Wild Girl of Chernobyl Read online

  Bradford spun himself into a sitting position and said, “I can't feel her anymore. We must be out of her range. Thank God for that. She's got a range, anyway.”

  Irwin killed the engine. The silence of the abandoned main square, once the bustling heart of Pripyat but now abandoned, was filled with howling and yipping.

  “How did you know?” Bradford asked.

  “Know what?” Irwin said as he looked out the window into darkness.

  “To cover your face?”

  “From the last time. She can't control you unless she's looking at you, right? That's how you could move to open the cage last night. She stopped looking at you, probably allowed you to move.”

  “Wild,” Janice said from the back.

  Outside, filling the square, most voices were canine but one, higher in pitch than the rest but mixing in perfect harmony, was human. Wild Girl's. The mixed voices filled the square with a coordinated chorus. Janice opened the van's rear door and leaned out to listen.

  “It's almost beautiful,” she said. “Get this on vid.”

  Bradford grabbed the video camera from the van floor, stepped out onto the road, and turned it on. For the next several minutes, in the darkness of the square, he recorded. The chorus developed into a call and response. Wild Girl, from the other side of the square, howled and was answered by several voices from along the edge of the square and down the side streets.

  After several minutes, Janice pulled the rear door closed and said, “She's too smart for us to deal with. We're going to tranquilize her. Tranquilize that bitch and take her back.”

  Chapter 14

  “You guys think I'm an idiot because I'm a girl?”

  “Nobody said that,” Irwin told Janice from the driver's seat. “But if you just rush up to the cage, she'll look at you and, bam!, you're hypnotized.”

  “Hypnotized?”

  “Whatever you want to call it. Grabbed. Held. Immobilized. You get that, right?” Irwin said.

  “For starters, this is my project,” Janice said.

  Irwin rolled his eyes. “No one is telling you how to run your project. We're sitting here, right?”

  “Don't drag me in to this,” Bradford said.

  Janice continued. “This is what I want to do, if you'd just listen. You or Bradford cover your eyes or whatever and go up to the cage from one side. I'll go up from the other side and jab her.”

  Irwin replied, “Just like that? Just walk up and jab her?”

  “How about this,” Janice said, her voice lowered slightly. “If your sidekick is willing to let himself get immobilized, hypnotized, then when she's concentrating on doing that, I run up from the opposite direction and just jab her. With 12cc to be sure. Knock her out,” she said, making a jabbing motion with her right arm.

  Irwin turned toward the windshield and was quiet for several seconds. He turned to Bradford in the passenger seat and asked, “That okay with you?”

  “Promise it'll work and I'll do it,” Bradford said.

  From the back, Janice said, “I can't really promise anything. But even if it doesn't, Irwin will back me up.”

  “Whoa,” said Irwin, swinging around quickly to look into the back of the van. “Now I'm supposed to jab her?”

  “Just back me up. I'll jab her, but if she grabs me then you run up and jab her instead. We've got another 12cc stick. Just get the needle in her and she'll be out like a light.”

  Irwin turned again to the windshield. “For a girl, you're pretty smart,” he said.

  “What the hell's that supposed to mean?”

  “Kidding!” Irwin said. “I'm kidding. Brad, if you're okay with being the sacrificial lamb, and if I follow Janice to the cage from the other side, I don't see how we don't get her. I mean, 12cc is enough to knock out a bear. Just one of us has to get a shot and she's going down.”

  “Okay, just don't miss,” Bradford said as Janice handed one of the jab sticks to Irwin, who motioned for Bradford to take it.

  “Just pull the cover off the needle and jab,” Janice said.

  “And don't miss,” Bradford said.

  “Don't worry, junior. I'll get her,” Janice said. “Let's roll.”

  Irwin pulled the van into D, pressed the gas, and turned back toward Wild Girl. The wheels of the van jumped onto the curb as it turned, then dropped back onto to the road.

  “Wait a sec,” Janice said. “Irwin, pull straight up to the cage but stop, like, 20 feet away with your headlights on. Then Brad, you jump out and run to the other side. That way I can run up to the cage from the van side.”

  “So?” Bradford asked.

  “So, the headlights will blind her. She'll have to look right into them to see me,” Janice said.

  “Nice. Ready?” he asked and looked first at Janice in the back, then at Bradford.

  “What are you waiting for?” Janice said with a smile.

  Irwin pressed the gas again and accelerated to about 40 miles per hour. At the right turn that would lead him to Wild Girl he slowed, but then pressed the gas as he approached. About 50 feet before the cage, he veered the van off to the right, skimmed the curb with the right front tire, then gently pulled the steering wheel to the left. When the headlights were pointed at the cage, he straightened the wheels and pressed the gas even more. About 30 feet away, he jammed on the brakes and Bradford lurched forward. The jab stick slammed against the dash board but he held on to it. Janice slammed into the back of his seat and the jab stick rattled to the floor. She picked it up and crouch-walked to the van's back door.

  “Go, Junior!” she yelled just as Bradford jumped onto the sidewalk. He faced away from the cage but ran sideways around it, never getting within 20 feet. When he yelled “Hey! Bitch!” from the other side of the cage Janice yelled “That's our cue!” and jumped out the back. She ran to the front of the van and was stunned by the clear, bright view of Helle. The two wolves with her barked viciously at Bradford, who had stopped about 20 feet away on the opposite side. Janice saw him take two involuntary steps backward before his jaw dropped and the empty, immobilized look flushed his face. Without looking at it, Janice pulled the plastic cap from the needle on her jab stick, pointed it toward the cage, and ran. The needle passed through the two layers of chain link fence and buried itself in Helle's right rump. She screamed, grabbed the stick with her right hand, and collapsed sideways. Janice released the stick and it fell into the cage as the wolves fell silent.

  Several seconds passed, quietly, and Bradford regained himself. He squinted as he looked at Janice's silhouette, then shielded the light with his left hand as he looked to the cage floor. A dark mass lay motionless, protected by two silent, sitting wolves.

  After several more seconds of silence, Irwin shouted from the driver's seat, “Awesome!”

  Janice turned back to the van and yelled into the headlights, “Weren't you supposed to follow me?”

  “You don't need my backup, that's for sure,” Irwin yelled back at her. “Bullseye, Janice! Awesome! You just caught Wild Girl!”

  She ran back to the van and jumped into the passenger's seat, her eyes wide with fear. Holding on to the door with her right hand, she yelled out at Bradford, “Get in! Get in!”

  Bradford, still on the other side of the cage but fully illuminated, shook his head and ran back to the van. Janice moved into the center of the van and he jumped in to the vacated passenger seat.

  “What's the big panic?” Irwin asked as he gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

  “The wolves! They might attack!”

  “I don't hear any other wolves. Listen,” Irwin said with a confused look. “Come to think of it, I'm beginning to doubt there are more than three. All those wolves I thought were there the other night, I bet they were put into my head. There's just those two there plus the other one that got away.”

  Janice nodded and the three sat for several seconds. The square remained quiet. Janice awk
wardly stood up and peered through the windshield at Helle's motionless body. The wolves remained next to her but their bodies sagged in resignation. Her view of the sidewalk and cage in front was limited to the headlight beam but she made her way to the van's back window, cupped the glass, and looked outside. She saw nothing so she slowly opened the door for a better look. Still nothing. She closed the door and retreated into the van, pushed the empty boxes and packing material aside and found a long narrow box. She tilted it slightly and a long, thin steel pole slid onto the van floor.

  “Give me your jab stick,” she said to Irwin. He picked it up off the floor with his right hand and held it back to her.

  “What's your plan?” Irwin said.

  She took the jab stick with her left hand, put the two sticks together and held them in her right hand, and turned back to the rear door. “We're going to tranquilize those two wolves and get the hell out of here,” she said without looking back.

  “But those are loaded with 12cc,” Bradford said.

  “So?” Janice asked.

  “So, 12cc is too much for a wolf. They weigh what, maybe 100 pounds?”

  “It's probably too much for Wild Girl too but you didn't say anything. Anyway, do I look like I care if that's too much for a wolf?” she asked, turning her head back to look at him.

  “Guess not,” he replied and looked at Irwin. Irwin shrugged.

  The two watched through the windshield as Janice walked into the headlight beam, pulled the cover off one needle as she walked arrow straight to the side of the cage, extended the stick into the cage without hesitation, and jabbed one of the sitting wolves. It slumped slowly, then collapsed to the floor. She pulled the spent stick back out and dropped it to the cobblestone, pulled the cover off the second needle and repeated the procedure on the second wolf.

  She turned back to the van, shielded her eyes with her right hand, and yelled to Irwin, “Cut the headlights.” He made the thumbs up gesture from inside the van but Janice didn't see it. With the same hand, he turned the headlights off and darkness engulfed Janice. She stood for a minute and stared into the cage, into the square, into the darkness, blind but not deaf. She listened. Silence. As her blindness retreated, Irwin and Bradford, behind the windshield, emerged from the darkness slowly and into her view, as deep sea divers might emerge from the depths. She motioned for them to come out and each opened his van door and stepped onto the walk.

  She moved to the cage gate as she said, “Back the van up and help me.”

  Irwin looked at Bradford and nodded, then turned back to the van. He backed up until the rear of the van aligned with the cage gate, which Janice had lifted as he drove.

  She knelt next to Helle, lifted the dark hair from her eyes, and leaned in close. With her pen size flashlight she silently examined the girl's dirty face but discerned nothing. An ordinary face. She lifted Helle's left eyelid. Blue. She ran her right index finger along Helle's nose. An ordinary nose. She lifted Helle's lip. Teeth dirty but straight and strong. Maybe worn down a little more than usual. Janice leaned further down until her face nearly touched the cage floor and looked at Helle in profile. Where does her power come from, Janice wondered.

  If she wasn't feral, would she be leading men in society instead of wolves in this place? Or is it this place that gives her power?

  She thought of her thesis which successfully won her the grant, that “Feral Girl of Pripyat” is a natural leader despite the conditions of this environment, and that her natural control over the wolves proves that when societal constraints are removed from the equation, that when a young woman is not buffeted and influenced by society's expectations, prejudices, and norms, she will naturally rise to the alpha position of a group.

  She stood back up and slipped her arm under Helle's right shoulder. “Grab her,” Janice told Bradford. He stepped in to the cage and the two LSU students lifted Helle's lifeless body into the back of the van.

  “Time to go,” Janice said and slammed the rear door closed.

  BOOK TWO

  LOUISIANA

  Chapter 1

  Getting a 22-year-old naked female without papers to Louisiana is not easy. Or cheap. For three days, While Irwin and Bradford hung around the Intercontinental Kiev bar and lobby, all expenses paid, and Helle remained locked in Janice's bathroom with the water running, Janice stayed on the internet and made phone calls. Twice she put Irwin in charge of tending to Wild Girl while she drove to the bank and the Kiev airport. On the third day, she sedated Helle, pulled a shirt and pants onto her, and the three students put her into a dog crate and covered the openings with canvas and duct tape. At the airport, a pet transport company employee and his brother, a Ukraine International Airlines baggage handler, both of whom had been paid off by Janice during one of her previous drives to the airport, loaded Wild Girl onto the 20-hour non-stop flight from Kiev to Mexico City. Janice slipped the customs papers, which allowed her to transport a dog, into her carry-on messenger bag. After the long but uneventful flight, Janice had to pay another $3,500, cash American as requested, to a Mexico City airport customs employee to approve the paperwork without inspection, another $500 to a pet transport company manager, and another $100 to an airport employee to open a gate and allow her to back a rented van up to the airplane. The van was about five feet from the plane's cargo door when the three LSU students slid the dog crate out and loaded it in the back. They left the shirt and pants, which Helle had shed and stuffed out of the crate, in the cargo hold and re-taped several pieces of canvas.

  As Bradford drove north away from Mexico City, they decided U.S. border officials would look at a single female with less suspicion so Janice dropped Irwin and Bradford at the Hotel Maria Dolores in San Luis Potosi. The two boarded a flight to New Orleans the following day.

  Janice continued to drive while Wild Girl remained silent in the back. On the wide, dark highway heading north, Janice's mind wandered backwards in time, eventually pausing on that day when she was six and she learned that “Icy You” was really “ICU”, the Intensive Care Unit. In later years she came to regret being asleep in the waiting room at the moment her mother passed away, but how could she know? How could she know that when she left the hospital room, selfishly seeking relief from her boredom, that it would be the last time she would see her mother alive?

  After an eight hour drive fueled by Gladiator energy drink and loaves of Pan Bimbo bread, Janice stopped at a hotel in Reynosa, Mexico. To pass the time as she drove, she spoke to Wild Girl, who sat in the cage silently and listened. At one point, as she drove north and listened to Mexican radio, Janice got an overwhelming feeling of hunger despite having just eaten. The feeling persisted for several miles until she realized it might not be she who is hungry, but Wild Girl. She pulled the van to the curb near a street vendor selling grilled corn on a stick. Shielding her eyes, she pushed the corn into Wild Girl's crate and listened to her devour it. She bought a second and listened to Wild Girl eat as she pulled away from the curb.

  Janice presented her LSU credentials and passport at the McAllen, Texas border crossing and said she was returning from a 4-week internship at the University of Monterrey's La Venta archeological research site, the subject of a paper she did in her junior year. Helle remained in her crate in the back. Strangely, she remained quiet at the crossing and, more strangely still, the inspector waved the van through without checking the back.

  “That was way easier than it could have been,” Janice said out loud to Wild Girl as they pulled away.

  After another eight hours of driving through Texas and Louisiana, during which she also learned that Wild Girl likes hotdogs, Janice arrived at the LSU campus in Baton Route.

  Chapter 2

  A shiny black polyester bag covered Helle's head. The wooden table in front of her was rectangular, about 4 feet wide by 8 feet long. Her hands were chained to a ring mounted on the table in front of her. Another chain held her feet to a table leg. Her
chair was made from inch-square stainless steel metal tubes.

  She sat naked, waiting to be fed, as was the routine every morning at 9 a.m. when she was led from an adjacent room to be fed and tested.

  Directly across from her, in identical chairs, were two volunteer undergraduate students majoring in behavioral science, one female and one male, as described by Janice's procedures and approved by Dr. Jameson the week before. They placed their hands palm down on the table in front of them, as Janice had instructed. Both had been warned of Helle's surprising power to hypnotize someone almost instantly once she makes eye contact but neither student, junior Rebecca Quarry nor sophomore Rob Counsel, looked prepared for what lay ahead.

  As Janice, who stood directly behind Helle wearing a thigh-length white lab coat, watched them she suppressed a smile. Both look like first time riders of a roller coaster, she thought. She stopped herself from shouting “BOO!” to see their reaction.

  The room was also rectangular, about 12 feet across and 20 feet long. Two windowless doors, one behind Janice and one behind the two undergraduate students, provided access. Bradford sat in an identical stainless steel chair in the corner to Janice's right, next to a video camera on a tripod and a backpack on the floor. Another two video cameras watched the room, one mounted near the ceiling in the corner to Bradford's right and one mounted diagonally across from it. A pair of eye-covering safety goggles covered completely with black duct tape were pushed up on his forehead. Janice looked at him and he nodded. With his right hand, he reached up and, without looking, pressed the REC button. Silently, a small red LED on the front of the camera illuminated. He watched as Janice reached out, pulled the hood off Wild Girl's head, and turned to face the door. At the same time, Bradford slid the safety glasses over his eyes.

  Helle reflexively looked at the table directly in front of her. Everyday for the past 14 days she had been brought to this room at 9 a.m., chained in the same manner, and fed. In the evening, feeding was through a horizontal opening in the door to her room.