disagree as the glue held her feet firmly to the floor. No matter how much she pulled and twisted,her feet just wouldn't come loose."Unngghh! Damn it!" This stuff wasn't giving at all, it felt as if her feet had always been a part of the floor.She couldn't budge an inch. Her feet were stuck tightly to the floor, and looked like they would continue to be stuck there until she got some help... Probably medical."Parker!" Heather was sobbing now. "Please! I'm sorry!Let me out!" A slamming door was the only response. She was alone, glued firmly to the floor, in the dark, in her underwear. Oh hell.. her underwear! She remembered the shellac she was covered in and scrambled to get her bra off before.. Shit. She couldn't even get the hooks undone. She grasped at it, tugging it along the sides, but it was stuck to her skin. Heather felt all around it, trying to find something to get a grip on, but everything seemed fused directly to her skin. Her panties seemed to have suffered the same fate. She couldn't even get a fingernail between the fabric and her skin, it was as if the garments were part of her body, and for all intents and purposes they were. She reached up and touched her hair, and immediately had to fight, rather painfully, to disentangle her hand from the sticky strands. Her hair was just one big sticky mass on her head.She began to sob harder now."Help me!" She screamed, although she knew no one was anywhere near within earshot.For a while she simply stood, occasionally tugging on a foot, crying. Finally she managed to collect herself and decided that she had to do something instead of simply wallowing in self pity. She tried to think of anything that might help her escape. Her heart actually beat faster for a moment when she remembered she had been on the cordless phone this morning. She had been checking her voice mail while she did her now tragically stiff hair, and had left the handset by the sink, which was right on the other side of the shower wall! She could call for help! Heather's eyes had begun adjusting to the dark now as she leaned to her right to peek around the wall, and sure enough, she could see a faint phone-shaped blob of shadow on the counter. It was possibly within her reach if she stretched. First she would call the paramedics, then the police and have them stop Parker before he even got to the state border much less the Mexican border. As she leaned as far forward as she could, and reached as far as her arm was capable she began having fantasies of Parker being led intoa squad car in handcuffs. Or better yet, he resists and ends up having his body riddled with bullets. This last image put a little smirk on her face as she strained against the glue to reach the phone, it was just a little bit beyond her hand.She pressed her body against the wall of the shower, the soles of her feet felt like they were going to be ripped off, but all she could do was just about touch the end of it. Suddenly she got an inspiration, she turned her hand palm up and pressed the backs of her fingers to it and moved her hand closer to her. The phone followed, stuck with shellac to her hand. Heather peeled her fingers off it and grabbed it, giving a little ecstatic cry of success, until she realized most of the front of her body was now stuck to the shower wall."Shit!"Heather threw her weight back, but remained stuck fast to the wall. She braced her hands against the wall and pushed with all her might, at first nothing seemed to be happening. Clenching her eyes shut and redoubling her efforts she finally felt her flesh begin to slowly peel off the wall, leaving long sticky strands in it's wake. When she got to her bra it reacted the same way as her skin,without detaching itself from her. Heather had hoped that it would stick to the wall and she could peel it off of her,but it remained firmly attached to her. She could worry about that later, after she was free of the glue and Parker was in prison.With a final grunt she managed to free herself of the rest of the wall, leaving thin strands of shellac waving in the air in front of her, some still attached to the shower wall. It didn't matter, she would be free from this nightmare in a moment! With something closely resembling a self satisfied smirk onher face she pressed "Talk" and dialed 911. Heather began going over exactly how she was going to explain her situation to the operator when she noticed that all she could hear over the phone was silence. Suddenly the phone beeped several times and shut itself off. NO! The battery couldn't be dead, she just pulled it off the charger this morning! Why wouldn't it work... Of course. The power was off, the phone had nothing to connect to. At the moment it was just a useless hunk of plastic.. that was quickly fusing itself to her hand.With a cry of frustration she flung the phone across theroom. It clattered into a wall, assumably shattering itself into a million pieces somewhere in the shadows. The battery cover came spinning out of the darkness across the floor and stopped in the center of the room. It was now that the seriousness of her situation began to dawn on her. She was glued to the floor, covered in an incredibly sticky substance, half naked, in a dark house,with no way to communicate with the outside world, and since the last thing her boss had suggested before she stormed outof his office was to take some time off, no one would think anything was strange if she didn't show up for work tomorrow. She was in serious trouble.In a panic Heather began clutching at her feet, trying to force them off the floor, but still being careful not to touch the glue with her hands. The more she struggled to free her poor feet, the more frustrated she got untilfinally she was simply pounding on the walls with her fists,screaming."HELP ME!! I'M STUCK OH GOD HELP ME!!" She more or less screamed over and over again. But there was no help.
EPILOGUE
Two days later a rather puzzling call was received by a 911 operator from somewhere in Texas. It said that paramedics should go to 420 South Cedar St. and bring a saw. When they arrived no one answered the door, however it was unlocked.They entered a room covered in plastic that looked to have received a rather large spill of something. There were a few articles of women's clothing strewn about and a set of shiny footprints leading down the hall. When they called out all they heard was a pathetic sort of whimper coming from the direction of the footprints. Following these to a semi finished bathroom they found quite the scene. There was a woman, sitting in the shower with her feet flat on the floor and her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She was in her underwear and every square inch of her was coated in the same shiny substance that was on the plastic. Her hair was merely a clump on her head, it looked to be a hopeless mess.When the men entered the room she looked up, and made a sort of grunting noise with out opening her mouth. She wiggled around a bit but basically remained in her original position. A tear ran down her face and she made another whimpering sound. They finally realized she was stuck like that. Mouth and all. Sometime during the past two days she had fallen asleep and collapsed.It took six hours just to get her out of the shower. In the end they had to saw the floor under her away and load her into the ambulance like that. The shellac was relatively easy to remove compared with the glue, although it took four hours just to get her arms and legs free. Plus and additional three to remove her underwear from her body with the exception of the back of her panties, since the glue had soaked though and was stuck to her skin. Her hair was aloss, it ended up being shaved off. As for the glue, sheended up being in the hospital for a week before theyfinally managed to find a solvent strong enough to dissolve it that wouldn't harm her. In the mean time the doctors had simply cut the wood away as much as possible, it looked as if she was wearing strapless wood clogs, and she always made a clunking sound when she sat down.Throughout the entire ordeal, however, Heather nevercomplained about a thing.
