The Last Jeskey - Chapter 31

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 31

 

(Day 6 – Tuesday)

 

Freaky

 

“Hi Freaky.  Come on in.”

I was starting to like Doctor Knox.  At least he was always nice to me.  It seemed like he was the only person around who was nice to me.  As far as Carol went, that woman seemed to absolutely hate me.  I had no idea as to why though.  Maybe because I kept telling her that she wasn’t a good girl…like me.  I went into the doctor’s little room and sat down again.

“How are you today?” he asked me.

“Why doesn’t Carol like me?” I asked.

“Carol?”

“The woman who wears the green outfit.”

“Her,” the doctor said with a nod.  “She doesn’t like you?”

“No.  She yells at me all the time.”

“About what?”

“About me not doing things she thinks I should.”

“Oh?  Like what?”

“Like…yesterday it was about some kind of brush to use on my teeth.  I mean…my teeth?  That’s crazy!  And then she was yelling because I didn’t use another brush on my hair.  What for?  And then today she yelled at me because I sleep on the floor.  I’m not supposed to sleep in a bed.  I’m a girl    !  Why can’t she get that through her head?  And right after that she got mad when I told her that girls aren’t supposed to use the bathrooms either.  We’re supposed to have pee holes outside.”

“Pee holes,” he said.

“Yeah.  Of course.”

He nodded.  “I remember reading about that in the notes that the shelter sent.”

“They didn’t have one either!” I pointed out.  “It’s not right!”

He seemed to take a big breath.  “Freaky,” he said.  “I’ve been talking with Doctor Wilcox about you, and he’s left it up to me to tell you a few things.  Too many things I fear, but you’ve got to be told sooner or later I’m afraid.  We both agreed that maybe sooner would be the better option.  And I’m very afraid that some of it you’re going to find more than a bit disturbing.”

“Disturbing?”

“You’re probably not going to want to hear it.”

I shrugged.  “Like what?”

“Freaky,” he said.  “The only reason I’m telling you all this, is so that you’ll know, and we can start working on you understanding and hopefully accepting all of it.  That’s our final goal.”

“Did Gary die?” I asked.  “Cause if he did, I don’t know who’s going to take care of me now.”

“Uh…not that I’m aware of,” he told me.  “Okay Freaky, here’s the deal.  And like I said, I already know you’re not going to believe it or even want to believe it, but everything I’m about to tell you is the truth.”

I sighed.  “What is it already?”

“Your uncles have been lying to you all your life.”

“My uncles?  No way!  They take care of me.  They’re the only reason I’m still alive.  Without them I wouldn’t have a house to live in or food to eat.  I would have died many years ago.  They wouldn’t lie to me!  I know it!”

“You know it, and yet, they’ve lied to you about almost everything, your entire life.”

“No they didn’t!  What do you think they’ve told me that’s a lie?”

“I’m guessing,” he said, “that most of it revolves around what you think is men’s business, and what’s women’s business.  What men can do, and what girls can do.  Freaky, your entire life has been one big lie right from the very start.”

“No…it…hasn’t!”

“Yes, Freaky.  Like I said, I didn’t expect you to understand or believe it right away, but it’s true.  And that’s what we have to help you discover and figure out.  And I already know it’s going to go slowly and take some time.  In fact, this place here may be the absolute worst place for you to learn any of it, but I’m afraid, it’s all we have.”

“With Carol yelling at me all the time.”

He nodded.  “Yes.  I’m afraid so.  Even with Carol yelling at you.  I believe she’s trying to help you, despite what you think.”

“I don’t like it.  I don’t like her!”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.  But that brings me to the next point I was asked to tell you.”

“What now?”

“Freaky, do you know what kidnapped means?”

“No.”

“Kidnapped is when someone steals another person and keeps them.”

“For what?”

“For…whatever they want.  Sometimes it’s because they don’t have a baby or a child of their own.  Sometimes, it’s for worse reasons.  Someone who’s been kidnapped, is someone who was stolen.  Do you understand that much?”

I stared at him.  “I think so.  But that doesn’t sound good.”

“No, it’s not.  It’s very bad.  Very, very bad!”

I nodded.  “Okay.  But I don’t think Bo stole any of his sons.  His wife just died a long time ago.”

He nodded then continued.  “Do you remember when we talked about your real mother and father and how you couldn’t remember them, but you did vaguely remember someone back when you were very little?”

“Yeah.  I still can’t remember who they were.”

“Freaky, we know now that those people were indeed your real mother and father.  According to the information we were given shortly after you got here, they discovered that Bo and some of his sons murdered your mother and father, and they stole you to keep for themselves.”

I shook my head.  “No.  They wouldn’t do that.  It doesn’t even make sense!  They’ve taken good care of me all my life.  They’ve taught me everything!”

“Everything wrong!” he pointed out.

“No!  Not wrong.  Everything right!  Everything the way it’s supposed to be!  That’s what’s wrong with everybody else!”

“Freaky, did you ever stop to think that maybe everyone else is right, and maybe you’re the one who’s wrong?”

“No!  Bo and the others wouldn’t lie to me!”

“But they did,” Knox said gently.

“And I don’t believe it!  I know they didn’t!  I’m a good girl!”

“Freaky, I’m more than sure that you are.  But as for everything else, I honestly believe that what you really need is to get away from here.  You need to see more of the world than just that farm you were living on.  You need to get away so you can see how everyone else really lives.  And more than that, I believe you need a teacher.”

“What’s a teacher?”

“Someone who can teach you things.  Show you how everything is supposed to be and how everything is supposed to work.  Someone who can explain the entire world to you.  Not to mention, someone who can teach you to read and count.”

“But I’m a good girl.  Girls don’t need…”

“Freaky!  Like it or not, the truth is that girls, all girls, all people, need to learn to read and to count.  All that stuff that your uncles have been telling you about men’s and women’s business is wrong.  All wrong!  None of it is true!”

“Yes it is!  Yes it is!  They wouldn’t lie to me.”

He stared at me for a few moments, letting me calm down before he said, “I’m afraid there’s one other thing I need to let you know as well.  Something more unbelievable than any of the rest.”

“What?” I sulked.

“You were once a boy.”

I stood up.  “You’re…just…stupid!” I yelled before I walked out of there.

How could he even think such things?  It was all so dumb.  I hurried back towards the door where Doctor Wilcox had brought me in.  I tried to open it, but it was locked.  No amount of tugging would make it budge.  I noticed the buttons next to the door.  I pressed a few of them, but they did nothing at all.  I couldn’t get out!

Angrily, I turned around and went back to my room.  I passed Carol on the way.  “I hate you!” I shouted at her, and I kept going.

I went all the way back to my room where I walked around in circles in the tiny space.  What do these people know?  Nothing!  Bo would never lie to me.  He was my uncle.  He took good care of me all my life.  He fed me and made sure I had a house to live in.  He was the only reason I was alive today.  I’d be dead without him.  He…wouldn’t…lie!  I knew that fact better than I knew anything else.  He had told me enough times so that I’d never forget it.  They all had.  And now this stupid doctor thinks I’m a boy?  Is he blind?  And I was starting to like him.  It’s not Bo who ever lied to me, it’s that stupid doctor!

“What’s wrong with you now?” Carol asked from my doorway.

“Go away!  I hate you!  You’re all stupid!” I yelled.

Instead of going away, she came into my room.  “What’s got you all hot and bothered now?” she asked angrily.

“None of you know anything at all about the way you’re supposed to behave.  None of you know the difference between men’s business and girl’s business.  None of you know the way things are supposed to be!  You’re all just stupid!  Especially you!  And especially, especially that stupid doctor!  Go away, and don’t come back!  Ever!”

I could see how angry she was.  Well so was I.

“I’ve had enough of you!” Carol said menacingly.  “You need a reality check!”

She walked out of my room, and I was glad to see her go.  Why did she have to yell at me so much?  I didn’t understand any of it.  Why didn’t she know any of the things I did?

Unfortunately, Carol came back a few minutes later, and she had Wanda and that guy that took me to see Doctor Knox with her.  I also noticed she had a big pair of scissors in her hand.

“Stick her on the bed, on her stomach, and hold her down!  Firmly!” she ordered.  When Wanda and the guy didn’t do it right away, she yelled, “Do it!  Let’s see if we can adjust her attitude a little bit.”

Like it or not, they grabbed me and forced me down onto my bed, then they both held me down.  I started struggling as hard as I could, but with the two of them, I couldn’t get away.  And then I felt the most horrible thing in the world.  Carol grabbed my hair, and I could feel her starting to cut it, right up at my neck.  I screamed and screamed and screamed.  I struggled as hard as I could, but none of it did any good.  I still felt her cutting my hair off.  All of it.  And then the final bit of it was suddenly gone, and I felt Carol grab all that hair and pull the weight of it from my head and body.

“Let her up,” Carol told them.

Wanda and the guy let go of me and my hands immediately went to my head.  All my hair was gone.  I started screaming and screaming.  I looked at Carol, and she looked so satisfied.  Like it or not, not caring what kind of punishment they would do to me, I launched myself at her.  I attacked her as hard as I could, kicking and scratching and hitting her with every ounce of strength I had.  Both the guy and Wanda grabbed me and held me away from her, and I still struggled and screamed as hard and as loud as I could.  And I kept at it.

Carol ran out of there, but I still struggled and screamed and screamed some more.  Carol eventually came back.  “Hold her still!” she told them.  Then she stuck some kind of really thin knife or something right into my arm.  I screamed even louder since it hurt so much.  But only a moment after that, I started to feel really weird, then weirder, and then so tired.  They laid me on the bed and let go of me.

I was so tired.  So sleepy.  But not too tired to see both Doctor Knox and Doctor Wilcox run into my room.  I saw them both looking around, then they looked at Carol.

“What happened?” Knox asked her.

“I did what needed to be done!” Carol shot back angrily as she pointed at all my hair on the floor..  “She needed a reality check.”

“You have no idea what you’ve just done,” Wilcox said.  “You not only took away her security blanket, the only comfort she had, you removed her very identity…what little identity she actually had.”

That’s the last thing I could remember for a long time.

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 30

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 30

 

(Day 6 – Tuesday)

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

Eight vehicles traveled the dirt road leading into the Jeskey farm.  I was hopeful that this time we would find something…something else.  Last time we had found a barn full of drugs and guns, but I knew there was more out there.  Probably a lot more.  At this point, I was mostly interested in money and dead bodies, but I would take anything I could get.  Any win at all.  I knew going in that there was a better than even chance that we would drive out again with nothing at all.  I prayed that wouldn’t be the case.

I was in the lead car with Russ discussing how we wanted to handle this massive search, when we were both suddenly scared to death by a bullet hitting our windshield, at the same time a loud gunshot reached us as well.  I slammed on the brakes and got lucky that the car behind me didn’t crash into us.  A second shot hit the windshield and Russ and I both bailed out of the car and took shelter behind the open car doors.

There was a bend in the road ahead.  Since the bullets had hit the windshield, the gunshots had to have come from there.  With my gun in my hand, I carefully poked my head up enough to see.  Nothing.  Nothing but trees and brush ahead of me.  All of it too thick to see through.

“See anything?” I called over to Russ.

“Nope!  Nada!” Russ yelled back.  “But they had to have come from just ahead.”

He could have at least tried to tell me something I didn’t know.

We waited there like that for a good minute before I slid back in the car.  Russ slid in beside me.  “Let’s see what we can find,” I told him as I put the car in gear.

Slowly we eased forward.  There were two holes in the middle of the windshield.  At this point, I no longer wondered if it was Gary Jeskey or not, we were practically at the Jeskey place.  It had to be him.

We reached the bend, and I could see Russ turning his head almost frantically looking for the perpetrator.  “Where the hell is he?” Russ exclaimed.

I said nothing.  I was busy searching the road not just ahead of me, but on my side of the car.  The road started running through the woods now, going around another bend, making things even more difficult.  Where was he?  Where was Gary Jeskey?  A few minutes later, the trees were left behind and open land surrounded us as the dirt road straightened out.  And ahead of us…the Jeskey farm.

“What the hell!” I yelled angrily as I stopped the car and pounded the steering wheel.  “Where is he?”  I turned to Russ.  “Russ, take the last two cars and search the area back at that bend.  I’m going on ahead with everyone else.  Find that bastard!  And Russ…watch your back.”

“You don’t have to tell me Sheriff,” he replied.  “But you better watch your back too.  As I see it, he didn’t pass us going the other way, so more than likely he’s back at that farm.”

Shit!  He was right.  The farm was the most likely place he would be.  Or maybe somewhere in the woods on that farm, waiting to ambush us again.  Shit!  “You’re right.  Search the bend anyway, and like I said, be careful.  Then join us as soon as you can.”

He got out of the car and ran back the way we had come.  Unless Gary was waiting at the farm for us, it was starting to look like once again the Jeskeys had disappeared and left us with nothing to go on.  Shit!

I moved on ahead to the farm, my eyes already checking the three vehicles that were still parked there.  Nope.  Just the ones that had belonged to the now dead Jeskeys.  Roxie, why the hell didn’t you shoot Gary and Dave as well?  Especially Gary!

We all parked our cars in front of the house.  We all got out cautiously, looking everywhere.  Every man I could see either had his gun drawn, or was carrying a rifle, and they were all ready to use those weapons.  I saw no sign of Gary or his pickup.  Where had he gone?  Not knowing scared me to death.

Since nothing much had happened since we got there, I sent a few men inside to look for any sign that Gary might have been there.  I turned my eyes toward the barn and the other outbuildings.  We had searched them last time, but I intended on searching them again.  This time with a better eye toward finding hidden places.  Those false walls in the barn had been almost impossible to spot.  Behind the barn and the other outbuildings was the tree line.  The trees that comprised the majority of the Jeskey land.  I was convinced though that those trees held a lot more secrets than they should have.  The woods were where I wanted to focus most of my search, but all of it had me more scared than I had ever been.  Gary was out there somewhere gunning for me, and like all the Jeskeys, he seemed a bit too good at hiding.

My cellphone rang and I answered it.  “Yeah?”

“Sheriff,” Russ’s voice came back.  “Did you know there’s an almost invisible road running through these woods?”

“No.  Doesn’t surprise me though.”

“If I were to bet, Gary was leaving and just happened to spot us coming.  He waited here, took his shots, got back in his truck and left.  We drove right past it earlier and didn’t see the thing.  In fact, if Gary hadn’t just driven through there, we probably wouldn’t have spotted it at all.  We did find two shells from a rifle though.  Sheriff, he’s long gone I’m afraid.”

“That doesn’t surprise me either,” I told him, actually hoping it was true.  I was still worried that Gary was back at the farm a bit too near us, just waiting to get a better shot at me.  “Get the boys out here.  Let’s set up this search.”

Once again Gary Jeskey had taken some shots at me.  Once again he had missed.  I couldn’t count on him continuing to miss.  I would be a dead man if I didn’t find him very soon.

While a few men were searching the house, I and everyone else started searching the few outbuildings.  We considered every place we could see to be somewhere that Gary could be waiting for us.

I took one of the deputies with me, and with my gun in my hand, I chanced opening a small shed, the building that appeared to be further away from the house than any of the others.  I pushed the door open, but stayed well away from the empty passage.  No gunshot had been fired at me when I opened the door.  I quickly ducked my head in, then back out.  I had seen nothing but junk.  I took a closer look, carefully checking all around.  My first impression had been correct.  Nothing but junk.  Rusted junk at that.  Farm implements that hadn’t been touched in years.  I already knew that the Jeskeys weren’t exactly interested in farming.  They just lived on all that land.

“Nothing Sheriff,” the deputy with me said.

I could see that, but still, I took as close a look as I could, remembering those hidden hiding places in the barn.  The shed was too small for false walls, and as far as I could see, nothing in it had been touched in forever.  I went back out and closed the door, starting to move on toward the next building.  But we didn’t get far at all.

“Smells out here,” the deputy noted.

I stopped where I was.  He was right.  “Yeah,” I agreed.  “It does.”

Looking around, we soon found the reason for that smell.  Behind the shed we discovered a hole in the ground that looked to be nearly waist deep.  There was a pile of dirt right next to it.  The ground around that hole though was well packed down from someone walking on it quite a bit.  The awful smell in the air was coming from that hole.  Shit!  I had found Freaky’s pee hole that she had talked about so much.  I never wanted to believe such a thing, but here it was, right in front of me, in all its stinky, smelly glory.  Or gory.

“An outhouse without a building?” the deputy wondered.

“Something like that,” I told him.

“Why the hell didn’t they just turn the shed into an outhouse.  It would be perfect, and probably pretty easy.”

I considered that, and he was right.  “My guess?” I said.  “This is where Bo made Freaky go to the bathroom all the time.  The hole was put here to keep the smell as far from the house as possible.  But I guess Bo didn’t want her to have a proper outhouse like he could have created in that shed.  I’m guessing, he didn’t want to give her that much dignity.  Let’s move on.”

“Yeah,” the deputy replied.  “Gladly!”

We moved on.  There was an old broken water pump not far from the shed.  I ignored it, but the deputy took a closer look.  He needn’t have bothered.  The handle was broken off and it was obvious that it hadn’t been used in years.  I had seen a better one, a working pump out behind the house.  This one was obviously left over from the previous owner, or more likely, several owners ago.  It could have been left over from the civil war for all I knew.  The deputy kicked the thing, and we moved on, closer toward the house.

The next structure was a pump house.  This was where the modern system was that supplied all the water to the farm.  It made sense that it would be near that old broken pump.  That pump practically shouted that hey, there’s water down below.  I took a careful look around that shed.  The pump was modern and well maintained.  Electric powered.  In fact, it didn’t look very old at all.  The Jeskeys had probably installed a new one not too many years ago.  After searching the pump house carefully, we left it behind.

I saw some of my men coming out of the barn.  They had searched it again, but that didn’t stop me from going inside for my own look around.  I pretty much ignored the horse stalls near the front where those hidden doors had been.  This time I took a more careful look at everything else in the barn.

Nope, it didn’t look like the Jeskeys did any farming, although I did see some faint signs of chickens living in part of it as well as some other kind of animals, but there was nothing at all there now.

I was surprised to see all the woodworking tools in the barn.  Was Bo or one of his sons into woodworking?  I remembered something I had seen inside the house that I hadn’t thought about before.  A lot of the furniture inside was wooden.  I had also seen a bunch of wooden Adirondack chairs on the front porch and more around a fire area in the yard.  Had Bo Jeskey made that furniture?  It looked like it was possible.  A psychopathic killer who built furniture.  Who would have thought?  But the truth was, it was entirely likely.  Bo Jeskey was full of surprises.  More than I imagined.

“Sheriff!”

I turned and saw Russ walking into the barn.  “Anything?” I asked him.

“Just that road.  I sent the other car to see where it goes.  It was there, but it couldn’t have been used much at all.  If we hadn’t gotten lucky, we would have never seen the thing.”

“That’s the impression I’m getting about this whole place,” I told him.  “Look at those false walls we found in the barn here.  If Freaky hadn’t shown them to us, we would have never seen them.”

“The guys are almost done with the house.  Nothing yet,” he told me.  Do you want me to set up to search the woods?”

“Yeah,” I said.  “It’s time.  As we talked earlier, there’s a lot of woods out there.  Take a few men and search the edges carefully and try to mark any possible trails and roads leading through them.  There’s just too much woods to do anything else.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.  “And if they used the woods, they had to leave some kind of trails.”

“Exactly,” I told him.

“On it, Sheriff!”

He took off and I went back to eyeing the stuff in the barn.  I didn’t see any hay, but I did see a partial bag of chicken feed stashed up on a shelf where the chickens wouldn’t be able to get to it.  Down below I saw a bag of pig feed.  As far as I could see, they were the only farm-like things the Jeskeys had on the place.

I gave up and left the barn behind.  So far, we had found a lot of nothing.  Not even Gary Jeskey.  Unfortunately.

I waited and watched as my men fanned out and searched the edges of the woods.  Marker flags began to grace the start of places where they had found trails or roads leading through the trees.  Russ came running back to me before they were finished.

“Three roads leading in Sheriff,” he told me.  A few walking trails, but they barely look used.  We’ll check them anyway.”

“Good,” I replied.  “Any of those roads look like it’s been used more than the others?”

“One,” he told me.

“Let’s go take a walk,” I said.  “Send the guys to check everything else.  And Russ, emphasize again that they need to keep a sharp watch.”

“No need for that,” Rus replied.  “The guys already know there’s a lot of bears in this part of the state.”

I nodded.  That was the primary reason for all the rifles the men were carrying.  We couldn’t shoot the bears unless they actually attacked.  But the noise should frighten the beasts away.  Usually anyway.

Russ called some orders to the deputies as he led me toward one of those markers.  No doubt about it.  The road leading through those trees looked well used.  I was tempted to take one of the cars, but this was a search.  We might miss something if we drove a vehicle.

With two other deputies with us, one of them carrying a rifle, we began walking the road.  The road continued to look well used, but where did it go?  Why was it there?  So far, I could see no reason for it.  But you didn’t build a road that ran through the woods for no reason at all, so there had to be something out there.  We walked nearly half an hour before we found that reason, and the end of the road.  Shit!

There was a pond there.  And from the fishing poles leaning against one of the trees and more of those Adirondak chairs, it was obvious that the Jeskey boys had done more than a bit of fishing there.  But it wasn’t the water or any of the discarded fishing gear that held everyone’s attention.  It was the big black shape on the other side of that pond.  A bear.  A rather large bear.  We all watched it carefully until it gave up watching us and wandered slowly back into the woods.  It had been on the other side of the water, we had guns, but we all breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Following the road had turned out to be useless.  Shit!

By the time we got back to the house, the other deputies were back as well.  “Did anybody find anything at all?” I asked.  I got no answers.  Just a lot of disappointed faces.  “How about those other two roads?” I asked.

“They went too far for us to follow all the way on foot,” one of the deputies told me.  “But it was pretty obvious that they were both used for hunting access.”

Hunting access.  “Yeah.  No doubt.  All that land.  All those trees.  And it was all prime hunting territory and owned by the Jeskeys.  They could, and would hunt their own land, probably a lot.  Hence, the roads to get back there.

Bottom line?  We had come up completely empty.  Shit!

“Okay guys,” I said.  “Let’s go home.”

We piled back into our vehicles and headed back.  We had found nothing.  No guns.  No drugs.  No anything!  Not even one missing ginormous safe.  A safe that was big enough that they had needed a flatbed truck to transport the thing.  Where was it?  Where was all the money I knew the Jeskeys had to have?

And more importantly, where the hell was Gary Jeskey?  That worried me more than anything.  He was still out there, still trying to kill me.  And he was getting closer each time.

Yeah, no doubt about it, this had been one shit day!

Shit!

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 29

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 29

 

(Day 6 – Tuesday)

 

Freaky

 

“How the hell can you not know what a toothbrush is for?”

I was getting so frustrated.  “How should I?”

“Everybody knows what a toothbrush is,” Carol yelled back.  “And they know how to use it.”

“Well I don’t.  It doesn’t make sense.  I don’t have anything on my teeth to brush.”

“You brush…your teeth!  You get them clean!  Geez!  How stupid can you be?”

“I’m not stupid!  I think you all are.  Nobody here knows anything about being a good girl…or woman.  Nobody!”

“We what?”

“You all need to take lessons in what’s right and wrong.  Bo and the guys would bury you alive and then hang all of you from trees for a week for the way you all behave.”

“How we behave?  When you don’t even know how to use a toothbrush?”

“I never had one!” I argued back.

She walked away a few steps then walked back.  “What the hell kind of place were you raised in?”

“A farm,” I told her.

“And what kind of crops did you grow on that farm?”

“Grow?  What are you talking about?  They didn’t grow anything.  Why would they?”

“Did you raise animals then?” Carol asked.

“Sometimes,” I told her.  “I used to feed the chickens and the pigs when the guys got some.”

“What else?” she asked.

“What else is there?”

She shook her head.  Doesn’t sound like much of a farm to me.  No toothbrush, and…did you even attempt to brush your hair this morning?”

I stared at her.  “Brush…  What are you talking about?  Why would I brush my hair?”

“To make it look neater.  To get the tangles out.”

“I’ve never done that.”

“You’ve never brushed your own hair, as long as it is?”

“Natalie had some woman come over to her house that day when Bo and the boys were shot, and she did a bunch of stuff to my hair to straighten it out.  Then at the shelter, Shantel put the braids on my hair.  Does that count?”

She stared at me as if she couldn’t believe anything.  “You’ve never brushed your own hair?”

“The only brush I have is for when I do the laundry.  I use it in the tub with the laundry suds to get the clothes clean.”

Her mouth hung open for a moment, just before she walked away.  What was wrong with her anyway?  She really needed some lessons in how things were supposed to be.

“Freaky.”  That same guy who had taken me to see Doctor Knox the day before was back again.

“It’s time to see the doctor again.”

Again?  What now?  But I followed him back to Knox’s little room.

“Hi Freaky,” the doctor said as I went inside.  “How are you today?”

“Fine,” I told him.  “But I’m tired of the way everyone yells at me all the time.”

“Yells at you?  Who’s yelling at you?”

“Mostly Carol,” I told him.  “How am I supposed to know what a toothbrush is?  I never had one back at the farm.  The only brush I had there was for brushing the clothes to clean them when I did the laundry.  There were no other brushes.  And so what if I never brushed my hair.  It’s my hair.  And like I said, I never had a brush for it, or even wanted a brush for it.”  Why did he look so shocked?

“With all that hair,” he said hesitantly, “I would imagine that it might have looked a bit…messy.”

“That’s what Natalie said that day that Bo got shot.  She called some woman who came out and worked on it after I got out of her rain room.  It didn’t used to drag on the ground behind me, but now it does.  Everyone at the shelter I was in seemed to really like that though.”

“And how do you feel about it?” he asked me.

“I don’t know.  It’s nice I guess.  It’s easier to play with, and Shantel was able to make these real nice braids in it for me, and she showed me how to do it myself.  I’m still working on that though.”

“You never braided it before?”

“No.  Of course not.  Nobody ever showed me that.  At the farm, I rarely ever saw any other women, and I certainly never talked to them.  I wasn’t supposed to be seen.  In fact, I rarely saw anyone else at all.  I’m a good girl.  I stayed out of the way and quiet.”

He nodded.  “I’m sure you did,” he replied.  “Freaky, tell me please.  When we spoke yesterday, you mentioned a little bit about being punished whenever you did something wrong.  The notes I got from Jessica Kriss mentioned a few rather horrendous things that you said were done to you.  What exactly happened when you were punished?”

“Which time?” I asked.

“Um…let’s start with the last time.  What did you do that they had to punish you for?”

“I was a bad girl,” I told him.  “I peeked out to see a woman that Uncle Ben had brought home, and Steve and Gary caught me.  I just wanted to see her!  Just for a minute.  But I knew I wasn’t supposed to do that.  I was a bad girl.”

“And what happened?” the doctor asked.  “How did they punish you?”

“That time they did it different.  Most of the time they bury me so that just my head is above the ground.  Then they stomp all over it to pack the dirt down.  I can’t move anything!  It’s the bears that come around that always scare me the most though with that one.  I think it was because of all the bears that one of them decided to try something different with me.  They hung me upside down from a big tree limb, then they whipped me, then they pulled me up so I was way up in the air and left me there for a few days.”

“A few days,” the doctor said, sounding concerned.

“They always do that,” I told him.  “All my punishments last a few days.”

“What do you call a few days?”

I shrugged.  “I’m stuck somewhere for a long time, then the sun goes down.  Eventually the sun comes up again, and later it goes down.  When it comes up again, I know that sometime that day the guys will come get me.  Usually anyway, but sometimes it takes longer.”

“You said you got whipped.  Do they do that to you often?”

“Whenever I get punished.”

“Where do they hit you?”

“My back,” I told him.

“Freaky,” he said.  “Would you mind if I take a look at your back to see if there’s any marks?”

“I guess,” I told him.  “I don’t know what’s back there.  I can’t see my back.  It doesn't matter anyway.”

“Stand up a minute,” he told me.

He stood up with me, turned me around, and pulled up the back of my top.  After a moment he let it down again and we both sat down.

“Do you get punished often?”

“No!  Fortunately!  I really do try to be a good girl.”

“I believe it!  You said that most of the time they bury you in the ground.”

“Yeah.  They have this hole that they dug deep in the woods.  The tree they hung me upside down from was right near it.  But they stick me down in the hole and then fill it in with dirt and stomp all over it to make sure it’s really tight.  Trust me, before they stomp it down I can’t move anything at all.  It’s horrible!”

“I’ll bet!  You mentioned bears?”

“Yeah.  For some reason there’s always a lot of bears around that place.  At least it seems like it to me, especially when I’m stuck in that hole.  I try real hard not to ever fall asleep when they do that to me so I can watch for the bears.  When I see one, I found out that if I scream real loud and high they usually run away and don’t bother me.  The last time though, one of them didn’t.  It came right up to me and sniffed my head for a long time.  I screamed and screamed, and it finally went away.  Are you okay doctor?” I had to ask.  “You look sick all of a sudden.”

“I’ll be…fine,” he told me.  “Tell me Freaky, were there any other horrible punishments they used on you?”

“Once they hung me from that same tree limb by my hair.  And they tied my hands behind my back so I couldn’t grab it.  That hurt!  More than being hung by my ankles.”

“I have no doubt,” the doctor said.

“Anything else?”

“I guess just something they did once.  And I’m so glad they never did it again.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear this,” the doctor said, “but what did they do to you?”

“Gary got this idea and everyone seemed to love it.  Of course, the guys were all drunk when they did it to me.”

“Were they always drunk when they punished you?”

“No.  Just that one time.”

“And what did they do to you?”

“They took all my clothes off and tied me all over to a big pole, then they put the pole over top of a fire just like when they cooked a pig.  They even stuck an apple in my mouth so I couldn’t yell too loud.  I can’t begin to tell you how much that hurt.  I was so glad when it didn’t last too long, but afterwards my skin hurt so bad, and I had some kind of blisters all over me.”

“They literally cooked you alive?”

“It was supposed to be like a pig.”

“Did they whip you that time too?”

“Um…no.  They didn’t,” I said.  “I guess that was a good thing.”

“Not by much.  Let’s change the subject,” he said suddenly as he seemed to sit up straighter.

“Tell me.  Have you ever wanted to learn to read, or wanted to go anywhere to see other things?”

I sat there and stared at him, trying to decide how to answer.  “Those are the things that get me punished,” I told him.  “That’s why I try so hard to be a good girl all the time.”

Once again, he seemed to stare at me for a while, then he asked, “Freaky, if you could.  If you didn’t have to worry at all about being punished for it, what would you like to do the most?”

That question sent my head spinning.  “How should I know?  I just want to be a good girl.  A very good girl.  A very, very good girl!”

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 28

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 28

 

(Day 6 – Tuesday)

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

“Sheriff,” Russ said as he walked into my office with a stack of papers.

“What now?” I asked, frustrated to have yet another problem grace my desk.

“The DNA results are back on all of Freaky’s clothes.”

“Already?”

“Already,” he confirmed.  “Someone must have put a rush on it and actually managed to get them to move.”

“More likely someone saw the name Jeskey and realized it was going to be important,” I replied as Russ handed me the stack of papers.  “Thanks,” I told him.  “I take it you looked through it already?”

“Of course!” he said as if he was offended that I should even ask.

“If you try running against me for sheriff, I’ll shoot you!” I told him.

He laughed and walked out.

I looked through the top paper.  “Shit!”  I looked through the next one.  “Shit!”  I did the same with all of them, one at a time.  “Shit, shit, shit!”  Not all the blood stains had come back with DNA matches to people in the system.  There were two that didn’t, but all the rest had names of different missing women.  The DNA of the two where they couldn’t match them to anyone were for different women as well.  And of course, none of it matched Freaky’s DNA.

“Shit!”

Were they murders?  Or just some random blood stains despite the bullet and knife holes in the clothes?  No body, no murder.  Except I didn’t believe that for a second.  Every one of those pieces of clothing we had taken from Freaky were from different women who had been murdered.  I honestly believed that.  No proof!  Of course there was no proof.  This was the Jeskeys.

One thing that didn’t surprise me though is that the DNA lab one hundred percent concluded that Freaky was a family relation to Bo and his sons.  Most likely Bo Jeskey was her uncle.  Of course he was.  And then there was the other tiny little checkbox on Freaky’s DNA paperwork.  Male!

“Shit!”

Which all brought me back to the question of the week.  Where the hell was Gary Jeskey?  Did he go home to that farm of theirs now that we hadn’t been out there in a few days?  Something told me I better check on that.  Soon!  Like today!

Which reminded me of yet another thing I still needed to arrange to be done out there.  The Jeskeys may have owned a farm, even though they never actually farmed that land, but most of their land was woods.  I needed to organize some way to search those woods.  We still had all that missing money to account for, along with one big safe.  And…would those men have been dumb enough to stick all those missing dead bodies on their own land?  Yeah.  Dumb enough, and smart enough.

How the hell was I gonna search a bunch of wooded land that was known to be a bear paradise?

I picked up my phone.  “Russ!  Get the hell in here.”

Russ and I discussed the matter and even though we shouldn’t, we both felt that because of the difficulty of the situation we would only leave one deputy back at the station and we’d call in the nighttime woman who answered our phone when we’re not here.  With that decided, I sent Russ off to do the paperwork for the search warrant so we could actually, legally, search that farm.  All of it, especially all those woods.

Which left me the other tiny detail to arrange so we could have all the manpower we could get.  Natalie.  I had one of my deputies following her all over creation in hopes of keeping her from getting shot – again.  Now that she had a bullet hole in her arm, I noticed that Nat wasn’t quite so against having a deputy follow her around everywhere.  She had complained about the deputy before she got shot, but now, afterwards, would she complain about not having him for the few hours I was going to need him for some actual deputy stuff?  Something told me that might just be the case.

I picked up the phone and called.  “Hey Nat,” I said, nice as can be.  “How’s it going today?”  I listened as she told me one or two things I couldn’t have cared less about.  “That’s great Honey,” I told her, as if I had been actually listening.  “Listen, Nat,” I said.  “We’ve got to go out and search that Jeskey farm again, including the woods this time, and I hate to say it, but I’m going to need that deputy I assigned to you for a little while.  I promise though, he’ll be back just as soon as we finish at the farm.”

She didn’t answer right away.  Uh-oh.  Then she said, “Yeah, fine Will.  I just appreciate the effort you’re taking by assigning someone to watch my back.”  Whew!  Safe!

“Like I said,” I told her.  “I’ll have someone back to you just as soon as I can.”

“Thanks,” she said.  “I appreciate it.  Anything new on Freaky’s case?” she asked me.

“Uh…one or two things,” I told her.  “We got the DNA results back already on all her clothes we took out of there.”

“And?”

And every last damn piece of bloodstained clothing showed a different woman, and that included two of them that we couldn’t find a match for.”

“So?”

Was she kidding?  “So we could have more dead bodies out there somewhere, just like all the others we can’t find.  And they’re all women!”

“Was any of that blood Freaky’s?” she asked.

“None of it!  The results did show that Bo Jeskey is definitely Freaky’s uncle though, and I noticed one other tiny thing in the paperwork as well.”

“What?”

“I think it’s pretty much confirmed that Freaky used to be Brian.  The DNA said male.”

She didn’t say anything about that for a moment.  I was about to say goodbye when she said, “Will, now that the DNA results confirmed that it’s Freaky, and that Freaky used to be Brian, will you call the behavioral center where she is and relate those results to them?  I think they might want someone to warn them that Freaky is…or used to be…a boy, even though she identifies one hundred percent as a woman, and pretty much has all her life.”

“Why me?  I didn’t take her out there.  In fact, Pam McGregor is the one who wants to ride shotgun on her life.  Why can’t she do it?”

“Maybe that would be the best idea,” Natalie agreed.  “Can you call her and discuss it with her?”

As if I didn’t have enough to do today.  “Sure,” I said.  “Just give me a month.”

“Will!”

“Yes, alright,” I told her.  “I’ll call her as soon as I get a chance.”

“Thanks Will.  Good hunting.”  With that, she hung up.

Good hunting.  Damn.  I was arranging to go into bear territory, and shooting those things was a crime!  Good hunting!

Half an hour later, I left the station and headed over to the courthouse to pick up the warrant.  When I got inside though, I found the judge was busy…with Pam McGregor.  I was in a bit of a rush though so I kind of forced my way in.  “Judge,” I said.  “I hate to interrupt, but is that warrant ready?  We’ve got a lot of ground to search.”

He picked up a paper on his desk and tossed it closer to me.  I went in to grab it.

“Anything new about Freaky?” Pam asked me.

“Uh…I just told Natalie that we got the DNA results back from all those clothes of hers that we had tested.  Every piece showed DNA from a different woman, which means that it’s possible that we could have even more dead bodies out there that haven’t been found yet.”

“How about Freaky’s blood, any matches for that?”

“Nat asked me the same thing.  The answer is no.  I let Nat know though that Bo Jeskey is definitely Freaky’s uncle, and that…  And here’s the part that gets me the most, Freaky’s DNA showed that she’s definitely male.  Which I guess means that Freaky used to be Brian.  And Pam, Nat wanted me to tell you about that and see if you wanted to let that behavioral center know about it for…some reason or another.”

Pam seemed to consider that.

“I would say yes,” Judge Reinhart said.

“Yes, I agree,” Pam said too.  “Thanks Sheriff.  I’ll call them as soon as I get back to the office.”

“Will,” the judge said.  “Just so you know, I just signed the paperwork to officially make Pam here Freaky’s advocate.  But in doing so, I insisted on a small change.  One she’s not too happy about.”

“Oh?” I said, not really interested.

“That girl,” the judge continued, “and notice I said girl, despite what her DNA says about her.  From what I’ve been told, by both Pam here and your wife…”

“Natalie?”

“Yes.  We just talked to her.”

“Okay,” I said, now wondering why he needed Nat’s opinion on anything.

“According to Pam and Natalie, Freaky identifies entirely as a woman.  She has all her life.  She wouldn’t even begin to know how to behave as a male of any kind.  Not to mention, from what I’ve been told, her entire body appears to be all female.  In every way practical, she’s a woman.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “I got that.  I’ve seen her.”

“Good!  Anyway, the point of this is that it’s entirely possible that that girl has been raised in almost complete isolation.  From what I hear she doesn’t seem to have a clue as to what reality is.  Thanks to Bo Jeskey, she’s been deprived of her family, her birthright, her sex, her chance at any kind of a life, and any joy and love that she should have been emersed in since her birth.”

I hated it when Reinhart got long winded, but he was famous for that.  I always chalked it up to this being a backwoods community and him wanting to be seen as the biggest bigshot in the area.

“I don’t want to take any chance,” the judge continued, “of anyone else trying to take any more from her than they should.  Now it’s not that I don’t trust Pam here, I do.  In fact, she’s to have full control of everything to do with her with the exception of one thing.  Money!”

He had shocked me.  “Money?  What money?  We haven’t found their stash of money yet.  Although, I’m hoping we will today…just as soon as I can get out to that farm and start looking for it.”

“Will,” the judge said.  “There’s a chance that Freaky could be due a pile of money from her father’s side of the family.”

“Pile?”

“Bank accounts, and more importantly, the sale of all that land that they owned, which was a lot.”

“So Freaky is rich?” I asked.

“Maybe, maybe not.  It’s just as possible she won’t get a single dime, although I’m betting we’ll come up with something.”

“Okay,” I said.  “Where do I come into this?”

“You don’t!  Purposely.  I won’t let you.”

“Uh…me?  For what?”

“Pam isn’t happy about this, but because of the amount of money that could be involved, I want three people to oversee those funds and be the trustees, not just Pam here.”

“Okay,” I said.  “And  what does, or rather doesn’t that have to do with me?”

“Not you, I’ve talked to Natalie.  She’ll be the second person on that list.  I just wanted you to know since she’s your wife.”

I could see that.  “Okay, thanks for the head’s up.”  At least it wouldn’t involve more work for me.  Nat could play with Freaky’s money all she wanted for all I cared.

“I just need to come up with a third person now.  And I want someone who isn’t related to your wife or Pam.”

I hadn’t wanted the responsibility anyway.  “How about you?” I suggested.

He shook his head.  “It’s best if I don’t.  My job is to mediate disputes.  Being part of that could be a conflict of interest.”

“Sorry,” I said.  “I’ve got no suggestions.”

He nodded.  “Yeah.  I was afraid of that.  Good luck finding anything at that farm today.”

“Thanks,” I said as I saluted him and Pam both with that warrant.  I needed to get out of there and get busy with more important things.  Darn Freaky was taking up way too much of my time!

 

The Last Jeskey - Chapter 27

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 27

 

(Day 5 – Monday)

 

Freaky

 

If I thought that shelter place was weird, it was nothing like this place.  Something called a behavior center…or something like that.  Was this where they brought all the women who didn’t know how to behave?  Because if it was, I could tell them about a whole bunch of women out there who needed straightening out.

Wilcox led me out of his room and to a closed door.  I watched as he pushed some little buttons next to it and a small light changed.  Then he opened the door and led me though.  What did the buttons have to do with opening the door?  I was never going to figure out the world I had found myself in.

As he led me through, I noticed a number of people there, and they weren’t just women.  I was surprised to see men there too.  I was quick to notice that all the women seemed to be wearing the same kind of pink outfits, and the men were wearing blue.  What surprised me even more was that some of those people looked sick, like there was something wrong with them.

“Carol!” Wilcox called out.

He led me to a woman who was wearing a green top with matching green pants.  And this was some place that I had thought would teach women how to behave?  Maybe I was wrong about that.

“This is Freaky,” Wilcox told her.  “Please take good care of her.”

He turned to me.  “Good luck here Freaky,” he told me before turning and walking away.

“Freaky?” Carol said.  “Really?  Who the hell named you that?”

Why didn’t anyone seem to like my name?

“Come on,” she said like it was the greatest bother in the world.  “Let’s get started.”  As she led me further inside, she called out, “Angela, Wanda.  Give me a hand.  We’ve got another one.”  She turned and looked toward me.  “And how we’re going to deal with all that hair I’ll never know.”

I grabbed my hair and hugged it to me.

They had a warm rain room too!  I was so happy to see that.  I immediately wondered if every place had one.  That would be really nice.  I noticed that just like Natalie’s husband, the cop, and all the other cops in that place where they had first taken me, Carol, Wanda, and Angela all wore matching clothes.  I thought that was nice.  In fact, they looked a lot more comfortable than the ones the cops all wore.  They would have been great except for one thing – pants!  Why did all the women in the world wear pants when they weren’t supposed to?  Well not all women.  Pamela at least had worn a dress.  That had been so nice to see.  But I had noticed that Pamela also did a bunch of things that women weren’t supposed to be doing, like diving, and reading, and writing, and I was sure a lot of other things.

“I’m sorry,” Carol said to me.  “But like it or not, we need to see you naked so we can examine you and check for contraband, and then we need to get you into the shower and get you clean.”

“Examine me?  Like that doctor did a few days ago?” I asked.

“Doctor?” she asked.

“I never saw a doctor before,” I told her.  “I thought he wanted me naked so he could have sex with me like my uncles all do, but he didn’t.  He wanted to look at my body instead.  No sex at all.  That was weird.”

“Sex with your uncles?” Angela said.

“Sure.  That’s one of the main things girls are for.  You know that.”

“Maybe we better just check you over and get you clean,” Carol said.  “Turn around, I’ll unzip your dress for you.”

I dropped my dress, kicked my shoes off, and removed my panties and bra.  All three of those women looked me over and touched me all over and examined me to the point where I was very uncomfortable with it.

“What the hell happened to your back?” Carol asked.  “It’s covered in scars.”

“I don’t know,” I told her.  “I can’t see my back.  But that’s where the guys whip me when I’m bad.”

“They whip you?”

“When I’m bad,” I replied.  “It’s usually part of my punishments.”

They moved onto my front side.  Carol, for some reason, was fascinated with my vagina.  “What happened to you there?” she asked.

“I don’t know.  It’s always been that way,” I told her.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.  Why should it?”

She fingered it some and discovered she couldn’t get her finger into it.  “What the hell?  It looks like there’s no opening at all!  How the hell do they have sex with you with it like that?  Don’t answer that!” she added quickly.  “I don’t need to know.  I don’t want to know.  All I need to know is that you’ve got nothing hidden inside there.”

“Inside?” I said.  “There is no inside.”

“Turn around and bend over,” she ordered.

I couldn’t figure out why, but I did.  And then I felt her fingers pushing into my asshole a little bit.  “Oh!” I said.  “Why didn’t you just tell me you wanted sex?”

“I don’t!” she said as she removed her fingers.

“She’s clean,” she told Wanda and Angela.  Clean her up.”

I thought she had just said I was clean.  I happily went into that rain room and started to play, but Carol came in quickly and grabbed all my hair, trying to hold it so it wouldn’t get wet.  “We don’t have blow dryers here,” she told me.  “And even with a blow dryer, we don’t have time to dry this much hair.  Now clean yourself up!”

I had no idea what a blow dryer was, except maybe that hot air thing that the hairdresser woman had used on it back at Natalie’s house.  Like it or not, Wanda and Angela made me use soap and a washcloth all over my body.  That wasn’t nearly as much fun as just playing in the nice warm water.”

“Damn it!” Carol yelled.  “I’m getting all wet!  Why can’t you just cut this mess off your head?”

What mess?

After the rain room, Wanda and Angela helped dry me off, which I thought was very nice of them.  Then Carol handed me my panties and bra back.  To save time, Wanda fastened my bra behind me.  Then Carol surprised me by handing me some new clothes.  When I looked at them, they were just like the ones they were wearing, except instead of being green, they were pink, like the other women I had seen were wearing.  But it wasn’t the color that upset me.

“No!” I shouted.  “I’m a girl!”

“But they’re pink…for girls!” Carol argued.

“Girls don’t wear pants!  Ever!  I don’t know why all the women I see are wearing them, but it isn’t right!  Good girls don’t wear pants.  Bo and the guys have told me that many times.  And I’m a good girl!”

“Freaky!” Carol yelled.  “You’re beginning to make me think they named you exactly right.  You’re starting to sound like a real freak!  You either put that outfit on, or we’re going to put it on you!”

“No!” I shouted back.  “I’m a good girl.  The guys would kill me if they found out.  And I mean kill me!”

“Hold her down!” Carol yelled.

Ten minutes later, I was in a room that they told me was all for me.  The room had a bed in it, an empty dresser, an empty shelf, and a chair.  I was still mad as I could be because I was wearing that pink top and those matching pink pants.  Scrubs they had called them.  I didn’t understand.  Scrubbing was what you did when you cleaned something.  Were these clothes made for cleaning?  Nobody seemed interested in explaining any of it to me.

I had never worn pants before, and trust me, they were taking some getting used to.  They were very uncomfortable.  How did men stand wearing them with all that material between their legs?  Trying to get used to them, and not wanting to just sit in that room, I wandered out for a better look around.  As I had noticed before, the women all wore pink and the men all wore blue, but otherwise, their clothes seemed to be exactly the same.

I can tell you that the people at the shelter were a lot more friendly than everyone I saw here.  Nobody said anything to me.  They all looked at me strangely as if they didn’t trust me, then went back to what they were doing, mostly just wandering around by themselves…like I was doing.  And I was right.  More than a few of them looked sick.

“They had one of those TV things there too, and a lot of the people were watching it.  I didn’t like TV, and I couldn’t understand how anyone else could like it either.  Maybe they understood it better than I did.

“Freaky!”

I turned and saw a man wearing the same green outfit that Carol and her friends had worn.  And this was a man!

“Come on,” he said.  “One of the doctors wants to see you now.”

“A doctor?” I asked.  “Does he want to examine me too?”

“I think that’s the general idea he said as I followed him through the room.”

“Will he want sex with me?” I asked.

“I seriously doubt it,” the man said.

He led me to a door and another tiny room.  I saw a man inside.

“Are you Freaky?” the man asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Come in, please,” he told me.

I went in and that man in the green outfit left and closed the door.

“I’m Doctor Knox,” the doctor said.  He came over to me and shook my hand.  What a strange experience.  “Sit.  Please,” he said as he waved his arm toward a chair.  I sat and waited.

“I’ve been reading over some of the notes on you that a Jessica Kriss sent us.”

“Miss Kriss,” I told him.

“Yes,” he replied.  “I get the impression that you’ve had some interesting experiences in your life?”

Interesting?  “I don’t know what you mean.  I’m a good girl.  I do what I’m supposed to.  Or at least I try to.”

“I’m sure you do,” he said.  “But let me start with something else.  Your name is very unusual,” he said.

“It is?  Why?”

“Did your mother ever tell you why she named you Freaky?”

“I never had a mother,” I told him.  “And I guess my name is really Freak.  I just told Natalie that I like Freaky better and everyone has been calling me Freaky instead.”

“Your name is actually Freak,” he said as if he didn’t believe it.

“That’s what I’ve always been called.  The guys say, have the freak do this, or have the freak do that.  They all just call me Freak.”

“What guys?”

“My uncles.”

“Uncles,” he said as if he wasn’t happy.  He seemed to sigh, then said.  “Freaky, and I’m going to keep calling you that since you like it better.”

I shrugged.  That was up to him.

“You said you didn’t have a mother.  Do you remember your father?”

“A father?  No,” I said.  “I never had a father.  I only remember my uncles.”

“So you don’t remember your real parents at all.”

I sat there and tried to think about that.  “I don’t know,” I told him.  “Way back.  Way, way back before I can really remember much.  I think there was someone.  A man and a woman maybe.  But I was so young then and I really don’t remember them at all.  It’s always just been me and my uncles.”

“So you have no idea what happened to your mother and father, and you were raised by your uncles instead.”

I shrugged.  “You’d have to ask them.  But Bo is dead now.  So is Steve and Ben.  Oh, and they told me that Dave just died too.  But there’s still Gary.”

“All those people have died,” he said.  “How long have they been gone?”

“You mean dead?  Just a few days.  Dave may have died yesterday.  That’s when they told me about him.”

“You don’t seem particularly upset about it.”

“Upset?  Am I supposed to be?”

“Didn’t you love them?”

“What do you mean, love?”

“Feel any affection for them.”

“Oh, they had sex with me all the time.  Like that?”

“Not quite what I was thinking,” he said.

“I’ve never met a doctor before,” I told him.  “Not until that day when Bo and the guys were shot.”

“Someone shot them?  Do you know who did it?”

“Roxie did it,” I told him.

“Roxie,” he said.  “Freaky, were you there when they were shot?  Did you see it happen?”

“Of course.  I’m a good girl.  I know I’m not supposed to be seen by other people, but Roxie wouldn’t let me leave.  She even pointed the gun at me to make sure I didn’t go anywhere.”

“So you saw it all happen.”

“Yes.  Of course.  That cop asked me all about it already.  That was the first day I ever saw a doctor.  Now you’re the second one who wants to examine me.  Are you going to want to see me naked too?”

“No Freaky.  I’m not that kind of doctor.”

“I don’t understand.  How many kinds of doctors are there?”

“A lot, I’m afraid.”

I sighed.  “Maybe doctors are another thing I don’t understand.  Just like everything else.”

“Freaky, I’m a doctor who specializes in your mind.  When people have mental problems, I try to help them.”

“Good!” I said.  ‘Cause ever since I’ve left the farm I’ve seen lots of people who need help.  Most of them women.  And none of them seem to know the difference between men’s business and women’s business.  And why is it that none of them seem to understand that good girls don’t wear pants.  Look at me,” I said.  “I’m wearing pants.  But it’s only because they made me.  They forced me to wear them.”

“Who told you that women don’t wear pants?” the doctor asked.

“Bo.  All the guys.”

“And you said something a minute ago about girls not being seen?”

I shook my head.  “You know this!  All the girls and women should know it.”

“Know what?” he said.  “Pretend I’m stupid and I don’t understand.”

“Oh,” I said as I realized what he was doing.  “You’re trying to see how well I understand it.  I understand it just fine.  Bo and the guys make sure of it.  They punish me if I get something wrong.”

“Freaky,” he said.  “There’s so many questions I have right now, but let’s go back to what I just asked.  Can you explain what you meant by girls shouldn’t be seen?”

“Sure,” I said, trying to be patient.  “Basically, it’s just that girls shouldn’t get in the way of men’s business.  They should just do whatever the men want them to, then get out of the way where they’re not seen or heard.  Bo and the guys were always real strict about that one.”

“I see,” Doctor Knox replied.  He looked at me for a moment then said.  “Freaky, in this first meeting, I really wanted to just meet you and get a sense of who you are.  Maybe start getting into your earliest background a little bit.  But you said you don’t remember your mother and father.”

“I didn’t have one,” I told him again.

“But you remembered a man and a woman.”

“Sort of.  But not really.  And I don’t know who they were.”

He looked at me as if he was trying to consider something, then said.  “Okay, we’ll get into that another time.  It’s getting late now, and I really just wanted to meet you.  Especially after Doctor Wilcox told me a little bit about you.  So you don’t remember your parents.  Just living with your uncles.”

“I’ve lived with them all my life.  Bo, Steve, Ben, Dave, and Gary.  Bo is in charge though.  Steve, Ben, Dave, and Gary all call him Dad.  They all have me call them uncle.  Uncle Bo, Uncle Steve, Uncle Ben…”

“I get it,” the doctor told me.  “And you said that some of them were murdered.”

“Roxie shot Bo, Steve, and Ben.  Miss Kriss told me that Uncle Dave died in a car accident afterwards.”

He looked at me for another moment, then said.  “So who’s left out of all your uncles?”

“Just Gary.  He’s going to have to take care of me now.”

“At least you have him,” the doctor said.

“Yeah but….”

“But what?”

“Gary’s mean.  He likes hurting me more than the others.”