First Girl Gone by L.T. Vargus
Prologue
Kara kicked at the wood chips beneath the park bench, flinging flecks of red every which way. Something about the activity jarred her out of a daze, highlighted the level of boredom she’d now achieved.
Christ. This was how she was spending her Christmas break? Sitting on a park bench, kicking wood chips?
The street was dead. This part of Salem Island always was.
Even the air itself seemed lifeless. Overcast sky the gray shade of a stone. No sun. No breeze.
Kara checked the time on her phone again, wondering what was taking Maggie so long. She should have been here by now.
She felt his presence before she saw him. Bodily responses communicating the signs of danger one by one.
A prickling of the hair on her arms.
A chill climbing up her spine.
Her breath hitching in her throat.
Someone was watching her. Someone in the shadows.
Kara locked her eyes on her feet. Searched out of the periphery of her vision.
There was a darkness there. A hulking shape across the street. A man. His broad-shouldered silhouette framed in the doorway of one of the boarded-up shops.
And he stared straight at her.
She fidgeted on the bench. Wished she could keep still. Convey no emotion. Like playing dead.
The last half hour flashed through her mind. She’d wandered down here after the fight with her mom. Stormed out of the house and then circled through town, killing time, smoking cigarettes, cutting through lawns. Waiting for Maggie to come pick her up. So, where was she?
She glanced up, eyes seeking and finding him at last. He turned his head the other direction, overselling the nonchalance.
That chill in her spine grew colder, shooting up her back and hovering between her shoulder blades.
He looked like he could be in witness protection, covered up to the point of ridiculousness. Chunky sunglasses screened much of the face behind sheening black plastic. A Detroit Tigers hat rode low over his brow. His hand rose to cover his mouth, index finger and thumb pinching at his top lip like a crab claw.
She froze. Watched.
After several heartbeats, he spun away and walked off in the other direction.
She held her breath as she watched his figure grow smaller, breathing again only when he disappeared around the corner. Relief.
Her shoulders sagged. Tiniest puffs of laughter exited her nostrils in a staccato hiss.
It was nothing, of course. Just some rando out for a friendly afternoon stare with his best pair of Kim Jong-il sunglasses on.
Her trembling hands peeled the soft pack of cigarettes out of her left hip pocket, adhered the crooked tube of tobacco to her lips. Then she fumbled back into the pocket for the matchbook. Struck one. Brought the flame up under her chin.
She inhaled. Tasted the sweet breath of tobacco smoke. Right away the nicotine calmed her—maybe it was the habit more than the chemical itself.
She texted Maggie.
Hurry up. I’m freezing my ass off.
When the Marlboro was about half gone, she stood, her heart still hammering away inside. Weird. She hadn’t even been that scared. Not really. She’d tell Maggie about it later, and they’d laugh. Kara the paranoid.
She crossed the street. Stepped up on the curb on the other side. The library was only a few blocks away. She could loiter inside until Maggie texted her back and avoid dying of hypothermia. She made sure to avoid the doorway where the creep had stood, reassuring herself in a little whisper that she was overreacting, though she didn’t quite believe her own voice.
The cigarette smoldered between her fingers, mostly gone now. She held off on hitting it again, not quite wanting to let it go as she approached the corner where the man had disappeared.
She chewed her lip. Couldn’t help but picture the man in the black sunglasses lurching out from behind the wall of the donut shop like a mountain lion leaping for her jugular.
She held her breath as she rounded the corner.
Nothing.
He wasn’t there.
Just another sleepy street on Salem Island.
She crossed to the next block. Jitters still running up and down her limbs.
She lifted the cigarette butt to her lips and hit it. Tasted the caustic tang of melting plastic. She’d burned it down to the filter now.
Shit.
She flicked it toward the storm drain, the cherry detaching upon impact.
She swallowed, and her throat clicked.
He lunged out of the bushes. A ski mask now covered his face, his arms outstretched.
He gripped her around the shoulders. An awkward hug. Forceful. Kara screamed. Threw an elbow into his gut. Heard a woof of breath knocked out of him.
Now she stumbled into a run. Choppy steps. Half-falling.
He leapt after her. Fell flat on the concrete.
His right arm shot out and hooked her ankle. Tripped her at full speed. Thunked her head-first on the cement.
Dark. Stars. All of reality seemed to suck down into a tunnel. The world around her grew smaller. Smaller. A little circle cutout. Dark around the edges now.
He rolled her. Lifted her torso. Hands snaking under her armpits. Each finger pressing into the soft flesh there. And he dragged her face up.
She could hear a choppiness in his footsteps. Hurried and uneven.
Her head lolled. Neck slack.
She watched through slitted eyelids as her limp legs dragged over the concrete behind the two of them, but she couldn’t feel them. Couldn’t feel much.