Seven, eight ... Gonna stay up late (Rebekka Franck #4) (2 page)

Amalie was
still
groggy when she woke up. Her head was hurting
badly. She tried hard to remember what had happened. She remembered taking the
pill, then seeing the shadow fingers on the tent and then ... then what? A
face, a set of eyes. She recognized him right away when he stuck his head in
the tent. He was the same guy who had given her the pills. Had she pushed him?
Yes, that was it. She had tried to push him out, thinking he came to reclaim
his payment for the pills, thinking he thought he was going to get lucky with
her because he had treated her to a little something.

She had pushed him amicably to let him know that
he wasn't getting anywhere near her. Even if he was handsome, he was way too
old for her and she was not about any of that. She made it very clear to him.
Then she had told him, that her friends were on their way. They would be here
any moment now. That was when he began laughing. Then what? Amalie touched her
head, there was a bump, several actually. He hit her with something. Something
big and hard. It had hurt like hell. Still did. He had swung what she now
believed was a big flashlight again in the back of her head, smashing it
against her skull, and again, this time behind her ear, then a succession of
blows followed. She had tried to scream and drag her body towards the entrance
of the tent, but she knew the noise from the concerts and the drunken people
walking to and from the stages, yelling and screaming in joy would drown out her
cries for help.

  Amalie touched the back of her head
again and thought about her dad. He would kill her once he found out where she
had been. When he came to get her. He was going to get her, wasn't he? she
thought suddenly with desperation. Of course he was. He always found her. But
what if he didn't this time? What if he couldn't?

Amalie stared into the empty darkness in front
of her. She had to find a way to get home before he found out she wasn't on the
boat with Camilla. Where was Camilla anyway? She had to find her in a hurry, so
they could get their stories straight. She felt sick to her stomach, probably
from the drugs. Her pants were wet. Had she wet herself while unconscious? How
gross. How humiliating.

But where was she? She wasn't in her tent; she
thought and felt underneath her body. It felt like she was lying on some sort
of plastic. It wasn't her air mattress, and it certainly wasn't a bed. She
couldn't be in a hospital.

"I have to get out of here," she said
and tried to sit up. Her head hit something hard that forced her to lie down
again. What was that? She moaned and touched her forehead. Then she reached up
her hand and touched what it was her head had hit. It was like a ceiling; she
thought and patted along it. It felt just like the floor she was lying on.
Could she be in some sort of bunk bed? Had that creep taken her somewhere? Had
he taken her back to his place or something? Amalie shrieked at the thought of
what he could have done to her while she had been unconscious. Who the hell did
he think he was? Didn't he know who she was? She could destroy his life for
doing this. Her father would make sure he was properly punished. For many that
was a fate worse than death.

Amalie tried again to sit up, but it was
impossible.  Then she turned her body with the intent of sticking out her
legs and crawling out. But her arms and legs hit a wall as well.

With her heart pounding in her chest she turned
to the other side, only to hit another wall of plastic here as well. Slightly
panicking, she tried to slide with her feet first, but they too hit a wall
right away. Then she stretched her hands upwards above her head. Her hands hit
yet another wall of plastic. 

She began gasping for air while patting the
walls surrounding her very close to her body. Then she screamed.

"HELP! HELP!"

She kept patting the plastic until she realized
it surrounded her completely, without an opening anywhere - at least not one
that she could find. Then she put her hands on the ceiling and tried to push it
with all of her strength, but it didn't move at all. In desperation she began
hitting it with her clenched fist, trying to smash it, and then kicked it while
screaming, but nothing helped. She gasped while panic grew inside of her. The
realization felt catastrophic.

She was trapped.

He listened
with
pleasure to the screams coming from
the basement of his three story house in Hellerup overlooking the ocean. A
smile was planted across his face. She was awake. Allan licked his lips to
moister them, while he sat in the black chaise longue designed by Le Corbusier
with his iPad in his lap. He turned up the music from his B&O and enjoyed
the tunes emerging from his built in speakers. This was indeed a
great moment
, he wrote on the iPad with
the five hundred dollar Balenciaga iPad folder made from vintage lambskin that
his annoying boyfriend Sebastian had bought him on one of his trips to
Florence.

Have fun and enjoy the ride
,
a man calling himself Michael Cogliantry answered. It wasn't his real name,
Allan knew that much. Like himself they all used aliases.

Oh I intend to
,
he wrote back.

Don't forget to post pictures
and tell us all the dirty details
, a guy who called
himself Karl Persson answered.

I will
,
Allan wrote.
She is still screaming
.

Ah, that's the best part
,
Cogliantry wrote.
I love it when they scream
like that. I love listening to the desperation in their voices. How I miss it.

Why don't you go out and get a
new one for yourself?
Allan asked
. It's been awhile. You must be getting thick behind
the ears. Lol.

I am. It's like I'm itching
all over for the thrill. I badly need to kill again soon. But I have to lay
low. At least for a few months more,
he answered
.

You don't think the police
still suspect anything? After they grabbed the ex-boyfriend for killing her? I
honestly think they have moved on by now,
Allan wrote.

Yeah. You might be right. But
they came to my door, remember? Scared the shit out of me. Asked me where I had
been on the night she disappeared.

That's what you get from
picking a girl from your neighborhood,
Persson wrote.
You don't shit where you eat, remember? That's the
first rule. You don't mess with the rules, man.

I got to go,
Allan
wrote
. She just went quiet.

Losing strength already?
Persson
wrote.
Good luck, Einaudi.

Thanks. Will be posting again soon,
Allan wrote, and then logged off. He raised his head
from the screen and looked at the painting on the wall, made by the artist, the
real Fred Einaudi himself. It showed a boy above a lake looking down at the
body of a dead girl floating in the surface while he was trying to poke her
with a stick. The title was the mermaid, and visitors to Allan's house thought
that was what the painting was all about, but Allan knew the girl was no
mermaid. The title simply referred to what the boy thought it was, but in
reality she was as dead as they come. She was never going to swim anywhere
again. Allan chuckled to himself remembering the first time he had drowned a
girl. That was what he enjoyed so much about this painting and why he had
desired it so much the first time he had seen it in an exhibition in New York
that he was willing to pay the enormous sum the artist was asking. He had been
that boy once. The first time he had killed. And the painting reminded him of
that beautiful time when he had stared at her floating dead body in the water,
looking back at him with her empty eyes. She was nothing, meant nothing to him
before that second. But once she was in that water she was eternalized in his
memory as the one who took his virginity. That's why he bought the painting,
and that was why he used the artist's name on the chat. It seemed appropriate
somehow. Like there was a supernatural connection between him and the real
artist. Allan was after all sort of an artist himself. At least that was how he
viewed himself. They all did.

But he too had broken the rules now, hadn't he?
That was why he had left the chat in a hurry. It wasn't because the girl had
stopped screaming, no she was still at it much to his pleasure, since the
feistier they were the funnier it was to kill them. No it was because of what
one of them had said. Allan knew it was bad to pick someone that close to you,
someone who might know you. He had played it very safe for years and years and
never made one mistake. He couldn't tell the others about it, they would think
he had lost it. But he knew that he could easily do this without endangering
himself. He knew he could. He was the best at everything he did, especially
killing. Superhuman even. This one wasn't random, it wasn't just another one.
She was nothing like the others. She was special, and this was something he
needed to do. Yes, he was probably going to break some of the rules from now
on, but so be it. It was something he had planned for a long time, and he had
been thrilled to realize that the pretty little thing hadn't recognized him
when he stared at her in the tent at the festival. She didn't know who he was.
After all it didn't matter.

She would be dead soon anyway.

"We're
here to
see a lot of naked people," the young man
with the cap said. His friend standing next to him nodded.

"It's true. It's only here on Roskilde
Festival that they have a race like this. It's a tradition. We've been standing
in this line for forty minutes in order to see it. You have to get here early
to get a spot in front," he laughed boyishly. "The best view is in
the front."

I wrote his comments down on my pad along with
their names, then Sune took their pictures and we left them. There were only a
few seconds till the annual naked-race was about to start at the festival. It
was always a fun event that the entire media covered with lots of pictures of
the naked people racing each other to the finish line. Even TV crews were in
place, ready to broadcast video of the naked contestants all over the country.
It had been going on for fifteen years now, and was arranged by the festival's
own radio station that was only on air once a year during the four days of the
festival.

This was day three. It was Saturday and as
tradition had it also the day when hundreds of festival participants took off
their clothes and ran across the mud stark naked. Thousands of spectators would
cheer them on. It didn't matter what they looked like, the runners came in all
sizes and shapes. It was quite a show and so very, very Danish, I thought to
myself as the white bodies wearing nothing but boots ran past me splattering
mud into the air and Sune took a series of pictures. The winners were announced
and displayed on the podium while the crowd cheered happily. One man and one
woman. I chuckled while I wrote down the two winner's names on my pad. Their
pictures would probably be on the front page of the newspaper, since nothing
much else was happening in our small country at this time of year.

We went back to the media-center to write the
story and send it. The room was soon packed with journalists who came to do the
same. Radio people were editing their pieces, reportages and sending them home,
the TV crews worked their equipment with precision. It didn't take me more than
half an hour to finish it up and send both article and Sune's pictures back to
Jens-Ole, who was sitting at the editor's desk at our main office, waiting for
something to happen, waiting for the perfect story to break, so he didn't have
to display two naked people winning a race for the third year in a row on the
front page. I pressed "send" and looked at Sune.

"Now we just have one more thing to do
before the big concert tonight," I said and got up from the chair. I
grabbed my laptop and put it in my bag. We had promised the paper to report
from the Springsteen concert that same night. He wasn't doing any interviews
this time, his manager had told everybody, but we had been allowed to write a
piece about his wife, Patti Scialfa who was also playing guitar in the band. She
agreed to do a brief interview. So now we walked towards the huge Orange stage
where they were going to play the same night. She had agreed to meet us there
so we could get some nice shots of her and her guitar.

I noticed the posters for the first time while walking
across the area in front of the stage, where thousands of people would gather
in a few hours to the biggest concert of the entire festival. Everybody was
going to be there, that was for sure. People wanting to be in front had already
arrived; some were sitting on the ground smoking cigarettes, talking, drinking
beer, and waiting. I passed a group of young punk girls dressed in black,
sitting on the muddy ground. That was when I noticed they were each holding a
piece of paper in their hands, intently reading it. I didn't think more of it
until a few seconds later when two men passing us were holding the very same
pieces of papers while talking loudly.

" ... Happens every year, you know."

"... probably just passed out in a tent
somewhere."

They looked at the paper, and the photo
displayed on top of it.

"Good looking, though," the one guy
said just before he crumbled the paper up and threw it through the air.

I kept walking while suddenly noticing everybody
around us holding the paper posters in their hands. As we walked on I spotted a
girl in the center of area, right in front of the stage. She was handing out
the papers while talking. There was something about her that made me stop,
something in her frantic way of pushing the pieces of paper at people. It was
an air of desperation that drew me towards her.

As I came closer, she looked at me, then handed
me one. "Please, help me. I'm looking for this girl," she said and
pointed at the picture. A beautiful blond girl about the same age as she was stared
back at me. What were they, fourteen? Fifteen? "She disappeared Thursday
night and hasn't been seen since," the girl said with shiver in her voice.
"Her name is Amalie."

I looked at the girl handing out the papers. She
was biting her lip. "What's her last name?" I asked. "It doesn't
say."

The young girl stared at me, and then shook her
head. "I'm afraid I can't tell you."

"She is very young and so are you, have you
contacted her parents?"

The girl shook her head heavily. Then she smiled
insecurely and turned her back to me. She started walking away. I followed her.
"Hey. I was talking to you," I said. I caught up to her and grabbed
her shoulder. She tried to walk faster. "Hey. I'm a journalist. I might be
able to help you," I added. "I could put her picture in the paper and
write a small note about her disappearing. Have you contacted the police?"

The young girl stopped walking. She turned and
looked at me. She grabbed my paper and pulled it out of my hands. "Just
forget it," she said shaking her head. "I'm sure she just found some
guy and stayed with him."

"But you don't think she would ever do
that, do you?" I asked. "You're her best friend and you know she
would never do anything like that, right? You wouldn't be out here with these
homemade posters, if you thought that, am I right?"

The young girl sighed deeply, then bowed her
head and shook it slowly. "She said she was just going to the restroom. I
knew she was drunk, but we all were. I thought she would be back. She had been
looking forward to seeing The Mew. When she didn't come back I began searching
for her, we had promised to stick together. We always make a deal to stick
close together and never go with anyone. I was mad at her at first for breaking
our deal, but when she didn't come back to the tent all night, I became scared
that something had happened. I searched for her all day yesterday and today,
passing out these posters. Someone that I know in the festival's radio station
helped me make them and print them. I keep checking my phone thinking she is
going to call soon, but ... " The girl turned away from me. "The
festival is closing tomorrow and if I haven't found her then ..."

I grabbed both of her shoulders and turned her.
"Look at me," I said. The girl lifted her head and looked me in the
eyes. "I can try and help you, if you'd like. My name is Rebekka Franck.
I'm a reporter at
The Zeeland Times
."

The girl sniffled. "I'm Camilla."

"Okay, Camilla. Now tell me, why haven't
you called her parents yet? Is it because they don't know you're here?"

Camilla sniffed and nodded. "They would
never let us go. They'd kill us if they found out."

"Okay, so that's why you're trying to find
her on your own first. I get that. I know that people disappear from the
festival every year and once the festival is over they turn up again. Most of
them have just been too drunk and then fallen asleep somewhere. It happens. But
they are not as young as you two. How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"And your friend ..." I stared at the
paper and read the name. "Amalie? Is she fourteen too?"

Camilla nodded.

"Okay. Well you're not the first
fourteen-year olds at this festival, but you are definitely among the youngest.
Is it your first time?"

"No, we were here last year too. But
nothing like this has ever happened before."

"Have you thought about having the festival
radio broadcast an alert for people to look for Amalie?"

Camilla nodded. "They say they need her
last name for it, and I can't give them that."

"Why not?"

Camilla exhaled deeply. "It's complicated,
okay. Let's just say that I'm afraid the entire hoard of press will come
running after me. It would be all over the news."