Seven, eight ... Gonna stay up late (Rebekka Franck #4) (3 page)

She was still
screaming. Amalie scratched her fingers at the slippery plastic and felt how
they had begun bleeding. Then she clenched her fist again and began hitting the
thick plastic. She continued until her hands became numb and she couldn't feel
her fingers. She tried to use her nails to grab a hold of an edge or a crack or
at least something to grab on to. There had to be an opening somewhere, where
she had gotten in, she thought and searched frantically. But she found nothing.
No cracks, no sharp edges. It was all smooth and so very, very close to her.
When she could feel her fingers yet again, she started scratching with her
nails. Blood dripped in her face and hit her lip. She recognized the taste from
her childhood. Her fingertips were hurting badly and the pain forced her to
stop. Then she opened her mouth and let out another scream. Her heart pounding,
she screamed until her voice became hoarse and she almost lost it.

Then she stopped. Breathing heavily she tried to
calm herself down and use another weapon. Her brain. She began to think.

The darkness still surrounded her and Amalie had
lost track of time and space. She knew she had been attacked Thursday night,
but how long had she been unconscious? A day? Two days? How long had she been
lying awake staring into the void, the darkness, seeing nothing, just feeling
her way around and screaming and kicking? She didn't know. All she knew was
that she had gone from utter panic, knocking, kicking, screaming to finally
calming herself down, trying to think of a way out. But the panic was still
there, wasn't it? It was lurking underneath the surface constantly. She tried
to control her breathing again, not thinking about the hard plastic surrounding
her, just imagining herself in open places, on her father's yacht, out on the
open sea, breathing in the fresh sea air. That was when a thought occurred to
her. If she were in fact in a closed box of some sort as she suspected, and
then she would eventually use up all the air, wouldn't she? The thought brought
the panic back. The feeling of suffocating overwhelmed her and she gasped for
air. But that was just it, she realized. There seemed to be air enough for her.
That meant that there had to be an opening somewhere. The air had to come in
somewhere.

Amalie began patting the plastic above her
meticulously. Putting one hand next to the other and by that way covering all
of it eventually. She took in a deep breath. It smelled like old urine. But it
also confirmed her theory. Yes, there was indeed enough air, no doubt about it.
She wasn't supposed to suffocate. She was supposed to be able to breathe. Her
fingers examined the ceiling but found nothing, then she moved on to the sides.
First the one to the left. After a few seconds she felt something close to the
upper corner. She put both of her hands on it and felt it closer. It was a
hole. A circular hole in the plastic big enough for her hand to almost fit in
it. But it didn't lead outside of the box, she realized as she tried to push
her hand through it. It seemed to lead into a tube of some sort. A tube going
upwards. But where? She speculated while examining it more closely. Where did
it end? What was on the other side of it? And most importantly,
who
was?

What were their plans with her? Why had they put
her in this awful thing? They were determined to keep her alive, but why? For
what? Money? Her dad would pay them in a heartbeat. Of course he would.

And afterwards he would hunt
them down like the beasts they were.

They had to know who she was, she thought
calmingly to herself. That meant she wasn't a random victim to some psychopath.
This was arranged. This was a kidnapping. Of course it was. They wanted money.
The bastards.

Amalie chuckled to herself. They had to be very
stupid bastards. Most people would know to pick a different target, she thought
grinning. Most people would have sense enough to never dare touch her. She
amused herself by imagining how they would get what was coming to them.

Amalie kept thinking about what her dad would do to
them, imagining the worst things she could come up with, and decided to not
give her captors what they wanted. She wasn't going to cry, she wasn't going to
be weak. Instead she began planning her revenge.

Once my dad gets to them. They
won't know what hit them.

Allan was
preparing
dinner for himself and Sebastian. He stared
at the butcher's knife and turned the blade to make it catch the light. Such a
marvelous instrument. Such beauty in its simplicity. He touched the blade and
cut his fingertip slightly. A drop of blood landed on the raw meat. Allan
smiled, then found a paper-towel and wiped the blood off. The meat looked fresh
even if it had been in his freezer for months.

Allan lifted the knife in the air, then stabbed
the meat. He exhaled satisfied as it penetrated the raw meat, as it cut through
the flesh. He cut it into big slices that he placed in a baking dish,
then  sprinkled herbs on it and covered it with a sauce he had been
cooking for hours on the stove. He smelled the dish just before he sent it into
the hot oven. It smelled heavenly.

"The secret’s in the sauce," he said
to himself while chuckling at his own reference to one of Sebastian's all-time
favorite movies
Fried Green Tomatoes
.

Allan loved cooking for his boyfriend even if he
never enjoyed his company much. Allan wasn't really gay, to be frank he wasn't
anything really. Not homosexual, not heterosexual, not bi-sexual either. Allan
really wasn't any of those things. He was more sort of ... well the word
psychopath would be closer to the truth, but it had such a negative ring to it,
didn't it? That's why he liked to see himself as more of an artist. Like other
artists, he created things. And like most artists he would never be recognized
by his time, but he would be remembered for many years to come. People would
talk about him and discuss his work. Most of them with repulsion, but that was
always the risk one took as an artist. You had to not care what people thought
about it. An artist had to create what his heart longed to tell the world,
didn't he? Whether they liked it or not. That was the blessing and the curse of
being a true
artiste
, as they
liked to pronounce it. And Allan was a true
artiste
,
he thought to himself as he looked inside of the oven and stared at the
herb-covered meat boiling in the hot sauce.

"Another
creazione
by the marvelous Allan Witt," he said to himself lifting up his
fingers pretending to be artistic, then blowing finger kisses and bowing like
he was receiving applause. Standing ovation, naturally.

Oh, they would get to respect him and admire his
work. One day they all would speak his name in awe and admiration. They would
write about him everywhere and people would shiver in fascination.
Ah, yes
, Allan thought to himself as he
closed the door to the basement and shut out the screaming. Then he turned on
the music to drown her out completely.
One
day
they'll understand my genius.

Allan was ripped out of his daydream by the
sound of the bell. He jumped with anticipation, then ran to open the door.
Sebastian stood on the outside steps wearing a short-sleeved white silk-shirt
from some overly expensive Italian designer. He smiled showing pearly white
teeth.

"Right on time," Allan said.

Sebastian stepped inside and kissed Allan on the
lips. "Smells absolutely fabulous," he said and looked at Allan.
"Are you about to spoil me again?" He tapped his well proportioned
six-pack stomach. "I know what you're up to," he said. Then he leaned
over and grabbed Allan's face between his hands and kissed him again. The kiss
left Allan feeling nothing.

"You just want to fatten me up, don't you?
Fatten me up so no one else will want me, and you can have me to myself? Ah,
don't think I haven't noticed how you put extra cream in the sauce to make it
so good I can't resist it. I'm on to you, sweetie-pie. I am so on to you."

Then Sebastian clicked his tongue which made him
sound gayer than ever and walked towards the kitchen. Allan closed the door.

"You got me there," he said.

Sebastian looked inside of the oven, then drew
in a big breath and looked back at Allan. "Oh, that is so good," he
said. "What are we having?"

Allan smiled widely. "Just a little
something I pulled up from the freezer."

I asked Camilla
to meet me after I finished the interview with Patti Scialfa. Sune stayed
behind to take some more photos while I hurried to our meeting place. Camilla
was waiting when I arrived. She stood in front of a stand that sold vegetarian
dishes. Her face seemed strained and her eyes showed she hadn't slept much. It
wasn't unusual at a festival like this, but in her case it wasn't because she
had been partying all night. Her eyes were flickering like they were constantly
scanning the area surrounding her, on the lookout for her friend, anxiously
hoping that she might catch a glimpse of her somewhere in the crowd of hundreds
and hundreds of people constantly passing by.

"I keep thinking I see her," she said
as I approached. Camilla kept sweeping the area with her eyes and spoke without
looking at me. "But it's just someone looking like her. Like that girl
over there. Her hair looks just like Amalie's."

I put my hand on Camilla's shoulder. She turned
and looked at me. Then she exhaled deeply. "Do you think she's still out
there somewhere?" she asked.

I nodded. Not because I knew anything about it,
but because I wanted to comfort her. Plus it was very unlikely that she had
left the festival. I wasn't afraid of that. But I was afraid that something had
happened to her inside the fences, on the festival grounds. I was afraid that
she might have been hurt somehow and unable to contact Camilla.

"Does she have her phone?" I asked.

Camilla shrugged. "I think so. It wasn't in
her backpack anywhere." Camilla pulled out her phone and looked at the
display. "My own is running out of batteries soon."

"I can help you charge it. I can bring it
to the media area and plug it in," I said.

"Thanks," she said with a sad voice.

"But you're thinking that if your phone is
almost dead, then hers might be running out of batteries soon too?"

Camilla nodded.

"What happens when you try and call her?
Does it go directly to the voice mail?"

Camilla shook her head. "No."

"Okay. That means it's not dead yet,"
I said.

Camilla looked up at me. "But it could also
mean that she can't answer it."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," I
said. "She might have dropped it somewhere, have you thought about that?
It could have fallen out of her pocket somehow." I looked in the direction
of the campground with thousands of tents. "It happens that people get
lost here. Maybe she is simply lost. Did you make a plan for what to do if any
one of you got lost?"

Camilla shook her head. "No. But she is
smart enough to find the paramedics or some officials working here and have
them help her."

"Well maybe she has done just that. Maybe
we should go and talk to them? Ask them if they have seen her?"

"I did that yesterday. I wondered if Amalie
might have been hurt. She was pretty drunk when she left me, so she might have
fallen or something, or maybe gotten sick. So I went to talk to the paramedics
but they hadn't seen her."

"Maybe they've seen her today?" I
said. "Let's go ask them."

Camilla nodded, then began walking. I looked at
my watch. "I think I have about half an hour before I need to get back to
write my article."

We walked in silence. Camilla kept handing out
papers with Amalie's face on it to people passing by, while I continued to
wonder who Amalie really was and why Camilla didn't want her last name out. Was
it just because she was afraid of the parent's reaction, or was it true that
her name would make the headlines? I kept wondering what kind of name would
trick such a reaction.

I received a text from Sune telling me he was
done and on his way back to send the photos. I texted back that I would meet
him there. I looked at my watch, then sensed the pressure of my deadline. I
began walking faster. I didn't have much time.

We spoke to the paramedics. They recognized
Camilla from yesterday and told her they unfortunately hadn't seen Amalie today
either. They had had many patients with minor injuries, mostly blisters on
their feet from walking and dancing in boots for too many hours and Amalie
might have been among them. Since they saw so many faces for only a short
period of time it was possible that she could have been there without them
knowing it.

"I tell you what," the guy said.
"Hang your little poster on the wall over there and I'll make sure to keep
an eye out for her, okay?"

Camilla did as he told her. The paramedic
watched her closely. "And remember. This happens all the time," he
said. "Every year someone disappears but they always show up eventually.
She's probably just having fun with some guy in a tent somewhere, forgetting
that she has people caring for her and worrying about her. It happens all the
time."

Camilla sighed, then nodded. I put my arm around
her while we left. "See," I said. "I told you it's common. I
don't think you need to worry this much. Try and enjoy the festival. Amalie
will show up eventually. Just wait and see."

Camilla seemed to lighten up slightly.
"Okay," she said. "I really wanted to go see
Suicide Silence
. They're playing now. Some
friends Amalie and I met here at the festival are over there."

"Then go join them. Try to have a little
fun. Forget about Amalie for a little while."

"I think I will," Camilla said with
the hint of a smile.

I hugged her. "Let's meet tomorrow in the
same place," I said. "I'll charge your phone and bring it back to
you, okay?"

"Okay."