Strange Robby

by Selina Rosen

"Yeah."

  "I'm gonna pass out." And she did.

  She stared at the TV.

  "I could go home," she told Tommy.

  He nodded as he munched on an egg roll.

  She grunted, and he handed her one.

  "Stop being such a baby. They're just holding you for observation . . . "

  "Cost a fucking fortune," Spider mumbled.

  "Who cares? You're not paying."

  "Oh, yeah! That's right," Spider said, relieved. She ate the egg roll and stared at the TV again. "But I'm so fucking bored, Tommy."

  "What a little pussy baby you are, whining all the time." Tommy laughed and shook his head. "I'll be glad when Carrie gets here. Then she can listen to your crying."

  "No one has to baby-sit me," Spider said hotly. "I'm perfectly capable of being bored all by myself."

  "And listen to Laura bitch all night? No, thank you."

  Spider laughed. "You have to go home sometime."

  "But I'm delaying it as long as I can," Tommy said.

  Carrie walked in. "How are you feeling, Baby?" She sat down in a chair beside Spider and took her hand.

  "It hurts," Spider whined.

  "Oh, my poor baby," Carrie cooed.

  "I'm gonna hurl!" Tommy said in disbelief. He stood up then and grabbed his sack of egg rolls. "I'm going, and I'm taking my egg rolls, too. I'll see you tomorrow."

  Spider laughed, then said on a serious note, "Thanks, Tommy."

  Tommy smiled back. "Any time, pard."

  Carrie waited till she was sure Tommy was gone. "What the fuck were you thinking? Are you fucking out of your tiny little mind? You never told me you were on the fucking SWAT team! Of all the stupid shit. And how dare you use that what-ever-the-fuck on me . . . "

  "OK, I was right up with you till then. What are you talking about?"

  Carrie glared at her. "You know damn good and well what I'm talking about—playing with my brain. I don't know what you did or how you did it, but I was a virtual zombie till it wore off at about three o'clock. If I'm mad, I prefer to be mad, and if I'm scared, I prefer to be scared."

  Spider frowned. "All I did was give you a little push so you'd be less stressed. Everyone does it . . . "

  "Everyone does it!" Carrie screamed. "You're kidding, right? Do you really think everyone does that? Because I'm here to tell you that they don't. They can't."

  "They can't?" Spider could do it; it didn't even seem very hard. Not like feeling people out or knowing what they were thinking. It was just a little push; she didn't even have to focus to do it.

  "Did anyone ever do it to you?" Carrie asked, calming down as she settled into the chair.

  It was a good question. Spider thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "I don't know; I think so. People have gotten me to do things I didn't really want to do."

  "Take my word for it, Spider, there is a difference between talking someone into something and that thing that you do. It literally altered my thinking. Made me feel perfectly all right with you walking into a building full of terrorists. Made me think the captain had made the right decision instead of hating his guts. I was perfectly calm through the whole damn thing."

  Spider didn't understand Carrie's anger. "And that's a bad thing?"

  "Yes . . . Yes it is. I'd rather be scared shitless and have my own feelings, thank you very much." She paused, seeming to calm herself down. "Don't you ever do that to me again." It was a warning.

  Spider nodded and looked down at her hands. They had taken so much blood she had holes all over her hands and forearms, and then there was the damned IV. She swore it hurt more than the bullet wound, but right then there was something on her mind more important than pain. She couldn't even look at Carrie.

  "Did I make you love me?"

  Carrie laughed, shook her head no, and kissed Spider gently on the cheek. "Most assuredly not—this is not wearing off. I can't explain it, but this felt different. I wasn't myself. It was like part of me was shut down. It was creepy, and I hated it."

  "I'm sorry that I played in your brain. I won't do it again."

  "Good, now go to sleep. I need you fully functional as quick as possible. I have to admit that as stupid as it was, your climbing over three cars and hurling yourself through the air to save me was really a turn on."

  He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. Who the hell did these jokers think they were, shoving their fifth-level government security code in his face and dragging him down here at two in the morning to access his files?

  "Download it," the bigger one ordered. Something in the hours of old vid-audio files they had just viewed had obviously pleased him.

  "Excuse me?" The captain couldn't believe his ears. "This is her entire record, some of which even I don't have access to. Her psych profile, for instance, is supposed to be completely confidential . . . "

  "We have the clearance, Wainwright," the bigger one said. The smaller one just seemed to sit and watch the door, his eyes jerking around in a squirrelly fashion.

  "We're talking about a woman's personal life. An officer who just today put her ass on the line to save a bank full of people. Why the hell are you so interested in her, and what right do you think you have to peer into the most personal aspects of her life?"

  "Mr. Wainwright, this is strictly on a need-to-know basis. You don't need to know, and believe me, you don't want to. As for Detective Webb's personal life . . . She lives in apartment 6R, Blue Rock apartments on the corner of 5th and Elliot. She's a lesbian who is currently doing the assistant DA. In fact, it looks like they may be setting up house. Her mother died when she was three. Her father was an abusive, overbearing alcoholic. She signed up for military service when she was seventeen, and was stationed to the Middle Eastern theater when she was eighteen. You probably know most of her service record by heart, but did you know that she had a lover in the war, and that the woman was blown to pieces right in front of her? Did you know that she was a prisoner of war for five weeks, and that she escaped from a camp that everyone else died in? She suffers from post traumatic shook syndrome. Her brother was murdered when she was still in the service. A Henry Chambers tried to save him from his attackers and wound up in a coma for his troubles. Spider Webb pays to keep this man in the finest rest home in the city. She visits him almost daily and has long talks with him, although he has never showed one sign of consciousness in sixteen years. She is obsessed with serial killers, mass murderers, and the paranormal, and has probably one of the largest personal collections of books on these subjects in the state . . . "

  "Is there a point to all of this?" the Captain asked. "If you already know all that, why do you need the files?"

  "The point is that we already know all about Webb's personal life. We're looking for something else in her files, and as I said, you don't want to know what."

  "Is that a threat?"

  The big one looked at the smaller one, and the smaller one smiled for the first time. The big one looked back at the Captain and smiled; an expression that chilled Wainwright to the bone. "Well, yes. Yes, it was. Now, download the fucking file, and I wouldn't tell anyone anything about any of this if I were you. People who fuck around with this particular—shall we say—problem the government is having, have a peculiar propensity for ending up dead."

  "You can't threaten me!" The captain was more than a little flustered. "I'm fucking Captain of the Shea City police force."

  The man and his colleague laughed, then the big one said, "Tell you what. File an incident report on us, and see if you still have a wife and kids by two o'clock tomorrow afternoon. This is bigger than you can imagine. The government doesn't care who they have to off. You, me, Webb, we're all way down on the food chain. People have been killed for knowing a hell of a lot less than you know right now. The best thing you can do for yourself and your family is download the fucking file and forget this entire conversation."

  The captain downloaded the file.

  He didn't tell anyone.

 
"The doctor has to sign your release, dear," the nurse said for the third time.

  Spider looked at Carrie and swung her legs out of the bed. "Screw that; I'm going home."

  "You'll play hell, too." Carrie pushed gently but firmly on Spider's shoulder. "Don't be in such a big-assed hurry. Another hour or two isn't going to hurt you."

  "Don't you have to go to work?" Spider lay back down. She didn't want to admit it, but sitting up that fast had made her a little dizzy. Not to mention nauseous.

  "Under the circumstances, Richards gave me the day off," Carrie said.

  "I want to go home. Goddamn it! Where is the fucking doctor already?"

  The nurse snuck quietly out of the room.

  Carrie laughed and sat on the bed next to Spider.

  "What's so damned funny?" Spider asked.

  "You're the biggest baby." She leaned over and kissed Spider on the cheek. "Why can't you just calm down and relax?"

  "I hate being in the hospital."

  "Nobody likes being in the hospital."

  Spider looked at her with a raised eyebrow, and Carrie laughed. "Well, nobody sane, anyway."

  "It goes a little deeper than just normal dislike. Weird shit happens every time I'm in the hospital. Every time I have a fucking check up, any time I see a fucking doctor, the weirdness factor just shoots straight up there," Spider said.

  "Superstition?" Carrie laughed in disbelief. "You're superstitious!"

  "If you had my track record with medical personnel, you would be, too. Let's just say that I'm surprised that anyone will even look at me with the bad luck I seem to heap upon medical professionals."

  The doctor walked in, then, his leg up to his hip in a cast. "Sorry I'm late." He laughed nervously. "I had a bit of an accident yesterday."

  The doctor looked over her chart, checked her pulse, took her temperature and released her.

  "How'd you break your leg?" Spider asked.

  "Fell down the stairs at home. Damn clumsy of me." The Doctor turned and started to leave, but he turned back around at the door and looked at her for a little while. "You know, you . . . better stay off that leg for a couple of days anyway. Take it easy on it for a couple of weeks. A nurse will be up shortly to check you out." He left.

  Spider smiled at Carrie. "What did I tell you?"

  Carrie had to admit that was pretty weird. "You're cursed."

  Spider wasn't sure that she liked this. She knew she'd told Carrie she would move in with her, but the idea that someone else had packed her things kind of creeped her out. Some of those things were personal, private. The thought that some strange moving company had packed her "stuff" . . . Well, except for the fact that she still had all her shit it was kind of like being robbed.

  Then there was the other thing. She had never been to Carrie's "place" before. She had thought Carrie lived in an apartment, however nice.

  She didn't. Carrie owned a house, and not exactly a very modest one. It was located in one of the best neighborhoods in Shea City. A house with a pool and "grounds," yet. As soon as she saw it, she felt instantly uncomfortable. She sat in an armchair that no doubt cost more than every piece of furniture that she owned, watching the forty-eight inch screen TV, and trying to take it all in.

  "I can't fucking believe this," Spider mumbled. "I really am a kept woman."

  She could hear Carrie in the hallway ordering the movers to take Spider's things into this room or that room. She barely won the battle, but she didn't scream, Put my shit back in my apartment, I'm going home!

  This was all too fast, and it was scaring the hell out of her. Why had she agreed to this? Why hadn't Carrie given her a little time to think about it? Really think about it, not rush in blind. Hell, she'd never felt less comfortable in her life. Which was really saying something, since she had been a prisoner of war.

  You don't move in with someone you've only known for five weeks. It's insane.

  She liked to be in control, and now, suddenly she wasn't in control at all. Someone else was making all the decisions that affected her life. Where were her books, and why didn't she get to decide where they went? Because, birdbrain, this isn't your house! You don't have a house anymore! You don't have anything except a pushy, domineering woman who is going to take over your life, and make it a living tormentuous hell!

  "Damn it, Carrie!" Spider screamed. When she didn't get any response, she tried to get up and couldn't. She fell back in the chair with a thump. Some sadistic bitch of a nurse had put a brace on her leg so that it couldn't bend at the knee.

  "Goddamn it, Carrie!" There was still no response. She screamed still louder. "Goddamn it Carrie!" When there was still no response, she started to undo the brace.

  Carrie ran into the room, out of breath. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  "What does it look like? I'm taking this fucking shit off so that I can get up and move around. Where the fuck were you? Didn't you hear me?"

  It didn't take a genius to figure out that Spider was mad. Carrie sat down across from her and tried to look at her.

  Spider looked away.

  "I was upstairs, I came as fast as I could. What's wrong, Baby?" She took Spider's hands to stop her from unwrapping the leg further, and to get her complete attention. "Honey, the doctor said not to bend your leg."

  "Don't tell me what to do!" Spider screamed back.

  Carrie looked at her and smiled. "I'm not telling you what to do, Baby. We decided to move in together, remember? We talked about it."

  "But . . . "

  "I admit it. I had your stuff moved while you were in the hospital, before you had a chance to change your mind, because I need you with me all the time."

  "But . . . "

  "You can put your stuff wherever you want it when you get better. Right now I'm just having them put it out of the way. And, no, I'm not going to make you part with anything. It's your stuff, and it belongs in our house."

  "That's just it, Carrie . . . This isn't our house. It's your house. I couldn't afford a faucet in this house."

  "My grandfather left me a small fortune when he passed away. It was either invest it, or lose the money to taxes. So I bought this house. And this is our house. I finished the paperwork this afternoon . . . "

  "Don't do that, Carrie. I don't want you to do that."

  "Why not?" Carrie smiled. "You going to leave and sue me for the house?"

  Spider looked horrified. "Of course not."

  "Then what's the problem? We're together, we're going to be together forever, so . . . Can't you just enjoy the fact that we are together? That we can afford a nice house and a pool? Do you have to worry about where it came from, whose money bought it? If it doesn't matter to me, why should it matter to you? Laura told me you put your death benefits in my name, and you don't see me bitching about it. I know that means commitment to you. Well, guess what, Baby. I'm just as committed to you."

  "Tommy!" Spider hissed then muttered. "I guess he tells her fucking everything."

  "That's what couples do."

  Spider calmed down. She was glad that she was with Carrie, and she supposed she could learn to live in luxury. She forced a smile and nodded. "It'll take some getting used to, that's all. I'm not used to having someone else make decisions for me. You have to admit that it's pretty sad that the only way I can give you anything is if I die"

  "You give me things I've never had before, Spider."

  One of the movers walked in then. He made Spider immediately uncomfortable. He was on edge, worried or something. She looked right at him and he looked away.

  "That's got it, Sir," he said to Carrie.

  Spider, still hung over from the drugs they'd given her in the hospital, couldn't quite fix on the guy. She hadn't taken any drugs since she got home and didn't plan to. She'd rather have pain than be groggy. As it was, it was hard to say what might actually be bothering the guy.

  Carrie paid him, and he and his partner left.

  "I didn't like him," Spider said. "He
was worried or something."

  Carrie looked in the direction the two men had gone. "He seemed like a nice enough fellow. A good worker."

  "I'm still so groggy. I can't be sure, but . . . I think he was hiding something."

  Carrie laughed. "Welcome to the world of the mere mortals, my sweet. Imagine never knowing exactly how people feel. Having to trust what they tell you is true." She looked with meaning at Spider.

  It took Spider a minute to get what she was hinting at. "You know I love you."