Page 1 of Ensnared By Silence
Prologue
Aubrey
Aloud, screechingnoise from the front of the house woke me and I sat up, rubbing my eyes. The old trailer creaked often, and I pulled the flimsy blanket up to my neck as a loud thump sounded through the thin walls into my bedroom. The muffled noises grew quiet, and I slowly slid off the side of the bed and pushed my feet into my yellow bunny slippers.
I got them for Easter from one of the nice ladies at the church who brought food to us from time to time. It didn’t matter that I was twelve. The warmhearted ladies always made sure I had an Easter basket with something nice, just for me. My father didn’t take good care of me and the thought of him or Tiffany, his newest girlfriend, getting mad at me for being out of bed nearly pushed me back under the covers. The pain in my cheek from my father’s slap this afternoon still throbbed, and my cheek was puffy under my eye.
It was getting harder to explain the bruises and cuts to my teachers and I was fearful my father would keep his threat and pull me from school, to ‘teach me at home’. I knew if he did that, my lifeline to the outside world would be severed. I was thankful it was summer, so I didn’t have to tell another lie. Lying was wrong, but my father said that ‘family doesn’t tell its secrets to the world’, so I kept the things they did to me and the things I saw to myself.
Another loud thump echoed into my room and I jumped in the darkness, afraid of what was going on beyond the closed door. The sound of someone opening the sliding glass door screeched over the sound of my pounding heart, and I took a cautious step toward the door. Inhaling deeply, I willed my pulse to slow before I placed my ear to the door and listened intently.
“What? Oh shit,” my father yelled, and a loud crash made me jump.
“Where is it?” the muffled voice asked, and I questioned what they were looking for.
We were poor. Our TV came from a pawnshop and there was no internet for the one computer in the house. My tennis shoes were a half size too small and had holes in the toe from me wearing them over two years. None of my clothes fit right, either. They were too big or too small because I grew into them over time, but I did the best I could getting clothes from the thrift stores.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” my dad pleaded, and I gripped the handle of the door in fear.
My father wasn’t afraid of anyone, but I could hear how scared he was from the vibrations in his voice. A few more hollow thumps resonated, and my dad screamed, “STOP!”
“Tell me what I want to know, and I . . .” the deep voice said, and I strained to listen, missing the end of the sentence as fear racked my body.
A small ringing in my ear from the slap earlier made me miss a few words, but from what I understood, by father took something that didn’t belong to him and this angry man was looking for whatever it was.
Where was Tiffany?
“It’s in the shed,” my father said after a few more loud thumps.
“You better hope you’re not lying to me.” The deadly tone in his voice scared me to the core, and I trembled as the sliding glass door opened.
Heavy footsteps sounded on the rusty set of stairs, and I tiptoed to the window and peeked out through a rip in the material. A gigantic man dressed in all black stormed across the dirt yard and swung the broken fence gate to the side as he continued walking to the back of the property. I watched him pull something from his back pocket and the door to the shed opened.
He shined a flashlight into the darkened space, and I blinked back the tears threatening to fall at the memories of the inside of the shed. The worst thing imaginable happened out there since Tiffany moved in and seeing his beam of light swish over the items with ease had vomit rising into the back of my throat.
I turned quickly and shuffled as quietly as I could to the door and turned the knob. The sound was loud to my ears, and I looked over my shoulder, seeing the flashlights still muted inside the shed. I opened my bedroom door slowly and a strange smell overtook me. I was used to the smell of stale cigarettes, beer, and the garbage that piled up in the kitchen.
This was different.
Coppery and bitter to the senses, I pulled my hoodie over my nose to block out the smell. Stepping into the hallway, I stayed to the inside wall to avoid the hole in the floor under the window. I fell through last year and they wouldn’t take me to the hospital to get stitches for the gash in my leg, so I used super glue, like I saw on an old forensic crime show, and avoided an infection.
Each step closer to the living room had my fists clenching tighter and the little voice in my brain screaming louder to run. The light falling against the kitchen looked wrong, and I peeked around the corner to see the lamp turned on its side and my father leaned up against the couch with blood coming from his nose and lip. His leg was twisted in a funny direction and it satisfied a part of me to see him injured like I had been so many times through the years.
A slam from the yard had my father sitting up, his eyes wide with dread as he tried to push himself away from the open sliding glass door. I could see the flashlight bouncing across the yard, and when a boot touched the first step, I ducked into the hallway bathroom and slipped on the floor, catching myself with one hand on the sink and nearly falling to my butt.
My hand was wet and sticky from whatever I slipped in, and the copper smell was stronger, making me gag. I wiped my wet hand on a hand towel, hoping my eyes adjusted to the light, and I could see what covered the floor as his footsteps climbed up the creaky outside stairs. Pushing behind the open door, I hid in the small space but could see through the crack.
The dark man stormed back inside and gripped my father by the front of his shirt, wrenching him from the floor in a painful scream. His face was covered with a black mask and his eyes were the color of the night sky. There wasn’t enough light for me to make out any of his features, but the anger was rolling off him in violent waves, threatening to drown us all.
“You lied,” he cursed and pressed a gun to the front of my father’s forehead. I pulled my sleeves over my hands and covered my mouth.
“I swear. I didn’t lie. It was in the shed.”
“Last chance before I send you to join that bitch you crawled into bed with. Where. Is. It?”
“I swear that was the last place I saw it. That little whore must have it. Please don’t hurt me. It’s her you want.”
Was he talking about me?
