It was winter when Marilyn pulled the long elegant car into Briarcliff's graveled parking lot.
She cast her eyes nervously around the grounds, looking for anyone who might be witnessing her arrival, and hurried up the steep stone steps of the asylum. The guard just inside took no notice of her.
The light was falling fast. She knew she had to move quickly, before they closed their doors to visitors.
Lana was seated in the common room, staring at a large record player as it played "I Put A Spell On You" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins. That one had been a favorite in the bar where Marilyn had worked what seemed a thousand years ago.
She moved past the shuffling, mumbling inmates and slipped into a chair next to the despondent reporter.
"We don't have much time, so please hear me out," Marilyn whispered.
Lana's face grew cold like a frost of ice had spread across it.
"Get away from me."
"I get it, you have no reason to trust me, but please—" Marilyn placed a desperate hand on the other woman's arm, who withdrew like she'd been burned. "—I have something you need to hear, please, just listen."
"I'll call a guard," Lana said in a low voice.
"Fine, ruin a perfectly good chance to escape," Marilyn hissed, beginning to stand. The reporter bit her lip, conflicted, then tugged her back to a seated position.
"You have two minutes." Lana crossed her arms over her chest. Her form seemed a little rounder but Marilyn couldn't tell for sure beneath the shapeless hospital gown.
"Thank you." She snuck another look around the crowded common area and leaned closer to the reporter, who bent forward in turn. "I'm sorry. About the last time I was here. You were right, I'm a stupid little girl."
Lana frowned.
"Go on."
"He brainwashed me. I was confused. I was trying to make the best out of a bad situation, but…" Marilyn shook her head and laughed bitterly. "Jesus, listen to me. Even now I'm trying to minimize it." She locked eyes with Lana, steeling herself for the words that had to come out of her mouth. "The man kidnapped me. He kept me prisoner in his basement. He's a murderer. I know it, you know it."
"You told me you were going to help him kill me," Lana seethed. "Why should I believe you?"
"Because why else would I be here?" Marilyn gestured at the insanity surrounding them. "I stole his car. I should be on the highway heading in any direction away from that maniac but instead I'm here, like an idiot, talking to you. So either you want my help or you don't, but if you don't, you may as well tell me now so I can be on my way."
A long, tense moment passed between them. One of the patients coughed. Screamin' Jay Hawkins went on screaming.
"Why come back for me?" Lana demanded at last.
"Oliver said you had a tape. A confession?" She searched Lana's face for recognition of this fact and saw it. "Good. I was hoping he was telling the truth." Marilyn wet her lips with her tongue, then grasped the reporter's hand in hers. "I want you to leave with me. Bring the tape. I'll take you to the police station."
"Why?" Lana whispered, her brows knit in confusion.
"To expose him!" Marilyn nearly cried, and winced when her volume drew the attention of some of the more lucid inmates. "My testimony will be no good, I—" Her face burned with embarrassment; she broke eye contact with Lana to look at her shoes instead. "—we… it was consensual," she admitted quietly. "Too many times. It… I was confused."
"Go on," Lana urged, her reporter instinct latching onto something juicy.
"I'm an unreliable witness at best," Marilyn said testily. "But you—" She gave Lana's hand a brief squeeze. "—you're a reporter, you can bring this monster down. I know you can."
"Where will you go?" Lana's eyes searched Marilyn's face. "You drop me off at the police station, then what?"
"I don't know," she said, a wry smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Hollywood? I've heard it suits me."
There was another long moment where the lady reporter considered her words.
"How?" Lana whispered.
Marilyn chanced another glance around the room and reached into her large purse, producing a wrinkled dress and head scarf.
"Put this on. Visiting hours are over soon. You'll leave with me."
"Yeah, the last time I did that it worked out real well for me," Lana said cynically.
"Come with me or don't, I don't really give a shit." Marilyn's words gave the reporter a little start. "I'm serious. I'm offering you this chance to unmask Oliver Thredson as Bloody Face and be a hero, to have the story of a lifetime, but if you'd rather stay here and wait for it to get worse, please, be my guest."
She stood, only for a moment, before Lana tugged her back down again.
"No. No." Lana thought, then looked back to Marilyn's face. "When?"
"Now. Right now." Marilyn pushed the clothes into the reporter's eager hands. "Change, get the tape, and meet me in the front hall. We have to move quickly. We only get one shot at this."
The other women looked at the bundle in her arms, then Marilyn, then the door. She seemed to be weighing her options.
"I'll be as fast as I can," Lana said softly, and disappeared into the hallway beyond the common room.
When she reemerged Lana was wearing the wrinkled floral dress; the scarf was tied tight around her head, concealing the color of her hair and masking most of her face.
She walked with a confident stride out of the common room to Marilyn's side as she waited near the stairs. As the reporter approached Marilyn started walking. The other woman matched her stride at once.
"Just keep moving, don't look anyone in the eye," she whispered urgently. She kept her gaze on the car in the parking lot and hoped Lana was doing the same. "Do you have it?"
"Right here," Lana said softly, tapping the hard case of the reel-to-reel tape.
"Good, keep going." The soft clicks of her heels echoed through her skull as Lana's plain asylum shoes shuffled quietly beside her.
On an impulse, Marilyn put her hand on the small of Lana's back and guided her through the wide-open door into the world beyond.
No one stopped them.
They were only two blocks from the police station when Marilyn pulled over to the side of the road.
"Okay, here," she said, her eyes searching the area before them. The car was securely nestled in a side-alley near an abandoned gas station; no one was around, the bitter bite of winter's cold wind had seemingly kept everyone indoors this evening.
Marilyn watched as the reporter chewed gently on her full lower lip, hesitating.
"Here," she said again, louder this time.
"Okay," Lana murmured, and opened the car door, stepping slowly out into the night. She didn't close it at first and instead simply stood there. Her wide brown eyes observed Marilyn for a few long moments, who frowned and shook her head when the silence between them became too much to bear.
"Get to the police," she said at last. "Tell our story. Please."
The reporter seemed unsure of herself, but at the mention of her looming claim to fame she drew herself to her full height.
"I will," Lana promised, and slammed the car door shut. But she still didn't move. It was like she knew there was more, something else to say, and yet even with her gift for words she couldn't find it.
"Go," Marilyn mouthed desperately.
Lana took a few steps in the direction of the police station, then turned back to the car. She smiled faintly and opened her mouth as if to say the final line she'd been searching for.
Marilyn smiled back at her. Or rather, over her head at the man emerging from the shadows.
Lightning-quick, Oliver closed his fist over Lana's face, a cloth soaked in chloroform pressed insistently into her gasping mouth.
She took a few deep breaths before the rag and its powerful toxins seeped into her pliable brain. Lana fell silent and unmoving after several long moments of struggle.
The doctor gathered Lana's limp body into his arms like she was nothing more than a light bag of laundry. Marilyn obediently popped the trunk for him; she heard the heavy thunk the reporter made when Thredson dumped her unceremoniously into the back and slammed the lid closed.
He slipped into the front seat next to Marilyn, chanced a look around, then grabbed her face in his strong hands and kissed her roughly on the mouth.
"How'd I do, baby?" she said breathlessly when he released her.
"You were perfect," Oliver growled, running his palm over her hair in slow loving strokes. "Now drive."
She pulled the car back into traffic, a smile on her lips as the doctor slipped his skilled hand beneath the hem of her dress to reward her for a job well done.
When they reached Oliver's house Marilyn tried to preoccupy herself with the preparation of martinis so she didn't have to watch what he called his "process". She simply sipped her stiff drink and waited for him to return from the basement.
He had promised it would be easy, that he would help her this first time. Still, there was something about the transport of Lana's limp body from the trunk to the basement – something very final – that she couldn't bear to see. Between now and then there was still an option. There was still time.
After a two martinis and a long thick silence Marilyn heard a scream from the lower level's open door. Lana was awake. Soon Oliver would bound upstairs like an excited little boy to fetch her for the first round of fun.
She finished her third drink, set down the glass, and stood. One hand circled her stomach where a hard little bump had begun to form.
Marilyn wondered if she should tell him her good news.
A smile twitched at her lips as she decided no, best to wait. The doctor always got what he wanted in the end anyway.
There was another scream, then the sounds of muffled weeping.
She kept one hand on her belly and slowly approached the stairs.
It was time to take care of something.