Four
Driving down the road, I kept the window open so the fresh air blew in to help keep me awake. The smell of the rain was fresh and clean. My body throbbed with pain, dulling my senses. Memories played in my mind like an old movie reel, taking me out of this time and space; letting me drift away as I kept the car pointed towards safety.
I remembered that, after I graduated from high school, I went to the local community college. I didn’t want to be a nurse like Mom, but knew the medical field was a great way to make a living. I wanted something that I could support myself with and could see myself doing for the next twenty or thirty years. I was anything if not practical. With some help from my college advisor I decided on Radiology—becoming an x-ray tech. I worked the 3-11 shift at the local hospital. Joe, the boy I was infatuated with in high school, was long gone, along with my virginity and a little corner of my heart.
Jiji and I were a pair again. She had forgiven me a long time ago for letting my hormones get the best of me. I spent a lot of my day time hours helping her at the local animal shelter. She had just graduated college, doing some undergrad classes and working as a vet tech when she wasn’t volunteering. We went out on weekends, shopped, cried, laughed, and watched chick flicks together, gossiped about our dates and girls we had gone to school with. It was the perfect friendship.
Yesterday was just like any other day of the week. I went over to her house to pick her up, but she wasn’t waiting outside like she usually was. I put the car in park, shut off the engine, and got out to knock on the door. I waited a few minutes but no one answered. I knocked again, then waited. This was weird; so unlike her. Damn, Jiji, what the hell are you up to today?
Taking out my cell phone, I speed dialed her number, but she didn’t pick up. I could hear her cell phone ringing inside the house, though. Now, I was really worried. Turning the knob on the door, it opened, so I went inside, calling her name.
“Jiji, come on; we are going to be late.”
Closing the door behind me was a stupid thing to do; the hair on the back of my neck was already standing up, and my gut told me something was really wrong.
Walking down the hall into the living room was like walking into a waking nightmare. I felt the dry heaves starting. Crap, don’t throw up, don’t throw up, the litany sounded in my head. There were two bodies lying on the rug at odd angles to each other; both of them looked lifeless.
I ran to Jiji, dropped to my knees, and pressed my fingers to her neck, checking for a pulse. She was lying so still next to her mom. Mrs. Wilks was half naked and bleeding profusely from her head and abdomen; her chest wasn’t rising and falling. Shit, she wasn’t breathing.
Most of the furniture in the living room was overturned, broken, or ripped to pieces. I frantically searched my pockets for my cell phone to call 911. I felt someone grab me by my hair, pulling me away. As I screamed from the pain, someone hit me across the face before dragging me a few feet, smashing my back against the wall. I was held up there by one hand in my hair and another around my throat. The position brought me level with the dead eyes of Aden, Jiji’s stepfather.
He smiled an evil smile and pushed his face closer to mine. His breath reeked of alcohol, his hair was greasy and uncombed, and the shirt he was wearing was torn and stained.
“Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong again, Tish?” he asked. “I warned you before to keep your fucking mouth shut around Jiji, but you didn’t listen.”
“No, Aden, I didn’t—I didn’t say anything to her!”
He backhanded me across the face again. “Stop lying, you little bitch. I know you’ve been filling Jiji’s head with shit, things you made up I’ve supposedly said and done. She was compliant, puttering around with those animals until you started butting in where you didn’t belong, filling her head with nonsense about lawyers and police.”
His phone rang. He released the pressure on my hair, allowing me to sink down to my feet, but he twisted my arm behind my back as he hauled me over to the couch, where he flung me down. “Sit there, and don’t fucking move,” he said.
Jiji and Mrs. Wilks were still out on the floor, but I could see that Jiji was breathing. Mrs. Wilks, though… She was still, and the pool of blood under her had widened, spreading out frighteningly towards Jiji. I hadn’t gotten a chance to examine her and it worried me that she hadn’t moved at all.
Aden had his phone out and was yelling at someone. His eyes were red and he kept grabbing and pulling at his hair. He was gesturing wildly, raising his voice to talk over whoever it was on the other end.
“Shit, we’ve got to get out of here before this lunatic kills us,” I murmured to myself. My mind was racing. How the hell was I going to get us out of there alive? I wasn’t leaving without Jiji.
I reached up because blood was running down my face from where he had hit me; I tried to wipe it away. Aden came back to my side, grabbing my arm in a tight grip. “Get up, bitch, I’ve got a job for you.”
Half pulling, half dragging me, we went down the hallway to Jiji’s bedroom. He violently threw me down on the floor. When I rolled away, he kicked me in the side. Pain exploded along my ribs and I screamed, rolling into a ball to hug my side.
He fisted my hair, yanking hard. I felt intense pain when some tore free, floating to the floor in front of me. Reaching around, I clawed at his fingers, trying to get him to loosen his grip. I screamed at him, “Let go of me, Aden!”
“Bitch, one more word comes out of that fucking mouth, you’ll regret it!” he sneered. “I’ll tape it shut or shove something down your throat ‘til you can barely breathe.”
Yanking on my hair, he brought my face close to his. “Find some clothes and shoes for Jiji. Get her ready to move,” he ordered. Flinging me to the floor, he kicked me in the side again. “Be quick about it, cunt,” he spat at me.
I whimpered, but crawled over to the closet to start looking for a pair of jeans, a shirt, and shoes for Jiji. Aden turned to stand in the doorway of the room. His fingers were moving over his cell phone. It looked like he was texting someone. Thinking I was obeying him, he didn’t pay much attention to me.
In the closet, I found the screwdriver and pliers we had left on the floor after we put together a shoe rack for Jiji’s multitude of shoes. I remember laughing at the fact that she really needed a whole closet just for her shoes, not one puny little rack. She smiled at me, saying I was just jealous because she had nicer shoes than I did.
I grabbed the screwdriver, carefully sticking it in the waistband of my scrubs and tucking it beneath my top. I peeked around me to make sure Aden hadn’t seen me pick it up or hide it.
I found some tennis shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt, and then slowly walked over to him. He shoved me in front of him down the hallway, taunting me with more punishment if I didn’t do what he said. When I got to Jiji’s side, I sank down to my knees.
“Get her dressed,” he told me. “Don’t take all day; we’ve got to leave, and soon.”
I rolled her over onto her back. She had a huge bump over her left eye. Blood was covering her face and neck. I couldn’t tell if it was hers or her mom’s.
Aden came up behind me. I felt the blow to the side of my head; it rocked my body. “Move it, bitch,” he yelled.
I bent down beside Jiji, trying to wiggle her night shirt up her body so I could pull it over her head. I had just gotten it off when Aden grabbed me by my hair again. He tugged me backward until I fell on the ground. Standing over me, he unbuckled his belt and slid it free from the loops. He flipped me onto my stomach and, before I could react, I felt his belt hit my back and butt through my scrubs. I cried out, screaming at him to stop.
“Do what I tell you, when I tell you, whore. This is just the beginning for you and me.” He stood, looking down at me for a few seconds with lust-filled eyes.
I froze. I knew what he was thinking. Please, my brain screamed, make this nightmare end.
He fell on top of me, pushing the air from my lungs, and pulled a switchblade out of his pocket. He held it up in front of my face, laughing at my horrified expression, then started cutting through my scrub top. “Plans have changed; we got a few minutes,” he panted. “Let’s play!”
He roughly squeezed my breast after cutting through my bra. He was going to rape me. I swung at him, but he caught my arm before it could connect—and twisted it behind my back using our combined weight to hold me down. I heard it snap before the excruciating pain hit. I turned my head and threw up. I screamed, crying, begging for him to stop. Black spots danced in front of my eyes, my vision going dark around the edges. I fought not to pass out; gagging on my own vomit kept me awake.
I felt his weight leave my legs. He stood up over me to unzip his pants. Instinctively, I kicked him as hard as I could in the crotch. He fell over, cupping himself and groaning loudly. I pulled the screwdriver out of my scrubs and blindly stabbed at him.
It hit him in the throat. Blood ran down his neck from the wound. This horrible gurgling sound came from his throat, but he got up and staggered down the hallway.
Jiji had finally woken up. She was sitting up with her back up against the couch. “I saw—I saw him try and rape you, Tish. He’s fucked up in the head. We have to get out of here,” she whimpered.
Mrs. Wilks still had not moved. I could see that her chest still wasn’t rising or falling—she had to be dead. Using the couch for leverage, Jiji pulled herself up ‘til she was standing.
“Do you feel dizzy?” I asked.
“I’m okay; a little fuzzy. You’ve got to get up, Tish, now! We need to get away before Aden comes back.” Together, we helped each other stand. On shaking legs, we stumbled for the door, going as fast as we could to the car.
She got behind the wheel and I got in the passenger side, reaching out to flip the locks. “Go. Go. Go!” I yelled.
She jammed the key in the ignition, put the car in reverse, and peeled out of the driveway. We were alive. Hurt, but alive.
“Tish, we have to get to Jameson—he’ll help us.”
“Jiji, I don’t understand, we have to go to the police.”
“No, Tish, we can’t. Aden and the chief are old friends; we wouldn’t stand a chance against them. Aden will twist this around. He will blame it on us. He’ll say that Mom and I have been fighting, that I hurt her out of anger, that he walked in, tried to help her, and I jumped him. That, when you came to pick me up, you attacked him too. We have to get to Jameson; he’ll know what to do, he’ll protect us.”
Shock was setting in; my body was shutting down from the trauma. Before I passed out, I looked over at her and said, “I’m sorry I didn’t know how bad it was, Jiji. You don’t deserve this, and neither did your mom. I’m with you, no matter where you want to go. Just get us there—fast.”
Then, everything went black.