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

by Matthew LeDrew

  “Get up,” Mike said softly, wriggling the fingers of his tightly-wound fists. His pinky cried out to him in agony when he did, broken during one of the impact tremors along Xander’s skull. He punched Xander again, hammering down onto his nose. “Get up!” he said again, barking.

  The peachy pink that had been Xander’s flesh was gone. Some of it had flown off all of its own accord, some of it hid behind a layer of thick, slick blood; but all of it was gone. It was so dark a red that it might as well have been black. All the vessels of his eyes had ruptured and broken, leaving only glossy black circles to stare up at Mike from red pools that were indistinguishable from the flesh around. He looked as close to the Womb as Xander ever had. The Crimson Womb opened its mouth to speak and for a moment there was only a wet, suckling sound as it tried to force its own lips apart. “Why?” he said finally, salt from his tears mixing in with the splits in his face and making them burn. “Don’t... guh... don’t wanna fight you.”

  For a moment, pity won the war for emotional control over Mike’s face. His eyes softened and his lower lip became wrinkled and trembled as he looked down at his friend. He reached out and touched the side of Xander’s head, running his nails over his scalp gently. “I know. I don’t want to fight you, either,” he nodded. His fist closed around Xander’s hair, holding his head steady as his other hand came up between them one final time, connecting to the side of Xander’s face and shattering it from ear the ear. “But like I said, I’ve gotta talk to someone.”

  When Xander opened his eyes again they were a deep aquatic blue, the pupils long since faded away as the edges of them turned upwards like a villain’s mustache in a thirties movie. His mouth opened wide to reveal that the missing teeth had been replaced with longer, sharper ones that came down from his gums as though they were on lifts, sliding out and locking into place naturally. From somewhere deep inside his throat, there was a dull hiss like he’d swallowed a python and when Mike looked hard enough, he swore he could see bones resetting and righting themselves in the back of his friend’s mouth.

  Slowly, Mike let go of the back of Xander’s head and got off of him, watching as the oily crimson that covered his face slowly got darker and darker. It was like watching two similar shades of paint mix together in an automatic stirrer, the blackness swirling around on the surface until it was everywhere, matting down his hair until it looked like he was bald. It travelled down his neck and over his body, soaking into his clothes layer by layer until it wasn’t visible anymore. It was just blackness held so tightly to his skin that it might as well have been skin.

  It got up, its neck hunched as it lowered its steely, slanted eyes at Mike. Its hands hung loosely at its sides, like a cowboy itching to drawn his gun. Slowly and discreetly, a black-tinted claw slid out from each fingertip as the last of its red blood fell from the corner of its lip.“Black Womb lives,” it barked, its voice low and menacing as though it had just uttered some horrible curse at Mike.

  “Just the person I wanted to see,” Mike said, his voice quavering only slightly as he forced a smile and licked his lips.

  The Womb lunged forward, slamming both its palms into Mike’s shoulders.

  He nearly bit down on his own tongue as his head slammed against the ground before he even realized he was falling, his jaw snapping shut upon impact. The Womb sat on his chest, its feet rested on either side of his head. Long talons had unsheathed themselves from his toes as well, tapping contemplatively on the gravel next to his ear. He could feel them brushing alongside the hair of his neck. “You don’t scare me,” he said, curling his lip in disgust.

  The Womb bent down slowly until the sides of its head were roughly level with its ankles, although Mike knew full well Xander couldn’t even touch his toes. The thing was nose-to-nose with him now, the stench of old vomit that came on its blood overpowering Mike. It gawked at him with eyes twice the size they should have been, small scraps of leftover flesh floating in their greenish pools. It blinked slowly, then tilted its head to one side. It remained that way for a full ten seconds before blinking again, then tilting in the other direction.

  “What’s so confusing?” Mike said bitterly, his voice almost a whisper. “You not used to people fighting back?”

  Its long tongue came out of its mouth and licked its lips, showing off long duel rows of jagged, yellowed teeth at the same time. It clacked its tongue against them just as Xander did when he thought, making a loud hollow sound that echoed off its gaping mouth. Its eyes glowed, light flickering across them from the sun. It closed its mouth again and made a sound that was almost purring as it continued to stare at Mike.

  “What do you want from us? Huh?” Mike yelled, squirming under the creature’s weight. “Come on! You come and you come every chance you get, well I’m right here!” he bellowed, so loud that his voice didn’t even sound human. Each syllable was a roar, cracking and rising again before the next. Hot tears streamed down his livid face as he finally got his arms free and shoved the Womb off him.

  It backed up a pace, staying squat near the ground.

  Fuelled by rage and without any conscious thought, Mike struggled to his feet and then let loose one punch that amassed all the anger and hate that he had let well up inside him for weeks, as though his fist had been a cannon and he had fired his heart upon it.

  The Womb’s head jolted sideways, the black flesh that clung so tediously to it coming loose for a split second. It turned back toward him quickly, not moving its hands or position at all. Its eyes turned up in their sockets in the closest thing to confusion that its blank tableau of a face could accomplish. It looked shocked, then snorted the air through nearly invisible nostrils. It almost looked hurt.

  “What?” Mike yelled again, thrusting his arms out to either side of him. “You can’t kill me here? Excuse me! I didn’t know that your priorities were so damn high!” He drew back and nailed the Womb in the face, shattering the knuckle of his middle finger as he did.

  It stared back at him, unmoving, its head ducked down a little now as it looked up at Mike with large eyes.

  “Why us? Why me, why Cathy? Why Sara? What could we have possibly done to you, you piece of crap?” he screamed, his words barely making sense anymore. He lashed out again despite the throbbing sensation in his hand, this time getting the creature in one of its massive eyes.

  “Lac!” it snarled, snapping at him as it brought one hand up in a motion so fast it made a long, black blur in the air behind it as it went. It struck Mike in the side, stretching the stitches there and sending him tumbling to the ground again, his head beating off a rock. When he opened his eyes again, the Womb was standing over him, looming back and forth as its clawed fingers twitched over and over again, preparing to strike.

  It stopped moving at all then, but for the narrowing of its eyes again. When they were almost too slender to be seen, it stopped moving them as well, staying as still as a statue as it watched Mike leak salt water, blood, and mucus from his mouth.

  The blackness covering the creature lost consistency, splashing down to the ground as Xander fell as well, his clothes soaked through and through. The stench of blood, sweat, and BO that came with the sudden loss of the tar-like skin was like pennies that had been rubbed with friend chicken.

  Xander gasped at the air as his lungs started to work again, churning to force all the darkness out of them before he drowned.

  Mike stared at him, squinting, before slowly bringing himself up to a sitting position. He groaned as his bones cracked, his hands shaking violently as adrenaline wore off and he started to feel what he had done to his hand. He didn’t realize he was breathing hard until he noticed he was doing it at the same pace Xander was.

  “So what... did that accomplish?” Xander said after a moment, still gasping for breath. He put his head between his knees and hacked up black blood and saliva, spitting it out in a long, dangling wad as he massaged the back of his own head.

  “Not what I hoped,” Mike said, getting up off the
ground and dusting himself off before extending his hand to his friend. “Felt better than punching a wall, though.”

  Xander raised an eyebrow as he took his hand, pulling himself to his feet.

  “I do have one thing we didn’t have before I did that,” he added, waving a finger as if he were displaying his saving point.

  “What’s that?”

  “More questions.”

  CHAPTER SIX:

  HUMANITY

  Tommy slammed his hands against the sink, feeling a hot pain course through his palms as he did. His lips curled up in a snarl as he stared at his own reflection with large, dark rings around his eyes.

  Sud looked over his shoulder from where he stood at the urinal, frowning as he zipped up and walked over. His mouth hung open as though he had something to say, though he just continued to stare blankly at Tommy’s reflection.

  “That fuckin’ little bastard thinks he can treat me like that,” Tommy growled, wetting his hand under the faucet and then splashing it up onto his face. “Little fucker.”

  Sud nodded once, then grunted a single-syllable agreement.

  “Doesn’t know who I am. Doesn’t know what I’m capable of. Isn’t even worth the air he breathes, little frigging psycho,” he mumbled, standing back up and wiping water away as it dribbled from his chin. “Dude belongs in a god-damned mental institution, I’m tellin’ ya.”

  “Like on The Secret of NIMH,” chuckled Sud.

  “Huh?” Tommy said, raising one of his pointed eyebrows.

  “The National Institute of Mental Health. You know, with the talking mice and that wacky crow that liked shiny things...”

  “Shut up,” Tommy dismissed, glaring at him.

  “I like shiny things.”

  “Man, shut up!” Tommy said, angry now. He punched the wall of the washroom, then irked in pain as he realized that he had done so with the hand Xander had nearly broken. He let out a small yelp before grunting his frustration. “Fuck. Who does that fucker think he is? That little nerd loses his bitch lover and suddenly he’s some cool shit?” He shook his head, his eyes growing small and thoughtful. After a moment, he started to wave his finger in front of him as though a light had gone on in his head, then turned back to Sud. “We gotta teach him a lesson, man. He cannot get away with this shit. There’s that memorial service thing coming up soon... and I think I got just the right idea for what to do.”

  Cathy slurped on her cherry cola, her small red lips pursed around it tightly.

  Xander stared at those lips without really even noticing them, his eyes looking sunken and far away, as though he were lost somewhere within his own head.

  They sat at a table in the Factory that they’d long ago claimed as their table. Neither of them owned it separately, and they only sat in it when the both of them were there. Three seats from top and four from left, the spot where all the noise in the building seemed to collide together and cancel each other out, created a kind of soundless vacuum. Once, when the four of them had come in and other people had been sitting there, Roxanne had actually asked them to get up. When they’d refused, she’d asked them to leave completely.

  On the other side of the room, Mike grunted harshly as he skidded his already-sore knuckles against the side of the arcade game he was playing while trying to pull off a combo. He still swiveled the joystick relentlessly, no matter how much it hurt, tapping the buttons so fast that one tap couldn’t be heard before the next happened.

  Cathy grinned at him, almost getting soda up her nose as she did. “Never met a boy who could take out all his frustrations on a stupid game before,” she giggled, turned back toward Xander.

  His gaze had dropped several inches from staring at her lips, resting on the smooth, white skin over her collarbone.

  She raised an eyebrow at him, a small smile perking over her face as she leaned her head back from her straw. “Ahem,” she grunted, clearing her throat.

  Xander continued to stare straight ahead, the shadow from his brow making his eyes nearly invisible.

  “Daydream much?” she said finally, a slight hint of annoyance in her voice even though she was smiling.

  He still did not respond.

  She reached out to where his hand lay upon the table and put hers on it, her soft skin like velvet on his dry knuckles.

  He finally looked up at her, the light from the candles all around the room dancing across her face and shimmering in her hair, making her look like an angel. “Hmm?” he hummed, coming back to reality at once.

  “You still with us?” she asked warmly, looking up at him with a soothing smile on her mouth.

  “Yeah,” he said, looking off into space again for a moment before shaking it off again. “Yes. Sorry, just thinking too much, I guess.”

  “Anything in particular?” she asked, taking her hand from his and grabbing her drink with it, bringing it back to her lips. “Or do I even wanna know, the way you were looking at my chest?”

  He did not respond to that last bit, his eyes every bit as distant as they had been a moment ago, even though he was looking at her now. “Just the way things are, I guess. They way life is. Mike got me thinking with that stunt he pulled.”

  “How so?”

  His mouth fidgeted, as if physically uncomfortable as he tried to find his thoughts. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed and distant. “When I was a kid, I always thought that everything would work itself out. I stuck to the shadows like some stupid wallflower, knowing that all the pieces to the puzzle would just fall into place for me. That I would eventually get the girl and grow up and live happily ever after.”

  She didn’t speak, laying down her drink to give him her full attention.

  “But it didn’t, and I won’t. I thought I learned my lesson when Sara died... but here I am, making the same mistakes again. Sitting around and letting things happen around me to my life, my friends. Hoping that the puzzle will just work itself out. Not taking control.”

  There was a silence then as both of them waited for the other to speak. After a moment, Cathy squirmed in her seat and then spoke. “How did Mike beating the crap out of you make you think of that?”

  Xander smiled, looking up and really acknowledging her for the first time since the conversation had begun. “He did something. He tried something. It was a stupid thing to try, but at least he did something instead of sitting around on his ass. Made me realize that it’s time to start pressing buttons. That this might not work out unless I make it.”

  She nodded, her hair bobbing along with her.

  Mike pulled a chair from the next table over and slid it over to theirs, flopping down on it backwards. His face was flushed and showing the first signs of sweat as he flashed a large smile at Cathy, then nodded curtly at Xander.

  Xander nodded back.

  Mike placed an arm around Cathy, giving her a kiss on the cheek and smiling. “You putting the moves on my woman again, Drew?” he said, a mischievous grin playing over his face.

  A slow grin spread over Xander’s face as he looked from one to the other.

  “What?” Cathy asked, snickering.

  “Bob the squirrel,” he said, in as even a tone as he could muster.

  Cathy burst into laughter with Xander not far behind, both of them leaning forward onto the table to catch their breath. Cola finally began running out of Cathy’s nose and when she tried to wipe it away with her sleeve, she rolled off of her chair. Xander’s face turned red, sitting back on his chair and holding his breath to try and stop.

  “What?” Mike asked, looking from one to the other, a stupid grin on his face. “What?”

  “Nothing, honey,” Cathy said as she got up and kissed him, still giggling a bit.

  Mike rolled his eyes, then leaned in and gave her a quick kiss that turned into an extended one, as theirs tended to do.

  Xander watched them for a moment, the shuffled in his seat and got up.

  Cathy hummed, pulling away from Mike even though his lips kept making the k
issing motion for a moment. “Mmmhey, where you going?”

  “Something I gotta see to,” he said, both his eyes and voice having gained their far away quality in the interim between speeches.

  “If there’s anything you need...”

  “Actually there is something,” Xander said, stopping for a second as he walked away.

  “Name it.”

  “Drop up to the house tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  “Around dark.”

  Both Mike and Cathy turned to look at him when he said that, but he was already gone.

  Megan Greene sifted through the files cluttering her desk, the large oak surface covered in carefully stacked piles of paper. She picked the top sheet off the pile just to her right, making a tiny red mark on the next page, then laid it back down. Her eyes fluttered over the piles again and she repeated the maneuver with a pile near the top, scribbling something along the margin in dark red ink.

  She sighed as she laid the sheet back down, rummaging her perfectly manicured nails through her bright red hair. After scuttling it about and then fixing it again, she stopped and smiled at herself.

  It wasn’t as though she wasn’t prepared.

  Some would make a case that she was overly prepared, actually. She was in line to be the District Attorney for the whole area and she was going up against a lawyer who was apparently living out of her offices. She’d researched every part of Natasha Mayer’s personal and district history to make sure she knew exactly what she was up against. Had gone so far as to find out what teachers she’d studied under in University to try and extrapolate what kind of defense she might work out for Genblade. She’d researched all the pros – of which there were many –of sending Genblade to his death. She’d even researched the cons, which were few and far between. She’d spoken with doctors and psychiatrists that worked with the criminally insane. Gotten sworn statements from reputable sources that stated that Adam Genblade was unequivocally in control of his functions when he killed those children.