Marilyn (10 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT

The five of them sat at the dining room table to eat their food. It was nothing fancy or extravagant, just a good, hearty, home-cooked meal. Julie Dunn had neatly laid the glass table with a pink cloth, black placemats and white coasters. She spread candles along the middle but didn't light them. They chatted civilly all the while, but it was mainly Walter and Julie doing all the talking. Andrew watched, prodding his food around with his fork, playing with it, forgetting his manners at the table, throwing in the odd thought when he felt like it.

'David is an excellent saxophone player, he's been playing for over two years now,' Walter exclaimed, curling spaghetti around his fork. 'I'm very proud of him. He even saved up his pocket money to buy that jumper he's wearing.' Walter looked over at Jack, his eyes filling up.

'Aw, Andrew, isn't that sweet?' Julie chuckled. 'If you don't mind me asking, where's your wife, that's if you're married, of course.'

'Oh, I don't mind. We left her at home, didn't we, David? I thought it would be nice to do something together, father and son. Plus she isn't really a fan of long trips in the car, she always moans that there's nothing to do.' Walter laughed. 

Jack listened but remained uninvolved. He was first to finish his food, he wolfed it down, leaving nothing on his plate. He finished his milk, and wiped the milky moustache from his top lip. He noticed Lizzy watching him from the corner of his eye, but did not look up at her. He eyed the room up and down, around and around, back and forth. He guessed he was just trying to get a feel for the house and the Dunns. They had family photographs hanging on the flashy decorated walls. Day trips out, holidays, birthdays, occasions that were meaningful, snapshots of happiness, lives without lies and deceit. This was how families were supposed to be.

This room was posher than the living room, he guessed it was where they would entertain their guests at Christmas and birthdays. A show room for the wealthy.

A chandelier dangled from the ceiling, not so subtly screaming, proudly, ‘look how expensive I am’. It was the first one Jack had ever seen and guessed it would be the last. They would never be able to afford one at their house. He wondered how much longer it would be before they set off. They had no transport, no suitable clothing, nothing.

Jack collected his knife and fork, placed them with a light ting onto the china plate and pushed it a few inches away from him, notifying everyone that he was done. He slid his arms off the table, under the pink patterned table cloth, and onto his knees, where he squeezed them.

'Excuse me.' He started, hesitantly. 'May I be excused to use the bathroom?'

The trivial conversation stopped and all eyes switched to Jack, but it was Mrs Dunn that answered.

'Of course, dear,' she returned. 'Let me just show you where it is.'

'Oh, it's OK. I don't want to bother you, I'm sure I can find it,' he insisted with a smile as he climbed from the chair.

'OK, dear. It's just at the top of the stairs, you can't miss it.'

Jack smiled, turned his back on Walter O'Sullivan and left the room.

TWENTY-NINE

Sheriff Russell took another look at his name, there in large, black print across the paned window of his office door. 'Rupert John Russell. Sheriff'. He twitched his lips up and down and shook his head in disagreement.
'Why the hell did you even take this job
?' he asked himself, trusting the walls to keep his questions to themselves. He clutched the wooden cross off his desk and walked over to one of the many hooks and pins that stuck out from the walls and hung it, straightening it up with an uncertain thumb. His only decoration.

He opened the door for the first time in hours and stepped outside into the main quarters of the police station.

The station was set out in three sections, not including his office. They had the staff break room at the far back, but that was hardly ever used. Leading in from the left of the main door were two desks, one each for Brewer and Langston. Their desks were cluttered with incomplete paperwork and stained with ring of dry coffee. R.J. looked at them in disgust. A narrow path led the way through the building, separated by three workstations, complete with computers and printers, two one side, one the other. Cracked and patchy white paintwork dressed the walls, staining them with its ungraceful workmanship. The floor was shoddily tiled with cheap and nasty slime green tiles.

Davies didn't have himself a workstation to call his own, he flitted back and forth to whichever one was available at the time. Right now, he was hard at work in the utility cupboard, trying to get the station out of the dark ages and get some power up and running so they could use the computers; so far, nothing had been accomplished apart from a few electric shocks and some tiny insignificant cuts to his fingers.

R.J. walked the trail, the in-house joke they called the slime mile, led by the green tiles. Hearing his own squeaking footsteps he called out,

'Davies! Where are you?'

Davies popped his head out from behind the cupboard door, sweat running down his forehead and into his eyes.

'Here, boss.'

'Good, Davies, do we have a map, of the town I mean?'

'Yeah, sure. I think so, what for?’

R.J. walked to where Davies was, speaking as he went.

'I've been thinking, up by the old farm house...'

'You mean the Dunns?' Davies interrupted.

'Yeah, the Dunns. Don't they have an off road track that leads around town, without actually directly going through Main Street?'

Davies dusted his hands on his not so clean anymore uniform and scratched at his eyebrow, with his best thinking face in play.

'Well. Now that you mention it, boss, yeah, they do.'

'Shit, why the fuck didn't we think of that before? Where's the fucking map, Davies?' R.J. asked, frustration ablaze.

R.J. walked behind Davies, his shoes biting at Davies's heels, the man had no sense of urgency, on a good day his brain functioned five minutes slower than the average person's, and on a bad day, more often than not, it was like throwing shit into a fan. R.J. huffed and puffed behind Davies, making his frustration apparent as Davies opened and closed drawers at the workstations until he finally found what he was searching for. He pulled it out, unrolled it and spread it evenly over the floor.

'This should be pinned to the wall, Davies,' R.J. complained, just for the sake of it, trying to make himself feel better.

The two men bent down and studied the map for a long while, following tiny trails with their fingertips and mombling incomprehensible splutters.

'Davies, wasn't Dunn on the force a few years back?’

'Yeah, you mean Andrew,' he corrected. 'He left because of his weight problems, he had a mini heart attack not so long back, the work was too much for him.’

Russell thought about this for a second, rubbing his bottom lip with his finger. He bore a hole into the map from the furious fire in his eyes as he studied it, retracing the route for what must have been the hundredth time.

'Good, good. Who else have we got out here? Bennett? He lives close to the farm house, doesn't he?' he questioned with a certain lack of knowledge of the town.

    'Yeah, he lives pretty close,' Davies confirmed. 'It will take him a bit longer to get there in this, mind.'

'I know. Can you try and contact him?' R.J. asked, checking his watch. 'Ask him to make his way over, ASAP, maybe they've seen something or know something that can help us.'

'Yeah, sure thing, boss. I'll get right on it.'

Davies got to his feet and shuffled around before finally getting some momentum in his step. He opened the drawer of Langston's desk and picked out the standard issue walkie-talkie.

THIRTY

It seemed like they had been driving, straying on the edge of civilization forever. Each path, each road, each ditch looked just like the last, it was like living in an ever-recycling loop of despair, getting nowhere, but it was wavering. Trees were becoming sparser, their branches retreating backwards, making way for the darkened sky. The road they were on was concrete smooth, and well used.

They followed every twist and every turn the road had laid out for them. Houses infrequently made themselves apparent in the distance to their left and right. It was a sight to behold, to relish in. Juxtaposed roads splintered off, leading this way and that, into quiet dead-end streets. They weren't all alone after all. People and places did exist in this blackened world, their frantic cat and mouse chase concluding in this sleepy town just up ahead.

The rain had altogether stopped for the first time in almost twenty hours, but there was still no sign of sunlight, which was hidden away like some unattainable treasure high up in the sky, unwilling to show itself. The wind had died down, leaving a steady breeze as its replacement.

Marilyn wound down her window, noticing how weak she had become from lack of sleep and the mental worry and anguish she had endured. She leant her head through the gap, closing her eyes and allowing her senses to settle, the cool air whisked through her hair, blowing it back and away from her face. Her trials and conflict made her all the more beautiful, the sobbing, mourning mess was long gone. She was cloaked with determination and certainty.

A dawdling river ran by the side of them, its flow hushed from the passing wind. Its banks were full to the brim, preparing to overflow. It was littered with fallen junk, branches, leaves and such from the plunder of the storm.

Elwood mirrored Marilyn and opened his window, letting himself bathe in the cool, awakening chill of the zephyr.

'We're almost there, it's not much further now,' Elwood announced, with a trickle of joy.

Marilyn signed her acknowledgement with a nod, but spoke no words.

'Look.'

She aimed a finger at a bridge.

'Yeah, that's the bridge that leads into the main street,' Elwood certified without looking at her. 'The sheriff’s office is just the other side.’

Elwood edged the Jeep to the lip of the bridge, lifting himself from his seat slightly and arching his neck to peer over the edge of the car bonnet.

'This thing gets worse every time I see it.' He shook his head in disgust. 'Someone will fall through this one day, mark my words. I can't even remember the last time someone even came and just patched it up. It's a damn monstrosity.'

     Elwood warily steered the Jeep onto the wooden death trap that was just waiting to eat up whoever was unfortunate and brave enough to cross its bloodthirsty planks. The front wheels rolled vigilantly over the rotten lip of the bridge, dropping with a clank as they passed. He straightened up and lowered himself back into his seat. They could hear the crunching under the tyres. The wood creaked and screamed unholy howls from the weight of the vehicle and its passengers as they tortuously crossed each board. Its struggle was indisputable. They clambered along, pushing forward.

Marilyn sat back in her seat, holding her breath and biting her tongue with her back teeth, but she kept her eyes wide. She crossed all of her fingers that she could, not that it was good for much.

     'Jesus, they've really got to do something with this damn thing,' Elwood groaned.

The back end of the bridge jerked and flapped as they made their way along. Flakes of wood snapped off under the wheels, slipping through the cracks and spilling into the river below. Tremors ran through the trusses and braces, rocking the timber all around them. The wheels hit the off ramp with a thud, sending both passengers lurching forward.

'That was too close to call, Christ, I thought we were goners for certain.' Elwood struggled, wiping his brow upwards with the back of his hand.

Marilyn wasn't listening for the first time since she had met him. Her focus was captured by the steep hill that led the way down into Main Street.

'Hey, it looks like it’s kinda flooded down there, do you think we can get through, Elwood?'

'Don't you worry about that.' He laughed. 'We'll get through, no problem. She's seen tougher problems than a bit of water, haven't you, old girl?'

Elwood gave the steering wheel an encouraging pat with his hand. 'Brace yourself.' He smiled.

Elwood clamped his hands to the wheel and let the Jeep take over, rolling speedily down the hill. This was the fastest they'd travelled the entire journey. They topped twenty-six miles an hour but it felt like fifty. The watery road markings whizzed past them like a stream of misfired lasers in some sort of futuristic battle scene, but they did not slow down as they hit the flooded dip. Water sprayed every which way, its force whipping at the exterior like a jockey hitting his horse across the finish line, the engine straining and roaring as Elwood commanded the Jeep through.

'See, piece of cake,' he let out, with a murmur of relief.

Main Street was under about an inch of water, nothing deadly, but yet another kink in the seemingly everlasting trek into town. The tall buildings cast formidable shadows, darkening the already dreary road. The town seemed to have everything it needed in one merged straight line. A gas station to the left, a locally run supermarket to the right, succeeded by a strip of bars and eateries. Parked cars lined the street, deserted and unloved, left to fend for themselves against the storm.

Half of the street lamps were asleep, the other half were so dim that it rendered them pointless, like a torch in daylight, they did nothing.

They passed a baker's, a cinema, the local radio station headquarters and a family-run shoe repair shop, all closed and boarded up with no one home.

'I've never seen it so dead before, it's like everyone's packed up and left,' Elwood expressed, stunned.

Marilyn looked around her at the empty buildings and parked cars, it sure was a ghost town.

Elwood steered the Jeep easily along the flooded road, his legs wobbling from the dither of the hill.

'There we are, look. That's the station, just over there on the right, can you see it?' he asked, pointing.

Marilyn struggled to keep her eyes focused, but as sure as he said, there it was, smaller than expected. The pasty stone walls stood strong and tall, it was the pinnacle of the town, at least from the outside. “County Sheriff's Department” had been skilfully carved into the stone above the doorway, making it visible from most angles around town. Some of lights were on inside.

'I see it, I see it,' she said with a certain worry and uneasiness that filled her stomach.

     Elwood pulled the car over to a stop opposite the steps of the building. He watched the deserted street once more before he shut the engine down and unbuckled himself.

'Are you OK, Marilyn?' he inquired, looking over at her. 'Are you sure you're ready for this?'

She didn't answer, she had unhooked her seatbelt and was already opening the door, with one leg perched, ready to roll.

'Hey, wait for me!' wailed Elwood as he ran his hand over the handle. 

He got out and closed the door without locking it.

They walked together, side by side, arm in arm up the steps and through the station doors.