The Labyrinth
Chapter 1 The Crime
The road beyond this bridge is sometimes long and challenging, but has things more beautiful than here, so go on and discover what truly lies ahead.
Barbara read the sign, but it didn’t have much meaning to her as she hopped over the rail onto the ledge of the bridge. Maybe the rain was obstructing their views, and maybe they couldn’t see her in the dark, but she knew better. They didn’t really care. No one blew their horn to get the attention of the overweight young woman teetering over the highest point on the freeway. No one looked at the abandoned Ford on the shoulder, directly behind her. No one reached for a cell phone or put a hand out their window. Every single one of them confirmed what she already knew about the world. There were heroes and villains, but the heroes were the ones who could throw a football or show off their legs while flying through the air, and no one cared if they were the ones who tortured, hated, teased, and maimed everyone around them. Looking pretty and mouthing the right words to the grown-ups made you a Kelly, a Justine, a Jolene- the girls who got all the boys, all the attention, all the love, all the success, and all the chances to make it, and the truth could hang.
So what if Kelly smoked more weed than all of Mexico could grow? She was the cheer captain.
So what if Justine was a racist who let God’s will excuse every evil known to man? She was the prettiest girl in school and secretary of the church youth group.
So what if Jolene was acing women’s history without knowing what a feminist was? That just showed that she knew how to use the system.
They were the chosen ones, and that was why it was always people like Barbara who got in trouble, who got tricked into getting high off pot brownies, who were accused of “torturing” the girls who tortured her, who should give up their good grades to be more like the chosen ones, who were the crazy ones who couldn’t get along with what were clearly the prime role models of modern Portland high society. So if no one believed her, no one trusted her, no one felt she should do anything with her life, damn right no one would stop and help her...
“BARBARA!” someone screamed behind her, but she didn’t look to see who it was, only watching the river, taking in its beauty one last time before she gave herself to it forever. As she readied to leap, she felt a strong pair of arms around her waist, pulling her back over the rail to solid ground. She fought at first, then broke into tears and threw her arms around her father, too overcome to speak.
Franklin Greer had heard enough, had seen enough, had had enough. Only a miracle had saved his daughter- if he hadn’t started his job at a computer company that worked with social media... if his boss had considered it inappropriate that the teenager he monitored was his own daughter- but he had, and he had seen the torture that Barbara was being put through, the venom that was spat at her every day without stop. He’d confronted the Davises, the Martins, and the Langs about their daughters’ behavior, and they’d said all the right things about telling their daughters to stop it- and he was dead certain that as soon as he hung up the phone, they turned around and congratulated their little girls for understanding so well how the world was supposed to work. He’d even caught Mark Lang posing as a bullied girl at another school who was pretending to give Barbara support and then spitting all the insults back into her face, and let Mark know exactly how he felt about it with a fist to the face and a sharp kick to the kneecap at O’Hara’s Bar. Carla hadn’t spoken to him for three days, but it was worth it to protect his little girl. This had gone on long enough, and he just thanked God that he guessed that Barbara would pick her favorite high space in Portland to jump from.
“It’s not your fault, honey. It’s never your fault. There’s nothing you could do that should cause you to do this. I understand why you would think this would help, but it’s my job to make it better,” Franklin said, wiping the tears away.
Barbara was about to say something, but she saw something out of the corner of her eye and nodded weakly as he led her to the car. Once she was strapped into the passenger seat and Franklin had locked the windows, she burst out, “Please tell me that’s why you have a rifle in the truck bed! You don’t even know what they did to me this time!”
“Killing them wouldn’t... okay, that was if I was to late, princess,” Franklin said, smiling tightly. That was enough for Barbara to come to her senses, and Franklin went on, “The only problem I see is your inability to fight back the right way, but you can’t climb up if you can’t find up. I was afraid that it would come to this. I tried to stay out of it- your parents aren’t always going to be around to save the day, and I thought it would make matters worse if I interfered. You know how mad your mother was after I beat up Kelly’s dad for what he did.”
“I tried that! I even had Jolene’s boyfriend down on the floor once! And then Justine claimed that was because he knew I was gonna...”
“I heard about that. Working for a contractor for Facebook might be low-paying, but it’s been very useful, and I have you to thank. You were the one who taught me about computers when the real estate market was about to crumble. Now, you remember Slava, right?”
“That Russian guy you brought over to dinner? Very nice man, but his English no too good?” Barbara asked, confused by the change of subject.
“I’m glad you liked him. It’s time you got away from those three. See the world, learn some skills- you know overseas travel looks great on college resumes. And you might learn some new skills that will help you deal with those little brats in the way they deserve,” Franklin said, opening the glove compartment and handing her a brochure. “Slava thought you might take well to this after I told him how you got me into programming.”
“Gregor’s Programming Institute, Moscow, Russia? Programming lives, living for programming since 1975? Umm, Russia? I barely passed Spanish, but maybe if they do some English- it’s pretty far, but a whole summer away from them...” Barbara rambled, working out her thoughts as she flipped through the brochure and wiped away the occasional tear that still fell.
“Plus you’ll be back in time to show everyone in school what you learned for your senior year,” Franklin said with a knowing smile.
Realization dawned on Barbara. “You really think I could learn to-I mean, I know a little, and I’ve always been good with computers, but- oh, man, that would be amazing, if I could—”
“I know you can, honey. You’re smart, you’re motivated, you have a natural aptitude for it- how hard could it be? Now, the only thing is, it’s a summer program, and you know what that means.”
Barbara smiled. “I can grin and bear it for the last two months of the school year, as long as it’s the last two months I have to put up with all the shit they’ve been slinging at me. Sorry, dad, all the crap they’ve been slinging at me.”
“I think, under the circumstances, a little foul language can be permitted,” Franklin said with a half-smile. “Now, don’t tell your mother about any of this. You know what she thinks about all that computer stuff.”
“Yeah, she’d totally have a cow. Besides, she’ll be too busy hugging me from thinking I jumped! Oh, wouldn’t that be a bitch? You save me from ending my life and give me something new to shoot for, and mom smothers me. Keep an eye on her, will you? I don’t want to die by irony!” Barbara’s smile was real, if a little more cruel than Franklin was expecting, but he just chalked it up to a teenager’s attention span. All he could think about was the fact that his daughter was alive in his car instead of smeared across the rocks or drowned in the river. That was the only thing that mattered.
“Whatever you told her, it certainly made her more resilient!” Carla said a year later. “I just went on that face bookie thing. What filth! How could anyone say that about another human being? And the language! If that was all I was hearing day in and day out,— no wonder our Barbara tried to end herself. I thought she was happy because it stopped, but it’s still going, and she’s answering them, provoking them- what did you tell her?”
Franklin spread his hands in confusion. Carla ranted on, “No one accuses me of incestuously raping my only daughter, Frank! Do something! I don’t care if Barbara’s numb to it now, or if she’s just ignoring them! That needs to go to someone who can discipline these girls!” She jabbed a finger at the screen, and Franklin turned scarlet when he read what was being posted on Barbara’s wall. It was worse than it had been when Barbara tried to jump last April, and he couldn’t understand how Barbara had remained so calm about it.
As if thinking about her had summoned her, Barbara strolled into the living room with a jaunty whistle and threw down her bookbag. She looked back and forth between her parents’ faces and said, “Okay, I admit it, I cut math to work on code in the library, but it was for a final. They said they’d let it slide and I could make up the work, but they called you anyway. Okay, I’ll clean the oven, I know the drill.”
“Why haven’t you told us they were still doing it? That it was getting worse? I thought that trip to Russia was to make you stand up to those girls, not grin and bear it while they burn our family alive!” Carla snapped.
“What? Ohhhh, you discovered Facebook. It’s a scary place, especially Kelly’s. She really lets loose there. Don’t worry about it. Thirty more days, and that will be done. I’m never going to see them again after graduation, so why should I worry about it? And if I can ignore it, I’d expect someone more than thirty years older than I am to. So, excuse me, but I have double math homework to do tomorrow and some fine-tuning to do for my final project- don’t worry, this time I got a hall pass,” she said breezily as she went by.
“Well, that’s much more mature than I was expecting, but still!” Carla said, still grinding her teeth at the thought of what those girls had dared to say about her baby girl.
Franklin, on the other hand, had done a few permutations in his head, and the penny dropped. “Did you just say you cut class?” he shouted as he chased her upstairs. But as he barged into her room and closed the door, the fact that Barbara had skipped calculus was far from the biggest worry he had. The horror posters staring back at him made more and more sense now. It had seemed that the only ill effect of Barbara’s fateful trip to the bridge was a sudden interest in cheap Teen Spiral films. Her favorite Christmas present had been a framed poster from the original Russian Rasputin’s Revenge that Slava had sent. He took a deep breath, knowing that what he did now would box him in. “What’s going on here? Don’t hide from me. I sent you there. You tell me the truth and I’ll give you advice, but I need to know.”
Barbara looked at him like he was a bit slow. “Slava didn’t tell you when you signed me up? He did seem kind of slow, but maybe that was just the language barrier getting between you again. I’ve been doping their brains up, making them into the best frenemies ever. I’m setting them up for a fall after graduation so they don’t mess with anyone ever again. If I wanted to, they’d be my best friends, but then they’d just get cast out and I’d have three more like they were before, and then three more- I don’t want the whole school! That’s just icky, and way too much to handle,” she said with her best innocent face.
“You’re- I knew they taught subliminal programming there, but are you telling me the movies are true? What have I gotten you into?”
“No, dad, the movies are crap- well, for the most part. I can do some of the cell phone tricks from the new Melissa, but not with simple text. The trick is to modify the screen, but hey don’t dare show that. Teaching the world something that works that well- that’s totally going to be a good idea. You know, I was one of only five students to graduate from the summer program, and the only American. All the other Americans were too busy thinking about turning on the downstairs to think about turning off the upstairs,” Barbara rambled on proudly, beaming at her father.
Franklin felt his stomach sink, but what could he do? Barbara was still his little girl, his princess, and if she was in over her head, he had to do his best for her. “Be careful,” he said firmly. “Do you want to end up like the girls in those movies? Or even have anyone else end up like those girls?”
“I know how to take care of myself, dad. I’ve already been six inches away from dropping seven hundred feet into five miles of rapids. I’m not getting an inch closer to that fate, I swear,” Barbara said with a grin.
Franklin didn’t smile back. “I’m not so sure you aren’t still six inches away. But if you really do have them under your spell, and you really don’t want them to die, keep them away from your mother before she shoots them,” he warned her before leaving her to her devices, going into his bedroom, and collapsing in disbelief.
“Don’t worry, Daddy. I’m going to keep them very far away from Mom,” she whispered, a cruel smile growing on her face.
“Kelly! Jolene! Shit! Wake up! The fat bitch set us up! All that stuff we stole- she drugged our brains with it!” Justine said frantically, gasping out the words even as her body wanted to melt to her knees and fall into a state of total need like her friends already had.
“Thought your piety was keeping you from getting the full effect. Should have known when you left your bra on while you sexted me, while those other two sluts you hang around with, well... let’s just say that purple stripe between their legs isn’t their panties showing,” Barbara said with a smile. She snapped her fingers, and both Kelly and Jolene stood up and ripped their shorts off as if they were on fire, while Justine felt the frequencies hitting her hard, and she realized that she had blanked out and was now only wearing her bra and panties. She tried to cover herself up, but her body wouldn’t obey her commands, and every movement she made only sexualized her further.
“Just give in, Justine, give in like I know you want to. Just like you treated me. I may be harsh, but it’s for your own good. It’s not like I’m trying to hurt you,” Barbara said with a feral grin, and Justine was near tears when she recognized where the phrase came from. But she had too much poison in her system to do anything but obey, and she felt her boyshorts slide off her legs, and all she could see was Barbara’s manic face, and all she could hear was the Miley, and she couldn’t think at all...
“Moscow! You gonna have a gay old time down there, huh?” the TSA agent said as he checked the tickets of the three Russian hotties. They didn’t look dressed for a long flight, with their stripper heels, tops that were barely legal, and shorts that had less fabric in them than his belt, but it wasn’t his place to comment. The broad-shouldered girl with the short hair, leading them around like they were her purchases at the clearance sale, might have intervened, and she didn’t look like the kind of woman he wanted to cross. He’d heard stories, and maybe it was a coincidence she was wearing green, but he didn’t want to risk it.
“Dude! Those girls got viruses! Back to work!” the supervisor yelled- but not before sneaking a stare at the cut asses. Those look more like American cheerleader than Russian whore, but, hey, what do I know?
Franklin sat outside the precinct in his car, tears in his eyes, as he looked over the reservation information. Everyone had known Barbara was returning to Russia, but he saw the Russian names on the other three tickets, and he knew he had created not just a murderer, but a monster better suited for the late late movie. He could snitch on his daughter, reveal what he’d done- of course, Slava would have him shot before he would have to face her. Better still, he could return home and live Barbara’s lie with his wife. Someday his daughter would return home, and he’d hug her, smile as she married some Russian mobster, and play dumb. That would be the easy thing.
But she had taken three lives already, on his suggestion. And she hadn’t taken the care with it that he was expecting. How long would he be able to keep the lie up before Barbara got caught? Better to get away while he still could. Better for her to be free. He turned on the radio. The local news was on, reporting the same story they had every fifteen minutes. “Clothing found at the mouth of the Willamette River has been confirmed as the remains of missing Portland cheerleaders Jolene Davis, Kelly Lang, and Justine Martin, bringing a tragic end to three of the most promising young lives in Rip City. All indications lead to a suicide pact, with...”
He turned it off. At least Barbara had been careful in that way, and now she would be consequence free, which was more than he could say. He laughed, with tears coming from his eyes, pulled away, pointing his car toward Seattle and a new life.