Once the tires were gone she got up from her hiding place with some difficulty and ran to Penny. She was bloody and her limbs lay limp. Meghan pulled her sweater off one-handed and tried to cover the gashes on Penny’s head and arms. Her eyes were half open and she didn’t move. Meghan ran back to the place where she had landed to find her phone but it had broken in two. Christy’s bag and its contents were sprawled out on the floor where she had dropped them and Meghan ran to it. Christy’s phone had been smashed by the car. With no means of communication, Meghan had no way to call for help. The apartments were gated and no one responded to her pleas of help. She could see the people in the windows but they ignored her. Helpless, Meghan picked up Penny and placed her in the bushes. Noodle went and sat in front of Penny’s hiding place and Meghan ran to the house on the street corner. She was covered in tears and blood so when the lady of the house opened the door, it didn’t surprise her that she jumped.

“Oh my God, what happened to you?” she asked nervously.

Meghan pleaded, “Please you have to help me. My older sister was kidnapped and my younger sister and I were hit by the car of the kidnappers. My arm’s broken, I think, but my younger sister is much worse. Please can you help me?”

The lady’s eyes started tearing up and she grabbed her phone and keys from the table next to her door.

“Come, take me to your sister.” was all she said and then they were running to where Penny lay. Noodle barked when Meghan and the lady came up and growled but Meghan pulled him away. The lady ran straight to Penny. Meghan called 911 while the lady checked her sister.

“Little girl, let me help you. I’m a nurse. Can you move?”

Penny moaned as the lady tried to shift her. The lady, who was named Mrs. Sanchez’s forehead creased and she took off her sweater as well. She tightly bound up the cuts that were most severe as Meghan told the operator their whereabouts.

“Sir, you have to help me. Bring the police and an ambulance. My sister is in critical condition. We are on the corner of Cherry Street and Pine. My older sister was kidnapped and my younger sister and I were hit by the car that the kidnappers were driving.”

She listened to the operator in mute horror as he gave her directions to help her sister. Then she hung up and called her parents. Her mother’s carefree voice answered, “Hello?”

Meghan’s heart beat faster. “Mom?” she asked, “Something terrible has happened. We were walking across a driveway and…and a car came around the corner. I didn’t see but the car hit Penny and me. I…I think I broke my arm but Penny, she’s… a lot worse.”

Meghan heard her mother gasp and then she burst out sobbing, “And that’s not even the worst part. Chris…Christy, she didn’t get hit but they…they took her! A man moved Penny out of the way and then they took her. I’m so sorry mom, really?”

She heard her mother sobbing and then her father came on the phone.

“Where are you Meghan?” he asked, his voice angry. Meghan told him the address and then he hung up. She knew they were coming.

Meghan walked back to the lady and asked, “Is she…is she going to die?”

The lady looked up wearily and whispered, “She’s in critical condition. I don’t know if she’ll make it.”

Meghan sucked in her breath and then turned at the sound of screeching brakes. A moment later her mother was running past her, yelling, “Penny!”

Meghan didn’t turn to see her but ran to her father. He was right behind her mother and he held her tightly. There she sobbed and he cried into her hair. Behind them, they could hear Meghan’s mother sobbing and then, in the distance the sound of an ambulance’s siren. Meghan’s father released her and went to Penny. When he saw his daughter’s mangled body he broke out in fresh tears and held his wife tightly. They cried together as the ambulance came up.

The EMTs, two men and a woman, quickly approached Meghan but she pointed to Penny. “Help her, she needs it more.”

The two men ran to Penny while the woman said, “Come dear.”

She pulled Meghan into the ambulance and worked over her. Meghan didn’t see what she was doing. Instead she stared at the EMTs working over her sister. She was looking at them but she didn’t see what was actually happening. She was reliving the whole experience, making sure she forgot nothing. If Penny died, she would be the only person who could help get Christy back. She watched as the EMTs loaded Penny into the ambulance uncomprehendingly and felt her mother holding her hand. She was numb; she couldn’t take the pain anymore. She felt she was drifting on an invisible sea that was pulling her over a waterfall of darkness. She didn’t try to fight it; she had done what she needed to do. Now she just let herself drift right over the edge…






















I had the nightmare again; the one where I relived that day, February fourth, 2007. It was two years later, two years since Penny died; two years since Christy had disappeared. A lot had changed since then. I turned seventeen, my parents divorced, and my brother had started school. Those were the little changes, the gradual ones, ones I had expected. They weren’t exactly life-altering. Like our lives could get any more altered.

I don’t remember much about that day when I’m conscious; it’s only when I sleep that I remember it. Too vivid for my taste; I didn’t want to remember all of it. I had fought the memories out of my conscious mind so well I couldn’t relive them when I needed to. I never wanted to.

High school was harder now. I had been the smart one; the one with the good grades. I had barely passed last year so I actually was trying this year. Last year I had been numb; now I was waking up.

Right after the accident, I was stressed and anxious. I heard the words that the invisible man inside the car had said, “We’ll get the other two later…”

The words were ingrained in my head; at every sound I jumped and nearly burst into tears. There was only one for them to come after now since Penny died. She had lasted two days in a coma. Finally the doctors told us she would never be conscious again so we pulled the plug on her. We had been expecting this but still it hurt a lot.

One of us was missing; another was dead, and the last living in a dream world where you felt nothing. At the time, if we ever got Christy back, what would she have returned to? A house of shadows, barely living, barely noticed.