Girls and Boys and Other Things

She was reported missing.

Elsie Monroe was twenty one but looked a lot younger. Her mother reported her missing when she didn't turn up after going into town to have coffee with a friend. It wasn't like her to be late. Not ever, but still time has to pass before someone can be reported missing. Time has to pass when an adult goes missing. An hour late home just isn't enough.

'Can you at least look for her car?' Mrs Monroe had asked and they said they would keep an eye out for it. 'She might have been in an accident.' Mrs Monroe told them in a shaky voice.

'You need to call the local hospitals Mrs Monroe.' They told her and no, as far as they knew along the route she had told them Elsie would be driving there had been no accidents.

And so Mrs Monroe called the local hospitals and they couldn't match her description to anyone who had been brought in. She called the café where Elsie was meeting Monica and yes they remembered them. They are regulars and yes they left together and nothing seemed strange as far as the café staff could tell.

'At least I know she made it there.' Mrs Monroe said to herself as she picked up the telephone to call the police once again. 'Please, you have to find her car for me.' She was crying now. Elsie had been missing for two days.

'I promise that we are doing our best Mrs Monroe. As soon as we know something we will let you know.' The voice was trying to be kind but to Anna Monroe it just sounded tired and bored. Her shaking hands pressed the red button on her phone and she placed it back in the recharging cradle on the desk

'Where are you Elsie?' She whispered through her tears and shuddering breaths.

-o-o-o-

They took this route home every day. They lived up here and worked down there. A long drive every damned day but a nice one up through the edges of this ancient forest. It was unusual to see a car parked up here and as they droved by they could see it had been there over night. The leaves on the roof and the junk collecting by the wheels could tell them that it hadn't just arrived.

It was there the next morning on the way back down…and still there on the way up. When the following night it was still there, they decided to call the police and so that is why officers Trent and Ambrose were up in the area locally known as Demons Bend the following day.

To them it looked obvious. The car had been abandoned. The looked cautiously through the car windows and could see nothing untoward. No dead bodies. Nothing strange. The car was unlocked though but the keys were not in the ignition. So they stood hands on hips or doing some chin scratching and called back to say the Elsie wasn't in the car. They would have a look around though and see if there was anything and maybe the Crime Scene people needed to get up here and have a look because now Elsie Monroe's disappearance was definitely well – official.

They could smell something bad.

Two lots of something bad.

One lot coming from the car.

It leapt out at them and shot up their nostrils before they could prevent it. Decomp. They knew the smell, but there were no bodies in the car for it to be coming from. They both looked at the trunk but neither of them touched it. They had a very nasty feeling about the fate of Elsie. The other smell though, it did smell like a dead animal. A large dead animal. That smell was coming from just over there…over there where they were looking and finally after looking at each other and nodding side arms were drawn and they walked carefully forwards. They are hardened cops. How bad can it be?

They homed in on the smell quickly and they could see it was a body lying partially covered by forest debris. They again looked at each other and with hands over noses they walked closer. It was hard to tell at first but as they got closer they could see that this person hadn't fallen down and died of natural causes. This person was mutilated. Mutilated to the point that they couldn't even tell if it was Elsie or someone else. They backed away. They couldn't help this person and they didn't want to be stomping on evidence. Slowly they replaced their side arms and walked back to their car to await the CSU and likely more cops. Ambrose got in the cop car and started the engine.

'Where you going?' His partner of fifteen years asked.

'Moving her downwind of that.' He muttered back and pointed at Elsie Monroe's car.

They waited for nearly half an hour. It was no short trip up here to The Bend. The cops and the crime guys all arrived at the same time along with an ambulance just in case. Trent took them to the body whilst Ambrose stood back whilst someone dusted the trunk before lifting prints and then hands over mouths and noses they popped the trunk.

-o-o-o-

At first he pulled me. I don't know how long for, but I had already been walking all day and now I was bare foot and things were getting stuck into the bottom of my feet. I could feel them bleeding and so it wasn't really all that surprising when I stumbled and fell into the roots and leaves on the floor. I thought for a second that he would give me the chance to stand but he kept on moving forwards and I think he even moved faster now. I put my hands up and wind my fingers around the rope tied around my neck and try to stop it pulling. I know I am making grunting noises and I don't want to. I want to stay silent. I'm not going to give this person the benefit of knowing my pain, my fear. I want to shout at him to stop but he doesn't and now he is running and I am smacking against the sides of trees and being dragged through brambles and thorns. I want to close my eyes but when I do that the voices are there shouting abuse at me and I can't take it any longer. I need this to stop, but my choices are taken from me when my head hits a rock and my hands with bloody palms slide from the rope and he keeps running. Running me through a grey world where I can't see or breathe or even exist; not now that the stars are there in front of my eyes and the creatures are there biting at me as I am dragged bouncing into a dark, very dark place.

When I wake up, at first I think I am probably dead. This feels like it is hell. I a curled up foetal on the floor which seems to be make of concrete. I can smell the damp and I can smell dirt but that is all there is. The room is about twenty foot square. The ceiling is probably about eight foot up and there is one door. A door about five foot high and normal width, made of a dark grey metal. There is what appears to be a grill in the bottom of the door and a spy hole it seems about half way up. Apart from that and some drainage cover on the floor that is nothing. Slowly I push to sit up and press my back against the cold pale grey wall. There is light coming from small inset things in the corners of the room. Oh and a bucket. I don't want to think about what that is for right now. I still have the sarong thing on around me and I do a quick fingertip inspection of the state of my body. I have been treated with some sort of chemical. A disinfectant I'd guess. I am covered in small scratches and bruises but I have also been cleaned up. I put my hands to my throat and I can feel where the rope had been digging in.

Right at the back of my mind hidden somewhere is a memory of being carried; fireman's lift style through forest. I don't have a clear memory of it though and I wonder if it is my imagination. I sit with my knees pulled up close and I pull the fabric of my clothing down and around me to cover as much as I can, but it's not easy.

If I can keep my eyes open at least I won't have to listen to the things in my head. I get up. Maybe the door isn't locked. I would feel a right fool if it wasn't. My feet are in agony. I think I have a couple of broken toes and so I walk slowly across the cold rough floor. When I get to the thing in the floor I look down. It is a metal drain cover and when I bend to look at it I can see it goes down into darkness. I can't see anything down there. The cover its self is set into the flooring. There is no way I can move it. I try. Obviously I try, but its set firmly. I stand up again and carry on walking to the door. I firstly just stand and look at it. It's very low and set flush with the wall. From here I can't see the hinges and there is no sign of a lock or door handle. This means I can't be locked in here with my jailer. A small comfort. I then place my finger tips on the cold metal door and feel for something. Anything really, maybe a vibration from something somewhere, but there is nothing. Then I push slightly and I don't expect it to move and it doesn't. I put my finger over the small indent which is probably a spy hole and then crouch down and look through the grill at the bottom of the door. There is nothing to see out there but another grey wall a few feet away. The spaces in the grill are too small for even my fingers to escape. I can smell air. Fresh air and a small breeze making its way through the door but other than that it is silent.

I could make a big fuss and through myself at the door but I think that is a waste of time. I am better off waiting for this person, this Taki to return so that I can talk to him. Slowly I return to where I was sitting, via quick look into the bucket which is empty, but I have a good guess what it is probably for.

Sitting waiting.

I don't know how long for.

It could be days or hours, but eventually my eyes close and let the voices keep me company.

He will kill you.

Are you just going to sit and let him do this to you?

Do something about it

'There is nothing I can do.' I tell them.

Of course there is. There is always something.

'I don't want to do that.' I mutter at them.

But you'll love it. Just relax and think of that scum Flanders…you'll love it. He'll love it. I bet he has cameras. I bet he is watching you.

'Leave me alone.' I snap.

No, no, no, I can't do that and you know that I can't.

And they tell me about the creatures which live under my skin and they laugh at me when I tell them to shut up and they laugh louder when I shout at them and put my hands over my ears and then something happens.

Gradual at first.

It starts in my stomach.

And moves to my groin and then climbs back up to my stomach. It sits for a while in my chest and I feel it, I can feel its ice cold fingers touching my heart.

Really – really I have no idea what is happening. I think maybe – is this a heart attack? Am I dying? But it doesn't feel like that. I slide sideways onto the floor and the place it has been is on fire. I need to do something to stop it. My eyes are watering and I know I am drooling and I know I am shaking and still something is probing me and moving around inside me. It is almost as though someone or something has invaded me and is trying to take over.

'Stop.' I want to tell it to stop, but when I open my mouth I start screaming. I scream out words I don't really understand. Words which make no sense to me at all but whatever this thing is it is inside me now and I need to let it out. One of my hands is protectively covering my groin the other I try to use to get this thing out of me. To give it an escape route and so I claw at my stomach. I dig my fingers into my skin and I can feel the stickiness of the blood building up around my fingers.

Someone is pulling my hands away from me. Someone is shouting at me to shut up, but I can't. My head is back and my mouth is open and I am howling in pain and rage but I don't know – I don't know why.

I am being dragged across the floor by my arm. Fingers are digging in tightly and I am thrown down next to the drainage hole. 'Hands and knees.' I am told. Tell him to fuck off I am also told.

So I roll over onto my front and start to get on my hands and knees.

'Hands there.' And he kicks my arms out from under me and pushes me so I am over the thing on the floor. 'Do you know what that is?' Tell him to fuck off. I stay quiet for now. He's not really expecting me to answer. It was a rhetorical question. Obviously I know what a drain looks like. I can see that he has moved around in front of me and so I glance up at him.

'Do you remember the rules?' He asks.

I nod slowly but I don't take my eyes off him. There is a unique beauty about him. Something special in those almond shaped eyes that I cant take my own eyes off. I let my vision wander over his face and finally they rest on his mouth. A perfect mouth in a perfect face. I want to say something to him. I want to reach out and touch him but I realise now that whilst distracted by his face he has cuffed my hands to the grill on the floor. He puts his hand on the top of my head and pushes it down so I am looking at the floor and at my hands.

'You are a slow learner Reid. This here is a drainage system. It's fairly basic. The floor slopes gently in the direction of it. As said – simple. It makes my job easier. I can keep the place clean of your filth and your blood this way.' The hand plays roughly with my hair for a while. 'I'm going to take you and you are going to enjoy it.'

And I talk now.

'You can do what you want to me but you cannot force me to enjoy it.'

The fingers tighten in my hair. 'Don't be so sure of that Reid. You will be amazed what I can force you to do.'

'You might be able to force me, but you cannot make me enjoy this.'

He moves away from me. 'Well. Let me see if I can change your mind.' I can see his sandaled feet move away from me. I hear a whisper of noise and the clanging of a door. He didn't do anything to me. I want to close my eyes but I don't want to talk to the other ones right now and so I lay on my side with my hands attached to the grill and I peer down into the darkness.

I am sleeping when he returns.

And I pretend to enjoy it.

Every thrust and movement. I try to make the right noises as he tears into me. I try not the scream at him to stop. I try not to bed him to leave me alone…I call for more…I ask for it to be harder and deeper and I push back onto him and I try, I really try very hard not to listen to the crying of the little girl huddled up bleeding and battered in the corner.

Then that thing –

That thing inside me –

It howls in delight and I want to shut it up but it wont be quiet now and it shouts for more and it calls and begs and cries for it and it makes me squirm and wriggle in ways I thought only Floyd could do to me…

And she is crying….my god what has he done to that little girl?

Why does she look so familiar?

'And so Spencer Reid can you tell me, did you enjoy that?'

And no I didn't. I didn't enjoy being raped by some man samurai – and I need to tell him that. 'Yes.' I say, but that's not what I mean to say. 'Thank you.' I tell him. And he pulls away from me and walks to the child and takes her by her hair and drags her from the room. 'Don't hurt her.' I mutter at him.

'I didn't ask you to talk.' He says and to make the point clear he smacks the child's head on the door as he leaves. 'Sweet dreams.' He tells me as the room is plunged into darkness.

-o-o-o-

I had fallen asleep and I don't know how. The sudden light wakes me up instantly though. I try to move. I want to leap up and get out of here but I can't. I just lay there and look up at a guy in glasses looking back at me.

'Good god! Get the medics here now!'

Carefully they touch me and feel my neck and then they give me a mask to breathe into. I try to move again but my muscles seem to have seized up.

'It's OK.' Someone is telling me. 'We have you now.' But it's not OK. It will never be OK again.

'Sam?' I manage to say, but faces stay blank and hands are lifting me from the back of the car and onto a gurney. I can see repulsed looks on their faces. 'Be careful with her.' I tell them. 'I think she is hurt.' The sun is too bright and the voices are too loud and someone is asking me my name. SSA Aaron Hotchner.' I tell them but I don't see the reaction.

'Who else was with you?' They ask. 'Elsie and who else?'

'Her name is Elsie? Such a pretty name.' I'm having a problem thinking. 'Sam. Sam was here too.' But again I don't see reactions. I see the sky move as they move me away to the ambulance. 'Is Sam here?' I really need to know about Sam. 'I need you to find Sam. I am looking after him. I have to know he is safe.' But they don't talk to me they just drive me away and mutter to themselves.

-o-o-o-

Fuck fuck fuck

Shit

Crap on a stick…I can't move.

He killed Sam.

He's taken Spence from me.

He's incapacitated me royally…I can't move. Too much blood loss. I need to replenish it somehow…and

Rosa?

Please no….

Not my Rosa.

-o-o-o-

I can hear the child screaming even in my dreams.

I can hear the thing inside me laughing and scratching at my insides and teasing me by putting ice cold fingers around my heart.

I can feel it eating its way into my soul.