And then, as his rational mind fought against relinquishing command to his basic instincts, she emerged from the tree limb’s cover, gliding gracefully into the open. Each step appeared choreographed as she moved her arms and hands in a pattern that Zax inherently knew told a story. At times she would stop and slowly swing her hips from side to side, and then balance on one foot as she moved her hands in toward her chest and then opened them wide above as if about to receive something. The dance led her into two elliptical circles that crossed in the middle, which Zax realized was the sign of infinity.
She was larger than any Nu-Man female that had ever existed. Physically, she rivaled Nu-Man males in size and stature. There were no human physical characteristics, as in Nu-Man females. Still, as brutish as she was, there was no questioning that she was all female.
The sasquatch was from hearty stock, looking to be capable of birthing many robust children. And while her facial features were more primitive and less appealing to the eyes, the movements of her body stoked lustful desires from deep within.
Zax could tell that she knew he was watching, although the female was careful to never gaze in his direction. This no doubt was a mating ritual. He had found favor with the female at least to begin a trial courtship.
Would he be able to communicate with her? Probably not without spending a good deal of time together. Despite the physical similarities between sasquatch and Nu-Mans, the genetically altered species shared brain functions equal or superior to humans. There were no recorded sasquatch histories for them to learn from. So, essentially Nu-Mans never really identified with their primitive ancestors. The virus that genetically altered mankind had killed all the varieties of sasquatch around the world.
He wondered what had led her to him and how long she might have been watching him. And, why hadn’t he detected her until now? Apparently, his senses weren’t as sharp as he had thought, and maybe her years of living in the wilderness gave her an advantage that his superior intellect couldn’t match.
One thing was for sure, if there was one sasquatch in the area, there had to be more. And if at some point he would come across another male who felt like his territory was threatened, then a conflict would arise. His blaster would quickly end any dangerous encounter. But the last thing he wanted to do was kill a primitive relative.
Was it possible for him to be accepted by the sasquatch society? Certainly not if he scared them with his technology. No, if he were ever to fit in, he would have to behave as much as possible like them. Dumbing things down and being careful not to do, or use anything in his backpack, to frighten them.
The female’s movements noticeably slowed. She brought her hands together and pulled them toward her chest. Again, keeping her gaze away from his direction, she stepped back the way she came until the forest engulfed her once again.
There was no urgency for Zax to go after her now, despite the amorous fires that smoldered within. In fact, he instinctually knew it would be improper to follow the female. The act would be considered aggressive and an insult to the female.
But, she had made the first move. Tomorrow, or soon after, it would be up to him to decide if he would return his interest in her. This is the way of the wild. Zax didn’t know how he knew this, but it just felt right.
For now, it was just him and the world Mother Nature intended for all her children.
Zax was a genetic abomination.
Would he ever be adopted into human or sasquatch society?
The answer wouldn’t come tonight.
His fate, though, was about to take a decisive turn. That was something else he knew without rational explanation.
Chapter 20
There were no clocks in the room, but Charlotte could tell the time of day by the programming on TV. It was near seven o’clock, p.m. Despite the fact she had been awake there for a few hours, she felt like a caged wild animal.
She couldn’t imagine what her mother was going through right now. The whole community was on alert, with the local news devoting more than half of their programming on her abduction. With all the attention this was getting, she had an imminent feeling that police would be busting down the door at any moment and come to their rescue.
Then she remembered when Raymond had been abducted. Even though the police said they had persons of interest they were investigating, they weren’t able to find him.
There the boy was, with her. Sitting on the floor, his eyes fixated on some cartoon that Charlotte had never heard of, content as could be.
Not me, she thought. I need to find a way out of here. She had already pulled the boxes away from the wall to look for a hidden door and came away empty. The obvious access to the room was shut tightly, with no door handle or any visible way to open it. Charlotte guessed the door would easily push open if whatever blocked the other side was pulled out of the way.
As far as makeshift weapons went, a plastic fork topped the list. She had looked for anything she could have used to defend herself if necessary. Their captors had done a good job of keeping out heavy objects that could deliver blunt force or anything sharp that might cut. There weren’t even any rubber bands that she could launch some of Raymond’s crayons at them.
Charlotte had remembered seeing a TV show where inmates at a prison made weapons from common items. One man had made a shank out of a plastic cup. He had a match and burned a piece of the cup, and as it melted, formed it into a blade-like shape that proved to be quite deadly. No match, no shank, she thought.
The only other option she had was the lightbulb overhead. She could break it and use it to slash her way out of there. But the more she thought about it, the more hopeless her situation seemed. Charlotte flopped herself back on the bed, defeated.
A dull screech from the other side of the wall told her they were about to get a visit. Something heavy was definitely being dragged across the floor. Then something fumbled from behind the door. Charlotte sprang from the bed and put her back against cardboard boxes lining the wall.
Raymond popped up from the floor, and sang, “Supper-time.” He stood in place, obedient, waiting to receive his night time reward.
The door pulled away from the room, and a large man with a big gut hiding under dirty overalls entered carrying two plates of pasta in red sauce and a whole ear of corn. He wore a mask that mostly covered his eyes and cheeks. The mask was bright purple and looked like it came from a Halloween jester costume. His graying beard was thicker than the hair on his head and practically hid his lips. He looked nasty.
“How you doing, boy?” the man asked, gazing only at Raymond.
“Fine,” Raymond said, sounding like it was a recorded message.
“How do you like your new friend?” the man asked.
“Okay, I guess.”
“Come get your supper.”
Raymond complied and carefully took the two paper plates from the man and set them on a coffee table. “What do you want to drink?” he asked Charlotte as he stepped toward the mini-fridge.
The man finally turned his gaze toward Charlotte. His tongue slithered out from his lips, briefly pushing the gray hairs away. The sight made her skin crawl.
“Who are you?” she asked, trying her best not to sound scared.
A smirk grew on the left side of his face. “Me? I’m the Candy Man.”
Charlotte didn’t expect him to tell her his name. But the mask did little to hide his identity if she had known him. If she ever got out of this mess, she’d be able to pick him out of a lineup in a heartbeat.
“Let us go,” she demanded.
His mouth drew in, and he said, “I give the orders around here. Ain’t that right, boy?”
Raymond waited by the refrigerator and nodded. “I’m getting a soda. I’ll get you a soda,” he said to Charlotte.
“Good boy. Go ahead and eat,” the man said.
“If you let us go, I’ll tell them you didn’t do anything to hurt us. I don’t know where we are, and I don’t know who you are. Just
let us go, and you won’t get in any trouble.”
“Heck, girl. If I thought I would get into any kind of trouble, you two wouldn’t be here in the first place,” the man said, an incredulous tone laced his words. “You just need to hold your horses and do like you’re told. I ain’t going to hurt you. Why would I damage my goods? But I’ll tell you one thing,” spit flew from his lips, “you give me any trouble, and I’ll tie-down rope you like a calf and throw you on the floor.”
The plastic fork was in Charlotte’s back pocket. Instead of cringing in fear, as she had always thought she might do in a situation like this, the man’s ire set a bellows to the coals of her anger.
In Phys Ed., her class had learned a few defensive moves designed to thwart an attacker. Almost as if someone else had taken control of her body, she took three steps forward and kicked the man as hard as humanly possible right in the groin.
The air heaved out of him like a belching volcano. His large stature withered into a clump as he brought his hands toward his groin. Almost losing his balance, he backed up until he bumped against the door frame, still blocking the way out the door.
It sounded like he wanted to yell, but at the time, he didn’t have enough air in his lungs for even that. His nose had turned beet red as Charlotte imagined so did his face underneath the beard. She wished so badly that she had something to beat him with.
Seeing the full can of soda on the coffee table, she picked it up and hurled it at his head.
He flung a defensive hand to block the incoming missile. The can partially caught his hand and hit the door frame close to his head. The can of soda sprung a leak and shot a stream cutting through the air like a spinning pinwheel.
Chaos at its peak, Charlotte rushed over to the mini-fridge and pulled out another can of soda, aiming carefully and delivering it like a fastball a pitcher on the mound would throw.
The can hit him in the chest, making a dull thump as it bounced to the floor. His fingers curled as he let out a high-pitched yelp, finally collapsing to his hands and knees.
No time to let up now, Charlotte followed with two bottles of water hitting their target; one smashed against his ribcage, and the other hit him square between the cheeks of his buttocks as he crawled out the doorway.
The door quickly closed, and something scraping the wall told her that a bar of some sort had slid in place. A minute later, she heard the screeching sound again, and it stopped when something bumped the door.
Raymond looked over at her. He sat calmly at the coffee table, and half of his food was cleaned from his plate. “You better eat. It’ll get cold.”
Charlotte found it hard to believe that Raymond had tuned the conflict out and was able to eat. This told her she really didn’t know what was going on in the boy’s head. And, she hoped he was telling the whole truth about them not abusing him. Who knows if his mind had blocked any of that out?
If abuse was part of their intention, she had just given her captors a reason to make her pay for her outburst. It was too late to worry about that now, though.
“It’s okay, Raymond. I’m not very hungry.”
Raymond didn’t look up from his plate, and when he did, it was toward the TV.
The situation seemed so desperate. Charlotte considered that death might be the best means of escape. There was nothing on hand that would bring a quick, merciful death. The only thing she could use to do herself in, was the bed sheet. She could form a noose with the bed sheet and tie it around her neck. But, there was nothing above for her to attach it to, to hang herself.
But wait! Why should she have to die? She didn’t do anything wrong. They had violated her.
Her anger stoked again, Charlotte decided that no matter what she had to endure at their hands, she would survive. She would survive and someway, somehow, come back and find out who they were.
Charlotte would make them pay for what they had done. She would make them regret they had ever heard the name, Charlotte Meadows.
*
Lady Luck had shined down on Brennon and Cole when they arrived at school from their trip to the Douglas place. All classes had been suspended before lunch. The two arrived without anyone the wiser to their earlier antics. The cafeteria served sloppy Joes, and Brennon and Cole sat together and ate. They received more than their fair share of strange gazes; an odd couple for sure. No one said anything to them, though.
Everyone went through the motions to get through the next few hours of class. The coach had canceled baseball practice. Cole was happy just to go home and relax.
It was starting to get dark now. Cole sat at his computer, perusing the internet, looking at Google Maps and reading about the human trafficking problem. Women weren’t the only targets of abusers; men and even children were too. In other countries, some people who were victims of the crime performed slave labor. He seriously doubted that Charlotte would be used for that purpose.
Sexual exploitation topped the list for human trafficking in North America. It wasn’t hard to imagine why Charlotte had been chosen. A young girl her age would be in high demand.
Tearing his gaze away from the monitor, he tried to shake an image out of his mind, seeing Charlotte held captive in a room while men waited outside the door. He couldn’t let that happen to her. Cole didn’t know how he could go on living with thoughts like that haunting him.
Another disturbing fact, human traffickers sometimes arranged the harvest of organs. Cole had heard many urban legends, where sexy women lured men to hotels. The men would wake up the next morning with a kidney missing. As silly as those stories sounded, black market organ harvesting was a real problem. People who were tired of waiting for a needed organ were willing to pay thousands of dollars. In some cases, people were willing to sell an organ. He read one story on the internet that a man in Illinois ran an ad on Craigslist, where he offered one of his kidneys up for $30,000.
The world’s human trafficking problem overwhelmed the current situation. Cole moved his mouse away from one United Nations’ web page on the subject and clicked back on Google maps.
Cole had explored several miles of the forest backing up to their property on his four wheeler over the years. He had never tried to cut a path over to old man Douglas’ place, but he had traveled much farther than that in a different direction. It probably wouldn’t take him two hours to ride over to Douglas’ farm.
But, then what? Does he sneak around and try to see if he can find any evidence that Charlotte is actually there? There was no way his dad would give him permission to go. So, that ruled out going over there at night, which might be hazardous traveling the woods in the dark. What were the chances that he could get close enough during the day without getting caught?
Cole still felt strongly that Mr. Buddy was involved in Charlotte’s disappearance. There were no clues at the janitor’s house, and his visit to see Douglas during school hours meant something.
Douglas, though, hadn’t been keeping a low profile. Douglas had the police over to his house a few days ago. It would seem that if someone wanted to commit a crime, that the last thing they’d want was law enforcement contact.
But maybe Cole was overthinking things. Maybe Douglas wanted police involvement before Charlotte’s abduction. Thinking he’d be off their radar because he had them over and acted as if he had nothing to hide.
Maybe that was overthinking things, too.
He took a deep breath and sighed. This is a living nightmare. Remembering back to his reoccurring bigfoot dream, the horror he once felt when he saw the monster would never affect him that way again. Real life presented greater monsters than a hominoid cryptid.
The rumble of his dad’s truck engine grew and then abruptly died. Cole rose from his chair and met him as he entered the kitchen.
Mark Rainwater dragged in like he had pulled two shifts at work. He put his keys on the keyhook and placed two white paper bags on the counter.
“Hey, Dad.”
Weary eyed, Mark said, “Hey. Got us
some burgers and fries. Fries might need reheating.”
“That’s okay. I’m not hungry anyway.”
Mark chewed on his bottom lip. “Cole, son, I know you’re upset. But, you can’t let this thing control you. You’re going to have to learn to cope with the fact that Charlotte’s missing and still lead as normal a life as you can.”
“That’s not easy,” Cole said, feeling like he would be betraying Charlotte in some way if he did.
“I didn’t say it would be easy.” Mark stepped over to the fridge, opened the door, and grabbed a beer. “The police and FBI are doing everything they can to find her. That’s their jobs. They’re good at what they do.”
“They didn’t find Coach Jones’ nephew.”
“No, they didn’t.” Mark lowered his gaze to the floor, then he picked up a bottle opener off the counter and opened his beer. “But they are better manned for this one. The FBI didn’t get involved in the Jones’ case for three days after he’d gone missing. It’s like they were expecting another abduction to happen.”
“I don’t know if they were or not, but they were still on the Jones’ case. Turns out that Mr. Ritzman is an FBI agent.”
Mark had the beer heading for his lips and paused. “What? Your first-hour teacher? The man in black with the creepy eye and webbed fingers on his left hand?”
“Yeah. He interviewed me today at school.”
“How’d that go?”
“I told them what I knew. Some things that Charlotte had said, which didn’t amount to much. They didn’t keep me long.” Cole reached in one of the bags and pulled out a pack of French fries. “How’s Charlotte’s mom doing?”
Mark shook his head. “Bad…really bad. She had a panic attack. I brought her to the doctor, and he gave her some medication to calm her down.”
It was bad enough that Charlotte was missing. Cole couldn’t imagine how’d he react if something like that happened to his dad.
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