Then my father flipped me over onto my stomach and just laid his whole body on mine in order to hold me down. I could feel his nasty privates against my naked butt and that slime. It was like the trail a snail leaves behind. Using his arms to hold my top half down, he repositioned himself. Then he spread my legs apart with his own. I couldn't fight in this position. I tried swinging my head back to hit my father's, but his head wasn't close enough to mine.
All of his weight rested on the left side of my chest as he used his right hand to find the spot he was looking for. Where he intended to force his thing to fit. My arms were stuck under me, they were falling asleep and some of my hair was in my mouth. It was hard to breathe with all his weight pressing on me. Maybe I would get lucky and die before he actually started.
My skin down there was too dry for what my father was trying to do. I felt his dry skin grabbing and dragging at mine. Normally he spit down there to make things easier for him, but I must have put up too much of a fight for him to bother with that tonight. He kept pushing anyways. It felt like his thing would drill a new hole that didn't belong. I wished there were no holes at all down there. His pushing was tearing my skin. Then I felt a sharp pain and there was something wet and sticky where it had just been dry.
My skin must have torn. It had done that before. It stung a lot, but hurt a little less with the wetness now. He pushed inside. A little at first, the pain was already unbearable. Then he pushed further and I couldn't help but scream out in pain. Luckily the pillow was right in front of my face, so I used that to help muffle the sound. It felt as if his thing would push right out the front of my stomach. I didn't know why I thought it was so horrible to scream, to try to alert someone else of what was happening, but I did. I think maybe I still felt ashamed at the idea of being found in such a position and I was worried that someone else would have to suffer because of me. I didn't want that.
A couple more of those painful thrusts and then he stopped, filling me with that wet, gross ooze. He was finally done. He climbed off me, pulled his pants back on and then finally left our room.
I was sore, swollen, stinging, and bloody. I knew from previous experience that it would sting really badly again when I went pee in the morning. I would have to remember to pat instead of wipe dry.
Telling my mother hadn't worked. In fact it had only managed to make me more of a target for my father's anger or whatever it was. And now my mother acted like she hated me too. Hopefully, my brother and sister were just doing as they were told by ignoring me so that they wouldn't get into trouble themselves. Maybe they had been told some sort of a lie about what I had done. What would I do? There was no one else that I could tell. Everyone here already knew the things that Dad did, even if some of the ones that knew refused to believe it.
I forced myself to fall asleep holding Julie while thinking of Candy Land. Candy Land was a wonderful world. Everything there was made of candy and chocolate. Even parts of the people were made that way. And everyone there was sweet. Sweet like warmhearted, not sweet like yummy. The water was flowing, bubbly chocolate. The grass was lush, green licorice. The bark of the trees was actually peanut brittle. The sun was constantly shining. It was beautiful there. The first book I published was going to be Candy Land when I left this nightmare of a life behind. People of all ages would read it and love it.
I wouldn't use my last name either. I didn't want to be a Fleischer anymore. I wish I never had been at all. If I had to I would just be Emily Ruth. No Fleischer. Even though Ruth was after my mother. Maybe I would just be Emily. No middle name and no last name. Candy Land by Author Emily. That sounded really good. I started to drift off to sleep.
I hoped that one day Emily’s dream of being a writer really came true. In the meantime, she needed to let me help her in order to survive. I could not understand why she hadn’t let me in yet. Yes, she let me give her small suggestions here and there, but she never let me have the control that I needed to shield her and really take care of things. There had been a few things that she saw and heard over the years that she somehow managed to block from her memory with my help, but not everything that she should have. I just had to bide my time until she was ready.
CHAPTER Nine
In the morning I went about my business as if the day before had never happened. Caroline was already gone from our room. I got dressed, made my bed, and went downstairs to breakfast. Nobody was in the kitchen. There were dishes dirty with toast crumbs and egg yolk sitting on the counter next to the sink, but no breakfast sitting anywhere for me. I made myself some toast with peanut butter and ate that. It was nice to have something different to eat every once in a while anyways. Then I washed the dishes.
I looked outside for the rest of my family. My mother wasn't out there but my brother, sister, and father were. Caroline and Dad were planting more seeds by the looks of it. Johnny was tending the animals. I figured I'd better get out there to help.
Johnny looked up at me when I came out and then looked quickly away. Caroline appeared as if she were purposely not looking in my direction. My father didn't say anything or look at me at all either. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I felt so lost and alone. So as much as I didn't want to, I asked, “Dad, what can I do to help?”
“I don't need you. Get back in the house before I whip you for daring to even speak to me.” His words stung. Everyone acted as if I was the one who had done something wrong instead of my father. Instead of saying anything further, I went back in.
I looked around the gloomy house for my mother and found her in the cellar taking clothes from the washer. I hated the cellar. It was dark and smelled musty. There wasn’t really a floor to speak of, it was just dirt. Sometimes you could see a rat or two running off to hide somewhere. The stairs leading to the cellar were scary too. They were steep and made of rock or cement, something like that. I didn't trust them. “Do you want me to hang those?”
I was told to, “Go and scrub the bathroom instead. The dirtiest child can do the nastiest chore,” that's what she said to me. She may as well have slapped me hard across my face.
I spent a long time cleaning that bathroom. I had nothing better to do and I needed to burn my frustrated energy on something. First I scrubbed the walls, even using a rag on the end of the mop to reach to the top and the ceiling. Then I scrubbed the tub. Then the sink. Next the toilet. Last I scrubbed the floor. By the time I finished I ached all over.
My father came into the house. He announced that he was making a trip to the dump and that he was taking me with him. I really didn't want to go. I tried to act like I still had work to do on the bathroom, but both of my parents could tell that I had finished the basics long beforehand. So I went out and got into the passenger's side of our pickup without any further protests.
It was an uncomfortably quiet ride. I normally didn't mind the quiet. But here, there was hatred in the air. I loathed my father but now I knew for sure that he despised me as well. Why did he want me to go with him so badly all of a sudden? Was it because he thought I was trash now too? “You’re not trash. You have to remember that. It’s your father and your mother that are the garbage,” Julie tried to reassure me in my head.
He slowed the truck and pulled over on the side of the road. We were in the middle of nowhere. The dump was way out in the middle of nowhere too, but we were definitely not at the dump. There were some woods out the window on his side of the road. On my side there just appeared to be never ending hills of green grass.
He undid the buckle of his belt on his pants. “Emily, get out and run! Just go,” Julie urged, obviously knowing what was coming next.
He made me put his thing in my mouth. It smelled gross, kind of like fish, and tasted much worse. There was something flaking off his skin as he pushed my head repeatedly to make his thing move in and out. I kept gagging but he yelled at me not to dare stop.
After what seemed like forever, he did that nasty, disgusting thing right in my mouth and I couldn't help it. I thre
w up out the window on my side. My father was lucky, or maybe I was, that I was able to make it out the window. My mouth was sore and my jaw was tired. The whole thing was awful.
While I was throwing up I heard the sputtering engine of a car. It stopped and I heard a car door shut. Then a very well dressed man who looked to be about my father's age was at our driver's side window. He took off his hat and asked, “Is everything alright here?” I was still gagging and throwing up, so I couldn't say anything. I should have made myself say something. Or I should have at least shaken my head to indicate that everything was indeed not alright.
My father only said, “Oh yes. I appreciate your concern Sir, but everything is fine. I just pulled over because my daughter said that she was going to be sick. You okay now, Honey?”
I didn't even get a chance at all to respond. The man simply said, “Okay, just checking if you needed any help. You folks have a nice day.” He tipped his hat as he placed it back on his head. He was back in his car, already pulling away, by the time I pulled myself back together. I was upset with myself for the lost opportunity of possible escape. To try to avoid my father, I focused my attention out the window on my side and noticed that some of my puke was dripping down the side of the truck. Gross.
When the other man’s car was completely out of sight my father grabbed me by my hair. He pulled me from the truck and shoved me by my ponytail across the road and over to the woods. He walked me through them, making me trip on twigs and stones, for long enough so that I could no longer see the road, just trees. The trees blotted out the light of the sun. It was cold and smelled of pine. He threw me to the ground by my hair. There were roots of trees sticking up out of the ground, rocks, branches and pine needles. The ground was damp. This seemed eerily similar to my reoccurring nightmare.
I tried to fight him. He punched me hard in the face and then I must have blacked out. When I came to again, I could hear my father's belt buckle jingle as he pulled his pants back up. My pants were lying next to me in a pile on the ground. I hurt. My face, my backside, my private parts, I couldn't think of a place that didn't hurt. I slid my pants back on over my scraped up legs and stood in order to pull them up.
I was dizzy and my right eye wouldn't open. We walked, me more stumbling than walking, back to the truck without exchanging any words. The rest of the trip to the dump was just as quiet and so was the ride back home.
When I walked through the front door of our house my mother looked at my face and frowned. She didn't say anything, just grabbed a piece of beef from the refrigerator and stuck it in my hand. Then she moved my meat laden hand to my sore face. I saw her give my father a quick look of disapproval. That was all. Nobody spoke to me the rest of the day.
Emily had blacked out in the woods, but I was still there. I witnessed everything that horrible man did. He used that poor little girl’s body in every way imaginable while she was out of it. I’m glad she wasn’t awake and aware while he did those things to her. What a disgusting excuse for a human being he was. Why did he do those things to his own children? I guess the reason didn’t really matter. The truth was that there was no reason good enough to excuse the things that he did.
CHAPTER ten
A couple of days later they, meaning my parents that hated me, made me help them move the stuff that was mine from my bedroom into the cellar. With the dirt floor and the rats, the musty smell and the dark that the lights didn't seem to break through, the cobwebs and the spiders. Caroline got to keep the dresser with the drawers that liked to stick. I would have to use my nightstand for my clothes.
I hated my new room as much as I now hated my life. I had thought it was miserable before, but life had managed to reach a new level of horrible. I supposed I should be grateful that I at least got to keep my clothes, bed, blankets, and Julie. They tried to make it sound like a good thing, like I was getting my very own room because of the fact that I was getting older. I knew that my father just wanted to separate my sister and me. Maybe my mother wanted to separate us as well in order to keep my influence as far away from Caroline as she could.
I would be spending as little time as possible down here. I didn't know how I would ever sleep here in this dungeon. There was no way to even pretty it up. I think the little area that was my new room actually used to be our old root cellar. I guess that was what my parents had called it. It was where we used to store some of our vegetables and fruits during the cold months to make them last until the next season. For the past few years Mom had been canning what she could and putting it in the refrigerator and cutting up and freezing what could be frozen.
I got ready and lay in my bed. I closed my eyes, hugged Julie, and tried to pretend that I was still in my old bedroom upstairs. I tried so hard but that didn't matter. I just couldn't ignore the cellar smell, the cellar dark or the feeling of being completely alone, except for the many rodents that I was sure were down there with me.
I thought again of running away. I could leave while everyone was sleeping and be miles from here before anyone even realized that I was gone. And then what about Johnny and Caroline? I didn't have to run away tonight. In fact, I wasn't ready to run away tonight. A real plan would have to be made and I would offer my siblings the chance to leave with me. My new idea left me feeling hopeful and I was finally able to fall asleep.
I slept fitfully amongst my all too familiar monster under the bed, Eric under the cold ground just on the other side of the cellar wall, Julie plotting something evil that I couldn't stop, and some new dungeon monsters.
I woke up the next day tired and confused about my whereabouts and what time of day it might be. After accidentally rubbing my hand across my still bruised eye, I soon remembered my newest situation.
I searched for the string that hung from the light fixture. I found it and pulled until it clicked and the dim light made my even dimmer situation a little clearer. I got my clothes from my nightstand and got dressed. Then I made my bed and set Julie on the pillow like I did every other morning. I went upstairs not knowing what time of day it was.
My mother was at the stove and I could smell bacon and eggs cooking. The sun was shining brightly through the kitchen windows. I wasn't sure whether I should say good morning or not but I did it anyway, leaving out the word “good” on purpose. “Morning. Do you want any help?”
She didn't look at me, but she did at least respond, “You can set the table for me. Your sister is in the bathroom. She has been helping me cook.” A very unsettling feeling came over me. I felt almost as if Caroline were being trained to replace me.
During breakfast Julie tried to help me plot. “You’ll need to plan your getaway with Johnny and Caroline and fast. Something bad is going to happen again soon, I just have a feeling.” Her words gave me that yucky stomach feeling. I wanted to do as she said, I just had to figure out if I would still go if Johnny and Caroline chose not to go with me but, instead, to stay behind. Would I be able to leave without them, knowing that they were still here? And would they rat me out to Mom and Dad? For that last question I would just have to pray the answer was no.
A few days later, after I had washed and put away the breakfast dishes I finally found an opportunity to speak alone with Johnny. He was outside feeding the chickens. Mom was elsewhere in the house cleaning whatever she had decided was dusty or dirty probably. Dad had left right after breakfast to run some errands with Caroline. I only hoped that her ride was nothing like my last one with that miserable man.
I walked outside into the sunshine and let the screen door slam my worries shut in the house behind it. I approached Johnny with my idea for freedom. After explaining what I wanted to do I could see the doubt on his face, so I added, “Johnny, we've got to do this, there is no other way. I think you know that too.”
“That's crazy, Emily. How would we live? And we'd probably get caught. Then what?”
“Come on, Johnny. Anyplace would be better than here. And if we get caught, it couldn't really be much worse than it alrea
dy is, right?”
“You're going to have to give me some time to come up with some sort of a plan, Emily. We can't just take off in the middle of the night not knowing where we're going or what we are going to do. We need a plan. That's IF I decide to go along with you at all.” He looked away from the chickens and right at me for that last sentence.
I started to protest, but he wouldn't let me. “Wait, let me finish. I don't have much longer here either way, so why should I make things worse for myself?” He went back to spreading the chicken feed around the ground as he continued, “Dad thinks I'm going to stay around and help out with the farm, but I'm not. I need to get as far away from this house and its rotten memories as I can. But I'll make a plan somehow and decide while I'm making it if I'm going to be a part of that plan or not. Now go before Mom gets suspicious or Dad gets back. And please try to stay out of trouble until I get back to you about this. You've made things pretty bad for yourself around here lately. I would hate to see you get into any more trouble.”
Detached: Book 1 of the Fleischer Series Page 7