The Girl in the Treehouse

by Jennifer Asbenson

  MY LIFE WAS AMAZING. I gained my independence and lived in a small trailer on my parents’ property. They had water and electricity now, so my trailer had lights. I spent my work money on attractive items to decorate my new home. Since I worked all night, I slept during the day. I used one of my dad’s trucks to get to work. It was a big, yellow 1973 Ford. I loved having money and freedom. Alice was nice, and my mom didn’t cause a lot of trouble anymore. Occasionally, Alice and I went to the casino and played bingo together. We had a great time. Sometimes I’d say something funny, and she would laugh until she cried. She would beg me to stop. I loved to make people laugh, especially Alice.

  I was respected at work, my strong work ethic evident to my peers and manager. Work was my number one priority. I always showed up for work early; I was never late.

  Sometimes I took fast food with me. One night, I left my bag in the kitchen and used the bathroom. When I returned, Tess was sitting on the kitchen counter, drinking my strawberry shake, and eating my French fries. I yelled, “No” and grabbed the food from her. She started to cry, and she was frustrated because she couldn’t communicate. I wasn’t allowed to let her have outside food because it wasn’t kosher. She started biting her arm and pulling her hair. I watched her and thought to myself, It’s not fair that she is like this and has strict rules on top of it. I knew how happy I always made Jay Jay by adding more fun to his life. I caved and gave Tess the shake and the French fries. I also let her have my extra taco.

  After the incident with Tess, I started to incorporate fun things into my nightly routine. If one of the girls woke up to go to the bathroom, they got a ride all through the house in the wheelchair. The real fun came when two of them awoke at the same time. Obviously, I could only push one wheelchair at a time, so they would pile on the same seat for the thrill ride. Each excursion came with a complimentary flashlight for them to shine around in their own light show. The rides concluded with a gentle return to their beds and a kiss goodnight. They didn’t have mothers in their lives, so I did my best to fill that role. It was the fulfillment of a fantasy on both ends.

  Whenever they woke up while I was doing laundry, it was “Ghost Girl Time.” I put a sheet on and chased them throughout the house. Once, Tess conquered her play-fear, rushed me, and pulled the sheet right from my head. She tried to usurp the role of ghost by donning the sheet herself, but ended up running straight into a wall. She was always mimicking, and that time it paid off in laughter tenfold.

  One night, as it rained outside, Christina ran into the living room with a tear-streaked face. She was scared of the thunder. I held her on my lap and told her it was okay, but that wasn’t quite doing the trick. There’s only so much a warm embrace can do in a battle against a larger-than-life monster outside. Surrender was not an option, though. I turned up the radio, opened the French doors to the backyard, ran out, and danced in the rain. She loved it!

  The next step was to convince her to come out and join me. She refused, but again, I persisted. After some rummaging, I found her an umbrella. That did the trick. She came out and danced with me. She held my hand, laughing even when the thunder rumbled.

  I was in love with encouraging these girls to live their lives to the fullest. I was in love with their laughter, their smiles, and their innocence. My life was perfect when I was in love.

  AFTER WORKING AT THE HOUSE for two years, I was informed that I could take a two-week, paid vacation. I was thrilled. At this point, I was earning enough money to get an apartment, so I figured I should search for a place during my vacation. My parents told me I could not use their vehicles if I didn’t live next door to them. I didn’t care and told them I would ride the bus. I was ecstatic and wanted to get on with life in this beautiful world I was discovering. Each day, I became more confident. I told myself that I was not what happened to me as a child and that I would not fail as my mom had often said I would.

  I moved into a small apartment with a friend. The chance to paint my apartment gave me a form of personal expression I had never experienced. Naturally, my artistic sense was intense, and we both agreed pink was the right choice.

  My vacation was nice. As bitter as any vacation’s end can be, my first one wasn’t bad. I was happy, even excited to go back to work. I missed my “babies.” Despite my excitement, and partially because I relied on a friend to drive me to work, I was fifteen minutes late to my shift. On the second night, I was thirty minutes late.

  The lady at the house warned me that one more slipup would get me reported. Imagine my horror on that third night as I helplessly watched the taillights of my bus zipping past without me. When a kind man offered me a ride, I thought my problem was solved. I never would have imagined that the first stranger ever to be gracious would turn out to be a serial killer.

  Me at age nineteen

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Talking Telephone Poles

  Forty-three years post-nativity, while inside my glorious treehouse, I grab a pen and paper and eject some of my often-righteous thoughts. “Trust is a habit you need to live but a trait that can kill you.” Then my treehouse goes dark.

  MY EARS RING. MY EYES expand and feel hot. They begin to bulge out of my head. The car’s ceiling looms over me, but I see right through it. The pain from the hands that squeeze my neck is no longer felt.

  I am nineteen years old, and I am being strangled to death.

  Half an hour ago, I was at the house with the girls. Before I clocked in at work, I missed my bus. After I missed the bus, a nice man offered me a ride. This must be fate, I thought. On my way to get into the car, I felt nervous in my gut. I ignored this feeling like I had done all of my life.

  The nice man dropped me off at my job and asked for my work number. Fake digits were given, of course. He was not my type, but he was nice. Trust came easy because of his kindness. In my experience, if you acted nice, that meant you were. He was friendly, so I treated him like a friend. We had a typical conversation, and I told him I worked alone at night. He seemed interested, so I told him about the girls under my care. He said he was a detective, hard at work on a dead-end case. We didn’t discuss his profession any further because it didn’t really spark my interest. He also asked me if I wanted to go to breakfast.

  All through the night, I worked without incident. Ten at night until six in the morning. When I left to head to the bus stop in the morning, I heard tires crunching gravel behind me. A light blue Toyota Corolla pulled alongside me, and the man inside smiled. Because I thought he might come back, I was not startled. His persistence was noticed the night before. My preference would have been to never see him again, of course. If I had been bold enough to tell him I was not romantically interested in him, his feelings would have been hurt.

  After he pulled up, he told me he was back to take me to breakfast. He seemed happy. After I accepted the ride, we talked casually and joked. Sitting across from him over a meal was not an option in my mind; I only wanted a ride home. He casually asked me about the phone number I gave him the night prior. His interest caught me off guard, but it did not show.

  “I guess there was a bit of miscommunication,” I suggested.

  The mood was calm; I figured he would believe the explanation I offered. Suddenly, he snapped. A rush of horrific energy entered the car. My body became debilitated. My voice was crippled. He exploded with rage.

  “You gave me the wrong number! When I called, some old bitch answered.”

  A gun was held to my temple.

  “What? No!” I froze. My breath was absent.

  “Shut up, you whore.” He became hyperalert to the world around us.

  My head was slammed into the dashboard, and I felt a jolt of pain streak through my skull. He started to kiss at my mouth. The kiss was wet and disgusted me. He seemed rabid. He forced his tongue into my mouth as I tried to pull away. His actions assured me that I would be raped.

  A knife quickly came into view. He held a black survival knife and a roll of twine. The weapons deac
tivated my fight-or-flight response, although they had not yet hurt me. Their presence was fear-inspiring.

  So many thoughts raced through my mind and were then interrupted by new thoughts. My emotional symptoms were indicative of shock.

  My hands were aggressively forced behind my back. Twine was wrapped tightly around my wrists. Once he tied my binds, he used more twine to further secure his bondage of me. His technique ensured I would not escape.

  He drove with caution. My mind frantically searched for answers.

  “Is this a joke?” I couldn’t comprehend this hell to be reality. How can this be real? I thought. This cannot be real.

  Shock and confusion are two emotions that do not work well together.

  “Please talk to me. Is this a joke?” I looked at him with horror on my face.

  “Shut up.” He drove and seemed in control of the situation.

  “Please.” My legs kicked up and down on the floorboards as I squirmed in my seat.

  “Shut up, whore.” These words were blasted at me anytime I spoke enough to upset him. He kept one hand on the wheel and the other ready to strike.

  The confusion worsened. If I could figure out why this was happening, I could understand it better. Thoughts and questions raced through my mind. What did I do wrong? Why is he doing this to me? I am a good person! Children with disabilities depend on me for care. My life is dedicated to helping others. What did I do to deserve this?

  My eyes scoured him. “Is this about the phone number? I’m sorry. I’ll go to breakfast with you.”

  “Shut up, whore.”

  Cars whizzed by us. It was bizarre to me that I was in this horrific situation, but no one knew. They just drove on with no knowledge of what was about to happen to me. The uncertainty of my circumstances made me quiver.

  “Are you going to rape me?”

  His lips were sealed.

  “Are you going to rape me?” It sounded different the second time. My voice was weak at the end. When my desperate tactics failed, I changed my plan.

  “You can rape me. Okay? But just don’t hurt me.” My words poured out quickly. “Yes, you can rape me, but don’t hurt me, just let me go, I won’t tell.”

  The man continued to drive.

  “People on their way to work are going to see me and call the cops. I know a lot of people in this town.”

  He reached for a hat with sunglasses nested inside. He put the sunglasses on my face and the hat on my head.

  Sarcasm was my new ploy. “A hat and sunglasses? They can still recognize me with a hat and sunglasses on.”

  “Shut up, bitch!” He reached over and double-checked the lock on the passenger door. He fastened my seat belt and laid my seat all the way back.

  There were no more words. I just looked at the sky and began to accept my fate. The man drove toward the empty desert. He seemed to have a plan. While he drove, he reached over and unfastened my seatbelt. He unzipped his pants.

  “Suck it.”

  The sight of his knife made me concede without hesitation. His penis did not seem to work; it just laid there. My hands were still secured tightly behind my back. My failed attempt to perform oral sex upset him. He pushed me away and punched me in the head numerous times and slammed his foot on the accelerator. Limp in my seat, I realized he drove faster to reach the destination because he was upset and couldn’t wait to make me pay.

  Under a minute later, he began to slow down. He scanned the deserted wasteland to his left. When he turned onto a gravel road, my heart sank into a place I had never known existed.

  This field was well known. The road in was long, bumpy, and lined with telephone poles.

  It was large and mostly abandoned, traveled only by men in white trucks who worked for the city and needed to fix telephone poles or by people with large junk to throw out, such as mattresses, refrigerators, and dishwashers. Not until I visited this enormous landfill did I ever imagine bodies could also be dumped there.

  As the vehicle’s tires met the dirt, I stared at the first telephone pole on the long road. Occasionally, I heard a rock bang the bottom of the car. Dust was the only thing that interrupted my view of the telephone poles to come. My brain scrambled all over the place, and I felt all of its cells ignite. My vision tunneled. Each telephone pole told me a story, and I listened intently. The first one told me that I would indeed be hurt. The second said that I would be raped. The third explained the horrifying experience was going to be worse than I imagined. Each pass of a telephone pole led us deeper into the isolated desert. The forth telephone pole told me I would never leave this desert, and the fifth said I’d be dumped like trash.

  Unexplainably, I still felt hope—an ambition motivated by fear.

  Once the poles in my view ended, the car came to a stop. The man put up my seat. We were far from civilization—the perfect place to commit a crime and not be caught.

  He reached over and took off my shoes and struck me in the face with them. He pulled at my jean shorts; he grabbed his knife and cut at them. He eventually just used his hands to remove them because it would have taken too long to use the knife. He cut off my underwear. With his creepy little knife in hand, he reached under my oversized sweatshirt and cut off my bra.

  It was then I knew he had done this before. He never attempted to remove my sweatshirt. Why would he? My hands were tied. It would not have come off. A novice would have tried. Every move the man made was calm, calculated, and precise.

  He grabbed my underwear and forcibly shoved them into my mouth. His fingers were in my mouth and his other hand on the back of my head. As he pushed them into my throat, the pressure began to tear the corners of my mouth. I started to gag. He continued. My eyes began to water. By now, I had no thoughts; my body was just reacting to the pain. I cringed and twitched often. He tied the bra around my head to hold the underwear in place.

  He moved his focus to his own body. He pulled his pants to his knees and climbed on top of me. He adjusted himself and attempted to rape me. With every part of my being, I bore down and tried not to feel the sexual activity. My mind went elsewhere. I stared out the window at a newspaper blowing in the wind as it desperately tried to escape its captor: a relentless bush.

  The man became agitated and required my assistance. He could not perform. Rightfully, I was confused because I was not experienced in situations like this.

  His eyes exuded an odious rage. The grim and deathlike black pits exposed a sinister past. No beauty dwelled within his soul, and that petrified me.

  The devil demanded I tell him I love him. The first time I said these words with a sense of urgency, with absolutely no emotion behind them. I simply said, “I love you.”

  He punished me with a blow to the face. “Say it like you mean it.”

  I knew if it didn’t sound right, all hell would break loose, so I took my time.

  “Say it!” His words were like flames, scary and threatening.

  “I love you.” I trembled and looked away. These were words I had never said to anyone, not even my own parents. They were the hardest words in the world for me to say, and my life now depended on them.

  He started to strangle me.

  My body stiffened. My arms automatically raised mid-back. My instinct was to thrust him off, but my arms were still immobilized.

  While his evil fingers squeezed the life from me, he again demanded that I say those words. Hoping he would let go, I moved my mouth to shape the letter “I” but paused. My jaw began to quiver, and my tongue began to thrust into my bottom teeth. I was dying.

  “Gone”

  Breath neither in nor out,

  My thoughts squander as I pout.

  God, is there a way to tell my friends and family to die, I’m about?

  Inside my mind, I scream and shout.

  Good-bye.

  My eyes fill with white,

  My heart pure delight,

  My soul full of love.

  I rise out, up, and above,

  And I
die.

  No longer afraid,

  No questions to ask,

  My escape was contrite.

  But now, I am back

  Inside hell.

  He brought me back to life. In a jolt, I was thrust back into my defeated body. With violence and force, he demanded my return. A rush of warmth filled my veins. Fear returned. After I realized I had just been murdered, I began to get antsy and move around.

  As I sat in confusion, he started to lick and suck my neck. My body felt lifeless, and my mind was shot. His slobber ran down my neck and between my breasts. My soul was gone, and I could feel no pain. After a minute, he sat up and exposed his teeth full of blood. The man had tried to bite a chunk out of my neck.

  He planned to kill me, and now I wanted to die. Death was seen as an escape, and the torture exhausted me. He opened the door and threw me onto the ground.

  He opened his pants again and told me to perform oral sex. While on my knees, I considered biting his nasty penis off but was disgusted by the imagery. Instead, I fell back down and refused his command.

  “No!” My heels pushed through the dirt and kicked up dust. He fought me to a standing position.

  “Kill me!” I yelled.

  The mood changed instantly when I no longer pleaded for my life. He simply left me and walked around the car. He popped open the trunk from inside his driver’s door. As I watched from a point of shock, he reached into the trunk and pulled out a bag of knives. The doubled-up, brown shopping bag overflowed with blades protruding from the top. My heart dropped, but a split-second decision caused me to run.

  Civilization was too far, but I did not run to find freedom. I ran, silently begging him to shoot me. The sight of the knives terrified me so much that I fled from my hellish desolate trap, with my arms tied behind my back, wearing nothing but a sweatshirt. My eyes squinted in anticipation of a swift bullet through the head.