The Many and the One

by Donald Wells

  “Sure son,” Adam says. “We’re all going back to the cabin, Frank and Joyce too.”

  Paul is with a uniformed officer; he leaves the man and walks over to Jason.

  “A squad car will escort them home and stay at the house, just in case. Oh, and Jason, I received a call while you were with Lindsay. It’s been confirmed, Derek’s prints were found on the cottage’s doorframe.”

  Jason stares at Paul. “I’ll kill him on sight, and the law be damned.”

  Paul grabs ahold of him and whispers into his ear. “Me too Little Brother, me too,”

  * * *

  3:47 p.m.

  Jason sits in the corridor outside the critical care unit, waiting for Lindsay to awaken. Jennifer has stayed and sits beside him quietly, holding his hand.

  “Would you like something to eat? I’ll go get it.” Jennifer asks.

  Before Jason can answer, they spot Kathy Rollins coming down the hall, looking troubled and agitated. She smiles weakly and motions for Jason to come over to her.

  “Jennifer could you get me a cup of coffee please? I’ll go see what Kathy wants.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

  When Jason walks over to Kathy she blurts out, “I know where you can find Derek.”

  Jason looks at her intently. “How do you know?”

  “He’s, he’s blackmailing me, trying to anyway.”

  “Where is he?”

  “If I tell you, what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to kill him.” Jason says.

  “He’ll be at his house at four o’clock, he’s expecting me.”

  Jason simply turns and walks away.

  Kathy stands in the hallway wringing her hands, and watches as Jason goes off to face a desperate armed man with nothing to lose. In a tiny voice she says. “Good luck,”

  * * *

  When Jennifer returns with the coffee she finds Paul sitting in the waiting area, he’s glaring at his police radio with a look of frustration.

  “Hi Uncle Paul, where’s daddy?”

  “When I arrived, the nurse said Jason had just left.”

  “That’s odd, Kathy Rollins was here talking to daddy, she really looked upset too.”

  “Kathy was here and Bob’s nowhere to be found, hmm… maybe there’s a connection.”

  “Do you think it could have anything to do with my father?”

  “Yes, and going after your father is also the only thing that would make Jason leave Lindsay’s side. Does Derek have any special places you know about?”

  Jennifer thinks for a moment. “Father would go home, possibly to the greenhouse.”

  “There was no sign of him there earlier but…” Paul starts running down the hall.

  Jennifer calls after him. “Uncle Paul be careful, and please keep Jason safe.”

  Paul disappears around a corner and Jennifer says a prayer.

  * * *

  3:58 p.m.

  Derek cannot believe the condition of his home.

  Goddamn it, who the hell would do this? It looks like they took an ax to the couch.

  Derek stands in the office, holding his gun. He glares down at the ruined leather couch, and memories come flooding back of the many times Charlotte called him to it, called him over to perform like a trained seal.

  He whispers to himself. “God how I hate that bitch,”

  Noises come from somewhere within the house.

  Kathy? About damn time,

  Derek walks into the hall and looks around. Dusk has already begun to spread on this gray winter day and the unlit house holds many shadows.

  Then, one of those shadows rockets toward him, as an oak table leg slams into his chest. He’s stunned briefly, but holds onto the gun. However, before he can react, he loses his balance as a second table leg smashes into the side of his left knee. “Ahhgg, what the fuck?”

  He falls awkwardly, landing with a hard thud onto his backside. His right elbow smacks the marble floor and the gun goes off. He’s blinded as plaster dust rains down from the wounded ceiling.

  At the sound of swiftly approaching feet, Derek fires two frantic shots and is rewarded by the hiss of someone wincing in pain, as one of the bullets finds a target. His delight however is short-lived, as he’s violently yanked off the floor by his hair and punched in the face.

  Before he can react, an uppercut to the jaw sends him tumbling back into the office. This time the gun is dropped, and goes skittering across the floor.

  A dozen different aches and pains vie for his attention, but the adrenalin rushing through his system cuts off their petitions. As he clears his eyes of the plaster dust, Derek’s awareness is wholly focused on the office doorway, where Jason, shot and bleeding, walks in and advances.

  Jason was struck high in the left side of his chest by one of Derek’s wild shots. The pain is minimal, but he can feel a steady trickle of blood leaking its way down his body. Jason glares at the man on the floor and feels nothing but loathing. This is the man who once raped his wife, the man who repeatedly abused his beloved Jennifer and the man responsible for the death of his sweet little Simona. This is the man who came to his home and nearly shot Lindsay to death.

  “Lindsay’s going to die Jason!” Derek jeers. “I hope you’re really suffering you son of a bitch. You took her away from me and now I’ve taken her from you.”

  On his way to this house Jason prayed for the Death fugue that enveloped him years ago to return, but it had not come back.

  Can I kill if I’m in my right mind? He had wondered. He need not have concerned himself. In his right hand, Jason clutches a table leg he reclaimed from the hallway floor, after hurling it at Derek. Hatred for the thing before him boils over and he screams as he raises his arm to strike.

  “Drop it Reynolds!” Shouts a strange voice from behind,

  Jason halts his swing and lets his arm fall to his side. He turns to find Bob Rollins standing in the threshold with his gun drawn, the Glock 18 looks alien in the day’s fading light.

  “Bob I can’t let him live. He tried to kill Lindsay. Prison’s not the answer. What if he escapes again? What if he escapes and comes after my family again?”

  Rollins raises the gun a little higher. “Drop it and back away.”

  Jason lets out a yell of frustration and flings the table leg across the room.

  Derek snickers as he gets off the floor. He collapses onto the right side of the wrecked couch and raises his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “I’m all yours Chief.”

  Rollins shoves Jason aside and takes aim at Derek. “Yes, you’re mine.”

  Derek looks up at Rollins, up into flat, blank eyes of death and knows his life is over. He squeezes his own eyes shut and whispers one final word in the last instant of his life.

  “Mommy…”

  Rollins fires and seventeen 9-mm bullets rip into Derek, turning him into a package of broken bloody meat.

  At the squeeze of the trigger, Jason recoils in horror at the antediluvian look of satisfaction displayed on Rollins’ face.

  Acrid smoke fills the air, even as the ringing of the shots dissipates. The Chief lowers his weapon and looks down at the body of Derek Stern in a state of puzzlement. He then turns, and upon seeing Jason, gives him a quizzical look.

  “You don’t know what just happened, do you Bob?”

  Rollins stares at Derek in wonder.

  “It’s not clear—but I killed him, didn’t I?”

  Jason glares down at the corpse. “Yes, and thank God you did, it needed doing.”

  Derek’s bleached head seemingly floats atop the shadowy form of his body in the gloaming of the room. From outside comes the sound of approaching sirens. Jason begins searching the floor of the office frantically.

  I have to find it.

  He finds what he’s looking for by the windows, as outside, car doors open and close and red and blue lights flicker through the twilight.

  As Jason reaches down to pick up Derek’s
gun, he feels his head swim and a squishing sound comes from his waistband where the blood from his wound has begun to pool.

  Jason makes his way back to the couch and drops the gun near Derek’s feet. He then grabs Derek’s dead right hand, the still warm flesh sending a chill down his spine.

  Jason looks at Rollins; the Chief still holds his gun at his side. He takes Rollins by the wrist and finds him nearly as limp as Derek, he then clamps Derek’s dead hand over Rollins’ gun. The Chief is still in shock and makes no move or protest.

  As Jason releases Derek’s hand, there comes the sound of footsteps. Jason turns to see Paul entering the room with gun drawn and flashlight beaming.

  “Jason, Bob, are you two all right?” It’s then that he sees Derek. “Sweet Jesus!”

  Uniformed officers start filing into the room and soon Derek’s corpse is awash in the glow of numerous flashlights.

  “Now that is dead.” Says one of the cops,

  “Paul, Derek shot me and was about to shoot me again when Bob came in. I managed to knock Derek’s gun out of his hand, but then he grabbed Bob’s gun, they struggled and the gun went off. Bob saved my life.”

  “Jason, you’re shot?” Paul turns to an officer; the man has a ruddy complexion and is built like a linebacker. “Williams, call the paramedics!”

  “I’m already on it.” Williams says, with his hand on his radio,

  Paul turns back to Rollins. Rollins is still in shock and just keeps staring at Derek. Paul reaches over and takes his gun cautiously, in a two fingered grip, he examines the weapon carefully.

  “The selector switch is set on full automatic.” Paul tells Rollins, the Chief says nothing. Paul looks to Jason. “Derek must have changed the setting when he grabbed for the gun. Jason… that means we’ll find his prints on it?”

  Jason nods yes and Paul sighs with relief.

  Rollins then turns and walks out of the room with Paul and Jason following, behind them, the uniformed officers chatter rapidly into their radios.

  50

  Ocean Beach Island Chief of Police, Robert C. Rollins, was deemed to have used correct and necessary force in the shooting death of former Senator, Derek Stern.

  A week later, he resigned from office, and he, wife Kathy, and daughter Emma left town for an extended vacation.

  Deputy Chief of Police Paul Martinez is named acting Chief in his place.

  Derek Stern, a man who had been physically intimate with 5,998 women during his lifetime, was buried in a service attended by no one.

  Jason was hospitalized for his bullet wound and released.

  They need not have bothered. Except for the time spent unconscious in surgery and recovery, Jason had not left Lindsay’s side at the hospital in over a week.

  * * *

  Dr. Patel enters Lindsay’s private room and sighs. “I’m sorry Mr. Reynolds, most of the tests show no change in your wife’s condition, however, the CT scan was encouraging.”

  “Doctor I want Lindsay to come home.”

  Patel gasps. “Sir, your wife requires around the clock medical care.”

  “Tell me what it will take and I’ll do it, but I want my wife home.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later, Lindsay returns home.

  The cottage has been transformed into a hospital room, and staffed with twenty-four hour a day nursing care.

  Jason sits by Lindsay’s bed every day and reads to her from her books. He says hearing her own thoughts and words might awaken her more quickly.

  Jennifer thinks it helps Jason to hear Lindsay’s thoughts and words.

  He leaves Lindsay every night just long enough to go to the house and shower, shave and change into fresh clothes. He then returns to his vigil for another twenty-three and a half hours.

  Paul and Simone come over daily and sit with Jason. Simone, on more than one occasion gently tells Jason that his vigil is excessive and unnecessary. The trained nurses can phone him when there’s a change in Lindsay’s condition. Jason would have none of it and stays at her side.

  Jennifer has left college to stay home and run the house. After making breakfast and doing the dishes, she takes Matt to school and returns home to start her other chores.

  She’s been the family’s main food shopper and cook for years, but now she’s also become the bill payer and record keeper. Between herself, Lindsay and Jason, there are three enterprises to keep records for. The medical costs are staggering, as well as the logistics of keeping a full-time nursing staff going, and Jason is for all intents and purposes as ready to work as Lindsay.

  The days are long, and the nights even longer.

  Soon the women begin showing up. Marcy is the first. Marcy comes by often with flowers and words of encouragement. Somewhere in her conversations with Jason she’ll mention a movie or a play or some event that the two of them could go see together. Sort of as a break for Jason, a way to recharge himself, so that when Lindsay regains consciousness he won’t be rundown and weary.

  “Your life must go on.”

  “It’s what Lindsay would want you to do.”

  “She wouldn’t want you to be lonely.”

  “Lindsay would want you to be happy.”

  Jennifer eyes Marcy warily. I bet she wouldn’t mind being the second Mrs. Reynolds someday, God forbid of course.

  The worst of the women are little more than gold diggers looking for a victim. Jason seems the type not to go long without a wife, and it’s always best to get in the running early.

  Jennifer feels that few people understand the depth of pain Jason is suffering through. His entire life has shrunk down to waiting for two eyelids to open in a room that now resembles a hospital ward, rather than the sanctum where he and Lindsay once came to meet their respective muse.

  Dr. Patel had said that any coma longer than ten weeks was grave. The longer the coma, the greater the chance that the patient would never return, and an even greater risk of brain damage was possible for those that did regain consciousness.

  By early April, Lindsay has been comatose for nearly a hundred days, far in excess of the dreaded ten-week mark.

  It is then that Jason stops his nightly visits to shave and shower. He now would not leave Lindsay’s side unless nature called and eats only when prodded. He’s entering his own form of coma. His beloved wife lies within his reach, and yet, she is gone.

  Derek’s shot not only penetrated Lindsay’s brain; it was now also rupturing Jason’s heart. Jason would not say it, most likely would not even allow himself to think it, but somewhere inside, where his greatest fear and horror dwelled, a part of him now believed that Lindsay had gone away and was never coming back.

  With May looming, Jason, now bearded from lack of shaving, and avoided from lack of bathing, seems to be willing himself to vegetate along with his wife. If she is not coming back, he is not staying.

  The grief and despair in his eyes is more than Jennifer can stand.

  Something has to be done. His pain cannot continue.

  * * *

  Jennifer bathes in scented bath oil and manicures her nails. While seated at the vanity in her room, she applies just enough make-up to enhance her already remarkable beauty.

  After placing daubs of perfume on her neck, she gazes at herself naked in a full-length mirror. What looks back is arguably the most beautiful woman on the Island. At twenty years of age, her body is a tempting perfection of womanhood.

  Other than the sexual abuse at the hands of her father, she has been with no one. She was planning on making love to Paul Jr., Paul who’s patiently waited years for her to trust enough. He loves her so much, Paul does. But Paul will have to wait, and Paul will not be her first.

  Jennifer twists her hair into a bun; afterwards, she cinches a white terrycloth robe on her naked body as she steps into her slippers.

  She goes down the hall and checks on Matt.

  Sound asleep, good.

  In Jason and Lindsay’s bedroom, she opens the drapes to a breathtakin
g view of the full moon suspended over a calm Atlantic Sea.

  She enters the bathroom and opens a fresh bar of soap, and then places a razor on the sink, along with a can of shaving cream.

  In Jason’s chest of drawers she finds a pair of his boxer shorts, and returning to the bathroom, she hangs them on the back of the door.

  Once the bathtub is filled, she takes a moment to prepare herself and then goes down the stairs, out the door, and into the cottage.

  * * *

  Jason sits at his accustomed spot to the left of Lindsay’s bed, in a trance of despair. Jennifer informs the nurse on duty that Mr. Reynolds will be leaving for a time. If there is any change whatsoever in Lindsay’s condition, immediately phone the house.

  Jennifer’s words penetrate Jason’s fog and he raises his head.

  “I’m not leaving Lindsay.”

  Jennifer goes to him. “If you love me, you will come with me now.”

  Jason looks up unblinkingly at her for many seconds, he then rises from his seat, and an odor rises with him. He gazes down at the still, so still form of his comatose wife and brushes back her uncharacteristically short hair, hair grown back since her operation. He follows Jennifer, who is already at the door, and shuffles out into the night like the walking dead.

  Jennifer leads him by the hand into the cabin and up the stairs to his bedroom, and then guides him to follow her into the bathroom. As Jason enters, he sees the tub of hot, sudsy water and gives Jennifer a slight smile.

  Jennifer unbuttons Jason’s three-week old shirt, as he stands there like a zombie. Once the shirt is removed, she drops it into the hamper and unbuckles Jason’s belt. He awakens some from his strange, semi-vegetative state and brushes Jennifer’s hands aside.

  “I can undress myself.” He mutters, and Jennifer leans in the doorway, with her back turned, while Jason disrobes.

  After hearing him climb into the tub, Jennifer walks back into the room and takes off her slippers. She then gets on her knees and takes the shaving cream and razor from the sink and shaves Jason.

  Once shaved, she takes the soap and the washcloth and bathes him. She’s vigorously cleaning his upper body, when at a point on his chest, he suddenly intakes air and grimaces in pain.