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

by Matthew LeDrew

  He laughed a little, watching as the puddle of alcohol grew slowly, expanding ever outwards until it consumed everything it could.

  Like a cancer.

  Like grief.

  Like him.

  Xander Drew lowered the gun onto his lap, leaning forward on the rough carpet.

  He sat cross-legged, resting his arms against his knees as his eyes fluttered feverishly over the collage of items laid out before him.

  His floor was covered in things of Sara.

  A shirt she left when she slept over, just after her dad had gotten sick. Pictures of the two of them at the junior prom last spring. A pamphlet from her funeral. His comb she’d used only once and yet still carried her scent. And photos. Dozens of photos of her, clipped from yearbooks and newsletters and albums. One of them she’d taken herself, holding the camera out in front of her as far as she could. In it, her eyebrow was cocked up comically, a fraudulent scowl smeared across her face.

  It looked right through him.

  If you’re innocent, you’re hurt, or you’re scared... I’ll be there.

  The words rang through his head again, followed immediately by the memory of all the times he’d tried to live up to that promise and failed, like cars following a train.

  “It’ll never stop. Never be over,” he said to himself, his voice calm and steady all but for a slight waver at the end.

  This is the choice you made, he reminded himself inwardly. To take either that road... or this one.

  He stared down at the gun again.

  Composing himself, he wiped the sweat from his palm onto his shirt and picked it up again. He brought it to the side of his head again with only a second’s pause, bracing himself as he started to pull the trigger.

  Put it down.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me, Xander Drew, put it down,” Sara Johnson said, echoing her own words. She sounded like springtime. “Are you going to? Or are you going to make me repeat myself again?”

  Xander looked at her with surprise and puzzlement, not for the first (or the last) time. “And again I say, excuse me?”

  “You have been at those damn Chemistry books for ten hours straight. You need to relax, and something tells me that I’m just the person to help you.” Her back was arched, making her even sexier then Xander could’ve ever thought possible. She wore cut-off jeans with a sleeveless pink tube top, a modified fishnet stocking providing a sleeve for one arm, which held a smoldering cigarette in it. The summer sun beat against the back of her head, creating a halo effect around her blonde hair. She looked like an angel.

  “I can’t. I really can’t. I’d love to, really... but I can’t.”

  “Give it up,” she huffed, smacking his books to the floor. “Come outside. Have fun. For me?”

  He looked at her for a moment, raising one eyebrow suspiciously.

  She tipped her head to one side, batting her eyelashes extravagantly. She didn’t say another word.

  “Let me get my coat,” he sighed.

  “Yay!” she chimed happily, thrusting her hands up into the air and making V’s with both of her hands for ‘victory’. She bounced as she walked with him into the main hallway of his house, barely able to contain her excitement. As he was putting on his sneakers, she bent over quickly, giving him a tiny kiss on the top of his head. “Love you, Xander,” she chirped, then opened the door and walked to the end of the porch to finish her smoke, giving him a cute little two-fingered wave as the door closed between them.

  He watched the spot where she had been in bewilderment, smiling as he finished lacing up. Even though he knew she was just being playful, something in her eyes had been serious. Had made it seem like even though it was a joke, it was still true. “I love you too,” he replied with a happy sigh, as he opened his front door and followed her.

  “I love you, too,” Xander said aloud.

  The gun fell to the floor with a dull thud.

  He clenched his fists until the knuckles turned white, the skin stretching so tightly over the bone that it became transparent. Grunting angrily, he squeezed even harder, falling to his knees amongst the small shrine he’d built for her on his floor. The skin split, causing blood to flow down his arms and fingers, tracing the familiar contours of his flesh.

  After a moment, it began to flow a deep black.

  “No,” he pled with himself, bending over and rocking back and forth until the growling, pounding feeling in his right side faded away. It didn’t leave completely though. It never did. Never.

  When he opened his eyes again, he was staring directly into the picture of Sara, only inches in front of his face. He made a sound that was so wrought with grief that it didn’t even sound human.

  The tears came now, making his eyelids bulge and his cheeks get hot. He slammed his fist against the floor three times, each one harder than the one before.

  “Fuck!” he screamed, getting to his feet and grabbing the chair that sat next to his computer and hurling it at the wall with all his strength. It shattered into splinters, one leg driving into the cheap plaster and remaining there like a bony finger pointing at him accusingly. The splinters flipped and tumbled everywhere, bouncing off his chest and getting caught in his hair, the tiny sound each one of them made becoming an earsplitting chaotic cacophony of white noise when heard together. His face red with tears and rage, he picked up his whiskey bottle by its stubby glass neck and threw it blindly. It crashed into a clear lamp filled with seashells, both shattering upon contact with each other and adding a rain of tinkling, sharp shards of glass to the wood that peppered the floor. Both halves of the lamp fell in separate arcs, banging against the wall on their way down. The bulb shattered, its filament shining brightly before going out completely, like a star going dead. It sent sparks splashing upwards, making small semicircles as they spun away from their source, losing heat with each passing instant. He did not notice, turning and driving his fist into his computer screen, the glass slicing into his flesh as blue sparks singed his fingertips, each one creating shadows that cast over his face and made him look even more menacingly demonic than he already did.

  “Ag,” he grunted, retracting his hand quickly and watching as the blood dribbled down the back of it, forming a small pool at the tips of his fingers before falling away. Sneering down at it, his pupils tiny and focused, he spun around and planted the heel of his boot into his television. Once again, hot sparks cascaded out of the fragmented box, tumbling downward like rainwater, the embers they created dancing about wildly. The sparks shimmered down toward the broken whiskey bottle. There was a sound like the rush of air as the rank brown liquid ignited, becoming flame almost immediately. The fire swept over the floor, traveling along the drops made by the alcohol until it was everywhere. It reached the pictures and papers in the center of the room, their edges beginning to curl as they were lit aflame and consumed.

  Xander’s eyes went wide, reflecting the fire as it sprang up all around him, its red and blue and yellow fingers reaching out to enclose around him like a fist.

  He grabbed a small black throw pillow off of his bed and started slamming it down against the flames, each beat stomping out a small section as the impact snuffed the air out of the area and smothered it. Smoke billowed toward the ceiling as he wailed harder, his mouth contorted, blending desperation and anger as the last of the fire went out with feathers and smoke still hanging in the air but slowly settling to normal.

  He started to sob the way a child sobs as he looked down upon the destroyed items, charred and blackened beyond recognition. He gripped both edges of the pillow and was about to pull it apart, then buried his face into it instead. His tears soaked into the smooth fabric as it rubbed soot off onto his cheeks. His whole body shook and convulsed, urging several times from the pit of his stomach as though he were about to vomit, but instead just bringing more tears and a fresh bout of sobs. He stayed that way for thirty minutes, until all the smoke had cleared out of the room and the smell of alcoho
l had started to fade.

  When he looked up and opened his eyes, he saw the one thing that had escaped the fire intact: a picture of her, all dressed up to go to the prom that he had clipped from an old yearbook.

  When are you going to stop?

  Xander lay on the ground, broken and beaten by Sara’s current boyfriend, Julian Grendel. Blood seeped from his upper lip, making the bottom of his face warm and wet.

  “When are you going to stop doing this?” she had asked him, using his shirt to wipe a bit of the blood away.

  He looked up at her and smiled, the motion stinging the tender flesh around his mouth. “I guess when I start winning fights.”

  “Not that,” she giggled, wiping more blood from his forehead. “This. Chasing after every boy I go out with like some ... jealous father.”

  “Oh,” Xander said, looking downward. “I guess when you start going out with reasonable guys.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Gee, I wonder. Grendel, Derek, Sud, Tommy, Randy, Travis, Cecil... the list goes on. Cathy always says that you go through them like popcorn at a chick-flick. Serial boyfriends, I think she called them. Guys that are... Okay, but they don’t deserve you. You deserve someone special. Someone who’ll treat you right and make you feel good and... and not look at you like you’re an object. You’re better then you think you are, y’ know. You deserve better than you think you do.”

  She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “That was the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.” She smiled. “Make me a promise.”

  “Anything.”

  “Don’t ever give up.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t ever stop protecting me. And when I finally do find that guy you were talking about, protect someone else. This world needs a protector, Xander.”

  “I promise.”

  “Don’t ever give up.”

  “I won’t,” he said, emptying the bullets from the gun onto the floor with a series of metallic clinks. Tears streamed down his face as his eyes turned black, his heart pounding in his chest as he felt his blood pressure climb to levels normally fatal. This time he made no effort to halt it.

  The skin on his wrists began to swell as the pressure built there, growing more and more with each passing second.

  Through his open mouth, his teeth could plainly be seen grinding together as he tried not to scream, every cell in his body trying to fight for its life, failing, and then being re-written. His gums started to bleed as new teeth were cut again, the old ones cutting long rivets in the roof of his mouth as they were forced aside. After a moment only the new were visible, over two inches long each and the yellow of putrid urine.

  His jaw popped out on one side all on its own, hanging on a few inches below where it had been by a tedious strand of flesh and tenue. After a moment, it healed itself, the muscle weaving its way down to meet in as the other side of his face fractured itself as well, making room for the massive set of jowls he would soon possess.

  There was a pounding in his skull as it became thicker and broader across the forehead, reshaping his face until his dark eyes seemed to be travelling back, becoming something beady and unseen beneath his scowl.

  The veins in his hands finally burst, opening up his wrists so fiercely that the holes it left looked as though they had been made with shotguns shells. The blackness clung to him as it spewed forth from the open wounds, powered by each and every beat of his powerful heart. It took on a life of its own, crawling over him like a million black worms. It had already encompassed both his arms and most of his chest when he felt his kneecaps shatter, his legs painfully bending back in the opposite direction.

  The blood kept flowing, sticking to him until it became a second flesh. He felt like he was sinking into it, drowning in it, rather than it coming over him.

  Long nails formed over his toes as it finished covering his body, the worms moving upwards towards his head in an open defiance of gravity. His lips started to turn blue as he held his breath, thrusting his head skyward to belay the darkness as long as possible. He closed his eyes and spoke with a voice not his own, just as the blackness finally closed in around him.

  “I won’t.”

  Mike stroked his thumb back and forth along his upper lip, staring off into space from his perch atop a high barstool. His legs were tucked up beneath him and his back was as straight as he could make it, making him feel high above the floor below him. The teetering of the uneven chair even made him feel a little dizzy as he swayed back and forth.

  All around him arcade games and pinball machines buzzed and chimed, calling out in a jumble of bells and sirens. Some had spinning lights on the top of them that flashed whenever the computer-controlled characters on the screens scored a point, dominating his vision in sporadic beams of red and blue. They made it hard to see the vintage posters of Zeppelin and Petty that lined the walls, but he still knew what they looked like. Could have seen them with his eyes closed if he had wanted to.

  Just a few inches to his right, Cathy was leaning over the bar and taking a long sip of her drink. She twirled her hair around her finger as she always did, humming a tune he couldn’t quite recognize between gulps.

  As cute and endearing as he found it, he tuned it out. He closed his eyes for a moment, mentally willing himself not to hear any of the things he didn’t want to. He got rid of Cathy’s sweet humming first. Then the clink of a soda machine in the kitchen. Then the bass beat of a car passing by. What was left was the chime of the video games combined with the sharp crack of pool balls hitting each other and the buzz of the fluorescent lights above it all. He opened his eyes to see the Stones poster bathed in blue light, the putrid smell of cigarette smoke filling his nostrils until he thought he was actually at a concert.

  He smiled.

  This was The Factory.

  It was a local arcade club where almost every teenager in Coral Beach could be found at some point or another in the day. Located in the scenic downtown of Coral Beach, the Factory jutted up out of the otherwise calm rural Maine landscape, always loud and exciting and neon. This had been where Mike had learned everything he really knew in his life. His first real fight was just outside the back entrance (followed almost immediately by his first nosebleed). His first date had started here, with some pool before a long midsummer walk. This was the place where he had uttered his first curse in anger and heard his first dirty joke. This was home.

  It hadn’t felt like it in weeks, not since the murders. There was something about being here that reminded him of that period in his life a little too much. Even though the building itself had nothing to do with it, this whole street was as much a part of the horrors that had happened, as they were a part of this town. More like a vein running through a living organism than a street running through a city. Like any living thing, it could be damaged. It could be hurt. But if he tried hard enough, like now... he could look past the scars and be home again.

  “Mike, I’m worried about Xander,” Cathy said, taking a long sip of her slush-puppy and snapping him out of his trance. She pushed a strand of her long black hair out of her face, its darkness a complete contrast to her pale complexion, then slid her straw in and out of her paper cup to mush up her slush.

  Mike sighed as all the sights and sounds that he’d fought so hard to block out came screaming back to him with all the subtlety of an oncoming train. He winced as he heard Jennifer Bradley rip into the green fabric of the pool table, feeling his chest grow tight as though he had felt it too. “Yeah,” he agreed, ruffling a hand through his short blonde hair. He shifted into a more comfortable position on the stool, letting his legs dangle a little more than they had been. He felt the skin along his right side pull tight when he moved, sending a burning pain up his side and into his rib cage. A few weeks ago he’d been stabbed there. By Xander. His appendix had ruptured and had shot poison and bile throughout his system, until the doctors had removed it. It was mostly healed, but when he turned it a certain way, it still
hurt. Still felt like it was going to rip. Maybe that was why he reacted so intensely when the table ripped. He did know exactly how it felt. “I know. I thought things would get better after a while, but he’s just been keeping himself up in his room all the time. It’s like he doesn’t even want to see the light of day.”

  “I guess we can’t really blame him,” she reasoned, allowing her head to tilt to one side. She always did that, as if her neck were somehow attached to the scales within her mind weighing the outcomes of every situation. “Even we’ve been acting a little odd, trying to adjust to life without her.” Her hair fell back in front of her face again.

  This time, he pushed it back for her. As he did, his finger caressed her round, pale face, making her quiver. He looked down into her eyes, his height and her lack thereof making him almost have to bend down to do so. “It’ll be okay. It’s over now. Things can only get better.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said bitterly as she rolled her eyes, turning away from his touch. “Things can only get better. It’s always darkest before the dawn. The glass is half full. That and countless other clichés that I’ve heard a billion times a day for the last month.” She huffed, plopping her slush down beside her, sending pink liquid sloshing over the sides. “I am just so sick of everyone telling me that things can only get better. Things aren’t really that great and they’re not getting any better, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  Mike cast his eyes downward. “I’m sorry.”

  She said nothing, barely even making eye contact with him as she stared blankly at a Beatles poster that always managed to catch her eye.

  “I know things are bad. Xander’s trying his best to get control of this thing and I don’t know if he can or not. I don’t know what it means if he can’t. What we’re supposed to do. But you know all that. I shouldn’t sugar coat it for you. It’s patronizing and I’m sorry.” He paused, running his tongue over the front of his gums. “I just don’t like to see you hurting.”