by Scare Street
Donna wasn’t nervous about picking up Natalie for the church bazaar, even though everyone told her she should be.
“There’s something strange about that girl,” her best friend, Angelica, told her after the meeting. The board had assigned her and the other two social workers to certain children that were difficult for others to handle. Donna was part of a team that handled those difficult children, each one having their own specific needs.
She had shaken her head in disbelief. “Ang, I can’t believe you would dismiss a child like that.”
Angelica gave her that look, a look she frequently had when she was sure she was right about something and Donna didn’t believe her.
“I’m telling you, Donna,” she replied. “There’s something off about her. I asked George specifically not to assign me to her because I don’t think I can handle her. Maybe you can.”
Donna searched the numbers of the passing houses until she found 1815, the foster home where Natalie had been staying for six weeks. She pulled her black SUV into the driveway and parked behind a silver Camry. She scanned the car and the yard to look for signs that the home might not be suitable for a child, as she was taught to do.
She saw nothing that would deter her from keeping Natalie here. Not on the outside anyway. In her time as a social worker, she’d seen foster homes that looked immaculate from the outside, but once she went in, she found the place littered with beer cans and liquor bottles, trash in the corners, dirty walls and carpets, and a variety of other unsanitary conditions. Once she had discovered a meth lab in the basement.
Since then, she’d reserved her judgment until she saw everything inside and out before she made a decision for the child’s future.
She knocked on the door and was surprised when it pushed open on its own.
Donna stood there for a moment, frozen momentarily by her surprise. She moved her eyes around the hallway in front of her, but there was no one there.
“Hello?” She stepped into the house, leaning forward to look from side to side. The room to her left looked like a living room, with a couch and love seat, coffee table, and shelf with DVDs stacked up on it. She thought it was strange to see the stack of DVDs when there didn’t seem to be a television in the room.
“Donna Barnhart here,” she called out. “From Social Services. Is anyone home?”
Worry slid through her.
“Natalie?”
The house was eerily quiet, giving Donna the immediate sense that something was wrong. She pulled out her cell phone and looked down at it, pressing the power button. The screen lit up and she started to dial her office.
She looked up again, drawing in a deep breath. How would it look if she didn’t even go through the house to see if everyone was okay? She’d look like she didn’t know how to do her job.
She walked down the hallway past the stairs that led up to the second floor. The kitchen was in the back to the left. She could see the stove through the slightly open door. On the other side, a screened-in porch allowed her to see the well-kept back yard, where a swing and plastic slide sat waiting to be played with.
Still no people.
Maybe they aren’t home, she thought.
But she had an appointment. And the door was open. It didn’t make sense.
As she walked back down the hallway, intending to go upstairs, she watched in terrified shock as the front door slowly closed on its own. She swallowed, pulling out her cell phone again as she hurried to the door.
She tried to turn the knob, but it seemed to be stuck. Beginning to freak out, she pushed the power button on her cell again, and when the screen lit up, she pulled up her phone app and pressed the contact button for her office.
Someone would come and let her out of the house.
She held the phone up to her ear, but it didn’t ring on the other side.
She pulled the phone down and stared at the screen. She had dialed correctly, but it kept disconnecting. She tried again. It attempted to dial but almost immediately hung up.
Donna shook her head. “Come on, you stupid phone.” She pressed and held the power button to restart it. When it turned dark, she lowered it and turned to the living room.
She went into the room, looking for a landline. Not too many people had those anymore, and she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t see one anywhere in the room. She went across to the den. She nodded when she saw the large flat-screen TV hanging on the wall. Below it was an entire entertainment setup filled with various video systems, a DVR, even a video cassette player.
With interest, forgetting that she was in a very strange situation, she went to the VCR and bent over to look at it. She wondered if it was still in working condition.
The sound of clicking behind her made her swiftly turn around and stare through the hallway into the living room. She saw nothing.
She moved slowly through the hallway.
At the stairs, she stopped. She heard a voice coming from upstairs. It sounded like whimpering. A woman or a young girl.
Donna rested one hand on the railing and looked up. “Hello?” she called out. “Natalie, are you up there, dear? Do you need help?”
She started up the stairs and frowned, looking down at them. They felt pliable, as if they were ready to give way at any moment. From the bottom, they looked sturdy and normal. But when she set her foot down, the steps moved down with the weight of her body.
She hurried up the stairs, not wanting to fall through. This was definitely going into her report.
She was nearing the top when the remaining stairs collapsed in on themselves, turning into a slide. Fear jolted her into action and she grabbed the railing to keep from sliding down.
“What the hell?” she asked aloud. She used the railing to help her get to the top. Her heart was pounding in her chest, fear sliding through her nerves and making them tingle. She managed to get to the second level by using the railing to swing herself up.
“Natalie? Tell me where you are, dear.” Her voice shook as she called out to the little girl. “I’m here. I’ll help you. Tell me where you are.”
Donna had no idea what she could possibly do to help Natalie. The house seemed to have a life of its own. She crept down the hallway slowly, listening for the sound that had brought her upstairs to begin with.
When she heard it again, it was as if it were right in her ear. A moaning sound coming from the room to her right. She put her hand out and pushed on the door, letting it swing open.
It looked like a typical bedroom. A large queen-sized bed sat against the wall to her right, a long dresser ran along the wall to the left, two side tables on either side of the bed, a pretty rug on the hardwood floor.
As she looked around the room, her eyes stopped on the young woman in the corner. She was sitting on the floor, her knees up against her chest. Her arms encircled her legs and her face was pressed down in between them. She was rocking back and forth.
“H… hello?” Donna said. “Are… are you all right?”
She took a few steps into the room, unsure of what to do. Gathering her courage, she walked over to the woman and kneeled in front of her. She put one hand on the woman’s shoulder.
As soon as Donna touched her, the woman shrieked and scrambled away on her hands and knees, shoving herself under the bed. She folded herself into a fetal position and started to cry.
Terrified, Donna thought of retreating. But she didn’t want to leave the woman in such a state. She went to her, bending down to look under the bed.
“Miss? Please come out and talk to me. Everything will be all right. I’ll get you some help and…”
“No!” the woman said firmly, shaking her head vigorously. “You can’t help. No one can help.”
Donna’s breath caught in her throat. She reached out and placed her hand on the floor in front of the woman. She tried to use as gentle a voice as she could. “I’m from Social Services. I’m here about Natalie. Can you tell me…”
When Donna mentioned N
atalie’s name, the woman’s eyes widened with fear. She pushed herself further away from Donna, into the darkness so Donna could barely see her.
“Please. Please, can you help me find…”
“She brought the monsters here,” the woman whispered ominously. “She brought them here.”
Donna frowned. Was she talking about Natalie? The sweet little girl Donna met at the gathering for foster kids and foster parents? She couldn’t be.
“What do you mean, she brought the monsters?” Donna asked.
“She brought them!” The woman’s voice was insistent. Donna was beginning to think she might have lost her mind in the mayhem of fostering a difficult child. “She brought them here! That’s why David…” The woman began to sob. “That’s why David left. Because of her! Because of the monsters she brought into our home.”
Donna tried to wrap her mind around the situation. Obviously, the woman, who must have been Mrs. Ellen Mabry, had been left by her husband and was distraught about it.
“There are no monsters here, Mrs. Mabry, if that’s who you are. Are you Mrs. Mabry? Maybe a babysitter here for Natalie? Where is she, by the way?”
Mrs. Mabry shook her head. “I don’t know where she is,” the woman replied in a shaky voice. “I don’t care. She brought those things here. I don’t want her anymore. You take her with you. She ruined my life. Her and those… monsters.”
“Please, Mrs. Mabry, at least come out and talk to me.”
Donna had never seen a woman look more terrified. She held out her hand. “I’ll keep you safe. I promise. I just want to talk to you.”
The woman shook her head again.
Donna switched approaches, using a soft voice. “It’s dirty and nasty under there. Come out. There are no monsters out here, at least not in this room. I’m safe, see? I’m fine. Come on out. Please.”
She coaxed the woman out slowly. Mrs. Mabry took her hand and eased herself out from under the bed.
“There, see? It’s going to be fine.”
Mrs. Mabry gave Donna a sarcastic look. “It’s going to be fine? It’s not going to be fine. You don’t know what’s going on here. You should never have come here.”
Donna tilted her head to the side. “It’s my job. I have to check on Natalie.”
The look to her mention of Natalie was the same as before. Mrs. Mabry cringed at the sound of it. She was so tense, Donna could feel her own muscles tensing up. She tried to relax.
“Monsters aren’t real, Mrs. Mabry. You might be having a breakdown. I can get you to a hospital and…”
“You don’t understand,” the woman hissed, cutting off her words. “You just don’t understand.” Her eyes narrowed, and Donna was surprised to see her forehead shimmering with sweat. There were dark bags under her eyes that a woman of her young age should not have. It looked like she hadn’t slept for days.
“Have you eaten lately?” Donna asked. “Or slept? You don’t look so good.”
Mrs. Mabry let out a cackling laugh that split through Donna like a razor blade. It made Donna’s skin crawl to hear it.
“Eaten?” The woman acted like that was the furthest thing from her mind. “Slept? No, Ms. Barnhart. I haven’t eaten or slept. In a long time. You want to know why?”
Donna nodded, trying to keep her own fear from showing. It was just a psychotic breakdown. That was all. Nothing more. She really needed to find Natalie to make sure the child was safe. When a man left a woman and the woman broke down over it, it wasn’t a good time for a foster child to be involved.
“Because she brought the monsters here and it drove my husband away. He couldn’t take it anymore. He said he was done with me and with this house and with everything! I’m afraid he’s going to kill himself!”
“When did he leave?”
“Two days ago.” The woman’s whimpering was back. Donna noticed how she fluctuated between exhaustion and aggression. “He’s not coming back for me. I know he won’t come back for me. Not as long as she’s here.”
Donna frowned, sitting on the bed next to the woman. “Mrs. Mabry, if you don’t want Natalie here, I’ll take her with me today.”
Mrs. Mabry’s head swiveled to her so quickly, Donna thought her head might snap off. “You will? You’ll take her out of here today?”
Donna blinked. She was irritated by Mrs. Mabry’s willingness to get rid of the child, who had seemed so sweet at the gathering, even Donna wanted to adopt her. “Yes. I’ll take her. And we’ll get you some help, too.”
Mrs. Mabry crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself tightly. “I don’t need help. I need that girl out of my house. Today.”
Donna stood up, looking down at her. “Which room is hers?”
“The one next to the bathroom at the end of the hall.” When the woman lifted her finger to point in the general direction, her entire arm was shaking. Donna noticed how thin her fingers were, how her wrist couldn’t have been more than eight inches all the way around. She had lost enough weight to look unhealthy.
Donna vowed to send help back to the house for the woman as soon as she had gotten Natalie out. She went out into the hallway without another word to Mrs. Mabry. It was annoying when people didn’t tell Social Services that they were having personal problems, opting to keep the money they were receiving instead of caring about the child’s well-being.
Mr. and Mrs. Mabry hadn’t appeared to be that kind of people. But for all Donna knew, they could have started doing drugs right after they adopted the girl, or maybe their relationship hadn’t been as solid as they thought and the presence of a child had ruined it.
Donna knocked on the door Mrs. Mabry had indicated. She turned the knob and opened the door.
To her surprise, eleven-year-old Natalie was sitting on her bed, a coloring book open in her lap, a green marker in her hand, and a pair of big headphones on her ears. She looked up and her face registered surprise.
“Hi,” she said, smiling, pulling the headphones from her ears. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”
“Yes, I left a message. I’m sorry you didn’t get it.”
She watched as the dark-haired, brown-eyed girl closed the book in her lap, sliding the green marker into it to save her place. She began to slide off the bed.
“I’m leaving here, aren’t I?” she asked in a somber voice. Her big eyes gazed at Donna sadly.
“I’m afraid so.” Donna crossed the small room to the bed and sat on it before Natalie could get off. “There are some strange things going on here, and I need to get you out of this environment.”
Natalie sighed, nodding. “Yeah, that happens to me every time.”
Donna had only recently picked up Natalie’s case, but in her research, she had noticed that in the last year, Natalie had been placed in seven different homes. Each time six to eight weeks would pass and the foster parents would send her back. Some of them complained so much, they said they would never foster another child.
But there had been no reports as to why they didn’t want Natalie. No one was willing to give specific answers. They just listed her as “difficult.”
“Wait, Natalie. Do you know why this keeps happening to you?”
Natalie hung her legs over the side of the bed, kicking them gently as she spoke. “I don’t know. I try to be a good girl and not cause any problems. I want a mom and dad, and I guess they just don’t want me.”
Donna was washed over with compassion. She wrapped one arm around Natalie and gave her a side hug. “Don’t you worry. Everything will be okay.”
Natalie sighed. The sound was as sweet as Donna had ever heard before. Her heart went out to the child.
“I’m very sorry this keeps happening, Natalie. Let’s work together to try and find out why, okay?”
Natalie looked over her shoulder as she went to the dresser. The look she gave Donna made the woman’s heart melt for the child. Her big brown eyes were almost entrancing. She was going to be a beautiful woman. Probably will break a lot of littl
e boys’ and men’s hearts alike.
Donna waited while Natalie pulled out a rolling luggage bag and filled it with the clothes from the dresser. She watched the little girl zip up the bag and stand, pulling out the handle. She’d placed her coloring book and markers in the bag on top of the clothes.
“Do you have anything else you want to bring with you?”
Natalie shook her head. “I guess not.”
Donna patted the bed next to her. “Let’s talk for another minute before we leave, okay?”
Natalie walked back to the bed, looking up at Donna questioningly.
Donna tried to formulate the question correctly. “Natalie. Has your foster mother been talking to you? How does she treat you?”
“She’s been really sleepy the last couple of days, but I think she’s a nice lady.”
“What about David?”
The little girl shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if he’s a good person?”
“Oh sure, he’s a good person. I like him plenty.”
Donna tried to approach the subject as gently as she could. “Do you know why he left?”
Natalie dropped her eyes and studied her folded hands in her lap. “I… I guess he didn’t like me.”
Donna hugged the girl with one arm. “Now, don’t you think that!” she said sympathetically. “That’s not it, dear. It wasn’t about you. Sometimes adults just can’t work out their own relationships, and they have to split up.”
Natalie looked up at her, tilting her head to the side. For the first time since she’d come in the room, Donna felt a little uncomfortable. The girl’s eyes were deep and soulful. When she looked directly at Donna, it made the woman feel like she was reading her mind.
“But he told foster mom that it was because of me.”
Donna grunted and gave her another side hug. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry you had to hear that. Don’t you worry, you can stay with me tonight and we’ll find you a nice place to stay tomorrow.”
Natalie looked surprised. “You’re going to take me to your house?”
Donna nodded. “We have special permission because we’re dealing with children who are having a harder time than others.” She had to work through her uneasiness with the child. Mrs. Mabry’s words were haunting her. What kind of monsters could she be claiming Natalie brought with her?