Melancholy Conton; Idle Quiet

[Admiral Frog]

Abbie clasped the sides of her head in between her hands and rubbed her temples sparingly. Though the feeling was soothing, the headache was relentless; determined to put her out of commission for at least another hour or so. The story the detective told her, about how Hank had been in the car while she alone observed the crash? That was not how she remembered it. Abbie may be a lot of things negative but forgetful and crazy were not amongst them. Her head, despite the pain, reviewed the memory of what happened over and over again. Never once did it play the way Orson had told her.

But...

She was catatonic. Maybe what she thought happened wasn't the same as what had happened. Like a prelude to dementia. Abbie didn't like the idea of losing her mind long before its time expired, but the feeling of emptiness washed over regardless. The woman pulled her legs up against her stomach and allowed her head to rest upon her knees; all the while her hands gently massaging the sides of her head.

As a teacher, Abbie did not live a life full of drama and excitement. Sure there was kid drama, there is always kid drama when they learn about free will and independence. But other than that her life was as Plain Jane as a field of wheat. Now it seemed like someone had just rushed in, took a whisk to her life and scrambled what was inside. "I don't think....." She began, figured she would explain her feelings on what was really lying in that hospital bed, pretending the role of a once lost child; and decided not to.

"Doesn't matter." She paused. Then in a child like tone, asked: "Do you believe me?"  

[Jikial]

"I believe you." the detective was plain in saying so.

"You are now under my custody. I'm not reading you your miranda's because you're not under arrest. But you are coming with me for your protection as well as part of my investigation. You can refuse, but I don't think you want to."

He went from facing her to facing the door, the dim overhead light shown a crescent on the baldness of his head.

"I'll have a nurse bring your clothes in so you can change. You'll need to sign the release forms. Again, the Oleander family will be taking care of your hospital bills so don't worry."

He put his hand on the knob of the door and opened it slightly, "Oh, and Ms...Abbie. You're not the only one."

And with that he left.

Not a second passed before a nurse, this time a middle-aged female, burst in with Abbie's clothes.

"Don't worry honey," she started, "it's all here." She put the clotheson the bed beside Abbie. "I'm supposed to stay in the room cause the cops told me too. But you can get dressed in the bathroom if you want."  

[Admiral Frog]

"Well that was cryptic..." Abbie whispered to no one in particular. She watched the door slowly creep closed before it was thrust open by a woman nurse. Abbie was sort of relieved, however when the nurse opened her mouth she was starting to regret it. There was no reason to fault the nurse for babysitting her on the police's behalf. Abbie afforded her a deep sigh and snatched her clothing off of the bed, slamming the door to the bathroom behind her.

It was difficult to change, her arms were tired, and for the firs time since coming into her body, she really hated the clasps on her bra. After fighting with it for a few minutes, hearing the footsteps of the nurse come unnervingly close to the door and then walk away again, she had her clothes back on.

"I am sorry, but could you do me a favor? Can you please make sure that the Oleander's don't pay for my bill? I... I don't feel comfortable with that." Abbie pulled her hair into a loose bun and held out her hand patiently. The nurse looked at her outstretched hand with a look of dumb confusion. Abbie opened and closed her fingers. "Well? I need my release forms so I can get out of here." However that, she did with impatience.

Abbie signed her self out of the hospital, occasionally her handwriting made it impossible to read, nevertheless, she was free. The nurse was looking over her shoulder every once in awhile to keep her watchful eye on her, else she lose her job, Abbie had to guess. She waited calmly for an opportunity to give the woman the slip and found one, as the orderly pushing the food trays on their metallic holding shelves passed by. Abbie quickly jumped behind it and followed the orderly towards the far hallway. When he turned left, she made a break right and into the main chamber of the waiting room. The nurse might not yet be aware of her elusive behavior else something would have grabbed her by the shoulder.

She dug through her purse for her cell phone but that was dead. However her wallet and credit card were readily available. She needed to get to the nearest library and find out where they are holding Jeremy. Abbie needed to see him before anything else, to even just touch his arm. Anything to verify or unverify the horrors she was certain she witnessed.  

[Jikial]

Reynard wasn't one to spoil a good thing and in this case that good thing was watching his perp play stealth like a cat. The nurse quickly informed him and the other two officers of her "disappearance" but the detective backed the officers off her trail and told them that she was his now and that he was going to watch this play out.

They could only shrug, their job was to detain Ms. Marcus in case of confession or foul play and neither of that was happening, just someone in a higher paygrade blocking their jobs as always. Orson dismissed them and since Abbie was between them and the exit, they passed right by her as if she weren't there.

Reynard saw her tense as they passed.  

[Admiral Frog]

"Where the hell are my keys." Abbie dug deeper into her purse. The keys weren't revealing themselves in a timely fashion, so she sped up the process; dumping the contents therein onto the sidewalk. A tube of rouge lipstick she purchased last week from a very impressionable young sales clerk rolled off of the curb and fell down the sewage drain. The rest of the jumble of riff raff spilled out in all directions, but the keys she was hoping to find, however, did not. "Bugger." She whispered, standing to her feet, watching passerbys eye her questioningly while taking the long walk around her.

Abbie shoved her dead cell phone and her wallet into her back pocket and stepped off of the curb. Crossing the street, she surveyed the area for an unoccupied taxi. Abbie peered around once more and hurried towards the taxi, thrusting open the door with enough force to break it off of its hinges. "Do you have time? I need to get to the library. And then I need to go to another hospital."

"If you can pay lady." Abbie rolled her eyes at the steely charm some men seemed to drip from their pores.  

[Jikial]

Orson stepped in front of, and thus made, an irate taxi driver just as he was about to pull away. He had been following her closely because she had seemed to lose all sense of observation.

"Right! Stand in the road at a hospital!" shouted the driver, "that way when I hit you you get a free cart in you insurance scheming b*****d."

Orson ignored this.

"Abbie, I might have to cuff you if you don't get out of the taxi willingly."

The driver looked between him and his unlucky passenger. "What hell lady? You a criminal or something? Jesus!"

"Your call Abbie."

As if in warning, the officers that had left before Abbie (who were craftily waiting in their patrol car) turned on their lights.

"My ******** cab, get out or get him to get out of the way, don't pay me enough for this..." the taxi driver had actually been mumbling the whole time, but like everyone in a rage-induced soliloquy nothing he said was worth noting and so everyone present ignored it.  

[Admiral Frog]

Abbie glared at the taxi cab driver with enough explosive power to take Australia off the map forever. She clenched her fists instinctively, a habit one does when one is caught doing something they shouldn't be and have to face their accuser head on. Taking in a long, deep sigh, Abbie stepped out of the bright yellow caboose, and tossed money from her purse onto the passenger side of the front. "For your trouble." She said, slamming the door behind her in an effort to have heard the last words from such a crude individual.

Clenching tightly to her purse, Abbie stood in the shadow of the detective and gave him her best, "my bad," face. It was such a bad feeling to have done so that she could almost taste it like vinegar in the back of her throat. Abbie turned up her nose slightly at this and shifted her weight to the opposite foot. She turned to look at the police car, now cascading colorful lights across the turn-a-bout floor. "I give detective. I'm sorry." It wasn't all a lie, she was sorry. Orson didn't seem like a bad guy, but if it weren't for him, the two idiots in the Christmas tree zebra would be looking for new jobs. She bowed her head in shame to express her deepest sincerity, but it seemed futile. Orson had some kind of stupid sixth sense it seemed about life in general. He knew she was only a fraction sorry of what she was trying to display, and that made her feel foolish. Like trying to show the, "gotcher' nose," magic trick to a teenager.

"I'm just not thinking clearly right now, my head is all fuzzy still. But I wont try anything stupid, I promise." That was the full truth. "What are we going to do now then, since the library is out of the question?"  

[Jikial]

Orson took her by the arm, with not much force, and lead her out of the road and away from the still-cursing taxi man. He walked with her across the parking lot to a brown audi, and the parking lot, absent of the cops and the taxi, became a little too still and quiet.

"Why would you be going to the library on a night like this?"

Orson glanced around the parking lot, aware of the oppressive noiselessness.

"We need to get in my car."

He reached in his pocket and the audi beeped and blinked, the shift of the locks could be heard. He let her go and got in the driver's side. Not thinking Abbie could run again.

Of course, in all this quiet, she shouldn't want to.  

[Admiral Frog]

The young teacher allowed herself to be led away from the chaos in the turn-a-bout and into a vacant parking lot. Abbie spied all of the tiny details, minor shrubbery, large well groomed trees and foliage and the well manicured parking lines as if they were freshly painted just a few hours ago. The car was the last thing to come into view and Abbie glanced at it briefly. "I wanted to research. Teachers get an after hours pass. I sometimes go there when I want to clear my head..." That statement made her feel unequivocally small and insignificant. She basically told a complete stranger that she had no life. However that didn't seem to matter, the seriousness in the words: "We need to get in my car," brought her back to reality.

The hair on the back of Abbie's neck stuck out and a shiver ran down her spine so hard it felt like someone dug an xacto knife into her back. She spied the area again, glancing at every tree and shrub she had memorized on her way to Orson's vehicle, and opened the door. That's when she realized what the need was for and recognized the silence hanging heavily in the night air. Abbie threw herself into the car and closed the door.

"I want to go home. I don't want to be here anymore."  

[Jikial]

"You and me both lady...Abbie."

But that wasn't in the plan, in fact, a lot of thing that would be very nice right now weren't in the plan. Orson would settle for just getting to a nice warm bed and sleeping until the world fell apart. Which it was, which meant it was time to wake up.

But even a driven man needed sleep and the exhausted detective called the only person he knew who could provide the only safety the detective relied on enough that he could close his eyes and blank out for a few hours. He didn't care if Abbie needed sleep or not, this was for him, and he was sure there would be someone or something there that would keep her busy. Orson shuffled through his coat and caught his phone.

"We can't go home, yet."

And with phone in one hand and keys in the other he started the car, put his hands on the wheel, and broke out of the parking lot as fast as was safely possible, the reason? The lights had started to go out in the parking lot, until there was only the one directly above Orson's car on, even the hospital lights, not even 50 yards away, had gone muted and dim, almost sickly.

Detective Orson ran his thumb over his phone quickly, selecting his contact and dialing it, accidentally putting it on speaker phone when he put it to his ear. Knowing this when the ringer came on, he tossed the phone into his lap.

"I'm calling Father Wester, he's gonna set us up with a place for the night." He mentioned quickly while the phone rang, and when answered the sleepiest sounding black man answered the phone.

"Damnit Reynard, God's work can't be done in the middle of the night, even His men need sleep."

"Quit the preachin' Ken, me and a lady gotta hold up for the night." the detective had taken a decidedly more casual tone.

"A lady eh? Lucky devil you, I don't want my clergy women cleaning any more unholy stains from the beddings..."

"Nah, nah, not like that, she's a client."

Silence on the Father's end.

"Don't worry, nothing bad has happened yet."

"This is dangerous Reynard, dangerous and stupid, but alright alright, I'll go open the doors. Wish it was like the old days when you just put them in with the homeless in the shelter, but no, now everyone's gotta sit with God."

"Yeah yeah, you can preach to her later Ken, I'm sure she needs it. I might crash a while myself."

"You just get here safe alright? And don't you die on my church steps, already have enough people turning from the house of the lord without death bein' involved."

"Alright man, see you in a minute."

"God bless," with just a hint of sarcasm.

Orson didn't reach for the phone when it went off. He waited for Abbie to speak.  

[Admiral Frog]

Looking over her shoulder, Abbie watched the parking lot, with it's haunting silence and severe lack of lighting, disappear as the car lurched down the road. She turned back in her seat and rubbed her temple with a single shaking hand. Her heart, which was racing so hard she thought she was going to have an anxiety attack, calmed and returned to normal. Of course whether this was really happening or not was undiscovered. The last time she was in a vehicle in what she thought was reality, she ended up in a hospital with a contradicting recollection. Instead, Abbie just sighed and allowed what was happening, to happen.

"Lady?" Abbie snickered. That was the first sign of humanity the detective had displayed all night. It felt, for the lack of better terms, damn right comforting. She stopped clenching her clothing, rubbing her temples and allowed herself to let down her shoulders instead of sitting rigidly military-esque in her seat. Abbie watched with curiosity as Orson played with his phone, the sound of ringing echoed through the vehicle's main chamber.

"A priest?" And all the relaxing comfort she found in the car with Orson slipped through all the vehicle's cracks and disappeared down the road. If there was one place she needed to be, but never wanted to be in, it was a church. The situation called for divine protection, but in the back of her mind, the church and even God had done little to protect her from mortal evils. How in His name was He going to protect them from this?

Abbie turned her head in slight disgust at their conversation. "Unholy stains..." She laughed at that, and the nerves came back to her. The anxiety had subsided for the moment, but it lay in wait in the back of her mind like a spider waiting for prey to befall its web.

When the conversation was over, Abbie looked down at the phone and then up at Orson. There were two ways this conversation could go. She could, A, destroy any friendship she might have with this person whom is basically saving her life, for the moment, or B try to enjoy whatever time she may have left on earth. "So... Detective Orson. How many ladies DO you take to church with you?" She afforded herself some light chuckles before clearing her throat.

"I am a client. I thought I was a suspect?" She asked. "So now that you are taking me to the one place I never wanted to see again for the rest of my life, I think you owe me the truth. And don't tell me, in due time, you aren't a Jedi Master."  

[Jikial]

"You're my client, you're the cops' suspect." He felt like clarifying. "And I don't take enough for him to complain, that was one time."

Orson shook his head. He didn't know the truth, he didn't know how to tell her the truths he knew, or what was the truth. This was a subject of confusion for even him.

"I don't know the truth. I can tell you what little I do know. But not just yet, when we sit down and I'm not breaking traffic laws then I suppose you I do owe you some sort of explanation."

At least to bide his time to get some sort of explanation ready. As for breaking traffic laws, he was going at a breakneck speed down the empty roads and not stopping unless he had to, which was only when there was what little traffic there was out there.  

[Admiral Frog]

"But I thought you were one of th-- Oh nevermind. My head is spinning too fast to make sense of all this." Abbie laid her head against the glass of the window, pulling it away every time they would hit a bump in the road. "I know how that is, one small tiny thing and people assume the worst about you..." She trailed off, staring out the window and glaring at the world as if it was all out to get her. In the small of Conton, it truly was that way. She had the tall, dark, introverted paranormal detective driving her off to church to prove it.

"Then tell me this at least Detective. It seems like you have had more than one, 'client,' have any of them..." She paused, as if she didn't want to hear the words. "Have any of them died? You mentioned to me at the hospital that you believed me. That means, all these crazy things happening to me, you have seen in your life time. So tell me, do I have a snowball's chance? Be truthful and I will hold my tongue the rest of the car ride.  

[Jikial]

He looked at her, then back at the road.

"I only called you a client, the rest are victims, they weren't suspected of anything, they just needed a place to go and I could give it to them." He paused, up ahead there was a church, one of the grander ones of Conton, complete with a homeless shelter, multipurpose facilities, and of course, a graveyard.

It was big, almost monastic, and this was where they were headed.

"I don't know what happened to some of them, they got tired of hiding and left, from there I wouldn't know. There is one there still, you might get on with her well," the detective pulled to a stop in the parking lot, in the spot "reserved for pastors only."

"You do what you choose to do, I might try to stop you, I might get tired and stop running after you. I wouldn't push your luck, it's taken you this far, and this far ain't far enough if you're going to be stressing it out."

Orson fixed a steely gaze in her direction, "All I can say is, if you find a way out of Conton that isn't in a body bag and without bringing something along, let me know and I might follow."

With that he kept his gaze as he opened his door.