by J. Conrad
My stepmom’s dress boots clickety-click over the asphalt as we near the end of the row. Our bags swish and sway from our bustling. I scan for Carol’s blue Ford Expedition but don’t see it.
From the corner of my eye, I glimpse motion. Maybe someone walking parallel to us in the row at our left. I look, and he’s gone. Did I imagine a guy skulking rather than walking, prowling along, hunched over with his head turned slightly in our direction? It’s dark. Plus, I’m paranoid, which is something that happens when you’re an amnesiac murderer and your creep ex-boyfriend knows.
Increasing my pace, I think back a few seconds. Yeah, I saw someone, just for an instant. And I can’t be certain, but I swear he ducked from sight when he saw me turn. My stomach drops as I wonder how long the person was there before I noticed.
I can’t help but think of Korey. Not only because of the grocery store but before that. Only a few hours before Ayden turned up in my stepmom’s shed, Korey went ballistic during our fight. It was one of the worst. He had an absolute meltdown when I told him I wanted a break from his accusations and jealousy about a nonexistent affair.
“You’re a liar, Aria,” he said. He narrowed his eyes to dark slits while working his mouth into a puckered grimace. “I know you’re hiding something. You manipulative little bitch. Who is he?”
“There’s no other man. There never was.” I didn’t expect Korey to listen. He never accused me of anything real, just heaped on the incessant shaming for my imaginary whoring and fictitious secrets.
Korey picked up a glass and hurled it against the living room wall five feet from me. It crashed and shattered, my body jerking as though the shards imploded inside me. I continued edging my way to the bedroom for my overnight bag.
“Liar! Who is he, I said? Now you tell me. You’ve been screwing around on me. I know you have.” Korey’s loud breathing engulfed the room as he stalked toward me with clenched fists. A string of spittle ran down his bottom lip. But by the time I left a few minutes later, he was calm again—the disturbing calm that was even worse than the yelling.
In the cold mall parking lot, I shut out the memory and crane my neck to scan the stretch of vehicles. If someone was trailing us, it seems they’re gone now. It’s funny how your mind tries to fill in the gaps with too many details when you’re nervous. I try to shrug off my paranoia. Even if Korey were here, or if some thug is preparing to rob us, he’ll have to try it underneath the glaring light of the streetlamps. There are cameras everywhere, and the mall employs extra security guards for the holiday season. I don’t know how many of them are watching nearby, but I saw one of their vehicles pass earlier. I fill my lungs with the harsh winter air and try to focus.
“I think you were right,” Carol says as she looks both ways. “We’re in the next row over.”
After stealing a glance at the location of the imagined movement, I turn and start walking the opposite way, to the right. I pass all my bags to my left hand. With the other, I press my coat more tightly against my chest.
“You okay?” Carol asks. She increases her pace, bringing her body beside mine.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I just don’t like being so far away from the building after dark.”
“There it is,” Carol says. She points at her blue SUV just up ahead. A brisk draft of December air buffets my face, and my nose starts to run. Carol digs into her purse for her keys. She swears quietly under her breath. With the keychain in her hand, she stops and sets her bags down to rifle through them.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I think I forgot that small Hallmark bag in Macy’s. I set it on the counter when we were checking out.” She furrows her brow as she digs.
“Why don’t you warm up the car, and I’ll go get it real quick. Maybe you can pull up by the door and pick me up there?” I say.
Some of the tension leaves Carol’s face. She’s probably thinking of blasting the heater. She straightens and grins at me. “Well, if you insist. Thanks, Aria.”
“Sure,” I say. I smile and hand her my bags before turning to go back into the mall.
Already being on edge, I don’t walk but jog to the end of the row, and when I near the entrance, I learn I won’t need to go into Macy’s after all. Carol’s small, brown Hallmark bag full of Christmas cards lies right there on the grassy median. Maybe it slipped out when she was putting on her gloves. I lean over and snatch it up with triumphant fingers before turning and walking swiftly toward Carol’s SUV.
Something brushes my right shoulder. I jump. Some indefinite sound escapes my lips as I whirl—but no one’s here. Who touched me? I felt it. I know I did.
I surge into a breakneck run. “Carol! Carol!”
As I increase my pace, my feet pound the pavement, and the cold air pummels my face with its tiny fists. My heart races in desperate panic as I anticipate something. A striking. A grabbing. A blow.
I glance behind me again. Still no one. I look over my other shoulder and sidestep, trotting a couple of paces before I spin around once more. Am I going crazy, or is Korey here toying with me, just like I imagined? My gaze flitters in a dozen directions, but I don’t see him.
“Carol!” I call. She must be inside the car already.
And then, as I turn and push myself into a run again, I see Korey. He’s right there in front of me like he materialized from winter chill and parking lot dust. Braced in readiness, he locks his dark eyes on me, hunter to prey.
He’s holding something—a spray bottle—and he shoves it toward me. He squeezes the trigger, releasing a heavy stream of liquid at my face. It assaults my senses. It’s strong and sharp like alcohol with scents of gasoline tinged with brown sugar. Hot, sweet-tasting saliva pools in my mouth. Already the substance overtakes me, and my legs go buttery.
I know I scream, but it gets lost somewhere as though I’m crying out inside the plastic bottle. The sound tunnels into nothingness, and no one can hear me. I’m succumbing to the effects of the chemical. Ether? A derivative or something similar?
My eyes and nose sear like fire, and I bury my face in my hands. Red-hot tears gush unnaturally down my cheeks. I take one staggering step. My eyes flutter.
Run, damn it, run.
I have to run. I have to, I know I do, because if I don’t, this may be the last thing I ever know. I retreat from Korey and stumble a few steps before my legs buckle. My stomach erupts with nausea and my remaining thread of bodily control snaps. I can’t run. I can’t hold myself up. I can’t stay awake.
As I go completely limp and prepare to faceplant on the dirty parking lot asphalt, Korey sweeps his arms around me and scoops me up like a little girl.
My eyes snap open to thick, black darkness. I gulp air in short, shallow breaths, sucking in smells of old, rotten wood and dust. It’s an ancient dust, the kind that gathers with mildew, cooking ashes, and crumbling photographs. The parking lot incident tears through my mind in erratic flashes. My heart races, and my head hangs heavy with dizziness though I lie still. At least, I think I’m not physically moving. A part of me reels, and the ground tilts me back and forth. I’m nauseous. My temples pound. And though I’m not yet fully aware of myself or my surroundings, I know something worse happened while I was knocked out. Something bad. Something’s very wrong.
I blink a few more times, my headache increasing and pressure building around my eyes. As I try to move my arms and legs to get some bearing on where I am, I learn I’m lying on my side with my hands tied behind my back. My feet are also bound, but not only to themselves. When I try to extend my legs, which are bent at the knees, something catches against whatever binds my wrists.
Korey. Korey did this.
I groan, but there’s something stuffed in my mouth. Maybe paper. It feels both dry and wet at the same time. Drool leaks from the corners of my lips, and a bitter, newsprint taste leaches onto my tongue. I can’t spit out the uncomfortable wad. Something blocks it. Tape? An adhesive strip clamped across my mouth and cheeks. When I chomp down on t
he paper, it activates my gag reflex, and I almost wretch. I swallow a few times and force the bile down. I can’t throw up like this—I’ll choke.
My groaning increases to a frantic muffled whimpering. Where is Carol? She was in her car. I said I’d wait by the mall entrance for her to pick me up, but I didn’t because I didn’t even get that far before finding her bag. I tried to go back to her, knowing she barely started the engine. She probably didn’t see Korey take me. Maybe she’s out looking for me now, calling my cell. Wondering why I’m not answering. Calling the police.
I whine loudly, trying to make as much noise as I can so she’ll hear me if she’s nearby. A coldness bites against my skin, but I don’t feel any wind. From the little I’m able to move, it seems I’m still wearing all my layers of winter clothing—my coat, sweater, two shirts, jeans, and tall boots. But I don’t know for sure. All I know is that through all that, my hip still aches against the hard surface beneath me.
For about fifteen minutes, I struggle wildly. I exert all my energy to try and break free from my bindings. I strain my muscles with my back and neck screaming in protest. In all my life, I’ve never experienced such discomfort as this horrible position—this impossible, tight, hogtied knot in which my limbs are used against me.
I wonder how long I was unconscious and how long I’ve been tied like this because every part of me cries out with soreness. I’m incapacitated. A helpless animal awaiting the slaughter. I can’t scream. And it’s so dark. So utterly black I wonder if I’ve been locked away in a basement. There aren’t many in Central Texas, but there are a few. Maybe this is one of them, and that’s where I am.
Time passes. I don’t know how much. I sob because it’s all I can do. No one comes in response to my muted, guttural noises, and my surroundings return few sounds apart from an occasional gust of wind or the creak of wood. What I imagine to be hours elapses. My urge to urinate builds, and my bladder expands to overfilled pain, but I resist. After a while, the burning pressure recedes. Then it’s gone, and my mouth aches with thirst. The thirst grows until it fills every part of me, my desire for water second only to my longing for escape.
Sleep never happens. It can’t. I lie here and run probably a hundred different scenarios through my mind. Where I might be, where Carol is, what Korey’s planning on doing with me. How I might bargain for my life. What may happen if I fail to do that. I’ve already failed, and this is the price of that failure. I wonder where he stashed my purse and cell phone. And strangest of all is the question of why he isn’t with me now. He captured me, tied me, and left me in this dark place until… what? Until it’s time for worse things.
After more long, lonely hours that slither by the way spilled ink seeps across paper, the pale, sickly light of dawn peaks in from unseen windows. There’s still no sign of Korey or anyone else. I decide to flip myself over. I can kind of kneel, and I can scoot. With stabs of pain shooting through my lower back, I grunt and twist my body. As my shoulder and hip bang sharply on the hardwood floor, I finally learn where Carol is.
There, a few feet away, lies my stepmother, tied and gagged just like me. She’s on her side with her knees bent, her arms pulled behind her. Whether unconscious or dead, she’s not moving. She’s been here the entire time.
All my groaning, struggling, and now flipping didn’t wake her. I scoot closer, watching Carol’s chest to see if it rises and falls. She’s taking shallow breaths, but she’s alive. Korey clamped silver duct tape over her mouth, but it’s also partially blocking her nose. She probably isn’t getting enough air. Maybe by positioning my body with my back to her, I can get my fingers around the tape.
I strain my stomach, back, and neck and manage to right myself. Since my feet are attached to the cords at my wrists, correctly placing myself proves a combination of contortion and gymnastics. I need to maintain the awkward position without falling over. And I have to do it without kicking my stepmom in the face. As I balance on my kneecaps, they crunch against the floor. Grimacing from the pain, I make a few wobbly attempts before I find the gag with my fingers and tug it off as gently as I can. My knees teeter unstably, but I stay upright.
Carol begins to stir. Murmuring inaudibly, her lips twitch. Her eyes flutter. By balancing a little longer, I wiggle my fingers into her mouth and pull out the large, soggy wad of newspaper Korey shoved inside.
While Carol comes around, I get a look at my surroundings—not a basement, but an old house. The walls of the room were probably white once, but now they’re stained cigarette-smoke yellow. Two windows with frames full of broken glass let in the weak winter light. In front of me is a stack of dusty cardboard boxes. Grimy hardwood coated in crusted-over dirt and grunge resembling hard wax covers the floor. By continuing to scoot along, I find the walls of the small space cluttered with odds and ends and old junk. Scattered around me are an old television, some type of couch with a wooden frame, a rickety rocking chair, more boxes, and a broken lamp.
Whatever Korey used to knock us unconscious seemed to have a worse effect on Carol than it did on me. Although still woozy and my head is pounding, I’m coherent, but Carol’s disorientation hangs on.
“Muh,” she says. Her lips and cheeks are red from the tape.
I don’t know what she’s trying to say, and I can’t answer.
“Ma. Muh?” says my stepmom. “No.”
Even though I removed her gag, she can’t speak much. I drag myself behind her to examine the cords tied around her wrists. She’s restrained with a combination of rope and zip ties. I can undo the knots in the rope, but I’ll need something to cut the plastic. There might be something sharp enough in this very room, but I’ll have to find it.
I want Carol to remove my mouth tape like I did for her but being gagged like this, I can’t ask. Normally, she would have thought of it on her own. Now, she only gazes at her environment with wide, frantic eyes. She doesn’t try to raise her head, and despite her awful backbend, she doesn’t struggle much.
As I scuttle among the broken items and discard piles in search of anything with an edge I can use to free us, a door creaks open. A sick churning in my gut tells me Korey has returned.
The first day of the worst three weeks of my life has begun. In these three weeks, I learn what pain is. I also learn the meaning of “alone.”
5
Present Day
It’s been eight months since Trent Lemend found me in the house on County Road 140, chained to the wall like a bloody voodoo doll and left for dead. Now, I sit cross-legged, shoes off in the stuffed leather chair across from my counselor. Despite an upsetting phone call earlier, I try to focus on Norma’s last question. Maybe it will help.
“Aria,” she says gently. “I know it’s hard, but we’ll work through this together. Can you remember what Korey said when he took out the knife?”
I shake my head, glancing at the lemon verbena candle that flickers on the table beside her. “I’m trying.”
Since my rescue, I didn’t think I had trouble talking about what Korey did to my stepmom and me. I talked about it with the police. I talked about it with Trent, who’s become my closest friend. I explained how I was starved, beaten, raped, and stabbed before strung up and abandoned to die. And though I described all of it in what I thought was painstaking detail, my therapist Norma has a way of asking questions that necessitates re-experiencing the incident to dig out an answer. Although this is difficult, she tells me it’s important because drawing out the specifics will ultimately help free the negative emotional hold Korey’s words have upon me.
“Can you see the knife now in your mind?” she asks.
I nod. “He shows it to me first.”
Norma knows Korey was arrested and sentenced to life behind bars. These sessions help me focus on healing. Each day, in counseling and life, I do my best to put the trauma behind me. It might not be possible in every sense. There are parts of my body that will never be the same, that will never really heal completely. Not to mention the intrinsic
part of myself, the spiritual essence that makes me human. Will I ever heal completely? I’m not sure. But I can still try, and I will, so long as there’s life in me.
“And what does he do next?” Norma asks.
She’s a pleasant, smartly dressed lady in her fifties, with straight, blonde hair that hangs neatly to her shoulders. She sits attentively with her ankles crossed and gazes at me through her black-rimmed glasses. As I try to come up with an answer, I stare listlessly at the beaded necklace that hangs over Norma’s beige blouse.
I grip the arms of the chair and draw a breath as I concentrate. Sometimes I can recite the details like it happened yesterday. At other times, I only draw a blank, like I’m peering into the blackness the night I woke up tied and gagged. “I can’t remember. I’m not sure. I think he might have said something about liars. Something about me being a liar.”
“All right,” Norma says. Her voice is soft and kind. “What was he saying you lied about?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. He would never say. I don’t think he ever told me what I had supposedly lied about the whole time he kept me locked in there. But before that, when we were seeing each other, he always thought there was another man.”
“I see. Did he ever mention anything about what happened with his brother?” Norma asks.
My belly tenses. My pulse quickens, and I wipe my palms on my slacks. What happened with his brother. It’s the one memory I can’t get to resurface, no matter how much therapy I get. Of course, Norma doesn’t know about the bloody ring. Neither does Trent. But someone knows. He called me this morning. Swallowing, I shove the thought aside.
I’ve already pondered how Ayden’s death factored into my torture more than Norma could possibly know. But no matter how much I dive into my misery inside the abandoned house, I can’t find Ayden’s name even once.
“No, never,” I say. “I could never figure out whether Korey didn’t really care about Ayden, or he assumed I knew that I was being punished for killing him. But Korey never mentioned him. He talked about other things. He said I screwed him over, that he knew I was unfaithful, that I had no right to treat him that way and leave him. But those things never happened, except the leaving him part. It still makes my head spin trying to figure it out.”