AFTER
Nick
3:15 a.m.
I haven’t been paying attention to where I’m heading or how far I’ve run until I see Pirate Pete looming above the tree line, one arm raised in a salutation, eyes gleaming bright white. FanLand. His gaze seems to follow me as I jog across the parking lot, transformed by the storm into an atoll: a series of dry concrete islands surrounded by deep ruts of water, swirling with old trash.
The sirens are going again, so loud they feel like a physical force, like a hand reaching deep inside me to shove aside the curtain, revealing quick flashes of memory, words, images.
Dara’s hand on the window, and the impression left by her fingers.
RIP, Dara.
We’re done talking.
I need to get away—away from the noise, away from those hard bursts of light.
I need to find Dara, to prove it isn’t true.
It isn’t true.
It can’t be.
My fingers are clumsy, swollen with cold. I fumble at the keypad, mistyping the code twice before the latch buzzes open, just as the first of three cars jerks into the parking lot, sirens cutting the darkness into planes of color. For one second, I’m frozen in the headlights, pinned in place like an insect to glass.
“Nick!” Again those cries, that word, both familiar and alien-sounding, like the cry of a bird calling from the woods.
I slip inside the gates and run, blinking away rain, swallowing down the taste of salt, and cut right, sloshing through puddles that have materialized on the sloping pathways. A minute later the gate clangs again; the voices pursue me, overlapping now, drumming down on the sound of the rain.
“Nick, please. Nick, wait.”
There: in the distance, through the trees, a flickering light. A flashlight? My chest is tight with a feeling I can’t name, a terror of something to come, like that moment Dara and I hung suspended, gripping hands, while our headlights called up an image of a sharp rock face.
RIP, Dara.
Impossible.
“Dara!” My voice gets swallowed up by the rain. “Dara! Is that you?”
“Nick!”
Closer now—I need to get away, need to show them, need to find Dara. I push into the trees, taking the shortcut, following that phantom light, which seems to pause and then be extinguished at the foot of the Gateway to Heaven, like a candle flame suddenly snuffed out. Leaves lap like thick tongues against my bare arms and face. Mud sucks at my sandals, splatters the back of my calves. A bad storm. A once-in-a-summer storm.
“Nick. Nick. Nick.” Now the word is just a meaningless chant, like the chatter of the rain through the leaves.
“Dara!” I cry. Once again, my voice is absorbed by the air. I push out of the trees onto the walkway that leads to the foot of the Gateway, where the passenger car is still grounded, concealed by a heavy blue tarp. People are shouting, calling to one another.
I turn around. Behind me, a rapid pattern of lights flashes through the trees, and I think then of a lighthouse beam sweeping through the dark sea, of Morse code, of warning signals. But I can’t understand the message.
I turn back to the Gateway. It was here I saw a distant light, I’m sure of it; it was here that Dara came.
“Dara!” I scream as loud as I can, my throat raw from the effort. “Dara!” My chest feels as if it has been filled with stones: hollow and heavy at the same time, and that truth is still knocking there, threatening to drown me, threatening to take me down with it.
Rest in peace, Dara.
“Nick!”
Then I see it: a twitch, a movement beneath the tarp, and relief breaks in my chest. All along this was a test, to see how far I would go, how long I would play.
All along, she’s been here, waiting for me.
I’m running again, breathless with relief, crying now but not because I’m sad—because she’s here and I found her and now the game is over and we can go home, together, at last. In one corner, the tarp has been loosened from its anchors—smart Dara, to have found a place to hide out from the rain—and I climb over the rusted metal siding and slide beneath the tarp into the dark between the cracked old seats. Instantly I’m hit by the smell: of bubble gum and old hamburgers, bad breath and dirty hair.
And then I see her. She scurries backward, as if worried that I’ll hit her. Her flashlight clatters to the ground, and the metal carriage vibrates in response. I freeze, afraid to move, afraid she’ll startle away.
Not Dara. Too small to be Dara. Too young to be Dara.
And even before I pick up the flashlight and click it on, illuminating a covering of Twinkie wrappers and crushed soda cans, of empty Milky Way wrappers and hamburger buns, all the things raccoons were supposed to have been stealing the past few days; even before the light laps the toes of her pink-and-purple slippers and slips up toward her Disney princess pajama bottoms and finally lands on that heart-shaped face, wide-eyed and pale, the stringy mess of blond hair, the pale blue eyes—even before the voices are on top of us and the tarp disappears so that the sky can fall down on us directly—even before then, I know.
“Madeline,” I whisper, and she whimpers or sighs or exhales; I can’t tell which. “Madeline Snow.”
www.theRealTeen.com
Feature: It Happened to Me!
Someone Sold My Topless Pics Online
by: Sarah Snow
as told to Megan Donahue
“All I remember is waking up with no idea about how I’d gotten home . . . and no idea about what had happened to my sister.”
My best friend, Kennedy, and I were hanging out at the mall one Saturday when this guy came up to us, telling us we were both really pretty and asking whether we were models. At first I thought he was just hitting on us. He was maybe twenty-four and pretty cute. He said his name was Andre.
Then he said he owned a bar in East Norwalk called Beamer’s and asked whether we wanted to make money just for showing up at parties. [Editor’s note: Andrew “Andre” Markenson was the manager of Beamer’s up until his recent arrest; the legitimate owners, Fresh Entertainment LLC, were quick to disclaim any knowledge of and to condemn Mr. Markenson’s activities.] At first it sounded sketchy, but he told us that there would be other girls there and we wouldn’t have to do anything besides pass out shots and act friendly and collect tips. He seemed so nice and just, you know, normal. It was easy to trust him.
The first parties were just like he said. All we had to do was dress cute and walk around handing out drinks and be nice to the guys who showed up, and after a few hours we’d walk out with as much as two hundred bucks. We couldn’t believe it.
There were always other girls working, usually four or five on a shift. I didn’t know a lot about them, except I think they must have been in high school, too. But Andre had been careful about telling us we had to be eighteen, even though he never asked for proof, so I always figured he kind of knew we were underage but was just going to pretend as long as we pretended, too.
I do remember this girl, Dara Warren. She stuck out to me because she died in a car crash only a few days after one of the parties. Then the weird thing is that her sister, Nicole, is the one who found Maddie [Editor’s note: Madeline Snow, whose disappearance on July 19 launched a major, county-wide investigation] after she ran away. Crazy, right?
Anyway, Andre always seemed really nice and would tell us all about his life, how he also produced music videos and was a talent scout for TV shows and stuff, even though now I know those were all lies. He sometimes picked a girl to make food runs with him and would come back with burgers and fries for all the girls. He had a really nice car. And he would always give us compliments, tell us we were pretty enough to be models or actresses. Now I know he was just trying to earn our trust.
In April and May and into June there were no parties. I don’t know why. Maybe because of cops or something? At the time, he just told us he was busy with some other projects and hinted he was going to be helping cast for a TV show soon. That was a lie, too.
But at the time I didn’t have any reason to disbelieve him.
Then in late June, the Blackouts started up again. [Editor’s note: “Blackout” was the name given to the private bimonthly parties, for which guests had to pay a sizable membership fee to be admitted.] The night everything happened, my grandma got sick and my mom and dad had to drive to Tennessee to see her in the hospital, so I was in charge of babysitting Maddie, even though I’d already said I’d be at work. I needed the money because I was supposed to be getting a new car and also, I know it’s stupid to say now, but I kind of missed it. The parties were fun and easy and we felt special, you know? Because we’d been chosen.
Maddie had to be in bed by nine, so finally Kennedy and I decided just to bring her along. The parties were usually over by midnight anyway, and we figured she’d just sleep in the backseat. Usually she sleeps through everything—even, like, hurricanes.
Not that night, though.
Andre was being especially nice to me that night. He gave me a shot of this special sweet liquor that tasted kind of like chocolate. Kennedy got mad because I was driving, and I know it was dumb, but I figured one drink wouldn’t hurt. But then things started to get . . . weird.
I can’t explain it, but I was dizzy and things kept happening and I wouldn’t remember them. It was like I was watching a movie but half the footage was missing. Kennedy left early because she was in a bad mood and some guy said something rude to her. But I didn’t know that yet. I just wanted to lie down.
Andre told me he had a private office and there was a couch there, and I could nap for as long as I wanted.
That’s the last thing I remember until the next morning. I woke up puking. My car was parked halfway on my neighbor’s lawn. My neighbor, Mrs. Hardwell, was so pissed. I couldn’t believe I’d driven home, and I was freaking out. I couldn’t remember anything. It was like someone had cut out a part of my brain.
When I realized Maddie was gone, I just wanted to die. I was so scared, and I knew it was all my fault. That’s why I lied about where we’d gone. In retrospect, I know I should have gone to my parents and the police right away, but I was so confused and ashamed and I thought I could find a way to fix it.
I know now what happened was that Maddie woke up and followed me to the lighthouse, which is where Andre had his “office.” It wasn’t an office at all, just a place he photographed girls so he could sell their pictures online. The police think I must have been drugged, because I don’t remember anything.
I guess Maddie got scared and thought I was dead! She’s just a little kid. She thought when she saw me lying there without moving that Andre had killed me. She must have cried out, because he turned around and saw her. She was terrified he would kill her, too, so she ran. She was so scared he would come after her she hid for days, stealing food and water and only coming out for a few minutes at a time, usually at night. Thank God we got her home safely.
At first I didn’t think I’d ever forgive myself, but after speaking for a long time to other girls who have been through similar situations
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