Soul Pills

Chapter 15

By the time Colm, Bella, and Lloyd got to the Kulas house the sun had set. Between them and the main grounds stood an ornate wrought iron security gate that looked to be equal parts security and opulence. The car rolled gently to a stop inches from the gate. Bella lowered the driver side window and reached out to press the buzzer. Colm shifted uncomfortably in the back seat, looking first to Lloyd and then to Bella before saying, "Try it again."

Bella's finger flexed against the cold aluminum button one more time. Colm rolled down his window and took a deep breath before shouting, "Hello," into the darkness beyond the bars. A faint echo of his voice came back and was cut off by the creaking noise of the gate as it rolled aside. After only a couple feet the gate shuddered and a loud metallic groaning startled the apprehensive trio. It rocked back a few inches then stopped completely. Bella guaged the width of the opening for a moment and decided that it was about a foot too small for the car. She turned in her seat so that both Lloyd and Colm were within her field of vision and said, "Looks like the gate's stuck. What now?"

Colm was the first to reply, "Turn off the car and gimme the keys. I'll go have a look, you wait here."

Bella asked, "Why do you need the keys?"

Colm laughed, a sharp belittling bark. Colm shook his head and said, "Lass, if I'm not going to trust you with a gun, I sure as shit ain't gonna trust you with a car at my back."

Bella huffed and pulled the keys from the ignition and handed them to Colm. As she passed them to him she said, "We're the good guys here. It's YOUR friend who's the killer."

Lloyd added, "If it turns out your friend killed David then this little trip could be called kidnapping."

Colm got out of the car. Just before he closed the door he turned and said, "Yeah, but if Marky didn't kill anyone, then I guess that means you're the one looking at a bit of a visit to lock up, hey?"

Colm walked around the front of the car and approached the gate. He stood in the gap for moment and looked left and right, trying to spot what might be causing the jam. The car's headlights shone through the bars on the gate and cast long shadows down the driveway. Colm cautiously walked through the gate and turned to the right. For a few seconds he was out of sight. The gate shook a couple times and then Colm came back around and waved towards Bella. He motioned for her to come over. Bella peered into the darkness, unsure if she was comfortable alone in the darkness with this angry little man. Her decision was made for her when Lloyd gruffly said, "He wants you to go out there. See what he needs."

She got out of the car and walked towards Colm. At the edge of the beams from the headlights she stared into the darkness, heart racing. Bella had spent a lot of hard years on the street, and even though they had toughened her in a lot of ways, one thing she had never gotten over was her fear of absolute darkness. When she was on the streets an alley with no light always sheltered the foulest inhabitants. In her old neighborhood there had been a homeless man everyone just called Cockroach. He never came into the light, nobody ever saw his face. One day she had cut through his alley and he had grabbed her and pinned her. Everyone had said he was harmless...

Bella shuddered and looked at Colm, standing just outside the headlights. She clenched her fists and strode forward. "What do you want?" She snapped.

"I think I found what's wrong," Colm said, "There's a big branch over here jamming the mechanism. I tried to pull it out myself but the gate has it wedged in pretty tight. I think if I pull the gate back the other way a bit you should be able to pull out the branch."

They walked together to where the gate rolled in behind the front wall. Bella's eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom turning the imagined horrors in her peripheral vision to everyday objects. Colm walked over to the edge of the gate and said, "Here it is, it's jutting out of here."