Chapter 1

Luckily my ex-wife and I hadn’t produced any children before we divorced at age 21. Since we had dropped out of college and were only working part-time, there was almost nothing to divide. I got my clothing and our rusty old car. She got the goldfish, the couch and end tables, and the few hundred dollars we had left after paying for the divorce.

On the fateful day two years later, I woke very pleased with my new circumstances. My online business was doing well enough that I bought a small and very-used house. I moved into my new abode early in the morning. The old two-bedroom house would need a lot of work, but I could do most of it myself. I noticed the lock on the back door didn’t work, but it was a small town and I’d replace it soon enough. Two windows on the front porch were cracked. Half the walls needed repainting, and the carpets and kitchen floor were worn out too. My car was even more rusty, but it still ran. Mostly.

I walked out the back door and looked at the lawn again, MY lawn. After only 239 more mortgage payments, it’d be fully mine! The grass and the six trees belonged to ME. The lawn chairs and bird feeder belonged to ME. I hadn’t put them there, but the empty beer bottles and cans in the far corner of the yard belonged to me too. It felt GREAT to be a homeowner at last! Mostly. I decided I’d clean up the recyclables first, to be a good neighbor.

I walked inside to get a trash bag and there was a knock at the door. “POLICE! OPEN UP!” I opened the front door and saw the officer had a nightstick in one hand and a pistol in the other!

“EEEH!” I quickly put my hands up and retreated a step. “What going on? What did I do?”

He holstered his gun as he looked past me, into the house. “We’re searching for a mentally ill young woman. She’s suspected of murder, and VERY dangerous. Have you seen her?” He held out a picture of a cute blonde who looked very sad. I thought she was probably 14 or 15.

“No. Never seen her before.”

“May I look around the place?” He pushed me aside and didn’t wait for an answer.

“Uh, sure.”

He slowly looked through all five rooms on the ground floor. He even checked in the fridge and kitchen cabinets. Next he turned on the basement light and cautiously walked downstairs. I went to the top of the stairs out of curiosity and heard him grumbling. “What a dump! This place is filthy!”

I had bought the house from the family of a deceased hoarder and hadn’t cleared out the basement yet. There were pieces of an old truck, broken furniture, hundreds of dirty dishes and utensils, and mounds of old newspapers.

As he climbed out of the basement, the cop said, “The trash downstairs is a fire hazard, clean it up!”

“Yes, sir. No problem.”

He emphasized his point. “My uncle’s the Fire Chief. I’ll have one of his boys come check next month. If it’s still filthy ... you really don’t want that.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Good. The crazy bitch isn’t here.” He walked out without even saying goodbye.

I was relieved to see him walk to the house across the street. I thought, ‘He’s trying to catch a criminal, but still ... what a jackass!’

I made myself some toast, eggs, and coffee, and went to the backyard patio to relax. I took a big sip and set the coffee cup on the ground, then held the plate with one hand and ate with the other, since I didn’t have a table yet. A squirrel on a branch above chirped at me many times as I ate. I guessed he thought the place was HIS yard. I laughed at the furball’s intimidation attempt and drank the rest of my coffee.

I went inside and put the dirty dishes in the sink. I thought I should replace the door lock soon and drove to the hardware store to get one. I decided to pick up a few tools and some paint, while I was there.

When I got home, I picked up a large knife in the kitchen and timidly searched the place again, just in case. After feeling foolish a little while, I replaced the lock. I cleaned up the yard, repainted the living room walls, and did a few other chores.

After supper at the town’s only diner a block away, I started cleaning up the basement. Near the bottom of the stairs, I picked up a bunch of food wrappers, cans, and old beer bottles. I took a couple of large boxes off the top of the pile of cardboard leaned against the stairs, and found a young girl curled into a ball and crying quietly.

“What are you doing in there?”

“Shhh! They’ll find me!”

There was a large bruise on one side of her face and scrapes and cuts on both her hands. “It looks like you need some help.”

“Just go away! Shhh! Please go away!”

I asked, “What happened? Who hurt you?”

“Please let me hide here? I don’t have any money but I’ll suck your dick. I know guys like that. Just don’t hurt me, and don’t let them take me back? Please?”

“Whoa! Wait a minute! You don’t have to do anything. I’ll get you cleaned up and put some bandages on you. I should call the police too.”

“NO! NO! NO! They did this to me! PLEASE NO!”

“The police hurt you?”

In between sobs and sniffles, she explained, “My mom and I moved to town a year ago, and she married one of the three cops in town. They’re brothers and their dad is the judge. We lived at the corner of Third and Oak street, only two blocks from here. The day they got back from their honeymoon, my evil stepdad Brody locked me in a closet and chained my mom’s leg to the bed. The cops and the judge, and some other guys ... they did terrible things to her. I had to sit in the closet and listen when they ... when they did it. Sometimes different guys, but about six every night.

A week ago while they were doing it, she stopped yelling. They started cussing and asking what they were going to do. Maybe a few hours later, one of them pulled me out of the closet, and ... and they chained my ankle to the bed, and ... started hurting me.” Tears streamed down her face. “Mom is gone, and I don’t know where she is. I ... I think maybe they killed her!” She hugged me tightly and cried for several minutes as I patted her back gently.

“Every night ... every night they asked if I wanted to suck them off. All five, or six, or eight. Once there were ten of them! Ten different hairy, gross, stinky ones; squirting their awful stuff in my MOUTH!