They were approaching The Factory’s entrance now, its steel door shimmering brightly against the evening sun. At this distance it was easy to hear the baseline thumping over the speakers from within, sending vibrations through the entire building and the ground as well, the pebbles near the door bouncing against the gravel in tune with the beat. Xander eyed the door for a moment and licked his tongue against the front of his teeth the way he often did when he was trying to decide something. He finally turned away from the door and starting to walk around back.
Mike almost stopped in his tracks as he watched his friend move around to the other side of the building, while Cathy followed him with a movement so gracious that anyone observing would have thought that it had been her intended destination all along. After a moment, Mike followed in suit. “Why’re we going back here?” he asked, shoving the quarters back down into his pocket.
Cathy turned and gave him a look that he knew from past experience meant ‘shut up,’ and he did so immediately.
Xander walked a few feet in front of them without so much as a word until he reached a large, smooth rock that was partly overtaken by the foundation of the building and mostly submerged underground. When they were growing up, someone had dubbed it the Old Sitting Stone. The name had stuck, to the point that now most of The Factory’s staff referred to it as such. There were old cigarette butts surrounding the rock in a loose semi-circle. He wondered briefly if one of them had belonged to Sara. The thought started a domino effect of images in his mind, which he struggled to force out before turning to face Mike and Cathy. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped with his jaw hanging open.
After a long moment of silence, Cathy finally spoke up. “Whatever it is, you can tell us,” she said in a soothing voice, taking a single step towards him.
“Yeah, man,” Mike echoed, trying his best to sound supportive. “You can tell us if you want.”
Xander sighed, reaching deep into his jacket pocket. “I want to tell you... I just can’t,” he said finally, revealing a small but sharp knife and bringing it up to his wrist. “So I’ll just have to show you.”
Cathy’s eyes went wide, her hands immediately cupping over her mouth with shock as Mike moved forward to stop his friend.
He was too late.
Thick red blood started to spew fourth from the ripped flesh, some of it spurting out toward Mike but most of it running down Xander’s arm and dribbling off of his elbow into a little pool on the ground. A tingly, numb feeling started in his fingertips and worked its way through his entire arm and then out into his chest. It made his whole body feel warm and fuzzy except for his heart, which ached with a cold pain. Each beat felt like trying to move a frozen limb, yet the pain it brought made the heart only beat faster.
“What are you doing?” Cathy screamed, tears starting to flow down her cheeks already. The blood was so thick it reminded her of pancake batter.
Mike batted the knife away from Xander and attempted to put pressure on the wound.
Xander pushed him away, tripping over the sitting stone and falling flat on his back as he did so. He clenched his teeth as his arm began to shake violently, sending gushes of blood everywhere in tiny droplets. “Wait,” he managed to say, holding up a hand to Mike to stop him from coming at him again. He started to get dizzy and light headed. As he stared down at the redness that was still flowing out of his arm, he wondered if this had been such a good idea after all.
Then he felt it.
A rumble from the right side of his abdomen that felt very close to the vibration of the baseline coming from The Factory. The feeling cascaded throughout his body as if a small bomb had gone off there, the ripple effect making his whole body shake. He felt his heart slow as his side twitched again, then started to beat all on its own. A migraine started to build behind his eyes as he crunched over in pain, throwing a look at Mike and Cathy to try and get them to keep their distance. His veins all felt like they were going to explode, the way a balloon filled with too much air must feel. He had only experienced this twice before, yet had come to recognize it as though it had always been a part of him.
In many ways, it had been.
When he looked at his wrist again, the red liquid had stopped pouring out of his wrists -- but had been replaced by a thick black tar that didn’t spurt or spray. It all flowed down over his arm, but did not drip off of his elbow. Instead it then started traveling up his arm, circling around until it had covered his entire body and was now moving onto his chest.
Mike backed away a step as Cathy’s hands fell from her mouth, dangling lifelessly at her sides as she watched the black ooze take her friend over inch by inch, as if it had a mind all its own.
Xander screamed as his jaw seemed to snap free of itself and his eye sockets bent upwards, the pink meat surrounding his eyes visibly popping blood vessels as it was exposed to air. He tried to grit his teeth against the pain but couldn’t, the lower row still hanging too low. After a second longer they snapped into place, but farther down than they had been a moment ago, making his face seem more angular than it had been before. The blackness had overtaken his torso almost completely by now, sticking to his body like paint or liquid latex as it began to make its way over his head. He opened his mouth in a silent scream as it finished taking over, several tendrils converging on his face all at once.
For several moments there was nothing. He looked like a statue made of used chewing tobacco, stray remnants of the ooze still sliding off of him onto the ground below his feet.
“Xander?” Cathy said, her voice a hushed whisper.
Suddenly three red slits formed on his face and they opened to reveal two triangular bright red eyes that were slanted on either side and a glowing red mouth filled with dual rows of razor sharp, yellow teeth.
When he opened his mouth to speak, the voice sounded like it were vomited up rather than simply spoken, his entire body shaking with the effort of each syllable.“Black Womb lives.”
Mike and Cathy stared silently.
He started to tell them everything. The truth about what their lives had become for the last few weeks. About Adam Genblade’s real agenda, about the motive behind the murders that had swept through their town and about the Black Womb. The hardest part, though, was telling them about Sara... and who was really ultimately responsible for her death, along with the deaths of many of their friends.
In the end there was silence, as all parties tried to digest the information, even Xander himself.
After the silence became too much for her to bear, Cathy sighed and walked over to Xander, once again placing her hand on the side of his face to force him to look at her. This time he did not turn away or object in any way, her touch sending a tingle through his oily black form. She traced his large eyes with her fingertips, looking deep into them. Really looked. Past the liquid hatred that covered him, somehow cutting through it all and getting past it unscathed. She squinted and bit her lip as she found what she was looking for, smiling. “It’s really you in there, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,”he replied.“Somewhere.”
That night, Reverend Robert Gallagher lit over forty candles in the Apostle Church, one for every life lost in the massacres. Their flames flickered, making shadows like ghosts against the stained glass visages of the saints. The darkness flowed back and forth over their faces like masks, making them laugh and scowl and cry in turn. He closed his eyes, and let the voices of the dead wash over him.
Suddenly, he opened them again.
He picked up his coffee and walked over to the window that overlooked the graveyard. He saw Xander out at a grave he recognized as belonging to Sara Johnson, just standing there.
“You will find peace, my son,” he whispered softly, glancing at the steam which rose hauntingly from his cup. He sat there, watching Xander keep a silent vigil over Sara’s grave, for a long, long time.
CHAPTER TWO:
PICTURES
Mike wrapped his hand around the cold stainless st
eel knob of Coral Beach High School’s front entrance and stepped inside, feeling as though it had been years since he was last there. The head of his tall frame brushed across the top of the door as he entered, dislocating several strands of his short blonde hair. He carefully patted them back into place, more out of habit than vanity. His green t-shirt itched, so he scratched it as he looked throughout the assembled students crowded around their individual lockers. Their eyes struggled to avoid him, and failed. They stared at him, like he was some kind of freak. As though he’d done something wrong, narked out on them or some other crime punishable by loner-status.
Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew that it was just his imagination. A little stray madness left over from the past few weeks, during which there had seemed to be no shortage. His sideways grin slowly returned to him, and he continued strutting down the halls the way all his Language and Lit teachers hated. He walked to his locker, number three eighty-seven, and took a moment to appreciate the gaudy orange and green sunflower sticker that Cathy had stuck there months ago. It was faded now, almost white in places, but it still caught his eye every time he went there. He opened the locker and the picture that was taped lazily at all four corners smiled back at him from inside the door. It was him, Cathy, Xander and Sara out at Coral Cove. The four of them had gone out. Grendel had been there too and had gotten completely wasted in front of everyone, somehow managing to break his ankle jumping off a small rock.
Sara had laughed at that.
Sara who was dead, now.
Sara, whom Xander had killed.
Mike pursed his lips tightly. He wasn’t taking to that idea as well as Cathy had.
He shuddered at the thought of that thing that Xander had transformed into, what it had looked like. As if everything he’d ever had a nightmare about had been boiled down in a vat of hatred and bubbled onto his body from inside of him. Mike shut his eyes tight and braced himself, gripping the sharp metal of the locker door. He kept his eyes closed until painful little dots started piercing their way through his eyelids. He clamped his teeth until they made a sound like nooks of wood grinding against one another and clenched a fist until his knuckles were white with spots of burst red blood cells showing through. His breathing got hard as sweat started rolling down his face, making it glisten under the fluorescent lighting. He opened his eyes, only to find that his vision had become blurry -- fuzzy around the edges. He reached out and grabbed his Physics book, his fingers spread wide enough that he would catch it even if he had misjudged the distance. As soon as he moved, pain shot up his side, erupting up through his spinal cord and burning a hole in the back of his brain. His vision shook, as if he was the only thing on the planet that was standing still. He put the book back down and let his arm flop to his side unceremoniously. The pain slowed, decreasing from a streaming rapid to a small trickle that pumped into his mind with every beat of his heart. His ears were ringing so much so that all he could hear above it was the sound of his own heavy, labored breathing.
“What’s up?” came a whiney falsetto voice. Its bearer slammed the locker door shut, nearly chopping Mike’s fingers off in the process.
Mike watched the small dial on the combination lock snap back to zero as it bounced against the cold steel under the force of motion. He didn’t have to look to see who it was. There were only three people he knew of that could ever be that aggravating. One was dead. The second didn’t speak of his own will, it seemed. “Tommy,” he said dryly, his tongue like sandpaper. He tried to moisten his lips. The word came out much harsher than he meant it to, but he found that he didn’t mind.
“No, man,” Tommy laughed, something that sounded for the world like a squeaky tire, sharp and in quick bursts. “I’m not up. Wish I was though... high up, if you know what I’m sayin’?” he grinned devilishly. When he asked the question, he reached out a hand and placed it on Mike’s shoulder, unknowingly sending bursts of pain through him again.
Mike grimaced, then turned his eyes to glare briefly at the hand on his shoulder, mentally commanding it to burst into flames and then getting irritated when the event did not occur. “Yeah,” he nodded curtly. “I know what you’re sayin’.”
“High,” Sud said in the background, finally making his way over to the conversation from the male washroom. His hands were still dripping wet and his palm prints slathered across the front of his jeans.
Is it me, or did it just get stupider in here? Mike quipped to himself.
Tommy mistook that grin as encouragement, and leaned in a little closer. “Anyway, man. There’s some crap I need to talk to you about. About Grendel’s party.”
Mike felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. When he spoke, he didn’t do a very good job of hiding the resentment in his voice. “What?” he asked, not to get the information but to make sure he was hearing right. If this little mall-rat is actually trying to suck up to me... His fist clenched bone-white again, but not as a result of pain. To cause it.
“Well, see, it’s about Cathy.”
Again, rage, he thought whimsically, as he pictured Tommy’s head caving under the pressure of his balled hand.
“I think she should stop talkin’ about cryin’ rape on Grendel,” he began with a sigh. “I don’t know what went on there, but he’s dead and buried with Sara and all those other fools and now it seems like all the other little daddy’s girls with no life have started doin’ it too.”
Mike was about to draw back a hand and permanently implant it into Tommy’s skull, when he stopped himself dead in his tracks. “What are you talking about now?”
“I can’t stand this place,” Cathy mumbled as she sipped her Vanilla Coke and watched Principal Shnieder pass her for the fifth time in the last twenty minutes, each time discreetly looking at her company and her chest. “And could somebody please get that man a porno?”
The short, stocky man pretended to look down at his shoe for a moment, catching the sunlight in his big out-stretched ears and balding head. He wore a green tweed suit that made him look stuffy and uptight, his face just a little pink from the warmth of the garment on the sunny fall day.
“He is in serious need of masturbation,” Xander concurred, the words accompanied by a crunching sound as he popped potato chips into his mouth one after another. “His birthday is coming up, I hear. Maybe we should procure him some good lubricant.”
Cathy rolled her eyes, crumpling her nose a little as she turned to him, her straw dangling just outside her pink lips. Her tongue darted out once and touched it, letting the small suction effect grab hold of it. “What is men’s fixation with boobs?”
Xander frowned. “Even if I could explain that, it still doesn’t shed light onto our staff’s recent fixation with you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let’s face it, girl, you’re kinda flat,” he nodded, trying to disguise his smile by shoving more chips in.
“I hate you,” she growled playfully, squinting her eyes so much that her long eyelashes batted against one another.
“You’re practically a carpenter’s dream over there. Personally, I think I’m much sexier than you.” He motioned to his own body in mock seduction.
She shook her head, tried to fight it, then finally gave up and simply burst into laughter. She hadn’t wanted to laugh right then. The way everyone was looking at her since trying to convince people that Grendel had raped her the night he died was merciless. There was so much in their eyes. Hatred, pity and always a little desire with the men, no matter who was looking at her.
Except Xander.
“Thank you,” she said honestly, her voice sounding like the sun. As if warm sunshine on your face could speak to you and tell you that it would empower and protect you. There was security in her voice, a place where he could make his home.
“For what?” he asked, cocking a brow at her.
“Making me laugh,” she explained, those pink lips curling into a smile. His hand lingered near hers so she took it, her fingers dancing gentl
y across his. “You know, the only other time I’ve smiled since Sara died was when I found out you were okay.”
Xander closed his eyes at the mention of Sara, his eyes flickering toward the ground and away from her own.
“I’m sorry,” she sighed apologetically. She felt it too, but she knew what it must be doing to him. He did it, after all. For all they knew, he could do it again. He could kill her, she realized with a start, and jerked her hand away from his.
He felt her touch leave him, a numb sensation of loneliness overcoming him. It fizzled throughout his body, like a slow cold-shiver. “For what?” he asked curtly, trying to avoid the topic altogether. “What’s there to be sorry about?”
“Don’t do this,” she pleaded, feeling the tears start to come but forcing them back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Shnieder walk past again. With her back turned, she could only assume what he was gawking at this time.
“Do what?” he said, speaking very slowly as if she were in the ‘special’ class two tables over, the valedictorian of which was currently shoving his carrot sticks up his nose in a vain attempt to get the broccoli out. “What am I doing?”
She cursed and slammed her drink down on the table, tiny droplets spraying up into her face and hair. Her voice took on an accusing tone, one that made it clear she was no longer dealing with his crap. “If you’re gonna keep pulling this shit out of your hat, then you don’t have to be so fucking patronizing about it, okay?” she demanded, glaring into him with full feminine fury. “Because I don’t need it. You think that you hold the monopoly on pain? That you’re the only one who misses Sara? Guess what, you can get off that damn high horse right now, because she wouldn’t have put up with it and I won’t either.” Her voice slowed as his had, so that his tiny masculine brain could comprehend the words. “I - don’t - need - it. Okay?”
Habeas Corpus: Black Womb (Black Womb Collection Book 1) Page 20