A/N- This chapter is a little shorter than the others but it needed to stand alone. When you read it I think you will see why.
Yours respectfully,
Alice I
Chapter Seventeen
Charlie opened his bedroom window and looked up at the gutter above his head. He had done this many times as a kid, but he wasn't as sure of himself now. Would the gutter hold his adult weight? He desperately needed to get out of the house, away from his father, away from his dreams.
He had slept fitfully throughout the day and always the dream came. He could hear the screaming, the sound of the saw. The whistling tune made by a mad woman twisted and evil. Every time he woke from this nightmare he wished that she had killed him too. If he had died that night, then he wouldn't have to feel the hate that was perverting his soul.
He swung his leg out of the window and straddled the sill reaching up to grab the edge of the gutter and tugged on it experimentally. This was a craftsman house and every aspect of it was strong and sturdy. He thought that the gutter might actually hold him for the brief time he needed it to as he moved hand over hand to the long drain pipe running down the side of the house.
Charlie looked back at his room and felt a crushing sense of loss descend upon him. That room embodied a past that was slipping away. As tears began to drop from his eyes he swung his other leg out of the window and hung from the gutter. Carefully he made his way inch by inch over to the drain pipe and grabbed onto it. The stitches in his chest screamed at him as they began to tear with the strain on the muscles but he was only marginally aware of that pain. There was a far greater pain ripping his heart in two.
It only took a couple of minutes to slid down the pipe and as his feet contacted the soft earth below he looked up and marveled at the sturdy architecture that was put into the making of this home; his home. It felt foreign to him now, like he didn't belong here any more.
This is the home where he grew up and played basketball with his older brother out in the driveway. This was the home where the love of a family healed all those playground wounds whether it was a skinned knee or bully's ridicule. It's where his big brother taught him how to play baseball. This is the home where he discovered the magical world of numbers and the logical simplicity they contained. But his numbers failed him now. There was no logic to evil. There was no way to calculate the death of a soul.
He walked through the yard and up the drive to the garage without looking back. That life seemed so far away now, lost to another time before the sounds of screaming and the touch of a dying man's fingers invaded his every dream.
He pulled his car keys from his pocket as he stepped up to the car parked outside of the garage. He and his father had to park side by side in the driveway because there simply wasn't room to park a car in the garage anymore. One half of the space beyond was cluttered with boxes and his blackboards devoted to his Cognitive Emergence Theory. The other half was the space he had been using to work on the FBI Killer case next to the washing machine and dryer.
Charlie got in to his car and started the engine. He knew that his father would hear it so he wasted no time in backing out and onto the road. As he put the car in drive he noticed the dark blue car parked two doors down on the other side of the street. The driver inside that car reached for a cell phone as he started his engine as well.
Charlie ignored the tail that was obviously assigned to watch over him and drove off toward Grant Cemetery.
Alan had indeed heard Charlie's car start and rushed over to the window. He saw his son backing out of the driveway but didn't make it to the front door until he had started driving down the street. Alan also saw the agent who was assigned to the house drive off after Charlie and breathed a sigh of relief and thanked the lord that Don had insisted on a guard.
"Damn that kid!" Alan was well aware that his youngest used to sneak out of the house when he was young, but as an adult it never occurred to him that Charlie would resort to such childhood tactics to get away from the confines of the house. He rushed back inside to call Don. It took him a moment to find the phone and when he dialed Don's line it was busy. Cursing softly to himself he sat down to wait for a minute before trying again. He knew that the agent following Charlie was most likely on the phone with Don informing him of what the young man had done, but he would not be satisfied until he knew for certain that Don was made aware of Charlie's flight.
Don was stuck in traffic on the ten and was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently. When his phone rang he picked it up and looked to see if it was his father calling again. When he saw the number was Jim Franklin's he felt a bolt of fear course through his body.
"Eppes!"
"Don, your brother just drove away from the house. I'm tailing him right now."
"Damn it! Where is he going?"
"He headed west down Colorado then turned right onto Los Robles."
"All right, I think he headed to Grant Cemetery. Stay on him and if he goes someplace else call me back, I'm on my way there."
"Will do, boss." Jim hung up the phone and continued to follow Charlie several car lengths behind him.
Don hung up the phone and took the next exit. He decided that going through the back streets would get him there faster and felt a twinge of annoyance when his phone rang shrilly again a moment later. He saw that it was his father calling and answered "Dad?"
"Don, Charlie took off in his car. The agent you had watching the house followed him."
"I know, Dad. I think he's going to visit mom's grave. Look stay there, Jim will let me know if he goes somewhere else. I'll bring him home."
"I know you will Don. I'm a little worried about him driving right now. Those drugs are still in his system. He could fall asleep at the wheel."
"He won't Dad. Don't worry, Jim is right behind him, and I'm on my way. I'll call you later all right?"
"Ok, Donnie. I'll see you when you get back with Charlie."
It turned out that Don was correct about where Charlie was headed. He parked his car on the side of the main drive in the cemetery and walked through the markers to his mother's grave. Jim pulled up just at the edge of the bend in the road and parked. His car was hidden by the many monuments that stood between Charlie and the road along with a stand of young birch trees but he had an unobstructed view of Charlie as he sat down in front of his mother's head stone.
Nearly thirty minutes later Don drove up the main drive at Grant Cemetery and stopped behind Agent Franklin's car. He got out and approached the driver side window.
"He's over there, Don. He's just been sitting there for the past half an hour." Jim pointed between a small stand of trees to where Charlie sat.
Don knew exactly where his brother was and didn't really need the agent to point him out. He looked at his brother and saw him sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of their mother's grave.
"Thanks, Jim. Go on back to the house. My dad's a little worried. Let him know that everything's ok and that we'll be home in a little while."
Don patted him on the shoulder before walking around the stand of trees and weaving his way between the grave markers toward his brother. As he approached, Charlie tipped his head slightly to the side and Don knew that his brother was aware of his presence. He sat down on the ground next to Charlie and looked at the grave stone marking their mother's final resting place.
"Hey, Charlie."
"I knew that it wouldn't be too long before you got here."
"Charlie, you know that you shouldn't go off alone like this." Charlie didn't respond. "You know that right, Charlie?"
"I wasn't alone. The agent you had watching the house followed me; the one in the dark blue Crown Victoria that just left. He parked over there around the bend. The car was hidden by the grave stones between here and there but he had a clear view of me through those trees."
Charlie never looked away from the grave stone as he spoke. Don had to smile at his younger brother's observation skills. They seemed to have really improved since he had started working on FBI cases with Don. The smile on Don's face faded away as he thought about all of the other things about his brother that had changed since they started working together.
"Why did you come here, Charlie?"
Charlie didn't answer for a minute. He reached out and pulled some dried leaves and twigs away from the front of his mother's stone. He sighed deeply before speaking in a quiet and sad voice.
"I have never believed that people are born evil. If that were true then evil would be a symptom, a biological anomaly. It would be something that is quantifiable, something that can be measured and predicted."
Charlie tossed the twig he was holding off to the side and folded his hands in his lap. "So what makes a person evil? What experiences change a person's basic makeup and twist it into something that it wasn't before that experience? This woman, this killer; she was an infant at one time. Was she evil then? She was a toddler, a little girl, a teenager, a young woman. When did she change from the innocent that she was at birth to the kind of person who can do the things that she is doing? What made her feel so much hatred?"
Charlie stopped speaking at that moment and drew in a deep breath. He looked up at the sky as if an answer would appear in the wispy clouds overhead.
"Charlie, I don't know if people are born evil or not. In my line of work I have seen some pretty horrible things. I mean what about kids who come from good caring families who torture animals, and pull the wings and legs off of insects? Those kids sometimes grow up to be psychopathic killers. I don't think anyone will ever know what caused them to be the way that they are. Maybe it isn't supposed to be something that anyone can understand. But there is something that I do believe. I believe that no matter what a person has experienced in their lives, their basic nature won't change. They may become jaded but if they are essentially good people then they will still be good people. Come on Charlie, look at me."
Charlie looked around at Don with a frown of confusion knotting his forehead. Don could see that at some point he had shed some tears. There were faint streaks on his cheeks that were barely noticeable, yet he saw them just the same.
"I'm a cynic. I haven't always been that way, but it happens when you see the worst that life can dish out. I have a tendency to see the worst in a person before I see the best in them. So I guess you could say that I have become jaded, but I am still the same loveable guy underneath all of that." Don rocked into Charlie's shoulder to try and get a smile out of him with this comment.
Charlie just looked down at his hands folded in his lap and sighed. "Apples and Oranges."
"Charlie, come on man, talk to me."
"I want her to die. I feel that in my heart, Don. How…
…how can I feel that and not be a kin to what she is… what she has become?"
Charlie's hands closed into fists as he seemed to be fighting to control some inner demon. "I feel so much hate for this woman that I feel like I'm losing myself. Is this the experience that begins to change me into something that I wasn't before this all happened?"
Charlie looked at Don again and his face betrayed fear and anger mixed together. "I'm not naive nor am I innocent, Don. I know that there are unimaginable horrors in this world. There really are monsters. Will I be one in ten years time?"
Don reached his arms around his brother. Charlie stiffened at the touch but Don wasn't going to let go.
"You will never be evil Charlie. You have a big heart and a kind soul. That is why what happened to you has hurt so deeply, but you are stronger than you think. The person that you are underneath will always be there, you just have to find a way to let him come out. The fear and the anger that you are feeling right now will pass Charlie, but it'll take time. You have to have faith in who you are. You have to fight for it."
Charlie shook his head and pulled away from Don. "I can never go back. The person that I used to be is gone now. He drowned in a pool of blood."
Charlie got up in one smooth motion and started to walk toward his car. Don got up just as quickly, if not as gracefully, and followed after him. In three great strides he had caught up with Charlie and moved in front of him blocking his path. He held both of Charlie's shoulders and wasn't going to let him go until his brother met his eyes.
"I will fight for you when you don't have the strength to. I will have faith in you when you don't have faith in yourself. I will not give up on you Charlie. I will never give up on you!"
The lost look in Charlie's eyes flickered with the tiniest hint of hope. His shoulders slumped as he allowed the tension to drain off of him like rainwater. This time Charlie didn't fight against the embrace that Don pulled him into although he left his arms hanging limp at his sides. Charlie seemed to deflate like the air going out of a balloon and Don found himself supporting his brother as much as hugging him.
"I'm so tired, Don. I just want to go home."
"Ok, Buddy. Just leave your car. I'll have someone come pick it up for you." Don kept his arm around Charlie's shoulder and guided him toward his own vehicle.
A/N- For those of you who have read "The Enemy Within" The story has been updated and changed. My father read it and felt that the emotional giger counter on the Eppes men was set at 10 all the way through the stroy and afetr listening to his review I had to agree somewhat with him. I have revised many of the chapters and added some dialogue that was not there before.
After speaking with my husband who is now renewing his EMT certification I have changed the scene in Braddocks Ravine with Charlie to make it more true to real life. Just thought I would give you a heads up about that.
