This is a story. It never happened and never will. The General Disclaimer is incorporated herein by reference.

BR&T date: Sunday, 25 February 1996

'I need a new drill,' the man thought. While packing stuff up for the move to this new town, he'd thrown out several old tools, knowing he'd soon be able to afford replacements. 'I'll try the hardware store, if I can find it.' He drove around in his new car (not yet paid for), up and down streets in the small town, until he saw the sign. 'Oh yes, that's right. It's called Plumbing and Heating, not Hardware Store,' he half-smiled. He hoped they had drills.

He parked and walked to the front door of the store, seeing the "Closed" sign before he got near enough to read the store hours. That figured, since it was sunday morning. Just as he turned back to his car, he noticed an odd sign placed in the window, easily visible from the street, of a single yellowish-pink "X" and nothing else. Nothing, that is, except eight exclamation marks someone had put on it by hand. He shrugged. It didn't mean anything to him.

A man driving by in a car looked his way, though not quite at him, and then accelerated away in a hurry. That didn't mean anything to him, either, just another mystery. Maybe he'd wanted hardware also, and saw the "Closed" sign without stopping, he guessed.

He returned home, and found himself still stuck on his woodworking project, still needing a drill to continue. He decided to go ask a neighbor, to see if he could borrow one.

First he tried the neighbor to his right. A few days ago, he'd seen the guy putting a little girl in his car, about six years old, very very cute with reddish-brown hair and light freckles, presumably his daughter despite the difference in their hair. He didn't know their names yet, but figured the guy probably had a hand drill. He hesitantly used the ostentatious door knocker with an eagle's head and apparently real gemstones for eyes, but no one answered.

He crossed the street without looking for traffic (the posh cul-de-sac he lived in made that unnecessary) and knocked on the door directly opposite his.

A woman came to the door and opened it nervously. "Is this about Stella and Mary? Are they in trouble again?"

He recognised the wife of the bank manager. She had been there with two absolutely adorable girls, five or six years old, hair done up in beautiful ribbons with their names on them, the day he'd opened his account. "No, no, nothing like that, Mrs. Clark. I was just trying to see if I could borrow a drill from your husband. Just a small hand drill, if he has one. Is he home?"

"No. He's away at something or other that's going on today, I don't know what. But I know he wouldn't have anything like that. Sorry. At least it wasn't the girls getting in trouble again! I told them they better be good today. I just don't know what's got into them since we moved here! Good day." She shut the door in his face.

He walked back across the street to try the neighbor to his left. This one, if he remembered, was a single woman with a daughter in Brownies? No, wait, that was someone else. Or maybe there were two women fitting that description. His neighbor was the grocery store evening shift manager, he was sure of that, at least. Not likely a woman would have a hand drill, but he might as well ask.

Before he could knock, the woman opened the door and asked, "What is it? I'm in a hurry to get to the gaming hall for sunday Bingo. I have a chance to go today, and I have to take it, even though Molly's still missing. Say, I heard your wife is out of town. Would you like to join me? There's cards in the back room also, for the men, if you don't like Bingo. Hold 'em and poker if you want, I'm pretty sure I overheard something like that."

"No, not this time, Ms. Taylor. Yes, my wife had to go take care of her mother, who had some medical problems. We don't know when she'll be back. In the meantime, I'm taking care of my daughter myself. Ten-year-olds are quite a challenge. Anyway, since she's off at a party at the moment, I'm working on a surprise for her. It's going to be awesome, if I ever finish it. I'm sure she'll love it. It's about time she had a real four-poster bed. I got wood for it at work, of course. Well, never mind that. I wanted to see if you had a hand drill I could borrow."

"No, I can't say I do, sorry. Sorry to rush off, but I have to, um, rush off. Bye." She closed and locked the door. Before he could make it back to the sidewalk, she drove out of her garage and off to the gaming hall, wherever that was.

He decided to try two doors down, since he was almost there already, and giving up would mean quitting the project in the middle, probably until next weekend. As manager of the mill, he had long hours at work, and wouldn't be able to just leave to go buy a drill during the weekday. Ordering it by phone was out of the question; he never considered buying a power tool sight unseen, not after the last disaster. And sure, he could just buy a bed by phone, and get it delivered, but he wanted to give his daughter something with his own hands. He figured that getting it from her own father would have an extra emotional impact on her.

He knocked on the front door, using the fancy brass door knocker. He waited and knocked two more times, but no one answered. "I guess you don't get much attention with knockers around here," he decided.

As he walked past the garage door on the way back to the street, though, he heard what might have been a scream and talking, coming from inside the garage. He knocked on the garage door. The sounds went quiet. He lifted the door by the handle. As soon as he'd slid it up high enough for him to see in, he came upon a surprising sight.

What immediately drew his attention was a nine-year-old girl, one of his daughter's fourth-grade classmates, with some cutesy hippy name like Snowflake or Precious, or no, ... Gaia? Was that it? She had long straight blond hair, and she was every bit as beautiful as her name promised. Anyway, it wasn't her name or her hair that got his attention. She stood in the middle of the garage, facing him at the now-open garage door with the morning sun shining in on her, with her arms raised high toward the ceiling, but apart. She also had her legs wide, her feet on a long narrow board on the cement floor of the garage. But most unusually, she was absolutely naked. And undeniably crying and miserable.

As soon as she saw him, she quickly drew her legs together. That let her stand higher, so she could bend her elbows a little, but the cords on her wrists stopped her from lowering them.

Over a dozen boys surrounding her turned to look at him as he entered the garage. They looked a little surprised, but not worried. He'd seen some of them at his daughter's school, even two of them he was sure were in her class. Several of them were in their early teens, and probably in high school.

Taken aback, and uncertain what to do, he said what he'd come for. "I was wondering if I could borrow something from your father, one of his power tools, if he has one."

"Sure," one of the older boys answered. "He's busy today, but he keeps his tools on the bench over there, or in boxes under it. If you can find what you need, you can use it and bring it back today."

The bench lined the wall on the far side of the garage. He had to cross near the girl to get to it. He pretended not to look at her, still trying to decide what to do. The boys outnumbered him greatly, and made no attempt to hide what they were up to.

"Please..." she squeaked as he passed.

"Get your feet back on the marks, Kayannah!" a boy shouted. He swung a leather belt for emphasis. Crack!! "You learning yet, or do you need a few more lessons?" Crack! CRACK!!

"AAAaaahww! AHhhw! AWWwwhh! AAWWWwwhhh!!" the girl screamed and wailed as she spread her legs wide, looking down to get her feet exactly on a couple of red lines on the board that she could barely reach when hanging by her wrists and stretched to her limit. She turned her head to look at the man, only to see him quickly turn away to rummage through a box on top of the workbench.

"Look at Jimmy!" the boy with the belt demanded, backing it up with another blow from the belt. "Tell him."

"YYyaaawwwwwww!" the miserable girl wailed. "Unnhh, I- I'm a-" she sobbed, choking on the words.

He looked back and forth along the bench, but didn't see any hand drill on top. He glanced around the garage as if he was looking for something, a bit longer than good pretense allowed.

The boy noticed him looking, and swung the belt. The man kept on barely pretending.

"AAauuuwww!!" she screamed. "I'm a- I'm a..." She stopped without finishing, again. Crack!! Her body jerked as the belt struck hard right where she was softest. "AAAUUHHWWWW!! Aaauuuww!"

"Never mind that, then," the boy sneered. "Tell Jimmy what he can do to you, Kaiah!"

The man figured he'd better find a drill, or something else to borrow, and leave. Luckily, he found a hand drill on top of the next box he looked in. He couldn't see it very well in the darkened box under the bench. He hoped it was a model he was familiar with, or he might have to hunt for the owner's manual, too. He picked it up and headed for the open garage door, again walking past the girl.

She looked at him desperately. "PleeeeaAAAUUWWwww!!"

"Talk to Jimmy!" the boy with the belt insisted, both verbally and physically.

The girl squirmed and whimpered as the boy turned her head to force her to face another boy standing closer to her than the rest. "Yuhh- you c- can-" she stuttered, "uhhhaawww..."

Stopping near the garage door, he put a hand on the shoulder of one of the youngest boys there, one of the two in his daughter's class. Very close to the boy's ear, he whispered threateningly, "I better not hear about you doing anything like this to my Sara. Understood?"

The boy turned to him and answered, trying to suppress a grin, "Don't worry, Mister Carson. You'll never hear about this happening to your Sara!"

A boy beside him snickered. "'Cuz you're on the wrong side of town right now, just like Kaiah's father!"

Outside the garage, the man pulled the handle down until the door hit the pavement. Then he took a look at what he had in his hands. He nodded.

He knew the drill, now.

Back home, he picked up his set of drill bits and opened it. Then he slowly put it down.

"Hi. Sorry to bother you again," he apologised, entering the garage, "but I forgot to get the drill bits when I borrowed the drill. Can't do much without drill bits, can I?"

"WWwwaaaaaawwwhhh!! Ohh stahhp staaAAahhhp! Wwwaauuw uh-aauw uh-auww huh-auuAAAUuuw uhh-aww uh-auwh!" A different boy stood by Kaiah, the same belt in his hand the other boy had held before. Despite her frantic squirming, she kept her feet covering the red marks on the board.

"Sure," a familiar boy answered when the interruption subsided, "get what you want, no problem!" Then he turned to the girl and demanded "How many is that now, Kaiah?"

"Fuh-fourteeen," she sobbed. "Oh pleeeaaase stop! Please!"

"Who's next after Spruce, Kaiah?"

"Pick my brother," the boy with the belt suggested, waving it in a way that made it clear he wasn't making a suggestion.

Staring at the floor, she murmured another name, "Ha- Haw- Hawthorne. It- it's Hawthorne's turn." She bit her lip and cried as a first-grader eagerly stepped up.

"Happy fourteenth birthday!" he ritually congratulated someone without looking around, and snatched the belt from his brother's hand.

The man spent a couple of minutes pretending to search, during which time Kaiah tearfully selected another boy, then another, with much screaming in between. The man finally located a set of drill bits, naturally in the same box the drill had been in, which he had avoided looking in. On the way out, he whispered to a certain boy in his daughter's class, "Remember, I better never hear about anyone doing anything like this to Sara. No matter what it is!"

The boy only grinned and winked.