by Aj Estelliam
‘It was my only option,’ she said seriously. ‘This can’t go on and on…’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘So, with regard to the man himself-you never saw his face.’
‘No, I didn’t. But I have his DNA-I’m sure of it…go and get it tested and I’m sure you’ll find the evidence,’ she told him.
‘Where is it?’ he asked,
‘Over there…in my jeans.’
I watched as the Captain went and retrieved the glove and put it into a forensics bag for safe keeping.
‘So, you’re psychic?’ Zoe asked, pulling my attention back to her.
I made a face. ‘Something along those lines.’
‘I did wonder how you were finding them,’ she commented.
‘I see things sometimes…I just knew where they were.’
‘Well, you’re a true hero. I’d love to write a piece on you when I get out of here.’
‘No,’ the Captain interjected. ‘This is a murder case and you’ll keep that piece of information to yourself. Whether this glove helps find the man or not-we can’t have our case affected by leaks of information. If more people go missing, we need Alex at the forefront of everything.’
‘Well, jeez! I was only going to write a complimentary piece to thank her!’
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Captain Withers said gently.
She frowned but said nothing more. Instead I heard the same word repeated from her. ‘Stellio; stellio.’
‘Is there anything else you can tell us, Zoe?’ the Captain asked then.
She shook her head. ‘That was all I had to tell you…after that he simply drove me to the graveyard and put me in the ground. Until you came, I thought I was going to die there.’
‘You’re safe,’ he reminded her warmly, laying a hand on hers. ‘They’re going to take good care of you here.’
I watched as they looked at each other.
‘Dan-can I have a minute with just you?’ she asked.
Jess looked at me discomfort. ‘We’ll just be outside,’ she said, moving immediately.
I turned to head outside but something made me want to stay. I wanted to hear what she had to say to the Captain alone. Even though she was a victim, I wondered if she may try to use this to get him back into her life. Something told me that was what she wanted deep down.
Outside, Jess looked at me.
‘You alright?’ she asked.
‘Yeah…I just…’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know…I worry about the Captain.’
‘In what way?’ she asked, looking surprised.
‘Well, he’s got Fee now-and the baby! I think Zoe still wants him too…I imagine that’s how the conversation might be going right now.’
‘Did you hear her think that?’ Jess asked.
‘Well, no…but she’s one of a few that I can’t really ‘hear.’
‘Oh…do you get that often?’
‘Not really. Some people are way easier to read than others. I just get a sense of…I don’t know,’ I said, trailing off.
‘Alex; she’s one of the journalists. She’s cut-throat and goes after what she wants. It’ll be no different with Dan.’
‘But Dan doesn’t love her. He loves Fee.’
‘That’s for him to figure out, Alex. He needs to be a big boy and tell her that.’
I nodded, feeling uncomfortable. It wouldn’t be easy for the Captain, I knew that much.
‘Shall we take a wander?’ I murmured, feeling unsettled.
‘We said we’d wait here for him.’
‘You wait…can I just take a breather?’ I asked. ‘I need some air.’
‘Okay…I’ll buzz your phone when he’s done and then meet us by the car, okay?’
I nodded. ‘Okay…see you in a few minutes.’
I wandered off down the hall, remembering why I hated hospitals so much. It felt cold and sterile and like death was all around to me.
I walked down the hall and was about to head to the exit when a strange voice sounded in my head. It was different to the voices that I usually heard-more ethereal and faint.
I followed the voice and came to a room where I could see a woman inside. I opened the door and walked in; going to the side of the bed of the very, elderly woman who lay there. She looked up at me in surprised and frowned. She looked tired. So very tired.
‘Hello,’ I said gently.
‘Hello dear. Who are you?’ she asked.
‘I’m Alex,’ I told her softly, and took her hand. A thousand images rushed to my mind and I saw a life played out briefly in about thirty seconds. I looked back down at her as the vision played out.
‘Who are you?’ she repeated, her voice shaky and wavering.
‘I’m Alex. I’m here visiting a friend but I heard a voice and had to come and talk to you. Sometimes I have visions-I’m psychic. I have a message for you.’
‘A message?’ her eyes were wide and watery.
I looked down at her and didn’t feel sadness at all. Although her condition was terminal and I knew she wouldn’t live much longer, I knew that soon she would feel such incredible love. There were family waiting for her and ready to embrace her once again. For that I felt no sadness, only joy.
‘Bill says ‘don’t fight it,’ I said softly meeting her eyes with open honestly. ‘He’s been waiting, he says, ‘for nineteen long years. He’s bought you the house you always dreamed of Norma,’ I told her. ‘He’s so excited for you to see it…’
Norma looked at me wide, eyed. Her face was full of wonder.
‘He says he has the shell,’ I told her, looking at the end of the bed where Bill spoke to me from. ‘Although I don’t know what that means,’ I laughed, looking back at Norma and chuckling a little.
She gasped in surprise, her aged hand lifting to her mouth. ‘Oh! Bill!’ she said in wonder.
‘He’s here…there,’ I said pointing to the thin air where I could see him. ‘He says not to be afraid. He’s waiting…. they’re waiting…’
‘They?’
‘Bill…your parents…and Eve too,’ I added, understanding the loss she had suffered so long ago now. Norma had lost a child…a child who had grown into a beautiful woman and who was also waiting for her.
‘Eve?’
I nodded. ‘She’s all grown up,’ I told her.
Norma’s hand trembled at her mouth. ‘But how…how do you know…is this a trick?’
I sat down beside her and laid my hand on hers. ‘It’s no trick, Norma. I just wanted to reassure you in this hard time. The pain is about to be over, Norma. There is great love and happiness waiting for you on the other side.’
She clasped my hand and squeezed it with surprising strength for an elderly woman. ‘Thank you, Alex…thank you.’
I smiled at her fondly.
‘I want to go now,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears. It wasn’t because she was sad to go…it was because she was happy.
‘You go then,’ I nodded, feeling no sadness. In life, all that was left for Norma was pain.
‘Will you stay with me while I go? Hold my hand?’ she asked.
I nodded, biting my lip with emotion. She held my hand and closed her eyes. I could almost see her letting go, releasing herself into the abyss. A few shuddering breaths and she exhaled her last breath. I watched with tears running down my face as her spirit left her body and she saw Bill. As I lay holding her dead hand, I watched her life begin again in spirit and her joy as she embraced Bill. From where they held each other, they looked back at me. Their faces held mirrored joy and I smiled at them feeling so, very happy. I lifted my spare hand to wave and they lifted theirs. They waved and then disappeared into the great unknown life after death. I released the breath I was holding and sighed. Looking back at Norma lying on the bed deceased, I didn’t feel sadness. The light that was Norma, had already moved on.
I left the room and exited the hospital by the front doors. I walked out to the car park, breathing air deeply into my
lungs. Although it was time for Norma to leave, I knew I still had a long life ahead of me. I could just feel it. I was so distracted in thought that I didn’t hear the man approach me from behind. I was so distracted that he had injected my neck with medicine before I was even aware he was there.
I slipped and began to fall as the drug made my limbs turn to jelly. Strong arms hefted me up and unceremoniously dumped me in the back of a white van. The door slammed behind me and I lay on the floor feeling stunned. Had I just been abducted? Kidnapped? I lay there unmoving.
I wasn’t going to die, I reminded myself. I already knew I lived to a grand, old age so I wasn’t going to panic, I told myself. Despite this, I was lying in the back of an unknown van and had been drugged. I supposed I was destined to be lying in a coffin in the ground like the others. I didn’t want that to happen to me.
The car roared to life and began to move. As it left the hospital, I tried to shuffle to a seated position to see out of the window. The trouble was, I wasn’t able to. My body simply wouldn’t co-operate. I was too overcome with whatever drug he had given me.
I tried to move and struggled on the floor but nothing worked. I eventually lay back and closed my eyes. I would savour my energy, I decided. Then, when the drugs wore off, I’d be able to fight back against this enemy,
We drove for a long while. Longer than I expected. When he finally stopped, I was ready mentally. I was going to take everything in, I told myself. I would figure out where I was being taken in case I could use it for my escape.
As I lay in the back, I waited for him to show his face. I felt ready and yet scared. The idea that the man behind all of the crimes I had been working on was a terrifying thought. When the car door opened and then shut, I knew it was time.
Footsteps sounded and he came around to the back of the van and I heard the lock being turned. My heart pounded in my chest and a thousand thoughts ran through my head. I took a deep, steadying breath and the door opened.
I stared at the man before me. He wore no mask and had not attempted to cover his face in any way, shape or form. He was looking at me curiously if anything, as if I was of interest to him. I tried to move but my body would not work. I was still under the effect of the drugs.
‘Come on,’ he said, as if I were a dog being taken on a walk.
I tried to speak but found my mouth felt heavy and I couldn’t manage it.
He reached in the van and pulled me out, none too graciously. Then, we lifted me into his arms and turned. I quickly scanned the area with my eyes, looking for landmarks and ways of determining my location. As he carried me across the snow, I saw a symbol of hope…a beautiful little flower in the midst of the cold ground. A crocus, I believed…purple, with three little flowery shoots. I gazed at it as he clomped past it in the snow. He walked with me inside the church that I now saw before me. It was old, and derelict mostly, but as he walked past the mass of old stone, I saw that he had a destination in mind. Through an old curtain and into an old, back room. I looked around me in horror as I saw the place had been prepared. It had a camp bed, blanket and food in one corner. How long was he planning on keeping me here? And just what did he plan on doing with me? Fear wrapped around me like a cold, wet blanket.
Chapter 12
He dumped me on the camp bed with a loud groan of pain. Once there, I couldn’t move position because my body was not functioning. It was incredibly frustrating and very worrying.
‘Clap, clap, clap,’ the man sang as he walked to the other side of the room and sat down at the wooden table.
I watched him with fascination as he looked into the distance at nothing I could see. It was only then that I realised what I was faced with. With my panic settling, I began to hear the thoughts coming from the man who had taken me. What I heard was a myriad of consciousness and it was bizarre. At least four different voices began to run through his head and I couldn’t keep up with all of them. They jumped back and forth and had different ‘voices.’ As I watched him talk to the space before him, I had the dawning realisation that the man before me was incredibly mentally unstable and was suffering a great deal. He didn’t know which was to turn and which voice to listen to.
‘Patty cake,’ he said to himself. ‘I want more.’
I watched him, amazed.
‘Fucking dick! Fucker!’ he ranted, changing tack. His voice became deeper and menacing. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Stupid? So stupid, fucking idiot…’
I felt shock and confusion as he talked to himself.
‘Didn’t do it, did you? Didn’t do it! Didn’t do it,’ he sang in a sing-song voice. When he was finished singing, he looked over and seemed to notice me. He frowned, and cocked his head at me.
‘Tie her up and keep her in the room. Tie her up and keep her in the room,’ he repeated, as if it were some kind of mantra.
As he walked towards me, I heard all sorts of voices rush through his head. He was a very confused man, I realised. The crimes he had clearly committed had occurred under the influence of some very warped thinking. The man needed help.
‘Tie her up,’ he repeated as he reached me.
I winced as he tied my arms to one end of the camp bed and then my legs to the iron bars at the other end. He tied them tightly and I realised then that my feeling was coming back in my body. I tried to move my mouth and felt it was tingly but moving now.
‘Why?’ I asked him, surprising him.
He looked down at me for a moment and then looked away again, heading back to his seat. ‘Tie her up and keep her in the room,’ he sang, throwing his head back and laughing.
I felt my insides clench with tension. His laugh was the same laugh I had heard in my head so many times. It sounded evil, and I didn’t even think he knew it.
‘Are you going to hurt me?’ I asked him, watching him closely.
He stared at me like I had two heads, his eyes were wide and mad. ‘Didn’t do it!’ he screamed in my face, shocking me into cowering backwards. ‘Didn’t do it! Didn’t do it!’ he sang in a sing-song voice.
I frowned at him in confusion. I was trying to decipher between the voices he spoke and the voices in his head. There were so many that it was hard to work them out. Everything became muddled; confused.
‘Why did you bury those women?’ I asked him then, wondering what his reaction would be. ‘Why did you kill that innocent little boy?’
He whirled on me and slapped me hard around the face. My cheek stung as I fell sideways to the bed. I had been edging into a sitting position but now was lying prone on the bed once more. ‘Little fucking schizo!’ he yelled. ‘Get out of my fucking house, you little shit! Get out, fuckwit! Get out!’
I thought for a moment and tried a different tactic, based on who I thought the voice was to him. ‘Don’t say that, Daddy,’ I said in a small voice.
He glared at me. ‘Useless piece of shit…never going to amount to anything.’
‘I’m trying Daddy. I’m not very well,’ I said slowly, guessing his history. I had no idea if I was getting it right.
‘You’re a fucking schizo!’ he yelled. ‘Mad as dog shit. Fuck off to your room…I can’t bear to look at you,’ he shouted, foaming at the mouth in anger.
I felt tears well up for the boy that this had happened to. It seemed his mental illness had not been dealt with well.
As if a lightbulb had switched, he suddenly looked over at me in surprise. It was almost as if he had left one personality only for another one to come into the room. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello,’ I replied, pleasantly, stunned by the change in him.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘I’m Alex,’ I told him gently, liking this new version of him. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Jerry,’ he said smiling. ‘Will you be my friend?’ he asked.
‘Of course. How old are you Jerry?’
He grinned happily. ‘I’m a big boy now! Mummy says so!’
‘How old?’ I asked, encouraging him along
this line of questioning.
‘I’m five!’
‘No way! I thought you were four!’
‘No! I’m a big boy! Mummy says I’m so big that I can go on the big slide soon!’
‘Wow! Can I come?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, sure! I love the park! Do you?’
‘Yes, I do. I like it when it’s quiet and peaceful at the park. I don’t like busy parks with lots of people talking,’ I revealed.
He frowned then. ‘Lots of people talk all the time!’
‘Do they?’’
‘Yeah!’
‘In your head?’ I wondered.
‘Yeah!’ he said again. ‘Do you hear them?’
‘Yes, I do! They say lots of weird things, don’t they?’
He nodded, looking sad. ‘Sometimes I don’t like it.’
‘No. I know what you mean. It’s noisy, isn’t it?’ he said, with childlike innocence.
I nodded. ‘Jerry?’
He looked down and then suddenly hit his head with his hands. Again and again, he pounded on his forehead. When he looked up again, I saw that little boy Jerry had gone. In his place was someone new. I didn’t know who.
He stared at me for a moment and looked slightly shocked. He scanned the room and then his eyes landed back on me.
He quickly got to his feet and began tightening my bindings. ‘Tie her up and keep her in the room. Tie her up and keep her in the room,’ he reminded himself.
I watched him as he worked. It must be hard work keeping up with a dozen different personalities, I mused. I would just have to figure them out; then maybe I could find a way of getting through to one of them.
After another hour of lying on the camp bed, I was growing uncomfortable. I needed the toilet badly and my stomach was aching because of it.
‘Excuse me?’
He didn’t so much as look up.
‘I need the toilet!’ I told him.
He glanced over at me.
‘You either let me go to the toilet or I wet myself. This place will stink of piss,’ I told him bluntly.
He frowned at me and then turned back to the table he was sat at. It looked like he was sat reading and yet the book in front of him was imaginary.