June 7, 2017
Conner, Alicia and I are so lucky that
Manny and his people pulled in yesterday. This morning, we were
packing up all the stuff in the post office that was going with us
when we all heard a bunch of vehicles pulling through town. Manny and
I climbed up on the platform in the front window and froze. There had
to be 50 vehicles of every type parking along the Main Street and men
were pouring out of most of them.
In the middle of the vehicles, there
were 10 RV's. They had all the windows tightly covered by black cloth
no one peeked out any of the windows that I could see. The doors I
saw all had chains on the outside, securing the people inside, or
keeping them prisoner. As soon as the RV's were stopped, a circle was
formed around them with trucks and men stood in the beds with rifles
facing out, guarding whoever was in the RV's.
Manny started cussing under his breath
and then pulled me back off the platform. He said they had people
watching the windows and he didn't want them to see out shadows
against the glass. Once we were back on the floor, he motioned us all
closer to tell us he didn't know if these were the same men that had
been following his group, but the way they were keeping the women
didn't bode well for us, if they found us.
It's a good thing we all came back
here before leaving town. Conner, Alicia and I had covered all the
windows with wood, so they couldn't see in. We hadn't done any other
obvious changes to the outside of the post office and now, I'm really
glad we didn't. Several other buildings and businesses on this street
had had the same thing done to them, so we fit in with the rest of
town.
Manny said we have to be quiet and
stay away from the windows. He said there was no way to get to the RV
safely. If he was part of their group, he would send out scouts to
check the side streets and alleys around town, so he was going to
assume they had done the same. We were stuck and if we were really
quiet and really lucky, we would make it through this.
That's when the doors started
rattling. He moved really quietly and got close to the door to
listen to what was being said. Then he motioned us back and followed
really quickly. He grilled the three of us who had been in the post
office the longest. Did we know of any other areas in the building?
An attic? A basement? Had we seen any access panels anywhere in the
building? In the floor? In the ceiling? In the walls?
Conner remembered that we had seen one
in the office at the back of the building. Manny had us grab all the
stuff we'd packed up and hustled us into the office. He grabbed a
chair and a broom and used them to open the access panel as quietly
as possible. He pulled himself up into the space and was gone a full
minute, although it felt like an hour. Then he slid back out and
motioned for Alicia to go first. Within a couple minutes, all our
stuff and all of us were in the small crawl space above the office
and Manny sweeping up the floor below the panel.
He motioned for us to stay quiet and
then slipped back down the hall to the front room. I don't know what
he was doing while he was gone, but it felt like forever before he
came back, moving fast but silently. Manny put the chair back where
it had been and jumped to grab the edge of the access point, then
pulled himself up. He whispered that they were almost through the
door. He'd scattered some of the bags of mail around on the floor and
made it look like no one had been there for a while. While he was
telling us this, he put the cover back, closing us in the crawl space
and closing out the light.
Conner pulled out a flashlight and
turned it on, aiming it at the ceiling. Manny whispered that we
needed to get away from the panel, just in case they noticed it. If
possible, we needed to get to the opposite side of the building and we
needed to it quickly and quietly. We formed a crawling line, all of
us balancing as much of our supplies on our backs and moving across
the space together. We made it to the other side and had just settled
ourselves as closely together and as comfortably as possible when we
heard the door give below us.
From the voices we could hear
downstairs, several more men had come inside with the two who had
first been at our door. They were talking about what they hoped to
find, mostly “young girls, ripe for the picking.” My stomach
turned at the thought of what would have happened to the three of us
if Manny and his friends hadn't come yesterday. We wouldn't have had
a chance. From what they were saying, they would have killed Conner
immediately, unless one of the men wanted him for whatever. Then
Alicia and I would have been gang raped by the leaders of this group
before being given to the one who found us for his enjoyment. Lastly,
we would be put in one of the RV's with the other “birds” and
would be available to those who earned the honor of our use.
Alicia and I huddled together and
cried together while we stayed still and just hoped they would leave
and we would be ok. It was probably only took an hour for the men to
go through all the rooms below us. We could hear them walking around
and the sounds of them going through the bags of mail and pile of
packages. They laughed, joked, fought, and opened packages to see if
anything cool was inside. They talked about the girls in the RV's
that they'd already enjoyed and how they hoped to find something cool
to earn another go round. I looked up and Marny caught my eyes with
hers. She was crying, too. Alex was holding her tightly and was
whispering in her ear, but I could see that she was just as sick and
scared as Alicia and I. The men would die, dying is easy compared to
what would happen to us.
We heard the group below get called
back to the street. None of us drew a deep breath until we heard the
door close downstairs. Manny whispered for us to get comfortable and
take a nap. He'd keep watch and would let us know if anything
happened. He promised that once they were gone, we'd leave too, but
not in the same direction they went in. I piled some of the blankets
and clothes into a mat and Alicia, Conner and I huddled together to
sleep. Alex and Marny did the same and Manny sat against the wall,
settling in to listen to everything happening outside in the street.
We slept for hours, but the men were still there when we woke up.
Manny told us we were in for the night and we ate cold snack food
before getting comfortable again.
Hopefully, they'll leave in the
morning and we can get out of this cramped, dusty space. But if they
don't leave, we'll just have to deal with it for as long as have to.
But no matter how long they're here, we'll have to stay silent, just
to be safe. Please, let them leave!
As a writer and artist, I appreciate
any readers and their comments. Thank you for taking the time to read
this blog. Please, come read the other blog I write for our artisan
collective, Raven's Castle Creations, on our website at
www.ravencastlecreations.com. It includes posts on art, the mythology
of symbols we use in our art, history and more! Also, come see the
art we produce in our Etsy store at
etsy.com/shop/RavenCastleCreations. Follow us on Twitter at
@ravencastleart and on Facebook at @ravencastlecreations.
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