by The Abbotts
Kate assured her that she would search for the girls and let Mrs. Wilkins know, when they were both found. Then, she walked gloomily back to Dan and the car.
“My apologies, Dan! It seems that you were right. The girls have disappeared!” Her face was filled with remorse. “Hey, I just remembered that I thought I saw Ashley getting into a BMW this afternoon, on the way home from work. I thought it was just a trick of my imagination, but it must have been right!
I can’t believe that she and Sarah would steal money from you and then, have someone drive them to the concert. What can we do?” She sounded close to tears.
“I can drive us to the concert and see if we can find the girls and then sort out the whole mess. Don’t worry, Kate, it will be okay!” He tried to sound assured, but he was concerned about this uncharacteristic act by the two girls, who he had thought of, as young friends.
It was a long ninety-minute drive to the large town of Reinier and Kate spent most of the time, wondering where she had gone wrong with Ashley. Had she spoilt the girl or been too restrictive with her? Raising a teenage girl alone was not an easy job!
Dan glanced occasionally, at his companion’s serious face. He admired Kate, very much and would have liked to give her a caring hug, but he worried that she would take it the wrong way. He despised men who sexually harassed their work staff and he didn’t want their future working relationship, to be strained.
“You don’t have to return the money, Kate. I’ll write it off as a tax loss.” He explained in a croaky voice. He didn’t want that additional burden, on her.
However, Kate glared at him fiercely. “Of course, I’ll return it, Dan. Its a matter of honour!” and after that, she grew silent.
Finally, the bright lights of the town came into view and Kate drew a sigh of relief. Now, they would find the two culprits, read them the “riot act” and take them home to their own safe beds. However, things were not to be so simple.
Chapter Four
Deeper
Ashley, Sarah and Jason made good time and arrived at the concert hall, just as the main doors opened. They parked the car behind the town hall, in a large car park and walked down a brightly lit flight of stairs, to the entrance. Thousands of excited fans milled around the front of the concert hall.
They presented their tickets to a young usherette and made sure that she knew that this was their second concert performance that they had attended. Both girls hoped that they would be soon invited to a private audience with Lucien, after the show!
They were all hot and flustered by the time, they found their seats and drank copious amounts of the free water provided. They were soon giggly and a little disoriented.
When Lucien made his dramatic entrance dressed entirely in black, they screamed and called out his name in unison with thousands of other excited teens.
He and his band, The Mist played several loud rock instrumentals and then when the screaming stopped, he sat on a stool and sang a compilation of haunting melodies. You could have heard a pin drop in the auditorium, as the young crowd swayed silently, absorbing his rebellious message.
He sang of old desires and young yearnings and for their souls to be free from the bondage of older parents and teachers. He sang of unity and how, as one combined power, they could rule the world and make it, in their own free-spirited image. The young men and women hung on to every word that he spoke.
Then he stopped singing and with his natural charm and wit, he made them laugh at the absurdities of current life. Of the strict rules and regulations that deep down, they all hated. He spoke of their natural talents and psychic gifts and how this conservative culture kept them bound to the earth, rather than soaring to the stars! They lapped up each word, as if it was manna from heaven!
Then, as their natural rebelliousness grew and they hankered to go out into the cold world and pull down all that their parents had worked for, he calmed them down and explained that their time was near, but not quite yet. They gave a collective sigh of frustration.
“We shall rise as one synergetic power and overturn the archaic laws of the past and you will be princes and princesses, on earth!” he told them in a rising voice full of promise. “But for now, you must enlist others to our cause. You must act stealthily, so that those in power do not suspect! You must act like good children, while you gnaw away at the legs of society and then quash its dark heart! And I shall be your leader!”
He stood triumphantly. The crowd began to chant “Lucien, Lucien, Lucien, our leader!” and he beamed on them, as a wise father.
Several of his group members raised their arms and showed a tattoo on their wrists. It was displayed on an electronic monitor board behind them. It showed an inverted cross in a circle, but Lucien explained it in a very different way.
He ran his finger along the enlarged image and he traced the L and explained that this represented his name Lucien. The reversed L stood for Love and the circle for the entire youth of the world. The eyes of the young men and women lit up. They would each get this tattoo and wear it proudly, for Lucien!
He left them chanting, “Unity is power! Youth Unity is Ultimate power!” and the auditorium erupted in excited cheering and clapping.
Ashley and Sarah held each other’s hands excitedly, while Jason’s eyes glowed. “I’m gonna’ get that tattoo, tomorrow!” he said determinedly.
Then the girls made their way, to where a young usher stood. He looked up their names on an Ipad and then nodded; they could go through to the smaller conference room, to meet Lucien. The girls suppressed squeals and hurried into the large room. To their disappointment, they found another one-hundred, star-struck teenagers, all who had seen the show before.
“I thought that we would be the only ones!” complained Sarah with a cross look.
Just then, Lucien entered the room accompanied by a short man smoking a cigar. He went around the room greeting each guest and speaking a few words of encouragement. His fans were almost mute, in his presence.
When he came up to the three teens, Sarah shrunk back in shyness and Jason looked star-struck. However, from somewhere, Ashley got a burst of confidence and she smiled at him widely and looked deep into his green eyes.
“I’m Ashley Thomas and I’m proud to welcome you to Reinier! You are our future!” she said and her blue/grey eyes beamed at him.
He looked her up and down and liked what he saw - a beautiful, young girl with golden hair and an open, confident nature. His intuition told him that she was a virgin and just, what he would need for his plans, in the future.
He took her hand in his and ignoring the others, he walked from the room with her beside him. He led her into a smaller, but ornately decorated room and sat beside her on a red velvet lounge.
His green eyes glowed in his handsome face, “Now, Ashley Thomas, let us get to know one another better!”
***
Meanwhile Kate and Dan had arrived at the theatre and watched, as the young people exited. They received many frosty looks, as they tried to make their way into the lobby. They could not see the trio anywhere. For a while they separated, but eventually came back together; it seemed their desperate search was over.
“Are there any other rooms, where they could have gone?” Kate sternly asked a young usherette who backed away from her. “I must find my daughter and her friends!”
The young girl stammered that they could be with the special group who were meeting Lucien and she showed the two adults the door, to the room.
“But you mustn’t go in! Lucien wouldn’t like it!” she squealed in horror.
“Tough luck, for Lucien!” Kate stated in a determined voice and pushed the door open.
Dan and she surveyed a room full of surprised young people, but Ashley was not there. However, Kate did spy Sarah, trying to hide behind a sofa. She bound across the room and demanded of her young friend, “Where’s Ashley?”
Sarah turned a deep crimson and Jason looked quite uncomfortable. Kate recognized him as
the boy that they had given a lift to, the previous night. “Where is she, Jason?”
Jason sighed. “Lucien took her in there!” he pointed to a far door.
Dan and Kate shared a worried look and then she stormed across the room and swung the door open wide. Her heart was in her mouth; what would she find?
Chapter Five
Fears
Ashley lay fast asleep on a red couch, her fair head resting on a golden cushion. There was no one else in the small room. If Lucien had been here, he had fled at their arrival.
She shook Ashley awake and her daughter merely smiled as she complained to her of her rebellious actions, stealing Dan’s money and sneaking away to the forbidden concert.
“Oh, Mom, be cool!” she murmured and Kate furious by now, dragged her up off the couch and shook her.
“I’ll be cool, alright!” she shouted, “So cool, that I’m going to get the police to charge your Lucien with abduction and rape!”
That brought Ashley quickly to her senses. “He didn’t abduct or rape me, Mom. And I’ll tell the police, so! He just talked to me and oh, he’s so great! I’m going to have a special place, in his movement!” her grey/blue eyes glowed at the thought.
“You’re coming home and you’re never going out again, until you’re an old woman!” screamed Kate, losing all her patience. “Now, get Sarah and we’re going home!”
Ashley did as she was told, but with an air of suppressed amusement. Sarah and she were placed in the back seat of Dan’s car and Jason told to drive home, alone. The drive home was chilly and silent.
Kate escorted Sarah to her front door and spoke with Marjorie Wilkins, as she handed the sobbing girl over.
“Don’t worry Kate, she won’t ever have anything to do with that Lucien fellow, again; her father will make sure of that!” And the sobbing Sarah was sternly rushed inside.
When Dan drew up at her own home, Kate turned to him and thanked him in a choked voice. “I couldn’t have done it without you!” she said with tears in her grey eyes, but Dan brushed her thanks aside.
Then she turned to Ashley and said, “Apologise to Dan for stealing that money and boy, are you ever going to repay it!”
Ashley hung her head and whispered an apology, but both adults knew that she didn’t really mean it. They exchanged sad glances and then Kate escorted her into the house and followed her upstairs, to her bedroom. She sank on her bed as if exhausted, but Kate was not finished with her.
“You are grounded miss, for six months. No pocket money and no outings! You go to school and then straight home and you are barred from seeing Sarah and speaking about that loathsome Lucien!”
However, Ashley just peered at her under her fringe of blonde hair. “I’ll be eighteen next month, Mom! And then you can’t stop me, doing what I want!” and she put her face close to her mother’s sad face. “And what I want is to be with Lucien!”
After that argument, a silent war raged between the two. Ashley was confined to home after school and her weekly pocket money was suspended, until the debt to Dan was paid off.
Ashley however, was determined to get a tattoo like The Mist members and she thought about how she could get one, without money. At school, she spoke about Lucien to her classmates and talked a dozen students into booking for a tattoo, at a local parlour. Then she approached the tattoo artist and promised him the twelve clients, if he did her a tattoo for free.
A thin man covered in tattoos and piercings, he admired her entrepreneurial spirit and agreed. Soon she was sporting a small blue inverted cross in a circle, on her upper arm. The other students, who admired Lucien, soon followed suit.
Kate spied the small blue tattoo one morning, when Ashley’s tee-shirt rode up on her arm and she grew white with anger.
“How could you Ashley! You know we agreed no tattoos or piercings; they’ll harm your job prospects!”
“I don’t care! And don’t worry Mother, I didn’t steal the money to get it done!” she snorted and swished her long, blonde hair in derision. “It shows, I now belong to Lucien and I do!”
Kate shook her dark head and went upstairs and sadly stared at a framed photograph of her dead husband, Joseph. “Where did I go wrong?’ she asked him with her grey eyes full of tears, but the blonde man with the solid looks, frozen in time, did not answer.
Soon it was the eve of Ashley’s eighteenth birthday and Kate relented a little. “If you would like to have Sarah over tomorrow night, we could get some pizza in, to celebrate the day!” she offered tentatively.
But Ashley shook her head. “No, thanks, that’s for kids!” and she stalked away.
Kate had repaid the money to Dan who had been reluctant to take it. “All teenagers make mistakes!” he said in a kind voice.
At a coffee break, she reluctantly told them about Ashley’s new tattoo and when she described it to the two men, Oscar’s dark eyes lit up.
“You know what that symbol is, Kate?” he said with a worried look. “It’s sometimes called Saint Peter’s cross cause it is inverted and he died as a martyr upside down on a cross, but it is also the sign of the Antichrist!”
Kate looked shocked. “Surely not! Well, half the kids in Ashley’s class are wearing it, now!”
“Isn’t the devil’s sign supposed to be 666?” asked Dan bewildered by the whole subject.
“Nah,” answered Oscar “that’s a bit of a red-herring; it’s actually the symbol of humankind. I think if this Lucien is taking that other symbol for his own, then he’s a pretty nasty guy!”
“He’s certainly got Ashley mesmerized!” sighed Kate with a deep frown line between her eyes.
“Don’t worry, Kate. I’m sure this is just a rebellious stage, she’s going through and she will soon be our old Ashley, again!” Dan didn’t like to see Kate, so worried.
Kate tried to smile and she nodded and stood up and went back to work, but despite Dan’s encouragement, she was deeply disturbed about her daughter’s future.
***
“One more concert at Pierre and then, I want to go back to the ranch!” Lucien told his manager Zack. “I need to gather my energy and plan for the future.”
Zack nodded, whatever the ‘cash-cow’ wanted was okay with him, but he wondered how long they would be successful before the kids infatuation with Lucien waned and their financial bubble burst.
He had never seen the thousand-acre property that Lucien had bought outside Belle Fourche in Butte County, South Dakota and wondered how many of his admiring acolytes would accompany him there. Obviously, Alexis, the tall blonde would join him, although he suspected that Lucien was beginning to tire of her.
She had been an international model who had visions of starring in Hollywood, until she fell for his charisma and joined him on tour, but would she last? Zack didn’t think so, but maybe he could sign her up as a client and manage her future career, while she was still news-worthy. He sucked on his cigar with a satisfied air.
‘Oh, and if that blonde girl, Ashley from Middletown shows up, bring her to me backstage! I have plans for her!” The young man’s green eyes gleamed. Oh, yes, she was central to his ambitions!
Chapter Six
The Runaway
“Happy Birthday, Ash!” Kate said and kissed her daughter on her soft cheek, but she turned away. “Oh, Ash don’t spoil your birthday, you’re only eighteen once! Besides, your curfew is over; I’ve repaid Dan and we can get back to normal!”
Ashley sighed. “Don’t make a fuss, Mom. I’m an adult now and not a kid!”
“Well, after you sit your final exams, we can discuss if you’re going on to university or want to get a job locally. Its just a few months, Ashley and then, you can leave school behind and be more grown-up!” Kate was trying to be fair.
Ashley opened her mouth as if to argue, but merely got up saying, “I’ve got to catch the school bus!” But, she did kiss her mother on her cheek, which pleased Kate. Maybe they could get through this painful phase and back to their old loving relati
onship!
She walked towards the bus stop and then quickly ducked into the backyard of the abandoned house. Here Sarah and Jason were waiting.
“Happy Birthday, Ash!” squealed Sarah, her dark eyes large. “Are you really, going to do it?”
Ashley nodded and looked at Jason, “Have you got your father’s car?”
He nodded. “All gassed up and ready to go! Do you know where Lucien is, now?”
“At Pierre.” answered Ashley taking clothes out of her school bag and changing into them, behind a hedge of laurel. “By the time Mom finds out I’m gone, it will be too late. I’ll be with him and she can’t get me to come home, as I’m eighteen now!”
“What about your final exams?” asked Sarah
“I don’t care about them. I’ll be with Lucien that’s all that matters!” she assured her friend.
Soon they were driving along the highway to Pierre, playing loud rock music interspersed by Lucien’s haunting melodies. They stopped for hamburgers and cokes halfway and then, proceeded to their destination. At last, they pulled-up in front of the concert hall.
“How are you going to get in to see him?” asked Jason as he saw a guard at the entrance.
“Something will happen!” murmured Ashley with confidence. A few minutes later, she spied Lucien’s manager come outside and light-up a cigar and she hurried over to him.
“Do you remember me, Mr. Hobbs? I’m Ashley, Lucien invited me to come to Pierre and be with him!”
The small man looked her up and down and nodded. “Sure kid, come inside! But not the others; Lucien’s rehearsing!”
Sarah and Jason looked crest-fallen; they had hoped to meet the great idol.