CHAPTER 2
NORMAN JAMES
Wren enters the emergency room and walks up to the nurse at the counter.
“Can I help you?”
With a slight pause, and in a very slow monotone, Wren answers almost automatically, as if some part deep inside her brain has to be turned on for the first time ever to answer the question.
“I just escaped from a raping, and I don’t know what to do now.”
As she stands there, even before the nurse can answer her, the feelings of disgust are heightened. Once again she can feel more fluids leaking from her as they start to pool inside her pantyhose just before they soak through and start running down her legs. This time it is just too much. The feelings, coupled with her recent memories, cause her to retch and vomit, narrowly missing the counter in front of her.
“John, please get this cleaned up. Diane, would you please escort this young lady to exam room four, and then find Maxine and send her in with her?”
Diane escorts Wren through a set of double doors, down a hall, and into a large exam room. It has a fairly traditional looking exam table right in the middle with a large set of lights hanging down overhead, vaguely reminding Wren of the lights over an operating table. She sits up on the exam table, and the girl leaves the room with her sitting there. She looks around her and notices a stainless steel counter running along two sides parallel to the table. Bottles and trays of instruments covered in clear plastic wrap lay sitting upon the counters. The smell of disinfectant hangs heavily in the air, and there is no sound as if the room itself is shrouded in absolute silence. This is where Wren now sits cold, alone, and scared for some time before Maxine enters. Wren actually doesn’t notice her come through the door until she is startled by the sound of the door thumping shut in its frame.
“Good morning. I’m Maxine, and if I understand right you were raped sometime overnight.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Okay, let’s get started then. First, I need you to sign this release.”
She hands Wren a legal sized sheet of paper, and Wren starts reading. The form turns out to be a release for the collection of specimens, including her clothing. She sits there reading and rereading it as she ponders what to do.
“What happens if I don’t sign this?”
“We can treat you for your injuries, but there won’t be enough accurate evidence to confirm a prosecution, if they were to catch the perpetrator.”
Wren quickly signs the paper, and Maxine opens a cabinet and takes out a box marked sterile bags.
“Now, you will need to strip. As you remove your clothes please hand them to me, as I’ll be placing each and every piece of your clothing into separate bags as they are being collected as evidence.”
Wren reluctantly starts removing her clothes and, as asked, hands each piece to Maxine. Maxine steps out of the room while Wren sits back down on the exam table and starts shivering almost uncontrollably in the cold air of the room. She had finally started to feel like her car was starting to warm up inside as she was getting close to the hospital, and now she sits cold, naked, and alone on the papered exam table.
Her emotions are used up at this point—there is no more hate or fear to keep her running, only despondence and apathy. She doesn’t have to wait long before Maxine is back however, pushing a small stainless steel cart ahead of her. Though to Wren it feels like forever as she just sits there staring into space.
Maxine looks at Wren sitting there shivering, her arms clamped tight around her body, as if she could hug the cold out of herself and hangs her own head, pinching her eyes shut hard to keep from crying herself. This is a college town, and Maxine has seen many a young woman in this room claiming rape. Yet, she always felt sorrow for the women, their lives torn apart in an instant by some uncaring individual. The dreams and naivety of childhood are torn from their minds and smashed in front of their very eyes. She always cried when she had to do this task. Even specialized training and the fact she had done this many times over the years never changed that one fact—she always cried.
Maxine turns back around carrying a small tape recorder and a clip board and turns on the recorder so as to start the next step of her job.
“Now let’s start with the basics: your name, date of birth, height, weight, and why you’re here.”
“Wren Robbins, December fifteenth nineteen seventy-nine, five foot four, one hundred thirty-four pounds, and I was raped.”
“Now, let’s get your vitals, temp ninety-five point eight, blood pressure ninety-six over sixty-five. I know I asked you your weight, but would you step on the scale please? One hundred thirty-seven. See, you said one thirty-four.”
“It must be water. It’s three days before my period.”
“Well, that answers my next question.”
“What’s that?”
“Date of last period?”
“Twenty-seven days ago, April tenth, I run an exact thirty day cycle, always have.”
“At least it’s predictable, dear.”
Maxine draws two large vials of blood and places them in a rack on the counter.
“Now wait here, and the doctors will be in shortly.”
“Doctors?”
“Yes, standard procedure with a rape victim dictates a general and a gynecologist to verify and photograph injuries and collect samples for the police.”
Then, Maxine turns off the tape recorder and leaves the room, leaving Wren to her nervous mental wandering. For the second time in less than twelve hours she is naked, cold, and not in control of the situation. A while later Maxine comes back in followed by another woman and a man. Maxine walks over and restarts the tape recorder before anyone starts talking.
“Good morning, Miss Robbins, I’m Doctor Jill Ryans and this is Doctor Blake Smith. I’ll be your gynecologist during this exam. Dr. Smith will be checking you over for other injuries. The sheriff has been called and will be here shortly. Now, I need to know what they did to you so we know what to look for.”
It is at this point the sheriff knocks on the door and asks to come in. The nurse wraps a blanket around Wren, and Dr. Ryans tells him he can enter. He comes in and with a few questions gets a general idea where Wren was raped and how many there were, then leaves to investigate.
“He seems in somewhat of a hurry. I expected more questions than that.”
“He’ll be back, I’m sure. We have had a suspicion for some time that these gang rapes have been being committed locally. He is very concerned with trying to catch one or all of those guilty of them.”
Wren then gives the doctors an account of the prior evening up to her getting to the hospital. Though the tape recorder is going, both doctors are busily taking down notes as she talks. When she is done, Dr. Ryans asks her to lie back on the table. Maxine turns on the large hanging lights over the exam table causing Wren to blink and wince at the bright light now shining down on her. She can feel the heat from them as they bathe her naked body in their radiant light while she lay back on the cold exam table.
She can feel the cool rubber of Dr. Ryans gloved hand as she places each of Wren’s feet in the stirrups. Then taking a small comb from the cart, Dr. Ryans starts combing Wren’s pubic hair, placing the comb and the hairs it traps into a small plastic bag.
Meanwhile, Dr. Smith has Wren holding her mouth open as he swabs the insides of her cheeks, and he is using a series of small gauze pads to wipe material from her face. Dr. Ryans moves on to the vaginal exam, making Wren wince when she inserts the cold un-lubricated speculum into her. She starts probing around her insides, collecting samples and looking for damage. Dr. Smith takes a pair of tweezers and starts collecting hair samples, plucking them out one by one by from the roots on her head and from her pubic area. Dr. Smith moves on to scraping under Wren’s fingernails as Dr. Ryans starts collecting more samples from her rectum. Both doctors thoroughly look her over for any other bruises or signs of physical damage and photograph anything suspicious.
“Well, now, Miss Robbins, we will need you to stay here in the hospital until we have run a few more tests such as a colonoscopy and upper GI to check for any damage we can not see. If everything checks out, you should be going home later this afternoon.”
Wren is given a hospital gown and transferred to a room until the tests have been set up for her. She is just starting to nod off to sleep when she is startled by a knock at the door.
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