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Prologue: 1992
It is almost midnight and her world is spinning out of control.
"Shut the fuck up bitch and don't scream," hisses the voice that seems to echo throughout the cavernous confines of the three-story parking garage.
Still reeling from the sharp blow to her right arm, Anita sucks in her breath and tries to make sense of what is happening to her. My arm! It's broken! Oh, my God! This can't be happening! It feels like someone has shoved her arm deep into the blue heat of a ravenous flame. Nerves made raw with pain fire repeatedly up and down the damaged limb.
It's broken! Snapped like a brittle piece of wood! Broken!
Anita feels like she will throw up, fall down-just give up. But she has never given up. It isn't in her nature to give up. She tries to scream, but it is impossible to get a sound beyond the hot hand clamped firmly on her mouth.
A few hours ago, Anita Powers gave a well-received speech to a group of minority high school students as part of a weeklong series of events commemorating Black History Month at the University of Denver. Few activities give Anita greater satisfaction than relating her success story to a youthful audience of black and brown faces. She enjoys telling them how in spite of all the odds that were stacked against her since day one, she is well on her way to becoming a doctor. "Anyone," she told them, "can find their way beyond any negative circumstance."
But my arm! Oh, God! It's broken!
Anita parked her car in the garage located directly across from the auditorium and just beyond the well-lighted tennis courts. She did not park in the open lot adjacent to the auditorium because the evening forecast warned of a heavy blanket of wet snow.
Oh, God! Oh, God! I've got to find a way out of this!
A proud woman, whose remarkable beauty is well matched by her intelligence and drive to succeed, Anita is fiercely independent and dislikes having to ask people for help. This is why she didn't give Derek, her fiancé, a hard time when he refused to attend her presentation so he could instead "take care of some personal business." And this is why she declined her professor's offer to escort her to her car in spite of realizing the evening's event had extended well beyond its designated time.
Hot breath smelling of a corrupt mixture of onion, beef, and alcohol flows against her face. Thick fingers twist into her hair causing her scalp to burn and her skull to ache. "You're coming with us-bitch."
This can't be happening! Anita's mind continues the disastrous cries from a fire she is unable to extinguish. And her eyes water as the natural rhythms of her body make their acquaintance with an alien form of raw fear.
The muscular young man initially caught her and held her from behind, right before delivering the devastating blow to her right arm. But he now turns her. They are face to face.
Oh, my God, nooooooooo!
She tries to keep from facing him by forcing her eyes to the ground. If she cannot see him-if she does not look, then maybe the demon will cease to exist.
Still trying to resist her assailant's advances, she catches a glimpse of the red and black pole he holds in his hand. It's the automobile anti-theft device. Screaming thoughts crowd her mind again. The Club! I've been hit in the side of my arm with The Club-a steel bar!
Adrenaline flows freely, but instead of making her stronger, it has a sedative effect. She wants nothing more than to pass out and escape from having to understand and confront any of what is happening to her.
"You're coming with us," he says, further tightening his grip in her hair.
Oh, God, it hurts!
Anita summons the courage to finally look up and face the dark eyes of her attacker. He's a black male who appears to be in his late teens or early twenties. Us? Who? She questions and receives no answers.
Viselike, a hand grips her right upper arm, causing sharp pain to radiate throughout her shoulder. "Oh, my Lord," she whimpers, her eyes instantly watering up. "You don't want to do this," she pleads. You don't want-"
She then spots the swirl of red and black metal as it slices through air on a path toward her face. The sudden pain she feels is excruciating and there is no relief from realizing he slaps her hard against the side of her head with his hand instead of the steel weapon. The sound of metal falling against concrete is faint and possibly imagined.
God help me! Please!
The fierce throbbing in her face is then supplanted by the force of another slap to her left cheek that is followed with more verbal hissing from the monster that holds her in his grasp. But she cannot understand. She does not understand what he is trying to tell her.
There is so much pain. Please make it stop. Oh, God! Oh, God! Make it go away!
Anita coughs and begins crying as blood leaks from her cut lip.
"Don't talk! Don't say nothin' bitch," her assailant hisses again. "I don't want to have to hit you again. You just gonna be still and be pretty-that's all you have to do." Black holes mark the spots where some of his teeth are missing. He's wearing a tight, dirty, gray T-shirt and blue jeans that appear stained with oil and dirt. "Damn, you smell good."
Details, she thinks. If I can remember enough details, then maybe I can survive. She notices several bloody scratches on her attacker's muscular, dark arms. Did I make them? Oh, Derek, she thinks. Where are you? Why aren't you here with me now? How am I going to survive this? How does anyone survive this?
Anita summons the courage to fight. Sucking in her breath, her left hand becomes a claw ready to strike. She thinks she remembers hearing that women who resist their attackers during the first few moments of an assault have the greatest chance of getting away. Like a vulture, she will strike at his eyes, gouging them out like talons tearing away at rotting flesh.
Anita's hand goes up and-slap! The monster's fist connects with the left side of her face again, sending her tumbling to the ground where she promptly lands on her broken arm. Her unrestricted scream echoes throughout the parking garage.
"Shit. Ain't nobody around here is gonna help you. You might as well give up and enjoy the ride. And if you do that again, I'm gonna kill you." The monster kneels and picks up the weapon he has dropped and stands over her. "And I'll kill you quick bitch." He laughs and spits into her crying face, his spittle mixing with her tears and the blood leaking from her busted lip. His eyes, reflecting the light from the yellow fluorescents strapped to the ceiling above, are the moist, glassy red orbs of a comically made-up street demon.
Anita curses herself for crying and at the same time her soul cries out to God to get her out of what seems like an impossible situation. For the good Lord has rescued her from some seemingly impossible situations before. But nothing ever like this. Nothing ever as bad as this.
Oh, God! she prays. Please help me!
She fights back the tears, wondering how much longer she has before the unspeakable will happen. She struggles to fight off the steady waves of panic that constantly threaten to completely rob her of her senses, leaving her at the complete mercy of this monster.
Oh, God, please don't let this happen!
Anita is a smart, young woman who has worked hard all her life and has always done the right thing. She's been good when she wanted to be bad. She's been responsible when it would have been perfectly within her right to be irresponsible. She's been loving when it would have been well justified to be hateful.
On this night, she was responding to an invite by the University's Minority Affairs department to be part of a group of inspirational speakers selected to address high school students regarding the benefits of higher education. Anita graduated from the University of Denver (magna cum laude) and plans to attend John Hopkins University School of Medicine.
"C'mon, bitch," he commands, yanking Anita up from the cold concrete floor by the back of her head- and then he twists her left arm behind her back as he urges her forward to a secluded section of the garage's second level.
Oh, God, please don't let this happen to me!
The pain in her right arm repeatedly surges and then fades as it flops along as if her body is about to slough off the damaged appendage. The heels of her black pumps leave faint, barely visible skid marks as she briefly resists and quickly gives in to the commanding strides of her attacker. She spots her pearl green, 1986 Honda Accord off in the distance. Her mind looks for her keys and her soul desperately tries to start the engine.
Oh, God, please don't-
His grip in her hair relaxes. And realizing that hers is the only car parked on the second level, and that no one responded to her initial and subsequent screams, she allows her knees to buckle, seeking one last chance for escape by attempting to collapse face forward onto the floor.
Initially, her plan works, and her attacker almost trips over her in his attempt to avoid falling on top of her. Adrenaline and panic brings strength, and this time Anita ignores the resurgence of pain in her right arm, spins around on her butt and tries striking out at her attacker with her feet. Her right foot makes contact with his groin and he grunts. Anita thinks she might have a chance to finally make a run for it.
The Club! Damn it! What if he still has the weapon?!
With another angry and desperate wave of panic sweeping over her, she tries twisting around to rise up and run. This is her only chance to run. But it comes too late.
"You fucking, goddamn bitch!" her attacker shouts at her, his voice booming into the stark and cold atmosphere of the garage. He does not seem to care that someone might hear- that someone might be on the way to rescue her. As Anita tries to sprint away, her one good hand frantically clawing for a grip on the cement floor, he grabs her feet, pulling Anita flat against the ground. The coldness of the concrete floor bites into the thin fabric of her dress, stinging her breasts. Her shoes are ripped from her feet and that's when he appears-a young white man who Anita first prays is a student who might be coming to her aid. Instead, he motions to her black attacker. "This way!" he shouts. "Let's do it over here!"
"Fucking bitch! You goddamn, motherfuckin' bitch!" the black one angrily hisses again, having tired of Anita's attempts to resist. He grabs her feet, drags her backwards several inches and throws her against the nearby cement wall.
It is all Anita can do to quickly bring her left arm up to shield her face and keep from banging her head against the wall. Her arm bleeds from the latest blow, and she tastes the black one's sweat as a shredded piece of his T-shirt is suddenly forced against her mouth until it settles snug between her teeth.
"Can't stand my bitches when they get to screaming," he mutters.
Her head is roughly jerked up as if to break her neck as the black one uses his knuckles to jam the rag deeper into her mouth. In doing so, he snaps one of her front teeth.
"C'mon, over here," the white one demands, continuing his approach, and Anita recognizes him as someone she saw loitering outside of the auditorium after the evening's event, Empowerment through Diversity, ended. His blue eyes are radiant beneath the fluorescent shine illuminating the garage, and his dirty white shirt is revealed beneath an old, maroon bomber-style jacket.
The black one lifts her from her position on the cold pavement as if she is his rag doll. The bottom of her green dress rips, exposing her underwear and she feels the black one's hand squeeze her buttocks hard enough for it to hurt.
Feeling her body react to his touch, the black one holds her head with his hand in a solid grip and presses his tongue to her ear and mutters, "Oh, yeah, bitch. You're gonna like what I do to this sweet, tender ass of yours. You're gonna like it real good." His tongue is a slimy, cold slug performing a most vulgar intrusion.
Anita feels as if she will die many times over again and tries screaming again. But her cry of anguish exits her mouth in a muffled grunt accompanied by a few foamy drops of spit.
No longer capable of even attempting to stand up, her black assailant must accept dragging her along until he arrives at the entrance to the stairwell offering the option to either go up to the 3rd level or down to the 1st level.
"Noooooo," she mutters, every nerve in her body lit up by extreme and final doses of adrenaline. She wants to pass out. She wants this to end. The white one opens the door and helps the black one shove her inside the stairwell illuminated only by a low wattage fluorescent bulb hanging high on the ceiling. It blinks once behind its web-like shielding of mesh wire as if about to go out, or perhaps signal what is about to take place.
"Here, hold this bitch," the black one orders the white one. "We gonna do this one right." He begins removing his belt with one hand while he holds Anita up by gripping the back of her head even tighter.
My head is on fire! she thinks. He's going to tear my scalp off! And my arm! Oh, my God! My arm is broken! Somebody please help me! Just make it stop! Oh, God! Oh, God!
The white one momentarily appears less resolved than the black one, and Anita meets his eyes, mistakenly revealing her intent to try and make one last break for it when the black one releases her to finish pulling down his pants. That's when the white one smirks at her, revealing crooked, stained teeth-and the intensity of his resolve. Before Anita can even begin to position the muscles of her legs for one last attempt at running away, the white one punches her in the stomach.
"Dominos!" he exclaims. His laughter is maniacal. "Dominos!" he shouts the nonsensical word again.
Anita nearly vomits from the shock, the pain and fear of choking on the cloth jammed in her mouth. She vaguely hears the white one repeat his triumphant cry of "dominos" as he strikes her again in her mid-section. And the black one has grabbed the back of her neck, before shoving her forward. She's then falling into the white one's grasp right before she gags on the cloth in her mouth, and briefly loses consciousness.
Oh, God, Anita prays. Please help me. Don't let this happen. Please don't let this happen to me. Oh, pleeeeeeeeeeease God! Noooooooooo...
Outside, the nearly deserted campus offers no sudden arrival of angels or heroes to combat the horrific exploits of demons. Above and high in the night sky, dark clouds sweep across the moon, blocking its light like a turbulent, heavy black curtain. Snowflakes swirl in the chilly wind, sparkling like stars belonging to the fluorescent filled universe spilling from the parking garage. They sparkle like miniature floating stars against the glow of fluorescent light spilling beyond the concrete walls of the parking garage.
Some snowflakes drift far enough into the garage to eventually settle quietly on the windshield of Anita's Honda Accord. And several fall to quick, watery deaths upon the not quite cold enough concrete floor, just outside the door marking the entrance to the stairwell from which no sound escapes.
Beyond the yellow painted, steel door, the black one turns Anita around, having stripped her of her clothing. He enters her again-this time covering her face with what remains of her dress. His body is hot and heavy as he bores into her, his fingers occasionally clawing at her breasts. "Oh, yeah," he groans as he rams into her with such force that the top of her head bangs repeatedly against the heavy door leading into the stairwell.
And then the white one is on top of her. But he hesitates while anxiously looking into Anita's defeated eyes as if searching for something he has lost. "Turn her over, man," he says. "Help me turn the sorry bitch over."
Having resigned herself to the fact that she has already died, Anita gives up praying to God and offers no resistance as she is rolled over. This time she does not even feel the cold as her bruised and scratched breasts are pressed into the hard, filthy concrete. She feels the pain, though, and summons the strength to cry out once again as the white one penetrates her from behind. But it is a silent and imagined scream-perhaps heard only by the good Lord above.
