Paul put
away the knife and redrew the gun as he waited for the fit of pain to stop. The
man lay there, sweating and trying to catch his breath. Paul put the soul back
into his pocket with the knife.
With
that, Paul lifted the gun so it aimed at the fat mans head and pulled the
trigger. The large calibre of the gun made sure the man died quickly. The young
woman shrieked at the sudden sound of the gun and smell of cordite. Paul
re-holstered his gun and waited for a moment to make sure of things. He then
turned to leave.
“Um....”
Paul heard behind him.
He
turned back around to see the young woman now standing, the sheet around her
like a cape, but she was silhouetted against the large windows, so Paul couldn’t
really see her expression properly. “Yes?”
“What
are you going to do to me?” She asked in a small timid voice.
“At the
moment, the plan is to leave you here. I am going down to my car and leave you
behind. Though I would take it as an act of kindness if you didn’t call the
police for about ten minutes.” Paul answered, reaching for the door handle.
“Can I
come with you?” She asked
“You
what?” Paul asked incredulously, turning back toward her. He had heard of
people doing strange things in shock...
“I want
to go with you.”
“No you
don’t, girl.” With that he was out the door and had it firmly closed before she
could say anything more.
He went
back down stairs, found the kitchen, looked in the fridge and found a small
container of orange juice which he took with him.
It was
after he climbed into his car and had his seat belt on, he looked up and saw
the young woman had pulled on a shirt and a short dress and was running out of
the front door, with a bag in one hand and shoes in the other. She saw him
looking at her and started toward the car. He was never sure what made him stop
pulling away at that moment and let her in the car. She was in the passenger
seat soon enough with her bag and shoes on the floor beside her feet.
Paul
didn’t speak as he turned on the police two way radio and reversed down the
drive way. Listening to see if she had reported the murder. There seemed to be
nothing about it yet.
They
drove in silence for a while, when she asked, finally, “What are you going to
do with me?”
“I am
not too sure.” Paul answered. “I am not going to kill you, that would
be....un-justified and un-warranted...”
“You
kill him in cold blood but I am an unjustified death?”she asked with her voice
raising slightly in hysteria.
“Yes,
the worst thing you could have done was call the police and describe me to them.”
Paul lapsed into silence it took a while for the comment to sink through the
woman’s mind.
“Hey,
what?”
“Right
now I have more important things to consider. Like why the hell you decided not
to call the police, why you decided to pull on some clothes and chase after me
and climb into the car with the man who you know is a murderer. We have just
driven past three police pursuit vehicles, and not once did you try to get
their attention. So right now, you are presenting more of a problem than a mere
phone call to the police.” By this stage they had pulled up to a set of lights,
Paul finally looked at her directly, scratched the back of his head, and then
asked, “Any ideas as to why? Was anything passing through your noggin or was it
just impulse?”
Her
mouth opened and closed several times, as the lights finally turned green and
Paul took the car around the corner. “I don’t know” she finally managed, “I
didn’t really think about it. Maybe I could have gotten your number plates,
then it turned into perhaps finding out where you live or something else....”
As Paul
slowed the car down to pull up to his house, he said, “In my line of work, you
find out there is more to such things as fate, or chance or whatever else.
There is more to it than that.” He pulled up into the drive and stopped the
car. For a moment he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I need time to
think. Come on.”
He
didn’t look to see if he was being followed, he walked around the car and up
along the path and finally noticed she was sitting in the car. He turned to her
and asked, “Are you coming or not?”
**Chapter Change**
In not
knowing what else to do, she thought to herself that a shower in a strangers
house seemed no more out of the ordinary than some of the other things that had
happened over the last day or two. She closed the door and locked it behind
herself for some reason. She couldn’t think of why, if that strange looking man
had it in his mind to do anything to her, he would have done it by now. She
leant back against the door and took a look at the bathroom, there was a
washing machine in a corner with a wall mounted dryer above it, a small wooden
cabinet, a large shower cubicle in another corner and a long cast iron bath
with lion paws ran along one wall. The room was spotlessly clean and smelt of
home. There was the fragrance of soap and shampoo, with a small smell of lavender
from the washing powder. For some reason it made her miss being home, and
thought of being young again, of coming home after playing out in the cold
winters rain to a hot bath....
She
shakily walked to the shower and turned on the hot water, she sat on the toilet
while she waited for the water to heat up. She sat and stared for a while
without thinking, staring into the middle distance. She felt as though
something had happened. Something had been...disconnected within her.
With her
father being a police detective, she knew some of the strange things people did
when in shock, she very well knew that she was in shock, but there was
something else. The moment when her lover had that....fit on the bed. She felt
something move then. A slight disconnection, a moment of unbalance, like
expecting one more stair at the top of a flight.
The
bathroom started to fill up with steam, she stood up, took off her clothes,
dumped them next to her small bag she had clutched to her through the house as
some sort of protection, adjusted the cold water and stepped in. It wasn’t
until the moment the water was running through her hair that it all came
crushing in on her. That the grossly fat ugly man used her for all his sexual
desires. Oh! The things he had her do! It all seemed so reasonable, that there
was no reason why she shouldn’t have done it. If it were anybody else asking,
she would have said no without even considering the request.
She
found herself huddling in the bottom of the shower, weeping to herself, oh how
dirty she felt! Then the images and sounds of him being shot came to her mind,
the scene of his brain splattering across the wall, the smell of cordite, the
wail when that man put that knife between that gem and the fat man... It all
came crashing in at once. The shock wore off. She heaved big sobs, and for the
first time since being a baby, she actually wailed. She didn’t know how long
she cried for, but she did remember retching up. She finally felt she had it
all out, she sat curled up in the corner of the shower for a while longer,
letting the hot water run over her. When she felt herself stop shaking, she
stood and finally washed herself with the soap she found. She scrubbed her hair
twice with the shampoo.
She
dried herself off, and felt bad for putting the wet towel in the washing
machine so she hung it over the towel rail to dry. In not knowing what else to
do, she pulled on her clothes and opened the door to find a pair of pants and a
huge shirt on the floor. A note on top, written in a shaky script said, “Use these.
They will be too big, but clean.”
Picking
up the clothes she stepped back into the bathroom and quickly changed. The
pants weren’t too big a fit to cause problems without a belt, but the shirt was
far too large. She opened the door again and heard music floating along the
corridor, when she heard a clatter from toward the front of the house, she
decided to venture that way. Her bare feet making no noise on the thick carpet,
she padded toward the front of the house.
From a
door in the corridor she looked into the kitchen, seeing the man at the sink
with his back to her, he seemed to have something tied around his waist.
Without looking around he asked “Feeling better?”
“Yes
thanks,” she answered in a small voice. She was sure she heard him mutter something
under his breath about no wonder there were water shortages going on.
It was
then he turned around, a small smile flittered across her face when she saw
that it was an apron he was wearing, it was pink, and had frills. “Sorry, but
they are the only clothes I had. The pants are my sister in laws, the shirt is
mine” He put the dishcloth that was in his hand down and indicated the kitchen
bench after drying his hands on the apron, “Please eat, if you are like me, you
haven’t eaten in a while...”
It was then
she noticed some fruit and cheese on a cutting board, and the sight of the food
made her stomach growl slightly. “Thus the gods remind us that we are mortal.”
He said.
She
stood were she was, unable to move, she wanted to sit and eat, but she was wary
and cautious as well. She could not put her finger on why she felt safe here,
probably as safe here as any where she felt in years.
He saw
that she hesitated, but said nothing, just leant back against the sink, with
his hands beside him on the bench. She looked at him, he was shorter than she
was, but not by much, his dark eyes were lined though patient, and seemed to be
able to smile easily but had seen things far worse than anything possible that
she could do to him. Some grey hairs were showing in his trimmed goatee, but
none were in his short dark hair. She decided that he was quite ugly.
He
quickly looked her over, seemed to take in much more in one quick glance than
what she took of him in the same time. He saw that she had the build of someone
who either did a lot of running or swimming, she had the skin of someone who
spent a lot of time outside. A few, very faint, freckles dusted her small nose.
Her hair was sun bleached in places, and a dark a brown as his own, which was
almost dark brown enough to be black. Her hair came just past her shoulders and
hang limp, still wet from the shower.
They
stood there, studying each other for some moments before her stomach growled
again, this time more insistently. “If you do not eat now, girl, I will be
forced to do something to stop that growling more than anything else.” He said,
breaking the silence.
She
nodded, walked to the opposite side of the bench and sat on one of the stools,
putting her dirty clothes and bag on the stool beside her. She took an apple and
started to bite into it. “I am sorry it is not much of a fair to offer you, but
I have only gotten out of hospital this morning, and haven’t had the chance to
do any shopping for a while...”
There
were many questions she wanted to ask, but it seemed like a good place as any
to start, it helped her to get talking. “What were you in hospital for?”
He
seemed to hesitate a little, before answering, “An industrial accident that
comes with the field of work.”
She
selected a piece of orange and nibbled on it. He was silent, waiting for her to
make the next move, trying to gather as much information as he could to find
out who this woman was so he could decide on what to do with her.
“Earlier,
before you...” she blanched, “..when you were talking to him, you mentioned
something about selling souls and stuff...”
Another
note in his mind was made, she is very young, remember that, she couldn’t be
more than eighteen or nineteen. “Yes.”
“What
did you mean by that...?”She was trying to approach this from many directions,
many things happened that morning, she was trying to stretch her mind around it
all.
He stood
there, realising this, and trying to figure the best way to answer the
question. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Do you know his name?
The man you were....in bed with this morning, can you tell me his name?”
This
made her brow wrinkle in concentration, what a strange question to ask. Her
mind went blank, she couldn’t think the man’s name now. How could she forget?
Suddenly,
she noticed his look, he started to move around the bench, but he wasn’t fast
enough, it came on much more suddenly than it ever had before, were the warning
signs there but she hadn’t noticed them before?
“No...Not
now” She said as her vision darkened, she tried to stand up but a waive upon
waive of dizziness struck her hard, and her feet got caught up in the stool,
she stumbled, falling hard and as she fell her head struck the bench, right on
her temple.
Paul
came around next to her as fast as he could, throwing the stools out of the
way. He felt her neck for a pulse, it was fluttery and light, her breathing
came shallow and fast. It only took him a moment to figure out what to do.