Again the woman says something I can’t hear from around the corner.
“You’re right,” the man says. “Maybe it’s some kind of trap.”
My pain disappears. Not out of fear this time, but out of angry disbelief. “A trap? A trap? How in the hell is calling 911 ever going to be a trap? God, you idiot! You stupid idiot!”
He stands there, silent.
“Please, call 911 and tell them you have a meth addict attacking your house!”
“You need to leave now.”
“Let me talk to your wife, please.” My hope is I can get her to understand. She is a woman. She has to understand.
“You’re not talking to my wife.”
I yell loudly, so she can hear me. “Mrs. Logan, please come talk to me!” I hear nothing. “Please! Please just listen to what I have to say. That can’t hurt you.”
Mrs. Logan edges out from around the corner. I press my hands and face against her expensive beveled-glass door, hoping she’ll be able to look into my eyes and see I’m telling the truth.
“Mrs. Logan, my name is Ruth Carver. I’m seventeen years old. I live in Mauldin, South Carolina, with a nice family. I have no idea where I am right now. I’ve been taken by a man named Jerry Balls. He was a man my dad hired a year ago. Mrs. Logan, this man is a rapist. He is a murderer. And he is after me. He is after me, Mrs. Logan.”
The woman takes small steps toward me. I think she wants to get a better look at my face, see if I’m honest.
“You have to believe me, because I’m telling the truth. This man is out here, right now, in these woods, and he is after me. He is going to rape and kill me.” I find myself fighting back emotion, which only makes me angrier. “Please believe me.”
She turns toward her husband. They look into each other’s eyes. I can’t tell what’s happening; all I know is that this is taking too long. More and more, I’m feeling the darkness of the night at my back. I’m standing up against a lit window like a moth, the Wolfman’s truck is out front, and I’m a sitting duck for a long-range hunting rifle.
I hit my fists against the glass. “Please, let me in! He’s out here with me!”
Finally Mrs. Logan speaks. “I believe her.”
Sinking to my knees in relief, I wait for them to come open the door.
The woman adds, “We have to get her out of here.”
Crumpling into a ball, I’m close to weeping.
“Get her out of here!” the woman says.
It takes several seconds for me to understand the meaning of her words. It’s like she’s speaking in a foreign language, but the tone cuts through to my heart. Her voice is like steel. There is no mercy in her words, only urgent self-preservation.
All the same, I say, “What? What are you talking about?”
She turns to me and says, “You need to go.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Go. Get out of here.”
It’s too much. That this person—that this woman—believes me and still won’t help is too much for me to take. I’m not scared of them, and whether they like it or not, they’ll have to deal with me on the other side of the door.
“I am not going to die out here!” I grab the doorknob with both hands and turn.
The husband disappears.
I expected the door to be unlocked, to swing open, but it doesn’t. I fight with it, as though it’s just stuck and not locked and dead bolted. Breathing hard, I give up on the door, but not on my cause. Looking Mrs. Logan in the eye, I sit down in protest.
“I’m not leaving until you call 911. I’m staying right here until you call them.” We stare at one another, and I find myself hating her almost as much as I hate the Wolfman.
“You need to leave.”
“I swear to God, I am going to sue the ever-living fuck out of you once this is all over.”
She says nothing, her eyes ice cold.
I believe mine are even colder. “Every person I meet for the rest of my life I am going to tell them about you and what you’ve done tonight.”
The meat and corn and potatoes hang heavy in the air. I swallow my spit once more. “Can you at least give me some food?”
She doesn’t move, but then I didn’t really expect her to.
Swinging around the corner, the man reappears, a handgun in his fist. Crazy-eyed, he marches down the long hallway toward me, looking dangerously incompetent. He holds the weapon like he’s scared of it.
“Oh God,” I groan. Clambering to my feet, I somehow manage to run away from the front door. Skirting the edge of the house, I duck around to the side, pause, and listen. There is nothing to hear. Mr. Logan didn’t even have the courage to open the front door, which doesn’t surprise me in the least.