My Good Deed Turned Into My Worst Nightmare
On December 5, 2009, Southern Methodist University track star Monika K?rra was heading home from an off-campus party when a black van pulled up beside her friend's car. It was just after 2 a.m., windy and cold. Neither K?rra nor her three friends — including fellow SMU track athletes Kristine Eikrem Engeset and Viktoria Leks — recognized the vehicle. "I saw the driver lower his window," Monika remembers. "I assumed he needed directions." But the man had far more sinister plans.
A second later, I heard a scream and felt Kristine's grip on my hand tighten into a death grasp.
Cold metal jutted against the right side of my head — a gun. I went limp at the feeling of hands on my arms and the back of my neck. My body was being stretched in two directions — toward Kristine and toward the SUV. Voices shouted, the men's in anger, Kristine's in desperation.
The cold sensation at my neck ceased, and I saw the weapon move in Kristine's direction. I felt every hair on my body stand on end.
"Let go," I said to Kristine. Her eyes wide and her mouth agape, but silent, Kristine released my hand. A thought flickered briefly in my mind. I'm alone. I'm going to have to do this myself.
Though it was only seconds before I was tossed into the vehicle I'd seen pull up, I was aware of flailing when my feet lost connection with solid ground. Then my face was pressed into the carpet, the rough fibers scratching at my cheeks and lips, the sour smell of something I couldn't identify, like body odor and chemicals, stinging my eyes and throat.
Above me, voices seemed to be swirling.
"Stay down or we'll shoot you!"
"Please," I begged the three men. "I don't want to die!"
I repeated my pleas, and when I got no response, I added, "You can have whatever you want. Just let me live."
It was as if my words set them in motion.
The men robbed Monika, grabbing at her jewelry, roughly yanking her earrings and tossing them to the back of the van. "Please see me," Monika thought to herself, silently willing the men to let her go. "Stop what you're doing and see that I am a human being."
In answer to my silent plea, the Worst One of the three brought his hand close to my face. I flinched, thinking that he was going to strike. Instead, I felt a slight tug at my ears, the flat of his hand briefly touching my cheek. In another context, that gesture would have been a sign of desired intimacy, not a violation. A tear leaked from my shut eyes.
In the next instant, I was on my back on the vehicle's backseat. The man I'd come to think of as the Worst One stood above me. He grabbed the hem of my dress and pulled it up, thrusting his hand between my legs.
"Don't fight me."
I didn't, willing myself to do what I'd been doing for years as a runner — let go of my body and ignore the signals of pain. As he thrust himself against me, I imagined that I was in a pack of runners jostling for position.
For me, the finish line was the moment when I was going to be turned loose from these men. I was going to do whatever it took to get there.
The men brutally assaulted her "singly," she says, and "in pairs, the three of them working together to subdue me, to break me." After beating and raping her for more than an hour, they stopped and left her on an empty street, blindfolded with duct tape, naked, holding her dress in her hands. Monika jogged, half-bound, for two miles, knocking on doors and flailing at passing cars, desperate for help. With her legs threatening to give out beneath her, Monika ran for her life.
I had given up on hoping for anyone to stop, but then when a white van turned around and came back toward me, I felt a bit of hope, right until I saw that there were three men inside. This couldn't be happening. They were coming to rape me!
I took off running again, continuing even as I heard a man say, "Calm down! We're going to help."
How could I trust him?
"Just stay there. We called the police." The man's voice was calm.
We stood there for a few moments, frozen in place. The scene grew more surreal when another car came flying toward us. A red-and-blue light flashed on its roof.
I sank down and rested my hands on my knees. I don't know how many seconds lapsed, but as I rested there, my chest heaving, my heart racing, and my mind overloaded, I felt like I'd crossed the finish line at the end of a race completely spent.
Still looking at the ground, I saw a shaft of light twitch to my right and then move off. I looked up and followed the spotlight up to a circling helicopter. The distant whup of its rotors was soon joined by sirens and more flashing lights.
For the first time, I began to cry. I looked up; above the helicopter, a sliver of moon and a few stars lightened the night sky. Shoulders quaking, I let my arms dangle at my side, felt the tension leaching from my body with each heaving sob.
This wasn't the night I was supposed to die.
For more of Monika's inspirational story of survival and healing, pick up her memoir KILL THE SILENCE, out next month.
Adapted from KILL THE SILENCE: A Survivor's Life Reclaimed. Copyright ? 2015 by Monika K?rra. To be published by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, on August 25.
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