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

by Matthew LeDrew

  “No, not grading,” he mumbled, waving Shnieder away with a flick of his hand. “Looking through some old papers.”

  “Why? Do we suspect the seniors are selling their old papers again?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that,” Miles frowned, finally picking up Sara’s report again. “I wanted to find a good example of each student’s work. Maybe put it with their flowers at the memorial O’Toole has planned. You know, then the parents could look at what their child had achieved, maybe bring back a good memory or two.”

  Shnieder opened his mouth to retort, then eyed the large pile of papers just to the side of Miles’ elbow. “I think that’s a lovely idea,” he said finally, giving his friend a curt nod.

  He nodded in return, not even looking up.

  “I’m going home. Be sure to lock up when you’re done.”

  This time he did not even respond, his pupils darting over each word of the report.

  - tak -tapptapp- tak -

  He looked up at the bag again, staring it down for a long moment as he waited for it to make the sound again. Wanted to see it make the sound, just to quell the paranoid itch in the back of his mind. After a moment, the sway of the strap slowed... and then stopped.

  He stared at it one moment longer, then started shoving papers into his briefcase one by one.

  There was no reason he couldn’t do this at home.

  The house was quiet and empty, even though it didn’t feel like it.

  It never felt empty anymore, not as far as he was concerned. There was always the sound of skittering or a creaking pipe that wouldn’t have been audible to anyone else in the house but was nearly deafening to him. He was never really sure if the sounds were even real or if they were all in his head, especially around this time in the evening, with his eyelids already getting heavy. He’d been sleeping more lately, and he wasn’t sure if it was because his body didn’t rest when the Womb ran around at night... or if the Womb was simply fighting for more of their timeshare.

  Xander closed the door and slid off his sneakers and jacket, letting them fall unceremoniously to the floor before walking past the archway leading into the kitchen. There was a plate on the counter top between the fridge and the stove with a piece of paper stuck to it with scotch tape. On it was a few hunks of garlic bread and leftover chicken, the barbecue sauce on it forming a small, sticky stain in the center of the plate.

  His mouth watered at the scent of it, even as he turned and looked around to make sure nobody else was home. There was an ashtray on the table that smelt like it hadn’t been fed a fresh butt in hours, meaning that wherever his parents had gotten to, it wasn’t close by.

  Smiling, he scooped up the plate and the note attached and sat at the table in the dark of evening and started to pick at his chicken, able to see his plate less and less with every passing moment as the sun ducked down below the tree line.

  Chewing the rubbery but flavorful strips of breast meat, he picked up the note between his sauce-covered fingers and brought it close to his face so that he could read it in the low-light:

  Alex,

  Your father and I have gone down to the hospital to visit the Kennessy’s. They mentioned that you went there too, maybe see you there. If not eat the chicken and the bread, more in the fridge if you want it. Take off foil before heating. We’ll probably be out late so go to bed at a decent hour, you have class tomorrow.

  -Love, Mom:)

  xxx ooo

  He allowed himself a smile, shaking his head at the note as he laid it down on the table next to his plate. She was the only person in the world who still called him Alex.

  After a moment, he ripped a chunk off of the garlic bread and popped it into his mouth, the smile fading from his lips. The room was dark now, except for the sad blue glow of twilight that touched everything with a lover’s gentleness. He lay the chicken back down onto the flower-patterned plate as he started to feel the tug of that sadness, like a hook with a weight attached poked through the meat of his heart.

  That tug was joined by another, more virile one from his right side. It felt like the way he imagined a baby kicking from inside you, that sudden, solid bump coming from the wrong side out. His eyes went wide as he realized that the Womb was reacting to what he was feeling.

  He closed his eyes and started to think ‘happy thoughts’ to try and balance himself out again. He thought of Mike, Cathy and Sara and how the four of them used to have fun together late at night at the Factory before all of the Black Womb crap had started.

  He remembered the way Sara had looked at him from across the pool tables, speaking volumes with her eyes. Some people spoke with their hands, some with their whole bodies... Sara Johnson talked with her eyes. One look this way or that could convey the ultimate in sadness, happiness, confusion, disbelief, or any one of a hundred other things. He remembered the way they had looked out of the balcony the night she died, right before they’d almost had their first kiss. She’d looked at him as though he was the only person in the room, and for once he’d felt like it, too. It made his lips quiver, even now.

  The way Mike and Cathy would spend all night making-out when the four of them went out on Fridays, making it incredibly awkward for him and Sara if they were sitting on the other side of a booth. He remembered the way each of them had looked in the hospital, with stitches and bandages on to keep their insides from spilling out onto their outsides.

  Because of him.

  Wincing, he started to feel like he was choking, or drowning on his own blood as the black ooze worked its way up into his throat. The Womb hadn’t slowed down, it had pounded harder and harder as every thought of every friend he’d ever had led to something horrible. Some terrible thing that he himself had done. The pain was twisting and grinding within the womb organ and becoming his power, the way food was turned into energy in a normal person.

  For a moment, his entire world turned black as the darkness shrouded his eyes through the veins in his corneas. Then everything was illuminated with light and he could see not only the normal dim blue that he had a moment ago, but also the infrared and ultraviolet portions of the spectrum. He tried to fight it, clutching his fingers into his scalp and trying to push away the thoughts that were running through his head. He imagined the blackness turning in on itself, being crumpled into a little ball and hurled back into the depths of his bowels, willing it not to pop out into the open air.

  Suddenly, as quickly as it had come over him, it recessed back to whatever hell inside him that it had come from. The blackness in his eyes faded to grey before disappearing completely and his throat was clear again.

  He opened his eyes and let out a sigh of relief, then noticed the half-plate of food still in front of him. He snarled at it, picking it up and bringing it over to the trash compactor and scraped it in.

  He placed the plate in the dishwasher before leaving the kitchen and heading up the stairs two at a time, casting his gaze down and away from the portraits on the wall as he did. He opened the door to his room and closed it behind him, turning each lock along the frame and then giving the door one last tug just to be sure.

  His eyelids felt heavy again as he sat on the edge of the bed and started to peel off his clothes. He took off his shirt and looked down himself.

  There was a long, thin line over where his appendix should have been and the Womb now was, a tiny scar on an otherwise smooth surface. Engen’s scientists had given it to him while the Womb was out of him, the only one it couldn’t repair quite right. He ran his finger along the bumps of it, feeling the bizarre folds of skin just beneath the surface. The scar Alpha put there will always be on my torso, but the cuts Genblade inflicted haven’t even closed yet, he thought, glancing down at the picture of Sara in her prom dress. They haven’t even started.

  Suddenly he felt too tired to even finish undressing. He lay down on his bed and closed his eyes, his head barely even touching the pillow before he was out. Just before he lost consciousness completely, he felt that t
elltale kick in his right side, as if something were trying to get out through the scar he’d just touched.

  The rusted metal door of The Factory slammed behind her, letting out one final gust of warm air before the cool fall night surrounded her. She barely even heard it. Roxanne had walked this stretch of unpaved parking lot so many times in the past few years that she did it on autopilot now, not even conscious of her own dazed movements as she allowed herself to slip into her everyday routine.

  Her fingers slid up her jeans, finding a malformed lump just below her hips. She fiddled with it, bouncing it in the cup of her palm. The keys inside clinked and jingled against one another, the sharp ridges of her surfboard-shaped key chain digging into the smooth flesh of her leg.

  She let out a long sigh, running her nails through her hair and across her scalp as she took out the buckle that had held it up for at least the last twelve hours. It might have been longer than that, but she couldn’t remember if it had still been in when she woke up that morning.

  She shut her eyes tight as she turned slightly, something in the back of her mind reminding her that she hadn’t parked where she usually did today. Like a post-it note on her subconscious.

  The car was in sight now, its chipped off-white paint standing out like a beacon in the dark night surrounding it. It was a 1993 Rover 400 series that had seen better days. The driver’s side window shook as though it was about to fall out every time it was hit by a stern gust of wind and the original hood had been replaced by a deep forest green one. There were already nine hundred thousand clicks on it when she bought it a year ago for two hundred dollars and since then it had been in the shop three times and cost her almost double what she’d paid for it. Moreover, it ate gas like it was going out of style.

  She reached her forefinger into her pocket and found her keyless remote in the jumble of the tips change and keys. Holding it high, she pressed the green button on it once.

  The car chirped to life with a two identical beeps as she got closer to it, slowing down a little as her heels started to scream out with the pain she’d managed to ignore for most of the day. The keys still clinked, swaying back and forth as she pulled them out of her pocket, sending pennies and other loose change scattering to the ground with more ringing clicks. The sharp, metallic sounds were beginning to annoy her after listening to the band practice their solos for the last few hours, so she reached out suddenly and grabbed her keys together into one big lump. She almost cursed as one of the pointy pieces of metal poked at her palm, but deemed it to be worth the pain if the noise would stop.

  The clicking continued.

  -clink-

  -clink- -clink-.

  “Hello?” she called out, wrinkling her brow as she squinted into the sheet of blackness all around her.

  She stopped walking, the sound of her heels no longer pulsing out into the night air. A second later, one last echo came back to her from the side of the Factory, then there was nothing. She waited, her green eyes looking all around even though she couldn’t see anything except her car, as bright as a ghost compared to everything else. She couldn’t even see the ground.

  A gust of wind blew her hair back and the clicking continued, this time even more rapid and clambering than before. It was louder, now, and sharper too. The cold sound of metal on metal, something she remembered from all the stories Mike had told her about the night he and Cathy were attacked. But Genblade’s in prison, now, she reminded herself. Somehow, it offered her very little comfort.

  She listened to the sound, her eyes growing wider in their sockets with each passing note.

  The stone bricks on either side of her ricocheted and amplified the sound, making its source impossible to locate.

  The wind gusted and she thought she felt something pass along next to her shoulder, yelping. She spun quickly to see who was there, almost tripping and falling on her ass as she did, swearing that this would be the last time she wore heels to work.

  Nothing.

  There was nothing behind her and the more she strained her ears, the less she heard the metallic sound that had been driving her insane since leaving the club. Still, she refused to move. Somewhere inside her, she knew that the second she turned around, she would feel the metal that she had spent the last few minutes listening to.

  Finally, a smirk spread across her lips as a thought occurred to her. She moved her thumb over the keyless remote she still clutched in her right hand, applying pressure to the yellow button in its centre. The old Rover’s bright headlights flashed on, illuminating the alley and banishing all shadows into the darkest corners of the alley.

  She took a good look around, inspecting every nook and cranny of the stone walls. Satisfied, she turned around and walked toward her car, raising one hand to shield her eyes against the light.

  The front door nearly fell off when she pulled on the handle, but she pulled it up and slammed it quickly. She was almost already back into her routine daze again now, her mind already starting to relay the band’s cover of a song by Matchbox Twenty. She started to bob her head to the beat in her head even as the car started with a hacking roar and she pulled out of the parking lot.

  As she picked up speed, for no reason that she could see, the clicking started again as she hit Main Street. It was faster now, each click almost indistinguishable from the next. She glanced up into her rearview mirror, seeing nothing but empty streets and light poles that whizzed by. She looked at all the lights and dials on the dashboard, making sure the check engine light wasn’t on. She’d heard the car make sounds like this before, but these didn’t sound like they were coming from the engine.

  The more she listened and looked around, the more she became convinced that they weren’t even coming from in front of her. She bit her lip, glancing away from the road long enough to see her cell phone laying on the far side of the passenger seat. Gripping the wheel tightly, she leaned over and grabbed it, flipping it open to make sure the battery wasn’t dead.

  When she turned her attention back toward the street, the red light that intersected Laird Street glowered down at her like one evil, demonic eye.

  “Fuck!” she yelled as she slammed on the breaks, forcing the car to skid to a sudden stop and slamming her chest against the steering wheel. The hard rubber thrust into her breasts, knocking the wind from her lungs violently. She stopped, both hands clutching the wheel just to keep from shaking as she tried to catch her breath. The light changed to green and then back to red again before she even realized what was going on.

  You’re such a fucking flake, she chided herself when she regained the ability to think reasonably, putting the cell phone back down in her lap. The back of her neck ached already and she knew that if she didn’t get home and get some ice on it soon, it’d be too swollen for her to work again by morning. She almost considered that a reason not to do it.

  Summoning all her courage, she released the brake and let the car roll through the intersection, hoping to get home before too late. Maybe in time to get a decent night’s sleep for once.

  No sooner was the car past the light and starting to speed up again when the clinking started again, resuming its persistent tack on her last nerve. It wasn’t just the clicking itself that nagged at her, but the annoying sense that something wasn’t right that she couldn’t quite pin down. Making sure to keep one eye on the road again, she re-surveyed the dashboard indicator lights, turning off the heater to make sure it wasn’t something blowing up against it. The sound continued unabated. Frowning, last glanced up into the rear view mirror.

  Her eyes went wide.

  There was someone in the backseat.

  She felt an enormous pain on her chest as something ripped out of the seat from behind her, travelling through her midsection. She couldn’t see what it was but it felt cold at first, then slowly got warmer and warmer. The moist heat spread throughout her body as she slumped against her steering wheel, rapidly losing consciousness. Her body jolted violently as the killer tried hard to rem
ove the appendage, jerking it from side to side, ripping it across Roxanne’s chest sending spurts of blood from the wound as well as from her mouth.

  The car slammed head on into a fire hydrant, thrusting both bodies forward again. Her air bag puffed open, leaking deadly fumes out where from it had been punctured. The gas burned at her nose and throat, making her last few breaths sheer agony. Water splashed down onto her face. Her eyes began to roll into the back of her head as blood poured from her open wound and down into the street, the red liquid so thick that it dropped to the bottom of the puddles it fell into.

  The monster calmly opened the door, letting her battered body slump out onto the pavement.

  Her vision was fuzzy and she couldn’t quite understand what she was seeing, but she heard the click and recognized it. She opened her eyes wide, tears clearing the blood out of them for her, and saw the metal buckle from the back seatbelt clang against the side of the car. There was a scrape there from where it had happened so many times and when the wind picked up it got more rapid again.

  -clink-

  -clink- -clink-.

  The back door opened and the winch that held the belt finally kicked in, sucking the buckle back into the car in a flash so fast that her tired mind did not even register it. All she knew was that the sound had finally stopped.

  The shadowed monster once more brought itself down across Roxanne’s once beautiful face.

  Blood mixed with water and gushed down into the sewer grate, falling through pipes and earth as it went.

  Natasha Mercer popped two Tylenol into her mouth with an open palm, their stale taste filling her mouth for a moment before she knocked her head back and forced them down her throat without the benefit of water. She closed her eyes for a long moment, feeling nothing except the steady thud in the back of her head and cursing. She knew the pills weren’t supposed to work for at least fifteen minutes, but sometimes just the act of taking them was enough to will the aches and pains away.