It was Linda, sitting in the backseat, that first saw her through the window.
The road was slippery, a heated rainfall in the middle of summer.
The family was on vacation, heading down to Florida to soak up the sun like beached whales, visit theme parks and complain about the weather. There were five of them in total. You'd dismiss them easily in a crowd if you could.
Frank and Lily and their three children, pale with red sunburnt patches on their shoulders, noses and chests.
"Look!" Linda shouts in her shrill, earsplitting voice – that even dolphins can hear. She points and points through the glass at something outside their rusty sedan.
"Shut up." her big brother mutters, looking down in his lap, playing a handheld game despite feeling like he might throw up at any second.
But Linda is adamant, and unusually so right after a nap.
"What is it sweetheart?" Frank asks, squinting to look at her in the rearview mirror.
"There's a girl on the side of the road!"
"Are you sure it's not just some junk? People lose their shoes all the time on the highway."
"No, look at her!"
And sure enough, when the family in the car turns to look, they see the small figure of a child huddling inside a cardboard box on the side of the road, in a ditch.
"Well, how about that..." Frank mutters, fascinated – like he's witnessing a wild animal on a safari trip. But he makes no move to stop the car.
That is, until his wife bristles and looks at him with a wild fury – and he knows then, with a gutwrenching pang – there will be no acrobatic sex in the steam room at the hotel tonight.
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There is not enough room in the backseat, so the girl is put in the rear along with their luggage.
Uneasy silence reigns in the car until a pebble hits the windshield.
An awful smell spreads through the car, and Frank puts on the AC as high as it will go.
"Are you comfortable back there honey?" Lily asks, and the girl sniffles but does not respond at first.
"They left me there." she says, and her voice is nothing like her apperance.
"Who left you?"
"My parents."
"But that's awful! Just awful, isn't it Frank?"
"Well uh, we'll make sure you are taken care of at the nearest police station."
"Frank! How can you be so heartless?! I'm sorry dear, of course you'll stay with us tonight."
The children have gone eerily still in the backseat, the presence of the girl making them feel strange – a sense of unity against something new and unpleasant. The skies above them is still a dark plummet of thunder and rain.
The girl behind the netting leans forward suddenly, eyes widening, a sticky smile on her small lips. But there is no threat in the gesture – only curiosity. She reeks of sewage, of a septic tank too full.
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The rest of the drive goes by in relative silence, until they reach their designation for the night. A roadside motel. The neon sign has died, and the pool in the back has algae growing in it, and the kids joke about there being an alligator somewhere nearby.
They are so busy being grateful that there is a diner right next to the motel that they leave the smelly little girl in the car, until Frank goes to fetch his overnight bag. But by then, the girl is no longer there.
The only trace left of her are wet footprints and that godawful smell in the back – and Frank sighs, but dumps the rest of his aftershave – pouring it right onto the cheap carpeting inside because he does not want to spend the rest of the trip smelling like used diapers and rat droppings.
He tells Lily of course that he "looked for her everywhere" and was "absolutely devastated" that he couldn't find her.
And when she goes "oh you poor baby..." he hides a grin.
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The children get their own room with two cramped beds, and the two sisters share while Rob sleeps alone.
It is he who awakens and hears muffled screaming from next door.
Rob doesn't scare easily – not like his sisters. So at first he thinks that maybe, someone is just watching a movie. Or just...doing something, like his parents do when they think he's asleep.
But the screaming has an urgency to it that he is not familiar with.
Normally, if he had been at home, he would have gone to his parents in this situation. But since they are on vacation, and he is the eldest sibling, it is his responsibility to take care of things.
After listening for a couple of minutes, the screaming hasn't died down completely- but is at such a low volume that he feels comfortable getting out of bed, to go over and knock on their door.
Rob is still too young to realize what else could be happening in the next room, or perhaps he is just that naive.
Which would explain his lack of surprise to find the strange girl from before opening the door. She peers out at him in the dark, and to him she looks slightly different from before. She leans against the door, making the hinges squeak back and forth.
Her hair is tied sloppily with a pink scrunchie, her face not as caked with dirt.
"What are you doing?" He asks, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. The girl smiles at him, and its the same smile the nurse gives at school before she plunges a needle into your arm, promising it doesnt hurt a bit.
"I'm punishing my parents."
"Oh. So you found them."
"Yes, of course. They didn't try hard enough."
"Did you eat dinner?"
"I will. Later."
"Okay."
Rod remembers suddenly that there is a snickers bar in the left pocket of his pjs. He fishes it out and hands it out to her.
"You can have this, if you want."
The girl doesn't hesitate. She snatches it from his hands quickly, cradling the snack close – and suddenly, she giggles. But it is not the giggle of a child, the voice too deep. She stops herself abruptly, as if realizing this.
"Thank you. " she mutters before quickly shutting the door in his face.
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In the morning, over breakfast of pancakes and cheap coffee at the diner – Rod suddenly looks up from his food and utters a name.
Abigail Leech.
It is the same name found later on several discarded napkins in a room at the hotel, the same room that belonged to a middle-aged couple found at the bottom of the algae covered pool – heads shoved down the drain to a bloody pulpy mess.
Abigail Leech – she had two slices of each
blackberry sewer and alligator pie
bought at a garage sale, found in a cage
they thought she was a cat or a dog
But proved to be neither,
Only Abigail Leech.