by Callee Raye
Moira couldn’t even think straight. She had no recollection of how she even got back downstairs. The next thing she remembered was looking across the room at Abby. Abby hadn’t said anything and actually she didn’t have to, because her eyes did all the speaking for her. She just stared at Moira with tears in her eyes. She was terrified and for the first time Moira realized why. Moira knew right then, that Abby already knew what Moira had seen upstairs behind the pink door. Moira closed her eyes trying to block out the image, but it was no use. It was already imprinted on her mind. The back door slammed shut and they heard daddy Joe walking across the floor. Suddenly he stopped. They heard nothing for a few minutes, no movements and no sounds. They both tried to wipe the tears from their faces and appear as normal as possible. Moira feared that maybe he knew somehow that she had been upstairs snooping about. She didn’t want Abby to get in any trouble because she had been so nosey. That was one of her biggest fears that her curiosity would get someone else hurt. They could hear him just standing outside the basement door, but he was not moving, then they heard the door knob turn. He stood at the top of the stairs, looking down on them. Moira was scared shitless, way too scared to even look up at the door for more than a second at a time. When daddy Joe’s foot hit the first step, Moira’s bladder released a stream of urine down her leg. She stood in the puddle unable to move. Every fiber in her body screamed a silent scream. An internal scream that only she and Abby was aware of. Now she clearly understood why Abby had begun to lose her will and hope. Their future rested inside the room behind the pink colored door, if they did not find a way to escape out of this hell. Those bassinets were filled with women, at least at one time they had been women. Vibrant young women, women who had probably been right where she and Abby were now. Now those women have been reduced to being objects, living breathing objects.
Moira couldn’t get the image of the woman in the bassinet out of her mind. It was her eyes that sent chills down her spine. Her eyes were dead and empty. There was no sign of life left in them. The rows of bassinets that filled the sterile white room haunted her. The woman didn’t move at all when Moira peered in over the rim of the bassinet at her. It was as if she hadn’t even sensed she was there. It was beyond creepy, it was downright eerie. Abby must have known about the rooms upstairs and what was going on, by her reaction when Moira came back downstairs. Moira wondered why she had never said anything to her about it to her. She was angry at first at Abby for not letting her know, but then she realized that she probably was trying to protect her in some strange way.
“Baby girl, don’t cry daddy will clean you all up. Honey, accidents can happen all the time. Especially around here.”
Those words and daddy Joe’s voice quickly snapped Moira out of her thoughts and brought her back into reality. Accidents can happen all the time, what did he mean by that? Again it wasn’t the words that he said but the way in which they sounded when they came out of his mouth. Was he trying to give her some kind of threat or was it just her imagination. Moira wondered, maybe she was just hearing it the wrong way or did he know that she knew what was going on upstairs? Actually she hadn’t even realized that she was crying or that she had peed on herself. The fear of daddy Joe and the possibility of ending up like all those women was definitely getting the best of her my mind and her bodily functions. She looked down, just noticing the puddle of urine surrounding her feet. Tears were flowing uncontrollably down her face and dripping one by one off her chin. She felt defeated, she felt her power draining from her body as each teardrop fell. Looking up at daddy Joe, and seeing what he had ultimately reduced her to, she felt a combination of anger, hatred, and self-pity surge through her body. Moira had never been one to feel sorry for herself and she wasn’t about to start now regardless of the situation. She was a Livingston damn it, and Livingston’s don’t cower and hide, they fight to the bitter end. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and stepped out of the puddle of urine. No she would not give up, she still had some fight left in her. She silently thought to herself, you will not control and manipulate my mind, you have not won yet. This game is still on, you crazy freak. She looked over at Abby who was staring at her through the rails of the crib and then she started walking towards daddy Joe, so he could clean her up.
Although daddy Joe had pretty much left the two of them alone for the rest of the afternoon, no words were spoken and no gestures were made between them. Moira was knee deep in survival thought, trying to figure out what could be done to save them from ending up like one of those women upstairs. Abby probably was quiet because she thought Moira was angry at her for not telling her about the room upstairs and what daddy Joe and Barbara had actually been up to. Moira was not mad now, although at first she was a little bit pissed off at Abby. In fact after calming down and thinking the situation through, Abby may have actually saved her life. If she had known what she knew now, Moira may have given up long ago or done something really stupid knowing her personality. She was still scared, but now she was too scared not to fight back for her life.
Sometime after lunch Moira finally relaxed enough to drift off to sleep. Only to be awaken by daddy Joe picking her up and carrying her up the stairs. Still somewhat groggy she remembered looking over at the baby bed only to see that Abby was not there, in fact Abby was nowhere in the room.
“Abby,” she grunted looking into daddy’s cold steel blue eyes. “Abby,” she grunted again.
He didn’t say anything in return. He just kept walking up the stairs concentrating on where he was stepping so as not to fall, especially because he was carrying Moira in his arms. Moira started to panic, a light film of sweat now covered her brow. She felt like she was going to lose her bowels at any moment, due to the level of anxiety and fear she was feeling. She felt sick to her stomach, just thinking of what may have already happened or what was about to happen.
“Where are you taking me and where is Abby?”
No stop this isn’t fair, she screamed in her head. No, you can’t do this to me. She saw the pink door at the end of the corridor. She wiggled and fought to get loose, but he just gripped onto her tighter. The pink door was wide open, as if welcoming them inside. She was starting to have a hard time breathing. Oh Lord she thought, I’m having a panic attack. Her face was covered in sweat and her heart was thumping like a drum.
“No, no please don’t do this,” she muttered.
Daddy Joe paid her no attention, he just kept his eyes looking straight ahead. They entered the sterile white colored room. There were three metal tables covered with white sheets in the middle of the room. Moira kept shouting no, but it didn’t seem to do any good. An antiseptic-like smell filled her nose, as they entered the room. What was this and what was he about to do to her? Her heart raced, her eyes grew larger and larger as he placed her upon the steel table. She twisted and turned trying to release his grip but it was too much for her. She was trapped, held down onto the metal table by two heavy duty leather straps. He tried to place her head in a vice, but she kept moving it from side to side to avoid being trapped. That is until something in the other room caught her eye on the other side of the glass partition. It was a woman about her age, wrapped up in a white baby blanket in one of the bassinettes. All of the women had I.V. drips stuck in their arms. They were administering something to them through their veins. It was this woman’s eyes that caught Moira’s attention. Her eyes were open, yet they looked dead and empty. They had no life left behind them. Moira felt an overwhelming sense of sadness when she looked at the woman. Moira stared because the woman seemed almost animated then she noticed that the woman’s mouth had been sewn up and perched in a pucker like position. How odd she thought and then she saw the unthinkable, her eyes had been hollowed out and replaced. Someone had taken out her real eyeballs and replaced them with fake glass ones. Daddy suddenly turned her head and jerked it into the vice. He tighten it until she couldn’t move her head in either direction any longer. He had made those women into a living baby
dolls. Tears streamed down the side of Moira’s face, wetting the sheet underneath her head. She focused her eyes through the pools of tears, only to see daddy Joe with a drill in his hand and the buzzing sound of it echoing throughout the room.
“NO!!!!” she screamed out loud.
Moira woke in a daze, her heart was thumping out of her chest, her top was soaked with sweat and her bottoms were soaked in urine. She laid there trying to catch her breath. She was shaking like a leaf on a tree in a storm. The hot sun was beaming down through the leaves of the old sycamore tree. The warmth from the sun helped to fully wake her up. Abby was still fast asleep next to her on the blanket. How had she gotten outside? Where did Abby come from? When had daddy Joe brought them outside? She couldn’t even remember being brought outside. Questions in which she had no answers to, keep bombarding her mind. What was going on and why couldn’t she remember anything? Suddenly she remembered the face of the woman in the room behind the pink door and sat straight up. She looked over at Abby sleeping soundly and wondered, had all that just been a dream. It couldn’t have been, but then again the mind is very powerful.
Moira saw Abby stirring after a while and couldn’t wait to tell her about her weird dream.
“Abby I just had the strangest dream. It seemed so real that I actually thought I had peed on myself because I had in the dream. Daddy Joe and Barbara was in it. Daddy Joe had taken me into that room with the pink door at the end of the hallway. The room looked just like a hospital’s baby nursery and it was filled with all these white baby bassinets. Inside each bassinet was a woman about our age wrapped up in white blankets. The room I was in had about ten women in it and each woman was being feed by a hospital I.V. drip. Their mouths had been sewn shut and were perched out like they do on baby dolls”.
Abby didn’t say anything, she just laid back on the blanket and looked up at the leaf filled branches above them on the old sycamore tree.
“But here’s the strangest part of the dream. The eyes of all the women had been removed and replaced with fake glass eyes. Isn’t that a weird dream Abby?”
“You weren’t dreaming Moira. You were in that room. You did see the women.”
Moira stared at Abby, half in disbelief and half in fear that she was telling her the truth. She let a nervous chuckle escape through her lips.
“Yeah right Abby, very funny.”
Abby had tears in her eyes as she sat up and reached over raising Moira’s tee shirt sleeve and then her own, revealing a band aid on each of their arms. Moira froze in place, trying to comprehend what Abby had just unveiled. Abby looked at Moira as her face drained of all blood and turned ghostly white. Moira woke minutes later to Abby patting her hand and calling her name while trying to revive her.
“Moira, you fainted are you okay?”
She didn’t say anything for about ten minutes. She just looked straight ahead, staring at the house.
Finally she said, “I am not going to end up like those poor women in there and neither are you.”
Before she turned over, she said “Tomorrow we leave this place,” in a calm and determined voice.
Moira laid underneath the shade of the tree staring across the field at their only possible way out. There was a garden shed about 25 yards away from the sycamore tree. She would have to try and sneak over there. There must be something inside the shed in which they could use to climb over the fence. Daddy Joe came out on the porch, and upon seeing that the girls were asleep underneath the tree, he decided not to wake them. Moira overheard him tell Barbara to just let the girls stay outside and sleep and he would be back before they woke up. Upon hearing this Moira knew that someone was smiling down on them. Barbara would be attending to the women, so she would not be paying much attention to them outside. As soon as she heard daddy Joe drive off, she would make a run for the shed. Moira stayed perfectly still for about ten minutes, just in case Barbara was watching. Moira stumbled to her feet and ran across the field as fast as her weak little legs could carry her. She hastily rummaged through all the storage compartments until she saw what she was looking for, hanging from a hook behind the shed’s door. Moira tied the rope into a tight ball and slid it beneath her dress under the rim of her ruffled panties. She closed the shed door behind her and ran back to the old sycamore tree. Abby hadn’t moved as instructed as they had puffed some leave under the blanket to look like Moira was sleep on the other side. When Abby saw her coming she kicked her leg up in the air to let Moira know that she heard Barbara in the kitchen. Moira then dropped to her knees and crawled the rest of the way back. If Barbara was looking out she would just think that Moira was crawling around the yard.
That night the plan was made. Tomorrow was daddy’s day to go into town and get supplies. Moira had slipped a piece of rubber inside the lock area to keep it from locking completely when closed. She had seen the trick on an old late night movie months ago. When they heard daddy Joe leave they would sneak upstairs and head for the fence. They were so keyed up and anxious that neither one of them got much sleep that night.
“Daddy will be back soon and he is going to bring you both a treat when I return. Be good girls”
Daddy Joe gave them each a kiss on their heads before he left. Time was not on their side and it was ticking away faster than Moira wanted to believe. Abby slipped her hand into Moira's hand and intertwined her fingers around Moira’s long slender ones. They gave each other one last look before they burst through the back door and across the field of grass they ran as fast as they could, panting and sweating profusely from nervousness combined with the adrenaline rush that they were experiencing. Side by side and hand and hand, together they took that first step towards the freedom they had longed for. They made it outside, without anyone knowing. Getting over the fence was their next hurdle to overcome. Although Moira had never done any sort of rope throwing she had to give it a try, especially since it was their only way over the fence. Daddy Joe never let the gate key out of his sight, so this was their only way out. Moira threw the rope trying to catch it on the edge of the wooden fence, but she missed. She tried and tried, over and over again until there was an intense burning sensation penetrating throughout her shoulders and arms. Her muscles were on fire and they ached from fatigue.
“This just has to work, this is our only way out of this hell”, she said wiping the sweat from her eyes.
The sweat was dripping down her forehead like water from the tap, the saltiness stung her eyes in the process. Of course it would be beyond hot today and she was getting so very tired. Abby was about two inches shorter than Moira and much weaker, so if Moira couldn't throw and hook the rope over the fence post, it was a pretty good chance Abby probably couldn't either. In the distance, she heard the gravel on the road crushing underneath the wheel of a car. This was it, the fat lady was singing and the clock was striking twelve. Moira took a deep breath in and looked up at the fence post. Her pulse was speeding, she exhaled as deeply as she could and took one end of the braided rope and whipped it round and round. It twirled, closing her eyes, Moira mouthed “Please help me to make this” and swung, but it only slide down the side of the fence and landed at her feet.
They could hear the car traveling along the long graveled driveway, so again she pleaded “Please help us, please.”
She heard Abby in the background saying “Do it, do it now Moira”
She closed her eyes and swung the rope with all the energy she could and up and over it went. Over the top of the fence and slid right into place. She looked over at Abby who was beaming and smiled.
“You should go first” Abby said, but Moira protested. Abby just shook her head, “no.”
Moira knew time was of the essence and they literally had no time to waste. She grabbed tightly onto the rope and started climbing. She placed one foot in front of the other, climbing upward on an angle all the way up the side of the fence. She felt her body weakening but she continued on, not stopping until she reached the top.
Perching on
top of the fence, like a gigantic bird, Moira shouted down, “Come on Abby, I have a good grip on the rope. Climb on up, we’re almost free.”
Abby looked up at Moira with tears filling her eyes, she stood shaking her head from side to side.
“I'm not going, Moira. I know I won’t make it. Don’t worry about me, now hurry and before they come back. I love you Moira.”
Abby had rehearsed that in her mind a thousand times last night. She didn’t want Moira to lose her chance of getting away, because she was too slow and weak. Moira watched as Abby turned and walked back towards the old sycamore tree with the tire swing.
“No! No Abby, don't do this, Moira pleaded. Abby, please come with me. I can help you. Please Abby, let me just help you. Abby, no, I won’t leave you here!” Moira shouted until her throat ached.
Abby just kept walking back towards the sycamore tree. She turned and glanced over her shoulder at Moira tears were streaming down her face. She knew she was walking away from her one and only chance for freedom and she knew what that meant for her future. She wanted so badly for Moira to escape and be free. Moira’s chances would be better without her holding her back, at least one of them should be able to go back to their old way of living. Grasping the rope tightly after seeing that it was no use wasting any more time, Abby had chosen to stay. She threw the rope down the other side, heaved herself over the top and started climbing down to the ground. Her vision blurred, as her eyes filled up with tears at the choice her friend had chosen for herself. Moira’s heart started racing even faster the closer she got to the ground. She only had a few more feet to go. She could smell the awfully sweet smell of freedom. She was sad and proud at the same time. She had decided that she would run as fast as she could once her feet touched the ground. She would keep on running until she could find someplace to call the police. After telling them her story she would lead them back here and rescue Abby and all the other women held captive in the nursery. Daddy Joe and Barbra would finally get what they deserve, to be locked up for life. The rope was starting to leave burn marks on the palm of Moira’s hands as she slid down the last few feet.
