Chapter Text
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“The mind is everything. What you think, you become.” - Buddha
I. Rage Against the Dying Light
“Your uncle’s here. You ready to go?”
Tonight, her fate was decided by two pivotal actions. The second action that finalized the outcome was this announcement made by the officer while she sat in the back of the patrol car attempting to decompress from the horrors that, unlike the other girls, she’d been fortunate enough to survive. After the question was put forward, her reluctance made her realize she was not going back. Fortune, for her case, was relevant. Her story began very differently from those of Claire’s and Marcia’s. She had always lived in a hell they were only just visiting. Had they survived they would’ve been restored to nurturing families who would’ve aided their healing process; Casey Cooke would not be. She didn’t wish the dead girls ill for that. It wasn’t their fault her life turned out the fucked up way it had.
For her, it was fresh from out of the clawed clutches of The Beast only to be delivered into the arms of a type of monster far crueler. At least she was still alive, she tried without success to solace herself. Yet the thought of going back to that house made her stomach seize with revulsion.
In truth, it didn’t mean much to be alive in her situation. Not if she was going back home, or rather John’s house as she preferred to call it. Home was with her dad where she had been a prized daughter, the only child of a lonely widower who would be decimated if he was alive and aware of the unthinkable things his brother did to her. Her flesh crept in memory of those heinous things and she couldn’t fathom what his reaction would’ve been.
There was one dim light in the dismal abyss. John’s wife Caroline was everything she should have been as a mother figure: warm, generous, compassionate, the listening ear, the shoulder to cry on. For all but one thing. That single thing dimmed her light because she, like other women in her position, was oblivious to her husband’s incestuous affair with his niece. At least Casey prayed that she was oblivious because she genuinely liked Caroline. She was always at war with herself to tell Caroline what was happening in the room up the hall from the marriage bed when she wasn’t at home but always fell short of only calling her name. Just like she could never tell her dad and she damned herself for it repeatedly, she credited her detrimental need to protect her loved ones from what they could not protect her from. There always lingered the fear that they couldn’t handle it, that if she told, then something worse would happen. Maybe they would side with John rather than her. Maybe they would kill John and go to prison because of her. Neither scenario was reasonable but the possibility held her prisoner inside a treacherous cycle.
The last thing she wanted was to go home, back to that fractured life, even after her days in captivity by a madman. Survival meant nothing if she was doomed to continue the way she always had. For that, she may as well have let The Beast rip her apart. Mutilation by his teeth and claws like the other two would’ve been a better fate than having her naked body mauled by her uncle. That was a fate worse than death. In death, there was at least dignity. So she only stared in mute apathy at the officer who waited with a saint’s patience. Casey knew the officer sensed something was wrong but was either chalking her up to a harrowing experience or waiting to be given the word before taking action.
“She’s numbed by trauma,” were the words the officer used when Uncle John’s burly frame blocked the window of the cruiser, verifying Casey’s suspicion. “Give her time, she’ll come around. Be gentle. She’s fragile right now. She’s been through hell.”
John uttered a thank you to her.
“Casey Bear?” he then addressed to Casey. “Come on out. Time to go home.”
The door opened with a vacuum sound redolent of what she would be sucked back into if she was stupid enough to get out of the car and willingly leave with that man. Though she remained physically passive, she was engaged with inner turmoil from recalling uncounted moments of sexual abuse at her uncle’s hands. Kevin Crumb’s abduction altered her irreparably in unexpected ways and she could never again tolerate what she suffered before.
Not even John’s coaxing voice and beckoning hand urged her to do more than stare with glazed eyes as he said, “I know you’ve been through a lot. But it’s over now. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Anguished thoughts of what he would do to her later in celebration of her return raced through her mind and she still balked at moving. She didn’t want to go! She didn’t have to! Look what she’d just been through! How much more was she expected to endure?! How could she be expected to go home to that?! Hadn’t she been through enough?!
“Casey.” John’s voice carried a sterner edge for his third summons. “Come on. Let’s go. Your aunt is waiting in the car. Don’t keep her waiting.”
Mention of Caroline at last put her into motion. Finally sliding across the back seat, she ignored the hand he offered to help her out. What the hell made him so certain she needed his help in any way? She didn’t get it when it was needed most so why would it be needed now? Nobody came to rescue her from Crumb; she rescued herself. In this fairytale, the princess beat the villain and nobody was there to help her. She did it on her own, goddamn it, she stood up to The Beast, a real beast in human skin, and won. She was powerful. She was smart. And she did not have to take John’s bullshit either!
She moved only for Aunt Caroline. John could rot in Hell with his facade of avuncular worry. What good did he ever do for her? When she trusted him while on their family hunting trips with her dad, he took horrific advantage of a trust bestowed upon him by a very little girl. Too young to understand, she was coerced into playing his sick games with threats that he would tell her dad she wasn’t being nice. There had been no other choice for her. She didn’t want to get in trouble with her dad. Nor did she want to disappoint him. She adored her father and the thought of him being mad at her broke her heart. So she complied and did things unimaginable to anyone with an inkling of decency.
Parents, she thought with venom, should not teach their daughters to be nice; teach them to be smart. Teach them how to handle a predator, even at a tender age, or their innocence will be stripped away with their clothes and their impressions of others warped forever.
For that reason, she’d progressively borne a grudge against her dad. It had been his paternal responsibility and she was betrayed by his neglect to carry it out. Yes, it would have been awkward for a widower to explain sex and, worse, bad men like his own brother, to a little girl, but it would have saved Casey from the outlandish abuse. It was still his job as a parent to warn and protect her, his obligation of which he committed a great disservice by not doing. Resentment was typical backlash, she reasoned, for him not opening his eyes to what was happening right in front of him. How he could not see?
The reason must’ve been in their history. Being the only two children her grandparents had, John and her father had always been close throughout their entire lives. Never a pair embroiled in sibling rivalry, they were instead inseparable best friends. If one took up a hobby, the other did too, which was how they both got involved with hunting. Against the archetype of his slight build and bookish appearance, it was her dad who first was the seasoned outdoorsman. John was the follower and learned everything he knew about hunting and tracking from his big brother. Then when she was old enough, she was included in the family bonding, her dad imparting all his outdoorsman knowledge and survival skills on her as well.
If only she had shared her particular knowledge with him! But the bond of brotherhood taunted her like a mocking devil. Could a paternal bond break through a brotherly bond? Society wants us to believe so but Casey knew that at times even the bond between mother and child, supposedly the strongest bond in existence, couldn’t withstand the test of a man molesting the daughter. Was he truly so willfully blind that he did not have the remotest idea of the unquestionable monster John was? Damn him! She was just a little girl who didn’t want to lose the love of her father!
That terror of losing his love was still so profoundly ingrained in her that despite having available help directly in front of her in the police officer, she still chose silence. Telling would betray her dad in a way she could not define. A pause before the officer was meant to communicate the message through her eyes. Help me! You’re giving me back to a worse monster than Kevin Crumb! The woman, trained to see silent cues, failed to see as much as her father had and Casey wondered what evil glamour her uncle held over everyone. Was it the big, jolly smile he presented others with? The amiable disposition? The loveable Papa Bear demeanor his burly stature imposed? It was all a masquerade and everyone was his fool.
Though she still looked at the officer, she addressed John: “I think I should go to the hospital.”
John grimaced. “Didn’t EMS check you out?”
Again, to John but focused on the still incognizant officer, “He tore my leg up pretty bad. I’m going to need a shot or something. I think it’s a good idea if I go to the hospital.”
The beginnings of a protest formed on John’s tongue but died like an unsaid spell when the officer spoke up.
“If she feels like she needs to go to the ER, we should take her. We recommend that she get a more thorough check-up. It would help with the investigation if more tests were run.”
“Tests?” Casey took immense gratification in watching John’s face blanch.
“Yes, the standard battery of tests for victims of violent crimes.” Then to Casey: “I thought you refused medical treatment other than to patch up your leg.”
“I came to my senses,” she answered. “More evidence, the better my chances.”
John was ashen and Casey reveled in it.
“Smart girl.”
The officer placed a guiding hand upon Casey’s shoulder to return her to the ambulance until John stopped her.
“I’ll take her,” he insisted.
A wariness shadowed the officer’s countenance but John was a notorious smooth talker, a black magician who refused to be subdued by the light of truth.
“I feel like I need to make amends for not being there for her,” he lied. “She’ll feel more comfortable around family.”
The officer took a few seconds to consider then relinquished with a nod and Casey’s hope deflated.
“Take her straight to the emergency room. We’ll have the detectives meet you there.”
Unless he wanted to turn a suspicious eye on himself, John had no choice but to agree. Casey found herself taken back into John’s custody with a menacing large paw on her shoulder that pushed her in the direction of the waiting car. Although she went along with John’s order, her body stiffened at his touch and an unwanted memory came back to her.
You’re a woman now, he muttered to her as she huddled beneath the protective sheets after that first time, shaken by disbelief that he’d finally taken the last step in her complete defilement. She hadn’t felt like a woman. She felt like what he’d reduced her to: a used piece of meat that existed for his sick pleasure. If this was her introduction to womanhood it made her want to shower and scrub off several layers of skin. She felt dirty, filthy.
After that first time, there was no stopping him from taking her whenever he wanted. Every night for months while her aunt worked late at the clinic, he came into her room until the novelty wore off enough for him to decide once a week was sufficient to satisfy his appetite. In those agonizing hours, she learned to distance her mind from her body. She was not herself. This was not happening to her. She was elsewhere, anywhere, everywhere except there in her bed, getting desecrated by the man who was meant to take the role of father and protector.
When they reached the car with Casey’s limp supported by John’s arm, the distraught Caroline melted in relief when she saw her niece and rushed from the car to embrace her.
“Casey, oh my god!” her aunt cried. “Thank god you’re safe!” She sniffled back tears against Casey’s neck. “Thank god!”
John informed gruffly, “We’re taking her to the emergency room.”
Aunt Caroline pulled away and gawked at her husband.
“Why? If they’re releasing her she’s OK. Isn’t she?”
“I want to go,” Casey interjected. “He bit the back of my leg like an animal. He tried to eat me. Like he ate Claire and Marcia. I can barely walk.”
Caroline appeared conflicted.
“He tried to eat you?! What the hell exactly happened to you?”
Casey’s throat felt as if it had swollen shut like she was in anaphylactic shock, rendering her unable to answer so instead she just stared down at her feet.
“Come on,” John urged, eager to leave the vigilant eye of the cop lest his spell be broken. “We’ll find out at the hospital when she talks to the detectives.”
Their ride was roughened by a torturous stillness that smothered the car, each passenger battling some personal demon. John was afraid that any word or action from him would be incriminating and that Casey would expose his secret unnatural wickedness. Caroline was imagining all the horrors her niece suffered at the hand of a demented man and wondering how the usually quiet girl who kept to herself managed to be the sole survivor. Casey was in a different sort of torment. The wound in her calf throbbed with a sting dulled by thoughts which were not of John, the girls who’d been taken with her or even the abduction itself.
Her thoughts were with her abductor, Kevin Crumb, and where he might’ve gone. The idea of him freely roaming the streets while trapped in his animalian personality The Beast made her break out in a cold sweat. The things her own eyes had seen him do in that persona were nothing short of marvelous. Could the police find a man who had become more animal than human? Who, by his own admission, was not human? What would they do if they found him? What could they do? Kill him? Good luck with that. Cage him in a prison as poetic justice for a Beast who worked in a zoo disguised as a man? Put him on display in a freak show asylum with an endless audience of doctors?
Close range shots from a shotgun didn’t slow him down, never mind kill him. He scaled walls like an insect and bent thick iron bars as if they were rubber props on a movie set. As far as she knew, he was unstoppable, indestructible and the only reason she was alive was because he granted her the right to live. Overwhelmed with emotion, she had collapsed in the cell she had sought refuge in, watching through a heavy stream of tears as his muscled backside vanished into the darkness.
When they arrived at the hospital, they were rushed into the back away from prying eyes and sequestered into a private room, no questions asked or permitted. Several waiting for triage complained but their protests fell on deaf ears. Casey was high priority, high profile, whose arrival was preceded by notification from her would-be savior back at the zoo. Once in the exam room, she changed into a gown, her injured leg elevated by a nurse. Hoping to avoid conversation, she focused on the blood seeping through the bandages, blossoming over the white cloth with red reminiscent of spilled ink across a stark sheet of paper.
The doctor thankfully came in as soon as she was ready, anxious to see first hand what damage the infamous miracle Crumb was capable of inflicting. The wound smarted when he gently pried the bandage off, she gasped and clutched the mattress when the air stung the raw, exposed flesh.
“You said he bit you?” the doctor inquired.
“Yeah,” she answered, short and sweet, not wanting to deal with specifics at the moment.
The doctor drew closer, examining with an intensity that caused her discomfort.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“This wasn’t done by an animal? You were found in a zoo…”
“It was him.”
The doctor’s doubt went unconcealed.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that these wounds are not conducive to anything that a human can do.”
The diagnosis roused Caroline who, remembering what Casey told her earlier, leaned forward in her chair.
“What do you mean?” her aunt questioned.
“The tooth imprints aren’t human. They are of a large apex predator that I have to further examine to identify but I can tell at first glance it’s definitely not human.”
Caroline passed a disbelieving glance to Casey who returned it with an I told you so air.
“You were right to come in,” the doctor said, “this wound needs stitches. How long has it been since you had a tetanus shot?”
She shrugged, saying, “I don’t remember.”
“OK, we’ll get one for you, just to cover our bases. Let me get you prepped. I’ll be back in a few.”
The doctor left and Casey’s fight or flight instinct grew unbearable. She wanted to leave, get tonight over with, and not answer more questions about what happened and the man who did it to her. Already a suffocating tension permeated the room with John noticeably eyeing her in warning. You better not! he silently cautioned. Don’t even think about it!
On any given day before this, his scare tactics would’ve proven effective. But this time was different because Casey glared back with insolence. I’m not afraid of you!
And she vehemently meant it.
Of course, Caroline was too fascinated with her wound and the doctor’s detailed explanation of how he knew it was impossible to be have been made by a man to notice the hostility between niece and uncle. Casey surmised that Caroline wasn’t as interested in her leg as she appeared to be, that it was a convenient distraction from what was really happening.
Stop being his fool, Aunt Caroline! Open your eyes! Please pay attention!
The doctor returned, administered the tetanus shot and was finishing the stitches when the pair of detectives appeared. Her eyes, bereft of any emotion other than scathing challenge, crawled across the bed to land on John when they walked in. He knew what she was thinking and his eyes hardened with deeper malice. Yet when he noted the fiery defiance burning back at him in her eyes, he shifted in his chair, pretending nothing was wrong. With the detectives in the room, he needed to act presentable, be on his utmost behavior.
The detectives, polished figures each of ebony and ivory, were both young, gorgeous and looking as if they were models for a film poster. Casey wondered how long they’d been detectives and what the worst thing they’d ever seen was. Would they be prepared to see the worst thing she’d ever seen? She didn’t think they would be.
“Casey Cooke?” The black one addressed. “I’m Detective Noah Keaton. This is Detective Jacob Nikovsky.”
Nikovsky nodded to Caroline and John; Caroline offered a weak smile and John a disheartened hello.
“We’re here to get your statement regarding the incident involving the suspect Kevin Crumb.”
Keaton recited the name like a question and Casey verified with a nod.
“You were abducted from the mall after a birthday party for Claire Dubois, we’ve established that from her father who said he was putting gifts in the trunk of the car when he was approached by Crumb. He stated that Crumb sprayed him in the face with some kind of chemical that made him lose consciousness. Can you tell us what happened after the suspect entered the car?”
Hollow in voice when she spoke, she disassociated from the world as she wove the fantastic tale that held the room captive. With as much clarity as memory allowed, she recounted the details, realizing with surprise for the first time that despite her presence and close proximity to him, Dennis had not initially rendered her unconscious until she took measures to escape. His original plan included only Claire and Marcia; she was a spare he could have eliminated straight away. Like most men, he’d underestimated her and in the end, it was she who thwarted his plan.
He didn’t believe I was a threat, she thought half in amusement, half in bitterness.
Telling the part of how Dennis, the personality Crumb assumed for the kidnapping, satisfied his lust for young girls by using his obsessive-compulsive disorder and germaphobia to bully them out of articles of their clothing piece by piece, she again raised her eyes to John so fiercely that he, intimidated, dropped his gaze to his lap. She had power over him at long last and he squirmed in knowing. But her attention drew back to the detective across from her and once again she was matter-of-fact and neutral.
She’d deal with John another time on her own.
When her story finished, a strained, taciturn aura loomed in the room. Finally, one of the detectives found words and everyone seemed to sigh relief that the heaviness was lifted.
“He crawled up a wall with bare hands and feet,” Nikovsky reiterated slowly as if it was a lie that would be made true if repeated. “And bent the iron bars of a cage they put wild animals in with his bare hands.”
“I know it sounds unreal,” Casey agreed. “But that’s the way it happened. You have no idea what you’re up against. He’s very powerful….and dangerous.”
Keaton and Nikovsky glanced at each other, trying to decide how best to approach the delicate matter.
It was Keaton who spoke this time, decidedly the one with the softer edge: “The mind is its own place, Miss Cooke. Nietzsche said that somewhere, didn’t he?”
“It was Milton,” corrected Nikovsky.
Slightly annoyed, Keaton dismissed, “Nikovsky’s the bookworm, you’ll have to excuse him. My point is still valid. People have been known to perform miraculous physical feats when under extreme duress.”
“Like the mother who lifted the back end of a car off her child’s leg.”
“Exactly.”
“This man wasn’t desperate or under duress. He’s fucking crazy.”
“Casey!” Caroline admonished.
Whether her aunt’s reprimand was for the curse word or the derogatory word that came after Casey did not know but she wanted Caroline to understand she meant every word.
“You weren’t there,” she snapped softly at her aunt. “You didn’t see. You don’t know.” Then back at Keaton: “It was like he was a supervillain in a comic book.”
“I doubt you have need to worry, Miss Cooke. If your aim was true with that shotgun then we’re looking for a wounded man who crawled off to die. You can relax. Your heroes are here now.”
They evidently missed the part where she said he walked away unfazed after being shot point-blank in the chest with a shotgun. There would not be a corpse but there would be a Beast waiting for them. They weren’t going to suspend their beliefs to trust her account so she remained silent, it was her right. She did all she could do to help them. The detective meant to reassure her but she knew the futility of anything they could do against the likes of Crumb and less than that against The Beast. They were going to get themselves killed but other than explaining what they were up against there was no other way to warn them. They needed to bear witness to him themselves to believe.
“We’ll keep in touch with any updates,” Nikovsky added. “Do you feel as if you might still be in any danger? That maybe this guy is going to be searching for you?”
She shook her head, deep in thought, remembering.
“No. He won’t bother me again.”
Rejoice!
“Are you certain? An unstable mind is unpredictable. He spared you once but maybe he’s saving you for another time. It’s happened before. They get some sick kick if a victim was strong enough to outlast or outsmart them. They like to come back and retest their wits against their survivors in a hunt, to prove themselves and the second time is usually worse than the first. We can post an officer outside your house until we find this guy.”
The Broken are the more evolved….
“I doubt I’ll ever see him again.”
Never crossing paths with Crumb again put a dull ache deep inside the pit of her stomach that she didn’t understand but tried to ignore.
Keaton handed her a card with his contact information, saying, “Take this, just in case.”
She accepted it but said nothing more.
“If you happen to see or hear anything,” he continued to John and Caroline, handing John a card too. “Don’t hesitate, night or day. Finding him is our platinum priority before he kills anyone else.”
Her aunt and uncle thanked the men before they left, crossing paths with the doctor who was re-entering clutching a piece of square paper that he handed to Caroline.
‘This is a topical antibiotic to put on the stitches twice a day. Once in the morning then again at night,” he advised, looking at Casey. “Have a speedy recovery, and I mean that in every way.” Then to her guardians: “We’ll be running tests to collect evidence next so if you follow me I’ll take you to the waiting area.”
There were two mixed reactions to the knowledge that she would be alone and taking a rape kit specifically. Caroline was afraid for her as proven by the wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression on her otherwise lovely face as she was ushered from the room, looking over her shoulder at Casey while saying some unknown encouragement. John’s jaw was cinched so tight that it was a wonder how he wasn’t breaking his teeth, his face crimson and stony on his way out. He didn’t bother to look back or offer encouraging words to her. He was more terrified than Caroline but for a very different reason.
The rape kit was nearly as degrading as John’s hands. Eternity passed as they collected samples and evidence in ways that she could never think of. The thoroughness left her naked and violated in a new way no less disturbing. Crumb would be safe from this test but she prayed that somehow, someway, they would be able to find evidence to nail John with. She was given a pregnancy test, had blood drawn, peed in a cup, took a CT scan, and a series of other tests that were each fresh violation in individual ways. The MRI took the longest and she nearly fell asleep; too tired to move, she was a technician’s dream.
After the ordeal ended and she was dressed in a nurse’s donated clothing, she expected she was going to die from burnout. Right now, even the hell promised at John’s house meant being out of the sight of scrutiny, even if it was a temporary reprieve. Casey was tired of the attention and questions; all she wanted to do was hide in her room and hate herself for everything she had not been brave enough to do since her return. Out of sight, out of mind was what she hoped for. For a while at least.
“Ready to go home, sweetie?” Caroline asked, smoothing her hair back as if she was a little girl.
“Yeah,” she muttered then slid down from the examination table. “Let’s go.”
Leaving the hospital was a chore. Every eye was on her, hospital staff and visitors alike, everyone questioning her without words about her ordeal with the enigmatic Kevin Crumb. Already news spread like a California wildfire about the man with twenty-four distinct personalities in one body, testimony from each television in every room they passed that had one on. Yet the attention in the hallways was nothing in comparison to the real problem. Arrival in the lobby abruptly halted their exit when they saw the throng of reporters waiting, lurking outside.
“Keep your head down, Casey,” Caroline instructed, a tremor in her voice.
John pioneered to cut the path with Caroline taking the rear and Casey between them, the hood of her hoodie pulled up and her head bowed down, guided by close proximity to her guardians. Doing so was loathsome but, she ghosted against John’s back as close as possible out of necessity while they trudged through the mob of journalists shouting questions, photographers flashing photos, television cameras aimed directly at her and the single line of courageous police officers trying their damnedest to restrain them all while the Cookes made their hasty escape.
Casey felt too much like Lindsay Lohan dashing out of a courthouse for her own liking. The blinding flashes from the cameras were dizzying strobe lights, the simultaneous shouting of a myriad of questions forming one deafening, droning cacophony of a voice, the crush of bodies a panicked rush to an exit during a fire. She was desperate to get through to a safe, dark space.
After several long minutes of toiling and with the help of the dauntless officers performing crowd control, they finally made it to their car in the emergency room parking lot. The reporters who were in the back found themselves the front line of a mad dash to head them off but John’s defensive driving slowly accelerated the vehicle through their stubborn numbers until they gave way. Casey kept her head low, not looking up when a few of the audacious reporters slapped on the nearest window. Once the car broke free, John opted to take a detour home, winding through streets well out of the way from their house until, satisfied none of the media pests were following, he finally pulled into their driveway.
“All of that was probably for nothing,” he admitted, “but maybe we can make it inside before they Google our address.”
Casey was the first one out, taking flight to the front door with Caroline rushing behind, demanding that she wait. She didn’t but went directly to the front door, letting herself in before her aunt and subsequently her uncle caught up to her. Ignoring John’s bellow to stay with them, she stormed upstairs and straight to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
The reflection in the mirror before her showed a person that was nearly unrecognizable in the physical sense: battered, bruised, disheveled, slightly older in appearance. Dirty and wary, she was forever changed. But she still knew who stared back at her very well. There were no mysteries. Everything about that young woman was known: all of her loves and hates, her abilities and limits. She knew that she was a slender five-foot-eight with long brown hair, full lips, large brown eyes, high cheekbones, milky complexion.
Everyone has three faces: the one you see yourself, the one others see and the one you truly are. But what did Kevin Crumb see when he looked in the mirror through the eyes of each personality? Did each one see completely different people? Were they different only in their mind’s eye but still saw Kevin’s face? Or did their mind project an image of what they imagined themselves to look like and that was how they saw themselves and each other in the physical world? Did Patricia and Jade see female faces and feel displaced in a body with all the wrong anatomy?
She stroked the curves of her face’s reflection and was grateful that she was strong enough to stay whole, to remain herself throughout her nightmarish life. She was who she knew she was, nobody else. The sum of the whole is greater than its parts, as Crumb’s Beast learned the hard way tonight.
She suddenly felt empowered by her own super ability of inner fortitude. But she still looked like shit. An effort to freshen up to feel slightly better was probably a good idea if she was planning to sit and eat at the table. Running water through the tap until it was freezing cold, she cupped some in her hands and rinsed it over her face. It was a good, clean luxury she hadn’t had in days despite Dennis’ best efforts to provide it. Showering in confinement accomplished little since she couldn’t change into clean clothes. More than ever she was desperate to change her underwear. A quick routine gauntlet in effort to smell better was carried out: applying deodorant, brushing her teeth, peeling off her shoes and socks so she wouldn’t reek like a trash heap at the table.
Before she actually exerted herself with a hop in the shower, she wanted to replenish a fraction of strength by eating dinner. She left the bathroom in a stealthy retreat to the cool dark of her room, afraid to make a sound that would draw attention to her from the people downstairs. That was an aftermath of her experience, the need to be imperceptible, to stay out of sight as her father taught her to do when hunting. Ironic how that rule applied to both predator and prey.
The first bullet point on her agenda now was clean clothes. She didn’t care what they were as long as they were clean. Taking from drawer to drawer, she picked all black to match her mood and her intent. Black was powerful. Black was sexy. She piled the clothes on the bed and sat beside them to think when there was a gentle knock on her door.
“May I come in?” Caroline asked, tentative and nervous.
Casey shrugged and retorted, “It’s a free country.”
Caroline entered, as timid as a rabbit and fearful of an unfathomable truth she was there to ask details on. Yet she sat on the bed next to her and smiled, ready to face whatever it may have been.
“I’m so relieved you’re home,” Caroline sighed. “You have no idea how worried we were…”
Casey cut her off with, “Not him.”
Befuddled, Caroline grimaced and refuted, “Casey, he was up at night, every night, worried sick, organizing search efforts, sitting in your room thinking about what to do next.”
“I’m sure he was.”
“We can’t possibly imagine what you went through. We can’t even pretend we do. Taken, held prisoner by that lunatic…” She stopped, not wanting to say anything more but knowing she must. “Casey…. Did that man….”
And here it comes, thought Casey, bracing herself.
“Did he…. Rape you?”
Casey couldn’t help but scoff.
“After all the things I’ve said about him, all the things he can do, all the things he’d said. That’s what you want to know?”
Caroline looked even more puzzled.
“I heard that story,” her aunt said. “I want the story behind the story. The story you didn’t tell. Why did he just walk away and let you live after murdering and eating your friends?”
“They weren’t my friends.”
Caroline ignored her and pursued, “What did he mean when he told you ‘The Broken are the more evolved’?”
An uneasy silence filled the room as Casey struggled not to tell Caroline what she waited to hear. The only difference was that the villain in that ugly story had nothing to do with the man she expected to hear it about.
“He didn’t touch me,” she repeated strongly. “I told you. He couldn’t. The other personality wouldn’t let him.”
“Yes, I know. But this guy seemed awful interested in getting your clothes off.”
What she wanted to respond with: Like your husband. The only difference is at least Dennis respected a simple no to a degree. What she ended up saying: “He didn’t. He had to follow his orders. One of those orders was he wasn’t allowed to touch us. Believe me.”
Another long, uncomfortable pause settled between them, Caroline struggling to comprehend. Finally, it seemed as if either she accepted that her niece was untouched by a madman or she wasn’t going to get the truth and nodded.
“I’m making your favorite. Bacon mac and cheese. Food to heal your soul. You’ll need a lot of your favorite things to help you heal.”
Casey relented and decided to give her aunt a break.
“I need sleep. And a shower. I smell like something dead.”
Caroline laughed and Casey returned it with a weak smile.
“Maybe your stink is what kept the bad man away.”
A montage of images of the germaphobe with his face mask, Yellow Rag and cleaning supplies played through her mind.
“It probably did,” she admitted, forthright.
“Then stink is given too much of a bad rap. Come on, I’m sure the food is waiting.”
The food is waiting….
Casey shuddered and gasped involuntarily, noticed by Caroline.
“What is it?”
Only last night those words hadn’t meant bacon mac and cheese; they meant her, Claire and Marcia. While she had been the lucky one, she remembered with vivid clarity the mutilated remains of Marcia and walking in on Claire being devoured by The Beast. She placed a hand over her queasy stomach and said, “I’m not very hungry.”
Caroline frowned. “But it’s your favorite. I made it to make you feel better and so you could nourish your body. He couldn’t have been feeding you well, if at all.”
Casey’s face paled and wondered if she had turned green. Either way, she wanted to vomit thinking about how Crumb had torn into Claire’s body with his teeth, feasting on her raw, young flesh and how it was her blood on his mouth when he came to kill her too.
“Can you try to eat?” her aunt nagged. “Even if it’s a small portion?”
“I’ll try. I can’t promise.”
“Fair enough. Let’s eat while it’s hot. Your shower can wait. We’ll forgive your stink this one time. It did a good deed for you.”
Casey smiled faintly and stood with her aunt then followed her downstairs into the dining room where John was placing the pan of pasta in the center of the table. She wondered if her life-saving stench would repel John too.
“Everything all right?” he asked and Casey flinched when she heard his voice.
“Right as rain,” replied Caroline. “However right rain is.”
“I hope you’re hungry, Casey Bear. It’s extra cheesy. Food to heal the soul.”
Other than Casey’s poisonous evil eye at John for his use of her aunt’s words, they sat down without incident and served themselves. They tried their best to make small talk with her and around her, never mentioning anything of her captivity in favor of getting things back to normal, whatever normal was to them. Normal wasn’t a good thing in her case. John’s idea of normal nauseated her more than the thought of The Beast’s cannibalistic meal did.
Whatever anyone did, she was never going to be the same. She was different now yet not in the way everyone expected her to be. Time with Crumb did not ruin her, it had empowered her. She half-listened, aimlessly pushing the pasta around in the steaming bowl, occasionally spearing some on the fork to be shoved into her mouth. It was her favorite meal ever since she was a little girl, something to look forward to when cooked, so she knew very well what bacon mac and cheese tasted like, what its consistency was. The hard crunch and salty chewiness of the crisp bacon, the soft cheesiness of the pasta. Yet all she could taste tonight was Patricia’s fucking egg salad.
After twenty minutes of struggling to fake an appetite, she finally shoved the bowl of half-finished food away, asking to be excused. Aunt Caroline, with a sympathetic smile, softly said, “Of course.”
Casey couldn’t get upstairs and out of sight fast enough. Heading straight for her room, she grabbed the change of clothes she left on the bed. Not her pajamas, despite the fact that the sky was growing dark, but the full set of fresh clothes: a black T-shirt and black jeans, and fuck it, black underwear to match. With the bundle in her arms, she again exited her room to go back up the hallway and into the bathroom, shutting the door softly between herself and the muffled conversation of her guardians downstairs, presumably still at the dining table.
The snick of the lock in place offered solace of being out of the way, in her own secluded world that included no one else. The shower was hot, cleansing, and she sat down in the stall to let the grime run off her and down the drain. The tiles were shockingly cold against her ass but were an ideal contrast to the hot water raining down on her. The stitched tooth marks carved down her calf stung when met by the scalding water as she drew her knees up to her chin. She allowed herself a slight wince but nothing more. She made no other fuss or complaint; she simply endured.
The pain feels good, she assured herself. It lets me know I’m still alive, still human.
A human caught between monsters.
Or one monster, one Beast.
Taking a few extra moments to collect herself, she reviewed her life and the events of the past week. Her bruised and wounded body turned the pulsing water from the showerhead into fists hammering upon her. Now that things were slowing down, fatigue was creeping in and she didn’t want to move. The water was equal parts agony and ecstasy, like the press of strong fingers into sore, stiff muscles. Like how he felt when he touched her.
Why do you act like you’re not one of us? Claire had demanded of her in their cell in the first hours of being taken.
Because I’m not one of you, Casey had wanted to answer. Instead, she kept her cool and left the question unanswered to think through the situation rather than give Claire a rise. She had learned the hard way how to pick her battles long before her entrapment with Crumb.
Yet she had been spared by The Beast because he recognized she wasn’t one of them.
He knew….
And he also knew that Claire and Marcia were everything he was against. Pampered, pretty, well-off, good families, pillars of the community. They never wanted for anything. Both were popular and well-liked, excelled in school, well-rounded students, worked part-time jobs, parents alive and still married, living in suburban bliss and ignorance. He was right. They were asleep. They never had any real troubles in their whole brief lives. They didn’t know the type of pain and torment that kept you up at night making you hate yourself until you wished you were dead, that made you slice into your own body in a symbolic attempt to cut the hurt out of your soul and the imprinted sensation of an unwanted touch on your skin.
That shattered your mind into fragments because you couldn’t cope any other way.
She snapped out of her self-righteous but justifiable rage and, standing, poured a generous portion of lavender body wash into her palm that was then smoothed over every inch of her aching body, special care was paid in the pits and crotch area, all the while imagining her hands were not her own. Strong, powerful, purposeful fingers kneading into her body, bringing sweet relief and, when lowered, sweeter release.
Her knees buckled as she moaned and emerged from her unwanted fantasy, disgusted and horrified with herself. What the fuck was wrong with her? Blame once again went to a severely traumatized, frazzled brain for straying onto unthinkable paths. It was the only explanation. Turning off the water, she hurried from the stall, toweled herself off and dressed in the clean clothes just to be rid of the sight of her own disfigured nudity with a fusion of shame and astonishment for what she’d wanted done to it.
She shut the door behind another hasty retreat to her room where she snapped off the lights and crawled into bed fully clothed, curling up into the fetal position as if reverting to an innocent, unremembered state would banish the newly surfaced and obscene desire. Ever since she moved in with her aunt and uncle, she acquired the habit of secretly cutting herself to relieve the anguished helplessness of her circumstances. Self-torture was the one thing she could control, inflicted on her body because she felt she deserved it for being so goddamn stupid. Presently, she felt she deserved it more than ever for what had just happened in the bathroom.
Fuck. What was one more regret in a long procession of them? She could have run away but her previous tries were half-hearted and futile because she had nowhere to go and nobody to go to. Many opportunities to alert the authorities, including this very night, were missed. She could have told her father when it all started but feared breaking his heart though she knew his heart was broken now if he watched over her. Suicide would’ve been the ultimate escape because death was preferable to consistent debasement against her will but some sick self-preservation instinct stayed her hand. There always was a litany of excuses and she was sick of it. Instead, she stayed, suffered, endured and kept quiet like a nice girl. Like the nice girl her father wanted her to be. Though he was years in his grave, she remained torn between the duty of a daughter and the responsibility to do the right thing, still unable to bring herself to disappoint her father. Not then when his heart still beat, not now in his memory. So she became a disappointment to herself and a cutter, trapped with no other alternative to relieve the pain.
On the bottom line, she was at fault for its continuation so her self-abuse escalated. Every time John touched her she found absolution at a razor’s edge. His abuse wasn’t enough. After he finished, she faked sleep in wait for him to leave with bated breath. When he finally rolled out of her bed and the session was over, she always immediately reached for the razor hidden in a small plastic black box between the mattress and the wall then carved away the memory anywhere he placed his hands, mouth or filthy, ugly cock. There was also another incentive to the act. If she made herself hideous, she thought, then maybe he wouldn’t be attracted to her anymore. Maybe he would eventually leave her alone.
As of yet he never did. He rebuked her and ordered her not to do it anymore, which meant she cut more frequent wounds in defiance. How could he stop her? He couldn't say anything to Caroline or anyone else without risk of being questioned. Casey knew she had him backed in a corner for the first time since he began abusing her. He was as helpless to her self-mutilation as she was to his rape.
Beauty, however, was in the eye of the beholder. What the monster found ugly, The Beast found beautiful. Every flaw and imperfection led him to spare her even as Claire and Marcia, representatives of the ideal life she coveted, were his sacrificial lambs. Meat for The Beast. He saw strength in her where everyone else saw weakness, glue where everyone saw cracks in her sanity, resilience and adaptability where damage and failure clouded everyone else’s vision. He admired her, counted her as one of his own: someone forged in a furnace of pain, just like he had been. Refuse in the world’s eyes, she was pure in his.
The Broken are the more evolved….
In one indelible instant when The Beast noticed the myriad of scars marring her young body, sheer joy transformed him from homicidal to affectionate. That moment was revisited in a loop over and over again tonight for it was then when they had known each other for who they truly were. In that moment of genuine tenderness, each recognized a kindred spirit in the other, the knowledge conveyed between them in this wordless understanding, a whispering between their souls that softened the rage of his insanity to near worship of her. The Broken. The Pure.
That compassion shown to her by a murderous hellion born from the fractured mind of a sick man was the first pivotal action that formed the decision she made. Not since her dad died had anyone looked at her in such a way, like she was important. Accustomed to rejection, she broke down and wept when she realized the meaning behind his release of her. An incontestable bond formed between them in that moment. It was also in that moment she herself had noted a dreadful, unforeseen truth:
The Beast was the only one who fully understood her. He had seen beyond the scars and straight through to the core of her soul. He’d seen the torment, the misunderstandings, the social stigma of abuse, the loneliness of never fitting in with those who were better, the swollen eyes from tears, the bruised back of suffering and found her extraordinary. That important moment of profound meaning and solemn acceptance meant more to her than life itself and she knew she could not give that up. She’d waited too long throughout her sixteen years for someone to reach out to her in the way he had.
She’d let herself down every day since her father died because she wasn’t brave enough to change anything for the better. Now was the time to be brave. Waiting for the precise time to take action after the final decision was the worst part. As the clock near her bed crawled through the hours like a dying person across a desert, she fidgeted in anticipation. Nevertheless, she forced herself to relax, the anxiety feeling like ants beneath her skin.
Two hours later, waking with a jolt from the nap she did not mean to take, she found the house dark and silent. That was her cue. Springing from bed, she crossed the room with long strides and fetched the backpack she used to take on hunting trips from the back of the closet. With great haste, she emptied its contents onto the floor then proceeded to cram it with essentials: more clothing of warmer choice, hairbrush, deodorant, lotion, toothbrush and toothpaste, four bottles of water, several granola bars and packages of trail mix, five hundred dollars in cash she had saved from her summer jobs over the last two years, a book of matches, a flashlight, her phone charger, a pen and sketchpad and a hunting knife.
An idea struck her as she zipped up her supplies. Going back to the bed, she reached underneath and retrieved the cutter kit. She snapped it open and removed a few items: iodine, bandages, a few tissues with browned drops of blood and the sacred box cutter itself, the tarnished spots on the blade not rust at all but blood she had never cleaned in hope that she would get an infection and die from. These items she arranged around the open box on her bed so there was no mistaking their purpose.
She frantically searched for another pad of paper and pencil, lamenting that she had just packed some away only to have this idea in hindsight. Luckily, she was a sometime artist and tried to keep pen and paper on hand in case the muse decided to kiss her. What she searched for was at the bottom of her second drawer. On a leaf of paper, she scribbled a single quick sentence:
The man who touched me was not Kevin Crumb.
Tucking the note folded under the box cutter, she released an immense burden in the form of a deep sigh and rushed to the window, taking one final glance back at the story told across her bed. She wouldn’t need the cutter kit anymore. Someone understood her and his single act of kindness was impervious against several acts of punishment. She lifted the window up, tossed her supplies out into the yard, ducked through and climbed down. Once her feet planted firmly on the ground, she grabbed the bag and left behind the worst days of her life without looking back.
There was finally a place for her to go, someone to run to. She only needed the knowledge and fortitude to get there.
The hunt was on.