The Girl with Bare Feet, L. Avery Brown [readera ebook reader TXT] 📗

the house, forgetting the photo until she heard someone say, “Over here.” She yelped and turned around.

 

“Over here.”

 

She heard the crackle of the baby monitor in her pocket. “What the hell?” She pulled it out of her pocket and put it up to her ear.

 

“Over here.” The voice was loud and clear but not coming from the monitor and Janelle threw down the monitor.

 

She realized she was clutching her phone for dear life. Then she remembered why. Janelle turned her phone on and opened her photo gallery. She looked at the selfie and saw the girl’s face. It wasn’t her entire face. No. It was like she was hiding behind Janelle.

 

And as she tapped on the image to make it bigger, she felt her skin crawl. She looked familiar. She had Liza’s eyes, only she was older. Maybe ten or eleven or… Janelle whispered to the air around her, “Allison.” An blast of icy cold air shot though her, just like the one she felt in the sunroom the other day. Only this time it pushed Janelle so forcefully she nearly fell backwards.

 

She scrolled through the three or four pictures she’d taken of the art for Clarissa and then, just as she was getting to the next one, she heard crying. Janelle looked at the monitor thinking it had to be Liza or maybe Peter. No. It wasn’t coming from there.

 

Janelle heard the crying from her nightmare behind her. Only Janelle wasn’t asleep. Turning around, she saw the girl from her nightmare sitting on the ground. She had pulled her knees up to her chest as if she were trying to make herself as little as possible. And even though she knew the answer she asked, “Who are you?”

 

“Can you help me find my shoes?” In a flash, the girl was standing in front of Janelle and another blast of cold knocked Janelle off balance causing her to fall down. She let go of Dumbo’s lead. He took off towards the house, barking nonstop.

 

Janelle sat there, stunned. “Allison is that you?”

 

Then, as if she were a kernel of popcorn heated to the perfect temperature, the girl ‘popped’ from place to place; her face morphing from pleasing to horrific as she asked the same question again and again. “Can you help me find my shoes? Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

Janelle tried to speak but her voice was gripped by fear.  A few seconds passed before she was able to spit out a reply. “I know it’s you. Allison, where are your shoes?”

 

The presence stopped and pointed at Dumbo. He howled like he’d found something important. She vanished only to reappear closer to the house, still pointing. Dumbo stopped barking and looked in the apparition’s direction.

 

Janelle ran towards the storm door that led to the laundry room beneath the house but stopped dead in her tracks when the dead-faced girl appeared in front of her and pointed in the opposite direction. Before Janelle could respond, the sweet faced child was standing by some tall bushes pointing behind them.

 

Janelle pushed through the heavy foliage and spotted the entrance to a storage space she never knew was there because it was hidden behind the thick greenery. And even if the bushes hadn’t been there, the door blended in seamlessly with the siding as it had no window or doorknob though it did have an old rusted handle. The only thing that looked less than very old was a lock screwed into the door with a lock that needed a key to open it.

 

“Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

“Are your shoes inside?”

 

“Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

Janelle found a large rock and slammed it down on the latch several times before the whole thing broke away and the door opened. She stepped inside.

 

It took a few seconds for Janelle’s eyes to adjust. There was nothing to brighten the room except a narrow window too high up to access. And even though the sun wasn’t down yet, it might as well has been because it was dark. By chance, she saw a thin rope and pulled it. Light.

 

The room was deep with a dirt floor. It stretched forward the width of the house creating an optical illusion making the ceiling appear angled. There were some tools on a shelf to her right. And on the shelf was a box; a small box. And suddenly Janelle was reminded of exactly what Liza had told her. “She didn’t say his office. She said Daddy has their shoes. In a little box. In his workroom.”

 

Janelle reached up and grabbed the box. It was a small shoe box. There was nothing unique about it. Janelle’s heart was pounding so hard the sound of blood rushing in her ears was deafening.

 

“Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

“Are your shoes in here, Allison?”

 

“Can you help me find my shoes?” Allison stood right beside Janelle and stared at the box.

 

Janelle opened it and thought she might throw up. Inside the box were at least fifteen sheets of construction paper with photos of little girls’ shoes taped or glued to the paper. On the left side of the page was a picture of feet in a pair of shoes; on the right were the same shoes, only devoid of feet. She looked down at the bottom of the page and saw there were dates written and names; names she was certain were towns because of one in particular, Coosawatchie. She saw an old Rand McNally Road Atlas on the shelf beside where the box of photos had been.

 

Janelle picked up the atlas and thumbed through the pages until she got to South Carolina. She looked for Coosawatchie, it was a place not too far from Charleston just off of I-95. Someone had taken a highlighter and put a marked the town on the map. She turned the book to the map with North Carolina’s roads on it. The same thing had been done on that map. Janelle went through each page and found the corresponding dots for each photo. Janelle felt the color drain from her face when she got to one of the photos and saw that it was a town she recognized as being around Atlanta. “No. No. No.”

 

“Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

“I don’t understand. Allison, are your shoes in here? Is one of the pictures your shoes?”

 

“Can you help me find my shoes?” The girl pointed to a spot in the corner. “Can you help me find my shoes? Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

“Stop! Just stop. I… I…” Janelle was in tears.

 

“Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

“Allison, please I’m trying to help you. Will you please just stop for a minute?”

 

She stopped and stared at Janelle.

 

“Thank you.”

 

The girl smiled.

 

Janelle’s heart raced and a feeling of dread ran from her fingers to her toes. “Allison I want to help you but you have to help me. Are your shoes in this room?”

 

Allison popped away from her and reappeared at the spot where she’d been pointing. “Can you help me find my shoes?”

 

“Is that where your shoes are?” Janelle crawled on her hands and knees over to where Allison was standing. She felt the girl move through her. It was the same distressing cold feeling she’d felt earlier only it wasn’t as intense. She was about to ask Allison if her shoes were nearby when her phone rang.

 

Janelle screamed from the shock of the sound. She looked down and saw ‘Wade’ on the Caller ID. She took a deep breath and swiped her finger across the face of the phone to accept the call. “Hi! Almost home?”

 

Wade sounded calm; relaxed. “Yep. I should be there in about fifteen minutes. I’m just thinking about you and the laundry room.”

 

“You are enamored with the laundry room, aren’t you?”

 

Wade laughed. “Well, it was pretty hot in there.”

 

“Yeah, it was. Well, I’m going to run now. I need to clean up. I’ve got pencil lead all over my hands.”

 

“Alright. See you soon.”

 

Janelle pressed the END on her phone and looked up to see Allison standing by her pointing at her phone. “What? My phone? Wait the pictures from the other day.”

 

She pressed GALLERY and began scrolling through the pictures. And what she thought was a smudge wasn’t  a smudge at all. It was her. Allison. Only it was the battered, bloody faced Allison with dead eyes. Then, swiping her thumb again and again across the screen, Janelle realized the series of photos she’d taken as ‘burst shots’ showed Allison’s arm rising; her finger pointing at Wade.

 

Tears fell onto the screen of her phone and she turned to Allison. “Alli… “ Only Allison was now in the corner, cowering. “Allison, what’s wrong?”

 

Janelle heard her phone ring again and looked down at it. ‘Wade’ She was shaking so hard she didn’t know if she could hold the phone but she took a deep breath and answered the phone as calmly as she could. “Hi. Has it seriously been fifteen minutes already?”

 

“Not exactly.”

 

“Well, that’s a rather vague response.” Janelle forced herself to laugh.

 

Wade chuckled. “Janelle where are you?”

 

“What do you mean? I’m at home. Where else do you think I’d be?”

 

“Let me rephrase the question for you Janelle. Where… inside the house… are you… right now?

 

Janelle looked over and saw Allison now sitting on the ground in the corner with her knees pulled up to her chest. She was terrified; like she wanted nothing more than to get away from where she was only she couldn’t. Allison pointed to the ceiling of the storage area.

 

Janelle looked up knowing that the wood was the foundation for the floor in the sunroom. Her blood ran cold.

 

Wade asked again, “Janelle where are you? And please do not say you’re in the sunroom. I know you’re not because I’m in the sunroom right now. I know I’ll ask Liza. Sweetie can you ask Mommy to tell you where she is?”

 

“Mommy? Are you there?”

 

Janelle could tell something was wrong with Liza. Her voice sounded odd, forced almost. “Liza are you alright?”

 

“Yes, Mommy. But please tell Daddy where you are. He wants to know real bad.”

 

“He does? Did he tell you why, Liza?”

 

Liza started to say something but was cut off by Wade. “Janelle, I think I know where you might be. And believe me, I know it’s easy to lose track of time in there. So why don’t you come back inside the house and we can talk?”

 

“Wade, please don’t hurt Liza.”

 

“Why would I do that, Janelle? Why do you think I’d hurt our beautiful daughter? She’s so perfect. Soft. Adorable. And she smells divine.”

 

Janelle felt like her heart jumped into her throat. Wade had their daughter in his clutches and based on what she’d found hidden away in his secret hideaway beneath the sunroom she knew what he was and what he’d done. She glanced in Allison’s direction but she was gone. “Wade, please, I’m begging you, let Liza go.”

 

“Janelle, why are you begging me to let Liza go? Do you think I’d hurt this little angel of ours? Really? Why would I hurt the one thing I love so much.” In the background Janelle could hear Liza struggling to get away from Wade.

 

“Daddy let me go. You’re hurting me. Daddy, please. Mommy tell Daddy to let me go.”

 

“Please, Wade. Please. I… I won’t say a thing. I promise. I won’t. Just let Liza go.”

 

Wade stood up, holding Liza horizontally so she flailed about like a ragdoll under his arm. He put the phone on speaker mode and made his way to the kitchen. He opened a drawer and rummaged through one then he closed the drawer. “Really Janelle you won’t say a thing?”

 

“I swear to God, Wade, I won’t say anything.”

 

Wade yelled out, “Why is it I don’t believe you?” And then he walked into the kitchen, put his phone on speaker, and placed it on the counter. Janelle could hear him rifling through one of the kitchen drawers. Only she had no idea