Black Water

by S. D. Rudd

  He heard something!

  Steps. Creaks. Footsteps creaking. Towards him. At an even pace and with subtlety. Alan settled his body and tried to open his eyes. The footsteps drew closer. Focusing, an intense throbbing impacted the back of his head, making him nauseous. His thermal heat sensor was damaged. There was no way to confirm with his hands being numb…but he could tell by the location of the soreness. It would take a week for it to repair itself. With all hope he would not need it before then.

  So he opened his eyes and blinked twice in rapid succession. Everything switched to night vision. Green. All objects came across as green. But he could see clearer images, although not as clear as he’d hoped. So he focused hard enough until he saw everything as white. Much better. Now he made out images almost as day. Only they were in various shades of light grey and white. The adjustment took mere seconds.

  Once set his fear was confirmed. He wasn’t in his bed and he wasn’t at home. He was in the old, abandoned house. But he could not remember where he was or how he’d gotten there. It was dark but he made out a large bedroom inside an old wooden house through the white backdrop. There was a sizeable desk at the far end of the room, its contents resting on the desktop unrecognizable from lying flat on the floor. An old sofa rested against the adjacent wall to its left. The smell of dust suffocated his breathing. Alan looked up and noticed a cobweb infested chandelier. No doubt in his mind this had been a great mansion in its time.

  Something in the hallway reached out for his ears and the fear tightened its grip around him but he soon disconnected himself from it with a mere effort. He didn’t need emotion to cripple his instincts. Not now. So he slowed his breathing. That’s when he noticed something in his periphery. His head shot over to the boarded up window but he resisted the urge to run over to it, break off the boards and make an escape attempt. Besides, he was shackled to the old wooden floor, he observed. And he didn’t know his captor’s capabilities. Were they armed? Did they have perimeter guards? Marksmen? He didn’t know but he did know he wasn’t moving until he at least discovered…

  “I thought you were dead,” came an angelic voice from his right.

  A woman?

  Alan’s head swiveled towards the bedrooms’ doorway. A petite woman stood there with her arms folded behind her back. Not a trace of worry on her face. She had on an expensive blouse that accentuated her figure and jeans that fit all too perfect. She was surprisingly stunning and Alan suffered a loss of words for a moment. It was also the first time he noticed the doorframe had no door.

  “Do you like my outfit?” She paused for a response but she didn’t wait for one. “Your attraction to me is very flattering and I thank you for the compliment.” Her head shot over to the boarded up window. Keeping her gaze on it: “It must be difficult to see in the dark,” she continued, “and I’m sorry that there are no lights on the inside. This house is very old and has not been lived in for quite some time, as you can see. You and I are actually two of the few who have visited this deserted place in ages.”

  Deserted? Where in the world were they? Other people? Alan repositioned his body until he sat with his legs folded in front of him. Only mild discomfort now from the tightened shackles attached to the floor.

  “I trust that you slept well,” she said.

  “Where is Monica?” he said through tightened lips.

  She looked at him, confused. “Another woman? Here?” Her eyes studied the wide cuffs shackling him to the floor. She shook her head. “No…no other women in here. Just myself and my name is not Monica at all.”

  “Then where am…are we?” he said.

  She released an almost comforting smile. “This is what you choose to ask after all this time? What place you are in? I thought by now you would have known that but it seems that I have been wrong. I havebeen wrong before. You were supposed to have asked me for my name.”

  She paused.

  “But…I understand that certain elements are not in place for you to respond to a woman.” The woman’s hands fell to her sides. Her pose would have been electrifying had Alan not been so out of his mind. “The name’s Camille. Pleasure meeting you…again.”

  “Camille,” Alan said. He glanced at her unbound hands, taken back by the subject of their conversation. He studied her frame. This small woman could be broken with a mite of his effort. There was no way she could have acted alone. “You…you are the one who took me? And what do you mean ‘again?’”

  The woman giggled in amusement.

  “What’s so funny?” he demanded.

  She sobered up but formed a charming smirk across her dazzling face. “Have you ever seen a worm get the early bird?”

  He wanted to let her know he didn’t have time for riddles but he wondered if this woman was his only way out. Monica. He had to get to Monica but he would have to find her first and that meant asking questions and cooperating until then. Alan held his tongue and he hoped his growing rage was concealed. She walked over to the desk, keeping her eyes on him, stood in front of it and stared at him in silence. Her eyes shifted from place to place as she studied him. Whatever fascinated her was beyond him.

  Alan interrupted the silence. “How long have I been in here?”

  “It’s amazing to think that someone so well put together could be so easily detained.” She took her eyes from him and walked over to the old desk. “It borderlines on the unknown.” She picked up what looked like a photograph. Alan couldn’t tell from his vantage point. “My father was like that. Few could ever bring him down, much less detain him. Which had always amazed me because his body mass was fairly normal. Other people could overpower him with ease if they tried. They did try but only regretted ever underestimating such a man.”

  “You didn’t take me. Great. So, can you free me?”

  “Free you?”

  He tried to keep an even tone. “I need the key. A hairpin. Something to pick this lock.”

  She gave him a vacant stare.

  “You don’t know what I’m talking about?” he said as if making a statement.

  “Unfortunately, I do. You’re asking me to commit suicide for a man who doesn’t know who he is, where he is, or what he is dealing with.”

  “You’re taking this to the extreme.”

  “Am I?” She dropped the picture onto the desk. “You seem to be the smart one. Tell me. What would you do if I let you go, hmm? Where would you go? Do you know the territory with which you would be dealing? Have you even wondered who your enemy is and why that enemy has such personal interest in you? How strong is your adversary in relation to your own strength? These are things you need to know before you contemplate an escape.”

  He couldn’t argue with the woman; she made her points and they were valid. Three questions ago. Satisfied by his silence, she said, “besides, how do you know I’m capable of freeing you?”

  “Because you are free, that’s how.”

  “Am I? Am I free, Alan?”

  How does she know my name?

  “Am I free or do you just think I’m free because of my appearance?”

  She let the information sink in.

  “I am free,” she said. “But I’m also bound. My bonds are not noticeable because you do not understand the territory in which you currently reside; therefore, you cannot decipher what you are seeing right in front of your own eyes. My father always said…”

  “I don’t care about your father!” he snapped. “Or any of his stories and philosophies!” He paused to calm himself. “I just need to get out of here and I need to find her.”

  The woman froze.

  This is not going well. I need her confidence not her frustration.

  He could tell from her silent glare that he had wounded her. His chances of finding out who she was and how she could help him escape were fading fast.

  He sighed. “I’m…I’m sorry. I…this is very stressful and I can’t figure anything out for the life of me…” Showing a weakness was a risk he’d have to take.
At a moment’s notice he could easily regain control of the situation. This woman may have limited power but she was no equal.

  “The woman. You mentioned the woman again.”

  Another curveball. Was she hurt over the comment made against her father or was she jealous of another woman? Alan knew that if he was to get out there was to be no more talks of finding Monica. She walked towards him, her feminine walk distracting for a moment. Sexy. He couldn’t take his gaze from feline grace yet somehow he sensed that was her plan to deactivate his senses…just before the death strike.

  “Monica. Is that her name?” She waited for a response but again didn’t need one. “She’s pretty, I can tell.”

  Alan said nothing.

  “Her name is pretty.” She reached down and touched his face ever so tender. Maybe he missed Monica or maybe it was the fear of being in this unknown place, but her touch seemed to rescue his spirits. He wanted to lay in her arms for comfort but he refused to let his vulnerability show. “Is she prettier than me?”

  Don’t answer that, Alan. It’s a trick question. Instead, he held her gaze without blinking.

  Not receiving an answer fast enough “of course she is,” Camille said. She stood up over him, staring down, the point of view accentuating her bust, disarming his reasoning even more. Yet Alan fantasized about kicking her legs from under her and landing a boot against her temple. After considering how foolish it would have been for her to bring anything that could free him from the shackles, he decided against it.

  “Your love for her is great.”

  Silence.

  “And your lack of freedom is hindering you from exploring that love. So I guess that means you’re in Hell.” Sadness filled her eyes. “I’ve only known the pain once. It is a fate worse than death but I do believe that in time you will pull through one-hundred percent. In time.”

  She turned to leave and Alan had to find a way to stop her. “Camille,” he said. Camille stopped and turned to face him. He wasn’t sure how to ask but he would try. “You were bound.”

  She nodded. “Still am.”

  He ignored the paradox. “Now you are free.”

  Hesitation. “I do know where there is a key to those chains, if that’s what you are getting at…”

  The second hesitation told him she wasn’t going to tell him. But he waited without displaying his mounting anticipation.

  “…but you will not be able to use it unless…”

  “Unless what?’

  Camille looked over her shoulder through the doorframe with no door. Something had distracted her. And he sensed it. A sudden fear that rapidly grew into terror. He studied Camille as she froze in place.

  “Camille?”

  No response and no movement.

  “Camille!” His cuffs tightened, almost cutting off circulation now but he ignored the pain. “Talk to me.”

  Without turning to face him and in a rushed whisper, she said, “you only have one way out and it’s not the way you think. But, to get out of those chains, you need to understand what you are dealing with first or it will kill you.”

  “Who will kill me?” he spat out.

  “Not who…what.”

  “Well, whatever and why are we whispering!”

  She shot him a piercing look. “The Leviathan and I told you, you will not get me killed!” she hissed. “I have too much to live for and I don’t even know you. Now hush!”

  “What’s a—”

  “Hush!”

  He didn’t expect that. Nor did he expect to see the hint of worry register for the first time across her face. If he wasn’t mistaking, Alan even heard something clacking in the distance, so distant that it revealed his underestimation of the enormity of the house. His eyes shot towards the doorway. Camille’s followed.

  “I have to go,” she said in a small still voice. “It’s not good to talk of escape or it gets upset.”

  Alan didn’t bother to ask this time.

  “But I will say this.” His spirits picked up. “Understand how this place works and you will have your freedom.”

  “You mean, free from the chains…or freedom?”

  She faced him. “Both. But the second hasn’t been done before to my knowledge. Then again, you and I are the only two souls in this house.”

  A faint snort shuddered his bones. The room fell very silent. And still. Whatever that was could not have been the house settling. Or a human. Suddenly, he felt his limbs trembling and he had to force them to stop. “What was that?” he asked Camille.

  “Alan Charms,” she said. “Alan the mighty. I hope you’re as strong as they think you are; I hope you can really do some of the things spoken about you in times past.”

  They? People know of me in this place?

  “I’ve said too much. Before morning I might be dead.”

  Alan started to ask another question but she walked out. The clacking had grown twice as loud. And the monstrous snort sounded even louder. Whatever made these noises was on the way to this room.

  EIGHT

  THERE WAS TOO much noise in the background of that cell phone for Ian. Keith Solomon had assured him it was a secure connection, as if there were any doubts. The infamous weapons specialist for the soon to be announced Northern American States, merging the United States with Canada and Mexico, knew how to do his job.

  Top secret information.

  Retrieve it in confidence. Guard it with his life.

  Standard protocol that even the miniscule of minds should have enough sense to understand. No, he knew that he had nothing to worry about when dealing with Keith. What bothered him was all that background noise…and not being sure of the meeting location. And it didn’t make it any better that no more cell phone transactions would take place before they met up as was the norm with every meeting.

  Keith was unusually late.

  With no further communication, other than the initial phone call to arrange the assembly, Ian forced himself to stay put. Wait for him. After all, Keith did tell him to meet him here. Sitting to the side of a secluded side street in Owings Mills. Nothing but surrounding trees reached for the darkened skies. A one lane loose-rocked road leaded deeper into an already haunting enough woods.

  No grass. No life forms at first glance.

  Three weeks ago Ian would have found himself stopping halfway between a safe main road and an unmapped destination at the end of a street with no name or traffic out of the question. On a normal night he would have had his driver bring him; on a normal night he would have taken the Bentley.

  This wasn’t a normal night. Keith wanted to keep a low profile and Ian agreed. Much as he hated to admit it, his son Alan had been right. Ian was working with the weapons specialist for fourteen months, engineering a machine so awesome that the order to begin work on it was given directly by the Commander in Chief. The weapon would be powerful enough to change the face of the world. Literally. In tonight’s meeting, Keith would have the full disclosure and the last thing he wanted was his smartest son asking the wrong people the right questions.

  Four balls of light illuminated the back of his rented Crown Victoria. Keith’s government issued SUV. Ian turned the key and waited for Keith to pass, then he tailed it up the off road to a mid-sized neoclassic home; a treasure hidden beneath the mud. Much smaller than Ian’s home, no doubt, but a remarkable work of art, nonetheless.

  The sports utility vehicle squeaked to a halt at the top of the driveway loop, Ian stopping behind it, and Keith stepped out, straightening his black suit lapel. Ian met him in between the parked vehicles, took his hand, and then followed him into the home, briefcases in hand.

  No words were exchanged.

  Instead, Keith had him sit down in the living room as he disappeared into the kitchen and came back a few minutes later with two steaming cappuccino mugs. Creamers and sugar were on the cocktail table.

  “We’re being watched,” Keith said abruptly, keeping an eye on the windows.

  Ian didn’t expect
that. He glanced over his shoulder as if he could see what Keith was talking about. “I’m confused. Aren’t you the government? You have the backing of the President, for crying out loud, you’re untouchable.”

  As Keith planted his fullback body into the opposite sofa, he said “The government has many enemies. You, of all people, should know about that.”

  “I only hate the idea of a world government that, respectfully, your President is secretly trying to initiate, sir. It makes absolutely no sense at all to throw out our constitution just to turn us into a modern dictatorship society.”

  “You sound like a radical. Thought they were only stuck on ancient books.”

  Ian paused. “We can debate scripture at another time…”

  “There is no debate about a dying fairytale…”

  “During such time,” Ian said, stealing the conversation back from Keith, “I’ll have more proving materials to show you that it’s not a fairytale but fact. In the meantime, we have business to conduct; do you not agree with me, sir?”

  Keith leaned back in the opposing sofa, cooling mug around his finger, and swore. “This is why we separate church and state,” he muttered.

  Another long pause from Ian. “Besides, I can’t be that overzealous anyway.”

  He’d expected Keith to just look at him, wanting to know what that meant but having too much pride to ask. Ian put him out of his misery.

  “Well, I’m still sitting here with you, aren’t I?”

  That seemed to peak Keith’s interest. He leaned forward, took a sip. Then said, “why are you helping us anyway? Something like this is like burning the holy bible to people like you.”

  He wasn’t sure how to take that. “Interesting.” Ian gave the despicable man a long disapproving stare, not sure whether to be offended by the tone or the implications of the statement. “Because, even though I don’t agree with your policy, I do understand the need for change. All of these government cover-ups are leaking out to the public. They’re catching on to what’s going on and fast. They already know about the alien abductions; there is just too much evidence that you simply don’t have the time to buy out before zealots mass produce it and distribute them to the public.”