There Once Was A Child

by Debra Webb

  I blink. My backside hits the ground behind me as I stare at the bones.

  Not an animal. Human bones. Bones that have been buried for a very long time.

  Terror burns through my veins. I know these bones.

  Noooo reverberates around me like the wind, buffeting my being. I jerk my head up to see where the soul shattering sound is coming from and it is only then that I realize the screams are coming from me. I scramble out of the pit, my head spinning.

  The next thing I know I’m running…running toward the house. I rush inside, fly up the stairs, mud on my shoes causing me to slip. I scramble onward, toward my room. I need to be in my room—the one where I slept my whole life. The place where my history is documented from birth until just before my father died when he hung a photo of the two of us above the lamp on the bedside table.

  I remember that day as clearly as if were yesterday.

  What is happening to me?

  I stare at the photo, our smiling faces. This is who I am. Whatever is wrong with me, isn’t about that…can’t be about my family. I close the door, sag against it to catch my breath. When my body stops trembling I look at the wooden doorframe to my left and the tick marks my parents posted there each time they measured my height from the time I was old enough to stand on my own. Happy laughter echoes in my head. My mother and I twirling around the room.

  This is my room…my space. My history. My life.

  I go to the bookcase above the desk where I did homework as a kid. I grab a photo album and stare at the pictures of my parents and me. My muddy fingers flip through the pages. I stare at photo after photo. It’s all there. All the memories in my head are right here on these pages.

  The pain shears through my head and I stagger, close my eyes.

  Not again.

  The stabbing pain intensifies. I squeeze my eyes shut more tightly. Drop the photo album and stumble to my bed. I curl up on the soft, familiar comforter and pull a pillow over my head.

  If I’m very, very still…keep my eyes closed tight…maybe it will pass.

  The Child

  “There he is.”

  He was practically slobbering at the mouth like a wild dog as he watched the small boy. Skinny kid, maybe nine or ten years old. Mexican or something like that. He was kicking a ball down the sidewalk. No one else around. I figured he must be on his way home from a friend’s. Most kids have friends.

  But not me. I’m an it.

  “What do you want him for?” I asked, an uncertainty growing inside me.

  I couldn’t keep the resentment out of my voice. I tried. I really did. It wasn’t that I gave one shit about this bastard anymore, but I guess it was about survival. This boy—this new kid—was the person who would take my place.

  The bastard behind the wheel no longer wanted me. I could tell. And I was glad, sort of. I had made up my mind that he would not hurt me again. I was leaving the first chance I got. But now he wanted someone new to rut. Someone to use to make himself feel good and powerful.

  He wanted this boy. A boy, I knew, couldn’t get pregnant. A boy wouldn’t have the blood—the girl teaching me to read called it the rag. Having a boy would be a lot easier.

  I shouldn’t have cared.

  But somehow I did.

  “I want you to go talk to him.”

  I stared at him as if he had lost his mind. He’d made me play lookout plenty of times when he picked up kids, but not in a long time. Not since that one girl asked if I was his daughter. “Why do I have to talk to him?”

  “Talk him into going into that house over there,” he explained. “Tell him you dropped your cell phone and your arm is too fat to reach through the crack and get it. Tell him you’ll pay him.” He dug a five-dollar bill out of his pocket.

  I stare at the money. “I can’t do that.”

  He backhanded me, knocked me against the window. “Do it now before he’s gone or I’ll make you wish you had!”

  My face stinging almost as much as my pride, I scrub away a telltale tear. “Whatever.”

  I got out of the car, closed my door quietly and then went around the bumper. Since the front door of the old house was standing open, getting in wouldn’t be a problem. I hurry up the sidewalk until I’m even with the house, then I shout at the kid.

  He stops, his red and blue ball held tightly in his hands. He stares at me, his face full of uncertainty.

  “I don’t mean to bother you.” I smile real big as I hustle across the street toward him. “Can you help me a minute?”

  The boy glances around as if looking for someone to ask if it’s okay to talk to me.

  “Don’t be afraid. I just need someone with skinnier arms to help me get my cell phone.” I point to the house. “I’ve been staying in there because I have no place else to go and my phone fell into a crack in the floor and my arm is too big to reach it. Can you get it for me?” I pull the money out of my pocket. “I’ll pay you.”

  He glances at the five-dollar bill and then nods. “Okay.”

  It was so easy. The stupid kid did exactly what I told him except when we got in the house he was waiting. He pressed the cloth in his hand over the boy’s mouth and the kid passed out. He told me to watch him while he got the car.

  As I waited, I stared at the boy who looked even smaller lying on the floor. “Sorry,” I muttered.

  We took him to our place. He cried and cried and cried. I watched the way the man who had been my only family all this time touched this boy. I knew he wouldn’t wait long to rut him. But he was holding off for some reason. Probably prolonging the foreplay or something. The girl who was teaching me to read said some guys liked that part better than the fucking—that’s what she called the rutting.

  Finally, when the boy just kept whining he got mad. He told me to watch him and that he’d be right back. I think he was going to get some liquor. I remembered he did that to me. Had me drink it so I wouldn’t whine so much. He was probably going to do that to the boy.

  I sat stone still on the tattered old chair and watched him huddled in the corner, his hands and feet bound, the gag in his mouth. I remembered being tied up just like that before he started putting me in the trunk and then the box. It wasn’t this place. It was somewhere else. But he had done the same thing to me. Tonight, after he got enough liquor into the boy he would fuck him.

  I would be forced to listen…to remember.

  Then the boy would look at me with those big brown eyes and he would blame me because I was the one who trapped him.

  No.

  I was not going to be a prisoner any longer and I was not going to be the reason this boy lived the kind of life I had lived.

  Hell no.

  I was suddenly so angry and yet I was terrified. How would I do this? Thinking it was one thing, but where would I go? Could I really take care of myself?

  I thought of my new friend and I realized I could haunt a street corner just like her. I could survive the same way she did.

  I went over to the boy. He drew away as if he feared I would hurt him.

  “I’m sorry I helped him catch you.”

  He sobbed, snot running down his skinny face.

  “I’m going to help you but you have to promise me something first.”

  He stared into my eyes, the sobs fading to a hiccup.

  “When he comes back I’m going to knock him out and then let you loose. You’ll have to run for help. Tell the police what he did to you so they’ll arrest him. But you can’t tell them about me. Promise?”

  His head bobbed up and down like one of those crazy street beggars on crack.

  “Okay. But if you break that promise I will come back in the middle of the night and…”

  He shook his head fast back and forth.

  “We have a deal then. You just sit right there and be quiet. When he gets here you start your whining again. I’ll be ready.”

  I didn’t have much. Two pairs of jeans. The shoes I wore. A second pair of socks and panties and one othe
r t-shirt. I packed all of it into a plastic bag from the supermarket. Then I remembered my teddy bear. It was the one thing I’d had for as long as I could remember, so I put it with the bag. I hid them behind the ragged couch.

  In the kitchen there was no knife. He never left stuff like that lying around. But in the very back under the sink there was one of those big old forks—the kind people used for barbecuing. I guess the people who lived here before us had a grill. I took the big fork and tucked it between the cushion and the sofa arm and sat down to wait.

  Half an hour passed with me and the kid just sitting there waiting for him to return. I was pretty sure the kid had shit himself since I smelled something bad. I couldn’t risk helping him clean up because I needed to be in position for when the monster returned.

  Finally, he unlocked the front door and came in, a paper sack in his arms. “Got you something, too,” he announced, grinning at me. He pulled out a bottle of Coke and a bag of chips. “I thought you might want to go next door and watch TV.”

  We often heard the girl next door’s television playing. He didn’t know that I watched it sometimes when I went over there for my lessons.

  “Okay,” I said.

  He put the bag down on the sofa next to me. “Me and the boy are going to bed now. He’s tired.” He slid the pint of liquor into his back pocket and turned toward the boy. “Smells like you need a bath.”

  I watched for a moment, the racket the kid was making growing as he sobbed louder and louder. The piece of shit bent to touch him and that’s when I moved. My fingers curled around the handle of the big fork and I rammed it into him as hard as I could.

  He screamed, jerked away from me.

  The fork still grasped in both hands, I jumped back as he twisted around. His eyes were big and round and he was staring at me as if he intended to kill me.

  He dove at me. I thrust the fork forward, ramming it into his gut this time. He just stood there staring at me. I pushed harder, driving the fork as deep as I could.

  He crumpled to the floor but he started to rant at me. Screaming that he was going to kill me. I had to do something!

  I grabbed the old ceramic lamp from the table. Jerked its cord free of the wall and crashed it as hard as I could over his head.

  He collapsed onto his back and stopped moving…stopped making sounds.

  My heart was in my throat. I crouched next to him and reached into his pocket in search of the knife he carried. I knew he had one. I had seen it before. I dug until I found it. My hands shaking, I ran to the boy and cut him loose. I pulled the balled up sock out of his mouth.

  Before he could take off I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him toward the monster on the floor. His feet dragged and he cried as if he feared I was going to back out on our deal.

  “Shut up,” I snarled. I reached down and pulled the fork out of the bastard’s gut. Blood dripped from its two points. He still didn’t move. He might be dead.

  I didn’t care. I hoped he was.

  “Take this,” I ordered. The boy took hold of the bloody fork with both hands, the same way I had held it when I stabbed the bastard. “Go outside and start screaming. Throw this on the sidewalk so people see it and know something bad happened in here. Then run down the street screaming for help. Don’t stop until someone calls the police. They have to call the police. Do you understand?”

  He nodded frantically.

  “If the police don’t come he’ll get away and find you again. You have to tell them what he did to you and that you stabbed him to get away. Understand?”

  He nodded again, big tears rolling down his cheeks.

  “You can’t tell them about me, remember?”

  Another bob of his head.

  I got my bag and my teddy bear from behind the couch. “Go!”

  I watched a moment as he ran out the door. He threw the big fork onto the sidewalk just like I told him and started to scream for help.

  I dared to breathe, and then I turned to go.

  Harsh fingers wrapped around my ankle.

  My heart stuttered to a near stop. I fell face forward. My bag and teddy bear flew from my hands.

  “You fucking bitch!”

  I twisted around and kicked him in the face with my free foot. He howled and his fingers released me. I grabbed my shit and ran.

  That was the last time I saw the monster that stole my life…until one week ago.

  Detective Walter Duncan

  Mario Sanchez arrived home at eight this morning. He and his buddies drove through the night to be home in time to rest and prepare for a birthday party this afternoon. One of his pals is turning thirty.

  Sanchez shows me to his private study. To be so young he’s earned a surprising number of awards from the firm where he works. Other than the gram-toting beautician, all of Fanning’s victims have done fairly well for themselves despite the horror of their childhoods. Even the beautician didn’t do so badly. We all have bad habits. Mine is killing me. This very second the cancer is eating away at the tissue of my lungs. Every day less and less of that tissue works. One day they will stop working entirely and I will die.

  Who am I to judge?

  “So,” Sanchez says once we are seated around his desk, “how can I help you with this investigation? I’m assuming since you’re here that you haven’t found Fanning.”

  I shake my head. “Not yet. You’re the last of his victims we have to interview.”

  Sanchez nods. “I get the impression you believe someone on that list went after him, maybe harmed him in some way.”

  The guy would have to be a fool not to see that sticking out on a stem.

  Rather than waiting for my answer, he goes on, “My mother told me how you questioned her about my whereabouts at the time of his disappearance. My wife said the same.”

  I shrug. “It’s my job. Did you and your friends take him to Mexico and bury him?”

  Sanchez laughs. “I can’t say that I wouldn’t have enjoyed doing just that, but no, we didn’t. I haven’t seen or heard from that bastard since the trial. If the world is lucky no one will ever hear from him again.”

  “Have you and any of the other victims ever gotten together and discussed Fanning?”

  Sanchez shakes his head no. “I wanted to stay as clear of those memories as possible.”

  Sanchez’s wife appears with two glasses of iced tea. Her rounded belly makes me think of Liv. I hope she can work things out for the best. Whatever that might be.

  “I feel like there’s something you want to ask me, Detective Duncan.”

  I smile. Perceptive guy. “You know, I read over your statements again this morning. The ones you made when you were ten years old and then your testimony at the trial. It was very practiced. You told your story carefully, ensuring all bases were covered, but it feels like you left something out.”

  His eyebrows rear up. “Really. My lawyer and the district attorney seemed to think my testimony was powerful. You know, unimpeachable.”

  “That’s true. Maybe it’s just me.” I look him directly in the eyes. “I feel like there’s something else you need to tell me.” I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that you were a skinny ten-year-old. Little for your age. And you bested a forty-something-year-old-guy who was experienced in handling kids—each one of them larger than you. You not only bested him, you left him in bad shape. How did you manage to do that?”

  He stares at me, unmoving. “You read the court transcripts. The statements I made to the police. You should know the answer.”

  “You had help, didn’t you?” I’m on one hell of a fishing expedition and I’m just hoping he’ll take the bait. My gut, every instinct I’ve got, tells me he had assistance escaping that bastard.

  “Maybe I got lucky.” He turns his hands up. “Maybe Fanning had a bad day. Who knows?”

  “What was your relationship with Dr. Lewis Newhouse?”

  His expression closes. “Detective, I think—”

  “Whatever
secret you’re keeping, Mr. Sanchez,” I cut him off, can’t let him take that path, “you’re not helping anyone. I need you to be straight with me. Lives depend on what happens next.”

  He smirks. “You mean Fanning’s life?”

  Anger flares. I let him see it. “Not just his. There are others who are hanging by their fingernails here. I need your help. Now. And you’re wasting my time.”

  Silence swells between us for a moment. I see the change in his face when the tide of his emotions shifts in my direction.

  “I’ve never told anyone this,” he confesses. “She asked me not to tell and I didn’t. I owed her my life and I wasn’t about to let her down. Do you understand the position I was in as a child? She literally saved my life.”

  “Who?” My heart is racing. “I need a name.”

  He shakes his head. “I have no idea. I never knew her name. When Fanning took me, he didn’t just take me to some parking lot or rundown building to rape me. He took me home. He was going to keep me. He said as much.”

  That part is news as well. “Go on.”

  “He already had another kid, a girl he’d been keeping. I don’t know for how long. But she was older than me. I think maybe he was done with her and wanted someone younger. She must have sensed this and decided we both needed rescuing. She is the one who put him down so we could escape. She made me promise never to tell anyone about her. I think she was afraid the police would blame her for what he’d done.”

  Goddammit, I need more than that. “He never called her by name?”

  Sanchez shook his head. “He called her it. She had this old ragged teddy bear.” He shudders visibly. “She was pale and her clothes were tattered and dirty. It was horrible. But she saved my life and I made a promise to keep her secret.”

  “I understand.” I make a decision quickly. “You have my word that I will keep this between the two of us, but I need more information. If I have a sketch artist come—now—do you think you could describe her in detail?”

  He smiles, his dark eyes bright with emotion. “I will never forget what she looked like. She was my superhero, always will be. You don’t need to call anyone. I’ve drawn pictures of her my whole life.”