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

by Matthew LeDrew

  Xander smirked. “Not quite what I had in mind.”

  “Really?” Cathy drawled, mimicking the same sly grin back at him. “You have plans? Do tell. We have ways of making you talk.”

  She said the last bit in a very bad Russian accent and Xander almost bubbled over with laughter when she did. “Naw, no big plans or secret trysts or anything like that... not after Bob.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I was actually hoping we could just talk, y’know? I feel like we haven’t really had a chance to do that since that night at the party. Everything since then has been so crazy that I feel like this is the first chance I’ve gotten to catch a breath.”

  Cathy smiled and nodded, standing up from the table. “Okies, but if this is gonna be another one of those kinds of talks, I’m gonna have to visit the ladies room first.”

  “I see coffee still has the same effect on you.”

  “Shut up,” she sneered playfully, turning and walking up the stairs.

  Trial.wmb - Smith, D. 20600084. Don wrote at the top of the word document he’d opened as he spread several files out on his desk before him like playing cards. On the far left was an eight-by-ten glossy promotional photo of Megan Greene, on the far right was a smaller photo of Natasha Mayer in the top left hand corner of her letterhead. Buried at the bottom of the papers was a blown-up mug shot of Adam Genblade. He’d only kept it in view for a moment or two before the killer’s cold stare had made him shuffle it away.

  He sighed, turning his neck in a semicircle to try and work the kinks out of his neck. He strained far to one side until he felt the calcium pop, letting out a small gasp of relief as he turned around and stared into the open vastness of his living room. At some point it had gotten dark, the still eeriness of the room staring back at him for a moment until he turned his eyes back toward the harsh blue glow of his screen.

  Summers, Mayer and Soul, once one of the leading law firms in the North East, agreed today to take the case of accused killer Adam Genblade, with the trial to be headed by senior partner Natasha Mayer.

  Genblade was arrested in late September of the murder of more than thirty people; among them Detective Carl Dent and local high-school football star Jamie Dawkins. Genblade originally pled guilty to the charge of murder in the first degree, but has since officially recounted his confession.

  “Adam Genblade may deserve many things, but murder is not one of them,” said Natasha Mayer, in her official press release upon taking the case. “He is a sick man who needs our help, not our judgment. It is my greatest hope that the judge appointed will see reason and remand him into the custody of a state sanctioned mental institution.”

  When approached for comment, prosecutor Megan Greene had this to say: “The opposition is a joke. Insanity is a joke. I submit that Genblade knew exactly what he was doing when he killed those children and would willingly do so again if allowed. I will personally not rest until he has a needle in his arm or a mask on his face.”

  Local police have said that while the evidence mounted against Genblade is insurmountable, a large portion of it is circumstantial and resides with the attorney’s ability to sway the jury.

  Megan Greene made headlines last July when she had three-time murder suspect Ian Char arrested on gang-related charges, leading to the capture and seizure of almost eighty kilograms of cocaine.

  When questioned, local high-school student Calla McFadden said that she was looking forward to the prosecutor’s victory. “I’ve never been happier in my life. He killed so many people I know that I can’t even sleep most nights. I can’t wait to see him fry.”

  Advocates opposing the death penalty have begun vigils in the town hall away from the penitentiary out of respect for those who lost family members in the past few months.

  Don sighed, leaning back on his chair and running his fingers through his hair. His head ached above both temples, and something in the back of his left eye throbbed. Each word had been agonizing to force out. Something about it just seemed wrong. He licked his lips as he re-read it, deciding that it was fine enough... it just lacked that pop. That thing that would really grab the attention of the people.

  -thunk-

  He turned around in his chair and gazed back out into the still silence if his home. Light from upstairs made halos around the couch and the basement door handle, the only sources of light in the shadowed room. His eyes moved around the darkness for a moment before he frowned and turned back to the screen. The light burned at his retinas even more after getting used to the darkness for a moment, and he cursed.

  Scowling, he turned back toward his notes and looked for something he could add to give the story more weight. He’d been trying for hours to reach a protestor of the death penalty that would give a quote, but nobody would. Even people staunchly against capital punishment didn’t want to be seen as allied with Adam Genblade. He had also wished there was a little more information on Natasha Mayer to give the story a slightly more evened feel, but her legal career had been less flashy than Greene’s. He picked up her press release and scanned down through it once more.

  pleased to represent... is murder like any other... needs our help not our judgment... personally responsible.

  Defense attorney - Natasha Mayer

  Legal Aid - Nathan Summers

  Legal Aid - David Chow

  Legal Aid - Alexander Drew

  Legal Aid - Thomas Shirk

  Don stopped, blinking once as his eyes did a double-take, scanning back up the list. Legal Aid - Alexander Drew.

  He raised an eyebrow and smiled, placing the release on a paper stand next to the keyboard. This was going to break this story wide open. He could feel it.

  Cathy closed the bathroom door behind her as she walked back out into the hall, switching off the light and wiping the last few drops of water on her hands into her jeans. She tiptoed down the hallway as quietly as she could, her teeth on edge with every step she made as she passed by the spare bedroom. The door was open just a crack and she peered in, watching as Mike shuffled happily in his sleep.

  “That’d better be me you’re dreaming about, Harris,” she whispered to herself playfully, watching for just another moment before continuing on.

  She turned and looked at each of the family photos that lined the wall as she went. She’d seen them all before of course, even had smaller versions of one or two of them at home. There was one that she’d always loved of Xander smiling big and bright that she’d scanned it and cropped on her computer so that it was just a bust of him. She’d always thought it to be the best picture of him ever taken.

  She turned to go down the stairs when she stopped. Her nose twitched slightly when it caught a strange smell, like tin cans getting scorched in a fire. “Xander?” she called out in a hushed voice, stepping back off of the stairs.

  She turned toward his bedroom door and saw that it was open, just a little. Squinting, she stepped closer. With every inch closer she got the smell seemed to get thicker and thicker, until it was like she was swimming in it instead of walking through it. Biting her lip, she placed the palm of her hand flat against the door and gave it one hard shove.

  “This is not healthy,” Cathy said, tossing the broken leg of Xander’s chair down onto the kitchen table. It rolled until it hit the stack of potato chips and stopped.

  Xander looked down at it for a long moment, his face devoid of any emotion. He shrugged slightly, then took another chug of his coffee.

  “You don’t have anything to say about this? Thought you wanted to talk.”

  “Kind of speaks for itself,” he frowned, reaching out and picking up the leg gently. Splinters fell from the shattered end onto the table as he brought it closer to his face and examined it.

  “Your room is a war zone, Xander.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “I’m serious,” she huffed, her eyes filled to the brim with sympathy. “No small wonder the Womb’s been acting the way it has with everything you’ve got pent up insi
de. You’ve got to find a way to let it out.”

  “This is how I let it out,” he growled, gripping the wooden shaft hard until he felt the grains give slightly. “What else can I do? Nothing we say or do is going to bring her back.”

  Cathy squinted at him, shaking her head. “You’d want to?” she said after a moment, her voice full of disgust.

  He looked back at her, his face twisted into a confused snarl. “What?”

  She moved forward, pulling out her chair at the table and sitting across from him. “You’d bring her back if you could? Because I wouldn’t. Not in a million, billion years would I wish Sara back.”

  He did not respond, turning away only slightly at the mention of her name.

  “She’s somewhere now where the Grendels and the Genblades can’t get her. Can never get her, no matter how hard they try. I miss her like hell... but I’d never be so cruel or so selfish as to bring her back from wherever she is now. Sometimes if you love something, you have to let it go, Xander.”

  “Dammit, that’s not fucking good enough!” Xander shouted, throwing the leg across the room and denting the wall.

  She jumped back in shock, standing up from the table again.

  He drew back and punched her again, then got up, tossing her clothes onto her. “Pff. You’re not worth the trouble. Stupid whore,” And with that, he left. Went back down to his friends to lie and brag about what he’d done.

  The killer began to lean on the blade, causing it to puncture the skin. Then, he withdrew it before it went in any great distance. He began to walk out the door. As he did, he turned and looked at her.

  “You’re not even worth the trouble,” he said before he left.

  Cathy lay on the floor in a pool of blood, crying, as she heard sirens approaching the house.

  Not good enough.

  Cathy twitched, her hands raised halfway to her face and seemingly stuck there. The words bounced around her mind like a rubber ball inside a small glass box, threatening to crack it at any point. After a moment, she turned from Xander but didn’t go anywhere, looking as though she wasn’t even completely sure where she was for a second.

  Xander squinted, his nostrils still flaring and anger slowly melting from his eyes as he watched her shift uncomfortably. After a moment, his short, heavy breaths began to taper off and his features softened as he started to think again. He took one step forward.

  She winced, then steadied herself. “Stay the fuck over there,” she barked, though her voice quivered slightly.

  He stopped in mid-step, trying to piece together what had just happened. After a moment he turned back to her, his eyes turned up in pity. “God... fuck... god, Cathy, I’m so sorry,” Xander started, reaching out his arms to hug her.

  She took another step backward, biting the edge of her finger nervously before she leaned forward and almost fell into him. Her lips quivered and shook as she tried to hold her tears in. It lasted only a moment before the memory of Grendel’s icy stare or the Womb’s raspy voice came screaming back again and hot tears started streaming down her face. After a second she pushed away from him, falling to her knees and still sobbing with a fierceness usually reserved for toddlers.

  “Oh, Cathy,” Xander cooed, scrunching down and wrapping his arms around her. She resisted at first, then buried her head into the nape of his neck. “Oh, my beautiful Cathy. I am so sorry, I didn’t...” he stopped himself from apologizing, realizing that would only make him feel better about what he had just said. He pulled her head off his shoulder and forced her to look at him, holding her face in his hands as tears began to trickle down his face as well. “I love you, Cathy.”

  She choked slightly, each breath coming in short gasps. She tried to move her head away from him, but he held firmly.

  “I do. And you are good enough. More than. You’re one of the greatest people I’ve ever met. Anyone who says anything but is an idiot.”

  “But you said,” she spat finally, her brow furrowing as the tears made her eyelids red and puffy. “You said it twice now, as the Womb and now. You said it.”

  “I’m an idiot, too,” he countered, forcing a smirk onto his face. “I don’t think I’ve ever claimed otherwise.”

  She laughed a little.

  He took his hands away from her face, the clammy skin almost sticking to his own.

  She did not turn away, just kept looking at him as she tried to stop her chest from quivering between breaths. “It shouldn’t be this hard to get over this,” she whispered finally, mentally stopping herself from getting worked up again.

  “No, it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t have happened to begin with.”

  “I think it happens more than we think,” she said, locking eyes with him. “And once it does you see the world different. Like when you go in a dark room and your eyes adjust, then you can see all the things in the dark. I think what Grendel did made me go into that dark place in the world... and now I can see all the things in the dark.”

  He nodded after a moment, letting that sink in for a moment. He reached out and touched her hand, gently stroking the back of it with his index finger. “At least you’ll have some company,” he said hoarsely.

  Despite herself, she smiled a little smile, then wrapped her arms around him again.

  “What the hell is the matter with you anyway?” Cathy scoffed, bending over and picking the whiskey bottle up from Xander’s scorched bedroom floor. She brought it to her nose and sniffed the remnants of its contents, curling her nose as the harsh alcoholic residue burned her nostrils.

  Xander watched her do this with a bemused look on his face as he picked up another piece of shattered, curved glass from his computer monitor. “Truth is, I just wanted an excuse to go LCD,” he smirked, giving the plastic case of the screen a friendly slap. “This old girl’s seen better days.”

  “You’re weird,” she said, tossing the bottle into a small blue trash bin alongside his dresser. “Why were you trying to get drunk? Can’t imagine it’d work very well on you anyway.”

  “Would’ve a few weeks ago. Guess I haven’t worked out the kinks yet,” he mumbled in response, standing on his toes to look over the edge of his trash bin at the liquor bottle inside. When he was sure it was empty, he flattened his feet back out, frowning. “What do you care anyway? Not like you haven’t been drunk before.”

  She spun around quickly, her hair spinning around her, angrily whipping at the air around it. “I have not,” she said in disgust, annunciating every word carefully for maximum impact.

  “Ha.”

  “Okay, when?” she sneered, pointing a finger at him as if to physically put him on the spot.

  “Randy Owchar’s birthday. You and Sara and Calla went out back and Calla got stoned and Sara was smoking and drinking. When Calla offered you a joint, you took Sara’s drink instead. Got loaded from sipping on half a cooler,” he smiled.

  Her face turned red and her feet came together quickly. She turned away from him as her face got even more red, trying to hide. “Mike said he wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  Xander raised an eyebrow. “Sara did, you goon.”

  Cathy smiled. “That figures.”

  The clock downstairs chimed once, and then again. “Two already. Time flies. By the way, she told to keep me from spilling dirt on her.”

  Cathy turned slightly to glare at him from over her shoulder. “What?”

  Xander grinned, pulling his fingers across his lips to pantomime a zipper.

  She sneered playfully in response, turning away from him again. Immediately her features softened as she realized for the first time that she was standing directly in front of Xander’s bedroom window, looking out onto Sara’s bedroom window.

  He watched her muscles stiffen and tense, her hands coming up to rub her arms even though there wasn’t even a hint of a breeze in the room. Without asking, without even seeing her face he knew what she was thinking and feeling. “She aced all the subjects last term,” he said finally, having trouble finding his
voice. “Didn’t want you to know. Said you’re supposed to be the smart one.”

  She didn’t respond or move, just kept staring out the window.

  He watched her hair rise and fall with every breath she took, waving with even the slightest motion of her body like ripples over a calm lake.

  “I can’t stand this,” she said finally, so low he could barely even hear her. “I can’t stand this and it’s only been thirty seconds. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you to see this every day.”

  He put down the glass shards he’d been collecting, leaning against his table on his knuckles. He let out several long sighs before responding. “The Womb makes it worse,” he said finally. “Lets me see things there I’ve got no business knowing. Her parents haven’t touched it since she died. There’s still a juice box against her computer waiting from her to get home from the party.”

  “She did get thirsty after parties.”

  “There are toys I didn’t even realize she had lined up on the far wall with an empty spot on the middle. I think the missing one’s actually on her bed. Don’t know why, but I’d like to think it was bad dreams.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Her dream-catcher’s not hanging, it’s resting on her windowsill. I caught her ‘shaking it out’ once or twice outside the window. Think she did it before she left for the party.”

  “Didn’t realize she bought stuff like that.”

  “I don’t think she did. I think she did it just in case it was true... even if she didn’t believe,” he smiled, looking down at the circles in his wooden desk. “The Womb lets me see all that. Makes it seem like she could come back any minute... like she’s not even gone.”

  There was silence for a moment. When Cathy spoke again, her voice was different. It was no longer hushed and intimate, but moist with shock and even fear. “I can see all that, too.”