In the days of swing sets and monkey bars, Amelia hadn’t minded when Sarah snooped into her diaries. Those were the days when Amelia had been proud of Sarah, her prodigy kid-sister, the one who read at four levels above her classmates. It was before the pride gave way to lurking envy, and Amelia resented both her older and younger siblings for having the academic brains she did not. Perhaps, if Sarah had not insisted on correcting silly things Amelia uttered, if Derrick had been more gaurdian-like than brotherly, then perhaps Amelia would not have joined this parody of a “family.” A “family,” another name for a harem of cast-off girls and one very manipulative man.
Sarah could hardly absorb a word of her sister’s diary, as her mind raced. She would need to escape somehow. She turned to the window and then back at the latest entry of Amelia’s writings.
October 13- want to move back home. Hate to think about it. No privacy in this place and I miss school. Never thought I would feel that way. But we go for days without food. Yesterday Lili and I had to dig in the garbage for something to eat. Whenever I crash like this, it feels like the fall is longer and harder each time, and instead of growing up I burn out. What the hell is wrong with me?
October 14-he means well. It’s the tough period. Things will get better.
“Stupid,” Sarah mumbled to herself again.
What had she expected to read in the diary?
She imagined Willy, in the center of a dimly lit orgy on the bed before her. She envisioned her sister there, the center of Willy’s attention, and she could not help but bite her lip against the anger that arose.
If she was quiet, perhaps she could tiptoe out of the house, still in the guise of Yoda, and slip unseen into the night with Amelia’s diary in hand. Derrick had been right. Calling the cops would have been wiser, but what was Sarah supposed to have done in the meantime? Knit by Amelia’s bedside, waiting until the doctor’s declared she was legally a vegetable. Only the doctors would never declare such a thing, since Amelia, being only 20, wouldn’t have a living will.
A living will.
The knock on the door was light and even polite. But it startled Sarah nonetheless.
“Anyone in there?” A man’s soft voice called.
Sarah retreated behind the Yoda mask, as though it would shield her in any way.
“Come on, sweetheart. We just want to see who you are,” he called in a smooth northern accent. “We didn’t know we had a special guest.”
Her hand shaking, Sarah slipped her mask off and called out. Her first words to him were a lie, as she slipped the diary back beneath the bed mattress.
“I’m sorry,” she called out, this time feminizing her voice with ease. “I got lost.”
“It’s alright. Open the door and we’ll see what we can do,” Willy assured. The voice was like autumn wind, neither cold nor warm, simply a pleasant medium.
“You promise you won’t hurt me?” she spoke, simply the fill the silence, as she dug into her baggy jean pocket for the brass knuckles.
“Nobody’s going to hurt you, sweetheart. What’s your name?”
“Mimi,” she lied again. “I’m scared.”
A female whispered something on the other side of the door, and Willy spoke again, “Listen, Mimi. It’s okay. Why don’t you just open the door and we’ll see what we can do, okay?”
Here was a moment where decision is nearly void. There was no way of running, and no other option available, so she slipped behind her mask again and unwound the door lock.
Willy stood there, three unkempt women at his side. Lili’s pale countenance was not among them. Two unfamiliar brunettes and one vaguely familiar blonde.
Willy was nearing Sarah before she realized it. Effortlessly, he backed her into a corner with no aggression, and pulled the mask from her face.
“Mimi, is it?” he smiled soothingly. His hand smoothed hair from her face. “How old are you, darling?”
“Thirteen,” Sarah wove one more lie, knowing she could pass as younger. “Please, my cell phone is dead. Can I call home?”
“Sure, in a minute,” his thumb barely touched her lips. The smell of sweat was all about him, and a gentle expression in his gleaming eyes. “How’d you end up here?”
“My friends and I were camping.”
“Yeah?” He turned, almost sassy, to the women in the doorway, “Dawny, I know why you thought she sounded like Amelia.”
Dawny, the busty beauty giggled.
“This is Amelia’s little sister. Sarah Hardgood, right?” he smiled back at her. “You’re a pretty one, aren’t you? Even prettier than Amelia.”
Mind-bendingly, Sarah’s eyes somehow were distracted from Willy’s, now focused on the blonde girl’s face.
“Kayla?” Sarah let her missing classmate’s name slip. So this is where 14-year-old Kayla Bender had disappeared to?
“You girls know each other?” Willy inquired, still gentle.
“She was in a grade above me,” Kayla answered.
“Hey, girls. Can I talk to Sarah alone for a minute?”
“Maybe she knows where Amelia ran away to!” Dawny smiled.
With brutal urgency, Willy shot this hopeful quip dead. “Go downstairs, Dawn.”
Sarah felt her own body trembling in protest, as the three witnesses left the scene. Willy smoothed Sarah’s bangs again. “Why are you here, Sarah? I mean, really.”
“I was curious to talk to you guys. I thought maybe…you’d…know who did this to her.”
“Right, okay. “ He nodded.
The blow that sent Sarah to the floor nearly blinded the left side of her face. For a moment, the world was nothing but lights. However, quickly the images reappeared to reveal a snarling visage of frustration and lust. Willy shook Sarah with violence. He was talking nonsense, blabbering as he shook her with his superior strength. With her right hand she struck out blindly, but the iron knuckles were useless in blank air. Then, before Willy could recognize the object Sarah jabbed him in the left eye so that, for a moment, she was loosed of his grip.
Fleeing downstairs, she collected her robes all around her, nearly tripping.
“Grab her! Don’t LET HER LEAVE!” Willy commanded.
It was Dawny who grabbed Sarah, with surprising strength for such a willowy girl. Soon the others joined in restraining Sarah. She kicked, for her hands were restrained.
“The little bitch split my eye open!” Willy growled, in the distance, getting too close.
“Let me go you, fuckheads!” Sarah yelled. “He’s a psycho! God!”
“Slut!” Willy’s fingers dug into the flesh of Sarah’s face. “Tie her up! There’s cable in the utility room! Tie her up!”
In retaliation, Willy poked Sarah in the eye, and in turn she snapped at his finger with her teeth, and succeeded in drawing blood.
“Shit! Bitch! That’s my fuckin’ FINGER!”
“Got the cable!” Lili’s voice sang. “Sit right here, sweetheart.” She patted a kitchen chair playfully. “It won’t hurt if you don’t struggle.”
“Fuck you! You do it, then! You twisted bitch!” Sarah was quickly silenced with another slap.
“Take this fucking thing from her!” Willy ripped the iron knuckles from Sarah’s small hands. As he stared down at it, and back at Sarah, she closed her eyes on instinct. But the heavy blow of metal never came.
“Just tie her up, Lili. Girls, come upstairs with me. I need to tell you why this bitch needs to go.”
“But isn’t she Amelia’s sister?” One of them asked.
“Yeah, she’s the reason Amelia left us.”
Sarah marveled, even as she was roughly bound to the kitchen chair. She marveled at these women and their apparent stupidity. She knew that a mind was an easy thing to lose, especially with the aid of drugs, but to this extent she had never suspected ever to witness.
Suddenly Willy stood before her, as she sat all too vulnerable before him. He knelt down and pried her legs open, and instinctually she kicked.
“I have a gun! I’ll shoot you in the spine, bitch! If you hit or kick or bite me one more time, I will snap your neck.” He turned to Lili, “You may want to gag her.”
He pulled from his pocket an elegant but fat knife, which he twirled before her eyes. His right eye leered at her, angry beside its swollen right sibling.
“Tie her legs like this!” Willy commanded, a glazed look in his eye.
Then it dawned on Sarah sharply, like a shattering chandelier on the crown of her head. “NO! Please!” she eyed the knife. “God, No!”
“Like I said,” Willy repeated, “Gag her. When I come back downstairs, we’ll finish this. It’ll be the big one, Lili. This one will be important.”
Sarah felt her breathing become shallow, and her heart race faster than its running limits would have allowed. The knife slipped gracefully back in his pocket and she begged again, “Please, Willy. Don’t. I’m begging you! I’ll do anything!” This was degradation, she thought. Being forced to say such things.
“He already explained things to me,” Lili chattered as Willy led the girls upstairs. “So I get the honor of playing bondage.”
“This isn’t bondage you batshit bitch! Please, let me go!” Sarah began to scream, in the pitch she knew to be her loudest. It was a pitch that demanded things in the past, and worked as a tactic. But today, a gag prevented that.
“Damn. I bet you’re a good singer, girl.”
Lili had already de-shrouded Sarah, leaving her exposed in her undershirt and jeans. She stood behind the chair, her forceful and feminine hands suddenly massaging Sarah’s shoulders. She ran her hands down Sarah’s side and slipped them into her pockets. The feel of nails against her thighs was oddly soothing and horribly unnerving. Lili was going for the phone. She pulled the box-shaped thing from the left pocket.
“Hello,,” Lili joked.
Sarah would have spit on her if she were not gagged with a dirty sock. The sock’s taste did not hint at hygienic use.
“Be right back, doll,” Lili leaned down, the resemblance to Amelia uncanny. She gently whispered in Sarah’s ear, “I’m gonna tell you a secret later, after all of this.”
Before leaving, Lili placed a chaste kiss on Sarah’s forehead and left the room, disappearing into the darkness of the hall.
For the longest period of her life, Sarah toiled to find a weakness in the bindings. Lili had not tied the chair exceedingly tight. If I could just close my legs! Just my legs. God.
She wished she had heeded Derryl’s cruel but true words. She wished she was goofing off with her boyfriend Julian, throwing tennis shoes over power lines and scaring cats with fireworks. She wished even that she was seated beside Amelia’s hospital bed, waiting in vain for her sister to open her blackened eyes.
As Willy and the girls reentered Sarah’s vision, it was apparent that they had recharged on whatever drug it was they were using. Willy managed a smile. Sarah closed her eyes and thought of strange things. That some ocean creatures could spill their insides. That birds find their way back to their flock. That Mary Magdalene was probably not a whore.
The minute Willy’s hand touched her thigh, Sarah could not remain aloof. She began squirming, cursing beneath her gag. Her rage grew with her fear, even as Willy unzipped her jeans.
“Willy, I don’t want you to go to jail,” Lili’s voice came from the den.
“Nobody will chase us for it, Lili. Don’t worry.”
“Actually, they will.”
The silence expanded from Lili to the whole house. Her green eyes were bloodshot, her eye shadow running. “The police are on their way. So, if you’re going to rape her you’d better be ready to fight in court.”
Willy placed his knife on the ground. He stood and stepped over to Lili. Fear was there in her face, but it was not the predominate expression. What was there, Sarah could not place.
Willy hit her with a ton of brute force and she went down. But she made no noise as she scrambled to her knees and peered up at him. “Can’t change it now. They’re on their way. They’ve been on their way for the past 15 minutes.”
The brute violence that Willy inflicted on Lili then was mind-numbing. Sarah cried out from behind her gag. Even one of the on looking girls yelled for him to stop kicking Lili in the stomach.
Lili rolled unto her back in defeat. She nearly laughed, but not quite. “I’m the one your friend saw at the police station the other day, not Amelia. You killed the wrong girl. Amelia still loved you.”
Willy brought his foot down on Lili’s face, spilling crimson down the porcelain white flesh.
“Are we in trouble, Willy?” Dawn asked.
Willy gave no answer, he simply drew out Sarah’s iron knuckles and brought them down on Lili’s face. Sarah could not see the details, but she could hear the damages, the repeated rhythmic blows to Lili’s face. However endless it seemed, it must have stopped, because now Willy’s hands were on her own face.
“Dawn, slit her throat!” he handed the knife over. “You need to stay here and finish the job! We’ll get you out of jail.”
“No! No! Willy, please!” Dawn took the handle obediently, but she was trembling. “Please don’t leave me! Do we really have to kill them!”
“You do, Dawn. Be a good girl and do it.” Willy seized the other two girl’s by their wrists and with that they were gone.
His sway over Dawn was eerie. She stood as though chained to the spot, knife in hand, staring at Sarah. She was weeping as she stepped forward, with a fatigued expression in her eye.
She’s done this kind of thing for him before, Sarah surmised.
She began to let her own tears fall, hoping to elicit pity from the female accomplice. The bleary-eyed girl wavered again.
“No!” she dropped the knife, “Willy! I don’t wanna go to jail!”
Of course, Willy had left, abandoning her here. She cried, fleeing the scene.
What had broken his sway over her, Sarah would not have time to contemplate. Now she sat bound to the kitchen chair, staring on the house’s other last inhabitant. Lili lay sprawled on the floor, her face turned mercilessly away from Sarah. They were the worst moments of her 15-year-old life.
Sarah trembled, but at least it was in the safety of a police car. The left door sat open, where the female officer stood to offer Sarah reassurance. She kept repeating that Sarah was going to be alright.
“Will Lili be alright?” she kept asking.
The only answer she ever received from the tired-looking cop was “She’s alive, honey.”
She had told them that everything in the house, from the bed sheets to Sarah’s sock gag would be drenched with Willy’s DNA. Furthermore, he most certainly had minors with him, whom he had sex with regularly.
“Sarah!” a harsh tone cried out through the mummer of the police force.
Derrick came staggering through the trees, frenzied and angry as always. Only this time he had his arms outstretched. Sarah ran to him, and buried her face in his shirt, to hide her deep sobs.
She could not speak for many hours after the police interview. As Derrick shook her leg, early November 2, she rolled over in bed. She didn’t ask why he was waking her at the crack of dawn, on a school day. She merely went to the restroom and stared for a long while at a candle she’d bought in early October. That had been so long ago.
She didn’t ask why Derrick took a turn into New Orleans, to navigate the cracking streets. She cared, but she hadn’t the energy to inquire. She merely watched the street trees go by until she felt nauseous.
Derrick parked near the hospital, took Sarah’s hand and led her to the garage elevators. She felt eleven years old again, walking with a teacher in a zoo. Only the zoo was a place where people went to die in relative comfort.
As they crossed a hallway, Nurse Bebone smiled their way. She complimented Sarah, “You look pretty today.”
She led Derrick and Sarah into the hospital room. “How are the peas, miss Hardgood.”
“Pretty good actually,” the patient answered in a monotone.
It took a moment for Sarah’s eyes to adjust to the image, of her sister’s battered face seeing her once again. One eye was swollen shut, perhaps permanently, but there was the large, healthy green one still moving, registering, living.
Neither spoke. Sarah embraced her sister so tightly that Amelia gasped. Amelia embraced her back, with a healthy amount of strength. The embrace was another of the longest moments in Sarah’s life.
“I thought you were dead,” Sarah sobbed.
“So did we,” the nurse chimed in.
Sarah clung tightly to her sister, refusing to let her go. ©2009-2011 Luz Briar.
