Mercy

Chapter 20

Cain got Rosa into a women’s shelter that Cain had used when she had first come to town. She pressed a hundred dollars into Rosa’s hands and said, “Don’t ever go back to that guy. He will kill you, okay? The dude’s just bad.”

“I swear I won’t. And... thank you.”

Cain said nothing in reply because she wanted no thanks, from Rosa or anyone else. She just wanted to be left alone and wondered why she kept inserting herself into other people’s troubles. Maybe because no one had done that for her, and she understood quite clearly the catastrophic results of looking the other way.

She decided to splurge a bit and checked in at a local Marriott using her credit card. Cain took her things up to her room on the fourth floor and closed the door behind her. She took a long shower with actual hot water, letting it soak into her and using all of the complimentary toiletries the bathroom had to offer. It took her only a few seconds to dry her hair. She put on a clean pair of jeans, to replace the pair dirtied from the fight, with a white T-shirt and a loose-fitting straw-colored sweater over that.

After that Cain sat on her bed and stared at the floor. The day was not yet over and she had covered a lot of ground, from being thrown out of her lodgings, to having to vacate her next home, to arriving here. She didn’t have to work as a security guard tonight, and tomorrow was payday for the forklift job. She would get her check and cash it, and put the money with her other money.

She lay back on the bed and used her phone to once more access the notice from the FBI. She brought up the image of herself on the screen: wild-eyed and long haired and both thrilled and terrified at her sudden liberation after all those years. She put the phone against her chest, closed her eyes, and conjured up that final night with the Atkinses.

She had run toward the house, not because she wanted any sort of revenge, but because she knew that was where the road out of this nightmare was. She knew she had limited time because of the camera outside the door. Joe Atkins had told her time and again that I’m always watching you, Becky, always. Don’t you even think about trying to get away, you hear me, girl?

When she had first gone to the Atkinses to live, it had been with Len and Wanda. But that had been for only a few days. They had treated her all right, but then she had gone to live at Joe and Desiree’s place. And that was when her ordeal began, although it had not started that way. At first they had been somewhat kind to her; however, everything about her life before that was garbled, like the bad connection on a phone. She knew she had been taken from somewhere by the man. That her real parents had wanted her dead for some inexplicable reason, at least that was what he had told her. Now she didn’t have strong enough memories of her previous life to know whether this was true or not.

However, the day had come when the Atkinses’ behavior toward her had changed. Well, it had been Desiree, really. Joe had mostly worked outside the home, so it was just her and Desiree. They never had any visitors except, occasionally, Len and Wanda.

It was small things at first, bouts of sharp, inexplicable anger, the taking away of privileges, time-outs that turned into verbal and then physical abuse. When she was around eight, Desiree started playing what Cain now knew to be mind games with her. Planting things in her young head that would have been warnings to someone older and more mature. At first, Joe had defended her, but he’d never really forced Desiree to change her ways.

Don’t hit her that hard, Desiree, he would say. Feed her more than that, that’s not enough for a cat. Put her in better clothes, Desiree, what’s the matter with you? But then, Joe’s attitude changed too. Cain thought it was Desiree’s doing because Joe would storm into her room and say, I know what you’ve been doing, Becky. I know! And you’re not going to get away with it. One day he had come in and said, You are never to bite my wife again. And then he’d belted her in the face. Of course, Cain had never bitten Desiree, though she’d wanted to.

Then the time came when she went from the house to the prison cell carved into the side of the knoll. They had come into her room, woken her up, and said it was time for her to live in her new home. Cain thought they were giving her to another family, and she hoped and prayed they would be nicer, because now she was being beaten regularly, verbally terrified, worked to death, and fed hardly enough to keep her alive.

But that was not what had happened. As they dragged her into the woods, Cain was sure they were going to kill her and bury her body out there. She had screamed and tried to get away, but she couldn’t, and there was no one to hear her cries. They took her inside and Joe had used his flashlight to show her what was there. It was meager and dirty and cold, and Cain thought she could hear things scurrying around on the floor.

This is your new home, Becky, Desiree had said tauntingly. This is where you will sleep every night and where you will wake up every morning, unless you disobey me and are bad and then you will never wake up again.

At that point the young Cain was so panicked she couldn’t process what was happening. When they locked her in she pounded on the door, screaming for them to let her out, that she would be good from now on. Then she had heard Desiree’s voice coming from right against the other side of the wood: If you make any more noise, I will let the snakes inside with you. I see two right now who look very hungry. And they will bite you until you are dead. And then they will swallow you whole, Becky. Do you understand me? Do you hear them hissing? I will do it. You know that I will. They grow snakes big around here.

A terrified Cain had slowly backed away from the door as far as she could, all the way to the dirt side of her prison as it notched into the knoll. She had sat down on the mattress and never made another sound. She heard them walking away and leaving her there; she had stayed up all night in the dark, waiting to hear the hiss of the snakes who would come to bite her dead and then eat her.

Cain sat up and rubbed at one of the burns on her arm as the painful memories seeped from her mind. Desiree would strap her down in her bed and then light the cigarette and hold it over her, suddenly sticking the burning ember into her skin, making Cain scream before pulling it away and then drilling it into another part of her body until the girl cried out even louder.

Please stop, Desiree, please don’t hurt me.

I’m your mother, you will call me mother. And another burn would follow.

Mother, please don’t hurt me.

And Desiree would burn her again and cackle, Your mother doesn’t love you, Becky. She has never loved you because you don’t deserve it, not like other children who are good and pure, which you are not. You are wicked and nasty and not to be trusted.

Cain jumped up and rushed into the bathroom, where she upchucked her burger, fries, and milkshake meal into the toilet. She washed off in the sink and stumbled back into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed.

She lay there, breathing deeply until she fell asleep. In the swirls of a misty dream she saw a face with features that resembled so remarkably her own that it was like staring into a mirror. The gap in the front teeth, but dirty jeans instead of a dress, a resolute chin, a fierce look, a small hand clenched into a stubborn fist. A name kept calling out to her, but it was a muted voice in the midst of a hurricane. She just could not make it out. However, it gave her calm, a certain, necessary strength; it always had.

Cain awoke and the image vanished. She sat up and cursed. Why did it disappear as soon as she opened her eyes?

She looked outside and was surprised to see that it was pitch-dark. She’d been asleep longer than she had thought. Cain took the elevator down to the hotel bar. She sat at the end away from the live band and moodily drank her beer. The bartender was black and in her early forties with pink and purple hair, an athletic build, stylish forearm tats, an efficient manner, and a twinkle in her eye.

“You look like you need that beer, girl.”

“This one and a dozen more.”

“Hope you’re staying here then.”

“I am.”

“You in town on business?” the woman asked.

“No, just passing through from somewhere else.”

“Ain’t we all.”

She moved on when another thirsty customer held up a hand.

The TV mounted on the wall was on a news channel, and Cain choked on a mouthful of beer and spilled some of it from her glass when she saw her picture come up. The notice said that the FBI was looking for this woman, the image was from 2002, that her name is, or was, Rebecca Atkins, and that any information about her whereabouts should be sent via phone or email, and that information then flashed up on the screen.

Cain slowly put her beer down and wiped off the residue from her chin.

The bartender came over with a towel and sopped up the spilt beer from the bar. “You okay?”

“Went down the wrong way.”

Cain laid some cash down for the beer and included a healthy tip. She got up and staggered off.

The bartender turned and looked at the TV where the picture of Rebecca Atkins still filled the screen. Then she looked back at the disappearing Cain.

And she frowned as she picked up the cash.

After checking out of the hotel the next day, Cain did her work at the truck terminal and got her paycheck. She then called the trucking company and told them she would have to take a few days off. The man told her if she didn’t show up for work she was fired.

“Okay, I’m fired.” Cain hung up. She sat down, counted her money, made a rough calculation, and made the same call to the security firm. The manager there was a good guy, a grandfather with a soft spot for her.

“I got twenty laid-off bums waiting in line for the job, Cain, and ten of them have college degrees. You sure about this?”

“I’m sorry, but I got some place I gotta go. I can’t get out of it.”

“Okay, good luck. If you ever come back, let me know. I’d take you over some philosophy major any day.”

She filled the gas tank and set off. Cain had no idea if her decision would lead her to salvation or a prison cell. But something very powerful inside her told Cain she had to do it. After all these years, the gap in her memories had to be filled in, one way or another.

She pointed the car south and hit the gas.

Back to nightmare time.