Asatru

by Ariana Kenny

  Chapter 9: Sam

  I had finally been sleeping but something woke me. A turning in the pit of my stomach. After the day I had today, after the meeting with Clink, my mind was racing with impossible thoughts. I decided not to fight the feeling and try and go back to sleep, but instead get up, work out a little, then try again. I was wired with tension.

  I ditched my shirt, spent a few moments stretching, and reached up to grab the chin up bar above my bedroom door. I lost count after 20 reps and started pouring over what I knew. None of it really made any sense.

  There was the missing memory for Rachael, and no hits on her past, and the abduction attempt, the escape in the desert which no one had actually believed happened like she said. Running out of a cave, chased by some old guy. Where did she find the car that she drove until she rammed into a lonely police station in a random town? But then they had found the body, looking how she described, wearing what she described, out in the wilderness near the entrance to an old mine shaft. Shame was it had collapsed and no one was going to be getting in any time now or later by the looks of things.

  My job was always about remaining objective, finding the best fit for the puzzle and driving the case home. It had been a long time since I felt like I was floundering.

  Seeing her last night hadn’t made anything easier. I had wanted to question her like a suspect, the thing was that when I was with her, I didn’t at all see her like that. She was…. Besides, I really didn’t know what questions I would ask her at the moment.

  I ditched the bar and decided to do sit ups. Shit, I kept seeing her face. I wasn’t like this, never like this. I felt angry at myself, my distraction. I stopped and stretched out my body and legs, allowing me to do tricep dips. There was something else I was missing and I couldn’t shake the feeling something else was happening here. Rachael had asked me to check on the boy. Maybe it wasn’t anything to do with her. The original abduction was about him, not Rachael. I should check up on him, ask the parents a few questions.

  I lay on the floor gathering my breath and thoughts. My muscles burned. Good. I could sleep again, and go out to the place the boy and his family lived in first thing in the morning. Who was I kidding, I wasn’t going to get back to sleep. Wasn’t much point anyway. I was so wired, I decided to take a shower, make a coffee and grab breakfast en route. By the time I made it there, I could scope out the place, maybe make contact with the local station again and ask a few questions of the parents. I could even make it back to work in time. Then I could bury this thing, close off the case by the time I met my new partner next week and not have it hanging over me. Rachael could start again with the help of Social Services, and I was absolutely not, under any circumstances going to see her again until my head was clear of this.

  I left the police station with no new information. The night shift officers had been more than helpful, but as far as they knew, the family was fairly normal, actively involved in social activities, church, he had worked until a recent incident when one of their twin boys had died in an accident. Jonah, the surviving twin had been in critical condition for a while, but then come back, seemingly fine but was then the subject of the abduction. No leads on who, what, or why, but then that wasn’t entirely unheard of either. There had been a thorough check on anyone who had shown any kind of interest, and nothing had come about. Nothing left, but to check the home out and talk to the family.

  When I pulled up to the house, I saw the most curious thing….Someone lurking in the bushes at the side of the house, spying in to what looked like the bathroom. I got my badge and gun out. Probably some tabloid mongering idiot, maybe the town perv. I made a call for assistance anyway – no harm in being cautious.

  I quietly closed the door to the car behind me and skipped across the road. Before I could make it, the man stood up suddenly, looked about, and took off behind the building. I hadn’t thought he had seen me but he must have.

  There was a sound of shattering glass, and yells so I bolted. Following the line of the house, I found a back door with a smashed glass panel. Gun drawn, I kicked the frame open and bounded inside. I checked my blind spots. Nothing. I heard another yell and a series of scrambling sounds. A woman was shouting “Get him, get him, Bobbie. I can’t do this again.”

  I neared the bathroom where the commotion was coming from. As I rounded the corner I saw two men struggling with each other on the bathroom floor, and a woman by the bathtub, her hands and arms submerged in the water.

  “On the floor!” I shouted from the safety of the hall.

  Both men stopped and the woman looked at me shocked. I eased forward towards the doorway as the man on the ground put his hands up and the man on top froze, a pair of sharp scissors in his hand, the type used for home haircuts. I recognised the man holding the scissors as Robert Brown, Jonah’s father. He was poised as though ready to strike the man on the floor.

  When I inched far enough forward I saw what the woman, assumedly Jonah’s mother was holding down. Jonah lay in the bathtub. He was still. I pointed the gun at her, “Hands away from him.” I commanded. “Get on the ground, face down.” I yelled harder, and she complied, shifting her gaze to the boy as she did as I told her to.

  It was then that I suddenly realised who the man was that broke in. It was Sabian Pict.

  “Sabian?” I gasped, startled.

  “I can explain.” Sabian started.

  “Explain after you pull the boy from the tub.”

  Sabian squeezed out from where he was, and shuffled to the tub, pulling the child from the water with effort. He carried Jonah past me and into the hall, calling for an ambulance from his mobile and placing it on speaker as he started CPR.

  The woman, started crying, her face still pressed against the floor.

  “My boy, my boy.” She cried.

  “How is it looking?” I called to Sabian.

  “He isn’t breathing.” Sabian replied before moving to blow air into Jonah.

  “Not again…I cant let him go again.” The woman called and she moved to get up.

  “Stay still.” I commanded keeping the gun trained on the boy’s father who finally addressed me. He was cold, calm and looked at me with deadened eyes.

  “You don’t understand what we have to do. Why we have to do it.”

  “I don’t want to know. Get on the floor, face down. This is the last warning or I will shoot you.” I braced my footing on the floor to re-exert my strength base.

  “The boy is wrong. He’s been wrong since he came out of his coma.” He continued.

  “Get down!” I warned again but Robert stood instead.

  He kept talking. “The doctors said to expect changes, but not this. He’s not my son.”

  I gave it one last chance. “Put the scissors down and get on the floor now or I will shoot you.”

  A tear rolled down his cheek as he looked at me. His voice wavered. “He’s the devil. The boy is the devil incarnate, and I have to stop him. I have to.” The man paused and for a moment I thought he was actually going to do as I asked. “Like Abraham, leading the lamb to the slaughter…..” He mumbled, then was quiet, standing with his weapon at his side, staring me down. I could hear the police car pull up outside the house.

  “He’s breathing.” Announced Sabian from the hallway. The boy sputtered and as Sabian helped him turn on to his side, Robert lunged at me, roaring, wielding the scissors. I had learned the hard way before never to hesitate, so I didn’t.

  I shot him and Robert fell against me, slumping to the ground by the time an officer appeared, gun pointed at me. I flashed my badge and explained who I was amongst the wailing of the mother, and the sirens of the approaching ambulance.