Blackteeth Read online

  BLACKTEETH

  C.L. Bevill

  BLACKTEETH

  By C.L. Bevill

  Published by C.L. Bevill LLC

  Copyright ©2020 by Caren L. Bevill

  Blackteeth is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For Catherine J. Routen – 1960-2020 RIP

  Who likely died because some buttwipe

  douchebag got his feels hurt.

  Contents

  What Happened First

  What Happened After That

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Also by C.L. Bevill

  What Happened First

  Uncertainty is a curse of

  man’s existence. – proverb

  Once there was a ten-year-old girl named Hesper. She owned a dog she walked every day. In the afternoons after attending elementary school, she happily walked the dog through the neighborhood. She walked the dog through the woods. She walked the dog by the river.

  On one particular day, Hesper’s mother returned to the family home at half past six. She discovered Hesper’s cowering dog on the front porch. The shivering animal with a red leash still attached, had mud covered fur. It trembled as it tucked its head toward the door and hid from something that Hesper’s mother did not understand.

  “Hesper?” her mother asked uncertainly, looking around for her oldest child. If anything was true in that world, it was that Hesper loved her dog and would never have left it alone.

  Then Hesper’s mother found that her oldest child was not in the house. Her oldest child was not in the yard. Her oldest child was not at the neighbor’s house nor was she at her friend’s house or even at the 7-Eleven down the street.

  The authorities arrived at Hesper’s house an hour later. Two hours after that they began a search using flashlights in the dark, and later a police helicopter equipped with infrared cameras circled above all the nearby neighborhoods and woods. The following day bloodhounds sniffed clothing Hesper had worn previously and followed a wandering trail to the river but no farther. Many volunteers from the town scoured the area inch by inch. Men on horses surveyed areas not accessible by vehicle. The river was investigated by divers, and downriver, police officers in a boat used special hooked nets to drag its depths. Abandoned buildings were looked into, and convicted sexual predators were questioned.

  Regardless of the substantial effort, Hesper was not located.

  And there could be nothing worse than when a child has gone missing and no trace of them is ever found.

  Of course, there is always worse.

  What Happened After That

  Ten years later

  Fear gives wings. – proverb

  The young woman was covered in muck and wore a tattered t-shirt one size too small and ragged sweat pants one size too big. Her feet were bare, and her hair was long and hopelessly tangled. She lay panting on the bank of the river with her feet pulled just out of the water. The fingers of one hand pried at the long grass as if she would never let it go. The other hand grasped something clearly very precious.

  A couple strolling on the path next to the river stopped at the sight of her. “What is that?” the man asked.

  “Is that an otter?” the man’s companion asked. “No, not an otter.”

  “Is that a…girl?” the man asked disbelievingly.

  The mud-shrouded young woman closed her eyes and wished that she could sprout wings and fly away into the clear blue sky. The light was so bright and the emotions that filled her were so oppressive that she thought she would crumble under their combined massive weight.

  “Do you need help?” the man asked, sounding to her as if he had moved closer.

  The young woman’s eyes opened and saw a man with graying hair and a face that appeared kind. The young woman was confused for a moment. After all, what did kind really mean?

  Her mouth opened, and she found that she still had water in her lungs. Instead of speaking words, she coughed, a great heaving hack full of moisture and grit. Then a spill of black water came out in place of words.

  “Jesus,” the woman who was the man’s companion said forcibly. “I’ll call 9-1-1.”

  “Is there someone with you?” the man asked the young woman. She looked up at him and watched as he glanced around, evidently expecting something or someone to be nearby.

  The young woman coughed again and then shivered as she glanced at the water behind her. If there was anything that would come after her, it would be from there. The man quickly took off his windbreaker and draped it around her shoulders. “There, there,” he said soothingly. “I don’t know what happened to you, but we’ll help.”

  “…looks like she was in the water,” the man’s companion said from nearby. Her voice was anxious and gentle at the same time. “She’s got bruises all up and down her arms. Her nose looks like it’s been broken. Her eyes are bruised and bloody. Looks like someone beat her half to death and threw her in the river. She needs an ambulance, and I guess the cops should come, too.” There was a pause. “No, she hasn’t said anything, but her eyes are open and she’s coughing.”

  The young woman wallowed in the warmth of the thin windbreaker and in the heat of the sun. She finally noticed the fluttering leaves on a nearby tree and judged their greenness. Spring, she thought. It’s spring here, and the summer is coming fast. God, the heat feels so good on my skin. I was so cold before.

  She coughed again and caught the man’s hand with hers. She looked up into his face, and whispered a question. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t used her voice for years, but it had certainly been limited.

  “What?” he asked. “What did you say?”

  The young woman heard the sound of sirens approaching. She knew what they were because she had heard them before when she was younger. There would be people in uniforms, and they would help her because that was what they did. Because of their presence, she was safe for the moment. Her eyes flittered to the rolling surface of the river and again wished silently that she could fly away. The wish came even while she knew there was something oh so important she was going to have to do. She pulled her feet further away from the water’s edge.

  She repeated her words. “How long has it been?”

  The man stared down at her. “Since what?”

  “…on the walking trail about a quarter mile away from Green Cove Road,” the man’s companion said to someone, and the young woman finally comprehended that she was talking to someone on a cellphone, however, it was an outrageously slim cellphone that nearly vanished into the flesh of her hand. She’d never seen one that looked so thin and compact. It looked more like a child’s futuristic toy than an actual phone. The com
prehension that she had stopped for the world, but the world hadn’t stopped for her, didn’t sit well.

  “It’s been a long time,” she answered herself.

  A nurse helped remove the young woman’s clothing so she could sponge off all of the grime. She dressed the young woman into a hospital gown. Samples of blood were obtained. In addition, a Q-tip-like swab was swiped across the inside of her cheek. Eventually a doctor entered the room to ask her hard questions like “Have you been sexually assaulted?”, “Who did this to you?”, “Where were you kept?”, and the really difficult one, “What’s your name?”

  The young woman knew if she truthfully answered all of the questions, they would doubtless lock her in a padded room and throw away the key. That had been what her father always half-jokingly said about her mother’s side of the family. They were “certifiable,” and they needed to be locked up in a padded room with the key thrown away. The young woman didn’t know where the padded room was located, but she knew going there wouldn’t be a good thing.

  It was easier to shake or nod her head and to feign she didn’t know what had happened to her. She even pretended that she couldn’t speak and that she was dazed beyond comprehension. It was easier that way.

  After a while, the doctor went away, and the young woman dozed in the bed. It was even harder to relax because she expected someone to come in and drag her off as if she had committed some terrible crime. No one came in for a long time, and she was left to herself to ruminate.

  The door to the room was left open, and the young woman could hear what people in the hallway were saying. After a while, two people had a conversation that she focused on.

  “…can’t be her. She’s not twenty years old. She looks like she’s fourteen.”

  “The eye color is right. She’s malnourished. She can’t weigh more than ninety pounds, and she’s not a smidge over five feet tall. That’s because someone kept her in a pit somewhere all these years.”

  “Look here at this website on my cell. Her mother had an age progression done just last year. Tell me that doesn’t look just like her.”

  The young woman tuned them out. She was tired and hungry and thirsty and frightened. For the moment the scariest thing of all wasn’t that she would be snatched back into the hell she’d escaped, but that her parents would reject her. Twenty?

  The young woman chewed on her knuckle. That means it’s been ten years. I’m twenty years old and the year is 20— She stopped. She didn’t want to do the simple addition because of what it truly meant.

  Her eyes closed again, and in her mind’s eye, she saw black teeth. Pointed ends revealed how they had been filed, and their color was like antique charcoal. Those teeth had been used and used again to tear and rip and destroy. And after a while they weren’t black, but red.

  Voices from the hallway interrupted her nightmarish recollections. “…have a DNA sample, correct?” a man asked.

  “Yes, Detective. Blood and tissue both. We’ll have to send it to the state lab, of course, but that shouldn’t take more than a few weeks. It depends on their backlog.”

  “They’ll go quicker on this one,” came the man’s voice. It was deep, rough, and concerned. “I’ll put a call through to their office. To find her alive…well, they’ll do the test ASAP.” He said the last word as a letter and then a word. “A-sap,” and Hesper wasn’t sure what that meant.

  “Praise God,” the one voice said reverently. This was a woman’s voice, and the young woman thought it was the nurse who had helped her bathe and change.

  “She talking?”

  “The couple who found her said she said a few words, but no, she hasn’t said a word in my presence or the doctor’s. She just looks…terrified. Shock perhaps. She’s holding something in her right hand, and she won’t let go. We’ll get that later. The doctor’s got an order in for a sedative, but I haven’t given it to her yet.”

  The young woman glanced at her right hand still knotted around the precious item. No, you’re not getting that. I’m going to need it.

  There was a heavy sigh. “I was a patrolman when she went missing,” the man said. “I went through the woods with nearly the entire police force at the time. We had Boy Scouts and police academy cadets out there. We had a hundred soldiers from Redstone Arsenal, too. We didn’t find jack, diddly, nor squat. Not a hair ribbon or a shoe. Even the bloodhounds were stymied, and I thought they could trail just about anything.”

  “I remember. I lived over in Decatur then. It was big news. Hit the national news, too. They had reporters everywhere.” There was a pause. “And just look. News vans outside. The locals have the story already. Won’t be long before this place is infested with media. They’ll be sneaking up in the service elevator to get a picture of her. I need to call security and get them to button the place down.”

  “What did the doctor say?”

  “You should probably talk to him personally. I don’t think you’re going to be able to get much out of her. He’s called for a psych eval, too. She’s probably been chained to a toilet for the last ten years.”

  A toilet? the young woman thought. I wish.

  “Anyone call her parents?”

  “That’s your job, Detective, and I’m not goin’ there, no way, no how.” The woman’s accent had increased with her agitation.

  There was another heavy sigh. “Who wants to call them and tell them that their little girl has been found? That maybe she’s been abused for nigh on a decade. That she doesn’t talk and that she’s likely broken. Shit. Who wants to tell that young woman in there that all the crap her parents went through made them get a divorce six years ago? Her mom lives in Arizona now. Hell if I know where her dad is.”

  The young woman gasped soundlessly. Mom and Dad divorced? Because of me? Wait, what happened to Hannah? What about Charlie?

  “There’s something else,” the nurse said, and the reluctance to speak was obvious in her tone. “The evidence tech took the clothing she was wearing, and I saw something on the shirt. You should really take a look at it.”

  There was a pause. “What did you see?”

  “There’s a name written on the collar,” the nurse said. She made an indecipherable noise that the young woman barely heard, then she said quickly, “Olivia Symmes. That’s Symmes spelled S-Y-M-M-E-S.”

  “The hell?”

  “On the collar of the shirt, like she used it for gym at school.”

  “Anyone could know that,” the man said after a long pause. “It’s in the write-ups. Olivia disappeared two years after this one.”

  “And the t-shirt has a Mountain Gap Middle School logo.”

  “Dear God.”

  There was a long silence and then the man said, “I don’t know what that means, but I guess we’ll figure it out eventually.”

  The woman allowed the silence to draw out and then said, “Hesper Whitehead alive after all this time. Who would have thought that?”

  Chapter One

  Two years later

  Wise fear begets care. – proverb

  “I’d like a venti, half whole milk, one quarter 1%, one quarter non-fat, split quad shots with ½ shots decaf, 2 ½ shots regular, and ½ shot extra caf with no foam latte. Then whipped cream, two packets of Splenda, one packet of Sugar in the Raw, just a hint of vanilla syrup, and three, only three, sprinkles of cinnamon,” the young man said to Hesper. Then he sniggered loudly over his shoulder to his friends.

  Hesper bared her teeth in the way that she had been told was a friendly smile. At one point in time she couldn’t remember what a smile was to supposed to be. She began to approximate it as she saw others doing. Most people deluded themselves into thinking she was actually smiling welcomingly at them. It wasn’t like she felt good about baring her teeth or that she thought she made other people feel good. It was that she was supposed to do it. She greeted a customer and bared her teeth. Life went on.

  If the customer had indicated that they wanted to rip Hesper’s head off and drink the re
sultant explosion of blood, then in her opinion, baring her teeth was a perfectly acceptable response. At least it was in her mind. But this was just see a new face, bare one’s teeth, go on with the consumer/merchant exchange. Friendly customer service was what the owner of the coffee shop entreated on a daily basis. There had even been a telling reference to catching more flies with honey than vinegar.

  As if I wouldn’t just catch the flies and then eat them, she thought before realizing that she didn’t do that anymore. No, she could buy a biscotti or a cake pop and eat that, instead. Biscotti tasted much better than flies, and the employee discount was a whopping thirty percent off.

  “Excuse me much?” the customer said to Hesper’s bared teeth. This particular individual wanted the coffee shop to be Starbucks and not the mom-and-pop owned Abracajava’s. She had been in Starbucks and found it too busy and messy. There, the baristas were rapid-fire providers, and the atmosphere was an impersonal business that was only there for the consumer to get their caffeine and pay their bill. She much preferred the homey quiet atmosphere of Abracajava’s. While it was busy, there was also a golden rule inscribed in wood that hung above the door. “Come in, keep quiet, get a good cup of coffee, sit down, and surf the net or GET OUT!” Get out was capitalized and underlined. It was clear, and the underlying message was also clear. Don’t like it, then GET OUT!