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

  Published in Canada by Engen Books, St. John’s, NL.

  Copyright © 2017 Matthew LeDrew

  NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPYING AND RECORDING, OR BY ANY INFORMATION STORAGE OR RETRIEVAL SYSTEM WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR, EXCEPT FOR BRIEF PASSAGES QUOTED IN A REVIEW.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Distributed by:

  Engen Books

  www.engenbooks.com

  [email protected]

  Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-926903-71-2

  BLACK WOMB: HABEAS CORPUS

  MATTHEW LEDREW

  In the style of 80s teen slasher movies comes Black Womb, the story of four Maine teens being stalked by a relentless, shadowy killer. As more and more of their friends are picked off, the killer is revealed to work for a sinister government agency with deep ties to one of the teens and the deep secret they’re hiding.

  Table of Contents

  BLACK WOMB: HABEAS CORPUS MATTHEW LEDREW

  BOOK ONE: BLACK WOMB

  PROLOGUE: SHE RAN

  CHAPTER ONE: SMALL TOWN

  CHAPTER TWO: CADAVER

  CHAPTER THREE: INJECTED

  CHAPTER FOUR: SPIDER WEB

  CHAPTER FIVE: GOOD TIME

  CHAPTER SIX: ZONE

  CHAPTER SEVEN: ENGEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT: GENBLADE

  CHAPTER NINE: TRUTH

  CHAPTER TWELVE: OUT

  EPILOGUE

  BOOK TWO: TRANSFORMATIONS IN PAIN

  INTERLUDE: SHE RAN

  CHAPTER ONE: CONFESSION

  CHAPTER TWO: PICTURES

  CHAPTER THREE: SUPER HERO

  CHAPTER FOUR: HEAD FIRST

  CHAPTER FIVE: TRANSFORMATIONS IN PAIN

  CHAPTER SIX: REAL EVIL

  CHAPTER SEVEN: FEVER DREAM

  CHAPTER EIGHT: POWER

  CHAPTER NINE: CASE CLOSED

  BOOK THREE: SMOKE AND MIRRORS

  INTERLUDE: SHE RAN

  CHAPTER ONE: WHERE THERE’S SMOKE

  CHAPTER TWO: REFLECTION

  CHAPTER THREE: POWERLESS

  CHAPTER FOUR: HOSPITAL FOOD

  CHAPTER FIVE: SMOKING GUN

  CHAPTER SIX: HUMANITY

  CHAPTER SEVEN: CRANE

  CHAPTER EIGHT: TRIALS AHEAD

  CHAPTER NINE: REMATCH

  CHAPTEN TEN: SEE

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: AN ENDING

  EPILOGUE

  MORE TITLES BY MATTHEW LEDREW

  Bio: Matthew LeDrew

  BOOK ONE: BLACK WOMB

  PROLOGUE:

  SHE RAN

  She turned around fast, too afraid to blink.

  She was running so fast that great clumps of her knotted black hair swung into her eyes while she searched the snow covered hillside desperately, brief breaks in the cloud cover providing her with enough visibility to make out movement in the dense forest behind her.

  Breath escaped her mouth in great white puffs, swirling around her head like cigarette smoke. Her eyes darted across the waving white horizon of the small clearing she had just sprinted across. Panting loudly, she tried to hear above the sound of her breath and the snow crunching beneath her bare feet, now blue and numb from hours of constant running.

  She tried to wiggle her toes but the exertion on her frozen extremities sent bolts of electric pain up her legs and into her spine, finally exploding out the back of her head. She decided not to do it again.

  She took one last heave as she leaned against a large oak tree next to her. Her back muscles tensed even more for a moment, then finally loosened for the first time in hours. She closed her eyes only briefly. They stung fiercely from the dry cold and days without sleep. Adjusting the large bulge of blankets she had stuffed under her shirt for warmth, she placed one arm firmly beneath them and huddled them close to her breasts.

  A sound in front of her made her eyes snap open once again, her large pupils instantly scanning the landscape relentlessly. There was no wind, and the thick patches of evergreen trees scattered throughout the clearing hung as lifelessly as if they were in a painting. Their heavy branches were weighed down by the snow, making them droop and resemble old sagging faces. They glared at her like gargoyles, each one of them screaming, scowling, laughing and passing judgment on her with their collective brows turned downward in horrible sneers of distaste.

  Every movement of the branches, every rustling of a shrub, became a possible danger. Became the idea that something could be there, looking back across the field for any sign of movement, just as she was.

  She held her breath until her chest ached even more, her heart rate climbing. Her veins felt like they were on fire, a stark contrast to her skin, which was now turning blue from the intense cold. She knew it had been a bad idea to stop moving, but she had to.

  An owl let go of the branch a few feet above her, not making a sound. The snow loosened from the dead branch and fell to the ground, becoming invisible once there. The great bird circled a small area around her before flying silently off to the south and deeper into the woods, where she had been heading.

  She chuckled to herself softly, shaking her head at her own paranoia. She had not only doubled, but tripled back upon herself more than once. She had purposely walked in three large circles every mile since she had started running, hours ago. The only thing she had not done was cover her tracks, a near impossibility when wading through three feet of snow.

  Keeping a suspicious eye on the open slope before her, she began to examine herself. The black parka she had stolen was still in relatively good condition. It had only been ripped once or twice at the elbows by stray tree limbs. The brown fox fur that lined the neck was still completely intact and had managed to keep her upper body at least a little warm. That kept her heart and lungs warm and kept them pumping warm blood and air through her body, giving them the strength and vitality they would not have had otherwise. Below the waist was only the bottom half of a simple nightdress and a normal paper hospital gown. It provided about as much protection against the cold as ‘thinking warm thoughts’.

  She grimaced when she noticed a large gash in her right knee, probably from when she had tripped a quarter mile back trying to create a shortcut through a thick patch of shrubs and roots. Bits of twigs and pebbles stuck out of it, along with blood that was now frozen onto the skin. She tried hard not to think about how painful that would be once she got feeling back in the lower half of her body.

  She did not even look at her feet, afraid of what she might see. She was afraid that the odd snap she had heard two miles into her run had been one of her toes coming off. She did, however, take note of a viscous green fluid that had splattered all the way up to her pelvis at some point. It seemed to be fading even as she watched it, like suntan lotion as it seeped into your skin. A feeling of relief came over her and she began to think there was at least some hope for her frozen appendages.

  Deciding she had wasted enough time, she pushed off from the tree with one arm, her body groaning in rebellion as she forced it into movement again. Looking at the forest ahead of her, she saw no real path in sight. It looked like a black and white etching from a Brothers Grimm story, especially the oaks with their leaves long dead from the fall. Yet as horrible as it seemed, she thought she could see the pale light of civilization past them and she dared to think that she might be close to some form of sanctuary.


  She turned and smirked at the tree she had leaned against, looking at the withered knots and crannies that made up its haggard face.

  Someone had told her years ago that every tree had a face. She had thought it to be fairy tale bullshit, but if tonight had proven anything it was just the opposite. They had been her only company since she’d entered the tree-line.

  “Thanks,” she whispered humbly.

  Old Man Oak seemed to approve.

  Then she saw it out of the corner of her eye.

  She turned, her hair again catching in her eyes, toward the soft glint she could have sworn she had seen near the edge of the clearing. It was gone now and she squinted and strained her eyes toward the spot where it had been, wishing to the moon for just a little more light.

  She got her wish as a pair of headlights turned on from the horizon, illuminating her in bright yellow. Her mouth wide, she thrust up her hands to protect herself from the temporary blindness so instinctively that she almost dropped the blankets she’d been using for warmth.

  Immediately after she was doused in light, the source of the glint she had seen was identified. Rifle fire erupted all around her, turning the face of Old Man Oak into sharp splintered sticks. They bounced off her parka as she turned and bolted into the black forest with more gunshots following her, tearing up the virgin snow and sending it sailing in all directions at once.

  She pumped her legs harder and faster than she ever had as sweat began to freeze to her scalp. She heard the sound of three... no, four engines revving to life as they started their decent down the clearing after her.

  Sharp twigs nipped at her exposed flesh as she fled into the nearest clump of trees too dense for one of their snowmobiles to follow through. She started to make her way toward the light she had seen a moment ago, but had already lost track of.

  The leader of the drivers vaulted off a mogul, landing in an outburst of fresh powder. It sprayed up into his face and parka. The other drivers followed in suit close behind. He leaned over the right edge of his snowmobile and took aim at the woman as her form began to disappear through the trees. He trained his eye on her while struggling to maintain his balance, a circular red lens over his right eye. It looked like a futuristic monocle and displayed information to him, feeding him decreasing statistics on her distance from him, wind resistance, and speed. Smirking to himself from beneath his gray toque, he applied first pressure to the trigger slowly. He fought to keep the barrel in line with the small of her back as she bobbed and weaved through the brush.

  His left ski hit a rock hidden by the snow and made his arm jostle to the right, the gun firing at the same time. The shoulder strap on his rifle came loose and he cursed as he was forced to drop it to steady the vehicle. He watched her continue to move away from his team as one of the other drivers stopped at a line of brush to continue on foot, leaving the engine running.

  The leader turned toward the front, trying to see if there was a way he could continue with his machine. All at once, it seemed like his snowmobile had stopped moving. The tree that the woman had been standing next to was much closer than he had judged it to be and was moving directly at him.

  He barely got the chance to react as the front slammed into the trunk at top speed. He got the chance to think one thought, comprised of exactly one word, before the left side of his face ripped across the jagged, splintered wood of the tree. The momentum carried him forward, slamming his shoulder completely out of socket before launching him into the bushes behind it. The broken red glass from his lens protruded from multiple gouges across the right side of his face. He could already feel his mouth and lungs fill with gummy, coppery liquid and bile through the dual holes in his lungs made by fractured ribs. His spleen had been ruptured. Before he fell into unconsciousness and the certain death that would come soon afterward, he couldn’t help but notice his blood. How black it looked against the pure white of the snow, when bathed in the stark moonlight.

  She saw the light in front of her again now. It flickered on and off, this way and that, like a candle trying to hold its own against a light breeze. She pressed forward with tears streaming down her cheeks and freezing there. Blood poured from the gunshot that had just grazed her hip and now gushed down over her thigh, at least serving to keep her warm.

  She could hear him behind her. He was getting closer and closer with every foot they ran, each stride of his powerful legs propelling him at least twice as far as hers were.

  The blankets moved and shifted under her breasts, and again she steadied them with her hand.

  The light got clearer and clearer and she began to see colours and shapes. Two, then three sources of light and finally a fourth as she cleared a large overhanging branch. Biting down hard on her lower lip, she clutched her bundle against her chest and ploughed her way through one last thicket. She emerged into a clearing on the other side and stopped dead in her tracks, kicking up powder as she did so.

  It erupted out of the ground in front of her as if from nowhere. The lights of civilization were apparent now, a mile or two behind it. Its twin steeples rose high into the mist that she hadn’t realized was there a moment ago. The flickering lights behind its massive stained glass windows made the images and characters on them dance vibrantly.

  It was a convent.

  Large wooden doors that looked too big to open were no more than four yards in front of her, their huge brass knockers begging for her to take them in her hand.

  She hesitated, staring up this time at actual gargoyles grinning down at her from on high. They protected the central statue on the beautiful architectural masterpiece: the mother Mary. She cradled her child Jesus in her arms and stared down at him. She stared not as a woman who gave her son to better the world she lived in, but as a mother, looking upon her one love and greatest achievement.

  She unzipped her parka slowly and carefully removed the bundle of dull green blankets held within. Taking off the top layer, she looked down upon her child, curled into a shivering ball to protect itself against the harsh cold. It was devoid of the cuts and scrapes that tattered her body, yet somehow there was blood on its still-pink skin. She realized after a moment that it was her own. The baby’s skin was beginning to turn a hue of light blue despite her efforts to keep it warm, and she was relieved when its chest rose and fell before her. Tearing her gaze away from her wonderful child, she turned back toward the convent.

  The gargoyles seemed to have turned toward her while she was looking away and now leaned in to stare at the child with renewed interest. Their devilish smiles and curling tongues were lashing out with thirst.

  She turned her head when she heard a rustling not far behind her, snapping her out of the momentary trance the sight of the building had placed her in. She bolted forward, grabbing one of the brass knockers and slamming it three times as hard as she could.

  There was no response.

  Her lower lip quivering and bleeding, she looked down at the child, too cold to even open its eyes. Salt tears streaming down her face, she kissed it once on the forehead then laid it on the stone step.

  The gargoyles seemed to dance and bounce with clandestine glee as she turned and ran back the way she came.

  The sound of her footfalls continued for a moment or two before a shot rang out onto the chilled air, followed only by silence.

  Several long moments passed. The biting winter wind began to pick up again, making the few hairs on the baby’s head stand on end as it shivered and shook.

  A light went on upstairs in the convent, then another, not far from the doors.

  Crouched at the tree line, a dark-skinned man wearing another gray toque and parka uniform peeked through the clearing at what was taking place. He knelt down low and aimed his rifle, set the crosshairs to intersect at the child’s head, and placed his finger on the trigger.

  The massive front door of the building creaked open, sending a beam of light down onto the infant. It winced, raising its chubby arms to block the new brightn
ess as it washed over him, suddenly replaced by a shadow.

  Sister Ruth Main looked down at the helpless child, still squinting from the brightness. Her old sagging features went from shocked to a kind smile as she pushed either side of her habit behind her shoulders and knelt down, picking up the baby and holding it close to her warm body. The infant opened its eyes and looked at her, the light from inside streaming around her head as she smiled at it, cooing softly. She looked like an angel.

  The man in the brush shifted his gun sight, making sure it still intersected with the child’s head.

  Ruth let her hand rest on the child’s head, pushing back its soft hair until it stood on end. The golden crucifix that dangled around her neck caught the child’s eye and it followed it intently, its small mouth opening in toothless awe.

  He paused, slowly taking pressure away from the trigger before finally letting go of it altogether. The barrel dropped away as he watched Ruth cradle the child and look all around the grounds, before taking the babe back inside. He frowned, a determined look coming over him, then turned around and began the walk back toward his snowmobile.

  January 28. Subject female, early twenties, caucasian, roughly 150 pounds. Reference number 08276. Was exposed to the darkness during first trimester of pregnancy. Subject is now twenty one days pregnant. This one appears hopeful.

  February 12. Subject showing rejection to vitamins and other birth enhancing chemicals. There are an unusual number of white blood cells in the patient’s blood stream. Further studies into possibilities of diabetes and other diseases’ are pending. Considering Philidamide.

  March 1. Subject has gone into early labor. Child appears to be perfectly healthy, with no sources of the darkness within his genetic structure. The project has been terminated, marked FAILURE.

  March 7. Female subject has fled with her child. One soldier killed during said escape. Female subject was captured approximately five miles from town. As per procedure she was made insulin-deficient prior to testing. Prolonged time away from treatment center caused kidney failure and other complications resulting in her death. However, the child was too young to be altered in any such way...