Inanimate (23 page)

In
Room 101 of Hallcombes Psychiatric
facility Connor Williams sat on the end of his bed with his eyes
closed. His little fist was clenched. Slowly he opened his eyes and
smiled. He was proud of what he had just accomplished. But he knew
the day was early, his work today was far from over.

CHAPTER 23

Stephen Benchley didn’t particularly enjoy
jogging, however, on a day like this, when the sun was out, he
didn’t mind it at all. There was just enough of a gentle breeze to
keep him happy as he glided through the Staunton suburbs, on the
lookout for pretty girls in passing cars. Taking the corner of
Maple and Oak wide his thoughts drifted. He wondered why towns
named streets after trees. He could understand naming them after
people but he never thought trees made any sense. Actually, he
wished Staunton would adopt a grid system for its streets. If they
did that (he thought) things would be so much easier to find. But
he knew the mayor would never go for it, Staunton was to remain
quaint for the tourists and Stephen hated that. Moving onto Birch
Street he recoiled again at the name but, before he could go into
another rant inside his head he noticed a little girl sitting on
some steps clutching a doll. He took no notice and jogged past, but
a realization suddenly hit him.

“
That’s Lucy Ellis’s niece and
she looks upset.”

Suddenly Stephen’s head
was filled with
other thoughts. Since he had had a crush on Lucy since high school,
he would do anything to take her away from “that douche-bag” Jimmy
Collins. Taking every opportunity he could to score a brownie point
here and there he decided he was going to try and console the girl,
hoping Lucy would catch a glimpse of his sensitive side. Still
jogging, he broke the cardinal rule of runners in that you never
turn back on yourself. Softly approaching Jessica on the steps
outside her auntie’s house, he knelt down beside her.

“
Hey darlin’
” he said quietly. “Why so
sad?”

“
Lucy had an
accident
.”

“
Really?”
said Stephen, intrigued by the
prospect of saving the day.

Jessica
nodded.

“
She’s
in her bedroom”

“
Hmm”
mumbled Stephen, keeping his
perverted thoughts in his mind, away from the little girl. “And
where is her bedroom?”

“
Upstairs, at the end of the
hall
.”

Stephen
shot up like a horny
superhero.

“
Ok
little girl. Stay here ok.”

As he
headed up the garden path he smiled,
excited at the prospect of saving the day here and possibly
“getting some” from his high school crush.

“
Where
are you now Jimmy? Douche bag!” he
said out loud as he walked up to the front door, confident no-one
would hear him.

“
Hello?”

Stephen called out as he entered the
house, finding only quiet. With little concern for Lucy’s actual
wellbeing Stephen was simply thrilled to be in her house, taking
his time to look at pictures in the entrance hallway. He looked at
various pictures of Lucy, which adorned the spacious
foyer.

“
Fuck you’re sexy” he muttered
while looking at a particularly eye pleasing picture of Lucy at the
beach in Mexico.

As if sniffing up pheromones in
the air Stephen
closed his eyes and took a quick whiff beside the picture
before he headed upstairs.

“
Lucy?”

He called out again as he moved down the
hall, still taking his time to admire the pictures on route to the
bedroom. Pushing open the door his eyes surveyed the room, finding
nothing but an odd smell. He had to admit he would have thought
Lucy’s room would have smelled better than this (it did when he
imagined it in his mind at least). He noticed the vomit on the
carpet and recoiled, starting to think this was more serious than
he originally anticipated. Clothes were scattered across the floor,
which was odd because apart from the vomit on the floor and the tea
party set the room seemed very neat.

“
Lucy?”

He cried, more forceful this time while
scanning the room for signs of life. After a minute of visual
searching, his eyes rested on the toy box and the tiny handprints
around the handle.

“
Is that blood?” he said out loud
as he reached to open the chest, stepping back a little as he
did.

With a cheeky
flick of his wrist
he got the lid open, the sight of Jimmy’s contorted body made him
cry out while jumping back in fright. As if retreating from a lion,
Stephen’s feet fumbled for the floor. Accidentally slipping on the
vomit slick, he fell over into the wooden closet behind him setting
it off balance. The weight of whatever was inside pushing against
the doors; was set off balance too and Stephen soon found himself
on the receiving end of a naked falling body coming hard out the
closet on top of him. He screamed out, confused and terrified, it
all happened so fast. He tried to push the body away from him,
turning to face it in the process. His second corpse today was even
more horrifying, Lucy’s once beautiful features lay ravaged in
front of him, eyes torn up, mouth ripped open and covered in blood.
In fact, the only reason he immediately knew it was Lucy was thanks
to the perfume she always wore. That tantalizing, designer scent
used to drive him crazy in high school. Now, thanks to a new
association with the scent it would be driving him crazy another
way. With his strength he pushed her off and with one last
horrified look he tried to get to his feet. In his desperation he
slipped on the vomit again and almost lost his balance for a second
time. Instead, choosing not to stop moving he stumbled over Lucy’s
corpse on his way out the door. Running to Jessica, pale and raving
he knew he needed to call someone.

“
What
the hell happened in
there?”

“
Betsy didn’t like Jimmy. So she
put him in the box.
I think Lucy was just for fun.”

Confused
, Jimmy shook his head
madly.

“
Who’s
Betsy?”

Jessica
smiled and held her doll out in front
of Stephen.

“
Say hello
, Betsy.”

Betsy smirked
at Stephen, and
without moving her lips uttered a single word:

“
Hello!”

Her voice was polite yet grainy, like
singing from a gramophone. Stephen stood up.

“
No.
Bullshit! It can’t be!”

While ranting in fear he was even more in
shock when Betsy’s face turned into an evil scowl.

“
No! Jesus Christ!”
Stephen
exclaimed as he turned and fled, looking for the nearest
phone.

Dr.
Greg MacNamee talked in the hallway
of Hallcombes to a pretty nurse. He had been so preoccupied with
Connor that he had not been looking after his other patients nearly
as much as he should have been.

“
Thank you nurse Archer”
he
said as he
was presented with the medical files she had prepared for a
patient.

Taking them from
her
, he
noticed she was still standing there, looking into his eyes. With a
dry smile he repeated his pleasantry, but this time with a little
ad lib.

“
Thank you nurse
Archer
; that
will be all.”

“
Are you sure Doctor?
There’s…nothing else I can do for you?”

The nurse’s tone was very suggestive; this
put MacNamee out a little so he decided to quash this little
incident for now by holding up his hand and rolling his wedding
band with his thumb.

“
I’m sure
.”

He smiled again as she quietly slipped
away. Following her with his eyes he could not believe how forward
some of the nurses could be. As his mind wandered into thoughts of
the importance of monogamy, a large nurse came up behind
him.

“
Doctor MacNamee!”

Startled,
MacNamee knew exactly who it
was. Brenda Wallace had the worst habit of sneaking up on people,
especially him.

“
Jesus Brenda! You’re going to
give me a heart attack
!”

“
Don’t worry. If that
happens,
you’re in the right place for it.”

“
This
is a psychiatric hospital Brenda, not
a regular hospital” said MacNamee trying to shoot down her
sarcasm.

“
But you
are Doctors aren’t you? Or does that
title not mean anything anymore?”

Releasing he
was fighting a losing battle,
MacNamee cut to the chase. He didn’t really like the older Brenda
and it showed in his tone.

“
Brenda, what
can I do for you?”

“
A
Sheriff Oates called for you. I thought it
best I came and got you. Best to leave this stuff off the intercom,
you know?”

MacNamee
softened a little. Brenda did show
tact and he appreciated that.

“
Ok
Brenda, I’ll call him back from my office,
thank you.”

Assuming Brenda would
leave, he looked
down at his files. She lingered however, leaning in a little
closer.

“
Did it have to do with the
mysterious stuff going on here? Do you know what caused the scratch
in the wall? I heard there was a weird light that night
too”

“
What are you talking about
Brenda? What light?”

MacNamee tried his best to act innocent
but Brenda hardly heard him, instead she kept probing.

“
Oh everybody’s talking about it
sir. Do you
know what it was?”

MacNamee
looked at Brenda who epitomized the
rumor mill at Hallcombes.

“
No Brenda, I don’t. But when I
do, I’m sure you’ll be the first to know!”

With that he
set off down the hall, leaving
Brenda behind to her own devices.

In his office
MacNamee felt he
could be at ease. He overheard no gossip and did not have to dodge
any nurses who felt they should be privy to more information than
they actually should be. Sitting down at his desk he enjoyed a rare
moment of quiet before calling Oates, who, no doubt had some more
food for thought for him. Savoring the last ounces of silence he
picked up the phone and dialed out.

“
Sheriff Oates.”

“
Hello Sheriff, Greg
MacNamee here
returning your call.”

Oates’ police station
was buzzing, this
incident was a lot harder to keep a lid on as Stephen had called
911, raving about a killer doll and two murder victims.

“
Hold on a sec
Doc
…”

Oates
got up from his chair, moved round
the desk and closed the door to his office; he parted the Venetian
blinds so he could still see out, to keep an eye on his beloved
station. Sitting back down he continued his
conversation.

“
Sorry about that Doc, this place
is a hive right now.”

“
That’s alright
Sheriff, what’s new?
Do you have any leads?”

“
Maybe…”

After a sigh and a pause
he
continued

“
We had two more murders.
We got a call about
an hour ago from a frantic local boy. He informed us of the
murders, where they were and he also gave us the name of the person
he said was responsible. Someone named Betsy. That name mean
anything to you?”

In the contrasting silence
of
MacNamee’s
office he pondered, thinking about the names he had heard over the
last few days.

“
Betsy” he
said out loud.

“
Betsy, Betsy
…”

“…
No, Sheriff couldn’t say that it
does. Did this boy say anything else about her?”

“
No. Just a name. To be honest he
hasn’t said much since then. He was ranting on the phone; now it’s
hard to get much from him at all. I have one of my boys attempting
to get a statement from him right now.”

The station buzzed while the two
men conversed
. Since Oates knew he couldn’t keep a lid on this, he felt
it best to call in as many of his cops as possible. In the main
room on the main floor of the old listed building, open planning
was the theme. Eight desks took up a large chunk of the main floor,
each covered on two sides by low false walls. There was another
floor upstairs with an almost identical desk layout. There were
hallways branching off with various offices and interview rooms,
but the main interview room and the Sheriff’s office were all
offshoots of the large main room. Oates did not like the building
design, feeling it unnecessarily large for the purpose it served.
In his mind the building could do with being cut in half to be able
to serve its purpose more efficiently. However, since it was a
listed building, planning permission was damn near impossible to
get so he had to concede that superfluous space was what they would
have. Stephen Benchley sat in a near catatonic state after his
traumatic sunny afternoon jog. At the back desk on the right hand
side of the building he was in perfect view of Oates who had spent
much time today peering at him, wondering what he saw. A young cop
tried to probe Stephen, with no success. In the main interview
room, two cops were chatting to the young Jessica Ellis, again with
little success. Enormously frustrated, the cops remained
professional. They tried their hardest to get the little girl to
open up but nothing would work, she just wasn’t talking. When a
situation similar to this arose before they would all get together
for beers and bitch about the witnesses but things were different
today. There had never been murders like this or witnesses to such
crimes so young.