"I can tell you didn't. I can read you like a book. But who is hawk face?"
"That, Brekin don't know. He got another name and I know you know it, but it ain't made its way to the tip of your tongue yet. Hawk face killed my wife. He took her soul. They thought I strangled her but that ain't so. Bes, she was a scientist, a righteous goodas. She be practicin' the obeah two night ago, talkin' wi de good spirits when she hear a knocking on the window. I says Bes, don't you mind that, but before I could get deh, the hawk faced fucker, he walk through the glass and the door slam shut with Bes inside, and me banging, trying to kick that fucker door down. It turned out no good. Ten minutes I at that door and I get the phone in my hand and I call 911 and say somebody attacking my wife and I can't open the damn door. Then I get my axe and I put hole after hole in the door but by the time I get through there Bessie, she lying deh on de floor and I'm holding de axe and It fall from my hand and I get down and hold her," tears streamed down Brekin's face and Candy, sensing the pain in his heart nearly doubled over in agony, "the beast come and they say I strangled her. I say, how the fuck do I strangle her, how do you see that. They say, she hiding deh, in de room and you break it down with the axe and get in and strangle her cause the breath has been taken out of her, deh be marks on her neck, and I say, he come through the window and they look at the window and say, but that window nailed shut, nobody came through there and there ain't no time for nobody to get inside the room if the door is locked and you on the outside. They know I have got the gift, but they say I mad, so they send me here 'stead of the cage. The beast of Babylon, he want to put me on the cooking chair, but my grace been spared by Jah so I's cut me some bird-faced motherfucker."
"Horus? Is that the name of hawk face?"
"That be it. I knew you knew. Seen? I bin havin' me dreams about you in the police station. You into something big wid these fuckers and I want in on it. You and I, we all we got in here. If Brekin get you out of here, which Brekin can do, then you get Brekin out of here. That only the fair way about it. Then Brekin join your group and we fight these fuckers, and Brekin gonna cut him some bird motherfucker. We got a deal?"
"We got a deal, Brekin. We got a deal. But I need to ask you a question. What group?"
The Rastafarian shrugged. “I guess we find out soon enough.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CANDY MAKES A WEAPON
It was finished. To her it looked beautiful. She had made it from one of the magic markers that had been bought for her, and from a metal spoon she had stolen from the lunch round. For gauze she had simply taken some from the hash pipe that Wanda had brought her. She couldn't use the glass crack pipe; not for this. So she had made the pipe herself. She had welded the spoon inside the marker with a lighter, with only the head of the spoon sticking out, which she had manipulated into the head of a pipe. The gauze then separated the substance being heated, from being transported into the back of her throat when she was to suck deeply on that substance, namely her beloved crack. And that was precisely what she was doing that very moment, in the bathroom with the only air vent on the ward.
Candy felt dreamy and high. She was smoking, and waiting. Today, she was going to kill.
She had been planning this for about a month. And she was sure it would work. She had studied the 'meds' rounds for three weeks, seeing who got what, and she knew from this who were the biggest suicide risks on the ward.
There were a few. Mad Belinda who had eaten her child’s foot suffered terrible guilt and longed to be free of this world. Crazy Jacqueline, who had killed her entire family by locking them in the house and torching it, kept seeing in her mind her daughter at the window as the flames took hold. She too had no strong desire to live.
But her prime candidate was Jenny.
Jenny the schizophrenic who had shot her mother through the eye.
The way Candy understood it was that had these people been left to their own devices they wouldn’t have given a damn. It was the medication that was making them guilty, as it calmed the brain and brought them back, if not close to sanity, then to a never close semblance of it. Then more medication had to be dispensed so that the psychopathic fucks could cope with that. All in all she wondered if they would all be better off just left to their own devices.
Jenny felt guilt like there was no tomorrow. She heard her mother’s voice nearly every second of every day. And due to Candy's empathic ability so did Candy. And Candy hated it, and so, she hated Jenny.
So it was on this day that Candy was smoking, and getting high in the bathroom of the institution, when Jenny walked in, right on time, to her cubicle (she would only use one cubicle, and only at certain times of the day, OCD being another of Jenny’s conditions) to be faced by Candy, sucking harshly on her newly made crack pipe.
Jenny gave out a startled yelp. "What you got there?" she said, damp nervous laughter giving way to a balance of curiosity and fear.
Jenny was afraid of Candy. She had seen her watching her as she had eaten her lunch that afternoon and she had been unable to finish her meatloaf.
Candy exhaled. "Oh, nothing. Just a pipe. Of sorts. Want some?" Candy asked pleasantly.
"What’s in that pipe, Candy. Is it… marijuana?" Jenny had not smoked dope in over twelve years. She had loved dope, despite the fact that it had been a factor in unbalancing her already unbalanced mind.
"Something like that Jenny. Would you like some?" Candy asked again.
"I don’t know. What if someone sees?"
You’re locked in an institution for the mentally insane, Candy wanted to shout. What the fuck are they going to do? Take away your reading glasses?
"No one will see you, Jenny. Just a quick smoke. Just like the old days."
"Well. Okay. But don’t you tell no one, mind," Jenny’s eyes widened with excitement as Candy began to turn the pipe towards her.
Jenny made to grab it from Candy’s hand, however Candy held it back. "I’ll hold it for you Jenny. Just you remember to suck really hard okay."
"'Kay," said Jenny as she pursed her lips and closed her eyes.
She’s closing her eyes, thought Candy. What a fucking saint.
Sharpening the edge of the mouth piece to a fine point had been Candy’s final touch to the pipe and she rammed it into Jenny’s throat, eliciting a muffled whom from Jenny. It wasn’t the last sound Jenny made, but the last which was audible, as Candy placed her hand over Jenny’s mouth. Candy held tight, forcing the upsurge of blood back into Jenny's mouth the best she could. There was blood trickling from the wound in Jenny's neck, but Candy couldn't do anything about that. In fact, it was kinda the point; giving a contented sigh she turned the pipe so that it's point touched the underside of Jenny’s brain and drove the handle home. A look of shocked confusion took over Jenny’s eyes. Candy looked straight between them and nodded.
In her cracked out state, Candy did not notice the blister that was forming on the hand which held the heated end of the spoon.
She counted to ten, and then let Jenny fall to the ground.
Then Candy screamed.
"God Dammit!" There was a heartfelt slam as the morning paper collided with a half full mug of lukewarm coffee, spilling the brownish liquid onto the professor’s lavish desk.
"She says she didn’t kill her?" Randolph Nowes asked for the second time since being told of Jenny’s untimely death only moments ago.
"She says she tried to save her."
"Tried to save her?"
"Eh, yes prof."
"And she just found her like… that?"
"Eh, no prof. She says her and the woman, Jennifer Bird, were smoking crack cocaine in the bathroom and-" the professor held up a hand and the man from institution security fell silent.
"She was smoking crack cocaine?" Randolph asked incredulously.
The man from security sighed and nodded his head. They had drawn straws, literally, to decide who should be the one to break the news to the professor, and he, Michael Roberts, had drawn the
short straw. It was only a minute or so since the news had been broken, however Michael was starting to think that the rest of the entire conversation would continue with him giving the facts, the professor repeating these facts, and he Michael Roberts looking more and more like a jackass.
He allowed his gaze to wander towards the coffee spill on the table. It had seeped into the newspaper the professor had been reading when he had arrived, and was making what he thought was some kind of papier-mâché mould over the bronze ornaments it covered.
"Has she said where she got the crack cocaine from?" Professor Randolph Nowes was asking, just as Roberts was thinking the mound could be an anthill.
Roberts snapped his attention back to the matter at hand. "Yes sir. She said the deceased had it."
"The deceased had it?"
This was going to take a while. "Yes chief, eh, prof. She said Bird had approached her and offered her a smoke of the, the crack. She said they went into the bathroom to smoke and whilst they were smoking Bird had told her how much she regretted killing her mother, had taken the sharpened end of the eh, smoking apparatus, and had driven it into her eh, self. Sir."
At this however, Randolph looked thoughtful. "And have the police been notified?" he asked somewhat distantly, Roberts noticed.
"Yes sir. Standard procedure. Sir. Prof."
"Very good, Roberts. And where is Candy now?"
"Where else sir?"
Yes, definitely anthills, thought Roberts as he gazed again at the table, where a corner of the paper had curled with the spilt coffee, leaving a print of the day’s news on the polished oak wood like some obscure tattoo.
Candy was still high. Before the nurses had arrived and found Jennifer Bird with the crack pipe shoved in her throat, Candy had realised she still had a massive chunk of crack left. To add to this her smoking apparatus was currently unusable and thus she was unable to smoke the crack which she held in her sweaty left palm. As footsteps approached she had decided to swallow it, taking in massive gulps of taps water to be sure it went down properly, as well as getting rid of the acrid taste. So when she had been frisked by security the drugs were in her person instead of on her. The result had been a mega come-on of the drug about ten minutes previously, and by the feel of it she was in for a longer ride with it than usual.
She was locked in a room, twelve feet by twelve feet and both the walls and floor were padded. There was no toilet, and no bed or seat of any kind. She was strangely thankful that a straitjacket had not been administered. For the past ten minutes, Candy had been bouncing off the walls, treating it as her own private bouncy castle, falling occasionally on the softly padded floor. It was proving to be a lot of fun, although a small voice in her head was quick to point out that it might not be quite so much fun when the crack wore off. And this scared her, although she would not quite admit it to herself.
She was beginning to wonder how long they would keep her here.
Reason told her that it could not be for long. The absence of toilet or bed meant that she would be deprived of some human basics. And even if they did suspect her of murder this wasn’t prison. She was not here to be punished. She was insane. She was here to get better, whatever the hell that meant.
However, a creeping thought pushed harder into the forefront of her mind.
They’re just going to forget about you - leave you here until you starve, no food no water. No more crack…
Stop it, she scolded herself. It was just the drug. She was becoming paranoid. But still…
“Getting lonely Candy?”
The voice startled her. She turned wildly about, searching for its owner, however she could see no one.
"Who’s there?" she called frantically, however there was only silence, followed by a sickening laughter.
She heard a slight tapping on the padding behind her left shoulder, and she spun around to look behind her, however, she was faced with only the red padded wall and emptiness. A low empty wail escaped her, as the image of the awful goat flooded into her mind. Not Shub, please no, not Shub, she thought, and again she cried out, her head snapping to and fro as she searched for her predator.
She heard voices from outside the room and she screamed out, "HELP ME! HELP ME!" however the voices soon passed and faded, and she was left, cowering in the left corner of the room, facing the door. She felt an invisible hand suddenly stroke through the air above her eyes and she pawed wildly at the air in front of her, her hands finding no purchase.
"Stop it. Stop it. Please." she whispered.
“I was keeping you Company,” replied a voice that made Candy think of torture.
"Well FUCK OFF!" screamed Candy, leaping to her feet and flailing wildly at the air around her. "FUCK OFF YOU CRAZY FUCKING GOAT!"
“Candy, baby, I'm Insulted you don't remember me. We met before, in the station. Here, why don't I come out of hiding and show you who I really am, huh?”
"Goooooodddddddnooooooooooooooo…" screamed Candy, as a shimmering light began to stir in the air in front of her. And then he was there. Candy stared in disbelief. A cowled body, showing only a deathly blue face and deadlier blue eyes stood before her. And he was smiling.
“Hello babe,” said Blismasatakk.
In the observation booth, two doctors of psychiatry sat playing a hand of gin rummy. The smaller of the two, a dark haired man with the demeanour of a weasel, laid down his winning hand and grinned smugly at his companion, a larger man, who had succumbed to baldness in his early twenties.
They were about to deal another hand when out of the corner of his eye the weasel caught sight of the observation cameras.
"Holy shit, Jack, I think we’ve got a code red. Come here, take a look at this. Quick, you idiot," said the weasel, whose name was John.
On the computer monitor that looked directly into Candy’s isolation booth with the padded walls a scene was transpiring. Large gashes had appeared on either side of her slender cheeks, and she was clawing wildly around her.
To the watchful eyes of the two psychiatric technicians she was clawing wildly at thin air.
"Holy shit, we’d better get someone down there, quick," John said, his voice reaching near hysteria.
"This is gonna be our balls, Johnny boy. Fuck! You stupid cunt. You’re the one that wanted to play the gin rummy marathon. How are we gonna explain this one to the man upstairs? And I don’t mean God."
"We just say... she did it quickly. She clawed her face, Jack, and we called it in straight away. That's the tune I’m gonna be singing anyway, and you’d better back me up!"
"But what about the tapes? The fucking tapes, man! They’re gonna want to watch the tapes."
"The tape are just gonna have to have a little accident. A glitch in the machine."
"You think they’ll go for that? No way. You’re fucking crazy."
"You got any better ideas?"
"Well…"
"I didn’t think so. You alert the brass. I’ll deal with the tapes. Hey, fuck it! Accidents happen."
"It’s still gonna be out balls, man."
"Hey maybe you should grow a pair.”
“Me? You’re the one who wanted to play gin rummy! Fucking fag. Fucking gin fucking rummy!"
Overcome by fear, Candy had lashed out and had connected with the Gods fleshy cheek.
Blismasatakk was known for his acts of violence towards contenders, so the rest of Rubiconeteka had called council and forbid him to harm any further contenders. Blismasatakk had protested and so a compromise had been made. He could not touch a player of the game, unless the player was to touch him first, and with purpose. So, this attack had given Blismasatakk all the permission needed to go for Candy. Blismasatakk took a final lunge at Candy, but the light, the bright blinding light of fury began to overcome her, and despite her inability to fight off his advances she found herself anaesthetized in her rage. A key turned in the lock, and as quickly he had come, Blismasatakk had disappeared. Feeling the weight of the world upon her shoulders, Candy coll
apsed onto the padded floor.
Yet the blinding light was still there and in the extremeness of her fear and the rage that boiled deep in her blood, a pressure cooker with the heat too high, Candy exploded. The four nurses that had entered the room never stood a chance. As they advanced towards Candy, she threw herself to her feet and flew at the first of the nurses, her fingers extended, gouging an eye, before turning to the next who she felled with a single butt to the head. The remaining two nurse, understandably in shock and fear began to retreat, however before the final one fled, Candy grabbed the throat of a man twice her size and squeezed with her new found might. The man began to choke.
"Do you believe me now you fucker! Huh! You fucking lock me up and you see what happens. I’m fucking psycho baby and I swear if you ever leave me like that again and I’ll kill you all! You understand? You’re nothing to me!" Candy screamed with such passion, the nurse could do nought but nod. Finally Candy released him. "Now run along and tell the rest of your friends. You see what you get? You see what you get when you fuck with me? He was here! He was here, you fuckers, and he was going to kill me, and then where does my soul go, huh? To the fucking Rubiconeteka. I want to speak to the police. And you and your friends are gonna be wearing the wrong end of a serious fucking law suit," Candy breathed deeply.
The light had gone. She felt calm, yet it was the calm of complete shock. The storm had already passed.
"He was here. Oh my God," a bare whisper now.
Moments later, seven large orderlies, some with rubber coshes, others mace and one, a large sedative injection slowly entered the padded cell. However, Candy merely held up her hands in surrender.
“It’s okay you key twirling mother fuckers. I’m coming out. And if you lay a hand on me it’ll be the last thing you ever do. And I always make good on my threats."
With great trepidation the nurses led Candy from the room, although not one dared lay a finger on the girl who was now to be known as Psycho Candy.
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