Wild Girl of Chernobyl

by Thomas Porter

  Chapter 12

  After Wild Girl made her escape, the three students packed their equipment into the van, except for the cage, and returned to the hotel. They left the cage where it sat in the small foyer of Wild Girl's building. The small mirror, eye liner pencil, and lipstick were gone, apparently carried off by Helle. The sun peaked over the trees in the east as they drove and when they arrived at the hotel it was bustling with people checking out. Janice, Irwin, and Bradford retreated to their rooms but made no arrangement to meet in the evening, as they had the day before.

  Irwin and Bradford assumed the project was over and that they'd soon be flying home. Janice, on the other hand, lay awake in her bed for over an hour, searching for a way to overcome the failure of the night before. She drifted off but awoke in the mid afternoon and immediately went on the internet, searching for manufacturers of large, portable animal cages. Out of habit, she limited her search to companies in the United States and found three. Using her room phone, she called each but it was late evening in the U.S. and they were closed. Although she was loathe to ask a man for help doing anything, she needed help now and called Dr. Jameson at his home.

  “You should expect setbacks, Janice. That's the nature of field research,” he told her over the crystal clear telephone connection.

  “You should have seen her. She is smart. Very smart. And she has some kind of power, like mental power, I'm sure of it. Must have,” Janice said. “Irwin said he took him over. Controlled him and he couldn't break away. That's what it felt like.”

  She sat in a chair pulled up next to the bed. As she talked, she leaned forward and rested her shoulders and head on the mattress.

  “If that's true, your research may be groundbreaking. What is your next move?”

  “That's why I'm calling you. I need a cage.”

  “That cage didn't work. Why would you need another?”

  “A bigger cage. I need a bigger cage.”

  “How much bigger?”

  “At least three times the size. Big enough for three wolves at least.”

  “What's the difference? She'll still, you know, have her powers or whatever you call them. Mental control, and you'll be right back to where you were before.”

  “My theory is if those wolves are in the cage with her it won't matter. If they're in there with her, we can somehow block her mental control, maybe just wait until she gets tired. Something like that. Then we've got her.”

  “Those are not cheap, Janice. Have you checked your remaining budget?”

  Typical patronizing male, Janice thought as she sat upright. After I get my PhD, I'm definitely filing a complaint, she thought. “Of course I have checked my budget, Dr. Jameson. Anyway, you said yourself this might be groundbreaking. Might even warrant additional funding.”

  “Maybe so, but that's not up to me. How much do you have for the extra cage, or should I check myself?”

  “Don't bother checking. I already did,” Janice lied. “Twenty thousand should cover it.”

  “Twenty thousand?!” Dr. Jameson raised his voice, which startled Janice.

  “Yes, $20,000. It needs to be strong. You know, steel, reinforced. I've already done the research and I can give you three companies but they're all closed for today.”

  “What's the hurry?”

  “I need it tomorrow, or the next day at the latest,” she said.

  “You seriously expect me to buy a $20,000 cage and overnight it to Kiev?” Dr. Jameson asked. He knew Janice was single-minded, which is one her qualities he admired and one of the reasons he agreed to serve as her faculty adviser. But she could also be defensive and manipulative if things didn't go her way. He chose his words carefully in his reply. “Janice, please send me the information you have on those three companies and I can contact them first thing in the morning. It's almost midnight here but I can go to the office early tomorrow and make some phone calls.”

  “When can you get it here?” Janice asked.

  “As I said, Janice, I'll call those companies in the morning. First thing, promise.” What he didn't say is that he would also check her remaining budget in the morning. He should also make a call to the Office of Diversity in the morning, too. He's advised Janice long enough to know that she may have been behind the office's petition to remove Gary Glocking, the anthropology PhD candidate who was forced out last semester after a diversity complaint, and that she is not beneath filing a complaint against a faculty member if he stands in her way.

  “I need that cage,” she said brusquely.

  “I know you need the cage, Janice,” Dr. Jameson said slowly. “I'm not saying you don't need the cage and I'm not questioning your ability to conduct this research project in the best way you see fit. What I am saying is that it is almost midnight here and there is nothing that can be done before morning. Nothing.”

  “Well, it's only mid-afternoon here. What am I supposed to do tonight?”

  “Can you return to a different spot and collect more data? It sounds like your research is moving along very quickly.”

  Janice turned glassy. She said in a flat tone, “That's a good idea, Mr. Jameson. Thank you for the suggestion. Can I check on your progress on that cage tomorrow?”

  “Of course you can, Janice. Good work so far. I'll talk to you tomorrow, then, but give me a few hours in the morning to make those calls.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Jameson. I'll wait for your call,” Janice said and hung up. She opened a bottle of the hotel's water and returned to her computer. She searched for animal cage manufacturers in Europe and made phone calls. If the person who answered the phone did not speak English, which happened about half the time, she hung up and moved to the next company. After three hours, she concluded that getting a cage was one thing but getting it delivered to Kiev by tomorrow was another. She narrowed her search to cities within driving distance and at about 5 o'clock, she spoke to a distributor of kennels in Rivne who agreed to modify a dog kennel so its walls were doubled for strength, it could be disassembled and assembled for transport in a van, and it included a floor so it could be moved while containing animals. For an extra $1,000 U.S., cash, the man on the phone agreed to have it ready for pick up at the end of the next day.

  Chapter 13

  Janice finally went to bed around 7 p.m., just after Irwin and Bradford woke up. As she was drifting off, the two undergrads knocked on her door. Hiding behind the partially opened room door, she told them about the cage she's having made as they stood in the hallway, then she went back to bed.

  Wide awake and with nothing to do, Irwin and Bradford killed time at the hotel bar until midnight, then retreated to Bradford's room and watched pay-per-view until early morning. Janice woke them at about 7 a.m. and offered to drive.

  After getting lost several times in Rivne, she found the kennel distributor. The kennel they ordered was not ready so Irwin and Bradford slept in the back of the van while Janice sat in front and wrote on a legal pad.

  A little after 4 p.m., the man from the distributor knocked on the driver's side door window. It was ready. She drove to the rear of the building and waited while her two undergraduate assistants rearranged the folding table and cameras in the back of the van, then loaded the chain link walls and wood floor. Janice's contact explained how to assemble the kennel and handed a bag of hardware to Bradford before leading Janice back into the building. After several minutes, Janice returned to the van. She carried a small box about the size of a pack of cigarettes with a large white button on the side. Without explanation, she dropped it into the glove compartment.

  The three took turns driving to Pripyat, a six hour drive.

  Janice drove last and just before midnight, she pulled the van over the curb and onto the wide sidewalk in front of Wild Girl's building. In her mother's office, on the fourth floor, Helle was curled into a ball and sleeping on top of her mother's coat, which was spread out on the floor in the corner. Three w
olves slept fitfully next to her. Helle woke with a start.

  They're here.

  She grabbed the coat, stood up, hung it on the rack, and smoothly walked to the window to watch.

  For the next two hours, while Janice snored lightly in the back of the van, Irwin and Bradford used flashlights and much cursing to assemble the cage as Helle watched silently from above. Each wall of the cage was a rectangle of tubular steel covered with two layers of chain link fence. The layers were bound together neatly with crimped metal rings running in straight rows top to bottom. The two longer side walls, 8 feet from front to back, were reinforced with a diagonal steel tube attached on the outside at the upper left and bottom right. The gate on the front side, which was about 6 feet wide and 4 feet tall, slid upward and was held open by a radio-controlled catch. The catch could be released by pressing the button on the small box, causing the gate to slam closed. The top of the cage was also reinforced with a diagonal steel tube and the entire assembly was mounted onto a sheet of thick plywood and held together by U bolts and wing nuts.

  If they had shone their lights toward the double doors leading into the building, they would have seen Helle and three wolves appear there as they worked.

  That thing is bigger than the other thing they had. Didn't they learn they can't trap me?

  Irwin stretched before walking to the van.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  “Wakey Wakey, Janice. Your gold plated cage is ready,” he said loudly.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Several minutes later, the van's rear door opened and Janice emerged. She stood unsteadily for a few seconds on the cobblestone before walking to the cage. She grabbed the sidewall and shook it. It was solidly built and hardly moved. She ran back to the van's passenger door and retrieved the cigarette-box size remote control.

  About 10 feet from the cage, she bent slightly at the waist, spread her feet apart and shuffled them on the cobblestone, like a volleyball player getting ready to receive a serve.

  “Ready?”

  She held the box about chest high, pointed what she thought might be the front toward the cage, and pressed the button. With a loud crash, the gate dropped closed.

  “Awesome!” Bradford shouted. He ran to the cage, lifted the door and latched it open. “Try it again!”

  Again Janice pressed the button and again the gate slammed shut.

  “Dangerous but totally cool,” Irwin said. “Don't know how much you paid for this thing but it was worth it.”

  “Bradford, you stay here. Me and Irwin are going to get the bait,” she said with a smile.

  “yes, ma'am,” Bradford said.

  “Bait?” Irwin asked.

  Janice grabbed the large flashlight from Irwin's hand and walked toward the building entrance. “We've got to get those animals into the cage first, don't we?”

  “What are you talking about?” Irwin said as he followed closely behind her. “You saw what happened when we got Wild Girl into the cage last night. Those wolves would have ripped us apart if we kept her in there.”

  “They can't if they're in there with her, can they?” Janice said as she reached the door.

  From near the van, Bradford yelled to Janice, “You going to fill us in on your plans? What the hell are you doing?”

  “We're going to trap Wild Girl and the wolves. Don't you get it? If they were in the cage with her last night, we'd still have them. That's what this bigger cage is for. For all of them.”

  “Good luck with that, Janice. You think they're all going in there at the same time?” Bradford yelled.

  Janice ignored him as she passed into the building, followed closely by Irwin.

  Helle crouched silently just inside the dark hallway leading to the child care room. Let them go. They think they're smarter than me. They're going for Mother's little things on her desk. They think they can trap me with them again.

  Janice pulled the large wooden staircase door open and the two passed through it. Their footsteps echoed in the dark, empty staircase, growing slowly silent until they exited on the fourth floor and entered Wild Girl's room.

  They're back in Mother's room now. Wait.

  “See? You can't question what I'm doing. Look at that,” Janice said as she walked to the desk. The flashlight beam illuminated the desktop. Back where she expected them, arranged neatly as before, were the small mirror, eye liner pencil, and lipstick. She brushed them together and picked them up.

  “Bait?” Irwin asked.

  “You get it? She went after these things last night. She'll go after them again,” Janice said with a smile. She shined the flashlight directly into Irwin's face and he covered his eyes. She then swung the flashlight to the door and walked toward it, but stopped just before passing into the hallway.

  “Grab that coat you knocked over. Wild Girl hung it back up. It must mean something.”

  Irwin was walking toward the door but swerved left and pulled at the coat. It pulled the coat rack over and it banged loudly when it struck the floor. Irwin stopped to stand it back up but Janice said, “Leave it.”

  “What for?”

  “If we can't trap them, they'll have to come back here. I want to see what happens.”

  Helle thought confidently, they have Mother's things again.

  But another feeling intruded on her confidence. A feeling of unease for which she couldn't find the source.

  But something else. They have something else. That tall one with long hair has something.

  Helle felt her face involuntarily flush. What does he have?

  A few moments later, Janice and Irwin emerged from the stairway. Helle and the wolves watched quietly as they walked through the foyer. Helle's eyes locked onto a dark shape flowing from Irwin's left hand and with each step, her face grew hotter. As he passed out of the building, her mouth opened into a scream but she covered it. The wolf to her left bumped his nose against Helle's arm and she managed to catch the scream in her palm. The low sound of it entered the foyer but fell to the floor before it reached the door.

  Mother's coat! Mother's coat!

  Two of the wolves sprung from the hallway, determined to retrieve the coat, but Helle ran in front of them and stopped.

  You are right. We must attack. But not until it's time.

  She glid across the foyer, followed by the three wolves. She paused at the double doors, then exited quickly and quietly. Outside, they turned left and hugged the wall. As they approached the cage, Bradford shone his flashlight onto Irwin's left hand.

  “What's that?” he asked.

  Janice answered. “That coat. It was hung back up. It's got to mean something.” She reached the cage opening and tossed the mirror and makeup inside. She turned to Irwin and pulled the coat from his hand, turned back to the cage and carelessly tossed it in.

  Before it landed on the cage floor, the wolves sprang from the darkness, growling deeply as they ran.

  Janice screamed and fell backwards onto the sidewalk. Irwin tried to catch her, missed, and covered his eyes after she landed. Bradford turned to the van and ran.

  No! Wait! It's not time!

  The three wolves ran past Irwin, past Janice, overcome by rage.

  No! Don't you see?! It's a trap!

  Helle, crouched over and moving silently, ran to stop them. The first wolf entered the cage, followed very closely by the second. The first wolf bent forward slightly and bit down on the coat at the same time the third, trailing wolf heeded Helle's command and suddenly stopped just outside the cage. Helle fell over it. She landed on top of the second wolf, just inside the cage. At the same moment, Bradford reached the van, grabbed the remote from the passenger seat, and pressed the button.

  The gate slammed closed. The metallic crash echoed off the building and suddenly all was quiet. Janice sat upright on the sidewalk several feet from the cage, looking at the caged girl. Irwin stood next to her, still covering his eyes, and
Bradford steadied himself against the van with his right hand as he stared at Wild Girl. The wolf remaining outside stepped to the cage, sniffed, then looked directly at Helle's face and cocked its head. For a second, the two stared into the other's eyes then, suddenly, the coiled wolf sprang into a run and disappeared into the darkness.

  At that same moment, a piercing pain stabbed into Janice's head. She grabbed her temples and screamed. It was a primal scream, as if she were stabbed with a lance. She tried to look away from Wild Girl but couldn't. She ran out of breath, sucked in more air, and screamed again.

  Bradford's knees buckled and he crumpled into a kneeling position, right hand on the sidewalk.

  Irwin shielded his eyes with his hands and looked to Bradford. He pulled his shirt over his face and ran to the passenger door and opened it. His shirt fell from his face. He lifted Bradford by the arm pits and pushed him inside. Bradford landed on the seat, chest down. Irwin lifted his feet into the foot well and slammed the door before they could drop back out. He then ran around the front, jumped into the driver's seat and turned the key. Looking straight down at the gear shifter, to avoid being caught by Wild Girl's eyes, he violently pulled it into reverse and backed the van to Janice, who still sat on the sidewalk screaming. He jerked the van into park, pulled his shirt up over his face again, exited the van, ran to the back, opened the rear door, and lifted Janice inside. Leaving the door open, he ran back to the driver's seat, jerked the gear shifter into drive and stomped on the gas pedal. The van shuddered violently as it ran over the curb and onto the road. The rear door flung open, hit the extent of its hinge, bounced quickly in the other direction and slammed closed. Instinctively, Irwin turned the van to the right. At the next corner he turned left and sped along the eastern edge of the field. About when they reached the site where they had set up the previous nights, Janice's screaming stopped and Bradford, who was still lying face down on the passenger seat, looked up. Irwin kept driving to the corner of the field then pressed the brake. With a screech, the van jerked to a stop. In the back, Janice said, “It's gone. It's gone. Thank God it's gone.”