House of the Lost Girls (Flocksdale Files Book 2)

by Carissa Ann Lynch

  He was so angry, he spat on the ground beside him. What a pig. “Enjoy your stay. I didn’t get what I wanted, but as long as you’re in here, I’m going to make sure you never leave this dump.”

  He leaned forward, so close I could smell the stale coffee on his breath. Well, at least my olfactory senses are intact, I thought. He reached out, his hands stopping centimeters from my breasts. Was he going to fondle my chest? I wondered fearfully. I couldn’t feel a thing; all I could do was watch, observe. But I knew if he touched me, I’d be traumatized.

  He didn’t touch my breasts, but he used his fist to knock lightly on my head. “Anybody home, stupid?” And then he—thankfully—got up and left the room. What a creep!

  I didn’t know where I was exactly, but it definitely wasn’t jail. Two days later, I got my answer.

  A pair of aides led me and three other patients outside. Two other female patients, both with obvious mental impairments. One half of one of the girls’ faces was badly scarred. “She did it to herself. With a meat cleaver,” said the other girl. Outwardly, she—the girl who was filling me in on the other girl—looked normal. But as the outing continued, she spewed out one expletive after another. I remembered hearing the term before…Tourette’s.

  One of the aides pushed me in a wheelchair, led me around to the side of the metallic building. And there it was…that shit-brown river. Only now, I was on the other side of it. With my eyes, I followed the width of it, staring at the huge monster on the other side—the House of Horrors.

  Chapter

  Forty-Three

  Apparently, the “nuclear plant” across the river from my house wasn’t really a nuclear plant. Its metallic color and turret-like buildings created the image of a factory, stringent and dark.

  There were no noticeable signs on the outside, but it was clear—this was an institution. I got my answer from a surprising source. “I can’t believe you’re locked in a psych ward. This is the last place I wanted to come see you,” said Lou.

  Lexi sat in the shadows, her long, translucent legs folded up to her chest. She wouldn’t even look at me.

  “I know you didn’t kill Christa. Or Sam,” he said, softly. “I told you that guy couldn’t be trusted,” he said angrily. He was talking about Sam, I supposed.

  “Well, I don’t know when you’ll wake up from this trance, Marianna. If ever,” he said, choking on the words as he said them. “I’m sorry this happened to you. I really did like you,” he said, getting up to leave.

  I wanted to respond, ask questions. I struggled to control the body I was in. I tried to scream. But the door to my room was closed, and Lou and Lexi were gone.

  ***

  Alone with my thoughts, I couldn’t help thinking of Sam. Did he shoot himself? Obviously not, if the police thought I did it. So, maybe my initial instincts were correct: it was George. But why did Sam have my mother’s cell phone?

  I thought about my last “conversation” with my “mother,” or whoever had been impersonating her. Her last text when I was in New Orleans repeated in my mind. It hit me…something I’d forgotten…there was no way Sam was the one faking the texts because he’d been sitting beside me on the bed in our hotel when the texts came through. We’d looked at the screen together when she told me she was worried about me.

  How could I be so damn stupid? How?

  But the phone was ringing in that room, the last one down the hall. The one without a window. The one with boarded up planks. What if George hid the phone behind the planks or somewhere in that room? And that’s why I heard the ringing in there? Not that Sam had the phone, but that the phone was in that room?

  I wanted to cry, but couldn’t. Sam was gone and it was my fault. George must have shot him after I took off. He must have known we were on to him.

  So, George was the killer. And after I ran out of the house, he figured out that I knew…and because of that he killed Sam and then chased me down on my bike and tried to kill me…I tried to play it out in my mind, but all I could see was that bloody halo around his head. Oh, Sam…I’m so sorry. You’re dead and it’s all my fault.

  I’m sorry…

  Chapter

  Forty-Four

  I moved to the beach. Permanently.

  Now the ocean water rushed over my chest, covering my face and head. I dared the water to drown me.

  The conch shell was out of reach. But that was okay because I wanted to be alone.

  ***

  Someone was screaming. A voice too loud to be ignored.

  Begrudgingly, I reached for the conch shell. Pressed it against my ear. Opened my eyes to the face of Wendi Wise.

  “I’m sure you have questions, and I can answer them.” I was lying on the bed. She leaned over me, resting a hand on my chest. Even though I couldn’t feel her touch, I knew it was different—tender, unlike Detective Fountain’s touch.

  “The most important question is—where is your mother?” The window-eyes shut, then opened, and then they did it again. I was blinking! It seemed like something so small, but I couldn’t believe it. I could almost feel the tips of my lashes fluttering against my eyelids. “Marianna, I know the answer. Your mother is alive.”

  ***

  I waited for my mother to come visit me, but she never did. Wendi, however, showed up every day. She never again mentioned my mother. She’d blab on and on…about her own life and struggles and current events. Sometimes she even read books aloud.

  I screamed in my head the entire time. I wanted to kill her for toying with me. Every day, at the end of her visit, she’d say, “If you want to ask me about your mother, then you’ll have to ask me your damn self. Wake up, Marianna.”

  She’d slam the door behind her, pissing me off beyond belief.

  Why wouldn’t she just tell me? And where the hell was my mother?

  I didn’t go back to the beach. I was done dissociating. I wanted to be awake. I wanted to see my mother.

  Wendi showed up the next day, at quarter past ten in the morning, carrying a bag from McDonald’s. The sweet smell of French toast sticks invaded my nostrils. They’d been feeding me through a tube and I’d nearly forgotten what food tasted like until I smelled those delicious sticks. She dunked them in syrup, her hands and face gooey. I could almost hear the sounds of her teeth mashing together as she chewed the delicious food in slow motion.

  She looked up at me and paused. She must have sensed something. Scooting her chair close to mine, she held up a forkful of French toast. Waved it past my nose.

  Why was this bitch torturing me?

  That day, she spent an exorbitant amount of time visiting. She told me the story of how she was kidnapped and held hostage in the House of Horrors. I’d heard this before from her, but today she went into more detail, telling play-by-play trauma stories. If I could have shuddered, I would have. And if I could make my mouth work, I’d have told her to shut the fuck up.

  “I was tortured in a room upstairs. The one with the boarded up window,” Wendi said, nonchalantly. I blinked again and again, horrified. I wanted to escape from myself. Away from her life, her horror…and this room, and what happened to Sam…

  “I want to show you pictures,” Wendi said.

  Please, no more pictures! I thought desperately. I didn’t want to see any more photos of dead people, or rape, or Sam’s exploded head, or any other creepy thing this bitch might try to show me.

  “This is my daughter,” she said, holding up her cell phone. Thank god. It was a picture of a girl, probably in her late twenties. Wendi flipped through several more, all photos of her daughter. She was a beautiful girl, but she didn’t look like her mother.

  As though reading my mind, Wendi said, “She gets her looks from her father. Her smarts too. She got a full scholarship to Ball State.” I wanted to tell her that she was beautiful too, but then I remembered how angry I was with her, not to mention the fact that I couldn’t talk.

  “Your legs and arms were broken after the accident. Somebody tried to
run you over and kill you. But your legs and arms aren’t broke anymore. You can snap out of this. I know you can. After what I went through, I wanted to lay down and die too. I tried to disappear…to fade away in my head and self-hatred…but I didn’t, Marianna. I chose to fight, and so can you. We can get the bastard who killed Sam and Christa. I’ll help you, but you have to wake the fuck up.”

  Before she left for the day, she said her same old line: “If you want to ask me about your mother, then you’ll have to ask me your damn self. Wake up, Marianna.” The door to the room slammed shut, its thunderous clack echoing in my head.

  Chapter

  Forty-Five

  Wendi showed up the next day, toting more fast food and treats. I wanted to strangle her. After eating and flaunting the food, she moved to my side with the phone again. More family pictures. Great, I thought sarcastically.

  “Pay attention, Marianna. This one’s a video, and I think you’re going to like this one.”

  She held it up to my face, pressing play on the video. I immediately recognized the grocery store, the one I’d been to a couple times since moving to Flocksdale. The person who was videotaping—Wendi, I presumed—was pushing a cart down the aisle.

  “Behind door number one is…Mr. and Mrs. Laudre!” the videographer said goofily. She pushed the cart toward the vegetable display in the front of the store, zooming in on a shopping couple. It was my mother and George. They were talking, discussing tomato size or something…my mother held up a fat, juicy tomato. She was admiring it, the way she often did when she saw a piece of fruit she liked. George smiled at her. She smiled back. They moved on to lettuce heads.

  “See, Marianna? Your mother is alive. Alive and well, might I add…” Wendi said on the video.

  She turned the video off. Stuffed it down in her purse.

  My mother was alive. Alive! For the last few weeks, I’d started thinking Wendi was lying about her being alive, using the lie as motivation to shake me out of my catatonic state. But it was true!

  I blinked hard, staring at Wendi. She moved her face right up against mine, grazing noses with me. “I’m going to kill your mother, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.” She pulled a knife from her purse. A skinny, but dangerously sharp, dagger. “I’m going over there to do it right now!”

  Wendi stood up to leave. I lunged out of my seat, reaching with my hands. I clutched her throat with superhuman strength, and proceeded to choke the shit out of her.

  Chapter

  Forty-Six

  My hands were strong. My will was stronger. But unfortunately, my legs were Play-Doh. They crumpled beneath me and I fell to a heap on the floor, forced to release my grip on Wendi’s throat.

  I sucked in shallow, raspy breaths as I tried to gain my balance. Clutching the bed rail, I attempted to get back on my feet. My legs wobbled, burning with a numbness that reminded me of when a limb falls asleep, but a thousand times worse.

  There were two strong hands on my shoulders, holding me steady. “I can’t believe it worked,” Wendi muttered, her voice raspy after her recent choking session.

  “What worked?” I asked, but it sounded like “wah whir?” instead. Wendi helped me back over to the chair. “I was desperate. I had to say or do something crazy to snap you out of this. Nothing seemed to be working. I can’t believe it actually did,” she said breathlessly, sitting back down across from me.

  I stared at her, bewildered. Smiling slyly, she said, “Look, I’m sorry. But I’m trying to help you. Want a bite?” she asked, reaching for the crinkly food bags. I knocked the food away, struggling to formulate words with my once-motionless mouth.

  “Where is my mother? Why hasn’t she been to see me?” I asked, gripping the arms of my chair. Wendi smiled.

  “I thought you’d never ask. She showed up a few days after your accident, claiming she’d been in New Orleans, just like George told you. She visited with you a few times in the hospital, but once you were ordered to come here till trial, she stopped coming.”

  I stared at Wendi blankly, my reaction time slowed and my movements still sluggish. Nothing about this made sense. Why wouldn’t my mom come visit me? The mom I knew would stay by my side night and day, distraught over my injuries from the accident and subsequent mental state. Wouldn’t she? I tried to think back to other times my mom had stood by my side, but everything felt foggy…

  I thought about that video. Imagined her face, smiling cheerfully as she examined her perfect tomato. What the fuck was going on? What sort of fucked-up, alternate universe was this?

  Maybe she thinks I really did it…her daughter, the murderer…but even then, even if she thought I killed somebody. I still couldn’t wrap my brain around her absence.

  “Marianna, your mother isn’t who you think she is,” Wendi said softly and slowly. I narrowed my eyes at her sharply. My lips and cheeks felt numb in places, as well as my hands and feet. My legs still felt like doughy sticks of silly putty.

  “Do you want me strangle you again? Don’t talk about my mother,” I warned.

  I could hear nurses approaching in the hallway. “I’ll explain everything tomorrow. But please, whatever you do, don’t let anybody know you can move and talk again. No one,” she whispered ominously, just as the door to my room creaked open.

  I froze in place as the orderly came in, checking my vitals and ticking off items on her mental health list. There were cameras in here, and it was a real possibility that someone had already seen me in my new, recovered state, but with the apparent staff shortage and their often careless attitudes, I doubted anyone was really watching.

  “That’s enough visiting for one day,” the nurse told Wendi coldly. Wendi hesitated, picking up her food bags and purse. She kept trying to catch my eye, send me some sort of mental message, telling me to keep my mouth shut, but I refused to look at her. I was relieved when the door closed behind her.

  Chapter

  Forty-Seven

  Being unable to talk or move is a bitch, but you know what sucks worse? Forcing yourself not to talk or move when you have the ability to do so. When the nurses and psychiatrists came to see me, I had to stay still. It became so uncomfortable a few times that my face turned red from anger, and I had to clench my teeth to keep myself from freaking the fuck out.

  When it was time for our weekly trip outside, I had to sit there, limp and waxen, while they physically lifted me and situated my body in the wheelchair. I was with my usual gang, the girl with the scars—her name was Matilda, I’d learned. And the other girl with Tourette’s—Suzie Q, as the staff called her.

  Suzie had taken quite a liking to me, and she liked to sit next to my chair, facing the river with me, blabbing my ear off. “They’re never letting me out. It’s this place or prison, so I choose here. Ya know?” she babbled. I didn’t want to move or answer her, but now that I could, I wanted to ask her what she did to get locked up for life.

  “I didn’t kill nobody, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she said. I looked at her, tilting my head slightly by accident. Suzie Q was silent for a few minutes. “I’m on to you, ya know. I know you’re not catatonic anymore. But I don’t blame you for playing along. If I could have someone push me around all day, and feed me, and leave me alone all day…well, I’d do it too…”

  Keeping my eyes straight ahead, I focused on my view across the river. The House of Horrors was popping tonight, lights on in every window I could see. What were my mom and George doing over there—having a damn party? I tried to stop my hands from shaking.

  “Like I said, I wasn’t guilty of what they accused me of. You know what’s funny? We’re supposed to be the crazy ones, on this side of the river. But we all know where the real crazies are—they’re at the place we all came from…Flocksdale.”

  I turned my head to face her. Her eyes widened. Then her face broke into a lopsided grin. “I knew it,” she said, satisfied with herself. “I knew you were faking.”

  “Don’t tell,” I warned her, trying
to give my best impression of an evil glance. Suzie Q zipped her lips, throwing the imaginary key in the river.

  Chapter

  Forty-Eight

  Two days passed by. No Wendi. I was starting to think she’d abandoned me too. But then she showed up, bearing a gift. An extraordinarily large gift. It was a pale blue vintage trunk. She scooted it across the floor with her feet, making painful grunts and groans.

  “I wish you could get up and help,” she said, smirking at me. I watched, wordlessly, as she continued to struggle. What the hell was all this about? Sure, the trunk was exquisite. But after the bomb she dropped on me the other day, the last thing I cared about was receiving gifts.

  Finally satisfied with the trunk’s placement at the end of my bed, she wiped her hands on her holey jeans and lifted the lid. “They’re really strict about what you can bring in this place, but this trunk belonged to my grandmother and it’s full of some fabulous books. They went through everything in it, to make sure it was safe for you to have,” she said, staring at me oddly.

  “I hope you enjoy it. You must read The Prince and the Pauper first,” she commanded. Boy, she sure was acting stranger than usual today.

  “I’ll be back on Friday night. It’ll be a date. Right around eight o’clock.” In the past, she’d never told me when she was coming, and she’d never visited that late at night before. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was certainly something going on, and I didn’t know if I liked it.