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

by Matthew LeDrew

  “...Drew, Xander. Found at the wreckage of what police had dubbed ‘Engen’, Drew was once believed to have had ties in the mob by the late agent Carl Dent. Although Tim White has ordered these charges dropped, they are still speculated upon. It seemed that the only victims were people that had gotten in his way, and now the same pattern has started again. Even though Drew was completely exonerated for the crimes because of Genblade’s confession, now that Genblade wishes not to die, it seems he may yet reveal that he was working for Drew...

  “...Unbelievable.” Mike sighed, throwing that folder on the table next to the first.

  “Yeah,” Xander agreed, “But sadly not that far from the truth.”

  Mike put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Hey, before I forget. About today...”

  Xander raised a hand to stop him. “S’okay.”

  “No, I - -”

  “Really. It is.”

  Mike nodded, then snickered to himself a little. “I still don’t know why the Womb didn’t kill me. I mean seriously, of all the dumbfuck things to do, right?”

  Xander chuckled forcefully, the sound slowly dying down as his face grew taught. His eyes become hollow and vacant for a brief instant, then sparked to life as he tilted his head to meet Mike’s gaze.

  “What is it?” Mike frowned, laying down his folder.

  “What was it the Womb said to you?”

  “Huh?”

  “It said something. What did it say?”

  “It didn’t say anything. It just kind of stood there and looked... weird.”

  “Not today, the other night. It said something to you, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Said I’d already been harvested, or some such thing. Why? What difference - -”

  “And he told Cathy she wasn’t good enough, right?”

  “Right,” Mike nodded, dragging out the ‘i’ as long as possible.

  Xander was silent for a moment, stroking his chin. “It never did that before.”

  “What?”

  “Spoken. It’s never spoken before.”

  “Sure it has,” Mike scowled, rolling his eyes.

  “When? What has The Womb ever spoken, except for the words ‘Black Womb lives’?”

  Mike opened his mouth to answer, then paused, and closed it again.

  “Any time. Ever?”

  Mike leaned forward, rubbing the sides of his nose with his thumbs. “No. No, it’s never talked before.”

  Xander brought the nail of his thumb to his lower lip, picking at it obsessively as he thought. His eyes were locked on some random spot on the wall, not looking at anything but refusing to look anywhere else all the same. “Why would it change?” he huffed, thinking back to the day that Genblade had been captured. He’d almost smiled at Xander from across the mounds of rubble and police between them, and said ‘it’s not over’. “Is this what he meant?”

  “What?” Mike moaned, looking up.

  “Nothing, just... nothing.” He ran a hand through his hair, a few strands shaking loose as he tugged on it. “This whole thing just keeps getting worse and worse.”

  “Makes you wonder, really,” Mike mumbled, almost to himself.

  “Wonder what?”

  “Humans change their behaviour. Animals don’t. Animals hunt the same way, day in and day out, until something forces them to change. Even then, not really. So if the Womb’s changed the way it does things, that’ d make it - -”

  “Human,” Xander finished, a bitter taste in his mouth.

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  CRANE

  Joan scrubbed the tables of the Factory, the tiles sparkling clean.

  The chairs and booths were empty now, the harsh light of dawn shimmering in through the cracked and broken windows near the ceiling.

  She pumped her arm fiercely for one more moment before looking down at her reflection in the table. It frowned back at her with almost perfect clarity, marred only by the brown tint of the varnished wood. She’d been polishing the same table for nearly three hours, ever since the last customer left.

  She heaved a sigh, casting a glance over her shoulder at the front door. It hung open just an inch, letting cool fall air into the humid steel box that made up the building. It moved just a little in the wind, shuddering on its steel bolts for a moment before settling back down into place. She turned away from it quickly, closing her eyes and biting her bottom lip so hard that it drew a faint sliver of blood. After a moment, she gripped the sides of the table so hard that her nails left indents on the other side, then opened her eyes and stared down at her reflection.

  She could not bring herself to leave.

  She was too afraid. Too afraid to walk out her own doorway. Her mouth went dry and scratchy with unshed tears and her joints seized up every time she tried. Once she’d made it as far as the door, but could not bring herself to open it.

  After a moment of staring herself down, she turned away from the table and started to march toward the door. She made it three paces before she collapsed onto the linoleum floor and began to cry.

  Xander opened his front door and stuck his head out, taking a long whiff of the fresh morning air and smiling from ear to ear.

  “You look happy,” Mike said sardonically, stepping up behind him and admiring the eastern sun for a moment himself.

  “Understatement,” Xander replied, waving a finger at his friend without even turning around. “I don’t even feel tired anymore. I think I got a second wind or something, but I feel like I got a full night’s sleep last night.”

  “Sometimes I hate you,” Mike snarled, pressing his palm against one of his throbbing, bloodshot eyes.

  “Sometimes I hate your Mom, but then we make up and that’s my favourite part.”

  “What?”

  “Nuthin’.”

  “Seriously, what’d you just say about my Mom?”

  Xander turned to look at him, rolling his eyes. “Oh, like you’ve never heard a joke about your Mom befo- -” he stopped, his mouth remaining locked in the circular position it had been in to make the ‘o’ sound but with no sound coming out. His gaze had shifted past Mike and back into the shadowed hallway of the house, his pupils shrinking to the size of pins as he did.

  Mike turned back, one eyebrow cocked in the air and he followed his friend’s line of sight.

  Cathy stood in the doorway, her hair still a ragged and tangled mess atop her head. The T-shirt she was wearing was slumped loosely to one side, exposing her freckled, pale shoulder. There were bags under her eyes, bloodshot with tears that she was trying with all her might to hold back. Cradled carefully in her hands was a dull grey .38 caliber revolver. “Xander, what’s this?” she asked softly, her voice staggering on each syllable.

  Xander closed his mouth promptly, then opened it again to respond. When no words came out, he tore his gaze away from her, looking at some random spot on his lawn.

  Mike turned back to Xander, his eyes narrow and hard. “What’s the gun for, man?” he said, his voice firm and even, with the sour tint of anger on only the last word.

  Xander turned back toward them, his gaze shifting from one to the other, and then finally looked back at the grass.

  “Oh my god!” Cathy yelled, so loud and so angry that her voice shrieked to the highest pitch he’d ever heard. She took both of her hands out from under the gun, dropping it to the lawn as though it were something dirty. Mike turned toward her, moving to place his arm around her, but she twisted away. Her face seemed to be at war with itself, the top half bubbling over with tears and the bottom half curled into a rueful snarl. She took two slow, deliberate steps to close the distance between herself and Xander, burning her glare into his head the entire time. When she was close enough to him, she waited.

  After a moment, he looked up to meet her gaze.

  Her lip curled, she slapped him across the face.

  He winced, but still did not say a word.

  “Fucker!” she screamed, pushing on his shoulders until he fell to the gr
ound and then hitting him again. Then again. Her hands ached, but she kept pounding at him with her small fists until Mike finally stepped up beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “How could you?” she screamed, her face as red as he’d ever seen it now.

  He still didn’t speak, staring up at her from his seat on the dew-laden grass. The moisture soaked into his pants and made him uncomfortable, but he didn’t so much as shift.

  “How could you?” Mike asked, his voice still calm if nothing else as Cathy turned and finally rested her head on his shoulder. “How could you even think it?”

  Xander’s mouth opened and closed again, the suckle of the dry skin of his lips sticking together palatable in the quiet of the early morning hours. When he finally spoke, his voice was parched and pleading. “I was confused.”

  “Bull shit,” Mike snapped, almost stepping forward and then restrained himself. “When?”

  Xander stared blankly for a second, as Cathy pulled herself up off of Mike’s shoulder.

  “When?” Mike repeated, his voice growing forceful.

  “Right before the murders started again,” he replied finally, his voice almost a whisper. “And I swear to fuck, I almost wish I had because then none of this would be happening right now.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Cathy said, shaking her head from side to side. “Don’t even think like that. What’s wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me?” Xander spat, finally scrambling to his feet, his hands gesturing wildly. “What’s wrong with me? Nothing, Cathy... just fucking nothing. I have no control over anything in my life. I never have, really, only I’m just now realizing it.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Mike asked, brow furrowed and taking a step forward.

  “I can’t control this thing inside me. I can’t control it. Its almost killed Cathy three fucking times now. I couldn’t control what happened to Sara, and now she’s gone. I can’t control this shit that’s going on with Genblade, with my parents, with those idiots at school, any of it!” He stopped, pausing a moment and then looking down again. “So I decided to take some control.”

  “By killing yourself,” Mike finished.

  “Good a place to start as any,” he said, almost under his breath.

  “No,” Cathy said firmly, closing the gap between them again. She grabbed his chin between her thumb and forefinger and forced it to turn toward her, staring him square in the eye. “You’ve got more control than you think. You’ve got more than you think.”

  “Like what?”

  “Me,” she said, turning briefly back to Mike and then back again. “Us. But maybe that’s not enough. Like the Womb said the other night, maybe we’re not good enough.”

  He looked away again, frowning. Tears began to shine in his eyes now, but he didn’t shed them.

  “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” she asked, almost sarcastically as she continued to stare him down, her face filled with every emotion nameable. “How much we both love you? We loved Sara too, okay? Do you have any idea what that would have done to us, if you’d fucking killed yourself?”

  “Well, what do you think stopped me?” he yelled, turning back toward them. He was angry suddenly, though he wasn’t quite sure why. “I didn’t do it, because of you two. And now I’m killing again, people are dying again!”

  “Are we all that stopped you?” Mike asked, stroking his chin as he watched his friend.

  Xander calmed instantly, his shoulders slumping. It was like gravity had reaffirmed its hold, dragging his face, body and tears down toward earth. “That, and a promise I made. To not give up.”

  All three of them stood silently for a minute, taking deep breaths.

  “You need more reason than that to stay here,” Cathy said finally. “You can’t live for other people. If you’re doing this, you have to do it for yourself and know that things are going to get better.”

  Xander winced, then turned away from them both and walked back into the house.

  After a moment, Cathy followed.

  Mike stayed outside, then slowly walked to where the gun still lay on the grass. He reached down gently and picked it up, sliding the chamber out to reveal all six rounds loaded and ready to go. He broke down crying for the first time since the confrontation had begun, and made sure he’d stopped before he went back inside.

  John stared at the picture on his desk, tapping his pencil - just about worn down to the nub - against the surface of his desk.

  The focus of the picture was soft, as though whoever had been operating the camera hadn’t quite been sure of its function. It made everything in it looked watered down and gentle, as though it had been painted onto the paper rather than imprinted on it. The girl in the picture had soft, chestnut-colored hair that fell to her shoulders. Even though the image was forever stagnate, it always looked like it was bouncing. The sun on her face showed the freckles that dotted both her cheeks. Her smile took up most of her face as she turned to one side, something sweet or funny catching her eye. He hadn’t been there when the picture was taken and had wondered exactly what it had been more than once in the past month. There was a heart-shaped silver pendant around her neck with a ruby in its center that looked so real that he thought he could just reach out and grab it.

  “Got that quote from the Mayor like you said for the water supply story,” Don said, opening the door. He slid a pen into his pocket and smiled at his boss, giving him a little nod. “Didn’t have much to say, but at least we can say he said it.”

  “Good,” John nodded, turning away from the picture and clasping his hands together.

  “I put it on the S drive if you want to take a look at it before it goes to print,” he elaborated, motioning toward the monitor on John’s desk.

  “I will.”

  There was a silence for a moment. Don stood in the doorway with one foot in the office and one foot out, the doorknob teetering back and forth between his fingertips.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes, actually,” Don laughed, his cheeks flushed. “I put another story in there as well. I was hoping we could find some space in it for tomorrow’s edition.”

  “What’s the copy?” he asked, mildly interested as he giggled the mouse to make the screen turn on.

  “It’s about Xander Drew, sir.”

  John stopped, taking his hand off the mouse and clasping them before him again as he turned back to face Don. “Weren’t you the one tearing down Drake earlier because you didn’t think that kid was printable?”

  “Not the same story. He’s helping the Genblade defense, sir. It’s worth printing. I really believe there’s something going on here that they’re not telling us. If nothing else, it’s a good human interest piece.”

  John’s head snapped up from where it had lolled to, meeting Don’s excited gaze. “Human interest?” he scoffed.

  “Yes, sir,” Don replied, oblivious to his editor’s tone as he sat down across from him, his hands shaking with excitement as he explained. “I think Xander Drew has more to do with this then he lets on. Something happened out there with Genblade that he’s not saying... something big. I don’t know what it was, but Drew wants to keep Genblade alive when he should be - -”

  “Human interest?” John repeated again, slamming one hand against his desk and making Don jump in his chair. “Do you know who that girl is?” he asked, lowering his voice as he turned the photograph toward Don.

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “That’s my daughter, Don. That’s my Liz. She was killed a month ago. Do you know who she was killed by?”

  Don did not speak, swallowing hard.

  “You know, Don. You were here when we got the call. Who was she killed by?”

  “By Genblade, sir,” he said sheepishly.

  “By Genblade,” John spat, clenching his fists. “So, no, we will not be running any stories about how Xander Drew wants to help Genblade. Or any stories about anyone but Genblade being the killer. We will not be d
oing anything that poses even the slightest doubt onto his guilt. And for the record, any interest, even a passing one, in that monster should not be called anything remotely human.”

  “Yes sir,” Don nodded, standing. “I’m sorry, sir. I just... I guess I just thought...”

  “What?” the older man huffed, letting his palms fall to the desk. “What did you think?”

  “I thought maybe I could help. That we could break this open.”

  John laughed, wiping his mouth with his sweat-covered palm.

  “What?”

  “Even if I let this story go to print, which I am not, there is no way that it will result in the vindication of Genblade or Xander, or the downfall of anyone else. The information isn’t relevant to anything. It barely even qualifies as information. Leave the investigative reporting to the investigative reporters.”

  “Sir, I can be a - -”

  “No, you can’t,” John yelled, standing up as Don took a pace back. “You know what investigative reports do, Don? They investigate things. They do not sit around the office, waiting for a story to come over the fax machine,” he said, waving his hands toward the machine. “They go out and look into things. They leave the office from time to time. You take useless information and try to build a story around it. Worse, it’s information everybody already knows. Seriously, it’s not like Drew’s involvement is a state secret or something.”

  Don sighed, turning away from the desk and heading toward the door. When his hand touched the brass knob he stopped, turning his head slightly to look at his editor. “If I’m as bad as all that, then why hire me?”

  “Because you’re good at all the other stuff,” he drawled, sitting back down and straightening the picture of his daughter. “You’re good at getting the quote from the Mayor and getting just the right photo to go with our lead story. You excel at all the things that Drake can’t be bothered with.”

  Don nodded, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

  John double-clicked on the S drive and found the story Don had placed there, deleting it without even opening it. Nothing like that was going to break a story like this open.