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 Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 5:25 pm
Mesmerized by the photo, Abbie couldn't help but feel terrible for any negative thoughts she had had about Orson. Sure he wasn't the most charasmatic person alive, but he had reasons to be the way he was. Abbie happened to be looking at one of them. Why didn't he ever mention he had a son? Well in that respect, he never mentioned anything personal save for a few tid bits about the life he led in the outside world. "What happened to you..." She whispered down at the photo, forcing herself to remember every intricate detail of the boy in case she would need it later on.
Then, that feeling of absolute dread washed over her. That feeling you get when you are in a strange place and you know something bad is going to happen to you and there is not a single soul around to witness nor help. Abbie felt a shadow engulf her, whether it was there or not was another thing, but there was someone standing behind her. (Or something.) Abbie closed her eyes, said a silent prayer and looked over her shoulder.
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Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 5:34 pm
It was Orson's face, the one that was twisted away from her but a few minutes ago, staring into hers with its soulless eyes and a slackjaw that managed to quiver and jiggle as a mixture of saliva and blood dripped from the lower lip.
"Uh...uh." is all it managed to get out before it put its hands on Abigail's shoulders, and screamed, unhinging the other side of its jaw and waking Abbie up in the process.
She stood in the church, Orson had his hands on her shoulders.
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Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 5:49 pm
Her chest hurt. Her heart was pumping fast again, even her breathing was heavy, taking in and letting out short breaths. For a moment she thought she was going to pass out all together, her head was fuzzy. Abbie couldn't see straight and everything seemed ten times more terrifying than it probably was. However, Abbie found her voice and let out a shrill scream which repeated three more times. The image of Orson's mangled face wouldn't leave her mind, like it was burned in along with the image of his son. She felt his hands on her shoulders and though she never once dropped the photo in her hand it was crushed between her fingers as she balled her fists.
By reflex, like someone trying to get away from their captor, Abbie struggled in Zombie Orson's grasp and when she felt his hands there still, she took a swing at him hitting only the dead center of his chest. "Jesus Christ!" She managed through the pain, looked down at her hand (regretting lifting her fist at all, the man had bones made of titanium) and then back up at what she now realized was not the horrifying image it was before. She took a frantic look around the church and again back at Orson. Still the same. Alive. Not dead. "But... but I just saw you..." She pointed over to the place where he had dropped dead as if that made any sense at all to him. To say the least, Abbie was in a state of shock.
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Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 6:15 pm
Orson was patient, and held on to her to the last. When it was apparent she was calming down he released her.
"Sleepwalking is a very common thing, Abbie." before he could say any more a head stuck itself out from behind him. It was the girl Abbie shared a room with, Cassidy. Her face looked surprisingly clean for a teenager, and `she was very obviously judging the scared woman before her. She came from around Orson and revealed she had a knife, at the ready but not threatening, in her hand.
She spoke, "What's this one?" Cassidy looked into Abbie's eyes, "you've been gotten? Don't get got." Her speech was mangled carelessly from the
English language. Her eyes darted back and forth between Abbie's, "Oh, nothing, nothing, I see."
Orson looked at her then at the knife and widened his eyes, "Cassidy, put that away."
"Always safe, stay safe, people aren't people."
"Abbie is fine."
"Fine now, not later. Not good."
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Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 7:59 pm
"Why does she have a knife?" Abbie pointed to Cassidy with one shaking hand. "What does she mean not good?" It was hard to speak, she was choking on syllables even two year olds could spit out in perfect succession. Abbie kept her eye on Cassidy and never let them fall. Though being stabbed honestly couldn't be the worst thing to happen to her in the last week, it wasn't high up on the list of things she wanted to experience before death; however far or near that was. "Please, don't do anything funny. I've had about all the funny I can handle in one day. Please." She made the official, "calm down," hand motions and slowed her own breathing.
Then Orson's words struck her as more important now than when he had said them. "What do you mean sleepwalking?" She spoke with a rather disdainful tone of voice. "I don't know what you saw on your end, but what I saw on my end was real." She paused. "Just hear me out, okay? I watched you fall and die. And then you just stood up with your face all...." She drew invisible circles around her face. "It's how I got the picture of your son." That's when Abbie remembered the paper in her hand, she held it up.
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Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 8:08 pm
Cassidy just held her gaze and did not let it go, until Abbie whipped out the paper. Orson furrowed his brow and mulled over what Abbie said.
"I was dead in your dream? And that's not a picture of my son."
"Baubau!" Shouted an excited Cassidy, she took the paper from Abbie with a deftness one wouldn't expect and held it up to the both of them. It was a small drawing, particularly well done, of a cat.
"Baubau." Cassidy said, and smiled, then put away her knife and looked up at Abigail. "How you find Baubau?"
Orson just shrugged. It was obvious he had dealt with Cassidy's eccentricity for a while. "She likes to draw, you must've picked it up when you were sleepwalking."
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Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 8:25 pm
Before Abbie could turn the picture over in her hand, to see that it truly was not what she had first thought it was, it was snatched out of her grasp by Cassidy. She stared at her for what felt to be forever. Not with hate nor disgust, just utter hoeplessness. Nothing was making sense, and when things felt that they were, it turned out to be something mundane such as sleepwalking. The word made her blood boil. Abbie side stepped and slowly took a seat in one of the pews. The cold of the board beneath her gave her something tangible to hold on to. A way to feel alive and not asleep.
"Great..." Abbie said, putting her head into her hands. She brushed her hair back and smiled back at Cassidy. "Things that are lost must always be found I guess. Sorry I crumpled it, I didn't mean to."
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Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 1:29 pm
"Is kay," responded a sincere Cassidy as she bolted off towards her room.
Orson sat down beside Abbie, he was wearing nothing but a black tank top and pants, presumably what he slept in.
"Alright, it's plain to see you need more time to talk." He shifted and leaned back, putting his legs up on the pew in front of him and crossing them and his hands behind his head. His character and demeanor mixing with the atmosphere of the church made this action look wildly out of place. "I'll admit, I could go for some discussion too."
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Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 2:12 pm
"Goodnight Cass--" But Cassidy left before she could finish. Abbie had to wonder about that girl. There was plenty of time for her to get to know her later on, as it seemed things weren't going to find normalcy any time in the near future.
"I once told myself, that something great was bound to happen in my boring, grading papers and many cats lifestyle. This however, wasn't what I had in mind...." Abbie leaned her head against the back of the pew, a most uncomfortable position by the looks of it. She stared at the ceiling, still trying to comprehend the events in her head. Even just the words sounded like the ramblings of a person on the edge of a meltdown. Orson was sitting right next to her, so obviously she wasn't dreaming. But it felt so real. Maybe Abbie could no longer differentiate between reality and surrealism. It was safe to say she was on her way to being a full-blown banana case.
Abbie turned her head against the pew to cast a long look at Orson. Then she remembered the photo, the one that turned out to be nothing but a drawing, but previously had been one of a young boy. Abbie wondered if the image was even real, but it deserved further investigation. One less thing on her mind the better. "What happened to your son? Do you even have one?"
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Posted: Sun Jun 30, 2013 5:49 pm
"Oh yes, I have a son..." He paused and shifted himself, bending over to put his elbows on his thighs and clasp his hands in the space between, "had a son."
"I don't know, time passes by for me so I can't tell how long it's been. I just know that sometime, two Mays ago, my son went to school and never came back."
He looked up at her, "Kinda like what might've happened to Hank if you didn't show up I figure."
"Anyway, I was a detective then too, easy cases, murders, robberies, burglaries, the whole shindig. So when he turned up missing I naturally jumped on the case, he was the...third, I think, at least until we knew how long this had been going on. But it was too personal, the chief set me off on other cases, told me to hold back, I don't blame him in the least."
He sat back and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his still clasped hands, then left them there while he spoke to the ceiling.
"My wife threw a fit, you should've heard her, ain't never been a priest on this planet or a banshee louder than her. Buggin' me day and night about the case, buggin' me up and down, going for drives, walking around in the woods, by God the chief told me she was probably handling it like her own case, and she was. The guys kept finding her out there, with wild hair and wilder excuses."
He chuckled.
"Hell the boys brought her in one night, I was doin' a late-stay cause a robber had taken out the cameras before he robbed the gas station, so I had to look at the tapes...anyway. There she was, ragged as I've ever seen, and she laid into me as soon as she set eyes on me"
He mocked her tone, but not in an insulting way;
"It's been a week, Reynard."
"It has baby, sit down."
"You act like you don't even give a damn."
"You know I ask the guys everyday..."
"And the guys don't bring s**t back, and here I am,"
"Obstructing justice,"
"That isn't funny Reynard, here I am out there in the woods and asking neighbors and teachers, and god knows who else, I've asked a hobo."
"I know."
"What are you doing, Rey?"
"My job."
"Your job, YOUR JOB?"
"My job, Cindy, my job."
"Then you better tell me what you know if you think sitting here on your a** is going to bring our baby back."
"I can't touch the case..."
"Or what? You get suspended?"
"Yeah, or fired."
"And what good is this money gonna do if we don't get our baby back?"
"Send him to college maybe, get him some gear."
"You think he gives a damn, wherever he is right now, if he's going to college?"
"I think he might..."
"You don't give a damn, do you?"
"Now Cindy, that ain't..."
"You've never given a s**t about our baby, all these late nights and short hours and being on call and just generally not being there. You think you could make it up to him?"
then the anger hit his voice, even in the mockery of his wife's tone it was just that, mock anger, but it hit his voice with sincerity now.
"Now you hold right there woman, I don't know where the hell Cindy is but this s**t don't fly, do you understand? I've done all I've done for my kid and you to have a better life than the one we could've had had we stayed in the gutter. I didn't put in the late nights and short hours cause I wanted to be away from ya'll, I put it in because I wanted to enjoy the time I had off with ya'll. Gettin' you things, buyin' him things, livin' the life..."
He stopped and looked at Abbie, his eyes glossy, "..is what I wanted to say, but I was a different man back then so I just hung my head and started to cry while she walked out on me in the office, and a few days later out of my house."
Now, while he thought, would be a good time to ask questions.
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