THE FAIRY PET SHOP BOOK TWO
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Craig sped away from the wooded lot as fast as he thought he could get away with. After all he didn’t want to get pulled over for speeding with that little brat in the trunk; that’d be a little hard to explain. It wasn’t long until they left the city limits and were cruising on country roads with no one around. He turned up the radio and sung along with his favorite song. It was going exactly as he planned.
Ginny felt the car finally slow down and turn left. She had to brace herself as it turned and she heard the tires crunch on gravel. ‘We must be there, wherever there is,’ she thought just before the car came to a stop. She heard the engine shut off and knew he was going to be coming for her at any moment. Maybe she could escape and run away. Then the hope bubble burst when she realized she didn’t even know where she was. She curled herself into a ball and started crying again.
​
Craig wasn’t the smartest person in the world. Once he grabbed Ginny, he headed straight home. He pulled his car around the back of the house, where it couldn’t be seen from the road and switched off the engine. By now, Ginny had stopped banging on the inside of the trunk lid and had stopped screaming. In fact, as he got out of the car, Craig couldn’t hear any sounds coming from the trunk. ‘I hope the little brat isn’t dead,’ he thought.
​
Ginny wasn’t dead. She wasn’t unconscious either. When Craig opened the trunk, he found her lying on her side, curled into a little ball, softly crying. He roughly grabbed her and turned her over. Before she could move or say a word, he grabbed her hands and, placing them together, wrapped her wrists with duct tape. She was too scared to even try to resist.
​
Next, he ripped off a piece of the tape and slapped it over her mouth. He pulled her out of the trunk, threw her over his shoulder and carried her into the house. Before she could look around, he reached down and opened a trap door that led to the cellar. Craig ducked as he carried her down the stairs into the dark, damp dungeon of a basement. At the bottom of the stairs, he reached up and pulled a chain, turning on a single, naked electric light bulb. He hauled her over to a metal workbench that was standing against the far wall where he plopped her onto a metal stool. Then he pulled her wrists over toward the wall where there was a pair of handcuffs attached to the wall. Craig picked up one of the cuffs and slapped it on her wrist, above the duct tape. The cuff whirled around and slid into the locking devise, ratcheting closed around her left wrist. With an evil grin on his face, he said, “You might as well get comfortable, little girl, cause you’re gonna be here for a while.”
​
Ginny watched a laughing Craig pull on the light chain and she was plunged into darkness; the only light coming from the open trap door at the top of the stairs. She tried to scream as he climbed the stairs and slammed the trap door shut, leaving her alone in the dark with her fears.
​
Craig walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of beer. He opened it and took a deep swig as he walked into the living room. Dropping into his recliner, he picked up the phone and called information to get the Cohen’s number. He dialed the number and listened to it ring twice before a woman answered.
​
He lowered his voice as far as he could. “Now listen carefully,” he growled, “I’m only going to say this once. If you ever want to see your little girl again, I want five hundred thousand dollars in small, unmarked bills, with non-sequential serial numbers. Don’t call the police and don’t tell anyone what’s happened. I’ll call you back tomorrow with further instructions on how and where to take the money. Remember if I see the police, your little girl is dead.” Click!
​
He could barely contain his excitement as he told her his demands and quickly hung up. He knew from watching cop shows on TV that he hadn’t been on the line long enough for the cops to trace the call. Taking another swig from his beer he turned on the TV and settled back in his recliner for an evening of mindless entertainment.
****
It took Gail a few moments to comprehend what the voice had said. Ginny had been kidnapped! She pulled herself together and hung the phone up only long enough to pick it up again and call Randy. He answered on the second ring.
Randy’s cell phone rang. As he took it out of his pocket, he looked and saw the caller ID showed was his home number. He hoped it was Gail calling to tell him Ginny was home safe and sound. He couldn’t have been more wrong, as he was about to find out.
“Gail?” Randy said as he answered the phone.
“Randy, a man just called,” Gail told him in a shaky voice. “He said he had Ginny and if we ever wanted to see her again, we have to pay him five hundred thousand dollars. He said we are not to call the police and that he would call us back tomorrow to give us instructions on how and where to take the money. Then he said if he saw any police, he’d kill her.” She sobbed as she added, “Randy, where are we going to get five hundred thousand dollars?”
Randy ignored the question and asked, “Did you call the police and tell them what the guy said?”
“No, I thought I’d call you first,” she said. “Randy, what are we going to do?”
“Okay, I’ll tell the cops here and then I’ll come home. We’ll see what they say and then we’ll see about coming up with the money. Hang in there Babe, I’ll be home in a few minutes,” he told her and hung up.
****
Ginny was nearly panicking! She hated darkness and silence and both were all around her. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, there were noises in the cellar but she didn’t want to think about them. The noises were those of creatures moving in the darkness and they scared her more than the silence that filled the moments in between the noises.
Her mind was playing tricks on her; at least she hoped it was. She began feeling bugs crawling on her skin and, one time, she thought a mouse or something like that was snuffling around on the workbench. Tears continued to stream down her cheeks as terror filled her heart and mind.
****
When the police arrived on the scene of the kidnapping, the first thing they did was seal off the area with crime scene tape. Next, they found Ginny’s bike and dusted it for fingerprints and other evidence. They also took lots of photographs of everything. While they were searching the area, they found a few shoe prints in the soft, muddy ground. The detective asked Randy to identify some of the smaller ones. They were Ginny’s alright but who did the big ones belong to? The police took photographs and impressions of the prints.
While that was happening some of the other crime scene technicians found tire tracks. They showed them to the investigator and then photographed them and made impressions of them too. One of the crime scene technicians said it looked like Ginny had been snatched and her bike stashed in the trees. From the tire tracks, it looked like whoever did this had hidden the car in the woods while waiting for Ginny to ride by.
The fairies were standing on the roof of Randy’s car, watching the human police work the crime scene. They were fascinated by the flashing lights and all the activity. When the crime scene people found the tire tracks, Buck was curious and wanted to see what they were going to do. He flew over and landed nearby for a better look. The technician taking the pictures mentioned to one of his partners that the car must be old because there wasn’t much tread on the tire tracks. “Yeah,” said his helper. “And it’s not in good shape either; look at the way the inside treads are gone. That must be the front tires and it must be badly out of alignment too.”
Buck studied the tire tracks and saw that they turned right and headed away from the scene before they disappeared. Suddenly, he had an idea. He flew up to the top of Randy’s car, where the rest of the fairies were watching the humans, and landed beside Thorn. “Whoever took Ginny, left tire tracks on the road, see?”
“So,” he whispered back.
“Let’s follow them; see where they go.”
“But, Buck, they fade out just a little way down the road. Once they’re gone, we won’t know where to look.
“If you look closely, you can see that the front tires are bald on the inside. One of the humans said he thought the car must be old and in bad shape. I’ll bet there won’t be very many cars in town with bad tires like that. We can check out all the tires on all the junky cars and, maybe find Ginny. Come on, what have we got to lose?” Thorn nodded and, without saying anything to anyone the two fairies flew off.
****
After telling the detective what Gail told him, Randy went back to his car. As he walked up to it, he saw Fawn, Iris and Daffodil standing on the roof, watching the goings on. He asked, “Fawn, where’s Thorn and Buck?”
“I don’t know, they just took off without saying where they were going,” she replied.
“Well, we’ve got to get back home, whoever took Ginny just called and demanded money for her safe return and I’ve got to get back to Gail, she’s home all alone and scared to death.” The three fairies followed Randy into the car and the four of them headed home.
****
After a couple of hours of watching reruns on TV, Craig decided he was hungry. He made his way into the kitchen and started making himself something to eat when he remembered the brat in the cellar. He figured he’d have to feed her something, who knew how long she was going to be here, at least a day or two. ‘Oh well,’ he thought, ‘She can wait until after I eat.’ Thirty minutes later, after a dinner of left over pizza and his second beer, Craig made his way back downstairs to his prisoner.
Ginny’s heart was racing and she was near panic when the trap door at the top of the stairs finally opened and light streamed down into the black void that had become her world. She didn’t see them but she could have sworn she heard the creatures of the darkness scrambling away from the light.
She watched as her jailer came down the stairs and turned on the light. It hurt her eyes for a few seconds but she welcomed it all the same. The man walked over to the workbench and put a paper plate and a plastic cup down on the work surface. Next, he reached over and ripped the tape off her mouth. He picked up the plate and shoved it into her hands. “Here’s your dinner, Princess,” he sneered at her. “Eat quickly.”
She looked at the plate in her hands and saw half a peanut butter sandwich. She glanced into the cup and saw it was full of water. Suddenly, she realized she was hungry and, picking up the thin sandwich, began eating greedily. The bread was stale and chewy but she managed to force it down. When she had finished the sandwich, she grabbed the water and drank it down as quickly as possible.
Craig watched as the brat made faces at the food. It was obvious by the look on her face that it wasn’t to her liking; still she gobbled it down quickly. Once she had drunk the cup of water, he picked up the roll of duct tape off the workbench and went to cover her mouth again.
“Please, mister, don’t cover my mouth, I won’t scream, I promise,” Ginny pleaded.
Craig just laughed, “Yeah, right,” he said, “Like I believe that.”
Ginny put her hands up in front of her mouth and said, “Please, I promise to be good! Please don’t cover my mouth!”
Craig just laughed some more and tried to push her hands away. As he was doing this, Ginny began crying again. Through her sobs she cried, “Why are you doing this to me? What have I ever done to you?”
Craig stopped trying to push her hands away and looked at her. He couldn’t believe she didn’t know why he had kidnapped her. With an incredulous look, he said, “Even a stupid little girl like you should have figured out why you’re here by now. You can’t be that dense.”
Ginny said, “No, I really don’t know. I don’t even know who you are or where I am. Please, mister, why are you doing this to me?”
Craig leaned over, his face a few inches from hers and bellowed, “You and your high-minded father have cost me everything! Thanks to you two, I’ve got nothing left. I can’t hunt fairies and sell them in town. I can’t even sell them in another town, if your father and his goody-two-shoes friends get their way. And, on top of that, I’ve had to spend my life savings on new teeth. Do you have any idea how painful it is to have twelve of your teeth broken and pulled out? Do you know how much that cost?”
Ginny cringed at the smell of the man’s breath in her face and the volume of his voice. It wasn’t until he mentioned his broken teeth that she realized who he was. “You’re the fairy catcher that Daddy made lead him to the fairy colony, aren’t you?”
Before he could answer, she went on, “I remember, you broke your teeth on a branch when you tried to run away and the fairies caught you!”
“Caught me!” screamed Craig. “They didn’t catch me, they attacked me!” Then, he spat out his false teeth and said, “Look at me! My mouth’s a mess thanks to you and those little beasts! I can’t make the fairies pay but I sure can make your father pay! Five hundred thousand dollars, that’s what you’re worth to me, five hundred thousand dollars!”
Before she could stop herself, Ginny blurted out, “My parents don’t have that kind of money, they’re both school teachers and they don’t make that much!”
“Well, you’d better hope they can come up with it some way or you’ll never see them or anybody else ever again,” Craig said as he leered in her face.
Ginny began crying again as she begged, “Please, mister, don’t hurt me, I’m just a little kid!”
“That’s too bad, isn’t it? It’s not my fault if something happens to you, it’s yours! Yours and your do-gooder daddy’s! Remember that when lying in your cold dark grave! You did it to yourself!”
And with that, Craig stormed up the stairs, forgetting to tape Ginny’s mouth. He even forgot to turn off the light. Well, that was some comfort for her.
Craig stormed up the stairs and went straight to the refrigerator for another beer. As he plopped back down in his recliner, he thought, what does that little brat know? They’ll come up with the money somehow. He finished his third beer just as the news was coming on. He wondered if the brat’s disappearance would be one of the stories they covered tonight.