Hell Within -- Chapter Five: The Humanist -- Scene 7

-7-

Paul Ambrose had encountered more than his share of maliciousness in his day, but Davy was a highlight. He’d sensed his destructiveness before, but last night was the first time he’d come face to face with the man.

And he’d seen everything.

Ginger was an eighteen-year-old waitress in a Huddle House -- a pretty girl who needed no makeup to enhance her. She had wavy brownish hair and a supple body, and she was a student at community college.

She had one fault.

She used speed to get her through finals and long shifts at the Huddle House, and she smoked marijuana during leisure because she thought it inspired deep thoughts.

Davy was her supplier.

On the night she died, she’d come to Davy looking for a quarter bag, but she didn’t have any money. Davy had offered to have sex with her in exchange for it, but she’d found the idea repulsive. She tricked him into thinking she was going to do it anyway, and when he stepped out of the room for a moment after a condom, she stole it.

Davy didn’t discover it until the next day. He waited outside of the Huddle House on her in much the same way as he’d planned to abduct Mandy. Then he took her out into the woods, raped her, and carved her up like a Christmas turkey, and took her necklace as a souvenir.

That wasn’t the first time he’d killed.

At any rate, he was behind bars now awaiting an arraignment hearing for attempted murder, and Mandy was safe for the time being.

The only problem was that she was on to him now.

By the time his three o’clock arrived that day, his nerves were shot and his concentration exhausted. At four, when the door shut behind his final client, he was disgusted that he couldn’t recall a single significant detail with which to summarize the session.

Just as he was about to make up something and stick it in the client’s file and move on to his Four o’clock support group, the door opened and Mandy poked her head in.

"Got a minute?"

He looked at his watch. "Just one."

She stepped inside and shut the door behind herself indicating that his support group had already arrived, and she pulled up a chair and sat down before his desk.

He frowned at her, capped his pen, and sat it on his desk beside his clipboard.

"What can I do for you?"

She sat her books on the side of his desk. Then she searched his face.

"Are you okay?" she said.

Paul grinned. Those sorts of questions always amused him -- the type that didn’t really speak of genuine concern but asked for permission to spout out one’s own concerns.

"It’s been a long day."

She stared into his face as if waiting for permission to ask the obvious question -- the question that Paul wasn't quite ready to answer.

"Yes?" he said.

"How did you know what you knew last night?"

"Like I said, I had a bad feeling."

She squinted and tightened her lips as if confused, but Paul wasn't going to give her anything.

"How did you know all of that about Davy?"

He sat back in his desk and massaged his temples. "The world is full of people. Most of them live and die without ever really knowing the people around them, but there are some extraordinary people in the world who can see inside them – who have great insight into people."

"Are you saying you’re psychic?"

Dr. Ambrose smirked. "There is such a thing as intuition. Think of it as a kind of internet that we’re all connected to and stay constantly online. Some people have less garbage in the way than others."

"Okay, but there’s another problem."

"Yeah?"

"If you’re that intuitive, you already know what it is."

"Ha, ha. It doesn’t quite work that way. But in response to your concern, I was incredibly lucky that he missed."

Mandy looked shocked.

"You didn’t look very afraid."

He looked away from her. "I was angry."

"But you weren’t charging him. You looked very calm to me."

Dr. Ambrose shrugged and shook his head.

"Why did he pass out the moment you touched the knife, and why didn’t you cut your hand on it?"

"I think he fainted. He saw exactly what you saw. He fired the gun right at me and missed. If I were him, I would’ve thought I was being pursued by a ghost."

Mandy said nothing. She just opened the cover of her algebra book, pulled out a folded slip of paper, and held it out for him.

"Explain this."

Paul scratched his head, stood up, walked around the desk, and took the page.

And when he unfolded it a pang of anxiousness shot through his chest. He thought he'd gotten all of his own personal things out of the apartment before she'd moved in, but the Xerox sheet in his hands said otherwise.

The copy of the old newspaper clipping from 1885 announcing that Jude Ledbetter had sold the iron mills along with the photograph had found Mandy's hands.

He gave her an interrogative look as if he didn't understand.

"I found it upstairs," she offered.

Paul shrugged. "What does a photograph of my grandfather have to do with anything?"

"Your grandfather?"

Paul smirked. "Did you think this was me?"

"Well, Jude Ledbetter was the name of the guy you told me was watching me when Davy was outside banging on the door."

Paul huffed. "I wasn’t going to tell you that I had a bad feeling that you were in danger."

"But look at the name of his wife in the article. It’s Noel. You said your wife’s name was Noel. That’s not a common name."

He nodded. "My wife’s name was Noel Belton. The same first name as my grandfather’s first wife."

She rolled her eyes. "That’s pretty convenient."

Dr. Ambrose smirked at her again. "Do you honestly mean to sit there and tell me that you think I’m over a hundred years old?"

Mandy just looked at him.

"Fine, I’ll go home tonight, and I’ll dig up my marriage license, and if you want, I can show you my date of birth on my driver’s license. I was born in 1951."

She hung her head.

"Really, Mandy. We’re going to have to do something about your perception of reality."

And now, he felt the sensation from her he’d been driving toward.

She felt stupid.

He shook his head, sat back down behind his desk and slapped his knees.

"I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to belittle you, but you have to admit that you sounded pretty ridiculous."

She nodded.

"I’ll make it up to you. Go upstairs and work on your homework for a couple of hours until both of my groups leave, and I’ll take you to dinner at Red Lobster. Deal?"

She smiled. "I didn’t mean to piss you off."

He waved. "I’ve heard stranger things. I have a guy right now who thinks he was Aragorn from Lord of the Rings in a previous life."

She laughed.

(Continue to scene 8&9)