The Girl with Bare Feet - L. Avery Brown (fiction book recommendations TXT) 📗

said it, if any of those little girls said anything, it was to appease you.” Janelle’s fear had started to fall. It had been so long since she’d called 911 she was giving up hope that they would arrive in time. If she was going to do something, she had to do it now. Keeping Wade calm had allowed her to get her feet in a better position to try to fight back.

 

So if he was going to kill her he’d have to fight like hell to do it. “How many did you kill, Wade? I counted what twelve maybe fifteen pages of photos in here. How old were they? You said Allison was a fighter. You didn’t like her fighting back, did you? Did you target younger girls after that? Is that it? Is that why you became a youth minister so you could be near little girls all the time?” With every accusatory question, Wade became more agitated.

 

“Shut up, Janelle. You’re in no position to say anything.” He grabbed the knife and ran it across her chin, blood dripped down her neck across Wade’s hand.

 

“Is that why you wanted to move back here? So you could be near your little prizes? Your trophies? That’s what they are, aren’t they? You took pictures of their feet so you’d be able to remember them. Right? Well guess what, Wade? They’re gone.”

 

“What?” She’d gotten under his skin with that one. And in response Wade took his razor sharp knife and slid it down her forearm. It was bleeding before she realized what he’d done. “You better be fucking lying, Janelle. Or I’ll cut you more. You’ll bleed out, slow. And I will bring Liza in here and you’ll have to watch before you die. Is that what you want?”

 

“Go ahead. Do it. You’ll never find your special pictures. I’m sure there are others. I’m guessing you made the best of your time on the coast, didn’t you. I’m sure the police will find those pictures eventually. I already called the police. They’re coming.” Janelle laughed.

 

Wade’s grip loosened and he turned to look at the box on the shelf. It had been moved. What if she was telling the truth? He’d sliced her, she was bleeding badly and yet she held to her story.

 

Janelle closed her eyes and sighed when she felt his grip loosen. She grabbed a handful of dirt off the floor. “Yep, I found them this morning. But you know whose shoe picture I didn’t find in your little treasure box?”

 

Wade cringed. “What?”

 

“You have photos of all the shoes of the girls you killed but you don’t have a picture of Allison’s shoes. Did you lose that photo? Or do you carry it in your wallet? No. I bet you don’t. I’ll bet you don’t have anything left of her. I think you buried her in here? Maybe in that corner?” Janelle looked forward and saw Allison sitting in the corner with her knees pulled to her chest.

 

“Shut up, Janelle. Shut up.” Wade sliced her arm again opening up another wound that spilled even more blood on the dirt ground.

 

Janelle knew with the second slice she was losing blood so fast she was probably hallucinating but she didn’t care. She nodded at the apparition in front of her. “You kept her locked in here. Probably gagged her so she couldn’t scream, too. And before you killed her she ran into that corner right over there and sat with her knees up to her chest.”

 

“What the hell? Shut up, Janelle. I mean it.”

 

Janelle stared forward and saw Allison’s last moments as if they were happening right then and there. “Something happened.” She watched Allison get yanked up out of the corner by an invisible hand. As Janelle talked both she and Wade were wrapped by icy cold. “You grabbed her and brought her right here where we’re sitting now.” Janelle felt lightheaded.

 

Wade started to tremble. “Shut up.” He ran the knife over her wrist and with a quick motion, she was bleeding more profusely.

 

The cold essence of Allison climbed into Janelle so she  was able to Allison’s last moments even though Janelle knew her own life was slipping away. The cold made her tremble. Allison was in her, keeping her alive so that someone would know her story. Janelle felt Allison’s body being assaulted. The memory of the man who’d stolen Allison’s life weighed on Janelle’s chest. She couldn’t catch her breath. She was sick at her stomach. “You raped her one last time before you killed her. She bit your chin when you were done.” Janelle’s words started to slur together.

 

“No. No. You can’t now that.” Wade played with the pool of blood by Janelle’s arm.

 

“You said, ‘Alli, why’d you do that? You don’t bite someone you love. Why would you do that to me?’ then she said ‘So Mama will see.’ And then you lost it.”

 

The sensation of something hitting her face again and again went through Janelle. She felt Allison’s right cheek bone shatter. Then the wind was knocked out of her by the horrific memory. And a voice jumped out of Janelle’s mouth that was not her own. It was small, young, and terrified.

 

It was Allison’s voice. “No! No! Wade, please. Please. No!”

 

Wade was stunned. Hearing Allison’s voice made him recoil. He slid away from Janelle and looked away in fear.

 

Janelle smiled. She was close to passing out. “Scared, Wade? Now you believe me, don’t you? She remembers it all; every horrible thing you did to her in those last moments.”

 

Then, without any warning, Janelle’s head was lifted off the ground and then was slammed back onto the ground followed by the sensation of something heavy going straight through her head. Then phantom hands wrapped around her throat. They squeezed and Janelle thought she might actually succumb to the violent memory trapped in Allison’s earthbound spirit. She sputtered out, “After you beat her you strangled her. You broke her neck. She was dead.”

 

Wade was trembling. “How do you know that? How?” He shook Janelle but she’d lost so much blood she was barely coherent.

 

“Wade. Leave her alone.”

 

Wade looked up and saw Allison standing there. She was in her shorts and the T-shirt she’d gotten in Pigeon Forge. She was staring at her brother. Somehow, the blood that fell on the ground gave Allison the strength to appear in front of him for the first time in years even though she’d been trying so long to be heard using Janelle’s dreams as a way to get attention.

 

Wade shrank away from the site of his sister. “Allison? Is it you?”

 

“Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

Wade was confused but happy to see her because in his sick, twisted mind he loved Allison as if she was his soulmate and he thought she had returned because she adored him the same as he did her. “You came back to me.”

 

Allison stepped forward. “Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

“What, Alli? Your shoes? I’m sorry. I don’t know where they are. I don’t remember where I put them.”

 

That was not the answer Allison wanted to hear. She popped directly in front of Wade and screamed, “Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

Wade reached out to touch her. She was so close and looked so real and so… beautiful. Just the way he remembered her. “Allison.”

 

But then, in an instant, the dead eyed girl with the battered face was standing in front of him. She reached out and grabbed for his neck. “Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

Wade screamed and stumbled backwards. The Allison he’d laid his hands on some sixteen years earlier came after him. She wanted him to see what he’d done to her. She hounded him screaming, “Can you help me find my shoes?” again and again. It drove Wade mad.

 

He was desperate to get away from Allison, the girl he’d pined so badly for he’d found other girls like her to rape and kill when he was on his trips to visit other churches. He lashed out at her with the knife but it went through her. Wade ran to the door and tried unlocking it but were shaking so badly he couldn’t.

 

Allison got in his face again and screamed, “Can you help me find my shoes?” She popped around the small space so much all Wade could do was try slashing at her.

 

Then Wade saw red and white lights coming through the small window in his killing room. The county rescue people had finally found the house out in the middle of damn nowhere. Wade had to get away, not just from Allison but from the house. He knew how the route to the foot path into the forest. He could make it there before anyone made their way to the back of the house.

 

Wade jiggled the slide lock until it opened and when it did, he yanked the door open and ran out of the space with his bloodied knife… straight towards one of the emergency response people.

 

Three sheriff’s deputies opened fire and shot Wade at least five times until he fell to the ground dead.

 

A paramedic ran into the room and found Janelle lying on the ground with a huge pool of blood around her arm. There was a flurry of activity around Janelle they were trying desperately to save her life. Allison stood there watching Janelle dying. She could feel her heart beat slowing down with each passing second. But Janelle dying wasn’t what she wanted.

 

Allison wanted justice. Not just for herself but for all the girls Wade had raped and murdered over the past sixteen years. She looked to her left and then to her right and saw the shimmering specters of the beautiful little girls Wade had killed. They smiled at her then faded away. And Allison stood there feeling vindicated.

 

The Black Mountain First Responder Team had taken about nineteen minutes to find the house from the time Janelle had placed the call but it felt like an eternity. And now because they’d been so long in finding the place, Janelle was dying. Wade had sliced her at least four times on her arm, on her chin, and behind her ear. She was white. All the color had drained from her just like her blood.

 

“We’ve got to stop this bleeding. Get a tourniquet on her right now.” The paramedic tied off Janelle’s arm up near her shoulder. The bleeding slowed dramatically. But Allison could hear Janelle’s spirit calling out for help. Allison could feel warmth on her back and she turned around. There was a brilliant light behind her. All her friends were waiting there for her. But Allison stepped away from the light and into Janelle’s body. She gave every last ounce of her spirit to Janelle so she could live.

 

“Holy shit. I’ve got a pulse. It’s thready but it’s there. BP’s rising. I don’t know how but, damn, wow.” The man working on Janelle’s was shocked. He looked at the lady across from him. “Fluid, get fluid going now. Get her on the stretcher.”

 

Janelle felt the warmth of life return to her and she opened her eyes.

 

“She’s awake. Let’s move it. Now.” The man who had saved her life by putting the tourniquet looked down at her. “You’re going to be alright, ma’am.”

 

“Laundry room. Liza.”

 

“We’ve got her ma’am. We heard her banging on the door of the machine. She’s okay. Your boy, too. You’re safe now.” 

 

Janelle could hear Dumbo howling like mad as they pulled the stretcher out of the room. “Dumbo, stop barking you stupid dog.”

 

The sheriff's deputy walking beside the stretcher smiled and laughed. “You've got a good hound dog. He was waiting up front and when he saw the lights he started howling. Like he knew we were here to help. It was his howling brought us back here.”

 

Janelle glanced over at Dumbo who was being held by one of the other rescue people. Then she saw someone standing by Dumbo but a few feet away.