Chapter Four:
I suppose I should have seen it coming. I mean, I'm sure that there are some people out there who would want me to be dead, but not kidnapped. Dead. Although I can't help wondering who the hell would want to take a person who's wanted dead against their will and not actually finish the job. You know, kill me.
But I was thankful that Jac showed no interest in offing me.
This guy—Jac—just wanted me for his collection. Which was a collection of pictures and life-sized card board cut-outs of me.
Obviously, he was not the shiniest rock in the garden, if you know what I mean.
Yeah, the shiny rocks tend not to collect pictures of sixteen year-old girls they don't know, nor do they kidnap that said girl.
Ditto kidnap her and then force her to sleep on the couch of a skanky apartment in a particularly rough neighborhood in Chicago. You'd think that if he were really "Lightning Girl's Number One Fan," he'd want to treat her like freaking royalty. I know it'd even be a lot to ask if I'd asked for a spare blanket—not that I'd even be brave enough to touch it. Not in that rat hole, nuh-uh, no way.
Most people would assume a person like Jac to be stupid.
But the worst mistake to make, I've learned from experience in dealing with adversaries, is to assume that your opponent is stupid. I mean never assume some one is stupid, because they probably aren't—and then they'll almost kill you. Or your boyfriend. Or any innocent children who happen to be around at the time.
Um, like I said, this dude, well, I'd hate to make fun of him, but he wasn't all there. I mean, he seemed pretty smart, it's just that there must be something wrong with a person that feels it is perfectly okay to kidnap a sixteen year-old. He was not a bit like Doug, who other people tend to accuse of not being "all there," but I mean, everything about this guy—his appearance, place of residence, utility van, everything—hinted that he was just a little mixed up.
Hinted?
Who am I kidding? He'd practically hung up a huge neon sign that said it all. Doug had always been different, even before the voices told him to slit his wrists. But Doug had never kidnapped anyone. And Doug honestly thought he was normal. And Jac drove—and obviously talked to people to whom he was not related, unlike Doug. Jac almost seemed like your average college-aged guy (messy apartment, cheap automobile, porn fetish, and mix-and-match furniture).
Minus the fact that he'd just kidnapped me.
And more about the apartment: the further I went into it, the worse it got. Jac probably lived there because it was cheap. If the rent wasn't cheap, Jac was definitely getting ripped off. Big time. I mean it. There was mildew and mold on the walls . . . at least where the walls were still intact. And it stunk. It was worse than that skanky old house on the pit road. I am not even kidding (though I wish I were). At least Jac had furniture, though, even if the stuffing was coming out of the seams of the furniture wherever it could. And thankfully, there were no condoms or condom wrappers, and Jac hadn't illustrated a need—or more specifically, a want—for them, thank God. But the apartment was still skanky. I mean, any place that has torn-up furniture, holes in the paper-thin walls—not to mention mold and mildew growing on/in them—and gooey, brown water leaking from beneath the fridge ought to be condemned.
And I'm not saying that because I live in a nice house, either. I'm stating it as a fact. Yeah, it was definitely a bachelor pad. No girl I knew would ever want to live there. Or set foot in it to begin with.
After Jac gave me a tour of the apartment¾ which was very short. The tour, I mean. The apartment consisted of a bedroom with two beds; a disgusting bathroom, which I'd already seen; a very small kitchen; and a small living room—into which at least seven top-of-the-line computers were crammed, and a futon couch; he told me that I could sleep on the couch.
And then, to my great surprise, he left me alone.
Only I couldn't sleep, although I really needed to. I will admit it: I cried. A lot. I mean, I missed Rob, and my family, and Ruth, and I had a lot to worry about. Who would feed Chigger his Puppy Chow? And, again, how would this affect Douglas? Did anybody at home know I was even gone? Did they care? Did Rob know I was gone? Would Rob notice that I hadn't called and get worried? Would he even care that I was gone? Or would my parents even think to call him and tell him? Yeah, they probably would. Tell him, I mean. I had a pretty strong feeling that my mother would accuse him of coaxing me to run away with him to Vegas to get married or something (which he hadn't. Much to my chagrin).
But when she saw Rob and found out that he hadn't spoken to—or seen—me in two days . . . What would happen? Would she find some other reason to ponder my disappearance or even call the police?
It didn't take long for me to get a splitting migraine—from thinking about all that, plus the crying.
Although I think I had every right to cry.
I hated Jac. That might have been reason Numero Uno to have cried like that.
When I woke up, I saw automatically that Jac was gone . . .
. . . But some one else was there.
"Who the hell are you?" I asked.
"I'm Jac's brother, Craig," he said.
"Okay, Craig, I have a few questions for you," I said. "First of all, I want to know why your brother—and I hate to say this—a freaking,"—only I didn't say freaking—"psycho just picked me up yesterday and brought me here, even though I didn't want to come. And what is up with that thing in the bathroom? And why the hell are you just sitting there? I want to go home!"
I won't lie. I knew I sounded like a whiny four-year-old, but do you remember how some parents say something like, "Oh, I'll never worry about anybody taking my child: They'd bring him right back because he's such a brat"? Well, that's what I was hoping would happen here.
"Please, just stay calm. I have to leave for work. I will answer your questions when I get back." Then he left, leaving me alone. Talk about uncommunicative.
And how the hell was I supposed to stay calm? I mean, I was in the middle of a city I'd only been to a handful of times in my life (my grandma and Great-Aunt Rose both live in Chicago), and therefore didn't know my way around very well, in the living room of a strange apartment. Oh yes, and I was hungry. Very hungry. And he was telling me to stay calm!
Even though I was starving, my first goal was to find a way out, then to find something to eat. And maybe if I was lucky, I'd find a way out, some food, and some money to take with me. I mean, I know stealing is wrong, but so is kidnapping. And I really wanted to go home.
But it would turn out that there were a few tiny windows in that apartment,—only so tiny that even I would never fit through them—and there would be a moldy container of Chinese food (lo mein?), and no money at all that I could see. No phone, either. A true bachelor pad. All I found were Playboy magazines and some computer equipment that only geeks like my brother Mike would know what to do with—and, apparently, Jac and his brother, too. I am so glad my boyfriend doesn't read Playboy and has very little use for a computer.
My boyfriend. Rob. I missed him the most. Do girls that get kidnapped miss their boyfriends more than anyone else they know? I guess. I mean, I hadn't even been kidnapped for twenty-four hours and I missed Rob. And why is that? I mean, at home, I can go for an entire day without seeing him and still be okay.
Don't get me wrong. I missed Mom, Dad, Doug and Ruth, too. It's just that . . . I don't know . . . let's see, maybe it's because I didn't have a date with any of them on Friday night. And Friday was only two days away, too. Would I make it back home in time to go? And, damn, I was supposed to call Rob two days ago, too.
Bored with the situation an hour after I'd woken up, —it hadn't taken very long to search the apartment (twice)—I switched on a computer I saw (there were quite a few of them. Jac and his brother had their priorities mixed up; if I were them, I'd be finding a new place to live, rather than investing in CD burners, scanners, printers and computers to go with them) and got on the Internet, only I couldn't find a way to e-mail Mike. I mean, Jac had AOL, and everything, but I don't have an AOL account because the Internet is not really my thing, so I couldn't sign on as a guest, which, in my opinion, sucked.
But then I wondered if they were even looking for me. I mean, I'd only been gone for about eighteen hours. What if they thought I'd just gone over to Rob's place to, um, well, you know? Which would be way preferable to being in that apartment, the door to which was apparently locked (actually, that would be more preferable to a lot of situations I could think of . . . such as being broken up with Rob, or Rob being dead, —well, he did come pretty close to it—even though I couldn't see Rob). From the outside, I mean. It was one of those locks that the fire department discourages people from using because it's risky to use, since you have to have a key to lock and unlock it from inside and outside. And worse, I couldn't find anything to pick the lock with. Or if I could even pick the lock. If only I could have found a pen cartridge or a nail file (why don't I carry those for emergencies such as this one, even if I don't use them for their intended purpose?), or a letter opener?
But I digress.