We won't know just what we lost until your winter thaws.
The rain pounded steadily against the window. It was a dark night and Britta couldn't see the raindrops, or anything else inside the room. That was the reason she lay there: to listen. The front patio lamps faintly lit the kitchen, but inside her room, she lay in the dark.
Her cat had come in almost unnoticed and jumped on top of her stomach, where she curled up into a ball and napped after giving her paws a few licks. Britta pet her lightly and the cat started to purr in contentment. The purring and the rain were soothing and Britta drifted off to a light sleep.
The purring put her to sleep but it was also what woke her. Funny, it seemed like she was purring louder now. Britta opened her eyes and noticed her cat wasn't asleep anymore. She still laid there, but perched her head up high, her tail flipping up and down. Britta brought her hand back to her and petted her again. She gave one loud purr and looked out the door, her tail quickly whipping against Britta's stomach. Britta's hand waited.
The cat whipped her tail looking anxiously to the door. Britta reached up to pet her again but before she touched her, the cat moaned a low moan, like a protest. Her eyes fixed on the faint light coming from the door. Britta pulled away her hand and waited. Her heart beat faster. Her cat moaned again. And then again, louder than before.
Britta opened her lips to whisper something to the cat, but the cat jumped up on her stomach and hissed at the doorway. The room was pitch dark when the door slammed.
End of tonight's nightmare.
Finally able to suppress her sobs, Annie pulled the handbrake of her car and checked the locks. She looked at the far end of the lot to the lit up entrance of the emergency ward. It was quiet, not like what she'd seen in movies and on TV. She watched for a moment and reached up to her phone sitting on the passenger seat. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and wrote Britta a text message, sent it right away and sat back with a sigh, holding her phone on her lap.
The automatic doors opened and a woman and a child walked out. She took off her coat and held it above their heads. They held each other close and took off to the right side of the lot, where most cars were parked near the entrance. Annie sniffed listening to the rain, now lighter than before, hit the roof of her car. She leaned her head back against the seat and her swollen eyes stared at the patterns of rain and light on the window.
She jumped when the phone rang, wondering if her eyes had closed for a moment or her brain had just shut off. It was Jeff.
"I see your car, I'm right here." He said. She carefully squinted and spotted Jeff walking towards her car, apparently untroubled by the rain. How considerate of him to call before knocking on her window, so not to scare her, is what Annie innocently thought. Maybe that was even true.
Annie unbuckled the seat belt and got out of the car. Although she had just seen Jeff through the window, she couldn't help but gasp at how close he suddenly was.
"Hi... thank you so much for coming..."
"Annie what happened? Are you ok?"
She shielded her face from the rain and locked the car clumsily, answering with a smile but not looking directly at his eyes.
"I was mugged," She lied and turned around to walk towards the lights of the hospital, "I'm sorry about how I sounded-"
"You're soaking wet, and... are you hurt?" He replied in a hurry, obviously caring a lot.
"My wrist hurts really bad."
They walked away from her car and down a line of other cars sitting in the cold rain. He put his hands in his pockets, she held her left arm against herself. The wind swept the rain in waves and made a curtain of dancing yellow lines under the parking lot lights.
"What happened?"
"He tried to grab my wallet."
"It looks pretty swollen."
The automatic door opened to let them in. Behind them, the yellow lines running under the lights became heavier snowflakes that fell to the pavement and ran in circles around the lot before sticking to the ground.
Beautiful white snowflakes showered the backyard outside. Indeed they were beautiful, she'd always thought so, but her developing breasts felt sore from the cold, and her family couldn't afford to have the heater on all the time. That's why she was curled up inside a heavy blanket, with her thickest pair of socks on and a sweater she would probably sleep in and wear tomorrow for school.
The heater was turned off because it was Wednesday and she would be alone until after her bedtime. She enjoyed this immensely. She'd turned on the television, she's popped some old corn and she was sitting on the couch, accompanied by their cats, watching a show.
Every part of Wednesdays was enjoyable, except for when she needed to use the bathroom downstairs. The first floor was the coldest, especially the bathroom. She held it as long as she possibly could and when she couldn't hold any longer, she put the pop corn aside, held the blanket like a cape and darted from the couch to the stairs, running down without wasting any time. She slammed the door shut and peed holding the blanket up around her neck. She didn't care for washing her hands in the freezing water.
While trotting up the stairs, she heard the scream that made her freeze. Her hand clutched the bannister, her breathing stopped.
It had come from the second floor, where she had just been sitting. She listened, but there was no more sound. She exhaled slowly and waited another moment. It maybe had come from the TV. She could swear it had not, it had sounded like a legitimate person's scream.
Suddenly the staircase felt darker. She breathed again, but heard nothing else.
Britta was not the scaredy kind. She took a soft step up the stairs.
It creaked, like it always did. Nothing else. So she took a deep breath.
Another step - creak - and nothing else.
Then another scream. This one confirmed it. It was not a television noise. A real person - a girl was screaming at the top of the stairs. Britta's heart stopped and she took a slow step back - creak.
Another scream.
She dropped the blanked and did not care about leaving discretely. Her feet jumped three steps at a time and she ran across the room to the front door. Screams kept coming from the top of the stairs.
She grasped the door handle and turned it, but the door stayed put. Another scream. Britta ventured to look back, but the room and the staircase were dark. Through the window, she saw the snow fall. She turned the top lock, pulled on the door, but it didn't open. Another scream. She tried the bottom lock. The door stayed close. The screams kept going.
End of tonight's nightmare.
Annie shut her eyes and shook her head.
"What do you mean?" Was the only response that came to her.
Britta leaned against the doorway with her arms crossed. She looked down to the floor.
"I'm sorry, Annie."
Annie turned around and walked down the narrow kitchen. She brought to her head the one hand she could move, pulling her hair softly. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, looking at the counter.
"This man needs to be arrested."
"I know he does," Britta answered, "I agree..."
"Do you imagine..." Annie said with her hands on the counter and looking at the ceiling, letting her thoughts take her, "How many girls he's done this to?"
Britta sighed
"Annie," She moaned, "I need you to understand-"
"And they won't lock him up unless somebody does something!" She exclaimed pointing at Britta. It was an aggressive note and she noticed it once she had finished and saw the culpable awe in Britta's eyes. She also noticed she was lightly whiffing. Yes, this was disturbing, but Britta wouldn't understand her point with accusations and impersonal matters. Annie shut her eyes and leaned against the counter. Her forehead rested on the cast covering her left wrist and part of her thumb.
"Do you know..." She started, "Do you have an idea of what a sexual assault exam is like?"
"No." Britta whispered.
"They wear blue masks and caps. They put you on stirrups, shine a light on you. They take pictures and they collect hairs. They whisper to each other," She broke into a little cry and took a second to sniff and take a deep breath to fix her voice, "They whisper to each other while they work, then they give you a wet napkin to clean up." She finished with a sob.
Britta's voice sounded muffled because she had her hands on her face.
"Annie, I'm so, so sorry."
"How stupid of me to want to start an investigation," Annie said softly facing the ground, "I should've knows it would only go as far as myself."
Britta took a long, deep breath and looked in Annie's eyes. Annie's were red and teary and she was in no condition of feeling empathy for Britta. Her expression changed after a while, because Britta held her gaze for so long. Her teary eyes stared curiously now. She wanted Britta to change her mind.
But Britta closed her eyes and turned around without a word.
Aghast, Annie watched as Britta's boots hit the ground in a rhythm moving away from the counter and crossing the hardwood floor of the living room. She turned the handle, disappeared in the dark outside and the door closed behind her.
The room spun in low light. The brick walls were bare and dirty. The ceiling was low. The one light that worked well buzzed loudly. The one that didn't, made clicking noises inconsistently.
Britta lay on the ground bundled up in a blanket. She blinked and looked around. The cement floor felt cold under the blanket and she noticed clumps of dust and dirt carried in by someone's shoes. It was a disgusting room but she stretched comfortably, shutting her eyes and moaning. One of her hands hit the wall behind her, the other hand hit something metal that chimed as she pushed it accidentally. She lifted her head to look. A dirty metal chain was bolted to the wall behind her.
She kicked the blanket hastily to move away from it and assure she wasn't chained. Her wrists and ankles were free. She panted in relief. Sitting on the cold floor, she looked around herself. More chains were bolted to the wall around her some up high, some as low as a person's knees. At the end of each chain was a dirty cuff. Britta followed the chain beside her and took the cuff in her hands. Brown stains covered the inside of it and she dropped it to the ground, knowing it to be old dried blood.
This was a nightmare, she realized. She was wearing what she wore to bed: underwear and a T-shirt, and that was her blanket on the corner. A nightmare, which meant something terrible would happen. There is no comfort in knowing you're in a nightmare, only fear of the part that remains. The tricks for escaping a nightmare - a pinch on the arm, a slap on the face, those never occur to a victim of one.
But nightmares ended eventually, so Britta recoiled to the corner of the room and wrapped her blanket around herself. She figured if she waited long enough without adventuring around, soon she would wake up. She shut her eyes for a moment and heard the buzz and the clicking of the lights, felt the cold flood under her butt, the cold walls behind her back. It felt too real. She opened her eyes again, knowing something would come out and look for her if she kept her eyes shut, so she rested her chin on her knees and panted, waiting.
Soon she was shaking with the cold. She tried to focus on the floor and the dust, but she realized if she didn't check on the chains, someone would suddenly appear sitting on the ground and chained to the wall. Somebody who had been chained to the wall before, most likely. She felt her own wrists and ankles again. The cold was unbearable, her body pressed against the floor and wall that seemed to be made of ice now. She stood up.
By the opposite wall, sitting on the ground was a dirty plate and an uncapped plastic water bottle. A little bit of water remained in it. She walked to it slowly and picked it up, knowing it was intended for her. Without looking at it, she drank.
The water was so cold it hurt her throat. Maybe she should have saved a little bit of it - she had no idea how long she would be here.
Further along this wall she noticed a sheet of paper. Getting closer to it, she realized it was nailed to the brick with a large nail. One sheet. Blue scribbles covered it from top to bottom.
"2012," It said on the top. Under it were names of towns. Britta recognized a few as being in Colorado: Fort Collins, Fort Morgan, Greeley, Platteville. Under each town, a list of names. Some were full names, some only first. By each name, a note scribbled, apparently at different dates, with different strokes, some seemed quicky sketched, some were detailed and more carefully recorded. Britta read down the list.
"Fort Morgan - Harriet D. football field. Kathryn high school park. lot buried. Juliet. Grace Roberts stream in Loveland CO."
The more Britta read, the more it made sense to her.
"Paula Guedes. bar. buried. Fatima. bar. Brittany P."
Britta didn't want to read on, for fear these girls would start showing up in the room, but she couldn't help it. She had seen the word Greendale at the corner of her eye, at the very bottom of the 2012 list, but she couldn't bring herself to look at it.
She looked away and back to the paper to read one more name. She did it until the light clicked with a different sound. She tilted her head back to look up. It buzzed and clicked and fought to stay on, but eventually gave up and died. Another clicking noise came from the back of her. Britta turned around.
At the far end of the opposite wall, the end her eyes couldn't have reached from her cold nook in the corner, was an extension of the room and a short corridor, with a set of wooden steps. The steps led upward and Britta realized she was inside a basement. The one surviving light on the ceiling didn't reach the top of these stairs. It lit up the bottom, the worn out and raw wooden steps, and it faded as it reached the middle, making the top of the stairs a hole in the dark.
The top steps creaked as the light went from buzzing to clicking like the dead one to it's side had before. One more creak, one more click from the light. The light started to fade slowly.
END OF PART 1