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  He parents sent her to sleepaway camp almost every summer. When she first arrived, it felt like the best place she’d ever been. Being outside in nature made her happy. She went swimming, boating, and learned archery. Even though she snapped her arm every time when releasing the bow, she loved it. She could never quite figure out how to keep that from happening.

  One of her favorite things at camp was the Sugar Shack. They had so much candy, and she loved it! Her parents had put plenty of money in her canteen for it, but she still used it all up and wanted more.

  The daytime was so nice for her, but at night, things were much different. The first night she spent there was torture. She lay in her bunk, and although she wasn’t alone because there were other girls there, she was terrified. Being so far away from home with the fear she always had at night was too much. It was bad enough having the nightmares, and seeing the horrible rat beast at home when she had her parents there to protect her, but here in this strange place it was unbearable.

  The shadows in this new room were different, and created new creatures for her to be afraid of. These were harder to deal with, because they were new and unknown, but she couldn’t show her fear to these girls. They would make fun of her, she was sure of it. After trying to hide her fear for several nights, she gave in and began to cry at night. She cried every night after that, demanding to be sent home. She couldn’t take the separation.

  “Please!” She would whine. “Let me go home!” She would do this all night and didn’t even care that the other girls in her cabin would scream at her, “Shut up!”

  “I can’t,” she would say. “Please someone call my Mom.”

  She missed home terribly, and finally her parents came to get her. She felt so much relief, but at the same time, she still had that nagging feeling that she didn’t even belong in her own home. So where did she belong? She didn’t know.

  Back at school, the normal kids didn’t seem to like her. They were always whispering and pointing at her in the hallways. The girls were always giving her nasty looks. This pissed her off and put her on the defensive. What a way to live.

  She couldn’t focus in any of her classes, and she would get angry at people so easily. When she was angry, she couldn’t think straight, and therefore couldn’t learn. Since she was not able to pay attention in class, she became disruptive, and spent more and more time in the guidance office, or in the bathroom smoking cigarettes, than she did in the classroom.

  But the misfit kids seemed to like her, and accepted her as one of their own. They took off during the day, just left school, and didn’t even care if they got in trouble.

  Eventually she got enough nerve to start leaving school grounds with the other kids. They would cross the street and hang out in the cemetery. One of the kids always had alcohol, and she would take a couple of sips. Wow, did that make her feel good. One of her friends would take them to her friend’s house and they would listen to music, smoke cigarettes, and drink. One kid smoked weed, and she tried that too. Anything to make her mind stop spinning. But when the weed wore off, her mind went right back to its usual chaos.

  When she was on these little excursions from school, she started losing track of time. She would get home later and later each day, or even miss her ride home. There was no way she could tell the truth about what she was doing, so she had to start lying to her parents about where she had been, especially once they started catching on to her skipping classes and leaving school to party with her friends.

  Once again everyone wanted to know, “What were you thinking?” She could hear them talking about her. “Why did she do this, and why did she do that?”

  They asked her over and over again. Didn’t she care about her life or her future? Honestly, she didn’t care about herself at all. She had stopped some time ago. What she really wanted was to be left the fuck alone.

  “What is wrong with you?” was another question constantly asked of her. How can a girl grow strong when adults were always asking that? She didn’t even know herself what was wrong with her. How could she explain to them?

  At night, she was terrified. She tried her best to sleep, but her level of fear about nothing had become so great that she would sit straight up in bed in the middle of the night. Thoughts of the man coming into her room again, touching her over and over, pushed themselves into her mind. Her hands would get sweaty and heat would rise up the back of her shoulders into her neck and head. No matter how hard she tried, she could not get back to sleep, and she would just lie there shaking all night in her bed. Sometimes, the fear was so intense that she actually saw things.

  These things were not your average run-of-the-mill monsters. They were evil things lurking in the dark corners of her room, and other places where she slept. One of the things that seemed to follow her everywhere was the rat. This beast was bigger than any rat she’d ever seen. It stood about three feet tall. It had a black cape that she thought looked like it was made of leather. It stared at her with its horrible, scary, blazing red eyes. It always stayed in the corner of the room, but just its presence was enough to terrify any little girl. Especially one who really didn’t need any more scary things in her life.

  She hated seeing this hideous creature, but at the same time, she couldn’t look away. It made her heart jump up into her throat. Frozen with fear, all she could do was stare at it, afraid that if she closed her eyes, it would jump into her bed, and do unspeakable things to her. She would eventually fall asleep, and luckily, it never actually came over and did anything to her, but the level of fear was unreal, and so much for a tiny mind to handle.

  When she woke after these visits from the creature, she had always peed in her bed. When her mother saw she had wet the bed, she would start with the questions again. Why had she done it? Why wasn’t she getting up and going to the bathroom?

  “Well, Mom, there’s this giant rat that scares the shit out of me, and I don’t want to set foot on the floor cuz I’m scared it will rip my face off.”

  Nope. Couldn’t say that. So, she used her go-to answer, “I don’t know.”

  Besides the evil rat, she also had an overwhelming fear that someone was going to come in through her window, or break into her house and rape or kill her. Sometimes there was no actual idea of what would happen. Sometimes it was just a feeling of pure terror.

  She would sit straight up in her bed, and run to her mother’s room crying, always glancing at the dark corner of the room to make sure the rat wasn’t there waiting to jump out at her. Mom would console her, saying there nothing to be afraid of, and send her back to bed. Even after getting Mama’s love and kisses, the feeling still remained that she wasn’t safe.

  Even when visiting her favorite place on Earth, her grandmother’s house, the fear she had at bedtime followed her. She would have such a wonderful time during the day, and then when it was time for bed. As she lay there reflecting on the fun she’d throughout the day, the happy feeling quickly changed from joy to that familiar fear she knew so well.

  At night she would lie in the spare bedroom, and look around at the shadows on the wall. In the summer it was super-hot in the room, so she would open the window. When she did, the shadows moved around on the wall, and that was unbearable. It seemed that they had come to life and she knew that they were after her. She squeezed her eyes closed as tight as she could, but they were still there, waiting for her to open her eyes.

  After lying in bed for a half hour or so, and trying to ignore it for as long as she could, she would sneak in to sleep with her grandmother. Her Grammy would kick her grandfather out of the bed, and he would go downstairs and sleep on the couch. Shiah absolutely loved sleeping next to her. She felt safe next to her, and so she slept soundly. No giant rats getting past Grammy.

  After sleeping peacefully all night, before she even opened her eyes, she could smell the peppers and eggs that her Grandfather was making downstairs. Her grandmother was already up, and always left a robe for her on the chair next to the bed. Shi
ah got up, put the robe on, and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Then went down to the kitchen to fill her belly with the delicious breakfast. What a nice, cozy time in her life. It was the best time in the whole wide world. She never wanted to leave.

  Even though she had a good mother and father in her life, more demons would enter to torment her. She was already a strong girl, despite the suspected trauma she had experienced as a small child. Then, one night, something else came into her life to turn it upside down.

  She was lying in bed after she had tucked herself in for the night. Her bedroom windows were open so she could hear the nighttime sounds from the outside. What woke her up was the sound of her father’s voice asking a man they had let stay the night what he was doing. The man was from their church. Her parents were always trying to help those who had less than they did, so they had given a homeless man from their church a place to sleep.

  She could tell that the visitor was drunk by the way he slurred his words, and was apologizing to Stan for drinking his liquor, or whatever it was. He kept promising not to touch it again. “Trust me,” he said. “Just leave the bottle right here and when you wake up it will still have the same amount in it as when you went to sleep.”

  Believing him, Stan retreated back to the bedroom he and Shiah’s mother shared on the opposite side of the kitchen.

  Shiah lay in her bed wearing her undershirt and a pair of tights she had worn earlier that day. First, she heard the man mumbling something to himself. His voice grew closer as he entered her room. His mumbling got louder, and he was suddenly next to her bed. She could smell his stench. He was filthy and had a strong aroma of alcohol. He began talking to her. She pretended not to hear, hoping he would go away. But he didn’t. All of a sudden, Shiah felt his hand pulling the covers down and then resting between her legs. His breathing got deeper.

  “Oh my God, what is he doing?” she thought.

  She turned her body away from him, but he continued rubbing his fingers between her legs. He must have heard something, because he stood up quickly and left the room. Was her father coming?

  “Please let him rescue me from this terrible thing!” she pleaded in her mind.

  She was so confused. Why had he just done that? His shadow appeared again in the doorway. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned even further toward the wall again.

  “No. Please don’t come back in!” Her mind was racing. Again he was at her bedside mumbling more ridiculous nonsense.

  “Get away from me!” She wanted to scream it, but could not. She could not speak, and he couldn’t hear her thoughts. He pulled her back toward him, and this time he reached his hand underneath her underwear and began touching her skin to skin. His hands were rough, and they scratched her. It was the most sickening thing she had ever felt.

  “Don’t you like it?” he asked.

  No, she didn’t want this, but was still unable to say anything.

  “You know you like it.”

  He pulled his hand out, licked his fingers, and put them back inside her tights. He kept whispering incoherently to himself. It was impossible to understand what he was talking about. If she fought him off her, would he hurt her? Hurt her parents? Please make it stop! Please go away. Finally he stopped, stood up, and left the room.

  Shiah could do nothing. She couldn’t cry out, and she couldn’t move. She turned onto her side, and lay there in her bed all night until the morning when her mother woke her up for school. She didn’t want to come out of her room, but heard her mother and Stan talking to each other about the fact that the man had left in the middle of the night.

  She pushed the night before into the back of her mind as far as she could, and didn’t let it out until almost thirty years later. Even then, Stan was the only one who believed her. It destroyed her even further over the years. Why had it happened to her? Did she do something to make this guy come to her in the night? His actions confused her, and made her even more unsure of herself than she already was.

  Learning about life the best she could, she made her way into her teenage years with what she thought were her faults. She felt that was all she had, but really she was just reacting to what had been brought into her life without her permission. Too many thoughts, and too many crazy things going through her head all the time. She loved her family so much, but they didn’t understand her. No one did. Maybe no one ever would.

  Can Anyone Hear Me?

  Years had passed without any more major incidents, and Shiah was now sixteen. She should have been vibrant and full of love for life, but the scars of her childhood wouldn’t release her mind, even now. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, with hazel green eyes, and her hair had grown down past her shoulders. It hung in curly ringlets, and was the color of a raven’s feathers. She was stunning.

  One thing she had begun to think about was what love would be like. Thinking about this type of thing was new to her, but she had been watching her mother and father for years, and she began to want what they had so badly. It seemed like they made each other so happy.

  From what she could see and hear, they loved each other very much. Her father always held the door for her mother, still kissed her all the time. He said he loved her every chance he got, and every day he told her how pretty she was. Shiah saw the way he looked at her mother. Even from the very beginning, he watched her with loving eyes. They had small arguments, and her mother would stay angry longer than he would. Eventually she’d soften, come around, and soon they would be holding hands again, deeply in love with each other.

  Shiah wanted this beautiful affection too. She needed someone or something that made her feel as happy as her mother was. She wondered if it would help her to be able to overcome all her fears and the excruciating pain she felt inside. After deciding that it would indeed help her, she was determined to have it. She had also decided that it couldn’t be just an ordinary love. It had to be fiery and powerful. It had to be the kind of love that would be as strong as steel and never crumble, no matter who tried to shake it. Her love needed to last forever and ever and ever. It was surely within her reach, and so she set out to find it. But just when she thought she was free to find something to make her happy because she was tired of people pushing their way into her life to hurt her, something else happened.

  One summer while she was away with her parents and grandparents at their summer home, she was walking down the main beach road with a couple of girls who were the same age as she was. She’d met them through friends or neighbors that summer. She wasn’t used to hanging out that much and really wanted to be able to do something different from her usual boring life.

  She had lied to her family and told them that she was going for a walk down to the pier with them. The girls had told Shiah there was a party they could go to. She was so intrigued, as she had never been to a party that didn’t involve family before.

  They arrived at the party, and everyone there was much older than they were. Someone immediately gave her a cup that she was told was beer. She tasted it, and it tasted disgusting. Guys at the party shouted, “Just drink it down!!”

  So she did. The feeling she started to get as she drank it was amazing. She had tingles in her belly, and every single worry she had ever felt started to fade away. It was incredible. Soon her head was spinning, and she began to lose track of what was going on around her.

  She didn’t know where her friends had gone, but the next thing she knew, she woke up in a bedroom and there were guys in there. The lights were turned off, and someone was taking her clothes off. She tried to resist, but felt weak, and couldn’t move.

  She was lying on her back and kept seeing different faces hovering over her. She could hear a lot of laughing, so they must have been having fun. The next thing she remembered was that she felt very sick. She opened her eyes again, and saw that it was light out. She could feel pain between her legs, and as she reached down to touch, she could feel that she was terribly swollen, and she winced at her own touch.


  Shiah rolled over and saw that there was no one else in the bed with her. That was somehow a relief. Pulling the sheet around her naked body, she made her way slowly to the bedroom door, calling out, “Hello?” as she opened the door. No one answered. In fact there was no one in the entire house at all.

  She felt like she had to pee as well as vomit, so she found the bathroom, and although she sat on the toilet as gingerly as she could, she began to cry in pain as she urinated. It stung so badly. The wastebasket was close enough for her to grab, and she puked into it. She was so sick and dizzy, and had no idea where she was. All she could do was sit there for an unknown amount of time.

  Eventually realizing she needed to get out of there and find help, she went back into the room where she woke up and found her clothes. The room had a strange smell. It was a combination of stale beer and sweat. Her eyes moved to the messy bed. There were spots of blood scattered around on the sheets. As she realized that the blood was hers, she gently cupped her hand between her legs, as if to comfort her own body after the trauma it had just been through.

  After getting dressed, she made her way out of the house and to the street. She walked to the main road and stumbled down the street, stopping to throw up as she went. Everyone was staring at her as she kept asking people where the police station was, but no one actually helped her. She knew that if she could just get there, someone there would help her. Finally finding her way there, she went inside and told the person behind the glass, “I think I was raped.”

  They immediately brought her inside. It all happened so fast. They started asking questions, and even though she thought she would be getting comfort and help, the entire time they were talking to her, she felt as if she had done something wrong. Their tone when they spoke to her was accusatory, not concerned. The police did want to know where the house was located, and surprisingly she remembered exactly where it was. They put her in a cruiser and she showed them the house. But there was no one there.