Chapter Eighteen - As reality cracks
The shrill sound of a buzzer going off pierced through Mandy’s sleep. It seemed to sear right into her brain, and her sleepy mind reminded her that noise was Olivia’s alarm clock going off as usual. She felt the bed shift, then the nights events came back to her as the familiar clicking sound ended the irritating noise.
Opening her eyes, she saw that the pretty rounded backside of Olivia’s was sticking right at her. The woman had just finished turning off her alarm hastily. Mandy smiled, as the beautiful curves of the woman was a nice thing to see first thing in the morning.
Olivia looked back and saw that the petite woman was awake.
“ Sorry...” She whispered, moving back to the bed. “ I tried to be quick about stopping that infernal racket...”
“ That’s alright....” Sighed Mandy sleepily, looking deeply into the sparkle that was in the woman’s eyes.
The woman leaned into the bed and give the younger lady there a peck on the lips, one that was not short of passion even if it was a quick one. Mandy sighed, as the night had been one of great adventure... they had made love until the wee hours of the morning, exhaustion was the reason that they had stopped.
“ How are you with all of this... being as it was your first time with a woman?” Mandy asked curiously.
“ Well.... all I can say is that I now know one thing for certain...” Smirked Olivia, her smile showing a playfulness
“ And what would that be?” Quizzed Mandy, wondering what the answer might be.
The woman gave a uncommonly bashful smile and touch the woman in bed’s cheek with a very light hand. She looked deeply into Mandy’s eyes, showing off the twinkle that lit up her own gaze.
“ I can say for certain... I am not the straight female I thought I was.” She giggled and commented to herself. “ Ya know... Alexis was right.”
“ Alexis... what about Alexis?” Asked the smaller gal, not getting what Olivia had commented on.
“ I will tell you that later...” The woman said giggling, then kissing Mandy again a little more deeper. “ You should go for a shower and get that smoke of yours over with... I’ll do the ‘kick the girls out of the bed’ routine for us. I’ll escape later for a shower of my own while you oversee them finishing up those sand candles they started yesterday.”
Mandy nodded and rolled out of bed to do just that. The woman took the chance she had and fluidly wrapped her arms around Mandy and layed a much bigger kiss on to her. Mandy felt her whole body start to tingle, as her bare skin was now mashed up against her lover’s taunt nakedness.
“ If we don’t stop this right now... how am I going to have that shower in time?” Mandy whispered with a sigh, as her mind swooned.
“ Is that my problem?” Olivia said with an impish giggle on her lips, her hands now had traveled down Mandy’s back and had settled on cupping the shorter one’s rounded slopes of her ass.
“ If you keep doing this... yes.” Said Mandy, the hands on her backside had made the juncture of her legs twitch and become wet.
Olivia let her go and winked, as she turned to get herself dressed. Mandy threw on her thick terrycloth robe then scooped up her shower kit, a new set of clothes and smokes. She knew that she would only have about thirty five minutes or so to have a shower, dress, and then race off to have a smoke.
With a wave, she hurried herself off out of the door, while the woman was busy pulling on her shorts at the moment while grumbling... apparently, Olivia had once again had misplaced her underwear again. She giggled and hurried through the cabin, hearing that some of the campers were already stirring, also hearing the start of the twins once again starting to pick at one another as was the norm.
Being very quick at being of the shower, feeling all fresh and clean, Mandy was just finished dressing when a figure come barreling in to the changing room part of the showers. The young woman was startled by the sudden entrance, then saw that it was the very out of breath secretary, Mrs. Dandly.
“ Your... here... Thank God!” The secretary panted, obvious that she had ran all the way here.
“ Ok... I’m here...” Said Mandy slowly, not quite understanding.
The secretary to Miss Ashfield seemed to still be catching her breath as she leaned up against the doorjam that led into the change room.
“ Right.. away...” Started the woman, still breathing hard. “ There will be a meeting with Miss Ashfield . You are suppose to be there...”
Mandy raised her eyebrows in interest.
“ Is there some sort of developments in Tabitha’s attack?” She asked, reminding herself that she had not gotten a hold of Officer Dana like she had wanted to last evening.
“ There is big news I think... Miss Ashfield has not told me anything yet...” She nodded, whirling around had heading back out.
“ Right now?” Said a surprised Mandy.
The woman paused for a split second and nodded, then was out the door in a heartbeat, muttering quite loudly about having to run all over the fucking place. She was gone as suddenly as she had appeared to the young woman.
Mandy just tied back her hair again and hurried to throw her stuff back in the cabin while she went by to head to that meeting. She was eager to know just what was what... considering the secretary was running all over notifying people like she was. She hoped that there was some good news that would come finally... a sinking feeling in the lowest pit of her stomach told her differently.
******
Mandy came into the office of the administrator, her feet moving very quick as she did do. All of the other Senior Councilors had already gotten there except for one or two who she had seen right behind her. She went to stand off to the side of the room next to Olivia, as there was not a single chair to be had.
There was no sign of Alexis yet, and people were buzzing about what this all was about. Olivia leaned her head closer to Mandy.
“ Wonder what this was all about...” She whispered. “ The secretary said I had to come quick... I had one of the newer councilors take the girls to shower and they would go straight to the dining hall...”
“ I saw Councilor Patty with our girls as I passed them on the way back to the cabin...” Said Mandy. “ I don’t know what to expect with this meeting...”
“ With everything that is going on this year... I’m expecting anything.” Said the woman flatly.
The room fell into a uneasy state of silence as Miss Ashfield came in to the office, flanked by Officer Livingstone and a tall male officer that was known to be the lead investigator of the Rape of Tabitha. Everyone seemed to let out a little gasp as the noticed something strange, as Alexis seemed to have been crying. This was something out of the ordinary for the usually stoic woman.
Miss Ashfield took a seat, as it seemed that Officer Dana was the one who would be conducting the meeting. She leaned on the desktop and scanned the room for a hanging moment.
“ I have some very disturbing news for you all... please be patient with me as I go through it.” The officer said, her face oddly void of any sort of expression as she waited fr people to settle down.
The mummer in the room was very loud at this point, as the Officer Dana gave a moment of respite before continuing. Mandy felt her stomach tighten and churn as if she had a cement mixer in there... as she could feel that whatever her instincts had been telling her coming into the meeting, they seemed to have been terribly correct.
Officer Livingstone cleared her throat, then took that moment to level her eyes with a very serious look.
“ Sometime early yesterday afternoon, there was a burglary in the town of Pasha... A older model car, a large cash of money and two handguns were stolen from a residence while the owners were at work.” She started.
“ Was it Allen and Alison?” Asked a female near the door.
“ A young person going off to a friend’s house saw a man and a woman escaping in that stolen vehicle just as he passed the house. This young teenager then hurried over th his friend’s house and reported it to the local officers who then contacted us...” Started Dana. “ The clear description of the robbery suspects lead us to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt... that it was Allen Perot and Alison grey who had did the robbery.”
More of a buzz quickly filled the room, as the tall female officer paused for a moment to let things calm down a little.
“ So they are on the run now?” Asked Olivia, even her face showing the shock from this all.
“ They are on the run... there is more to this...” Officer Dana said, clearly disturbed by whatever she had more to say. “ About an ninety minutes after the had been last seen, there was a shooting at the Pasha hospital... Tabitha Gambit was killed by a man wielding a .45 caliber weapon as she was reading to go home when her parents arrived. That was the same caliber of weapon stolen earlier, and initial test proved that it was this stolen gun. The car that had been stolen was spotted speeding off, driven by a female now identified as Alison with the gunman next to her.”
“ Dear God Almighty...” Gasped Irene, as she had a flood of tears burst forth.
“ Do you think they are capable of anything else, since you are telling us all of this?” Smartly asked Michael Kingwood, who was one of the senior Male Councilors for Pawa.
The officer paused, as she seemed to be stopping tears herself. She took a long break to collect herself and looked right back at the roomful of very shocked camp workers.
“ There is more...” She said flatly.
“ What the hell more?” Said Michael, his tone showed how complete and utter his shock was.
The officer did not pause this time, her face showing great strain as she continued over top of the sounds in the room.
“ As we were searching for these two in connection to the burglary and the subsequent murder of Tabitha Gambit, we were searching a clearing just outside of town where we then found a twelve year old girl lay naked just behind a clumping of bushes. This girl’s clothing had been ripped off, her underwear had been stuffed into her mouth.”
“ Oh gheesh...” Spat another voice in the room.
“ This girl had been raped viciously, and then she had ended up being shot in the head. A few yards away, beside a set of deep tire tracks... lay the body of a dead man that already has been identified as Allen Perot. He had been shot twice in the chest and once in the head at close range. There was a second set of torn female clothing beside his body, blood pooled on the ground that was found not to be his or the dead female’s. Neither of the stolen weapons were on his body, and the car was gone.”
People were more than just stunned at this point. There was no noise in the room except for the sounds of weeping. Mandy felt her heart sink, her own eyes quickly welled up with a wave of tears. This was not the Alison she had lived and loved for four years.
“ So she is a suspect in all of this?” Mandy said, finally getting the only question she could muster.
“ By all of the evidence collected this far... That would be a ‘yes’, Miss Thayer.” Said Officer Dana, her voice so monotone. “ She is the only suspect in the shooting death of her boyfriend, Allen... and we don’t know exactly what her involvement will be with the other crimes... but we need all of you here to keep an eye out. She may not come back to Camp Pawa , we thing she is simply escaping back to the city... but on the off chance... if you see her, call the police instantly.”
With that, the two officers left the room without any other words. Alexis continued to sit quietly in her chair, obviously still trying to make sense out of this. The room slowly emptied as every shocked councilor went to return to their charges. No one in the place was expecting to her things of this nature.
Mandy gripped Olivia’s hand as they left to return to their own group, her mind was going at warp speed.
“ This is not the woman I knew... It seems like I never knew her now...” She said, her face a mask of blankness.
“ It is not the girl I knew either...” Agreed Olivia. “ This is far from the girl I looked after her at Pawa for these years.”
Mandy shook her head hard, all of this feeling like some waking nightmare that would not go away.
“ How in the hell did she get involved in all of this... to the point becoming a murder?” She gasped.
“ She could have snapped realizing who the father of her baby really was past his behavior towards her.. perhaps she watched as the love of her life raped this girl... or she could have been a willing participant in all of this shit... and finally just snapped.”
“ It is all just so surreal... Since our break up, it seems like noting at all makes any sense.” Said Mandy, trying keep herself from collapsing mentally. “ What ever did happen to her, Alison is not Alison anymore.”
Squeezing Mandy’s hand, Olivia seemed to be feeling exactly what the girl was. She seemed to pounder things for a second, as they made their way out of the Administration building together.
“ I think she has not herself from the very first time she fucked Allen...” Said Olivia back after a moment. “ Perhaps eve before that....”
“ Do you believe that?” Mandy said.
“ Frankly... I don’t know what to believe at this point....” The older councilor said so flatly. “ Just speculating.”
Mandy nodded and kept walking beside the woman. She was a lady that now was unsure of anything in her life. She still could not wrap her head around the almost evil way Alison had changed.
Quietly, they headed off to meet their girls at breakfast. They never stopped holding hands, not caring at this point of anything. Allen was dead... they both were sort of glad about that... it was Alison that was the most shocking of all. Shock and disbelief overruled the memory of what the girl had been.