One of Them (Vigil #2) Read online

  The light from the walls was pulsating.

  “May I ask you a question, doctor?” I said, twitching.

  “I am not a doctor.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Okay. But I am not a medical doctor.”

  “It’s no big thing, but—” I felt a freight train of pain tear up and down my spine. I did my best to hold it inside, to keep it from showing. I continued to speak, my voice cracking. “You say I am what I am, yet my teeth are normal. Can you explain to me why my teeth are normal?”

  It was a small question, to see if I could get an answer. The first thing off the top of my head. Anything to distract me from the dwindling spasms.

  “This is not a story, Ms. Kimble. Teeth do not retract willy-nilly. And you don’t need them to ingest blood. It’s nonsense. It is not a real thing.”

  “Drinking blood is not a real thing, either.”

  “Sure it is. In nature, it’s more common than people realize.”

  “Common in what way?”

  “I have answered you, answered you too much,” the voice said. “I would now like you respond to me in kind. You are a well-bred young woman. You understand the concept of quid pro quo.”

  I couldn’t help it. Laughter just exploded out of me. And boy did it feel good. I needed the release more than I had realized. “You say you know everything about me, but I’m not sure you do,” I said, still chuckling. “A lot of dark crap was kept out of my many, many psychological reports. You can chalk that up to the benefits of having an extremely important father.”

  “Grace, I know more about you than you can possibly imagine.”

  “I don’t think that you do, Doc. You said I’m violent, but I am more than that. I’m a major league cunt with psychopathic tendencies. I do what I want, and I get what I want. You—you are going to get jack shit. You can keep speaking to me all nicely, and all you will get out of it is jack shit. You can let me out of here, and it won’t matter—jack shit. I’m an immovable object. And as I wait for my eventual opening, I will sit here and veg the fuck out. Because apparently, I have a pretty long life ahead of me.”

  “This does not have to be confrontational.”

  “Of course, it does. Someone did this to me. For all I know, that someone is you.”

  “Confrontation and immovability can work both ways.”

  “Yeah, I’m shaking. What the hell else are you pricks going to do to me? You’ve taken everything from me and locked me up.”

  “We know how to persuade. We are well versed in those arts.”

  “Then send in your goons and torture me. I am not afraid.”

  “You also don’t know exactly what you are just yet, or even where you are. Who says we need to go in there to apply pressure?”

  “That’s true, but somebody has to come in here to feed me.” I pointed back at the container on the floor. “One of you brought that in here. And one of you will have to bring something fresh in. Or don’t I need fresh blood?”

  “I don’t feel like I should be sharing anymore,” the voice said.

  “Just for the record, if starvation is what you meant by methods of persuasion, then I will believe it when I see it.” I hopped up onto bed. The paper gown I had over me ripped from behind as I plopped down hard. “I need to piss,” I bellowed. “Where am I supposed to do that?”

  “The bucket. Once you’ve emptied it.”

  I looked at it sitting there, half-filled. “Classy.”

  “It’s either that or pick a favorite corner.”

  I reclined back on the bed and ceased communicating.

  “You’re the one who is making this difficult,” the voice said. “This will be a trying time for you, it always is. Cooperation will only make the transition easier. I’m giving you a second opportunity to coexist nicely. We can all begin again, and you will learn that we are not the villains here.”

  The person talking was a woman. After that last spiel, I was certain of it. All needy and giving away second chances like they were candy. The tone was so cloyingly familiar it could have been my stepmother, if she weren’t such an illiterate idiot.

  The voice yammered on, not stopping until I went over and squatted in the corner. I wasn’t too proud to go where I needed to go, and I loved that I could shock my questioner into silence.

  Locked up the way I was, I’d take the upper hand any way I could get it.

  Where It Hurts

  The battle of wills stretched on for a couple of days. I withheld; they withheld. They poked; I poked back. All that resulted from our petty skirmishes was a stinky room—that thanks to the multiple deposits I’d had no choice but to keep on making in the corner. My patience was holding steady, though. I couldn’t say anything for certain about theirs.

  Day in and day out, one event became a constant, and that was the continual delivery of blood, refilled in an alternatively colored bucket. The switch was made whenever I was out of it. I would fall to the inevitable oblivion of exhaustion, and once I came around, it would just be there. I had no clue how they were getting the buckets in or out—and I never once finished one off, not entirely. On the second night, I did everything I could to not succumb to sleep. But after a certain amount of time, I would fall into this woozy, weakened condition, and I would lose consciousness.

  I hesitate to even use the word ‘sleep’ when I’m talking about that particular state because it was nothing like how sleeping used to be for me. It was more like a light-turning-off kind of thing, as if I had run out of power. I never drifted off into dreamland; I snapped off. And when I woke back up, I could never remember dreaming of any kind—and I had always remembered my dreams—to a ridiculous degree.

  These blackouts, as I started to call them, were the only method I had for measuring time while I was being held within the box. By my count, I was able to remain conscious for about twelve hours between collapses. But I had no clue how long I was actually out of it. That could have been twelve hours as well, which was likely, or maybe even longer. Without a clock or a watch there was no way to be sure. And there was always a chance the blackouts weren’t a natural occurrence. Perhaps I was being drugged. That had to remain a possibility.

  The games being played against me began to escalate on day four. During the first three cycles, they would do simple shit like turn up the glowing walls too bright in an attempt to make me uncomfortable. To counteract that move, I had these newfangled things called eyelids, which I occasionally closed. Following that brilliant maneuver, they began piping in loud music—the middle-of-the-road, heavy metal crap that I hated. That could be ignored as well, all you had to do is think about something else. My thoughts centered around what I was going to do once I got out of there, and who was going to die first.

  In between attempts to prod me into cooperation, the voice would return and slip in various new questions. All of these inquiries had something to do with my overall health. They asked me about my sleeping patterns. I said nothing. They asked me about my bowel movements. I pointed at the corner. They asked questions about my strength. Were my muscles hurting? They didn’t get as much as a shrug.

  When they finally decided to get personal, I was lying on my side on the bed, having just reawakened, my paper gown barely held together in strips and tatters.

  The voice said to me, “It’s not as if you don’t have any loved ones, you know.”

  There was a different source behind this voice, a different speaker. There had been several different speakers, but the voice always came out sounding the same, overmodulated and cliché. It was easy to tell the speakers apart, though. None of them were interested in any of the same subjects, and not a single one formed sentences or thoughts in a similar manner. As an example, the most recent dipshit asked no question, he just started off with his threat. This is what made him a he. The males of the world like to bandy about all tough, whipp
ing their dicks out as if they were the most impressive tools in their arsenal.

  “Officer Kimble, you have not been a model guest, now have you? What we have been asking from you has not been that much.” He made a tsk-tsking sound with his tongue. “I now regret to inform you that significant actions have been taken. Your former partner, one Angela Chen, has been removed from the force and arrested. There have been questions raised about the relationship between the two of you and Chen’s involvement in your subsequent disappearance. The charges involve the alteration of the crime scene at the Las Rosas complex and her complicity in the cannibalistic murder of Kara Manning. The District Attorney’s theory goes as this: the two of you arrived on the scene and had a confrontation with Manning—who was not being raped, and with whom you personally had a run-in before. You, Kimble, being of the notoriously violent sort, beat her to a pulp in anger. The coroner believes Manning was still alive when, to cover your crime, you and Chen proceeded to create the illusion of a mysterious assailant. The suspicion is that you yourself chopped away at the victim with some undiscovered blade you had no doubt been carrying on your person illegally—that was the kind of cop you were, after all. The bite marks on Manning’s body remain a mystery. Did you do that or did Chen? Good money is on Chen. She’s suspected of coming up with the cannibal story without the aid of her less intelligent partner. Any way you cut it, your pal is in a whole lot of trouble, particularly after naked photographs of you were found in her apartment. Chen’s personal proclivities were never public knowledge until now. To be frank, it has all become a raging scandal on television. The world believes you and Chen were lovers who covered up a crime with an even larger crime, and then you hightailed it out of town and left your girlfriend holding the proverbial bag. A large manhunt is underway at the moment, focusing on you. Most believe you will never be found. After all that fibbing that you did, you never were a normal cop, now were you? You were a liar from the beginning, changing your name the way you did. It makes one suspicious. Not me, of course—I know you did it because of your Daddy and his interfering ways. The bubbleheads on the tube believe you did it because you have something to hide. I personally like their version better than the truth. What do you think? How does all of this make you feel?”

  He stopped spitting out his bullshit, and I yawned. He tried to get me going a second time with a few more additions to his story, but I wasn’t going to respond. I remained impenetrable and uninterested.

  But on the inside, I was tickled pink. Mostly because I knew who it was who speaking to me. I had known from almost the moment he’d started talking. The cadence he used when he said ‘Officer Kimble’ was all-too familiar. Someone else I’d met recently had said it the same way, his words trilling.

  “This can all go away, you know,” the voice told me with that aw-shucks manner he’d used on me before. “You help us, and you can have your old life back. Chen will be released and the true story can be revealed as a plot to capture the dangerous murderer Danny Ray Jessup—a madman who wanted credit for his crimes. We took away that credit to draw him out of hiding. You put your good name on the line to bring him to justice. Imagine the cheers. You’d be a national hero instantaneously.”

  I shook my head.

  “Or, if you’d prefer, the old you can be gone forever. You can start anew, and work for the Detail. Your abilities would make you an excellent fit there.”

  With confidence, I took my swing. “None of that stuff is going to happen, Castellano. Your offer is crap, just like your fairy tales about Chen and I are crap.”

  “What did you just say?” The voice seemed startled. I knew I had him.

  “I said you’ve been lying to me, Castellano. You have been lying to me since you first came to see me in Mac’s office.”

  “I am not this Castellano,” the voice said.

  “Yes, you are. You’re the commander of the Detail. You’re not fooling me.”

  “I am not him.”

  “Come on. Drop the facade. I’m onto you. You cannot and will not sucker me again. I’m in charge now. Get used to it, you stupid son of a bitch.”

  Creature Comforts

  Once I’d called out my interrogator by name, the omnipresent voice went AWOL, and the powers that be appeared to abandon their attempts to manipulate and torment me.

  Eventually, after several hours without the lights, the music, and someone to hate, I grew bored. I climbed off the bed to stretch, and felt an acute, immediate rumble beneath my feet. The four walls and the ceiling disconnected from the floor and rose upward with snail-like momentum. On the other side of the flown-in panels were flattened steel plates, three inches in width and spaced six inches apart. These pseudo-bars formed an outer square around me, a secondary cage meant to keep me contained precisely where I was.

  The walls and the ceiling completed their ascent at approximately twelve feet above my head, where they locked into place against the bars and ceased their grinding. The entire space echoed with inactivity. I took a look around. On the other side of the bars was a grated walkway, a part of a larger grid pattern. In addition, there were multiple boxes identical to the one I had been kept in, visible in all four directions. I counted three in front of me, three behind, and one on each side, all closed and encased in a cage, like mine had been just a moment before.

  I walked beside the bars, testing their strength with my grip. They were solid—crazy solid. I wasn’t getting out that way. I was just about to leap upward and gauge the connection the bottom of the wall had to the top of the bars when I heard footsteps. The noise being made was loud and clanking, but I did not make out any accompanying voices. A heartbeat later, bulky figures came barreling around the box to my left. They were both male, in puffy orange safety suits, their faces made invisible behind darkened face shields. Each of my apparent keepers carried a limp vinyl hose like the kind that firefighters used. One of the men reached back and removed a parcel from a bag he had strapped to his back. He pulled out what looked to be another orange safety suit and tossed it through the bars. It slid inward a couple of feet before coming to a stop on the grainy metal. I walked over to it and picked it up and shook it out. It was a garment, in the shape of a giant housedress. The men appeared to be waiting for me to put it on, and I was curious. I slipped the covering over me and took a step back, ripping the remains of the paper dress away my body and wadding it up into my fist. I was pretty sure about what was coming next.

  The men stepped closer to the cage, but not too close, and clicked levers on the end of their unwound hoses. Water sprang outward in pounding streams, which they aimed at the spot I had been using to relieve myself in. I watched as the disgusting mess went washing down the outer grating. For just an instant, I became mesmerized by the lack of stench. The men then turned their hoses onto the cell in general, and myself in particular, washing everything down, including the half-empty blood bucket. The plastic container smacked up against the bars and was cleaned out. As the streams began to pummel me, I let out a joyful squeal. I turned and slicked back my hair, luxuriating as if I were under my own shower head at home. The blood that was all over me was soon gone, and I felt like my old self, if only for a moment. Finished with their cleanup, the men turned off their water supplies and strode off. I was left dripping in the orange covering, still holding the balled-up gown. I made my way over to the upside down bucket and set it right. I placed my hand onto the mattress and found it soaked as well. I was a drowned rat in a drowned room, but at least the both of us were clean.

  In short order, I heard another set of footsteps tapping, alongside a happy-go-lucky whistling. I took in a steadying breath as a shadow emerged around the corner, trailed by a familiar former colleague.

  “Castellano,” I said, staring with contempt as the thin Latino gentleman strutted closer to my cell, his whistling growing ever louder. He was dressed in a black pinstripe suit and was carrying a metal folding chair in his rig
ht grasp. He looked me straight in the eyes, as pleasant as can be. It seemed we were going to have a chat. He began to smirk, as if he had somehow gotten the better of me.

  He ceased the obnoxious noise he’d been making with his mouth and pried apart his chair, placing it into position, well clear of the bars. He took a seat. “Grace,” he said cheerily. “I hope you don’t mind me dropping the formality, but we appear to know each other better than I thought. It was quite impressive recognizing my speech pattern the way you did. You are everything we had been told and more. A born investigator.”

  I took the remains of my paper gown and hurled it at him. Castellano flinched. The wad struck between the bars and fell haplessly to the floor, having never made it through the cage. If the bars hadn’t been there, he would have gotten a face full of my filth.

  “There’s no reason to vilify me,” he said as he crossed his legs and regained his composure. “We have kept you here for your own protection. Your kind does not always survive in the wild. Supposedly, it rarely occurs. When we found you alone in the complex, we brought you here, so we could do our best by you, to make sure you have some kind of decent life ahead of you. We owe you that much.”

  I pointed at the box behind him. I could feel the emotion swelling up inside me. “Is that what you tell the things that you’re keeping in these other cells? Do you tell them this is all for their own good?”