Building Bridges
Part Twenty-Three of the Robyn Series
Down the deep twisting corridors of the Crazytown safe house something was growing. Whispers blossomed in rooms long abandoned. Dust scattered over every surface rippled in time with an invisible beat that pulsed silently through the room. Shifts in the light formed shadows along the walls cast by objects that had once stood before them. One of the shadows thrown across the lofty ceiling moved slowly through the echoing emptiness all around it. In its wake another shadow followed but this was one of flesh, silhouetted against the white washed walls. It moved slowly around the winding corners, the double bending corridors that seemed to merge into one another. They seemed to form a maze to drive those already deep in madness deeper still as they lost their way within its depths and lost their grip on sanity as it became entangled in the mass of twists and turns.
Stirring the dust with her footsteps as she walked through the whispering whirls of silver gleaming in light cast from above she moved slowly through the darkened corridors. Beneath the silent echo of her footfalls upon the floor, screams filled the air, screams drifting along unused air vents from the building opposite the one she was in. They knew she was there, they're agitation was thick in the air as they grew louder, clamouring at the walls around them, wanting to escape their torment.
But those that screamed were mere husks strapped to beds in padded rooms, their bodies empty shells and their minds clouded with drugs. Only she could hear their desperate cries, their longing to be heard but she would not answer them. She could not, for she was but a shadow herself.
Through glassy eyes she could see the end of the corridor approaching, the wide double doors that stood at the end of it, forbidding any further progress. Beyond the doors was what she sought and standing before them she reached inside the room behind them with her mind.
He was waiting for her, wakened by her presence. Looking at the handles on the door she pushed them down, once more with her mind and pushed the doors open. As she crossed over the threshold they began closing slowly behind her, silently clicking shut as she stood behind the man she had come to see.
His back was turned to her, his countenance told her that he wasn't yet ready to look at her. It seemed something he could barely bring himself to do but he would have to do it at some point.
"What, ding, brings you, beep, here young, ding, lady?" He asked, his words broken up by his speech impediment.
She smiled in amusement and measured her tone of voice before she replied, "I need you to answer a few questions for me, Doctor Cranium."
Everything was strangely quiet in the area of town he was driving in. Checking the time on his in-car clock he noticed that it should have been much busier than it was but there were hardly any other cars on the road and no people on the streets. It was rather eerie to see things so quiet but it was something he had seen spreading its way across CrazyTown like a cancer. Something was happening but he didn't know what, no one seemed to know.
Whenever the people of the town were asked what was going on, albeit those lucid enough to understand what was being said to them and give an appropriate answer, they refused to say anything. Those that did answer either lied or gave an answer that only someone from the town could give.
But no one wanted to say anything.
Doctor Cole groaned as it started to rain again. The weather men had promised that they'd had all the rain they were going to have for the week but they'd also promised that it would be snowing little white rabbits with umbrellas for arms.
'So much for CrazyTown meteorologists,' He thought as he flicked the switch for his window wipers.
As he passed through the main part of town and into the outskirts he realised that all the other traffic had vanished. He was alone on a deserted road where hardly any of the street lights were yet lit, it seemed that the Town Authority had chosen to selectively light sections of the town to try and keep energy prices down, an idea that had been praised by many and yet rejected when it was found that it was the rougher parts of town being left in the dark. They were parts of town that it would have been recommended stayed lit but their reputations had been ignored, a fundamental error in the running of any Town.
Focussing all of his attention on the road ahead of him the Doctor continued to drive through the area. Just beyond the reach of the headlights on his car a railway bridge loomed above him. As he neared it he watched the light glinting off its shiny steel surface. Lowering his eyes to the level of the road he noticed something unusual huddled up beneath the bridge. At first he thought it was a solid object but as he got closer it seemed to have more shape than that. It looked almost like a great pile of clothes.
Feeling a need to investigate further, Doctor Cole indicated that he was pulling in and stopped at the side of the road. Switching off the engine and pulling the keys from the ignition he left the car. In the bright unfettered glow of the headlights he could see clearly as he walked towards the strange object.
As he got closer he could see that it wasn't a mere pile of clothes left abandoned beneath the bridge, there was someone inside them. Kneeling beside the person now he reached out with his hand, glad to find that the skin his fingers came into contact with was warm. Slowly the Doctor turned the person over onto his back.
Seeing the heavily bruised and bloodied face of the man he found he rose quickly, stumbling backwards as the blackened eyes opened and fixed upon him.
"Morgan?" He whispered.
The mention of his name made him turn around and his eyes focussed on his questioner. He had not heard the name for a long time; he had not heard it for over twenty years. Even though such a length of time had passed he could see the resemblance in the young woman's face as she stood before him.
He remembered her as one of the two children he had removed from her mother's grasp and had hoped to hide for a very long time only to find that her mother had spirited her away, leaving her other child in the cradle in which he had been laid. He had feared the infant in great danger and even dead but he later found that her mother had taken her to a place called Lazytown. He had found her again and had tried to get her moved to a safer haven but despite his best efforts his pleas were overturned and the man that had found her had been allowed to keep her. It seemed to go to waste when Lily returned to reclaim her child and had almost caused it harm but something had stopped her from killing the child she had released.
It was something of a relief to him too see the child now stood before him again, a woman and very much alive but a sickened pang in his stomach chilled him still further than death had when she had said that she had questions to ask him and he thought he knew what one of them was going to be. He was the only one that really knew what had happened in that room on that night and he could still remember the night, four years later, when he had felt the harsh scratching of a noose around his neck and his feet being forced from beneath him.
He closed his eyes against that memory. It was something too painful for him to recall for too long but now, stood here in his office once more, the noose still hanging from the light fitting, it seemed almost surreal.
"So she killed you." Robyn said, gently scanning the Doctor's thoughts, "Everyone thought that you'd committed suicide."
"I had, beep, fully prepared to do so, ding. But Lily came back, beep, and helped me, ding, on my way. I couldn't live, beep, with what I had done, ding in letting her loose again." Doctor Cranium paused as he allowed himself to return back to the issue in hand, "Beep, so what brought you here, ding, to me?"
Robyn looked deeply into Doctor Cranium's eyes when she said, "I want you to tell me if you're my father."
