Sole Survivor

by Holly Dunn

  “Lie down and don’t move,” he warned. “I have a gun. And I have a friend with me. He just went to get food. He will be back any moment.”

  Our attacker ran back to the electrical box on the other side of the tracks where he had apparently left a duffle bag. I could hear him ripping cloth, perhaps a shirt, which he tore into pieces using the tip of his weapon. Chris and I whispered ideas to each other, but before we could formulate a plan, the dark-eyed man returned, darting nervously between us. It seemed he had done this kind of thing before—he knew he had to restrain us to remain in control.

  He tied Chris’s ankles together with a fuchsia nylon strap, and he tied up my feet with one of the torn rags. He used another piece of torn shirt to gag Chris. When he wrapped the gag around my face, I instinctively stuck out my tongue to keep it from blocking my mouth. I kept my arms behind my back so he wouldn’t see I’d gotten my hands free from the leather belt.

  He kept stepping back toward the tracks as if on the lookout for someone, and he went back repeatedly to his duffle bag, leaving us alone for split seconds of time. Once while he was gone, I moved closer to Chris and pulled the gag off his mouth.

  “If he tries to gag you again, stick out your tongue so it won’t work.”

  Chris looked at me with fear and panic in his eyes.

  “Holly, get out of here!”

  There was no way I was going to leave Chris behind, but I couldn’t get my feet untied even if I wanted to.

  “I’m not leaving you here alone!” I said. “We can get away. We just need to hurry.”

  I tried to undo the knots that held his wrists together, but the straps of the backpack were too entangled. I never had a chance to try untying his feet.

  The man came back again before we could make another move. He was angry our gags were loose and he grew agitated at the sight of us talking. He spoke with frantic urgency.

  “I just broke out of jail, see? You’re gonna see me on the news. I have a gun and my friend is on his way back. Don’t even try to escape.”

  We had no idea if he was telling the truth—whether he was really alone or perhaps talking to someone hiding on the other side of the train tracks. He tied Chris’s gag again and looped the leather belt tighter around my arms. When he tried to retie my gag, I just stuck my tongue out again so it wouldn’t work.

  “Stop untying yourself,” he said. “And stop looking at me!”

  He kept saying that, but I kept staring at him the entire time. I wanted to memorize everything about him. I thought, I’m gonna remember your face, your scars, your tattoos, and I’m not going to forget. Because if I live through this, I will get you.

  Now that he had us bound and hidden in the dense bushes and grass, the man seemed to be figuring out what to do next. He couldn’t stop moving. He paced in short, quick steps and moved with a shaky frenzy. He was wired and fidgety, like someone on drugs or jolted with adrenaline.

  “Sir, please, do whatever you want to me,” Chris begged. “Just please, don’t hurt her. Please let her go.”

  The more Chris begged for my life, the angrier our attacker grew. He didn’t respond to Chris’s pleas. He simply stormed away again, leaving us alone one last time.

  Chris looked at me tenderly. “Stay calm. Everything is going to be okay,” he said.

  I wanted desperately to believe him, but I was so afraid. I had no idea what was going to happen.

  The man was making his way back to us, but he was moving more slowly this time. When I looked up at him, I froze. He was struggling under the weight of a massive rock he cradled in his arms. The stone was the color of sand, the width of his body, probably weighing a third his own body weight. I wasn’t sure what he was planning to do. The moment I was witnessing was so surreal at the time, but it would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  He took the rock and held it over Chris, who lay there, face down in the dense undergrowth. Chris didn’t even see what was coming. And then, without a word, this utterly evil man let the stone drop. More than fifty pounds of rock came crashing down onto Chris’s head.

  I was in a daze. In my mind, I saw him hitting Chris over and over. I wanted to call out to him, to yell at him to stop, but I couldn’t make my mouth move. I finally managed to yell out, “Stop! Stop!” Much later, I would learn it had only taken that one blow.

  I can’t describe what it was like to witness this kind of cruelty against someone I cared about. There are no words for the horror of hearing the sound a skull makes as it’s crushed.

  Chris fell very still and quiet. In that moment, an odd peace settled over me. It was strong and powerful, and despite the menace, I felt safe and protected. I wasn’t scared or mad; I never cried. I wasn’t afraid to die. This could be the end, I thought. I’m going to pray my last prayer. I asked God for forgiveness for all the ways I had fallen short. I thought about my dad, my mom, my big sister. I prayed God would protect them and comfort them when I was gone.

  My mind was in survival mode. I felt nothing at all, no emotions, little pain. Time stood still. I heard Chris’s voice in my memory: Everything is going to be okay.

  The rock tumbled to the right side of Chris’s head, and freed of the weight, the man stumbled a step backward. Then he reached down and started untying my feet. Was he going to let me go? It had never crossed my mind that this man would physically assault Chris, so it never occurred to me he would hurt me, either—until he was hovering over me, his hands groping for me, a tattoo of a black snake slithering around his left forearm, a dark flicker playing across his eyes.

  CHAPTER 4.

  Violated

  I had no time to feel the shock and sadness of what this animal had done to Chris. He leaned down to untie my feet, and then he was groping me, pressing into me. I started to fight.

  “No! Stop!!” I yelled. I screamed and cried as loud and hard as I could in hopes someone might come and help me. I hit him and clawed at him and jerked my knees into his legs.

  He grabbed the weapon he’d set down next to my head and stabbed it into my neck, a few inches below my left ear.

  “See how easily I could kill you?” he snarled.

  He smelled like booze and sweat and greasy hair. The point of his weapon was sharp enough to puncture me at least a half-inch deep, but I didn’t feel a thing.

  He could kill me for sure. I had already witnessed just how willing and able he was to murder someone. Fighting seemed pointless. I relinquished throwing direct punches, but I decided I was going to do whatever I could to stay alive. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to see my family and friends again. I wanted to fight on behalf of Chris.

  The attacker was tugging on my pants when I heard a gurgling sound coming from Chris, like fluid pooling in his throat.

  “Please,” I asked, “go turn his head so he doesn’t choke on his own blood.”

  He got up as if he were going to help Chris. I was surprised but grateful that he went over to him—his responsiveness gave me hope. If I could keep talking to him, establishing some kind of rapport, maybe he would let me live. I felt empowered by what I could say and get him to do.

  But he didn’t move Chris at all. When he came back over to me, he simply said, “He’s gone. You don’t have to worry about him no more.”

  I didn’t know it at the time, but the gurgling sound I heard in Chris’s throat has a name. It’s called a death rattle. It’s the final sound one hears as the person’s breathing slows to a halt. I didn’t want to believe that Chris was really gone, but I had little reason to think otherwise.

  He tugged my corduroy jeans down over my hips. He tried to kiss me. His mouth tasted like tobacco. I turned my head to the side. I was horrified at what he was about to do. I started to detach, like my soul was drifting up and out of my body, free from what was happening, separate and safe. I had enough presence of mind, however, to tear off pieces of my fingernails and cuticles and to dig my fingers into the ground. If anything happened to me, if this man took me anywhere, I wanted t
o leave as much of my DNA behind for the police to find. When they found Chris, I wanted them to know I had been there too.

  The tracks had been still and silent all the while Chris, Mike, Ryan, and I waited to watch the trains go by. I don’t know exactly how long Chris and I were trapped with this man, or how long I was alone with him after he hit Chris, but two or three trains finally barreled down the tracks while I was being raped. I heard the wail of the horn as it approached and crossed over Rosemont Garden below us. The ground beneath me trembled and quaked. The Norfolk Southern’s locomotive had one singular headlight up top, and two lower ditch lights that flashed back and forth. The lights tore through the darkness around us as the train raced by. I wondered why none of the conductors noticed what was happening. Why can’t anyone see me? Why isn’t there anyone on board who notices what this man is doing?

  I desperately wanted someone to interrupt this rapist, but I pretended otherwise. I pretended to help him stay out of the glare of the headlights. If he thought I was on his side, maybe he would show me mercy. I kept thinking, “Keep talking to him. Make him like you. Make him think you want to help him.” I wanted him to see me as a person, someone of value, someone whose death would be devastating to other people.

  “My name is Megan. What’s yours?” I asked. I don’t know why I said that name; it was simply the first one that came to mind.

  “James Wilford,” he replied.

  At least, I think that’s what he said. Later I would tell the police Jamie Whitford, or Whitlow, or Whit-something. In the end it wouldn’t matter because he’d given me a name just as fake as the one I’d given him.

  “Please don’t kill me,” I cried. “I have friends. I have family—parents and a sister. They love me. They want to see me again.”

  If he had any emotional depth at all, I wanted to find a way to reach it.

  “I won’t kill you,” he responded.

  I trusted he was being sincere, and I clung to every shred of hope that he wouldn’t do to me what he had just done to Chris.

  When he finally finished, he was calmer, as if he’d come down from whatever he was on, or perhaps his efforts had exhausted all his energy and adrenaline. He got up and pulled up his pants.

  “There’s my friend, been watching this whole time,” he said. “He’s mute. Can’t talk. Can’t say nothing.”

  “Oh, really?” I didn’t understand why he was telling me that. He had done what he wanted to do. I was no longer in any shape to escape.

  “Will you please pull my pants back up?” I asked.

  I didn’t know if he was going to kill me after all or let me live. But if he killed me I didn’t want to be found lying there half naked. If I lived, I wanted to hold onto as much evidence as he might have left behind.

  He had taken my pants only partway off so that one leg was still hanging from my ankle. The other leg was tangled. The corduroy clung to itself, and he struggled to turn it right side out. He yanked my pants up to my hips where they got stuck again. I almost gave up—I almost told him not to bother, but he finally covered me again. I felt a moment of relief, encouraged by his responsiveness to my requests. Maybe I had befriended him after all. Maybe this meant he would let me live.

  “If you let me go, I swear I’ll never tell anyone what you did. I promise. I’ll take it to the grave. Please, whatever you do, please don’t kill me.”

  He made no further promises. My last conscious memory is of him leaning over to take one of the little silver hoop earrings I was wearing. The earrings had latches in the back that made them difficult to remove. He tugged at one of them until I feared he’d tear it through my earlobe. I didn’t know why he wanted my earrings, but I didn’t want him to rip it out of my ear.

  “Pull up on the back, pull up on the back,” I repeated.

  In the end, he took only one earring, and one of the silver rings from my fingers. These pieces of jewelry held no real value. They were simply souvenirs of his conquest. Later, I realized I no longer had the glittery flower ring Chris had brought me back from Maine—lost in the struggle, left behind somewhere among the weeds and debris.

  He gathered up an armful of leaves, twigs, and branches and scattered them over Chris and me.

  “Thank you,” I said, though maybe only in my mind, “for letting me live.” I thought the horror had ended. I assumed it was all over at last, and I had made it through.

  I don’t remember him lifting some kind of board to beat me. I don’t really remember the blows he dealt. The wounds he inflicted told this story later. But with renewed energy and unexpected rage, he raised this board and slammed it into my face over and over until it had lacerated my cheeks, fractured my eye socket, and broken my jaw. I turned my face toward the ground, raising my right arm to block the blows. He struck the back of my head and split my scalp in multiple places. I slipped in and out of consciousness. By grace, I blacked out most of the beating, and I didn’t feel much pain, only the force and pressure of the blows.

  Barely conscious, I lay on the ground next to Chris, thick pools of blood forming around each of our heads in the matted grass. I can only assume our attacker was convinced he had killed me as well.

  I couldn’t see much from the ditch, so I never saw him leave. I never saw the man he claimed was watching and waiting for him either. I have no idea where he went. Maybe he climbed aboard a passing train and would be several states away by the time I woke up. Or perhaps he was nearby, waiting to see if I had, in fact, lived to tell someone what he had done.

  CHAPTER 5.

  Chad’s House

  I have no idea how long I lay in the ditch along the tracks. My sense of time had been suspended from the moment we encountered the attacker. After he raped me and started beating me, I alternated between remaining vaguely conscious and completely blacking out.

  Therefore, I don’t remember waking up next to Chris. I don’t remember seeing him lying on his stomach across the ditch, his head turned to the side, the stream of blood from his head and ear beginning to dry. I don’t remember standing up and looking around. It was dark and I was disoriented.

  I vaguely remember seeing the bluish flicker of a television coming from one of the tiny white houses on Edison Drive across the tracks, about 150 yards away. Every house was dark except for one—and that bit of light became a beacon in the deep night.

  I don’t remember noticing that my tan Birkenstocks had fallen off. I simply started walking barefoot out of the ditch, over the metal tracks, through the gravely ballast and broken glass and scattered debris. I don’t remember this walk at all. My next conscious memory began when I hurled open a storm door and burst into a stranger’s house.

  The house I chose was square with a steep-pitched roof, white siding, and a breezeway that connected to a small garage. I would later learn the home was occupied by four guys—all students at the University of Kentucky. Only one of them was awake at that hour—a senior named Chad Goetz was sitting in a lounge chair in his living room, studying and watching TV. He had left the main door open, and when he saw a shadowy figure cross his yard, he assumed it must be one of his friends. But then the storm door slammed against the siding and a stranger came in screaming.

  “Call 9-1-1! He raped me. They beat me. My friend is still out there.”

  When he looked up, he was ashen and horrified. His expression said, “Holy shit, what just walked in my door?”

  I was drenched in blood so thick and sticky that Chad told me later my hair looked auburn and my face was disfigured and swollen. I screamed so gutturally and with such desperation that for a split second Chad couldn’t tell if I needed help or if I was coming to attack him.

  Once his momentary fear and shock had passed, Chad was out of his chair and across the room, holding me up by my elbows.

  “Can I use your phone? I need to call 9-1-1,” I repeated.

  “It’s all right, I got you. Come sit down over here.”

  He led me toward a dark leather loveseat just ins
ide the entrance.

  “No, no, I’ll ruin your couch.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s leather. It’ll clean up just fine.”

  As I eased into the loveseat, I began to feel how sore I really was. I knew I was bloody, but I didn’t realize just how badly I had been beaten. The bones around my eye were cracked. My broken jaw jutted sideways so my teeth couldn’t line up and I had trouble talking. It felt hard to breathe, like something was caught in my throat.

  “Can I have some water?” I asked.

  I slouched back into the cushions, my bare feet resting on the wood floor. My feet were black from dirt and soot, but as if by miracle, not a cut or scratch despite the rough terrain. The TV on the wall next to the door still flickered with activity, but I couldn’t hear any sounds.

  “Sure, hang tight. I’ll be right back.”

  Chad slipped out of the living room into a hallway where he woke up one of his roommates.

  “Dude, get up. Please watch her while I call 9-1-1.”

  Chad later told me that his housemate kept a distant eye on me—at the time, I had no idea he was even there—while he talked to police dispatch from a phone in his kitchen. The 9-1-1 call was recorded at 2:48 a.m. The dispatcher’s standard, scripted questions frustrated him.

  “We don’t have time for this,” he said. “Just hurry the f—k up.”

  A few moments later, Chad came back with a glass of water and a pair of scissors.

  “There’s something around your neck,” he said. He’d noticed the twisted and bloody shirt that the attacker had used for a gag. He carefully cut it off and let it fall to the floor.

  I could barely lift my head to drink. I was disoriented and slipping in and out of consciousness. I just wanted to go to sleep, but I knew I had to get help for Chris. You want to sleep, I told myself, but don’t. Stay awake. You have to tell them Chris is still out there.

  Chad talked to me and kept me awake while we waited for help to arrive. I told him my name and about the party on Suburban Court. I told him that Chris was still up there near the tracks. Chad would later admit he was almost certain I was about to die. I had so many different wounds he couldn’t figure out where all the blood was coming from.