A Gray Life: a novel (2 page)

Gloria screamed
no, no, no, like a mantra, like a crazed animal. The sustained word frightened Ashley the most, because it meant they were hurting Stephen.

Ashley wanted to leave her hide-away, get to the gun in her father’s desk, and start blasting away. However,
being only twelve, her fear overrode her purpose. Despite her love for her father, she could not find the courage girls in movies always seemed to have. Her insides were liquid, warm with terror.

Stephen cries turned into odd keening shouts. He didn’t sound human. Through his
tortured yells, Ashley couldn’t move. She covered her mouth to muffle the sounds of her sobs. Finally, her father stopped.

[No, he isn’t dead, can’t be dead]

One of the men said, “Go check the other rooms.”

“But I haven’t had my turn.”

“You’ll get your turn with the slut later. Check the other rooms.”

Footsteps
echoed closer towards Ashley’s room. The door opened. Someone was breathing heavily. Plodding feet came inside, paused, resumed, and stopped at the entrance of the closet.

Please don’t see anything, please
, Ashley thought. It felt like forever before the steps began to move away from the closet and out of her room.

“There
’s a kid’s room, but it’s empty.” The cretin said.

As
hley waited for Gloria to say,
She’s in the closet!
She only whimpered.

It took half an hour, but
Ashley cried herself to sleep. The dark warmth of the hide-away pulled her down into sleep. She awoke when she heard the front door open.

“No!
Motherfucker, let me go! I’m not going anywhere with you! No!”

Gloria
screamed, pounded and flailed against the floor. Even so, her protests grew faint; the four men took her whether she wanted to go or not. Ashley always thought she hated her father's girlfriend, but she suddenly felt an unexplainable solidarity to her. She wanted to tell Gloria,

“You always treated me like shit, but
 you're a hell of a lot more decent than what came in here tonight. You're an actual human being, but those men aren’t even men. They're monsters. At least you made my dad happy sometimes. So thank you.”

The words resounded in her head, but nowhere else
.

Even as the
front door signaled the intruders’ parting, Ashley remained hidden
. It could be a trick. They might be waiting for me
. She rocked back and forth, panicked, ready to launch herself from the closet if anyone opened it.

She cried.
She talked to herself. She braided her hair, undid the braid, re-braided it. Lastly, she slept again.

When she awoke for the second time, her body felt
heavy. She moved to stretch her legs, and a brigade of ants rampaged inside of them. Against her judgment, she yelped out in pain. Her legs spasmed, kicking open the door. Ashley stopped her movements. She listened for any hint of the intruders. There were none, and that had to be a good sign. But, there also wasn’t any hint of her father, either. That was a bad sign.

She scooted out of the hole in the wall. Her
closet, and her room were undisturbed. The men must have considered a young girl’s room worthless. When Ashley peeked inside of her father’s gun hold, she deemed their mistake a gargantuan one. Not only had her father hidden a gun in the wall, but stacks of large bills as well. Ashley left the money. Exploring the hallway seemed more important.

It wasn’t
the bloody mess she expected. The hallway was as undisturbed as her room, except for an unexplained banana on the floor. The luggage stayed in the same place, unopened. 
What inept thieves
, thought Ashley. Her smug attitude faded when she took a look in her father’s bedroom, the living room, and kitchen. Though they hadn’t stayed long, the men managed to collect most of the valuables. The house resembled a carnival after closing time. Clothes, food, and trash covered the wooden floors. Every trash can had been overturned. The contents of the fridge had been emptied out onto the kitchen floor. What they’d been looking for in there, Ashley didn’t know.

Her stomach gurgled in hunger
. She stepped over broken pickle jars, globs of mayonnaise, bits of bread. Fate was kind in leaving an unsmooshed bag of chips at her feet. She scooped up the bag, and shoved handfuls of chips into her mouth. In about two minutes, she emptied half the bag. Then, she stopped
. Oh, too much, too fast
, Ashley thought. The chips tried to come back up. The sink would have done it, but she sprinted for the bathroom. Over the toilet, her mouth opened to allow a mighty burp. Magically, her nausea disappeared. In its place, she felt the urge to urinate, and did so.

Once her hunger and bodily functions were under control, Ashley
’s mind cleared. She needed to find her father. He was either dead, or they had taken him with them. An abduction seemed unlikely, but Ashley hadn’t seen him in any of the rooms. Except for his office she had forgotten to check…

Stephen’s office was directly across from her bedroom. In her hurry to search the apartment, she
overlooked the open doorway leading to his office. Her father must have been in there.

T
he door wouldn’t open. Not all the way. It was cracked open, but something blocked it. Ashley had a feeling as to what the something was. With all of her twelve-year-old might, she pushed her way inside. Behind the door, she found her father’s broken body. He was sprawled on the ground with one hand outstretched towards the desk.

“Daddy.”

Hot tears rolled down Ashley’s cheeks. She dropped down to take a closer look at her father. A large part of her wanted to hold on to him. Another smaller part of her was scared to touch the cold corpse. Love and curiosity overrode her instinctual withdrawal.

Ashley rolled his body over.
It made sense why he screamed towards the end. Sticking out of one ear was a handle she recognized as the corkscrew from the kitchen. She imagined it went right to his brain, because she couldn’t see the metal part, just the blue nub of the handle.

“
I shoulda been here. I’m sorry. I coulda helped you.”

Or ended up lying here beside you
.

Those two
choices seemed better than the agony of being without her father. Ashley feared the tears were going to never stop falling. She lay down on her father’s chest and cried until she was tired and ready for sleep again. Sleep was the most attractive option in Ashley’s situation. It wasn’t the smartest option, though. The bad men could return, or police might arrive. She would be put into a foster home, and be stuck in the city. No. Sleep could wait.

Ashley got up
from her father’s body. The room was wrecked, like everything else. Through the mess, she saw what she wanted on top of the desk.

They were still there.
Her ticket out of the city, literally.

One way or the other, she was going to England.

****

July 10th

Today I found a ball. It was a little rubber one, like the stress balls I used to get at the doctor’s offices. I always wondered why doctors
gave their patients lame tokens at the end of visits, like
, thanks, you prick me with a long needle and my consolation prize is this stupid ball?

My prize was
pink, with the words “Pink Star” stamped on it in black lettering, with the "i" and "n" on their way out.

I found an unoccupied space to bounce it against the wall, endlessly. Each thomp of the ball comforted me. For
an entire afternoon, I played with that stupid ball. After a couple of hours, Erin told me to quit it or she’d knock my head against the wall. Her empty threat made me smile, but when even the Wasters gave me a 
c’mon kid 
kinda look, I put the ball up.

Later, I couldn’t resist the temptation to bring it out and thump it on
the floor again, over and over. Erin wanted to clobber me, but before she could, The Man came. He was off from work, still wearing the police uniform He utilized in tricking us. As usual, He moved past me without a glance. Even though He’s never chosen me as a pawn in His kill room, I still held my breath until He stopped in front of His intended prey.

The unlucky son of gun today was Seth. He was the only
guy left in the basement, besides me and the guy who hangs around Gabriella. If The Man was taking Seth, it meant He was in the mood for torturing. Men hardly ever come out of the kill room alive. Women have a better chance, because their services can be used again and again until they are used up, or until they get depressed and stop eating.

Seth knew the cards were stacked against him, because when The Man stopped in front of him, he started
blubberin’. Honestly, it was sad, but also embarrassing. Seth’s cries reached a pitiful wail as The Man dragged him by his hair to the kill room. On the way, The Man did what I’ve always dreaded: he stopped in front of me.

“Can I see that ball, buddy?”

Saying
no
stuck in my throat.

“Um...
” I couldn’t talk, but my arms still worked. I handed the ball over, looking eager to please on the outside, but dying on the inside.

“Thanks.” And then he winked at me.

A shudder ran over me like a fleet of ants marching down my back.

With a click that haunts me, the kill room door closed and the screaming commenced. My heart rebelled against
the urge, but my brain couldn’t help imagining the ways in which The Man was using my ball. He could have used it to gag Seth, shoving it down his throat deeper and deeper until it choked him. He could have put it in Seth’s….ewww, well, I didn't wanna go there. Either way, I knew I wasn't getting the ball back.

Twenty
minutes after the screaming started, it stopped. Everyone in the basement let out a collective breath of relief. The relief evaporated when The Man came back out with Seth-the-human-sack-of-potatoes over his shoulder. Seth’s face wasn't visible under his long brown hair, but from the blood leaking down the back of The Man’s shirt, he couldn’t have been sleeping. Seth was dead. No one spoke, or breathed. The Man’s boots sounded loud in the silence as He clomped towards the stairs. I hoped He would make His way upstairs without incident, but I jinxed myself by thinkin’ it. At the foot of the stairs, He stopped and grabbed a steak fork from His back trouser pocket.

Surprising the heck out of me and everyone else watching,
He flipped Seth’s body forward, showing me where my ball had ended up. Lodged in Seth’s head, the ball appeared to be half its original size. Seth had a cartoon-like appearance, a doll with mismatched eyes. The Man made everything more horrifying plucking the ball out from Seth’s eye, issuing forth a loud
pop
.

“Almost forgot. Here’s your ball back, little guy.”

My ball, a third of it faded pink and the rest of it red with globs of unnamable things sticking to it. 

I
didn’t move. I knew I needed to listen to The Man at all costs, but touching the ball went against every good feeling in my body.

“Are you gonna grab it or not, boy?” Impatience marked the tone of The Man, and it marked a beating or worse for me if I refused His command.

With my nerve endings shrieking out in protest, I grabbed for the ball, touching the cleanest part possible, except, it didn’t budge. I realized I had to wrap my hand around the wet part. To end things, I did just that, squishing what I imagined to be the remains of Seth’s eyeball and brains. My vision starred. I saw black, but I blinked, and the curtain lifted.

The Man headed back up the stairs, not a word about the person He killed or the boy He scared witless.

The basement lock slid home, and I tossed the ball out of sight. I don’t ever wanna see that gosh darn ball again in my life. Then again, I don’t think my life’s gonna be particularly long in the New World.

* * * *

July 14th

A
scratching on the basement window. At first, the noise seemed part of my dream, where my biology teacher, Mrs. Holmes, promised no homework on the weekend.

The
classroom was full again, not half-full like it was when my parents finally decided to yank me out. A No-Homework Weekend should have made us kids happy, but for some reason, it bummed us out.

Mrs.
Holmes wrote on the chalkboard, slowly, deliberately, endlessly. The chalk whispered on the board, but when she got to the word 
homework,
 it screeched. I wanted to cover my ears, but it didn’t help. 
Scrrrrrreeeeech
.

The scratching stopped
, but I wonder what caused it. A cat? A dog?

I hope Erin doesn’t mind if I snuggle with her on her pallet tonight…

* * * *

July 16th

You're probably wondering how The Man got us down here in the first place, and it all started the day my dad quit his job.

Dad sold cars for a living, and he used to tell me
My job’s neither glamorous, nor fulfilling, but I’m good at it
.

He was used to aggressive customers, but they never openly committed violence
, until his last day at work. A man killed another customer over the lowest car priced on the lot. Dad never told us why he quit, but I heard him telling mom the story:
My car, my car, my car
, the murder repeated, bashing the other person’s head in with a side-view mirror before the police arrived much too late.

We drove away from the city the same day.
On our way, my dad got pulled over for speeding. It was two a.m., and we were parked on the shoulder of one of those skinny roads that go on forever, with fields on either side.

W
hen the patrolmen finally got to our car, he shined a flashlight in my father’s face. He looked at my mom, and I didn’t know it then, but he was checking her over, seeing if he liked her; same for my sister. A change came over his face when he saw me. I don’t think he had come across a kid in his kidnappings before, and he didn’t seem to know what to do about it. After a minute, he spoke with my father about the speed limit and how he better respect the law and 
bladitty blah blah blah
. My dad wanted to know how much the ticket would be for. The officer told him it would be considerable, but for the speed he was going, my father was under arrest. We were instructed to follow the officer to the station.  My mother asked him why we all had to go. No answer.

Dad
drove on dark back roads, parking behind the officer an hour later. Instead of a police station, I saw a red brick house at the end of a driveway. I’d like to say my spidey sense jumped in all directions, but I knew next to nothing about what was happening.

My parents seemed aware of the potential danger. Dad’s hand stayed on the transmission, angling into the reverse position. The officer’s friendly face at his window stopped him, and he put the car back in park.

Dad didn’t want to get out.

“This doesn’t look like a police station.”
He said.

The
officer pointed his gun at my dad. “That’s because it isn’t.”

* * * *

Gloria packed all of the wrong things. Ashley knew Gloria had packed her bags and not her father because of the flimsy clothes stuffed inside of them. Her father would have filled her luggage with jeans and t-shirts, baggy t-shirts. Instead, her bags overflowed with miniskirts and knit tips. Gloria probably kept herself in mind at the age of twelve, and had then packed for Ashley accordingly.

As it was, Ashley didn’
t have the time to re-pack. She threw a few pairs of real clothing into her bag, grabbed money from the hole in her bedroom wall, and noticed her father’s dead body for the second time. Could she really leave the city? Leave the country?

What else can I do?

Her grandparents had been murdered the day before her father’s homicide. The reality of her life seemed unimaginable. Her family. All gone.

Going far, far away was the only way to ensure she might grow up to be thirteen, and then maybe fourteen.

She grabbed the other two plane tickets off the desk. They could be traded or sold for more cash. Luggage, cash, tickets; she was ready to rock-steady. On impulse, she got down to hug her father. His cheeks felt cold. She kissed them anyway.

"Love you, D
ad."

Though she was ready, Ashley didn’t want to leave. She couldn’t leave. Everything looked black, closing in
on her. Her heart nearly burst, and her lungs couldn’t get enough air.
I’m having a panic attack
. She knew what a panic attack was because of one of her school mates. The girl always panicked before tests, eventually having to test by herself in a separate room because her attacks distracted the other students from interacting with their interface screens.

Her breath drew out in ragged strips.
She lingered near the front door another ten minutes, trying not to pass out.

Start moving forward, damnit!

Her feet felt like tree trunks. She couldn’t uproot them.

Ashley imagined what her father might say.

Get out of here! Stop standing there and waiting for something to happen. You need to get to a safe place.

The thought of him
speaking to her woke her up, compelling her to open the door.

Stepping outside the apartment
was surreal. They had no neighbors, only a gold mirrored elevator at the end of the hall. All the same, it was odd no one below had heard any of the screams. Ashley remembered the people below them moving out a week before. The apartment was empty. No one had heard a thing two floors down.

Jesus, those men could have stayed as long as they wanted
.

Ashley got onto the elevator.
She wondered how they had gotten in. There were guards at the entrances, and a person needed ID to get inside of the building. Getting off the elevator, Ashley decided to leave from the parking garage instead of the front entrance. She could slip out easier without being seen. Later on, people would assume she had been taken, like Gloria. Or worse, they would assume her dead, like her father. All the better, because then they wouldn’t be looking for her.

When she got to the parking garage, she walked quickly and quietly to the street exit. Within a few yards of the opening, she ducked behind a car.
At the last step, she tripped and did an awkward tuck and roll. She hit her elbow against the car in her stupidity, and hoped no one heard her.

When she recovered,
Ashley poked her head out to peek at the guard’s station. He busied himself watching a television in his concrete cubicle. It must have been a good show because he laughed sporadically at the black and white images. His laugh was distinctly annoying. Or maybe just distinct.

Ashley knew
his laugh. She heard it several times while huddled in the closet, waiting for the monsters to leave.

He had
 
been
 there. The no-name, no-face security guard had taken part in her father’s murder and Gloria’s abduction. It couldn’t have been him. He used to trade corny jokes and weather predictions with her dad. On random days, he winked at Ashley, and she winked back, as if they shared a secret.