Vanishing Girls

by Lisa Regan

  She woke a few hours later to the thin light of day pouring through the windows. Slowly, she sat up and glanced outside. There was no movement near her car, no sounds except the insistent chirp of birds in the trees all around her. Her cell phone revealed six missed calls from Ray, three from what she knew was Misty’s cell phone, and two from Trinity Payne. None from Carrieann, which was good. They had agreed to have no contact unless Luke took a turn for the worse. Josie didn’t want to leave a trail back to her and June.

  She checked her text messages. There were a dozen from Ray imploring her to call him, or at least to tell him where she was and he would come to her. She had slept through it all. Her exhaustion ran deep and it was tempting to crawl back beneath her blanket and keep sleeping. But she couldn’t. Isabelle Coleman was still out there. These faceless men kidnapping and abusing young women had to be stopped.

  Josie turned her phone to sleep mode, relieved herself quickly by the side of the car and snatched up the Marlin, picking her way through the forest toward the Gosnell property and on to the old chained-off driveway. By the time she found it, the sunlight had started to burn off the fog that swirled along the forest floor. A fine sheen of sweat covered her face, beads of it rolling down her back as she walked along the side of the driveway, ears pricked for the sounds of a vehicle or footsteps approaching.

  Finally, she came to the overgrown clearing where her great-grandparents’ house sat, its white siding now gray with dirt and grime. The center of the roof had caved in. A gnarled tree branch had fallen onto the floor of the front porch, causing the wood flooring to splinter. The Gosnells had bought the property but let the house fall into disrepair. Josie had only snippets of memories of being inside the house with her father and grandmother. She didn’t have any emotional attachments to the place, but it seemed a waste to let it fall down.

  She circled the house, glancing into the windows as she went. It was empty and dark, its plaster walls crumbling inside, the floorboards sagging. A chipmunk scurried over her feet, and she yelped in surprise, swinging the gun toward the edge of the clearing where the tiny creature had disappeared. Satisfied that no one was inside, she went to the back door and stared at the line of trees at the edge of the clearing.

  She tried to pull the memory from the recesses of her brain. She couldn’t remember where she and her father had gone into the woods, only that they had meandered from the house to the forest, hand in hand. She decided to start in the center of the line of trees, almost directly across from where she stood. As she walked, she panned left and right, eyes searching for the rock formation.

  She thought once she stepped into the woods her body would remember where to go, like the way your hands learned how to hold a gun after you’d trained with it and shot it for years. But her memories of the woods behind her great-grandparents’ house were like Ginger’s memories of her abduction—indistinct and out of focus. She only knew she had seen the Standing Man before.

  When she realized she had circled the same moss-covered tree three times, she started marking her path, using her car keys to carve an X into the trunks at eye-level. It felt like hours before she came to what looked like an actual path in the woods. Sweat dampened her armpits so she took off her jacket and tied it around her waist. The underbrush had been tamped down into a rut just the width of the average person’s shoulders. It led downward into a small dell. As she traveled further down, one side of the leaf-strewn ground rose up into a rock face. Then she saw him. The Standing Man.

  The closer she got, the sharper her memories became. It looked like a man in profile leaning up against the rock wall with one leg bent, knee jutting out, foot flat against the stone behind him. His chin dipped down as if he was looking at something on the ground. As she got closer, she saw that it wasn’t a single formation but a series of small rocks jutting out in different places, creating the illusion. It could only be seen from a certain distance and angle. Once you passed him and looked back all you saw were random rocks sticking out of the wall. A few feet from the standing man was a small opening. It was only about three feet tall. She crouched down to look inside, but there was only darkness. She pulled out her phone and turned it back on. No service, it announced. Still, it had a flashlight.

  The cave was small, only big enough to accommodate two people at most. It was cool and damp and filled with rocks. She was just crawling in when, outside, a twig snapped. She startled so abruptly that she hit the top of her head on the cave’s roof. Massaging her scalp, she pocketed her phone and turned back to the entrance, sliding the Marlin around to the front of her body only to realize that the only way to hold it so that she could shoot whoever was out there was if she lay on her stomach.

  Another twig snapped as she flattened her body to the ground, resting the barrel of the Marlin on some small rocks in front of her. Cheek pressed against the stock, she peered outside of the cave and waited. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Whoever was out there wasn’t trying to be quiet. A pair of heavy, black, steel-toed boots came into view. Then a familiar voice hissed, “Jo!”

  “Ray?”

  The boots jumped back. Then Ray’s face appeared in the cave’s entrance. “What the fuck are you doing in there?”

  She extricated herself from the cave and stood, but kept her hands on the Marlin, the barrel pointed toward the ground. Ray pointed to the gun. “And where the hell did you get that?”

  Josie narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t you worry about what I’ve got.”

  He stepped closer to her. His face looked thinner, his skin sallow. “I’m worried about you,” he said. “You need to come with me right now. Away from here. You can’t be here, do you understand me?”

  Her hardened voice faltered. She hated herself for it. “You know what, Ray? I don’t understand anything anymore. I sure as hell don’t understand a goddamn thing about what is happening in this town anymore.”

  She tried to step around him, but he moved with her, blocking her way. She poked him in the thigh with the barrel of the gun. “Get out of my way, Ray.”

  “Yeah, Ray,” said a male voice to their left. “Get out of her way.”

  They both turned to see Nick Gosnell standing several feet away. He held a shotgun in his hands and it was aimed directly at Josie’s head.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  There was a tension-filled moment of awareness before the three of them acted simultaneously. Josie raised the Marlin, pumping a round into the chamber as she brought it up, and fired a shot at Nick. Ray pushed her out of the way, sending her shot wide. Nick fired back. Josie tumbled into the rock wall, hitting the back of her head. A bright light flashed across her vision. She tried to take a step but fell forward, the Marlin jabbing her in her side. Ray rushed Gosnell, and Nick’s shotgun boomed again. The two men tumbled down the dell and out of sight, a whirling dervish of flailing limbs and the sleek black of the shotgun barrel. Josie’s vision seemed to split, everything multiplying by two, and then returned to normal. She reached back and felt blood in her hair. She could hear Ray and Nick crashing through the underbrush in the distance. She tried to stand again, but her legs were made of jelly. She moved toward the noise on her hands and knees, the heavy Marlin slung across her back, until the sound stopped.

  Ray.

  There had been no more gunfire. Was Ray still alive? The thought made her sway on her knees. She could go back to the cave, maintain a defensive position there until she figured out what the hell was going on. She would be able to hear Gosnell coming from inside the cave, see his shoes. She’d shoot before he could move on her. Then she could get away. If she could just stand. She tried to stand. The forest around her spun. She sat back on her heels and shifted the sling to bring the Marlin around to her front.

  By the time she heard the crunch of feet in the leaves beside her it was too late. Her hands fumbled with the Marlin but they were clumsy and unsure. Someone behind her lifted her body as if she weighed nothing. The cold metal of the Marlin’s barrel pr
essed into the side of her throat. On the other side, the coarse material of the sling cut into her skin. As her carotids were slowly crushed, the spinning forest around her went gray, then black.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  She woke to complete darkness. Reaching up, she gently felt her fluttering eyelids to make sure she was really opening her eyes. Little by little, sensation came back to her: a heavy pounding in the back of her head, the cold feel of concrete beneath her bottom, a smell like rotted wood and mildew. Her back rested against something soft. She turned slightly and pushed against it with one hand. Something hard clamped down on her forearm and she shrieked, writhing away and kicking with all her might. It took several seconds for her to register Ray’s voice beneath her screams.

  “Jo, it’s me. It’s me.”

  “Ray?” she called into the blackness.

  Her hands searched all around her but all she felt was concrete. She heard a whistling sound and, too late, realized she was hyperventilating. She hated dark closed-in spaces. Her heartbeat thundered over the sound of her wheezing breath, her body flailed around in the darkness even though she willed it not to move—to be still, to calm down, to catch a breath. Then Ray’s arms were around her, his breath hot on the nape of her neck. “It’s okay,” he told her. “You’re safe. I’m here with you.”

  She wanted to scream at him to let go of her, but she couldn’t find the words, just a sound like an animal trapped in a bear trap. A terrible keening that hurt her own ears. Her body still recoiled against his touch, familiar as it was. She knew it should be comforting, but it wasn’t.

  As if reading her mind, Ray said, “I know you don’t want me to touch you, but you need to calm down, Jo. Pretend I’m Luke or whoever. Please, calm down.”

  The keening continued. Her mind screamed commands at her in rapid-fire fashion, none of which her body was able to obey. Breathe. Stop struggling. Be quiet. Calm the fuck down.

  Ray loosened his grip on her but still held her against his chest. He rested his chin on the top of her head. “Shhh,” he cooed. “Jo, everything is okay. Listen to my voice. You can still listen to my voice, right?”

  He was right. The night that had ended their marriage—even before Misty came into the picture—had not ruined that for her. She calmed to a whimper, her breath slowing fractionally.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he told her. “I promise you that. You know me, Jo. I would never hurt you.”

  Lies, all lies, but she listened anyway because she had to. Because his voice had once been home to her. She followed the sound of it back up from the rabbit hole of hysteria, clinging to it as though her life depended on it.

  “I’m here with you,” he continued. “I’m not going to leave you.”

  Her heaving chest slowed. The wheezing stopped. She could almost speak.

  “You’re not a kid anymore. You’re not alone. The darkness can’t hurt you, remember? It’s only darkness.”

  He was right. The darkness couldn’t hurt her. Neither could a small space. Or her mother. But there was a new monster outside the door, and he had already tried to hurt them. They were in the black box now.

  Her voice was small. “Did he hurt you?”

  “I’m okay,” Ray said, although by the small catch in his voice, she suspected he was keeping something from her. Her hands began searching his body for injuries, but he caught them and held them fast in both of his. “I’m fine,” he assured her. “Really.”

  She wished she could see him. She leaned back into him, and they sank to the floor together. “He took our phones,” Ray said. “Not that there’s any service up here. I tried kicking my way out, but it was a no go.”

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Gosnell’s… bunker.”

  “Bunker?”

  “Well, whatever you want to call it. He built this place out in the woods behind his house. Like one of those earth houses or whatever.”

  A structure in the earth. A hole in the ground.

  “Have you been here before?”

  “No. Yes. I mean, I’ve been to his house before, on the property, but I didn’t—I never made it inside here.”

  She laid the side of her head against his jacket. The smell of blood and sweat mingled with the earthy smells of the tiny room. “Are you bleeding?”

  “No,” he said, too quickly. “I mean, yeah. I think he put a pretty bad gash in my leg, but I’m alright, Jo.”

  “What is this place? What does he use it for?”

  Ray didn’t speak for several seconds. The only proof she had that he was still alive was the rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek. She wondered if he’d fallen asleep. “Ray?”

  “He uses it for… I mean, I think he uses it to keep… you know, women.”

  Her tone was more strident this time. “‘Keep women?’”

  His voice remained calm but sad. “Jo, when you came out here, what did you think you were going to find?”

  “Is Isabelle Coleman here?”

  “No,” he said with absolute conviction.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know.”

  “We’re going to die here,” Josie said.

  “No. I won’t let that happen.”

  “Because you’re such good friends? You can just ask him to let us go and he’ll do it?”

  He gave an exasperated sigh. “Josie.”

  “I want the truth, Ray. All of it. How much you know and when you knew it. I need you to keep talking to me, or I’m going to lose it in here.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  “Last year,” he began and she cut him off with a high-pitched, “Last year?”

  “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  “I’m sorry. Go on.”

  He took another tack. “You know after things went down between us, I was a little out of control, right?”

  She could feel his discomfort in the tensed muscles of his body. Revulsion churned her stomach. “That didn’t happen after we broke up. You were out of control long before that, and you know it.”

  “Jo, you know I’m sorry. I don’t know how many times I can say it.”

  She didn’t say anything because it was old territory. They’d been over it a thousand times. Ray remembered nothing from the night that had essentially ended their marriage, even before Misty came along.

  “Jo, you know I didn’t mean it—”

  “Don’t,” she snapped at him. “Just tell me what happened.”

  He sighed. “Well, last year, me and Dusty and a bunch of the guys were out drinking. We were really tying one on, you know?”

  “Yes, I do know.”

  “Jo.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “I was upset. I was upset about losing you. I knew… I knew things would never be the same. I saw it your eyes every time you looked at me.”

  She shook in his arms, half with rage and half with the remembered trauma of that night. “You told Dusty to stay,” she said.

  “Dusty always stayed over.”

  “You got so drunk, you told him he could fuck me if he wanted—and he tried, Ray.”

  She remembered waking from a deep sleep to hands roaming all over her body, thinking it was Ray, and then as she floated closer to consciousness realizing that nothing about the person touching her felt like Ray.

  “Dusty was drunk too, Jo.”

  “Not as drunk as you, and that doesn’t excuse him. It doesn’t excuse any of it. I was asleep.”

  She had sprung out of the bed, hitting and kicking Dusty so furiously that his cries brought Ray up the stairs. He had pulled Dusty away from Josie and, in that moment, she had been relieved. But then she saw his face. His blank eyes. Like he was looking at her but not seeing her at all. They flashed with anger. He had gone after her, calling her a bitch and a whore and accusing her of cheating on him with Dusty. It was at that point that Dusty, standing naked on the other side of the room, had said, “Dude, chill. You told me I could fuck her.”


  “Jo, you know I never would have said that if I wasn’t drunk.”

  “But you were that drunk, Ray. Drunk, angry, jealous, out of control. Just like your father was with your mother.”

  She felt him tense but he said nothing. She was angry with him for what happened, but she hated him because he didn’t remember. He had flown into an explosive rage then, punching Dusty hard enough in the mouth to draw blood. When she told them both to get out, Ray had turned and punched her too. Just like that. He’d hit her so hard she hit the floor.

  “You promised you’d never hurt me,” she whispered into the darkness.

  “Jo, I’m sorry. I don’t even remember telling Dusty he could… I don’t remember fighting with either of you. I don’t remember any of it.”

  “But you remember Dusty telling you about this place?”

  “He didn’t tell me, really.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “The guys were trying to get my mind off you—our problems and all—and they asked Dusty if he had ever taken me to see Ramona. Dusty got real weird, like he didn’t want to talk about it. You know Dusty and I—we’ve been friends a long time. We don’t have many secrets from each other. So I asked him, who’s Ramona. He got real uncomfortable. Like, I could tell he really didn’t want to tell me. But the other guys, it was like they smelled blood, you know? So they really egged him on, but he wouldn’t talk. Then one of the other guys says, ‘Fuck it, let’s take him to see her’, and they… they brought me here.”

  He paused for breath. She could feel his muscles twitch beneath her. He went on, “Well, not here, like back here, but to the Gosnells’ house. It was late, and I didn’t know whose house it was at first. Like, I had met Nick a couple of times. He fixed the john at the station house once, and I met him at Dusty’s parents’ house before when he was doing some plumbing there. But I didn’t really know the guy. Anyway, the guys get me out of the car, and we knock on the door to the house and Sherri Gosnell answers. They said they were here to see Ramona.”