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

by Matthew LeDrew

  Genblade jumped up and began pounding against the glass. It shattered again, the cracks spreading out into the shape of a web.

  Mike saw it and laughed.

  Even though he couldn’t hear it, Genblade stopped what he was doing and watched Mike’s silent chuckle as he left. His pupils shrank and his face stretched out as he watched the boy through the shattered glass, rage slowly building inside him.

  Tom Lensherr ran over and restrained Genblade, clasping the killer’s chains and giving them a hard tug. He struggled against the cop, screaming wildly, the echoes travelling throughout the building.

  CHAPTER FIVE:

  SMOKING GUN

  Roxanne Carpenter stared up at Lance Berkshire with a face she hadn’t used in almost ten years. It was devoid of emotion, with no spiteful sneer or pasted-on smile, no quirky tilt of her head. Her skin was pasty and white, all the makeup gone down the drain long ago. It wasn’t until all of the eyeliner and eye-shadow had been washed away that Lance had even noticed that her eyes were green.

  Her breasts were small and perfect, but didn’t look at all right as his eyes passed over them. Somehow, breasts looked very different when they weren’t moving the way they should when their owner was breathing. He knew that sounded ridiculous. That the breasts in the magazines he’d spent hours gushing over as a teen hadn’t been moving either... but somehow it was still true.

  Her lips and hair had dried out long ago, looking as though she’d been pulled out of the Sahara instead of a ditch. He’d managed to get all of the gunk out of the curly red locks, collecting it into an evidence bag for Detective Andrews. He didn’t think any of it would be helpful, but then that wasn’t his call to make.

  For a moment, she looked so lifelike that he almost expected her to get up off the table.

  “Coral Beach Precinct Morgue, my name is Harry Ford. I’ll be your mortician for this evening,” Harry said, throwing a grin at his partner as he twiddled his scalpel between his fingers.

  “That’s really getting old, Har,” Lance breathed impatiently, barely throwing a glance Harry’s way.

  Harry stopped, standing up straight. “Sorry,” he said in a small voice, then clicked on the tape recorder and handing it to his friend. “Your turn, anyway.”

  Lance frowned, taking the small, square device away from him and then bringing the mic to his face. “Berkshire, Lance MD. Preliminary autopsy for Carpenter, Roxanne M. Thirty-six years of age. Weight approximately one-hundred and ten pounds, height five three.”

  He paused, laying the recorder down onto the table to free up both his hands as he leaned over her body. There were several holes in her chest, the skin bulging out around each. Puss had started to form before her immune system had shut completely down, turning into putrid gangrene in the hours before her body was discovered. It multiplied the stench of the decomposition a thousand fold. “Two... three exit wounds in the chest made by sharp low-velocity object. One additional slice vertically along the torso beginning at the naval and ending at the solar plexus.”

  “Jesus,” Harry muttered, bringing a hand to his mouth.

  Lance ignored him, moving up to her face and forcing her eyelids wide with his fingertips. “Pupils are fixed, no signs of asphyxiation... I think she was conscious while he did this to her. It was definitely pari-mortem. There’s bruising around each wound, so blood was flowing through her veins and her immune system was active as this was done.” He stopped, nodding at Harry.

  Harry grabbed the sheet which had been up to her waist by both corners and pulled it down as far as her ankles, then spread her legs apart just enough just enough so that Lance could examine her genitals.

  “Bruising at seven and five...” he mumbled, spreading her legs apart a little more. “Definitely evidence of sexual assault, but nothing within the last few days. I’d say this is at least two weeks old, but I’ll check her vaginal vault for semen in any case.”

  “Dump and go, maybe?” Harry said, a little too much hope in his voice to be asking what he was. “Bastard boyfriend gets tired of raping his girl, so he kills her and trades her in for a newer model?”

  Lance shot him a look.

  “Just tell me we’re not dealing with the same guy here, Berk,” Harry said, his eyes nearly pleading.

  Lance sighed, prying open her mouth with both hands. When he did, Harry saw that the entire front row of teeth were missing, gum and all. What was left was a bloody, postulant maw of what had once been a very inviting smile. “Can’t say that, Har,” he sighed, picking up his camera to take a picture of the grotesque smirk.

  Harry turned around and threw up onto the next table over.

  Derek grunted angrily as he spun his joystick around in a quick half-moon shape, tapping red and blue keys as he desperately tried to get the tiny digital character on the screen to do something - anything - that might save him as his health bar throbbed a painful looking maroon. For his part, Xander was trying his best not to laugh as he mashed down all three red buttons at once, making his rocky sprite shoot boulders from his eyes and into the opponent. Derek cursed, pushing against Xander with his hip to try and throw him off or get him to release the controls.

  “Die, die, die,” Xander smirked, his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth as he spun the control stick 180 degrees and slammed the keys just as Derek had been trying to do, successfully executing the finishing move.

  “Fuck!” Derek spat, slamming his hand against his own controller. He stepped away from the machine for a moment and ran his fingers over his scalp, then laughed. “That was nice,” he said, pointing a finger at Xander and shooting him a sly smile.

  “Thank you, thank you,” Xander said in a voice that was supposed to be aristocratic but came off as just being whiney, taking a few dramatically overdone bows as he did. When he straightened back up, his smile was so wide that even his molars were showing.

  It faded instantly when he saw what was over Derek’s left shoulder.

  Mike stood in the doorway; his blonde hair turned a dark golden with sweat and matted down against his forehead. His chest heaved up and down under the shirt he was wearing, which had been clean and pressed only hours ago but now had large circular stains under each armpit. His mouth was open and breathing hard and his eyes were barely visible under the shadow of his brow.

  “Hey, you’re out of the hospital!” Xander said cheerfully, his arms spread out before him. After a moment with no response his smile faded more and his arms lowered. “Are you all right?” he asked, taking a step closer.

  “Ran,” Mike said simply. He scratched at his wrist where there was still an oozing red bump from where the IV had been taken out.

  Derek looked from one of them to the other, smirking. “How’s Cathy? She doing all right, too?”

  Mike nodded, gasping hard for air but never once taking his eyes off of Xander.

  Xander still had a smile perking at the corners of his lips, taking a step or two toward his friend. “That’s great. That’s really great.”

  Again, Mike nodded. Even his freckles seemed to be sweating.

  “Cool, cool,” Derek continued, patting Xander on the back heartily. “I’ll be sure’n let Julie know. She’s been asking.”

  “Kay,” Mike said finally, his voice hoarse from all the running. “Xander, can I talk to you alone for a minute.”

  “Sure, buddy,” Xander replied, raising an eyebrow quizzically. He turned and gestured to Derek.

  The taller boy nodded briefly, then watched as Xander hopped up the stairs to join Mike without another word before they both walked out the front door. He frowned so far that it stretched the sides of his face, then sighed and turned back toward the video game.

  Mike and Xander walked around to the back of The Factory, their feet kicking up loose pebbles and cigarette butts with every step they took. The grass here was always a little darker and sickly looking than anywhere else in town, always caught in the shadow of either the building or the trees behind it. There wa
s a large, grey rock half submerged by the concrete foundation of the hall. Its smooth surface had acted like a chair for anyone who wanted to use it for as long as Xander had been alive. It was also the most popular spot in town for teens to get drunk or stoned when they didn’t want to be noticed, but that was one of its less-advertised virtues.

  Xander had heard rumours that before The Factory had been here there had been urban legends about that stone and how it had been the seat of the Devil before men had moved to Coral Beach. Now it was just ‘the old sitting stone’, as Cathy had childishly named it once.

  Sometimes he’d end up there on his nights out as Black Womb. He’d wake up covered in blood and vomit and semen with his head propped up against the stone, unable to catch his breath. He’d wondered more than once if somehow the Womb could sense his connection to this place, or if it was just some random coincidence like everything else seemed to be.

  Xander smirked, a memory tickling at the back of his mind. Even when he was here after a transformation, it always came to him, and he couldn’t help but smile.

  Cathy shifted slightly. The stone beneath her was rough like sandpaper, but it was the only place for her to sit. Squirming uncomfortably, she cursed Xander for making her come out here for no reason she could discern other than his need to be outside on a warm day. She glared menacingly at the back of his head as he walked around aimlessly, his shoes kicking up dirt and dust. She was only burning the hole into his head for a moment when her gaze shifted and a smile spread across her lips. “Oh, look Xander.” she said, scooting to the edge of the stone.

  “What?” Xander said, grinning as he turned on his heels to see her. Her long auburn hair tumbling over her shoulders. Mike, Sara and Julie had gone inside for some drinks and left the two of them alone on the stone. Mike and Cathy had just started going out a few months ago. Independence day, actually, and Xander had spent the next few months joking that that had been the day that Mike had lost his independence. But he always said it with a smile on his face.

  “A squirrel,” she replied, her lower lip pouting slightly at the cute sight.

  “What?” Xander repeated, a puzzled and skeptical look passing over his face. He thought this would be another of her childish ‘made you look’ gags, but turned his head anyway. Sure enough, there it was, a little baby squirrel, no more than a few weeks old. “Oh.”

  “Oh my gawd, he is the cutest thing,” she said in a whiney voice, like a child that wanted a toy she knew she could never have. She turned and hit him on the chest suddenly, so excited that she blurted all her words out at once. “Let’s name it!”

  “Okaaaaay,” Xander sighed, pretending to be too mature for her antics. “How about ‘squirrel’?”

  She tisked and gave him a little slap on the arm. “No! A real name.”

  “It’s a squirrel, Cat. That’s why it doesn’t have a real name. If your brain’s the size of a pea, you don’t get a name. It’s in the Bible.”

  “Then why do you get one?” she shot, brow furrowed angrily. “You’re just saying that because you can’t think of a name anyway.”

  Xander rolled his eyes, taking a single step forward cautiously until they were shoulder to shoulder. “How about Alvin?”

  “It’s cliché.”

  “So is Cathy.”

  She shot him a look. “Besides, Alvin was a chipmunk.”

  Xander opened his mouth to respond, then closed it and nodded.

  As suddenly as before, she turned and backhanded him across the chest.

  “Ow,” he winced, though she didn’t notice.

  “Let’s name him Bob,” she blurted.

  “Bob the squirrel,” Xander stated bluntly, raising an eyebrow at her.

  “Yes. Bob the squirrel,” she smiled at him with her big brown eyes and ruby red lips. She knew he was way too uptight to actually get the joke there, which just made it that much more funny. The squirrel gazed up at them, and in the blink of an eye was down on all fours, examining them. “Oh, you little cutie. Come here, Bob.”

  “He could have rabies,” Xander said in caution, gently grabbing Cathy’s shoulder to keep her from getting closer.

  “Ew. I didn’t know squirrels could carry scabies,” she said, crinkling her nose as she recoiled from it a little.

  Xander burst in laughter, frightening the little animal, although it didn’t run.

  “What?” Cathy smiled.

  He kept laughing, turning his face away from her as he tried to stop.

  “What?” she demanded again, pinching his sides to get the answer.

  “I said rabies, not scabies,” he said, laughing through the words.

  “Oh,” she said quietly, her face losing all expression for a moment as she filed that away. She shrugged, stepping in close to Bob again. “I don’t care about that.”

  Smiling warmly and making little clucking sounds with her tongue, she reached her hand out slowly and tried to pet him on the head. It looked up at her with large, black eyes as though it were trying to figure her out just as much as she was it. It inched closer to her, its nose twitching and whiskers turning this way and that until finally it turned and bolted back into the woods as quickly as it had appeared. “Oh,” she said sadly, as if she’d just lost her best friend. “Bye Bob.”

  He choked back a laugh at her expense.

  She slapped him lightly again, tisking.

  That seemed to only make him laugh more as he stumbled back a step away from her, his face growing red now.

  She shook her head as she looked at him, and before she knew it, she was laughing as well.

  When he could stop laughing long enough to get his eyes open he looked at her, the smile on his face as broad as it had ever been. She looked back at him with one even brighter, the morning sun glistening off her cherry lip balm and her eyes. After a moment her smile faded completely and so did his, and then they were just... looking at each other.

  She had a truly fair face. There were lots of girls prettier, but very few that were as beautiful. There was an innocence and a softness about her that put the people around her at rest. Like a human sedative walking around infecting people with peace. Big eyes, thick lips, cute freckles across the bridge of her small nose.

  He leaned in without really even knowing what he was doing, as though his body had been disconnected from his brain and now acted on its own instincts.

  She leaned in, too. Her lips parted slightly as they got close, showing just a smidgen of her small, white teeth and the tongue that rested on them.

  They both smiled again as their lips met, her hand coming up and stroking the side of his face and pulling it in closer. He didn’t move. It was all he could do to stop himself from shaking as he felt the warmth of her body mix with his.

  Her fingers traced the outline of his familiar, rough-hewn features and then suddenly pushed away from him.

  They both gasped, both for air and for words

  “Sorry, I... I’m-- “ Xander stammered, his mind going a mile-a-minute after its temporary rest.

  “No, it’s --”

  “Hi guys,” Sara said in her bubbly voice, rounding the corner with Mike carrying five drinks. “What are ya doin’?”

  “Nothing!” they both said simultaneously.

  Sara raised an eyebrow suspiciously, throwing a smirk at Xander as Cathy went to Mike and kissed him.

  They never spoke of it again.

  Mike walked forward with the determination and posture of a drill sergeant until his toes were almost touching the stone. He came to a dead halt and turned around to face Xander, but would not meet him with his eyes. Instead he stared down at the bar wrappers and trash on the ground in front of him, his face at war with itself.

  Xander stared at him for almost a full minute, rubbing his tongue back and forth against the roof of his mouth as he tried to figure out what was going on.

  “I need to talk to someone,” Mike said finally, still unable to meet Xander’s gaze as he clenched both his fists so
tightly that his nails made tiny semicircle indents in his palms.

  “Okay,” Xander said, stepping forward and forcing a smile. Awkwardly, he reached out and lay a hand on the taller man’s shoulder. “What about?”

  Clenching his jaw, Mike drew back fast and punched Xander square in the mouth.

  Long, slithering spurts of blood and saliva spewed out of his mouth from either side of the impact as he fell backward. Two pink-tinted teeth hit the ground even before he did, getting lost amongst the stones and gravel. There was an electric pain as the bones in the bottom half of his face realigned themselves with the top. “What the hell?” he screamed, the words mumbled and distorted from the mauling his mouth had taken. “I thought you said you needed to talk?”

  “I do,” Mike nodded honestly, his voice full of regret as he took another step forward. He loomed over his friend, the sun hot on his back making his features unreadable. He drew back again, as far as his arm could go. “Just not to you.”

  Xander tried to get up, but before he could even summon the will to move Mike’s hand had connected with his skull at the eyebrow. It knocked him back down again, almost falling into himself as dirt and dust kicked up in all directions. The skin over his eye split, sending blood gushing down into his eye. It was as though all the blood in his body had been there, waiting to come out like a raging river held back by a frail dam. It came in great spouting bursts, turning his whole world red.

  Mike pushed him down again when he tried to scamper to his feet, pinning his friend’s shoulders down with his knees. His felt his fist connect with the soft meat on the side of Xander’s face, the only audible sound within earshot the wet smack of flesh against flesh. He pulled back, his lips stiff and resolute while his eyes were floating in a half-inch of saltwater.

  Xander’s face looked and felt like ground beef. His lips looked like a shirt that had been twisted and bunched to one side, showing not enough of his teeth on one side and too much on the other. The skin along his left cheek was missing, replaced instead with muscle bone barely hidden behind a veil of crimson. His mouth filled with a sweet, coppery taste as his head fell back onto the ground with a soft thud. His eyelids fluttered.