Out For Blood 59

In the small basement of the Town Hall Ella paced up and down between the two hatches. Everything she had done over the last twenty-four hours had gone awry. That private investigator had caused her no end of grief, if she’d have listened to Hal who wanted to shoot him from the start none of this would have happened.

However, releasing the black girl he had come looking for might just persuade him to leave. The rain will stop within the hour and the dogs will have no trouble in tracking them down. But for the Collective it now looks as though all could be lost, she had hoped Dane and Sam would have been back, if they had come across that investigator before she had released the black girl he may have killed them, and their saviour.

‘Hey, is someone gonna open up?’ came a voice from below the wooden hatch.
Recognising the voice Ella kicked across the two bolts holding it shut and Sam pushed it open from underneath. He was about to speak when Ella beat him to it. ‘Who’s out there?’

‘Sheldon’s outside, or what was left of him,’ said Sam. ‘And Brett’s lyin’ in the garage tunnel with a bullet in his head. What’s going—’
‘You saw no one else?’ she said interrupting him.
‘No.’

Dane climbed from the hatch carrying Marianna over his shoulder. ‘We had to give her another dose, only a short one though. She should come round soon!’ He explained. ‘Where d’ya wanna?’
‘Put her down there, I’ll move her.’

‘There was a van out on Old Liberty road, no one in it though. Thought young Billy might be gettin’ it when the rain stops.’ Said Sam.
‘I think Young Billy’s dead, Hal too, and Zack. And from what you just said Sheldon and Brett, and maybe even Mervyn too!’

‘Holy fuck,’ said Dane. ‘What’s been happnin’ round here?’
‘Trouble and plenty of it, but if you say you saw no one out there then it may have past. Listen, you did a good job today boys, one that none of us will ever forget. Your payment awaits you upstairs, you can collect later, but for now go and stand with the others, I have a lot of work to do and I will come get you when I’m done!’

Sam and Dane left the basement and Ella locked it after them. She looked round at Marianna who was wearing white shorts, white running shoes, and a blue short sleeved V-neck pullover. Her hair was long blond and tied into a pony-tail.

Ella pressed the sequence of buttons on the steel hatch and it opened. She then closed and bolted the wooden hatch; she took hold of Mariannas’ arm and wrapping it around her neck she hauled her from the floor and over her shoulder. Ella then took her down the steps and once again she pressed the close button.

She carried Marianna into the room where Martins was lay and stealing a look at him she saw he was sleeping. She then went to the other side of the plastic curtain and laid Marianna on the gurney then strapped her down. That’s when she noticed the resemblance she had to Martins. Her facial bone structure was the same as his, Ella peeled back one of her eyelids and saw the same piercing blue colour Martins had when she had first met him.

Ella needed to be sure that Marianna was not affected by water in the same way they were. She had seen her sailing on the lake with no fear of the water that lay beneath her; she could also tell by her looks that Marianna aged at an extremely slower rate than they did. Her aging would have slowed when she reached sixteen; Marianna was now seventy-one-years-old but looked no older than twenty-five.

***

Nick had pulled his van up just short of Main Street and they both got out, they looked around the corner of the station room to see if the red 4X4 was about but didn’t see it. Jill ran across the street to the garage and peered through the window of the office. She could see the red car inside but couldn’t see anyone around, not even Gregg. She moved to the far side of the shutter and lightly tapped on it, after a few long seconds the shutter then began to ascend; just in case it wasn’t Gregg, Jill had a gun in her hand. As the shutters’ base left the floor she stepped to the side.

From where she was now stood she could only see the far part of the rising door near to where it met with the office window. When the shutter reached head height Jill swivelled around with her gun outstretched and Gregg had done the same. Both of them sighed with relief and lowered their weapons, Nick watched from the corner of Main Street, when the shutter was high enough he drove his van into the now crowded garage, and then the shutter was dropped. Once inside he climbed out to inspect the damage to his van closely.

‘Did you see them?’ said Jill indicating to the 4X4.
‘Yes, in the tunnel. Who ever it was has Marianna Brontrose.’
‘The psychic?’
‘No, her daughter.’
‘Hah… you’d have thought her mom would have seen that one coming!’

‘No Jill, something stinks here. Celia Brontrose must have known about this place, and these people and what they are. What gets me is why would they take her daughter?’
Jill raised her shoulders. ‘Maybe because she told you about the kidnappings?’
‘I doubt that...’ Gregg was thinking back to his visit of the Brontrose place. ‘I recognised Marianna from photographs her mother had in the house.'

‘And…?’ questioned Jill.
‘The dates on them were wrong, I mean way off, or at least I thought they were. One of them was dated almost sixty years ago; Celia Brontrose was in that picture looking not much younger than she does now! Here… take a look at this…’ he said passing Mariannas’ driving licence to Jill. ‘Look at her date of birth.’

Jill studied both the photograph and Mariannas’ date of birth. ‘1986… looks about right; I’d say she was in her early twenties.’ She passed back the licence.
‘So would I, but Marianna was also in those photographs at the Brontrose place… sixty-years ago.’

‘Really..?’
Gregg nodded. ‘Really!’