Joseph leaned on the desk, panting.
“Damn straight! Who authorized that motion? I can understand the kid agreeing to it. She was wacked out on poison. But the SOB that wrote it into action…” Joseph swatted tears away with his knuckles.
“The entire Congress voted on it unanimously. I suppose there was so intellectual reason. Some advisory decision made by pencil pushers in an air conditioned office. It’s not like they would need to bleed. For them, it was only business. Jane’s a clever girl I take it, but she’s a nurse, not a politician. Of course they’d appeal to the self-sacrificing nature of a nurse. Convince her that what they were doing was for the greater good and on the up and up. She’s not naïve, but then her dad was a Federal agent and one that was of rare character. She was ripe to be made a lamb for this slaughter.” Kendra chewed her nails. Ivy was shaking her head.
“She wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for us. Right or wrong. Lamb or not. She… She did it for us. My brother and me. Lindsey. She did it to save us because she loves—”
Ivy couldn’t finish that sentence. Joseph pulled her to his chest and let her cry against him.
Dexter came stealing back into the room, Lindsey at his heels. He had a table’s leg in his hand.
“He’s talking smack. I’ve been trying to reason with him! Stop him before he gets hurt!” Lindsey was waving her hands to get their attention.
“Alright, so the freaking Army won’t go after her? I will. Show me how.” Dexter beat the table leg against his palm.
Kendra stood slowly to her feet, slack jawed.
“Oh my God. You can’t be serious. If you…You know what will…” She covered her mouth.
“I love her. I never told her.” Dexter blurted it and looked at Ivy and Lindsey raising his brows.
“You guys don’t need to look so surprised.” He was being sarcastic of course. They’d known it for a long time.
“Dex, I understand. I know how that feels. I loved a soldier once that never made it home… But, you... She wouldn’t want you to do this. Your sister’s right. Your safety was the deal-maker for her agreeing to the Andromeda Act. That, and you’re in protective custody in a situation where your location is critical to national security. It’s illegal to help you. ” Kendra shook her head so hard it swung her body left to right.
“Kendra. I watched the love of my life burning alive from the inside out at the hands of that woman. That was when she was just throwing playful punches. She has her vendetta to perform now. The goal is to make an example out of her. Please, if somebody is going to have to die an experimental death…” He bowed his head knowing full well the consequences of what he was doing.
“You don’t have to get your hands dirty, Ms. Reagan. I’ll do it,” said Joseph, his voice quaking slightly. “We’ll just need a push. You’re right about security too. But see, our escape could give you eyes back into the story. Bug us and send me. We’ll go back to Shreveport and hook up with Harrison. Work this from the inside out. Clean up my son’s mess.” Joseph reached an arm around Dexter’s trembling shoulders.
Kendra nodded. She smiled then. Normally, she wouldn’t agree to anything that went against policy or law. But this time, she felt that the Federal government had broken their own rules. If she refused to assist in their hopeless rescue attempt, she condemned Jane to her ridiculous death.
“Okay. This is a team effort, though. If we get caught, we go to prison.”
“We’re already technically in prison.” Lindsey pushed her hair over her shoulder and pressed to Dex’s shoulder. Ivy nodded, incapable of words.
“Get us bugs and a chopper out of here, Kendra. We’ll bring that girl home and make enough history to keep you in business for decades!” Joseph snapped his fingers with a confident smile.
*****
Chapter 5
“This is the place. Curb appeal, huh?” Bleach rubbed the back of her neck, laughing at Kingsley’s wide eyes. The island was tucked in some remote corner of the coast of Mexico. It was nothing more than a spike of stone out of the sea, except for the fact that a wealthy Spanish don had built a large villa atop it many years ago. And he had planted cypress trees densely around it to hide it from the passing ships, and had raised iron gates like the jaws of hellcats around the open shores.
“Oh my God… It’s just like a horror movie.” Kingsley’s knees were knocking. He knew in his gut that what he was doing was a terrible mistake. There was no going back now.
“Yeah. You haven’t even see the worst of it yet.” Bleach spun a skeleton key in her hand. Leona had spared no effort in ensuring that her fortress would be as theatrical as she was.
Bleach unlocked the gate. Even though the surrounding area was covered in rusting barbwire and littered with sheets of broken glass, the gate was well oiled and opened without resistance.
“This is the Lover’s gate. I bring all of the men that she takes to her bed through it. Not happily, I assure you. Remember that later, when you will hate me for it.” She had grown quiet, watching the ground near her feet and taking cat’s steps. Kingsley watched her. His stomach churned.
He fell to his haunches and scrambled away from the sight he saw next. The yard outside the huge villa was overgrown with massive palms. Once they would have been healthy trees producing many coconuts. She had hacked their tops to form fang-like points and roasted them were they stood slender and black like raven feathers thrust in accusation toward the sky.
Lashed to the tree tops by chains and wires, there were hundreds of bodies the skin of which had withered and become rough like a corn’s husk. There were many purple, red, and black blotches lining their faces and hands. Their torsos were dressed in what looked like bridesmaid’s gowns. Kingsley felt tears running down his face when he saw one move.
“Once, they were all beautiful young women. You probably knew some of them, playboy. They lived in Shreveport. Some were cashiers, waitresses, one ran a day spa, another a dry cleaners. You were a lover to many of them and a smiling stranger to some. But you won’t recognize any of them now. This is what she does to anything beautiful and pure. She is a viper. A spider in the dark. If you go in there, you’ll never escape…”
Kingsley slowly got up on his knees. He saw everything now that he had turned. The wind blew through her dark hair. There was a color of fire and smoke brushed over her with a painter’s finesse. It was spelling out invisibly in the calligraphy of living color the brutality that Leona Kelley had inflicted on this place.
To either side of them, spreading out along the fence, were men. They were impaled on the iron wrought fence, skulls and jaws carved out and converted into incense censers. She had done this to divert the mosquitoes and flies. It did little to divert the birds that swarmed the bodies and pecked small holes into their translucent chests. The heat from the flames made the clown makeup she had used to color what remained of their faces bleed down their necks and dribbled red, white, and blue chalk trails along the sand like America’s blood.
“What?” Kingsley looked to each of the bodies, lips quivering. Bleach nodded slowly to say she understood.
“They were all strong young men once. That wanted her, just like you did. That thought they had the charms to tame her ferocity. You’d have more chance of taming the sea. When they’d learned the lesson she was teaching, it was too late.” She bowed her lips to her clenched fist. Kingsley felt tears stream from his eyes.
“I suppose my punishment will suit my crime.”
“Why are you so hell-bent on doing this? Even knowing how it will end?”
“I don’t like being told what to do.”
“You don’t like being told that you can’t. It’s why you never take hold on the road to life.”
They were silent. Finally, Bleach pressed forward. There were no words to persuade him to the truth. He knew it. He just refused to accept it.
There was a cobblestone pathway that led to a lavish rose garden and sculpted edge in the lawn behind the vill
a. There Leona stood, enjoying her nightcap. The sun was going down. The long petticoat white dress she wore was caught in the breeze. This looked like the end of a troubling dream.
“Oh! Did you bring my baby back to me! I knew you’d change your mind, Doctor! Let me slip into something a bit more comfortable.” She slid a knife down the chest of the enormous dress. Under it, she wore a leather corset and nothing more. Bleach swallowed awkwardly.
“Reconsidered my offer, did we, pet? What do you say? Join forces and raise our colors?” She took two long strides to him and drew a finger along his neck. He held his breath. In the corner of his eye, he could see Bleach fighting tears.
“I’ve reconsidered, yes. But I’m still uncertain.”
“Come. I will make a believer of you. You just have to see my latest experiment!” She pulled him by his collar, eyeing Bleach up and down.
“You come too, little wolf. It’s high time you paid attention to my methods and stopped playing the advocate of angels.”
She led them through the back door and up a winding staircase.
“Make yourself at home, Lucien. This is my Rec Room. Here also are my toy soldiers. Meet Prometheus and Hercules, the children of fire and lighting, my most beautiful handiwork.”
In what Kingsley mistook for a massive birdcage, Sergeant Manson knelt drilling his palms against the iron framework. His eyes were opaque, with smoke and blood shooting from his eye sockets. He screamed but his voice was distorted like he’d gargled nails. He beat his head against the framework, hair curling and burning on the ends. Flames were beginning to shoot from the edges of his lips and smoke and small flames were shooting from his pores in hair-fine candle-like flames. It was the same constant internal combustion that had plagued Jane on steroids.
“Ach! I was sleeping! I was sleeping!” Leaf gnawed at the cage’s frame, bloody tears streaming down his neck to no avail. There was no comfort for him in his living death. Such was the power of the Andromeda Extract.
Chained to the wall, thrashing as his nervous system began to glow a bright neon blue under his skin as it was overcharged with electro-stimulus, Captain Matheson’s body turned against itself. Surges of electricity shot through him in white steel rods like acupuncture of the gods. He screamed as electricity shot from his teeth and moved about his lips in circular motions. His hair stood on end. His fists beat the wall. He couldn’t form a single word of protest.
“Behold, Lucien! I am a jealous god! All the world shall be made in my likeness and rule the ashes with me. A pride of my lions to devour what remains of these lambs and rebuild Humanity!” Leona stretched her hands to the roof, her face having gone pale, lips trembling with passion. She turned and looked Lucien up and down.
“One of you take him to the shower rooms. Make him ready for my dungeon. It’s been many days since I’ve liberated my mind with sensual passions. Time for you to learn how cruel a god I can be, Doctor.” Leona smiled. It was too late for Lucien to back out of this. He looked to Bleach, who was crying now.
Leona paused and clutched the girl’s chin in her hand.
“Mercy doesn’t rule the world, little wolf. You’ve been gone too long.” Leona turned to her minions. “Someone strap her to the electric chair. Let’s teach my best girl to work on her manners.”
Kingsley was plucked from the room before he had time to observe any more of the torments Leona had in store for seemingly everybody.
*****
Chapter 6
They had chained her to the Electric Chair again, the one reserved just for her.
A small stone chair in the graveyard Leona had dug for her test subjects that didn’t make it through testing. The chair was rigged to growing a demon wolf’s mane of electric wire that bristled up its back and arms. These sharp wires were driven into Bleach’s teeth, one by one driven down into her roots. There she would sit to contemplate the Mistress’ will.
Every time it led her back to their childhood.
Images only. Flashes of green. Trees in the Park. Growing up in the Lower Ninth Ward.
Before she had become this animal, this creature intended only to both endure and cause pain, and to kill people in order to spare them from Leona’s darker plans.
Before, when they were human and had different names. Once upon a time, before she was her plaything. When Leona had a different name. When she was her sister.
Bleach screamed to the heavens, but in reply it only gently rained on her. Her flowing black hair rolled over her shoulders. It wasn’t always black. Everything hadn’t always been dark. Her hair was auburn once. She remembered how boys found it attractive.
Her legs thrashed wildly. The tests had begun. She’d seen it on the soldier’s faces. These procedures of Harrison’s Cure, as the drug that had caused Harrison Kelley’s walking euthanasia was now being called, and all these electro-stimulants? They were only warm-ups for the full dose of Andromeda 1 extract she was about to ignite their physiochemical structure with. It would begin with two or three poor souls and then the World would blaze with the destruction of Leona’s jealous love and hatred for the man that had caused her to be this way.
Bleach twisted herself as the tears streamed down her neck. She could still hear her mother’s voice long ago. It had only been love in that extremely impoverished New Orleans childhood home. They’d had a father who worked himself to death for them. A brother that had protected them with every fiber of his muscle-bound being. He’d kept them out of the “cat houses,” as Mama called them. He’d given his all.
A girl’s jealous infatuation will not be dissuaded. Of all the people that Leona could have loved, of all the men that could have seduced her, she would have to intertwine herself with the warlock. With the sadistic dead man, whose ideas had been the catalyst for a dream of world conquest.
There was nothing stronger than an idea. Bleach had learned this the hard way. A warlock serial killer, rapist, and sadomasochist had indoctrinated her sister, and now the world would suffer the consequences.
Jane Lewis already knew this, but she was now learning just how deeply depraved Leona’s vision of life really was.
She could hear the Dolls moving in the basement. Some of the tombs had been left open so that Leona could retrieve the bodies whenever necrophilia became the alternative for her boredom. The many tunnels that the Dolls were forced to live in had been dug under the tombs. Screams bled to the surface from where she twisted in her own private agony. God only knew the fate that Jane had been subjected to. The girl wasn’t dumb by any means. She had to have known what she was getting herself into. That no matter how noble the Andromeda Act appeared on the surface, it was still the cop-out of a nation that wanted to cower behind a young girl rather than stand up to a flesh and bone demon that was ready to dominate society and make her indelible stain on human history (if she didn’t eradicate humanity first).
Bleach hadn’t been able to save her sister from a madman’s bizarre education. But perhaps she could save the girl from her sister. If she did, and the Andromeda Act was still in effect, perhaps together they could undo the damage Leona had done before it was irreversible.
The consequences would be worth the struggle, if she could figure out a way to slide her teeth free of this contraption!
*****
Chapter 7
It had only been a short time ago that he was dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Then he’d become the first medically observed walking dead man, and all Hell had broken free on Earth.
Harrison Kelley held himself entirely to blame. The fact that he was breathing today was a gift. A second chance to repent of the way that he’d lived and the things that he had done blindly for his welfare without ever considering the needs of those around him. He had started this war. He would be the one to finish it.
The caskets laid wide open in front of him.
“Okay, guys, remember what I said about cleaning the streets up here? We need my sanitation workers up here for disposal of harmful substances.�
�� He held the walkie in a shaking fist. Was Leona’s gang actually low enough to make the dead members of their society the unsuspecting guardians of their weapons caches and other contraband? Never would the dead be suspected of possession. Yet here in their disinterred coffins they had found thousands of pounds of methamphetamine, along with heroin, cocaine, PCP, LSD, and MDMA, some of which had been stored inside of the deceased’s mouths and placed in their insides via small incisions.
“Damn, Jack! Do we have to dig up all of Shreveport?” Harrison hung his head looking down at the decaying face of the former head local librarian. Jack with the light company had disinterred half of a nearby cemetery following clues one of Leona’s captured Dolls had given.
“No offense, Mr. Kelley, but you sure know how to pick ‘em when it comes to the females.” Jack’s eyes crossed. The corpse had her hands folded around a shard of crystal meth the size of the Hope diamond.
“No, I hear you. Thinking about becoming a monk when this is all over.” Harrison knelt close and pulled some surgical gloves out of his jean’s pocket.
“Hey, Ima Jean. I’m sorry about all this. I know it was against your views, but we’ll have to cremate you as well when this is over.” Harrison looked at Jack.
“Oh my God,” he said. “All of them?”
“Once we’ve cleared the drugs, we won’t have a choice. According to the Doll, she harvests the Dead for her ‘research’. I feel like such a hypocrite, but you know what she did with me. This whole city will be crawling with sleepwalkers before she’s done. God only knows what the end game is.” He went to the truck. He’d siphoned several drums of gas from an abandoned station to use as fuel in pinches like this.
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