Chapter 5

She pushed all the trepidations away and dialed 911. Then she waited as the phone rang twice before someone answered. “911, what’s your emergency?” A man asked on the other end of the line.

“Please, you have to come to help me.”

“What’s wrong, Miss. Are you hurt? Where are you?” He asked, professionally and seemingly unalarmed.

“It’s my mom. I just came into her room to check on her because last night she was…” Julie hesitated. Should she tell the officer that her mom was horribly drunk last night? “She was not functioning very well.” Julie finished elusively and then hurried to squeeze in the rest of the problem “I came in her room, and she’s stiff as a board on her bed, and her face looks like it’s frozen, like she was screaming out to someone, and it just froze in place. And there’s this thing all around her body.”

“A thing. What kind of thing?” Julie could tell now he was actually alarmed, but he seemed to be trying to stay calm.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy, sir, but it looks like a shield or a force field covering her body. There are about two inches of space around her whole body, and there’s like a clear screen with lines of light around her. It’s like she’s enclosed in glass, but it won’t budge, won’t break, won’t let anything through it!” She started to cry again. As the tears poured down her face and onto the phone against her ear, she choked out, “I tried banging on it as hard as I could, but it’s like a brick wall or something. I can’t touch her! I can’t figure out what’s wrong with her!”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Now I’ve done it, Julie thinks. He thinks I’m a nutcase.

“Hello? Are you still there? Please, can you send someone over here to figure out what’s going on?”

The officer cleared his throat. “Miss, I’m sorry to tell you, but you’re actually not the first person to report this happening as of late.”

“Seriously?” She asked in disbelief. “You mean this happened to other people? So, you know what it is?”

“Yes, it’s happened to 5 other families over the past 2 weeks in our area, but no, we don’t know what it is. What we do know is that 5 children associated with the victims also disappeared around the time that this happened. How old are you, Miss?”

“16.”

“I’m going to send a team of officers over as well as CPS right away. I’m sorry, but we need to place you somewhere safe. Although we don’t know for sure what’s causing this to happen, we have a hunch. We’ve found strange empty bottles next to the victims, and we think they may have been poisoned.” He said gravely. “Please, don’t touch anything else in your mom’s room, and wait for us inside your house. What’s the address?”

“6 Francis Street, in Salem.” Julie sputtered. She was in shock. She really didn’t think this guy was going to believe her, much less tell her that this had happened before. Julie was terrified. She asked the question that was eating at her, “Um, sir?”

“Yes? What’s wrong?”

“What happened to the other victims that you found? Are they okay now?” Julie asked, with only a hint of hope left in her voice.

“Unfortunately, no. I don’t want to scare you more than you already are, so let’s just wait to discuss this until I get there with the other officers, okay?”

Julie hung up the phone without answering his final question. She was numb. She couldn’t feel anything at all. It was like the world was going on around her, and she wasn’t even in it.

She didn’t remember walking into the living room and sitting on the couch to wait for the officers to get there. She didn’t even remember them knocking on the door several times before finally pushing it down so they could get in the house. She didn’t remember the CPS worker talking to her until the woman asked her a question.

“Who are your other family members that you’re close to? Who can I call to take care of you?” The woman looked like she was in her forties. She had blonde hair that was clearly dyed, with wisps of gray mixed in, falling right at her shoulders. She looked like an average mom. She had a kind smile – not too wide and not completely showing her teeth, but the edges of her mouth were turned up enough to know that she was happy to be doing her job, even if this wasn’t a happy circumstance.

She put her hand on Julie’s shoulder, and her voice was smooth, like hot chocolate on a cold winter day.

“There’s no one,” Julie whispered.

“I’m sorry?”

“There’s no one to take care of me. And who are you?” She asked, not unkindly.

“I’m Mrs. Abbleton, remember? But you can call me Eve. Remember I told you that I’m here from Child Protective Services?” She looked at Julie expectantly, hoping that there would be a hint of recognition on Julie’s face because she just introduced herself 10 minutes ago and she had been talking to the girl since then. But there was no recognition on Julie’s face. There was nothing there at all. Her eyes were black holes, dead to the world.

“I know this is a lot right now.” Eve continued. “Trust me, I’ve been through this a few times in the past couple of weeks with other kids. But 5 of them disappeared after I left the site to call back to my office, and I don’t want the same thing to happen to you. We’re going to keep someone with you at all times to keep you safe.” She assured Julie. “Now, when you say that there’s no one to take care of you, what exactly do you mean? Does the rest of your family live far away, or was it just you and your mother in your family?”

“My dad left when I was five. I haven’t talked to him since then. I have a grandfather and an aunt on my mom’s side, but they don’t associate with us.” She stopped herself, not sure how much to tell this woman that she just met. She decided that telling the whole truth was the best option right about now if she wanted to get things settled.

“My mom is an alcoholic. She has been for as long as I can remember. That’s why my dad left, and that’s why my grandpa and my aunt Maureene don’t talk to us. Mom got into a big fight with them when I was about 10. They live far away, too, in Georgia. I used to see them for Christmas up until the fight, but since then, nothing,” she finished, not meeting Eve’s eyes.

“Okay. We’ll figure this out. I’m going to call my office and try to find out who I can place you with for the next couple of days, or at least until we can track down your grandpa and aunt. But I’m going to leave an officer with you in the meantime.”

She scanned the room and then ran up to a young female officer who was taking notes in Julie’s mom’s bedroom. She and Eve exchanged a few words in private, and then she walked over to Julie, hand outstretched.

“Hi Julie, I’m Officer Hale. I’m gonna just sit over here on the couch with you for a bit while Eve goes outside to make some phone calls.” She said in an overly pleasant voice, like she was trying to please a young child. “Is that okay with you?”