Limbo

ASHLEY:

I wiggle my fingers, trying to keep them from going completely numb from the rope that's wrapped around my wrists, and the rest of my torso, fastening me to the heavy office chair they dropped me into. Jinxx is in a similar state, several feet away, since Berridge seemed to think that there was too much chance that we could cook something up if we were too close together.

Fortunately we've both become fairly decent lip-readers from having to communicate over our instruments and crowd noise during shows, so when I'm sure that they're not paying attention, I look over at Jinxx and mouth, "Do you think they've called the cops yet?"

"Definitely," he replies. "But I doubt they'd use their sirens, so we'll probably be as surprised as these fuckers are when they show up."

We hear the text notification on my phone from the next room, and apparently he likes whatever he sees, because we can hear him chuckle. Almost immediately we can hear him talking to someone, but even though we're listening pretty intently, we can't quite make out what he's saying. A few seconds later he comes back into the room, with Jimmy right on his heels, and snaps his fingers, pointing to Melissa.

"Go find Jane," he orders. "Tell her to get everything together and come here as quickly as possible. We'll be needing her skills very soon now."

She drops her head down, looking toward the floor, and says, "Of course, milord." She then hurries out of the room while he stands there flipping my phone between his fingers and smiling.

When she's gone, he and Jimmy sort of grin at each other, and then he starts walking around the room, looking at me and Jinxx. After a few seconds, he says, "Your tall skinny friend is a mouthy little bastard, you know that, right?"

"Well, he's a singer, that's kind of in his job description," Jinxx retorts, earning a sarcastic smirk from our "host".

"Perhaps you're right, Mr. Ferguson," he replies. "But I will grant that he's reasonably clever, and apparently quite resourceful. I was certain that I'd need to send your friends a few fingers to motivate them, but they've already managed to find my medallion, so it appears that you'll get to keep them from the time being."

We pass a startled glance between the two of us, not quite sure we've heard him correctly. We turned the whole house upside down looking for the necklace and didn't find a fucking thing, so how did they suddenly pull it out of thin air? And if these crackpots didn't have it, where the hell did it go?

"Aww, that's too bad," Jimmy sneers. "I was hoping that you'd let me have the honor of taking them off. Especially with this wise-ass over here." He gestures at Jinxx as he speaks, shooting him a glare.

"Well, it's not like I'm the only one who called you out on the fact that you didn't know what the hell you were talking about," Jinxx snaps back. "It's hardly my fault that you didn't have enough sense to research your cover story a little better, Jimmy."

He sort of snarls and doubles up his fists, starting to move toward Jinxx, but Berridge holds up a hand, and he practically freezes in place. "No. I told you that you'll keep your hands to yourself until I give you permission to do otherwise, didn't I?"

Jimmy unclenches his fists and looks down at the floor, replying, "Yes, milord. But he and that scrawny professor bitch embarrassed me in front of everyone in the cafe. They laughed at me!"

"Consider it a learning experience, then, because he's absolutely correct. If you want to make someone believe what you tell them, then you have to acquire enough knowledge on the topic to be credible. You obviously failed to accomplish this, and what have I taught you about failure?"

Jimmy goes pale, and gulps audibly as he answers, "That it will be punished."

"Precisely. So be thankful that your only chastisement this time is a small degree of humiliation. Because you will suffer much more serious consequences should you fail at your next task, Wade."

Wade? I rummage through my brain, trying to figure out where I know that name from, and then it suddenly hits me: that's the guy that Rachel said shot her husband. His brother. Jinxx's eyes get wide, so I know that he's figured it out, too, but we both quickly try to hide our reactions, so they don't guess that we know anything about it.

He's shaking his head almost violently, assuring the cult leader that he won't fail at whatever his "task" is, when Jinxx speaks up, interrupting their conversation. "You know, I'm actually surprised that you're not a little bit worried right now," he announces. "Do you really think that my girlfriend didn't go straight to the cops when she left to the house? They probably went right back there and heard your whole conversation with Andy, so they should be showing up any time now."

Melissa comes back into the room as he's speaking, along with another woman, and before either of the men can respond, she starts giggling, and announces, "Oh, I'm sure that Princess Di probably did just that, but there's no reason for you guys to worry your pretty little heads about them interrupting our celebration, since my Daddy was taking the calls today. They won't be bothering us, so you can just put that right out of your minds."

Shit! Rachel said that she'd suspected that they had somebody in the police department, and it looks like she was right. So now we just have to hope that the guys have come up with some sort of a plan, or we're all fucked.

Berridge and the woman he calls Jane go off into a corner, talking too quietly for anyone to make out what they're saying, and after a couple of minutes she walks away, going through a set of pocket doors on the opposite side of the room. She leaves the slider partly open, and I realize that I can hear some odd noises coming from the other side, sort of an electronic beeping, along with a strange "whooshing" sound, which almost seems to be rhythmic.

"Milord, someone just drove up to the front of the building," Jimmy... er, Wade, calls out. "Should I go direct them to the back?"

"No, let Melissa do it," Berridge tells him. "I want you to go get Larry and Bruce and get back here on the double. Just in case they decide to do something stupid."

He dashes off down a hallway, while Melissa goes outside, and Berridge paces around the room, mumbling under his breath, and for some reason I can't even explain to myself, I decide to see if I can push his buttons. "What the hell is so important about some stupid medallion, anyway?" I ask. "Is it covered in diamonds or something?"

"Of course you'd think of nothing but monetary value," he sneers. "Oh, no, that's not it at all, Mr. Purdy, it's much more valuable than you could ever imagine. This particular medallion holds the key to a new era for humanity, one where I and my people will hold high office under the rule of the new Master, while you and the rest of the blasphemers will either serve him as slaves, or be destroyed."

"Do you have the slightest fucking idea how much of a whack-job you sound like right now?"

He snaps his head around to glare at me, and I figure I've overdone it, and pushed him to the point of doing something violent. But after a second, he actually smiles, and says, "Yes, I suppose I do sound rather demented to you, since you're still a nonbeliever. But trust me, that will change very soon. Before the day is over, you and your friends will see the truth, and then we'll see who's really the crazy one here."

Wade comes back into the room with two other men, and all three of them are now carrying some rather large guns, so it's pretty obvious that they're not exactly planning to just let us boogie on out of here after they get the necklace back. I glance at Jinxx, who has been doing a really spectacular job of retaining his calm, but now he looks almost as worried as I feel, which just makes it that much worse.

Then we hear footsteps from the direction that we were brought in, and Melissa leads the guys into the room. As soon as the last person comes in, one of the guys steps behind them and puts his gun to Charlie's head, while the other aims his at Bob. "Since I'm not foolish enough to believe that you came in here without some sort of heroic plan to rescue your friends, I'll operate on the assumption that the two of you are armed, since I know these clowns couldn't cross the border with a firearm. So I suggest that you stay very still while we look for them, or you'll wind up with a rather severe, but very brief, headache."

He and Wade pat them down, and come up with a pair of pistols, passing them off to Melissa. But as they're doing that, I see Andy and CC glance quickly at Jake, then look away just as fast, so I'm guessing that they found one for him somewhere, too. Good, he actually knows what he's doing with a gun, and maybe an opportunity will come up for him to use it. If he can take Berridge out, maybe it'll freak the rest of them out enough for us to book.

Once they have the guns, he steps up in front of Andy, and demands, "Give me my property. Immediately."

The guns all turn to point at him, so he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls it out. "Here you go, you've got your stupid necklace back. So let my friends go, and we'll get out of your hair."

"Oh, not so fast, my vulgar young friend," Berridge chuckles. "I can't have you trying to disrupt our shining moment, so I think that you should remain as our guests for the ceremony. After it's completed, I could care less where you go, or what you tell people, because it will be too late then. Who knows, some of you may even see the light, and decide to remain with us."

"Not fuckin' likely," CC mumbles, earning a glare from Melissa and Wade, and a laugh from Rachel's dad.

"That's probably true, I suppose, but we'll see. Truthfully, I hope that you'll change your views, because you have an excellent platform to enlighten the public about the Master. Just think of how..."

Jane sticks her head through the door and interrupts his sales pitch, announcing, "Victor, the vessel is ready whenever you want to get started."

"Wonderful!" he exclaims. "Melissa, Larry, wheel these fellows into the chapel, and then go collect the others, we'll begin as soon as everyone is assembled. No time like the present, after all. Come along, Wade, let's see if you can actually provide what the Master requires. Bruce, help our guests find their way."

The guy goes over to Jinxx, and she starts pushing my chair across the room. As we move, she whispers into my ear, "Y'know, I wish you'd consider taking milord's offer. I really did enjoy spending time with you, and if you're one of us, we could be together again. What do you say, huh?"

I turn my head and snap my teeth just millimeters from the end of her nose, making her jerk her head back. "I say go fuck yourself," I snarl between my teeth. "I wouldn't screw you again with someone else's dick, and if I had my hands free right now, I'd snap your worthless fucking neck!"

She shoves me through the doorway, and glares at me as she moves back. The other guy herds everyone else into the room, and she stalks out the door to follow her orders.

This room is even bigger than the first, and it's obvious that at one point it was part of the factory floor, as there are still pipes and things hanging from the ceiling where the machinery used to be. The noises I heard earlier seem to be coming from a corner that's been screened off from the rest of the room, and at the opposite end is what looks like some sort of altar or shrine, with a picture of something that looks like a cross between a warthog and Slenderman painted on the wall behind it.

"When everyone is assembled, you will see the truth of my words," Berridge proclaims. "We have preserved the vessel, and we once again have our connection to the Master. Soon, he will enter the body of his surrogate, and if he has the strength to withstand the Master's presence, he will become the conduit that will allow the Master a physical presence to walk among us."

We're all just looking at each other in confusion, not understanding what the hell he's talking about. What does he mean, they "preserved the vessel"? Have they already picked some poor girl to take Rachel's place?

Jinxx nudges me with his elbow, and kind of jerks his head at the rest of the guys, who keep looking around like they're expecting something, and I hear Jake mutter under his breath, "Come on, asshole, take it out."

It almost seems like the psycho hears him, because he pulls the necklace out of his pocket, dangling it in front of him, letting it twirl on the chain. "Only a few more minutes, Master, and you can take your flesh form," he almost purrs, with an incredibly creepy smile spreading across his face.

Then he and I are both completely taken off guard when the chain is jerked out of his hand and flies up into the air out of his reach. He's shocked simply because it happens, and I'm rather startled by the fact that I've just seen someone appear out of thin air and grab it from him. It's someone I recognize, but it isn't Rachel. It's her husband, and he's somehow floating about three feet above the floor, holding the necklace above his head, and moving randomly around the room.

"Stop! I order you to stop!" Berridge screams, chasing him around the room. "Whoever is responsible for this sacriledge, I command you to stop!"

All of the other cult members, who are piling in through the door, look totally bewildered when they see what's happening, and because of the chaos, I seem to be the only one who notices a slim blonde woman move up behind Jinxx and start loosening the ropes around him. She puts something into his hand and starts to move away, and I say, "Hey, what about me?"

She spins around, giving me a look that completely defines the saying "If looks could kill", because I can almost feel the contempt in her expression burning into me like acid. "What about you?" she hisses. "If one of your friends wants to turn you loose, that's up to them, but as far as I'm concerned, you can sit there and rot. After what you've done, you deserve whatever happens to you."

This almost takes the wind out of me, because I don't know this woman, and I have no idea why she seems to hate me so much. Then, just before she turns away from me, it clicks: she's an older version of the girl in the newspaper clipping, Rachel's little sister. This is their mother, and she's angry because I hurt her little girl. As far as she's concerned, I'm no better than they are, and I don't suppose I can blame her for that.

Then I notice that Andy seems to be looking upward, so I follow his gaze, and my heart almost jumps out of my chest when I see Rachel perched on one of the ceiling beams, with some sort of bags next to her. She's holding her hands up in front of her, wiggling her fingers in a "come here" motion, and I can see that she's saying, "Come on, get him over here now."

Sawyer's ghost starts to make a circle, leading Berridge toward her with the necklace, and just as he reaches the spot directly below her, she tips the bags over, and some large brown objects start falling to the floor. Jinxx and I are as confused as the cultists, but the guys start backing up, and move us with them. CC starts to untie me, and Jinxx asks, "What the hell is that?"

"I think that should be, 'What are those'," Jake corrects. "Trust me, you don't want to meet them in person, like he's doing."

A noise like an entire nest of bees becomes audible, even over the yelling, and I get chills, because I know that sound, I heard it a couple of times back home. Rattlesnakes. I remember her saying that he was afraid of snakes, so it seems really very appropriate.

He starts screaming and swatting at the snakes, which only makes them madder, and yelling at his followers to help him. Some of them start toward him, while others are running away, and at this point the door flies open, and someone yells, "There's a police car outside!"

"That's Daddy!" Melissa shrieks. "He can help get this straightened out!"

But even as she speaks, there's an incredibly loud noise that drowns out everything else, and the shadow of a helicopter passes in front of the window. Then a voice booms out, so loud that we all cover our ears, "Occupants of the structure, this is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police! We have you surrounded, so come out with your hands up!"

Apparently, the cavalry has arrived.

Notes