Traces of the Girl

by E. R. FALLON

  “What are you smiling about?” Joyce asked.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “Seemed like something.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  Joyce stared at me for a moment then let it go.

  Albert seemed like a guy who enjoyed a large meal. But as the light vanished, they didn’t ask for food and I was too on edge to ask to eat. I offered them the beer in the fridge but Joyce declined for the both of them.

  “We don’t drink,” she said. “That’s your demon, Emily.”

  How did she know?

  My cell phone rang and Joyce grabbed it roughly from my pocket. “You lying little … you were supposed to turn it off. You said you did. I don’t like liars. We don’t like liars. You’re going to have to learn that the hard way.”

  She smacked the phone across my face, and my jaw throbbed from the impact. I put my hand to my skin and rubbed hard.

  “What the heck did you do that for?” I shouted.

  “To teach you a lesson so you don’t ever lie to us again.”

  I watched her switch the phone off. She hadn’t bothered to see who was calling. Then she put my phone in her pocket.

  With night arriving, I stepped toward the kitchen. Medicine time.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Joyce asked. “We’re not eating now. You’re not eating now.”

  I shook my head. “To take my meds.”

  She seemed to be thinking about what I’d said then nodded at me to proceed and shadowed me into the kitchen.

  Dr. Tompkins had said the meds would take time to work but I’d gotten impatient. I barely left the house anymore, as though time had stopped when I left my job.

  Joyce’s attitude seemed to soften little by little away from him. “You shouldn’t be afraid. Just help us and then we’ll let you come home to here. Okay?” She smiled and her eyes lit up. She seemed almost aunt-like in her demeanor so why didn’t I trust her?

  “What is it exactly that you want me to do for you?” I asked. “You haven’t said. I assume you expect me to fly you somewhere? Where? Out of the country? You’re on the run.” I wasn’t sure about the last thing but thought it a good guess.

  Joyce turned away from me and touched the frilly top of the oven mitt above the stove. “You’ll find out soon enough,” she said, not looking at me.

  Away from him I felt I could ask, “Is it Albert’s plan or yours?” I assumed it was hers. Albert didn’t seem bright enough to orchestrate a heist, or whatever they’d done, and subsequent getaway.

  Joyce looked at me and her smile had disappeared sometime in between her turning around and staring at me. “You’re asking lots of questions. I’m happy to answer them for you. Just remember, the more questions you ask and I answer, the more likely we’ll have to harm you in the end.”

  The military had hardened me, and as a fighter pilot during the Iraq War they had prepared me for any number of horrible outcomes, including capture by the enemy and subsequent torture or death. And sure, lots of people could talk tough and not mean anything by it, but Joyce’s words seemed like the real deal and chilled even a person as strong and as hardened as me.

  I stared at the pill, my medicine, in my hand and I thought of the capsules some of the guys carried when going on what we called ‘end missions’, missions where the end result for a fighter pilot was more likely to be torture or death, or both, than returning home safe and sound. The idea was that the capsules had been given to us so we could end it ourselves if we were captured to spare us from being tortured and then likely killed at some point after they’d beaten, pulled, and prodded any information they could get out of us.

  Could my fate at the end of Joyce and Albert’s mission be so awful that I’d wish I had one of those capsules?

  Even if I lived, I’d go to jail for killing that man if Joyce and Albert had told the truth. And why would they have lied to me? It seemed too elaborate for them to have invented it.

  I had gone through severe military training but I felt powerless in the situation. Throughout my time in the war I’d never known anyone who was shot down and captured. My friend Bobby’s plane was gunned down by enemy fire and he was killed instantly. I had no situation to compare mine to.

  I swallowed my pill with a glass of water and looked at the empty glass I’d set on the counter. Could I smash it and cut her? But surely Albert would shoot me if I did that. The same for if I tried to grab the baseball bat Peter had left behind in the closet. Albert would shoot me.

  What can I do?

  Joyce was right. I was alone. Despite the fact that I hadn’t made an appearance in town in weeks, those who knew I lived all the way out there didn’t care about me enough to stop by and see how I was doing.

  Joyce checked the side door again even though Albert had already locked it. “Don’t forget to take your pills with you when we leave tomorrow,” she said.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow? I thought you’d stay here for a while and then you two would leave together. I’m not going anywhere with you. I don’t know you.”

  “We said we’d stay here for a bit but we never said you wouldn’t leave with us when we were ready. And tomorrow night we’ll be ready.”

  “I don’t have an airplane here or anywhere near here. Are you going to take my car …?”

  Joyce gave me a look that conveyed they were in charge. “Remember what I said about asking questions? You don’t get a say in the matter anyway so stop asking questions.”

  She escorted me back into the living room. Albert sat in the armchair set back from the windows, angled in such a way that he could see out of them if he pulled the makeshift towel curtains back a little, without anyone seeing him from the outside.

  All through the night Albert stood guard from the chair, holding the gun, awake and alert in an almost surreal way, peeling back the towels every so often to look out the window. Joyce snored softly on the floor on top of the blanket she’d taken from my bedroom. They’d let me use the couch but I could barely close my eyes and eventually sat up and watched them. The silence and the realization that no one would be coming to save me made me emotional. Had I really killed that man? Was he really just a salesman?

  Sometime during the night Joyce stirred.

  “You better get some sleep. You’re going to need to rest up for our journey tomorrow,” she whispered up to me.

  “Why?” I said. “I hardly slept during the war.”

  And I’d hardly slept since returning home. I had bouts of insomnia despite my medication’s supposed ‘lethargy’ side-effect. That was the real reason Peter had left: the war and my inability to cope with returning to home life. Peter hadn’t served in the military but he had friends and family who had.

  “Thank you for your service,” Joyce said out of nowhere.

  I almost laughed at her comment. Some way to thank me, the way they were treating me.

  “I don’t want your thanks,” I replied.

  “You’re the most ungrateful person I ever met.”

  “Ungrateful?” I sat up taller. “What am I supposed to be grateful for? That the Air Force wouldn’t let me keep flying because they feared I was too worn out after so many missions? That I lost my job for reasons that both were and weren’t my fault? That you and Albert are here terrorizing me and soon you’re going to kidnap me so I can help you with God-knows-what you need an airplane for?”

  “Why wasn’t it your fault? You losing your job, why wasn’t it your fault?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You no longer work at the flight school? The newspaper article said—”

  “I don’t work there. As I’ve said, I haven’t flown in years.”

  “You still can fly, though, right?”

  “I don’t have an airplane.”

  “We’ll find one. Do you remember how to fly?”

  I shrugged. But from her question she knew nothing about being a pilot. Flying wasn’t something easily unlearned, and I knew that o
nce I got in a plane again I’d remember how. But Joyce didn’t need to know that.

  She held my gaze. “You’ll fly. You’ll fly us. I know you’ll do fine. I have confidence in you.” She seemed to need to repeat to comfort herself.

  It occurred to me then that I had survived war and multiple tours, so I could survive this. I wasn’t easily broken. I made a promise to myself then to not let them win and to not allow them to make me part of what had to have been their wicked plan. I would not let myself surrender despite what they might do to me. They wanted a plane and a pilot for something, most likely something bad, and I would not let them make me a bad guy. If no one would save me, I’d save myself.

  I needed to get out of there and into my lockbox in the garage and get my gun. How many bullets had I kept in it? Had I even kept it loaded, or had I removed them? I couldn’t remember. I knew I didn’t want to be tempted and had taken drastic measures by hiding it away.

  “By the way,” Joyce whispered. “Albert found your gun out in the garage,” she said as if she’d read my mind or had guessed what I debated. “Of course he couldn’t unlock your little safe but he shook it hard and heard the gun inside. He’s disposed of it so you won’t be tempted to do something stupid and get yourself killed.”

  Disposed of? I tried to think of where he might have put it outside on my large property. I knew my land well but it could have been anywhere, and they never left me alone for long enough to search. Heck, he might have even dropped it down my well, where I’d never find it.

  She sighed. “I have to admit that when he told me about the gun I was a little disappointed you lied to me. How can I help you stay alive, Emily, if you lie to us? Albert wanted me to smack you around because of it, but I’m nicer than him. Most of the time. I won’t be able to protect you unless you tell us the truth, though.” She sat up and stared at me and her eyes looked glassy in the dark. “Promise me?”

  I nodded.

  “I can’t hear you,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes, you …?”

  “Promise you.” I cleared my throat. “I promise you.”

  “Good. I don’t consider myself a feminist, but I never thought I’d kill another woman. But I did. I never thought I’d kill another person but I’ve always felt there was a darkness in me.”

  “Joyce, I promise you,” I repeated.

  Chapter Three

  I must have fallen asleep sometime in the middle of the night because I awoke the next morning to the sound of someone pulling into my driveway. I smelled coffee brewing. I could see the kitchen from where I sat up on the couch and I saw smoke and it looked like one of them had burned toast. I almost said, “You better save me some of that coffee or else,” as if they were my friends staying over. Then I remembered they weren’t my friends: they were my captors and I was their hostage.

  “What the fuck?” Joyce said as she handed Albert coffee in one of my mugs.

  “Who the hell is that?” Albert asked from near the window where he still sat on guard. He set the mug down on the floor.

  I got up and hurried to the window.

  “Where are you going?” Joyce whispered angrily.

  “To see who it is.”

  “Sit your ass back down on that couch,” she said.

  I held the edge of the curtain between two of my fingers and managed to peek outside briefly. “It’s my therapist, Dr. Tompkins. I told you about him when you first came here. That must’ve been him calling last night.” I went to the couch and sat down.

  Joyce mumbled a curse to herself. “I should’ve let you answer it.”

  Albert took out the gun.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  Suddenly I was optimistic my ordeal would end soon, but at the same time worried that it’s ending would also mean I’d be going to jail for murder. I didn’t like to believe they were right and the man I remembered killing had been innocent, but what if they were right?

  “You’re going to answer the door,” Joyce said.

  I gave her a look like, “What the heck?” Did they plan to take Dr. Tompkins hostage too?

  “You’re going to answer the door and find out what he wants,” she said. “Because if you don’t, he’s likely to call the cops. And none of us, even you, would want that to happen. Now, would we?”

  I shook my head.

  Dr. Tompkins rang the doorbell.

  “Emily?” he called when I didn’t answer. “Emily, are you in there? Are you all right?”

  I started to answer the door but Joyce held me back.

  “Wait a sec.” She proceeded to fix my hair. “You look like hell.”

  “I probably smell like it too.”

  She frowned. “I don’t like your sarcasm. I don’t like sarcasm in women.”

  Well, get used to it, I thought. Because I’m as sarcastic as they come.

  I didn’t smile as I answered the door, and I liked to smile for visitors, something the doctor knew, so I hoped my stone-faced expression would alarm him.

  “You missed your appointment and didn’t call to reschedule,” he said. “It’s very not like you. I was worried because I’ve been treating you for suicidal thoughts. I didn’t know whether I should call the police to check on you or if I should just check on you myself. As you can see, I decided to check on you myself.”

  I waved off his concern. “I’m fine. I just overslept.”

  “Until the late afternoon? That isn’t like you.” He still sounded worried and his gaze narrowed at me. He probably could tell I was lying just by looking at me. He was a psychiatrist after all, and they sniffed out liars like a fox sniffed out a rabbit. “You’re always telling me how you like to maintain a military sleeping schedule despite your retirement. You’re an early riser.” He raised an eyebrow.

  “The meds make me tired,” I said with perseverance. “And, besides, you know how I get when the depressive phase of my illness takes hold.”

  Dr. Tompkins nodded calmly despite his eyes showing continued doubt at my story. He tried to peek over my shoulder into the living room, but being tall, I blocked his view. Behind the door, to my right, I felt Albert’s breath on the side of my neck. Joyce stood somewhere behind him.

  “Can I come inside so we can talk?” the doctor asked.

  “Do you mean, can we have an appointment in my house? I’m kind of busy here. Can we reschedule for some other time? Next week maybe?”

  “Emily,” he sighed, “you know I can’t refill your prescription unless we talk every week.”

  “Can we talk on the phone later?”

  Dr. Tompkins shook his head. “I need to monitor your progress in person. You know that.”

  I hated when he talked like that, as though I was his specimen.

  I didn’t reply, and Dr. Tompkins must have assumed that meant, “Okay, come in”, because he stepped close and started to walk past the threshold.

  I felt a rush of air at the back of my neck as Albert jumped out fast from behind me and beat Dr. Tompkins with his large fists.

  I shouted, “No!”

  Albert continued to overpower Dr. Tompkins. The doctor’s face turned red and he gasped for air as Albert choked him next. He cried out for me to help him.

  “Oh, my God! Emily …”

  I kicked at Albert’s legs and wove my foot around his ankle to try to make him fall. When that didn’t work – he seemed as solid and unmovable as a giant boulder – I made tight fists and beat at Albert’s large back.

  “Stop! Stop hurting Dr. Tompkins.”

  Albert tried to push me off him but, stronger than he assumed, I held on and kept fighting back to get him to release my doctor.

  Behind me Joyce cocked the gun and then pressed the tip into my ribcage. I could feel her hands shaking through the gun. Albert must have handed it to her when I answered the door.

  “Stop it now,” she screamed.

  With the gun pointed at me and without a weapon myself, I didn’t have a
choice so I backed off and watched helplessly as Albert lowered the doctor with him down to the floor. He spread the doctor’s body out on the floor so he could finish killing him. Albert knelt over Dr. Tompkins and began to strangle him. He had both his hands pressed to the doctor’s throat, and the doctor’s body wriggled on the floor.

  Joyce calmly emerged from the shadows to watch Albert murdering him and there was a look of recognition in the doctor’s eyes as he stared at her. He spoke one last time when Albert let go of his throat for a second.

  “The robbery and murders at the auction … My, God, it was you.”

  The government auction. The huge one held once a year in the region to get money from the seized possessions of people who hadn’t paid their taxes. I didn’t have a TV or a radio and the internet didn’t work out here, so even if they had done some sort of major crime I wouldn’t have heard about it. I tried to drive into town once a week to at least buy a newspaper or visit the nearby veterans’ organization, but I hadn’t done either in a while.

  “Screw you!” Joyce spat down into his face.

  Where had the doctor recognized her from?

  Albert strangled him harder and the doctor gasped for air. I closed my eyes and I heard the doctor’s dying breaths and felt Joyce digging the gun into my flesh. The noise ceased and I opened my eyes to find that Albert had stopped strangling the doctor. Why? Because he’d already cut off enough of the doctor’s air to complete the job. Dr. Tompkins’s squirming gave way to a subtle twitch and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He became still.

  His face looked swollen and had a purple hue and his tongue stuck a little out of his mouth. I looked away.

  I had tried to help him as best as I could given the situation. If only Joyce hadn’t had the gun. Because even if saving Dr. Tompkins meant I’d end up in jail for killing that man, it would have been worth it to have saved his life. I had seen comrades die in combat in front of me but I’d never felt as helpless as I did then.