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What would they do to me if they came back and found that I had somehow been able to remove the overcoat over my head?

Two minutes after that, after having debated the question with himself carefully, Ketcham decided to attempt to remove the overcoat that covered his head and upper body.

Doing so was easier than he thought it would be. By maneuvering his shoulders while holding one side of the coat with his bound-together hands, he was able to get the coat off first one shoulder and then the other, and when that was done, he was able to untie the tape holding the coat around his neck.

But when Ketcham had removed the coat, he could see absolutely nothing. There was no light of any kind whatever in the room. He suddenly felt faint and dizzy, and dropped to his knees, and then moved to a sitting position. The floor under his buttocks was rough and cold.

Ketcham raised his wrists to his mouth, and with some difficulty, using his teeth, he managed to untie the tape binding his wrists together. That done, he groped for the overcoat, found it, and put it on. It was too small for him; he could button only a few of the buttons, and the cuffs were six inches off his wrists.

Ketcham then went back on his hands and knees and began looking for the clothing he had been forced to remove and had dropped onto the floor.

It was not where he remembered having dropped it, and Ketcham decided that he had become disoriented when he had felt faint and dizzy, and decided he would have to search for it methodically.

Ketcham crawled on his hands and knees until he encountered a wall. Then he moved along the wall hoping the find a door, or something else. He didn’t, but eventually he found a corner. He moved from the corner to the next, and estimated that the room was about fifteen feet in that dimension. Then he followed that wall until the next corner, and the next. Along that wall, to one end of it, he encountered a door.

He stood up then and ran his hands over the door. He found a hole, which presumably had at one time held a doorknob. Ketcham put his index finger in the hole and felt around, but encountered nothing. Next Ketcham ran his hands over the concrete on both sides of the door. His fingers encountered a square box, a shielded cable running to it, and then, on the box itself, two toggle switches.

Ketcham closed his eyes so that he would not be blinded by any sudden light. He threw both switches several times, but there was no light.

Walking erect now, Ketcham proceeded along the wall until he came to the corner from which he had started. Then he made another circumnavigation of the room, walking erect and rubbing his hands in slow wide arcs over the cold rough concrete. Midway down one wall, he encountered another shielded cable, and followed it to a plug box near the floor. There was a similar arrangement on the next wall.

Ketcham realized that while he was, literally speaking, still totally in the dark, he was no longer in complete ignorance of his surroundings. He was in a room he estimated to be probably fifteen feet by twelve. There was one door, no handle, and electrical circuits that were dead—or alive. Someone could have removed the bulbs from the light fixture—fixtures; there were two switches—they controlled.

There were no windows, which meant that he was more than likely in some kind of basement.

But they didn’t lead me down any stairs, and the truck or station wagon, or whatever that was, didn’t descend an incline; I would have sensed that if it had.

So where the hell am I?

Where are the people who brought me here?

Why did they bring me here?

What happens next?

Ketcham began to shiver again.

Where the hell are my clothes?

Ketcham dropped to his knees and began a methodical search of the room, rubbing his hand over the concrete in wide arcs. His confidence that it would be just a matter of time until he found his clothing took a long time dying, but eventually, after twenty passes, he gave up.

Ketcham rested his back against the wall.

His fingertips, and the palms of his hands, and his knees were raw from the concrete.

And I have to take a leak!

Jesus, what do I do about that?

Ketcham got to his feet and moved along the wall until he came to a corner.

I will piss here. This corner will be the toilet.

What the hell am I going to have to do when I have to take a crap?

Ketcham held the too-small overcoat out of the way and voided his bladder. Moments after he had begun to do so, he felt warm urine on his bare feet. He spread his legs as far apart as he could until he finished.

Fuck it, I’d rather get beaten up than put up with any more of this shit!