Chapter 15: Chapter 15
The predominant sound in the room is that of Karen breathing. The events in Haunt 9 are now over, but she is unaware of the outcome for now. She is reading a report and is not very happy with the contents. After a few moments she looks up at the woman in front of her.
“So you thought it was prudent to cancel the whole operation because of this… mistake?”
“That wasn’t my decision”, Ingrid answers, trying to keep cool in front of her boss. “When we informed the other groups of what had happened they backed off.”
“Did we get anything from tonight? Something I can give to the Directors to show it wasn’t a complete loss?”
Ingrid shrugs. “I don’t know how important any of this is. Something seems to have rattled Oswald’s cage quite badly. He also exposed the location of the men in the grey suits who occasionally visit him. The Directors have wanted that information for some time as I recall.”
“That’s no good to me. The location is fine and well but nobody above me would sanction an approach anyway. I get the feeling the Directors know who these men are but don’t think we need to know yet.”
Ingrid knows that by we, Karen really means herself and this thought must worry her greatly. Her underling cannot hide her sneer. “Maybe they just don’t trust you.”
Karen flashes her a dangerous look. “That will be all.”
Ingrid knows that she has got to her boss and she likes the feeling a lot. She turns and walks to the door.
“Just one more thing Ingrid.”
She stops and turns, trying to disguise the smile that is on her face as best she can.
“If I were you then I would pray that this report goes down well with the Directors. Because if it doesn’t… there might be more than one broken neck in your department from tonight’s activities.”
The smiled disappears when the words register with Ingrid. With that, she turns and leaves. Karen makes sure that she gives Ingrid enough time to be out of earshot before she slams down on the desk with both fists, hard enough for it to hurt.
4.
Tuesday 27th April 2010
02:24
Despite the kind of work that she did, Belinda did not really consider herself to be that superstitious. However once the shock from the initial attack was over, she was still unable to fathom how she managed to jump back from the attack with the grace that she had. When her feet touched the ground again she knew that there was no way she was going to be as lucky with the next swipe.
But, before Isabelle could slash at her again, the door was flung open. The hinges finally gave up and the doorway fell to the ground. David and Alice stood at the entrance. Isabelle spun round to look at the newcomers.
“And you said, they wouldn’t find us in time!” Belinda, said, feeling cocky and very impressed at David and Alice for getting here.
Robert wanted to shout over that he had got his friends to call David and tell them where they were. But it just didn’t seem appropriate. The need for attention and congratulation was almost too much for him but he decided that the time for that would come later. He tried to get on to his feet, wincing in pain as he did so.
Isabelle did not appear to be fazed by this new turn of events. Her face twisted into a sneer. “So, Oswald, do you want to show me what you’re made of?”
David stepped inside. “What have you done to her?”
“Isabelle has become a member of the Brethren!”
Belinda was aware of movement behind her and she twisted round to see the bar emptying through the back door with the entrance of David Oswald. Isabelle seemed to notice this too and she laughed. “They might be scared of you, Oswald, but I’m not!”
“You really should be!”
Isabelle shook her head and looked very sympathetic. “You just don’t understand do you, Oswald. I’m not just any old member of the Brethren. I’m the main man…if you’ll pardon the expression.” She ran her hands down her body and gave the most horrible leer that Alice had ever seen in her life. David ignored it.
David took another step forward and Belinda saw Isabelle lift a foot, as if about to take a step backward. The foot was placed back down on the surface and she knew then that he/she/it had wanted to retreat but didn’t want to lose face.
“Do you like it? It has been written that I would come. Who better to inhabit than someone close to one of your friends?”
“You think that the body you’ve inhabited might stop me from killing you?” David asked her.
“Give me a break. If you kill me I will just be raised again in another body. And just what will poor Gary Ingalls say about you killing his girlfriend for no reason. He really does love her, you know. And…” Isabelle stopped talking for a second while her eyes seemed to glaze over. But before David could use that to his advantage, she was back to normal. “Yeah, just checking. She really loves him too. Is that not the sweetest thing you’ve heard all night? Do you really want to get in the way of these lovebirds just to hold me back for a short while?”
The only thing that managed to stop Isabelle from her spiel was the sudden appearance of David Oswald’s gun appearing from nowhere and pressing against her face.
Edward shuffled over to Belinda, impressed by the sudden movement. He was now completely disregarding the bleeding, although it followed him in a dripping trail and he unconsciously continued to grip the wound. “I didn’t know that David had a gun!” He whispered to her.
Isabelle looked very nervous but still managed to make an attempt at laughing in the face of this new adversity. “Kill me and I will be back…”
David cocked the trigger. “Do you think that I would have come here without getting these bullets blessed first? You’re right. Isabelle is going to die. But these bullets are as lethal to you as they are to her. You could be a minion or the head of the Brethren or Satan himself. If these kill you then you’re going back to hell and you’re not coming back!”
Isabelle had no answer and continued her attempts to look unfazed. She could sense that David’s finger was tightening on the trigger.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1.
Tuesday 27th April 2010
02:54
Walter’s car comes to a stop outside his son’s house and the moon reflects on his face like static on a television screen. He gets out and starts up the small path through the garden to the front door. He knows already that Gary isn’t going to be here. The car is gone and he is too late.
He knocks on the door anyway and waits for a few moments, hoping that perhaps Gary has been out for a couple of drinks with people from work and has left his car in town, coming home by Taxi. It isn’t that much of a stretch of the imagination is it?
After he feels that he has waited long enough he walks down the path, back towards his car. He can drive around and see if he can find his son anywhere. It is then that something catches his eye across the road.
He could swear that he is looking at a body lying over there, and for a moment his fear is that it is Gary. It would make a lot of sense. He does seem to be in some sort of trouble, even though Walter does not know what it is.
It is so hard to see in the dark, though, large moon in the sky aside, and he has to go over to investigate. He runs over and, sure enough, sees a man stare up at him with sightless eyes. Walter brings his hands to the man’s neck, trying to feel for a pulse that isn’t there. He feels obliged to close the man’s eyes before he stands up, only because he has seen it in movies and television.
He is already starting to dial the number for the Police on his mobile phone, when a van spins round the corner. He immediately senses that he is in danger if he is found here. This van has something to do with the dead man he is standing beside.
He lets himself fall back onto the pavement before he is spotted, something he had been able to do when he was younger but which now sends pain shooting up his back. There is no time for him to worry about this though and he scuttles away, out of view behind parked cars. He moves to an open gate beside the body and manages to close it gently just as the van comes to a stop.
He can’t see anything from his hiding place but hears two doors open and then swiftly slam shut. Surprisingly these men are not being subtle considering they are obviously here for the body. Then there is a noise coming from the opening of the rolling slide door on the side of the van.
The horrible sound of the body being dragged to the van comes next. It sounds like they are dragging a large sack of potatoes. Walter wonders if they are used to doing this sort of thing on a daily basis. Someone who was picking up a body for the first time might be more careful with it. He feels horrified that these men are treating the moving of this body as commonplace. But this is all just conjecture in Walter’s head.
“Fuck getting on the wrong side of Sanderson!” One of the voices says. He does sound more pissed off than freaked out, Walter notes.
“I can’t believe she just threw him out of the van and told them to drive off!”
“She’s a heartless bitch man!”
“It’s just as well that nobody found the body. It could get traced back to us!”
“Sanderson wouldn’t have lasted five minutes if we became part of a public enquiry. Her boss is just waiting for an excuse to make her disappear.”
“How do you know that?”
“Have you ever seen them talk to each other?”
“It was his fault that the whole Progression stakeout got ruined tonight, I can understand why Sanderson might have been pissed off.”
As soon as he hears the name Progression, Walter’s ears prick up. That is all the confirmation he needs. Progression is the company that his son works for. This body is obviously related to the strange phone calls that he has received tonight from Gary. He had thought so but you need more evidence than gut instinct.
“Hey, I agree man. Still, give the guy a written warning. Don’t snap his fucking neck!”
“You’re working for the wrong company, do you know that, Frank?”
The two men laugh at this and the rolling door closes. Walter hears the two men get into the van and then, without a moment’s hesitation, it drives away into the night and back to wherever it came from.
Walter waits a little while before he comes out of hiding. He is paranoid that someone is waiting for him to leave the scene. Could someone have spotted him and decided to wait until he come out before disposing of him like they would that poor dead man?
He has a quick look around as soon as he has gathered the courage to stand up again. He crawls out of his hiding place with infinitely less grace than he had managed to scuttle in with.
“What the fuck have you gotten yourself into, Gary?” He asks.
2.
Tuesday 27th April 2010
02:26
The sight of David Oswald holding a gun was an ugly one indeed. Alice could not believe that any of this was happening. “David, what are you doing? That’s Isabelle!”
David did not look away from the woman that he was aiming the gun at. “She’s not in control anymore. You don’t understand the implications. This thing must be stopped!”
Isabelle could see in David’s eyes that he was deadly serious. “Gary would never forgive you if you killed her,” she said, in a last ditch attempt to save herself.
“None of us would forgive you!” Alice added.
Edward took a look at his cut arm and muttered, “Speak for yourself.” The shock had worn off and the pain was coming back with a vengeance, threatening to send him into unconsciousness.
Belinda was the only person in earshot of him saying this and it took every inch of her willpower to stop herself from laughing. She had to remind herself what a horrible situation they were all in.
Isabelle went for another tact. “Okay then, David. Just pull the trigger. I can be replaced. Do you think we would make it that easy for you to defeat the Brethren? There are other forces just waiting to take control.”
She started to see the anger in David’s eyes. She thought that it would make him slow and unable to make decisions. It should not have been this easy for him to decide to sacrifice her. His anger seemed to have made him sharper and willing to do what the Brethren thought he would have considered unthinkable.
“Why did you do it? Why did you take her?”
Isabelle sneered at this but it was completely fabricated because now the creature inside her truly knew fear for the first time in what felt like an eternity. “Because we really like fucking with you, Oswald. That is very important to us!”
“Because you know that we’ll win?”
Robert gave Belinda a very confused glance at this statement. She gave him an equally confused look and shrugged.
“You really don’t read your own press do you, Oswald. If you did you would know that we’re not destined to lose this struggle. I’m beginning to get a little bored with this now. Are you going to pull that trigger or not?”
“I want you to go. Get the hell out of here!”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’m the one with the gun and we both know I could shoot you before you disarm me. If you don’t leave by the time I count to ten you’re gone. I warn you that I’m going to free Isabelle from you if it’s the last thing I do…”
“We’ll see about that.”
“One…”
Isabelle did not respond to the threat, deciding to stay exactly where she was.
“Two…”
With amazing timing, Gary appeared at the entranceway where the door had once been, having broken every speed law in the book getting here. He saw Isabelle standing there, with David’s gun pressed into her face.
“Three…”
Gary wanted to scream out at him. But the words couldn’t come at that moment.
“Four…”
“What are you doing?” Gary finally managed to yell out.
David didn’t reply; didn’t even acknowledge Gary’s existence.
“Five…”
Isabelle was the only person in the room who seemed to see Gary. She smiled sweetly at him and blew him a kiss.
“Six…”
“I’ll see you in hell, lover.”
“Seven…”
Suddenly Isabelle turned and, faster than should ever have been humanly possible, hurtled towards the back exit. The door flew open and she was gone, the remains of the exit in a not much better state of repair than the now destroyed entrance.
Gary ran over to the others but concentrated more on David. “What the fuck is going on?”
Alice still seemed to ignore Gary and pushed past him to face David. She was very shaken and angry looking. “I can’t believe that you were going to kill her. You were going to shoot her in the face!”
David looked at Gary. “You know I don’t appreciate swearing!” He then turned his attention to Alice, tossing the gun at her. “Check it. It’s empty. If she knew that then there would have been a good chance that none of us would be walking out of here alive!”
Without missing a beat, he turned and started towards the front entrance. Gary was not happy with what had been said since he had arrived on the scene. He wanted answers. He grabbed David to stop him from going. “What the f… What the hell is going on?”
“You know those demonic forces that we fight? Well they’ve taken possession of your girlfriend!”
Despite the events he had seen, the answer seemed to send Gary into a state of shock. He couldn’t believe what he had just been told. The news showed on his face. David’s seemed to deflate slightly as he realised he had been insensitive. He put his hands on Gary’s shoulders.
“I give you my word that I will find a way to remove this creature from her mind. We’re going to get Isabelle back again.”
David removed his hands from Gary’s shoulders, and with nothing more to say, walked past the group and towards where the door used to be once more. He paused just before stepping through.
“Edward, come with me. I’ll take you to the Hospital.”
Edward looked very grateful and followed, still clutching his arm. Once they left, the others stood there for a while, very close to one another in the now deserted bar. Nobody else was going to come near this place for the rest of the night, so they were safe enough.
3.
Tuesday 27th April 2010
05:56
A very tired but still completely alert Ingrid Sanderson trudges into a darkened office, deep in the belly of the Orson Industries building.
The only other person in the room, and one of the few people who is currently in the entire building is a young computer nerd. People who have been working all night have gone home and the people who remain part of the day shift have not started to arrive yet, and will not do so for another hour or two.
He smiles at Ingrid, looking up briefly from his computer. “Good morning!” He is way too enthusiastic for Ingrid’s liking.
“What the fuck’s so good about it?” She mutters to him.
“Why are you in so early?” He asks her.
“I could ask you the same thing!”
He shrugs at this as if it is obvious. “I’ve got nothing better to do.”
Ingrid really doesn’t have an answer to this. She wants to make a sarcastic comment telling the nerd that he really has to get out more, if it wasn’t for the fact that what he said actually hits home. For a completely different set of reasons, work is Ingrid’s life. She decides not to dwell on this fact.
“I need to use a terminal to do a quick check on one of my men.”
“This wouldn’t be the poor bastard whose neck you snapped a few hours ago, would it?” He asks, innocently enough.
“And just what would you know about that?” She asks him.
“Hey Sanderson, you should know that word travels fast around here.”
“Well Karen wants me to make sure that there are no loose ends to deal with. Like family or whatever. She thinks we should make up some bullshit story about a robbery or…”
“And if that doesn’t wash what are you going to do then? Kill the family?”
This question pisses her off more than most of what has happened to her in the last few hours. “Look buddy, we’re not monsters!”
With complete nonchalance, he replies, “You could have fooled me!”
The thing that amazes Ingrid more than anything is that he seems to be completely oblivious to the danger he is putting himself under. He simply points to a nearby terminal. Ingrid decides she is in too much trouble already and shouldn’t kill the little prick. Instead she simply walks over and sits down at the terminal, which displays a box on the screen asking for her user ID and password.
She turns round to make sure that he isn’t looking and types her information. She doesn’t want this little nerd getting into her stuff. She considers that he will be able to hack in to it anyway if he is half as good as people say he is.
It only takes her a few minutes to collate all the information she needs about the man she had killed earlier in the morning. She turns round again to check on the computer geek before typing in new info. She has a sudden urge to do a check on Karen Anderson, something she has never thought of doing before.
An information box pops up on the screen telling her that access to Karen Anderson’s file is denied to anyone without a Sigma clearance level. This surprises her. Only Directors have Sigma clearance.
This means that not even Karen Anderson is able to check her own file. It seems a trifle strange. Ingrid has checked her own file quite a few times out of curiosity. She knows that if the company turned against her and wanted her dead they would probably not make it public on the company intranet.
With this revelation, her lip twitches ever so slightly into a sneer. She whispers, so that the other inhabitant of the room won’t hear. “So if that’s the case Karen, why the hell do the Directors have your personnel record locked up?”