63 Days

For Kady Wood:
Morning came and I realized that I was still in the hotel room. The curtains let only a sliver of light through, but it was shining directly on my face. I could smell the musty cigarette smell all around me, the scent of thousands of guests here at the Tropicana. The clock said [...]

The back seat of the police car was cold, vinyl. Eddie sat next to me, his hands in front of him in handcuffs. I sat with my back against the seat and my hands were as well in handcuffs in front of me. He looked at me with fear.
“I’m sorry” I [...]

I cried and cried when I saw his name on the business card. What were the odds of this happening? Different thoughts were going through my mind. Sometimes I’d feel relieved that we’d taken the Barnettes car because they knew my family, whom I missed. Other times I felt more guilt knowing that I’d hurt [...]

Liz, her sister Amelia and their best friend Brenda pulled into the parking lot of the Ramada and got out. They were in Salt Lake City, Utah for a conference for seminary teachers. Checking in was quick, and they were tired. It was around 8 oclock and they’d been driving for 6 hours. Showers, food [...]

Sleep came quickly. I slept sitting up, my head resting on the window, pillow on my lap. I was holding onto it tightly when I woke up, gripping it with white hands. Nobody else was in the car. I glanced out the window and saw the 3 other girls standing in the lake, kicking water [...]

It’s funny how you can smell a friendly place even before you get there. I was sitting dizzy in the back of Kathy’s car and we were pulling up into her driveway when I smelled it. It smelled familiar, like her house, like the place I’d gone over to hang out and listen to music…talk [...]

Cramps tore through my body as we made the slow 2 hour drive from St. George to Las Vegas. Natalie kept the driver happy by asking him questions about which button and knob did what in the cab of the semi-truck. He explained everything in detail, and as they yapped it up, I was pulling [...]

Every turn was making me sick. It wasn’t the constant back and forth as we turned this waaaaaay, then thaaaaat way…it was the paranoia that was creeping up the back of my neck just like the cold breeze coming from the rear window that was cracked. I’d peek into the darkness that [...]

Sometimes I wonder if I should continue. Some have commented that this isn’t real, that this didn’t happen to me. It’s taken 16 years for me to speak, and even then, I am told that this “never happened”… All they’d have to do is Google Steve Cartisano. Jack said “it would have been [...]

Inside the cabin, the air was musty. A layer of dust coated the back of the couch that was covered by a Native American printed throw blanket made of scratchy looking wool. There was a small kitchen that was attached to the family room, and off of that was a hallway with a bathroom and [...]

The doctor’s office was as any other small town white coat’s office would be. Stale antiseptic spray hovering in the air around the fake greenery crammed into every spare corner and crease in the place. A woman sat behind the counter, a window drawn in front of her to protect her from…um…coyotes? [...]

“What is this?” a kid asked Murdock as he tossed gallon ziplock bags at all of us. We were sitting on the ground, indian style, holding empty peach cans in our hands.
“Its rice. And here,” he said tossing another round of bags out at us, this with something else in it, “this one has oats [...]

Natalie and I sat down next to eachother on a rock, overlooking the slick rock basin. She and I had been cooking up a way out of this place, but first, we needed to figure out when.
“So, if you’re really wanting to make a big escape, we can just take out all the counselors and [...]

Morning came again, I watched the sun peek through the Ghost Bead trees that were sprouting out of the slick red rocks that surrounded our camp. Other kids were up, rolling their ponchos and blankets into neat bundles, tying them with the short rope they gave us, leaving loops for their arms, making a homemade [...]

The third night we sat around the campfire, talking, listening to everyone else tell their stories. Jeff was there because he was a gang banger in Miami. He’d shot up a convenience store trying to pick off a guy who’d touched his sister’s ass. He was sentenced to the program. Stacy [...]

I woke up the second morning outside, the first night out in the open air since the first night was in a teepee. This is what I saw. Peaceful, cold, silent. My prison was beautiful. My breath was taken away by the very thing that held me captive…it was an immediate love/hate relationship, this was. [...]

A boy named Jeremy emailed me today. He was there with us. He remembers. He’s still suffering:
2 divorcescan’t keep a jobbites his nails bloodyuses drugshomeless at one point for 3 yearsstill can’t go camping
I’m blessed. I’m handling things a little better, I think.

“Hi, my name’s Natalie. I’m 16, how old are you” she said to me. She was about 5′10″, pretty damn big compared to my 5′3″ and she was fairly muscular. Her blonde hair was cut like a boy, and for a quick second, I wondered if she WAS a boy.
“Uh, we’re not supposed to talk” [...]

This next section was taken from both memory, and from the journals they let us keep…green steno pads.
Dreams fade fast when there’s a stranger yelling in your face.
“GET THE HELL UP! WAKE YOUR SORRY ASSES UP RIGHT NOOOOOOOW!!!!!”
My eyes popped open before I even knew that I was awake. Its [...]

February 15, 1990; the day before:
Mom had just dropped me off in front of the High School, it was 7 am. I waited for her to go around the corner and pretended to walk across the street. As soon as she was out of sight, I walked back over to the church parking lot across [...]

“You should probably eat something, girl” Cody said to me as we sat in a dark booth at the back of the Denny’s. He was a big man, stalky in build just like Horsehair, except that he had kind eyes. On the ride over to the restaurant, after we’d left my parents house, he sat [...]

“Wake up Alli”, I heard. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I started to sit up in my bed and was caught mid motion by a face I didn’t know, peering down at me. His name was Horsehair, and he fit the part. His head was wrapped in a bandana, his facial hair trimmed [...]