Virtual American Gothic - Third Season 
Episode Eleven

Ransom

By Queribus

NOT TO BE ARCHIVED TO A WEB PAGE WITHOUT 
THE AUTHOR'S PRIOR CONSENT.

Special Guest Stars:
Tony Todd as Lieutenant Harker

**********************************************
PART 1

Dark adhesive shadows were everywhere. The boy fought against them but 
only snatches of images made it through. The darkness stuck like glue 
creeping through everything until it lay over him like a smothering 
pillow. Then there was an explosion. And blood.

Caleb sat up in bed gasping for air. Sweat pouring off of him The window 
was open a crack for air. Large enough for something dark and ugly to 
slide in. The boy stumbled out of bed, pulled down the sash and locked 
it. Rubbed his eyes. Still not really awake. A quick glance around the 
room. Too many pictures, too many eyes, and too many shadows. 

"I ain't goin back in that dream."

Too old to turn the pictures around any more, Caleb leaned against his 
door to make sure it was shut tight and pushed in the knob lock. Nothin 
more to do. Oh yeah, there was. He got a bungie cord from his closet and 
hooked one end on the knob and the other on the bedside lamp. Least he'd 
hear them if they were comin.

Sat on the edge of his bed and looked at the lamp. Turned it on the 
lowest setting.

"Now Rose'll tell everybody I'm a baby with a nightlight."

You can't dream with the lights on, he thought, flinging himself in a 
little heap on the bed covers. Curling up in a tight ball on the bed, 
peeking out of the corner of his eyes at the shadows that crowded closer. 
Sleep pressed down on him hard. Too hard. Gail the cat snuggled in to the 
curve of his back, her purrs relaxing him. Caleb's eyes closed-- just for 
a second. His breathing deepened. The lightbulb by the bed shorted out.

In that half awake half asleep place, Caleb felt Gail's furry body move 
away. he reached out an arm to pull her back. And felt a hand.

"Momma?"

An iron grip closed around him.He felt like he was falling. Into deep 
darkness.

"You're not my momma!"

Gail the cat moaned that half-growl half-cry that denotes terror in cats. 
Huddled in the twisted bedclothes on the empty bed. In the darkness that 
just precedes dawn.

****
Lucas was running his fingers through Judith Temple's hair. No nagging, 
no moral superiority. It was perfect. Well, of course. It was his dream. 
Whether she said yes or fought like a . . . demon, really didn't matter 
as long as he could stay asleep for the best part.

"Lucas, I have to know something. ."

Why did women always want to talk? Lucas kissed her soundly, that should 
shut anybody up, a good kiss for a dream, almost palpable. Her lips were 
still moving. Damn it, where did he put that mute button. Hair like 
sunlight, skin like butter, a gorgeous silent movie. He went back to 
work. It was his dream.

"Lucas!"

"Damn it, Judith, shut up and do as you're told. You might like it."

"This isn't a dream, Lucas!" 

Her white arms and shoulders were firm and warm under his touch, her blue 
eyes shining spotlights into him, reaching into his soul in that painful 
way, her hands grabbing him, shaking him.

"Caleb's gone!"

He could even smell her, like a summer day. . . . "What?"

"Caleb is gone! He's been taken!"

Buck sat up in bed, the light from Judith's appearance slowly fading. The 
taste of her mouth on his lips. He staggered up and pulled the curtains 
aside, standing naked in the feeble dawn light. Ringless as he was, he 
could feel the void. His child was gone as if he had never been born.

****

Merlyn checked the window and the bed and the locked door for the third 
time. She let her darkness slip between the cracks of the walls like 
claws. She could feel the traces of surprise and fear but nothing else. 
Her beloved brother was not there.

A chill rushed over her. Cold hatred and anger darker than any night. The 
door knob turned and then a shoulder pushed through the catch and 
crumpled the metal. The lamp crashed off the stand and Buck stood in the 
doorway. His eyes swept over the empty bed and room. They returned to 
her, a darker shadow in the center of this barren place.

"Did you take him?" He growled.

"No."

"Do you know who did? Where he is?"

"No, the windows are locked. So was the door before you busted it in."

"Worthless bitch!"

Buck swept out of the room and down the hall to the master bedroom. He 
flung the door open to see Loris and Matt cuddled together under an 
eiderdown.

"Where's my son!!??"

Matt popped up, his eyes glazed with sleep. "What. . .what are you doing 
in my bedroom? Get out of my house, Buck!"

"It's not your house, my son owns it. You got a problem with invasion of 
privacy, call the Sheriff."

Buck opened the closet and rummaged through it. Pulled back the 
bedclothes. Nothing but four skinny legs under the comforter.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for Caleb? What have you done with him?" 

Loris pulled herself together, draped a bathrobe over her shoulders and 
got up,  "He's in his bed, Sheriff, not ours." She wandered down the hall 
to check.

"If you two could stop playing house long enough you'd know--  he's 
gone!!"

Matt rubbed his eyes and barely kept himself from punching his intruder. 
"Caleb gets up early all the time."

"He break out of a locked room all the time? I haven't taught him that 
one yet."

Loris dashed out of the tower room, a stark look on her face. 
"Something's terribly wrong," she said to her husband as she headed down 
the hall to  the phone.

Matt was unconvinced as he checked out Caleb's tower room. The bed was 
smoothly made, there was no mess at all except for the broken lamp. He 
picked up the pieces of glass.

"I did that, Inspector Clouseau!" Buck muttered. "He rigged the door as 
well as locked it. Something scared him. Was it you?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Long fingers probed beneath the pillows and 
bedcovers. There was a piece of paper. Matt read it uncomprehending.

"GIVE UP TRINITY! OR CALEB WILL DIE!"

It couldn't be real. It sounded like a child's joke.

Buck snatched the paper out of Crower's hands. "What the hell is this? 
Deliver Dorothy!?"

"You should know, Sheriff," Matt flicked Buck's ominous black coat, " 
Better send out those flying monkeys."

"Those monkey's are going to be comin out of your b. . ."

"Will you two stop it!" Loris broke in. Buck looked at her in 
astonishment. "This is not about you. Either of you. The note says Caleb 
will die. And I believe it."

Matt sat down on Caleb's bed shaken, his head in his hands.

"I can read, Loris." Buck's voice was too deep and too calm. 

Downstairs a door banged open. "Is that him?" The Sheriff's eyes snapped 
to the door. Not waiting for an answer, Lucas ran to the stairs calling, 
"Caleb, Caleb, son, I'm up here. You come on up here, son. You'll be all 
right." Forcing his face into what looked like a smile.

It's just me, Sheriff." Ben leaned on the banister at the bottom of the 
stairs.

"I called your office first thing, Lucas." Loris said, laying her hand in 
sympathy on Buck's arm. He was trembling under that heavy black overcoat. 
Lucas snatched his arm away.

"Get up here, Ben. We got a major felony to investigate."

"I brought everybody on duty, Loris said it was urgent."

 "Caleb Temple has gone missing." Ben watched his boss deliver his speech 
in a cool passionless monotone.  "I want this house searched from top to 
bottom. Tear out the walls if you have to. I'm not kidding, Ben. Somebody 
got through a locked room to snatch the boy. You search every inch, see 
if these "good people" got his body hid anywhere."

Rose peeked out of the bathroom horrified. She sniffed the wallpaper for 
gore.

"This is a waste of time, Sheriff." Matt argued. "You know we couldn't 
hurt Caleb."

"Well," Floyd started to emote. "Technically, whenever a child is 
kidnapped, you suspect the parents first."

Buck exploded. "They are NOT his parents! These people are nothing more 
than a commercial arrangement providing room and board for that child, 
and that's all it ever was. I am his parent. Hell, I'm his Father!" Buck 
hit the banister hard enough to jolt a few posts out of their fittings as 
he stalked down the stairs.

Floyd scrunched his eyes real tight so he couldn't see the sky fall in. 
The Sheriff's admission ringing in his ears.

"Yeah, Floyd, so if you're looking for prime suspects. . ." Matt said, 
nodding to the man below stairs.

Buck slammed the front door on his way out.

"My God, what happened," Miz Russell called up from the kitchen.

"Sheriff Buck dismembered Caleb Temple and hid the bloody parts in the 
walls." Rose shouted down to her mamma.

****

Caleb was lying, floating in a formless place. 

"Am I dead?"

No answer.

"I've been dead before, and it didn't look like this."

"Shut up, little boy." A voice neither male nor female, neither human nor 
beast answered him. 

"I don't think I'm dead. Momma! Daddy!" he called out, looking for 
someone to break through this nothingness. He reached out his hand but 
nobody took it.

"Your mother can't help you, and your father doesn't care."

"You're a liar as well as a thief." 

***

"I wrote everything down, room to room and step by step, Lucas."

"I can't believe you couldn't find a Goddamn thing."Buck walked the 
length of his office counter, paced it to and fro like a locked cage. 
"Call in the State Police, at least they are professionals who know what 
they're doing."

"Even professionals got to have something to work with. We couldn't find 
anything that'd ever belonged to Caleb-- no clothes, no books, not even 
fingerprints. Not a even an old sock to use with the Bloodhounds."

"I am not turning the dogs out to hunt my own son down."

Well, times have changed, Ben thought. 

"Doctor Crower can't find his birth certificate or any of his medical 
records either." Ben shook his head. "It's like he never existed, Lucas." 

The look on Buck's face made him turn away. 

"I'm not responsible for the incompetencies of the hospital filing 
system. This is the number for the State Police."

"I know, Lucas, I know the number."

"Call them and tell them we want road blocks out of town. In every 
direction. I want a profiler down here from the FBI to go over that damn 
ransom note. I want the Media on this like white on rice. And dammit 
where the Hell is Danielle? If she don't do her job, she ain't keeping 
her job." 

Buck grabbed the notebook out of Ben's hands and flipped through the 
pages with unseeing eyes. His words coming crisp as a machine out of 
tight razor thin lips. "Don't you ever say that child never existed." 

"I never would." Ben glanced at the Sheriff's black as sin eyes. For once 
frightened of something more than the man standing in front of him.

"Channel Four can run a special service announcement every hour on the 
hour till we find him." Buck said. "And I want every man on the job. I 
will tear this town apart brick by brick if necessary."

Ben was getting a busy signal from the Capital. "What are we gonna give 
the reporters, Lucas, I can't find a picture of Caleb anywhere. You have 
one, don't you?" 

Buck thought back to his special book of photographs. He had one for 
every milestone in Caleb's life, but his boy's face wasn't in any of 
them. "No, no photographs."

"What about your granny?"

"I don't know."

"It's like he fell off the face of the earth, Lucas."

Buck held the useless report in his hands until it started to tear. 
"Don't tell me that!"

Ben tried to rescue the shredded papers and found his own hand caught in 
Buck's relentless grip. "I understand, Lucas. I have a son, too."

Buck looked at his deputy as if he was speaking Martian. He let his 
fingers relax and turned away, eyes blank, empty, for a moment they 
closed, tucked the fear away. Back in the dead calm shell. "You don't 
understand."

"Whatever you say." Ben responded soothingly, " We will find him. 
Somehow."

The front door opened and both men whirled around, hoping.

"I just heard about Caleb." Victoria Madison stood in the doorway like a 
slim figure of justice.  "Is there anything I can do to help?" 

Buck glared at her. She felt her legs weaken and buckle under the force 
of his anger, but she didn't back down.

" I didn't know he was your son, Lucas.. . ."

"Right now, we need some pictures of the boy to go on the news and maybe 
give to the State Troopers in case he's been taken out of town." Ben 
wasn't sure he was even being heard. 

Buck and the teacher's eyes had locked like a mutual life-and-deathline. 
Mixing fury and desire together like oil and water and setting fire to 
the blend. Ms Madison handed a packet of snapshots to Ben as she inched 
towards the Sheriff, her slender body white as the newly dead.

"I have these from the school paper and year book. They're not too clear, 
but they're all I could find." Buck watched her intensely as she 
approached him. "I only want to change the past between us, Lucas. Wipe 
it clean." The chill in her pale eyes melted, like dew on a lily. "I'll 
do anything."

"Yes, you will. I need you right now." Buck said, pulling her into his 
office.

"I'm here."

Ben looked through the snapshots, they were all blurry or distance shots. 
Your typical last-known-photograph that could be any 12 year old with a 
buzz cut. 

Buck's office door closed and the click of the lock was audible. So much 
for the brick by brick search of Trinity.

***

Selena stared into her mirror images until her eyes were watering from 
the strain. Every corner led into darkness and more darkness. Except for 
Victoria Madison on the Sheriff's desk with her skirt around her waist. 

"I don't think you're going to find Caleb in there, Lucas."

One more corner to look around and there was Lucilla Buck staring back at 
her.

"There's nothing down this road." Mamma Lucy grimaced. "We need to join 
forces, girl."

***

The Thing that had taken him was right. It was way too dark here, too. . 
. wrong, for his momma to get through. But that didn't mean she couldn't 
still help. He remembered her telling him to use every part of himself. 

"Including my daddy. . ." Caleb murmured. It wasn't too dark here for a 
Buck. 

"Your daddy's given you up for dead, he's busy making himself another 
son. Look close."

Caleb saw his father lean over Vicki in that dim light of the Sheriff's 
office. The boy pushed his own feelings back, ignoring his father's 
activities, looking for something he could focus in on, something to 
visualize. On the desk right next to Victoria Madison's beautifully pale, 
clenched fingers, was the star she had given him for spelling. He focused 
everything he had on that.

***
Lucas was kissing Caleb's schoolteacher hard, grinding her right into the 
walnut wood grain, when his hand ran against something sharp. He looked 
at his son's star. Picked it up and fingered the cheap metal.

"He's trying to get through."

Victoria's hand ran down Lucas's bare chest. "I'm sure he is, dear. We 
have to believe that."

"Yeah." Buck said distracted. He stood up and adjusted his clothing. "And 
I got an idea how to clear up the lines of communication." He walked out 
of the office leaving Miss Vicki half naked and more than a little 
ruffled.

***

Selena tore around the back roads like a speed demon on her way to Mamma 
Lucy's lair in Golgotha. The old woman was waiting for her on the porch.

"I wasn't sure you'd still be interested in the boy." Lucilla said in 
greeting.

"Caleb's always been special to me.We take care of each other."

"Your priorities have changed a bit though." Lucas's granny eyed Selena's 
belly.

"What do you want from me, Lucilla?"

"Just your blood, Selena Coombs," the glint in Lucy's drooping eye was 
obscenely hungry, "Just your black Buck blood."

"Oh, is that all?"

****

"No," Ben was explaining carefully for the umpteenth time, "his name is 
Caleb Temple, and he lived with the Crower's, but he's really Sheriff 
Buck's son. I know it's kinda confusing. But, you see, the thing is he's 
been kidnapped!" The State Troopers were being more than usually obtuse 
but then Buck had never gone out of his way to win friends and influence 
people in that department. "No, we haven't searched the Sheriff's house. 
Yet." 

Or ever, Ben thought, who didn't even want to begin to imagine what he'd 
find in Buck's hidey-holes. Lord knows there were strange enough stuff in 
Loris's attic.

"Yes, I know the parents are always the primary suspects---listen, we are 
talking about Lucas Buck here! Fulton County?--are you new at this job? 
Can I talk to your supervisor?"

"Hang up, Benji." Buck interrupted.

"Lucas, I finally got the State police on the line."

"I said, hang up." The Sheriff slammed his hand down on the hook, 
disconnecting the call.

"I thought you wanted road blocks set up?"

"I don't think Caleb's on that kind of road." Buck narrowed his eyes and 
bent so far over Ben, his deputy was lying on his back just to look his 
boss in the eye. "I don't know if you use the phone or a ouija board, but 
I need you to get ahold of that little tramp of yours, fast."

"I have no idea who you're talking about." Ben said, nervously.

"Black hair, black eyes, black dress, black heart, your 16 year old. . . 
dead. . . girl friend. Remember her?"

"Merly?"

" Get her here, or I'll write you a one way ticket to her personal slab."

"What do you want, Lucas?" Merly materialised in front of Miss Madison. 
Vicki was departing Buck's office as immaculately as she had entered it. 
Merly's shadowy body didn't even feel the schoolteacher walk through her. 

"Do you want me to call you if I find out anything about Caleb? He might 
call me." Victoria asked.

"I doubt that." Buck said dismissively, ignoring the distress on Ms 
Madison's face as she left.

"Inside!" Buck nodded to Caleb's sister. She bowed and let him precede 
her into his office. 

"Maybe I should go with you?" Ben whispered.

Merly just smiled and shook her head.

****

Lucilla hung an iron pot on the hook over the firepit behind her house. 
The blaze beneath was crackling.

"We got to do this out under the open sky so's there won't be anything 
between us and him, no walls, no wards, no nothing. Where It's got him, 
gonna be hard enough to get through."

"Should we take our clothes off too?" Selena smiled.

"I don't want to scare him to death." Lucilla pulled on a cord hanging 
around her waist. The blade was shiny sharp.

"A Swiss Army Knife?" Selena wondered.

"What'd you expect, some relic from Stonehenge? I want something with a 
decent edge on it."

She took the blade and, with one swipe, cut deep into her palm. The blood 
as she squeezed it into the pot sizzled on the hot metal. "Right hand, 
cause I'm the doer, here. We'll use your left. You're the seer and, then, 
that baby makes you even more done to than doing." Selena nodded. She 
knew the drill. "You scared?"

"Just that it won't work."

"We're giving bits of our life to Caleb, wherever he is and hoping he 
knows how to take it and how to use it. Cause he's never been taught." 
She cut deep into Selena's soft flesh. "Let enough loose to weaken you. 
The weaker you are, the stronger he'll get." Lucy staggered a bit with 
the pain. Selena held her up.

"His father ought to be doing this."

"Don't hold your breath for that to happen." The smoke rose up like sooty 
fingers. "That bastard never gave up nothing for nobody, it's not in him. 
Besides, man's blood ain't much good anyway."

"How'll we know if it worked."

"We ever see the boy again, we'll know."

***

Merly walked around Buck's chair, trailing her fingers over his desk, the 
eight ball, the scales, papers for unholy deals. "You need my help and 
you don't want to ask me for it."

Buck stood leaning against the door. Deadly calm. "You're right."

"Would you like to do a deal to get it?"

"Sure." Watching her slick, glassy movements, cold as the viewless window 
behind her. "What do you want, Merlyn Ann?"

A host of desires crowded Merly's mind: vengence for her cut-off life, 
Buck encarcerated, disgraced, separated from her brother forever. "I want 
you destroyed."

"That seems fair. Too bad, it's all going to be over Caleb's dead body."

He tossed the ransom note on the desk in front of her.

"What?"

"Read it and weep if you still can."

She still could, but the tears were icy in this cold place. "You can't 
find him?"

"You're wearing the only eyes I could look for him with. And you're too 
blind to use em yourself. Give me my power back, Merly, so I can save my 
son."

"That's a cruel joke."

"Am I laughing?"

****

Blood in a cauldron turned into smoke, turned into warmth in Caleb's 
body. Like there was blood running through him instead of smoke and 
shadows. He could hear a slapping irritating sound.

***

"Someone's at the door."

Buck looked at the ghost's glassy eyes skeptically. "You're losing it, 
Merly."

"No, he went home."

"You mean that burned out Temple shack?"

***

A screen door banged open. Warm earth tones. Buck walked across a living 
room and tossed his trooper hat into a chair. Caleb's mother got up, 
frightened, but angry too. 

"Daddy!! Momma!!!" Caleb cried, "Quit this, I need you!"

No one paid the least attention to him as if he were invisible, like a 
ghost and then Caleb realized. It was just pictures without any sound. He 
was almost there but not quite. 

The scene played itself out as it had once before. His mother reached up 
to slap Sheriff Buck and that explosion of anger erupted out of the man.

"I don't need to watch this again!" Caleb turned around to look for an 
exit and found himself face to face with Merly's little girl face, 
looking at him as if he was something new on the scene.

"Can you see me?"

The child couldn't speak, but her eyes focused directly on him. Caleb 
reached out and touched her doll. At the contact, he heard his mother and 
father hollering behind him. Sound started to open up. Horrible sounds.

Caleb snatched the doll out of Merly's hands and smashed its face in.

****************

PART 2

Ben had gotten through to the State Police after all, the entourage that 
pulled up to the blackened hulk that had been Caleb Temple's childhood 
home included four sheriff cars and one massive State Police Lieutenant 
who looked like the Terminator and was promising more help was on the 
way. Several members of the Fulton Country Fire Volunteers, some members 
of the local Grange, and Matt and Loris's station wagon brought up the 
rear. Word sure did get around Trinity fast. Boone MacKenzie and Josh 
Martin came upon their bikes and offered to help, but Ben sent them back 
home. 

"I don't get it, Lucas. Nobody could hide out here, there's no here, 
here."

"Your girlfriend thinks different."

Lieutenant Harker took a long limb from a blasted hickory tree and probed 
the wreckage. "Gotta lot of rotten timber underneath."  

"Has anybody got any idea what we're looking for?" 

Buck climbed up what was left of the foundation. "When I find it, I'll 
tell you."

"Great." Ben shrugged, parceling out sections for people to search. 
"Careful now, people, this place is a death trap."

 Deputies and volunteers spread out cautiously over the burnt out decay. 
Picking up the detritus of Gage Temple's underpaid alcohol-saturated 
life. What wasn't ashes had nearly decomposed through two rough winters.

Matt looked over the sodden, grisly mess remembering the fire that had 
reduced the house to this. A ten year old boy burning his own house down, 
running away from the man who still desperately sought him. Nothing ever 
changed in Trinity.
 
"What do you expect to find here, Buck?"

"I'm looking for the edge of the earth, Harvard, the place you fall off."

He stepped through the opening where the screen door once let him into 
Judith's living room, to Caleb's first moment of life. For a minute, he 

saw the shape of a little girl, a memory. He went towards her. And his 
leg crashed through the rotten flooring. The crack of bone was sharp and 
loud. 

"I'd say you found that edge, Sheriff." Matt said, hauling Lucas out of 
the hole. "And it just broke your leg."

"Well, patch it up."

"I'll need x-rays and maybe a pin to stabilise the fracture."

"Are you a doctor or not?  Just fix it the hell up." Loris got Matt's bag 
from the car and the good doctor slit the Sheriff's levis to get a closer 
look at the situation. Buck looked down at Crower kneeling at his feet 
and wished this could have been a happier occasion.

Murray Costins from the local Fire volunteers was eyeballing what was 
left of the second story. There wasn't much up there, three or four 
boards suspended over nothing, but he had a long ladder and was itching 
to use it. "You want I should go on up, Sheriff?"

"Yeah, hell, check the chimney while you're at it.  Go through 
everything, there's somethin here."

Floyd steadied the 20ft ladder against the brickwork and Murray started 
to climb, his aluminum steps bouncing off the black chimney tower.

"I can't find a Goddamn thing but ashes and rat poop." Ben hollered from 
under the remains of the demolished fireplace, "I know, I know, keep 
looking."

 Boards from the attic floors creaked and shuddered as Murray tapped 
against them. "I think I can see. . well, this is strange.. . . Oh my 
god, watch out below!!" 

A rain of nails, splinters and chunks of wet wood fell down just missing 
Ben and Harker. Murray clung to the brick tower of the chimney for dear 
life. The dust rose like smoke from a holocaust, stinking of rot.

"No one would hide a child in this rubble, unless they were. . ." Matt 
tightened the ace bandage around Buck's leg so tight he nearly cut off 
the circulation.

"You want to finish that sentence, Harvard?"

"No."

"Neither do I." Buck shifted his hurt leg and the ingasp of pain nearly 
floored him. Involunarily he reached out his hand. Matt's shoulder was 
the only thing near enough to hold him up. The doctor steadied him until 
he could catch his breath. 

Crower pinned the elastic in place and sighed. "Lucas? If he means that 
much to you, do what the note asks. Give up Trinity."

"And how do you suggest I DO that, Doctor Matt?" Buck's voice had an 
uncomfortably intimate tone to it. "And to whom do you propose I give it? 
Godzilla? Chluthulu? By the way, that is the correct pronounciation."

"This is just a joke to you." 

Lucas tenuously took a step on his wrapped leg. It buckled a little but 
that was all right, so was the pain. Good focuser, pain.  He picked up 
the tray off Merly's old highchair. Stenciled bunnyrabbits. He wasn't 
looking for bunnyrabbits.

"No joke, Mr Wizard. Ever heard of a power vacuum? If I go out, something 
else is gonna come in." 

"I have to agree with the Sheriff, Matt." Loris said, her eyes caught by 
something outrageous in the disintegrating matter fallen from the attic. 
Something pink and clean. "Sometimes it's better to stay with the evil 
you know." She picked up a china doll. "Is this what you're looking for, 
Lucas?" She brushed soot off the crisp bright lace dress, the broken 
edges of the doll's face neatly, recently broken.

"Give that here." Lucas reached into the face of the doll and pulled a 
folded pencil sketch out of the hole. His own face stared back at him. 
The Illusion of Free Will lettered above his head. 

Buck waved the portrait in Ben's face---"Look familiar?"

****

Merly's steps were delicate and tenative as a long legged crane. She 
walked across the upper floors of the Goat Town Shelter as if touch or 
echo could tell her more than any other sense. Caleb watched her slender 
shadow through layers of filmy sticky barriers. They were so close. But 
he couldn't touch her or hear her. Hell, he could barely see her. If it 
wasn't for that green edge of the ring she wore she'd be invisible. She 
adjusted a curtain and light blinded the boy.

****
"Momma, is that you?"

"Of course." Judith's golden form lit up the whole room.

"I can't see him, Momma, not even out of the corner of my eye, but I know 
he's here."

"He's here."

"It's almost like old times, watching out for the boy. Except we're not 
getting through this time. We're failing." Merly fell to her knees on the 
floor, tears of anger immobilizing her. "It's so bad here. I can taste 
the evil."

"Very bad. That means it's time."

"Time for what."

"Time for the ring to go home."

Merly twisted the bright green stone tighter on her hand. She had touched 
the woman in the car and healed her, if she could just remember how. . . 
Her mother's hand rested on top of the burning stone.

"It's not yours, dearest. It has to go back now."

"No! I can do it. I've done good before. You don't want to believe me, 
but I can make this work!"

***

The  glare of the ring galvanised Caleb, he fought against the veils and 
barriers between him and his sister like a fly caught in flypaper.

"Merly! Merly! Help me!"

***
Her mother's hand tightened around her ring finger and she threw her off 
viciously. "I won't let you stop me when I can save my brother." An echo 
of a cry brushed by her ear. "I can hear him! Momma?"

"Good." Judith measured the quality of the room. "Then the contact is 
made. Lucas will be here soon. You need to be ready."

"I am ready. If Buck tries to take this ring from me I will kill him, and 
I will kill you too, if I have to." The ring was changing colors from 
green to deadly red. "I've cleansed the evil from this stone, I won't 
give it back to that monster." She looked down at the stone. It was 
shading at the edges into black.

"There are all kinds of monsters, Merly."

Merlyn Anne Temple looked at her hand, the red glow from Amy's ring was 
encircling her fingers like flame.

****

"Don't let this Thing win, Merly! Burn the place down if you can't get me 
any other way."

The sticky darkness nearly smothered him. A voice like wasps buzzing in 
his ear. "Talk to your sister again and I will gut her and you can talk 
to her corpse as long as you like."

"I don't believe you. And you can't kill the dead."

"Your sister walks the same shadows I do. I'll show you how linked we 
are."

The floors beneath Merly buckled and gave way. Reaching out for a support 
that Caleb couldn't see. Caleb watched his sister being led away 
surrounded by bright light and knew the thing that had him spoke the 
truth.

"I won't say nothing to her."

"That's a good little boy. Don't worry, you won't be alone in the 
darkness. Not for long."

****

The sirens from the state police cars and the ambulances tore through 
Goat Town like a knife. Lowlifes and the working poor lined the streets 
to watch the cops as if it were a parade. Buck got out of his Crown Vic, 
leaning on the car door to haul himself up. It was getting harder to 
stand and nearly impossible to walk. Judith's lonely shelter looked like 
the Empire State building. He'd have to let someone else check out the 
upper floors. Somebody other than Floyd.

Buck motioned over the tall black state trooper who had searched the 
Temple place. "You got some people you can send in there?"

"I'll use my best men." Lieutenant Harker said. "Inch by inch. If the 
boy's in there, we'll find him, Sheriff." The tall back man had a cool, 
focused stare, child snatchers were anathema in his eyes. He'd find him 
all right.

People were gathering from all over Trinity to watch the Sheriff try to 
find that son he'd always denied he'd had. Floyd and the rest of the 
under-deputies were setting up barricades. Loris and Matt pulled their 
station wagon under a lean-to and tried to push through.

"No civilians, Sheriff's orders."

"Our child is in there, Floyd!"

"Sheriff says he ain't yours no more."

Matt pulled himself together and held Loris for a moment. "I'm going to 
try to get around by the ambulances. There must be something I can do."

"I'll be all right." His wife reassured him.

"Don't you worry none, Doc Crower, we'll take care of her." Matt goggled 
at Lucilla Buck and Selena Coombs leaning on the barricades to either 
side of Loris.

***

Ben came out the front door, shaking his head. "This is just like the 
Boarding House all over again," Ben grimaced. "emptier than a nun's. . 
.well, real empty." Six troopers brushed passed him with floodlights and 
guns flashing.

Buck looked over Ben's shoulder to the shadowy morose shape glowering in 
the doorway. "It ain't empty enough, though, is it, Dollface? Thanks for 
showing me the shortcut."

"You're welcome, Lucas. How's your leg?"

Ben turned to greet Merly, she looked strange, dark, almost cruel eyes, 
shadows melting on her. "Was Caleb in there? Did you see him?"

"I couldn't see anything, but he's there. I heard him cry out."

"Pain or fear?" Buck snapped.

"Oh, anger, of course. Don't worry, Buck, he's not afraid, you've run all 
the fear out of him. He was saying something about burning the place 
down."

"It's a good thought, but I doubt Gage left any whiskey up there." He 
watched Merly pull on her left hand. "Why don't you twist it a little 
more to the right?"

"What'll that do?

"Nothing. Stand on your head and stick your finger in your ear, won't 
make any difference. Only person who can make that thing work is me."

"No." She backed up until the building stopped her. "I can do it myself. 
I have to save my brother."

"Ask your mother, she'll tell you I'm right." Buck painfully limped 
forward, cornering her against the peeling paint on the sidings. Ben 
offered a hand in help and was pushed aside.

"You've seduced Momma. She cares more about you than her own family." 

He kept coming closer, inevitable as death, slowly painfully inching 
closer. "And you care more about my ring than anything in this whole 
world."

"I don't!"

A slice of pain ran up Buck's leg and stopped his advance. Ben watched 
them posturing like two dogs vieing for dominance.

"Prove it." Buck's words harsh, hurtful. "Give it up."

"Give up Trinity."

****

"Your protectors won't pay the ransom I asked.  No one loves you enough, 
little boy."

"Good! I don't want you to get nothin'."

"I'm going to get everything."

"Over my dead body."

"Yes."

****

"Harker ain't going to like this report."

"It's a wild goose chase, that's all it is."

The state troopers stomped out of the building and walked over to their 
chief. There was a loud discussion in which the word empty was elaborated 
on. Ben knew how they felt, but then he'd had a little bit more 
experience with the invisible than most. 

Lucas was leaning against the railing that led up the front steps. "I got 
an idea." Ben ventured. His boss looked sceptical."About this giving up 
Trinity thing. You could turn your badge over to me, Lucas, maybe that'd 
work." 

"Great idea, Ben. I'm not even wearing my badge."

"I know, but if he needs a sign or something?" Ben glanced into the empty 
building. Lieutenant Harker settled his notes, reassured his men and 
started towards Buck.

"He?" Lucas looked at his deputy with dark feral eyes.

"Whatever's doing this."

"Don't worry, I'll give him a sign. Judith, are you here? Talk some sense 
into this bitch of yours."

Lieutenant Harker's first name was Jeff for Jefferson, not Judith, but 
then Buck wasn't exactly looking square at him anyway. "Beg your pardon, 
sir?"

"You can just wait a minute." Buck said to the tall state trooper and 
shifted his eyes again towards something off center around the trooper's 
chest.

"Yes sir." Harker studied his boots while the Sheriff of Fulton County 
carried on his conversation with. . . ghosts?

Judith Temple walked, well, though the big black trooper and stared at 
her son's father. "Did you want to rephrase your question?" She glanced 
at her daughter who huddled by the side of the building with her friend. 
Ben looked at Merly's mother with resignation. One more ghost to haunt 
him.

"My son's life's ticking away," Buck snapped back. "I'm not about to 
mince words with you."

"I know, to save our son's life, you need your ring back."

"You promised I'd get it."

"I won't give it to him, momma."

"Work this out between the two of you, have a catfight or whatever, but 
get me that damn ring, Judith. Harker, what the hell are you doing, 
countin daisies?"

The state trooper snapped his attention back from his boots. "Uh. You 
wanted some time to yourself, sir."

"What I want is sharpshooters on the top of the pool hall and Miz 
Holcome's Hotel."

"What do you want them to aim at, Sheriff?"

"I'd say that window right there." Buck pointed to a double sashed window 
on the second floor of the shelter.

"The angle is bad-- going against the sun." 

"Do what you can. The house is surrounded, isn't it?"

"We have men front and back but I have to tell you there is absolutely 
nothing in there, Sheriff. Nothing and nobody. We've had a troop of men 
over every squarefoot and it is their considered opinion that we probably 
have the wrong location."

"I didn't ask you what was in there and I don't give a damn about their 
considered opinion. I told you to surround the place and point guns at 
it."

Harker, mimed a salute and shook his head. Maybe the Sheriff's 
make-believe playmate was calling the shots now. He looked at Ben to 
confirm his boss's lunacy but  Healy was gesticulating and arguing with 
the side of the building. "Sharpshooters." He muttered. "They'd better 
have real good eyesight if they're going to have to hit the invisible 
man."

"Better eyesight than I got hearing, I can tell you that, Harker." Buck's 
eyes looked crazy enough, the kinda crazy you didn't argue with long.

****

Danielle Davenport backed up to the edge of the barricades and switched 
her mike on. 

"This is Channel Four Live Action News reporting on a late breaking 
hostage situation in Goat Town. Caleb Temple, the only child of Sheriff 
Lucas Buck, is being held in an abandoned building. The FBI and the State 
Police have been called in and snipers are positioned to take out the 
kidnappers whenever they show themselves. I have been informed by a 
reliable source in the law enforcement community that the ransom note has 
demanded the entire town of Trinity be turned over to whatever group is 
responsible for this outrage.
 
Stay tuned to Channel Four as we bring you Trinity: A Town Held to 
Ransom. A Child's Life in the Balance.

****

Buck watched the sharpshooters hustle off into position. The sun glared 
out of the west like a laser, they'd be lucky to hit the house let alone 
the right window. Matt Crower was yelling something at him from where the 
ambulances were parked. Just stay outa my way, Harvard, he thought, a 
good man is the last damn thing I need.

He turned to his secret weapon. "Well, you seen sense yet?"

Merly was standing between her mother and her lover, leaning most of her 
ephemeral weight on Ben. She looked as whupped as Buck had ever seen her. 

"I'm useless. I can't save my brother, I've lost my mother and now I have 
to give up everything to you."

"That pretty well sums it up, hand it over."

Judith looked at Buck like the jerk he was. "You have such a way with 
words."

"I need the Goddamn ring!"

"Well, you can't have it!" Merly moaned, her eyes hollow and deep like 
burnt coals. 

"What the hell. . .?"

"Because I can't get it off!"

Buck pulled out his flick knife and snapped it open. "Wanta bet I can?"

Ben reached for his gun.

****

Caleb looked through the smothering darkness to the only light there was. 
It was coming from a steel grey gun. The barrel peered into his face as 
if it were an eye.  He watched the hammer cock itself and the cylinder 
roll into position.  The eye of the gun looked away  and then discharged. 
The sound was deafening. Caleb felt the recoil as if the darkness itself 
was pulling the trigger. The black sooty eye of the barrel turned his way 
again. The hot smokey metal rested against his forehead right between his 
eyes. 

"What're you waiting for?"

"Your final exit. All I need is one shot from outside and that will be 
the bullet that kills you."

****

Harker was convinced once he heard that gunshot --whatever was in that 
building might have been invisible but it was deadly enough.

The sun glinted off the muzzles of the sharpshooters who squinted into 
the clear glass trying to see something to shoot. Safetys clicked off. 
The building almost disappeared in the afternoon sun's glare.

****

"Is Caleb dead? Have I killed him?"

"No. Merly, but it's close now." Judith spoke very clearly trying to get 
through her daughter's despair. "Put your knife away, Lucas, she's not 
alive enough for that kind of stupid brutality." She stroked her 
daughter's soft black hair off her forehead. "You can get the ring off, 
darling. It's very simple, you have to want. . .the rightful owner to 
have it."

"The rightful owner's dead."

"You have to want to give it to Lucas Buck."

"Momma, don't ask me that!"

"Well, like it or not, that's what you have to do. And I can't stay to 
help you do it. My son needs me near him."

Judith melted through Merly's fingers to be replaced by Buck's thick 
blunt hands. They reached around her fingers like they had once reached 
around her throat.

"It's mine, Merly, give it back."

She'd been a ghost and then nearly an angel, but she was still just 
sixteen years old. And she couldn't carry the weight of both the light 
and the dark anymore.

"I hate you." Her voice was muffled with tears.

"I know."

"You can't save Caleb."

"I can keep him alive."

"It's never too late for Salvation." She whispered, remembering how the 
anger had gone away when she healed the girl in the car. The last bit of 
rage she had clutched away in her, the last hope for revenge loosened its 
grip and the ring fell off her finger into Buck's hand. 

Merly watched her enemy thrust the power of the ring onto his body, and 
the little purchase she had on life started to fade away. She couldn't 
even feel her fingers anymore. 

Buck turned on the Goat Town Shelter and the walls seemed to shudder at 
his sight. But they didn't drop entirely. They curved around a small 
vulnerable body that he couldn't see but felt with every cell in his 
being.

"Caleb, son, listen to your father." Buck whispered under his breath. 
"You're not alone anymore.  I won't let him have you. Just let me see 
him."

****

His father's voice boomed in the shadows. The sounds peeled away the 
layers of sticky, clinging darkness, letting the air in, letting a light 
shine over him like the sun. Caleb looked into that light and saw his 
kidnapper. 

"You!" He said, his eyebrows curving dangerously. A shadow stepped back 
in surprise.

****

"There's somebody at the window, Lucas!" Ben cried. "I can take a shot." 
He hesitated for less than a second, not wanting to injure Caleb. The 
figure was familiar but taller than a 12 year old boy.

Ben's gun fired louder than any gun he'd ever heard. He saw a blonde head 
fall against the window. Smash into the window. Saw a small hand push at 
it so the glass gave way. The body of a fair haired woman falling, 
falling and screaming in a hail of shattered glass. There was a lot of 
screaming. 

"Judith . . .? Good God, who did I shoot?"

The woman's body hit the ground with a sickening thud.

Merly shrieked from the sudden pain. A gash creased across her forehead, 
blood streaming down into her eyes. Her heart pounding like it would 
break. She heard a cry and a curse and found herself stepping backwards 
onto someone's toe. Strong arms steadied her. 

"Watch out, lady."

"Let a medic through." Lieutenant Harker said. "This girl's been shot." 
He glared at his men for allowing a civilian into a dangerous crime scene.

Merly looked down at the blood staining her pale grey dress. An emergency 
tech wiped her head clean and examined the wound.

"You're lucky, it just grazed you. You're going to need some stitches. 
Ricochet, I suppose."

"Where's my brother?" Merly looked into Matt Crower's face. "Can you see 
me?"

"You're in shock. But you've got a good steady pulse." He looked deep 
into her eyes. Something. . .? "I'll check on your brother. Where is he?"


The Sheriff of Fulton County looked up the broken window. Behind the 
jagged panes, his son stood, looking down at the body of his kidnapper, 
Judith's arms holding him close to her. Caleb looked over at his father 
and nodded, Lucas nodded back. Both Buck mouths held in the same grim 
tight line.

Ben turned the dead woman over. Victoria Madison's  delicate face looked 
back at him. There was no blood, no mess. She smiled. But not at him. 
Over his shoulder at the real power in this town. 

"You've been sleeping with the enemy, Sheriff Buck."  Her pale blue eyes 
glazed over and fixed in death.

"There's not a mark on her, Lucas."

Buck glanced back at Matt stitching up Merly's flesh wound, "Yeah, Ben, 
well, that's because you are one lousy shot."

END


DISCLAIMER:  Any story/episode appearing that states it is part of Virtual 
AG-Season Three is based upon the Television show, "American Gothic", 
which is the property of Shaun Cassidy, Renaissance Productions, and 
CBS (apparently).  The characters added to support this concept, and the 
storylines, are the property of the writers acknowledged as such.  PLEASE, 
DON'T SUE US!!