Limbo

RACHEL:

Ashley starts downstairs, carrying his sketchpad, and I follow right behind him, happier than I've been in months. Just being able to finally talk to another person, to know that they're aware of me, makes me hopeful that maybe someone can help me figure out why I'm still here, and what I need to do to get out.

We get down to the living room, and everyone is there, except Andy. Susan and Charlie have brought coffee out from the kitchen, and Ashley pours himself a cup and sits down. A couple of minutes later, Andy comes down the stairs in a T-shirt and a pair of Batman pajama pants, and drops onto the couch next to Jake.

"Decided to dress up for the occasion, I see," Bob remarks, earning chuckles from CC and Ashley.

Andy gives them a glare, and says, "Well, since I had to change my fuckin' clothes anyway, it seemed kind of pointless to get dressed again when I'd just have to get ready for bed in a couple of hours."

I feel kind of bad when he says this, and realize that I maybe shouldn't have done what I did. I guess I've just wanted someone to acknowledge me so badly that I overreacted when he wouldn't take me seriously. I turn to Ashley and ask, "Can I have your paper for a minute? And a pen?"

He holds them out to me, and I take them and start writing, placing the pad in front of Andy when I'm done. "I'm sorry about the trashcan, and your pants, that was just mean," it says.

He looks it over for a second, then looks up with sort of a lopsided grin and says, "Don't worry about it, I guess I kind of asked for it, anyway. I've never really been a believer in the supernatural, like Jinxx is, so I guess I was probably kind of an ass myself, and I apologize for that. No hard feelings?"

"None whatsoever."

They're all watching the sketchpad, and Ashley looks at me and says, "Since you can still use the pen pretty well, how about if I fill everyone in on what you've already told me, and then if my voice gives out, or you think of something you'd like to add, you can write it down. And then you should be able to answer any questions that we might come up with. Does that sound okay to you?"

"Yeah, that should work fine," I reply. He starts explaining to the others what we talked about earlier, going over the shooting, and what I told him about the group. When he finishes, they all sort of look around the room at each other, and finally Jinxx turns in my direction, and says, "Well, that obviously answers one of the main questions I had."

"Which was what?" Jake inquires.

"Whether or not she was actually aware that she's..." he replies, letting the sentence trail off unfinished, as he starts to look a bit uncomfortable.

"I think 'dead' might be the word you're looking for," I write. "You can say it, I've known that almost since it happened. When you stand in a room looking down at your own body, and get bounced across the room when you try to get back in, it's kinda hard to miss."

"Okay, then," he replies. "I'd just wondered, because a lot of times when there's a ghost somewhere, it turns out that they haven't figured out what's actually happened to them."

"I have a question," Susan interjects. "From the news articles I've read, it sounded like the cops picked up quite a few members of the group, but if you recognized the guys that broke in here, that obviously means that there are more running around than the two the newspapers said they were still looking for. So how many were there, anyway?"

"I actually only knew the guy who was choking Ashley," I tell her. "And when I left, there were somewhere around twenty-five adults who followed my father, and eleven kids under the age of sixteen. But like I told Ashley, I didn't have contact with anyone in the group for two years, so I'm not sure how many more might have joined up in that time, or if anybody left. Did they give names for who they were looking for?"

"Yeah, I've got some clippings if you want to look at them," Charlie contributes. "I decided to study up on what happened when we bought the house, so I could sort out facts from all of the rumors we were hearing. The two guys they seemed to be most concerned with finding were Wade Monroe and Victor Berridge."

Shit! That is so not what I wanted to hear. "If that's the case, then there could be an entire new batch of nutcases involved by now. Victor Berridge is my father, and he'll do anything he can to get more people to believe what he wants them to."

The guys all start talking at once, and I'm trying to sort out what's being said when there's a knock at the front door. Charlie gets up and walks across the room, peering out the window before opening the door, allowing Deputy Chief Whitworth to come in. As soon as Ashley sees him at the door, he quickly grabs the sketchpad and flips it back to one of his drawings, so he won't see what we've written.

"Hello, Chief," Susan says, "Is there something we can do for you this evening?"

"Actually, I thought you might like to know that we've identified the individuals who broke in and attacked Mr. Purdy," he responds, and then inquires, "May I assume that you've heard about the murders that occurred down the road before you purchased this house?"

"Yes, we have, and we're also aware that some of the suspects lived here at one point," Susan answers. "Since you've asked that, I'm assuming that these people had something to do with that group, is that correct?"

"At least one of them, for sure," he says. "A local troublemaker named Terence Becker, who was a known member of the group at that time. Then we have Franklin Peery, who apparently snuck across the border after he failed to register as a sex offender, and skipped out on parole in Michigan. They both have injuries that seem to match up to the bloody kitchen utensils we took into evidence."

"So you've arrested them, then?" Andy queries.

"Not exactly, Mr. Biersack. We have them, but not in jail. They're both actually at the medical examiner's office being prepped for autopsy right about now."

This announcement is greeted with absolute silence for several seconds, and I'm kind of startled myself. Yeah, I guess I could've done enough damage to Terry with the knife to kill him if he didn't get patched up soon enough, but I know a fork in the thigh wouldn't have killed the other guy, and if I'd hit him that hard with the rock, he wouldn't have been able to run off afterward.

Finally, Ashley pulls himself together enough to ask, "Do you know how they died yet?"

"The ME will confirm after the autopsy, but I don't think he'll tell me anything I haven't already figured out," Whitworth continues. "They were both found about five miles from here, covered in bruises with two bullets in the backs of their skulls. And it looked like they'd had some attention to their previous wounds, even though no one went to any of the local hospitals with injuries that would match to the evidence we found here. So my guess is that either they really pissed someone off, or someone didn't want to take the risk of them being able to talk about something."

"So if I'm hearing you correctly, you're telling us that you don't think that this was a random break-in, is that right?" Charlie blurts.

"I can't speak with one hundred percent certainty either way, but that's how we're treating it. I would guess that they had a specific reason for being here, I just can't quite figure out what it was yet. So I suggest that you all keep your eyes open for anything unusual, and make sure your doors are locked."

"We've had a brand new security system installed, and I also keep a gun in my nightstand," Charlie announces. "And if I catch someone trying anything like that again, I guarantee that they won't walk away under their own power."

Bob announces that he has a pistol in his room as well, and after Whitworth asks to see their permits he says goodnight and leaves, but not before stressing once again that everyone needs to watch out for anything unusual.

Once the door closes, and we hear his car start, Ashley glances at me, then looks around at everyone else. He appears to be slightly shell-shocked, as do the others, and he sort of mutters, "Well, that was an unexpected development."

"Not really," I reply, and his head whips back around to stare at me.

"What do you mean, 'Not really'? he rasps. "What do you know that we don't?"

Seeing that the others look completely lost, since they can only hear half of the conversation, I grab the pen and flip to a blank page in the drawing pad. "I mean that doesn't surprise me a bit. They were supposed to do something, they screwed up, and they got punished, which explains the bruises," I write. "And then when it came out that they screwed up badly enough that they could be identified, they became a liability, and they had to go. That's how it works. If you can't, or won't, do what you're told, or you try to go against him, then you have to go. That's what happened to Sawyer and our friends, and that's what he did to my mother, so why not a couple of hangers-on?"

Everybody just stares at the paper, then Susan very softly says, "According to the papers, your mother had left your dad several years before the shootings, so what makes you think that she's dead?"

"Because I stayed here when she took Evie away, because we knew he most likely wouldn't come after them unless I went, too, and that he wouldn't actually hurt me. Or at least not that much. But I talked to my aunt, and she said that Mom had decided that she couldn't stand to leave me here, and she had come back for me. But none of us ever heard from her again, and we knew that something bad had happened, because even if she couldn't get back in to take me away, there was no way that she'd leave Evie, especially not in her condition. So even if I can't prove it, I know she's dead."

"Who's Evie?" Ashley asks.

"Evie is my baby sister," I explain. Then, as I glance at the calendar, and see the date, I say, "I haven't actually seen her since she was eight, and she just turned twelve last week. But if Mom hadn't taken her to Aunt Wendy, she probably wouldn't have made it to nine."

"I'm assuming from what you're saying that she was sick in some way," Andy states. "But what I'm not understanding is why she and your mom would have to run off because of that. I'm reasonably sure that they have good doctors here in Canada, don't they?"

Ashley gives me a questioning look, and I put the pen to the paper again and write, "Yes, they do, but that isn't the point. So if you're willing to sit here for a while, I'll explain to you exactly what type of person my father is. Then you'll see what you're actually dealing with."

Notes