He got off her, dressed, and as he left the room, he laughed, “She’s all yours, boys,” and they closed in on her. They held her down and, one after another, they had her, joking with each other as they did, as if she wasn’t there, each of them proving his manliness to the others. She couldn’t fight anymore. She couldn’t look at their faces and closed her eyes and prayed they’d leave her sister alone. Four, five, six? Maybe more. She was sure some had her twice.
Now she felt dirty, humiliated, violated, and guilty. Guilty of what? She wasn’t sure. She wanted to throw up. Waves of anger and hate washed over her like tsunamis. She hated the men who had brought her here, the men who had had her last night, and all the others who lived in the compound. She hated her parents for the disaster that had befallen her—had befallen them all. She hated her old boyfriend for reasons she could not yet conjure. Most of all, she hated herself. The only person she loved was Whoops.
She lifted the covers to look. Her arms and legs were bruised. There was dried blood and semen on her thighs and the mattress. The baby cried without surcease. She was hungry. Danielle didn’t know how she’d feed her.
She wondered if she’d get pregnant. At sixteen, she didn’t know quite what it took. She knew what they did to her could make her pregnant, but she wasn’t sure if it was certain. Then she didn’t care if she was. Not yet, anyway. All she cared about right now was Whoops.
There was an argument going on in the other room. The voices were muffled as they came through the wall. She could make out the angry words of a woman saying they couldn’t feed them.
How long would they leave her alone in this room without clothes?
The door opened. “She’s awake,” a woman’s voice said as the door slammed shut and she was alone, again.
She could still hear the voices, though they were indistinct and had to compete with Whoops, but one, a woman’s voice, was clear. She said, “Tell her to get out here.”
The next time she heard the door open a man’s unfriendly voice said, “Here. Get up,” and she felt something fall on the bed and the door slammed, again.
She lifted her head to see her jeans and shirt. No underpants, no bra, no socks.
She lay her head back down. Whoops kept crying and Danielle pulled her closer. She’d have to get up soon and find something to feed her.
After ten minutes the door opened, again. The woman’s voice said, “Get up and get out here before someone comes in here and drags you out.” This time the door was slammed so hard the room shook and Whoops got a surprised look on her face and stopped crying for just a moment, then resumed, louder than ever.
“It’s okay,” Danielle whispered and kissed Whoops’s cheek, and she lay there another minute before she reluctantly pushed the covers back and felt the cold air embrace her. She sat on the bed and put on her T-shirt, then stood quickly, hoping no one would open the door while she put her jeans on. She looked around the floor and under the bed for her shoes. They weren’t there.
She looked out one of the room’s windows. There were trailers all around. She realized there were a lot of people here. There was also at least a half a foot of newly-fallen snow on the ground and more was coming down.
She picked Whoops up, took a deep breath, then went to the door and opened it. It led into a kitchen whose walls were lined with cupboards. The room itself was filled with kitchen chairs, two tables, and one stuffed chair. All the chairs were occupied. There were others standing who huddled near the walls. Everyone looked at her except an old woman in the stuffed chair.
Danielle recognized some of the boxes from her family’s van in a corner on the other side of the kitchen. Two girls, about her age, and a middle-aged woman were picking through the clothes. She recognized some as her own.
“Those are my clothes,” she said.
“You’ll be quiet until yer spoken to,” the woman in the stuffed chair said.
“Well, tell those bitches to keep their hands off my stuff.”
They ignored her and continued going through the clothes.
“Where’s my bra?” Danielle demanded.
No one answered her.
“Where’s my bra and underwear?” she asked, again.
“You’ll speak when yer spoken to,” the old woman warned.
“I want my clothes.”
“I don’t like her attitude,” the woman said to no one in particular.
Danielle sensed that statement was ominous, but she persisted: “Where’s my family?”
Again, no one answered.
There was a quart-canning jar on one of the counters with white liquid in it. She crossed the kitchen and tasted it. She recognized the taste of reconstituted powdered milk. She poured some into a glass and brought it up to Whoops’s lips. The baby drank greedily.
“Do you have the manners to ask?” the woman in the stuffed chair asked.
“She’s hungry,” was Danielle’s response without looking back at the woman.
“I don’t like her,” the woman said.
“Yeah? Well, I don’t like you, either,” Danielle said and started going through cupboards. She opened the first. It was full of peanut butter.
“What are you doing?” the woman demanded.
“She’s hungry,” Danielle repeated.
She opened a second and a third and found an open box of Cream of Wheat and poured some into a small cup. There was a sugar bowl on the counter and she poured about a tablespoonful in the cup. She added milk and stirred it with her finger. Then she started going through kitchen draws until she found a spoon.
“Look at her,” the woman said indignantly. “She’s acting like she owns the place.”
Other than the almost inaudible whispers behind her, no one else spoke.
Danielle turned and leaned against the counter and fed Whoops. She glanced back at the corner where the girls and the woman softly argued over the clothes. “Get away from my clothes, you fuckers.”
No one said a word and she continued feeding Whoops. But the woman in the stuffed chair got up and came toward her. Danielle was focused on the baby. When the woman reached her, she slapped Danielle in the face harder than Danielle would have thought possible.
“You will speak civilly while you’re in my house!” the woman yelled.
Danielle was stunned and she forcefully pushed the woman away. “I’ll speak any way I want to a bunch of fuckin’ rapists and thieves, you dried-up old bitch.” She ran back to the bedroom with the cup and Whoops, and slammed the door behind her. She sat on the bed and started to cry. But Whoops ate, so she continued to feed her.
The door opened, again. It was Hank. “Get out here,” he growled.
“I’ll come out there when I’m damned good and ready.”
He crossed the room in two strides and grabbed her with a grip that hurt her arm and dragged her off the bed.
“Let me feed the baby,” she screamed.
“Let her feed the baby,” the woman’s voice called from the other room.
Hank hesitated, then he pushed Danielle, so she fell across the bed spilling half of the cereal, and he left the room.
She put the cup down and rubbed her arm where he’d grabbed her.
“That hurt,” she said to Whoops.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” she added, aware none of the words had meaning to her sister, and she resumed feeding her.
When the cup was empty, Danielle checked to make sure the baby didn’t need to be changed. Then she took a deep breath and went back into the kitchen. No one met her eye or spoke to her when she reappeared.
“We have rules here,” the woman in the stuffed chair said without looking up. “You will speak only when yer spoken to; you will be polite; you will work for what you get; you will not give sass; you will not take anything without permission, including food, whether it’s for the baby or yourself, otherwise, we will consider it stealing. If you don’t like the rules, there’s the door.”
“I’ll leave, but I want m
y clothes.” Danielle said.
“You’ll leave with the baby and what you have on your back. The rest is ours, now.”
Danielle would have walked out then and there, but she thought about Whoops. She couldn’t take her out into the snow.
Danielle began to cry and her baby sister watched her in amazement.
“Where’s my family?” she asked.
No one answered.
“Where are they?”
“Tears aren’t going to get you anywhere, young woman,” the woman said.
“Where…are…they?” Danielle asked deliberately.
“Last I heard,” the woman said, “they were on the road walking south toward warm weather.”
Walking, Danielle thought, just like the people they had passed on the road. Walking in the cold, with hundreds of miles to go, no food, and now it was snowing. She knew what happened to them.
She went back to the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. She sat on the edge of the bed. The room was still cold. She looked out the window. The snow was relentless. She pulled back the covers and crawled back under them. She and the baby had to keep warm.
This time they left her alone for quite some time and she drifted back to sleep.
She awoke when she heard the door open. She raised her head quickly and saw a boy, about her own age, standing in the open doorway. When he saw she was aware of him, he stepped in and closed the door behind him.
“Hi,” he said.
She didn’t say anything.
“My name is Joel.”
She lay her head down, again, and pulled the covers up so she didn’t have to look at him.
He approached the bed. “Can I sit down?”
When she didn’t answer, he sat on the edge of the bed.
“My name’s Joel.”
“You said that. What do you want?” she asked.
“I just came to say hello.”
“Hello. Now, get out.”
He didn’t move.
“I’m sorry for what’s happened to you,” he said. “It must be hard to be separated from your family.
“If it wasn’t for your fuckin’ family, or whoever it is out there, I wouldn’t be separated from mine.”
He was quiet, again, for a minute. “If you just try to get along, everything will be all right.”
“If I try to get along? I’m not the one who raped someone, I’m not the one who stole stuff, I’m not the one who’s keeping someone prisoner. I can get along with anyone who wants to get along with me,” she said. “But those guys last night, and that old bag out there, and those girls stealing my clothes…”
“My Grandma’s really nice, once you get to know her.”
“That old bag’s your grandmother?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s a cunt,” Danielle said.
“You shouldn’t call her names.” Joel said.
Then they were quiet. The only sounds were the muffled sounds coming from the kitchen on the other side of the door.
Finally he asked, “Will you try to be nice to her? I don’t want you to have to go away.”
“I want to get so far away from here that I’ll never remember being here.”
Joel paused. “Where would you go?”
“I have family in California.”
“California’s just thirty miles away,” he said.
“Down near L.A.,” she said.
“How would you get there?”
“I’ll walk.”
“It’s too cold. You’ll die.
“Is that what you bastards did to my mommy and dad and my brother? Make them walk so they’ll die?” she screamed.
“I didn’t do it…Maybe they got a ride.”
“Get real. Have you been out there? Nobody’s giving rides. My dad wouldn’t even give rides.” He wouldn’t even take an abandoned baby, she thought to herself, and held her sister closer.
Neither of them spoke for several minutes and she began to wonder if he’d left. She moved the blankets away from her face until she saw him, again. Then she moved them back to cover her face.
“You’re pretty,” he said.
She didn’t like the sound of that. “Go away.”
“I’m sorry for what they did to you last night.”
“I want my clothes. I want my underwear. I want my shoes. Where’s the bra and panties I wore in here?”
“My sister’s got your bra. Clothes are in short supply. You’re lucky you got anything back.”
“You call this lucky?” she asked bitterly.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t see it that way. But you are.
“She and the other girls have got most of your underwear, too. They’re not supposed to wear them thong things you have. Grandma says they’re flossing their crotches when they got ’em on, but she don’t know when they got ’em on.”
“Were you one of them?” Danielle asked.
“What do you mean?”
She pushed the blankets away from her face, again, and screamed. “What do you think I mean? Were you one of the guys that fucked me last night?”
He looked at the floor and shook his head.
“Why not? Everyone else did.”
“Not everyone. Some of us don’t think things should be done that way. Uncle Hank tried to make me do it, but I wouldn’t come in here.”
“He’s your uncle?”
“He’s kind of a cousin, but I call him uncle.
“How old’s your baby?” he asked trying to change the subject.
“Six months. And she’s not my baby, she’s my sister.”
“Oh.” Not her daughter. He nodded approvingly.
“For all I know, I might be pregnant,” she said and started crying, again. “I can’t have a baby. I have a boyfriend back home. I don’t know what he’d think if he found out about this.”
What would he think? She asked herself. She knew the answer: He said he’d leave her if she got pregnant. Not if he made her pregnant; if she got that way at all. So, if it were another man’s, even because of rape…
She began drooling as she cried. “I’m not even old enough to have a baby.”
“You take good care of her,” Joel said softly.
“What?” Danielle asked, choking back tears.
“You take good care of your sister.”
“I have to. I’m all she’s got, thanks to your family…and she’s all I’ve got.”
Joel wanted to say something like, “You have me, too.” But he couldn’t. He didn’t want to hear about a boyfriend, either. He wanted a girlfriend. And Danielle…
The door opened and a thin girl about Danielle’s age, with long, straight brown hair stood in the doorway. She stared at Joel for a moment, then left, closing the door behind her.
“Who was that?” Danielle asked.
“Anne.”
“She your sister?”
“No, she’s new here.”
“What do you mean, ‘new’?”
“She came in from the road.”
“The same way I did, without a choice?”
She knew she was right when he didn’t answer.
“What did she come in here for?” Danielle asked.
“I dunno. Maybe she just wants to see who you are.”
Whoops began to squirm and Danielle comforted her.
“My grandmother doesn’t like her,” Joel said.
“Who does your grandmother like?”
“Lots of people. You just got to get to know her…and do what she wants you to do.”
“I don’t want to know her.”
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Sixteen.”
A long silence followed. Then Joel said, “I’m sixteen, too.”
“Why doesn’t your grandmother like Anne?”
“She said she’s a whiner.”
“Is she?”
“Sort of. But I liked her. But Grandma says she’s a slacker because she won’t work hard. Grandma says that’s bad.
We can’t feed people who won’t work hard. And she’s slept with almost everyone here hoping we won’t throw her out. I don’t think it’s going to work.”
“Why’s she let her stay?”
“The guys like her; especially Uncle Hank.”
There was another long silence, then the door opened. It was Anne, again. “Can I come in?” she asked.
Neither Danielle nor Joel answered. She stood in the doorway indecisively. Finally, she stepped in and closed the door behind her. She sat on the bed beside Joel. None of them spoke and it was obvious to Danielle that Joel was uncomfortable with her in there.
Soon, the door reopened. It was Hank. “Get out here,” he barked at Anne.
“I want her out here, now,” Joel’s grandmother called from the kitchen.
“She’s talking with us,” Joel yelled past Hank to his grandmother.
There was a brief silence from the other room, then his grandmother said something none of them in the bedroom caught, except for Hank because he was in the doorway. He glared at the three of them then slammed the door as he left.
“What are you guys talking about?” Anne asked.
Joel didn’t say anything. He got up off the bed and left the room. Anne watched him go. Then she turned to Danielle. “My name is Anne.”
“I know.”
Anne began to rock while she sat on the edge of the bed. “I just got here like a couple of weeks ago.” Then she abruptly said, “I don’t think Grandma likes you.”
“The feeling is mutual,” Danielle said.
“We should all be friends. You know, if you just go along with them, they’re not so bad. And what else are you going to do, anyway?”
“How’d you get here?” Danielle asked.
“They stopped us on the road,” she said.
“Where’s your family?”
Anne didn’t answer.
“Where are they?”
“I think they got a ride.”
“Are you nuts? They’re pulling people off the road, stealing everything they’ve got, then leaving them to die. That’s what they did with my family; that’s what they did with yours.”
Danielle Kidnapped: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Ice Age Page 7