Hard Trauma

by Franklin Horton

  Ty grabbed an empty cooler from his spare room and took it to the kitchen. He packed what canned food he could find, a can opener, and anything edible that didn’t require special care. He threw in some paper plates and roll of paper towels. There was a partial case of water on the pantry floor and he stacked that on the cooler, along with a Nalgene water bottle.

  He packed his laptop and the printed pictures into a messenger bag, holstered the Glock, and went to his dresser for something with an edge. He selected a Benchmade side-opening automatic which he carried in a kydex sheath on his belt, positioned behind the Glock. He also tucked a custom karambit into the front left side of his belt. While for some folks this may have been overkill, Ty had been places and seen things. He never left the house without redundant methods of defending himself.

  Ty moved his truck as close to his own door as he could get it and loaded everything, placing it all in the back of the crew cab. Though the windows were tinted, he spread a blanket across the load to hide it from any prying eyes. When he was done he locked the townhouse and checked his watch. It was late afternoon. If he was lucky, he might make it across the state of Tennessee before he gave out for the night.

  17

  Several times in the night Tia crept into the girl’s room and forced her to take more Benadryl. She didn’t know if a child that size could overdose on it. Usually she collected slightly older girls. If this one tolerated the Benadryl well, she’d transition her to something stronger soon. That made the girls so much more cooperative. No one on heroin or fentanyl ever fought back, at least not for long.

  Tia heard no movement out of the back bedroom in the morning so she let the girl sleep. It was not out of compassion but for the sake of convenience. Sleeping children were less trouble. Later, when she heard the chain rattling, she was certain the girl was awake and moving around.

  Tia went to the smaller half-bath beside the kitchen and retrieved something from a drawer. She went to the bedroom, removed the padlock, and shoved the door open. She held the scissors out in front of her and allowed Gretchen to study them, enjoying the fear in the girl’s eyes as she no doubt imagined all the horrors scissors could inflict.

  The stabbing.

  The cutting.

  The slicing.

  “In the bathroom, now,” Tia ordered.

  Gretchen didn’t react but Tia didn’t think it was defiance. She was paralyzed by fear.

  Tia leaned against the doorframe. “You can walk in there on your own or I can drag you by the hair. You choose.”

  When Gretchen finally stirred, Tia held open the door to the bathroom and she went inside, standing in the tiny space before the sink.

  “In the shower,” Tia said.

  When Gretchen hesitated again Tia hurried her along with a smack to the back of the head. It was best the child learn that Tia was not scared to hit. Once they understood that, things always went smoother.

  She stepped over the raised lip of the shower and Tia touched her hair, examining the length and the cut. Gretchen flinched away from her touch, the long, pointy nails, but Tia yanked her hair and she didn’t move again. Tears rolled from her eyes, ignored by Tia.

  The child’s hair was soft and well cared for. A loving mother had combed it and washed it, she could tell. Tia raised a piece, pinching it between two fingers, and snipped. A foot-long piece of hair dropped to the shower floor.

  “No,” Gretchen whimpered.

  Tia placed the scissors on the edge of the sink and the deliberateness of her actions should have been an indication of what was to come. Without warning, she struck Gretchen in the head with an open-handed blow. The girl fell against the side of the shower, covering her head. She sank to the floor, thinking the gesture of submission might protect her, but it did not. In fact, it could have been a fatal mistake.

  Tia raised a sneakered foot and lashed out, kicking anywhere she could hit flesh. The child’s weakness enraged her and she lost her temper, only regaining it when she almost kicked the girl in the face. Gretchen huddled beneath her, sobbing.

  Tia lowered her foot to the floor. She never marked the face. It led to uncomfortable attention from strangers. It could lead the police to your door. On a more practical level, it impacted the price one got for a girl.

  “Get up!” she hissed. “GET UP NOW! You don’t tell me no!”

  Tia didn’t have to repeat herself. The child understood now that she was willing to inflict pain. She had no choice but to comply. Gretchen got to her feet, tears pouring down her face. She didn’t move again while Tia efficiently cropped her beautiful long hair into a crude bob.

  Tia left the sobbing girl in the shower and returned with a garbage bag. “Clean it up. All the hair. Put it in there.”

  When Gretchen had done an acceptable job, Tia turned on the shower and used the handheld sprayer to rinse her off, clothes and all. When she was finished, Tia went back to the main compartment of the RV, returning a moment later with several bottles. She snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and proceeded to dye Gretchen’s hair an inky black. It was much the same color as Tia’s own hair had been when she was younger. She could tell this whole process traumatized the girl. Apparently her hair was important to her. That was the old life and this was the new.

  When Tia was done, she backed out of the shower and tossed Gretchen a grubby, stained towel.

  “Get out of those clothes and put them in the garbage bag. There are new ones for you on the bed. Your name is Zarita now. It’s the only name you will use.”

  Tia could not hold back a smile at the look on the child’s face. Apparently the taking of her name was the last straw. She looked so hopeless at that moment. When Tia backed out of the room, she was staring at herself in the mirror. She seemed broken.

  Exactly where Tia wanted her.

  18

  Barreling down Interstate 40 in Tennessee, Ty had plenty of time on his hands to consider what the hell he was doing. He kept telling himself that it was because Gretchen had gone missing on his watch, snatched while he was on duty. There was also the fact that she was so close in age to his niece and he couldn’t imagine how he would react if Aiden disappeared. Added to that was the underlying selfish motive that he might have taken his own life if he hadn’t gotten out of his house. As they said in the Wasteland, he was listening to the demons.

  Ty had spent fourteen years in the military. He never imagined a life outside of the uniform. He enjoyed the brotherhood, the action, and being on the front lines of the battle between good and evil. Ty understood his decisions back in the mud storm in Afghanistan had cost civilian lives. Even worse, the life of an innocent child.

  While there may have been a day in the past when the military saw the occasional civilian death as part of the cost of doing business, those days were over. There was no allowance for collateral damage in an operation. Someone had to pay for what happened that day. That man had been Ty.

  Thinking about his service made him wonder how his brothers and sisters in the Wasteland were doing. He wondered who was melting down today besides him. Surely there was someone else. Sometimes it was prompted by having to wait in line for a ridiculous amount of time, the stress triggering PTSD symptoms. It could be the result of a frustrating letter from the VA. It could be because of a bad relationship a member couldn’t navigate their way out of.

  Through all those things, the people of the Wasteland supported each other when it was appropriate and collectively set the member straight when it appeared they were at fault. It wasn’t a perfect system but it was what they had.

  He wondered if anyone was in real crisis. If so, he imagined there were other Wastelanders responding. The group always came together and rallied for their own. There was a senior member, a moderator named Jessica, who was usually on top of things. Like Ty, she was a frequent flyer who appeared to have no life beyond her job and the Wasteland. Sadly, that was probably true for a lot of them. Dealing with symptoms eventually restricted what activities they chos
e to participate in because everything stressed them out. Many of them had few relationships in their life as symptoms strained their bond with friends and family.

  Thinking of Jessica reminded Ty of something that had once crossed his mind when they were trying to set up a welfare check on a vet in distress. Ty opened the Facebook Messenger app on his phone and dictated a private message to Jessica.

  Hey, I’m on a road trip. Driving most of the day. Do you mind giving me a voice call on my cell? I promise it’s nothing creepy.

  As weird as it sounded, he was almost obligated to include that last line. For people with whom the entirety of your interactions were conducted online, asking someone to call you on the phone or to meet you in person was like a violation of protocol. It just wasn’t done. Real world relationships stayed in the real world, online relationships stayed in the virtual world, and the two were never intended to cross. It was like matter meeting anti-matter in a science fiction movie.

  Somewhere between Nashville and Memphis Ty pulled into a rest area. He’d consumed several energy drinks, which kept him awake, but had the side effect of making him need to use the restroom. He was also getting pretty wound-up from the caffeine overdose. It was past midnight, the rest area was well-lit but with few cars in the parking lot. There was a security guard in a booth with a little golf cart beside it. Most of the vehicles there were tractor-trailers parked for the night.

  Ty went inside and took care of his business. When he came back out, the security guard was getting into the golf cart to make a pass around the property. "Excuse me, sir?" he said.

  The security guard appeared to be around seventy years old and was startled by Ty addressing him. Apparently his shift was pretty quiet and he wasn't used to having to interact with people. "Yes?"

  "I need to stretch my legs," Ty said. "Any problem with me running a few laps around this place?"

  The old man grinned. "As long as I don't have to go with you.”

  "Not if you don't want to. Just wanted to let you know. Didn't want to startle you if I came running out of the dark like a crazy man."

  The man started the golf cart and winked at Ty. “Yeah, white people get shot every day for running around in the dark, don’t they?"

  Ty gave the guard a nod of thanks and tore off down the concrete sidewalk that circled the facility. The night was comfortable with temperatures in the fifties. It was perfect for running. Ty planned only two or three laps but ended up doing ten. He only quit when he realized that he might keep at this all night if he didn't make himself stop.

  He returned to his truck, unlocked it, and climbed inside. He sucked down a bottle of water, wondering whether he should try to grab a nap, but there was no way with all the caffeine banging around in his system. Besides, he was making good time and the roads were less crowded this time of night. Before he got back on the road, he decided to make a quick pass through his social media accounts. As usual, most of his notifications were related to activity within the Wasteland group.

  There was some good-natured banter, friendly at this point, between the different services. There were two men comparing notes, each trying to outdo the other on how badly they were being treated by their wives. Not to be left out, a woman jumped into the fray to complain about her husband. Reading their comments only reaffirmed to Ty why he preferred to remain single at this point in his life. He was scrolling through posts when his phone dinged with a message notification. It was from Jessica.

  "Dude, does it have to be a phone call? I'd rather poke my eyes out than have to spend time on the phone. Whhhhhhyyyyyyy???????"

  Ty messaged her back. I'm driving. It has to be FaceTime or a voice call.

  An animated icon appeared indicating there was typing on her end. In a moment a message appeared. “Then let's do FaceTime. Maybe it won’t be so bad. At least I’m not having to listen to a disembodied voice.”

  In a few seconds his phone started ringing and prompted him to accept or decline a FaceTime call from an Oklahoma number. He knew from Jessica's posts that’s where she was located. He accepted the call, holding the phone up in front of his face so she could see him.

  Her image slowly came into focus as the camera adjusted to the lighting conditions. He found himself facing a woman, probably in her early thirties, with blue hair and several facial piercings. Her elbow was propped up on a table or desk, her cheek resting in the palm of her hand. The pose made her look like a teenager.

  "Can you do this and drive?" she asked. “Don’t want to be responsible for you piling up somewhere.”

  "I pulled into a rest area. Too many energy drinks. Had to take a break."

  She smiled at that. "I work the night shift. I know all about it. Now tell me, what’s so damn important that we have to break the electronic wall and talk on the phone like regular people?"

  "Can I be blunt? Maybe even a little nosy?” The question was purely rhetorical. He was already determined to be both of those things.

  Jessica shrugged, a smile still on her face, but looking a little wary. "You promised not to be creepy.”

  He laughed. "I stand by that promise. I need to ask you about something personal. Something you’ve never posted online.”

  “Need to or want to?”

  “Need to. What do you do for a living?"

  If the question surprised her, she didn’t break stride, didn't lose her smile. "Why do you need to know what I do for a living?”

  "Because I've noticed that whenever we’re trying to find somebody’s info for a welfare check, you’re always the person who comes up with the street address or which local law enforcement agency needs to be contacted. Is that a coincidence or does a girl have resources?"

  She grinned. “It’s no coincidence. A girl does have resources.”

  “I knew it.”

  "But look, I don't want my personal shit blasted out on the Internet. I’m not sure my work would approve of some of my online activities. Hell, they barely approve of me in person. That’s why my ass works the vampire shift."

  "Does this mean your name isn’t really Jessica?"

  She laughed. "Exactly! And don’t even ask my real name because I won’t tell you." She paused and her eyes rolled up in thought. “Well, I might since I’ve seen your face and have your phone number. That makes you more real, I guess.”

  "No worries. This conversation is completely confidential,” Ty said. "I won't mention anything you tell me."

  "Well, that's a start. So tell me why you want to know? What’s so fucking important?"

  Fueled by caffeine and mania, Ty launched into the story. "I've been working as a security guard at the truck stop. It’s a shitty job but, you know, I have to work.”

  “I can relate.”

  “The other day a little girl around ten years old disappeared on my shift. I feel like I have a lead but the police aren’t interested. Their investigation is going down an entirely different road. They’re interested in the dad, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

  “Divorced or separated parents?”

  Ty nodded. “Yep.”

  “It usually is a parent in those cases.”

  “I know. Bear with me. To make matters worse, the company that owns the truck stop decided that I overreacted because I locked the place down after it happened. They said I was being too aggressive and scared the customers, which is bullshit. They canned my ass, so now I got nothing but time on my hands. Since the police aren’t interested, I decided to follow up on this lead before the trail went cold.”

  Either his story was convincing her or she was tired of hearing him talk. "I work as a dispatcher," she admitted. "I like the night shift because there's fewer people to deal with and it's where the crazy shit happens. There's a lot of the same rush you get from being deployed. I don’t know if that's why I do it or not, but it helps me cope and it keeps me fed."

  "I think you're coping pretty well," Ty said. "You always have your head together. You give good advice and you’ve helpe
d a lot of people.”

  “Eh, I’m a basket case like everyone else. I have my good days and bad days. You guys just see the good ones.”

  “You’re not the only one, Jessica. Getting caught up in this missing kid thing and losing my job has me in a weird place. Not to mention I kind of went off the rails at a movie theater last week and it’s caused some grief with the family.”

  “Just remember to ask for help if you need it. Don’t wait until you’re so far down in the hole no one can reach you.”

  “Roger that. So, are you able to run tag numbers?" Ty asked, cutting to the chase.

  She raised an eyebrow at him. "I like the way you just slipped that in there all casual-like. One minute you're talking about how great I am at dealing with folks in the Wasteland and then you ask for a favor."

  "I’ve never been accused of being smooth," Ty admitted. "You seem to have access to information, though, so I wondered if you were able to run a tag number. I have a vehicle that I think might be involved in this abduction, but like I said, the police aren’t interested in my information at this point. They’re sold on the dad and asked me to butt out."

  "Why do you think they’re wrong? I mean, they’re detectives, right? They do this shit for a living."

  "If I tell you, you’re going to think I'm crazy."

  Jessica shrugged. "We’re at home in the Wasteland. That pretty much makes both of us a little crazy, right? Besides, if you want my help, you’re going to have to convince me that you have a compelling case.”

  "I guess so," he conceded. “It was the look on the child’s face. We have a clear surveillance shot of her leaving the store on her own to go outside. She had this look. I’ve seen the same look on my niece’s face and I think I know what it means. I don’t think it means she left with her dad, I think it means she saw someone with a cute puppy.”

  “Do you have any evidence that there was someone out there with a puppy?”