Caustic (11 page)

TWENTY FOUR

SKYE

I waited. I waited for what felt like hours for anyone to come and talk to me, for anyone to tell me what was going on upstairs. I hadn’t heard any other screams --just pieces of conversation and mumblings through the floor. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Someone upstairs was shuffling; she never picked up her feet. I wondered if it was Leia. She seemed like she was some sort of slave to him. Or maybe them. I thought a couple times that I could hear two different men’s voices.

What did they want with us? Why was he so focused on having a set of twins? And how the hell was I going to get us out of here? I had thought that maybe Ellis would send an army of police officers who would’ve broken down the door by now. I heard him yell for me. Hadn’t I? Suddenly it seemed like I couldn’t trust my own mind. The drugs has made me woozy and sleepy. But in my immense fear I wouldn’t shut my eyes. They’d already taken my clothes off; I could imagine what else they would do to me, especially if I was asleep. I finally just learned how to chase the nightmares away, but these memories would replace them: the memories of how I found my sister, locked away in a basement. I waited. I hoped I wouldn’t be waiting long.

A few hours later -- or minutes, who knew anymore -- I heard a man’s voice and the basement door opened. He descended the stairs quickly, his steps short. He wasn’t controlled and purposeful like Leia had been. He was rushed. But why?

As he rounded the corner of the staircase, I unraveled my body from the corner I had been rocking in.  I stood up prepared to fight him. I knew it would be futile, but if I was going to go with him, I was going to go kicking and screaming. And if I was lucky, I could take a piece of his flesh down with me. Finally, I saw his face in the light. He was about twenty years older than me, with light blonde hair and creases around his dark brown eyes. He was built; it was no wonder that he grabbed me so easily. As he got closer, it was then that I realized that he was the orderly that carried that woman up the stairs the day I had gone to Connecticut Psychiatric. He had been around the whole time, and I just never saw it. I tried to think back through Leia’s journal entries. How many times had she mentioned him? What were the types of things he said to her? But my brain still felt fuzzy from the drugs, like there was a cloud covering my memories. I couldn’t access them properly, so I couldn’t use any words against him.

“We’ve been waiting so long for you,” he said as he approached. I put my back against the cold wall, feeling for edges, praying that suddenly, magically something would appear that I could use to defend myself. But I had felt along the wall for the past few hours and knew there was nothing there. There was no weapon, no way to fend him off of me. Just my own free will. He got so close to me I thought he would reach out and touch me. So much so that he extended his hand toward my face, but as I glowered at him, he pulled back. “Are you happy to be here? To see your lovely sister again?”

I tried to move away from him. “You’re keeping her here as a captive. I know what you are. And I think you’re disgusting!”

He reached out again, this time grabbing me by the back of the head, and pulled on my hair as hard as he could. I let him. I let him be in control. It gave me more time to think. “She wants to be here. She loves me.”

I swirled the spit around my mouth before I hocked it right onto his face. He let go of me and wiped the saliva from his cheek. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I balled my fists at my sides. “Not letting you have what you want. Isn’t it obvious? You thought I would be just like her. You were clearly mistaken.”

“I know you’re just like her. Actually I know you’re worse. I know the truth about you, Skye. Leia told me everything back at the hospital. When she could remember that is.”

I squinted at him. “What do you mean, when she could remember?”

He sneered at me, a sickening smile growing across his face. “Most of the drugs have wiped away her memory.” He raised his hands around him. “This is all she knows now. She will never leave.”

“She knows who I am. She said my name.”

“Only because I’ve said it a thousand times since she’s been here. We knew you were in town that day. We heard whispers. So we went to find you. She was supposed to convince you to come with us, until that psycho Frank saw her. He broke my window! You think I’m obsessed with her? You’re looking at the wrong guy.”

“Frank just wanted to help her. He could tell that something was wrong. You’re crazy for thinking that she wants to be with you. Crazier than she ever was.”

He flew at me, his hand on my throat, pushing me up against the wall in only a second. I pounded on him with my fists. And when that didn’t work I yanked back on his hair to try to pull him off of me. Then I kicked him in the groin and he finally let go. He covered himself as I raced up the stairs calling for Leia.

“Leia! Leia, where are you?”

She didn’t respond.

When I got up the stairs, I found that I was in the kitchen. It was well lit, but it looked like it hadn’t aged a day since the 1950s. He was clearly making some sort of fantasy come true here. The clothes, the retro furniture…he had some type of perfect picture in his mind. I ran through the doorway into the living room. Leia was lying there on the couch, but she wasn’t moving. I ran over to shake her, to wake her up so we could get out of here. We only had seconds before Oliver would be back up the stairs. She didn’t move. I heard clapping behind me and as I turned around I saw Oliver leaning against the door frame looking completely unscathed.

“She doesn’t really sleep anymore. I have to give her drugs to keep the nightmares away.”

He walked over to her and I backed up, almost tripping over an old armchair. He walked right over to the couch and dragged his finger along her face. He had a loving yet terrifying look in his eyes. He really thought she was here of her own volition. But I knew the truth. She moved just slightly away from him in her drug-induced coma.

“Don’t touch her again!”

He turned to me and his eyes narrowed. “You’re going to be harder to break than she was.”

“You can’t break me. I’ve been through it all, and the hits just keep coming. And I’ve survived. That’s what I do.”

He smiled at me again, and it made my stomach turn. “She said that about you. About how she was weak, and you were strong. Or so you thought. But her getting sick, it made you angry. Jealous even. It took all the attention away from you.”

“That’s not true!”

We circled in the room like two cowboys preparing for a shoot-out, but I was without a gun.

“You know what is?  I know how you really feel about her. About how all of this really began.”

I found myself with my back to an old fireplace. And next to it, the weapon I’d been looking for. I put my hands behind my back and continued to play out the conversation with him. I needed only a second. If I could slip the poker out of its holder, I would lunge at him. And I would stick it right through his heart. Right where it belonged. But he was too focused on me. I needed more time.

“Tell me about the other girls. Tell me about how they weren’t me, and how you disposed of them.”

He crossed his arms, standing casually once again. Like this was just another mundane conversation, not like we were talking about some girls' lives. Lives that he had ended.

“I thought one of them would bond with her. Emulate your twin relationship. But she wanted you. She told me over and over how it had to be you. So I had to get rid of the other ones. Now we still need to dye your hair. I never liked either of you as a brunette. But once you face that this is what your life is going to be like now, you’ll be sleeping as soundly as she is.”

With that he extended his hand toward her and, like a magnet, she pulled him toward her once again. It was just the distraction I had been waiting for. I ran at him with the poker held like a spear. But I didn’t have enough momentum. I fell on top of him and I struck him with it, but I couldn’t get it through his body. His rib cage acted like a shield of armor. I hit him repeatedly with it, but he grabbed my wrists and the weapon dropped from my hands as he fought me back. We rolled on the floor until I was on the bottom, and his hand was once again on my throat.

I made gurgling sounds as he choked the life out of me. I was gasping for breath and the room was starting to go dark along the edges. I was losing too much oxygen. All the while my sister slept on the couch, I was going to die. My hands wrapped around his, trying to pry them off. I was going to fail; I knew it.

And that’s when I heard the shot go off. Oliver’s lifeless body fell on top of mine and I struggled for air as I attempted to push him off. Suddenly he was being lifted away and I scrambled to sit up, pulling myself against the back wall of the living room. I was next to a dresser with an old glass lamp on top. I looked into the light. It was the only thing I could see. I didn’t want to see the body. There was blood all over my hands. My face. I was covered in it.

But where had the shot came from? And who had pulled him off of me?

“Are you okay?” Ellis kneeled down in front of me with his hand on my shoulder. He was inspecting me for any injuries. He wouldn’t find any physical ones except a few bruises from the scuffle, but the emotional ones? They would last much longer.

I couldn’t get the words out; my throat felt like it was on fire. I just nodded and I pointed toward Leia on the couch. He pulled out his cell phone and called what I assumed was 911 while he checked her pulse.

“She’s alive. Hello, I’d like to report an assault.”

I could hardly understand him. I was sure that he mentioned the address and that we needed help, and any other pertinent details. All I wanted to do was sleep. I closed my eyes and rested my head on my knees, trying to block out the world around me. I just needed this to be over; I needed it all to be over.

TWENTY FIVE

SKYE

My sister and I were placed into a hospital pretty close to where my grandfather was receiving hospice care. We were only about a half an hour away. So instead of us going to see him, he came to see us. I was discharged only a day and a half later, with clear instructions to see a therapist on a regular basis. But Leia was in much worse shape. Whatever drugs Oliver had given her had really messed up her mind. She didn’t remember her own name most of the time, let alone any other details about our family. I watched as they rolled her body into the emergency room in front of me. My parents stood behind the glass wall, waving to both of us and crying tears of happiness that they never thought they would feel. I found my sister. We had survived.

Apparently, as soon as Ellis realized I had gone missing, he ran back into the bar and informed Detective Aldridge. They put out a statewide BOLO for the van, since they’d caught it on the security camera from the bar. Leia’s roommate said that she had seen the van hanging around quite a lot lately. He was waiting for me like a lion for its prey.

Hiding behind normal Oliver Wilkins had turned out to be a complete sociopath. Not only had he killed the three girls while he was trying to get me, but apparently he had killed his first wife, also a previous patient. He’d become completely obsessed with her and locked her in the house, forcing her to do wifely duties for him most of the day. But, once when she went to the market, she asked a woman for help, and she was gone longer than her typical routine. He figured it out and ended her. But they found her body, still lying in his bed. He hadn’t disposed of her; he just couldn’t let her go. I assumed that’s what he wanted to do for Leia and me. He would’ve kept us until what he considered was the end of our time.

Ellis had walked through the house with the police as they were taking us in the ambulance. He had to give a statement about how he shot Oliver, and they took him in for questioning. I watched as they put handcuffs around his wrists and loaded him into the back of a police car. But they found it was self-defense, especially after finding the body of Oliver's wife. He hadn’t been careful with her; his fingerprints were all over the crime scene, not to mention all the drugs that were found in his bathroom, things he shouldn’t have access to outside of the hospital. He’d been injecting Leia the entire time she was there. The doctors were astounded that Leia had even survived. They said that most of the drugs that he had mixed as a cocktail could’ve killed her. But somehow she found the strength. Her body fought back, even though her mind couldn’t. I was proud of her for that.

When Grandpa finally came to see us, he was looking thinner than he had even a couple of days ago. I knew the end was near. The pretty nurse from hospice care rolled him into my room and I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for him. He had an IV and a morphine drip attached to the chair. They were trying to make him as comfortable as possible. An old afghan that my grandmother had made was lying over his lap. He had told the nurses he was cold. I knew what that meant.

“You found her,” was all that he said in a raspy voice.

“I did.”

He put my hands between his own. His skin was papery thin. How had I been this close to death in just a few days? Someone had died on top of me just a couple nights ago, and here was Grandpa walking the edge of life.

“I’m so proud of you. And I’m so glad that you’re okay. Had I known…”

“You didn’t know! None of us did. I found her, that’s all that matters. And a very bad man is dead. As he should be.”

He looked up at me, the creases around his eyes more pronounced. A single small tear fell down his weathered cheek. “I never wanted you to get hurt. I wanted both of you to be safe.”

“We are. She’s going to be fine. She’s going to move back in with Mom and Dad. They’ll take care of her. You don’t need to worry anymore.”

He closed his eyes but a small smile played on his lips. “I want to see her.”

I nodded. “Come with me.”

His nurse was waiting right outside the door, and I signaled to her so she pushed him as he followed me down the hall to Leia’s room. There was a police presence outside her door. I’d mentioned hearing multiple voices, but Oliver was the only one in the house when the police searched it. I figured most of the time he was probably talking to himself, but the cops wanted to play it safe. I nodded to the officers I walked by. The officer gave me an understanding look.

We walked into the hospital room where Leia was sitting up and reading a book. It was some type of pre-teen adventure, but it seemed to make her laugh. And that was all that mattered anymore, making her comfortable and keeping her happy. She had seen enough hurt in her young life. Now my parents would try their best to remedy her sad situation for the rest of their lives. And I was leaving that up to them. I had found her, I had done my part. And while our relationship would never be the same, she and I could be friends. One day, we could be.

“Leia, there is someone here to see you.”

She closed the book and put it on her nightstand as she looked down at the man in a wheelchair. “Grandpa,” she said with a sad smile.

“You know him?”

She nodded to me but spoke directly to him. “I went to the cabin. I stayed there for a while, thanks to you. I should’ve stayed there,” she said as she started to tremble.

The nurse pushed Grandpa right up next her bed. “But you’re safe now,” he said.

She nodded slowly. “I’m safe now.”