The Last Jeskey - Chapter 21

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 21

 

(Day 4 – Sunday)

 

Freaky

 

I didn’t start at the top of my head, but with Shantel sitting next to me, I grabbed a wad of my hair from my lap and pulled it into three sections.  It was kind of awkward, but I was very used to playing with my hair.  I just wasn’t used to playing with it when it didn’t have all the knots in it that it had always had.  Very carefully, I began trying to bring one section over the middle section, back and forth from each side.  “It’s working!” I said delightedly.  “It’s a braid!”

“Of course,” Shantel told me.

I kept at it, making the braid I was creating grow longer and longer.  “I like this!” I said excitedly.

“Baby Doll,” Shantel said, “I love doing it too.  You’ve just got a bit more hair to braid than anyone I’ve ever done it to.”

“You’ve got a braid going,” Lisa said as she walked up.  She had been off getting counseled for a while.

“Look!” I said excitedly, holding my braid up that I was creating.  “I’m braiding.”

“I see that,” Lisa said.

I happily went back to what I was doing.

“How’d it go?” Shantel asked Lisa.

“Miss Kriss found a job for me.”

“A job!  Oh Leese, that’s wonderful.”

“It’s only part time, and they have to see how I’ll work out, but I start tomorrow.”

Shantel got up from her seat and hugged Lisa.  “That’s wonderful,” she told her.  “What kind of job is it?” Shantel asked as she sat down again.

“It’s just working in a store.  I’ll just be doing things like stocking the shelves and stuff for now.  But if they think I’m going to work out alright, they’ll have me doing other things, including with the customers.  I just have to prove that I’m going to be able to do it.”

“You can do it!” Shantel told her happily.  “And you know it!”

I saw Lisa smile.  “Yeah.  I think I can.”

“I don’t understand?” I said.  “A job?”

“Yeah.  So she can earn money for herself.”

I really didn’t understand now.  “But money is men’s business.  Girls don’t need to know anything about money.”

“Honey Pie,” Shantel said.  “That is nothing but a load of malarky.  Everybody needs to know about money, and everybody needs money!  It’s the most important thing in the world.”

I didn’t have a clue what malarky was, but I ignored that.  “What do you mean, a job?” I asked.  “I know what my job is supposed to be at home.  My job is to take care of the guys, but…what does it mean when you’re not at home?”

“Let’s see,” Shantel said.  “How can we explain it so that you can actually understand?”

Lisa leaned toward me.  “Freaky,” she said.  “When you do something, like…I don’t know, clean a room, or cook dinner, or…anything you have to work at.  Each of those things is like a job.  Things are kind of the same right here.  We all have a job to do to clean this place up every day.  We take turns doing the job of making food for everyone to eat.  Every little thing we do can be thought of like a job.”

“Oh,” I said.  “Okay, that makes sense.  So you’re going to have another job along with doing all that here.”

“Yes,” she replied.  “Exactly.  But unlike the few things I actually do around here, I’m going to have a number of different things to do at the store they’re sending me to.  All those different little things I do there can be thought of as one job that I’ll be doing for the store.”

I had to think about that while my fingers still worked on creating a braid.  “So it’s just like my job at home, what I do around the house for the guys?  I cook, and I clean, and I do everything I can to take care of them.  That’s my job, and you’ll have a job like that at the store.”

“Right!” Shantel told me.

I nodded.  “I’ve always known it was my job to take care of the guys, and it’s their job to take care of me.  That’s just men’s business and women’s business using different words.  It’s just that, I’ve never seen a store before.  I’ve heard the guys talk about it all the time, but I’ve never been off the farm.  I don’t know what you’ll be doing there.  Cooking?  Cleaning?  What?”

“I’m sure I’ll be doing plenty of cleaning,” Lisa told me.  “But I seriously doubt I’ll be doing any cooking at all.”

“Will you tell me all about what the store is like when you’re done?”

“You bet!” Lisa said.  “I’ll be happy to.”

I went back to creating my braid.  It was really getting long now.  And then that woman with the baby walked into the room, and the baby began to cry.  I looked up from my braid to watch her carrying the baby to a seat where she could see that TV thing.  I tried to concentrate on making my braid, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.  I had to keep looking at her…and her baby.

“Do you want to see the baby?” Shantel asked me.

I looked back and forth between Shantel and Lisa.  “Do you think she’d mind?”

“Honey Pie, knowing Bess, she not only won’t mind, but she’d love for you to hold it for her.”

“Really?” I said.  I considered that.  “But…should I?  It looks so…I don’t know.  Helpless maybe?  I don’t want to hurt it.”

Shantel grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet.  I immediately worried about the braid that I had been making falling apart, but I soon forgot about that.  The three of us walked over to where that woman was watching TV while trying to get her baby to stop crying.  She looked up at us as soon as we got close.

“Sorry,” she said.  “He never stops crying.  I’m trying to get him to, but he just keeps doing it.”

“Bess,” Lisa said.  “Freaky here has never held a baby before.  Would you mind much if she holds him?”

Bess practically jumped out of her chair at me.  She held the baby out toward me.  “Here!” she said.  “Take him.”

I didn’t know what to do, but Lisa showed me.  Softly she said, “Hold your arms out so that she can lay his head in the crook of your arm.  Little by little, she talked me through having the baby transferred into my arms.  It felt like when I accidentally touched a bad part of an electrical cord, and I shocked myself.  My whole body felt that electric jolt.

“Sit down with him,” Shantel suggested and helped to guide me into a seat.

I couldn’t take my eyes off that tiny person in my arms.  He was so soft.  So…different.  I just wanted to hold him and look at him.  I chanced squeezing him in my arms just a bit, and he started to stop crying.  I held him a bit tighter, and his crying stopped completely.

“He likes you,” Lisa said softly.

I looked up at her.  “It’s a baby,” I said.  “I’ve never even seen a baby before.  I saw some baby bears a few times.  Ben called them cubs.  I’ve seen lots of baby chickens, and I’ve seen lots of baby pigs, but I’ve never seen a baby person before.”

“Where the hell did you come from, Mars?” Bess said.

“No.  The farm,” I replied as I went back to looking into the face of the baby.  So soft, and he smelled weird, but nice too.

And then Shantel did something that really surprised me.  Very softly, she started singing.  I had heard the guys sing a little bit every once in a while, but it was just a tiny bit here and there.  I had heard music coming from their cellphones once in a while too, but I had never actually heard a person sing something that sounded so nice.  And she was doing it right in front of me.  Girls are supposed to stay quiet and out of sight.  Singing is not staying quiet.  Despite that, I couldn’t stop listening to it.

I had no idea what song she was singing.  Something about rocking a baby up in the top of a tree or something, and then the wind rocking it.  Something like that.  I only knew that it sounded amazingly nice, and holding the baby in my arms was amazingly nice.  When the song ended, I was wishing she would sing it again.

I looked back down at the baby.  He was sound asleep.

“Can you hold him a bit more?” Lisa asked me.

I could hold him in my arms like that forever.  “I’m good,” I replied.

“Keep holding him for a while then and give Bess a rest.  Let’s just watch some TV.”

Watch TV?  I didn’t understand the TV.  What I wanted was to sit there and hold the baby, and listen to Shantel sing again.  That had been…wonderful!

And then it all got ruined!

“There you are Freaky,” Mrs. Moore said as she walked up to us.  “Look what I found for you.”

She held up a pair of shoes.  White shoes.  Shoes that were unlike anything I had ever seen before.

“Sneakers!” Lisa exclaimed.  “Freaky, you’re going to love them.”

I looked at them in Mrs. Moore’s hand, and I could just imagine walking around the farm in them.  The mud and dirt would probably destroy them in about a day.  I wasn’t given much of a choice though.  While I sat there holding the baby, Lisa and Shantel pulled my boots off my feet, and stuck those sneakers on.

Mrs. Moore took my boots and said, “I’ll just put these somewhere else…like maybe the trash.  She walked away with my boots.  Now what was I going to do?

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 20

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 20

 

(Day 4 – Sunday)

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

It may have been Sunday, but when you’re the county sheriff, weekends don’t mean much.  Law enforcement is a seven day a week job, and sometimes a twenty-four hour a day job as well.  Especially when you’ve got a lot of things to do, and I had a lot going on just then.  My wife, Natalie, had plans of her own for the day that I was hoping wouldn’t involve me, although I suspected they might.  Since my car had been taken off last night to be looked over for evidence, not to mention get the shattered side window fixed, Natalie drove me to the station, but even still, there was another squad car following us.  A car that would continue to follow Natalie around wherever she went.  In fact, I suggested to Nat that maybe she could just ride with whoever was handling that duty.  She refused.  She wasn’t exactly happy to have a car following her around, especially a squad car.

“What are some of the people I have to visit going to think?” she argued.  “Most of them don’t like cops!”

I smiled.  “You do.”

“I’m not so sure anymore!” she replied.

I laughed.

At the station, the first thing I did was to commandeer one of our two four by four SUVs until I could get my own car back.  The deputies who had been riding in it where simply shit out of luck.  I was the sheriff.  I could do things like that, and they had no choice but to like it.

I was sitting in my office trying to catch up on some inevitable paperwork when my desk phone rang.  I picked it up.  “Yes?”

“You’ve got a call on line one,” our dispatcher told me.

I punched line one.  “Sheriff Cobb.”

“Sheriff, this is Detective Benson.  From Knoxville.”

“Knoxville!  What can I do for you?”

“I got word that you’re interested in Clive Jeskey.”

Clive!  “Yes.  I am.  Do you know him?”

“I know he’s dead.  I know he and his wife have been unsolved murder cases for about the last fifteen years.  What’s going on?  Do you have any information on this?”

“You might say that,” I told him.  “I know who killed him.  But actually, the entire situation is more than a bit complicated.  In fact, I was betting that Clive Jeskey would most likely be a missing person’s case instead of murder.”

“Missing persons?  Why?”

“Because that’s the way these things usually seem to work up here.”

“Okay,” he said.  “This does sound like it’s going to be more than we should handle on the phone.  Look, like I said, this has been a dead wood file for fifteen years now.  We didn’t expect to ever dig it out again, but if we can put it to rest, that would be a very good thing.  Would you mind if I drove up there to talk to you this afternoon?”

I was a bit surprised, especially since it was Sunday.  “Sure,” I told him.  “I don’t mind at all.  Um…I’ve got to tell you though, there’s a possibility I may have to attend a meeting sometime this afternoon.  So when you get here, I may not be available right away.  I don’t think it’s going to last long though.  In fact, I’m not sure if I’m even really needed there.  So yeah, go ahead and come.  I’ll be glad to go over the facts that I know with you.”

“Good.  See you later,” he told me.

I hung up the phone and considered things.  It almost sounded like for once, Bo Jeskey had murdered someone and hadn’t hidden the bodies.  Had he messed up, or had something else happened?  Of course, it had been fifteen years ago.  Maybe Bo just hadn’t been as good with destroying all the evidence as he was now.  Except that the Knoxville police had no clue who had done the murders at all, even after all this time.  And then there was the other thing.  The thing that worried me the most.  Bo was dead now, along with three of his four sons.  Where did that leave me?

Running for my life from Gary.

I spent another half hour on paperwork, then got into that nice SUV and headed out to handle my next piece of business for the day.  The witch!

I knew who Dave Jeskey had been talking about when he said the witch.  The truth was though that the woman he was referring to was anything but a witch.  In fact, she had been a savior for a whole lot of people in that part of Tennessee…when she was younger.  Now, I wasn’t sure if the witch was even alive anymore.  If she was, she would be about as old as Methuselah.  But if she was still alive, I knew right where Abigal Smartts, the witch, would be.

Abigal Smartts, Abby, had been a midwife for about as long as anyone could remember.  She might not have been supposed to handle any doctoring too, but there were a lot of people who had gone to her over the years, trusting her care far more than anyone with an actual doctor’s degree.  She birthed an awful lot of babies, and she almost miraculously helped heal a lot of hurt and sick people.  Hence, the witch.  The world needed more witches like Abby Smartts.  A lot more.

The old folk’s home was a place to die, and people died there left and right.  Still, it offered a bit of comfort to any that could afford to stay there.  I found her sitting in a well-stuffed chair in her room.  She was sitting there alone with the sun shining on her through the window.  She was old, without a doubt, but as I approached and she looked up at me, I could see there was still intelligence in her eyes.

“The police,” she said as I stood in front of her.

“Sheriff Cobb,” I told her.  “County Sheriff’s Department.”

“Sheriff, police,” she said.  “It’s all the same to me.  What is this, election time again and visiting us here is your goodwill gesture for the day?”  She smiled.  “Thanks.  I don’t care the reason.  It’s just nice to have someone talk to me.”

There was a hassock in front of the other chair next to her.  I pulled it over and sat down.  “Mrs. Smartts,” I began.  “You were a very important woman in these parts up until a few years ago.”

“Huh!  Maybe,” she said.  She looked at me strangely.  “Are you looking for me to help with your reelection campaign?  Because if you are, the answer is no!  I’m too old.  Eighty-eight!  I can barely get out of this chair anymore, and I don’t give a damn who’s elected to what.”

I shook my head.  “That’s not the reason I’m here.”

“Then what?”

“Do you remember Bo Jeskey?”

Her face clouded.  “Satan himself on earth!”

“Yeah.  Pretty much,” I agreed.

“I’d rather not remember that one,” she told me.

“And I don’t blame you.  But according to his son…”

“Which one?”

“David.”

“His youngest…or was that…um…”  She thought for a moment, then said, “Gary!”

“Gary is his youngest.  David’s just a bit older.”

“Yeah,” she said.  “I delivered both of them.  I delivered a good many of the people in this part of Tennessee.”

“I know Mrs. Smartts.”

“Call me Abby.  I haven’t had a husband in over thirty years now.”

“Abby,” I said.

“What’s that son of a demon gone and done now?” she asked.

“According to Dave Jeskey, years ago, Bo brought a boy to you and had you…alter him a bit.”

I saw her face seriously cloud and she looked away.  “Go away!”

“Mrs. Smartts.  Abby.  I need to know about that.”

“No you don’t!  And don’t ask!  Drop it.  For everyone’s sake.”

“Why?”

She looked up at me.  “Guess!”

“Bo Jeskey?”

“Bingo.  Now go away, cause I can’t tell you anything about it.  I don’t know anything about it – at all!  Go!”

“No.  I’m not going anywhere.  I’m going to stay here and pester you until you tell me what happened.”

“No!  I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you get it?  I already told you.  People could get hurt!  People could get…killed!”

“What people?”

“People!  People who are important to me.”

“Like who?”

She shook her head.  “No!  No answers.”

“Abby.  Bo Jeskey is dead.”

She looked up with amazement in her eyes.  “He is?”

“Yes.  He was shot a couple of days ago, along with his two oldest sons.”

“His two oldest?  That would be…um…um…”

“Steve and Ben,” I supplied.

She nodded.  “Yeah.  I remember now.  All I can say is that it’s about time.  I hope they give a medal to whoever shot them.  Was it you?” she asked.

“No.  Someone else.”

“One of your people?”

“No.  Someone else.”

“Whoever it was, they’ve done everyone a big favor.”

“I agree, but I’m afraid murder is murder, and we’ve got to look into it.  Which is why I’m here.  Something came up in the middle of our investigation.”

She looked at me for a moment then said, “That…subject you just mentioned, that really shouldn’t be talked about.”

“Why not?”

“Because…and I’m only telling you this because Bo is dead, but he’s still got two sons left out there and I have to worry about them.  Every last one of those Jeskey’s was dangerous.”

“I can guarantee that Gary and Dave won’t be giving anyone any trouble.  Dave is dead now as well, and we’ll be sending Gary to jail, for a whole list of reasons.”

“But will he stay there?”

“For a very long time.  I guarantee it.  You don’t have to worry that any of them will be coming after you.”

“Huh!  I’m eighty-eight.  It’s not me I’m worried about.  Bo threatened my daughter.  Said he’d kill her if I ever told anyone.”

“Well, your daughter’s safe now too.  She’s safe from all the Jeskeys.”

She shook her head and looked down toward her lap.  “Maybe,” she conceded, then looked up at me.  “Maybe.  Even dead, I’m not sure I trust those Jeskeys.”

“Trust me,” I told her.  “They can’t hurt anyone anymore.  Now what happened with that kid?”

She shook her head again.  “It was a long time ago now.  Years.  And don’t ask me how many, cause I don’t remember exactly.  I was mostly retired by then, but still doing a few things here and there when I was needed.”

I sat there and didn’t say anything.  I wanted her to tell it at her own pace.

“Bo showed up on my doorstep one night along with his oldest son…uh…Steve, I think.”

“That’s right,” I said softly.

“They had this boy with them.  A real young kid.  I could see that he was a boy, even though he was wearing a dress.  The kid looked stupid that way.  I don’t know where they got him.  I don’t know anything about him at all.  And I don’t want to know!  I’d rather forget the entire damn thing.”

“How young was the boy?” I asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” she replied.  “Around four or so.  Maybe.  Just…real young.  Too young to come into contact with the likes of the Jeskeys.  Especially Bo.  But then, nobody should ever have to meet anyone like them.”

“Do you remember them ever saying his name?  Who he was?  Did they call him any name at all?”

She shook her head.  “Not that I remember.  I don’t think they ever called him anything.”

“Okay,” I replied, then waited for her to continue.

“Anyway,” she said.  “Bo and his son dragged the boy into my house.  Uh…my husband was dead a good ten or fifteen years before this happened, but I wasn’t alone.  Susan, my daughter, was there with me.  She saw it all, although I can tell you for a fact that she’s still having nightmares about it…to this day!”

“I see,” I said softly, waiting for her to continue.

“Since it was Bo Jeskey there, I didn’t want to ask any questions, but I tried to look the boy over as best I could.  Other than the fact that he was wearing a dress, I didn’t see anything wrong with him.  I asked Bo what he needed, and he said, believe it or not, that the kid was a boy…just then, but when he left there, he wanted him to be a girl instead.  Sue was just as surprised as I was.  I asked him what he meant, and he told me…shit!  He told me he wanted me to operate on the kid somehow and remove…all his male parts and give him a girl’s vagina instead.  I remember Sue saying something about how crazy that was, and that was the point where Bo looked over at Steve and said something I don’t remember.  But Steve rushed over and grabbed Sue and stuck a big knife against her throat, and he started to cut it.  I know I screamed bloody murder, but I saw Steve stop cutting her, just leaving a small cut, but it was bleeding.  It was the look in Steve’s eyes though that I’ll never forget.  And trust me, I’ve been trying to forget it for a long time now.  Those eyes still haunt me, and like I said, Sue still has nightmares about it.  Sheriff, Steve wanted to kill her.  I could tell that killing Susan would have been a joy for him.  But the only thing keeping him from doing it was Bo.  Bo said that if I didn’t do what he wanted, then Steve would kill Susan, and then he would kill me right after.”

“I believe it,” I said softly, waiting for her to continue.

“Yeah,” she said.  “But you’re the police.  The police never knew half of what those Jeskeys ever did.  They were bad people Sheriff.  Bad!”

“I know Mrs., uh, Abby.  What happened?”

“I tried to tell Bo that I didn’t have a clue about how to do what he wanted, but he just told me I better find a way, or he would find a way to enjoy watching Steve kill my daughter right in front of me.  So I flat out asked him if he wanted the boy alive or dead, because if I cut his…stuff off, it will kill him, like it or not.  Bo wasn’t happy in the least to hear that.  I explained to him that to remove the thing and keep the kid alive, then he needed a surgeon.  A very good surgeon!  And I wasn’t even a doctor.  I had no idea in the world how to handle that problem.”  She shook her head.  “He just looked over at Steve and nodded…and Steve began slitting Sue’s throat again…and I screamed for him to stop.  I can’t tell you how relieved I was when he did, but all I could see was all the blood running down her neck.”

“What did you do?” I asked softly.

It was a moment before she answered.  “There was no way I could cut the kid’s thing off and really do what he wanted.  Like I said, I’m not a doctor.  I just delivered babies and tried to help some of the folks here and there where I could, so I told him that maybe I could…alter things a bit down there for him.  At least make him look a bit more like a girl.”

She stopped talking as she looked off into the distance.  I finally asked.  “What did he say?”

“He didn’t say it right away, but it didn’t take him long.  He said just two words.  Do it!  So I did.”

“And what did you do?”

She looked at me.  “Are you going to arrest me for it?”

“Nope.  I just need to know what happened.  Besides, you’re eighty-eight.  There’s no way in hell I’m putting anyone your age in jail.  Now, what did you do?”

“I was mostly a midwife,” she said again.  “When I was younger I had gone through two years of medical school before my money ran out and I had no choice but to switch over to midwifing instead, which means I wasn’t any kind of real doctor.  I didn’t have a surgery to work in or even much in the way of surgical tools.  Only what I needed to perform my midwife duties.”

“Okay,” I said.  “I understand.”

“Yeah,” she said.  “I hope so.  With no better place, I had Bo lay the kid down on my kitchen table.”

“Did Steve help him?”

“No.  Steve kept a strong hold on Sue, and he kept that big knife up against her throat the entire time.  Never once did he even remove it for a second, and the entire time I had no doubt that he wanted nothing more than to kill her…for the fun of it.”

“Okay,” I said.  “Go on.”

“The kid was scared to death, but once he was on the table, I removed his dress and the girl’s panties he was wearing.  Because of what I was about to do, I suggested we might better restrain the kid too, so we tied him all spread out so he couldn’t resist.  I had just some basic anesthetic that I use with some of the women for when I have to sew them up a bit after they’ve given birth.  It happens more often than you think.  It’s a local anesthetic, and it’s not strong, but it works good enough when I need it.  I figured this was one of those cases where I was really going to need it more than usual.  So I injected him with it, all over that part of him to numb him up good.”

She looked up into my eyes and said.  “I cut his balls off.  I castrated him, right there and then on my kitchen table.  Of course, he didn’t have a clue what was going on when I did it and it didn’t take long at all.”

I continued to look her in the eyes, but I said nothing.  I just waited for her to continue.

She sighed.  “Bo asked me to cut his penis off again and somehow turn it into a hole they could fuck instead.  I had to explain to him again that doing it was impossible without killing him, but Bo just got mad at hearing that and said I needed to do something to at least make him look more like a girl down there.  When we leave, if he doesn’t look like a girl, then both you and your daughter are gonna be dead, and I promise you I’ll make it hurt as much as I can.  And then Steve cut Sue’s neck a bit more and she screamed, and I screamed right along with her.  Fortunately, he stopped.”

“Bo wouldn’t give up on his demand,” I said.

“No.  He didn’t.  He always had a one-track mind.  It was Susan though who came up with the suggestion that maybe I could…fold things over and alter his appearance with a needle and some thread.  After she suggested it, I considered it to be the best course possible.  In fact, as far as I could see, in order to keep Sue and I alive, it was the only thing I could try to do.  Plus, since I had already castrated him, this might give him the best chance of…at least looking somewhat more normal…eventually.  But once I had gotten the needle and surgical thread I needed, Bo was at me again.  He wanted to make sure that whatever I did would be permanent.”

“Permanent!” I exclaimed softly.  “What did you do?”

She sighed again.  “The only thing I could do, and in that situation, I had no choice.  It was either that or Sue and I would be dead.”

“What did you do?” I asked softly.

“Wherever I sewed, I cut the skin first on all parts I was sewing together so that eventually when it healed, those parts would literally grow and fuse together.  Just like when you stitch up a bad cut.”

I was a bit shocked, but I said nothing, waiting for her to continue.

“He was a kid.  A very young kid,” she said.  “He didn’t have much of a penis to begin with, but I sewed it so it would point straight down.  Then I cut and further sewed it so it would always be as short and small as possible.  No chance for it to…uh…grow like a normal man’s would, and that was despite the fact that I had already removed his testicles.  At that point, he would forever have nothing but a tiny nub sticking out and he’d be stuck sitting down to pee for the rest of his life.  But I didn’t stop there.  I pulled all the skin I could grab up over top of it along with some of the skin from his scrotum, and I created sort of a slit looking thing that literally hid all of it.  I fixed it so he could pee out the bottom of it, but otherwise, it was all just…window dressing.  I have no idea how well it worked since I never saw or even heard about that kid again.  I don’t know what they did with him.  Eventually, I figured the kid most likely died from what I had done.”

“As far as I can tell,” I told her.  “They kept him, but they kept him as a girl.”

She shook her head.  “I don’t want any details.  I don’t want to know anything about it.  My daughter still has a scar on her neck from where Steve cut her, and I can tell you he wasn’t too happy that his father wouldn’t let him finish the job.  When I was done, they just stuck the kid’s dress back on him and carried him out of there.  The kid still didn’t know what I had done to him.  I hate myself for doing it, but like I said, my daughter still has the scars.”

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 19

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 19

 

(Day 4 – Sunday)

 

Freaky

 

I spent the night as I always did, sleeping on the floor, wrapped up in my hair.  I just couldn't sleep in those beds.  Good girls don’t sleep in beds.  Besides, they don’t feel right.  And what if I fell off while I was sleeping?  No, the floor was where I belonged and where I was the most comfortable.  I always felt better when I could feel my hair wrapped around me.

As the dawn light began to filter into the room around the curtains at the window, my hands that usually held my hair tightly around me began unconsciously playing with that hair.  I immediately felt those two new things in it that hadn’t been there before.  Braids, Shantel had called them.  There was one thin braid hanging at the front on each side of my head.  When I had seen how they looked in the mirror, I had loved them.  Shantel promised she would show me how to make them myself…today.  I was looking forward to that.  The braids were…fancy.  Nice.  And I just liked them.

Most of what happened the day before I hadn’t liked, but I liked the braids.  There was one other thing I found that I liked too.  They had a rain room here with more than one rain shower coming down.  You could walk from one rain shower to another, and both of them were warm!  It was such fun!  When I had played in there, Shantel had done her best to hold my hair out of the way so it wouldn’t get too wet.  She didn’t let me stay in that room too long though because of my hair getting wet, and because so many other women were waiting to use it.  Still, Shantel promised I could play in there again today, except she had said that next time she was going to make me use soap.  I remembered that soap that Natalie had used on me in the rain room where she lived.  It still seemed strange to not have dirt all over my body.

It was also strange to sit down to eat with so many people.  And of course, it was even stranger that there were those kids in the room too.  Shantel and Lisa had taken me into that eating room and showed me how to grab a tray and some silverware, and then I had to stand in line with them and the other women until someone handed me a plate full of food.  Lisa showed me different things I could drink but I chose water.  I didn’t know what the other things were, except the coffee, and I already knew I didn’t want that.  How could anyone want that stuff?

I was surprised at how good the food was, even if I didn’t know what all of it was.  Lisa and Shantel said that maybe I could help make lunch or something for the women one day.  Or at least help serve it.  Cooking and doing things like that was women’s business, and I knew all about how to do that.  I told them I’d be glad to do it.

I was lying on the floor between the bed they had said I should sleep in and the wall.  There were women sleeping in all the other beds in the room.  Shantel and Lisa had their beds in there too.  I was glad I was supposed to be in the bed by the wall, just so I’d feel safer sleeping on the floor.  With women sleeping in all the other beds, what if one of them got up?  They’d step on me.  Didn’t these women know that good girls didn’t sleep in beds?  I just couldn’t understand that.

It seems like all the women in here didn’t know anything about what good girls are supposed to do.  In fact, not just the women in here, but all the women I had met since I left the farm.  Why didn’t all those women want to be good girls?  Didn’t they have men to teach them?   Like everything else away from the farm, it all just seemed so strange.

“Ladies.  Time to wake up.”

I turned over and sat up, but I couldn’t see who had said it.  Everyone was waking up now and starting to get up.  I got to my feet.  I had slept in the only clothes I had.  A few of them had nightgowns, but most of them had slept in short pants and some kind of shirt that had no sleeves.  Lisa said they’d try to find me something better to wear today than what I had on.  I had no idea why.  The clothes I was wearing had come from Natalie, and they were a lot nicer than any I had ever owned.  They didn’t even have blood on them.

They had given me something they called a toothbrush last night, and something else that was supposed to go with it, but I had no clue what to do with them, and I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know.  They were still lying on top of my bed that I didn’t need, along with a towel they had given me too.

Now that I was up, I wondered if they needed help fixing breakfast for everyone.  It would make me feel good to do something like that.  As I left the room, I noticed that everyone from all the bedrooms seemed to be heading for one of the two bathrooms.  Yeah, this was another place where they didn’t have a proper pee hole for the girls.  I was beginning to think that maybe women were supposed to use the bathrooms and that maybe Bo and his boys had been lying to me.  But no, they would never do that.  They had raised me and kept me alive all my life.  They had made sure I had plenty of food to eat too, even though a lot of times it was only dog food.  And hadn’t Bo even made sure I took vitamins every day to help keep me healthy?  No, guys like that wouldn’t lie to me at all.  Ever!  So why was it that out here away from the farm there was never a proper pee hole available for the girls?  Was it some kind of thing where the men just didn’t care enough?  That was the best answer I could think of.

I didn’t see Miss Kriss anywhere to ask her about helping with breakfast, but there was another old woman that seemed to be in charge instead.  I asked her about helping to cook.  She thanked me for offering but said that this morning they had it covered.  Maybe tomorrow though.  Instead, she said she wanted me to help clean the place along with everyone else like they all did every morning after breakfast.

“Sure,” I told her gladly.  “I’m good at cleaning.”

“Yes,” she said.  “I heard a little about you from Miss Kriss last night.  From what she said, I’d bet you probably are very good at cleaning.  Thank you,” she told me.  Then she turned away as I just barely heard her mutter, “Just not very good at cleaning yourself.”  I wondered what that was supposed to mean.

It’s kind of funny, I decided I liked having someone hand me a whole plate of food to eat.  And more than that, I liked sitting down at a table full of other women to talk with.  At home, the guys all ate first while I stayed out of the way and just brought them whatever they wanted.  I didn’t eat till they were done, and there was never anyone for me to talk with while I ate.  But that’s the way it was supposed to be for girls, and I always tried my best to be a good girl.

After breakfast, I helped all the women clean the entire place.  When they asked if I would help clean the bathroom, I was glad to do it.  With two other women in there helping me, it didn’t take long at all.  In fact, it didn’t take much to make sure that entire place was clean everywhere.

It was later in the morning when Miss Kriss and that other old lady found me talking in that big room with Shantel and Lisa.  Shantel was just about to show me how to make braids in my hair when they interrupted her.  “Freaky,” Miss Kriss said.  “This is Mrs. Moore.  She’s going to start your counseling today, okay?”

I had no idea what counseling was.  I looked to Shantel and Lisa.

“Counseling is probably the most important thing you’re going to do here Honey Pie,” Shantel told me.  “We all need it badly.  So do you.”

“Me?” I asked.  “I don’t even know what it is?”

“Just go and talk to her,” Shantel replied.

“And listen!” Lisa emphasized.

Disappointed that I wouldn’t get to learn how to make the braids, I got up and followed that old woman, Mrs. Moore, into another small room like Miss Kriss had.  There were two nice chairs in there and she had me sit in one while she sat in another.

“Hi Freaky,” she said to me.

“Hi?” I replied, not sure what I was supposed to do.

“I’m sorry you had to wind up here,” she said.

“Me too.  I want to go home!  I don’t like it away from the farm.  I don’t understand anything at all.”

She nodded.  “Then maybe we can start helping you understand things better.”

It took me only a moment to consider that.  “Maybe that would be good,” I replied.  “There’s so many things I can’t figure out.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“Like, why don’t you have a proper pee hole for the women.  It doesn’t make sense.  Don’t the men here care enough to let the girls dig one for themselves?  Good girls pee and poop in the pee holes, not in the bathroom.  Bathrooms are for the guys, not the girls.  And then there’s the fact that most of the women I’ve seen since I left the farm all wear pants.  Good girls never wear pants.  Pants are for men.  Girls always wear skirts and dresses.  And…”

“Stop!” she said suddenly.  “Let’s back up for a minute.  What are you talking about…pee holes?”

“The holes outside for girls to pee and poop in of course.  Bathrooms are for the men to use.  Cleaning them is women’s business of course, but we have the pee holes outside for us to use.”

She looked shocked.  “Who told you that?”

“Bo, and Steve, and Gary, and…all the guys.”

“And which one of them is your boyfriend?” she asked.

I shook my head.  “I don’t know what that is.  They’re all my uncles.”

“Your uncles,” she repeated.

“Yeah.  Of course.”

“Freaky, how long have you lived with those uncles?”

“All my life of course.  They raised me.  They take care of me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes.  Of course.  Except, Bo, Steve, and Ben are dead now, and they told me yesterday that Dave died too in an accident.  So now I guess it’s just Gary who will be taking care of me…if I ever get home again.”

She looked like she was going to say something, but she didn’t.  Then she said, “You mentioned a minute ago something about women wearing pants.”

“Yes!  Why are so many women wearing pants when they’re not supposed to?  Women wear dresses and skirts.  They’re made for women, not pants.”

“Who told you that women aren’t allowed to wear pants?” she asked.

“Bo and Steve…”

“Those same uncles of yours,” she said, cutting me off.

“Yeah.  Of course.  Who else?”

“And what do any visitors who come to your house say about it?”

“I don’t know.  I’m a girl.  I’m not supposed to be seen at all by anyone unless they say it’s okay.  Otherwise, I need to stay out of sight so I don’t interrupt their men’s business.”

“You mean they’ve kept you hidden your entire life, so nobody could see you?”

“I’m a girl!” I said, somewhat exasperated.  “Why can’t anyone understand that?”

“Yes,” she said.  “I can certainly see that you’re a girl.  A girl who’s becoming a very nice looking woman.  But Freaky, the things you’ve told me just aren’t true!  Women don’t pee in…pee holes as you call it.  Never!  Nobody pees in pee holes, especially women.”

“I do!” I said proudly.  “I’m a good girl.”

“I think your idea of being a good girl has been a bit warped by those uncles of yours as you called them.  How many of them were there?  Four?  Five?”

“Five!” I told her.  “I know because there’s one for each finger of my hand.”  I held out one hand and grabbed my thumb with my other hand.  This finger is one…that’s Bo.  He’s their dad.  They always call him Dad.”  I grabbed the next finger.  “This finger is two.  That’s Steve.  He’s the oldest of Bo’s sons.”  I grabbed another finger.  “This finger is three.  That’s Ben.  He’s next.”  I grabbed the next finger.  “This one is four, for Dave.  He’s a bit nicer than the others.”  I grabbed my last finger.  “And this one is five.  That’s for Gary, the youngest.  Gary likes to be mean.”  I held up my hand with my fingers spread.  “Five fingers.  Five uncles.”

She looked stunned.  “Um…Freaky,” she said.  Can you count any higher than five?”

I was confused.  “Count?  Why?  Counting is men’s business, not for girls.  Girls have no need to count at all.  I just know the fingers on my hand.”

“And how about if you add both hands together?”

She was confusing me again.  “I’ve got five fingers on this hand and five fingers on my other hand.  Five.”

“Do you know how many six is?  Ten?”

I shook my head.  “That’s men’s business.  I told you that.  Why don’t you know that?  Why doesn’t anybody seem to know what’s men’s business and what’s women’s business?  I just don’t get it.  I just don’t understand!  I just want to go home.  Home where everything makes sense!”

I realized I had been getting angry.  Angry would get me in trouble, and I already had enough trouble.  And I had been eating lots of nice food, and no dog food like I was supposed to.  Gary was going to kill me for sure!  “I’m sorry,” I told her.  “Please don’t tell Gary that I got mad and yelled.  Please!  I’m already supposed to be eating nothing but dog food all the time, and he said he’s going to punish me bad for talking to the cops too.  I don’t need anything else to make it worse.”

She shook her head.  “I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about at all as far as Gary goes.  Dog food?”

I looked at her surprised.  “Of course.  They always make me eat dog food when I’m bad.  They punish me in worse ways too, but the dog food kind of goes along with all of it.  Sometimes they make me eat just that for a long, long time.  That’s why I try so hard to be a good girl all the time and do everything just like they want.”

“I have no doubt,” she said softly.  “Freaky, I know we haven’t been talking very long today, not as long as I planned on, but I think I’ve already had enough for this morning.  Why don’t we go and find you some better clothes to wear so you have something to change into.”

“Something besides this?  Natalie gave me all these clothes…except my boots of course.  She wanted me to wear some of her shoes too, but I refused.  Shoes like she had wouldn’t be good around the farm.  And besides, I was already worried about what Dave and Gary were going to say when they saw me wearing the clothes she had given me and what they had done to my hair.”

“Done to your hair?  What did they do to your hair?"

“Natalie has one of those rain rooms right in her bathroom at home, kind of like you have in the bathrooms here.  She let me go in it and she used something called soap all over my body, and then she used something like laundry suds that she put in my hair.  After that, she called some other lady who came and worked on my hair for a long time to get all the knots out of it.  It took forever!”

“They washed your hair,” Mrs. Moore said.

“Yeah.  In that rain room with the nice warm water.  I loved it in there.  I wished I could stay in it longer.”

“I know the feeling,” she told me.

“Come on,” she said as she got up from her chair.  “Let’s go see if we can find you some more clothes.”

“No pants!” I insisted.  “I’m a good girl!”

“I’m sure you are,” she muttered.

She took me to another room where she dug around in a few different boxes that all seemed to contain clothes.  “She handed me two pairs of panties and two bras.  “These should fit you close enough,” she said.

“I don’t wear bras.  I don’t wear panties either,” I told her.

She looked surprised.  “You don’t?”

“No.”

“Please don’t tell me this is another one of those good girl things, because I can tell you right now that it’s not.”

“No.  It’s just that…”  I sighed.  “The panties only get in my way when I have to pee or when one of the guys wants to have sex with me.”

“Sex with you,” she said.  “And they’re your uncles?”

“Yeah.  Of course.”

“And the bras?”

“Bo gave me one once.  It was so hard to figure out how to get it on, and when I did, it was just too uncomfortable.  So I never wore it again.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I left it in the bottom of my clothes bag.  That cop took it when he took all my other clothes.”

“A cop took all your clothes?”

“Yeah.  Just because they had blood on them and some holes.”

“Blood,” she said.  “On all your clothes.”

“No.  I still have two skirts and a nightgown.  He didn’t take them.  Natalie, she’s the cop’s wife, gave me these clothes I have on.  They’re nicer than any I’ve ever had before, and they don’t have any blood on them at all.  Have you ever tried to get blood out of clothes?”

“More than once,” she replied.

“It’s so hard!  Even when I scrub those spots with my brush they don’t come out.  Mostly, I just ignore it.  What’s the difference if it’s there anyway?”

She seemed to sigh unhappily.  “There’s too much there that I’d love to know about, but I’m not sure I actually want to hear it.”

I had no idea what she meant.

She tried to get me to try a pair of jeans, as she called them, but they were pants, and I refused.  She tried to get me to try some short pants, but again, they were pants.  Good girls don’t wear pants!  Why couldn’t she understand that?  She finally found me a dress.  One dress.  And she said she was lucky to find me that.  I didn’t care.  It’s not like I’d be changing my clothes anytime soon.  I didn’t usually bother changing my clothes until one of the guys decided that what he’d been wearing needed to be cleaned, which always seemed to trigger all of them wanting to change.  Since I would be spending the next few days doing wash anyway, that was always my cue to change my clothes too.

And then it came down to my shoes.  Mrs. Moore was another one who didn’t like the boots I had on.  “Not only are they ugly and falling apart,” she said, “but they’ve got dirt all over them too.”

“So?” I said.  “I always have dirt all over me too.  Or I did until that rain room that Natalie has where she used that soap stuff on me and scrubbed me clean.”

She seemed to sigh as if she didn’t know what to do.  “Freaky,” she said softly.  “Like changing your clothes, it’s time to change your shoes.  It’s just…time.”

I wasn’t sure what to think about that.  I understood when it was time to change my clothes.  The guys changing theirs let me know when that was.  I just never considered changing my boots before.  The guys never changed their boots…that I know of.  But I never washed their boots.  And come to think of it, they all had a few pairs of boots.  I gave in.  “Okay,” I told her.

She searched and searched through the boxes, pulling out a few different pairs of shoes, but none of them fit me.  I was glad.  Those shoes she tried to give me would never hold up on the farm at all.  And besides, since my boots were always ones that one of the guys had worn, they always had plenty of extra room in them so my feet would be more comfortable.  All the ones she tried to give me fit way too tight.  How could anyone like walking in them?

“I’ll look around and see if I can find a pair somewhere else,” she told me.  “You’ll just have to can’t keep wearing those ugly old boots till then.”

Why not?  As far as I was concerned, they were fine.

When she seemed to be done looking for more clothes for me, she said, “Freaky, put on a pair of those panties and a bra right now.  I’ll help you with it if you need me.”

“But I don’t want…”

“You wear them here!” she told me firmly.  “It’s not polite to go without underwear.  Especially when you’re wearing skirts!  Didn’t your uncles tell you that?”

“No.”

“Well, they should have!  It’s not ladylike!”

Like it or not, I put the panties on, and she helped me with one of the bras too.  It was almost as uncomfortable as the bra I had at home…that the cop had taken away.

What’s ladylike?

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 18

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 18

 

(Day 3 – Saturday)

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

Despite my busy day, it looked like I’d be able to manage to go home earlier than I expected, even though I wasn’t able to leave the station until it was already dark.  That was what going home early usually meant for me.  Early though didn’t happen very often.  I was glad this time because I had a lot on my mind to think about, and enough had happened all day that I needed to digest it all.  The top of my list being Dave Jeskey’s death.  Why did he have to try and run like that?  But the accident had been purely his fault.  I couldn’t blame myself at all.  Well, I could since I had been chasing him, but it was my duty to catch criminals like him, and he was clearly trying to evade the law.

And then there was Wendel Cramps and what he had seen.  I had a report of a murder, but no dead body to go with it.  Tomorrow I needed to check to see if anyone other than his sister had actually missed Tom Simmons.  I as betting nobody had.  I hated murders like that.  Nobody cared.  Well, in this case Roxie certainly did.  She cared enough that she had murdered the three people involved.  Go Roxie!  Scratch that.  I was the county sheriff.  I wasn’t supposed to think like that.

And then there was Freak.  I forced myself to stop my thinking about her right there and then.  It would do no good.  She was somewhere better right now than she had ever been.  I needed to concentrate on the things that were actually my job.  Like catching the last Jeskey, Gary.  Make that almost the last Jeskey.  I forgot about Freak.

Forcing myself to stop thinking about her made me start checking my mirrors like I was supposed to be doing when I was driving.  There were headlights behind me, but nowhere else.  I had no doubt those lights behind me were there for a good reason.  It was one of the busiest roads in the area.  I was just one of thousands of people who used it every day.

I turned off the road following my usual route toward home.  A few seconds later, I glanced in the mirror and saw that car that had been behind me turning the same corner.  Must be someone who lived out this way.  I made my next usual turn and was about to turn into the next block, my street, when I saw that car still following me.  Okay, it was a residential area.  He lived here.  Just to be safe, instead of turning into my street, I kept going two more blocks then turned again.  I went halfway up the street, brought my car to the side of the road, and stopped.  What the hell?  That car made the same turns.

I put my finger on the light switch, intending on showing him some flashing lights as soon as he passed me.  What surprised me though was when he not only kept coming, but he slowed down and came almost to a stop right next to me.  I got a brief glimpse of a man wearing a bandana across his face and some kind of baseball cap…and a gun pointing at me.  As I ducked, there was a gunshot, and my side window blew out.  I got stung by broken glass.  I immediately heard the roar of an engine.  When I looked up, all I saw was the rear lights of the car as it sped off.  It turned before I could even get my car in gear.  I hit the lights and the siren and followed.  I turned where it turned and saw no sign of it.  I slowed down and carefully checked each of the cross streets, but still saw no sign of it.  Damn.  I had lost him.

Had it been Gary Jeskey that shot at me?  He was the only one I could think of who would want to kill me that bad.  I wanted to believe it was Gary, but the truth was it all happened so fast, and it was dark, and with his face covered, I never had a chance to get a good enough look at him.  Whatever car he was driving though had sounded like it had a big engine.  Maybe a muscle car of some sort.  There was one other thing I realized about that car.  Gary Jeskey, like all his brothers and his father, drove a pickup truck.  None of them would probably be caught dead driving a regular car.  They were all truck people.  So had it been Gary Jeskey, or someone else?  Like I said, I wanted to believe it had been Gary.  I just had no proof.  The story of the Jeskeys in a nutshell.

I called in what had happened as I drove the rest of the way home, watching the lights of the cars behind me very carefully.  I never saw a single car behind me in the few short blocks I had to drive.  I wished I hadn’t noticed that car that had been following me earlier.  But then, if I hadn’t, maybe I’d be dead right now.

Hadn’t Dave Jeskey said that Gary was planning on killing not just me but my family as well?  Maybe Gary had been trying to follow me home to see where I lived.  That fact, and the fact that the car had gotten away scared me to death.

As soon as I parked in my own driveway, I called the station again and made arrangements for an all-night watch on my house.  I was going to have to assign people to keep a watch over Natalie during the day as well.  In fact, that protection for Nat was going to have to stay with her until Gary Jeskey was caught and behind bars.  Only then would I be able to breathe safely again.

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 17

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 17

 

(Day 3 – Saturday)

 

Freaky

 

There were actually a lot of people in that shelter place they had sent me to.  More people than I was comfortable being around.  I was surprised to discover that the only people there though were all either women, or women and their…kids.  Actual kids…and a baby.  That fact somehow made me very uncomfortable, although I didn’t know why.

Shantel and Lisa tried to introduce me to a lot of the women there, but by the time they were halfway through them all, I simply couldn’t take any more.  It was too many!  I left them and ran, trying to find a quiet place where I could be by myself.  I wound up standing outside the door that led into that old woman’s room.  She wasn’t there though, which was good.  I just wanted to be left alone.  Why did this place have to have so many people in it?

I finally found the courage to go back to that big room with all the chairs and the kids and the TV thing.  I sat by myself and got fascinated by something.  That something being the baby in the woman’s arms.  I couldn’t stop watching it.  It was so…little.  And helpless.  And…I didn’t know the words for it.  Only that it fascinated me.

As far as I could see, that TV thing was fascinating everyone else.  All it did to me though was to confuse me.  I didn’t understand the pictures on it, and I didn’t understand what those pictures seemed to be saying.  As far as I was concerned, that TV thing was men’s stuff, and they could have it!  Would that woman let me touch her baby?  Or at least take a closer look?

“There you are Baby Doll.”

 I looked up and saw Shantel and Lisa heading for me.

“Feeling better?” Shantel asked.

“Yeah.  I guess,” I told her.  “It’s just…too many people.  Why are there so many here?”

“Hony Pie,” she said, “There’s a lot of us women who’ve been through hell.  Too many of us.  This is just a place we can go to get a bit of help.  And trust me, places like this are few and far between.  I wish there were a lot more.”

“I didn’t need help,” I told her.

“Maybe you just didn’t know you did,” she replied.  “Now…” she said.  “Lisa and me…okay, just me, I was wondering…”

“What?” I asked.

“Ever since I first saw you, I’ve been amazed at all that hair you’ve got.  And Baby Doll, I love playing with hair.  So, would you mind if I played a bit with yours?”

I was confused.  “Play with my hair?  What for?”

“Cause I want to,” she said.  “If I can ever get my life straightened out, I’m hoping to become a hairdresser someday.  And Honey Pie, you have got about the biggest head of hair I’ve ever seen.  So what say?  Can I play?”

I unconsciously hugged the mass of hair in my lap.  “I don’t want my hair cut!” I told her.

“Heaven forbid!” Shantel replied.  “That’s something I would never do…unless of course you wanted me to.  Then I’d give it a go.  So…what say?  Can I play?  I want to get my fingers in that mess so bad!”

As far as I could see, she had been trying to be nice to me since I got there.  “I guess,” I told her.

“Good!  Come on, Baby.  Let’s go find someplace quieter than this.  We can talk easier there too.”

Against my better judgment, I got up and walked with her and Lisa all the way down to one of the rooms full of beds.  Shantel grabbed a chair and pulled it out between the rows of beds and had me sit in it, then she started grabbing all my hair and pulled it back, running her fingers through the top of it.  I don’t know what she was doing, but it felt really nice.  I closed my eyes for a moment and just enjoyed the feeling.  “Mm,” I said.  “That feels good.”

“Just enjoy it Baby Doll,” she said.  “Man, you got some hair here.”

Lisa sat on one of the beds nearby.  “Did you have a family where you came from?” she asked me.  “Do you have any kids?”

“Kids?  Me?” I said.  “Where would I get kids?  I wasn’t supposed to be seen by anyone.  If the guys knew how many people have seen me now they’d probably kill me for sure, and that’s on top of the fact that they’re already going to kill me for what I’ve done.”

Lisa looked surprised.  “You weren’t supposed to be seen?” she said.  “What do you mean?”

“The only time the guys let me be seen by people coming to the house, was when they said it was okay.  Otherwise, I was supposed to stay hidden like a good girl.”

“A good girl?” Shantel asked.

“Yeah.  Of course.  You know.  Girls are supposed to take care of the men, otherwise, they need to stay out of the way and out of sight.  You know that.”

“Honey Pie, I don’t know any such thing!” Shantel exclaimed as I felt her sectioning off part of my hair at the side.

Lisa reached out and lightly grabbed my hand.  “I had a boyfriend,” she told me.  “And I really loved him.  Still do I guess.”

I had no idea what a boyfriend was supposed to be, other than a boy of course.

“I wanted him enough that we finally got married.  I was convinced we were going to be happy together.  But then the beatings started.  And they got worse and worse, and they seemed to come more often.  I wound up in the emergency room a couple of times.  The last time, the police brought me here.  I don’t know what I’m going to do now.  I still love my husband, but if I go back, I know he’s going to beat me.  Maybe hurt me really bad.  I just don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t go back!” Shantel told her.  “I’ve told you that a million times now.  You can do better girl.  A lot better.”

“But…”

“Yeah,” Shantel said.  “You love him.  Hell, get your ass out of the gutter and get over it.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” Lisa said.  “You know I’ve got no way to support myself or take care of myself.  And my parents want nothing to do with me anymore.”

“Yeah,” Shantel said softly.  “I know.  It’s a problem.”  I felt her pulling up on my hair.  “It sounds like this one here’s got her problems with family too.  Just like I do, just like all of us here.  I guess, that’s what we’re all here to figure out.  How do we move on from where we’ve been.”

“Freaky,” Lisa said.  “The people you lived with.  You said they tried to keep you hidden.  Did they ever…hurt you?”

I was surprised by that.  “All the time,” I told her.  “Any time I did anything at all that wasn’t like a good girl, they punished me.”

“H…how did they punish you?” she asked.

“Lots and lots of ways,” I told her.  “They were always inventing new ways to do things to me, and it seemed like all of them either hurt, or I was lucky to be alive when they were over.  Lots of times Bo or one of the others would tell me they had no reason not to kill me, and if it wasn’t for them, I’d already be dead.  And it’s true.  If it wasn’t for them, I would have died a long time ago.”

“Are you saying they tried to kill you?” Lisa asked.

“It seemed like it,” I told her.  “They always said I was lucky to still be alive.”

“How did they try to kill you?  With a knife or a gun?”

“Oh, no,” I said.  “They take me into the woods instead.  I hate the woods.  It’s dangerous there.”

“They just took you into the woods and left you?  Why couldn’t you just find your way back?”

“Because they keep finding new ways to punish me.”

“Like what?” Lisa asked again.

“Like…the last time, they took me to a big tree and hung me upside down by my ankles.  Then they whipped me real bad, then they left me hanging there like that for a few days.”

“Days?” Lisa exclaimed.

“Yeah.  Sure.  They always leave me for a few days.”

“Upside down?”

“That was just the last time.  The time before that, actually most of the time, they dug a hole in the woods and put me in it so that just my head was showing, then they stomped all over the dirt so it was packed down really tight.  I couldn’t move anything.”

“And how long did they leave you like that?” Shantel asked, no longer doing anything with my hair.

“A few days, like always.”

“Damn!” Shantel muttered before she went back to what she was doing with my hair.

“Are all your punishments like that?” Lisa asked.

“Mostly,” I told her.  “Of course, every time I get punished I also wind up eating nothing but dog food for a real long time.  I hate that, but I know I deserve it.  I try to be a good girl, but it seems like I keep doing things they don’t like.  Right now, I’m supposed to be eating nothing but dog food for the foreseeable future, and I don’t know how Gary and Dave are going to punish me when they get back.”

Shantel dropped my hair and walked around in front of me.  She pointed her finger at me.  “Girl, don’t ever say you want to go back to that place again.  You belong here.  Just like all of us.  Maybe more than all of us.  You need this place.”

“No I don’t.  I just want to go home!”

“Hell.  Get that out of your head.  No you don’t want to go back there.”

“Yes I do,” I told her.

Lisa grabbed my hand again.  “That’s my problem too.  No matter how bad it was, I still love him.  I want to go back.”

“And you’re both nuts!” Shantel said as she went back to fussing with my hair.  What was she doing with it anyway?

I sat there and let Shantel do whatever she was doing.  She seemed to be working further and further away from my head.  “I’ve never been able to talk to other women before,” I said.  “Other than the guys, I’ve never been allowed to talk to anyone before.”

“Never?” Lisa asked.

“Never,” I told her.  “I always wanted to, especially another woman, but there’s not that many women who came to the house, and most of the time the guys made me hide when they were around.  I saw a few of them though.  I even brought them beer once in a while.  I was just never allowed to talk to them.  And mostly, they still wanted me out of sight.”

“There you are!” someone said.  I turned and saw that old woman walking into the room.  She took a look at what Shantel was doing to my hair.  “Nice,” she told her.  “Shantel, you’re going to make a real good hairdresser someday.”

“That’s my goal,” Shantel told her.

“Keep at it.  I’ve got a couple of old hairbands in my desk if you need them to hold that when you’re done.”

“Thanks Miss Kriss,” Shantel replied happily.  “That’ll help.”

“How you doin’ Lisa?” she asked.

“Fine Miss Kriss,” Lisa told her.  “We’re just sitting here talking.”

“Good.  It’s good for you,” Miss Kriss replied.  Then she turned to me.  “Freaky,” she said, “I got a call from your friend Natalie a little while ago, and I’m afraid I’ve got some good news for you, and some bad.”

I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, so I said nothing.

“Natalie told me it’s not for sure yet, but they’re pretty sure they figured out what your last name is.”

“My last name?  What for?”

“Cause it’s something you should have.”

“For what?” I asked.

“For…whatever.  But it seems your last name is Jeskey.”

“Like the guys,” I realized.

“But there was some bad news too.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It seems that someone called David managed to crash his pickup truck, and he died in the accident.  I’m sorry, but he’s gone.”

“Uncle David is dead?”

She nodded.  “So it seems.  I’m sorry.”

I realized something.  “That just leaves Gary.”

“So you’ve still got some family,” she said.

“Yeah but…Uncle Gary likes to hurt people.  Including me.  And he already told me before he left that he was going to kill me.”

“Miss Kriss,” Lisa said.  “When she says he’s going to kill her, she means…kill her!  As in dead.”