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

  “You’re losing it,” he whispered to himself softly.

  He turned the corner and immediately bumped into a large, dark figure. The person was covered by a coat that seemed to be made out of shadows, with eyes burning bright with hatred as it moved toward him menacingly.

  Jamie screamed loudly and took off in the other direction, but his stitch got the better of him again, this time right away. The shadow-figure grabbed him, and pulled him into the darkness. A dagger appeared from his coat and jabbed into Jamie’s right side.

  Blood gushed from the treads etched into the sides of the blade, splattering onto the street with a sickening splashing sound.

  As Jamie’s vision became hazy and he realized it was over, he stopped struggling against his killer’s iron grip. He fell to the ground, and the last thoughts to run through his head were that maybe if he had given up smoking just a little earlier, he might have been able to run just that little bit further...

  Xander woke up at his computer, his hair a tattered mess.

  He fell asleep on the keyboard like that often, staying online to the point past exhaustion. He wiped a bit of drool from his chin. His skin felt sticky and wet, like he had just gotten out of a bath of honey. He touched himself, and found that his flesh was clammy and warm. Glancing up at his screen, he noticed he had [email protected]. That was Sara’s e-mail.

  He opened it and scrolled down through the prattle that headed most of her e-mails, more gossip about Theresa and Derek, along with a few other tidbits about who Julie and Tommy were dating now... Then he noticed a little sentence at the end.

  Do you know where Jamie is? He was supposed to call me...

  At the mention of Jamie Dawkins, Xander’s nostrils flared. He closed and deleted the e-mail, then logged back onto his usual chat page, rubbing his tired eyes. He felt as though he hadn’t gotten any sleep at all.

  He hated all of Sara’s (what was it Cathy had called them?) serial boyfriends. Sometimes he really just wished that all the Jamie Dawkins of the world would just drop dead.

  Suddenly, he heard the familiar chime as someone online contacted him.

  Hello Pinkerton, came the instant message. Xander looked at it and smirked. He hadn’t been called that in real life in years, but it had always made for an entertaining screen name.

  Oh. Hi soul. How’s life? he replied, typing quickly.

  Alright. I’ve been looking at something weird online. I discovered some kind of bizarre... thing. I don’t have a password decoder as sophisticated as you do, I thought you might wanna take a look at it.

  Sure. What’s the site?

  Something called engen.com. Oops. Gtg!

  ‘got to go’?, Why?

  But he was gone, just as quickly as he had come online. Xander frowned. Soul had always specialized in finding weird stuff online. Weird government conspiracy videos, proof that the Moon landing was faked, the Paris Hilton video... This was probably nothing, but still, it was worth checking out.

  But it would have to wait until morning.

  He let out a long yawn, then got up and walked the two feet to his bed, fell onto his mattress, and slept.

  Officer Tom Lensherr of the Coral Beach police precinct wasn’t used to weird stuff.

  That’s partly why he joined the force of this town. He had always said that nothing ever happened in Coral Beach. And by nothing he didn’t mean nothing bad. Literally nothing ever occurred here. It was as if this town’s purpose was solely to exist.

  Lensherr never much cared for gore either. He hadn’t seen a real dead body since his first day on the job a few months ago, and that had only been a heart attack victim.

  So what he saw as he shone his flashlight into the darkened alley made his stomach turn. The image was permanently burned into his mind, enough so that he would spend the remainder of his days curling into his wife for comfort every night as he cried himself to sleep.

  Jamie Dawkins was sprawled out on the ground in a dark alley, thrown down like a piece of trash. There was blood all around him, smeared onto the brick walls that must have been the last thing he saw. His torso had been cut open revealing the inner body cavity and places where organs should have been, but weren’t. His skull had been bashed in, and looked like it had been done over and over again.

  There was a yellow, gloppy substance all around him, something that Lensherr recognized as intestines from a report he’d seen on the Discovery Channel a few weeks ago. The distinct aroma of dung and blood assaulted his senses, making him gasp for air that only brought more of the foul odor. Flecks of marrow and bone checkered the ground around them, and the boy’s empty eye sockets glared at him, screaming at him, his broken nose and shattered teeth turning his face into one bloody maw.

  Lensherr nearly vomited before picking up his radio and calling for reinforcements from the morgue. Then he shone his flashlight onto the blood blurred walls and saw what the blood spelled: Black Womb.

  CHAPTER TWO:

  CADAVER

  “Did you hear about what happened to Jamie Dawkins?”

  The news spread through the school like wildfire. Within moments of opening its doors, it seemed as if everyone in school knew. It was the hushed topic on everyone’s lips, in every gaze, in every movement. It was like a thick fog had descended into the halls, one so blinding that nobody could see anything but it.

  Sara and Cathy were both still crying to Dr. Phillips, the guidance counsellor, while a shocked Mike gave statements to the police about what time Jamie had left last night.

  Xander just watched, feeling terrible and guilty, thinking (if only in the back of his mind) that his wish had somehow caused this tragedy. He stared through the guidance counsellor’s window at Sara as she bent over and buried her face in her hands, tears streaming down, and her eyes red and puffy. Her usually perfect blonde hair was a tangled mess from the number of times that she had run her fingers through it. Her blouse was wetted with the salt water pouring out of her eyes.

  Cathy was crying too, but was still more composed than Sara. She managed to keep Dr. Phillips’ gaze, nodding to his questions and comments at the appropriate times, only now and again bringing up a hand to wipe her runny nose. She let the tears fall, making no attempt to catch them. They just fell to the floor, softly pitting against the carpet.

  Xander’s gaze fell from them. He pictured Jamie’s face, the way he had looked last year when the Cougars had won the semi-finals, his face filled with a transcendent joy. Or the way he looked the first time he and Greer Donaldson had danced at last year’s spring formal. Or the way he’d sounded the last time they’d spoken, outside in the parking lot, when he had offered to walk home with him and Sara.

  Sighing, he walked over to the nearest chair and collapsed into it. Leaning back, eyes closed shut, he banged his head off of a metal filing cabinet behind him.

  “Ow,” he said flatly, barely acknowledging it.

  He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. There were papers leaning over the side of the cabinet with police stickers on them.

  Sticking out of a pale yellow folder amongst the files were pictures of Jamie.

  Raising an eyebrow, he quickly glanced over at the police officer who was now talking with Tommy Irons. Biting his lip while he fought the urge to do it, he grabbed the file and stuffed it into his jacket, rising up from his chair and out of the counsellor’s office.

  Trying to remain as unseen as possible, something that he had become adept at over the years, he snuck through the halls and into the library. Hurrying to the back row of seats behind a bookshelf, he opened up the file and peered inside.

  What he saw was horrific. The pictures depicted the last few moments of Jamie’s life clearly. The rumors Xander had heard about the body had been true, and worse. His clothes were in shreds, especially the Cougars leather jacket he had cherished so much. The cloth that normally would have been silky was now rough and hard with dried blood. You couldn’t really tell from the pictures, but
he was sure he saw claw marks on him. His organs were all missing. Heart. Kidneys. Liver... everything except the lungs.

  “What’s that?” Mike said from somewhere in front of him.

  Xander closed the folder quickly, but without arousing caution.

  “Um... Lit Assignment.”

  “Ugh. Keep that crap away from me. I don’t need anything like that right now,” Mike droned as he sank down into a chair next to his friend. His face was flush white, his eyes distant and sad.

  Good, thought Xander. “So how are you and Cathy getting along?” he chimed, understanding his friend’s need to not talk about what was going on right now.

  “Oh. Great. But this thing with... well, it doesn’t help matters.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Grendel. I know how she feels about him...”

  “Yeah,” Xander said calmly, getting up from his seat. “And she feels better about you. You know how lucky you are to have a girl like that love you?”

  “Yeah, but...”

  “But nothing. It’s not worth the crap it’ll cause for you two.”

  Mike frowned, then smirked a little. “I hate it when you’re right, you know that?”

  “Then you’re just going to have to stop being so damn stupid all the time,” Xander replied, slapping him on the back heartily.

  “You wanna get a bite at Tiffany’s?”

  “Sure.” They headed off, and Xander took one last look back at the pictures in the folder. “I don’t think I’m gonna eat though. I haven’t really got that much of an appetite today.”

  As much as we’d like to forget it sometimes, everyone remembers a death. Not only friends and loved ones, but also acquaintances. Even people we have never met will mourn our passing thanks to media, the internet, and word of mouth. Whether we like it or not, death is always a recorded event in our society.

  Especially by the body experiencing it.

  Be it for explanations natural or external, an examination of any cadaver will tell you how it came to be in that state. Every body has a story to tell, it just cannot form the words all on its own.

  If the victim or victims were shot, there will be an entry wound of a certain size and depth depending on the weapon fired. It will tell us the positioning of the weapon, the victim, and the shooter. In some cases there is an exit wound and gunpowder residue as well, all of which can be used to reconstruct the events leading to the person’s demise.

  If the victim was strangled, veins in the eyes will appear bloodshot and pronounced.

  If the victim was stabbed, taking a mold of the puncture wound can reveal the size, shape, and sometimes even the origin of the weapon used.

  Hairs, slivers of glass, fibers, bug cocoons, defensive wounds and other foreign substances all contribute to figuring out how and under what circumstances death finally occurred.

  “Coral Beach Precinct Morgue, Tuesday the twentieth. My name is Harry Ford. I’ll be your mortician for this evening.”

  “Come on, Harry. Quit fooling around and start the tape. This guy’s creepy,” Lance Berkshire said to his partner. He scratched the few strands of remaining hair around his right ear, his stocky frame jittering a little as he did so. He always found it cold here, and just a little moist.

  He stared down at what remained of Jamie Dawkins, struggling to sum up enough saliva to allow him to speak again. After a moment, he clicked on the tape recorder. The plastic gears spun the film around them for almost a full minute before he had gathered up enough courage to start. “Subject name: Dawkins R. Jamie. Male. Caucasian, five-five, two-hundred fifty-five pounds. Cause of death: undetermined. Hey Harry, pass me the scalpel.”

  Harry’s hand convulsed as he picked up the thin titanium knife and handed it to his partner. The flippancy known as Gallow’s Humor he had clung to wavered for a moment, as he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the vacant stare of their patient.

  Lance began poking at the cold body, making one clean slice to fully expose the thorax. He wouldn’t have to do much cutting though since the entire chest cavity had been pretty much removed. There were rips and tears around the edges of the hole the killer had made, each of them with four distinct claw marks, that had made the first officer on the scene think it had been an attack by a wolf or a bear.

  His final cuts made at the neck and pelvis, Lance braced a hand on either side of the chest cavity and pushed. It opened like a hinge in dire need of oiling, and the sound it made was a wet suck followed by a snap. He looked at the rib cage he had just forced open, which was now just broken shards of bone, except for one which was smooth.

  “Harry, look at this.”

  “What? It’s a rib. So?” Harry said, raising an eyebrow and leaning his lanky frame inward, peering down at what Lance was indicating, a bit of his blonde hair falling down into his eyes.

  “So? Look at it. It’s been perfectly sawed off, like it was done with a tool. And look here,” Lance said, making a broad sweeping motion across the corpse’s torso. “All the body cavity organs have been taken, except the lungs. They haven’t even been touched. They even worked around them to get to other organs. I don’t know any animals that picky.”

  Harry maneuvered the light hanging from the ceiling to get a better look. “You mean a human did this? Something with a soul? Geez.”

  “That’s what I think,” he heaved, his frown seeming as though it were trying to escape the sides of his mouth. He checked a box and scribbled something down on his chart, his eyes darting back and forth to Jamie’s open chest.

  “What?” Harry asked, trying to follow Lance’s gaze. “What is it?”

  “The lungs are a bit dark.”

  “Probably a smoker.”

  “He’s just a kid.”

  “Most smokers are.”

  Lance shot him a wry look, then laid down his clipboard and picked up his scalpel again. “Why weren’t the lungs taken, anyway?” he asked rhetorically, fortifying one hand against the body’s shoulder as he stuck his scalpel into one of the lungs. It resisted at first, the rubbery flesh bending inward against the pressure, then eventually opened with a slight hiss of air. He slid the knife down several inches, then put his blade aside and stuck in a gloved hand, stretching the organ until that part was inside out. Seeing the inside of the boy’s lung revealed the blackness inside. It looked as though tar had been marinated into the meat. “Guess you were right. Looks like our Mr. Dawkins was actually a pretty heavy smoker. Our killer didn’t want any damaged organs. Only the best.”

  Harry looked up, shivering a little as he felt the cold, sterile environment of the morgue get just a little bit colder.

  The bathroom at the Factory was one of the filthiest in town, coming in second only to the bar on Spring Street.

  The floors were a dark green tile and grew mold so fast that you could almost watch it, first starting in the gray hued cement that held one to the other around their edges, then slowly working its way in until the original colour was just an odd dot in the centre.

  There was a space heater against the far wall that never worked, and would occasionally shoot radiant blue sparks at people walking by if there was enough water on the floor. It was a sickly nicotine yellow and always smelt like burning hair. If you looked inside the grate near its top, you could see bits of paper and beer stoppers that had been shoved inside by idle hands. Some were charred beyond recognition, others with simply singed along their edges. Once someone had found a hockey card lodged in there, wrapped in a plastic sleeve and in mint condition.

  While there were no separate bathrooms for different genders, this had clearly been the boy’s bathroom. There was a urinal not far from the heater that always stank of warm piss. It was stained a dark orange around the sides and near the bottom where it met the pipe. There were still little blue cakes placed in it every day (likely tossed in from a safe distance of several feet), but it had gone largely unused for almost two years. Very few men had wanted to put their man
hood anywhere near its corroded porcelain surface.

  The girl’s room had been commandeered by the staff several years back, when they’d decided they no longer wanted to share a bathroom with their customers.

  Sara let out a long, mournful wail as she stared at herself it the filthy mirror, trying to force herself to stop for the third time. More tears welled up and blocked her vision until she couldn’t even recognize herself, her soft features coming out like a picture taken while someone had spread Vaseline on the lens.

  She let out another long, baleful moan that turned into an “oh” sound, glancing back at the bathroom door nervously to make sure it was locked.

  There were white, milky stains around the edges of the mirror. Her gaze found them again and again, no matter how hard she tried to look away.

  She dabbed at her eyes with the stocking wrapped around her hand, clearing her vision again. She sniffed back, trying to stop her face as it insisted on leaking from every available crevice. She wiped her nose, so hard that her rings scraped against its tip and made it red.

  “Fuck,” she cursed, reaching down and retrieving her purse from her side and laying it on the edge of the sink. With trembling hands she worked the clasp, her vision becoming muddy and blurred again.

  “Stop it!” she snapped at herself, finding her foundation and slamming it down on the sink.

  She turned on the tap cautiously, only touching it with the tips of her fingers. It was just as dirty as everything else here was. There was a brown sticky substance on one end that had been there for months. The janitors avoided it as much as the patrons did.

  The water that spouted from the tap was yellow at first, then slowly faded to a more normal shade. It never completely lost that hue, and gained something that again looked like diluted milk, but was serviceable.

  She cupped her hands beneath and waited until they were full, then splashed it onto her face. It left a sour smell on her skin, but the cold was refreshing and brought her back to reality, at least for a moment.