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

by Matthew LeDrew

  -BANG!-

  The clay moulding directly above Xander’s head erupted in gunfire, showering him with bits of silt and dust as he ran forward to get away from it, desperately trying to get the tiny stones out of his eyes. He stumbled forward until his hands felt something sturdy for him to lean against, his palms flat against the cool, hard surface. His eyes watered and cried until all the dust was out of them, the grey marble square in front of him slowly coming into view, as well as the equally grey foot that stood still on it. He looked up at the justice statue again, water still streaming down his face. “That’s not what this is about,” he said, locking eyes with the veiled ones of the statue for a moment before turning around. “That’s not what this is about!”

  There was a long, odd creek from close by, but it stopped before he could get a read on it.

  “No?” the voice laughed, and Xander could almost see his head rocking back in his mind’s eye. “And how would you know? You don’t even know why you’re fighting, let alone what you’re fighting for.”

  The sound started again, much more sudden, and louder than before. There was a sudden weight on him so immense and heavy that it forced him to the floor. There was a loud crash, and more dust and dirt erupted all around him as he tried to turn around, making it impossible to see. When his eyes were clear again, he was nose-to-nose with the lady holding the scales.

  Genblade got back up off of the floor where the statue had stood and dusted himself off as he hopped up onto her back, walking casually over the beautifully carved stone until he stood directly on top of Xander. He crouched down to get closer, watching the boy squirm and wince under the incredible weight, then took aim with the gun. “Justice is a hard weight to carry, isn’t it Womb?” he whispered mockingly, licking his lips. “That’s why nobody ever said doing the right thing was easy.”

  “How would you know?” Xander grunted, forcing out each syllable more and more as his lungs refused to fill with air a little more with each breath. His eyes bulged, large and black.

  “How indeed,” Genblade smirked. “But I tell you, I’d rather be this good at doing the wrong thing... than suck at doing the right thing as much as you do.”

  Xander opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, Genblade pulled the trigger and pumped off one final shot that literally blew off his shoulder. He screamed, his hands slamming against the statue as they tried to reach up and hold the damaged flesh but were unable to do so.

  As Genblade watched, he saw that the blood that seeped out of the gaping red maw was a thick, congealed black. He smiled, reaching down and grabbing Xander by the face, forcing his mouth to close and the screams to stop. “Time to continue your education, son. I think you’ll like today’s lesson. Round one to me.”

  Xander tried to respond, but the black liquid boiling up in his throat, searing the lining of his esophagus as it went, drowned out the words. In the distance, sirens finally began to blare to life as squad cars came into range. Before the blackness completely enveloped his lips... a smile started over them.

  Genblade leapt from the statue and onto the floor, bolting for the doors as fast as he could.

  As the blackness overwhelmed him, devouring his body until there was nothing left, Xander felt a sick, gurgling laugh build up in his throat, though he wasn’t quite sure from where.

  “Black Womb lives.”

  He heard himself say in the creature’s horrible, gagging voice as his eyes opened, revealing the red, opaque lenses that saw every last detail the room had to offer. The mouth gaped open, its forked tongue whipping out and tasting the air. The scent it grabbed was so familiar that Xander could almost see it floating in the air and disappearing at the door. It gripped the statue by the hips with his clawed hands, rolling it to one side and then breaking into a run before it had even finished climbing to his feet.

  It burst through the front doors of the courthouse, landing on all fours.

  There was nothing. No people, no cars and most of all, no Genblade. For one single, horrifying moment, it occurred to Xander that he’d lost the killer already.

  Then the truck hit him.

  The Womb slammed against the concrete steps, feeling the sharp stone dig into his back.

  Smiling, Genblade leaned out of the cab of the blue pickup and watched the Womb scramble back to his feet. Laughing, he pulled out onto the road and sped away. It drove a hundred feet and then turned sharply, spinning around one-hundred-and-eighty degrees until its dented grill again faced the Black Womb.

  The sun blaring in its eyes, the Womb could only stand and watch as Genblade revved the car’s engine, then finally put his foot to the floor and started speeding toward the creature again.

  Inside the Womb, Xander watched as the truck barreled down upon him, waiting for just the right moment. He felt the muscles in his legs filled with black blood and become tense, his taloned fingers dangling at his sides.

  The vehicle was almost on top of him when he leapt, crashing through the windshield and into the cab. He landed square in the empty driver’s seat, the polarized glass raining down on him as he saw the cruise control locked on.

  Then the truck hit the courthouse.

  It erupted in a brilliant, fiery blaze, shooting up and out until nothing of the truck could even be seen anymore. After a moment, it settled, still burning as Genblade walked over and reached past the shattered driver’s side window and pulled out Black Womb by the neck. His taunting smile was gone now, replaced by a curling nose and hate-filled scowl.

  “Didn’t learn anything about distraction, did we?” he screamed, bringing back his fist and slamming it into the Womb’s face. Its teeth grazed and cut his knuckles, but he barely even noticed. He hammered his fist down again, splashing the black tar onto the streets as he did.

  The Womb tried to say something, but again its mouth was filled with blood.

  “Shut your face!” Genblade screamed, bringing down his fist again. “You think I care about anything you have to say, you little shit? You killed my fucking wife!” he brought his fist down again, and this time the Womb’s teeth gave under the force of Genblade’s knuckles, cracking off and falling to the pavement. “I’ll fucking end you, you little piece of trash!”

  The Womb brought up its legs and pushed Genblade off of itself, scrambling to its feet again as it vomited up the blood that had been rising up from its lungs and stomach.“She was going to kill me,” it said finally, the harsh, gritty voice sounding off when mixed with the sympathetic pang of Xander’s.

  “I don’t care!” Genblade spat, drool and mucus huffing from his nose and mouth now. He lunged forward again, hitting the Womb in the throat.

  The impact made it stagger backwards again, the flames from the burning truck right behind it.

  Genblade leaned in slowly, again licking those pointed teeth of his. “You still got plenty to learn, but there’s one thing you’re gonna have to learn fast... and there’s only one way I know to teach you.”

  “What’s that?” the Womb scoffed, even as it started to rise to its feet.

  Genblade drove his hand forward, shoving the Womb’s long, serrated tooth into its gut and then swiping it all the way across.

  The Womb’s eyes grew wide as the blackness covering it almost immediately began to lose its consistency, hanging off of Xander like wrinkled skin for a moment before losing its hold altogether and melting to the floor. Xander gasped for air and got a mouthful of the layer of blood that covered his body, his natural, blue eyes staring up at Genblade in horror as the killer twisted the tooth again, smiling.

  Genblade wriggled the makeshift blade around one last time, snickering at the soft, wet sound it made before finally hauling it back out. “The lesson’ll come on its own time.”

  “So will yours,” Xander spat, jumping at Genblade’s waist and forcing him to the ground. “Don’t fucking care about your lessons!” he screamed, bringing back his fist and slamming it into Genblade’s face as hard as he could. “Or your distra
ctions!” he screamed again, right before landing another blow. Blood spattered up onto his face, but he didn’t notice. “Or your wife!” he brought both fists into the air at once, hammering them down simultaneously.

  SLAM.

  “I don’t care Genblade! Nobody does!”

  SLAM!

  “Mike doesn’t care, Cathy doesn’t care... Alpha never cared!”

  SLAM!

  “Nobody cares about you Genblade. Nobody - -”

  “Xander!” Mike yelled, grabbing his friend’s wrist before he could bring his fists down again.

  Xander struggled for a moment, turning to glare at his friend without even seeing him. Then he turned back to Genblade, and noticed the swollen, red piece of meat that had replaced his opponent’s face. There was so little white left to his skin that he was barely even recognizable, having been bruised into blacks, blues and yellows. His face seeped blood from almost every conceivable hole plus several newly created ones, and one gash on his forehead was so bad that a vicious white fluid with the consistency of an egg seemed to be coming out of it.

  “Jesus,” Xander whispered, stepping away from Genblade.

  Mike crouched down, placing two fingers on the side of Genblade’s throat.

  “Is he alive?”

  “Yes. Get out of here,” Mike snapped, not even bothering to turn around.

  “But I can - -”

  “Get out of here, Xander,” he said again, his voice a little more stern.

  As the rest of the crowd approached, Xander ducked into an alleyway and was gone.

  “You finish that research yet?”

  Don looked up from his desk, pushing his hair back into place as his eyes adjusted to the light, trying his best to pretend that he hadn’t been asleep. “Um,” he stammered, gazing from Drake’s frowning, impatient face to the pile of papers covering his desk, looking for some clue to jog his memory of what he had been doing before he’d passed out. “Ah, just about.”

  Thomas Drake cocked an eyebrow at him, his mouth never twitching to show any sign of amusement if he felt any. “The victims list, Don. I need a full, up-to-date victims list. Then I need you to contact the next of kin of each of them and see if they plan on suing the town for this crap.”

  “Suing?” Don repeated, furrowing his brow. “I haven’t heard anything about any suit?”

  “There isn’t anything,” Drake snapped. “And there won’t be if you don’t get off your ass and start asking people if they plan on suing for all the mental anguish the city’s putting them through with this farce of a trial. And they’ll sue. And then we’ll report on the suit.”

  Don looked at him with a face that perfectly mixed both amazement and horror at the same time.

  “You get all that, or do I need to write it down for you?”

  “No, got it,” Don nodded, finally gathering up the right stack of papers. “There was one I was having issue with. Jesse... Jesse... Jesse Something. She went missing a while back but they haven’t found the body yet. Parents are still pretty hopeful, but with all the cops focused in on the Genblade case and the murders, I think they’re just clinging.”

  “And?”

  “Well, until there’s a body we can’t even say for sure she’s dead. Should I include her in all this?”

  “She young?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She cute?”

  “Yeah... yes.”

  “Put a picture of her front a centre with the story. If anything sells better than hot young ass, it’s dead hot young ass.”

  Don winced, then turned to reply, but Drake had already vanished from his doorway. He sighed, his grip on the page he’d been looking at tightening as he felt the urge to just rip it apart... then eventually stopped, letting it fall back to his desk. Taking a deep breath, he pushed himself back from his desk and got up, his lips pursed and white.

  He was going to break this story wide open.

  Drake slid the key to the glass doors of the strip mall out of their lock, pulling twice on the handle to make sure it was sturdy as the setting sun offered one last glimmer of light from its reflection in the glass before ducking behind a row of trees and bathing Coral Beach in darkness. A mist had rolled in from the bay in the last few hours of twilight. The air in some areas of town would be thicker than molasses on a night like tonight, but here in the central city it just formed a neat little fog close to the ground, making it hard to see where you stepped as your feet paced along the sidewalks.

  He turned around and looked out over the bare parking lot, not seeing one sign of movement in the dim of twilight. He shook his head and chuckled a little. There weren’t many people who still tempted fate by walking the roads at night. Beaming to himself as he started to walk toward his car, he took it as a compliment to his writing. His briefcase swung casually by his side, his collar was unbuttoned as an uncharacteristic heat whipped relentlessly at his skin. He took four swaggering, self-confident steps before his pace began to slow and his eyes began to study the deepening darkness a little more quickly. There was a group of teenagers huddled together on a corner a few streets over, neither of them paying him much heed as he shuffled by. Beads of sweat dripped down his forehead and neck. He picked up the pace, his briefcase swinging much more rapidly now.

  -TSSSH-TNK-TNK!-

  He stopped, turning around quickly and running back to the mall entrance. He sighed as he came back around the corner and saw one of the glass doors he’d locked so carefully had been smashed in, the sound of heavy footfalls already fading into the distance.

  “Fucking kids,” he cursed, bending over and picking up a brick wrapped in a newspaper. He unfolded it, letting the brick fall to the floor with a thud as he examined the crumpled, ripped remains of the paper. It was his front-page stories from a few weeks back about the deaths of two rapists that used to attend school at Coral Beach. There were two large photos of each of the men lifted from their high-school yearbook in the center, and a good eight columns worth of story. Along the side bar was a small, unaccredited insert on reaction from the different students involved. He recognized it quickly as one of Don’s, glancing down over it for the first time. “Kind of idiot uses his son as a source?” he scoffed, crumpling the paper back up into a ball and tossing it into the trash.

  Cursing again, he tried to shake the glass from the bottom of his boot before walking back in the direction of his car. A few shards fell to the fog-covered sidewalk, bouncing along the pavement’s edge with a series of soft little -tinks-.

  The teenagers that had been across the way were gone now, even though he hadn’t heard them leave. For some reason that made him nervous as the tail end of his car came into sight around the next corner, more sweat forming quickly on his neck and staining the collar of his shirt.

  “Fucking kids,” he said again, huddling into himself as he began to walk faster, his legs blurring back and forth in the fog.

  -tink-

  He frowned, shaking more glass from the bottom of his shoe.

  -tink-

  Huffing in frustration, he sat down against the moist curb and lifted his shoe up so that he could see the bottom. There was nothing there but a cigarette butt stuck to an old wad of chewing gum – no glass. Still, he could see the glass all around him now from where it had fallen to his feet. There were three pieces right next to him, shimmering up at him like specs of gold in a prospector’s sift.

  -tink!-

  Suddenly, a forth piece of glass joined the other three, bouncing in from somewhere behind him. He stared at it for a moment, not having time to form any thoughts one way or the other before there was a blinding pain on the side of his face.

  He brought his hand up to his ear quickly, and found that it wasn’t there anymore. When he brought his hand back he couldn’t even see his own skin, it was so laden with his own blood, dark crimson in the low light.

  “Christ!” he yelled, trying to get up, but succeeding only in falling forward, falling face-first into the pavement.
The tiny shards of glass that had been little more than an annoyance a moment ago dug into his face and gums, making his mouth fill with that coppery tang that overpowered everything. He tried to turn around, but there was almost instantly a weight on his back, digging into his spine. He let out a long wail when he looked at the ground beneath his face and saw the very large pool of his blood that had already formed there. His reflection stared back at him in horror, as did the dark, menacing figure that loomed behind him. As he watched, the shadow-figure drew back and let out one vicious blow to the side of Drakes’ head.

  When he opened his eyes again to look at his reflection, half of it was missing. That half had formed a wet, clumpy pink mound a few inches away from the puddle. He felt something sharp dig into the nape of his neck and as he lost consciousness, he couldn’t help but think of the victim list that he’d had Don Smith working so hard on.

  Nathan Summers sat in the office of Mayer, Summers and Soul; his head buried into his short, silvery hair as he fought back the urge to vomit. Sniffing, he wiped down his face with the cuff of his grey pinstripe suit as he forced himself to turn away from the picture that stared at him from the corner of the desk.

  Natasha and her daughter stared back at him, the sun behind them giving their hair a shimmering, halo-like quality.

  He took a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, then repeated several times as he tried to compose himself. Gathering his will, he reached up and lay his hand on the top of the silver frame that he’d given her for her birthday and pushed it down so that it faced downward. Their happy, contented eyes no longer haunting him, he turned his attention to the box between his legs and the pile of papers surrounding it.

  “Loved that girl,” he thought to himself, grabbing a handful of papers and shoving them down into the box. “But it wouldn’t have killed her to be organized.”

  He reached over with both arms, spreading them to gather one sweeping armful and throw it into the box. It nearly buckled under the weight of the faxes and printouts, so much that he had to force it down with the heel of his shoe. Three pieces fell out when he pulled back his foot, their crumpled remains falling and rolling along the floor. He sighed, bending over despite the cries from his back and picking them up. On the one that had been closest to him, he saw a familiar name in dark printers ink: Natasha Mayer.