Intro
This story is a long time coming. It is a painful and frightening tale of the horrors of men, oh yes, and women that is all too true. The pronouns in this work often change; I, she, he, we, they. Depending on who is actually telling the story. I was told all my life that I was a miracle baby because my parents tried for years to have a baby of their own. This all changed when they fostered a severely handicapped baby. The doctors’ said that he wouldn’t be alive for more than a few weeks at best, not to rub it to the medical professionals, but this “baby” is in his late fifties with grown children of his own. Apparently though, this addition to their family came with a miracle. Yes, that miracle was…..Me! For the first few years of my life I was a “normal” child, hitting all the milestone markers and such. I was even baptized in a church that closed and became a bank. I found it funny to point as we drove by and say,”That is where I was baptized.”
A little over a year later, we got another surprise baby, but this time it was a boy. So I had an older brother named Bobby and a little one named Keith. I don’t remember much about these years, but I loved to look at the photo albums my mother had organized and kept in the closet. My favorite picture is one of my Dad in a suit and holding me in a white baptism gown that my mother has made from her wedding dress. I look like a white poof with a shock of straight black hair that would only go one way, up.Fortunately it all fell out and while I was bald for a while it came back in dark brown. Mom let it grow long but had to cut some bangs otherwise I would never see. I can laugh about it now, but I am sure I was a difficult child. I loved being outside because that’s where all the animals were.


The Beginning of the End

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little girl with long dark hair and sparkling green eyes. She loved her mommy and daddy with all her heart and they loved her just the same. She was named Katherine, in honor of her grandmother, but they called her Katie. She had an older brother named Bobby who was adopted. Bobby was a special boy and saw the doctors often. His heart was broken in a way that only extensive surgeries would fix. She also had a younger brother named Keith. Keith was a year and a half younger than Katie and they were close while they were young, but once Katie became disabled he kept his family at a distance.

Bobby and Katie started school when she was four and Bobby was five. Katie loved school, she played with other girls, did crafts and read books. Katie became fast friends with a girl in her class named Petunia, whom everyone called Pet. Pet’s daddy was the principal of the school as well as pastor of the adjoining church. Katie’s family were members of the church and attended every Sunday morning service. They were very fond of Pet’s parents, as well Pet and her three sisters. Their mommies were both nurses, although neither of them worked outside the home.

It was a time in which everyone believed the world was impervious to monsters who could ruin their children. This very belief is what made Katie so vulnerable to the monsters she crossed paths with. It began the day she was called to the principal’s office. She skipped to his office without a care. Katie knocked softly on his door and was told to enter, revealing Pastor. He was sitting at a big wooden desk and the room’s walls were adorned with shelf upon shelf of books, more books than the library that mommy took her to. Katie loved books, even at age four she knew the power books held. The potential to go anywhere and be anyone. She spent much of her time exploring with Christopher Robin and Pooh. Pastor asked Katie to stand next to him. He showed her a giant book of animals and invited her to sit on his lap as she perused the astounding pages. Katie studied the book intensely and didn’t notice Pastor put his hand in his pants, she was absorbing all the wondrous an...

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