One Among Us

by Paige Dearth

Maggie ran between two cars and down the lane to the very end, where she stood behind a red van. When John William met her, he was carrying the puppy. “Thanks for your help. He could have been killed,” he said and handed the puppy to her.

  She took him into her arms again. “Pup, you could’ve been killed. You have to be more careful,” she cooed.

  “This is my van,” John William told her as he opened the back door.

  Maggie looked inside and saw a small dog crate.

  “Why don’t you put him in the crate for me, and I’ll get his bowl from the front seat. I want to give him some water. He must be thirsty from all that running around,” he said with a smile.

  Maggie watched as John William started toward the front of his van. Only then did she climb in to put the puppy in the crate, but before she made it that far, she was wrapped in an overpowering embrace. She panicked; the desire to flee surged through her body.

  John William shoved her toward the crate, and she quickly scurried to find her footing. He was right next to her when he yanked a rag doused in chloroform from a small bucket on the floor of the van. He grabbed her around the waist and put the rag over her mouth and nose. She was unconscious in seconds.

  When Maggie woke up, she was lying in the back of the van, hog-tied and gagged. Her head was pounding and the motion of the van churned the nausea that swirled in her belly. As her vision began to clear, she saw a young boy lying next to her, bound and gagged in the same way. The boy was much younger than she was—five or six, she guessed. He lay lifelessly, and she hoped he wasn’t dead.

  Maggie started to weep. She thought about how stupid she was to follow the man outside. Her mother had warned specifically about adults using pets to lure children in so they could steal them.

  Then she thought about her mother. Why had she insisted that she was old enough to get pizza by herself? Her mom had said no at first, but Maggie had begged, “Come on, Mom. I’m not a baby. I’m eleven years old. I can walk to the other side of the food court by myself.”

  Lorraine, Maggie’s mother, wanted to show her daughter that she trusted her and finally agreed. When Maggie headed to the pizza line, her mother took her younger brother, Keith, to McDonald’s for a happy meal.

  Maggie wanted the other kids at the food court to think she was cool. The fifth-grade girls from her class, who always left Maggie out, were celebrating a birthday with a pizza party at the food court. She wanted to show them that she had independence and was too good to join their stupid little group.

  Still, in the back of the van with a man she didn’t know, she tried to keep herself calm. The little boy lying next to her finally woke up. He looked at her pleadingly, but there was nothing she could do to help. She tried to keep her eyes from revealing her own fear, but it was a wasted effort.

  Suddenly, the van came to a stop, and the back doors opened. John William reached in and clamped his large hand on one of Maggie’s ankles. Then he reached down with a knife and cut the thick rope that kept her legs and arms tied together. He pulled her out of the van and into a field, putting one of her arms behind her back. She felt the handcuffs fasten on her right wrist and then her left. The cold steel of the cuff cut into her flesh, and she looked at John William for mercy.

  Ignoring her, John William did the same to the small boy, who was crying and squirming in an attempt to escape. John William slapped the boy, and after the child fell to the ground, he put his dirty white sneaker on the child’s back while he handcuffed him.

  Maggie looked around frantically for someone who could help them. Since it was dark outside, she knew they had been in the van for a long time. John William took each of them by the arm and dragged them down a dirt path with high grass on either side. Maggie could see a stark, stone building ahead. The building was as frightening as the man who had taken her from the mall. It stood like an abandoned castle against the moonlit night sky.

  Maggie’s New Home

  John William led the children through a heavy steel door and down a hall with jail cells on either side. It was obvious that no one else was there. “Where are we?” Maggie squeaked through the gag that was tied at the back of her head.

  “Silence,” John William demanded.

  Her mind raced as they walked through the decrepit prison. Oh my God, how will I find my way home? After he took them through a block of cells, he stopped to grab a flashlight from a stool next to a small steel door. John William pulled the two children along, down two long flights of rusted metal stairs, deeper into the bowels of the building.

  Finally, they were walking down a dark, narrow hall. The flashlight threw off a spooky yellow haze, and Maggie knew that her abductor had delivered them to hell. On either side of them were tiny cells. Mounds of dirt poured into the hallway from some of the cells, where the building’s foundation had given way to the force of the earth pressing in from the outside.

  Unlike the cells two floors above them, these cells had solid steel doors with small, rectangular openings in the middle. John William stopped midway down the hall and took them both into one of the cells. He made the little boy lie down on the cot. Then he removed his gag and handcuffs. “Don’t you move,” he ordered.

  Shutting the door behind them, he led Maggie to the cell directly across the hall. After her gag and handcuffs were removed, he abruptly left. Maggie began to pray that whatever was happening to them would end quickly. That someone would come and rescue them.

  Maggie heard the small child whimpering. Then she heard John William ask the child, “Why were you such a bad little boy?”

  “I not bad,” the child insisted.

  Maggie heard the first couple of slaps and the child begging John William to stop. “You will not be disobedient to me.”

  Maggie heard the sound of whipping as John William’s belt flew across the boy’s back. The boy screamed as each lash landed, and then suddenly, he went silent. Maggie paced in her small dark cell. She willed the child to make a sound so she would know he was still alive. Then the door to her cell was unlocked and John William stood before her like a giant. He stared down at her with an icy expression. “Why were you such a bad little girl?”

  Maggie’s survival instincts kicked in. Having heard what John William had just done to the boy, she whimpered, “Because I was jealous of the other girls in the mall. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

  John William paused and sized her up. “Good girl. Now are you willing to accept your punishment?”

  “Yes,” she muttered, beginning to cry. “But I swear I’ll be a good girl.”

  For the first time, John William smiled. His crooked, yellow-brownish teeth were twisted and looked sinister. “OK then.”

  He sat on her cot and told her to come over to him. She stood next to him shaking, her arms crossed over her chest. He pulled her down across his lap and spanked her with his open hand. After three hard whacks on the ass, he forced her to her feet again. “Tonight, you go to bed without dinner.”

  “OK,” Maggie responded, humiliated from the spanking. Maggie had learned her first lesson: whatever happened, she always had to agree with John William if she wanted to live to see her family again.

  Who’s There?

  After Maggie heard John William’s footsteps fade away, she called out across the small hall, “Little boy? Are you OK?”

  When there was no response, she called out a little louder, “Little boy? Can you hear me?”

  Maggie jumped when she heard a girl’s voice from the cell to her left. “Shut up before we all get punished, you idiot!” the angry voice rattled.

  Maggie was shocked into silence at the realization that someone else was down there with them. She was relieved to know they weren’t alone. Then her fear soared as she wondered how long the girl had been there. “Don’t be mean,” she heard an older girl say in a calm voice. “They just got here.”

  “Who’s there?” Maggie asked in a trembling voice.

  It was the older girl who spoke. “There
are several of us here. My name is Cali. I’m the oldest. I’m in the cell to your right. Shana is on the other side of you, and Max is next to the little boy who came in with you.”

  “Why are we here?” Maggie asked with desperation. “I just want to go home.”

  “We all want to get out of here, sweetheart. You need to settle down. Now, what’s your name?” Cali asked in a soothing voice, trying to calm her.

  “Maggie. That guy took me from the mall,” she said sadly.

  Cali gathered herself together. “The guy’s name is John William. That’s what we have to call him. We were all taken from different places. Everyone is gonna to be fine. You have to stay calm, though, and just do what he says. OK?”

  “But what’s he going to do to me?” Maggie asked.

  Cali wanted to prepare the girl, although she knew that nothing could prepare someone for the horrors that they lived. “John William will come back tonight and take you upstairs to have some pictures taken. Maggie, the pictures will make you feel very uncomfortable, but try to remember that if you don’t listen, they’ll hurt you, OK?”

  “Uh-huh,” Maggie muttered, fearful of what was to come. Then she felt around in the dark until she found the cot with the dusty, worn mattress. She climbed onto it and rolled into a fetal position. She lay awake for several hours, praying that her mom and dad would come to rescue her.

  Only when she fell asleep that night did she escape her suffocating fear. It was hours later when the sound of a cell door being unlocked awakened her. She scrambled to her feet to look out the small opening in her door. She quivered as she watched John William pull Shana across the front of her cell. Shana was crying, but went along with him without much resistance. She heard Cali tell her, “It’s OK, Shana. You’ll be all right. Just do whatever they want you to.”

  When the hall went black again, Maggie spoke. “Cali, what’s going to happen to Shana? Who are they?”

  Cali thought before she spoke. If she wanted the girl to live, she’d have to tell her what was happening, “How old are you, Maggie?”

  “I’m eleven,” Maggie muttered.

  “Maggie, these people want to do things with you that only grown-ups should do with each other. Do you know what sex is?” Cali asked, wishing she could hold the scared girl.

  Maggie’s head started to spin. The only thing she knew about sex was that it was something that old people did. She knew it involved getting naked. She had seen a show on cable TV in which a couple was lying in a bed, and they looked like they didn’t have any clothes on. Her father had walked into the room and shut off the television when he saw what she was watching.

  “I don’t know exactly what it is. I know that people take their clothes off and get in bed together,” she responded, her stomach clamping down into a tight knot.

  “Yes, Maggie. They get naked in bed together. When they come for you tonight, just do what they ask. Tomorrow, I’ll explain things to you, OK?” Cali said, dreading the conversation she would have with her in the morning.

  Maggie’s First Full Day

  In the morning, she stayed perfectly still on her cot. From within the dark and damp walls of the prison cell, she had no sense of time; she didn’t know whether it was night or day. Her thoughts wandered to the day prior—the day she’d made the biggest mistake of her life.

  Maggie was still lost in morbid thoughts of the pictures they’d taken of her just hours before. A light went on in her cell, and she bolted upright on her cot. She looked up at the round, globe fixture on the ceiling that was protected by a steel cage. It cast a dim light over the tiny cell. She looked around. The cell was barren except for the cot and a toilet. The toilet looked like a large, white tree stump with a hole in the center. She walked to the toilet and squatted over the hole. She peed quickly; afraid something gruesome would come out of the black hole in the center and suck her down into it.

  Then the cell door opened, and John William stood staring down at her. In the dim light, she was finally able to get a good look at him. Her eyes slowly wandered to his neck and lingered on his Adam’s apple, which protruded from his throat as if a hard-boiled egg was caught there. He had a very long, narrow face, and his black eyes sat too closely together. Limp, shoulder-length, greasy, blond hair hung around his skull like yarn, making him look as crazy as he was. He was over six feet tall, and his shoulders seemed permanently hunched. His long arms stopped just above his knees, and his hands were as big as Frisbees. He appeared to be dim-witted and creepy—the type of man who gave grown women the heebie-jeebies. Maggie realized that she’d been so focused on the puppy that she hadn’t really looked at John William, the most horrid man she’d ever seen.

  John William threw Maggie’s clothes at her. “Get dressed fast. It’s time for breakfast,” he stated.

  John William watched as the beautiful Maggie studied him. He saw the look of revulsion that he had grown accustomed to seeing on the faces of girls and women, including his own mother.

  Maggie’s expression brought back memories of his childhood. John William’s parents never allowed him to play with the neighborhood children, repeatedly telling him, “The other kids hate you. They make fun of you because you look like a goon. You are the ugliest person who ever lived. You get your nasty looks from your grandfather.”

  When John William was nine, his parents punished him for misbehaving by forcing him to remove all of his clothes and tying him to a metal chair that they kept in a small closet under the stairs in their home. They would leave him there for hours.

  Because of the verbal and physical abuse his parents subjected him to, John William was deeply depressed at a young age. He was an outcast among his peers and, by middle school, he was a love-starved, confused boy who was the focus of his peers’ ridicule.

  At school, children teased him mercilessly, but he never dared to fight back, fearing that his parents would tie him to the chair in the closet. As the years passed, he grew increasingly resentful toward his parents and the other kids at his school, especially the girls.

  After being widely rejected by the various cliques in high school, John William began spending his free time alone in seedy areas of Philadelphia, where he learned that people who were feared got respect. When John William met a lunatic who convinced him to kidnap a nineteen-year-old girl, he got a taste of power, and for the first time in his life, he felt like he fit in. The children he kidnapped needed him for basic survival, and that purpose in life was validating. He had finally found a way to get the respect that he deserved.

  In the narrow hallway between the cells, also illuminated by dim overhead light, Maggie looked around at the children who had gathered. They all appeared to be like robots. They were despondent, as if someone had stolen their souls. The dark circles under their bloodshot eyes revealed that pain and despair were the overarching themes among them. Maggie wondered how they all got there, and she hoped it wouldn’t be long before they could all go home.

  Maggie waited with anticipation as John William opened the cell of the young boy who had been brought there with her. The child staggered into the hallway, saw Maggie, and threw his arms around her legs. She bent and picked him up, holding him tightly as he put his head on her shoulder and began to cry softly.

  “Let’s go,” John William instructed.

  The group walked down the hall in silence to another steel door, which John William opened. Inside was a long room containing a large metal picnic table and benches. Each child took a seat. Cali motioned for Maggie to sit next to her, and Maggie slid in beside her, still holding the small boy tightly.

  “Now listen,” Cali whispered. “It’s important that you pay attention to what he tells you to do. After we’re done eating, he will take us to the showers upstairs. We all shower together so it’s no big deal.”

  Maggie looked over at the teenage boy, Max. He nodded to acknowledge her. She looked back at Cali, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Look, Maggie, none of us care that we see ea
ch other naked, OK? We are all in the same boat here, and the more you resist what they want from you, the worse you’ll make it for all of us. You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

  “But I don’t want to get used to it. I can’t stay here. I want to go home,” Maggie said, stating the obvious. She concentrated on her breathing, not wanting the other kids to think she was a baby. “How old are you guys?” she finally managed to ask.

  Cali answered for all of them, “Max is fifteen, Shana is twelve, and I’m seventeen.”

  Then Maggie asked the question that had been stuck in her throat since they spoke from their cells the night before. “How long have all of you been here?”

  “Too fuckin’ long!” Shana blurted.

  Max gave Shana a scalding look. “Five years,” Max offered.

  Shana looked Maggie over. “Three years.”

  Finally, Cali spoke. “I was thirteen when they brought me here.”

  As Maggie did the math in her head, a small gurgling sound escaped her lips. Cali quickly put her arm around her. “You have to be quiet. John William gets really mad when any of us cry.”

  “Yeah, he’ll let you cry when you’re with the clients upstairs. He says they like to see us scared. But when we’re down here, he gets really pissed. So if you’re gonna cry, do it without making any noise,” Shana offered.

  Maggie looked down at the small boy in her lap. “What’s your name?” she asked with as much courage as possible.

  The blond, blue-eyed child looked up at her. “Seth.”

  “Seth, my name is Maggie.”

  “Aggie!” the young boy managed with a big grin.

  “Do you know how old you are, Seth?”

  Seth held up four chubby fingers.

  “Wow, four years old. You’re a big boy.”

  Just then, John William came back into the room. He motioned for Cali to come over to where he was standing. Maggie watched as he slid his hand over her breast. He turned and took the padlock off the large cupboard standing against the far wall. Cali quickly pulled plates and spoons from inside and rushed back to the table, where she gave the children one of each.