Hunting Michael Underwood

by L V Gaudet

  “I’m ignoring you now,” Ryan says, turning his attention back to the road.

  “You kill everyone close to you David, everyone you care about.” It is a new voice; one he doesn’t recognize. He knows it is someone he knows.

  He glances at the woman seated next to him. Her clothes and hair are out of style. Her hair is dishevelled, her dress torn. Her eyes are glazed and dry, staring at him vacantly. Her face is discoloured with bruising and a spray of blood is splashed across one cheek from her ruined mouth.

  The truck swerves violently, two wheels taking air, nearly flipping over into a roll. The tires touch the pavement again, screaming and leaving a black scar of burnt rubber, bouncing hard on impact and jolting the truck the other way.

  Ryan fights for control and the back spins around to replace the front. Finally the truck shudders to a stop, crooked and facing the wrong way across two lanes of the road, wheels smoking and surrounded by the stink of burnt rubber.

  “Mommy?” he almost says, catching himself and stutters out, “M-m-mom?” He reels with shock. His head swims with it. The world outside the truck no longer exists. “Mom? Mom. What’s my name, Mom? What’s my real name? What’s my real name?”

  The seat next to him is empty.

  Ryan snaps out of it. He shakes his head to clear it, trying to push away the dark fog enveloping him.

  The fog pushes back and he realizes where he is. Turning around and straightening out, the truck engine growls as it charges forward, devouring the road ahead.

  He ignores their taunts for the rest of the drive, Cassie and Jane Doe taking turns tormenting him from the passenger seat.

  “What the hell,” Jim mutters after the truck that goes flying past him on the highway. He’s in a hurry.”

  “He’s late for something,” Lawrence jokes. “If Jane Doe is his sister, maybe Michael didn’t kill her.”

  “Maybe, but maybe he did. Do you still think she’s alive? That Aunt Sophie is harbouring her?”

  “If he didn’t kill her, if Jane Doe is Cassie, then Jason might have tried to protect her from Michael.”

  “At the prison, when Michael met with Jason McAllister, he demanded to know where she is. The guard heard him yelling through the door, demanding to know where Cassie is. Jason McAllister has her, or at least knows where she is.”

  “She’s with Sophie McAllister.”

  “I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

  Lawrence looks at Jim. “How long?”

  “Until we get there? A while.”

  “What happens after we find her? After you get Michael and Jason for the bodies in the woods? How long are you going to keep this up?”

  Jim’s hands tighten on the steering wheel.

  “Until I find the bastard who killed my wife.”

  “It wasn’t either of them.”

  “They killed someone’s wife.”

  Jason carries the boy in, gently laying him on the couch. Worried, he checks him over. The boy is still breathing. Shallowly, but still breathing.

  Leaving him there, he races upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time and barges into his room. He grabs a few things and starts leaving, pausing in the doorway. He turns back, grabs the bag of stuff he bought the kid, and leaves, hurrying down the stairs.

  Gently picking the kid up, surprised at just how little he weighs, Jason carries him outside and sits him in the passenger seat of the truck, buckling his seat belt and tilting him away from the door to close it.

  He gets in on the driver’s side, gently repositions the boy leaning against the passenger door and making sure his head is comfortable.

  “It’s time to bring David home.”

  He starts the truck and pulls away.

  When Ryan finally pulls up in front of the little house they rented, he is so exhausted he can barely keep his eyes open. His face is droopy with it. He is unwashed and unshaven and long ago stopped feeling the gnawing pangs of hunger. He drove through the night and much of the day without stopping to rest to get here.

  Numb with fatigue, he half stumbles out of the truck, jogging up the walk to the door on legs that don’t want to move.

  His throat catches as he bursts into the house. He is greeted by silence.

  They got her. Anderson got her. Pain swells inside him, filling him up until he feels he will pop like an over-filled balloon with it. He stumbles to the couch, his legs giving out as he reaches it, letting himself fall to sit on it heavily. His head drops and he covers it with his hands, fighting the wail of sorrow that is pushing up his throat.

  Elaine appears, stepping out from the bedroom doorway.

  Sensing a presence, Ryan looks up. He stares at her in shock and confusion. It takes him a long moment to realize she is really there. She isn’t a ghost like Cassie and Jane Doe, haunting and tormenting him.

  He catches the guilty look on her face before she can hide it. Elaine was never good at hiding her feelings.

  “You look rough,” she says, not moving to approach him. The tension in the air is thick.

  “You are still here.” His voice is quiet, defeated.

  Elaine misunderstands the meaning. She nods and swallows. She thinks he knows she was leaving, that he means that she did not leave him for Trevor.

  “I’m sorry,” she manages. She had cried herself through her loss and self pity hours ago. She had come to terms with where she is and who she is.

  Elaine looks down. She can’t meet his eyes. “I want to go home. I want to go home to my mother.”

  Ryan nods slowly. I can’t keep her here. I can’t keep her a prisoner of who I am, what I am. Can she go back? Is it too late? Will Anderson let her?

  Elaine takes his silent nod as acceptance.

  “A man came to see you while you were gone,” she says. “I think he was your boss at the slaughterhouse. I think you got fired.”

  Ryan tenses. “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t give me a name. He only said that they don’t need you anymore.”

  “What did he say exactly? What were his exact words?”

  “He said tell Ryan that his services are no longer needed.”

  The sight of the color draining from his face sends a tingle of fear through her.

  “What did he look like?” The words come out choked.

  “Like a business man. More like a used car salesman kind of business man. Middle-aged, hair thinning and cut short. He had a cheap suit jacket, trousers, and dress shirt, no tie.

  Ryan? What’s wrong? Why are you sweating like that? You look sick.” She finally breaks free from the doorway, crossing the gulf of safety space she kept between them to come to his side and look at him worriedly.

  “Pack a few things, fast, we have to go.” Ryan is already on his feet, moving with nervous jerky motions.

  She follows him to the bedroom where he pulls his duffel bag from the closet and starts hurriedly shoving random clothes into it.

  “Where’s your bag?” He pushes past her, grabbing her suitcase from the closet and stops at the weight of it. He looks at her and she meets his look with a guilty one before looking down. He sets it down by the bedroom door. “Grab anything else you need.”

  “What’s wrong? Why do we have to leave in a hurry? Is it the police?”

  The thought comes to her. If I waste time, hold us up, they might get here before we leave. They’ll lock him up, maybe me too as an accessory, but we won’t have to run and hide anymore. She flushes with guilt over thinking of letting him get caught.

  Ryan pauses long enough to look at her, his eyes steady and serious. “Worse.” He goes back to frantically packing.

  His weighted tone and the fear in his eyes send an icy dread down her spine.

  As soon as the duffel bag is full, he zips it and snatches it up, grabbing her suitcase on the way out to the living room.

  “Come on, we don’t have any time.”

  “What’s going on? Please, Ryan, you are scaring me.”
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br />   “I’ll explain on the way.” He drops the bags at the door, turning and crossing quickly to her, reaching to grab her and drag her along.

  He stops, looking down at his outreaching hand, and drops it to his side.

  “I won’t force you to come with me. Not ever again. It’s your choice.”

  Elaine stares at him, seeing the depth of his fear, his loss, the fear of losing her and worse, fear for her safety.

  “Ryan-.”

  He cuts her off.

  “Kathy, you might as well just call me David, or Michael if you prefer. That’s what you knew me as first. I was David growing up. At least that’s the only name I remember. I don’t know my real name. These identities are useless to us now.”

  He expects the voices of Cassie and Jane Doe to start whispering in his head, “Run David Run,” over and over, hissing and swarming over each other. They are strangely silent.

  Kathy stares at him, blinking in shock, almost wavering on her feet. She steels herself, making a decision. Michael is the one person who will never hurt me. She moves past him, picking up her suitcase and standing there waiting for him.

  Michael is shocked and thrilled, but they are still in danger. Anderson was already here. He hurries to her, grabs his duffel bag, and she follows him out the door to his truck. He tosses their bags in the box and they get in.

  Half in the truck, Michael stops and stares down at the steering wheel. A note is taped to it. He pulls it off, reading it silently.

  You can’t hide from us.

  Anderson is toying with us. He crumples it up and throws it out the door onto the road. Pulling himself inside, he closes the door and starts the truck, driving away, this time taking care to not bring attention to them.

  “Where are we going?” Kathy asks.

  “To see my aunt.”

  “You have an aunt?”

  “Sophie. I have a lot to tell you.”

  As they drive out of town, they pass a weathered truck with a cap covering the box. The truck is approaching from another road.

  Jason recognizes Michael’s truck ahead. He follows it, carefully keeping at a distance that isn’t obvious.

  The boy who now calls himself Billy is sitting in the passenger seat. “Are we following that truck?”

  “Yes.”

  Part Seven

  An Ending

  40Sophie

  Michael turns up a gravel road, following it for miles and passing farms until it turns to mud. He turns into the long drive of a farm some distance down the mud road.

  “Are you sure this is it?” Kathy looks at the road doubtfully. The road would be impassable every time it rains, the mud sucking vehicle tires in and miring them.

  Michael frowns. He isn’t sure at all.

  “It’s been a long time. I was a kid when I found her. Even if it is the right place, she might not even live here anymore.”

  He pulls up in front of the house. It is not a large farmhouse, larger than the McAllister farm, not as old, and neatly kept.

  They are greeted by a medium sized brown dog, who trots over, tail wagging and letting off a few loud barks when they get out.

  The dog nuzzles Kathy’s leg and she pets him.

  Michael looks around.

  A middle-aged woman appears, walking around the house. She stops in her tracks, staring at them in surprise, recognizing Michael immediately. She breaks from her surprise.

  “What are you doing here?” Her tone is not friendly.

  A little girl appears from behind her, following her, and stops to stare wide-eyed at the strangers.

  “Go in the house,” the woman commands, not turning to look at the girl. The girl turns on her heel and runs back around the house.

  “Sophie,” Michael says, almost choking on the name with the sudden rush of the memory of his other visit to this house. She had turned him away then.

  Sophie’s eyes and the line of her mouth are hard.

  “I told you never to come back here.”

  Kathy stands back, watching them uncertainly, feeling awkward.

  “I don’t know where else to go.” Michael looks past her, searching for something. “She’s here, isn’t she?”

  “There is no one here for you. You need to leave now.”

  Michael’s stance shifts. He has no intention of going anywhere. “I know she’s here. He has nowhere else to take her. Where is she?”

  The door creaks open and a young woman pushes her way out, arms laden with an over-filled laundry basket, using her back to push the door open while she turns through the doorway with the basket, stepping from the house. The door bangs shut behind her, pulled closed by a spring.

  “Sophie-,” She stops, staring at the three people gathered outside. The color drains from her and she blanches. She starts trembling and stands there frozen.

  “It’s okay Cassie,” Sophie says, her voice still cold and hard, “he won’t hurt you. Not ever again.”

  Michael feels the pull, the need to rush to her, to grab her up and hold her, to realize she really is there and to protect her. He shifts forward with the need.

  Seeing the shift in his posture, Cassie drops the basket, flinching and on the verge of running.

  “Cassie-,” Michael manages to croak out.

  “Cassie, go inside the house and put on tea. The green tea. See if we have tea biscuits too. We have company.” Sophie’s voice is calm and commanding. It has not lost its hard edge.

  Cassie nods, trembling with fear, and stumbles back into the house. She catches one of the kids on the way to the front door, stopping him and taking him back out of sight with her.

  Green tea. How does she think it’s safe? Cassie fumbles in the kitchen, putting the kettle on the stove for tea. It is more than a request. It is a code. Tea biscuit is the cue she isn’t really talking about tea, although putting on a pot of tea is a cover for the code.

  Orange Peko would have meant to be on alert. Black tea means run. She picks through the tea boxes, moving the Orange Peko tea and the Earl Grey. She reaches for the green tea, pausing, her hand hovering between it and the Chamomile. The Chamomile is special.

  I can make this all go away with the Chamomile.

  She grabs the green tea, replacing the others, closing the door, and brings it to the counter.

  She listens to the hissing ticking of the kettle as it warms, looking back at the cupboard and its now hidden teas.

  Michael stares after Cassie after the door bangs shut and the house swallows her up.

  “David.” Sophie says his name sharply, bringing him back to her.

  Michael looks at her. She is carefully keeping her distance.

  Blinking, Michael looks at Sophie again, this time with curiosity. A cow lows forlornly somewhere in the distance.

  It reminds him so much of the little farmhouse, but larger and newer. Everything better kept. A clothesline is strung across two poles, laundry hung and flapping in the breeze.

  A medium sized brown dog chases a ball thrown by a boy.

  A girl, smaller, methodically weaves long grass around two sticks, tying them together. A grey kitten mewls at her, looking for attention. A shadow hangs over everything. Clouds fill the sky, blocking out the sun.

  He focuses on the kids. It’s not them. Different farm. Different kids.

  “Hey, wake up. It’s not who?”

  Lawrence coughs and blinks, waking up, feeling disoriented.

  “Did I fall asleep?”

  “You were mumbling something about it not being them. Not who?” Jim takes his attention off the road long enough to glance at Lawrence, his meaty fists gripping the steering wheel.

  “How much longer until we get there?”

  “Not long.”

  “I think we should speed up. I have a feeling he’s already there.”

  “Who? Michael?” Jim’s hands tighten on the wheel.

  “Maybe, or Jason. I don’t know.”

  “Like father, like daughter,” Michael says.<
br />
  “Close. I clean up a different kind of mess.”

  Michael’s eyes widen.

  Sophie looks at Kathy.

  Kathy is still staring after the young woman, Cassie, with a shocked look, reeling from seeing her again. Jane Doe. The woman who shared a root cellar with her and escaped, leaving her behind. She feels dizzy.

  “Go inside,” Sophie says to Kathy. “Help Cassie with the tea.”

  Kathy looks at Michael uncertainly and he nods. She goes in reluctantly, leaving them outside alone.

  Stepping into the house feels alien to Kathy, walking into a stranger’s home where they clearly are not welcome. She wants nothing more right now than to turn around and leave, just get in the truck with Michael and drive away. She hesitates, then moves further into the house, feeling awkward.

  Sophie waits for her to be out of earshot before speaking.

  “My father was more of a waste disposal expert.”

  “So, what do you do?”

  “I make problems go away.”

  Michael looks down at his feet, at the closed door, and back at his aunt, if she can be called that. Jason McAllister wasn’t his real father, so Aunt Sophie isn’t his real aunt.

  “I’m a problem aren’t I?”

  She nods, her expression still cold and emotionless. “You are out of control. I should have dealt with it a long time ago.”

  “Fa-,” Michael catches himself, “Jason said the same thing. Are you-?”

  “Your Anderson called me in to clean up your mess.”

  Michael glances at the closed door again. “The guy at the slaughterhouse.”

  Sophie shakes her head. “You and your friend in there.”

  Michael tenses, concentrating on loosening his fingers to stop them from tightening into fists. “But-.”

  “Your Anderson has a sick sense of humour.”

  They look at the sound of a truck coming up the driveway.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Michael asks.

  The kettle starts whistling shrilly and Cassie turns the stove off. She looks back at the cupboard once more before she drops the tea bags into the tea pot, pouring scalding water over them.