Sole Survivor

by Holly Dunn

  As Detective Sorrell and his colleagues pushed forward with the investigation, I tried to turn my attention to school. I was enrolled in only one class because I had missed the first month of the semester and wasn’t up for a full course load. I ended up in a marketing class with Chris’s roommate Adrienne, which met in Memorial Hall, the largest lecture hall on campus. Between its downstairs and balcony, the auditorium held about seven hundred people. The professor, Dr. James Donnelly, was young and lively and very funny. He was also easy on his students, and he made the class interesting, which is why it was filled to capacity. He was also incredibly kind. He knew what Adrienne and I were still dealing with, but he urged us to do something, even if all we accomplished was showing up. Dr. Donnelly felt it would help us both to have some modicum of academic activity even while we grieved Chris. Despite his urging, I hardly ever went to class—just the minimum necessary to pass.

  With only one class on my schedule, I had a lot of time on my hands. Too much time, in fact—I needed more to do to keep my mind from dwelling on losing Chris and all that had happened. His passion for the outdoors inspired me, but we hadn’t had a chance to explore together. I couldn’t help but wonder what kinds of hikes or camping trips we might have taken. Even though he was gone, I felt drawn to his interests, as if engaging in them could keep him alive to me a bit longer.

  Around the end of October, I took a job at a retail store called Phillip Gall’s Outdoor and Ski, which was part of a shopping center east of campus on New Circle Road. Phillip Gall’s had been selling clothing, shoes, and gear to the Lexington community for nearly a century. Sales associates staffed departments for kayaking, hiking, camping, rock climbing, and skiing. I worked two or three shifts a week when I wasn’t in my one class. I was primarily a cashier, though I also helped clean up in different sections and filled in when a department needed assistance. Most of what I earned went right back to the store as I stocked up on all kinds of outdoor gear.

  The staff was young and fun and had great camaraderie. We would roam around, clean up, look at stuff or shop, hang out and talk. The guys who worked in various areas of the store often came to the front to chat with the cashiers, especially when we weren’t busy. For some reason, the cutest guys always seemed to work in the ski department—one of whom was Jacob Pendleton. He had blond hair, green eyes, and a round face that lit up when he smiled. He was also really sweet—a perfect Southern gentleman.

  All of us worked different days and times and we rotated around the store, so I can’t remember the exact moment I met Jacob, but over time he grabbed my attention. The whole staff often hung out after our shift to grab a drink or some dinner. Once, we all went sledding after a crazy snowstorm that dumped so much snow on Lexington the store had to shut down. A lot of the first “dates” I had with Jacob were getting to know him while hanging out with the group from the store.

  He had tricked me into thinking he was a student at the Lexington Community College, but the truth was he had dropped out after nearly two semesters and worked full-time at the store. He was apparently afraid I would reject him. He even hid his collection of country music when I came by his house, and when I found the CDs, he denied they were his. I knew I liked him, and I suspected he liked me too. I took my chances: in November, I asked him if he would come to Nashville with me to pick up a car my dad bought to replace the one I had been driving. My previous car was old and rundown, and my parents were worried it wouldn’t get me back and forth from home to school safely. Dad found a used car in pristine shape from a private owner in Nashville, but I didn’t want to drive it back to Lexington all by myself.

  Jacob and I drove to the airport together, and I directed him to the section for private flights. Jacob wasn’t fazed. He had often flown in small twelve-seater planes from boarding school in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, to an airport in Cincinnati, Ohio, to go home for breaks. I liked that about him—he didn’t think it was that big of a deal to fly in a private plane, even one piloted by my dad.

  Jacob, thankfully, is sociable and good with people, so he talked up my dad like a pro. Dad knew I liked this guy, so he played it cool too. As we approached Nashville, the conversation faded into a peaceful calm. Jacob looked blissful gazing out the window at the city lights across the skyline.

  Jacob and I stayed overnight in Nashville with Heather and drove back the next day. After that trip, we began dating more regularly. Our time together felt so natural and free, and we talked for hours on end. One of the things we discussed was how we wouldn’t want to date anyone we couldn’t see ourselves with for the long-term. When we looked to the future, we saw ourselves together, and our relationship quickly grew more serious. He had met my family on our trip to Nashville, and one weekend in December we traveled to his hometown, Maysville, Kentucky, to visit his mom and stepdad.

  Despite our budding romance, Jacob and I didn’t spend the holidays together. My parents usually go to Florida for Thanksgiving, so Heather and I went to London to visit one of my high school friends who was studying abroad. For Christmas, Heather and I joined our parents back in Evansville. The holidays themselves were happy times. I cherished my family and found comfort in the normalcy and traditions of the season.

  When I was first recuperating from the attack, I didn’t get out that much. But in Evansville over Christmas, I felt eyes on me everywhere I went—especially in church and other places where people knew my family. It was uncomfortable having attention drawn to me this way. I just wanted to show everyone I was doing fine. I was okay. No need to worry about me, despite that I’d been raped and assaulted. I used humor to make other people feel more comfortable and to ease the tension—whatever would keep people from perceiving me as weird or broken or helpless. It had always been my personality to do so, but now it felt even more essential.

  I often received phone calls from acquaintances and more distant friends, well-meaning people who wanted to support me and check in to see how I was doing. The conversations were almost always the same.

  “Hey there, Holly, how are you? How’s school? Have they caught the bastard who did this to you?”

  No one actually asked that last question, though I might have appreciated their candor if they had. Instead, the voice on the other line would be soft and tentative, choosing words so carefully that they fell on the side of trite rather than risk offense or insensitivity. What could I say in response? I’m well? I’m surviving? My scars are healing, but I’m falling apart on the inside? It was so frustrating, this effort to be polite in the face of something so violent, so decidedly impolite.

  Not long after New Year’s Day, I returned to Lexington and was glad to be back at school. My twenty-first birthday was January 16, 1998, and I celebrated with a group of my sorority sisters at a local Applebee’s. We ended the evening at an Irish pub called Lynagh’s, close to campus. I still have a card that lists our drinks, our toasts, and funny quotes from an evening marked by the joy and freedom of youth. A palpable sense of relief arrived with the new year. I had reached the pinnacle age for a young adult in college. I was in a new and promising relationship. My life seemed to finally be on the mend.

  CHAPTER 10.

  Chrysalis

  While I was in Evansville for Christmas break, I got a call from Nancy Grimes, the family friend who brought me the sunshine box while I was recuperating.

  “Holly, I have something to ask, though it may be way out of left field and a real leap of faith for you.”

  I was intrigued. “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Would you be willing to serve as a youth table leader and give a talk about your faith at the spring Chrysalis retreat?”

  “Wow. Uh, really?” I didn’t know how else to respond.

  Nancy explained that the Chrysalis leadership team was actively planning the next biannual retreat at Camp Reveal just north of Evansville. During the weekend, nearly forty teenage boys and girls, nicknamed Caterpillars, came together for Christian teaching, worship, and fellowship. Mor
e than sixty volunteers also came together to produce the event—including spiritual advisors, adult table leaders, youth table leaders, musicians, kitchen crew, and other helpers. Each day of the weekend, another team of volunteers, called Agape, gave out trinkets and notes from the community to encourage Caterpillars in their faith.

  During the planning process, the leadership team prayerfully considered which past Chrysalis attendees might be suitable youth table leaders. Two youth leaders and an adult leader were assigned to a group of four teenagers at a particular table to guide and encourage them through the weekend’s sessions and events. The same group would sit together during each session, as well as prayer and meal times. Over the course of the weekend, the consistency built a connection and intimacy between those at the table.

  Many of these youth table leaders would also give talks on spiritual topics, complemented by group study, reflection, and prayer. The leadership team prayed over the list of names, seeking God to reveal who should be part of the weekend. They hoped to choose young people who could not only pass as peers to the teenagers who were there, but who could also make a positive impact.

  “It may sound crazy,” Nancy continued, “but every time I pray over this list of past attendees, your sweet face keeps coming to mind. I have questioned God’s nudging—I know how hard this might be for you, so if you aren’t up for it, I fully understand. I just had to ask. You have an important story to tell, Holly. I want you to know that.”

  “Can I think about it and let you know?”

  “Sure, Holly. Please pray about it and get back to me when you’re ready. And there’s no pressure—saying no is also okay.”

  I hung up the phone and stared into midair. Nancy was asking me to give a talk on faith when my faith was at an all-time low. What in the world would I say? My anger at God hadn’t budged. I felt isolated and alone. In the midst of that deep pain, being asked to talk about my faith felt like a slap in the face.

  But I had a lot of love and respect for Nancy, and maybe she was right. Maybe my story would matter to someone in that room. Her asking me felt like a sign that maybe God was still at work; he was still with me somehow, despite what had happened.

  I called her back a few days later.

  “Nancy, I don’t know how good it will be, but I’ll do it.”

  “Welcome to the team. We’ll all be right there with you. You can talk about whatever you want. What you experienced last year, or about the loving family you grew up in, it doesn’t matter. I just know your presence is needed at this event.”

  • • •

  During my involvement with Chrysalis back in high school, I learned that the group’s name had sacred symbolic meaning. The term “chrysalis” comes from the lifecycle of a butterfly. What starts out as an egg hatches into a larva, or caterpillar. A caterpillar’s priority is feeding itself so it grows and grows, molting its skin over and over until it’s ready for metamorphosis. The caterpillar then hangs from a branch and hides itself inside a shiny, tough outer shell called a chrysalis, becoming a pupa, the stage of transition. Inside the chrysalis the caterpillar essentially dissolves and re-forms into the wondrously beautiful butterfly, emerging from the shell and pumping fluid into its wings until they’re expanded, dried, and strong enough to fly. The butterfly has a new purpose at this point—to further the life, growth, and flourishing of all kinds of flora necessary to sustain an ecosystem.

  From birth, every caterpillar has within itself the cells necessary to become the imago—the adult butterfly. The belief that propelled the leaders behind Chrysalis is that every person has inherent worth as the imago Dei and the ability to grow into their fullest purpose in the kingdom of God. Their ministry exists to shepherd young souls into that potential and fullness. They had once taken me through that proverbial metamorphosis, and now they were inviting me to do the same for kids not much younger than I was. (Funny though, unlike the leaf-grubbing caterpillar, a butterfly lives on a strictly liquid diet. I had already been there, done that!)

  The weekend retreat started on Friday, April 3, 1998. Three years after my high school Chrysalis experience and barely eight months after the attack, I joined Nancy and the rest of the team at Camp Reveal, a site that spans more than a hundred acres ten miles north of Evansville at East Booneville and New Harmony Road. Camp Reveal was named after the founders of the Evansville Rescue Mission, Dr. Ernest “Pappy” Reveal and his wife, Edna. Dr. and Mrs. Reveal started the Evansville Rescue Mission in 1917 to provide shelter and services to the homeless and destitute, and their ministry purchased the campgrounds in 1927 to serve mothers and children in their programs. The campsite has grown and changed quite a bit since Pappy and Edna’s time, but the mission remains the same: to provide a place of rest and spiritual rejuvenation to those who need it most.

  The camp’s facilities straddled the line between modern and rustic. Naturally, there was running water, electricity, and—most importantly—air-conditioning. But everyone—whether a candidate or a leader—slept in bunk beds in long, dorm-style buildings. The guys took over one dorm wing, and the girls camped out in another, but we shared meals together and sat in the same assembly for many of the sessions. Other sessions were divided up so the girls and the guys could each talk more freely.

  All weekend, at my table and around the camp, I was lively and gregarious—singing silly songs and performing funny skits for the candidates. I was slotted to speak on Saturday evening before supper, just to the girls. We gathered in a conference room near the New Bethel Chapel, a beautiful gray stone church built in 1941. The chapel, with its octagonal steeple, slate roof, and arched wooden door was a timeless icon of the Reveals’ ministry. Before it was my turn to speak, I went into the chapel to pray with four or five adult leaders. The group of adults prayed over me, which was awkward because I wasn’t accustomed to that in the Catholic Church. I’d been in Chrysalis before and knew about people praying over other people, but it still felt a little weird. They prayed for strength, for my words to be clear, that my message would reach even just one person—someone who needed to hear it, whether a candidate or a grown-up.

  While they were praying, I have to admit I felt different. I sensed the same inexplicable peace that had settled over me during the attack. I only had a slight idea of what I was going to say during this session, and I had no idea what to offer about faith itself. I figured if God wanted this, he would give me the right words once the time came. Before I left the chapel, one of the leaders who prayed over me gave me a brass cross to carry. Every speaker that weekend held on to the brass cross during their presentation. I clung to it as I walked out of the chapel and into the conference room. Every cell in my body trembled in fear and anxiety over what I was about to do.

  The guys were in a separate session, so I entered a room of about forty women, including the candidates plus their youth table leaders and adult leaders. Given that Evansville is a relatively small community, several people knew what had happened to me, mostly other youth leaders who had been my classmates in high school or fellow Caterpillars at our own Chrysalis a few years ago. As I walked in, some of those girls teared up at the sight of me. But most of the candidates had no idea who I was, though they might have heard the story in the newspapers.

  Making my way to the front of the room was incredibly scary, but I also felt an unmistakable energy all around us. Before I reached the podium, I stopped at a small side table to light a candle. Like prayer time in the stone chapel, lighting this candle was part of the ritual each speaker followed. The wax was a multicolored blend of other candles that had burned at the leadership team’s many prayer gatherings and planning meetings in advance of the weekend. When planning was complete, all the melted wax was brought together to form two small pillar candles—one for the boys and one for the girls. While I lit the candle, the group recited a short prayer for our time together. The match flared and the wick took the flame, and I straightened up, steadying myself for what was about to happen.


  I was so scared to speak that I stayed planted safely behind the podium. I put down the brass cross I’d been clenching and picked up a piece of paper.

  “I would like to read you something from the Newswire, the school newspaper of Xavier University in Cincinnati,” I said. “The article is called ‘When statistics become reality,’ written by the paper’s assistant op-ed editor, Chad Engelland.”

  As I started to speak, an uncanny sensation came over me. I felt it again—that sense of peace and protection I had felt the night I was attacked, the peace that had descended during our prayer time in the chapel. God was with me, still. I could feel his presence as I went on to read Chad’s article:

  Saturday, I was eating dinner at a friend’s apartment when I heard about a murder and rape that occurred the night before involving two University of Kentucky students.

  Later, I would learn the details from the Lexington paper. A male and female were attacked as they walked alone. The attacker killed the male and raped and stabbed the female. The woman survived, though her condition was not released. I shuddered at the thought of such an evil act, but the conversation turned to other things, and that was that.

  Except it wasn’t. Late Saturday evening a good friend of mine from my hometown, a sophomore at Xavier, called me. With her tired words she brought that anonymous incident at UK to a living, breathing reality. The victim of the horrible crime, that unspeakable act called rape, was her cousin.

  This cousin was in my 1995 graduating class at Memorial High School. I doubled with her and a good friend of mine for our senior year Christmas dance. I went to grade school with her, survived science class by writing notes back and forth with her, and kissed her while playing spin the bottle. I even had a crush on her all of eighth grade.

  And now that tragic story of anonymity was more than a rumor and fodder of dinnertime conversation—now that story was a reality involving a person I knew, someone with a recognizable face. I could hardly believe it.