Stevan Mena - Transience

He clicked on the TV. A news report was being broadcast from a helicopter. The volume was low, he couldn’t quite make out what the attractive female reporter was saying. The headline on the lower third of the screen read: girl’s remains found near Twin Rivers.

For a moment, Carl forgot all about the pain in his spine. Numbness filled his entire body like one giant shot of Novocain. His heart began to beat faster, thumping so hard he could feel it in his neck.

The ring of the phone suddenly seemed louder, like it was screaming at him. He slowly got to his feet, so numb with fear he could barely feel the floor beneath. He inched towards the phone like a prisoner summoned for his execution, sensing his life now had a very defined before and after. Before this call, and after he heard the words on the other line.

His sweaty, shaking hand grasped the blue receiver and lifted the handset. He stared at it another second or two, then finally put it to his ear. Someone asked “ hello” several times.

“Yes?”

“ Carl? It’s Jack. ”

Nothing would have made Carl happier than to hear his boss’s high pitched, whiny voice at that moment.

“…Yes?” Carl said, trembling with dread.

“I wanted to call you personally before you heard about it on the news.” Carl’s heart sank, his eyes closed. He couldn’t decide whether to pass out or vomit.

“Yes?” Carl whispered, sitting down in a chair looking out the window. He stared at the spot on the street below where, as a little girl, Angelina used to skip rope with her friends and sing songs. Tears dripped down his cheeks.

“We found the body of a young girl this morning.”

“Oh God…” Carl wiped his face with his hand, going limp, trying to hold on, keep it together.

“We don’t have a positive ID on the body yet, but I can tell you — we’re almost certain — that it’s not Angelina.”

It took several seconds for Carl to resurface from his grief spiral. Color gradually returned to his face. The God he was silently cursing moments ago was good and merciful again. Hope lived for another day.

He dropped the phone, placed his hands over his face, and wept uncontrollably.

Jack heard Carl’s phone hit the floor. He called out his name once, then hung up. There was nothing more to say.

Jack just couldn’t shake the method of how he’d divined this victim’s final resting place. But what was even more mind blowing was what the coroner had said. It was so startling, Jack had to ask him to repeat it:

The body they’d found had been dead at least 10 years.

It nearly knocked him over. 10 Years? Jack stammered mentally with the possibility that whoever killed these girls could have been operating right under their noses for that long. How many more victims could be out there, unrecovered? The scope of his investigation, the magnitude, had become elevated exponentially.

Immediately, Leonard’s sessions with Rebecca, the details, became relegated to chance, a lucky guess. Jack didn’t want to be dismissive, her account captured on that tape was bone chilling in its realism, he was reluctant to cast aside his gut reaction to what he’d heard. But the estimated date on which this victim apparently met her end made Rebecca’s very creative imagination a moot point.

Laura rarely slept anymore, so much as pass out from exhaustion. Even when she was out, she awoke several times, on edge, anticipating the inevitable outburst.

Rebecca offered nothing to make her feel any better. Laura didn’t believe she was consciously harboring any secrets from her, despite what Leonard had told that detective. What a bunch of bullshit . Rebecca genuinely didn’t know or understand who — or what — was preying on her.

There were moments during the day when Rebecca would say or do things that caused some eyebrow raising, but for the most part her outbursts seemed confined to nighttime. Yes, Rebecca was having issues at school, but those were isolated incidents. Right?

As ridiculous as what the detective had said was, until she had an alternative, sane answer for what was tormenting her daughter, she wasn’t taking any chances. The bike, fixed or not, was out of the question. She would drive Rebecca to school for the time being, even though it would make her 5 minutes late for work.

Rebecca didn’t argue.

Laura turned a corner, traveling up Connecticut Ave. There was an old church on their right. A man was mowing the small patch of grass in the front. Laura raised the windows — she was deathly allergic to cut grass. Rebecca watched the church go by.

“The statue is gone,” Rebecca said.

“The statue?”

“Saint Francis. They took it down,” Rebecca said with a hint of sorrow.

“Oh. That’s too bad.” Laura couldn’t remember any statue having been there to be removed. Of course, Rebecca was a kid who paid very close attention to details. She could stare at something for a few seconds, then go home and sketch what she had seen as if developing a film negative. It didn’t surprise Laura that her daughter might notice that the landscape revealed a slight imperfection when compared to yesterday.

But how would she know its name? They were Catholic, but she hadn’t given Rebecca the opportunity to go to church or have her communion. She was baptized, but that was more of a ritual than anything else.

She also didn’t remember taking Rebecca this way to school before… she’d told her to always travel along the side roads, not on a busy main road like this.

“Rebecca? You don’t ride this way to school, do you?”

“No. I go down Atlantic, like you told me to,” she said, as if wondering why she would even ask such a stupid question.

“Right. That’s what I thought.”

They reached the school. Laura stopped the car along the curb by the front entrance. Rebecca grabbed her book bag and scanned the yard for bullies, searching for the path of least resistance. She opened the door and stepped out.

“Have a good day, sweetie. Try to have fun, okay?”

Rebecca waved goodbye and headed inside. Tommy spotted her, altering his trajectory to ensure their paths would cross. He stuck his foot out as she passed by, but she didn’t fall. Rebecca was ready and had steadied herself.

Laura wasn’t ready, and bit her lower lip when she saw it happen. She put the car in park and was ready to get out to strangle the little shit when Rebecca turned at the top of the school steps, waving at her with a strained smile. Laura waved back, her mouth a flat line. Rebecca disappeared inside. Laura waited a few seconds before putting the car in gear, still squeezing the steering wheel.

Rebecca made her way through the hall, avoiding eye contact. A friendly voice penetrated her defenses and she looked up.

“Hi,” Holly said. How brave to risk humiliation , Rebecca thought. She smiled back.

“What, are you friends with this weirdo?” Christina said. Held back in first grade, Christina was tall and as beautiful as she was evil.

“Are we friends, Rebecca?” Holly asked.

For a moment Rebecca wasn’t sure if Holly was hoping she’d answer no just to bail her out, or if she was standing her ground, even sticking up for her. Holly also didn’t have many friends, but from what she knew, Rebecca figured Holly couldn’t care less what the other kids thought of her.

“Yeah, we’re friends.”

Holly turned back to Christina. “I guess we’re friends.”

Christina made a face like she smelled something foul and walked away shaking her head. “Psycho…”

Holly walked with Rebecca to class. “Don’t let those jerks get to you,” Holly said. Rebecca nodded. It wasn’t the first time she’d gotten that advice.