by Jeff Strand
My daughter is twelve. She hasn't lived yet. She hasn't fallen in love, gone to the prom, started the karate and ballet lessons she wants to take. She hasn't had her first kiss or her first date, she hasn't put on makeup, she hasn't traveled. She hasn't learned to drive and hasn't learned to swim. My little girl hasn't lived yet.
He took all that away from her and dangled it over our heads like the Sword of Damocles.
I told my husband I was going to visit my brother, that I had to get away. And while he was pissed that I was leaving him at such an inappropriate time, he told me he understood. Did he believe me? Not likely. But he trusts me.
"Last chance," I whisper, for I truly am afraid of what I must do. "Where is she?"
His Adam's apple bobs and he closes his eyes.
I move over to the fireplace and stoke the embers. Earlier I laid the poker in the smoldering ashes, along with an assortment of knives and sticks.
I wear an oven mitt because the metal poker has become too hot to handle without it.
The way he stares, it looks like he's about to pop a blood vessel.
A poker seems appropriate somehow. I thought it might be effective, but more as a scare tactic. I hope I can use it if I need to. I'd never harmed another human being before today—not intentionally and certainly not physically. Certainly never with a fireplace poker.
It's not easy to think of that pile of cow manure stinking up the bed as anything other than human, but I force myself. I imagine my daughter's face and know I can do this.
But it's something entirely different to inflict pain, even on him.
Still … when I close my eyes, I can imagine him doing horrendous things to my innocent child. Suddenly it becomes a little easier to think about inflicting pain.
"Well?" I stand between his feet and glare.
He wildly shakes his head, but I'm not interpreting that as a willingness to confess. More of a begging, a silent "no" screamed into his gag.
I know he can't get away; those ropes are secure and wrapped around every limb and joint in triplicate, but his thrashing won't make this easy.
I lower the poker inches from his chest. His thrashing stops to avoid smashing into it. Instead, he cringes, trying to sink into the mattress.
I swipe the poker across his nipple and quickly pull it back; it dissolves his flesh. It shocks me how devastating that touch was … how deeply it sank into his chest, searing the nipple off, the stink of burnt skin and hair making me gag.
His screams are muffled in the bandana and he thrashes again. He smashes into the poker that I held a little too close to his body, and ugly red welts and burn streaks pop up on his skin like a shapeless tattoo.
The smell of burning flesh is new to me. I step back. I want to stop this! But I keep telling myself why I'm doing it. I think what bothers me most is knowing what's still left to come. He can end this now if only he will tell me where he took my daughter!
Sweat pours down his face. The skin on his chest and nipple is raw, oozing pus, severely burnt. It looks horrible.
"Where is she?"
He stares at me, his body quivering, and he slowly nods.
I cut the bandana off and he spits it out of his mouth. A long stream of vomit follows. I hadn't considered that. I have to be sure he doesn't choke to death.
"Stop," he moans. "Please."
"Tell me where she is."
"I can't …"
"What?" Not the response I was expecting.
"I'll go to jail."
I tried to figure out his logic. "If you don't tell me where she is, I'll kill you."
"Untie me," he says, his large, insane eyes pleading, now squeezing shut in agony. "I'll take you to her."
I grab the duct tape off the dresser and slap a piece over his mouth. At this point I don't know what to do with him. What will make him talk? I've planned things; I think I've gotten somewhat creative. It scares me that I've thought of these things, but I'll do what I have to, to make him tell me what I want to know.
I remove the chef's knife from the fire. The fireproof handle remains cool enough to touch without an oven mitt.
He sees me coming and shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut.
I don't bother asking him where my daughter is. He's not ready or willing to tell.
Starting at the bottom of his ribcage, I scrape the white-hot blade across his flesh, searing a message into his stomach. I have to reheat the knife several times to finish burning the words into his skin. In capital letters I write CHILD MOLESTER. Actually, it's not coming out as neat as that. In four rows the message says
CHILD
MO
LES
T E R
Then, under the words, I carve an arrow
↓
pointing to his groin.
His skin is a stippled, bloody ruin. I pour water on his stomach, not to bring him comfort but to wash away the gore so I can see the message.
If I had more time (or the fortitude) I would carve my daughter's image into his forehead so he would see her in his reflection for the rest of his life.
I think he's passed out. I check on him and make sure he's still alive. I know none of my cuts or burns were very deep.
He isn't dead. He's just passed out.
I let him sleep because I don't know what else to do with him. I just want this to be over! I know I'll have to spend time in jail for what I've done, but I don't care. This was the only way I could think of to get my Rebecca back.
But it isn't working.
I set the kettle on the stove to boil water for tea. I hear him moaning again; I guess he's awake. I'd removed the tape a little while ago so he could breathe. I didn't do it out of any sense of empathy but so he didn't drop dead of asphyxiation.
"Help me …" he moans, and his pleading makes my blood curdle. "The burns … they're bad. Please do something."
Do something? What I'd like to do is throw a heating pad over his stomach.
"You can end this right now," I say. "Don't make me do any more!" I'm near tears, and I hate that. He doesn't deserve one drop of my body fluids. He'll think I'm crying for him.
He tries a new approach. He spews his words at me through puffed cheeks and an agonized grimace. "If you touch me again I'll kill you and that fucking kid!" Spit and vomit flies out of the corner of his mouth. "You hear me?" he screams. "I'll fucking skin her alive!"
"Skin her alive?"
He shuts his mouth, perhaps realizing he's saying way too much, perhaps wondering if he's filling my head with ideas.
But I'm not going to skin him. Tempting as that may be, I don't have the stomach for something like that.
"What have you done to her?" I whisper. "Did you … touch her?"
He turns his head, his cheeks flushed, beads of sweat dotting his hairline. And I suddenly know what he's done to her. I think I've always known, but now I see it in his eyes, and I realize the raw stomach carving is an apt description.
I lay a broom handle in the burning embers, knots of red-hot chunks of wood exploding and crashing in on themselves.
"What are you doing?" he asks, wincing in pain. He can't see my movements, and I don't volunteer information.
The broom handle isn't terribly thick—but it's sturdy.
I retrieve a jar from the medicine cabinet and then grab the broom handle from the fireplace.
"What are you doing?" he asks again, this time more nervously, sweat dripping back off his face and onto the pillow. His chest heaves, his breathing shallow and rapid, like a panting dog's.
"Where is she?" I open the jar of Vaseline and slather it on the broom handle, gingerly applying it to avoid burning my fingers. I thought the Vaseline might cool off the treated wood, but it doesn't. The handle remains hot and melts the Vaseline, so I have to use a lot. I decided to use Vaseline, but not out of consideration for him. I figured I'd be able to do more damage with it if I can maneuver the handle better. Without the Vaseline, the wood might stick.
"W
hat are you gonna do with that?" he cries as I approach the bed.
"You can end this right now by telling me where she is!" I don't want to do this! I'm not a bad person, but I'm desperate.
He starts blubbering, twisting on the bed, chafing his wrists and ankles on the ropes.
I rest the handle against the mattress and slap a piece of duct tape over his mouth.
I go back to his feet and pick up the broom handle. I quickly slip on a pair of rubber dishwashing gloves and slather my fingers with Vaseline. I push them inside his ass. He tries to get away but can barely move in any direction. He pushes his groin down into the bed, trying to melt into it. But the pillow I'd shoved under his ass and thighs, just below his tailbone, keeps his pelvis slightly tilted.
I ignore his frantic, spastic movements and muffled screams and force the broom handle into his ass hole and rape him with it.
Tiny hairs sizzle. His skin burns and crackles. I lean on the handle, forcing it further in until I'm sure I'm burning his colon, hoping I'm reaching as far back as his intestines.
Every vein on his head is strained, his arms and legs pulled taut, so tight I thought he would snap right through the bindings. One long, sustained cry comes through his taped mouth, and he throws his head back almost ninety degrees, practically facing the headboard behind him.
Slowly I pull the broom handle out of his anus, blood and shit and burned skin coating the Vaseline-covered wood. I stuff it back inside, jamming it up as far as I can.
I pull it out and lay it in the fireplace. Once again I remove his gag.
His face is ashen, and his eyes roll around in their sockets.
His slow, prodding tongue finds his lips and he licks them. He tries to focus and still hasn't answered my question. He mumbles something, but it isn't words. He'd only succeeding in pissing me off further.
Once more I grab the handle from the fireplace. It's good and hot again, and I shove it back up his ass.
"Where is she?"
"No more!" he shrieks. "God, no more …" His eyes are squashed shut, his teeth gritted. "Airport." He's panting, trying to talk through the pain. His skin is chalky. He can barely form the words. "Take it out … it's … in my stomach …"
"Where by the airport?"
Our town's airport isn't very big, and we don't get a lot of traffic there. Still, it's large enough, especially if you don't know where to look.
"South end. In a … shed. Small shack." He gasps the words, his face contorted in pain. A spasm seizes him. "A hole in the floor."
"If you're lying, I'll kill you." I'm surprised he's not dead already, to be honest.
I turn away and grab my truck keys off the dresser.
"Wait!" Seeing I'm about to leave seems to rejuvenate him somewhat. "Where are you going? Take it out!"
I leave him screaming and crying as I race out the door.
•
I rush to the airport, glancing at the clock on the dash. Six hours have passed since I kidnapped Andy. I grab my cell phone to call my husband but get voice mail.
I call the police, leave a quick message with the dispatcher:
"I know where Rebecca is." I give a quick description of the location. "I'm on my way there now!"
"Wait—wait!" the dispatcher yells, but I hang up.
When I arrive I find the shack, but it's padlocked, goddamn him! I look around for a rock or something to use to break the lock, and several police cars come to a screeching halt. Officers stampede toward me, guns drawn.
"Wait!" I cry. "She's inside."
They lower their weapons and shake their heads.
"What are you doing?" one asks.
"Rebecca's inside! But the door's locked."
One laughs, another turns away, a third just looks pissed.
The one who laughed says, "How do you know she's inside?" He removes his cap and scratches his balding head. "Come on, now … I thought you promised me you'd see a doctor."
The other officers gather in a small group and watch us.
"I did … I didn't like him. I know he was going to have me committed …"
"So what did you do, Mary?" Baldy asks. "Crystal ball? Tarot cards?"
"I'm telling you! I've been following him," I snap, grabbing the door handles and violently rattling them. "Rebecca? Answer me!"
An unmarked car quickly pulls up, and Detective Grant steps out. The men quickly fill him in I assume, but I can't hear what they say.
The detective says to me, "What happened? How did you wind up here?"
"I'd rather not say. I don't want to incriminate myself. But you have to believe me. She's in there!"
He shakes his head and sighs but signals to the men to break the lock.
They smash it and throw open the door. Darkness. Flashlight beams lead the way as they step inside the shed. I follow, even though they warn me not to.
I tell them what Andy told me, about her being under the floor. They toss crates and tools and benches until an officer finally yells that he's found something.
A hole in the floor. A trapdoor is opened. More blackness. Blacker than before because down there in the earth there's no source of light to train your eyes on. No windows, nothing to cast shadows.
Flashlight beams slice into the black air. A pair of eyes, terrified eyes, blinks. Rebecca, alive. Terrified.
"Well I'll be goddamned," Baldy says, once again scratching under his cap. "You got one right, Mary."
•
I quietly sneak away and race home. My heart's pounding. The officer doesn't seem angry, but they didn't last time either, and that didn't end well.
I'm not surprised when I find police cars parked in my driveway.
My husband greets me at the front door. "Let's go, honey," he says, trying to pull me inside.
I chew my lower lip. "But—"
He tries to lead me away, and like an idiot I don't understand what he's trying to do.
An officer grabs one arm, my husband the other. Tightly. They seem ready for tug-of-war.
"Why don't you go inside now?" the officer says, ultimately shoving me. "The county would like to offer their thanks for your help in resolving this matter. Good night."
They never ask me about Andy. Not yet, anyway. I have a feeling that detective will be sniffing around soon.
I overhear two officers talking, pointing at me. Words like delusional and insane pop up.
Great.
"Come on, honey," my husband says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. "Before they take you away again."
"But I—" I pull away. "My daughter."
My husband shakes his head and bites his lip. "Please," he mumbles. "Enough with the daughter crap."
•
Later that evening the eleven o'clock news reports the wonderful story of Rebecca's miraculous rescue. They show the little girl I rescued. My daughter. The one they say isn't my daughter. Ugh … guess I'll keep trying to get that right. Don't know how I could have been so mistaken. One day I'll bring my daughter home. Her special bedroom in the basement is waiting for her …
Rebecca looks directly into the camera and thanks me.
She could have been mine.
•
Two days later another one of my daughters is missing, presumed kidnapped, say the police. I need to rescue her somehow. It has to be some other degenerate because this time it can't be Andy.
I really should go untie the guy.
ELEANOR
BY JASON PARENT
_____
FATHER STUART MCKENZIE had been forgotten. His father was a minister, as his father's father had been before him, serving God while their Church of England broke further away from the tenets of Rome. Stuart shocked his family and friends when he'd converted to Catholicism, and they had shunned him for it, even though they professed to worship the same God Almighty that he did.
And so God had become his only friend. Sent away to a small, West Sussex church in a largely Protestant district, Stuart passed the time writ
ing sermons for the two or three folks who would listen. Even on the weekends when no one attended his mass, he diligently provided his sermons, reasoning that duty required it of him. Mass was an excuse to escape his tiny chamber, a dreary space furnished with nothing but a desk, a dresser, his bed and a few old books, his apathetic companions through the quiet hours of night.
His room sat above the nave. Across the hall was a larger room, with greater space offering greater comfort but requiring less humility. It was grand compared to his confining quarters, but still modest by most standards, adorned only with a bed, a dresser and a desk, much like his. A window was the room's only source of light. It looked out to the garden below, where Stuart alone toiled. It was a room without a soul, barren of life. He had never entered it, not until Eleanor arrived at his door.
Since the day he'd found the baby on his threshold, Stuart had loved her.
At first, he didn't know why he loved her, when all those who should have loved her did not. He didn't know who had placed her there, discarding her without regard for the life it would impact. He wondered if he loved her because she was a gift from God; or perhaps she'd been sent to test him, an offer to prove himself worthy of the Kingdom. More likely, though, Stuart loved her because, like him, she was all alone.
Yes, that was closer to the truth. Stuart loved her because no one else would, and because she was all he had to love.
He had found the child, newly born and starving, outside his tiny parish church's arched wooden doors. He'd opened them expecting to find his delivered groceries, but instead found her sitting in a milk pail. Horrified by her appearance, Stuart retreated, slinking back behind the door. He soon realized that his instant rejection of an innocent child was far more horrifying. Muffled sobs emitted from the steps outside.
He wondered how many people had cast the little girl aside and was ashamed that he'd almost been just like them. His hands hesitant, his mind unsure, Stuart lifted the pail and carried the baby into the warmth of his church and his heart.
She hadn't so much as a blanket to warm her. Naked and abandoned, the child persevered against incredible odds, particularly given her extreme deformities. A young man at the time, Stuart had declared it a miracle and God's wish for him to take in the child.
