Missing

Chapter Fourteen

Once again, I'd like to thank anyone who reviewed, especially those who did so in detail. I'm always dying to know what the regular readers think, good or bad. We're reaching the 'answers' arc of the story finally. I will still be quite busy over the Christmas period but I hope to find time to update as often as I can.

BTW, this chapter has something of an 'image song' or at least a song I listened to quite a lot when writing it. You can find it here: watch?v=vOTgwOK7rqc

…..

The day she went missing:

There was a brief moment, a sort of drunken haze, in which she was sure that the pictures she was looking at weren't real. It was too awful, too sickening to believe it was real. It had to be some sort of hallucination. Things like this only happened in fiction or in distant news stories to kids who were far enough removed from her own existence that they might as well have been fictional too.

It was cliché to say she never thought it would happen to her, but it was true.

Her homework wasn't finished (she'd not been able to stay awake long enough to get through the entire assignment) and her ancient computer had blinked out for whatever reason, and rather than wait for it to cool off she'd taken what she could salvage on a memory stick and gone into her father's home office to print it. While there, she had clicked a numbered folder on the desktop out of idle curiosity (Bob usually named his files) and-

The reality of it took a while to sink in, and when it did a lot of things she had wondered about suddenly made sense.

The foamy drool.

The stomach pains.

Bob insisting on cooking for them every evening.

Falling asleep over her homework.

Not being able to remember going to bed.

Waking up with her clothes on backwards.

Those bruises.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to be sick. More than anything, she wanted to be as far away from Bob Pataki as humanly possible.

But there was that small shred of her more pragmatic self, that told her the evidence needed to be preserved because once Bob knew that she knew, he'd cover his tracks and put the blame back on her. Numb and with shaking hands, she copied the entire folder to the memory stick.

Then she fled the house, forgetting her socks and jacket in her haste.

…..

School was background noise.

Her thoughts swirled in an endless unhappy vortex.

How many strangers had seen those photographs? How many had contacted Bob with requests?

She just shook her head when Mrs Goldfarb called on her in class, and since she was usually such a good student Mrs Goldfarb let it go, with no more than a comment after the bell rang that she should see the school nurse.

She could give the memory stick to the police. They would arrest Bob. He'd do jail time, for certain.

Phoebe asked if she was feeling okay, but when she murmured something about just being tired, Phoebe happily changed the subject to talk about plans she had made with Gerald.

But what then? Bob was the only one keeping the household together. Miriam was getting worse all the time, she leaned on Bob like a crutch. With Bob gone she'd probably drink herself to death.

She picked at her lunch, tore holes in the bread and stabbed her straw through the milk until it was dripping from all angles.

There was Olga...but she'd be all smiles and tears and ice-cream and big sisterly concern until it hit her that she had to be responsible for someone else's life and resentment would set in hard. Olga would snap like a twig under the pressure. And that's if she even believed what she was told.

She skipped fourth period and sat in the bathroom, vomited twice. Retched until she thought every trace of the poison Bob had put in her was gone.

Someone might step in to adopt her in the aftermath. Patrick's mom, or Phoebe's. And then a previously only child would have to put up with their parent's attention cut in half. They would end up hating her, and she couldn't bear that.

She spent most of fifth period dragging her pen across her worksheet until it was nearly entirely black.

She'd be taken into foster care. She was too old, too bitter and not cute enough to be adopted and would end up in that no-man's-land between state care and adulthood. And foster carers were a mixed bag. She could end up with someone just as bad as Bob, if not worse.

At the beginning of sixth period, Arnold walked up to her desk and asked if she was okay. And despite herself, despite resigning herself long ago to the fact that it was never going to happen, she felt that familiar flutter in her chest.

"I'm fine," she replied quickly, not even looking at him but facing another scribbled-in worksheet. "Why?"

"You look really pale," he told her, blunt but kind. "I can take you to the nurse if you want-?"

There was that selfless compassion that had made her fall for him in the first place. She had managed not to cry all day, but hot tears pinched at the corners of her eyes now. By so little she was undone.

"The day's nearly over," she said, slumping forward a bit and holding her head in her hand. It was a handy way of disguising her expression. "I'll be okay, I just have to get through this class."

"Well..." he said, uncertain. "If you're sure..."

"I'm sure," she said. "Thanks, Arnold."

"Any time."

And then he was gone.

…..

One thing was for certain; she wasn't going home.

Patrick was on vacation with his family, although he would have been happy to help.

She called Phoebe, but as soon as Phoebe answered the phone she couldn't find the words.

"I need to stay over tonight," she blurted out. "Please."

"Helga, I already told you Gerald's coming over tonight. My mom and dad are meeting him for the first time. You can stay tomorrow night if..."

"No, it has to be tonight," Helga interrupted. "Look, something's happened...I called the police but Officer Plaskett's not there, I'm going to see him tomorrow...I have everything on a stick, I need to give it to him as soon as I can..."

Phoebe sighed, put down the phone for a moment to answer a question from her mother, and in doing so betrayed the fact that she was only half-listening.

"I really have to go," Phoebe said. "I'll call you later, okay?"

"Okay," she replied, and hung up, despondent.

…..

She sat on a park bench for a long time.

The cave had running water nearby but she needed paraffin for the stove and a generator to keep her phone charged. It had only ever been a short-term solution.

Even if she could afford to rent a motel room, who would rent to an unaccompanied minor?

Pocaselas was nearby, and she could take a bus. From there she could get to pretty much anywhere, and it was full of refuges. That's why so many runaways ended up there. Then again, they'd want to take her name at the refuge and she'd probably be sent straight back to Bob.

In the end, the weather forced her hand. The sun was setting fast and the street lights were coming on, and it was starting to rain. Whatever she needed to do, she could do it in the morning. She stopped at the convenience store to get a bag of chips and a soda (a pretty poor dinner but she wasn't hungry anyway. She felt like she would never be hungry again)and made her way to the mountain range on the outskirts of Hillwood.

That was the last time Helga Geraldine Pataki was seen alive.

…..

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

As skeptical as Helga sounded, Arnold noted with amusement that she was somewhat dressed up. Blue-and-white floral sundress, blue sweater, ballet pumps.

"I'm very sure," he told her. "I need a distraction, so do you."

Gertie was still in the hospital pending her mental faculty test results and Phil was still with her, so while they were gone school was an afterthought. The boarding house was having its needs met by Arnold just about, and since he was already skipping school he needed to keep his promise to Helga to take her out.

Especially now that he owed her so much, he couldn't imagine what might have happened to his grandmother if Helga hadn't noticed her leaving and followed her...

"I won't argue," she shrugged. "But don't you need a break? You've been working all morning..."

"Nope," he answered, dragging out his bike. "Now get in the basket and let's go."

He bought one ticket, one popcorn and one soda once they were at the cinema (she hadn't shown any inclination towards eating or drinking in all this time) but once they were seated and the movie started, it felt in all respects like Arnold was a normal kid on a date with a normal girl (even with her laughing when one of the panicky peripheral characters got his head graphically chopped off). She leaned over to whisper about the bleeding neck stump looking fake and he smiled and nodded.

This...was doable.

He could take her to movies and buy her clothes. They could watch TV together in the evenings and shop for groceries. Maybe they could even plan vacations together. It was certain that he'd be staying to run the boarding house once he graduated, and she didn't seem able to move too far beyond it without fading out.

Arnold had tossed all ideas of dating out the window when his social life tanked. He didn't have time to pay the kind of attention girls his age wanted from their boyfriends, and what college-aged girl would come home every weekend just to spend time with him? But Helga was rooted there, and they enjoyed each other's company. He wanted to make her happy, and he had a feeling she felt the same way about him (why else would she do all his homework?)

She had been on his mind since she disappeared. It was only natural that he would develop feelings for her.

Just as he was letting those thoughts simmer, he felt her flinch beside him at the sound of a gunshot. He looked over at her with concern, and found she had gone rigid as a plank of wood, staring at the screen but not really seeing it.

"Helga?" he whispered, giving her a little shake.

She flinched again, blinked slowly and shook her head, rubbing at her forehead just under the star-shaped wound.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she stammered, lowering her hand. "Just had a...weird moment."

He'd assumed the star-shaped wound was caused by her being hit in the head with something heavy, but her reaction to the sound of the gun was opening up a new possibility.

Surely if it's a gunshot wound, it would be bigger?

None of the Black Gulch Ripper's victims were shot.

…..

They went to the pier after the movie, to watch the sun set lazily as they had when they were kids. Although the gun question was still playing on Arnold's mind, it was peaceful at the pier. Seagulls squabbled over tide leavings and you could just about make out the silhouettes of dolphins in the distance.

"Do you think I'll go to heaven?"

The question surprised him so much he nearly fell into the water.

"W-what?" he blurted out.

"I said, do you think I'll go to heaven? When all this is over," she pressed, trailing her bare feet in the water below.

"I guess," he shrugged, still a bit perturbed. "Why wouldn't you?"

"I dunno," she said. "I was a pretty rotten kid."

"No, you weren't..."

"Yes, I was," she insisted, folding her arms. "I was a bully, and I was spiteful and I could never keep my mouth shut."

"But none of that was your fault," Arnold told her. "I mean...you did the best you could with what you had to work with...and kids can be really crappy sometimes but they grow out of it..."

"You were never crappy," she told him.

"I had my moments, like anyone else. Anyway, you did a lot of good...you looked after that third grader the other kids were picking on...who else would have done that?"

She hummed quietly, looking down into the water.

"What kind of God would hold stuff you did when you were a kid against you?" Arnold pondered, looking up at the sky. "Maybe if you're here because of that God, you wouldn't want any part of his heaven."

"That's pretty deep," she laughed, and he was glad to hear her laughter.

"I don't think you need to worry about heaven," he said. "You don't have to go anywhere. You can stay here."

It happened without him realizing how close he had gotten to her; he had been inching his way towards her since she said the word 'heaven.' And suddenly he was holding her gently puzzled face in his hands, and it was so warm and alive he could feel the blood pulsing through her veins and the breath from her mouth fanning across his own.

He kissed her.

In that moment, it was glorious. Her mouth opened under his, to protest or to kiss him back he didn't know, but his senses were full of her. Her scent, her taste, the life in her body...it felt like as long as he kept kissing her he could bring her fully back into reality and the last five years would just be an unpleasant memory.

But it could only last a moment.

She pulled back and pushed him away, breathing hard and flushed and never so beautiful as in the aftermath of being kissed.

"That shouldn't have happened," she told him sternly.

"Why not?" he pressed urgently, because he wanted her face back in his hands. He wanted to feel the blood pumping under her skin again.

"I'm dead, Arnold," she said, and to his horror tears began slipping from her eyes. "This could only end badly for you..."

"No, it doesn't have to," he insisted, reaching for her again. "We don't have to keep looking for who took you. You can stay as you are, I'll look after you...And eventually Phoebe might be able to see you too, it won't always be just me. You can stay at the boarding house with me, it'll be okay."

"No," she said firmly, wiping savagely at her eyes. "There's no future for you if I let that happen. People will think you've gone crazy."

"I don't care."

"I care," she insisted. "You know, when I was alive all I ever wanted..."

He didn't hear the end of that because Helga broke off with heaving sobs, and when Arnold tried to put his arms around her she pushed him away.

"This is going to end," she said through clenched teeth. "We're going to find out who killed me and then I'm going to fade away, heaven or hell. And you can get on with the rest of your life."

It sounded so bitterly final. Arnold wiped away the tears that were in his own eyes, and wasn't particularly surprised that when his vision cleared she had already faded away.