P R O L O G U E
I
THE VOICE BELOW
TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1980
It was a very unseasonably hot summer day in the Pacific Northwest, well hotter than most really. Rarely did the temperature ever reach up into triple digits, but this was the third straight day in a row where the heat would become the main topic of the evening news. One person who knew this very well was Tom Pennington, who was on his way from the town he lived in to a more urban area for a job interview. Not just any interview for any job, the interview for the job. He spent his time in college training and studying to program video games. After he had attended many months of classes, learning the ins and outs of computer programming, learning how to manipulate pixels to do his bidding, and learning how to animate them and to create actual games, he felt his moment in the spotlight had arrived. He had spent an equal amount of time on his internship, working below others with lesser creativity and imagination than he had. And finally, he had graduated a year prior only to discover there were few jobs in the field to be had at the time.
And so, Tom did what any broke college graduate would do, he and his wife moved into his parent’s basement, and continued to look for work, with the reminder notes gnawing at his mailbox and his mind that his student loans were coming due, and he would eventually need to pay them. Living with his parents wasn’t too big of a deal to him, but his wife absolutely hated the idea that they were living in the basement with a toddler, even though it was the coolest part of the house during the days of this very hot summer. He had applied many times now to Geo F/X, a software company in the Seattle area, and all he had gotten in return was a collection of some very nice “Thank you for your interest in our company” letters; thirteen of them, to be exact, which he kept in a manila file in his desk drawer. With that in mind, he took the time to make certain that everything was perfect for this upcoming interview, that there was nothing he had been forgotten. He had his spare resume, his references, enough fuel, enough time, and even a spare change of clothing should he need them for any reason. He had spent the last day practicing what he would say, and brushing up on his skills, so he could demonstrate that without a doubt, he was the best person that their company was looking for. He had never gotten this far before, and it was apparent to him that more than anything it was his persistence that had paid off. And for that reason alone, there wasn’t anything he wasn’t prepared for, at least that’s what he thought.
The only thing that Tom wished were different was that the air conditioning was working properly in the car. But he was driving on the Interstate, at speeds higher than 70 miles an hour, and normally he would have the window down, but didn’t want to risk messing up his hair before the interview. Other than the heat, it was a perfect day. Tom began humming along with the radio and kind of dancing in his seat as he did so.
Suddenly there was some turbulence in the car, and the steering became sluggish, which caused Tom to stop humming altogether. He reached over and turned the radio off, and heard the familiar thumping sound of what he suspected was a flat tire. Tom slowed his vehicle and pulled onto the shoulder, stopping the car, and cursing under his breath as he did so.
As the car slowed and then stopped altogether, Tom took a moment to gather his wits, so he could deal with this situation and then get to his interview. “This is why you leave early for these things, right?” He thought to himself. Taking a deep breath, he got out of the car as the blast of the hot summer day impacted against him, causing him to almost instantly sweat. He stepped out of the car and walked quickly to the back of the car, popping the trunk with hope still in his heart that he might still make it in time.
Upon looking inside of the trunk of the car, Tom’s face drooped almost instantly. Instead of the spare tire that should have been there, there was a length of rope, a baby stroller, a baby swing, and a box of well-used baby clothes that his wife had been procrastinating taking to the trade-in store. More infuriating yet, he could visualize the spare leaning against his dad’s motorcycle in the garage, causing him an increased amout of irritation with each passing moment. He could feel the rage and the frustration building inside of him, and before he knew what he had done, he had slammed the trunk shut, and was screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs. The physical activity caused him to sweat excessively and the heat sapped his energy out of him quickly, as he plopped down on the guardrail at the side of the road to catch his breath.
Thankfully, there was a slight breeze that was beginning to pick up, as Tom sat there for a moment, panting and thinking about that tire and trying to figure out how he could have possibly overlooked something as important as that. He voiced another scream again, just to make himself feel better about the situation, and that was when he thought he heard something, a voice, and it was calling for help. It was weak, barely audible over the breeze, his heavy breathing, and the whoosh of the passing traffic. Tom had dismissed it the first time he heard it, thinking that the heat was playing tricks on his mind, and sat back down again. The voice called out again.
“Help me!!” The voice cried. “I know you’re up there, help me!!”
Tom’s head cocked at the sound and he looked around, up the road and down the road, and saw nothing. But this was the second time he had heard the voice, so it had to be coming from someplace. He looked out over the treetops, out past the guardrail into the vast expanse of evergreens that lay beyond, and then realized that the voice must have come from below, deep down in the ravine. Again, the voice called out to him, but somewhat weaker than before. “Help Me!!”
Tom carefully climbed out over the guardrail and looked down into the ravine and saw what he thought was an unclothed body laying far below next to the creek, and furthermore, the body looked as if it had been beaten pretty badly, but he couldn’t tell for sure from where he was at. It was a sheer thirty-five feet straight down from the road to the bottom of the ravine where the body laid. He wouldn’t have known it from the voice that called out to him, but as he looked a little harder, he realized that it was the body of a woman.
“This is going to be a very long day.” Tom thought to himself.
II
THE DESCENT
When the realization hit Tom of what it was he was beholding, he jumped back in surprise, covering his eyes, as she was wearing no clothing but seemed to be covered in a brownish substance. In his mind, he knew what the substance was but held out some hope that it was mud or something else. Anything else but what his mind feared that it was. Tom took a moment to steady himself and to gather some courage before calling down to her.
“I’m going to get some help!!” Tom yelled in a panic. “I’ll be right back!”
The woman clearly didn’t like this idea.
“No!! Don’t leave me!!” She screamed, grabbing handfuls of dirt and rocks and tossing them toward the wall beside her. “Don’t leave me here to die!!”
But Tom’s mind was already on the task at hand and he was back over the guardrail trying to flag down someone to help him. Several cars just flew by him, not even slowing down, and one came dangerously close to hitting him. After a few moments, he was able to flag down a truck, and the driver seem less than amused. He rushed over to the passenger side of the truck and frantically banged on the door, screaming incomprehensibly about needing help. Less than amused, or enthusiastic, the truck driver flung open the door and spoke to him in a gruff and threatening tone.
“You had better have a good reason why you’re pounding on my truck.” The rugged looking truck driver said in a tone that made no mistake about his meaning.
Tom could only respond with a barrage of words that made little sense, as he was panting again from the heat taking everything out of him. The truck driver did manage to decipher the words ‘woman’, ‘help’, and ‘ravine’ out of everything that he said. The truck driver rolled his eyes for a moment and pulled the truck door closed, giving Tom the impression th
at he was leaving, causing him to lose his nerve even more, as he slapped the side of the rig again. The driver’s side door opened, and a very large, burly and gruff man lumbered out of the vehicle, walking around the front of the truck with his heavy footfalls. Tom was very intimidated by the truck driver, who he had a look on his face that meant trouble. As the trucker rounded the front of the truck and Tom could see the full view of him, he could see the driver’s fists were doubled up.
Expecting the worst, Tom ran back toward where his car was parked and tried to get the driver to follow, which he did, yelling about his truck. But it was only a moment that the heat began to slow the truck driver down as he chased Tom around his car a couple times, yelling some very angry sounding, but unintelligible threats. Tom finally caught his breath enough to tell him about the woman in the ravine, but the truck driver was skeptical of Tom’s claims.
“You’d better not be messing with me, boy!” The trucker said brusquely, as he walked over to the guardrail and began climbing over. He looked down into the ravine and saw the body of the woman, who had momentarily gone silent.
Fearing the worst, as Tom often did, he offered some advice.
“You should get on your CB radio and see if you can’t get someone to come.” Tom said, his voice wavering from the heat and fatigue. “We need a rescue crew and an ambulance.”
The trucker nodded in agreement, not saying a word. Tom continued with his ramblings, going on about rescue techniques and the best way to approach
“I have some rope in the trunk; I’m going to go down.” Tom stated. “When you get someone on the radio, come back and give me some help, OK?”
Again, the trucker simply nodded in response.
Tom went to the back of the car and opened the trunk again, grabbing the rope and trying to untangle it from the stroller and the swing as he did so. “I am going to have a very long talk with my wife about this when I get home.” He thought to himself, clearly showing his frustration over the used baby items. After freeing the rope from the trunk, he examined it and tried to calculate the length of it in his head, hoping there was enough to do the job. He thought that the length looked as if it might work, as he tried to recall some of the knot tying that earned him his merit badge back when he was a boy scout.
As Tom dragged the rope over to the guardrail, he glanced over and seen the trucker in the cab of his truck trying to reach somebody on the radio. He cursed the heat under his breath as he desperately tried to tie the rope around one of the supports that held up the guardrail, until he came up with a knot that he felt comfortable with, well enough so that he could climb down anyway.
Tom hopped over the guardrail and gripped the rope, as he looked down the sheer rock face that the ravine provided, planning in his head the best possible route for his descent. He knew that he should avoid the mossy areas on the cliff, as they would be dried out and would probably easily crumble under the weight of his feet. As he weighed his options, the woman below began calling to him for help again, and he knew that he had precious little time to lose, and just decided to go for it.
Tom tightened his grip on the rope and began walking himself down the rock face, slowly and steadily until after about ten feet down, a frightening thought occurred to him. “What if this rope doesn’t support my weight?” He thought to himself, as a certain degree of panic began to set itself into his mind, causing his hands and legs to shake somewhat. The heat was causing his hands to sweat, making it difficult to keep a good grip on the rope, which added greatly to his panic factor. It was also not a great moment for him to remember that he wasn’t overly fond of heights anyway. About half way down the face of the ravine, his foot slipped on some of the dried moss, causing him to slam into the rocks and this caused him to fear his possible demise even more. A second later he regained his footing and continued his trek down the side of the rock face until he reached the floor without further incident.
Tom knew that what he was about to see would be unpleasant, but even his mind couldn’t imagine the full extent of the injuries that the young woman had endured, as he turned slowly and gazed fully on her for the first time.
“My name is Tom Pennington,” he said in the calmest and most reassuring voice he could muster in his present situation. “I’m here to help you.”
III
A GRIM ASSESSMENT
As Tom looked on the woman’s naked body for the first time, he was sickened by what he saw. He wasn’t sure what had happened to her, and he was fairly certain that he didn’t want to. But one thing he was sure of, he knew that he had to help her. There was a reason that tire had blown when and where it did, and that reason revealed itself in the form of a helpless girl in the bottom of a ravine. He took a few steps closer to her and seen that the reddish-brown substance that covered her was a mixture of dirt and blood, or that’s what he surmised it to be at any rate. The patches of skin that weren’t covered in this substance were sunburned very badly, as if she had been laying here for a day or two. He tried to remember back to health class and remember what a third-degree burn looked like, and it seemed to him that this was by far the worst sunburn he had ever seen.
The girl’s left leg was bent in an extremely unnatural position, indicating that it was severely broken and the bone in that leg was protruding through the skin, but not exposed. Her right leg appeared to have a large stick impaling it, and Tom wasn’t certain if it had gone completely through or not. Her left arm appeared to be broken as well, as it was lying limp over a boulder, her hand dangling off the far side of it. Her right arm seemed only nominally functional, and was gripping a discarded beer can that somebody had discarded from the window of their vehicle as they passed by that spot. She seemed to be using it to gather small amounts of water from a creek that was just within arm’s reach so she could dip the can into it, providing her with some fluid. This, more than anything else, is most likely what had sustained her and kept her alive.
As Tom stepped closer, he seen that the girl’s flesh was very much burned, and that it had begun to rot in some places, causing a terrible odor unlike any he had ever smelled before. At the place on her leg where the branch had stabbed through, he could see maggots eating away at the meat on her useless appendage. Her face and body was covered in bruises, as if she had been beaten very badly by someone, or possibly more than one person. In various places on her body the sunburn physically covered some of the bruised areas, intensifying her pain, or so it seemed to him. Patches of her hair looked as if it were substantially ripped out, as there were areas on her exposed scalp that were scabbed over. As he lost himself in a trance of examining her injuries, or as close as he could approximate based on his limited medical experience, he was jarred back to the now by a voice from above.
“Hey, down there,” The truck driver called out. “I have some help on the way, should be about 15 minutes or so.”
“OK, that’s good.” Tom responded, still shaken by the sight of the woman. Upon hearing his voice, the girl began bawling and yelling at him, and throwing handfuls of dirt at him with her good arm. She screamed expletives at him and demanded that he not touch her, making threats upon his person if he dared to come any closer. Her use of foul language was actually so great that Tom found himself somewhat embarrassed by the things she was saying, and he had heard plenty of nasty things in his days upon the Earth.
Tom’s eyes widened upon this turn of events, not knowing how to react to her at this point. It was obvious that somebody did this to her, and he was sure that even she didn’t know exactly who. Whoever did this; it must have been a male, or a group of males, as she seemed particularly hostile toward him, or at least the thought of him. All he could do was try to talk to her in a calm voice, and hoped she would calm down enough for him to help her.
“Please, you have to calm down.” Tom stated in a cool tone of voice. “I didn’t do this to you; I am here to help you.”
Tom continued talking to her f
or the next half a minute or so, when she seemed to calm down of her own accord, most likely having expending the last of her energy reserves. She seemed to come to her senses for the moment, and it almost seemed as if she smiled at him, but only very slightly.
Tom quickly tried to evaluate the best possible way of getting her back up the rock face so the EMT crew could help her when they arrived. Looking at what he had available to him; he knew that he didn’t have the items he needed to haul her back up the cliff. He knew he wasn’t strong enough to do it, and in this god-awful heat, he wasn’t sure he could even if he had the physical strength.
“Hey!!” Tom called up to the truck driver. “I need a blanket from your truck, and your belt too.”
The trucker looked down at him and nodded, pulling his belt off as he did so. Tom also pulled his belt off and his necktie as well. A moment later, the trucker reappeared at the top of the cliff tossing down a folded blanket, his belt, and a few bungee cords as well.
Tom grabbed the blanket and spread it out on the ground near the woman, and then looked around the area for another stick. He found one not too far away and carried it over to her. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small pocketknife, one that had been given to him by his late grandfather. He cut the tie into two pieces, and tied them around her left leg and the broken branch both above and below the knee, making a splint for the leg. She groaned in pain as he tightened the strips of fabric around her leg.
“I know that don’t feel too good.” Tom said, trying to keep her focus more on his voice and less on the pain. “I’m going to have to move you onto that blanket. I can’t promise that it won’t hurt, in fact it probably will. A lot.” She nodded slightly as if she understood what he was saying and then braced herself for the pain to come
“We’ll go on three, OK?” Tom asked, trying to sound as enthusiastic as he could. “One . . .Two . . .Three!!”
Tom picked her body up and set her as gently as he could on the center of the blanket as she sent out a blood-curdling cry, one that sent a shiver straight into Tom’s soul. He then used the wrapped the ends of the blanket around her to roll her up in it, and then fastened the belts and the bungee cords around the outside so she would be protected on the way up from scraping her wounds against any of the rocks.
IV
ASCENDING TO SALVATION
Tom knew the easy part was over. He knew that thirty-five feet up that cliff would be the longest distance he ever traveled in the entirety of his whole life. He knew that it wouldn’t be pleasant. The heat was already taking a toll on him, and he knew that he needed some help. He wondered for the moment if he should wait for the rescue crew to arrive, but quickly decided against it. He walked over to the creek for a moment and leaned down in front of it, cupping some water into his hands and drinking several handfuls. He dipped his head in to cool himself off, and then gathered his wits about him. He also brought the injured young woman something to drink as well, for which she seemed exceedingly thankful.
He walked over to the rope at the bottom of the rock face and tied the end of it in a loop that he could put around their bodies, which hopefully would support their combined weight. He looked up to the top of the rock face briefly and noticed that the truck driver and a few others people were there now as well. He could hear the murmuring from the small crowd that was gathering above, although most of what was said was incomprehensible to him. Tom walked back over to her, looking down at her, directly in the eyes as if he were trying to give her some of his strength. He let out a breath of air, and then bent down and picked up her body, slumping her over his shoulder, and carried her over to the sheer rock wall where the rope awaited.
Each step was more difficult than the previous one as the hot air seared into his lungs, making his breathing more and more difficult with each passing step. She didn’t weigh that much, only about 105 pounds by his reckoning, but the heat just drained him of energy as quickly as he could gather it. After only five or six steps, sweat began to form on his brow, and in another couple of steps, it began to drip from his head. The cacophony of her screams pierced his head like nails from a nail gun and she showed no signs of letting up. The twenty-five feet from the creek to the rock wall seemed like miles to him as his legs began to shake slightly. After what seemed like an eternity, he reached the shade provided by the rock face, which only cooled him slightly. Another couple of steps brought him to the rope. He leaned her body against the rock face and brought the loop down over the top of both of them before tightening it around them.
The young girl’s shrieking continued, and although it was very loud, Tom did his best to tune it out. He began to think of a story from his childhood about a train, The Little Engine that Could. He began chanting to himself over and over and over “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” He paused only long enough to call up to the truck driver.
“I’m ready!!” He called out. “Pull us up!!”
The trucker climbed over the rail and took hold of the rope, pulling on it, but made very little progress. Another few seconds later, another guy was over the railing, helping the truck driver tug the rope up to the top. As soon as there was a little slack in the rope, a woman grabbed it too, helping the truck driver as best as she could.
There seemed to be about twenty people gathered at the top of the ravine and each one of them was eager to help pull that rope.
Meanwhile, Tom and the young woman were slowly inching their way up the rock face. He was doing his best to gain a foothold, but couldn’t see his feet because she was in the way. He had to remember as he passed each area of the rock where the moss was and extrapolate where he would place his feet. His muscles were burning, crying out for relief from this hideous workout they had been receiving today. Even with four people pulling on the rope now, it was still going very slowly, as he didn’t want to drop her, or didn’t want to lose his footing again. Again, he began to panic about the quality and durability of the rope. In the distance Tom could hear the song of the ambulance siren approaching. He figured that it must be close if he could hear it over her screaming. She was hyperventilating, and her screams were slowing down. He knew that meant that she may be going into shock, so he tried as best as he could to step up the pace. He called up to the trucker, apprising him of the situation and stressing the urgency of her condition to him.
As more slack became available on the rope, more and more people took hold of it and helped to pull them up. With additional people on the rope, the velocity of their ascent increased. Soon they were within feet of the top, a little more than an arm’s length away when Tom noticed that the rope had begun to fray, and wouldn’t last much longer. The trucker noticed it too.
“Hurry!!” Tom cried. “The rope is going to break!!”
Sensing the desperation in Tom’s voice, the trucker heaved even harder on the rope, jerking them violently upward while the rope continued to fray just inches from where Tom and the woman were tied in the loop. Everyone pulled the rope harder; Tom’s head was level with the top of the road. A few of the onlookers jumped over the guardrail and grabbed the woman, and grabbed Tom’s arms, pulling him up to safety. The woman’s screams died out completely as the emergency crew arrived. Tom looked over at her, nearly out of breath to see her smile only slightly just before she lost consciousness completely.
V
TREATMENT
Jane Doe awoke nearly six weeks later in a hospital in Seattle Washington. Disoriented, she looked around the room as a nurse entered, surprised to see her awake. The nurse took some vitals, and asked her if she knew her name. She tried to speak, but the words did not come easily, in fact she had great difficulty forming them. It was painful for her to move. She rested awake on her bed for a couple of hours before trying to comprehend what it was that happened to her.
It was another two weeks before the young woman’s speech returned fully to her, and she was very glad when it did. Eac
h day her condition improved more and more and she felt strength return to her body.
It was the third week after her re-awakening that a doctor came to her to fully discuss what happened to her. The doctor was a middle-aged woman named Chelsea Batten. She seemed very kind, but still professional. Sitting in the corner of the room in a chair with a pad of paper was a man dressed in a suit, taking notes.
“I’m Doctor Batten.” She began. “Do you know what your name is?”
“My name is . . .” She began, seemingly frightened to tell them her name. “Megan Moxley.”
The doctor wrote her name down in her file, as did the detective sitting in the corner. He was watching her as he was writing, taking notes on her what she was saying as well. Doctor Batten continued to ask her questions.
“Do you know how you ended up in that ravine?” Chelsea asked, hoping to solve the mystery.
Megan looked at her with a blank expression for a moment, and then replied with some hesitation. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Megan went silent after this, and the doctor waited for her to say something, anything at all. After a few moments, the doctor spoke to her again.
“Megan, we only want to help you.” She said in a reassuring voice.
Tears began to well up in Megan’s eyes and she forced them back, not allowing them to fall. She looked at the doctor, wishing she could tell her, but couldn’t find the words. Doctor Batten continued to talk to her, filling her in on some details.
“We took samples of your blood, and sent them to our toxicology lab for testing. You had traces of heroin, marijuana, and various hallucinogens in your blood. There was also another drug in your system, one that didn’t match up to any of our tests.” Doctor Batten said, looking Megan straight in the face as she did so. “If we are going to treat you, we need to know what this substance is.”
“It’s a drug that I was testing for a pharmaceutical company.” Megan replied. “I don’t know what it is, or what it does, but they paid me well to take it.”
Doctor Batten nodded and took note of it, as did the detective in the suit.
“Megan . . .” Doctor Batten continued. “Please try and tell me what happened.”
It was very difficult and very painful to her to relay the details of the story to Doctor Batten, especially with the detective present. Chelsea Batten could see that his presence in the room was unnerving to her patient, so she filled Megan in on the details. “It’s okay to talk, he is a detective, and he’s here to take a statement on your behalf.”
After several hours of recalling all the grueling details, Doctor Batten informed her regarding the extent of her injuries, about their continued treatment and what the hospital would be doing for her in the coming months of her physical rehabilitation. It all seemed so clinical to Megan, who was already longing to leave the hospital, but that day wouldn’t come for months. Just as Doctor Batten was wrapping up, another nurse came into the room and handed off some paperwork to her. Her eyes scanned over it and then she looked at the nurse.
“Are you sure?” Doctor Batten asked
“We ran it twice, just to be completely certain.” The nurse responded.
Doctor Batten sat back down in her chair and looked at Megan directly in the eyes.
“We’ve just gotten back the results of another lab test.” Doctor Batten said. “It appears that you are pregnant.”
ACT I
LIVING IN FEAR