The Rise of Rachel Stark (13 page)

"My baby. My baby," she said,
fighting back the tears.

●●●

Monday morning, Benjamin Stark
called Chante High School and told Mrs. Wright, the principal's
secretary, that Rachel was quite sick with the flu and wouldn't be
at school that day, and maybe even for the next several
days.

"Just following doctor's orders,"
he said after he hung up.

Rodney, who did not know about the
rape until Sheldon brought him home Saturday afternoon after
basketball practice, was given instructions not to mention the rape
to anyone.

"Of course I won't," Rodney said,
a little offended that Benjamin would even think it was necessary
to tell him that.

"Rodney, wait," Rachel said.
Rodney was about to leave for school. He stopped by the front door
and turned around.

"I need some air," Rachel shouted
into the living room. "I'm going to walk Rodney down to the
road."

"OK," Benjamin said.

When they got out onto the
driveway, Rachel took Rodney by the arm.

"Rodney," she said, "can you keep
a secret?"

"Good grief! You too,
Rache?"

"No, no, it's not what you
think!"

"Well, then, what?"

"Can you give a message to Jimmy,
Tabby, Sheldon and Bull today?"

Rodney noticed that lately,
whenever Rachel mentioned their four friends, Jimmy's name always
came first. He wasn't sure what to make of that, if
anything.

"Sure. What message?"

Rachel hesitated. "I," she said,
"I … would like them to know."

Rachel, Rodney and their parents
had spent the better part of Sunday discussing Dr. Green's
recommendation that they report Rachel's rape to the police, and
that the sooner they reported it the better.

But there was no debate among the
four family members. They unanimously agreed right from the
beginning that it was best not to report the rape. Their discussion
was a matter of listing all the reasons the rape should be kept
quiet. So Rachel's request that her friends be told came as a
surprise to Rodney.

"You can trust them," Rachel
quickly added before Rodney had time to object. "You know you can.
Right, Rodney?"

"Well, yeah, but … but I still
don't know why you want to bring them into this."

"Because," Rachel said, "I think
it would help me if they knew. And it would haunt me if they did
not know. I don't think I could bear being around them if I had
this dark secret I had to hide from them."

They continued to walk down the
driveway. Here and there, Rachel thought she saw red spots in the
snow. She tried to drive the image out of her mind.

"I get that, Rache. I really do,"
Rodney said finally.

"But let me say this. I think that
the more people there are who know about something like this, the
better the chances are that the word will get out. Even if you
trust someone with your life, sometimes things just … slip out. You
know?" He paused. "But as hard as I've tried sometimes, I've never
been able to say 'no' to you, Rachel. So OK. I'll do
it."

Rachel gave her brother a
hug.

"But what's the
secret?"

"What?"

"You asked if I could keep a
secret. What's the secret?"

"Oh. Right. The secret is, please
don't tell Mom and Dad that Jimmy, etcetera, know about the rape.
I'll tell them later. Just not now. I have too much other stuff to
deal with."

"OK. I won't. By the way, how long
are you going to stay out of school? They'll want to see you, you
know. Jimmy, etcetera." He paused. "I mean, how are you, Rache?
Really."

Rachel's face darkened. She
thought about Danny Jackson and Oscar Olney. How would she react
the first time she saw them in school? How would they react when
they saw her? Could she really go to school each day, knowing they
were in the same building? Laughing, perhaps.

Or lurking.

She shook her head.

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "I
have my good moments. I have my bad moments. I'm taking it one day
at a time."

Tears filled Rodney's eyes. He put
his arm around Rachel.

"I'm so sorry, Rache, I'm so
sorry. If they ever find that guy, I'll kill the
sonofabitch."

Rachel gave him a
squeeze.

"I appreciate your devotion to
your sister, Rodney. You know how much I love you. But I'm not sure
that's the answer. Piling one evil on top of another."

She thought about what she had
just said. She did not know she was capable of such a sentiment at
this time in her life. It gave her hope that someday she might
conquer her devils.

Chapter Nine

Rescued

"OK, that's long enough," Celeste said. "This
is your last chance." Benjamin followed her into the
bedroom.

"She's asleep," Holly said.

Celeste made no reply. She reached into her
case and took out the long, leather straps and tied Rachel's arms
to the bedposts, crucifixion style. Rachel moaned but did not
appear to wake up.

"All right, you know what to do," Celeste
said. She pulled up Rachel's nightgown. Benjamin and Holly spread
Rachel's legs.

Rachel wiped the knitting needle with a soft
cloth she had in her bag. She bent down and inserted the needle
into Rachel's vagina.

"OK, let's go find the uterus," she
said.

Celeste started to push the needle when
suddenly there was a violent banging on the front door that seemed
to shake the trailer itself.

"Police! Open up!"

Celeste jerked out the knitting needle. Then
everyone in the room froze, until Holly pulled Rachel's nightgown
down and pulled the blanket up over her. Rachel opened her
eyes.

"This is the police! Open up now!" The banging
grew louder.

"What do we do?" Benjamin asked. There was no
answer.

Rodney, in the other bedroom, screamed: "Break
the door down! Break it down!"

Bull heard. He backed up a few feet. "Time to
run between the tackles," he said. He lowered his shoulder and
drove his 240-pound body into the metal door, much the same way he
blasted through his Dad's bedroom window as his home was collapsing
in flames.

It was overkill. The door popped open with
hardly a whimper and was nearly blown off its hinges. Bull's
momentum threw him headfirst onto the entryway floor, where he slid
on his stomach and slammed into a kitchen cabinet door. He jumped
up.

By that time, the others had entered the
trailer. Jimmy knocked the chair loose that had kept Rodney from
opening his bedroom door.

Rodney came out and pointed to the bedroom
door, still closed, at the other end of the trailer. "Down there!"
he shouted.

Sheldon was the first to reach the door. He
yanked it open.

"You?" a wide-eyed Benjamin said.

"You kids get out of my house!" he screamed.
"Now!"

Fists clenched, he charged Sheldon, who
sidestepped Benjamin as neatly as he would an opposing lineman
hell-bent on a sack, then slammed him into the wall, where Jimmy
grabbed him and wrestled him to the floor.

"Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark," Jimmy said over and
over.

"This is none of your business!" Benjamin
shouted. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Holly was shouting at everybody ... to stop
everything. And Rachel screamed and struggled to get free from the
straps. Tabby managed to untie one of them.

Meanwhile, unnoticed, Celeste reached into her
case and pulled out a gun.

She fired into the mattress, missing Rachel's
head by inches.

And the Earth stood still.

"Thank you for your attention," Celeste said
in a calm, even voice. She kept the gun pointed at the
intruders.

"Holly, please untie your daughter. I'm sure
that strap must be uncomfortable for her," she said.

Holly, hands shaking, did as she was
bidden.

Once Rachel was free, Celeste waved the gun to
motion Holly aside. Then she grabbed Rachel, pulled her out of bed,
wrapped her arm around Rachel's neck from behind and put the gun to
Rachel's temple.

"Now, everybody," Celeste said, "we are all
going to take a little walk. I want all of you to go slowly and
quietly into the other bedroom where the rest of the kids are and
close the door behind you.

"I will be watching all of you very closely.
If you try anything … untoward, shall we say, I'm sure all of you
know precisely what the consequences will be. The gunshot you heard
earlier was only a warning. The next one will be for
real.

"Once you are in that bedroom, you
will stay there while Rachel and I go for a little ride in my car.
She will not be harmed
as long as you do
not try to follow me.

"It is now 11 p.m. At 11:15 it will be safe
for you to leave the room and go look for Rachel. You will find her
in the cemetery. Keep in mind that it is very snowy and cold
outside, and note that Rachel is barefoot and dressed only in a
flimsy nightgown. So don't wait too long. We wouldn't want her to
freeze to death, now would we?

"Rachel, pick up my coat there and my case.
Now, Holly, you go first. Lead the way."

The hostages did exactly as they were told.
Jimmy was the last to go in the bedroom. He closed the
door.

Almost.

What Celeste did not know, and could not have
known, was how bad the doors were in this wreck of a trailer the
Stark family lived in. Some of the doors did not work at all. Those
that did usually were badly fitted.

The door to the kids' bedroom was no
exception. When Jimmy closed the door, he noticed that a tiny crack
in the door allowed him a partial view of the front
door.

Squinting through the crack, he slowly turned
the doorknob to the open position.

When Celeste and Rachel started to go out the
front door, Celeste's back was turned to Jimmy, and he noticed that
she had lowered the gun so it pointed at the floor.

That moment, that split second, was all the
time he had to act.

In one motion he flew out the bedroom door,
dived for Celeste and swatted at the gun like a linebacker trying
to force a fumble.

The impact knocked Celeste and Rachel down,
and when the gun was torn from Celeste's hand it went
off.

The bullet ripped into Jimmy's right thigh. He
screamed, but he managed to hold Celeste down and keep her from
retrieving her weapon.

A moment later Benjamin, Rodney, Sheldon and
Bull were there to take over.

Chapter Ten

The Aftermath

About the Author

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Mark Coker is the founder of Smashwords, the
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