Julie sat gazing at the little flickering screen, notebook in hand. She hated this part of the job the most. It was always TOO hard to sit back and objectively decide whether her reporting was on the up and up. Of course, it was TOO easy to say it was perfect.
"Julie Harris, at Fisherman's Pier for the Eleven o'clock News." She winced at the sound of her own voice, and tears welled up just looking at the horrible wind blown look she presented to wrap her story.
Face it, Harris, you stink!
A quick click of the remote control ended the video recording. She sighed, scribbled some notes and yawned. It's been three hours since she left the station at ten. She would have to be up by seven to make it to the nine o'clock meeting with the crew for tomorrow's newcasts. That leaves six hours for sleep.
"Why do I do this to myself?" The question, muttered aloud, made her grin. "Because you love it, you moron!"
Without moving, she stared at the television. A thought to reviving the screen passes without reaction. Rusty Daniels would have plenty to say about her story. She could just hear him.
"It lacked power and presence," he would claim. "It should have been written to be buried on the second to last page of the Times."
He certainly would not forget to include the newspaper jab. Afterall, that's where Julie comes from. Sure, she had no experience with broadcast news, but journalism is journalism...right?
Of course, Rusty would be angry that Julie had taken the waste topic story. The oil spill at Fisherman's Pier was controversial and demanded expert attention. He would be chagrined that Julie had wiggled her way out of covering the County High School Spelling Bee to take on this story.
Julie grinned to herself as she stood up. Chagrined hell. Rusty Daniels would be down right pissed off. But it serves him right. She'd worked her whole life to be where she is, and he does nothing but criticize her.
A glance at the digital clock forces another groan. Twenty after one. Less than six hours. Maybe this lack of sleep explains the seeming lack of improvement.
Quickly, Julie tosses her notebook into a nearby open brifcase. With classic penache, she slaps the lid down, locking the case shut. She turns slowly and approaches the table by the window to shut off the light.
Just as quickly, the lamp flashes out and the house plunges into darkness. Julie freezes in her steps. A quick assessment of her surroundings arouses suspicion.
There is no storm to force the power out. Every other light in the house is out, and the clock is black. The conclusion is set. Something strange is happening.
She never gets the time to wonder. Within seconds, she is quickly grabbed around her face. A rag is swiftly stuffed into her mouth, gagging her. Julie's eyes soar open with sheer terror. A second later, she is knocked to the ground.
With her face down in the carpet, her head splitting, she feels nothing. Only the vaguest notion that her robe and nightgown have been torn away. After one final blow to the back of her head, she is spared the torture and horror of the deeds that will follow.
The light nearly blinded her when she opened her eyes. Shining high above her face, the light forced itself into her eyes, causing her to squint hard. The squinting brought flashes of pain as the concentration of muscle movement in her head brought a reminder of the trauma she had suffered.
It took Julie a moment to realize that she was in a hospital bed. It took a few more seconds for her to recall the devastating attack she had just endured.
With much pain, she tried to lift her head. The sudden physical activity had been a struggle, but it had the desired effect. Before she even fell backward onto the pillow again, a swarm of doctors and nurses surrounded her bed.
This made Julie nervous. Had something truly awful happened to her physically, besides having the shit beat out of her? Had she been maimed or dismembered? Julie could not tell if she could feel any limbs, so her answer would lie in the pending questions.
"Can you hear us, Ms. Harris?" asked one nurse. Another nurse was wrapping a blood pressure guage around her arm while a doctor slipped his ice cold stethescope head into her hospital gown for a listen.
There was a cloud of conversation between the doctors and nurses. Most of which Julie did not understand, some of which she couldn't care to. She was searching within herself for the power to speak.
"Light," she finally muttered, squinting her eyes again. A doctor quickly pulled open her eyes and flashed an extraordinarily bright flash of light into her pupils. It was agony, and Julie moaned.
"What...happened?" she finally managed to mutter. A nurse quickly grabbed her hand, as if preparing to console Julie for news she was not about to like none too well.
"Ms. Harris, I am Doctor Geoffrey Zeigler," a young black doctor explained. "You have suffered some severe head trauma."
"You skull is fractured along the top of your forehead, and you have experienced subdural hemotoma, which is swelling of the brain," he continued. "In addition, you have a separated shoulder, a bruised right eye which may inhibit your sight for some time and explains your sensitivity to light...and that's just the small stuff, so to speak."
She could not force a smile. It didn't sound small to her. Why did it sound like it was some awful disfigurement. Her career would be over.
"I'm afraid the actual sexual assault caused some more serious damage," the doctor went on. "We've been monitoring you for internal bleeding, and you've suffered quite a bit of damage to your uterus and reproductive organs."
Sexual assualt!
Was that a nice way of saying that bastard had raped her? Thoughts rushed through her mind, and none as horrifying and frightening as the one that made her shudder and suddenly vomit. That son of a bitch has violated her.
Julie immediately began crying. The nurse holding her hand lost her grip and backed away as another nurse arrived with a cup of water and some pills, encouraging Julie to swallow them slowly.
"We've asked that the local police hold off on questioning you until we've made a determination about surgery," Dr. Zeigler explained. "And I wanted to have a chance to tell you exactly what you were facing."
"You mean what happened," Julie snapped back suddenly, her eyes swollen and red, the tears drenching her face. The effect of the drugs was fast overcoming her.
"What surgery?" she asked, beginning to get groggy.
"We may have to go into surgery to stop any internal bleeding," the doctor replied. "We also have to assess the risk to your health of the damage to your reproductive system...it's a little early to say this, but we may need to do a hysterectomy...unless it is avoidable."
There was absolutely no reason to suddenly laugh, but that s exactly what Julie began doing. Hysterically laughing and crying at the same time. In a short instant, her life was changed...different forever. Now, this doctor was telling her she may never be able to have children. The passage of life would never be completed...so what was life worth now? And it made Julie laugh. And then she was out.
She woke hours later, and looked around. It was much darker in the room than before. Her vision was blurred, and she recalled the doctor's mention of her right eye. She tried to concentrate on seeing through the right eye, and discovered that it was covered with some kind of patch. Probably a precaution to prevent infection.
Julie lifted her hand to her face to feel for stitches or pain from bruising or any disfigurement of her face. She felt neither of the two, and celebrated a small victory. Her looks had been spared, if her womanhood had not. Her career may not be over.
She attempted to lift herself again and, this time, found much more success in doing so. She peered around the small hospital room. A private room, suitable for a small town celebrity. Something in the corner caught her eye. A body, seated in a chair.
Julie's blood ran cold. She tried to focus on it, and her brain went wild. She could not see again. The lights...turn on the lights.
The lights were cut off, it is black in the room. Julie begins trembling, and looks again at the figure. It looks closer than before, from the way she can see it. It's coming at her. Another attack...another disgusting vile attack.
Julie screamed at the top of her lungs and fell back in the bed, writhing in terror. A nurse hurries in, flicking on the light. The subject from the chair rises and rushes to Julie bed side. The woman grabs her arms and tries to calm her while the nurse measures pulse.
"Julie, sweetheart, it's ok," the woman explains. "It's me, Mom...Mommy's here." The familiar soothing voice seemed to be working, at least on Julie. Maggie Harris was not taking it so easily.
As she madly stroked her daughter's hair, tears began streaming her face. Her poor baby was terrified. She had failed to protect her one and only baby from horror and devastation. And yet, the frightening part for Maggie is, there is nothing she can do.
Julie quickly reached up and pulled her mother down into a hug. She sobbed as Maggie pulled her to her bosom. It gave her flashes of memories of Julie as a small baby, safe and happy in the nurturing feel of her arms.
How far away those happy days seemed to Maggie right then. As her baby screamed for help, crushing her face against her chest, Maggie's own tears could not satisfy the rage she felt at the bastard who did this. That man has effectively destroyed Julie's life.
"It's ok, baby," Maggie whispered over and over. "I know you're hurt, but Mommy's here and she won't let anything happen to you anymore...I promise."
The promise was too late. The damage was done, figuratively and literally. Julie was now different woman, perhaps stripped of everything that made her a woman. How would she recover? How had other women recovered from the horror? Or did they ever recover?
A single word suddenly mixed with Maggie's feeling of rage and fear. Death. She wanted the scoundrel dead. She wanted to find him and subject him to horrible tortures like he had inflicted on Julie. Maggie wanted to ruin his life, all in that instant.
