by Joe Augustyn
Like every public move she made, Mandee came to the show as a public relations gesture, not for entertainment. Felicia’s performance was unexpectedly impressive. But the good feelings buzzing through the audience around her and the resultant guilt Mandee felt at the moment only made her more determined to stick to her guns.
Mandee loved a good fight. Especially one that was rigged in her favor. And she had enough political dirt in her files to pull all the strings she needed to win this battle.
Let these riled up hicks rally in defense of their band camps and theatre geeks. I have this town in my pocket.
Mandee had tallied up the school’s assets, and had a new plan for every penny. She wouldn’t touch the football program, of course, except to cut back the coach’s overtime pay.
If Hank Nolan wanted his boys to get more practice, he could donate his personal time. And she knew he’d make that sacrifice. Hell, he’d probably pay the school board to let him keep coaching, as long as the team kept bringing home a trophy now and then. The team was the old boy’s sole reason for living.
But the arts programs were a different story. Artists are a joke. Singers and dancers are a dime a dozen in any big city. And what are the odds that any of our little thespians could ever hope to compete in the real world anyway? The idea of subsidizing them is nonsense. A ridiculous waste of tax dollars.
Mandee had big plans for those funds. Like financing a new access road that would bring more development into the county. An access road through pristine woodland recently acquired by a shell corporation. A corporation owned by her cousin. New housing and strip malls would sprout up like
mushrooms after a hard morning rain. That meant huge profits for cousin Morrie and hundreds of new taxpayers to enrich the town’s coffers. Which would give Mandee something to crow about when she came up for re-election.
The fact that she was the single largest minority shareholder in Morrie’s shell corporation was gravy on the cake. No one in town was savvy enough to investigate and expose her true involvement, other than her partners in the scam. And as long as she continued to spout the jingoistic nonsense they wanted to hear about protecting family values and their Constitutional rights, they’d trust her to run the county anyway she saw fit.
There were a few worrywarts opposed to the planned developments. They argued that their town was perfect as it is, and were concerned that further development would strain the county’s resources and attract big city problems already plaguing some nearby counties. Urban street gangs seeking new markets for their drugs. Annoying and dangerous rush hour traffic. Overcrowded schools. More trash generated than the local dumps could handle.
Of course there would be a few problems. The Sheriff and fire and water departments would have to step up their game to meet those challenges. But Mandee knew she could cut sweetheart deals with their administrators. After years of frozen development, there was plenty of pie to go around.
There might be some graffiti and a little more crime. I can float bonds to expand the county jail, and to fund an anti-graffiti service. Those contracts will be valuable. And if the townies get nervous and gun sales go up, well, that’s why we have the Second Amendment.
A tidal wave of applause interrupted her rapacious reverie and bodies started popping up all around her.
Oh my god, Mandee thought. They’re giving this little cupcake a standing ovation. She remained in her seat but made an exaggerated show of clapping, so people wouldn’t notice her lack of enthusiasm.
Onstage, Felicia bowed humbly, honestly surprised by her own success. She stood in a happy daze as nearly the entire audience rose up in the darkness, clapping long and hard. A few even hooted and whistled. But then Libby brought the house lights up and Felicia felt suddenly exposed, despite her heavy make-up. With a final embarrassed bow she jogged backstage, where she found her pal Crystal Gonzales waiting, wringing her hands, looking pale as a ghost.
“What is it, Crystal? What’s wrong?”
“J-Janie T-Tompkins saw Oogie J-Joslin r-running d-down the hall. H-he was h-holding something w-white and fluffy. She th-thinks it w-was Mrs. C-cuddles.”
“Mrs. Cuddles?”
Crystal nodded solemnly. “Oogie ran outside and sh-she looked out th-the w-window and saw th-the whole g-gang running into th-the w-woods. They w-were heading t-towards D-D-Devil’s P-P-P-”
Crystal didn’t have to say another word. Oogie was one of Wally’s notorious gang of incorrigibles. And Devil’s Point was a place you didn’t ever want to go to. Especially not at night. Especially not if you were a helpless little rabbit.
Without a second thought Felicia dashed for the nearest exit.
“F-felicia, w-wait!” Crystal started after her, but stopped in her tracks. Like every other kid in the school, she was terrified of Wally and his delinquent pals. She hadn’t expected Felicia to go chasing after them alone. She’d assumed her friend would tell one of the adults. Something she herself didn’t have the guts to do.
The curtain rose on the next act.
Crystal thought about finding Felicia’s parents or Mr. Baxter, but was too scared to get any further involved. Wally didn’t take kindly to snitches, as the few who’d ever squealed on him had learned.
Instead she settled backstage, watching Johnny Bingum start his dance routine onstage, an unlikely combination of break dance and tap.
Felicia will be okay. She knows what’s she’s doing.
She can take care of herself.
15
The Nine Lives of Felicia Miller
4
Felicia flew across the back lawn of the high school campus and plunged through a bank of bushes into the woods. If anyone had been around to see her she would have been a very strange sight in her kabuki make-up and silk kimono flapping like broken wings over flashes of pink net stockings and chalky thighs.
A chilly autumn fog was settling over the forest. Luckily there was a full moon overhead, which illuminated the rocks and deadwood blocking her path.
Felicia quickened her pace, leaping the obstacles nimbly. She wanted to clear the deepest patch of woods before the fog grew too dense and she lost all sense of direction.
Without hesitation she hurdled over fallen branches and tangles of long black thorns that snatched at the hem of her robe. Graceful and quick as an antelope she flew through the woods, heedless of any danger, desperate to rescue her little furry friend.
A few minutes later she stumbled into the barren hollow known as Devil’s Point. She paused at the edge of the clearing to catch her breath. Although she’d only been there a few times before, both times in broad daylight, everyone in the county knew right where the Point was, and she recognized it instantly.
Despite its position in the midst of a dense forest, no trees grew there. Nothing but a few scraggly stands of deadly nightshade and jimsonweed sprouted in the inexplicably infertile soil. Here and there stood the stunted abortion of a tree that had sprouted from some wind-sewn seed, only to turn black and hard and twisted, and die after growing just a few feet.
In the center of the desolate clearing stood a ring of small boulders inscribed with ancient symbols carved by some long forgotten tribe. Native American historians were puzzled; the carvings didn’t match any of the known artifacts of the local tribes. Irregular patches of color on the rocks showed where graffiti had been scrawled or painted by modern visitors, but it never lasted long, eroding quickly while the ancient runes endured.
The Point was of course rumored to be haunted, and local legends abounded with ghostly sightings, witchy cackling in the night, glimpses of strange freakish animals, unexplained disappearances and other sinister phenomena. For more than a century it had been infamous as a place to avoid, especially at night, and thus became the choice spot for local delinquents to party, free from prying eyes.
Felicia walked to the middle of the hollow, stepping carefully through the ring of boulders to the very heart of the Point, and quietly scanned the area.
Nothing moved in the soupy mist. The place was still. Quiet as a tomb. No sign of Wally or his boys.
What the hell? Did Crystal get punked? Again? Jesus, sometimes she’s a royal pain in my—
“Well, lookee who’s here.” The voice was annoyingly familiar.
A large hulking shadow lurched toward her from the woods, causing a whirlwind of turbulence in the fog. As the figure drew closer she saw it was wearing a rubber Halloween mask and what appeared to be a homemade hooded black robe. A ghoulish Satanic figure shrouded in fog.
Here we go, Felicia thought. “I know it’s you, Wally. So take off that ridiculous mask, it’s not Halloween yet.”
“Wally? Who’s Wally?” The response was absurd and doubly annoying because she clearly recognized Wally’s voice despite his lame attempt to disguise it with a cheesy Transylvanian accent.
“Oh excuse me,” Felicia said dryly, “I guess I meant Count Chocula.”
Footsteps crunched on gravel. Several more black-robed figures appeared through the billowing fog, closing in from all sides. Glancing around at them Felicia saw more grotesque Halloween masks framed by Satanic hoods. She wasn’t sure how many there were. She didn’t want to telegraph her growing fear by looking all around to carefully count them, but she figured there were four or five.
“Here kitty kitty.”
“Stop acting like an idiot, Wally.” Felicia kept her voice calm and quietly defiant, emboldened by the artful anonymity afforded by her geisha mask make-up. Thankfully it was helping to hide her fearful expression.
“What did you do with Mrs. Cuddles?” she asked boldly. “I want her. Right now.”
“Mrs. Cuddles? You mean this pwitty widdle bag of furry bones?”
Wally reached into his robe and whipped his hand up into the moonlight. Felicia was horrified to see a limp white blob of fur dangling from his meaty fingers, stained with dark red liquid. Stunned with anger and sadness, her heart froze.
“Think fast!” Wally shouted as he suddenly tossed the object. It bounced off Felicia’s leg and landed on the ground in front of her. She gazed down at it, hopeful and relieved because it hadn’t felt nearly as heavy as Mrs. Cuddles should have when it hit her thigh. Through a roiling gap in the fog she saw a stuffed white teddy bear lying on the ground, spattered with red paint.
“You bastard,” she snapped. “You think that’s funny?”
Wally’s hoarse laughter filled the air. The other boys laughed as well, and Felicia recognized the phlegmy sound of Sparrow’s distinctive laughter. She was somewhat relieved that Mrs. Cuddles was apparently alive and well in her cage back at school, but was still trembling, more with rage than fear. She was furious at the cheap prank, which had brought her to the edge of an emotional breakdown.
“You’re a real creep, Wally, you know that? Just because your father’s the sheriff you think you can bully anyone and everyone who—”
The big hulking figure stepped closer. Threateningly close. Right up in her face close. His sudden invasion of her space took Felicia by surprise, causing her angry words to catch in her throat.
The figure stood silently, towering over her like an aroused behemoth, glaring down at her through the cutaway eye sockets of a spooky skeleton mask. The eyes were unmistakably Wally’s, but there was a malevolent gleam in them that transcended all the smug expressions she’d witnessed from him over the years.
His eyes looked downright demonic, burning with a psychotic intensity, and the creepily detailed skull mask didn’t help to allay her fears.
Felicia reached up to yank the mask off his face and expose him, but he grabbed her wrist firmly, squeezing until it hurt. A feeble cry escaped her mouth before she could suppress it. The last thing she wanted was to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d gotten to her, either with pain or fear. But right now she was suffering an overwhelming dose of both.
Wally chuckled. Felicia suddenly felt very vulnerable.
The other boys drew closer around her. Felicia felt their collective hormonal vibe and realized how truly frightened she was. It finally hit her how foolish she’d been, racing into the woods at night without letting an adult know where she was going.
Without letting anyone know.
Felicia regretted her boldness now. What the hell was I thinking? I have more sense than this. How could I be so impulsive and self-assured? How could I be so stupid?
She wished she’d thought to grab a sharp stick in the woods or maybe at least had brought her keys along, or anything she could use to gouge and scratch and fight off the boys if things got out of hand.
Unfortunately for her they did. And she was powerless to stop them.
Wally twisted her arm sharply, forcing her onto her tiptoes, tottering off-balance.
“Ow! Let me go, you bast—OW!”
He slapped her face. Just hard enough to shut her up.
Felicia’s eyes went wide. She couldn’t believe he hit her, and was shocked as he reached into her kimono with his free hand. She writhed and struggled, trying to break free, but he was far too strong and knew just how to bend her arm to control her movements. If she resisted too hard it was clear he could snap her forearm like a twig.
His fingers were cold and rough as they wormed into her clothing. He dug into her bra… found a breast… rubbed and pinched her nipple with his callused digits.
“Ow! You prick! How dare you?!”
“Oh yeah, that’s nice. Someone has mighty perky nips. You must be freezing in that kimono, sugar-pussy, or are you just glad to see me?”
“That’s enough, Wally. Let me go now and I won’t tell on you. All of you!”
She looked around, trying to force eye contact with the boys. But they just stood in cold silence, shielded by the fog and the anonymity of their masks.
Wally pinched her nipple hard, causing her to gasp in pain.
Turning her imploring eyes again toward the others she saw only a frightening array of ugly rubber masks and hungry teen eyes staring at her with lustful intent. She realized they were probably doped up on meth or glue or oxy or weed or possibly all of the above.
Oh Jesus. They could kill me and bury me out here and no one would ever know. No one except Crystal. Oh God, Crystal, I hope you told someone. Please God make her tell!
“My parents will be looking for me. And Crystal knows right where I am,” she bluffed. “I told her where I was going. They’ll be here any minute.”
“Yeah?” Wally said skeptically, finally dropping his cartoon accent. “Who?”
“Mr. Baxter. I told her to tell Mr. Baxter.”
She saw one of the boys flinch nervously and look to Wally for a cue. He just stood calmly, as if considering her threat. “Let me go now or you’ll all be in trouble,” she said, emboldened by their silence. “Big trouble. Trouble even your father can’t fix.”
Wally broke his silence with a loud guffaw. After years of his father covering his ass, he was immune to such idle threats. His massive fingers clawed slowly down the front of Felicia’s belly, poking and pinching her tender flesh, wriggling under the waistband of her panties.
“Stop it! You’ll be sorry! You’ll all be sorry!” Felicia gasped aloud as Wally’s callused fingertips pushed through the downy hair between her legs, and brushed against her tenderest nub of flesh. “Stop it! Please… no!” She couldn’t believe how far they were pushing things. “You can’t let him do this! You’ll all go to prison!”
“Well then, we’d better make it worth our while,” muttered Wally. “Eh, boys?”
Felicia bucked her body desperately, but the big goon had a rock solid hold on her arm, and another boy grabbed her from behind, restricting whatever leverage she had. She felt the hardness in his pants as he pressed his groin against her soft botto
m, and she knew she was in for real trouble. It wasn’t just Wally now.
Wally pulled her kimono open and ripped her bra down in one violent motion, exposing her naked breasts. Her skin was pale as ivory in the fog-filtered moonlight, her nipples hard and thick in the cold night air.
“No! Stop now! Please! You can’t do this! Please… one of you… someone… help me! Oh God oh God.”
One of the boys swayed uncertainly as if he might bolt from the scene, but then he settled down and joined the party.
“You say no but your nippies say yes,” Wally chuckled, giving her rigid nipples a savage twist. Felicia cried out in pain. Wally pushed her backwards. The boy behind her lowered her somewhat gently to the ground and pushed her arms down.
Felicia was sobbing aloud and twisting her hips, a desperate last-ditch attempt to fend off what was inevitable. The boy behind her put his knees on her arms, pinning her to the ground with all his weight.
“Please no,” she whispered, suddenly sounding tiny and frail and helpless. “I’m… a virgin.”
No sooner had the last word slipped from her mouth than it was eclipsed by a piercing shriek and a coarse grunt as Wally brutally entered her.
A litany of groans and sobs and finally subdued silence followed, as Felicia grew numb with pain and horror and retreated to a dark lonely corner of her consciousness.
One by one they took her, taking turns holding her down and forcing their squalid attentions on her face and her breasts and between her legs. Her eyes stayed closed and her mind remained hidden away in the dark empty place, but jolts of pain and slivers of unwanted sensation broke through now and then to force her to acknowledge the ordeal. She felt like she’d been swallowed whole by the devil himself as the hot breath of the boys met the chilly air around her. Their greedy hands groped and squeezed her delicate flesh. Their tongues slathered her everywhere with cold wet drool.
