The Bee Keeper

by Vincent, Tracy D

  “He was very angry. Justifiably so. He even tried to bribe and threaten. Eventually, he cried. Sobbed big tears. Dr. Miller used a very tried and true technique on your son.” She walks over and uses that odd-shaped blade to slice into the skin of my forearm and curl under it.

  She grasps one end and pulls while sliding the blade underneath, separating the flesh from the tissue beneath. After she gets six or so inches lifted, she slices through the other side to completely remove the skin.

  I can’t stop myself from watching the skin peeling back, and the white and burgundy tissue underneath. In several spots blood welled up and started spilling over toward the table. It’s very surreal, almost like it’s happening to someone else—until my arm lights on fire. I scream into my gag. I can’t get enough air in through my nose and I start to hyperventilate.

  “Oh, we can’t have you pussing out on us, Senator,” she says while undoing my belt and pulling the sock out of my mouth.

  I gasp for air, moans and cries escaping me. Once my breathing calms down, I shout, “You fucking cunt! I’m going to make certain that everything you have fucking burns down.”

  She tsks me and swipes the blade at my nose. Pain erupts before I can even react. I can feel blood pouring down into my nose, choking me. “Oh shit! Looks like I took a little much off the end of your nose. Damn, I’m sorry, turn your head to the side, it’ll prevent you from drowning.” She snickers before saying, “Fucking bastard.”

  “Geoffrey needed jail time and rehab. Mostly he needed to get away from you and your machinations about how he needed to live his life.” She speaks over my wailing and sputtering, continuing on as if she never cut off the tip of my nose.

  “He never deserved this. But he did give us a lot of valuable information. He told us about Edward and Maya and Phillip. He had no clue just how devious Edward and Maya were. Speaking of those two, they were a match made in hell, but they were too stupid to see it.” She moves to my thigh and starts tearing my skin there. The pain makes me roar out.

  Why isn’t anyone stopping her? I know that they are aware of who I am. Why won’t they break down the door?

  “Dr. Miller took some mercy on him, not as much as he took on Angela. But he recognized that in the grand scheme, your son was inconsequential and really started a long line of shit, but inherently, the evil here wasn’t his.” She walks up near my face, shoves the skin she just ripped off into my mouth, and pushes my head down hard to the side. “You really need to keep your head turned so you don’t drown. Imbecile.”

  I spit it out, recoiling from the fact that I just had a piece of my own bleeding flesh in my mouth. There are just some things that the brain has a hard time adjusting to, and that is one of them. She’s completely unhinged. I need to figure out how to survive this.

  “Now, an evil bastard is Edward. He looks and acts so proper and innocent. But he was easier to lure here than Geoffrey was. I just had to call and mention needing to talk with him about something you’d commissioned.” She changes her voice from this professional cool yet sexy voice, into a sultry vixen-ish voice. It’s the voice that she used when she walked in, the one that caused me to think thoughts of hard sex in random positions.

  She glances at my cock which twitched—fucking traitor—and laughed. “Yes, he’s ruled by his penis, too. And playing up to that really cost him in the long run.”

  She heads back out the door again. This time I’m prepared and as soon as she opens it, I scream at the top of my lungs, “HELP! I’m Senator Wright and this crazy bitch is trying to kill me! Someone call the police!”

  She walks back in the door carrying a rather large, heavy looking mallet. She shakes her head at me and tsks again. “There are rules that the few of us who work here have to follow.” She sets the mallet down, the handle resting against her legs.

  “One”—she starts ticking off her count on her fingers—“everything up here is confidential. To the rest of the world, we do biological research, which is still the truth. We just aren’t allowed to talk about this part of our job. Two, no one brought in here is exempt from the methods picked out by Dr. Miller. No one. This is one of the few places on Earth where there is no bias. Once that door is shut, you’re all the same. And three, no one helps anyone. We’re all here to do our assigned jobs, nothing more, nothing less. Anything other than that…well, let’s just say we all highly respect Dr. Miller and wouldn’t have it any other way. He handpicked us for a reason.

  “Where were we?” she questions as she snatches the mallet handle again. “Oh, yeah. I remember. Edward Champlain. Edward loved playing everyone against each other for his gain. He also loved to stick his penis in any woman he was allowed to.

  “Not that that bothers me. He can philander all he chooses, but he learned some bad habits from you. See, Regina in your office was not only having sex with you, she was having sex with Timo, and she was having an especially naughty affair with Edward. Sometimes he’d invite his friends over for a little three-on-one action with her. But all of that is beside the point. She’s pregnant with Ed’s kid and I bet he was contemplating on killing her. I wonder where he got that idea from? Hmm? I’ll give you a guess.” She says the words just as she raises the mallet and swings it down hard on my wrist.

  I scream out until there is no air left in my lungs. My hand instantly starts to throb and I can feel the skin swelling painfully tight.

  “Oh, shut up. You’re such a whiny bitch.” She pushes the hair that has loosened out of her ponytail, back off her forehead. “Man, that’s harder than I thought it would be. I’m not even sure I broke it.” She walks over and grabs my forearm, giving it a firm jostle.

  I scream out again, writhing against my restraints, but that only causes me to cry out more. I feel the tear tracks run down into my hair.

  “Oh yeah, that’s broken. Good. I know how hard to swing it now.” She sits back down in her chair, the handle resting against her side. Then she grabs the water from the table behind her and takes a small swallow.

  “Have you guessed yet?”

  “Guessed what?” I have no idea what she’s talking about. What does she expect me to guess? That Edward is fucking Regina? I know that. Everyone knows that, everyone but that bitch of a girlfriend of his.

  “Oh, wrong answer, Senator. I’ll give you another shot since I’m sure that pain has rattled something around in your head. Ed was surely going to kill the now-pregnant Regina, if he didn’t die first, so I asked you to guess where he learned that.” She arches her eyebrow and takes another drink from the bottle.

  “How should I know?” I pant, looking at her. I swear my hand is fifty times its original size.

  “Oh, wrong again.” She stands and walks the short distance to me, raising the mallet again, this time she swings it down hard over my knee. I scream so hard, my voice leaves me and only air leaves my lungs. I can hear the sickening grinding of what was once the joint over the blood pounding in my ears.

  Stars dance before my eyes and the world dims until it finally winks out.

  The pain in my arms and legs greet me before light does. There are mewling noises and I notice that it’s me making them. I open my eyes to see the bright-blue ones of Dr. Staples. I groan because this isn’t over yet.

  “Oh, I thought I was going to have to give you another epinephrine shot, good thing you woke on your own. You passed out before I could correct you. He learned that behavior from you. You had him kill Danielle McDermitt. Remember?”

  My eyes shot up to hers. There’s no way she could know that if he didn’t tell her. “What the fuck do you know about anything? You have his word, that doesn’t make it so. Didn’t you say that he would play people off one another?” I grit my teeth because really, talking at this point hurt my body everywhere.

  She laughs at me. “You’d think that could be possible. But trust me, you’ve not experienced anything like what he's gone through. You’ve only been given a sample.” She heaves the mallet up again and brings it down
on my upper arm, only her aim was off and it glanced off my ribcage too. The resounding cracks and my inability to breath are almost deafening.

  “Oh, ouch. Dr. Miller is much better at this than I am.” Her tone is light and almost jovial, and at complete odds with her actions and the pains she’s inflicted so far on my body.

  I gasp repeatedly until I can draw a semi-decent breath. Stars swim in my vision again and I swear I’m going to go back under.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” she says, slapping my face a few times. The movement causes the gaping hole at the end of my nose to move, causing me to scream in pain. “You’re not allowed to pass out again. We’re still not finished.”

  “We can leave off from Edward because really, he’s a rat bastard who learned all his best moves from you. BUT surprisingly enough, Maya is worse than Edward. Ed did what he did to further himself or because it was what he was told to do or to help out a friend. Maya? She never did kill anyone, but she literally wallowed in their blood while her lover took her harshly.” She moves back to her attaché and pulls out a little, brown, glass bottle.

  Apparently, the look on my face gives away my confusion because she turns and comes closer. “Oh, not Edward. I think Ed would have been abhorred by that, honestly. No, she was Phillip James’ lover for quite a few years. And apparently, part of her kink was torture and blood play. Not on herself. Oh trust me, she sang like a nightingale with only the minimal amount of pain. Though, I can’t say Dr. Miller’s method wasn’t anything shy from horrible.”

  “Honestly, if Ed and Maya were truthful with one another about their predilections, they would have been much happier and probably wouldn’t have come in to see us.”

  “What does Maya have to do with me?”

  “She’s a voting constituent, isn’t she? She made sure that you maintained your position in some form or fashion. She was willing to strike a new deal with you once you took out her dear ol’ dad. You never had anything directly to do with Maya, but she still didn’t really need to be here. And since you need to experience everything that your people experience, wouldn’t you say it only fitting that you get a taste of her pain too?” She walks closer to me with the bottle in her hand.

  “Interestingly enough, she didn’t figure out that her father wasn’t going to leave the underboss job to her until she got in here. I think it helped to loosen her tongue. He was making sure she was set up with Ed, but Ed only wanted her because he thought he would be high-ranking in the mob. Sad, because he thought he’d get there without doing the work.”

  She pours a little of the clear liquid on my arm that she tore the skin from. My sinew is soaked in liquid fire and I feel myself peeling off the table.

  “Yeah, that hurts. That’s highly concentrated sulphuric acid. That alone causes tissue damage as you can tell. Mix it with water and the violent reaction between the two causes actual burns to your skin. Maya had it mixed. You’re feeling the pain because your open skin is weeping. So, I don’t have to mix it with water.” She says this with a marked sense of glee like she’s imparting valuable advice.

  “Thanks a fucking lot,” I manage to grind out, my arm feeling like it’s burning from the inside out.

  “Not a problem. Count your blessings. I’m not going to make you suffer through Timo Hauer’s method. I think since you’re not guilty of any of his wrongdoings, you’re exempt from having your anus stretched to bleeding and your colon given the blender treatment. Aren’t you glad you’re not a rapist now?”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I sob, my arms, legs, ribs, and nose pulsing with my heartbeat.

  “Do you remember a Reginald and Maude Childress?” she asks quietly.

  My eyes narrow. They were staunch political opponents of me. Reginald Childress was going to run for senator and had already vetted with our party. He was popular enough that he very well could have and probably would have won the nomination and the ticket. “Yes, they died one night a long time ago.”

  “Yes, their house burned down to the ground, killing them both.”

  “Okay? And you’re doing this to me because of some people who died in a house fire years ago?” My mind is fuzzy and can’t put the two together.

  “Yes, because they were my parents. They were wise to who you really are and they wanted to take the senatorship away from you. And I believe my father could have done it too, and apparently so did you, because you had them murdered in their home late one night and you blamed it on our own employees.” Her eyes rage at me, her body shaking.

  My eyes open wider as I recall hearing about their young daughter barely escaping with her life. I never knew that she would be here in front of me. “Oh…my…”

  “That’s right, asshole!” She lunges at me and plunges a syringe in my neck. My words die in my throat as everything stops. My breathing slows down until I can’t pull any air in anymore; I try to blink and nothing happens. I try to wiggle my toes and nothing. I start panicking, but no sounds come out. I can only look ahead and I can hear her talking still.

  “You’re about to understand pain, but unfortunately for everyone else, yours will only last a few minutes.” I hear her move around, then a creaking of metal against metal. I can feel her unfastening the restraints on my hands and feet and I start sliding feet first. I know this because of the movement in the ceiling.

  I can’t breathe and am screaming but there’s no sound, no movement in my throat. What the hell has she done to me?

  As if she can hear my thoughts, she leans over close to my ear. I can feel her hair brushing against my forehead and shoulder. “I’ve injected you with a central nervous system depressor. It affects your motor skills but not your sense of feeling. So, you are made very aware of everything going on around you. You’ll soon pass out from lack of oxygen, but not before you feel yourself burn.”

  She slides me forward until I can see the bricks in the coffin-sized box. I can hear the door shut and lock behind my head, and the flames lick at my skin, setting off blisters almost instantly. I can feel the blisters burst and more take their place. The space gets darker and darker except for a faint bluish-orange glow, until finally it, too, is gone.

  The last things I know are my silent screams echoing in my head.

  DATE 16 NOV 2016

  PATIENT ANGELA MICHELLE FAWKES

  DOB 12/APR/1998

  DOD 16/NOV/2016 TIME 2348

  CAUSE OF DEATH Lethal dose of morphine and fentanyl

  Ms. Fawkes was brought into the facility by the Hartford Department of Corrections. She was found guilty of car theft, murder, mutilation of a corpse, and theft of sensitive documents. It was my job to find said documents.

  Dr. Staples’ initial interview with Ms. Fawkes went over rather smoothly; she was alert and willing to give information. Her statements coincided with what was already known.

  My own interrogation of the patient found her willing to tell things that weren’t personally difficult for her. When she found things difficult, the patient went silent. She did eventually talk.

  I found Ms. Fawkes to be generally honest. I believed her when she said that she didn’t know anything about the documents or the deceased man found in the car she stole. She readily admitted to stealing the car and depositing it several hours later in a suburban neighborhood.

  BODY REMOVAL Cremation

  ***

  DATE 16 NOV 2016

  PATIENT GEOFFREY MICHAEL WRIGHT, JR.

  DOB 03/SEP/1990

  DOD 17/NOV/2016 TIME 1036

  CAUSE OF DEATH Shock caused by trauma and radial arterial bleed

  Mr. Wright was brought into the facility by Dr. Staples by use of coercion as suggested by patient’s father. Once awake, he was belligerent and hostile to both Dr. Staples and me.

  Mr. Wright owned the car that was stolen and was questioned about the corpse as well as the briefcase containing the aforementioned documents. At first, he pretended that he knew nothing but quickly admitted to knowing about both. After further in
terrogation, it was revealed that he murdered Phillip Allen James and that he and Mr. James had an agreement about the briefcase. Mr. James was to deliver the briefcase to Mr. Wright, and when Mr. James tried to renegotiate the deal, Mr. Wright shot Mr. James in the mouth and into the cranial cavity. The exit wound in the back of the deceased’s head coincides with the statement given by Mr. Wright.

  Mr. Wright also admitted to having the documents in the briefcase created in order to be used as blackmail against Senator Geoffrey Wright, Sr. As of the interrogation, however, Mr. Wright was not in possession of said documents. Those were being held by his associate, Mr. Edward Champlain.

  Aside from the patient’s anger and hostility, he was relatively honest. Based on some of his answers and some information gathered later, either some of the information was deliberately omitted or considered of such small consequence that he neglected to remember it at all or accurately. The majority of his deceit lies in his need to build himself in a positive, dominating light.

  BODY REMOVAL Cremation

  ***

  DATE 18 NOV 2016

  PATIENT EDWARD HARRISON CHAMPLAIN

  DOB 22/JUN/1991

  DOD 19/NOV/2016 TIME 2139

  CAUSE OF DEATH Hemothorax

  Mr. Champlain was asked to the facility by Dr. Staples. He appeared to be very attracted to Dr. Staples and was aggressive in his attraction, even going so far as to attempt a kiss. This wasn’t deterred by Dr. Staples, but it was a means to help keep him unsuspecting of the nature of his visit. They conversed, she drugged his drink to make him amenable. He seemed cooperative, but was a well-known manipulator.

  Upon waking, he seemed upset, but justifiably. Answered Dr. Staples’ questions mostly true. Was obviously uncomfortable when being questioned by me. Asked repeatedly to be released in the beginning.