Rick Mofina - Full Tilt

Time for a treat, a little reward.

Time for Jenn to send Ashley a text.

Hey bestie what’s up?

Nothing. What’s up with you?

I’m in Minnesota.

OMFG NO WAY SERIOUSLY?!?!

With my parents visiting kin in the country near Twin Cities.

OMG so close!

We have to meet at the mall real soon!

OMG YES!!!

Okay I’ll let you know deets tomorrow!

YES PLEASE!!!

Then we can really talk. Will you be there?

Easy. I’ll get away! OMG OMG YEAH!!!

Bloomington, Minnesota

I have a weird question lol don’t judge. Have you ever kissed a dead person?

Why would she ask that?

The next morning, Ashley Ostermelle was confused. Was Jenn joking?

Um, no?? Have you??

My grandma died 4 days ago. They made me kiss her corpse at the wake. It was nasty.

Aw sorry to hear that.

She was sick. It’s why we came to Minnesota. I meant to tell you.

But that’s really sad, I feel bad.

Thanks. I didn’t really know her.

Still sad.

Mom needs a funeral dress we’ll be at the mall at noon. We can finally meet in person!!

Yes!

Meet you at the Apple Store at noon.

Ashley’s plan was to go to the school nurse, tell her she was sick and needed to go home. They’d call her mom, but no one would be home to check on her. Then she’d head to the mall. If she got caught she’d say she was getting Mom a present for her birthday, which was next month.

That would lessen any punishment.

Ashley knew how to work the system.

By midmorning it had all worked smoothly. Upon leaving her school, she hopped a bus to the mall.

Riding across the city, she grew excited. She’d snuck off to the mall a couple times before with friends, but this was different. She was adventuring on her own, to meet a friend with whom she’d bonded.

Jenn knew way more about boys than she did and Ashley ached to get her advice on Nick and other stuff. Jenn had tried drugs, gotten drunk and done other things- like kissed a dead person -while Ashley lived her boring little suburban life in Edina, home of the walking dead.

Just shoot me.

A little over an hour after she’d left school Ashley was in the Mall of America standing outside the Apple Store.

It was 12:10 p.m. and she sent Jenn a message.

I’m here. Where are you?

As the minutes passed Ashley studied the streams of shoppers, looking for one who resembled the picture Jenn had sent of herself.

She was so pretty.

Bad news, was the response.

Thinking she’d been stood up, Ashley’s heart sank.

What’s up? Are you coming?

Mom made me wait in the car in the parking lot with my sick aunt.

Okay, I’ll wait for you.

Mom may get her dress and then we’ll leave, sorry.

Oh.

Everyone’s still sad about Grandma’s death.

I understand.

You could come to the car & we could talk?

Ashley hesitated.

Parking garages were kind of creepy. In the time she took to think, Jenn sent another message.

This could be our only chance to meet, Ash.

Ashley caught her bottom lip between her teeth. It made sense and since she’d already cut classes and come this far.

Okay, where are you?

West lot. P4 West Arizona level. I can see the main door.

See you soon.

Ashley consulted the mall’s maps and cut across the mammoth complex to the doors to P4 West Arizona. The cool, cement-like smell hit her when she left the mall for the parking lot. Waiting in the garage at the doors, she sent Jenn a message. Few other people were around.

OK. I’m here.

I think I see you, what are you wearing?

A yellow top and pink jacket.

I’ll tap the horn and flash the lights.

Ashley stared out at the lake of cars and vans.

A horn sounded, lights flashed, drawing her to a white SUV.

I see you!

I’ll leave the passenger door open for you.

Ashley was nervous walking to Jenn’s car. There were so many creeps but she told herself it was okay. She knew Jenn. They’d had many deep conversations. They were best friends and Ashley was excited about meeting.

I need to talk to her!

As Ashley approached the SUV’s open door she was hopeful that Jenn would get out so she wouldn’t be forced to talk in front of her aunt. That would be weird. Ashley glanced around.

The SUV was parked between a van and pickup truck. She inched toward the open door and gasped when she looked inside.

An ugly old woman was behind the wheel. Her arm shot out with the speed of a cobra, seized Ashley’s jacket and yanked her into the vehicle.

A damp cloth covered Ashley’s face, smothering weak cries until her eyes rolled back and everything went dark.

Hennepin County, Minnesota

The woman in the basement cell couldn’t stop trembling in her cold, wet prison, shaking at the horrors she’d witnessed and the horrors to come.

I watched Brittany die. I saw them all die. I saw what he did.

Tears rolled down her face.

He’s going to kill me next. He’s killed all the others. I’m the last one.

She’d welcome death, because for most of her waking moments she felt like she already was dead. Years of captivity had shredded her sanity-her life was a never-ending nightmare. She couldn’t go on. But each day a small voice rose from a buried corner of her heart urging her not to give up. It was a positive force reaching into her darkness to save her, imploring her to keep fighting. She had to keep fighting.

You’re the only one left. You have to live to tell the world what he did.

Brushing at her tears, she searched the floor until she found her rusted nail, stood and resumed scraping it against the stone wall. He had called her his prettiest one, his favorite, and promised that he’d keep her forever. But she’d learned never to believe anything he said.

He was a liar.

He had always called her Eve, but deep inside at the core of her being, she’d never accepted that name. She had other names.

She scraped and scratched.

I am Tara Dawn Mae. My name used to be-

She stopped to remember her other name before Tara Dawn.

Next, she scratched a V into the wall.

It’s Vanessa.

This is how she’d survived each day, by clinging to the faraway lives that she’d once lived. On the edges of her memory she remembered people calling her Vanessa. Those were the happiest times. She felt the purest, strongest kind of love. A bond she felt would never, ever, be broken. She remembered having a mom, a dad, a big sister, then came a sudden sadness and visits with relatives and strangers.

Those memories were like distant stars.

Those memories ended in violent, watery darkness.

Her next life began when she was rescued on a riverbank by her new mother and father. Her memories of that time were clouded. She recalled asking questions about her foster parents and her sister, then crying and crying, as the Maes told her that her life had changed, that God had wanted them to rescue her and be her new mother and father.

They’d taken her to live with them on their farm, where they called her Tara Dawn. She had a dog, kittens and she played with horses. She recalled the eternal flatland and the big sky, going to school and learning. Her new mother and father had given her a new life before Carl took her away.

Back then, he’d called himself Jerome before he changed his name to Carl. He made her tell him everything about her life. She was only eleven years old, but he’d forced her to tell him everything she could remember. Then he’d told her that he’d been sent by a secret government agency to save her from evil people who were planning to kill her, like they’d killed her parents and big sister in the car crash. He said that for her own safety he’d have to change her name and keep her hidden away because evil agents would be looking for them. Then one day he showed her some kind of papers that he claimed were official court documents and said, “You belong to me now.”