Ch.4- Our First Night in the Cell
When I finally came around, I wasn't able to see anything. I was placed on the ground while someone grabbed my wrists and held them behind my back while pushing me forward. I was still unable to see and every time I stumbled, I was shoved forward roughly.
I can't say how far I walked, but after a little while, I was stopped in front of a cell. Quickly, whatever prevented me from seeing was removed and I was shoved into the cell. I turned around and tried to escape the cell before the door closed, but I was too slow. The door closed and I saw a man in a white trench coat walk away holding a set of keys in one hand and a blindfold in the other.
"Lilie?" a timid voice asked from behind me.
I turned around and there, leaning against the cell walls were the six girls that had been taken. All of them were dressed in loose, white hospital gowns. I looked down at my body and saw that I, too, was wearing the same loose, white gown, matching socks, and beat up sneakers.
"You guys." I started, "Are you okay?"
All the girls except for Hazel nodded. Hazel decided to act like a drama queen, looking at me with a sad, puppy dog look with her hazel eyes and crying, "Look at me! I've been here for a year already! They are going to keep me locked up here until I'm an old woman in these ugly clothes!"
I let out a sigh of annoyance before telling her, "Hazel, you've only been gone about a week and a half. You're still the same annoying seventeen-year-old you."
Hazel stood up and said in a threatening voice, "You wanna say that again, Coen?"
"Yeah, I'll say it again. You're still the same annoying seventeen-year-old you." I told her. We actually got close to beating the crap out of each other, but Catie the peacemaker stepped in between us shouting, "Hey, stop it, both of you!"
I looked around the cell. There were no windows and the only way out were through the bars, which were the door. An idea came to my head. "Hey, I know a way we can get out of here." I said, "We can get through the door when they hand us food. I mean, they have to feed us sometime, right?"
Mari stared at me and asked in a serious voice, "You think we haven't tried that already? They don't open the doors to give us food. They just toss containers of food and water through the bars. The door doesn't open…unless they bring in new prisoners, that is."
I felt the color drain from my face as I asked, "You're kidding, right?"
The six others in the cell shook their heads in unison. If this was a dream, I wanted to wake up. I pinched myself and finally realized that this was worse than a dream. It was real.
----BILLY'S POV----
It was around 7:00 when I finally went home. Officer Bright had been working with the other S.T.A.R.S. members so he could find his youngest child and the five missing girls. He was spending so much time in the room that it felt like he was a member. Chris offered to make him take the S.T.A.R.S. test, but all the man said was, "I don't want to take the test. I just want to find Marianna." I never knew that a man with five kids would freak out so much if one went missing. I assumed that that happened with a person with just one or two kids.
After he refused to take the test, Chris and Barry kicked him out of the office. They told him to leave this business to the S.T.A.R.S. members and for him to get around to his own jobs. Apparently, the chief-of-police sent him home so he could relax for a while.
I drove to my house and saw that the lights were off and the door was closed. A feeling of relief overcame my body, yet I couldn't help but to feel a little troubled also. She was safe…or so I thought at the moment.
My relief began to fade when I turned the doorknob of the apartment before the door opened. I remembered that I locked the door before I left for work, but Lilie also had a spare key so she could still be safe. The house was dark, quiet, and cold. Damn, if Lilie was home, why didn't she just turn on the thermostat…especially when it was February and the apartment was freezing?
I walked to the thermostat and saw her backpack abandoned by it. I was now scared to Hell. She never left her backpack in the middle of the hallway. I ran around the house calling for my sister, but she didn't respond. In fact, the only sound I could hear was the echoing of my footsteps as I ran through the apartment. I even ran into Lilie's room and she wasn't there.
An unexplained fear overcame my body. I ran to the kitchen and looked at the piece of paper pinned on the bulletin board next to the phone. There was a long list of phone numbers on it. Most were Lilie's, but some were mine. I read aloud the list of names until I got to the one I was looking for, "May…Adrian…Liana…okay, here we go…Casey/Mari/Marc." I dialed the number next the last three names and waited for the phone to stop ringing.
A lazy voice answered, "Hello?"
I froze. It was Officer Bright's older daughter…and I couldn't remember her name. All I remembered was that her name started with a C. What was it? I had to think fast before she hung up on me. Cindy? Collete? Casey? I decided to go with Casey. "Casey?" I asked.
The girl sighed and said, "Hold on a second." I heard her move the phone and faintly heard her scream, "Casey! Phone!"
Inside, I punched myself. Damn, I got the wrong kid.
A different voice, a male voice came on the line. "Hello?"
"Hey, Casey. This is Officer Coen, Lilie's brother." I said.
"Oh yeah, so what's up?"
"Is Lilie at your house?"
"No, Marc walked her home about three hours ago. Why?"
"She's…not home. Is Marc at your house?"
"Yeah. You wanna talk with him?"
"No, it's okay. By the way, what's your sister's name?"
"Mari?"
"No, your other sister."
"Oh. Her name's Courtney."
"Okay." I hung up before Casey could say anything else.
I didn't want to believe anything that Casey told me because if he was right, then Lilie was stuck with the six missing girls, wherever they were.
I waited impatiently for hours, hoping that my sister would walk through the apartment door or call me, asking me to pick her up from wherever she was.
When the clock turned midnight, nothing came and right then, I knew that Lilie was gone.
----LILIE'S POV----
Hours must have passed since I was brought to the cell with Sherry, Mari, Liana, July, Catie, and Hazel, but I couldn't tell. I didn't even know if it was light or dark outside since we didn't have any windows. In fact, our cell felt like the cell I was thrown in last year in prison.
Everything was cold and, like Mari said, our food was in containers and shoved through the bars along with bottled water. Our food was a simple bowl of soup made with a weak broth, limp vegetables, and a disgusting meat I could not recognize. It smelled terrible and strongly of vinegar. It tasted just as bad, too.
I refused to eat it at first, but after watching the other girls attempting to swallow the nasty food, I realized that this was probably going to be the only food we would be able to eat. I took a deep breath and began to slowly swallow the nasty soup with a sickening look on my face.
When the seven of us finished, we put our containers through the bars and replaced them with old blankets and hard, filthy pillows.
The cold, damp air was making it difficult for me to sleep. I don't know about you, but when you're lying on a cold floor with a pillow and blanket not giving any more warmth, it's almost impossible for you to fall asleep. Especially when you have the feeling that something is hiding in the dark shadows. Thankfully, I was able to fall asleep despite the fact that I was cold.
It was probably a few hours later when I woke up from my light sleep. The cold didn't wake me up. Instead, the sounds of snoring, bodies turning, and whimpering woke me up.
I sat up and noticed that Catie was awake, too. The turning came from Mari, who was just turning in her sleep to find the most comfortable sleeping position. She did that a lot even before she got kidnapped. July was the whimperer and Hazel was the snorer.
I smirked as I watched Hazel snore. She seemed before like the type of girl that never snorted, grunted, or snored, but not I knew better. Hell, she snored louder than Billy and he was a loud snorer. I looked at Catie and saw that she, too, was smirking at Hazel. I even heard her make a soft giggle.
My smirk went away when I heard a crying voice coming from the whimperer, "Mama…" I turned towards July and noticed that she was crying as she slept like a child having a nightmare. She was curled up into a tight ball, which made her look smaller and younger than she already was. My fear of her turned into pity. She was acting like such a scared child that I couldn't help but feel pity for her.
Hazel woke up to the whimpers and she was not happy about it. Hazel opened up her big mouth and shouted at July, "Hey! Shut up! Some of us are trying to get some sleep here!"
Hazel's shouting had awakened Sherry, Mari, Liana, and July from their uncomfortable slumbers.
"Dammit, Hazel. Why the hell are you screaming like that?" Liana asked as she woke up with a grumpy look on her face.
"It's all her fault." Hazel pointed at the half awake July, "She woke me up because she was crying for her damn mother!"
"I was not crying!" July shouted while standing up.
Hazel stood up and walked over to July. Without a warning, she shoved the smaller girl to the ground.
July lifted herself up and shouted at Hazel in an angry voice, "What was that for!"
"I told you to shut up!" Hazel shouted as she walked over to July and instead of shoving her down again, Hazel began to hit the little girl with one hand while clutching a chunk of July's long brown hair with the other.
July screamed and attempted to fight back, but she couldn't reach Hazel.
"Hazel! Let go of her! Leave her alone!" I screamed at Hazel. She ignored me and kept hitting July.
Liana and Catie ran up behind Hazel and attempted to pull her away while Sherry and I worked on pulling July. Hazel grabbed onto July's hair with both hands and would not let go of the hair. No matter how hard we tried, Hazel would not let go and July would not stop screaming.
Finally, a horrible ripping sound came from July's head. Hazel's left hand went away from July's head and in it was a nice chunk of long brown hairs. The ripping was terrible and what made the sound worse was the screams of July got louder.
Hazel attempted to grab more hairs after she dropped the ripped ones on to the cell floor. Fortunately, Mari punched Hazel's hands. Hazel's right hand let go of July's hair and the remaining four were able to separate Hazel and July.
"What the hell were you doing!" Liana screamed at Hazel.
I ran over to July to look at her injury. There was a little bit of blood from the missing hairs and she had a nice bald spot around the side of her head. Judging by the looks of the spot, she would have to wear her hair in a certain hair style: possibly a side-ponytail or wear a hat over the spot. The hat, however, did not sound like a good idea because no matter what type of hat she wore, some of the skin from her spot would show.
"Shit, Hazel." I muttered, "What's the matter with you?"
Before Hazel could answer with whatever she had running through her cruel head, a chuckle was heard. Everyone in the cell turned to the bars and saw Wesker. He was laughing at what just happened between Hazel and July. He was actually amused by what just happened. Yet, somehow, his amusement didn't surprise me. He was amused when Carlee was killed and little Amy was horribly mutated into a leech monster.
Mari seemed to notice his amusement also, but unlike me, she was actually brave enough at the time to say something to the man. "And just what is so fucking funny, you psycho?" she shouted at Wesker.
Wesker stopped chuckling and smirked at Mari. "That's a very good question, Mari, but if I were you, I'd watch my mouth. It's much too rotten for a fifteen-year-old. Unless, of course, you want to end up like your mother or Lilie's friend, Carlee."
"So, you plan on killing me along with my mother?" she asked.
"Perhaps." The man answered. He then picked up his walkie-talkie and spoke into it, "Bring in Caroline."
"Caroline?" I asked out loud.
The door opened and the figure of a middle-aged woman walked gracefully into the room and stopped in front of my cell. I took a good look at the woman. I had seen her before, but couldn't remember where. Her hair was a beautiful wavy brown that cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. Her blue eyes were illuminating and matched her blue summer dress. She was wearing a pair of leather sandals on her feet and a wedding ring on her right hand. She wasn't smiling, but kept looking at Mari, who stared back, trying to remember if she could, who the woman was.
I looked at both the woman and Mari and noticed a strong resemblance between them. Something bothered me about the woman, Caroline, though. She looked normal, but something felt weird about her even though I could not put my finger on it.
Suddenly, I remembered who she was. Caroline Melissa Bright, Mari's mother. I never met her and now I knew why Mari couldn't remember her. Caroline was killed in an accident when Casey and Mari were only a year old. I remembered the twins showing me her picture and her obituary in an old newspaper. They even took me to her grave once.
"Who's that woman?" Sherry asked.
"That's Caroline Melissa Bright, Mari's mother." I explained, "And she died fourteen years ago."
"Mother…" Mari started.
Caroline finally smiled and honestly, I wish she didn't. Her teeth were jagged and yellow, like a monster's. She stretched her arm and her dressed rose about an inch. There were horrible gray-ish scabs on her legs and parts of her arms. For the first time, I noticed that her fingers were shaped like claws.
"What did you do to my mother!" Mari demanded the man who summoned Caroline. He didn't answer.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Caroline pull back her left arm and aim it towards Mari.
"Mari! Get out of the way!" I screamed as Caroline began to thrust her claws at Mari.