Disclaimers: Please see chapter 1
The union of the Word and the Mind
produces that mystery which is called Life...
Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery,
for therein lies the secret of immortality.
********The Divine Pymander********
PERSONAL ASSISTANT
Chapter 40: That’s all there is, there ain’t no more…for now anyway…
Thwap…thwap…thwap…thwap…slowly the helicopter made its turn above the helipad at the coastal hospital, glimpses of the emergency staff bustling below in the downdraft from the craft’s blades. The medical staff on board worked swiftly preparing their patients for transfer and eventual surgery. One with a bullet wound to her right thigh, the other more desperate…a shattered leg, broken ribs, collapsed lung and a possible skull fracture. Miles behind them a crew of law enforcement officials, combined with the efforts of the Coastguard were searching the waters below the cliffs for any sign of Gregory.
For the two women, all was darkness. No pain, no emotion, no…nothing. Their friend Laura called it better living through modern chemistry. Several weeks passed, and all of this would be the fodder for incredibly bad nightmares, but those too would soon lessen. Eventually, they would settle back into their routine, one as a world famous actress, the other her Personal Assistant and lover.
Nine months to the day following their last encounter with Gregory, Jessie and Kate were driving north to Jessie’s home. They hadn’t been back there since a month or two following their release from the hospital. Kate was looking forward to visiting with April and Laura, and Jessie was looking forward to some private downtime for the two of them. It seemed to her that life had been nothing short of a deadly hurricane almost since the day they had met, and she for one would be happy to just leave it all behind.
The show had wrapped, and there had been rumors of canceling it, rather than pushing on for another season. Jessie was almost relieved. She would miss the show, and more importantly, her friends and now family that she has worked side by side with from the beginning. There would be more shows, and more family, but for Jessie, these moments would stay with her for the rest of her life.
Another grand achievement on this very same day was a graduation of sorts. Star, Gregory’s right hand slave, and sometime unknowing accomplice was to be released from rehab. She had been given probation, along with release into a work furlough program, with supervised counseling and support. Her first assignment would be at the hospital where Jessie’s mother still resided, for all intents and purposes never to recover from her long, deep and yet unexplained sleep. There had been no new encounters or breakthroughs from the spirit world, and for the most part that whole strange occurrence had been mostly forgotten.
There was only one small detail that haunted them during their collective recovery periods. Gregory’s remains had never been found. It was assumed by the law enforcement officials that the tide had washed his body out to deeper ocean, and he was “sleeping with the fishes” as it were. On the other side of the continent, a piggish little man with horror in his soul, and acid in his veins knew otherwise. His little Greggie, battered, bashed and quite insane was sitting in the passenger seat next to him while he breezed down the highway, whistling along with an old fifties tune playing on the radio of his RV. It seems that Baby Doll hadn’t quite abandoned his protégé. Where the Law Enforcement officials had failed, Baby Doll had succeeded.
Plucking Gregory from the surf a beach or two down the coast had been only mildly difficult. Using his vast knowledge of the human body, he managed to revive him, only slightly brain damaged from his time spent in near-drowning stasis, and nursed him back to something resembling health. The two of them had cut a swath of death across the United States. Never the same methods, nothing to identify their acts as those of a serial killer or two.
Ultimately their goal was one and the same…to work their way back to the West Coast…to finish some incomplete business, or tie up some loose ends as it were.
The End…or is it?