Don't Read in the Dark

My Dad Kidnapped Little Girls

I don’t ever remember my dad being normal. He was always a little  strange. The man was secretive and closed off, and all his attempts at  acting like a father rose the hairs on the back of my neck. It seemed  forced. I don’t think I ever got used to that. There was no need, because he didn’t keep that up for long. By the time I was 5, I didn’t  have a dad. What I had after that was a boss. Maybe an owner. Definitely not a dad.

I  don’t ever remember my dad being normal. He was always a little  strange. The man was secretive and closed off, and all his attempts at  acting like a father rose the hairs on the back of my neck. It seemed  forced. I don’t think I ever got used to that. There was no need, because he didn’t keep that up for long. By the time I was 5, I didn’t have a dad. What I had after that was a boss. Maybe an owner. Definitely not a dad.

He fully opened up as a person around that time. He brought a little  girl into our home. She was small, but she was older than myself, too.  Maybe 7 or 8. Her face was red and raw with tears. “Sam, this is your  new little sister, Maria.” Before I could react, she spoke up between  small sobs. “No, mister. I don’t know you. My name is Claire. Please take me home to my mommy, I promise that I won’t tell.” By the time she  finished what she was saying, she was barely forming coherent sentences.  That’s when I saw my Dad stop being my dad. With one fluid motion, he  swung his arm, hitting her in the face and knocking her back on her ass.

I jumped up, too afraid and confused to do much of anything, but still frightened nonetheless. I was young, but I’d seen enough television to know that normal families didn’t do these things. “Sam, you sit your ass down or I’ll put you in the ground, you hear me?” Thus marked the loss of my father. Later, as I listened to the quiet cries of  the girl, now locked in the room next to mine, he sat me down and explained that he wasn’t my father. He told me things a 5 year old should never hear. My life changed forever. I was a mistake.

The little girl was with us for a while. My dad left me at home while  he went to the mall, buying all kinds of nice things for Maria. Claire.  Whatever. He probably blew $500. The weeks afterward were strange,  disgusting, and violent all at the same time. At the best, she would play along with his games and he would be happy. At the worst, I would have to listen to her screams as he did unspeakable things to her in the next room. After, when the screaming would stop, he would come to me  and give me the same speech.

“This happens because you aren’t right, you understand? You should  have been born a girl. We wouldn’t have to do this. She’s going to die  someday because you’re trash.” He would walk to the door and finish with  “Remember, Sam. No one out in that world will ever love you. If you try to leave, I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.”

Maria died about three months after my dad took her. This day wasn’t her first attempt at escape, but instead it was her last. Truly, I do not know if my father meant to kill her or not. He became consumed in his rage and I fought back tears as he continued to hit her and hit her, over and over again. Her little light went out as she choked on blood, gurgling sounds coming from her throat. She was buried in our back yard, right next to the playset that my father bought a year before. After that, he became nervous to the point where he packed me up and we started off on the road.

We lived like that for years. Sometimes, we’d live somewhere as long  as a year, but that was the extent of it. On a good year, he’d take two  or three girls without so much as a second look. People didn’t  necessarily suspect him, though. He was a psycho, but the man was smart  too. He would falsify documents and references, getting himself jobs as  close to children as possible. I remember, one time, he was hired on to  be an ice cream truck driver. He snatched up a little girl he called  Gloria right in front of her house. He somehow managed to finish his  route, too. She only lasted two months.

I was 13 when he started taking me with him on “pick-ups.” I hated it, and I’d even choke back tears when the little girls would sit in the floor of the back seat, crying and begging to be taken home to their mommies and daddies. He would ignore them, and ignore me. He would go on-and-on about what a great dad he was going to be to them. In short, it was sickening.

Hannah was the last, and she was quite different. Rather than having to snatch her up, she surprisingly went willingly. She was a bit older than most of the little girls he picked. She wore a school uniform. Her hair was long, and dark, with blunt bangs. Crawling into the back seat, this strange little girl buckled herself in. She was extremely calm, and to the unknowing eye, it looked as if she belonged there. A little girl, being picked up from school by her father and older brother. I looked back at her from the passenger seat, feeling extremely puzzled. She beamed a smile back that was so sweet, it was almost sickly.

For some reason, my dad saw nothing wrong with this, and was overjoyed with his new catch. I watched her from the corner of my eye as he gave his normal routine speech. Most little girls cried, this little girl smiled and nodded knowingly. We got back home, and it wasn’t long before things started in as usual. He had her dress in one of those horribly tacky babydoll dresses and drink tea with him at a small table in “her room.” She played along, with a look in her eye that was far older than what she said her age was, which she said was 11. He corrected her “No, sugarpee, you’re 7.” She nodded.

As I sat in a chair on the far side of the room, next to the door (I was made to sit in, in case I needed to do any type of chore for him). She started to speak more fluently than an 11 year old girl should be able to, “Let me ask you something: Why do you do this?” Her voice, though knowledgeable, was incredibly sweet. “What do you mean” he replied, looking very confused. “I mean, why do you snatch up little girls as if you own them? Do you feel entitled to that? Did something fucked up happen to you when you were a child, and now you’re so skewed that you’re obsessed with little girls?” She said all of this in a sing-song type of voice, but her eyes were cold and piercing.

He was startled more than anything, but that didn’t stop him for swinging. His fist landed on her cheek hard, and her head flew into the wall. She stood as if this didn’t phase her at all. I was frozen entirely as he stood up, readying himself for the next strike he would almost surely give. She spoke again. “Ah, yes. Take your anger out on me because little girls beat you up all your life for being an awkward,  disgusting loser.” She almost cackled now, and that child-like glee was gone now. What replaced it was frightening. She knew exactly what she was talking about. My father was frozen entirely this time, so taken back by the reality of the words she said.

She cooly and casually walked towards the bedroom door. However,  instead of opening to leave, she just opened and looked me in the eye.  “I’m giving you one chance to leave. I still see good in you. He hasn’t  broken you yet.” She put out her hand, and I’ll never know why I opted  to grab it. I was horrified, and the thought that nobody in the world will love me nailed me down for the 8 or so years before. Still, something so powerful just pulsated from this little girl’s body, I almost felt like it wasn’t me doing it at all. I got out of the door  before collapsing in the wood-floored hallway, where I sat motionless  for hours, listening to my fathers intense wails of pain.