T.R. Lansing (darkertides) wrote in horror_story, @ 2013-05-06 12:16:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | complete, cycle002, gilman, rob |
Who: Rob and Gilman
When: January 15th, daytime
Where: Regency Meadows Apartment Complex, unit 249
What: Rob needs to clean out an apartment. There's someone in it. Hijinks!
Warning: Gilman is sawing up a corpse in the bathroom, then (SPOILER) in a twist ending, he becomes a corpse in the bathroom.
Although she had very clearly lost her mind over the clock, his mother had been right about the apartment. Rob could admit to that much. Clearing it out was long overdue. He wasn't using it anymore, and after what had happened with Eden, he didn't foresee having any desire to use it again. Women were terrifying, fragile creatures, and Rob was very seriously considering a vow of celibacy. Work would serve as a suitable distraction to the bubbling cesspool of guilt and panic that was swelling up in his gut. He could bury himself in work. The world had never made perfect sense to Rob. He'd been able to bury his head in the sand and ignore his father's passing. His brother and sister leaving.
Cassandra's disappearance.
Susie's murder. Ma... no, Sullivan St. Claire's.
Why couldn't he swallow his own wrongdoings, as well? What was one more name to scrub from the records? There was no reason to dwell on Eden Williams. He needn't bother recalling the heat of her body, the arc of her spine, the way she'd clawed at his hands as they clutched her throat. She'd attacked him. It had been self-defense, really. It was just that nobody would believe that, so the mess had been swept away. Or, rather, blown to bits. Nobody would be finding Eden Williams. Nobody would connect him to her.
That was cold comfort, however, given that he had actually killed her. He deserved to be connected to that one, but Sheriff Avery hadn't even called to ask about the case. Eden Williams had a family, people who cared for her... just as much as Susie had. She must have been reported missing by now... but that file was likely buried under a mound of similar papers, carefully nested in a bunker built of dead children.
Surely, his mother hadn't had a hand in those. The insanity of Dr. Devers... the Parry boy... Christine would have no motive in either of those cases. She hadn't mentioned them in her long diatribe about the clock. The town's connections. She'd have no reason to disappear Jenny Parry, but Jenny Parry had disappeared, as had the Palmer girl. More than just Christine York was at work in Crows Landing...
At least, he hoped so. God, he desperately hoped so. Not just out of fear of the implications, if Christine had slipped entirely down the path of madness, or because of the threat posed not only to the denizens of Crows Landing, but himself. No, Rob hoped so largely because he really, deeply needed someone else to blame. A faceless madman who could bear the weight of all these deaths. Someone unconnected in any way to him, to his family. Someone who could hang for his sins, as well as his mother's.
For all that his thoughts had turned towards madmen, Rob did not expect to find one in his apartment. Not that it was his apartment, but given that Handsel had died years before, it wasn't going to be contested. Putting that aside, it was his complex, and he was sure as hell that nobody else had a key to the damn place. So needless to say, he was perturbed by the state of it when he unlocked and opened the front door. He'd expected dust, some dead houseplants, perhaps. He hadn't watered them in some time, and had no idea how long plants could survive without water. What he found was dried brown mud pooled like rot and rust stains on his hardwood. How had this desecration occurred?
Rob checked the lock, but there was no sign of forced entry. No broken glass from a shattered window. Nothing to indicate invaders... except for the state of the floor, and the pervasive smell of the place, like meat that had been left to spoil. A compost smell.
An impossible smell, given that he had never brought food into the place. Only beverages. The occasional bottle of champagne for Susanna's benefit.
A sound from the bathroom. Unfamiliar. Unsettling. For some bizarre reason, Rob thought to himself raccoon, but he shook the thought away. Animals were no more likely to break into the place than people. He shut the door behind himself, locked it again on impulse, and took soft, quiet steps to the bathroom to see who it was who'd invaded his space.