by Joe Russell
Mike hadn’t realized that his mind had been elsewhere until he turned a corner and the sight of a vehicle snapped him back to the present. Instinctively, he ducked into the concealment of the trees on the side of the road as soon as he realized what he was looking at, but he knew that if there was someone there watching the road, they would have seen him already. Still, he watched for a minute or two, trying to detect movement. Even though he was out here to find help, the events of the day had made him wary of who he might run into. Not seeing any signs of people, he slowly and cautiously moved out into the road again and approached the vehicle.
The vehicle was a good twenty or thirty yards off the road on the left-hand side facing out, but he could see it well because many of the trees around it had been cleared. As he got closer, he could see that the area appeared to be a rustic campsite. The vehicle was a black BMW and the passenger side door was standing ajar with its window smashed. When Mike came abreast of the campsite on the road, he could see the devastation behind the car that had been a camping scene. He approached cautiously, first making sure the car was empty, then moving toward the remains of the campsite. A tent lay flat on the ground as if it had been trampled. Cooking materials, clothes, and other items were strewn about the ground. A knot began to form in his throat as he took in the frightening scene, wondering what on earth would have caused this. Then, he saw the body.
Mike jumped a little at the sight, then regained his composure and moved closer to investigate. It was a middle-aged man, on his stomach and not moving. Mike could see the side of his face and it was pretty bruised. He didn’t see any blood, except for a little that had caked around some minor gashes on his face. Mike rolled him over and studied the front of his body. His clothes were dirty, but Mike didn’t observe any visible injuries, other than signs of a brutal beating. The man didn’t appear to be breathing, but when Mike checked, he did have a pulse. Mike began CPR and then splashed the man’s face with a little water from his bottle. After a few repetitions, the man stirred and appeared to be slowly regaining consciousness. Mike waited patiently until the man opened his eyes, making eye contact with him, but not seeming to recognize that he was staring up at a man he didn’t know, much less what had happened. Then, as if splashed with a bucket of cold realization, he jerked and sat up clumsily, but more quickly than Mike expected.
“Whoa, easy,” Mike warned gently, as if talking to a child or a scared pet, and put his hand out toward the man’s now heaving chest. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“They took her,” the man blurted out, barely waiting for Mike to finish speaking. He wasn’t shouting, but his tone was grave and the nature of the comment struck Mike unexpectedly, especially in light of his own predicament.
“Excuse me?” Mike asked, dropping his comforting tone without realizing it. When the man only stared off into space for a couple of seconds instead of responding, Mike grabbed his shoulders with both hands and asked again, “Who did they take?”
The man turned and stared into Mike’s eyes in such a way that Mike knew the man was coherent. When the man answered him, his voice was softer and more controlled. “Rachel,” he paused, then continued in a still softer voice, “my daughter.”
✽ ✽ ✽
The two sat quietly for a time. The news from the man, whose name was Neil, had sent Mike’s mind scrambling even more than it already was. He had come here looking for help, not expecting to find another victim, in arguably worse condition than himself. Mike sat on a boulder near the cold fire pit lost in thought, trying to make sense of it all and figure out what to do next. Neil was sitting on a log almost opposite of him, eating a granola bar from Mike’s pack and greedily chasing it with water from the same source. Mike wasn’t too worried about it. Between his own pack and Dave’s that was cached not too far away, they had plenty of food. At least, assuming they weren’t going to be out here for several days, and Dave’s little Sawyer filter for cleaning creek or puddle water ensured they would have enough to drink. Even without these convenient provisions, Mike still was not too concerned. The gravity of the situation he was in, recently added to by his discovery of Neil and the fact that Sandra and Jen may not be the only two victims of the kidnappers, outweighed everything else in his mind. He hadn’t yet told Neil that he happened to be out looking for help for his own kidnapping problem, but not because he wasn’t going to. Obviously getting his help, be it informational, another set of hands, or a working car or cell phone could be invaluable, but as anxious as Mike was, he figured he’d give the man a few minutes to regain his strength before dumping this on him and expecting him to help.
“So, when do you think they came by?” Mike asked again, trying to get some basic info from which some useful intel could be extracted.
“I don’t know, I think this morning,” Neil said, with obvious haziness obstructing his mind and memory. “Yes, today is Sunday, right?”
“Yeah,” Mike said.
“Yes, it was this morning. Rachel and I have been here since Friday evening. We had lunch at the little restaurant down in the valley yesterday, then came back up here. We went on a hike in the afternoon. When we got back, I saw that my car had a flat tire.”
Hmmm, didn’t see that, Mike thought. Must have been on the other side of the car.
“I opened my trunk to get the spare tire and change it out and Rachel went into the woods, I guess to have a little privacy and go to the bathroom. When I was down on the ground with my head under the car, someone grabbed me around the neck and held me in a headlock. They told me if I moved, I’d be dead.”
Neil paused as if to emotionally muster his strength to continue. He was staring straight into the black fire pit, as if he didn’t realize there was no fire burning in it. Then as he began to speak again, his eyes flashed and for a moment, Mike thought he could have seen something there, like the reflection of a campfire burning. “Then,” he continued softly, “I heard Rachel scream.” His eyes lost their appearance of fiery reflection and went as dark and cold as the fire pit in front of him and his gaze fell to the ground, followed by the rest of his head. “I tried to get free, but they had me good. They squeezed, and I fought, but everything went black.”
Mike stared at the man, sympathy in his face, but didn’t say anything. He knew that unfortunately, there was more to the story. Mike waited patiently, and Neil soon continued with his sad monologue.
“I woke up probably only a few minutes later because I could hear Rachel screaming and fighting, from the sounds of it. I couldn’t see because I was laying on the ground near the car with my head turned the other way. As soon as I tried to get up and see what was happening, they started kicking me. First in the back, then in the face and stomach. I gave up trying to get up. There were just too many of them.” His voice broke and he appeared to be choking back tears. “I knew my little girl was in trouble, but there was nothing I could do. I heard shouting, some by her and some by them, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying. I think they grabbed me and dragged me away from the car and I tried to get to my feet again, but they just kept beating me. I remember one of them thanked me for…” He choked on the words. “For… bringing them pussy.” He let loose and began crying all out. “I tried to get loose, but then they just kept hitting me and kicking me and that’s all I remember!” He broke down, shoulders slumping and his head in hands.
Mike stared at the ground as if respecting the man’s dignity by not watching. He let the man finish crying, which took a minute or two, then met his gaze. Mike focused on the man’s red eyes, full of sorrow and rage and hopelessness all at the same time and spoke quietly, “I think I know where she is.”
“What? How?!” Neil exclaimed, sounding hopeful for a moment and then instantly becoming suspicious. He looked at Mike and his eyes narrowed slightly. “How do you know?”
Mike took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before letting it out slowly. “Because I lost people, too.” He paused, and Neil looked at him expecta
ntly. “This morning, my girlfriend and her sister disappeared. And now, whoever took them have her brother-in-law. That’s why I’m here. I came to get help. And I found you.” Mike raised an eyebrow. “Do you think two different kidnappers decided to strike in the same place on the same day?”
Neil was speechless. Mike figured that his story had to be as surprising for Neil as Neil’s was to him, maybe more so. The two sat in silence for a minute or two before Neil finally responded.
“So, where are they?”
“Back a couple miles in an old cabin,” Mike said. “Dave- that’s his name, and I went searching for them this morning. We found the cabin and a truck belonging to some guys that Dave said he had run across; bad guys. Dave went in to take a look and I heard a gunshot. He never came out.” Mike paused and waited for Neil to rebuke him for leaving Dave and not going in after him, but it didn’t come.
“A gunshot?” Neil said, his voice cracking a little. “Well, if they have guns, then we need to get to the police!”
“Well, I don’t know if it was them. I mean, I saw one of them with a rifle, but Dave had a gun, too. It could have been him shooting. I don’t know. I just figured if it was, then he’d have come out, but he never did.”
“He was the shooter?” Neil asked, with a fear in his voice that hinted to Mike that his trust had regressed a little bit with the latest bit of news.
“I don’t know, but Dave wouldn’t have shot unless he had a good reason.” Mike said, a little more firmly than he intended.
“Okay…” Neil said, not any more convincingly than he sounded himself. “Still, we need to get to the police. We can take my car.”
Mike perked up at the sound of the obvious notion. He realized that he hadn’t even thought of taking the car. Maybe because it hadn’t been an option for them since this whole thing had started this morning. He stood up, ready to get moving.
“All right, sounds good. Let’s go.”
Neil stood, a little shaky but much better than he had been twenty minutes earlier when Mike had first gotten him up and seated on the log. Neil looked around at the wreckage of his campsite, obviously disturbed. Mike watched him, hoping he would keep it together. Neil spent a moment looking around, then appeared to tell himself that it was time to get moving. Without another look, he moved on from the scene and toward his car. Mike followed him, but moved around the opposite side to the still ajar passenger door. Mike watched Neil get in and appear surprised that the keys were already in the ignition. Mike slid onto the black leather passenger seat as Neil tried to start the car repeatedly, with no success. The car was completely unresponsive. No sound at all, other than the click of the key turning and no lights on the dashboard at all. For that matter, the overhead dome light wasn’t on either, despite both front doors being open.
“The pricks had to leave the door open,” Neil muttered.
Mike thought this was odd, though. Obviously, they’d tried successfully to look in the vehicle, but wouldn’t have found the keys and put them in the ignition, unless they were going to move or probably steal the car. The fact that they didn’t and left the keys in the ignition, probably meant they couldn’t get the car started, and Neil didn’t seem to recall the car being dead before they’d showed up… Mike thought all this to himself as Neil continued to try to start the car. Of course, with no hint of success. He didn’t understand.
“Maybe they took the battery for some reason,” Mike finally suggested.
Neil muttered something that Mike couldn’t decipher and got out of the car after pulling the hood release latch. The two got out and checked under the hood, but although neither of them were too mechanically inclined, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. What was to the civilized world a state-of-the-art automotive precision machine, was now nothing more than a dead can of mysterious wires, hoses, and metal. Neil dropped the hood like a coffin lid and hung his head.
“Do you have a cell phone?” Mike asked, hopeful. “I know there probably won’t be service out here, but we might be able to make an emergency call.”
Neil perked up a little, looking thoughtful. “Yes, I do,” he began, “but I’m not sure where it is.” He patted himself down, searching for it. “I’m pretty sure I had it in my pockets. Those guys probably took it.”
Mike began walking around the wreckage of the campsite, looking for the lost phone. He saw Neil lean back into the driver’s side door of the dead car to search there. Mike walked through the camp, occasionally moving debris around with his foot, but mostly just scanning the ground. When he had made his way back to the general area where he had found Neil, he found what he assumed to be it. It was an iPhone, laying face down on the ground.
“Neil!” he called. “I think I found it!”
Neil emerged from the car and looked hopefully in Mike’s direction. Mike bent down and picked up the phone, turning it over for a quick visual inspection. Not finding any obvious damage, he held it up for Neil to see. Neil, who was already jogging toward him, nodded affirmatively.
When he got to Mike, they both looked at the phone as if it were some treasure they had been searching for. Neil took it from Mike and pushed the power button. Nothing happened. He tried again with the same result. Frustrated, he let out an exasperated groan and Mike’s heart sank. He hadn’t really been expecting it to work, but it’d been his last hope before accepting what he considered to be their last resort.
Neil walked slowly back to his previous spot on the log and plopped down on it, obviously feeling defeated. Mike watched him, unsure of how to say what he was thinking. He walked a little closer to Neil, but didn’t sit down. He took a deep breath, and blurted out, “We need to go find them.”
Neil looked up at him as if he had just suggested they walk to the moon and back. “What? No, we need to get help. We need to get to the police or something… we can’t get them ourselves! It’s too dangerous!”
Mike didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t really disagree with Neil, but didn’t feel they had any other options.
“Look, Neil,” he tried to argue, “I know it’s dangerous. I just don’t think we have any other options. It’ll take us all day and all night to hike out of here and we just don’t have that kind of time.”
Neil lowered his eyebrows a little. “Mike, I know you’re young and invincible, but we can’t do that. There’s too much risk,” he responded with a little too much condescension for Mike’s liking.
“No, there’s too much risk in leaving them with those scumbags any longer,” Mike retorted defensively. He hated the ‘young and invincible’ card that old farts like Neil loved to play. Then, relenting a little, he added, “I know it’s dangerous, but I have to go back.”
Neil shook his head defiantly. “No way. This is what the police are for. People that go around looking for trouble like your friend Dave-”
Mike cut him off. “Dave has done a hell of a lot more for those girls than we have!” he snapped back, starting to lose his temper. “If I could, I’d call the cops, but we can’t. And if we delay another day, who knows what will happen to them. I was scared when I left that cabin to come find help, but now I know what I need to do. I’m going back and I want your help, but I don’t need it, especially if you’d rather pussy out than save your own daughter!” This was a little more than Mike had intended to say, but it was out of the bag now.
Neil gasped at Mike’s nerve. Mike figured this man wasn’t used to being spoken to like this, but he didn’t care. Out here in this situation, the man’s high paying job and dead BMW meant nothing. Mike could crush this scrawny man like a bug if he wanted to and although he wasn’t trying to pick a fight with someone who could be his only ally, he wasn’t going to be afraid to call it like he saw it either. He and Neil stared each other down for what seemed like quite a while with Mike looking a little more angry and Neil, a little more shocked. Then finally, Neil broke the silence.
“All right,” he said, in a calmer tone, “we’ll go try and help them.
But first, I have an idea. When Rachel and I were hiking yesterday, we found another cabin in the woods, back that way.” He pointed to the south, across the road. “I didn’t see any people, but there was a Jeep there. Let’s go by and see if they have seen anything, or if they have a working phone, or can give us a ride into town. If that doesn’t work, we’ll go back to the cabin ourselves. Deal?”
Chapter 15
Moorefield, West Virginia. November, three years earlier.
When the violent confrontation at Dave’s grandparents’ house had ended, Dave had called the police while Paul and Marie consoled each other. The dispatcher had kept Dave on the phone longer than he’d felt necessary, asking him details about what had just taken place. Dave did his best to answer the questions, despite being obviously shaken by what had happened and irritated that he was being questioned about it. About twenty minutes after he had placed the call, a Hardy County Sheriff patrol SUV with two deputies pulled up the long driveway, followed a few minutes later by an ambulance. Dave and Paul went out to meet them and proceeded to show them the gruesome scene inside and answer their questions about what had taken place. Paul had bound the presumably unconscious intruder that Dave had incapacitated with the crowbar with duct tape, which the paramedics cut before loading the man into the ambulance. Dave earned a shared glance between the deputies when he’d told them that they should probably cuff the man before sending him off, eloquently qualifying his assertion by adding that any piece of shit who attacks the elderly should probably be kept on a pretty short leash.
Later that day the man, whose name was Larry, was charged with trespassing and breaking probation for previously robbing a convenience store in Winchester. What neither Dave, nor his grandparents had expected was for Dave to be arrested and charged with aggravated assault and battery. The prosecutor's explanation for the charges was that because Larry had not been armed, Dave should have given him the chance to surrender before ‘mercilessly attacking him without fair warning and so severely, that the attack could have been fatal’. Fortunately, Dave made bail later that evening and was free to work and go about his life, to the degree that a man could with something like that hanging over his head, until the preliminary trial about two months later. In that time, Dave and Sandra had hired a well-reputed defense attorney from Winchester, who represented Dave at the trial in Moorefield. Until then, Dave and his family hadn’t seen or heard from any of Larry’s (or incidentally, his now deceased brother, Damian's) family, but they were in for a real treat.