Part 3 - Walls Have Secrets

Part 1 can be found here

A muffled scream. Snatched. Bundled with sack shielding eyes painful and wide, wet with unknown horrors, with fear. Large hands, how many pairs? Unsure. Difficult to tell. A muffled scream. The smell of oil, musty cloths stained with brake fluid. Sharp edges from toolboxes stab, rough knots of rope chafe. It's dark beneath the makeshift hood.

I lie still. Little Lisa. Everyone wishing me a Happy Birthday, just this morning. There's a party later. Friends visiting. Balloons, jelly and ice cream. Party games. I'll be the centre of attention - where I belong. Defined: precocious, cocky, sassy. Yes, I've got attitude. Mother refers to it as advanced, bright, developed. I use the term mature, prefer it. Suits me best. I imagine my mother later: running in a panic about the neighbourhood. My little girl. Crying out. Bringing people out from their homes, away from their TV dinners, their soap operas; it would give their meaningless lives some purpose. They could feel thankful it wasn't their daughter. Their son. Thankful.

A muffled scream. Snatched. I'm 10-years old. I'm every parents' worst nightmare.

I lie still, my breathing shallow. A sour tang of petrol fills my lungs. Vibrations shake, stir me from shock. A vehicle. A muffled scream. Realisation hits home. Snatched. I've read about girls - girls just like me - and what happens. They never come back. Ever. Only the shells that hold them return, dead or alive. The most popular way to return is dead. The thought causes my bladder to fail.

I kick my legs, a scream muffled as my arms flail. Survival instincts. The car stops, engine cut. I'm hoisted, removed. Voices, conversation, decisions made. Dragged, stones tearing cloth, my flesh. I feel blood trickle down my calves, over my foot. I try to count them. Two, three men at most. They laugh, poke at me, their fingers cast from steel. Baiting me, their prey. I'm dropped. Through a small rip in the sack, I espy my resting place. A house, so red, so vivid. The sun is bright. Framed with green hills dotted with bleating sheep. I glance at wheelbarrows, scaffold, bricks in piles. Then, dragged into gloom.

Oh God, I think. Instincts scream: No. Please. Begging. A muffled scream. No, please. Don't. Hands, pulling, wrenching me out from beneath the sack. My eyes painful and wide, wet with unknown horrors, with fear. Little Lisa. Me. I'm precocious, but even my imagination can't predict the terrors that await. Stinging urine on chapped thighs. I've lost a sock, my foot is cold. I wonder. I wonder what is coming. Dread fills me, drips from pores. They can smell it. They laugh at me. And then it begins.

It is dark when the men are finished, spent. It's done. Without discussion they begin work. Quickly, methodically. It takes no time to cover the body, to hide it. Secreted away. They work under moonlit sky, the roof not yet completed. Hard drops of rain fall. Splitching sounds on the cement floor, doinks on the metal wheelbarrow. Tuneless; the rain tone deaf.

Conveniently, tracks are erased. Every thing disappears. Eventually. Even little Lisa. Twenty years from now, she'll be forgotten. Little Lisa won't like that.

Continued here...