#Me @ Malcolm: I can no longer potect you not that I ever tried

[shineonmalcolmbright]

Shine On, Bright: Chapter Twenty-Nine

Table of Contents

Present

There are enough lights out in the yards to make a person wonder what the electric bill looked like every December. Malcolm trails behind Owen glancing at glimmering candy cane, sparkling snowmen, and blinking Santas. Christmastime is here. Happiness and cheer. Own gets right to business. It’s not like he’s a cop anymore and the split second of distraction is gone. Malcolm hops up onto the stoop of the house before them where Owen’s knocking and it’s time to wait to see what they may or may not learn about the Junkyard Killer.

It’s getting cold. You’ve been colder, Malcolm tells himself. It means nothing. He rubs his hands together to let some friction heat him up.

Owen smirks at him. “Smile, kid. This is the fun part.”

But Malcolm doesn’t smile. He looks at Owen’s feet instead while keeping his hands together. It’s hard to smile when you have words such as, But you already knew all of this all along. Don’t do it. You know if you go in there, there’s no going back, on the brain.

“Don’t worry.” Owen leans forward, he’s chuckling as he reveals a concealed weapon. “You were right before, it’s not registered.”

“Oh, well, in that case. . .” Malcolm tries not to roll his eyes because how is that supposed to provide any comfort (and it’s so cold).

Owen goes back to knocking on the door only for Malcolm’s phone to go off. It’s tugging at his attention and he pulls it out of his pocket to see what’s up. Hopefully, it’s not Jessica or Ains calling to tell them how disappointed they are in him. Except it’s neither and he picks up, turning away from Owen like it’ll help create a more private conversation.

“Gil. Hey.” If he really wants, he reaches out to Gil himself through the shining but Gil couldn’t reach him. Made the world a little more lonely. Behind him, Owen’s still banging on the door. There’s no telling how many miles separate the two but some panic leaks through the phone from Gil. I got a lead.”

“So do I. Macy didn’t do it.”

Figures, figures. Malcolm nods even though Gil can’t see him or hear his present thoughts. There’s not much to read other than the annoyance of Owen still knocking on the door. Not at Owen but the mystery of if this lead is worthwhile and a consistent noise of any sort is easy to dislike.

“So the frame job and the murder were two separate crimes,” Malcolm says hopping right into too many thoughts even with the knock, knock, knocking. “Turner was investigating The Junkyard Killer. . .” It’s enough to get Owen to stop with one subtle What the fuck as he glances at Malcolm. “So maybe, maybe. . .”

The thoughts are the same for Gil. His surprise hangs in the air, distance can’t change that. He even blurts into the phone, “Wh-Wh-What?” Where are you, Bright?

“Maybe he found out Turner was on his case.” There’s no stopping Malcolm, the words might as well be word vomit because they keep coming, no questions can stop him. A little too close to the truth so he follows him to the hotel. . .”

Bright, where are you?

“. . .Didn’t expect him to be there with a sex worker but who cares, he’s there to kill a cop and he’ll happily throw in Emily, too.”

Even though Owen’s listening, he keeps up the occasional knock to not let their progress die.

“Wait, wait. . .” I’m not asking you again, where are you, Bright? “Are you saying that our murderer is the Junkyard Killer?”

Malcolm’s grinning, not that Owen nor Gil can see him. His back is still to Owen and there’s the distance to consider. But still. It’s hilarious, isn’t it? “We were working the case this entire time.” Cosmic humor bringing them together.

Before Malcolm can get out more words the door explodes open behind them with a woman grunting, she’s full of an odd sense of fury. “I may be blind but I’m not deaf.”

Malcolm faces her and maybe the odd sense is more than how upset she sounds because, beyond spoken words, there’s a lot of silence around her. There’s been other times Malcolm has faced such a silence. It’s an odd one where the rest of the world let’s you realize how busy it’s been all along from the buzzing Christmas lights to passing cars with their music floating on stereos.

“What do you want?” A tinge of sadness bites into her words because maybe she likes being alone? Maybe she’s not alone and wants to be with people. It’s impossible to tell.

“I-I got to go.” Malcolm hangs up real fast in order to join Owen.

Before Malcolm could cut off the call, he heard the ghost of Gil shouting, “Bright. . .Bright?” Damn it! Bright!

The woman has the door partially closed on her as she leans out facing them. “Unless you plan on singing, get off my front step!”

Shit, didn’t think this far ahead. . . Owen’s grumbling in his thoughts without a plan.

Malcolm hops right in, there’s a lot more energy than he needs right now. A jitteriness that takes over and he needs to shake it off. “Uh! Merry Christmas! We’re looking for John Watkins.” What appears to be confusion warps the woman’s face as she listens to Malcolm. Not an extra word or a hint to what’s going on inside her head. “Do you know if he used to live here?”

Only a smile bursts on her face. She chimes, “My sweet John! Of course, he did! How did you know my grandson?”

There’s something sweet yet poisonous about the way she speaks. It gets to Owen first, he’s there gawking at her unable to connect what he wants to think about. Malcolm’s not sure either. He’s hanging onto the words he told himself before, You know if you go in there, there’s no going back.

Owen’s looking at Malcolm for help and the lie happens so fast. It’s hard to tell who thought it up first. Malcolm admits, “We’re old friends.” Then again, maybe it’s not necessarily the lie he thinks it is. Owen has no idea.

The woman lets them inside the claustrophobic house. The sort that reminds one of hoarders. The woman collects little porcelain angels and skinny candles. There are crucifixes hanging from all the walls. She insists on food for them and leaves Owen and Malcolm alone to the eyes of God watching.

A broken radio spits Christmas songs at them, Said the night wind to the little lamb, Do you see what I see? Do you see what I see?

Malcolm’s taking it all in, smiling the whole time as he looks at all the gauche figurines. So many are faded from years of too much light. Across the room, Owen’s shaking his head. Malcolm’s still shaking from all the energy built up inside him.

“Why are you smiling?”

“This is John’s childhood home,” Malcolm comments as he moves a little closer to Owen. Cutting the distance so their voices don’t carry too much. He’s pointing at everything around them. “That’s, like, the Holy Grail for profilers.”

Do you see what I see? Do you see what I see?

Malcolm can’t focus on one thing, Owen included who’s just gawking at him by this point stuck on ?!?!. “Serial killers aren’t just born, they’re made.” He moves closer to the mantel place letting Owen’s ?!?! grow louder. Malcolm comes so close to touching the little angelic statues that watch over them. “And John was made. . .right here.” Rather than touch, he takes a step back taking in the sights. The regular decorations speak volumes. “Religion played a prominent role in his development. It impacts the way he kills. His messianic mission.”

There’s more than angels but other images of the Christian faith hosted by the house. All gathered to judge them and every other person to walk in front of them.

?!?!

“There are clues everywhere,” Malcolm lowers his voice looking beyond the room the stand in. The whole house is a museum.

The curation of John Watkins' past.

As Malcolm’s looking, the woman interrupts them. Her voice is a bit shrill, it cuts straight through the radio spitting Christmas tunes at them and Owen’s thoughts. “I thought I told you to sit.” The first few words sounded as if they were in trouble, but maybe she means it out of hospitality. She rounds a corner near a little table with plates in her hands. She starts to set the table for them.

Do you hear what I hear?

Owen shakes his head, he takes off his jacket. Malcolm stays in his long coat. They plop into seats at the dinner table to find old TV dinners there. The plastic still on. It’s all moist and hard to rip off with the food making unsettling sounds underneath.

You’ve got to be kidding me. . . Owen frees his food.

Malcolm wrinkles his nose as he listens to the woman speak. “Just remember to peel back the plastic. Sometimes I forget.”

While Owen wrestles with his meal, Malcolm picks up a fork. He’s staring at the table as he speaks. “Thank you for the meal, Mrs. Watkins.” Owen says nothing. He shakes his head. This leaves Malcolm to keep on talking. “We were wondering, uh. . .if you’d seen John recently.” Malcolm looks at his food, it’s as if it's melting and was never meant to be eaten.

“Oh! It’s Matilda, please. Now, how did you know my Johnnie again?”

For the first time, Owen talks even as he’s digging into his meal. “We worked with him at St. Edward’s.”

Malcolm glares at his food, his hands sink to his seat and he sits on them as he waits. He comes close to adding the bit about the Overlook and maybe he did say it out loud. Hard to tell. Owen gives him a look but Matilda’s smiling.

“He always said he made good friends there. Ah, everyone loves John. I raised him to be a good boy.”

Malcolm ends up pushing his food a bit away from him. The thought of eating upsets his stomach just something about it messes with his head. Not necessarily this meal, but all. Like times he’s at home reminding himself to eat over and over again then unable to do so.

“Were John’s parents around when he was a kid?” he asks.

Matilda chortles. “No father that I knew. Least of his worries, though, with that mother.”

Owen’s watching Malcolm not eat, maybe studying how he reacts to Matilda’s story.

“She was a sinner!” Matilda spits out. “FILTHY whore till she died. Chose HEROIN over her own child.” Matilda’s squirming in her seat with the fury ready to burst through the seams of her pink clothes. “You WANT his real mother, you see ME!”

“That must have been hard,” Malcolm comments, the sort of tone saved for condolences.

Matilda’s sitting up straighter, she folds her hands together. “God doesn’t put us here to do easy things, son, just right ones.” She scoots a bit to face Malcolm. His food sits there untouched, collecting the cold. Another brand new edge cuts into her voices. “Would you like something else?”

This leaves Malcolm looking between her and Owen and the food and food he’d rather not eat. Anxiety clenches in his stomach, he lifts his hands for no real reason, doesn’t do anything with them. He kinda just flutters around for a bit as he tries to answer her. “No. I’m. . .It’s fine.” He ends up grabbing a fork and holds it with both hands before letting the fork touch the food.

“Guests in this house deserve better than fine,” Matilda comments. A kindness returns. The hospitality of it all because if it isn’t there then there’d only be guilt. She’s already climbing from her seat. “Sit tight!”

Off in the kitchen, Matilda sings some old song. Malcolm can’t really make it out. He’s cleaning to his fork for dear life.

Owen leans forward whispering, “So he lost his parents young. I mean, that’s rough. But Grandma, she’s not bad. . .” He trails off looking at his food. “Could learn to cook, maybe.”

Malcolm’s shaking his head and clinging to his fork. “It’s all here. In Matilda.” He keeps his voice low, as well. It’s easy to tell Matilda is in the kitchen, still. She sings her song. “John targets people on the fringe because of what she made him believe as a child. That his mother was a sinner, that addicts are evil.”

The singing stops and footsteps approach. Matilda returns with a can in hand, she starts to splatter gravy all over Malcolm’s food almost hitting him a few times. He scoots back while Owen keeps going Oh, Oh, Oh and Matilda hums, “Here you go.” Owen cracks a joke that is so easy to miss. Malcolm sits there unable to touch the table any longer or look at the food without the idea of throwing up.

“Uh, Matilda, do you have any photos of John? We’d love to see him as a kid?” Malcolm talks still with his hands up, ready to flutter with nowhere to go. Grandparents loved showing off photos of their children and grandchildren.

On cue, Matilda hops up all smiles and nods. “I do!” She springs off into another room and brings back a scrapbook with roses on the cover.

Fades photos are inside. Clipped into the pages. Meant to stay. There’s sometimes words beside them pretending to describe people and places and events.

“Who’s Benjamin?” Malcolm points at one not quite able to get a good look.

“My husband, he was good to Johnnie. Pushed him to be his best but my poor Johnnie had to watch him die. Benjamin was working on his car in the garage and like a bolt of lightning straight from God, the car fell and CRUSHED his head. Horrible accident.” She keeps turning the pages leaving Malcolm and Owen to exchange a look because that’s a lot, a lot to take in about John Watkins. “And this is his first communion.” Matilda stops showing off pictures of John Watkins. He’s there in so many of them, faded images tuck in place with little informational tags yet in all of them his face is gone, scratched out of memories.

And Matilda continues on bringing them on a tour of John Watkins’ faceless life as she smiles and exclaims, “Family. Is. Everything.”

There’s not just faceless photos of John Watkins but a postcard of The Overlook Hotel as well. It’s not alone. Instead, it’s hidden on pages all too familiar to Malcolm. There’s the missing girl who was last seen running down a hallway, images of her in the elevator with the timestamps in the corner.

11:05; 11:06; 11:07; 11:09. Then L,E looked out at 11:11.

And close to her is a photograph almost unrecognizable. It’s from a magazine, it says Last known photograph of Alexie & Alexa Grady but their eyes look gouged out. And with them, the saddest part of their story: Family Annihilator. Their father destroyed them all.

Articles about the woman who threw children from the roof of the Overlook before she disappeared herself, found hanging in the basement. Salacious photos of the crime scene are cut out and pasted there.

The worst is ripped up pieces from a journal found their way inside.

11/08: Woke up in library. Thought I went to bed. 11/09: Woke up in ballroom (?). Remember going to bed. Mother said something to sleep better. Don’t remember falling asleep. 11/10: Is it possible to not remember falling asleep but waking up? I feel like I haven’t slept for days. Ask somebody about it. (Would Gil know? Where did Gil go?)

11/12: ????

Malcolm looks away. This world is full of memories, and memories are no different than ghosts. They’re always lurking around corners waiting to haunt you.

Owen’s still looking through the scrapbook shaking his head. “They’re all the same. He knew if Turner was onto him, that people would come looking.”

“So he made sure we wouldn’t be able to I.D. him when you did.” But that’s not wholly true, there’s evidence left behind just for Malcolm to know and no one else in the world. Still unable to look down, Malcolm glances up. Matilda left them again, but she’s close. He ends up whispering right to Owen. “See if you can find out when he was last here. I’m gonna take a look around.”

Even as Malcolm goes to get up he spots the page all about the Overlook and ends up changing it catching sight of one last entry.

11/13: Woke up in bed. Last thing I remember, boiler room. Looking at newspapers. Then nothing. Is there something wrong with me?

Matilda scurries back into the room as Malcolm is half out of his seat. Owen returns to his food looking at a new page of photographs.

“Matilda, can I use your bathroom?”

Matilda halts. “MAY I use your bathroom! Poor grammar is just a short walk to delinquency.” She returns to her smile and hangs onto the back of her seat looking ready to dance. There’s no way to understand her beyond what she says. Malcolm gulps, he watches her not wanting to move and not wanting to look down and catching sight of his own ghosts. “And you may. It’s the first door at the top of the stairs.”

Malcolm peels himself from his chair, he never takes off his coat, he keeps in on like it’s normal to wear one to a private bathroom. Owen’s stuck at the table with Matilda and Malcolm turns into the dark, dark house. He looks up the steps, they twist around, out of sight. There’s no decoration on the walls here. He needs to stay present, he needs to stay present but it’s so hard whenever the Overlook comes bearing down on his shoulders.

Thoughts of a not so lost past where he lost memories to chloroform and woke up half remembering all the times he found Martin in the basement or another corner chatting with the walls and almost unseen ghosts. Such hungry, hungry ghosts. They waited to feed on anybody passing through.

Matilda’s radio continues to spit out its Christmas music providing a backdrop that hides the voices in the kitchen of her and Owen chatting.

Ding dong ding dong, That is their song, With joyful ring, All caroling.

Malcolm inhales, he counts his breaths trying to ignore the lyrics and the encroaching thoughts. Of the girl in Room 217 who still haunts him, asking him to solve her death as if it were a riddle. Of him walking into the room after pushing Ainsley forward on a little tricycle, the big wheel sort meant for the insides of a building. He entered the room hearing her sing a song that would forever remind him that he’d be seeing her as she’s stuck inside of the tub inside the room.

One seems to hear, Words of good cheer, From everywhere, Filling the air.

The house groans underneath his weight as he moves up to the second floor. Up there, the lights are off forcing him to use a flashlight to guide him through the curation of John Watkins’ past.

Oh how they pound, Raising the sound, O'er hill and dale, Telling their tale.

Only crucifixes grace the walls. There’s no personal images up there and at least the angel figurines remain only downstairs. Malcolm avoids the bathroom with a half-remembered dream of the girl in Room 217. Instead, his light catches a vanity license plate at the end of the hall and on a door, the sort you buy in gift shops.

John.

Jesuses watch him steer clear of the bathroom as he enters John’s room. He pushes the door open glad it doesn’t whine on his hinges. Somewhere downstairs the radio continues to play and hopefully, Owen is learning something. There’s no telling what’s hidden up here in the murkiness of disuse. Malcolm shines his light around the room. There’s a single gold plated cross above a twin bed with two lights beside it. No decorations. Nothing to define what John once loved. Behind him, another Jesus watches from a framed image. There’s a long mirror capturing Malcolm and the wall with the crucifix above the bed, it reflects it back at him.

He moves forward peeling back at the threads of abandonment in the room. Dust falls like fog. Nobody’s wanted here. There’s a closet by the door and a lock on the door capturing his attention. It glints thanks to his flashlight. Malcolm walks to it, he’s hesitant though. Careful to make as little sound as possible because he’s of course in the bathroom.

It's too big of a lock to put on a closet and what closet has a lock? Malcolm touches it regretting, he uses his other hand to hold the flashlight and open the door finding a place for chains on the floor. All around are scratch marks, as if something past and present is trying to get out. Malcolm runs his hand over some of the scratches on the door finding himself listening to another time and another place. There’s no more carol of the bells but a sobbing child who begs. He can feel splints burring underneath his nails, ready to make them pop off. Sometimes fingernails litter the floor. They grow back, they always grow back to be lost again.

Malcolm releases the door and the memory, as well. He’s back in the present, almost.

Somewhere across the city, Malcolm can almost hear Gil shouting for his attention. Others are also starting to ask, Where is Bright right now? And Gil’s furious his answer is We don’t know.