The Altar Girl: A Prequel

by Orest Stelmach

  Donnie laughed. It sounded more like a condescending and derisive sneer. “What?”

  “He was too careful to ever go down to his cellar once he started drinking.”

  “That’s all? That’s the reason you were suspicious?”

  “That’s all.”

  Donnie screwed his face tight. “That can’t be all. What are you not telling me?”

  “He suffered from bathmophobia.”

  “Bathmo what? He was scared of bathrooms? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  “Bathmophobia isn’t a fear of bathrooms. It’s fear of steep slopes. For people who suffer from it, it’s very, very serious. It’s fear of stairs.”

  “You’re saying your godfather was afraid to climb stairs? That’s the biggest bunch of bullshit I ever heard.”

  “Not to him it wasn’t. No one outside the family knew about it. It wasn’t the sort of thing you want to get out in a community. You know how people are, Donnie. People are always looking to feel better about themselves by seeing weakness in others.”

  “So he didn’t climb stairs?”

  “No, of course he climbed stairs. But it made him nervous. Even during the day. When there was plenty of light.”

  “And at night?”

  “He lived in a ranch-style house for a reason. All his rooms were on one floor for a reason. Walk down the stairs to the cellar? At night? No way, especially if he’d been drinking, and it was raining and he had to worry about water at the base of the stairs. But hey, what do I know? People do stupid things all the time. Maybe he got so drunk it loosened him up and he forgot about his phobia. Like I said, I wanted to know before. But that was then, and this is now.”

  Donnie stared at me with a blank expression. There were two possibilities. First, he’d killed my godfather, and he was disappointed to hear there was a case to be made that his death was not accidental. Second, he wasn’t involved in my godfather’s killing, but he’d been in business with him. Perhaps there was an unresolved element to their arrangement. Maybe Donnie was owed money. If he’d heard me asking questions about my godfather’s death, he might have assumed my godfather and I had been close, wondered what else I knew. But now that he realized I didn’t know anything, he might consider me dispensable. Had I been a fool by speaking honestly? Had I written my own death certificate?

  “You were honest,” he said. “I can tell. I appreciate that.” He patted my shoulder. “You were a woman of your word, and I’m going to be a man of my word.”

  Donnie wasn’t reacting like a man who’d committed a murder and was worried about someone outing him. A man like that wouldn’t take any chances, I thought. He’d have killed me by now.

  “I’m free to go?”

  “Almost.” He moved next to the adjustable brackets. “Give me your left leg.”

  “Why?” I choked on the word.

  Donnie looked incredulous. “Because you’re right-handed, which means you favor your right leg, too. It’s not like I don’t care about you, you know.”

  “No. I mean, why do you need either of my legs?”

  “Because you’ve got to give me something.”

  “What do you mean, give you something?”

  “You’ve got to give me something to prove to me that you’re going to keep your mouth shut and not interfere with my business.”

  I knew what he meant even before he pulled a rubber mallet from beneath the contraption. He was going to break my leg. My left one, that was, because he was a nice guy and he cared about me. And there was nothing I could do about it.

  I had no hope of overpowering him physically. If I made a run for the rear exit he’d wring my neck before I got one foot out the door. Even worse, if I tried to escape, I knew he might hurt me in a way that time and a cast might not heal.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, as he handed me a mouth guard. “I’ve done this before. It’ll be a clean break.”

  I barely heard his words. I was too busy repeating the ones I’d spoken to myself less than five minutes ago.

  The woman who keeps her emotions at bay can find the way out.

  Black splotches dotted my vision. Bolts of panic paralyzed me. All I could imagine was the sound of a bone breaking, an excruciating pain unlike any I’d felt before.

  But I didn’t fight the panic. I let my vision right itself. Surrendered to my wandering mind and let the visions slide. The experiences of my childhood had brought me face-to-face with fear before. I still had time. I still had a few seconds left.

  I can find the way out.

  I will find the way out.

  CHAPTER 6

  NADIA STOOD IN front of her lean-to staring down the barrel of the gun fearing her heart might stop beating any second. She hadn’t been this scared since she forgot the Ukrainian words to Hail Mary while saying morning prayers in her parents’ bedroom. Her father had been shaving at the time, and when her voice stopped he bounded out of the bathroom, face foaming with lather, and slapped her in the head so hard she fell over and broke her nose.

  She’d seen guns before. Some of the counselors for the boys—ROTC types that didn’t party with the girl counselors—brought their hunting rifles with them to summer camp. But this gun was different. It was shiny and beautiful. This one looked more like something a private eye on TV would carry to look cool. Whatever it was, it sure didn’t belong in the forest. Neither did its owner or his girlfriend.

  “Sorry, kid,” the Kangaroo said, as he lowered the barrel of the gun toward the ground. “I have a bad back. This thing weighs so much I took it out of the knapsack and stuck it in my belt. But that’s no good either. I didn’t mean to pull it out and scare you.”

  Nadia breathed easier. Only then did she realize her teeth were chattering.

  “I told you not to bring it,” the Giraffe said. “But you had to be such a man, didn’t you? As if the entire camping thing wasn’t stupid enough, you had to go bring that gun with you. What you should have brought was something for all these damn mosquitoes.” She slapped her neck. “I hate insects. I hate the outdoors. I hate this place, and I fucking hate you.”

  Nadia’s mouth fell open. A woman giving her man the f-word? That was unbelievable. If her mother had ever said that to her father? Oh, man. That would have been ugly.

  “Let’s make the best of it,” the Kangaroo said, “and focus on the task at hand.”

  The Giraffe swatted at her ears again. “This is ridiculous. They’re eating me alive here. You’re a banker,” she said, spitting the words at her boyfriend. “You belong in the city. I’m a law student. I belong in the city. What possessed you to drag me out here to this godforsaken, living hell? And what possessed me to say yes? This is the stupidest decision I’ve ever made in my life.”

  The Kangaroo shook his head in frustration. He knelt down by the fire so he was eye to eye with Nadia and smiled.

  “Honey, is there an adult with you nearby?”

  His choice of words dropped him a notch right away. Nadia hated to be called “honey.” It was thick, sweet, and came in a jar. None of those descriptions applied to her.

  “Nope,” Nadia said. “I’m alone.”

  The Kangaroo laughed in disbelief. “No way. You’re alone? You can’t be alone.”

  Nadia explained that she was alone on a Ukrainian girl scout survival test, and that her father or brother were camping somewhere on the trail, probably half a mile or so away. At least that was her best guess.

  The Giraffe was smiling at her now, too. It was a heckuva smile. Nadia imagined being half as pretty as this woman. She’d have friends and no one would pick on her. What a life that would have been.

  The Giraffe said, “Do you have a walkie-talkie from RadioShack or something like that, to talk to your father or brother? If there’s an emergency?”

  “Nope,” Nadia said. “All I h
ave is a whistle. I’m only supposed to use it if I’m in serious trouble. Like, really serious. But I do know the way back to the trail if you’re lost.”

  “It’s a bit more complicated,” the Kangaroo said. “We’re with another couple. My brother and his wife. And my brother’s hurt. He tripped and rolled down a hill. His forehead is bleeding and we think he broke his leg. We need to get him some help.”

  “Do you have a first aid kit?” Nadia said.

  “Yeah,” the Giraffe said. “We put a bandage on his forehead, but there’s nothing we can do for his leg. There’s no way he can walk.”

  “Was there an Ace bandage in the first aid kit?”

  “I think I remember seeing one,” the Giraffe said.

  Nadia knew what needed to be done. She was trained in first aid. She could help these people and it was her duty to do so.

  Nadia said, “Do either of you have a poncho in your knapsack?”

  “No,” the Kangaroo said. “But I have an umbrella.”

  “Yeah,” the Giraffe said, rolling her eyes. “A Burberry umbrella. Number one on the list of essential camping equipment. No, I don’t have a poncho either. It wasn’t supposed to rain. We’re hiking for the day. We got lost because Magellan here forgot the compass in the car. He couldn’t read the map when we took a detour off the trail.”

  “It’s hard to read a map without a compass,” Nadia said.

  The Kangaroo sighed as though he’d had enough of people making fun of him, but the Giraffe rewarded Nadia with a belly laugh and a smile. Nadia savored an adrenaline rush. They were pals, she and the beautiful Giraffe. This made her a cool girl for the day, didn’t it?

  Now that they were buddies, Nadia would do anything for the Giraffe. Even sacrifice her poncho, which truly was essential survival equipment.

  Nadia removed the poncho from her lean-to and folded it into a square. Threaded her belt through the sheath of her Bowie knife so that the giant blade hung down her left leg, and attached her canteen along her left side. Then she stood before the strangers with her hands at her sides, like a gunfighter from her brother’s favorite spaghetti westerns.

  “We’re good to go,” Nadia said. “I know first aid. Lead the way.”

  They laughed at her. At first Nadia felt her face start to burn. But then she realized they weren’t making fun of her. They were laughing in a nice way. They appreciated that she was trying to help, but they doubted she could help the Kangaroo’s injured brother. Nadia understood that they probably thought she was too young to know what she was doing.

  To ease their minds, she told them exactly what she was going to do, step-by-step. When Nadia was done, the couple glanced at each other with shocked expressions and didn’t say another word.

  Nadia added two logs to her fire to make sure it had plenty of fuel and followed the couple deep into the woods, leaving the knapsack and camp behind her.

  CHAPTER 7

  DONNIE LIFTED MY hand, the one that held the mouth guard, and guided it toward my face. I opened my mouth and he stuffed it inside. I could have resisted, but there was no upside to that. Only downside. He pressed my nose and my chin together with his right hand to make sure my jaw was shut. Then he lifted my leg and placed it on the support brackets. His motions were firm but gentle, like those of a doctor. He touched my cheek with an open palm once the mouth guard was secure between my teeth. He held my leg with two hands and lifted it slowly so as not to strain any muscles before placing it onto the support.

  All the while he kept babbling, also like a doctor, presumably to distract me from the sight of the mallet at his feet, and my immediate fate.

  “You should be on your knees thanking me,” he said. He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Okay, obviously you can’t be on your knees right now, but you know what I mean. That is how grateful you should be to me. I was told to handle this. Any way I sees fit. Anyone else, you would be dead. But not me. Why? Because that’s not how I want to live my life. And you and me, we understand each other. We’re both old-school. Our parents kept their mouths shut about all the shit that went down in World War II, all the shit they suffered, some of the lies some of them had to tell to get in this country. We know how to keep our mouths zip-locked. It’s in our genes, and because I’m a good guy and you’re a respectable woman—have I told you I have the highest respect for you?—I’m playing it this way. Giving you a chance to live. Yeah, you should be grateful. Just plain grateful.”

  He finished adjusting the brackets. One held my ankle; the other gripped my leg below the knee. He was going to strike between the knee and the ankle. I could tell by the structure of the machine. My upper leg was supported, my lower leg wasn’t. The bone would cave right in.

  I knew I had only seconds left. I could sense my panic. It was like an amorphous cloud hovering over me, waiting to wrap me up and render me incapable of thought. But it wasn’t upon me yet, and I knew to keep it at bay by insisting I didn’t care if it seized me, and focusing on a specific thing. In this case it was a specific task. The task was to buy some more time.

  Donnie reached down for the mallet.

  I pulled the mouth guard from between my teeth. He snapped to attention, mallet in hand, as soon as he saw what I’d done. The veins in his hand protruded as he tightened his grip on the hammer. He looked angry. Really angry.

  “I changed my mind,” I said.

  His eyes narrowed. “About what?”

  “The Champagne. It might help me with my nerves. If not right now, then in a few minutes when I’m going to need the help. At least the alcohol will be in my bloodstream, you know what I mean?”

  His expression turned stern and he shook his head.

  My pulse quickened. The amorphous cloud of panic moved in and engulfed me like fog.

  You’re a fraud, I thought. You’ve been lying to yourself to make the time pass. To keep from passing out from sheer fear, like the pathetic little girl you are and always have been. This is going to happen. A man is going to break your leg and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do about it because you’re not that tough, and not as smart as you like to think you are.

  There is no hope. There is no hope. There is no hope.

  And then Donnie stopped shaking his head. Maybe he saw the terror in my eyes at that very moment. Maybe he just liked the idea of me having a glass of his Champagne before he clubbed me.

  Whatever the reason, he loosened my brackets and told me to sit up. Then he walked over to the refrigerator and started babbling again. I didn’t pay any attention to what he was saying because by this time I’d remembered my brother telling me that he and I could put up with anything for three days. I recalled him asking what my name was on the Appalachian Trail, moments before leaving me to fend for myself.

  As Donnie poured me a flute of bubbly, my mind unlocked the box where I kept the memory of that survival test stowed away to prevent myself from thinking about it. The locks were many and intricate, for this was not a memory that I wanted floating around my head. It loved to torture me so I’d had to design my own personal Fort Knox. Keys clicked in place and turned. Bolts slid open.

  The memory escaped.

  It overwhelmed my thoughts. Scene after scene flashed vividly before me.

  One scene in particular resonated. A bolt of adrenaline rushed through me.

  Donnie handed me the glass. He was still yapping about something.

  I knocked back the entire flute. Exhaled loudly and with satisfaction.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” I said.

  My lips and chin were dripping with liquid. I wiped them with the back of my hand, trying to make it look like as carnal an act as possible. I made my eyes go wild as though I was preparing myself for something that was going to hurt but feel good. I let out a guttural laugh to go with it.

  “Do me again, Donnie,” I said, pushing the glas
s toward him. “One more glass and I’m ready for this.”

  He took my glass, his expression a mix of shock and curiosity, and turned back to the refrigerator.

  I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the brutality I was about to endure. The difference between my thoughts now and before was that this time I wasn’t preparing to suffer the pain.

  I was preparing to inflict it.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE KANGAROO AND the Giraffe led the way. Nadia followed. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon so she tired quickly.

  They found the second couple at the bottom of a small ravine, twenty minutes away from Nadia’s camp. The other woman was the opposite of the Giraffe, with short brown hair and the face of a ferret. The injured guy had curly black hair and resembled an angry rodent. He didn’t look very tough. He moaned and complained as soon as they arrived.

  The Kangaroo and the two women stood in front of the Rodent and blocked Nadia’s way so she couldn’t see his lower body. Nadia was curious to study the man’s injury. She’d never seen a broken leg. When she’d learned how to make a splint, someone pretended to be the patient. Now she would get to work with a real, live, injured person. She was psyched.

  When the Rodent saw whom they’d brought with them to help, he went ballistic and called the Kangaroo his “moron brother from hell.” The Ferret yelled at the Giraffe for coming back with some “pathetic little girl scout,” and for a moment Nadia considered not helping the Rodent after all.

  But she was an altar girl who took her Ukrainian Catholic religion seriously, so she forgave the stranger and stepped closer to take a look.

  The Giraffe touched her shoulder. “Just to warn you. It’s a bit gruesome.”

  Nadia felt an injection of willpower from the Giraffe’s touch. It was as though beautiful people had a special power, and with their mere touch could turn a social castoff into a more confident person.

  Duly emboldened, Nadia peeked around the Giraffe’s waist. The Rodent lay with his arms and legs at odd angles, like the outline of a dead person on the floor on a TV show. It was the left leg. The skin was turning black and blue around the front shin, and the tip of the bone was protruding.