Thirst (18 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

CASSIE FENNER

While the cold wind howled through the forlorn winter streets, there was one spot in Snowbrooke that refused to go to sleep.

At a big house on the outskirts of Snowbrooke, on a little road called Moncton Street, an annual biker party was loud enough for the whole silent town.

Michael pulled up in his dad’s car up. The loud bass from the party music pierced the solid car door.

The street was loaded with parked motorcycles. On the front lawn of the rough and tumble house was a large oil drum, around which stood a number of bearded bikers—all with cigarettes hanging out of their chapped mouths.

Michael stepped out of his car and began to walk towards the party house. Sounds of screaming partygoers and smashing bottles became louder and louder as Michael came closer and closer to the front door.

As he reached for the door handle, the door burst open. An older biker with a young teenage girl under his arm drunkenly stumbled out of the house.

Michael turned and looked at the girl. She could not have been older than sixteen, while the man was easily into his thirties.

“Hey,” Michael said to the biker, reaching forward and placing his hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“What?” the biker replied sharply and drunkenly.

“How old is she?” Michael asked.

The biker scoffed and turned away from Michael. “None of your fucking business.”

The biker took his young date and continued to stumble towards his parked hog. Michael wanted to go and stop the biker scum, but he had another, more important prerogative: his sister.

Michael entered the loud party. Flashing strobe lights made it difficult to see anything through the crowd of dancing college partygoers and drinking, rowdy bikers.

Michael squinted as he scanned the room for his young under-age sister. There was a large age gap between the high school kids and the bikers in the house.

“Cassie?” Michael called out. The deep bass from the music drowned his deep voice out. He may as well have been a mute.

He walked through the thick crowd of people. Thanks to his mighty athletic size, Michael was able to see over the heads of all the partygoers. Unfortunately, Cassie was nowhere to be seen.

Michael found himself at a long wooden staircase, on which was a small group of high school kids snorting cocaine.

“Hey,” Michael yelled over the loud music.

One of the kids turned to look at him, with cocaine smeared on his nose and upper lip. “What?” the young boy asked with a crooked grin.

“Do your parents know you’re here?” Michael asked.

The kids started to laugh. “Yeah—Obviously,” one of the kids replied sarcastically.

“Do you know Cassie—Cassie Fenner?”

“Cassie Fenner?”

“She’s short and thin, with curly brown hair.”

The kids started laughing again.

“Well do you know her or not?”

“Aren’t you that guy who got kicked off The Winnipeg Jets?” a kid asked.

The fallen-from-grace hockey star stared at the bratty kid for a moment.

“Yeah—It was you. Michael Something. It was because you couldn’t score any goals,” the kid continued, laughing as he wiped the excess coke off his nose.

Michael walked up the stairs, passed the kids. He did not look back as the young group snickered at his expense.

At the top of the stairway was a hallway lined with doors. The hall was unfinished. The walls, floor, and roof were lined with old plywood, and there was a musty lingering stale odor in the humid party air—like a dirty, abandoned bottle depot. At the end of the hall, a couple of kids stood making out. The boy had his hand under the girl’s shirt and he was friskily groping her breasts, like a horny anteater.

As Michael walked down the hall, he could hear moaning—people having sex behind closed doors. Without hesitation, he opened the first door—pushing it open swiftly.

On the bed were two young students going at it. They were too preoccupied to notice the door had been pushed open. The girl was a chubby redhead—not Cassie.

Michael continued down the hall towards the next door. He grabbed the handle and tried to open the door, but it was locked.

“C’mon baby—take it off,” a deep male voice said on the other side of the door. “Take it off like the slut you are.”

Michael took a step back from the door. Then, in one swift motion, he booted the door open with the heel of his boot, shattering the lock and sending shards of wood flying through the musty air.

In the bedroom was a thirty-something year old biker with a thick stubble beard with his hands on the breasts of a familiar teenage girl. There were dark bags under the girl’s eyes, her hair was a mess, and her body looked weak.

She was wearing nothing but a bra and panties and her body appeared limp, as if her bones were made of rubber.

It was clear that she had been drugged. The biker swiftly looked back at the forced open doorway where Michael stood.

“Get the fuck out of here!” the biker yelled in a hoarse, deep voice.

Michael looked at the girl again. It was Vanessa Riley, his little sister’s friend from school, whom she was supposedly having a sleepover with.

“Vanessa—are you okay?” Michael asked frantically.

“H—Huh?” Vanessa said through her drugged lethargy.

“Get out of here or I’ll snap your fucking neck,” the biker said, standing up and walking towards Michael.

Michael walked into the room, shoving passed the angry biker and towards the drugged teen.

He looked down at her. “I’m going to get you home, okay? You’ll be alright.”

“Hey, buddy—What’s your fucking deal?” the biker asked. “Get your own slice a’ meat.”

Michael turned around and swiftly grabbed the biker by the throat. With incredible speed and force, Michael swung the burly gang member around and slammed him into a wooden dresser eliciting a loud painful scream and a crack as the wood split behind the bulky man.

The biker reached his hands up to his throat in an attempt to pry Michael’s tense fingers loose.

The powerful ex-hockey enforcer swung the two hundred and fifty pound biker aggressively against the wall and pinned him even tighter. The biker’s face was turning dark red as air failed to travel through his crushed throat.

“What did you give her?” Michael screamed at the hog riding pedophile.

“ —Let me g—go!”

“Do you get off taking advantage of teenagers, you sick fuck?” Michael asked.

As the biker’s eyes began to roll into the back of his head, Michael dropped him. The biker fell to the floor and began to wheeze as he held his throat.

Michael walked over to the bed where Vanessa was laying.

“I’m going to get you home, okay?” Michael said.

Vanessa slowly rolled her head over to Michael. “Okay,” she said groggily.

“Do you know where my sister is? Cassie? Was she here with you”

“G—Guy,” Vanessa said.

“What’s that?”

“A—Guy... She’s with a—a guy...”

“A guy? What guy? Where are they now?”

“I don’t...” Vanessa tried to speak as she rolled her nauseous head from side to side.

Michael picked Vanessa’s shirt up off the floor and gently slipped it over her exposed torso. Then, he slipped her jeans over her limp body, and then he picked her up in his arms.

“I’m so sorry,” Vanessa said with tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay. You’re okay now.”

Michael walked past the wheezing biker, back into the hallway. He gently placed Vanessa down on the ground so that he could look behind the remaining doors for his sister.

He opened one door, which was a closet. He opened the next—a bathroom. Then, he walked to the end of the hallway, to the door next to the horny teenage couple. He reached for the handle and tried to turn it.

It was locked.

“We’re next,” the young anteater tongued boy said to Michael.

“Go home to your parents,” Michael said as he took a step back from the door.

Then, Michael kicked the door in powerfully, sending wooden shards in every direction.

It was a familiar scene—an older man on top of a clearly drugged younger woman. Except this time, the younger woman was indeed Michael’s sister.

Cassie was fifteen, with long curly brown hair. She was a pretty girl. More than anything, she was a clever girl. She was quiet, but not shy—the kind of girl who only spoke when she had something to say. She was impressively articulate for her age, and she had perfect grades in school. She had always been independent, even as a young child. Sometimes, it drove her teachers mad. She would always question the logic behind questions, turning them around on her teachers—always seeking something deeper than was being offered.

“Hey!” the slender older man on top of Cassie yelled as Michael stormed into the room.

The man was younger than Vanessa’s biker pairing—but still old enough to be deeply ashamed. He was covered from head to toe in tattoos. He had one especially stupid tattoo across his throat, which read “No regrets”

“Cassie?” Michael said in a panic as he rushed over to his sister.

“Get lost!” the man yelled in a thick hillbilly accent.

Cassie was barely conscious as a small dribble of blood ran down from her nose.