The girl in the scarf removed her sunglasses with a flourish to reveal large, amused brown eyes. With a bounce in her step, she walked to the back of Bryn’s Hamster so Bryn had to spin around to keep her in view. It struck Bryn that the girl seemed to be almost aggressively trying to engage her attention.
“Do you hate us, then?” The girl asked, pulling her scarf away on one side just enough to reveal long black hair partially covering what appeared to a droopy bunny ear, or, given the rough appearance of the fur, a cow ear attached upside down. A cold ball of dread formed in Bryn’s stomach.
The girl’s smile faded, and her eyes shifted for a fraction of a second to somewhere over Bryn’s shoulder. Bryn started to look around, but something pressed firmly into the small of her back and a low male voice said, “Don’t move.”
Bryn stared into the xenofreak girl’s newly expressionless face as the newcomer positioned himself to stand behind her, so close she shuddered at the feel of his hips brushing against the back of her dress and stiffened when he rested his chin on her shoulder. His unshaven face pricked her bare skin and she flinched away from the rank odor of onions on his breath. “Do as we say and you won’t get hurt.” Like the girl, he sounded cheerful.
Bryn’s knees began to shake as he grasped her arm with his free hand and steered her toward a white van. Another man—except Bryn had already begun to think of them as less than human—sprang ahead of them. As soon as the second man reached out for the door handle at the back of the van, a burst of adrenaline sent Bryn’s heart racing. She reacted without thought. Clasping her fist in her hand she shot her elbow up and back, connecting with onion-breath’s nose. Ignoring the shaft of pain down her forearm, she bent forward at the waist and simultaneously lifted her knee. A hard stomp on her accoster’s instep forced a grunt out of him. The xenofreak girl stepped back and held her hands up as if denying any involvement. Bryn had just enough time to suck in a breath for a scream when onion-breath’s hand came from behind and awkwardly tried to cover her mouth. She was frantic now, throwing her arms out and twisting away.
She heard a distant voice yell, “Hey!” and experienced a fleeting hope that help was on the way just before something fast and hard caught her in the temple. The ground rose up to meet her face, crushing gravel into her cheek. She lay there, stunned and barely aware when she was dragged, lifted and dropped onto a hard metallic surface. The sound of the van doors slamming in finality was the last she heard before floating away into unconsciousness.
Chapter Four
If he compared the loosely structured hierarchy of the XBestias with that of the US Marines, Scott figured he’d fall somewhere between a private first class and a lance corporal. Not at the bottom of the heap exactly, but in the six months since he’d been playing henchman to the goons who reported to Lupus, it had been extremely difficult to gain their trust. Every one of the xenofreaks he’d met had some kind of serious personality flaw—which would explain why they’d chosen to basically mutilate themselves. Not that they thought of it that way.
The Warehouse was located in a primarily xenofreakish part of town, and that’s where they took the target. The story was that the Warehouse had been home to a chemical manufacturer shut down by the EPA for transgressions unknown to the XBestia squatters now occupying the huge tumbledown space. It took Scott months to get used to the smell, kind of a cross between sewer gas and car exhaust that was so strong it permeated the brick walls and cement floors. The original owner had purportedly gone bankrupt and never complied with EPA orders to decontaminate the site. The building went up for auction, but no one wanted to buy it, for obvious reasons. Scott and the others had no idea what they were exposing themselves to every time they came ‘home,’ but until the consequences of living in such a toxic environment manifested itself, they considered the risk marginally better than living on the streets.
He drove the van through the gate of a chain link fence with battered privacy slats and left the keys in the ignition. They got out and Scott hefted the limp and unresponsive target in a fireman’s carry. Another XBestia got into the van and took it away while Scott carried his boneless burden into the Warehouse, inhaling the scent of her vanilla body spray before the noxious odor inside had a chance to overpower his olfactory sense.
He took her to Exam Room Three, one of about a dozen eight-by-eight rooms along the west wall that had functioned as offices for the management of the previous occupants. Most of the exam rooms had blacked-out windows, but number three was built up against a load-bearing section of wall with no windows at all, and when not in use by the nurses, it doubled as a detention room of sorts. Exam Room Three got a lot of use.
Scott was met by Vonda the Snake, whose job history included surgical nurse and a short-lived stint in the medical ward at a correctional facility. From there, she’d been fired for insubordinately flouting the dress code. This was a euphemism for Vonda having gotten herself xenografted with, at last count, the skins of a dozen types of snake. Vonda was heavy-set, butch as they come, and even though she’d been nothing but nice, Scott secretly found her intimidating as hell.
He laid the target down on the exam table, said, “She took a punch to the temple, but I think she came to during the drive. Fiske didn’t hit her hard enough to last this long. I’m pretty sure she’s faking it.”
Vonda gave the target a cursory examination, lifted her lids, shined a penlight into her eyes and said in her phlegmy smoker’s voice, “This’ll go much faster if you just open them on your own, Missy. Otherwise, I’ll have to examine you further. That might involve some probing I guarantee I’ll enjoy much more than you will.”
The target’s slack face instantly tightened and her eyes opened, the left one not as widely as the right due to swelling. Scott noted an abrasion on her cheek and a bruise forming under the eye. The target glared when Vonda chuckled and gave Scott a pleased look. He forced an answering smile.
“What are you going to do with me?” were the first words out of the target’s mouth. Vonda threaded her fingers together across her prominent belly and smiled beatifically, producing an impressive double chin. “Oh, I hear you’re in for a real treat.”
From the door, a gruff voice said, “That’s enough.”
Scott looked over at Abel, an older man who functioned as Lupus’ mouthpiece and sometimes enforcer. His hairless pink pate reflected the light from the bare bulb mounted twenty feet above them, but most people didn’t so much notice the baldness as the two horns that protruded from his skull. Set above his forehead in line with his eye sockets, the pointy, three-inch long dik-dik horns were the perfect complement to Abel’s sunken cheeks and hollow grey eyes.
Vonda compressed her lips for a moment before turning to Scott. “If she vomits or starts raving—really raving, not faking it—come get me.” She walked out with her nose in the air. Not many people got along with Abel, who didn’t, as far as Scott could tell, have a good side.
Scott leaned against the wall farthest from the target as Abel entered the room and shut the door. The target had lifted herself up on her elbows, but now she sat fully up and scooted backward until her back hit the wall. She pulled her knees up under the apple green dress and wrapped her arms protectively around her legs. Scott noticed that her eyes were green, a shade or two darker than the dress.
The spurs on Abel’s cowboy boots jangled ominously as he took the two strides necessary to reach the target’s side. He reached out and grasped her chin, lifting it to get a better look at her face. She let him do it, a tear sliding down her cheek.
If Scott didn’t know him better, he’d think Abel took the tiniest bit of pity on her. The lanky old man moved back a few feet and smiled, a movement of his lips that normally reminded one of the Grim Reaper, but now looked almost pleasant.
“Your father’s a pain in the ass, did you know that?”
The target’s head seemed to be frozen in the position Abel had placed it. Her mouth barely moved as she replied, “Yeah, I kno
w that.”
It wasn’t the response Abel expected. He burst out laughing and swung around to look at Scott. “I heard she broke Fiske’s nose. You got your work cut out for you.”
Scott took that to mean he had just been appointed the target’s official jailer, which in the Warehouse also meant protector. He nodded.
“Nurse Nancy will be here in a few to run her through the protocol. Don’t let any of the yahoos get any ideas.”
Scott nodded again. The ‘yahoos’ consisted of nearly every man in the place and several of the women. Their ‘ideas’ would involve harassment at the least and sexual assault at worst. The Warehouse was not kind to the innocent. Not that Scott had ever seen anyone here that fit that description.
After Abel left the exam room, Scott and the target stared at each other for a full minute. Her bottom lip quivered the whole time. Finally, she asked in a little girl voice, “Are you going to rape me?”
Scott didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “You want me to?”
“No! God.” She sniffed and ran the back of her hand under her nose. “I want you to take me home.”
Scott imagined himself trying to do just that. “Me and what army?”
“My father is rich. He could pay you.”
She was a terrible liar. “Your father’s a mailman.”
“There—there’s lots of people who would help him. The Society…” her voice broke on a suppressed sob.
Scott waited until she pulled herself together before saying, “Look. I don’t really feel like doing this, so if you don’t mind, let’s just can the chatter.”
“Chatter? Chatter?” The second ‘chatter’ she uttered was so shrill it was almost out of Scott’s range of hearing. She leaned forward, still gripping her legs. “This is just another day for you, isn’t it? You kidnap people all the time.”
He shrugged, getting uneasy. Vonda said to come get her if the target started raving. He was pretty sure an emotional breakdown wouldn’t qualify.
Luckily, her hysteria didn’t escalate. She took a deep breath and let it out. Scott looked at the door and wondered when Nurse Nancy would get here. Maybe he could hit her up for a sedative that might make the target more amenable.
She must have caught him glancing at the door, because she asked, “What’s the ‘protocol’? What does that mean?”
“Ask Nurse Nancy.”
Even with red eyes and blotchy skin in a furious face, the target still managed to present an attractive picture. Even with the bruise, which had spread further under her eye, a thin streak of purple. She was tall, 5’8” or so, but not overly thin. Her legs, what he had seen of them anyway, looked like they belonged on an athlete—a runner maybe. Too bad she wouldn’t be able to run from what was coming.
Her eyes closed. In a defeated whisper, she said, “I can’t believe this is happening.”
Neither can I, thought Scott. Less than a year ago he was completing Marine basic training and looking forward to serving his country in the Fourth Iraq War. Turns out his country had different plans for him.
Chapter Five
It took every ounce of self-control Bryn possessed to stay relatively calm. Her head pounded and the effort to hold back tears didn’t help matters. Perched on the examination table with its stained and torn vinyl cushioning, she told herself it could be worse. She could be in a bare concrete cell chained to the wall—naked. She could be fair game for the ‘yahoos’ the old devil-man referred to.
She could be dead.
These xenoscum obviously had an agenda—some plan to make use of her—most likely to blackmail her father into backing off. They’d bring in a holocam, hand her a holoreader displaying the main page from some news site and tell her to read a statement. She’d cooperate fully.
There was no guarantee she’d get out of this alive, but the fact that she hadn’t seen where they’d taken her was a positive sign. One glaring negative was that her jailers weren’t hiding themselves from her. If they eventually set her free, she’d be able to describe everyone she’d seen.
Dead girls don’t talk.
In an effort to avoid further contemplation of that terrifying possibility she focused on the young man leaning against the wall, hands still casually in his jacket pockets. He looked like he was about to break out in bored whistling any second now.
“What’s your name?” she asked, not expecting him to answer.
“Scott.”
A short, humorless laugh escaped her. His face showed no curiosity as to what prompted the laugh, but she told him anyway. “I thought all xenofreaks had weird names.”
“Most do.”
“How’d you get that scar?”
“Fight.” He looked at the door again.
“So what’s your graft?”
In an instant, his face changed from indifferent to coldly angry. “Why don’t you shut up?”
“Because I’m scared and I’d rather not think about what you people are going to do to me,” she snapped. Ever-present tears filled her eyes again. She did not want to cry in front of this cretin.
He went to the door and opened it, looking out into the dark, cavernous space she’d glimpsed while upside-down over his shoulder. Nurse Nancy must not have been anywhere in evidence because he shut the door again and sighed.
Bryn knew she’d have a better chance coming out of this alive if she connected somehow with her jailers. But these people had debased and dehumanized themselves; how was she supposed to make them sympathize with her?
This Scott guy took taciturn to a whole new level, but Bryn felt it was imperative to get him talking. She asked the first thing that came to mind.
“What the heck’s that smell?”
He flashed a fleeting grin and responded, “That’s just us xenofreaks.”
It winked into and out of existence so quickly she almost missed it: Scott had a sense of humor. Desperately, she tried to think of something funny to say.
“Well it smells like a janitor’s mop,” she said. When the corner of his mouth barely twitched, she resorted to the one thing all guys found amusing: potty humor. “Or a dinosaur fart.”
That did it. Scott looked at her like she’d gone insane, but he laughed. She’d wedged the chisel in the crack; too bad she didn’t have time to hammer away and make it wider. A perfunctory knock on the door heralded Nurse Nancy’s arrival.
She was a he.
Nurse Nancy ignored Scott and greeted Bryn with a wide smile. In a feminine twang, he said, “Having a rough day, are we?”
She nodded, struck dumb by his xenoalteration. The skin of his lower face, along his jaws and chin and above his lip, everywhere a man’s beard would grow, had been replaced with soft brown fur. She tried to keep her gaze level with his, but it kept dropping.
“You want to touch it?” He leaned forward.
The last thing on God’s green earth Bryn wanted to do was feel this man’s face, but she couldn’t afford to alienate him from the outset. Keeping her revulsion under control wasn’t easy as she placed her fingertips against the fur. It wasn’t as soft as she’d expected, and as soon as she realized the stiffened tufts contained remnants of past meals, she snatched her hand away.
Nurse Nancy didn’t seem to notice. “Much better than a prickly old man beard, don’t you think?”
Bryn flashed on a memory from last year during her blissful two-month relationship with the junior class president. She and Paul made out at every opportunity, and not even the best moisturizer had toned down the redness and chafing around her mouth from the sparse stubble on his chin. Paul ended up dumping her for skanky Sheila Gottfried, claiming that all Bryn’s teasing drove him to it. She wondered how he would feel when he saw her picture in the news.
“Alright, my pretty,” Nurse Nancy said. “I need to take some blood and get your vitals. Have you ever a serious illness?”
For the first time, Bryn noticed the tray of medical accoutrements Nurse Nancy held. He set it on the only other piece of furni
ture in the room, a small end table in the corner.
“Yes? No? Maybe so?” he prompted.
Baffled, Bryn answered, “No.”
Nurse Nancy continued to pepper her with questions about her medical history while he wrapped a flexible tube around her upper arm and withdrew some blood. For the life of her, Bryn couldn’t think of a logical reason for what he was doing.
“Anyone in your family have cancer?”
“My great-grandmother died of pancreatic cancer.”
Nurse Nancy removed the tube and the needle and pressed a cotton ball on the prick site. “Hold that.”
Obediently, Bryn put her forefinger on the cotton ball while he stuck a piece of tape over it.
“How about heart disease?” he asked.
For some reason, Bryn’s eyes sought out Scott’s. He’d heard her father’s speech. He knew about her mother. Yet there wasn’t the smallest bit of sympathy on his face.
“My mom,” Bryn said.
Nurse Nancy tutted, wrapped a blood pressure cuff on the same arm and rapidly squeezed the pump.
“What kind of heart disease?”
“Dilated Cardiomyopathy.”
He nodded sagely, watching the dial on the cuff as he slowly released the pressure. “She die?”
“Yes.”
Apparently, not everyone here knew her history. Did he even know who she was or that she being held against her will? She’d assumed he did because he’d asked about her day, but maybe he was just referring to her swollen cheek. A brief flash of hope was squelched when he said, “Alright gorgeous, you’re all set. Blood pressure’s a little high, but I think that’s understandable under the circumstances.”
He picked up the tray with its medical instruments and finally acknowledged Scott with a hard look. “Don’t mess with her.”
Scott just lifted his eyebrows.
Xenofreak Nation Page 2
