David Bell - Never Come Back

“How did you end up… leaving or whatever?” I asked.

Beth didn’t hesitate. She plunged right into the story. It seemed as though she wanted to get it all out, and I wondered whether she had told anyone else the things she was about to tell me. I guessed she must have told one person. She had likely told Mom the whole story sometime in the past couple of months.

“I snuck out of the house one night when I was fifteen,” Beth said. Her voice didn’t change much as she spoke, but I saw something in her eyes as she related the story. They looked a little glassy, a little distant. I could see the regret in them.

“I know I was grounded for something at the time, but that never stopped me. I used to go out the window in my room. It was easy. Gordon wasn’t home a lot, and sometimes I wore Mom out so much she couldn’t keep up with everything I did. She probably felt a great deal of relief every morning when I was still in the house and alive.

“That night I went out alone. Some girls I barely knew had told me there was a party across town. I don’t know how they had heard of it, or if they had any idea what was going on there. I doubt they knew what was really happening.”

“What was happening?”

“I’m getting there,” she said. “I couldn’t get any of my usual running mates to go with me because it was a school night and the party was so far away, so I just decided to go out alone. I did that sometimes, and I wasn’t afraid to do it. I could handle myself. I had the address. The party was supposed to be thrown by these older guys. I don’t think they were in college. This was in Haxton. We didn’t have a college there. But there were older guys in their twenties. Guys who worked in the factories and didn’t mind chasing after a high school girl every now and then. That was all I needed to hear. A party with older guys? I wouldn’t miss it.”

“How did you get there if it was across town?”

“I hitched,” she said. “Don’t look so surprised. People did it a lot more back then. I know it wasn’t that safe, but I think it was safer back then. We did it all the time. So I got dropped off on the street where the party was supposed to be, but as I walked up to the house, I could tell there wasn’t a party. Parties give off that energy, that vibe that something is happening there. The house was dark. Closed down. I checked the number on a scrap of paper in my pocket. I was in the right place on the right street. Since my ride was gone, I figured I’d walk up to the house and take a closer look. Maybe it was a small party. Maybe it had been busted, and everyone was laying low inside.” Beth shrugged. “Shit, I didn’t have anything else to do. You know? I didn’t want to go home and be locked in my room.”

“Sure,” I said, although I didn’t really agree. I would have rather been home than wandering around town in the middle of the night when I was fifteen.

“I walked around the back of the house. It had a detached garage. The house was dark but I could see that lights were on in the garage. It looked like someone had taped paper or something over the garage windows, but some light came through. I figured the party was back there. Who wouldn’t? It might have been safer and less messy to have people trashing your garage than your house. I heard some music playing, so I went up.”

She stopped talking, and I wondered whether she was going to go on. She seemed lost deep in her memory of this night, and I knew whatever had happened back then was playing out in her mind’s eye. Again.

“To this day, I don’t know why they were so stupid as to leave the door to the garage unlocked. Maybe they forgot. Maybe someone had just come in or left. I don’t know. I don’t know why they didn’t have anyone guarding the place. I just walked up. Anyone else could have. Maybe they felt really confident and comfortable.”

I swallowed. I wanted to tell her to hurry up, but I couldn’t. She had to get the story out in her own time.

“I pulled the door open,” she said. “It took me a minute to realize what was going on in there. At first, I thought it was the party. There were a lot of bright lights and the music. It smelled like pot. And there were people standing around. Mostly young people. I don’t think they noticed that I had opened the door right away. I tried to see what they were doing, and then it took them a few minutes to see me. About the time they saw me was when I figured out what they were doing in that garage.”

She sighed and licked her lips again. “I saw a girl, a young girl. She must have been a few years older than me. She was on the floor, and she wasn’t wearing any clothes. She looked… vulnerable. Sad, I guess. It might have been drugs or it just might have been the situation. But she was there on the floor. And there were two guys, two older guys—guys in their twenties, like I was talking about. I guess they could have been the guys who lived there, the ones who were supposed to be having the party. But they were on that girl. They were having sex with her. One on the bottom, one on her… top. And I only realized it wasn’t part of the party because I saw what the lights were there for. They were really bright and on stands. And a camera. They were making some kind of porno movie. And I didn’t really think that girl wanted to be there. I don’t think she even knew where she was. But once I saw all of that, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She looked so helpless, so exposed. She was so alone.”

Beth stopped talking then. She looked at me and tried to smile, but I knew she wasn’t seeing me. She was seeing the face of that girl in that garage. I didn’t know what to say or do. Beth was a stranger to me despite our apparent blood relationship. I wasn’t the most affectionate person in the world, even with people I knew well, and I wasn’t sure if I should reach out and place my hand on hers or lean over and hug her. I stayed in my spot, trying to make the connection between the horrible story she had just told me and the recent events that had brought me to her house.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody all of this,” she said. “Not in this much detail.”

“It sounds…” My voice trailed off. Words didn’t seem adequate, but I tried again. “I think it sounds horrifying.”

“It was,” Beth said. “And I put myself in real danger going in there. People like that—people who do things like that—they don’t like it when they get discovered. They might go to great lengths to protect themselves. If it had just been adults, it wouldn’t have been as big a deal. But there was a young girl there, a minor. That could have been big trouble for them, and they knew it.”

“What did they do?”

“They saw me. And there was a guy there. Not a very big guy and not one of the people in the movie. But he looked like a security type. He was just thick necked, you know. And really stupid looking. He came after me. He took about two steps and it felt like he was right on top of me. He took me by the arm and asked who I was. I said I was in the wrong place and to just let me go and I wouldn’t tell anyone what I saw. That was probably a stupid thing to say because then they knew I had seen something. But I was scared. Terrified. This guy had me, and he put his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t breathe. And then another guy came over. I thought I was going to pee in my pants, I was so afraid. I could feel myself giving up, I guess. The thought went through my head, ‘This is how you’re going to die. Right here in this garage, you are going to die.’”

“How did you get away?” I asked. Or did you?

“I heard someone shout. A man’s voice. It said, ‘Leave her alone. I’ll handle it.’ Or something like that. You know, for just a moment, I thought the voice sounded familiar. And then I thought that was crazy. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be… And then the big guy took his hand off my mouth, so I could breathe a little. Because of the lights, I couldn’t see who had said it, but I got the sense he was the guy in charge or something because of the way they all backed off as soon as he spoke. The one guy just held me by the arm so I couldn’t run off, I guess. But he loosened his grip. He wasn’t rough with me anymore. It took a minute, but then the guy who spoke appeared. He came out from the glow of the lights so I could see him.” She swallowed hard. “That was the worst thing of all—seeing him. If I thought I couldn’t believe what I had already seen, then I guess I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing now.”