The mercy, p.1
The Mercy, page 1
the mercy:
angel of death
A Psychological Thriller
by Sara Ennis
Copyright 2022 by Sara Ennis
All rights reserved
Published in the United States by Good Girl Charlie Publishing
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7367722-6-3
eBook ISBN: 978-1-7367722-4-9
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and businesses are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Dedicated to:
Tony Burson, Alicia Rideout and Mariëtte Whitcomb
CHAPTER ONE
angel
You have three new messages.
My mouse hovers over the Komorebi inbox and previews the new emails. Kait, Jimmy, Dr. Lisa. They can wait.
Right now, I’m curious about the new kid.
Ugh. I’m trying to do a better job articulating my thoughts, and that was a big hairy fail.
Curious is a deceptively morbid word. There’s the seemingly harmless standard definition: interested in knowing something. That’s legit for the youthful crowd when they wonder about stars or butterflies or the inner workings of NASA. For everyone else, you could change it to “interested in knowing something that’s none of your business,” and it would be accurate most of the time. There’s also the old-timey definition: strange, unusual. String the two together, and you get “interested in knowing (about) something strange or unusual (that’s none of your business).”
See? Morbid. In my experience, nearly all ‘curiosity’ is the noneya (business) kind, as my friend CB says. I’m well aware the color of my glasses is closer to blood-red than rose. Whatever.
I know his basic story, of course. When a kid who’s been missing for years is found alive and physically well, it’s big news. Chuck Carson, aged ten, was taken while riding his bike. He was kept inside a small house in a residential neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin, for six years. Not once was he allowed to go outside. The man, who instructed Chuck to call him B-Doh, told the kid if he tried to leave, he would go to Chuck’s house and kill his sister Dawn. Chuck believed him.
The days became weeks, became months, became years.
B-Doh loved to bring Chuck books. He delighted in Chuck’s thirst for knowledge. He seemed proud of him. Novels, textbooks, comics, anything he discovered at garage sales and used book stores came home. It was all good by Chuck. Reading kept him sane.
One day, B-Doh didn’t come home after work. Chuck didn’t know why he didn’t come, but he was afraid to open the door and risk his little sister’s life. He did not know B-Doh–known to his coworkers as Brad Stevens–had suffered a widow-maker heart attack at work. His coworkers thought Brad lived alone, with no roommates, not even any pets. Chuck might have been in the house forever if the landlord hadn’t come by to clean the place for a new tenant.
Investigators learned Brad Stevens younger brother Paul was abducted twenty years earlier while Brad and Paul were riding their bikes. Brad didn’t do anything to stop the man from taking Paul, and Paul was found dead a few weeks later. Brad suffered extreme guilt and saw Chuck as his opportunity to make things right. Paul called his big brother B-Doh.
That’s the publicly available information.
According to the biography submitted by the survivor himself, the boy that was Chuck Carson became emancipated and changed his name to Charlie Car. He lives on his own in Indianapolis. He’s in the Forensic and Investigative Sciences Program at the University of Indiana. He wants to become a forensics scientist–Dexter without a dark passenger. His words, not mine. I’m pretty sure I’m going to like him.
Charlie’s profile and bio are in the Welcome section. The photo he provided for his biography did not appear every night on the news for months and months after he was found. In the media photo, his brown hair was long and stringy, like a 1980s rock star wannabe. Acne spotted his pale skin, and his eyes were hollow and haunted. A Madison Police Department t-shirt hung from bony shoulders.
In the bio photo, he’s a totally different person. It’s been two years since he was found. Charlie is eighteen or close to it. His sandy blond hair is shot through with streaks of white, shaggy in an intentional way. He paid money for that style. His lake-blue eyes are open, clear, and without shadow. He has sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw. His t-shirt no longer hangs on him; muscles push at the short sleeves, a promise and a warning. Chuck Carson is no more. Chuck Carson is gone. Long live Charlie Car.
He’s very nice to look at, but it’s not his looks that have my interest. How is Charlie functioning two years post-recovery? How deep are the scars, and how does he show them?
In about ten minutes, he’ll join his first Komorebi video chat. Coming to Komo, as we call it, is one of the most important decisions he’s ever made. There are very few places where we survivors can talk about the darkest things in our lives with people who genuinely understand. Of course, we’ve each experienced our own version of hell, but we share foundational elements.
When my guardian Peter Baden first told us the Foundation was creating Komorebi, I wasn’t sure what to think. But that was ten years ago. I’m a believer now. Hell, I’m practically a cheerleader.
There are two sides of Komorebi: Promise, for the friends and family of abducted people, and Hope, for survivors. The Promise side is much larger. People are encouraged to stay, whatever the status of their loved ones. Still missing, found alive, or deceased, they will continue to have unique needs that can be hard to manage without support.
Komorebi is a private cloud-based platform, similar to something the earliest Internet users knew as AOL and CompuServe. Promise and Hope share the same technical features. There are forums where we can post questions, silly cat pictures, or share stories. There are scheduled chats on various topics. We can start a one-on-one or small group text or video chat. There are files with resources and information. It’s a clubhouse for a club no one would ever want to be invited to join.
Because of Peter and the Foundation, the services of Komo and its team of experts are 100% free. The family of an abducted person might need financial support, mental health counseling, legal advice, or guidance on how to work with the media.
A survivor needs those things, plus a place to talk with others who ‘get it,’ not from an anecdotal perspective, but from lived experience. That’s us.
There are currently thirty-four Hope members. The oldest is Kait, in her fifties. The youngest is a thirteen-year-old named Alicia.
All three Dollhouse survivors are here. Grace doesn’t participate in public sessions much, although I think she and Alicia chat regularly.
Olivia shows up primarily for Peter, her dad. I see her name in group chats, but she never turns her camera on and never takes herself off mute. Many people don’t share their cameras, but very few attend and never say anything. When I’m cranky, I wonder why she bothers coming since she doesn’t participate. I try not to be cynical or paranoid. She can’t talk about Komorebi outside of Komorebi–thanks, Tyler Durden!–so she’s not using it as a flex for her career. Olivia has published two best-selling books and hosts her own talk show. She’s become a cross between Brené Brown and Kelly Clarkson. She’s won Daytime Emmy awards and met First Ladies. Olivia Baden does not need to look for things to bring her to the world’s attention.
I’ve fallen into being a guide to some of the new folks, and surprisingly, I enjoy it. My brother would laugh at the idea of his shy twin sister willingly connecting with strangers, but it’s true. I make sure they know they have someone they can come to with questions or gripes, or fears. Every once in a while, when someone’s story is too close to my own, I bump into issues with the events of my past and retreat into a hole, but that hasn’t happened much lately. Most of the time, I like to believe I’m doing good–or at least I don’t do harm.
That’s why I’m here today. I was supposed to run over to New Mexico to look at a couple of dogs, but I changed my schedule when Marnie told me about Charlie and asked if I’d be his guide. Sadly, there are always reservation puppies.
I’m interested–there, that’s a better word than curious–to see how Charlie is doing. Sometimes what people say and what’s reality are two very different things. I hope he’s as healthy in real life as on paper.
CHAPTER TWO
angel
There are three ways to communicate in Komo: internal emails, message boards, and text or video chats. Today we’re doing a chat.
Charlie and I are the only ones who have both our cameras and our microphones on. Jimmy, Kait, Hannah, and a few others have their mics on but have left their cameras off. Everyone else has turned off both their cameras and videos. They’re quiet except for encouraging notes of welcome that appear in the chatbox.
We simply share our name and age when we introduce ourselves in Komo. Anything else is provided by participants in their bios or at their discretion in conversations, which happen all the time. If you need to chat at 3 am, you’ll likely find someone hanging out in the ‘community center’ which is the Komo name for the Hope forum.
This first meeting is just to let Charlie meet the rest of us and become familiar with the system. He may have read through some of our bios, and he’s likely heard about many of us on the news. Like him, we have each had our own 15 minutes of infamy at some point in the past.
Kait Conradt
The meet and greet is going fine, and then things take a turn.
Kait asks Charlie what his plans are after college. Simple enough question, right?
“I’m studying forensics. I haven’t decided exactly which path I’ll take when I graduate, but it will give me some semblance of control in a chaotic world.” Charlie says, smiling in a way that puts a dimple on his left cheek.
Tiffany types rapid-fire into the chatbox, words appearing in bursts. She’s been non-verbal since her rescue, but she could break speed records with those fingers of hers. Unfortunately, she has not handled freedom as well. She doesn’t trust anyone, and I can’t say I blame her. Who’s trustworthy after you’re abducted and tortured by a respected man of God? That is why the words on the computer screen don’t surprise me. “It’s great to have a plan. But you need to accept that life can never be the same. It will NOT be the same.”
I try to control my facial expression since I’m on video. She must be in one of her funks. I say, “Life may not be what you dreamed of when you were a little kid, but it can still be satisfying.”
Jimmy, Mr. Know-It-All, snorts audibly. His photo shows a man in his mid-20s with thick, curly dark hair puffing out around his head, a goatee, and wire-framed glasses. His smile is forced and somehow angry. Sometimes, I imagine the still photo coming to life like one of those animated cartoon villains when he’s got an especially cranky attitude. “Don’t sugarcoat it. Tiff’s right. The best we can hope for is ‘manageable.’ That we can manage to paddle along to survive. The concept of ‘thriving’ is bullshit. We need to accept what’s normal for others isn’t normal for us, and try to embrace and honor our uniqueness through the way we live our lives.”
I try not to sound condescending while throwing silent apologies to Emily and Olivia for using them as examples. “I’d argue some of us are living extraordinary lives. Emily is building an impressive music career. And Olivia, well, she’s clearly taken lemons and made them into lemonade with a side of lemon meringue pie.”
Jimmy snorts. “They can answer for themselves, but I put this question to you, Angel: Is your life everything you dreamed of before?”
I think about it, then shrug. “I was fourteen and definitely not an achiever by any means. I wasn’t plotting a big career or preparing to go to college. I had vague ideas of what I wanted to do or be–a circus performer was one of those things, so my ideas may not have been the most realistic. The point is, my life plan wasn’t derailed by what happened in the Dollhouse. I changed as a human, of course. This may be controversial, but I’d dare say I grew in positive ways from the experience. I had to learn to be brave, to focus.”
We promise to be totally honest here. That includes admitting something others might find shocking or secretly agree with. So I add, “I didn’t choose what happened to me, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. But it happened, and I went through it, and in the process, I learned a lot about myself. What I’m capable of. What my talents are. What really matters to me. As to the rest, I have a circle of people I love, who love me. I’m not missing out on anything.”
Charlie is silent during this back and forth, his face neutral.
Jimmy ‘feels’ angry. I’m not sure why I think that. His intensity does not match the situation. His tone proves me correct when he asks, “Are a husband and kids part of the family you’re building?”
Maybe Jimmy and Olivia have been talking. Her name is on the participant list, but as usual, she’s not contributing. If she was present, I don’t think she could keep herself from jumping in. She’s always going on about how I need a relationship, a husband, kids. Basically, I need to be like her. I laugh and hope it comes off as legit as I try to change the subject. “Charlie, you’re getting a firsthand look at our honest conversations. We argue and fight and disagree, but we’re always here for each other. We’re happy you’re here with us.”
Jimmy mutters, “You’re a deluded child.” His window closes. The screen announces he’s left the discussion.
I’m embarrassed, and that makes me angry. I’ve known Jimmy has had a little crush on me for a while. He’s tried to hang out one-on-one a couple of times, but I politely disengage when he swerves toward romantic. I’m not interested. My heart is off the market. I’m not going to tell him or anyone else that. It is none of his business, but it’s also complicated.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to cause trouble!” Tiffany keys into the chatbox.
Kait jumps to reassure her. I’m glad. Despite the smile plastered on my face, I’m annoyed. Jimmy can be kind of creepy. Although none of the administrators lurk in our conversations, everything in Komo is recorded if something happens and they need to see it.
Dr. Lisa is the psychologist Peter added to the team before Komorebi was built. He wanted her input on how best to structure the platform to benefit both sides of the house. She’s smart, she’s kind, she’s honest, and she’s tough when she needs to be. She’s also the first psychologist I’ve ever been able to be my authentic self with.
If Dr. Lisa were to watch this session, Jimmy and I would both be scheduled for anger management sessions. She knows our tells.
CHAPTER THREE
angel
We chat for a few minutes after Jimmy’s exit. Kait gives Charlie a list of the scheduled group meetings he can join if he wants to. I say he’s welcome to open a chat with anyone in the group anytime or send an internal message. “We’re here for you as much or as little as you want us to be. By ‘here for you’ I mean we can offer support, or we can talk about the latest viral cat video.”
After the group ends, Emily opens a private chat with me, as does Kait. I reply to Em first. Ten years ago, Emily Bright and I nearly died trying to save her best friend from a madman. We failed, but we’re tight. She’s one of my very best friends.
“Hey, you,” she types. “What’s with Jimmy? Jesus.”
I send a smile emoji. “His inner caveman is acting up. Honestly, if we were Norms, and I met him in a bar, I’d ask someone to walk me to my car.” ‘Norms’ is the Komo version of muggles, I guess. People who have not been through what we’ve been through.
“Be careful with him,” Emily types. “He seems to have a hard-on for you.”
“I will. How’s my man, White?” White is seventy pounds of love in the form of a blue-nosed pit bull mix. He has the big build and muscles of a guard dog but is trained as a psychiatric service dog, ready to attack with kisses and cuddles at the slightest indication Em is feeling down. His size and appearance make him an excellent companion. A person with ill intent would see him and reconsider whatever bad ideas they started with. They don’t need to know that he has his own closet for his sweaters, shirts, and hoodies, and he sleeps with a stuffed bear.
A photo slides into the chatbox. The canine himself, in a USC T-shirt. He’s grinning at the camera. Such a good boi.
“So handsome!” I type. “Wait, isn’t your landlord a UCLA guy?” I know he is because there’s a building named after him on the UCLA campus. Em sent me the LA Times announcement.
Em lives in the guest house of one of the most prolific music producers in LA. They work together often, so it’s a win-win. More than once, I’ve wondered if there’s more to the story (cough, wink), but I’m not going to pry. She’ll tell me if she wants to. The only thing I care about is that she’s happy and safe.
“White supports all education institutions. Gotta go. Singing backup on a new album, and the music just arrived. Watch out for Jimmy.” Em’s box disappears.
