by PJ Fernor
The Girls.
That’s what he called them all.
They were his property in a sense. The thought of it was sickening, but the truth was worse.
Cages.
That’s where they lived.
In cages.
They were animals.
But Mr. G called them pretty animals.
He liked to taunt them like that.
He liked to see how far he could push each one until they cracked.
And by cracked that meant grabbing the thin bars of the cage and shaking it, screaming. They all had strong voices, but none of it mattered. Nobody else in the world heard their screams.
Some girls just sank back into the corner of the cage and wept.
They would cover their ears and shake their heads.
Some would sing.
Some would tell stories to themselves.
That’s what Hailey did when things were bad.
She would replay any good memory she could find.
There weren’t many, but any bad memory out there was better than a good memory in here…
It had been three days of nothing but crying.
The new girl couldn’t take it.
She thought enough pleading and crying were going to save her.
There was no saving us.
The only hope of getting out of the cage was the call.
The girls referred to it as the call because the cages would all be opened.
Mr. G didn’t mind them saying goodbye to each other.
He actually enjoyed it.
Hailey often wondered if it was some perverse thing Mr. G liked. That he enjoyed watching teenage girls hugging and crying.
He always stood at the door with a sense of pride on his face.
How could a man be this cruel?
How could he stand there, knowing what was going to happen to the girls, and not care one bit?
Or worse yet, his sense of caring was so warped…
It wasn’t worth thinking about.
Hanging in the middle of the room was a single light.
Hailey heard stories that there used to be a ceiling fan there but it broke.
Mr. G then replaced it with a small light.
Stories were passed between the girls.
Those who came and went.
Hailey wasn’t sure what was real or not, but what she did know… the new girl didn’t make it.
Mr. G always gave the new ones a few days to calm down.
He was sickly sympathetic to the sudden terror of being kidnapped and forced into a cage.
Usually the other girls would get the new girl to calm.
Hailey tried this time and it didn’t work.
Oh well.
Next to her was Tess.
Tess’s mind was a black hole.
She stopped counting the days a while back.
It was hard to keep up.
She had been scratching a mark on the wall each day when Mr. G checked on them, but then one day, he let them out of the cages and trashed the room. Just because he was in a bad mood.
Tess stopped counting the days after that.
So maybe she had been there two months. Or maybe it was two years.
Everyone told Tess she was the prettiest girl out of all of them.
If that was so, she would have been gone by now.
Her ears bothered her from the screams of the new girl.
At least she was gone.
Tess knew what had happened to the new girl.
So did Hailey.
“Tess?” Hailey called out.
“I’m not talking today,” Tess said.
“Okay.”
A few minutes later, the door opened and Lea came into the room.
“Finally quiet in here,” she said.
The girls all came to the front of their cages.
Lea was the leader.
She was the smartest.
She had been around the longest.
Why didn’t Lea just leave the house and get help?
It was the obvious thing to do.
Mr. G was gone at the moment.
Lea could go anywhere… she could do anything…
But being the smartest meant acting that way.
Rushing to get help… how? Where? Why?
Tess had her own theories on it.
So did Hailey.
The others too.
But they all listened to Lea.
She brought them each a large chunk of beef jerky and a can of soda.
Salt. Sugar. A touch of caffeine.
“We keep this to ourselves, girls,” Lea said. “The new girl really rattled him this time.”
The girls all sat in their cages and enjoyed their treat, knowing not to speak a word.
Lea watched and nodded.
She believed they all understood why this happened the way it did.
Was there a bigger plan?
Yeah.
It just wasn’t simple.
“Please keep quiet and rest,” Lea said. “You know how he gets when he’s upset over a loss. We don’t need him making any bad deals…”
There was a collective shiver in the room.
Lea backed away and exited the room.
She would have to return to her cage soon enough.
But without Mr. G hanging around tonight, she wanted to do something.
She wanted to remember who she used to be.
Chapter Three
Midnight.
That was the best time for me to walk.
Everything around me was quiet and calm.
I knew Lo was safe and in bed, sleeping.
It was just me and my feet hitting the pavement over and over.
I stumbled across this calming habit by accident one night.
After a terrifying dream about Patrick, I woke up covered in sweat. I took a shower and couldn’t calm myself, so I took Miss Kesslier’s advice and I bothered her for help.
She wasted no time in coming over to make tea.
She suggested I go for a quick walk.
That turned into an hour long walk.
It helped.
I was able to process all of my thoughts better and clearer.
My issue was this - it didn’t solve anything.
My memory was recent and plagued by the lethal gunshot to Patrick.
I had ran it through my head ten thousand times. There was no choice. If I hadn’t shot and killed Patrick, then he would have killed Johnny.
The humorous part of me said the world would have been a little better without Johnny Barby in it, but I wasn’t going to be the one to witness him die.
Which meant I had to make the hardest decision someone in law enforcement would ever make.
It was a good kill. A clean kill. I had been cleared in the entire thing.
A while ago.
But the memory was fresh.
There was a nagging voice in my head wondering if my feelings hadn’t been so twisted up between Johnny and Ben, would I have acted sooner? Or better yet, would I have had a better plan?
I wasn’t the only one suffering from my indecision either.
Sure, Johnny Barby was back to his old self. He and I made the decision that that one sort-of-a-date was over. That the kiss we shared meant nothing long term. And that was that.
For Ben, it was different.
He and I just…
I sighed into the night.
I paused and stuffed my hands into my front pockets.
My eyes gazed up to the stars.
If thinking about Patrick wasn’t enough, the trauma from that decided to let a previous trauma run rampant.
There’s another girl in that basement! You hurried to knock that house down. You tore it all apart. Everything was leveled, sold, and rebuilt without a proper investigation. I wish I could fire you!
That old memory still had a way of cutting into me.
I would never know the truth. And lack of closure wasn’t a f
riend of mine.
Just like with my sister’s death.
The idea that the person who was driving the car that hit Alex’s car, that killed her, was still out there…
I took a deep breath and held it for four seconds.
After those four seconds were up, I slowly released the breath.
I started to walk again and all felt right with the world for a few seconds.
These walks had become a part of me.
I had tried several times to just go to bed and call it a night, but never could. Even if I did close my eyes and sleep, I would wake up at midnight. My mind and heart bouncing around like two children on Christmas morning, desperate to rush downstairs and see what was under the tree.
So I walked.
And I walked.
And I walked.
It was the perfect schedule. My mornings were still early, but that’s why coffee was invented.
On the brighter side of life, Lo was seeing a therapist. Finally.
My trepidation about it only ended up being my own insecurity that I wasn’t doing a good enough job raising her. The excuse of hey, I was her aunt and now I have to act like her mother, give me a break only went so far.
Lo needed the outlet.
She had to face her mother’s death and process it.
She had to face so much for her age.
We were still living in the apartment when Alex’s house was available. My mental time clock there had run out four times already. Alex had left more than enough money to maintain the house and pay the taxes on it, so I was just going to hold onto it until Lo was eighteen and let her make the decision. It was her house after all.
But at least she was getting help now.
She could process it all and become the strong, independent woman I knew she could be, just like her mother.
As far as Trevor went… Lo was in love. And he loved her back.
They were perfecting the art of the long distance (outside of school) relationship since Trevor was the one who had broken into Mr. Hinkle’s car. It could have been a slap on the wrist but Mr. Hinkle wanted to teach Trevor a lesson. I wasn’t going to disagree there, even if it did make my home life a little tense.
Lo took Trevor getting into trouble personally and I was the easy target.
I understood though.
I thought about when I was her age, when Tommy would get himself into trouble and he would disappear for weeks at a time, I felt lost.
Speaking of lost…
I paused and looked around.
I checked my phone.
It was almost one already.
I should have been working my way back home by then.
“Crap,” I whispered.
This meant by the time I got home and showered and got into bed, it would be closer to two.
I turned to go back home.
When I did, I saw something move from across the street.
I froze and stared.
In the middle of the night, that’s when animals came out to play.
Usually raccoons or the occasional fox.
But being so close to the mountains, bears were also common for sure.
And there had been a story or two about a mountain lion coming down for a midnight snack.
I didn’t mind, as long as that snack wasn’t me.
“Hello?” I called out.
I heard a noise and then saw a flash of white.
White clothing or something.
I darted across the street and called out hello again.
I blinked fast and saw movement from my right side.
When I looked…
“A barefoot girl?” I whispered to myself.
I shook my head and looked again.
There was nothing there… but I heard a noise.
I took off in the direction of the barefoot girl and the noise.
Chapter Four
I asked myself exactly what was I doing as I ran down the dark and seemingly empty street.
Running after someone had become almost instinctual.
That had always been my nature though.
Yes, I was the girl who went from cheerleader to detective.
How was that possible?
My determination to get out of Sandemor and find a better life.
Ironically, I was right back in Sandemor.
And while I tried to keep up with old friends, it wasn’t anything like it used to be.
Those were my thoughts as I ran faster.
My arms pumped as I looked left to right, hoping for another glimpse of the barefoot girl.
My eyes quickly began to ache and a feeling of dizziness swept over me.
No more looking side to side.
I slowed a few steps and caught another glimpse of white from the corner of my left eye.
I turned and almost fell.
My feet slapped against the pavement like a newborn horse, but I kept myself steady enough to keep running.
I went from the street to the sidewalk. From the sidewalk, I jumped a low wooden fence.
The move was impressive, even though it was for an audience of none.
I darted through a side yard and as I thought about making the same jump over the back fence, I realized that part of the fence was higher.
That meant I had to slow and grab from the top of the panels and pull myself up and over.
When I hit the ground, I bent my knees and took a deep breath.
“Stop running!” I called out. “I’m a detective! I can help you!”
Yeah, Allie, like that will work. If she was out here causing trouble, that’ll make her stop…
I groaned under my heavy breaths and continued to run.
Now I was moving through a thick thatch of bushes.
I felt leaves and thorny ends of the bushes claw at my skin, but I kept going.
On the other side of that I was in another backyard.
Right up ahead, between two houses, I saw her again.
Barefoot. White shirt. Nothing else…?
She was gone as fast as she was there.
I ran again.
My right hand grazed my right hip.
I wasn’t carrying my weapon with me.
I had no reason to carry a gun on me when I went for a walk.
Sandemor was generally a quiet, small town.
There had been a few incidents here and there that got people worried, but that could be said with any town. Big or small.
Me without my gun just felt wrong.
I was missing a part of myself.
And it had nothing to do with being in Sandemor.
Again, Patrick flooded my mind.
Just an hour earlier, I had fallen asleep peacefully in my favorite chair in the apartment and had the same reoccurring dream about him.
I’m always walking. And I see someone up ahead.
A man standing on the corner.
Above him, a traffic light blinks red.
Over and over…
The closer I get to the traffic light, I see that it’s leaking.
Blood drips from the red light, down to the man’s head.
The droplet is thick, like paint, and it touches the right side of his head.
He knows I’m approaching because he turns to face me.
He moves from the left so I can’t see the other side of his head.
It’s Patrick.
The man who murdered nine people. The man who was going to murder Johnny as his tenth kill. The man taking orders from his younger brother, Arthur. The man who had some kind of psychic connection to his other brother, Duke.
Patrick smiles at me.
He waves.
I’m out of breath.
I open my mouth to talk to him.
I just want to tell him how sorry I am.
That I had no choice but to do it.
It was between his life and Johnny’s life.
It wasn’t me playing God. It was me choosing the lesser of two evils.
Not that Johnny was anywhere near the evil Patrick was.
More so, I want to know why… why did he have to kill those women…
I reach for him and he turns the other way to show me the bullet hole in his head.
From above, the traffic light keeps dripping blood into the wound.
He speaks one phrase to me, over and over…
‘You did this.’
Those three words forever echo in my head until-
Until I woke up and was covered in sweat.
That was the dream that happened more often than I cared to admit.
That was the dream that prompted me to walk tonight.
I made it to another road and cut to the left.
I stayed on the road and ran until that road ended.
Then it was another left.
A handful of heavy steps in, I realized it was a dead end.
I quickly turned and knew where I was.
Marsh Road.
A complete dead end on both sides.
It led into a thick part of the woods that went on for what seemed like forever.
My running slowed to a jog and I finally stopped where the road ended.
There was a house on each side of me, all the lights off.
She got away.
“Who?” I asked myself out loud. “Who got away?”
I put my hands to my knees and took a few deep breaths.
I began to wonder what my brain and eyes were doing to me.
It wasn’t the first time I thought I saw movement when I was out on a walk.
This was different.
It had to be different.
Or else I just chased a figment of my imagination all the way through town.
I stood back up and took a step forward, prepared to go into the woods.
Just to prove myself wrong.
That’s when I felt my back pocket vibrate.
There was a text message from Lo waiting for me.
Are you coming home soon?
I frowned.
I replied back to her with coming now and turned around to work my way home.
Trampling through the woods in the middle of the night was a bad idea.
Lo always got nervous when I went for my walks.
Most of the time she was fast asleep.
Maybe she had a nightmare too.
Either way, she needed me.
Keeping her safe was always the most important thing in the world to me.
Chapter Five
“Knock, knock!” Miss Kesslier called out as she was halfway through the living room.
