Graveyard Girl_Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“Rod?” A voice intruded loudly on my frantic, crazy dream. I wasn’t ready to wake up yet. I drifted off again. “Rod!” the voice repeated…”Here, sit up, take a sip of this”.

I opened my eyes just enough to see a fully clothed cop standing above me, lifting my heavy head up. I sipped the cool liquid and it burned my throat going down. I tried to open my eyes, they seemed heavy and swollen.

“Rod, are you okay?” the voice asked again. I looked up at his face. It was Neil Whitley, he worked at the local precinct.

“What…what happened…” I mumbled. It hurt to breathe.

“I was hoping you could tell me. Do you remember anything?” He sounded genuinely concerned.

“I…I remember three guys…”

“Can you sit up Rod?” He asked. I tried to sit up. My head hurt like hell. At that point I noticed the wetness of the icy cold grass I was laying in. Someone had draped a large, beige coat over me.

“I think I can…try” I heaved. “Where the hell am I?” I croaked.

“Right next to the train tracks, we were doing the usual Wednesday rounds and noticed you laying here. How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Wednesday? Last night…left the pub, three guys…beat the crap out of me, I guess” I said, reaching my hand up to my aching head. I felt like I was made of lead.

At that point, Harry came running up to us.

“You okay there, Rod?”

“I’ll be alright” I mumbled.

“I checked out the area, nothing unusual around”, he stated, more at Neil than at me.

“We gotta get you to the hospital Rod” he directed at me. I nodded, too exhausted to argue at this point. I wondered if my car was still parked where I had left it, but I was in too much pain to ask.

The two of them hoisted me up, and held me on either end as I staggered to their patrol car.

*********

Three broken ribs, a black eye, a fractured skull, a concussion and a couple of nasty bruises later, I lay in the hospital bed, my mind unable to settle. Who would do this? What was I close to uncovering that I was beaten to within an inch of my life to try and keep covered up?

Harry came around that night and asked some more questions about the attack. I told him all I could remember, and that it had occurred just after I had left the bar. I discovered that my cell phone was gone, but my car had been towed to the police station.

I confided in Harry at this point. About the girl in my building, what she did to herself, who I thought she was and who I had seen her with. I told him about Mrs Evans being out with him too. Harry knew that Mrs Evans knew Black. He told me that they had met at the University, that Black apparently gave ‘motivational speaking’ sessions and taught ‘relaxation therapy’ classes to some of the students there. He said he could do some fishing around for me about the girl in my building, where she worked, how she was involved. I told him about Millie’s mother, and my discovering that she was involved with Black, after seeing him hand her an envelope at her house. I remembered then that I had spoken to Lieutenant Brown about what I knew the day of the attack, and had given him Black’s address and registration plates. I told Harry, hoping Brown could assist him with finding some answers.

Harry seemed angered by what had happened, and determined to get to the bottom of it.

“I sure appreciate this Harry, I should get you on my team” I smiled weakly through swollen lips, my face aching through the bruises.

“You get some rest now Rod”, he said standing up and buttoning his jacket. “You’re gonna be just fine. And we’re going to find out how these son’s of bitches are involved and nail them for what they did to you” he said.

I nodded and closed my eyes for a moment. I guess I must have slipped into unconsciousness again after that.

I slept a lot over the next week. Fractured skulls, it seemed, gave one a real desire to do nothing but sleep. It could also have been the antibiotics and painkillers pouring consistently through the drip in my left arm. I supposed I was lucky that I got away with only a concussion and not a coma, or worse. I was sure those guys had meant to beat me to death, probably only stopped because they assumed that I was dead, or close to it at least. This had to be the most thrilling event this town had ever seen. Why did I have to be dead centre in the middle of all the action?

Harry probably spent most nights in the bar, but thankfully, he came to visit me every day, bringing the daily newspaper for me to keep me up-to-date with the latest goings on. He also gave me an update of what he had managed to uncover. He had found out that Ghost girl was a student at the University and had her own business making candles part time, selling them on the Campbus. Her name was Mildred James. Mildred James…Millie?

He had her tailed for a few days and although she kept to herself a lot, there was nothing unusual, or anything out of the ordinary about her comings and goings.

“That’s because you haven’t watched her insane little ritual in her lounge”…I exclaimed, smiling. “What about Black, seen him around?” I asked.

“Just the University” he responded. He had a hunch that after the failed murder attempt on me, Black was laying low.

“Have you seen him around Mildred or Mrs Evans?” I asked.

“Only at the University Rod…and here’s the thing. Mildred attends his ‘motivational classes’. And he seems to have some very weird, ‘out there’ methods…Remember I told you about that Voodoo shit? I have done some digging around about the stuff he’s teaching at the school. He believes in trance-hypnosis methods, and he uses Neuro Linguistic Programming, disguised as meditation and relaxation training.”

“That’s quite a mouthful! Motivation?” I laughed, holding my rib-cage. “That sounds like some kooky motivation to me”.

“And Rod…” He said, hesitant to tell me the next bit of news. “Lieutenant Brown wants me to stop digging around”.

“What?” I exclaimed. “Is he insane? These guys practically killed me! What’s his problem?” I said, getting annoyed. My head started to throb.

“Look don’t get upset up Rod…it’s just that…”

“Well? What?” I demanded.

“Well, he reckons that what this cult group are doing is technically not illegal, really. It’s a form of religious expression, and we have laws about freedom of religion. He doesn’t think it warrants any more valuable police time fishing around. They’re not making human sacrifices”.

“But animal sacrifices are okay?” I shouted. “Those bastards, they beat me to a pulp! They nearly killed me” I repeated.

“Well, Brown reckons there’s no real proof of that, it’s just speculation at this point”. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I held my head which was really throbbing at this point.

“He reckons we should write it up to…A robbery”.

“Is he truly out of his mind?” I was shouting again. A nurse walked past and poked her head into the room, asking if everything was okay.

“Fine, fine!” I snapped back, just wanting her to get out of there.

“Mr Morris you really shouldn’t be getting worked up” she said, stepping into the room, checking my drip. “It’s not going to help you recover from that head injury” she said.

“Okay, I’m sorry nurse, I promise I’ll calm down”, I said, attempting a fake smile. She shot Harry a stern look and went on her way.

As she left I watched her wiggle towards the door. As she closed it I said to Harry with a sly lopsided grin “A nice looking piece o’ fluff heh, Harry?”

He grinned and looked down sheepishly.

Then my mind turned back to our conversation and the anger welled up inside me and I repeated, lowering my voice this time. “Is he insane?”

“Well, the thing is Rod, there really isn’t any proof that Black and his crew were involved. In fact we don’t know who it was since they wore masks…And your cell phone was taken”.

“My cell phone was taken because they thought I was dead!” I said getting louder again. He shushed me and nodded soberly.

“Well, between you and me Rod, I’m not going to stop probing. I told you I was going to get to the bottom of this, and I will”.

He left shortly afterwards.

I struggled with this new information all night. Lieutenant Brown didn’t seem too eager to expose this creepy cult, and what they were involved in. Reginald Black was a teacher at the University, and getting young students involved and he wasn’t concerned? People were getting hurt. It was obvious I was close to discovering something and that’s why I was lying here in the first place. It didn’t take a genius to figure this out. Why was he backing off? Could they have threatened him? Bribed him? Or worse, could he be in on this? On some kind of a payroll maybe? Damn this godforsaken hospital bed!


*******

Hospitals are interesting places. There is always a daily drama in amongst the mundane routine of things. I had a good room with view in this small hospital. Right near the front emergency desk. I saw most of the comings and goings.

Plenty of sick infants, probably the cold weather, kids with broken bones, one, or two pregnant mother’s in labour, their frantic husbands at their sides. An old man, who had suffered a heart attack. I don’t think he made it, poor guy. He looked really bad when he arrived, and the way the staff seemed to be panicking, rushing him down the passage, looked serious. His family were very distraught.

One unusually quiet night, while watching TV, and enjoying my solitary dinner, there was a commotion at the entrance of the hospital. I heard staff running from the other side of the passage, shouting out to other staff members. There was a young girl who had been admitted and she was obviously in some kind of pain. She was howling.

I recognized her voice…That howling. I’d heard it before, that sounded like the voice of Mildred James! It was her, I was convinced of it. I sat forward in my bed, but my dinner tray was restricting my movement. I saw a crowd of nursing staff around a stretcher at the front desk, setting up a drip and checking the patient’s blood pressure. One of the nurses moved and I caught a glimpse of long, black hair draped over the edge of the crisp, white hospital sheets. That was all I saw of her until they rushed her gurney past my door, holding the drip and shouting instructions ahead.

She probably slashed her wrists for the last time, I thought. I didn’t feel like eating much after that.

I asked the nurse with the cute wiggle about it when she came to check up on me later that night.

“Sister, what happened to the young girl who was admitted earlier?” I asked.

“Miscarriage” she said quickly, busying herself with my blood pressure.

Miscarriage! I was shocked. Mildred James was pregnant?

“How sad” I said, trying to sound unemotional about it. “How far along was she?”

“We aren’t sure Mr Morris” she said dismissively. “The doctors probably know more. You should get some rest.”