I went back downstairs and got the duct tape off Mom and Dad. My emotions went absolutely berserk as I sobbed and apologized and swore that I had no other choice. I couldn’t think of any other way to save them.
I couldn’t find a key to Tina’s handcuffs or to Mom and Dad’s chains, so we had to wait for the state troopers to arrive before they could get free. It was a long wait. It felt like it took forever for Griffin to finally lose consciousness and shut the hell up.
But as you might have guessed, the events of the first night of winter in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1979 made it a lot easier to plead the case that those two ounces of marijuana in my backpack weren’t mine.
Todd’s parents came back to Alaska to have a proper funeral for their son.
The bodies of the other children were found, giving their families some measure of resolution and peace.
There was kind of a weird parent/child dynamic for a while after that. On one hand, I’d rescued my parents from a nightmarish fate. On the other hand, I was kind of responsible for them being kidnapped. But they hadn’t believed me when I told them that Mr. Martin had framed me. And even though I was technically their savior, I had broken my dad’s leg and stabbed him with a fireplace poker. So things were…weird. Very, very weird.
Ed, Mick, Burt, and Josh did not freeze to death. I was happy about that. They all basked in the brief glory of being the heroes who’d discovered Todd’s body. We didn’t become friends, though. Our personalities and interests were just too different.
Tina’s dad withdrew the threat to kill me if I saw his daughter.
Backtracking a bit, I’m not suggesting that Tina and I had started making out in the basement while we waited for help to arrive. That would be depraved. I’m also not suggesting that as we walked out to the waiting ambulance, I took her in my arms and kissed her under the beauty of the Northern Lights.
No, like my relationship with my parents, it was weird for a while.
But we got over it.
I was un-expelled from school, and finished up the year with a solid B-minus average. It could’ve been a B, but when Tina and I got together to study, we often failed to study.
That summer, in a highly publicized trial, Mr. Gerald Martin was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life in prison. Griffin had been carried out of the log cabin in a coma and never woke up, so he had no trial.
Tina and I dated all through high school. Our senior prom picture is embarrassingly bad.
We dated all through college. She graduated with honors. I did not.
We got married in 1989. Our son Matt was born in 1990. It seemed kind of close, but if you did the math, he was born nine and a half months after our wedding.
Our daughter Vivian was born in 1993, the same year that Mr. Martin died in prison. He wasn’t beaten to death by his fellow prisoners, unfortunately, nor was it something slow and painful. Cardiac arrest. His heart basically said “Fuck this guy” and gave out. I honestly wasn’t sure how to feel about this, so I decided to play with my kids instead.
We made it through Y2K without the world ending.
Our second daughter Marcie was born in 2003. You may be thinking that ten years is a pretty long gap between a second and third child, and wondering if we planned it this way. The answer is, no, we did not. In fact, we said “What the hell?” a lot. But she turned out to be a happy accident and we love her even more than her brother and sister. (I’m just kidding. Hi, Matt! Hi, Vivian! I’m sorry you had to read about your mom telling me I could touch her boob! And also that one part where your grandparents had makeup sex. I didn’t like writing about it any more than you liked reading about it.)
In 2012, the grandkids started popping out at the rate of one a year for the next five years. This was very odd because Tina and I were clearly too young to have grandchildren. Sure, we were getting unnervingly close to fifty, but still, we felt young, and that should’ve counted for something.
In 2019, Tina’s father died. Unlike Mr. Martin’s death, his was slow and awful, but he got to meet all five of his great-grandchildren.
As I write this in 2020, both of my parents are alive and well. In case you were wondering, yes, Dad’s leg healed fine, but yes, he has a scar from where I stabbed him with the poker. He shows it to me often. I wish he’d stop. Seriously.
Overall, we’re doing well. There have been plenty of challenges along the way, yet compared to a five-month standoff against a serial killer, they haven’t been so bad.
I know I’ve spent a lot of time talking about abductions and psychopaths and broken jaws and stuff, but ultimately I consider this to be the story of how Tina and I fell in love. Though you may not have got that impression while you were reading it, you’re not the one trying to get lucky after typing “The End,” so you can take from this story whatever you wish.
I love you, Sweetie.
— The End —
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Jamie La Chance, Tod Clark, Donna Fitzpatrick, Paul Goblirsch, Darrell Z. Grizzle, Kate Halpern, Lynne Hansen, Jim Morey, and Paul Synuria II for their help with this novel.
Books By Jeff Strand
The Odds - When invited to a game that offers a 99% chance of winning fifty thousand dollars, Ethan rejoices at the chance to recoup his gambling losses. But as the game continues, the odds constantly change, and the risks
