6 weeks later
Ashley paused her workout music as she recognised the sound of someone at the door. Wiping her sweaty forehead on the back of her arm she jogged through the house to an insistent knocking; Ben and Kate were at work and she was trying her best not to avoid answering the door. Ever since the police-watch outside her home was reassigned Ashley had struggled to be alone but her confidence was a work in progress; exercising had helped a great deal (at least that's what she told herself.)
When she opened her door on the chub chain the last person she expected to see was Adrian.
He grinned at her through the crack in the door and gestured to his rucksack.
"I've come prepared" he boasted instantly before shrugging his bag off of his shoulder to pull out a DVD. "I've got Bridget Jones and ice cream in my bag."
Ashley stared at him oddly. She hadn't seen him since she went missing but they'd been in contact on the phone. Slowly she removed the chain and opened the door fully.
"Okay..." she said uncertainly, dragging out the word.
Adrian placed a sassy hand upon his hip at her attitude. "If a girl doesn't feel the need for ice cream and BJ after any trauma, is she even a girl?"
Ashley folded her arms at his sass. "Last I checked, I was still a girl" she mused.
"And last I checked you were kinda kidnapped so..." He shook the DVD pointedly.
Ashley had to glance away to hide a soft smile. She stepped aside to let him in.
"No Tim?" She quizzed sarcastically, hinting at the last unannounced house visit he'd committed to.
Adrian kicked his shoes off and slung his bag back over his shoulder. "Do you really want stalker boy turning up on your doorstep again?"
Ashley grinned, "I s'pose not."
Adrian scratched the back of his head awkwardly as Ashley led them into the kitchen.
"Actually," he began hesitantly. "Tim's sort of gone walkabouts ever since Bane broke out."
Ashley nodded, trying her best to seem surprised. "Maybe he's afraid Bane will come for him?" She offered.
Adrian did his fake smile. "Yeah," he murmured unconvincingly. "Maybe."
Ashley reflected on the past few weeks as Adrian made himself at home and searched for clean spoons for the ice cream.
Dale-Creek Hill was no longer deemed a safe facility and had gradually transferred prisoners out one at a time so that it could close down. Jonathan Bane had been a prisoner/patient whilst Ashley worked there and his prison transport was ambushed one and a half weeks ago enabling him to escape. It was all over the news which was a form of relief for Ashley considering the media had been eating her story for breakfast, lunch and dinner; the bad side was the fact another serial kidnapper and murderer was loose. The Dale-Creek Hill Asylum was now up to it nostrils in scandal and everyone was feeling the burn of a media magnifying glass.
As soon as the news of Bane's escape reached her, Ashley half expected Timothy to disappear. He was just as wrapped up with Bane at the Asylum as she had been with Sam and Michael. It wouldn't take a stretch to imagine Tim had something to do with Bane's escape but she didn't like to assume considering she had been accused of the same thing with her own patients. Of course, Timothy and Bane weren't related which he had on his side or maybe they were, nothing would surprise her anymore.
"I hear you and Karl aren't having a great time," Adrian said which brought her back into the room.
Ashley barely resisted rolling her eyes. Could it be Karl had sent Adrian to fight his battles for him? That guy could be so frustrating sometimes! Their relationship hadn't improved as time went on if anything it had grown stagnant. She leant back against a kitchen cabinet and folded her arms in a huff.
"Oh, he's still obsessed with knowing what went on while I was 'away.' He won't respect the fact I don't want to talk about it, I can't, not with him" she muttered.
Adrian popped the lid off of the ice cream, not wasting any time and scooped a spoonful into his mouth.
"What do you think the barrier is, what makes you feel you can't talk to him?"
Ashley tilted her head back to look at the ceiling. "I don't understand some, a lot, of what happened and I'm still figuring it out. I can't make sense of it myself let alone tell another person without sounding...wrong." She looked down. "Karl has a predecided conception of what happened, he wouldn't believe me even if I told him straight."
"You should try him" Adrian offered her a spoon and the ice cream pot. "You never know, the undiluted truth might sort him out."
Ashley took the pot and fed herself a spoonful of chocolate chip. Adrian had a calming effect on her, he didn't push her for details and he'd supported her from afar. He gave her space without her having to ask but Karl might have passed on the message, still, at least he'd actually respected it. He hadn't insulted her with any suspicion or rubbed a big fat 'I told you so' in her face after warning her that there was something going on with Michael and Sam at the Asylum.
"I can't imagine how it must have been for you, trapped between them" Adrian murmured, his eyes far away as he gazed through her.
"Cramped?" She offered before laughing bashfully at her own bad joke. Adrian grinned brightly at her.
"You should write a book about it or a journal, I bet a lot of people, professional and civilian would be interested in your experience" he mused.
Ashley scoffed at the idea. "And what would I call it? Sleepover with a serial killer?"
Adrian snorted. "I don't know, maybe? Did you braid each other's hair? Were there pillow fights involved?"
Ashley found it in herself to laugh and Adrian joined in.
"I'm beginning to see why you don't want to tell us about it" he joked.
Ashley pushed off of the cabinet to give him a playful shove in the shoulder.
"But seriously, writing it all down might be a good way for you to process and understand what went on without having to physically tell anyone," he said after a few more icy mouthfuls. "I did it, about what I experienced at the Asylum and about that day you were taken... and about Melissa."
His expression turned meek and his gaze lowered to her neck. "The feelings I had needed to go somewhere." His words trailed off.
Ashley reached out and rubbed his back supportively, glad to be able to direct her attention to someone else's pain. Maybe she would write a journal.
The ice cream was gone before her and Adrian even made it up the stairs to watch the film. Adrian quickly swept any serious talk under the carpet and proceeded to laugh and joke with Ashley, in doing so he created a light and easy atmosphere surrounding their bad experiences. Comedy was a good way to deflect away from any real talk. How did that one expression go: if you don't laugh you'll cry?
Bridget Jones wouldn't have been her first choice of film but it was easy watching and the light comedy lifted her spirit. In the end, Adrian knew exactly what he was talking about when he said he'd come prepared.
He stayed till the evening, probing her occasionally to see if she was truly alright and wasn't going completely insane. Ashley assured him each time that she was just fine but no one could truly be 'fine' when faced with a situation like this. Ashley was coping but she wasn't fine. No matter how much exercise she did, no matter how many times Officer Johnson came around to practice self-defense techniques with her it wasn't enough to distil the anxiety from inside of her.
That night she laid on her bed with her eyes closed and allowed all the thoughts she had been blocking for the past few weeks to wash over her.
Ben and Kate wanted life to go on as if nothing had happened but Karl refused to go on until she shared with him everything that had happened with Michael and Sam. Ben and Kate wanted to forget, Karl wouldn't let her forget and the worst thing of all was Ashley couldn't forget. Ashley couldn't move on because they were everywhere; in every crowded place, in her thoughts and in her dreams. Their absence was a threat; not knowing where they were, what they were doing or whether they were watching made her restless.
The idea that they weren't watching made her feel worse, it made her feel hollow. What if Michael's goodbye had been it? What if it really was over? Ashley hadn't contemplated the idea of a world where all three of them existed but apart. How could she live knowing they were out there somewhere?
Her entire life felt like a play; every day was a performance and each day it grew harder to get on stage and act. Ashley went through the motions of each day but her mind was always elsewhere, worrying and wondering about the two people who had shaken her entire existence. Living normally had become a struggle in itself.
Ashley curled up in the dark and cuddled her quilt. Her eyes watered as she briefly glanced around her bedroom. This was her room, filled with things that used to matter to her. From clothes she'd worn fondly for years and years till the colours faded, priceless trinkets from beach stalls abroad to smiley photographs in homemade photo frames and clutter that was supposed to represent her as a person. But the person this bedroom represented was gone, this bedroom, these things meant nothing to her now they only made her feel out of place.
What was she supposed to do when home didn't feel like home anymore?
It was normal to feel different, everyone told her it was understandable after what she had experienced to feel a negative change in herself. Maybe that was true but it didn't omit the fact she had changed for the worse.
Ashley sighed and rolled over onto her side to face the bedroom window.
How could she feel so lonely? What kind of person were you when the absence of monsters left you feeling lonely; were you even a person any longer?
She sat up and rubbed her forehead. Her emotions were on a rollercoaster as of late, she had nothing but time to think and that had always been a dangerous thing for her. Was it normal to feel like a part of her was missing, like a gaping hole had been ripped out of her life? She didn't miss him. She could last a lifetime without either of them. Michael was poisonous and vindictive, a tumour to society, an insatiable catalyst for disaster who craved for all he couldn't have, who craved for her. What would possess anyone to miss someone like that?
"You and I are more alike than you could bear to know. You're obsessive, self-destructive and hunger for all things that allude you no matter the cost!"
Ashley mentally winced away from the memory of the words Michael once used to describe her. He was wrong about her.
The Dale-Creek Hill Institute had been an extensive part of her life and despite her reluctance to admit it, Michael had been an attractive part of that. He was a fixation of hers once, back when she didn't know him, back when she wanted to know him. To think her obsession was (unbeknownst to her) reciprocated tenfold was terrifying. She had been so wrapped up in him and Sam that even the most uncomfortable, concerning or frightening occurrences that should have rung alarm bells hadn't deterred her. Such a fixation was not healthy on any level, but the fact it had been Wilton and Hanz who held her attention so vividly made it all the worse. They had a strange, macabre appeal to her but death and disaster were like that, everybody loved the dark stuff until it was happening to them.
Now, what did she have left? Her friends were scattered since the institute closed and were either damaged, missing or dead; the objects of her obsession had chewed her up and spat her out abandoning her to the mundanity of life and; very little seemed to hold any meaning or substance any longer. Her studies were all but forgotten, she couldn't go back to college where everyone knew her and she doubted another institution would take her on for work experience now. What would be the point anyway, nowhere would ever measure up to the magnetising wonders Dale-Creek Hill had offered. Ashley was lost for a purpose. For a year her life had been hectic and full of love, friendship and a job that she adored no matter how destructive it had proven to be and now she was hanging on by a thread. In some sense, a huge hole had been ripped out her life.
So far as Ashley was concerned, she was stuck in a revolving door, pacing in circles within her mind without any sign of an exit. An emotional numbness had seized hold of her heart and despite being alive and well she wasn't really living.
Ashley caught sight of her desk and decided to get out of bed and take a seat. Adrian's idea about writing down thoughts, feelings and experiences in a journal seemed like a valid way to try and help herself. She needed to do something before she turned rabid, ripped off all her clothes and screamed at the top of her lungs. The bedroom walls were practically caving in on her.
Placing a pencil to paper Ashley wondered where she should start, perhaps with the first day of her kidnapping or should she begin with the first time she stepped foot in the Asylum where all the trouble really started.
Ashley leant back in her chair and turned to look out of the window again. If she really wanted to address where all the trouble started she had to consider the first memory she had of Michael and what she considered to be their first meeting.
She scooted closer to her desk and leant down to fiddle around in one of the drawers. It had originally been a locked drawer but the police had evidently fixed that when they searched her room. She pulled out a musty sketchbook and flicked through the pages that had yellowed with age. She paused on a drawing that still made her heart miss beats. A poorly drawn boy with dark hair and grey eyes looked back at her from the page, he had an oddly shaped speech bubble protruding from the corner of his mouth. Ashley read the speech bubble and heard it in his voice. She quickly averted her eyes outside again. If she was going to hike up memory lane in order to help herself, she needed to do it properly.
***
There were places that gave the Goosebumps to anyone who found themselves in close proximity. Churches at midnight, the insides of a dark closet, schools during breaks, lonely stairwells and neglected playgrounds where the breeze played on the swings and stirred the roundabout.
Ashley found herself in such a place now. There was no fencing to dictate the barriers of this particular park; when one was stood here the whole world was a playground. Two functional swings clinked against one another in the wind and there was a giant chess board elevated off the ground by springs which bounced ever so subtly. It was a pitiful play area but Ashley had, had the memory of this place intensely etched into her.
A night was spent here in slippers and a fluffy green dressing gown. Ashley had sat on the left swing and her abductor had sat on the right. At no point had she felt abducted, she had always remembered it as a late night adventure, one that would grow to confuse and frustrate her in adulthood. It wasn't long after Michael revealed to her their relation that she put two and two together. It only seemed right to revisit it at night and as soon as the idea had occurred to her back in her bedroom, Ashley couldn't shake it off. It had taken her 20 minutes to jog there. She was wearing less conspicuous clothes this time: a baggy beige hoodie, bed leggings and trainers.
The smell of stale alcohol was new as was the level of litter trapped on tufts of grass and graffiti on the chess board.
It was just a park without him.
With a cautious look over her shoulder, Ashley approached the swings and took a seat. It was a bright night.
It didn't take long for her to question herself. What was she doing here? What was she looking for, a more 'complete' memory of that night or a solid place to say to herself: this is where it all started?
"If you ever need me, you can find me here."
A little version of herself looked up at a baby-faced Michael, he couldn't have been out of school yet. "Why would I need you?"
"The world's a big scary place, sometimes you might feel like running away from it. You can always run to me."
"Run away from the world? You can do that?"
"You sure can. I can make anything happen for you. What's your favourite sweet, think about it."
She did very easily. He reached into his rucksack and pulled out a red, sugar-coated lolly-pop. She had been extremely impressed. Ashley could still remember the sour flavour of the sugar when she eventually ate it.
"What! How'd you do that!" She exclaimed, laughing at the brilliance of his magic trick. He had to be a wizard of some sort, which convinced her he could do anything. He gave her the treat and she put it in her pocket.
"No sweets before noon" she recited.
He smiled at her, a smile so fond and warm it was heartbreaking to remember.
"Don't you forget me, I mean, what I said. You have to be serious though, we can only run away once, the trick doesn't work twice" he told her firmly.
Ashley looked at the swing beside her.
"I won't forget, pinky promise." And in the same breath "Is your rucksack magic?"
Ashley looked away. She did forget or at least she forgot who he was, time turned him into a blur. The conversation had altered in her memory but it more or less went like that. He hadn't seemed dangerous to her back then, if she correlated all the dates correctly in her head he hadn't hurt anyone by that point. On their first meeting that she could remember, they were just two kids of relative innocence, destined for a seriously tragic future.
How did it all go so wrong?
What brother had to kidnap his own little sister in order to spend time with her? The same brother who told a 7-year old that they could run away from the world if she ever wanted to. The problems had already been there. Ashley had looked through a couple of family albums when no one was around, slowly taking in her childhood memories. Upon each photo she waited for a significant memory to surface that might involve Michael, she searched for him in her past but he simply wasn't there. At first, she had felt a fierce irritation at his absence, that Ben and Kate hadn't thought to include him at all but by the time she reached the end of her reminiscing her fiery emotions had dissipated into a forlorn emptiness. It was still surreal that they were related, that they were ever a family and without photo evidence, it was close to dream-like. She felt guilt on her part for forgetting someone like him.
What Ashley would do to get her hands on the photo albums at Elsie's, the police most likely had them now, scouring the images for potential child-hood locations Sam and Michael were using as a hideout. The police probably knew more about her early childhood then she did.
Ashley wondered if an explanation as to why her mum felt the need to separate their family in the first place hid within those albums. Ashley had asked Ben in private, not wishing to hurt Kate but he hadn't had the answers. It led her to wonder whether Michael had always been secretly dangerous? Had he always loved her a little too much or was that a symptom of their separation, perhaps their separation had been the stressor that tipped him over the edge? His hatred for their mother was substantial from what she'd seen, was it her fault then that all of this happened?
The desire to know and understand Michael was still there no matter how much she resented the fact, how could it not be when their lives were so intertwined.
Ashley swung a little but paused at a flapping sound emanating from directly above or below her. She twisted around and paused as she caught sight of the concrete floor beneath her. Fumbling for her phone she switched on the flashlight and held it up. Words were scratched deep into the smooth floor. She bent down to get a closer look and felt all the blood rush out of her face.
'Do you feel it?'
An icy finger trailed up her back as she looked all around. The same words etched over and over spiralled out from her exact position.
Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you feel it? Do you?
The carved question filled her mind and blinded her to the surroundings. That wasn't there last time either, but it didn't necessarily mean anything. Any creep or angsty teen could have engraved the ground but it still seemed too much of a coincidence. Now on her knees, she traced each jagged letter with her finger. Her mind raced to answer the question.
Do you feel the urge to run until air turns to fire in your lungs? Do you feel the wretched swell of a scream constantly lodged in your throat? Do you feel the claustrophobic talons of society closing in around you? Do you feel estranged from everyone around you? Do you want to run from the world?
The flapping continued until she stood up and searched the swing. Upon sticking a hand under the seat, she came away with a folded sheet of paper that had been stuck down with cello tape.
Ashley's mouth was drier than a desert as she unfolded the paper and sat back on the swing to steady herself as she read just 12 words.
"The High capital, of Satan and his peers."
-I'll see you there.
Her chest contracted painfully as a burst of panic hit her. That was not a coincidence. She rubbed the space between her breasts and gave her surroundings a cautious survey. Was he here? She waited, quiet like a rabbit in an open field. She couldn't hear him, she couldn't hear anything but the creaking chain on the swings. He wasn't here now but he'd been here.
The note filled her with a mixture of emotions. Was it really Michael? It had to be.
Her breath came quick and fast as she stood up and looked around uncertainly before retaking a seat on the swing. What was she supposed to do? Innumerable questions streamed through her mind all at once. Was this a clue to his whereabouts, he said he'd see her there so it had to be right?
Ashley fumbled with her phone and typed what appeared to be a quote into the search bar of her internet. The first search response that popped up was a Wikipedia search: Pandaemonium (Paradise Lost). Ashley scrolled through the first search page and found they all provided the same answer. 'The High capital, of Satan and his peers' was a quote from an old poem written by John Milton and it referred to Pandaemonium, a place of all devils.
Ashley looked up from her phone to survey her surroundings which had grown darker to her eyes now that she'd looked into a bright phone screen. What sort of clue was that? Was he being serious? Was this even him?
She felt the swell of a scream in her lungs and wanted to let it out. She wanted to cry loud enough for him to hear her anguish. The police weren't even close to catching him if he had the time to etch things into the pavement not 20 minutes from her home. He never intended to come for her after 14 days, it had all been a mind game. This cryptic note was just another ploy, it was a threat to say he could be as close to her as he wanted to be whenever he wanted to be. This piece of paper wasn't a clue, it was a poetic middle finger, he was telling her he'd see her in hell.
Chapter 26: Wednesday 2nd May