Hell Within -- Chapter Nine: The Addict -- Scenes 8&9

-8-

Air rushing past.

She felt as though she were traveling swiftly in a bubble.

Flying low over ground.

Blades of grass whipping and snapping past her bubble but never touching her.

And she smelled the sweet fragrance of the ground.

Wind roaring through and around her.

Overhead, blue skies with fluffy clouds.

The gold heat of the sun warming her back.

But it wasn’t right.

There were other sounds inconsistent with the image.

The sizzling swish of water as she hydroplaned over it.

A rhythmic rocking with a tempo as steady as that of a metronome.

And with this realization came emotion as well.

The heavy hand of dread landed on her chest, and behind it, some elusive meaning and terrible knowledge that she couldn’t reach.

She gasped and opened her eyes.

Above her, beige headliner and a dome light -- the cab illuminated by the gray light of the rainy day outside.

Where am I?

She looked right to find the black tweed cloth of the passenger’s seat, and she looked down to find the back of Paul Ambrose’s head hovering in the driver’s seat. She sat up.

"Where are we going?"

Paul half looked over his shoulder at her.

"Somewhere safe."

"What’s going on?"

"You don’t remember?"

Mandy looked down at the center console between the passenger’s and driver’s seats.

Now that she thought about it, the whole day and the night before was a blank. She remembered Paul leaving to go to his conference, but after that. . . .

"Your conference is already over?" she said.

Paul glanced back at her and then back to the road.

"I’ve been gone two days."

She sat back in the seat.

Her fogginess reminded her of a day a few weeks ago over the weekend when she’d invited one of her friends from school over to her loft when she’d known that Paul was not going to be in town.

Mike had gotten her so drunk that they’d done some things that she regretted, but when she woke up the next morning naked, she couldn’t recall what had happened the day before.

"Have you ever lost time like that before?" Paul said.

She snapped out of her trance and looked up to him.

"No."

But that wasn’t entirely true.

She was twelve.

It was just after her grandmother died, and she and her mother were living in what was for all intents and purposes a crack house. She hated it there. The way some of the people looked at her made her feel dirty.

She had blanked out for about a week, and when she came back around, she and her mother were living in a cheap motel room.

That was one of those situations when her mother promised her she’d never put her in that predicament again.

"I think you have a certain defense mechanism that I hadn’t counted on before," Paul said.

She looked at the back of his head.

"What?"

"You come by it honestly. It runs in your father’s family."

"My father?"

Paul nodded. "We know for sure who he is now, and I’ve dealt with his family before."

"Who is he?"

"You don’t know him. He’s lived most of his life in Gainesville. Your mother met him in college."

"UGA?"

Paul nodded. "The pathology of his family is pretty severe. The defense mechanism is the variety that one builds to protect himself amid extremely volatile circumstances, but in the absence of those circumstances. . . ."

"What?"

"It comes to protect you, but it will grow into a form that will destroy you."

The phrase spawned a broken image of a ghostly man in medieval attire. The memory made her shiver coldly.

"What about my father?"

"You’ll meet him soon enough. Right now we have more pressing issues at hand."

She shook her head. "What in the hell’s going on?"

"You don’t remember the police coming to the office and grilling you this morning?"

That did it. Mandy had that sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach now. She felt light-headed again as if she were either going to throw up or pass out.

"My mother is dead," she said.

Paul nodded. "And they can’t find Davy."

"He killed her?"

Paul sighed. "I don’t know."

-9-

Paul Ambrose believed that the concepts of good and evil were works of fiction -- abstractions used to describe so many different acts that the words themselves no longer had meaning.

He preferred to think of it in terms of creation and destruction -- with destruction not always being detrimental nor creation always positive.

Sometimes an act of destruction perpetuates the cycle of creation, and sometimes an act of creation begins a more perilous path of destruction. And sometimes, even one with the gift of foresight found it hard to know which path was more positive.

He sat motionless as if frozen in stone in the antique Victorian chair in the downstairs den of his home.

Overwhelmed.

Lost inside his thoughts that seemed to come and go as steadily and chaotically as waves lapping a beach.

And he held the evidence in a Wal-Mart bag in his lap -- evidence that would shed light on Terra Green’s murder. He knew what must be done in order to continue the cycle, but the work was a terrible judgment call -- one that could easily go awry if he didn’t handle the situation perfectly.

He’d known this was coming.

He realized it back in the courthouse earlier in the week when he sat in that conference room across from Terra Green reading her.

The name of her father had come.

And he knew the family.

And he knew the curse.

Moreover, he realized that if Mandy was the blood of Ben Eaton she shared that curse.

Paul stared into the fire in the fireplace to his right -- the flames moving seductively like the motions of a snake charmer.

And that’s when the resolution came.

He placed his hand on the cordless phone on the end table to his right, and he lifted it just as it rang pressing the talk button.

"Yes," he said into the receiver.

"Could I speak with Dr. Ambrose?"

"Speaking."

"Paul, this is Tom Davis from the Sheriff’s Department?"

Paul sighed. "Go ahead."

"I just got the results back from your DNA test, and as you know, you are not a match for the semen."

"Indeed."

"We’re droppin the statutory case, and on behalf of the Sheriff’s Department, I’d like to apologize for all the inconvenience."

"I’d be more worried about the damage to Mandy. She was already in a fragile state."

"Absolutely, and I would also like to apologize to her. Is she available?"

"Not at present. She’s resting."

There was a long pause.

"Damn. I hate that I raked her over hot coals this morning."

"I understand."

"No, you don’t. The Texas Rangers picked David Lester up a half hour ago. They found the murder weapon in his trunk and defensive wounds all over him."

"I’ll pass along the news."

"Tell you what, sometime in the next few days, I’ll drop by and apologize to Mandy in person."

"I’m sure she’d appreciate that."

"I probably went after both of you a little too aggressively."

Paul shook his head. "Oh, no. I find your zeal for such cases reassuring. Unlike everyone else, I am in the unique position to understand that you’re still saving Autumn."

"How the hell could you possibly. . ."

"I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep."

Tom laughed. "I’ll bet you’re a damn fine shrink."

Paul smiled. "Thank you."

"I hope we haven’t damaged your reputation with our witch hunt."

He nodded. "I believe I’ll get along fine."

"Well, if it would help, the prosecutor sometimes has a psychologist consult in some cases, and I would be more than happy to throw some of it your way."

"You don’t have to go to extra trouble on my account."

"Naw, it would make me feel better."

"I appreciate your call Detective Davis."

"Yeah, you take care of that girl."

Paul smiled again. "I’ll do my best."

He hung up the phone and then he stared into the embers at the bed of the fire a moment longer.

It had to be done.

Especially now.

He stood up and pulled Mandy’s clothes from the Wal-Mart bag. He’d found them when he was packing her things to bring her to his home and out of harm’s way.

They had been lying in the bottom dresser drawer -- the last remnants of the Lancaster family curse -- waiting to be found.

To remind her of what had really happened.

The blood that covered them -- Terra’s blood -- was still damp.

He stepped over to the fireplace and tossed them in.

And he watched as the only memory of Mandy’s insanity burned away.

(Coming soon Chapter 10: The House of Lancaster)