Missing (5 page)

     Glenna was one of those people.

     So it was understandable that after being through hell for many years she would develop some peculiar traits.

     One of them was that she was extremely shy, and a bit afraid, of being around men.

     Glenna and her family were kept hostage by a particularly brutal man named David Castillo. Castillo eventually murdered her husband and always kept one of her children locked in a room for which only he had the key. Glenna was forced into slavery to keep her children from suffering the same fate as her husband.

     Then the thaw finally came, and with the spring flowers came the rumors.

     Stories started floating around that the small town of Eden was far from a Biblical paradise. Rather, it was a city under siege, where the most vile men on the face of the earth ruled with an iron fist. And the good were forced to do their bidding.

     Marty Haskins had always hated bullies. Even as a small kid, the bullies at his school left him alone. For they knew that inside little Marty was a ball of fire just itching to come out. Those who’d tried in the past to pick on him knew that he’d fight back. And when he did so, he fought back with a vengeance.

     There were others at the school whom the bullies picked on as well for a variety of reasons. Perhaps because they were small, or had a disability. Or didn’t look or act as the bullies thought they should.

     The word got around, and those children gravitated toward Marty. They wanted to be his friend, and Marty made it so. Some of Marty’s other friends told him, “They don’t want to be your friend. They just want you to protect them.”

     But Marty didn’t mind. To Marty, they were one and the same.

     To Marty, part of being a friend was protecting one another from those who’d do any of them harm.

     It was just part of who he was.

     When word got back to Marty that the good men, women and children of nearby Eden were being brutalized, all the memories from his childhood came rushing back.

     And he knew he had to make a stand. For even after so many years, he still despised bullies.

     Marty gathered up a few volunteers to help take back the town, and asked the people at the compound to join in. To fight the good fight, as it were. With the help of John Jacoby and Frank Woodard, both former lawmen, they were able to clean up the town of Eden and make it safe again.

     Glenna herself stabbed Castillo to death when the men let their guard down.

     But after they heard her sad story, of how she and her family were horribly abused by him, no one faulted her for the deed.

     In fact, the people of the compound voted unanimously to invite Glenna and her children to join them.

     And a budding romance began between Glenna and Marty.

     Although Marty didn’t live in the compound with the others, he was in the habit now of calling on Glenna every few days, usually carrying wildflowers and a picnic basket.

     The other women in the compound thought it was grand that Glenna was getting another chance at love, after all she’d been through.

     And they thought the world of Marty. Hannah particularly had been after him for a very long time to find a woman of his own. And now that it was finally happening, the pair seemed to be a perfect match.

     And Glenna was slowly but surely coming out of her shell.

     Being alone with another man, though, still made her uncomfortable.

     So on this particular day, when she found Frank sitting alone at the security desk, she just wasn’t comfortable enough to discuss her particular concerns with him.

     “Hello, Glenna. How are you today, dear?”

     “Um… I’m okay, thank you, Mr. Woodard.”

     “Please, call me Frank. Mr. Woodard was my father.”

     “Um… okay. Is Karen or Helen or Sami around?”

     “No, I’m afraid not. Karen was here a few minutes ago, but I think she went to the kitchen. Is there anything I can help you with?”

     “No thank you, Mr. Woodard. That’s very nice of you. But I’d feel more comfortable talking to one of them. No offense to you, sir.”

    Frank had heard the rumors that for seven long years Glenna was forced to call her captor “Mr. Castillo,” and the members of his gang with similar formalities. It was one of Castillo’s ways of showing her she was somehow beneath the bastards.

     “Please, Glenna. If you would learn to call me Frank, I’d be so happy I’d dance a little jig for you.”

     She flushed and said, “I’m sorry… it’s a hard habit to break… Frank,”

     True to his word, Frank stood and danced a few steps, his two left feet almost causing him to stumble and fall down.

     But it had its desired affect.

     Glenna smiled, and in fact fought very hard not to laugh out loud.

     “Thank you, sir.”

     She still had a long way to go, though, before she’d be comfortable having a one-on-one conversation with a man. Any man. The smile seemed to embarrass her, as though she’d revealed too much of her humanity.

     She had an overwhelming urge to bolt.

     “I’m sorry… Frank. I have to leave now.”

     With that she turned on her heels and went off to the kitchen to find Karen.

     As she walked away she heard Frank call behind her, in his most conciliatory tone, “It was nice to see you, Glenna. Please come back and visit any time.”

    Glenna found Karen sitting at a table in the front of the kitchen, having coffee with Rachel.

     Instead of asking to join them, though, timid Glenna merely stood several tables away, watching and waiting for Karen to finish.

     Karen would have none of that.

     “Glenna! It’s so nice to see you. Sit down and join us.”

     “Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude.”

     “Nonsense. Good friends are always welcome.”

     Rachel knew that Glenna had grown to consider Karen her best friend at the compound. She also had the sense that Glenna might be more comfortable talking to Karen alone. And something was obviously bothering her.

     “Well, you know, I have to run anyway. It’s my turn to bake today, and I need to get a couple of cakes in the oven.”

     Karen saw right through Rachel’s comment. And she happened to know that the cakes were already in the oven. But she knew why Rachel was bowing out and respected her for it.

     “Okay, Rachel, dear. I’m sure they’ll be delicious. I’ll talk to you more later.”

     Glenna managed a “Goodbye, Rachel.”

     Even that seemed to embarrass her a bit.

     “Glenna, sit down and let me get you some coffee.”

     “Oh, no. I can get my own, thank you though.”

     “Nonsense. I have to refill my own cup anyway. Do you still like two creams and two sugars?”

     “Yes, please.”

     Karen refilled her cup with black coffee and fixed Glenna’s, then returned to the table.

     She sat down and looked closely at Glenna’s face. What she saw there was akin to terror.

     “Oh, you poor dear. Something is bothering you tremendously. Please tell me what’s wrong.”

     Glenna fairly blurted out, “I think something dreadful has happened to poor Sarah.”

Chapter 7

     Glenna burst into tears and was unable to speak.

      Karen, well aware of the torment Glenna had suffered in recent years, sat silently and gave her time.

     Finally, after several minutes and three failed efforts, she was able to elaborate.

     “Last Sunday you’ll remember that Marty came to call. It was a beautiful day and he decided he wanted to go fishing at a lake in the middle of the woods somewhere.

     “I told him that I wasn’t sure if I’d be comfortable in the woods, but he reassured me that he was Superman in disguise. He said that Clark Kent gave up the job so he could take the job as editor of the Daily Planet. And Bruce Wayne couldn’t get the job because he couldn’t fly faster than a speeding bullet. So he said he applied for the job as new the Superman and got it.”

     Karen shook her head.

     “That sounds like something Marty would say. What did you tell him?”

     “I said, ‘Well, you can’t fly either.”

     “He said yes he could, and asked me if I wanted him to prove it.

     “I said yes, and he said to close my eyes and count to three and then open them again.

     “I thought he was nuts, but I did what he asked and he said he flew around the world twice while my eyes were closed, and he was so fast I didn’t even know he left.

     “Well, I couldn’t help but laugh at him, but at least I was relaxed. So I told him that sure, I would go on a picnic with him.”

     “He didn’t make a pass at you, I hope. Because if he did, I will beat him to a pulp.”

     “Oh, no, Karen. He was a perfect gentleman the whole trip.

     “Anyway, we carried the picnic basket and blanket and fishing gear to the lake and found a great spot in the grass up against the forest. I made a remark about how beautiful the lake was and he said, “Let’s walk around it and then come back and eat. And then we’ll do some fishing. But you’ll have to bait my hook. I hate worms.

     “Well, I thought he was kidding. But he never cracked a smile. I said, “I hate worms too, and I would think that Superman wouldn’t be afraid to do something as simple as put a worm on a hook.

     “He said, ‘okay, but only because you are so beautiful.’”

     Karen rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, brother…”

     “I stacked everything up nice and neat. The picnic basket on the bottom, then the blanket all folded up on top of it. Then the small tackle box on top of that.

     “Then we walked around the lake. And when we got to the far side of the lake, almost directly across from our things, I got the most eerie feeling.”

     This caught Karen’s attention and the smile left her face.

     “Eerie how, exactly?”

     “I don’t know. Eerie like… like, I had the strangest feeling that something was watching us. Something evil. Something that wanted to remain hidden.

     “I didn’t want to alarm Marty, because he was having such a great time, and was so kind to even take me out there. So I didn’t say anything. But the rest of the time we walked, I was uneasy and kept glancing around. The truth was, I was very afraid, but I wasn’t sure what I was afraid of. Does that make any sense at all?”

     Karen was gracious with her answer.

     “Yes, of course it does. I’ve had those kinds of feelings myself. Please go on.”

     “Well, we were still a great distance from our picnic spot, but something drew my eyes to there. And I saw movement in the forest right there by the place where we left our things.”

     “Really? What kind of movement?”

     “I’m not sure. Something dark in the shadows. And I saw the tree branches move. But there was no wind to speak of that day. Certainly not that close to the ground.

     “And when we got back to the spot, everything had been knocked down. I had stacked it up nice and neat, and it wasn’t wobbly or unsteady or anything. But now there it was, thrown all over the place.

     “Marty said it was probably the wind, but as I said there wasn’t any.

     “I think he was just trying to calm my nerves. Or maybe he thought I wasn’t a very good stacker and it just fell over.

     “I told him I wasn’t feeling well, and could we just leave and do the picnic another time.

     “I could tell by the look on his face that he was disappointed. But he didn’t fuss about it or anything. He said sure, as long as I didn’t fall in love with anybody else before I gave him a chance.

     “I can see you rolling your eyes, but I thought it was a sweet thing to say, and I was flattered.

     “So we left the lake and walked back here. It was all I could do not to run as fast as I could, but he held my hand and told me everything was all right.”

     “Why did you want to run?”

     “Because I felt the evil return as we headed back. And I honestly can’t explain the feeling, or explain how I knew. But I just knew that whatever was out there was watching us the whole way back. I was so scared that it was going to pounce on us.”