Melissa screams non-stop. She continues until her mother slaps her hard across the left side of her face. Even then, her screams interrupted by her surprise (her mother never hits her), Melissa sobs uncontrollably.
“None of us is going to help your sister by being hysterical,” Mary Remoth insists and gives her younger daughter an accompanying shake.
Melissa, though, has been screaming just because she’s not at all sure anyone can help her sister now.
Trish and her sleeping bag have been pulled out of the tent by something or by someone. Trish has been yanked by something or by someone from her discarded bedding. There’s evidence, by way of scrapes across rock and ground surfaces, that Trish has been dragged by something or by someone into the darkness.
Melissa doesn’t sense her sister anywhere near and fears the worst.
What or who could have done such a thing? How could they possibly have managed it so quickly?
After having heard Trisha’s cries for help, her parents and Melissa had been at the tent within seconds — to find her gone. Roger Remoth kneels onto part of the scuffed and dusty rock surface that’s punctuated with his elder daughter’s skid marks.
“What is it, Roger?” Mary wants to know. “Trish’s cell phone, I think,” Roger says.
“I thought she said she left it behind.”
“As if we’ve lately been the best examples of truth-telling,” Mary reminds. “Having gotten us where?”
Roger manipulates buttons to recall Trish’s last call.
“She talked to Matty,” he says.
“Do you think she told him where we are?” Mary wonders aloud.
“Matty wouldn’t hurt Trish,” Melissa, between sobs, comes to Matty’s defense. “He loves Trish. Trish loves him. They’re going to get married.”
“Of course, you’re right,” Mary agrees, although she doesn’t sound at all convinced of Matty’s innocence.
“When did Melissa call him?”
“A few minutes ago,” Roger reads the call-up information.
“Matty couldn’t have possibly gotten here so fast?” Melissa continues to argue in the young man’s favor.
“Those things can cover an awfully lot of ground in a very short time,” Roger says.
“What things?” Melissa wants to know.
“What things?” she literally screams.
“Calm down, Melissa!” Mary insists.
“We’ll discuss all of this when you’re a little less upset.
In the meantime, Roger, you’d better phone the police. I suspect our chance of finding our daughter without help is nonexistent.”
Roger dials 911.
“My daughter has been abducted,” he says into the mouthpiece. “We’re presently camped at Dry Wash Gulch.”
Melissa hears but doesn’t hear the rest of her father’s side of the conversation. She’s remembering the dark shadow that passed across the candle flame probably just seconds before Trish was abducted. Would Trish be safe now if Melissa had commented upon the event instead of merely having assumed tired eyes had blinked from too much concentration?
“The authorities are on their way,” Roger says.
“As it may take some time, do you think we should try, again, to read the candle flame?”
“We’ve been trying all night,” Melissa reminds. “What makes you think we’ll come up with something now?”
She wishes she didn’t remember the moment of shadow passing between her and the light.
“It’ll be something to do,” Roger says. “We need something to do.”
Reluctantly, Melissa returns with her parents to the candle they’d been watching when Trish disappeared.
The wick has been extinguished. Did someone brush against it on the way to an attempted rescue of Trish?
Did a breeze arrive after the candle was left all alone?
Mary lights the charred wick and sits, pulling Melissa down beside her. Roger assumes a yoga cross-legged position across the flaming candle from them.
“Try to contact your sister, Melissa,” Mary instructs.
“It’s not going to work,” Melissa says, tears in her eyes. “I know it’s not going to work.”
“At least try,” Mary cajoles. “In that, what if it does work?”
Melissa tries her best to concentrate. It’s hopeless. Their whole candle-reading attempts since they’ve arrived have been hopeless.
A fleeting ghostly vision of a creature with the claws of a cat, the tail of a snake, and the head and body of a dog suddenly speeds before Melissa’s line of vision and makes the candle flame momentarily dim and flicker.
As if on cue, somewhere in the very far distance, some kind of animal raises its head dark-skyward and provides a low and plaintive bay at the moon.
The short hairs along Melissa’s neck stand on end.
Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE
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