Lost Girls

CHAPTER THREE

One of the children had spotted a snake earlier in the morning so the caregiver’s eyes were constantly going toward the line at the edge of the play area where manicured lawn met palmettos, shrub brush and pine trees. Cathy Svoboda hated snakes and she was responsible for a half-dozen twelve year olds who ran about the park. She was thin, in a nervous pale way, with dark hair cut short in the latest Hollywood fashion according to the magazine she bought off the rack at the checkout counter. Twenty-four, she’d worked at the Chez Petite daycare center in Enterprise, Alabama for two years.

Cathy was seated on a wrought iron bench, giving her a clear view of all six, the playground and the tree line. She kept bringing her left hand up to her chin, resting on it, then sliding a hidden finger into her mouth, teeth gnawing at an already chewed down nail. She was counting days.

Three weeks late. Twenty-two days actually. That she knew from the marks on the calendar taped to her old refrigerator. It was the extra math back from that marked day which bothered her. Mark, her fiancé, had done his reserve duty thing over a month ago, spending two weeks with the other boys pretending to be men. Mark’s friend Sean had shown up at her door with a twelve pack a day after Mark had gone off. She didn’t mean for it to happen. She could admit to herself now that she’d just been stupid and drunk.

She closed her eyes and her forehead crinkled as she pictured both Mark and Sean in her mind. They looked a lot alike. Same color eyes and hair. Roughly the same height. Could one really tell? She wasn’t sure. She opened her eyes and blinked.

How long had he been there? Cathy was startled, her eyes fixing on the man standing in the shadows under the wide oak near the swings. She didn’t remember seeing him before. He was looking at the children. The man wore a long black leather coat, unusual for the area and weather, and a cap with a bill pulled down low over his eyes, putting his face in a shadow. She should have been paying closer attention, she chided herself. Her head swiveled as she quickly did a visual head count. Her heart slowed toward a more normal cadence as she accounted for all.

But Brandon, the little tow-headed kid who always had to push things, was on one of the swings. Cathy stood abruptly as Brandon turned when the man said something to him. She began walking across the closely-cut grass as Brandon stopped his swing and said something in reply. The man knelt down so that his head was at the same height as the boy’s. He whispered something that Cathy couldn’t hear as she arrived. He put a piece of paper in Brandon’s hand. Cathy reached them and grabbed Brandon’s other hand, pulling him off the swing.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, staring at the man.

“I was just asking him if he liked his teacher.” The man gave a slight smile as he got to his feet. “He said yes.”

His face was scarred as if it had been head on in a wind of slicing rain. She’d never seen anything like it and she could tell Brandon was nervous. Cathy leaned over to pick up Brandon, thinking the stranger was—

Her thoughts stopped, as there was a glint of sunlight off something metal in the man’s hand as it flashed forward. She felt like she’d been slapped in the neck and her eyes opened wide as she saw blood on Brandon’s hair. Had the man hurt him she wondered? How? She hadn’t seen him touch the boy. She looked up — the man was gone. So quickly. Cathy blinked, hearing Brandon screaming as if from a distance, but he was right in front of her. More blood, soaking his blue t-shirt.

Cathy tried to hush Brandon, to calm him, but no words came. She felt sick, faint. Brandon fell backward into the sand under the swing, his hands up, protecting his face, both palms covered in blood, still wailing. Too much for a little boy, Cathy thought in panic.

She saw a jet of red spurt from her onto Brandon. Stunned she reached up toward her own throat — Brandon must have be scared.

She sunk to her knees as warm liquid splattered onto her hand. She looked down and saw that her new sundress was completely soaked in thick red. She looked at Brandon once more. She wanted to tell him he wasn’t hurt. That he was just scared. But no words would come. So tired. She pressed her hand against her neck, feeling another pulse of blood come out, along with bubbling air. That was so strange. But no pain. Stranger more.

Her baby. She’d never thought of it in any way beyond the numbers. She tried to scream and red froth bubbled out of the deep six-inch smooth incision in her throat. Cathy fell forward into the sand and the last surge of arterial blood barely trickled out of her neck into the sand.

Emily opened her eyes and tried to remember where she was and what had happened to her. Before she remembered anything, she felt a wave of panic so strong she felt sick with its intensity. She could see nothing, hear nothing, and she couldn’t move. For a terrible moment, she thought she had been in an accident and was paralyzed. Too quickly came the terrifying realization. A hospital room would never be this dark. That thought forced her to accept that her situation was much worse than an accident. Suddenly she was rolled to her left side by centrifugal force, and became aware that she was moving, or rather she was in something moving.

She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. Then she knew. She remembered the sound of metal slamming; she remembered hitting her shoulder hard as a rough arm had tossed her down. It was so fast. Emily was astonished that it had been so fast. A piece of tape had been slapped over her mouth. There had been no way to stop what had happened. For a moment she felt anger. An anger blossoming from her sheer inability to prevent what had happened to her. That lasted as long as her second futile attempt to swallow.

The fear found her once more, and she felt her stomach begin to heave. She was alone with a madman. Emily fought panic at the thought of being completely at this man’s mercy. She knew it was a man, and for the first time in her short life she understood with a deep clarity that she could die. She had felt the strength in his arms, and though his face had been covered, she’d had a brief glimpse of his powerful body. She tried to think. What exactly had happened? Had he hit her? Was she hurt? Then she remembered the stinging pain in her arm. He had given her some kind of a shot. That must be why she was so disoriented and thirsty.

She could still feel the van moving, and hear the roar of the tires beneath her. It felt like they were going fast and that the road was smooth. She thought they must be on an interstate. Emily was overcome with fear and nausea once more. He was taking her far away.

Nobody knew where she was. Maybe nobody even knew she was missing. Maybe Lisa and the girls hadn’t even bothered to see if she was home. She could feel the tears well up at the thought that no one knew she was missing. She cried silently, the tears hot and biting against the skin around her eyes, trapped by the blindfold covering her face. She could see nothing, not even a trickle of light around the edge of the cloth wrapped tightly around her head.

Shaking her head as if to toss out the sadness, she decided to take stock of her position. She could cry later.

Her legs were tied together at the feet and also the knees. She could move them from side to side, but that was about all. Her arms were pulled behind her back and tied at the wrist. Her shoulder hurt from slamming onto the floor of the van, but there wasn’t much painful tension, yet. Either her kidnapping had been recent, or she had recently been tied up. She felt ill at the thought of being handled while she was unconscious. This thought forced her to wonder if she had been assaulted. She relaxed for a moment, willing herself to calm her thinking and to calm her body. Did she feel anything? Suddenly the van slowed abruptly and made a sharp turn. She rolled violently to the right and felt her shin hit something sharp and unyielding. The van began to slow down. As it came to a stop, Emily began to pray. Not a real prayer as in church but the truest she had ever uttered: oh please, oh please. She just wanted to live. She could handle anything as long as she got away.

The screech of the door sliding open reminded her of the beginning of this nightmare. It also forced her to remember the van in more detail. She had paid no attention to it in the parking lot, but she now remembered that it had been dark and had no windows in the rear.

Emily knew the door was open. She could feel the fresh air, and smell freshly cut grass. She thought she heard something. She concentrated. In the second Emily strained to hear, she felt a hand on her shoulder and the needle puncture the bare flesh of her arm. The door slammed and she immediately knew she was passing out. She had to remember this. The air had felt cooler, less humid than the beach. The grass had just been cut. As she lost consciousness, she realized what the sound had been. She would have smiled, but she had already fallen into a deep well of darkness.