Hunting Michael Underwood

by L V Gaudet

  I’m losing her, Ryan thinks.I need to do something. He thinks for a moment.

  “Do you want to go out?” he asks.

  “Out?” Elaine is caught off guard. In the months they’ve been on the run, they have never gone out.

  Ryan moves closer to her, feeling like a school boy trying to talk to his first crush. He looks down at the floor and has to make himself look up to meet her eyes.

  She fidgets, looking down too before looking up to meet his eyes.

  “We want to have a normal life after we get married,” Ryan says. “We will always have to keep a low profile, but we can live pretty normally. We can go out like regular people. We will have enough identity changes and moves behind us. We might as well start getting used to living normal again. I think we can risk going out once in a while.”

  Elaine’s mind is stuck. She doesn’t know how to respond, what to think. Confusion pulls her in two different directions; loneliness, loss, and regret; her mixed feelings towards Ryan and Trevor.

  “Where would we go?” she asks.

  “Anywhere you want. The bars at these little small town motels aren’t much for dancing, but we can go there. We can go someplace for dinner, or just for a walk, whatever you want.”

  You are hesitating because of him, he thinks.

  He takes her hand gently. “Come on.”

  Elaine lets him lead her out.

  Jason gets out of the car, stretching. He took a break during the night from watching the house to look after his bodily needs, finding a bathroom and again earlier this morning to get coffee and something to eat. Both times he rushed back feeling the push of nerves. What if he missed something?

  For the past hour Jason stared at the house, wondering if anyone is there. They could have both gone somewhere even though it’s still early morning.

  At last, the door to the house opens. Jason ducks behind the truck, hoping he wasn’t seen. He watches Michael leave the house, getting in a truck and driving away.

  He gets in the truck quickly, following him at a discreet distance.

  When Michael pulls into the slaughterhouse, joining a scattering of other vehicles in the lot, Jason drives past it, turning around down the road to come back.

  Michael’s truck is still parked there, empty. Others are showing up for work too.

  “So, he’s working at a slaughterhouse. Fitting.”

  Jason heads back the way they came.

  Elaine is sitting in the kitchen, a now cold coffee sitting in front of her barely touched. Last night left her in a misery of confusion.

  Why do I feel this way? So guilty? Trevor was only being a friend. At first, anyway, until he pushed it too far. Now I know he wants more than friendship.

  But Michael, Ryan, she corrects herself, has been more distant and secretive. He is always going on these trips, making promises for the future.

  I need to stay with Ryan so we can be safe. I wanted to be with him. I want to be with him. Don’t I? I still have feelings for him. He saved me. Because of him Ronnie can never hurt me again. I’m safe with him.

  So why don’t I feel safe? Ryan would never hurt me.

  Because you know he might hurt someone else. You know who, what, he is. You know he’s crazy. He is slipping deeper into it, talking more and more to someone who isn’t there. He tried to hide it before, but now it’s like he forgets I’m even there. Or maybe he doesn’t care if I see him. I’m scared he’s going to start again. He is obsessed with her, Cassie.

  He is going to look for her again. And when he does, he will lose himself again.

  He will start killing again.

  No, he won’t. He promised he won’t do it, for me.

  Trevor isn’t like him. He is kind and gentle. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. I wouldn’t have to worry.

  But I still love Ryan.

  I feel like I don’t know who I want to be with.

  Ryan methodically slaughters cow after cow, his rubber apron slick with blood and the slaughterhouse reeking of the cattle’s blood, sickness and fear.

  He tries to ignore her while he works.

  Cassie stands there in his killing pit, silently watching him.

  She shouldn’t be here. This is no place for a little girl.

  Sending the carcass off on the hook, he returns to the pen for another cow, herding the animal back through the path between pens to his pit.

  Trevor is working in the next killing pit, both men making a point of not looking at each other. Trevor is still subdued, methodically murdering cows while silently cursing Ryan for taking the fun out of his job. It’s no fun to just mindlessly kill them.

  His thoughts turn to his big plans for Ryan and his woman, Elaine. He smiles.

  This time when Ryan returns to his pit Cassie starts whispering to him.

  “She knows you are planning to go looking for her. She does not want you to.”

  Ryan ignores her.

  “You won’t find her anyway. Even if you did, it wouldn’t do you any good. She isn’t me. It’s too late to protect me. You failed, David. You didn’t protect me. You killed me, David.”

  Ryan’s face twists into a grimace of pain with the effort to shut her out, to not listen.

  In the next killing pit, Trevor catches the pained look.

  He knows she’s slipping away, he’s losing her, Trevor thinks smugly. Look at him, making stupid faces like he’s in pain. He laughs inside, enjoying his enemy’s suffering. Soon, it is time I take Elaine for the first time. Make her mine. Make her want me. And when I’m finished with her, she will be as broken as these stupid cows and I will dump her on his doorstep.

  Ryan clenches his jaw, getting his emotions under control. Not now Cassie. Go away. Go away.

  Elaine is startled by a knock at the door. Her pulse races and her heart pounds hard in her chest, making her chest tight with anxiety.

  Who can it be? Ryan is at work. He wouldn’t knock anyway. Trevor? He should be at work too.

  She peeks out the window before opening the door.

  She almost screams.

  It’s him! From the courthouse! The man Michael went to visit in prison before we left.

  Tears spring to her eyes and she leans against the door quietly, feeling his presence through the door.

  What do I do?

  “I know you are in there,” his voice comes through the door. “Katherine, please, I need to talk to you. I’m here to help. Michael is in trouble and he doesn’t even know it. Please, let me help you.”

  She bites her fist, stifling the animal sound that wants to escape her lips. The courthouse comes washing over her in a cold terror. The hours spent in a hospital room under police guard, endlessly being questioned by psychiatrists and police.

  The farmhouse. She can smell the damp earthy stink of the basement. It clogs her nostrils, her throat. She can’t breathe. The world darkens.

  No, I can’t. Please just go away. I can’t.

  Jason hears the thump through the door. He tries the knob.

  It is locked.

  He goes around to the back, looking in the windows. From another vantage point he catches a partial view of her prone body on the floor.

  He goes to the back door and looks around quickly before deftly breaking in through it.

  Easy pickings.

  Elaine opens her eyes, feeling dazed. Her head hurts. It hit the floor hard when she fainted. She blinks a few times.

  “Ryan?” Someone is looking down at her. The face comes into focus.

  He cups his hands hard over her mouth the moment the scream starts tearing from her lips.

  “Sshh, please,” Jason tries to quiet her. “Don’t scream. I’m not going to hurt you. You fainted and banged your head.”

  She stares at him through terror-filled eyes over his hands, trying to stop the screams bubbling up her throat.

  The Cowboy opens his door to stop the incessant banging on it. His eyes are glassy and vacant, his expression a drug-induced void.

&n
bsp; He looks at the two men standing on the other side looking stern. His first instinct is to run. He barely manages to make the thought.

  I’d have to go out the window. That’ll hurt.

  “Where is the kid?” one of the men asks.

  The Cowboy blinks at them in confusion.

  “Kid?” His mouth makes the sound of the thought in his head.

  “We are with family social services. Someone called and said a kid is staying here, a runaway. We are here to take him into custody. Do you know his current whereabouts?”

  These guys reek cop. Kid? What kid? Oh yeah, that kid.

  “He’s gone. New dude cleaned house, kicked him out I think. Or the kid got scared and took off. I don’t know.”

  “We looked you up Mr. Leroy Johnson. We know your history. You like them young, boys. Where is the kid?”

  Even through the haze of his high, The Cowboy, Leroy Johnson, manages to feel fear.

  If they pin this on me, I’m going back to jail for the rest of my time. I don’t know what the hell happened to the kid. Shit, did I do something to him? I don’t remember touching the kid. I don’t think I did anything. Aw man, they’ll never believe me.

  The urge to run comes and goes again. They are blocking his way out, except the window.

  Fuck it.

  The Cowboy, Leroy Johnson, turns and sprints for the window, crashing through the glass with the weight of his momentum and scrawny body, leaving streaks of blood behind where he cut himself.

  The men turn and run, charging down the stairs and out the door, chasing the bleeding scrawny man down the street.

  “Are you calm now?” Jason asks.

  Elaine nods, staring at him over his hands still cupped over her mouth, her eyes wide with fear.

  “I need you to be calm. Don’t scream. The neighbours might hear and call the police. Michael talked to you about not bringing attention on yourselves, didn’t he?”

  She nods again.

  “Okay, I’m taking my hand away. How is your head?” He lets go of her, helping her sit up.

  She touches her head gingerly and winces at the pain.

  “Let’s get a cold compress on that.” Jason takes her hand, pulling her up with him as he gets up.

  Elaine wobbles a little when she gets to her feet and he steadies her.

  “Sit on the couch. I’ll get something for your head. Don’t try to run. You are in no shape for it, and I’m here to help you and Michael. You remember me, don’t you?”

  She nods, mumbling a yes.

  “Michael and I go back a long way.”

  Jason leaves her on the couch while he rummages in the kitchen for a dish towel and ice.

  Elaine looks at the door, debating making a run for it. She starts getting up and a wave of dizziness and nausea washes over her. She sits back down, the motion sending shocks of pain through her head.

  He returns, gently putting the ice wrapped in a towel to her head. She raises one hand to hold it in place. He looks into her eyes, seeing if her pupils are the same size. It makes her feel uncomfortable.

  “You might have a concussion.”

  “W-what do you want?” Elaine manages to squeak out. She has never felt like a strong woman, physically, emotionally, not in any way. She never felt more helpless than she does right now.

  Please Ryan, come home. Come home now. Trevor, show up like you do. I need you.

  “I came to see Michael.”

  “He’s not here.” Elaine feels a need to protect him. She feels like she is lying for him, even though it’s the truth.

  “I know. He is at the slaughterhouse.”

  Elaine’s eyes flash with surprise.

  “You thought I wouldn’t know? How do you think I knew where to find you? I want to talk to you alone before I see him. How are things going here for you two?”

  “All right.”

  “Of course you would say that. How about you? Are you holding up okay? You must be going crazy here. Is he letting you work? No, he probably doesn’t think it is safe yet.”

  His words make the loneliness she feels every day tug at her.

  “How is Michael holding up? He seemed a bit … off.”

  Elaine looks down at her one hand in her lap. It has the urge to fidget. The other hand is still holding the ice to her head.

  “What’s wrong?” Jason asks. “I can see it in your eyes. Something is wrong.”

  Uneasy and unsure, she blurts it out, regretting it the moment the words pass her lips.

  “He talks to someone who isn’t there.”

  “He is talking to himself?”

  She doesn’t want to say more, but feels trapped into it.

  “No. He talks to someone else. It started the day we left. I thought I was imagining it at first. He was doing it when he thought I wouldn’t know. He is doing it more and more now.”

  Getting this off her chest lifts a weight off it, but at the same time feels like she is somehow betraying Michael. She almost says the name. Cassie. That is who she thinks he is talking to.

  Jason thinks about this. Talking to himself, okay, I can see that. Talking to someone else, now that’s just crazy. Who would he be talking to? Cassie? It makes sense. He is obsessed with finding her. It led him all over the country searching for her. How many women did he think were her? He is talking to the ghost, the memory of his sister. Probably the child he didn’t look after. A big brother is supposed to look after his little sister.

  This brings the unwanted memory of Sophie flooding into him; his own sister who he too failed to protect.

  Sophie. Where are you right now? How are you? He shakes it off, pushing that memory away.

  If he is going crazy right in front of her, she might just help me stop him. I have to stop him. It’s already too late to protect him, but I can still stop this before he hurts anyone else. Mom. Sophie. Dad. Thinking about his family sends a pang of loss and pain through him. Cassie.

  “I have something to show you.” Jason hands Elaine a folded page from a newspaper.

  She hesitates, not wanting to touch it. She takes it and looks down at it.

  The headline screams out about a missing woman. Her eyes swim and she can’t read the small print below. She stares at the photo of the woman.

  “This is just in the next town. Pretty close to home, wouldn’t you say Katherine?”

  “No.” The word comes out so quietly that it’s almost inaudible.

  “He has a sickness. He can’t help it. He gets into these,” he pauses, “states. A darkness inside him takes over. I think that’s what scares me the most about him. When other men kill, they do it out of anger, for money or power… for pleasure. He just kills.”

  Elaine is shaking her head, shock making everything feel like it is happening far away.

  “Did he tell you about Cassie? No, he didn’t, did he? Do you know who Cassie is? Why he’s so obsessed with finding her? He will never give up his obsession over her.”

  “His sister,” Elaine says quietly.

  “What?”

  She looks up at him, speaking louder. “Cassie is his sister.”

  “Yes. Do you know who I am? Do you have any idea who I am to Michael?”

  “Ryan, he goes by Ryan now.”

  “And you go by Elaine, I know. And before that you went by Michael Ritchot and Katherine Bennett. Before that you were Katherine Kingslow and he was Michael Underwood.

  Before that he was someone else. He went by a lot of names before Michael Underwood. This is so easy for him, to just change identities, who he is, his whole life. It’s not so easy for you though. It is very hard and you are very tired and lonely.

  Before all those aliases, he was David. David McAllister. I’m not his real father. David, Michael, and his sister were very young when I,” Jason pauses, catching himself, “when they came to be left in my care. I raised him and his sister as if they were my own.”

  Elaine’s nerves are jangling a warning at her. Why is he telling me all
this? He killed women. The police, the lawyer, the judge, the news… they all said so. He wouldn’t tell me anything if he plans to let me live. He is here to kill me.

  The knowledge she is already dead gives her a calm she didn’t think she would be capable of. She looks at him steadily in the eyes.

  “Where is Cassie?” she asks.

  “Dead.”

  “He doesn’t believe that. Did you kill her?”

  Jason can’t help but smile.

  “Is that what he told you? If I killed her, then why is he looking for her? Why has he been obsessed for years with finding her?”

  “I-I don’t know.” Elaine glances away uncertainly.

  “Because he killed her. She was his first. Cassie was just little. David was only a boy. I made him dig the grave himself to bury her.”

  “No, that’s not true.”

  “It’s my own fault. I was raising them; I made him into a monster.” He tilts his head, studying her. “I can see the vague resemblance. I can see why he thought you might have been her. After all, she was just a little girl when he killed her. What I can’t figure out is why he kept you.

  I mean, obviously he fell for you. But if he cares for you, he knows he has to let you go.” He shakes his head. “To keep you? That was bold. Dangerous. The darkness will take over again. You don’t want to be here when it does.”

  “He would never hurt me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Elaine can only stare back at him, trying to push away the doubts gnawing at her.

  Ryan won’t hurt me. If he does, I have Trevor.

  The thought shocks her; that she is so quick to move on to thinking of Trevor in the same capacity as she did Ryan before; when he was still Michael; before he started acting strangely.

  “Ask him what he does when he goes away on his trips,” Jason says. “Ask him where he goes.”

  He leans in and she shrinks away. He only touches her head gently where she banged it on the floor.

  “It doesn’t look too bad. Look at me.”

  He stares into her eyes, judging the sizes of her pupils, to see if they are evenly dilated. They haven’t changed.

  “You are going to be just fine.”