The Lost Girls Chapter 8 Cornered

Jenna held her hand over her mouth, trembling. Her fingers slick with tears she swore she could hear them landing, she heard her heartbeat pounding at the back of her head. She swallowed the lump in her throat and curled her body further into a ball. The space under the stairs was crowded with boxes of photo albums knick knacks, Christmas ornaments and baby clothes that were beginning to disintegrate. She cried silently until the footsteps had gone passed the triangular door under the base of the stairs and up over her head to the second floor. She could still hear the dog rooting in his food dish, crunching loudly on the brown pellets.

She sat there, with her bloodied knees pulled close to her chest, shaking and listening for a long while. When everything was silent overhead, and the dog had seemingly laid down to rest, she pushed gently on the thin wooden door and peaked through the opening. Listening ears pert, Jenna crawled from the space into the living room. She moved like a ghost through the house, checking the front door first, she was greeted by a foursome of locks. Each window was nailed shut and covered in a thin layer of plastic, the kind that keeps the wind out in winter, or people in.

Frustrated, she made her way to the back door. In the kitchen, Walker lay on the mat by the sink, a pile of yellow fur, his head lifted lazily at her presents and his tail thumped on the mat. She glared in defeat at the locks on the back door and sat down beside the dog and rustled his fur. Walker nuzzled closer to her leg and sniffed at the half healed scabs on her knees. He licked at them gently, stopping when she cringed.

“I gotta find a way out of here.” She whispered. Walker laid his head back down, his old eyes heavy from the day. Jenna sat there, stroking his hair for a while, until her worries were sedated and she felt herself grow tired. Her little head felt the weight of all her worries begin to tuck themselves away. Slowly, she closed her eyes and sank into a fitful sleep.

It was morning time in the blink of an eye, Jenna woke to the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. Yellowed light filtered in through the dirty windows and landed warmly on her cheek. She squinted, confused at where she was until she remembered and felt her heart shrink down within herself. Walker began to stir, still nestled beside Jenna’s small form, his breathing steady and a small comfort as panic began to set in. She had no where to go.

Quick to her feet, she looked around the kitchen frantically. She yanked open the first drawer she could reach, utensils clattered like a shattering window as the draw crashed open. Jenna tried the next one, coming upon a plethora of plastic measuring cups and tin cookie cutters. Sweat formed on her brow and Walker had stood up, startled at the sudden commotion. She pulled the last drawer open and finally found a profusion of cutlery. She snatched the closest one, a stainless steal steak knife, the thick black handle felt oversized in her small hand. Jenna gripped it, her body shaking, she spun at the sudden shift of energy in the room.

The man stood at the threshold, his arms crossed over a beefy chest, his stature short but imposing. A shadow of dusty brown hair clouded his face, his jaw round and weak, he smirked, a mix of amusement and anger.

“Good morning, Little Rat” The man broke the silence. He looked at the knife, eyebrows raised, “Well that’s no way to greet your new family.”

Jenna stood, legs braced, hair wild, seething. “You, you are not my family.” The man took a slow step towards her. “You disgust me. You are a monster!” She threw the knife at the man, it flew the remaining feet that divided them and landed squarely on the door of the cabinet beside him. It made a loud thawk! Walker wimpered and Jenna could feel her nerves retreat to the back of her throat. The man smiled, “You’re feisty, more than the last one that’s for sure.” He plucked the blade from the cabinet door and wiped the paint chips from the metal on his shirt. “I think it’s time you met Momma.”

The Lost Girls Chapter 7 A Visitor

Daphne stood from behind the rock that had hidden her from the man’s view and waited for any sign of him returning. The rain continued to beat a solemn song, falling in fat drops from an angry grey sky. She pulled her hood further over her face and stepped back onto the trail.

The walk home was tense and confusion gripped her. What had happened? Why was Mr. Dorren there in the woods? She thought back to the day he had left town, his house still full of furniture. A lifelike dollhouse in the middle of town. Family photos of the three Dorren’s could still be seen through half drawn curtains. Gray dusted frames held Mr. and Mrs. Dorrens wedding photos, her smile an ethereal glow surrounded by white tulle and golden curled hair. Ashley Dorren’s school pictures, one for each year, ended abruptly, she had gone missing just days before picture day. A fridge full of food sat rotting in the kitchen, newly updated for their 20th wedding anniversary, the chrome fixtures stood neglected. Their neighbor, Mr. Kelly, still mowed the front lawn once a week. Daphne shivered.

She reached a fork in the trail, one path finished a few meters ahead at her family’s backyard. The other led further along the island, and if you followed it long enough, it went straight to the mainland. She turned her direction to the west, home. The trail stopped abruptly at the barren clearing of her lawn, the grass struggling in the cold bite of late October. Dead sprouts crunching beneath her boots as she made her way up to the house.

A light was on in the living room, she could see the flicker of the television through the windows. The door handle stuck firmly under her hand so she knocked.

“Ma! Open the door, it’s cold out here!” She sheltered her face from the continuing rain in annoyance now. She was sick of the cold, the wind was cold, the rain was cold, the house was cold. She scowled to herself, looking mildly ridiculous, a soft rounded face being forced into crowded lines and folds. The curtain on the other side of the back door swung aside just barely, a single eyeball peaked cautiously through the opening before the door clicked open.

“Where were you?! Mom is gonna get on you for this one D. You never learn do you? Well at least you’re home I guess but really!” Cloe, the second oldest sister, greeted her in rushed whispers. Her permanent state was carefully optimistic, the one who brought cupcakes to a school party, the one smiling in the face of despair, always pep talking her siblings. Daphne rolled her eyes, pushing passed her sister and into the house. Cloe’s dark black hair had been forced into straight flat submission and it hung limply against her pale white cheeks. Two small brown eyes stared up at Daphne, waiting for an explanation.

“Lock the door.” Daphne replied, “where is mom?” She took off her wet coat and boots and tossed them aside on the floor in a heap. A puddle quickly spread from the pile, she threw her socks at it and moved on.

“She’s out on the couch, but she’s not doing so good today D, she hasn’t made a peep all day.” Cloe answered quietly. Daphne looked at her sister and then quickly surveyed the backyard through the curtain. Nothing but dark shadows of towering oaks and pine, and the scurry of small creatures finding shelter in the storm. She closed the curtain and bolted the door.

“Is that really necessary?” Cloe said, bothered by her older sisters paranoia. “The cops said they are keeping an eye out, do we need to be locked inside all the time?”

Daphne didn’t give her a response, opting instead to make her way to the living room. She padded softly through the dining room and into the living room beyond. She stopped at the entry to the space, where there had once been French doors that would slide into the walls when needed. The doors were missing after being damaged the night her father had died. Mom had always nagged him to fix them, it never did get done and she had taken an axe to the wood panels that very night they recieved the news. Daphne stood silently for a moment, observing the flicker of light on her mother’s face.

Her mother sat, perched on the edge of the brown leather couch. She wore a pink t shirt, five sizes too big, that came down to just above her knees. A cheerful cartoon picture of Winnie the Pooh and Tiger embracing in a hug adorned the front of the shirt. Her small body was shrunken even further under the volume of the shirt. Her legs bare and white, visibly shivered but went unnoticed by their owner. Her feet were covered by a pair of lavender slippers that she’d gotten for Christmas.

“Hey.” Daphne said softly. “How are you feeling?”

Her mother didn’t move, didn’t blink. She stared at the television, her face drained of emotion, eyes red and raw from days of crying. Daphne moved to sit by her, grabbing a large fluffy blanket from the back of a nearby lounge chair. She draped it over her mother’s frail body, tucking in the sides. Isla Williams, once a strong worldly minded woman, sat reduced to a stick figure, hallowed and haunted. Daphne brushed her mother’s hair behind her ear and stroked her face. She wrapped her arms around her body and hummed, “You are my sunshine,

my only sunshine,

you make me happy,

when skies are gray,

you’ll never know dear,

how much we love you,

please don’t take my sunshine away.”

Tears welled in her eyes and she laid her head in her mother’s lap and started to cry. A moment later, a light knock sounded from the front door, just loud enough to be noticed and nothing more.

She got up and cleared any signs of sadness away and grabbed her umbrella, it had a pointed end and was the closest thing to a weapon she could get. She peeked out of the window to see who was there and in the dark of the storm and a day that had quickly become night stood Mr. Dorren.

Chapter 5 Daddy

Jenna had waited for the man to get far enough away from the house before popping the grate off from the wall. She had used the end of her zipper clasp and fit it into the flathead screws that held the metal cover onto the wall to get into the wall, now she twisted each pointed end of the four screws from inside her hideaway. One by one the screws released from the wall and clattered to the floor. She sucked her breath in each time, half expecting the man to walk through the door at any moment. She squeezed herself through the rectangular hole, the soft wispy fabric of her windbreaker caught on the metal edging of the hole and a thin strip tore clean off of the jacket. She stopped to pick at it quickly but left it when she saw lights flashing through the crack under the back door. Hastily, the grate was shoved back in its place, she pocketed the screws.

Jenna crawled on the gritty floor over to the door and listened, her eyes wide, everything was completely silent until boom! A reverberation of thunder sounded throughout the house. Golden light flashed under the door again, followed shortly by another deafening clap. She jumped away from the door, not realizing it was the storm until a moment after. All of her bravery slipped away as she sat, shaking, tears raced from her pale green eyes. Her whole body shook violently and she breathed deep heaving breathes, her heart sputtering and clenching. “Oh God, please get me out of here.” She cried for her bed, with her Moana blanket and matching pillowcase mum just bought her for her eighth birthday. She cried for the smell of breakfast each morning, scrambled eggs and jelly on toast, her favorite. She cried for her mommas’ hands, rubbing her back to sleep each night for as long as she could remember. She thought of her sisters, Daphne would be freaking out by now, Cloe would be worried but forever complacent and optimistic that the cops would do their job. Izzy wouldn’t have noticed anything had changed, she was just over one year old. Jenna sucked in air hungrily until her heart slowed. She thought of her dad, who had died 3 years ago, and she pictured him there, sitting beside her in the dark. She closed her eyes and imagined him, in his old blue t-shirt with the one pocket that always had a sticky note in it to remind him of what momma had requested from the store. “Help me Daddy.” She whispered, salty tears gathering on the edge of her lips. She pictured his short brown hair, cut military style because he never outgrew the habit. His smile big and wide and genuine. Warmth flooded her as calm replaced panic within her little body. She wiped the tears away with the corner of her jacket and stood up for the first time in days. There wasn’t enough head room in the wall space to move around on foot, she hadn’t noticed how sore her legs were until she tried to use them. She wobbled for a step and her tummy growled loudly. Her eyes met the deadbolts on the door in dismay. She knew by the sounds she had heard when the man left that there must be a matching row of locks on the other side. She pulled on the door knob slowly, millimeters at a time, afraid of what was on the other side. The solid barrier gave no hope of peaking through any windows. The door held fast, stuck. “Dangit!” She swore under her breathe. Turning, she saw her next option. She settled on plan B and pushed the plywood inner door aside, it moved without a fight and swung open into a small dated kitchen. The cabinets were a muddy tan color, the tile a chocolate brown with occasional red square thrown in. A round bowl-shaped yellow ceiling light hung precariously by a single brown wire in the center of the room. Besides a large black microwave, a black metal chair and a few dog toys, the space was empty. She opened the first cupboard she saw, the hinge squealed in protest. Six boxes of cereal greated her. Coco krispies, Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch. All breakfast cereal winners in her book and apparently the man had a sweet tooth because the next two cupboards held a mountain of junk food. She grabbed a Nutty Buddy Bar and a handful of beer pretzels and stuffed her pockets full. Without stopping to think she opened the refrigerator, and greedily drank from a bottle of orange juice. Drops of tart liquid ran down her chin as she chugged. With a sigh of satisfaction and crazed thirst finally quenched, she replaced the bottle in its spot on the top shelf and moved on with a higher sense of urgency now that she had something in het stomach, she could think straight.

Her eyes grazed around the lower level of the two story home. The open floor plan led the L shaped kitchen directly to the living room where a beat up fawn colored couch and a new leather Laz-y boy chair sat a few steps away from a small flat screen TV. A trio of remotes rested on the arm of the chair, ready for their charge to come home and watch his nightly Frasier.

She made her way quickly to the front door and found herself facing only one lock that hung open on its ring. Her hand gripped the doorknob to leave when a loud rattle came from behind her and the backdoor crashed shut.

Chapter 4, Hide

Daphne finished her tea and sunk further into the high back chair, her wavy brown hair was alive with static against the old wool fabric. Shoulder length strands hung half dry from the heat of the wood that Mr. Hubbard kept diligently stacked on the flames of the fireplace. She stared at the flicker of orange and red, purple and black as they danced to a rhyme she couldn’t hear and her eyes welled with heavy tears. She scowled, weak. She couldn’t be weak, not now, not when Jenna needed her most. She sucked in a sharp wavering breath and swallowed her sorrow. She let it settle in the center of her stomach and she focused on it there, turning and molding it into a burning rage that smothered the fear, it drowned out the tears and she left it there to grow. What she needed now was a battle plan, because she was at war, she didn’t know with who yet but she was a clever girl, she would figure it out. Mr. Hubbard’s support was greatly appreciated, the man may not have been very physically able, but he was smart as a whip and took no one’s lies as truth. He would call out anyone on their tricks and she needed his humor to remind her that this could end well, that there was hope yet. They sat there in silence for a long while until finally she felt strong enough to continue. “West End came up dry for any info, but Mrs. Keller said she thought she saw Jenna on her way over to the diner around noon last Saturday. I didn’t find anything else useful I don’t think.” She hung her head, her hands clenched. What was she not seeing? She could feel something poking at the back of her memory but couldn’t separate the thought. “Well that’s a start, and we know she was wearing her blue jeans, that funny yellow sweater and the red winderbreaker yes? How about her shoes love, did you figure out which pair was missing from home?” His voice was steeped in honey, he treaded carefully as to not upset her any more than she was. “The blue and purple sketchers, the ones that light up when you stomp your foot.” Daphne replied quietly.

Her whole body shivered at the thought that she hadn’t noticed when Jenna had left, she hadn’t answered the millions of questions her youngest sister fired at her as she sat on her bed, talking on the phone to Micah. She had shooed the little girl away in annoyance. What had she asked her? Daphne let out a heavy breath. “I should get going home Mr. Hubbard, thank you for the tea.” She set the cup down on the table and went to stand. “Daphne,” Mr. Hubbard stood up, she looked at him trying to keep a strong front. “This is not your fault child. You did not do this, and there is nothing that could have been done. But we will sort this mess, you have my word.” He said it reassuringly. She nodded her head slightly in acknowledgment, pulled the hood of her yellow raincoat over her coffee colored hair. She stepped out onto the doorstep and let the rain pitter patter on her shoulders as she started her walk home.

Her boots smushed into the fresh cakes of mud and she pulled her feet one at a time from the suctioning of each step. She could see the moon now, a fat pumpkin of light that was shining on the tops of each tree. Beams of moonlight cut through the naked branches and highlighted the freshly fallen leaves that lay in windswept flourishes on the forest floor. She fished her flashlight from her pocket and clicked the on button. The memory of something important continued to scratch at her thoughts but refused to present itself, her brow burrowed as she tried to coax it out into view. Just then, a loud crackle of thunder broke in the sky, followed shortly by a firework of lightening. She had counted the moments between the clap of thunder and the light, the peak of the storm was only a few minutes away from her now. She quickened her pace along the path when she saw another figure ahead. She went to call out when a pair of hands grabbed her by the back of her coat and she felt a mass of fingers quickly cover her mouth. “You don’t want to call to him dear, trust me.” Daphne recognized the voice from somewhere. The hands pulled her off of the path and urged her to sit behind a large boulder. She sat, shaking until the hands revealed their owner, Mr. Dorren, she knew him only as Ashley Dorren’s father. He had run one of the busier stores in town for years, was the local soccer coach and had most notably lost his mind last year. Ashley had gone missing, run away the police had claimed, but Mr. Dorren had begged them to investigate further. He had posted photos of Ashley’s 6th grade photo on every community board, every light post, had handed them out at every town meeting for months. Then one day the police chief had had enough and ordered him to take them down, that the case was closed and to stop “dragging it out”. Mr. Dorren had curled himself up in a ball in the middle of the towns busiest road and screamed until they took him away. Daphne felt a wave of sadness replace her fear, this was not a man that would hurt anyone. He saw the anger drain from her eyes be replaced by confusion and moved his hand from her mouth. “Please don’t scream, the man on the trail is no good Daphne, do not call for him.” He was crouched beside her behind the large stone, his once midnight hair had turned ashen and grew in long wild tendrils down to his shoulders, a beard covered most of his face. His eyes were surrounded by deep lines from weather and worry. He placed a single finger on his lips “shhh.”

Footsteps crunched on the sticks laying on the path, closer and closer until a cold voice bit through the air “Someone over there?” The man called from a few yards away, his flashlight shining dangerously close to the boulder they hid behind. “Stay hidden, please, promise you won’t leave here until we are both gone.” Mr. Dorren whispered over the sound of the rain. He was completely soaked but did not seem to notice. “I promise. But can you tell me what’s happening?” “Not today Daphne, another time, but do not walk to woods again at night.”

Mr. Dorren stood, his body was quickly enveloped in the white glow of the man’s light. “What are you doing out in the rain Drew?” The man stepped closer, inspecting the pathway behind Mr. Dorren. “You already know what I am doing Allen.” He sounded suddenly much braver than when he had told Daphne to hide. A sunshine yellow retriever sat himself directly in the mud and waited silently next to his owner. “Haven’t seen anything…unexpected…tonight Have you Drew?” The man questioned him carefully. “Not a thing but the rain, I’m on my way home now, I suggest you be heading back before the lightening strikes you down.” Drew Dorren spoke loudly over the growing storm. Thunder sounded only a few miles out now. The man scowled and patted his hand on his shotgun, making sure it was still there. “I’ll be on my way.” He said, turning back down the trail he had come from. “If you see anything, out of the ordinary, I’ll make it worth your while to let me know first.” The man said before walking away, Walker followed him, tail wagging. “God, you are completely oblivious aren’t you, some guard dog you’ve been.” Allen spoke to the dog, who only looked back happily at his master.

Mr. Dorren signaled for Daphne to stay, and then disappeared into the forest. A flash of lightening showed his form before it vanished behind a mass of trees.