Post by GO FUCK YOURSELF NICK on May 3, 2015 21:11:47 GMT -6
February 28, 2015
Osaka, Japan
Ruby held onto the pull-up bar and let herself down, closing her eyes briefly as the world righted itself once more.
Amy. Do it for her. Don't fail Fiona the way you failed Amy.
Exhaling slowly, she tilted her head from side to side and bounced from foot to foot, trying to shake off the aura of doom so that she could focus on her training. On paper, pairing her, a rookie in Exodus, with Fiona goddamn Collins was a glaring error in judgment. But Fiona trusted her, so now she needed to trust herself and let the ghosts of Willowbrook stay in New York where they belonged. Dwelling on the past wasn't going to help her prepare for the future, and she needed to be ready for the Daughters.
Get the job done and move on to the next. Do not linger, do not question, do not look back.
It was an often-repeated mantra during her training. The man who had mentored her early in her career expected obedience and he expected results. No excuses. That discipline had conflicted with Ruby's independent nature in the beginning, but now she needed it more than ever. Hitting the heavy bag always helped settle her mind, so she got her gloves from her bag. However, she had only gotten one on when her phone started ringing.
She'd half-expected to see Fiona's name, or Jackie's, but instead the called ID read 'Private'.
“Ruby Tyler,” she answered.
Heavy breathing greeted her on the other end of the line, immediately setting off warning bells in Ruby's head.
“Hello?”
More heavy breathing, and then a high-pitched, unhinged giggle.
“Ruby girl... my precious red heart of stone... ruby slippers, click three times and you'll go no place like home...”
“Amy?”
“Amy, yes, Amy, Amy running in the woods, Amy trapped inside ruins, Amy fights, Amy loses, but Amy wins! Little bitch, little bitch, left Amy to the people in the trees, the people in the trees, they took her and then they left her and you found her but it was too late! Too late, too late, always too late, always too late, Ruby! Throw rubies in the fire, rubies crack, rubies break, shatter into shiny tiny pieces for Amy to eat... Amy's revenge, can't put rubies back together again!”
Her hands shook and she nearly dropped the phone. Her stomach twisted at strange pitch and intonation and the way her friend's words ran together. The doctors at Bellevue had diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia and said she'd had a psychotic break, but that explanation had always felt inadequate.
“You're not Amy.”
“Oh but I am, Ruby girl. I am Amy, and Amy is me. Only one Amy now, Amy in the trees, Amy in the shadows, Amy coming for revenge. Shadows don't like walls, Ruby girl. Amy in the shadows, Amy found fear there, she found anger, she found fear, she found me and now me is her and her is me and we are coming for you, we are legion and we are eternal and we will not stop until Amy breaks your pretty neck and opens your chest to feast on your pretty precious ruby heart of hearts. Beware the twins, beware the Allmother, beware beware beware what they do to you and what they do will feel like love when rubies drip from my lips, Ruby's rubies, precious ruby drops! Pretty precious ruby heart of hearts, what a big feast for me!”
A click, and then the line went dead.
Ruby dropped her phone in her bag and abruptly sat on the floor, landing with a dull thud. Her knees had given way and she stared at the wall, committing every word of what Amy – or the thing that was pretending to be Amy – had told her.
Her fault. Her failure.
She took off her glove and tossed both into the bag before zipping it up and grabbing her jacket. There was nothing more that she could do here.
~~~***~~~
April 30th, 2014
Philadelphia, PA
“Penn State History Department, how can I help you?” The woman's bright and chipper voice grated on Ruby, up too early and in desperate need of caffeine. But she was standing outside a Starbucks, in the hope that the latter problem would be resolved soon. First though, she needed to finish this call.
“Yeah, hi, I'm in Professor Wells' class and I lost my syllabus and I really need to ask him something about this paper that we have due soon. It's like a huge part of my grade and I'm -”
“Don't you worry, dear. Professor Wells just walked into his office a few minutes ago. I'll transfer you. Good luck on your paper.”
“Oh my gosh thank you so much!”
Light hold music played for a minute or so, and then the line picked up.
“This is Professor Wells,” he said, his voice warm and rich and still with that same Texas twang that Ruby remembered, though he'd been living in the Northeast for years now. She smiled at the sound of it, reaching up to fiddle with the arrow pendant on her necklace.
“Hi, David. It... it's Ruby. Did I catch you at a good time?”
“That depends entirely on what you're about to say next. I haven't heard from you in years, Ruby. What do you need?”
“I need to see you.”
“Ruby...” We can't. We both know this can't keep happening.
“No, not like that. I promise. It's... look, the details are too crazy to get into before I've had coffee. You still specializing in the history of mental health care in the United States?”
“Uh, yeah. It's the subject of my dissertation. Almost done with it, actually.”
“You know anything about Willowbrook State School?”
“It's one of the places I focused on in my research, yes. What is this about?”
Ruby sighed heavily and shook her head. “Like I said, too crazy to really go into detail. A friend and I... we went there. To the old complex. And things didn't go well.”
“Oh, Jesus. So that's why you want to talk to me. I should have known it had something to do with your ghost hunting stuff.”
“Yeah, it does. And I need to get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later. So can we talk?”
“All right. Where are you calling me from?”
“Philadelphia. I can be at the university in three hours or so. We can go get lunch?”
“I'll order us Chinese. We'll talk in my office. All my research materials are there anyway; it'll be easier to look up details if we need to.”
“Okay. Do you want me to text you my order when I get to a rest stop or -”
“-Chicken lo mein and dim sum, with a California roll. You always get the same thing.”
“I can't believe you still remember that.”
“You're not an easy person to forget, Ruby.”
“Neither are you.”
“I'll see you soon. Call me when you get to campus.”
“You got it. Bye, David.”
“Later, Ruby girl.”
Several hours later…
David’s office was small and cramped, with books and papers piled on every available surface, but he had managed to fit a small couch along one wall. Ruby was careful to sit all the way to one side, deliberately far enough from him so that they wouldn’t touch one another. Empty Chinese food containers littered his desk and now that the food was finished, the two of them had fallen into an uneasy silence.
“Sorry,” she said after awhile. “It’s just… look, there’s a lot going on right now, and being here with you again like this… you were the only person I could think of to call. So can you help me with the Willowbrook research?”
David shifted and turned toward Ruby, reaching out and putting a hand on her knee. “You can still talk to me, Ruby girl. A lot has changed with us over the years, but that’s one thing that never will. You can trust me.”
Inhaling deeply, Ruby looked back at him and gave him a small smile. “Yeah. You were always a good listener, and you never judged me for believing in all this weird crap. I guess I should probably start at the beginning…”
She told him everything - about how she’d come to Atlantic City for a wrestling show and gotten that call from Amy about investigating the abandoned parts of the former Willowbrook campus. Even when she started talking about Amy’s psychotic break, he didn’t bat an eyelash. He just put his arm around her and stroked her shoulder with his thumb, trying to soothe her. And instead of pushing him away like she should have, Ruby leaned in closer and allowed herself to truly relax for the first time since Amy’s break.
“It’s going to be okay, Ruby. I’ll give you whatever you need to help you get to the bottom of this. I’m sorry about Amy. I know how close the two of you were. It always amazed me, really. Every other freshman in that class had horror stories about their roommates, but you and Amy were a match made in heaven.” He pulled her in closer and pressed his lips to the top of her head. Ruby closed her eyes and clenched her hand into a fist, digging her nails into her palm.
“David…”
“Hm?”
“This is…” Wrong, she should have said. And it was. But since the start of the year, Ruby had been essentially alone and she missed the simple comfort of having someone around who knew her. It wasn’t like she could talk like this with the rest of the workers in her wrestling company, after all. To them, her Ghostbusters routine was just a gimmick, and even though there were things that needed to be kept secret with David, at least she could confide in him with this latest mystery.
“Shhh. Just relax, Ruby girl. You’re safe here.”
Their eyes met and before Ruby could think rationally about what she was doing, she leaned in and kissed him deeply. David pulled her into his lap, his hands sliding up under her shirt as she straddled him. She practically melted against him, her nails lightly scratching against his scalp as they grinded against one another. As David worked her shirt up over her head, Ruby began unbuttoning his, her lips sealing against his once her shirt was on the floor. He grabbed her under her thighs and twisted so that she landed with her back on the couch with him kneeling above her. Ruby sat up, her hands busily undoing his belt buckle as David reached behind her to unhook her bra.
Just as he got it undone, they both heard the gentle click of his office door opening, and David’s expression turned horrified in a matter of moments. Quickly redoing the closure of her bra, Ruby turned around and saw a young woman standing in the doorway, frozen in shock.
“David? Baby, what’s going on?” she asked, her voice strained. David stammered a response, but it was Ruby who pushed him off so that she could retrieve her shirt off the floor.
“So when exactly were you gonna tell me that you had a girlfriend?” Ruby spat, pulling her shirt on and moving to get her jacket and bag. “And I mean look at her… she’s barely older than one of your students! Come on, David!”
David looked at Ruby sheepishly and her eyes went wide. “Oh my God, she is one of your students, isn’t she? God fucking damn it, David! I thought you were done with this shit! You broke up with me because you didn’t want to jeopardize your career, and back then you were only my TA! God!”
The girl in the doorway looked like she was ready to kill David and in that moment, Ruby couldn’t bring herself to care. She stormed out of the office, leaving her idiot ex-boyfriend to deal with his own relationship problems. The whole way back to the Mustang, she berated herself for falling so easily back into David’s arms.
Their relationship had lasted through most of her freshman year of college. He was a senior, working as a teacher’s assistant and she had been in his introductory American history course. Early on, she had visited him during office hours because the professor intimidated her and David had seemed like he was much more approachable when she had questions about her very first college research paper. After that, they often ran into each other in the library and in the dining halls, and the chemistry between them only grew. And yes, she could admit to herself now that she liked the secrecy of it all and the risk involved. So had he, clearly, because even though he had told her then that their relationship could not continue because of the threat to his future career in academia, here he was making the same mistake again.
But Ruby was no longer the same wide-eyed freshman, and if the encounter with David had proved anything to her, it was that she couldn’t seek comfort in those old familiar places. Her secrets were too numerous and she had changed too much. The Ruby Tyler who had fallen in love with David Wells was just a memory now. She could never be that girl ever again.
Throwing her bag onto the passenger seat of the Mustang, Ruby turned the car on and drove off toward the highway. She had a show she needed to make in Cleveland; that had to take precedence now.
Several hours into her trip, her phone started ringing. Without looking at the caller ID, Ruby picked up.
“This is Ruby.”
“Ruby. It’s -”
“I know who it is. Takes longer than five months for me to forget a voice. And if this is about what I think it’s about, forget it. I said I was done and I meant it. I’m out, for good. Go fuck yourself.”
The person on the other end of the line started speaking again, but Ruby had already taken the phone away from her ear. She hung up and tossed it back onto her bag, rolling her eyes in disgust before turning on the radio so that the music could help drown out her thoughts.
But as she drove on toward Cleveland, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was going to be a long, lonely road ahead.
Osaka, Japan
Ruby held onto the pull-up bar and let herself down, closing her eyes briefly as the world righted itself once more.
Amy. Do it for her. Don't fail Fiona the way you failed Amy.
Exhaling slowly, she tilted her head from side to side and bounced from foot to foot, trying to shake off the aura of doom so that she could focus on her training. On paper, pairing her, a rookie in Exodus, with Fiona goddamn Collins was a glaring error in judgment. But Fiona trusted her, so now she needed to trust herself and let the ghosts of Willowbrook stay in New York where they belonged. Dwelling on the past wasn't going to help her prepare for the future, and she needed to be ready for the Daughters.
Get the job done and move on to the next. Do not linger, do not question, do not look back.
It was an often-repeated mantra during her training. The man who had mentored her early in her career expected obedience and he expected results. No excuses. That discipline had conflicted with Ruby's independent nature in the beginning, but now she needed it more than ever. Hitting the heavy bag always helped settle her mind, so she got her gloves from her bag. However, she had only gotten one on when her phone started ringing.
She'd half-expected to see Fiona's name, or Jackie's, but instead the called ID read 'Private'.
“Ruby Tyler,” she answered.
Heavy breathing greeted her on the other end of the line, immediately setting off warning bells in Ruby's head.
“Hello?”
More heavy breathing, and then a high-pitched, unhinged giggle.
“Ruby girl... my precious red heart of stone... ruby slippers, click three times and you'll go no place like home...”
“Amy?”
“Amy, yes, Amy, Amy running in the woods, Amy trapped inside ruins, Amy fights, Amy loses, but Amy wins! Little bitch, little bitch, left Amy to the people in the trees, the people in the trees, they took her and then they left her and you found her but it was too late! Too late, too late, always too late, always too late, Ruby! Throw rubies in the fire, rubies crack, rubies break, shatter into shiny tiny pieces for Amy to eat... Amy's revenge, can't put rubies back together again!”
Her hands shook and she nearly dropped the phone. Her stomach twisted at strange pitch and intonation and the way her friend's words ran together. The doctors at Bellevue had diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia and said she'd had a psychotic break, but that explanation had always felt inadequate.
“You're not Amy.”
“Oh but I am, Ruby girl. I am Amy, and Amy is me. Only one Amy now, Amy in the trees, Amy in the shadows, Amy coming for revenge. Shadows don't like walls, Ruby girl. Amy in the shadows, Amy found fear there, she found anger, she found fear, she found me and now me is her and her is me and we are coming for you, we are legion and we are eternal and we will not stop until Amy breaks your pretty neck and opens your chest to feast on your pretty precious ruby heart of hearts. Beware the twins, beware the Allmother, beware beware beware what they do to you and what they do will feel like love when rubies drip from my lips, Ruby's rubies, precious ruby drops! Pretty precious ruby heart of hearts, what a big feast for me!”
A click, and then the line went dead.
Ruby dropped her phone in her bag and abruptly sat on the floor, landing with a dull thud. Her knees had given way and she stared at the wall, committing every word of what Amy – or the thing that was pretending to be Amy – had told her.
Her fault. Her failure.
She took off her glove and tossed both into the bag before zipping it up and grabbing her jacket. There was nothing more that she could do here.
~~~***~~~
April 30th, 2014
Philadelphia, PA
“Penn State History Department, how can I help you?” The woman's bright and chipper voice grated on Ruby, up too early and in desperate need of caffeine. But she was standing outside a Starbucks, in the hope that the latter problem would be resolved soon. First though, she needed to finish this call.
“Yeah, hi, I'm in Professor Wells' class and I lost my syllabus and I really need to ask him something about this paper that we have due soon. It's like a huge part of my grade and I'm -”
“Don't you worry, dear. Professor Wells just walked into his office a few minutes ago. I'll transfer you. Good luck on your paper.”
“Oh my gosh thank you so much!”
Light hold music played for a minute or so, and then the line picked up.
“This is Professor Wells,” he said, his voice warm and rich and still with that same Texas twang that Ruby remembered, though he'd been living in the Northeast for years now. She smiled at the sound of it, reaching up to fiddle with the arrow pendant on her necklace.
“Hi, David. It... it's Ruby. Did I catch you at a good time?”
“That depends entirely on what you're about to say next. I haven't heard from you in years, Ruby. What do you need?”
“I need to see you.”
“Ruby...” We can't. We both know this can't keep happening.
“No, not like that. I promise. It's... look, the details are too crazy to get into before I've had coffee. You still specializing in the history of mental health care in the United States?”
“Uh, yeah. It's the subject of my dissertation. Almost done with it, actually.”
“You know anything about Willowbrook State School?”
“It's one of the places I focused on in my research, yes. What is this about?”
Ruby sighed heavily and shook her head. “Like I said, too crazy to really go into detail. A friend and I... we went there. To the old complex. And things didn't go well.”
“Oh, Jesus. So that's why you want to talk to me. I should have known it had something to do with your ghost hunting stuff.”
“Yeah, it does. And I need to get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later. So can we talk?”
“All right. Where are you calling me from?”
“Philadelphia. I can be at the university in three hours or so. We can go get lunch?”
“I'll order us Chinese. We'll talk in my office. All my research materials are there anyway; it'll be easier to look up details if we need to.”
“Okay. Do you want me to text you my order when I get to a rest stop or -”
“-Chicken lo mein and dim sum, with a California roll. You always get the same thing.”
“I can't believe you still remember that.”
“You're not an easy person to forget, Ruby.”
“Neither are you.”
“I'll see you soon. Call me when you get to campus.”
“You got it. Bye, David.”
“Later, Ruby girl.”
Several hours later…
David’s office was small and cramped, with books and papers piled on every available surface, but he had managed to fit a small couch along one wall. Ruby was careful to sit all the way to one side, deliberately far enough from him so that they wouldn’t touch one another. Empty Chinese food containers littered his desk and now that the food was finished, the two of them had fallen into an uneasy silence.
“Sorry,” she said after awhile. “It’s just… look, there’s a lot going on right now, and being here with you again like this… you were the only person I could think of to call. So can you help me with the Willowbrook research?”
David shifted and turned toward Ruby, reaching out and putting a hand on her knee. “You can still talk to me, Ruby girl. A lot has changed with us over the years, but that’s one thing that never will. You can trust me.”
Inhaling deeply, Ruby looked back at him and gave him a small smile. “Yeah. You were always a good listener, and you never judged me for believing in all this weird crap. I guess I should probably start at the beginning…”
She told him everything - about how she’d come to Atlantic City for a wrestling show and gotten that call from Amy about investigating the abandoned parts of the former Willowbrook campus. Even when she started talking about Amy’s psychotic break, he didn’t bat an eyelash. He just put his arm around her and stroked her shoulder with his thumb, trying to soothe her. And instead of pushing him away like she should have, Ruby leaned in closer and allowed herself to truly relax for the first time since Amy’s break.
“It’s going to be okay, Ruby. I’ll give you whatever you need to help you get to the bottom of this. I’m sorry about Amy. I know how close the two of you were. It always amazed me, really. Every other freshman in that class had horror stories about their roommates, but you and Amy were a match made in heaven.” He pulled her in closer and pressed his lips to the top of her head. Ruby closed her eyes and clenched her hand into a fist, digging her nails into her palm.
“David…”
“Hm?”
“This is…” Wrong, she should have said. And it was. But since the start of the year, Ruby had been essentially alone and she missed the simple comfort of having someone around who knew her. It wasn’t like she could talk like this with the rest of the workers in her wrestling company, after all. To them, her Ghostbusters routine was just a gimmick, and even though there were things that needed to be kept secret with David, at least she could confide in him with this latest mystery.
“Shhh. Just relax, Ruby girl. You’re safe here.”
Their eyes met and before Ruby could think rationally about what she was doing, she leaned in and kissed him deeply. David pulled her into his lap, his hands sliding up under her shirt as she straddled him. She practically melted against him, her nails lightly scratching against his scalp as they grinded against one another. As David worked her shirt up over her head, Ruby began unbuttoning his, her lips sealing against his once her shirt was on the floor. He grabbed her under her thighs and twisted so that she landed with her back on the couch with him kneeling above her. Ruby sat up, her hands busily undoing his belt buckle as David reached behind her to unhook her bra.
Just as he got it undone, they both heard the gentle click of his office door opening, and David’s expression turned horrified in a matter of moments. Quickly redoing the closure of her bra, Ruby turned around and saw a young woman standing in the doorway, frozen in shock.
“David? Baby, what’s going on?” she asked, her voice strained. David stammered a response, but it was Ruby who pushed him off so that she could retrieve her shirt off the floor.
“So when exactly were you gonna tell me that you had a girlfriend?” Ruby spat, pulling her shirt on and moving to get her jacket and bag. “And I mean look at her… she’s barely older than one of your students! Come on, David!”
David looked at Ruby sheepishly and her eyes went wide. “Oh my God, she is one of your students, isn’t she? God fucking damn it, David! I thought you were done with this shit! You broke up with me because you didn’t want to jeopardize your career, and back then you were only my TA! God!”
The girl in the doorway looked like she was ready to kill David and in that moment, Ruby couldn’t bring herself to care. She stormed out of the office, leaving her idiot ex-boyfriend to deal with his own relationship problems. The whole way back to the Mustang, she berated herself for falling so easily back into David’s arms.
Their relationship had lasted through most of her freshman year of college. He was a senior, working as a teacher’s assistant and she had been in his introductory American history course. Early on, she had visited him during office hours because the professor intimidated her and David had seemed like he was much more approachable when she had questions about her very first college research paper. After that, they often ran into each other in the library and in the dining halls, and the chemistry between them only grew. And yes, she could admit to herself now that she liked the secrecy of it all and the risk involved. So had he, clearly, because even though he had told her then that their relationship could not continue because of the threat to his future career in academia, here he was making the same mistake again.
But Ruby was no longer the same wide-eyed freshman, and if the encounter with David had proved anything to her, it was that she couldn’t seek comfort in those old familiar places. Her secrets were too numerous and she had changed too much. The Ruby Tyler who had fallen in love with David Wells was just a memory now. She could never be that girl ever again.
Throwing her bag onto the passenger seat of the Mustang, Ruby turned the car on and drove off toward the highway. She had a show she needed to make in Cleveland; that had to take precedence now.
Several hours into her trip, her phone started ringing. Without looking at the caller ID, Ruby picked up.
“This is Ruby.”
“Ruby. It’s -”
“I know who it is. Takes longer than five months for me to forget a voice. And if this is about what I think it’s about, forget it. I said I was done and I meant it. I’m out, for good. Go fuck yourself.”
The person on the other end of the line started speaking again, but Ruby had already taken the phone away from her ear. She hung up and tossed it back onto her bag, rolling her eyes in disgust before turning on the radio so that the music could help drown out her thoughts.
But as she drove on toward Cleveland, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was going to be a long, lonely road ahead.