Make a wish when a Blackbird flies

I stepped out of the bathroom with a towel around my waste and a cloud of steam following me out. I may have overdone the hot water, we didn't have any showers in the carnival washrooms – unless you counted a freezing hose above a drainpipe – we always stopped by rivers or lakes or even places with public showers which was more than a little rare. So I took advantage of the opportunity for hot water.

Basically it was my first hot shower since...before I went away. I walked into the bedroom, still slightly wet, and saw Gerard sitting on the bed, still wearing nothing but his underwear. He had a large file open on his lap which he was rifling through and a bunch of papers were strewn all over the bed.

As I walked closer I saw that they were pictures and notes, newspaper clippings and police reports. The pictures were what stood out the most, they showed dead bodies. I sat down next to him and took an even closer look.

“Should you be letting me see all this stuff?” I asked, I guess I broke him out of some thoughts because for a moment his face cleared and he said nothing.
“Probably not, but everything is out now and, well, I'm just too lazy to clear it back up.” He said.
“Right.” I said and picked up a random paper.

It was a police report and had a bunch of names on it.
“Is this the case you're working on?” I asked.
“Yup, this is the Hangman, like the game. By the way, you didn't hear any of this.” He said smiling.

I looked around at the pictures; I thought it was strange that they kept multiple copies of the same one, but then I noticed little differences in the background. The greatest differences where the letters scrawled in a seemingly random order on the walls close by.

The victims however were all the same; blonde long hair, green eyes, white face – almost blue after death – and the same slim body figure covered by the same night dress. They were all identical. I voiced this to Gerard who took one of the pictures for himself.

“Yes, he's making them look like his very first victim. My mother.” He said rendering me speechless. So that's what happened to her. “If he finds a woman who looks even slightly like her, he'll take them and turn them completely into her. Some of them have died hair and coloured contacts, and he brings close to change them into. Then he plays a game, and if they lose he hangs them all up in the same way.” He explained.

When I looked closer at one of the pictures I could see a line of thick rope around her neck; it was exactly like I had seen in my vision. Could I have just been seeing the memories of a victim? But ate wasn't a killer, he lives in the carnival, we would notice if he suddenly disappeared to murder an innocent woman, wouldn't we?

I suddenly realized why Gerard freaked out when I told him what I saw, he had been chasing around this criminal for years.
“Who is this guy?” I asked him. “You don't think it could be...?” I continued, hinting at who I was thinking about; looking at Gerard's face I could tell he knew who I was talking about.

“I don't know. The guy we're looking for is called Phil Mcorgan. I've never seen his face though I've heard his voice, he sometimes leaves tapes with the victims to taunt me. I don't know if this other guy, Nate, could be him; I don't really see how it's possible if he's away at a carnival.”
“That's exactly what I was thinking.” I said.

We stared at each other for a moment, and I was brought back to the night we had spent together, how his hands felt all over me. After everything that had happened I didn't think I would ever be able to let someone in – literally – but as I keep saying, Gerard was different, he made me feel safe, good, he didn't make it hurt at all.

After a few seconds I had to look away but I could still feel his eyes on me. To distract myself from the shiver working its way up my spine, I picked up a random piece of paper, it looked like his own notes; this one was just a list of places where the murders occurred, most of them seemed familiar.

“Hey Gerard, I have to show you something.” I said, not taking my eyes off the list. “Do you have a map?”

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

“Ok, so this is where we are.” I said pointing at a spot on the large map placed on a round table that was in the room. We had gotten dressed and he found me a map of the country, I handed him the list and grabbed a pencil. “Now watch.” I told him and started drawing random, connected circles that stretched across the whole map.

“This is the road the carnival takes” I said, connecting the line to where it started. “every year, it hasn't changed since I joined.” I finished, dropping the pencil. I had traced over every city and land mark we had ever been to, I didn't know the names of all the places, I just knew the route we took.

I watched as Gerard leaned over the table, the list in hand.
“It's the same.” I said, almost breathlessly. “Which means that, he's either following us or-”
“Or he's in the carnival.” Gerard finished for me. “It's him.” He said. We were both silent for a few seconds, then he broke out into a grin.

“Oh, you beauty!” He exclaimed, the grabbed my face and kissed me on the forehead. “You're amazing.” He said then ran off back to the bed to look for something, leaving me by the table to blush and breath unevenly.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I saw him find his cellphone and dial a number.
“I gotta call my partner.” He said holding the phone to his ear.
“I didn't know you had a partner.” I said to myself.

While he was waiting for whoever to pick up, I started gathering all his papers and pictures in a bunch to put back in his file; I didn't think he would be needing them much anymore. Among my rummaging I found something that didn't seem to have much to do with his case.

I was a picture of a building, one of four, large and Victorian styled. It was an old photo, still in black and white. There was a staff of nurses and doctors , one of them holding a white board in the middle. I didn't need to read what the board said to recognize the building. It said 'Septon Hospital 1945', that was the year it first opened as a mental asylum.

“He's not answering, I'll call him later.” Gerard said, closing his phone and turning towards me, he saw what I was looking at and froze.
“What is that?” I asked because I really wanted to know why he would have a picture of that place.
“Um...it's...” He stuttered.

He cleared his throat and took the picture from me, looked at it for less than a second then placed it face down on the bed.
“It was a mental hospital; it was okay when it first started, but then in the sixties the government discontinued it's use. A few years ago we discovered it was still running illegally; they were giving patients overdoses of the wrong medication and using barbaric techniques to try and control them.

“We also found dozens of bones in the cellars, they were apparently burning dead bodies to cover the evidence of what they had done. So we closed it down, sent the patients to real hospitals and all the doctors to jail. It's still there, just empty.” He said.

I couldn't speak; I mean he probably didn't know I had spent the worst years of my life in that place. I couldn't believe it. The most perfect man, the one I was in love with, the one who had taken my nightmares away had also permanently closed the doors to my personal hell; I almost wished I had still been there when it happened. Almost.

I didn't know what to say, so I just walked up to him and gave him a big, open mouthed, deep kiss. I tangled my hands in his hair, pulling him closer, and he let out a “hmm” noise and wrapped his arms around me. After about a minute of kissing I pulled away.

“What-um...what was that for?” He asked; he looked slightly dazed and half asleep. I smiled.
“One day I might tell you.” I said ad went back to picking up papers. I was picking up the photos of the hanging girls when a thought came to me.
“You know, if you put these random letters together you can probably form other words. Weird.” I said.

Gerard looked at me seriously for a moment, he opened his mouth but before he could say anything his phone rang. He answered it with a professional sounding “Way”.
“Yeah Matt, listen, I gotta tell you something, can you meet me back at the hotel? . . . Where are you? . . . Ok, I'll wait for you.” He spoke and hung up.

We stared at each other in silence for a moment.
“I should probably...go, before your friend gets here.” I said.
“Um, right.” He said reluctantly.

I whistled, calling for Cameo, who I almost forgot about, she came out from under the bed – I hope she hasn't been there all night. I was about to walk out when Gerard stopped me.
“Frank, just...be careful, okay?” He said.
“I will.” I said nodding.

“I'll come and get you soon.” He said; I had heard those words before. I nodded and after sharing a short last kiss I left.

Notes

So here it is. I hope you like it. We're getting closer to finding out what's going on. Can you guess?

Anyway for the winner of last week's insult race the winner was difficult to choose, you all left such offending comments XD, but it has to be fangoria and since I don't know how to post pictures on here I'll just copy it:

"u fucking useless paper clip im goign to print this fanfic out and shove it up ur ass dry and barren none-lube hwat is this bullshit ur giving me making me go crazy with all this cliffhanger shit what the fuck u thinkin this is smh im gonna throw ur limp noodle ass out the backdoor goddamn but i love her anyway"

P.S. Is the term useless paperclip a normal insult where you guys are? cause I got tha from two diffrent people and I was so confused but I love it, I've been saying it alot lately :)