The Legend of Bastien - Chapter 21 – The Other Side of the Bridge

 

The Legend of Bastien

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 21 – The Other Side of the Bridge

 

What happened in Bastien was big news for a little while.  But as always, even big news gets replaced by bigger or more recent news, and even in a town like Bastien, life had to go on. 

The state didn’t abandon the town of Bastien completely though.  An agency was set up inside the courthouse to help anyone in the town who was interested in relocating to somewhere else.  At first, nobody expected anyone to take advantage of it, but there were more bitter memories in the town concerning the Bastien family than most people realized.  That, and the allure of what might be just over that bridge was a powerful one.  One by one, entire families went into that courthouse to inquire about what might be available for them in the outside world. 

 

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The entire Bastien family was buried in the same section of the town cemetery that held all the rest of the Bastiens before them.  But where the rest of those graves had elaborate headstones and markers, this time all the Bastiens got nothing more than small markers.  Just enough to say who had been buried there, when they had been born, and when they had died. 

Elijah’s son Noah had created all those small grave markers for the family, while his father worked on a different one.

Early one morning, a truck stopped at the end of the bridge, and Elijah and Noah struggled to lift a specially carved stone from their truck.  They set it down just off the end of the bridge, not far from the chasm where Chrissy had fallen.  The face of the stone had been chiseled smooth.  Like a tombstone, words were etched into the smooth face of the rock:

 

Chrissy

We’re sorry

Thank you for saving us

Please forgive us

 

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Someone knocking on the kitchen door during breakfast was nothing new to Hugh and Bea Stockoff.  It happened a lot.  Day or night.  Hugh got up to answer it and was surprised to see Burty standing there with a large bunch of wildflowers in his hand.  Burty coming to the house for anything wasn’t just unusual, it was unheard of.  But carrying flowers?  “Burty?  What’s up?”

“I need some time off,” Burty told him.

Bea, now seeing who it was and noticing the flowers, came up behind her husband.  “Flowers?”

“Time off for what?” Hugh asked.

“I heard there’s a grave marker for Chrissy out by the bridge.  I want to take these there for her.”

Once again, Hugh noticed that Burty was still referring to Chrissy as a her.  As usual, he didn’t try to correct him.

“I’ll work, extra-long later today,” Burty added quickly.  “Twice as long.  I just need time to walk out to the bridge and back…if I can find it.”

Hugh looked down at the flowers in Burty’s hands, then back to his face.  “Burty, don’t worry.  You won’t have to work a minute more than normal.  And instead of walking, I’ll drive you there myself.”

“Not yet!” Bea interrupted.  She looked at her husband.  “Not until I’ve had a chance to pick some flowers of my own to take out there.”

Hugh nodded.  “Sounds like a good idea.”

Shortly after, the stone out by the bridge became like a Mecca for many of the people of Bastien, as wild and homegrown flowers seemed to pile around it everywhere.

 

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The people of Bastien didn’t own anything in the town.  Everything was owned by the Bastien family, which made matters even worse as the authorities tried to sort everything out.  Strangely, the people of Wisconsin, and the entire United States, seemed to open their hearts to the poor people of Bastien.  One by one, the cattle trucks rolled in, and the farmers moved out.  Family after family left the town in search of a better life, most of them already having jobs to go to that were found by the agency trying to help them.

Eventually, enough people left that it became obvious that nobody in the town could stay there, not without any kind of supporting structure that the community had provided. 

Principal Pomeroy left to become a math teacher in a high school in Minneapolis. 

Elijah Shultz wasn’t a licensed mortician, but a mortuary in Milwaukee offered to take him and his son in and help them get their licenses.

Tess left with Fred and Betty Tucker who had been offered jobs as assistant managers in a large store in Madison, Wisconsin.  Tess had been promised a job in a nearby bank as one of their tellers.  She would live with Fred and Betty for a short while until she could manage to make it on her own.

As they approached the bridge on their way out of town, Fred stopped his truck and they all got out to stand in front of Chrissy’s marker stone one last time.  The ground was littered with flowers, all withered now, but the outpouring from the entire community had been nothing less than incredible.  Tess sobbed as she got back into Fred’s truck, and he left the town of Bastien behind…for good.

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Eventually there came a day many months later, when the authorities crawled through every last inch of Bastien.  In the end, they came out and declared there was no one left.  The engineers walked out onto the wooden bridge to begin laying their explosive charges.

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

The words on Chrissy’s marker at the bridge said:

Chrissy

We’re sorry

Thank you for saving us

Please forgive us

 

In a pale-yellow house just off the main street, an ethereal hand labored hard to finish scratching something permanent into the real-world wall of the living room in the house:

I forgive you.

The ghostly hand finished the difficult task just as the explosions in the distance began.  As the bridge fell into the chasm, and the town of Bastien fell into legend, the ghost of Chrissy dissolved into the peaceful world of heaven.

 

The End

 

And possibly the end anymore stories I post on this blog.  Maybe.  I won’t post it unless I finish something.

 Love to you all.

Karen

 

The Legend of Bastien - Chapter 20 - The Strangest Things – Part 2 of 2

 

The Legend of Bastien

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 20 - The Strangest Things – Part 2 of 2

 

Chrissy was miserable…as usual.  But even locked in the cell, he was less miserable than he had been back in Bastien.  Every time anyone came near him, he only asked.  “Will you kill me now?”  The police weren’t sure if he needed a good lawyer, or a shrink.  The truth was, he needed both.

As more and more information about the situation began to trickle in, Chrissy’s standing as a prisoner became more important.  The problem was that much of that information seemed to be confusing.  And so far, the reports were that everyone in the town of Bastien seemed to consider Chrissy to be some kind of hero.

A team of people spent hours talking with Chrissy, having no problem getting all the information out of him about each and every murder.  But things were confusing when he talked about a law and some kind of addendum to it.  Later, when the team got more information, along with a copy of that law, they had Chrissy in for another little chat, where they sat open-mouthed as he confirmed all that they read about the law, and he told him what his entire life had been like for the last six months.

None of the team that talked with Chrissy knew what should be done with him.  Eighteen murders!  But…it sounded to each of them like he might have had good reason for all of them.

 

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The strangest thing that Captain Grey had ever seen was the Cocksucker Law.  But the strangest thing the people of Bastien had ever seen was the helicopter landing on the village green, interrupting the celebration that was still going on.  None of the citizens of Bastien had any idea who the people were who got off that helicopter.  They could only surmise that the men were all someone important.

It was mid-afternoon when a contingency of men from the helicopter walked into the Bastien courthouse.  Captain Grey immediately hurried forward to greet them.  “Governor!” he said, shocked to see the big man himself.  “And Mr. Attorney General.”

“We had to see this place for ourselves,” the Governor said.  “Nobody we’ve been able to find has ever heard of it.

“Almost nobody,” Captain Grey confirmed.  “We did discover them listed with the electric company, the phone company, a satellite TV company, and one of the satellite internet companies.  But nobody else!  And those companies all have Bastien listed as just another business account.  The entire town!”

“How can that be?” the Governor asked.

“We’re starting to get an idea,” Captain Grey replied.  “But I’m afraid we don’t have all the answers yet.”

“And all the murders were done by one girl?  Twenty of them?” the State Attorney General asked.

“Eighteen, actually,” the captain corrected him.  “And it’s not a girl, it’s a boy.  He just looks like a girl and has a girl’s name because of the craziest town law you ever heard of, that made him the official town cocksucker.”

“The what?” both the Governor and the Attorney General exclaimed.

“It’s early days yet,” Captain Grey told them, “but there appear to have been things going on in this town that frighten even me.  And it appears that it’s been going on for generations.”

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

The governor and the attorney general were still being given a tour around the community when another helicopter invaded the air over Bastien, but this one didn’t land.  This one bore the logo of one of the national news outlets.  That night, those people who had TVs were all treated to a helicopter view of their town.  A town the news people all over the country were now calling the town that didn’t exist.

No pictures were shown of Chrissy since he was in jail, but the news people had already gotten her name and the fact that she was believed to have murdered twenty people in that community.

The following day, the news helicopter did land on the village green, and the news people managed to get all the details about everything that had gone on in that town, much faster than the police had. 

The big news story of the day that rocked the entire nation was:  Should someone who had committed so many murders, be charged, after what had been done to him?  And if so, what kind of sentence should he get?

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

The authorities spent days crawling through the entire community of Bastien and talking with almost everyone.  Each day only cemented the picture that had started to become clear on the first day.  Bastien had been a town that was forever locked in the unrelenting grip of homicidal tyrants.

It had been almost forty-eight hours now since Chrissy had arrived at the station and been taken into custody.  Due to all the conflicting information, he hadn’t been charged yet.  As things became clearer by the hour as to what had been going on in the town of Bastien, the county District Attorney became more conflicted than ever over what should be done with Chrissy.  Eighteen murders!  But the circumstances….

The District Attorney finally held a big meeting to discuss just what they should do.  The police Captain, Detective Walsh, half a dozen others from the state police, and even the Attorney General of the state were there.  Every aspect of the case, every aspect of what was going on in the entire town was discussed.  In the end, they could all come to only one conclusion.  For the last one hundred and twenty years, the town of Bastien had been run by not just a family of psychopaths, but a dynasty of psychopaths.  And the entire Bastien family had done everything possible to keep it that way.  Generation after generation.

As to what to do about Chrissy, the people in that meeting were of differing opinions, despite how justified many of them seemed to think he was.  Murdering eighteen people just couldn’t go unpunished.  But at the same time, there weren’t just unusual circumstances, there were unprecedented circumstances.  The District Attorney wasn’t at all sure he could get a conviction on Chrissy.  In fact, what public opinion was out there already seemed to view him as a hero.  But eighteen murders?  No!

In the end, the District Attorney ordered Chrissy released and sent back home while he studied the matter further before making a formal decision on the matter.

Late that night, Chrissy got taken from his jail cell again.

“Are you going to kill me now?” Chrissy asked, hoping it would finally happen.

“No.  Of course not,” he was told.  “The D.A. is sending you home.  For now at least.”

“Home?”  That wasn’t what Chrissy wanted.  He wanted to die.  He would like to see and hold his mother one last time though.

Before leaving the station, Chrissy was given back the girl’s clothes he had been wearing when he was arrested.  McNally and Clemson, since they knew where they were going, were given the task of taking Chrissy home.  An hour later, they escorted him through the door into his house.

Tess took one look at her son and stared in disbelief.  “Chrissy!” she yelled as she got up from the kitchen table and ran to him.  She hugged him hard as she cried tears of joy.

Chrissy was happy to be home.  He was happy to be out of that jail cell, but he wasn’t happy to be alive.  Before putting him to bed, his mother put a cloth diaper and plastic pants on him under a thin nightgown.  She kept telling him they would get him some proper boy’s clothes in the morning, but he told her not to bother.  He didn’t what them.

“We’re going!” she told him with finality.

But Chrissy knew what his mother didn’t know, or refused to realize.  He knew that the Chris that used to be her son was dead already.  All that remained was for him to kill the rest of himself.

Early the next morning, as the sun barely crested the horizon, Chrissy picked out one of the dresses he liked more than any of the others and got dressed.  He even took the time to do his makeup as well as he could.  He didn’t worry about the soaking wet cloth diaper he was wearing.  While his mother was still sound asleep, he quietly went through the living room and out the front door.  Thoughts of his mother weighed heavily on his mind.  She would never understand.  She would take steps to stop him.  But he couldn’t allow that.  This had to happen.  He had yearned for this to happen…for a long time now.  And finally, his mother was safe enough.

He took the dirt road out of town and followed the now familiar route through the trees, all the way to the bridge.  Instead of seeing one of the town deputy trucks parked blocking the bridge on this side, he saw a state police car parked just off the road on the other side of the bridge.  He wasn’t sure why, except to perhaps make sure no vehicles crossed that were too big.

When he got to the end of the bridge, he looked down at the rushing water and rocks below.  He had seen it before from this angle, but this time he walked out into the middle of the bridge to look down from there.  The sight below him was even more frightening.

The officer in the police car saw the girl walk out onto the bridge.  He got out of his car to see if she needed anything.  It wasn’t until he reached the end of the bridge before he realized who it was.  It looked like a girl, but he had heard that it wasn’t.  “Chrissy?” he asked.

Chrissy turned his head to look at the officer, then looked back at the water below.

“Can I help you with anything?” the officer called.

“No,” Chrissy called back, still looking down at the water.  He climbed up on the railing guarding the side of the bridge.

“Chrissy!  No!  You could fall!” the officer yelled as he started running across the bridge in his direction.

With one last look back at the officer, Chrissy said one last thing.  “Bye Mom.  Love you.  But I hate life.”  With that, he pushed off the top of the bridge and fell into the chasm of rocks and rushing water below.

They searched for three days, but never found one sign of Chrissy’s body.

 

The Legend of Bastien - Chapter 20 - The Strangest Things – Part 1 of 2

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The Legend of Bastien - Chapter 19 – The Town That Didn’t Exist – Part 2 of 2

 

The Legend of Bastien

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 19 – The Town That Didn’t Exist – Part 2 of 2

 

Ten minutes later, the state policemen were amazed to drive into a nice-looking town, complete with a large town square.  They both looked around, wondering about it.  Fred drove directly to Tess’s house where there was now a large crowd gathering out front.

“What the hell is going on in this place?” Clemson asked before they got out of their car.

McNally only looked at him before he opened his car door.  As the two of them headed for the front door of the small house, the crowd seemed to close in around them, blocking their path.

“Police!  Let us through!” McNally ordered.

“Not yet!” one woman told them.

“Let us through!” McNally ordered again.

“Not till I’ve had my say first!” the woman demanded.

“And me!” another person shouted.

“Me too!” someone else yelled.

There was a lot of noise, most of it agreement from the entire crowd that the two policemen now realized was still growing as they saw more people walking toward the house.

“There’ll be time for questions later!” McNally told them.  “We need to check on the suspect.”

“Chrissy Moore isn’t going anywhere, and neither are you…until you talk to us first,” one of the men replied.

“There’s no time!  We need to secure the suspect!” McNally yelled.  “Now move!” he tried to push his way past the woman, but he was immediately stopped by at least a dozen men.  “What the hell are you doing?  I can arrest each and every one of you.”

“You’re not talking to Chrissy until I’ve had my say!” the first woman told him.

“And me!” another man added.

“You’re not going in there until you’ve talked to all of us first!” someone else told the two policemen.

With that many people standing against them, and all they wanted to do was talk, McNally realized he had no choice.  “Okay!” he said, his irritation evident.  “Now what the hell is your problem?”

“Sheriff Bastien murdered my husband,” the woman said.  “He, his father, and all the Bastien’s have murdered lots of people in this town.  Chrissy Moore finally got us justice!  We don’t want him arrested or punished in any way.”  There was a loud voicing of agreement from the entire crowd.

“The sheriff murdered your husband?” McNally said, not believing it.  “What was your husband doing at the time?”

“Tending the cows.  Feeding them.”

McNally shook his head.  “So you’re saying that the sheriff shot your husband for feeding some cows.”

“No!  He shot him because he made the mistake of complaining about the way this town was run!”

McNally shook his head, not understanding or believing it.  “Fine!” he said.  “Now let us through so we can get to the suspect.”

“No!” another person in the crowd said.  “Don’t you dare arrest Chrissy Moore.  He got justice for all of us today.  We’ve all had family murdered by the Bastiens.”

“What do you mean you’ve all had family murdered?”

“That’s just what I said!” the man reiterated.  “I’m the high-school principal, and the Bastiens have been keeping us under their thumb for five generations now.  Chrissy Moore just freed us.  All of us.”

McNally still wasn’t sure what to make of that.  He finally shook his head.  “Someone with more authority than me is going to have to take statements from…all of you I guess.  Trust me, you’ll all get your say.  But I can’t let anyone who’s murdered someone, just go free.  We have rules and regulations we have to follow.  Now I promise you.  Someone will be glad to talk to all of you, but not until we take care of securing the suspect, and then we’ve got to find some way to phone out of here for assistance.  Now please, let us through.”

It was a moment, but finally the crowd moved out of the way, but nobody seemed to be leaving the front of the tiny house.  The two police officers climbed the few steps to the front door and opened it.

Inside they saw Fred Tucker standing next to a woman, and another woman sitting on the floor holding a girl who was holding a gun to her head.  As they came in, both McNally and Clemson saw the girl pull the trigger.  But the gun only clicked.

“I thought that guy said it was a boy who did this,” Clemson noted.

“He did,” McNally replied.  He held up his hands and approached the woman and the girl slowly, never taking his eyes off that gun, even though it was empty.  “Easy now,” he said.  “Just give me that gun.”

“No!” Chrissy screamed violently as he raised the gun to his head again and pulled the trigger, producing nothing more than another click.

McNally moved in quickly and tried to take the gun from him, but Chrissy was too desperate and struggled madly against him.  “Give me that gun!” he ordered.

“No…” Chrissy cried bitterly.  “There’s still one bullet left.  One more.  For me!  My bullet…for me.”  He broke down in tears.  “I have to die.”

McNally finally got a good hold on Chrissy’s wrist and with a lot of struggling, wrestled the gun away from him.  “It’s empty!” he yelled, his irritation evident after finally getting the gun from the desperately struggling girl.  “See?”  He raised the gun in the air and pulled the trigger.  The loud gunshot shocked all of them as the gun that wouldn’t fire, fired.

“No!” Chrissy screamed.  “No!  No!  No!  That was my bullet.  That one was for me.  I have to die!”

“Shh…” Tess hushed him as she grabbed him and held him tighter.  “No you don’t.  It’s all over now.”  But Chrissy only sat there on the floor, sobbing.

“What’s your name miss?” McNally asked.

“His name is supposed to be Chris,” Tess answered for him.  “But by town law, it was changed to Chrissy,” she told the officer angrily.

“Town law?” McNally asked, not understanding.

“Yes!” she replied.  “That’s why he’s dressed like a girl.  That’s why he has to wear d….  Oh hell!” she finally said.  “You’re going to have to find a copy of the damn law and the addendum that came after to believe it.  The whole thing was…ridiculous!”

“So the bottom line is that this is Chris, and he’s a boy,” McNally said, just to be certain.

“Yes, but I guess it’s legally Chrissy now instead.”

“Okay.  Chrissy,” McNally said, not caring that much.  He looked at Chrissy.  “Chrissy,” he said.  “According to what Mr. Tucker here told us, you’ve had a busy day.  You’ve killed a few people.”

Chrissy looked up at him, for the first time, his eyes gaining a bit of real focus.  “Finally!” he said.

“Who did you kill?” McNally asked.  “We just need to be certain.”

Chrissy sighed and looked away before speaking to the corner of the room.  “It started when Deputy Phillip dropped me off at Deputy Mike’s house so I could wait there until Mom got off work,” he started.

“I used to be the bank teller,” Tess explained.  “Until recently when the Bastiens decided I should be Mike and Liz’s maid instead.”

McNally wasn’t sure about that, but he turned his attention back to Chrissy.  “And what happened there, at Deputy Mike’s house?”

Still speaking to the corner, Chrissy said, “After I put my purse in the house, I wandered out to the barn.  Deputy Mike was there working on his tractor.  I picked up a metal bar and hit him over the head…enough times that I killed him.  I took his gun inside and shot Judy and her mother.”

“You killed all of them?” McNally asked.  “Are you sure?”

“They’re dead!” Tess replied.  “And thank God!”

“Okay?” McNally said.  “Anyone else?”

Chrissy turned his head to look at him.  “Anyone else?  Are you kidding?”  One by one, he accounted for everyplace he went and how he went about killing every person.  Each and every one.  It was a long list, and both police officers were completely aghast. 

“Is there someone here who knows where each of those places are?” Officer Clemson asked.  “We’re going to need to check.”

“I can show you,” Fred volunteered.

McNally stood up.  “In the meantime, I need to find a telephone that will let me call out.”

“I need to stay here with Tess,” Betty said.  “But I saw Hugh Pomeroy outside.  He’s the high school principal.  He can help you with the phone.”

“You’ll probably have to use the one in the sheriff’s office like I did,” Fred told him.

McNally pulled the handcuffs from his belt.  He got no further than that when Tess grabbed Chrissy’s arms and pulled them in tighter.

 “No!” Tess yelled.  “No!  You can’t arrest him!”

“Ma’am,” McNally said, “He killed people.  Lots of people.  I lost count there were so many.”

“You can’t arrest him!”

“If I may make a suggestion,” Betty spoke up.  “Chrissy isn’t going anywhere.  In fact, because of the bridge, he can’t go anywhere.  Leave him here with us.  Besides, if the crowd I saw out front is any kind of indication, they’re not going to let you arrest him.”

McNally considered the situation, then shook his head.  “Sorry, I can’t!”  He reached out and grabbed Chrissy, pulling him forcibly away from his mother. 

Chrissy put up no kind of resistance, but Tess did…for a moment.  Tess sobbed as she watched him handcuff her son’s hands behind his back. 

“I’ll leave him here for now,” McNally told her.  “But I’ll be back later to take him in.”  He didn’t add that he was hoping that when the time came, there would be no crowd out front.  He looked toward Fred.  “Now where’s that phone?”

“I’ll introduce you to Pomeroy,” Fred told him.

Ten minutes later, Clemson was driving around the area with Fred Tucker, and Pomeroy showed McNally into the sheriff’s office.  McNally quickly checked the two bodies.  Without a doubt, dead.  It was looking like there might be more truth to the girl’s…boy’s story than he thought.  “Where’s the phone?”

“Should be in the sheriff’s office back there,” Pomeroy told him.

A few minutes later, McNally picked up the phone and tried to make a call, but he got the woman manning a switchboard instead.  A woman who refused to patch him through.  He pressed the other button on the phone and was relieved to be able to make his call.  Moments later, he heard Sergeant Enroy’s voice.  “Sergeant Enroy?  McNally here.”

“McNally?  Finally!  What’s the scoop on that Bastien thing?” Enroy asked.

“Sergeant, you better patch me straight through to the captain.  Bastien does exist, and so far I’ve seen three dead bodies myself.  The sheriff and two of his deputies.”

“You mean there is such a place?”

“So are the murders.  We need help out here.  A lot of it.  So please, the captain is going to need to know about this, and from what little I know right now, there’s a lot here that’s way over my head.”

“Murders.  Multiple.  Okay.  I’ll patch you through.  He and I were making bets on whether the place existed or not.  Looks like I lost.  Hold on.”

A few seconds later, another voice came over the phone.  “McNally!  What the hell is going on?”

“Captain Grey.  Listen.  Not only does Bastien exist, but it’s a nice-looking place, complete with a nice town square, a couple of stores, an elementary school and a high school.  I’m calling from the sheriff’s office on the town square right now.”

“So why has nobody ever heard of it then?” the captain asked.

“Beats me.  But I can tell you that there was one dead body right on the other side of the bridge leading into the town and there’s two more right here in the sheriff’s office, including the sheriff himself.”

“So there were three murders.  That’s a lot, but not like that guy was trying to tell us.”

“No Captain.  The suspect spelled out every last one of them for me.  I lost count long before she finished, but I’m guessing somewhere around twenty…if she’s telling the truth about it.  Clemson is off checking on them now.”

“Twenty?”

“Look, it’s confusing.  But that’s as close as I can come, it sounded like about twenty…so far.  Look, this whole thing is confusing, and there are things going on here that are way above my pay grade.  We need help out here, and a lot of it.  We have the suspect in cuffs right now, but I’m not sure anyone will let us take her out of here.  It seemed like the entire town was outside in front of her house when we got here, and every last one of them seem to think that the girl who did the murders, saved them.”

“A girl?”

“Oh.  No.  Well actually, I guess it’s a boy.  He just looks like a girl and has a girl’s name.”

“One of those!” the captain stated.

“No.  That’s another screwy thing we came across.  It seems the town passed a law requiring him to dress like a girl.  Shit Captain.  Just send us some help.  Lots of it.  There so much weird stuff going on here that I can’t explain any of it.  And like I said, I think it’s all going to be way above of my pay grade.”

“Okay.  Where is this place?”

“It’s way back in…  Look, I’ll have to meet everyone out by the highway where the turnoff is.  And it’s nothing but a tiny dirt road that goes miles and miles back through the woods.  Better not send anyone with a big heavy vehicle though.  There’s this wooden bridge that you have to cross to get here and even the town people warned me to go slow over the thing.  Just give me about thirty minutes to get back out to the highway turn off.  Hopefully, I’ll at least have some kind of cell or radio coverage there.  This place is so remote there’s literally nothing but an old landline phone system, and only a few phones have the ability to call out of the area.”

“They what?”

“Just send someone!” McNally said.  “A lot of people!  Captain, I’m telling you this entire place needs someone way above my paygrade.”

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Only four police cars arrived in Bastien an hour later.  Three hours later, six more vehicles arrived carrying all kinds of police and forensic personnel.  At two o’clock in the morning, McNally took Chrissy from his house and put him into the back of his police car.  Tess sobbed bitterly.  McNally and Clemson drove Chrissy out of Bastien.  It was so dark along the road that Chrissy couldn’t see anything of the outside world.  He just shut his eyes and wished he could die.

Why hadn’t that bullet fired?  It should have.  It did for the policeman.  Why wouldn’t the gun fire for him?

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

The first time anyone got a look at the metal cock restraint locked onto Chrissy was when they took Chrissy’s clothes away from him and let him take a shower.  Despite how uncomfortable both the guards and Chrissy were about it, they studied it carefully, and finally gave up trying to get the thing off him.  All they could do was to report it and let someone else come up with a solution for it.

With so many murders under his belt, Chrissy wasn’t allowed near any of the other juveniles in their system.  He was stuck straight into a jail cell where he wouldn’t be near anyone else. 

Dressed in the prison clothes, without a diaper, no matter how hard Chrissy tried, he couldn’t seem to keep from peeing all over himself.  It just happened too soon, too fast, for him to do anything about it.  He had been in diapers so long that he had almost no control at all, and holding back was simply impossible.  After another shower and another changes of clothes, the guards were forced to supply him with some incontinence underwear.  That at least worked much better.