Marilyn (16 page)

FIFTY-ONE

The road was a blur. They were narrowly avoiding overturned slabs of rocks and uprooted stumps as they chased the monster's trail. Taking the ghost train to the haunted mansion.

A mixture of markings, interrupted light, and jumping shadows were the only guide they had. They were thrown this way and that in a funless bouncy castle of metal. No one asked him to slow down, no one even thought about it.

Marilyn's hair was saturated, dripping with emotional strain. A cold sweat covered her body, masked behind the privacy of the cumbersome coat. She cried noiselessly, freely, letting the tears fall, her face unreliable, giving away her secret, unable to tell if it was fear or hope that was driving her anymore, they had become one defining force, the pedestal on which she sat.

'Oh, dear God, Jack, he must be so scared. Bless him. That bastard, how can he do this to an innocent eight-year-old boy? I'm so sorry, Jack. Don't worry. mommy's coming.'

Marilyn shut her eyes as they closed in on a dirt jump, they had gone off road without her noticing. She prayed under her breath.

The car jerked as they took off, lopsided, the wheels still spinning in mid-air. She held her breath until it was crushed from her by the remorseless seatbelt pinning her back to her seat as they struck the ground, landing on two wheels, then all four.

The wild ride had sent Elwood's hair splaying thinly across his forehead and behind the lenses of his glasses. He blew upwards, removing it from his eyes. He held Molly on his lap, the butt of the gun relaxing in the palm of his hand.

'Don't worry, Marilyn. We're on to them, we're close. Nothing is going to happen to Jack. There's no way they're making it to the freeway.'

Elwood stretched his free arm around the seat and took Marilyn's hand.

'We're gonna get him, we're gonna get them both.'

The mud path gave way to a gravel track, velvety in comparison, like gliding along silk. It was a private path, blocked in by red, foot-high walls either side. It was not signposted and without a gate. They saw the barn first, then the house. They saw the turmoil left by O'Sullivan's escape, and a rueful man sitting amongst it.

'That's Bennett,' stated the Sheriff, angrily. 'The bastard didn't wait for us. I want you two to stay in the car like we talked about. OK?' I'm going to see what's going on with Glenn.'

'There's no way, Sheriff. I'm not waiting in the car,' screeched Marilyn. 'I'm not waiting around anymore. Jack is my son and I want to know what's going on. I don't need you keeping things from me, Sheriff.' She swallowed. 'I can handle it. I want to know everything, and there's nothing you're going to do to stop me.'

R.J. just nodded before he slowed his cruiser, skidding to a stop, the brakes crying their disappointment that the chase was over, for now. He kept the engine ticking over.

Bennett didn't look up, keeping his gaze focused on the step below him, his clothes and uniform splattered with fresh but drying blood. He held his chin in his hands, his fingers spread wide across his face, shading his eyes. His feet were perched up on the toes, bouncing up and down, riding on nerves.

The three clambered from the vehicle together, almost taking a tumble after losing their footing in the mud. Paying no attention to the pelt of the rain and the shriek of the wind.

'Jesus Christ, Bennett, what the hell happened here? Are you hurt? Is anyone else hurt?' the sheriff asked, his words draped in worry.

R.J. moved lightly through the mud and grass, paying attention to where he was treading.

'Bennett, talk to me. Are you hurt?'

**

Elwood put his arms around Marilyn, keeping her where she stood, accompanying her in another whispered prayer.

'Let them talk, Marilyn,' he requested, softly.

'There's so much blood,' she stammered, ignoring Elwood. 'Please don't let it be Jack's, please God, don't let it be Jack's.'

Elwood tightened his grip, taking care not to hurt her.

**

'Bennett, answer me. What in God's name has happened here? Is Jack inside? Talk to me, dammit!'

Glenn Bennett dragged his hands from his face, lingering on his chin and then down, wrapping them around his neck. He didn't look at R.J..

'Jack wasn't inside, he's not here. They… They're all dead, Sheriff.'

Marilyn's body went lax, her dead weight pulling Elwood over until he regained his footing.

Sheriff Russell knelt down to Bennett's level, placing his heavy but soft hand on Glenn's shoulder and spoke warily, tactfully.

'Hey, Glenn. Look at me. What's gone on here, are you hurt?’ He examined Glenn's body, trying to locate any signs of injury.

'They're all dead.'

'Who's dead, Glenn? The Dunns?'

'He killed the three of them, Sheriff. Shot them. Elizabeth almost got away, too. But he shot her in the back of the head, Rupert. He shot Lizzy in the back of the fucking head when she was trying to escape.'

'Jesus… Jesus fucking Christ.'

R.J. clenched his fist at waist height, bringing it to his lips. He bit down on his fingers, pushing the anger and tears away, swapping them for pain and fury.

    'Wait here, you too, Glenn. All of you. This is a crime scene.'

'I… I had to cover them up, Sheriff,' mumbled Glenn. 'I couldn't leave them like that... I'm sorry. Their eyes... It was like they were still alive. I could see it. I… I can still see it. He killed them all.'

'It’s OK, Glenn, it's OK. Wait here. I'm just going to, to go inside.'

R.J. got to his feet, with a shake to his step. He swallowed, looked at the sky, whispered something, and walked up the steps into the farm house. Glenn stayed where he was, dropping his head back into his hands.

'Oh my God, Elwood. Did you hear that? That poor girl, that poor family. I think I'm going to be sick.'

Her stomach was wrenching, closing in on itself and squeezing as hard as it could, like a vice, it hurt all the way up to her heart.

'I need to go and speak to that officer, can you let me go,' she asked. 'I'm not going to go inside, I promise.'

Elwood let her go, holding on to her lower back until she was steady in the sinking soil. She squelched her way across to Glenn Bennett and took a seat on the step beside him. Elwood watched from the cruiser.

'Hi, Glenn? I'm Marilyn.'

Bennett looked up. His stare was hateful, loving and resentful all at once, the look of a man in pain, they sympathised with one another in their shared affliction.

'Marilyn?' he quizzed with saddened eyes. 'You must be Jack's mother.' He paused, collecting his words, not waiting for an answer. 'He's not inside. I guess he was in the car that drove off. I couldn't catch them. I'm sorry, Marilyn. I let him get away. I want to catch that fuck as much as you.'

Marilyn nodded, her eyes fixed on Bennett's shoeless foot, and blood-spattered shirt.

     'Did you see Jack at all, or O'Sullivan?' asked Marilyn, faintly, dropping and resting her clammy hand on his knee.

'It was just the car, I couldn't see anyone inside,' he said, dipping his stare to her hand. 'I'm sorry about your son, Marilyn. I mean that. I'm sorry O'Sullivan has him.' He looked her in the eyes. 'But the sheriff is a good man, and he'll get Jack back.'

Bennett's head dropped into his hands once again. He pulled firmly at his hair, clenching at the roots and closing his eyes.

Marilyn looked over to Elwood, who was still watching her from the cruiser.

'I'm sorry, too. I'm sorry about this family.' She removed her hand. 'There was no need for them to get hurt. They shouldn't have been a part of this.'

She wiped a small tear away with a flick of her little finger. 'Did you, did you know them?'

'Yeah, my girls grew up with Elizabeth.' He broke off, allowing himself the comfort of momentary grief. 'Little Lizzy. I... I can't...'

'It's OK, it's OK to feel angry.' Marilyn shuffled closer.

'Andrew is, was a police officer. Julie was friendly with my wife. They were a wonderful family. They didn't deserve this. No one does.'

Sheriff Russell inched out of the farmhouse, white as a ghost, one hand over his head, pulling at the back of his hair. His jaw tensed and bulging.

'Glenn.'

He raised his voice.

'Officer Bennett,' he ordered.

Glenn got to his feet, standing with shaky feet and jellylike knees.

'I need you to wait here until the ambulances arrives, can you do that?’

Glenn was an officer again, standing tall through adversity, pushing his personal attachment aside.

'Yes, Sheriff. I'll call them right away. But I don't think they'll be able to make it all the way up here.' Bennett held out his hand, waiting for R.J. to accept. He did. 'You go get this lady's son back and catch that O'Sullivan fuck. Get him, boss, get him good and proper.'

'I read you loud and clear, Deputy,' he answered with a nod, releasing the grip of his handshake. 'Oh, and Glenn, I'm sorry about the Dunns. We all are.'

'Yeah me, too. They were... They were my friends.'

Sheriff Russell patted Officer Bennett on the shoulder and brought him in close. 'I know. We're gonna get him. Don't worry.'

R.J. signalled for everybody to get back into the cruiser with a pointed finger, and he followed behind, the colour on his face returning.

'Is there anything I can do, Sheriff?' asked Marilyn.

'I'm afraid not. We're too late.' His foot crunched something into the ground, burying it in under a thin layer of soil. He kicked the tip of his shoes, scuffing at the mud, revealing a silver ingot on a broken chain. R.J. bent down and picked it up, cleaning the dirt from the grooves with his cold fingers. He put it in his pocket.

FIFTY-TWO

The road ahead was straight for as far as the eye could see.

Jack watched the speedometer with blink-less eyes as they hit forty miles an hour.

Clumps of dirt and pebbles scribbled their swift signatures into the red and white paintwork as the Jeep stampeded down the woodland path. Leaves blew across the windscreen in cyclonic style, catching in the tight metal corner of the hood, where they stayed.

Jack fought the urge to turn around and look through the back window, but his eyes wouldn't budge from the illuminated dashboard, the deceitful lighthouse in the belly of the storm leading the doomed. They passed fifty, closing in on fifty-five.

'Fuck.'

O'Sullivan slammed his feet onto the brake, spinning the wheel wildly. The back end of the Jeep veered, drifting out of control as he tried to manoeuvre around an unexpected bend. The tyres skated through the pudgy mud, postponing the impact. The rear end clipped the root of an overblown tree, smashing the right hand brake light to smithereens and crushing the bumper.

'FUCK.'

The engine stalled, sputtering and spitting as O'Sullivan tried to get it started. He glanced through the back window while twisting the key, and grinding his teeth.

'Come on...Come on.'

The engine thundered, slobbering and spattering what was possibly its last life.

O'Sullivan straightened up, cursing under his breath, finding another stretch of good fortune in the form of
a precipitous lane.

    Jack used the crash to his advantage, he threw himself forward, getting a good look at the passenger side mirror as he did so. He couldn't be one hundred percent sure, in fact, he couldn't be sure at all, but what he thought he saw through the trees, through the darkened hue and the hell that he left behind, were headlights.

FIFTY-THREE

R.J. Russell stayed perfectly inside the lines of the fresh tyre tracks that were left behind by the vehicle before them, a dirty night light in the bleak blackness.

He dug deep, one-handed into the depths of his pocket and pulled out the silver chain, and clenched it in his fist as he slipped around a corner.

'I found this at the Dunns' house.' He let the chain dangle around his fingers. 'Do you recognise it, Marilyn?'

Marilyn gasped, her mouth wide.

'Oh my God, Sheriff. That's Jack's.' She squirmed uncomfortably, tensing up. 'That's his chain that I bought for him. Where did you find it?'

R.J. Russell slowed to take another bend.

'It was on the floor by the steps, I stood on it. I think the chain is broken, and the clasp is missing, it looks like it’s been ripped off. '

R.J. passed it across to Marilyn. She held it in her hand, close to her heart and closed her fingers around it.

'I know Jack, he would never take this off, not in a million years,' she wailed, shaking her head in objection. 'It must mean something. Maybe he was leaving it as a message, a clue.'

She rubbed the ingot with both thumbs, feeling every one of its grooves and imperfections, inspecting the chain and where the clasp should have been like a pathologist examining a body, not giving the road a minute of her time. 

'I know Jack, he may only be eight years old, but he's a smart boy. This was meant for me. He knows that I'm looking for him. He was letting me know where he was and that he's still alive. Sheriff.' She drew a breath. 'We've got to find him,' she pressed.

'Roger that. We're close, Marilyn, real close.' The sheriff floored it, the accelerator flat against the mat. 'So close, I can almost smell that bastard, O'Sullivan.'

The track was narrowing, the trees huddling in around them, tighter each foot of ground they made. It was Elwood that saw it by chance, the trunk, the skid marks left by the tyres, the perceivable end of the road.

'Shit, Sheriff. You better slow down. Sheriff... Slow down,' he screamed, his arm extended, pointing ahead.

R.J. caught it in the nick of time, his eyes introduced to the sight of a head-on collision with a twenty-foot tree, a thousand memories silently playing a highlight reel of the best bits of his uneventful life.

This time, Marilyn kept her eyes open, holding Jack's ingot with both hands tight against her chest.

The wheels stopped, screaming against the clamp of the brake pads. They slid straight, through the paste-like mud, slowing down to thirty, twenty five, twenty, ten. The cruiser stopped just before the fallen tree, the engine howling, broken glass crunching under the tyres.

Sheriff Russell slammed the cruiser into reverse, using his side mirrors to navigate. He made his way around the corner in three movements and they were back on track, moving in the treads left by O'Sullivan, following the breadcrumbs.