There's been a name change if you haven't already noticed. In other news I have a job now (woo hoo!) I'm not sure how that will effect the time allocate to writing, well see.
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C h a p t e r T w o
Inside – New Buffalo
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Four months. Eleven days. Eighteen hours. Fifteen minutes.
David's eyes sweep across the rec-room disdainfully, with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face his misery is clear for anyone who cares to look. Not that anyone is, they're all bent over their handiwork busy restraining themselves from eating the glue to take much notice of him.
He doesn't blame any of the crazies though, after over a week of these craft lessons he was wondering if he could overdose on a bit of PVA, as it is, he can't imagine anyone coming out of here any saner than Charles Manson on an off day. He'd been contemplating blowing up the whole facility for the last half hour if it meant he'd never have to go to another craft class, ever.
". . . It's just as simple as wiping area of any excess varnish and you're done. Good job everyone! You're all doing wonderfully, and just think, once you've finished you'll have a lovely souvenir of your time here."
David knows a handful of different ways to make a bomb with just the things sitting in front of him, it's gratifying going over each step of the process in his head as the crazies around him cut and paste (the towels and paper for the fuel – varnish for the accelerant – in an sealed container and placed near that supporting column . . .)
Not that he's a psychopath, but the image of the rec-room reduced to rubble is all that's getting him through these sessions.
"David, you haven't even started on your project," his current baby-sitter says with accusation tingeing her voice.
"I'm not really in a decoupage mood."
"Oh David," the detective's scowl deepens; he's starting to hate the sound of his own name, "What will it take to get you to participate?"
David stares at the volunteer in front of him like she's the embodiment of stupid as she smiles on hopefully; what would it take to get him excited about sticking pieces of paper to a toilet seat?
The detective shrugs dispassionately as he answers truthfully, "A bottle of scotch."
And a gun to the head.
"Now David, you know they don't allow any alcohol here, but," she says a blossoming grin; David could see the proverbial light bulb appear above her head, "I could maybe bring some cider the next session," the blonde continues, tapping the side of her nose, "just between you and me though, I'm not usually allowed to bring things from the outside."
"Great."
David didn't think he could be any more unenthusiastic.
The volunteer smiles like she has accomplished something and shifts her attention to rest of the room as the detective quickly loses interest.
Fifth window on the left: slightly ajar.
There isn't much else in the room to catch David's interest though, he's already spent countless hours staring up at the same ceiling, his eyes follow the path of cracks that branch across from one side to the other as elaborate escape plans run through his mind.
There's only one other baby-sitter that occasionally walks past through this room, probably to check none of the loons had stuck their head to the table.
. . . But he could totally take her.
It's not that he thinks he would ever use any of the plans his active mind creates, like the bombs he knows he can make now if he just slipped the small canister of varnish into his pocket to join Tracy's wedding ring and the few strands of her hair he always keeps on him (no, definitely not a psychopath) but with little else to do other than talk to himself about the day's weather there wasn't much else to keep himself occupied.
Between the time the volunteer leaves and the next activity leader arrives there's a ten to fifteen minute gap, so if he could somehow get to the window without anyone noticing. . .
"Oh Buffy, what am I going to do with you?" the volunteer says from somewhere to David's left, the disappointment in her voice carrying all the way to where the detective sits wondering if the nurses keeps any subduing agents on them.
Buffy.
David has been hearing the ridiculous name all over the place. When he wasn't contemplating escapes or thinking about Tracy (except he's always thinking about Tracy) David likes to listen, and the nurses like to talk. Whether it was about things that were going on on the outside or about the patients around them, the name Buffy seemed to come up a lot in conversation and David doubted there could be more than one Buffy in the hospital. He doubted there could be more than one Buffy in the whole of the state.
Buffy.
In a hospital full of crazies, this Buffy sounded like she was that gerbil loonier than the average –
"Between you and David, I don't know what I'm going to do."
What?
"David refuses to even start and he's so anti-social," the volunteer sighs despondently, "and I'm not sure if you even hear me."
Even if she couldn't, he certainly could and David didn't appreciate being talked about like he's the problem child in the class. Like he's the stinky kid that doesn't know he smells like something crawled up and died in his pocket while standing in the corner picking his nose – he knew there was a reason why he hates this class more than any of the others.
When David expresses these feelings to Doctor Warren in his next session, the doctor just smiles and writes something down in his pad, a scene David is getting used to.
"And do you think you're anti-social?"
"I think it's more of a case of not having anyone to socialise with."
"Have you made the effort to socialize with anyone here?"
"Honestly Doc, I can't tell who's crazier, the patients or the babysitters. The blonde thing yesterday wanted me to decoupage a toilet seat."
If David had have been looking he would have seen the doctor suppress a grin behind his hand as he pretended to scratch his moustache, but the detective was too busy looking around the room noting the air vent that looked big enough for a person to crawl through in the bottom corner of the room to the left of the doctor's desk.
"You think there's no one here you can connect with?"
"Well, there is the guy with the twitch," David quips.
"Oh, I wouldn't get too close Detective, he's really crazy." Doctor Warren counters.
David isn't sure what to make of his doctor, he made jokes and seems easygoing enough, they might have even been friends out in the real world, but in all four of the sessions he had had with him, the doctor's eyes would continue to have that glint, like he already knew all of David's secrets. It was like he was just waiting for the detective to open up and tell him – it had the uncanny ability to make him completely comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.
"There's that girl though," David says thinking back to their original subject, "The one in the craft class. Buffy."
For the first time in all of David's sessions with the doctor he sees him squirm a little in his seat, not enough to be too suspicious but enough to pique the detective's interest.
"Miss Summers?"
"I guess," Mills drawls slowly giving the doctor a contemplative look, "I wouldn't know. I've been hearing her name all over this place though, what's her story then?"
"I can't discuss my other patients with you, Detective," the doctor answers evasively, "You've been here over a week now, how are you settling in?" he then asks, quickly changing the subject.
The investigator in David feel the urge to continue questioning — there was nothing like an cagey answer and a lack of eye contact to catch a detective's attention, but he isn't that interested in the girl's situation that he would go out of his way to find out about it. He also knows a shut-down when he sees it and the usually warm and open doctor's body language screams shut-down.
It's only in his yoga lesson the next day that David's mind comes back to his doctor's reaction to mentions of the blonde that sits off the side a couple of feet away from him.
"One-Legged King Pigeon Pose for one . . . two . . . three . . . Namaste. Breathing in through your nose . . . and out."
Mills sits watching the girl watch the other crazies stretch in awkward positions the instructor is demonstrating to them (one leans dangerously to his left and starts a domino effect --one--two-- three-- crazies down), except she isn't so much watching but more like staring in the general direction that they just happen to be in.
It's strange, even though her eyes flitted around the area as if she was seeing what was in front of her. David notices the unfocussed quality they had to them like what she was focused on wasn't a gaggle of loons standing on one foot making strange noises, but something entirely different. And from where David sat, it also looked like her lips were moving in hushed conversation with herself.
Strange and a little creepy.
". . . two . . . three . . . Namaste."
Strangeness aside, it's enough to prompt him into building up a mental profile from what he knows about her, just like he would have done if he was still a homicide detective (if he was still had his normal life, if he hadn't found his wife's head in a box) investigating his latest case.
Buffy Summers: Caucasian, female, green eyed blonde who looked to be between eighteen and twenty-five years of age, probably closer to her teens.
And crazy.
David frowns as he searches his memory for any other piece of information he might have picked up but is surprised to realise even with all his eavesdropping, even with her name popping up in nearly every other conversation he had bothered to note, he knew very little about Buffy Summers.
He was definitely loosing his touch being locked up here in lala land.
". . . and breathing in through your nose . . . and out."
Looking over at her again as he stands with a the decision to at least sit closer to the blonde because maybe proximity would give him a few answers and a chance to listen in on her mutterings, but Mills finds a nurse attached to her arm guiding her through the sea of people bending over in inverted V poses, slowly making their way towards him.
". . . imagine the energy flowing out through your fingertips and into the ground . . . two . . . three . . . four."
He watches her weave through the throng, her mouth still moving in conversation though clearly not with the nurse beside her but it's when she is almost level with David, enough that he can smell of her chemically citrus smelling shampoo, that she turns to look at Mills with large green eyes that make David breath catch a little at their unexpected clarity.
"Have you seen my friends?" She asks with tilt of her head, "They wouldn't just disappear."
Everything is silent for a short (yet impossibly long) moment, his mouth hanging open a little in shock as he stares into her eyes that show a whole other world behind their green depths that he wasn't expecting to see.
It's strange, creepy and highly unnerving.
"Come along dear, Doctor Warren's waiting," the nurse says soothingly breaking the moment between the two as she gives David a puzzled look and draws the blonde's away from the speechless detective.
David stands in the middle of the lawn long after they leave and plays with his wife's ring in his right trouser pocket, unsure of what to make of his encounter with the green-eyed blonde, but it's enough to encourage David to unravel the intrigue that surrounds Buffy Summers.
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"Where
are my friends?"
"You're asking the wrong questions."
"Make
her speak."
"I have no speech. No name. I live in the action
of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction.
Absolute . . . alone."
"The Slayer."
"The first."
"I am not alone."
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Four months. Thirteen days. Ten hours.
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Thanks again to my beta-reader OperaAngel and those that reviewed. Sorry it takes me so long between updates, I'm not the fastest writer I just hope you all stick with me. This might be re-written at a later date because I'm not all that happy with it, I'll let you know if you have to go back and re-read it.
One-Legged King Pigeon Pose: yogajournal . com / poses / 8631. cfm (minus the spaces)
