The One Left Behind

“Sav! You can sign out. Go home and get some rest,” Karina said as she dumped the dirty dishes into the bin with a loud clash. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Yeah, one minute. I’m just finishing wiping down the tables.” Savannah sprayed the last table with Glass Plus and used the torn rag to spread the solution, taking extra time to get the corners.
She walked into the kitchen where Karina and Scott were cleaning the dirty dishes from today’s rush hour. “I’m clocking out,” She said, hanging up her rag on the hook by the door. “You sure you don’t want any help?”
“Yeah we’ve got it,” Scott said waving his hand at her. “Or I mean, I’ve got it. Karina doesn’t seem to be any help…” He nudged Karina who was leaning against the side of the sink, scrolling on her phone.
“Oh right! Sorry.” She slipped her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. “I got distracted.”
Savannah laughed. “Okay well, see you guys tomorrow then. Good night!” She called as she walked out the doors of the diner.
The sound of the train whistle echoed throughout the dark night. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed her sister’s cell number. It went to voicemail. “Hey Aubrey, just checking in. I’m walking home from the diner now so I’ll be home in ten. It’s about hmmm… 10:30 now. See you in a few. Love you.”
Savannah slipped her phone back in her pocket and pulled her jacket tighter. Although it was almost April, it still was a little chilly at night. Maybe Aubrey went to her boyfriend, John’s house. She’s been spending a lot of time there lately. But doesn’t she have a big test tomorrow? She’s probably studying.The buzz of her phone interrupted her thoughts. She pulled it out of her pocket and read the alarm: “Take medicine!” She hesitated, but turned off the alarm and slipped her phone back in her pocket and hurried home.
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“Aubrey? You home?” Savannah called out as she threw her bag and keys onto the kitchen counter.
No answer.
She started making her way up the rickety wooden stairs that lead to the girls’ bedroom. “You hungry? I should have brought some leftovers home from the diner but I forgot. I’m sorry. I ate such a good grilled cheese sandwich, I put mozzarella and tomato and basil in it; you would have loved it.” Savannah trailed on as she walked through the hallway coming closer to the bedroom. She opened the door expecting Aubrey to be sitting at her desk, hunched over her textbooks as she usually was. But when she opened the door, no one was there. Savannah’s heart beat a little faster when she noticed that Aubrey’s desk chair was tipped sideways on the ground. However, her textbooks were displayed in an arrangement as if she was just studying a minute ago and happened to get up to get a snack from the kitchen.
“Aubrey?” Savannah peered around the door of the bathroom. Still no one.
The house was silent. She pulled out her phone and dialed John’s number. “John! Is Aubrey over at your place? I thought she was supposed to be home studying but she’s not.”
“Uhhhh no… The last I’ve heard from her was around 5:30 and she was home studying,” John replied. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah fine! Okay thanks!” Savannah hung up and took deep breaths. The room spun around her. She ran down the stairs, grabbed her coat and her keys, and sprinted to her car.
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“I need to speak to a policeman right now,” Savannah said frantically, tucking her long blonde hair behind her ear. She was slightly out of breath and her eyes darted in every which way. “My sister. She’s been kidnapped.”
The lady at the front desk peered over her glasses. “Excuse me?”
“She’s gone. The same man who took me 2 years ago. He took her, I know he did. Please, he’s going to kill her. I need a policeman right now!”
A deep voice came from behind her. “Savannah Jenks? Is that you?”
She whipped around. Next to his police badge, his name tag read “Stan Murphy.”
“Please help me! Aubrey has been taken by my kidnapper; I just know she has. I got away from him two years ago so he has come back to take my sister to punish me for escaping. Please! You have to go find her, we haven’t got much time; I know his plan. She won’t know what to do. He’s going to kill her like he’s done to all those other girls he’s taken. You’ve got to do something RIGHT NOW!” Her voice got louder and louder with each sentence until she was close to tears.
“How long has she been missing?” The policeman questioned.
“The last anyone has spoken to her was around 5:30. She isn’t home and she has a big test tomorrow and she would never miss her classes. She’s always home studying and tonight she’s not!”
“Savannah. It’s only been six hours. You have to wait at least 48 hours until we can report her as a missing person. Maybe she just took a break from studying and went out with her friends. Keep trying to call her and if she doesn’t come home by tomorrow afternoon, come back. Then we’ll take a second look.” The policeman gave a wearied sigh. “Get some rest.”
“No! You’re wrong! I know what it’s like to be out there all alone like she is. She’s out there, I know she is and no one will help her!” Savannah stomped out of the police department and sat on the stone steps out front. The cold wind picked up and whipped her hair around her face. The only lights were the dim streetlights up above. No cars were on the road.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out quickly, hopeful that is was Aubrey calling to tell her she was alright. Instead, it was just her phone alarm again. “Take pill!!!” She turned it off again.
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Inside the police department, Stan sat around with five other policemen who were also on the night shift. “That Jenks girl came in again. Claimed that her sister was kidnapped by the same man who took her two years ago.” He put air quotations around the words, “took her.”
“Oh, she’s got some mental issues doesn’t she? Been to rehab about four years and then again two years ago right?” Another policeman chimed in.
“Yeah that’s what I’ve heard. And where are her parents? They live alone in that house up on Chapel Hill?”
“Yeah, I believe so. Heard that they were drug addicts and left the kids to fend for themselves. How old are they? Savannah’s twenty one and the younger one is eighteen?”
“Something like that. Geez. Small town like this it’s hard to not know everything about everyone. Feel bad for the girls. That’s hard,” Stan commented as he sat down and rubbed his bald head. “I mean, she’s unstable. Who knows if she’s telling the truth?Remember two years ago when she ran in here and told us that a man kidnapped her but she couldn’t tell us where she was, how she escaped him, or what he did to her? All she could remember was a hole and a dozen skeletons. Doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s true. I was working the day that she came in. She probably forgot to take her meds”
“Probably.” The five policemen all chuckled.
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Outside the police department, Savannah got up from the steps and sped back home in her car. Where would he take her? Where did he take ME three years ago? All she could remember were woods. Then she had blacked out. But when she escaped him, she remembered lots of sharp thorns, a creek, and woods again. That’s all. The rest is blurry.
A car horn jolted her from her thoughts.
She slammed on her breaks. The angry woman in a red minivan held down on the horn for another few seconds before flipping her off. “Sorry,” Savannah mouthed and waved her hand in her air as an apology for almost going through a stop sign. She took a shaky breath and pressed down tentatively on the gas pedal.
When she got home, she ran up the stairs and grabbed her backpack. She stuffed a flashlight, her cell phone, a jacket, a picture of her and Aubrey, 320 dollars she had stashed under her mattress, and a half eaten granola bar she found on her bedside table from the night before. She zipped her backpack while running down the stairs and out the door, forgetting to lock it behind her.
Reaching the edge of the woods behind the train tracks, she stopped and took a deep breath. She didn’t know what she was going to do when she faced her kidnapper. She didn’t even know if he was in these woods, but she had an eerie feeling inside that led her here. She suddenly had a flashback of a thick tree stump that someone had etched a heart with an arrow through it in the bark. It was gone in a second.
She slowly crept her way into the pitch black woods. It was now half past eleven, and it was definitely below freezing. She shivered in her thin jacket.
Switching  on her flashlight, Savannah saw that the trees were bare due to winter’s slow conclusion. The wind picked up and caused a few of the thin branches to sway back and forth. Although there was no snow, the ground felt hard under her feet with a layer of frost forming on top.
She walked forward, careful not to step on any twigs and crumpled leaves that would cause a sound to disrupt the eerie silence. Walking deeper and deeper into the woods, she became more paranoid that the man would jump out at her any second. But with each step, a wave of relief overcame her, until she had to take the next step.
Suddenly, the sound of a branch cracking behind her interrupted her feeling of security. Before she had time to turn around and shine the flashlight in that direction, she felt strong, dry hands tightening around her neck. She felt the man’s calluses scratching her fair skin and she gasped for a breath. Using her right leg to kick backwards, she made contact with his groin and the hands released. She sprinted away, the wrong way, gasping for breath. She tripped over a fallen tree trunk and fell onto her hands and knees, her body violently moving to get away from the large shadow behind her.
He pounced and grabbed her neck. This sudden movement knocked her backpack off, spilling its contents onto the forest floor. She looked up into her kidnappers eyes. His furious dark brown eyes mirrored hers and he frowned down at her. There was a drop of saliva on the left corner of his mouth. He had dark brown hair, medium length, and a five o’clock shadow that covered his chin, mustache, and cheeks. He smelled of body odor and his dark green t-shirt had sweat stains on the pits.
“You came too late. She’s already gone,” he said smiling. “You fell for my trap. I knew you would come.” He loosened his grip on her neck for a second, but then re-gripped tighter causing her to choke.
“Where is she,” Savannah demanded through gritted teeth. She avoided eye contact with the man but he forced her head straight.
“Where I took you. And all of the other fourteen girls who I’ve taken.” He nodded towards a thick tree that had an etched heart and arrow in the trunk. “You remember.” He smiled again.
Savannah spit in disgust. “Let me go.”
“Never.”
“AUBREY!” Savannah screamed as loud as she could, piercing the night sky with her voice.
“I told you. She’s gone. Now shut up or else I’ll kill you too.” He forcefully shoved a dirty hand over her mouth.
He picked her up and draped her tiny, helpless body over his broad shoulder. She kicked and screamed but couldn’t escape his strong grasp. Savannah pounded her fists on his back. “Let! Me! Go!”
He flung her over and she hit the ground with a thud. Her whole body ached. She was weak and couldn’t get up. She rolled to her side and stabilized her shaky arms on the ground. Just as she was about to push to stand up, he grabbed her foot and she fell back down.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said staring at her with glassy eyes. “You look just like your sister.”
She closed her eyes for a second, listening to the running water of the nearby creek.
“Want to go with your sister?”
Before she had time to respond, she felt his beefy hands tighten around her neck. She gasps for air. “Help…” she wheezed. She squeezed her eyes closed and weakly clawed at his hands. Her eyes rolled backwards and she took one last breath until she could no longer feel anything at all…
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“Vannah! I want cowgirl this time,” Aubrey whined, taking her thumb out of her mouth. Her curly blonde hair fell into her big blue eyes as she looked up at her big sister.
“Fine,” Savannah sighed and got down on all fours. The bright green grass cushioned her knees. “Get on.”
Aubrey giggled and excitedly jumped onto her back. “Go horsey go!” She swung her arm in her air as she has seen her sister do before. “This way!” She pointed with her fat fingers.
“Savannah! Aubrey!” Their mother called from inside the house through the screen door. “Lunch time!”
Savannah and Aubrey raced inside, however Aubrey trailed behind she was taught to crawl up the porch stairs instead of walk.
“I won!” Savannah shouted as she sat quickly in her seat and eyeballed the lunch set before her: mac and cheese, chicken nuggets and grapes. “Hmm yum,” she said and stuffed a grape in her mouth.
Aubrey sat next to her in her high chair and her mom and dad sat across from them with their own lunch of salmon and broccoli.
“Mommy, can we go to the park after lunch?” Savannah asked, her mouth full of chicken.
“Finish your lunch and we’ll see.” Mom winked and popped a piece of salmon in her mouth.
Dad smiled and snuck a bite of mac and cheese from Savannah’s plate. “I’ll take you if Mommy won’t,” he whispered to Savannah.
“Heyyy I heard that!” Mom playfully nudged Dad’s shoulder and laughed. “We’ll go all together Sav.”
Aubrey shrieked and clapped her messy hands. “Yay! I want park.”