[Sodium_noir] Hell is Other People - Detour

[Jennie Teakle]

The Blue

Christine
Orphan


Christine lights another cigarette. As she smokes, she stares at her  
cell phone. She still hasn't drunk enough vodka to call the place she  
now needs to call. She hasn't called there for 10 years but that's  
not because she forgot the number. One call to reconnect her to a  
place that is a continent and a lifetime away. Grass Valley, Sherman  
County, Oregon. Not much there but a lot of wheat and cattle. Home.

Christine signals for another shot, lights a fresh cigarette from the  
spent one.

She feels bad about Murray the busboy. Who deserved a Fate like that?  
But that isn't what has derailed her. Murray's is not the first death  
she's Seen, nor the first person she's tried to warn. Murray had told  
Christine she was crazy. Julie, her mother, had said much, much  
worse. Christine's fingers tighten around her glass, clench the  
cigarette too tightly to draw on. Their last words to each other  
before Christine had split had been ugly. Julie had told Christine  
she was jealous, wanted Lew Coulson for herself. Even now that makes  
Christine's skin crawl. *Want* the Widow Man courting her mother? How  
could she want a man like that? How could Julie have wanted him? But  
then Julie hadn't  been inside his head or seen his future and  
Christine had. A mind like an ice cave as he stared down at another  
dead wife. He hadn't been thinking, God what have I done? He'd been  
thinking, How can I get rid of Julie's body? Can I make this look  
like an accident? Everyone bought that Teresa left me and I didn't  
get asked many questions. But, you know? I don't think that will wash  
a second time.  Good old Lewis Coulson. Everyone's favorite cattle man.

Unbidden, a more recent memory surfaces. The Sybil, the voice of  
Christine's Awakening, speaking in a light, contemptuous tone.
“But I suppose you can run away from even that small part of the  
duty. It’s really all that can be expected from a person who would  
let their own mother die for want of a warning.”

Christine closes her eyes. "I did try to warn her," she mutters. "I  
*did*."

But she also ran away. God, she's been running away from it for a  
decade. Pretending that she didn't See true and that her Mom had been  
right about her. A twisted kid who hated her own mother for being  
such a fucking victim, tripping from Christine's dad, the drunken  
wife beater, into the arms of a  . . . psychopath. Way to go, Mom,  
thinks Christine. I just couldn't stick around to watch.

But, thanks to unlucky Murray, Christine now knows that her Sight is  
real, beyond denial. At sixteen, she'd been too scared to face this  
possibility. So she ran, left it far behind, refused to witness. But  
now, she has to know. She has to stop running sometime.  Why not  
right now?

Scrabbling for her phone, Christine keys in a number she hasn't  
called in ten years. Eyes tight shut,  she waits in her own darkness  
for the ring tone. It rings forever and the dark grows and grows  
until with a brief click, it picks up.

"Yeah, hello?"

Christine freezes, tongue stuck to the dry roof of her mouth. It's a  
man's voice. She recognises the familiar rural twang of home.

"Hello?" A note of impatience, now. Christine wills the words out of  
her mouth.

"Mrs Coulson there?"

"Mrs . . . " A sharp intake of breath at the other end. Then,

"Who is this? Another reporter?"

"Yeah," says Christine blindly, her lips numb. "Gotham Herald."

"What the . . . ah Christ! I thought we were through with that crap.  
It was years ago!" The shock in the unknown man's voice is brewing  
into anger. "Don't you people ever let up?"

The growing tirade is abruptly broken off, sounds like a hand just  
clamped over the receiver. Christine makes out a muffled conversation  
which she strains to hear. Somewhere in the background, a woman's  
voice, questioning. Christine hears,  "I'll handle it, Julie. Go back  
to bed." Then a pause and,

"Listen," the man's voice hisses, "I don't care who you are but there  
is no story here. Coulson's long dead, the court ruled it death by  
misadventure. His gun went off by accident. Now, leave us the hell  
alone!"

The line goes dead. Christine holds her phone to her for a long, long  
time before she finally unpeels her grip.  She lays her hands on the  
bar, waits for the shakes to stop then opens her eyes.

"You alright, Miss?" The barman's concern is perfunctory, his gaze  
incurious. Christine smiles dazedly at him.

"Me? Sure."

She laughs, suddenly.

"It's Fate that's all messed up. Hey," she says,  "got any tequila  
behind the bar? I'm supposed to be at a party."



TBC Hell is Other People Thread
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