The Sacrifice. Joyce Carol Oates

      You are propelled by this speed. You are addicted to the thrill of danger, this not-knowing into which you plunge like a swimmer diving into a swirling river to “rescue” whoever he can.

      But now there is this call—to change your life in a way you will regret.

      Damn it wasn’t true the ambulance had taken its time getting there! Sixteen minutes but we’d been slowed down on the bridge and the 911 dispatcher had given us an incomplete address.

      It being a black neighborhood, it would be claimed. The EMTs from St. Anne’s had taken their time.

      We’d responded to the dispatcher as we always did.

      We said, there was no difference between this emergency summons and any other—except what would be made of it, later.

      When we arrived at the corner of East Ventor and Depp we hadn’t known immediately where to go. The dispatcher hadn’t been told clearly where the injured girl was.

      Something about a factory. Factory cellar.

      So we’d wasted minutes determining what this meant. We’d been told “cellar”—so we had flashlights in case flashlights were needed. Searching for a way through the chain-link fence until a woman appeared and screamed at us about a “dying girl”—a girl “bleeding to death”—and directed us where she was.

      First thing we observed was that the girl (later identified as “Sybilla Frye”) lying on her side on the cellar floor on a strip of tarpaulin seemed to be conscious but would not respond to us, as if she was unconscious.

      When we came running down into the cellar with flashlights we saw that the girl’s eyes were open but immediately then she shut them when the light came onto her face. We saw her lift her hands to hide her face from the bright light.

      It was our concern that the girl was in severe physical distress, in shock, or bleeding internally, we had to determine immediately, or try to determine, before lifting her onto a stretcher.

      Her face was bloodied and battered. There was a towel or a rag partly tied around her head and her hair was matted with filth.

      There were no evident deep lacerations of the kind made with a sharp weapon or gunshot. Wounds were superficial, though bloody. There did not appear to be a severe or life-threatening loss of blood.

      There was a strong smell of excrement—possibly human, or animal.

      It looked like the girl had been tied with a clothesline but when we arrived, the clothesline had been untied. The woman who’d met us outside said she’d found the girl tied and had untied the girl. Her wrists and ankles had been tied behind her—“hog-tied.”

      Well, we thought there was something strange—the injured girl had been communicating with the woman who’d found her, the woman told us—but then, she wouldn’t communicate with us.

      She was limp and her arms were, like, falling loose—like a person would be if she was unconscious. But when we touched her she stiffened up. She’d shut her eyes tight and kept them shut.

      That girl was in a state of shock! She didn’t know who we were.

      We identified ourselves. She had to know we were a rescue team.

      But she was scared! She was terrified. She was just a girl and somebody had almost killed her. She might’ve thought we were her assailants coming back. She was shivering—her skin felt clammy when I touched her.

      She never did talk to us. Not a word.

      It was possible, I thought, she was—you know—mentally disabled like retarded, or autistic. She communicated with me …

      She did not communicate with you. She was not observed communicating with you.

      She didn’t talk to me exactly but, but she—communicated …

      Look—this was not a “cooperative” individual. First thing when we came down into the cellar with flashlights we saw the girl’s eyes were open and she’s staring at us—then, she shut her eyes. We saw her lifting her hands to hide her face from the bright light—which you wouldn’t do if you were unconscious.

      The lights blinded her and scared her …

      Had a damn hard time taking her blood pressure and pulse and trying to check for injuries, she kept bending her legs and wouldn’t lay them flat so we could strap her down.

      Sometimes it happens, an injured person is panicked and doesn’t want to be taken to the ER.

      But this girl refused to talk to us. She wasn’t screaming or saying she didn’t want medical treatment. She wasn’t hysterical or crazy. She was trying to simulate being unconscious but she was awake and alert. You could see her eyeballs kind of jerking around behind her eyelids. You could see she’d been assaulted, a strong possibility she’d been raped, her clothes were torn partly off except she was still wearing jeans—bloodied jeans.

      The visible injuries were lacerations and bruises on her face, her chest, her belly—where her clothes had been ripped, you could see.

      The woman had been screaming the girl was “bleeding to death” but that was not the case.

      Most of the blood appeared to be dried, coagulated. Whenever she’d been beaten, it hadn’t been recently.

      She’d been beaten and left to die! Tied and a gag in her mouth and left to die in that nasty place! When we found her, she was in a state of shock.

      Actually she was not in a “state of shock”—her blood pressure wasn’t low, we discovered when we were finally able to take it, and her pulse was fast.

      She was in, like, emotional shock …

      The woman was explaining she’d been wakened by “some kind of crying” in the night then in the morning she’d searched outside and found the girl tied and bleeding and left to die and she was worried since she’d moved the girl a little, started to lift her off the tarpaulin, maybe the girl had a skull fracture or broken spine or internal injuries she might’ve made worse, she wanted to tell us that.

      The woman was kind of hysterical herself. She looked like her heart was jumping all over inside her chest. Said she was a schoolteacher and the girl had been one of her pupils …

      Kept saying she’d thought the girl had been thrown down from some height, and her back was broken. She’d thought the girl was bleeding to death, that’s what she’d told us when we first arrived. And the girl had been raped, she was sure of that …

      She’d wanted to come in the ambulance with us but we had to tell her no. We told her to notify the girl’s mother.

      That poor girl was in a state like panic. Maybe it wasn’t “shock” but she was panting—hyperventilating. Her skin was clammy like death.

      Well—anybody would be scared and upset, in her circumstances. With just the flashlights we could see it had been a vicious attack. And you’d think for sure, rape. The disgusting thing was what was smeared in her hair and on the parts of her body that had been naked—mud and dog shit. And in the ambulance we saw something spelled out on her body.

      These nasty words! Smeared in dog shit on that poor girl.

      It wasn’t dog shit the words were written in, it was some kind of smeared ink like a marker pen.

      It was dog shit, too. I saw it.

      The scrawled words were in black marker pen. It was hard to make out what they were because the ink was smeared, and the girl’s skin was kind of dark …

      The thing is, if you are unconscious, your limbs are not stiff and you don’t resist medical intervention. If you are conscious, you might resist—if you are terrified and panicked. But we got a blood pressure reading finally and she wasn’t in shock—or anywhere near—her pressure was 130 over 115. Her pulse was fast