The Girl Who Was Taken

by Charlie Donlea

  Livia paged through the autopsy report until she reached its conclusion. The cause of death made Livia’s mind stumble. She turned back to the toxicology report and read it again. Her finger streaked down the page and came to rest on the sedative discovered in Nancy Dee’s bloodstream. Because it was found in such high concentration, it was determined that Nancy’s body did not have the chance to fully metabolize it, meaning she died shortly after it was ingested. Such a large amount was consumed that this drug had seized her respiratory system and caused fatal respiratory arrest. Whoever held Nancy for six months, by accident or with intent, had OD’d her on a drug called ketamine. Livia looked at the name of the drug for several seconds, drawing on her recently polished knowledge of pharmacology from her binge studying after her debacle with the elderly fall victim in the cage. Ketamine was used mostly by veterinarians for sedation before surgery, but had a limited role in traditional medicine. Called Special K by kids, it was also occasionally abused for its hallucinogenic effects. When combined with diazepam, as it was with Nancy Dee, the sedative effects were intensified.

  Livia looked up at the ceiling of Dr. Hunt’s office. Something else about the drug gnawed at her. She put her finger on the page and ran her nail under each letter. K-E-T-A-M-I-N-E.

  When it came to her, it came quickly and with little doubt. She hastily reassembled the chart and pushed it across the desk. She tried briefly to find Dr. Hunt, but gave up after a few minutes of wandering the halls. Outside, she climbed into her car and let her phone’s GPS take her to the nearest bookstore. She walked into the Barnes & Noble and, surrounded by the latest titles from popular authors, walked to the nonfiction best sellers display and plucked Megan McDonald’s book from the shelf. Livia skimmed to the middle, where she thought she remembered reading it. It took a few minutes to find it, Megan’s first-person recollection of her time in the hospital after her escape from the bunker. Her memory of that night had been foggy, Megan wrote, and much of what was recorded about her trek along Highway 57 and her reception at the hospital was documented with the help of Mr. Steinman, the man who had found Megan barefoot and bleeding and who had carried her away in his car and brought her to safety.

  Livia skimmed the pages, frantic to find a single word, until she found the passage she was looking for. Megan’s memory was altered that night, and she spent the first twelve hours of her hospital stay in a near-comatose state. Part of her trance was blamed on shock and dehydration. But mainly, the doctors determined, it was due to the large amount of sedative found in her system. A drug mostly used by veterinarians. A medication called ketamine.

  CHAPTER 23

  Megan sat with eyes closed and her legs positioned Indian style on the plush leather chair in Dr. Mattingly’s office. Tonight’s session was an add-on to her typical twice-a-month meetings. One Megan had specifically requested. Since her breakthrough session when she recalled the far-off train whistle as a recurrent noise from her time in the cellar, Megan was anxious to get back to hypnotherapy. She knew other things were buried in her memory, likely suppressed by the amnesic effects of ketamine, the drug that sedated her during those two weeks in captivity.

  She believed there was enough there, in her own mind, to make sense out of what she’d been through. And since remembering the train whistle, she’d been up at night with something else that bothered her. Something about the cellar and her captivity that was knocked loose during one of the sessions but was not yet close enough to the surface of her memory to be useful. And since she’d started with Dr. Mattingly, Megan had learned to differentiate the important things from the meaningless. She learned which impressions to pursue and which to let go. Her restless nights were telling her this latest pining—that object her fingertips brushed against but could not grip—needed exploring.

  “Describe the room again, Megan. Start with what you know for sure,” Dr. Mattingly said.

  The sessions took a familiar path each time, and Megan had learned to navigate this redundant road without protest or resistance.

  “My bed is in the corner. Mattress, box spring, and frame. Across from me, against the wall behind which the stairs are located, is a table.”

  “This is the table where your food was placed?”

  “No,” Megan said with her eyes closed. “That table is closer to the stairs. This other table is against the wall.”

  “Go to it, Megan. Walk to that table. See it in your mind. See it three-dimensionally in your mind’s eye.”

  “I try,” Megan said. “I want to get there but my chain is not long enough.”

  “Don’t force it. Just look, Megan. Look at the table and describe what you see.”

  “It’s too dark to see.”

  “It’s too dark only on the surface, Megan. Your eyes have adjusted themselves to the darkness. You see better than you believe you can. Look at the table. Take your time and tell me what you see.”

  Megan breathed hard through her nose. It took a minute before she answered. “There’s a bottle. The table is empty except for a bottle.”

  Dr. Mattingly was quiet.

  “It’s a canister.... It’s paint,” Megan finally said. “A bottle of spray paint.”

  “Good, Megan. Now, leave that bottle alone. Move your eyes from that table you cannot reach. Go to the other table, Megan. The one where your food is left. What is there, Megan?”

  Megan’s crossed legs twitched while she sat in Dr. Mattingly’s overstuffed chair as she walked in her mind as far as her shackles would allow. “There is nothing there. It’s dark and I have to feel if food has been left for me. There is nothing now.”

  “Good, Megan. Very good. Now go back to the bed. Lie down there and listen to my voice . . . are you there yet?”

  Megan nodded.

  “Are you lying down now, Megan?”

  Another nod.

  “That table is empty, Megan. But sometimes it is full. Sometimes you wake to find your food having been set on that table. What is it that wakes you, Megan? What is the sound that pulls you from sleep?”

  Megan shook her head.

  “What is it, Megan? What do you hear that wakes you?”

  “No . . . I don’t know. The stairs, I guess. The stairs squeak when he walks on them.”

  “No guessing, Megan. There’s no need to guess. Everything you need is right here, in this place. Just listen to it all and tell me what you hear.”

  “The stairs. I don’t know! The stairs are squeaking. He’s coming!”

  “Ignore the squeaking stairs, Megan. Do you hear something else?”

  “No. Just the stairs. He’s coming!”

  “Okay, Megan. I want you to wake up now. We’re going to wake in three, two, one. And wake.”

  Megan’s eyes blinked open and she stared at Dr. Mattingly. She was breathing short, quick breaths.

  “Shit,” she said after a few seconds.

  “We’ve discussed this, Megan. Not every session will end with a breakthrough.”

  “It was right there. That thing I’m looking for.”

  “Megan, it’s important at this stage of your treatment for me to protect you. To stop your mind from going too far in these sessions. Eventually, with each session, we’ll go a little further and that will be considered progress. But journeying too far too soon will bring regression. Instead of moving forward, your mind will retreat and our progress will be lost.”

  “If I get close again, though, will you just leave me there for a minute longer? I hate it when you take control from me. You said I needed to feel in control for this stuff to work.”

  “I’m always considering what’s best for you, Megan. When your body language and voice all coincide with it being the right time to take that next step, we’ll do it. I’ll leave you there. But when you’re hyperventilating and your pulse is racing, your mind is not ready for that step. This takes time, Megan. And since you’ve given yourself to the process, you’ve made great strides. It’s common to want to do too much. But as your phys
ician, I need to keep you healthy throughout the process.”

  Megan took a deep breath. “You’re the shrink.”

  CHAPTER 24

  His last visit, so anticipated and carefully planned, had gone poorly. She had been in a particularly defiant mood that evening, and he knew it as soon as he entered the cellar. He’d walked down the stairs to find her standing with one side of the dismantled bed frame in her hand like a baseball bat. It hurt him to see her like that, so ready to fight him and strike him. All he had done was offer to love this one and take care of her. He wanted to give her a fair chance.

  It was a burden for him that evening, with his hopes high on a pleasant night of companionship, to have to repair her meddling. First he overpowered her, which he did without difficulty, but the process put a damper on the evening. Then he tied her to the opposite side of the room so he could repair the bed in peace and without fear that she would attack him. Finally, worst of all, he punished her. This, he hated most. Such high hopes for the evening, it was a pity to have ended it that way. But if their relationship were to survive, they each had to follow the rules. He was not outside of those rules. Certainly not. He laid them out for her when they first started together, and promised he would never break the rules unless she forced him to do so. Unfortunately, with this one in particular, they were broken often. Much more than the others.

  After that last evening ended so badly, he feared things were at a breaking point for them now. They were at that proverbial fork in the road he had reached with all of them. Despite each of their journeys being unique and lasting various lengths of time, they all seemed to reach this fork. In one direction, happiness and bliss. In the other, sorrow and grief.

  That night when he found her armed and ready to strike, he calmly repaired the bed and delivered a swift and appropriate punishment. Afterward, he offered one more chance to make things work. He trusted and truly believed she was willing to try. She told him as much that night, nearly begged him for another chance. So he arranged tonight, another special evening when he had all the time in the world and no one was waiting for him at home and no one would question where’d he been. They wouldn’t need to rush things.

  When he descended the cellar stairs tonight, however, he knew immediately she had lied to him. He found her hard at work, having used the sharp end of the box-spring frame again to pry free one of the plywood boards that covered the window. It lay still on the floor, an open picture of her deceit. She had also pried apart the window frame—the heavy glass too thick to penetrate—to produce a gapping crevice through which she had managed to wedge half her torso until she trapped her head and neck and one of her arms outside the cellar window, her chest and lower body inside.

  She looked pathetic, trapped, and helpless. Foolish, even, hanging halfway out the window with no means to go farther or to retreat back into the cellar. Did she even realize, in this wretched state, that he was her savior? The only one who could help her? He felt something for this one. Perhaps sorrow. Perhaps something different. But for the first time, he also felt fear. It would have been disastrous had she succeeded. Given more time she might have ruined everything for him. Panic washed over him at the thought of what her freedom would bring. The trail she would leave, like dropped popcorn kernels, would lead back to this place. The discoveries that would be made. It would spell the end, something for which he was not prepared.

  As he entered the cellar, his mind worked quickly to correct his errors. She would no longer be granted access to the windows. He would rearrange her living quarters and restrict her movements. Sad, but necessary. Punishment tonight would be brutal. A statement that this behavior could not continue. The message would be delivered without remorse. He walked over to her and knocked softly on the window. Exhausted from her aborted escape, she lifted her head from the damp ground outside and stared at him through the thick glass block. She was stuck at the chest, with one arm wedged against her side and the other outstretched and supporting her head as she lay on the wet mud and pea gravel outside the window. He rubbed her bare leg, which hung inside the cellar.

  He shook his head as he stared into her eyes. “Have you any idea how much it hurts me when you behave like this?”

  With her teeth gritted, she violently kicked the side of his face. He recoiled in a sudden jerk, losing his footing and falling to the ground with his hand covering his cheek and a shocked look of insult on his face. He sat on the cold concrete floor and watched as she flailed, half in and half out of the cellar window—a feeble turtle on its back.

  He stood and walked to the corner. On the table was a bottle of spray paint, which he shook violently, the small ball bearing rattling inside the bottle as it mixed the paint. He, too, gritted his teeth as he shook the bottle, staring at her as she looked back through the glass.

  He walked to the far wall and pointed the canister at the concrete. In black spray paint he created a large X on the wall next to a previous one, whose thick black lines had dripped down the gray concrete to dry in frozen tears of paint. They both knew the rules. Three X’s meant the end of their relationship. The first had come last time, when he found her holding the dismantled bed frame and ready to fight for her freedom. Tonight, the second X. The rules were clear. After the third, a chance for redemption would not be granted, and a parting of ways would follow. The system was sophomoric and demeaning. But successful, too. History told him the second X brought them under control. There was always a joyous time after that second mark went onto the wall. It was a time of submission. A time of giving. A time when, in the past, he had fallen in love.

  But love did not come easily. It needed to be earned. Betrayal needed to be snuffed out completely. He put the paint can back onto the table, inhaling the sweet chemicals as they saturated the air. Then he removed his shirt so as not to dirty it. Folded it neatly and placed it on the table. With his back to her, he took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Then, removing his belt, he turned and walked to her, wrapped the leather around her ankles, cinching it tight, and then sadistically pulled her back through the window.

  SUMMER 2016

  “I’ll be home for every holiday.”

  —Megan McDonald

  CHAPTER 25

  August 2016

  Two Weeks Before the Abduction

  He was seven years old when the man at the fair took his brother. With sticky fingers, Casey Delevan pushed cotton candy into his mouth and watched as the man with greasy hair placed his arm around Joshua and led him into the parking lot. There was no explanation to his silence that day. No way to explain why he didn’t run for help. He should have found his father. Instead, he allowed the sugar to dissolve in his mouth until the man led Joshua across the gravel and out of sight.

  Nearly twenty years had passed since that day at the fair, and still it lived inside him. He could sometimes go days without thinking of it, but that was rare. There were too many triggers in daily life that brought him back to the fair—sugar and sun and gravel—for him to forget what happened. That day had long ago stopped being simply an event in his life. That day defined him. It was what brought him now to the bunker in the woods. He tried to avoid this place, to resist its lure. But to go without filling the void brought misery on a scale immeasurable. Taking the girls, he knew, was the best worst option.

  A very dark time came in the months after he took the first girl. From up north in Virginia, he’d never forget that first girl. Weeks of planning and hours of tedious strategy preceded his trip. And then, so shocking was the ease of it. The simplicity of locating her, and the smooth, carelessness of the take—no more difficult than walking a nine-year-old across a gravel parking lot. He knew instantly he could do it a hundred times over without growing bored of it. For a full week he sucked on the marrow, inhaled deeply the initial high from taking his first girl. But then remorse found him, descending like a black thundercloud. He stayed in his dark apartment and skipped work and didn’t eat. He lost weight and gave up motivation to do a
nything but stare at the television. When days turned to weeks, he lost the urge to live. She ran through his mind, that first girl, and he was helpless to corral her.

  Salvation finally came from a slow-building urge, a craving he came to rely on. It was the only thing that brought sanity. Inside him, like a small glowing ember in a smothered fire pit, was a growing hunger that needed feeding. Demanded it. That impulse lured him from his depression. The need to hunt and stalk and find the next girl. The thrill of the take and the execution of the delivery provided unexplainable contentment. Leaving the girls—bound and scared and helpless—for the one who requested them filled him with euphoria. The ritual was all that saved him.

  He was not psychotic, he reminded himself. He never harmed the girls he took. Through the news he kept close track of them. Thus far, only one had surfaced. His first. The girl he so easily took from the streets of the small Virginia town, whose image ran wild through his mind during his first spell of misery. She had been found buried in a Carroll County forest a few months after he delivered her. The other two girls were still missing. He knew they were still out there, maybe in the same place he had left them, and this idea sparked an eerie feeling in his gut that even Casey Delevan was too timid to explore. He didn’t want to examine whether this notion excited him or saddened him, so he left untouched that quiver inside him that begged for answers to where those girls were and what was being done to them.