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

by Matthew LeDrew

  She felt a grin twitch at both sides of her mouth even though she didn’t want it to, then turned back to face him with a full-fledged smile. She tilted her head up and gave him a kiss, light with levity, on the lips. “I’m sorry too. I know you’re trying to help; it’s just that, when everybody tries to help, it only reminds me that I need the help, which makes things worse.” She sighed, taking a moment to go over what she had just said, her lips moving a little as she did. “Did that make any sense?”

  “Not really, but I think I got the gist.” Mike smiled, leaning his forehead against hers so that their noses touched. “But - -”

  His sentence cut short as the front door opened with a bang, letting a fresh gust of fall air in for the space heaters to combat.

  “How’s it going, guys?” Derek Smith said cheerfully as he walked in, making his presence known to the room as usual. His spirit was amazing. He had lost nearly everyone he was close to in the ‘party massacre’, yet he’d kept his morale high. He was a person all the other kids looked up to now, wishing that they could have even a percentage of his strength. His beady eyes, which were almost always holed up into a squint, had an exuberance to them that was only added by a childish grin and long, sloppy brown hair. There was an excitement and an energy to his every word and action, like a kid on Christmas morning. He scanned the room quickly, nodding politely to Jennifer and Randy before laying eyes on Mike. He snapped his fingers instantly, pointing at him from across the room. “Dude, just snuck out of Miles’ class and need to get it off me. Wanna have a game of Granite Gladiators?”

  Mike chuckled to himself. He had been wrong before. This was The Factory. No matter what was going on outside these walls or in your own life, it all stayed outside. It was like a bomb-shelter for stress more than a club. He turned his head towards Cathy, his eyes as big as he could make them.

  She laughed at him. “Begone,” she said dramatically, tapping him twice on the chest and then waving him away. “Just don’t beat him too bad, sweetheart.”

  “Okay, man. How’d you wanna play?” he smiled, getting up and walking over to the game.

  “Tag team, not as enemies,” Derek announced, wrapping his index and middle finger around one another in a gesture Mike could only assume reflected their partnership.

  “Cool,” Mike nodded, fishing a quarter out from deep inside of his pocket and inserting it into the game. The CHOOSE CHARACTER screen came up onto the display, filled with colourful, mean looking animations. “I pick Stonehenge.”

  “Don’t you find him hard to use? His moves are so slow.”

  “Not once you get used to it. What was so bad about class?”

  “I’ll pick... Chip. Nothin’ really, just bullshit. Talking about how animals don’t change what they do, humans do. How you can make it change, blah blah blah.”

  “You keep notes?”

  “Yeah, I’ll get ‘em to ya.”

  The battle screen appeared, basking both of their faces in a multicoloured glow.

  From her chair over at the bar, Cathy picked up her slush-puppy again, sulking briefly over the bit that she had spilt. As she watched, a smile spread over Mike’s face. It was the first real smile she’d seen on him in almost a month. He was even showing teeth.

  She grinned to herself as she watched, then gazed past her straw and into her cup, deciding it might be half-full after all.

  CHAPTER TWO:

  REFLECTION

  “Ugh,” Mike grunted, the tip of his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth as his hands bobbed and spun on the red control stick. His character hit the large stone hand on the screen one last time, sending it slowly crumbling into pebbles, until there was nothing left but a gem in its center. Mike smiled to himself as he finally let go of the joystick, feeling the tendons in his hand cramp as he did.

  “Man, that was cool!” Derek laughed hysterically, giving his friend a congratulatory slap on the back. “I’ve never beaten the whole game before. What happens now?”

  “Well, since I won, now I have to fight your character. So, Chip. Hey, you’ve never beaten the game before?” Mike said, astonished.

  Derek shot him a look, grinning. “Sorry to disappoint. Guess I just don’t have as much free time on my hands as you do.”

  “Heh. Yeah, sorry. Once you’ve moved on to Metal Minions over there, it’s hard to believe you ever had trouble with this one,” he thought, nodding his head toward another game in the corner of the room. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re way better at all this than Xander is. When I tag with him, I usually can’t get past the forth stage.” Mike tensed his hand again as the loading screen started to fade away. Even though he couldn’t say it out loud to Derek, he couldn’t help but think how ironic it was that he could beat Xander at any game. He felt a pang deep inside his gut as that thought crossed his mind. He tried to shove the thought away, but it lingered. I am happy with my life, he reminded himself. With Cathy. Happier then I ever thought I was capable of being.

  Sometimes he thought he’d never truly be happy again. In the past few weeks, he had seen things that could not be unseen and done things he would regret to his dying days. Some days he thought he would never have peace.

  On days like that, it was usually Cathy who brought him back up for air.

  The way she thought and the things she did drove him wild. His skin tingled at her touch and always gave him a drunken, half-hungry feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. When he held her, he felt like he never had before she entered his life. Like a man. He was truly, deeply, madly in love.

  “Are you done yet?” Cathy whined. She didn’t usually use that tone with her boyfriend, but he’d been playing that game for the better part of an hour. “I’m really bored.” Her tone of voice was a playful one. She outstretched her arms to him like a little girl, pouting her lower lip. It was irresistibly cute.

  Mike let go of the joystick. “You’ve never finished the game, Derek?”

  Derek nodded.

  “Here’s yer chance,” he said, walking over to Cathy. Grinning mischievously, he started to tickle her and then lifted her up into his arms as she squealed in defiance. “I, on the other hand, have a prior engagement.”

  “Wow,” Cathy said, kissing his lips lightly. “You actually said the ‘E’ word without breaking out into hives. I’m impressed.”

  He laughed, kissing her. After a moment, his neck began to itch and he resisted the urge to scratch it.

  “Waddaya sayin’, boys and girls?” came a new voice from the doorway, followed quickly by a second.

  “Girls. Huh.”

  Mike broke off the kiss and stood up straight, his body automatically becoming hard and ridged. All of the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he found his arms covered in gooseflesh. Adrenaline started leaking into his system and he found himself ready to get into something fierce right then and there.

  Cathy yanked on his jacket to bring him back down next to her. She held him close. “Don’t do it, Mike,” she said sternly.

  “Guess it’s obvious who wears the pants in this relationship, huh Mike?” Tommy Irons said, smiling slyly as Sud came in behind, the front door to the Factory closing behind them. He was a tall boy, easily a few inches higher than Mike (and seemed even taller with his hair spiked up as it was), but he was lanky and frail, his arms and legs flopped around him like a rag doll’s. This was emphasized by the baggy clothes he always seemed to wear, including the denim shirt that was always on him and open, with a ripped ‘Hello Nasty’ T-shirt underneath. He smirked devilishly as he watched discomfort sweep over Mike’s face, thoroughly enjoying every moment of it.

  “Yeah, pants,” Sud chuckled in his usual incoherent manner. Sud was shorter, about Cathy’s height. His head was shaved clean, except for some excessive stubble around the hard-to-reach areas like the ears. His brow was slanted and thick, making him look like a Neanderthal hunched over the way he was now, his sweater making him look furry and his large knuckles hanging dow
n past his knees. He spoke rarely, but when he did, his deep voice and short sentences made him sound like a grunting ape. Alone, the appearance of either was a source of much amusement. Together, they were downright comical. It was as if they’d stepped straight from a Saturday morning cartoon show.

  Mike clenched his jaw. The both of them had gotten off scot free for their part helping Grendel do those things to Cathy during the maelstrom that had claimed so many lives. In Mike’s eyes, Tommy and Sud were worse than Genblade himself, the beast who had brought the Womb out in Xander, and given the monster its first taste of blood. They had helped an evil man rape a beautiful young girl, then they had the gall to still attempt to hang around with them. As if nothing had happened.

  “Come on, Cathy,” Mike said, pulling the woman he loved to her feet by the hands. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Sure, lover,” she said softly, trying to sound as happy as she could to help keep him calm.

  They both moved to grab their coats. Tommy stopped Mike halfway to the door, pushing his hand against Mike’s chest. “Why ya goin’ so fast, brud? Something I said?”

  Mike clenched his fists, ready to strike. Cathy took his hands and the fists uncoiled, entwining in hers reflexively. He loosened up and merely brushed past Tommy and Sud.

  “I’ll get our coats,” Cathy said, walking into the coat checkroom. “You boys play nicely.”

  She was gone. For the first time in weeks, Mike and Tommy’s eyes met. They both squinted, cracking their knuckles.

  “So,” Tommy said, finally breaking the tension of the silence with his shrill, annoying voice. “Do you always do what your bitch tells ya to?”

  Mike drew back his fist to hit Tommy.

  Tommy winced, closing his eyes tight and snapping his hands up to cover his face. After a moment with no impact, he opened them again.

  Mike had lowered his hand and now stared at Tommy, forcing himself not to smirk. He stepped up closer to Tommy until they were nose to nose. “Listen to me, you little freak. One of these days, Cathy’s not going to be around to stop me, okay? And when that day comes, we are going to have a go. You think what that Adam Genblade guy did to Grendel was bad? You ain’t seen the half of it. Then, when you’re all nice and dead, I’ll find a plot of ground for you right next to Grendel. And I’ll have one steaming hot piss on you both,” he spat, his teeth grinding more and more with each word. “Do we understand each other, you motherfucker?”

  “Got ‘em!” Cathy said, tossing Mike his coat, who caught it without even looking in her direction, never breaking eye contact with Tommy. “What’s going on?” she added.

  Tommy shuffled his feet uncomfortably. Sud did the same, but Mike wasn’t sure if he was actually uncomfortable, or if he was just mimicking Tommy’s movements again.

  “Nothing,” Mike said calmly, finally turning away from the boy. He put on his coat and opened the door for Cathy. When she left, he glanced at Tommy before leaving himself. “Another time.”

  When Mike and Cathy left, Tommy punched the table with surprising strength, sending splinters everywhere and startling everyone else in the club.

  He sat cross-legged on the cold concrete floor, his expression stern and unmoving as he stared down at the floor in front of him, the muscles in his arms twitching violently of their own accord. He’d been naked for roughly an hour, and now sweat glistened off of every inch of his flesh, seeping its putrid stench from every pore.

  His palms lay flat against the floor in front of him, its rough texture digging into the tender skin and making it itch. His fingers wriggled at the ends of each hand, forcing the blood to flow through them as he felt the tingle of numbness at their tips. He let out a long sigh through both nostrils, keeping his lips sealed tight as he surveyed what he had done.

  On the floor between his two hands was a sketch drawn out in the dirt and dust that lined the bottom of his cell. The lines were jagged and wavy, each one punctuated with grease stained fingerprints dotting along their sides, and yet were clear all the same.

  They were men.

  Small, simplistic stick men made up of a circle for the head and single line each for the torso and arms. All lined up in a row, one following the other until there were ten all together looking back at him with glazed faces. He reached out with one long nail and scratched over the head of the sixth one in line, making it a little more round before pulling back and clasping his chin in his hand.

  He let out a long huff, staring down each of the men he’d created one at a time. His pupils moved from one to the next in short bursts so synchronized that they might have been timed rather than spontaneous.

  Bringing a finger to his lips, he squeezed his long, yellowed nails between his sharpened teeth until he heard it crack. When he took it out, the nail had split and was now seeping redness out from between the cartilage. He swished the remainder of the nail around in his mouth for a moment before turning his head to one side and spitting it out, bouncing it off the far wall and onto the floor. Reaching his hand out over the first figure, he squeezed the wound between his thumb and middle finger until two small drops of crimson came out, landing in the middle of the circle. Now it had eyes. Two gaping, red eyes that burned back at him in hate.

  Smiling, he sucked the excess blood from the tip of his finger. He turned his attention to the third man from the back then, drawing a small loop on it that remained open at both ends, like a ribbon or an infinity symbol left incomplete. He then drew a quick line through the centre. He smiled a little, then drew a large circle around the next figure to the left.

  His grin faded away as he turned his attention back to the second man in line. He ran his hand over his chest and forehead, wiping off the copious amounts of sweat that had accumulated since he’d started his project. He squeezed his fist together over the drawing, dripping the rank-smelling liquid onto the second man. He squinted at it for a moment, then nodded.

  Turning his gaze to the third man in line, he let his grin grow so large that it showed off all his sharp, filed teeth. He reached down and clutched his penis from where it had been resting quietly in its tuft of pubic hair, wrapping his fingers around it tightly. He squeezed, pulling upwards a little until the tiniest droplet of moisture secreted from its tip. He wiped it off with his thumb, immediately transferred the liquid to its rightful place smeared against the torso of the third man in line.

  Finally, he turned to the forth. His smile waned for a moment before vanishing completely, staring down at the crude sketch on the floor. His arms had been made too long, and he almost appeared to be holding hands with the previous figure. He sighed, leaning forward onto his palms again until he was almost exactly the same position he’d been in when he started, staring down at his work. He swished saliva back and forth through his mouth as he thought, then raised his eyes to the small window near the ceiling of his cell. The air outside was thick with fog, some of it swirling in and dancing with him before turning into nothing in the air-conditioned room.

  “Not over.” He smiled, letting himself lean back as the sweat rolled off of him into a puddle on the floor.

  “Mike, honey, are you okay?” Cathy asked her boyfriend, using her ‘prying’ voice. He had described it once as combining a pouting lip, soulful eyes, a sad voice and the slightest tip of her head, adding all these ingredients to a jar, and mixing well.

  He stared blankly for a moment, his eyes solemnly focused on the road ahead. He began to pick up speed slightly, forcing Cathy to speed up as well to keep up with him.

  “Mike, talk to me,” she said, tripping over a rock and skipping for two steps to keep from falling onto the cold hard pavement. “Please.”

  He turned around and looked at her for a moment. There was anger in his eyes at first, but it quickly twisted to frustration under her influence, then finally to calmness. Her face always did that to him. No matter how angry he was, the second he looked at her eyes, her hair, her lips... it was like his heart melted inside his chest. “There’s
nothing to talk about.”

  “Bull. You’ve been acting like this for weeks, Mike. You’re angry like I’ve never seen you angry before.” The grimness of the situation rang true in her beautiful voice. Her eyes stared deep into his, cutting through the barriers he had erected and into his very soul. “This isn’t like you.”

  He broke, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t mad. “Why do you do it?” he asked with a raised voice. He cleared his throat, then started again with a calmer tone. “Why do you do it?”

  Cathy’s eyes opened wide. Her eyes went from one corner of her eye to the next, as if she was searching for an answer. “Do what?”

  “‘Do what?’ What do you think? Why do you defend those two creeps, Tommy and Sud? Do you realize what they did? What they helped Grendel do to you?”

  Cathy started to tear up almost instantly. Ever since it had happened, she spent nearly every waking moment trying not to think about what had been done to her. Whenever someone else brought it up, she had no defense against the memories that came flooding back. It was like the pinprick that broke the dam. Every dream she had since that night was a nightmare reliving what Grendel had done to her.

  “It wasn’t like it was some random thing. The guys say that the three of them had been planning it. They convinced everyone at the party that Xander was the killer so they’d take care of him. Tommy and Sud attacked me, damn near fractured my fucking skull when I saw what was happening inside and then Grendel... he... well, I think you know what he did, even if you won’t say it.”

  Her make-up was running down her cheeks and onto her blouse now. Her eyes were red and puffy.

  Mike sighed. “I can understand that it might be hard for you to talk about what happened, but that doesn’t mean that you should just... forget about it. Y’know? You shouldn’t let them get away with the shit they pull all the time, the things they call you. You’re better than they are. You shouldn’t have to take it.”