Habeas Corpus: Black Womb (Black Womb Collection Book 1)

by Matthew LeDrew

  Phillips was silent for a long moment, just tapping a finger against his chin and squinting his eyes, as if mentally saving this information into the correct folder in his mind. She’d seen Xander make that same expression many times before. It was like these computer nerds had some CPU in their brains. When he finally spoke, his voice was clear and still wonderfully calming. A contradiction to what was being said. “That is the biggest lie I have ever heard,” he remarked, careful to punctuate every syllable.

  “What?” Cathy asked, her tears suddenly visible again.

  “I mean seriously, how much denial can one little girl be in? Please, Catherine. Your case-file says that you always have to be the centre of attention, but this just goes beyond anything I’ve ever encountered before. Really, I expected more from you.”

  Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head in disbelief. “What are you saying?”

  “Oh, it’s obvious. Painfully so. Julie and Greer become victims and suddenly everyone in school is talking about them, thinking about them. They’re not looking at you anymore, in your tight little outfit that only a whore would think to wear. Do you tell them you’re a virgin, Cathy? Do you? Is that what you tell the men right before you let them in, you filthy thing?”

  Now it was her turn to be speechless.

  “So, you couldn’t handle these poor, sad girls getting all your precious attention, so you made up a story where you got raped, right? Some sick story from a delusional mind. Worse yet, you used a dead boy in it, a sweet young man who can’t even defend himself,” Phillips shook his head, then grew very angry. “Well, my dear. If you wanted it that bad, believe me, there are plenty of people out there willing to help you out. Give you what you need.”

  She looked up, knowledge sparkling in her eyes too late. “What did you-?”

  He lashed out with one leg, kicking her between her breasts and knocking all of the air from her lungs. Her back pressed against the soft cushions of the chair, her head knocking back onto the wooden frame. Pain shot through her skull, the jolt forcing her to close her eyes. By the time she opened them again, he was on top of her. His hands gripped her blouse viciously, grabbing her skin whenever he could. He ripped it, sending buttons flying in all directions.

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  FEVER DREAM

  For a moment, everything felt disjointed. Her mind tried desperately to catch up to what was happening in the room around her, taking great leaps of logic from one revelation to the other. She was confused and her brain felt groggy as her hands went up, instinctively pushing back on his face to keep him away from her. She tried to kick him but barely managed to twitch her leg under his weight as he struggled with her and attempted to keep her pinned down.

  Pain brought her mind back to crystal clarity as he slapped her across the face hard enough to rattle a molar. Her head jerked awkwardly to the side and sent a v-shaped stream of saliva streaking across the floor. The red print of his hand stayed on her flesh and she smelt copper as a small tendril of blood escaped from her left nostril.

  He grabbed her forcefully by both shoulders and shook her, slamming her head back against the floor. Each impact made her vision go completely white for a moment. When it returned, he was never in quite the same position where she had left him. When her mind snapped back the last time, he was mauling her breasts under her bra with his nubby fingers. His other hand gripped her chin and forced it to look up, stretching her neck to the point that she thought she could feel tendons snapping in her shoulders. His thumb was riding her throat, making it choke for air more and more with every failed breath she tried to take. She felt his lips on her collarbone and wanted to vomit.

  Unable to move without extreme pain, Cathy stared up at the cross that hung lop-sided on the wall. On it, Jesus writhed in pain as well with blood streaming down his forehead from the crown of thorns. His eyes were turned up in his head, as though the agony had driven him mad.

  She felt the clammy flesh of his palm leave her chest and got the impression that he was trying to unbutton his pants. Suddenly his grip got tighter and she could barely get any oxygen at all, her lips turning blue the way Xander’s had earlier that same day. Her body made the convulsions of a cough but the sound never actually came, choked off at her windpipe by hands that smelt like copy toner and bleach. Now her vision was starting to go black around the rims and her throat was as dry as a lint trap. She felt like her head was going to explode, her every thought screaming relentlessly for air.

  Bracing herself she turned her head quickly, feeling something she didn’t want to think about in her neck pull free. The pain was enormous, but she didn’t care. Given what had happened to Greer Donaldson, there was no alternative. She clamped down hard on his thumb, the stale taste of toner caking her tongue for just a moment before she pressed down and pulled, replacing the taste with that of copper almost immediately.

  Phillips howled in pain and thrust his head up towards the ceiling as he tried to shake free of her mouth.

  She felt the molar he had loosened chip, a small chunk of enamel traveling down her throat and slicing her tonsils along the way, but did not let go. Tears ran down her face and she thought the taste of blood was going to make her throw up, but she did not let go.

  “Bitch!” he yelled, finally bringing his other hand up from the crotch of his gray dress-pants and raising it high, hoping that the threat of him bringing his fist down on her nose would be enough to make her stop. He didn’t want to have her unconscious just yet, let alone dead.

  As soon as she saw his hand she shot up her knee, burrowing it in between his legs as hard as she could. His eyes went wide with shock and his fist unclenched into trembling fingers as his entire form started to curl into the fetal position on top of her, wracked with pain.

  Hot tears still streamed down her face as she finally let go of his thumb, her mouth curling up in disgust. The expression on her face was an impressionist’s version of emotion, her features unable to decide whether to cry out in horror and sadness or to curdle in disgust and anger. In the end, it settled for a little of both as eyes filled with hate still soaked her cheeks with salt water.

  She brought her knee up again and again, paddling faster than she used to when she and Sara used to swim in the creek as kids. She felt whatever she was kicking (she didn’t really want to think about the specifics) maul and contort themselves under the pressure and stopped. His eyes were rolled up into his head. His hands, one still gushing blood, cupped his penis gently as he fell to the floor and off of her.

  “Come... back...” he ordered in a faint voice, taking long gasps between each syllable.

  She scrambled to her feet, still spitting foamy mouthfuls of blood as she reached for the door handle and ran out of the room faster than she ever had in recent memory. She ran so fast her legs felt like melted rubber and she thought her heart was going to explode in her chest.

  “Come back, you bitch!” she heard him yell furiously when she reached the end of the hall, the embittered command echoing off the walls of the empty school until it sounded like it was coming at her from all directions.

  She could still feel his hands on her. She had to turn around once or twice as she ran, just to make sure he hadn’t really caught up with her. Never once did she see him, but nothing could convince her that he wasn’t there as she pushed her body past the point where her lungs ached for air.

  Finally her legs gave out and she collapsed on the gravel sidewalk halfway between the school and The Factory. Her eyes belted out tears more readily now and she sobbed out a constant string of sounds that she didn’t think the human throat could even make, all of the pain and hurt and anger crashing down on her all at once as the adrenalin slowly seeped its way from her bloodstream.

  Half naked and bleeding, she lay against a tree just a few feet from the road and cried in agony until she felt like she could walk again. All the while, she would have sworn that she could still hear Phillips screaming out at her, ordering her to come back
.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know where she is?” Mike demanded angrily, slamming his fist down onto Xander’s computer table.

  Xander frowned, unable to meet his friend’s gaze. “Oddly enough, when I said that, I actually meant that I don’t know where Cathy is.”

  “How could you not know where she is?” Mike groaned through clenched teeth, gripping his right temple and rubbing it. “She was here. You were here with her. Why don’t you know where she is?”

  “She left without telling me!” Xander snapped, more than a little angry himself. “Why don’t you know where she is? What’s so important that you left your girlfriend all alone, huh, big time superhero?” He thrust an accusing finger at Mike. “What, you going off to play lone wolf again? You’ll get yourself killed, you moronic--” he paused, then stopped completely as the womb surged up within him. Despite the beatings his body was taking, the damn thing was actually healing, albeit slowly. “I don’t know where she is,” he repeated, trying desperately to calm himself.

  Mike sighed, slumping down in the chair next to Xander’s ruined computer. “I just don’t like her striking off on her own, man. Not now.”

  Xander nodded, but it wasn’t quite in agreement. “You should talk,” he said finally, pointing out the gashes that lined Mike’s face. His nose had finally stopped bleeding for the moment, until he accidentally tried to breathe through it again. “You look like a walking piñata, idiot. And that was just Allan, I took on them both remember.”

  “Thank you for recapping the last two days,” Mike replied sarcastically. “But I was already there, hence I already knew. Dumbass. And at least I can say I was conscious for most of it, unlike you.” He paused, punctuating his sentence by stabbing at the air with his index finger, then added: “Again, dumbass.”

  Xander groaned, thinking back on all that Spider had said. “The man in the moon...” he mumbled, stroking his chin.

  “What?” Mike asked, squinting his frustration into his bedridden friend.

  Xander looked up, as if suddenly realizing that Mike was still there. “Something Spider said. She said that he’s watching. Watching the girls, watching us... watching everything. He doesn’t speak, he just listens... and watches.”

  “Who?”

  “The third rapist. He knows these girls somehow. He knows us. We need to find a common link, a thread that can bind them... tie it all together... before he gets into our heads too, like he did poor Julie Peterson.”

  Mike nodded, not fully understanding how the dead bride of Adam Genblade had managed to tell him all of this, but deciding that now was not the best time to ask. “What else did Spider say?”

  Xander looked thoughtful then, trying to remember the exact wording. “She said that ‘those we count amongst our allies today will have betrayed us yesterday, and themselves in the morrow.’” He stopped, mouthing the words again to try and comprehend them better. “Does that make any sense at all?”

  Mike shook his head. “Not really. But she’s crazy and she’s dead and I’m not entirely sure it isn’t all in your head, so I’ll hold off on passing judgement just yet.”

  Xander looked as though he were about to object, then began to nod. It was true, all of it. Even if the vision of Spider had been real, she was a less than reliable source.

  Suddenly, his bedroom door swung open and Xander jumped to shield his wounds from the eyes of his parents... Instead he saw Cathy, clothes ripped and blood seeping slowly from her left hip.

  Her hair was matted, mascara running and lipstick smudged. Forcing herself not to cry for once today, she held herself up until both of her men rushed to her side as one, taking her into their arms.

  “Something bad happened at school today,” she whispered, collapsing onto the floor. She laughed at her own little joke, and it chilled both boys to the bone. For it was a hollow laugh, devoid of humor or emotion, as they feared she might now be.

  She cried herself the sleep on Xander’s bed, not letting either of them cuddle up next to her or even touch her. Gazing at her one last time, Mike closed the door and left her to hopefully sleep it off in the darkness. Some things didn’t fade so easily. Her body convulsed with fear as she dreamt and he was tempted to rush in and wake her, to hold her in his arms and tell her that everything is all right. But he knew that that wouldn’t help, knew that he had to give her time... And in that time, he could make things right.

  As soon as the door closed, his expression changed. He was no longer hurt or scared for the woman he loved, but was now something to be scared of. The transformation was every bit as real and opposite as Xander to the Black Womb, his eyes narrowing and becoming evil. Bloodlust entered his every feature, and a thirst for vengeance made his lips bone dry.

  “Come on,” Xander said from behind him, rubbing one of his shoulders. “We’ve got some work to do.”

  Mike nodded, both of them starting down the stairs towards the living room.

  The old couch had a pattern on it that spoke of its age, and cigarette burns that told of its use. The entire room was a decorator’s nightmare, with colours that clashed no matter what direction you turned your head in. It made Mike almost glad that at the moment his eyes were almost too swollen to notice, otherwise this vertigo-inducing room might have pushed his nausea to the edge. Or beyond. He feared that if he vomited in here, it might blend in and they’d never find it. He sat all the same, leaning his head back onto the cushions and rubbing his bruised eyelids gently. Xander sat in the loveseat across from him, his hands folding together at his lip as his eyes bulged with fear, aimed down at some unknown direction.

  “Phillips,” Xander cursed himself softly. He’d been there. He’d been next to him and not realized it. “There must have been a thousand and one ways I could have taken him out, if only I’d--”

  “None of us saw it,” Mike cut him off, staring at the ceiling. “None of us could see it,” he mumbled near the end, sighing once more.

  Xander nodded, but not in agreement. Suddenly, he came to an understanding. “This is what Spider meant. The person that listens to us, watches us... It’s Phillips. He waits for girls that he thinks are unstable... vulnerable...” Their minds filled in the gap, every dirty little possibility they were trying desperately to contain leaping in.

  “Gets Al and Raine to cover his tracks, while he covers theirs.” Mike shook his head in consternation.

  “That’s why we couldn’t find the old files on those two low-lifes... Phillips destroyed them all when he started here... probably his own, too. I find it hard to believe that he just woke up last week and decided that he was going to be a serial rapist.”

  Mike was still shaking his head. “Man... These guys are exactly what you refer to when you say ‘a real piece of work.’”

  All was silent for a long time then, as both boys struggled to assimilate this new information into their systems. Xander seemed to be having more trouble with it than Mike. Up until now, everyone he’d fought had been bad because they were... well, evil. Genblade, Spider, Alpha... They all just seemed to be that way. Born into the role. Now Phillips had come along and he seemed to be making the choice to do so, even going out of his way to avoid doing the right thing. “What are we going to do?” he asked Mike finally, the desperation showing through in his voice.

  Casually, Mike picked up the phone next to him and dangled it by its cord slowly, letting the dial tone ring through the air. He grinned sheepishly at Xander, letting the thought linger. Then he pulled a business card from his jeans pocket and chucked it to his friend. The breeze from the open window caught it and forced it to veer left, but Drew snatched it out of the air with inhumanly quick reflexes. Mike regarded this with some degree of amazement, remembering that the Alexander Drew of less than a year ago that couldn’t catch a baseball to save his life.

  But Xander had winced from the effort, still not healing the way he should. Far faster than Mike would heal, but still not fast enough for his liking. A spot of blood appea
red on the card from his swollen knuckles. He tried desperately to hide it as he flipped the piece of cardboard over. In standard newsletter print was the simple, all-American name of Tim White, FBI. Xander stared blankly at the card for a moment, flicking the corner with one finger until it was dog-eared. “No,” he said dryly, calmly placing the card face down onto the table between them and sliding it across.

  Mike nearly dropped the phone, along with his jaw. “What? Why?” he asked in astonishment. “It’s kind of his department more so then ours.”

  “I can do this on my own,” he responded, his pride visibly wounded.

  “No, you can’t,” Mike replied matter-of-factly, picking up the card as he leered his eyes at his friend.

  “Give me one good reason why not,” Xander reasoned, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice as he began to rise.

  Mike tossed the card at him again, this time putting a backspin on it. It shot high, making Xander reach to get it. Xander cringed as he felt the movement rip the tender, scabbed flesh across his abdomen. Bits of blood stained his shirt, expanding in circular motions. “I don’t know,” Mike shrugged. “You’ve done a bang-up job so far.”

  “Like you’re doing so great,” Xander retorted, finally letting the charade fall away to childish name calling, as it always eventually did between the two.

  “Which is why we need help,” Mike emphasized, pointing to the card again.

  Xander grunted, passing the small paper square back and forth from one hand to the other. He sighed once or twice, each time looking to give in to Mike’s inarguable logic, but did not. Finally, the third time, he handed the card back to Mike. “Make the call,” he said quickly and without looking up, shamed at being defeated.