The Infected 1: Proxy

by P. S. Power

  When he came to his eyes burned so much he couldn't open them. Worse than the alcohol and salt earlier. His whole face burned like it had been put on a stove burner. It felt harsher than that, like fire had been put in his eyes, worse even than the time at a family cook-out when an ember from the bonfire had hit his face.

  Pepper spray? While he'd been out? They weren't supposed to do that, were they? Had they pried his eyes open to put it in or something?

  For some reason his body seized, over and over again, pain shaking him. He heard angry voices yelling but couldn't do what they demanded, his arm wouldn't go behind him, because of the ribs. That didn't really matter, because every five seconds the taser forced his hands to convulse forward no matter what he did. This went on until the machine stopped working, two or three minutes later, Brian guessed. The battery had run out. He knew that because the man holding the device called it out to the room.

  Then they hit him with things, blows with sticks and kicks it felt like, he couldn't get his eyes open long enough to see it, which made it worse in a way. There was no way to know what would hurt next.

  Finally his arms were ripped around behind his back, making it nearly impossible to breath. Brian really felt like he was going to die when someone hit or kicked him in the ribs again, this time clearly targeting where they knew he was injured. Even though he was already handcuffed and hadn't been fighting at all.

  Brian felt a wave of despair come over him. He couldn't even breath to explain that he hadn't done anything. He passed out, which seemed a mercy.

  Later Brian woke up in a beige room, at an orange Formica table, feet and hands cuffed to a short chain, a metal clip had been put through the links of the chain to shorten it, so even sitting down he couldn't straighten his legs or back at all. It left him bent, the fat from his stomach pushing against his legs, just a little. He could barely get any air in, the hunched over position made it hurt too much to even try for anything deeper than a sip of air. After a while, an hour maybe, a man, large and powerful looking, with dark skin and hair came into the room. This new man wore a green and tan uniform, different from the blue the police had worn. Making small sounds, grunting, the guy did something behind him, turning off a camera maybe? Then he walked around so Brian could seen him slowly putting on black leather gloves.

  "So you like fighting with cops? We'll see how you like this you Infected fuck."

  Then the man beat him for about an hour. By the end of it, the little vision he'd gotten back had vanished again and at least one tooth, toward the back on the right, came out from the repeated blows. It hurt and he kept blacking out from the pain, only to wake and find the man holding his nose closed or putting a hand over his mouth.

  "You're not so tough now, are you, you piece of shit?" The man sounded eerily calm and angry at the same time, a less jovial version of the freaks in the bar. At least they'd laughed occasionally as they beat him.

  The man, apparently bored or tired from all his hard work, called in several others who carried Brian to a tiny cell, a metal door from the sound opened, a scent of old urine and desperation coming from whatever lay behind it. Then they forced his hands behind his back again and fastened the chain to his legs, which they bent at the knee so that his feet nearly touched the chain between his wrists. Chuckling evilly they left him lying like on his stomach.

  Brian didn't know how long he laid there, not able to move, pain coursing through him if he tried to do anything at all. It was just as bad if he didn't move half the time, arms and legs cramping painfully from the odd position. Fighting for breath and not making it, a feeling of panic came over him, telling Brian that he was about to die here. No one came to let him ask for a lawyer or to take him to a doctor. They just left him there.

  To die.

  At first, maybe a day or two later, he'd thought that his eyes were still swollen shut, but realized after a while that blinking was possible. At least with his right eye. Then, he thought they'd managed to beat him into blindness. Eventually Brian realized it was probably just pitch black in the little room and clung to that idea. It was better than being blind after all.

  He didn't know its size, but the room sounded small, if that meant anything, no echo's from his breathing or anything noticeable to clue him in.

  Some time later, Brian couldn't tell how long, the door opened and he was sprayed with water, enough hit his mouth for a few tiny swallows. The man at the doors voice sounded hard and more than a little evil, but that didn't surprise Brian too much, all police seemed to be wicked and bad now. Maybe it was a prerequisite for the job?

  He knew it probably wasn't really true, but there'd been a lot of cops beating him and he hadn't even tried to do anything wrong, not to anyone. More to the point, if only the "bad cops" had beaten him, why hadn't the supposedly good ones tried to help him at all? No one had even called out that he'd probably had enough.

  "Drink up. It's your last meal, bitch." The man came in and kicked him in the chest, stomach and groin over and over again for a while, forcing pain to sear through him, a feeling that seemed like his bones themselves hurt under the greater pain. Then, the asshole laughed as he left. Brian couldn't be sure, but he thought it might be the same one that had attacked him at the house, mustache guy with the horrible case of ass face. Brian felt helpless, under the pain, but really wanted to kill the guy.

  At that moment, Brian would have killed them all. All police everywhere. If he could have. Maybe that rage was his main emotional thing? He doubted it though, because that feeling faded as he blacked out and when he came to again all he felt was sad that he hadn't saved the woman in the bar. Brian didn't know how he knew it with such certainty, other than the obvious failure. The knowledge just rested in his mind, sitting there, taunting him with the pure fact of the matter.

  He hadn't even bought her time to run. Head against the cold cement, he cried for her, face half in the standing water on the floor, built up to nearly an quarter of an inch deep. For some reason the room didn't have a drain.

  He couldn't drink the water on the floor, it smelled bad enough that he instinctively knew it wasn't safe. Worse, most of that stench had come off Brian, a scent of rot from his wounds, swollen and infected by now most likely. Regular infection that could have been treated with drugs, antibiotics, if the police weren't killing him.

  Desperate, Brian forced himself to check out the cell finally, screaming in pain and grunting as he rolled, the only form of movement left. Roll on to his side, scoot a few inches over, grunt and gasp for breath. Then repeat. The water slapped his face and drove into his mouth over and over again. He spit it all out, even dying of thirst as he was. Behind his back the hands didn't have any feeling, except a bitter coldness he suspected would be due to either nerve damage or blood being cut off by the cuffs. Not that it mattered, but he knew his hands might be dead, starved of everything they needed to stay alive. At least they didn't hurt anymore.

  It was something.

  A bright side to the whole mess.

  After a long time of rolling he discovered that the room wasn't really empty, it had a toilet made of metal but no bed or cot that he could find. The metal felt cold, like there was water inside, but he couldn't reach it. The best he could manage was to rest his face against the outside and try to lick condensation from it. Water was right there, inches away, teasing him. He didn't know for sure, but he thought he could smell it, clean water, right up there, where Brian couldn't possibly reach it.

  If he'd been healthy, unwounded and in much better shape... it still would have been out of reach. The cuffs and chains were just too short. Brian thought he could have balanced on his knees, maybe, if he could get up on them. That just didn't seem likely at all. The best he managed in this state took him to a wall, screaming again from the effort. He couldn't even work himself part way up, much less rise enough to be of use.

  Thirst dug in, his throat raw and parched like he'd never even imagined it could be. Inside Brian knew at that m
oment, if someone would free his hands, he'd commit murder for a big-gulp of Pepsi. Or even Dr. Pepper. Literally bash someone's brains in for it. Or kick them in the groin for some water. He started to chuckle, a low, pain-filled thing that sounded more like a sob. Brian got that the police were bad, evil even, and meant to kill him, but he couldn't understand how come they hadn't done it already. Why torture him first? What did they gain from it?

  It didn't make sense.

  The door finally opened again about a day after that. Brian had gone from just thinking he'd die soon, to wishing for it, just so that he didn't have to put up with this shit any more. In the end Brian just wished he could take the police with him. That kind of evil needed to be stopped. Good people out there trusted these monsters and believed they were actually there to help people. The ultimate con job.

  Brian laughed again, pain stabbing through more places than he could count, but not caring any more, thinking that the ninety percent of bad cops gave the other ten percent a bad name. What really shook him was having spent twenty-three years believing that the police were there to help you as long as you didn't break the law.

  He hadn't, all he'd done was try to save a life. Fuckers.

  Still, when the door opened again Brian couldn't tell if it had actually happened or not. A lot of things had been happening in the dark that he knew weren't real. That he ignored the voice talking to him as well as he had was impressive, though it just told him things like "don't drink the water" and that help was coming. It was a lie of course, his mind trying to get him to live, even when all hope was gone. Was this a dream or hallucination now?

  Probably.

  The silhouette in the door looked big, but then everything did from the floor. It skewed your perception, lying helpless for so long, he'd discovered. Brian tried to ready himself for another beating or possibly something worse. These monsters seemed capable of anything, after all. That they hadn't sodomized him with anything yet was probably just an oversight.

  The man ordered the police to get him out of the cell, barking at them and sounding angry. Gruff and commanding. Powerful.

  This would be the one then.

  The one that killed him and finished what his buddies had started, so long ago Brian couldn't even begin to count the days. Was it a lifetime already? It might be, he knew. Alone in the dark, it was like he'd become something different. Less than human somehow. Broken.

  Still better than the pigs though, so there was that to feel good about. Not exactly something tough to be, was it? Just don't hurt and kill innocent people.

  The police weren't careful pulling him out, just grabbing his arms and dragging. It was agony. One of them kicked him in the leg, hard, when he didn't move, demanding he stand up, even shackled, as an excuse for the extra blow. The bigger man, dressed in a suit, all black, didn't say anything. Instead he just hit the officer, knocking him down. Guns started to come out, but the man laughed at the police and ordered them to put the weapons away in a calm voice.

  "Get the keys for these now. If anyone does anything that even causes this kid to wince before we leave or says anything harsher than "I love you", I'll drop you instantly. Be glad we're letting you fucks live. We don't have to you know. Mr. Yi is to be shown respect, is that understood?"

  The man leaned down and whispered, "Hang on Brian. Helps coming, it'll be all right now. Keep hanging in there. We need you..."

  Brian cried as they took the cuffs off. It hurt horribly, but his tears weren't about that. Everything had hurt for too long to even consider something so stupid. No, as the pain cut through him, Brian couldn't help but think about the woman and the bar. She'd probably love to just have a little pain now. He should have fought harder for her. Somehow.

  Now that he realized he'd probably live through this it hit him, so hard he sobbed. He didn't save her.

  The big man kneeling close to him whispered that it would be all right, that the pain was going to stop now, soon at least. That got a head shake, and the man looked at him funny for some reason. He got Brian water and helped him sit up, sodden and reeking as he was. The man didn't blink or even try to protect his nice clothes, holding Brian as pain coursed through him, blood and movement returning to the injured limbs on a wave of agony.

  Brian finally drank some water and after a while he spoke, his voice so raw it sounded like dust, not a voice at all. Barely audible even to himself, he forced the words out, feeling like they ripped something from deep inside when he did.

  "She's dead, isn't she?" He asked, not really knowing if the man would know what he meant at all. For all he knew this was a lawyer or some guy from the ACLU. A really tough lawyer, he amended, the officer he'd hit once still sat on the floor, nursing the wound from a single punch. If Brian could have done that, maybe that woman would still be alive right now...

  The man in black didn't ask for any other clarification, just nodded. The answer made the police finger their guns and take a few steps back which earned them a menacing glare.

  "The kid got transported to the site of a Jackal attack, you've read the news lately? Never sure if the police actually require the ability to do that anymore... He fought both of the killers alone, unarmed and without any powers. Fuck, he doesn't even know how to fight. His ability causes him to take the place of people that are about to die, that's all as far as we can tell. His first words after all this crap you fucks put him through is to ask about a crime victim and you want to go for your guns? Seriously? You think he's going to just hop up and start kicking your asses? I'm pretty sure he would have already done that if he could. Though I'm tempted to let him try." He said all this without menace, but at the same time the police all backed off, most of them finally removing their hands from their holstered weapons.

  Brian sobbed, "I should have done more. It should have been me that died, not her... Why wasn't it?"

  The man dressed in black looked at him and shook his head, but didn't say anything, not even trying to tell Brian that he was wrong. Looking at his wrists, deep bloody wounds rounding them, brilliant red and oozing clear fluid, Brian realized that he could feel them again. He couldn't move them yet, but they burned and ached. That was a good sign, right? Dead things didn't hurt. That must mean his soul wasn't dead yet either.

  He fought to make a fist with his right hand, but nothing much happened. The man saw this and asked him to hang on for a little while, an ambulance would be there soon.

  They took him out the back door through a covered garage, probably trying to keep the press from seeing what they'd done to him. Then again, if a reporter saw him at all, they'd probably just assume that the police had a reason for doing all this. The police only ever hurt criminals right? Thinking about it made him angry again. Not just mad, but rage like he hadn't felt before this whole thing had happened, not ever. It scared him a little. He didn't say anything about it, because he didn't want to frighten the people with him, the tall guy and the ambulance men. They hadn't done anything wrong after all.

  Sitting next to him the nicely dressed man kept talking to him, apologizing for how long it took them to find him and explaining why.

  "The bar... it's in the mid-west, so we focused our search around there first. We didn't think you'd be from two thousand miles away. We found your house three days ago, your roommate told us what had happened, but the police stonewalled us. They knew they fucked up, but wanted a chance to get rid of the evidence before anyone found you. A lot easier to cover up a death than a living person that's been tortured like this. I promise I got to you within half an hour of finding out where you were. It would have been faster, but they insisted we call in for verification. Oh! I'm Darrel Lancaster, agent, IPB. You know, the Infected Protection Bureau?" The man's voice stayed casual when he said it, but Brian stiffened all the same.

  The IPB. Fuck, just... fuck!

  They were the ones responsible for taking down the worst Infected. Most of the time they didn't take them alive either. They had Infected that worked for them
, their own super team that everyone knew about and, it was rumored, a couple more that did the dirty work that wouldn't look good in the press. Brian wouldn't have even know about that last part, the other teams, except that Carla liked to harp about it to Doug and him, telling them that letting Infected kill the other monsters made sense, because no matter who died, government asset or criminal, everyone else always won.

  Lancaster noticed his unease and gave him a wry expression, "Don't believe the hype, Brian. We don't make grannies and little girls disappear as a rule and if we ever do you can bet they actually did something. Even then, bad press aside, we try to save as many as we can, Infected or not. We're not perfect... but we don't do shit like this to people either." He waved at Brian's wounds in a general way.

  Yeah. That was true maybe. Brian heard of them killing, but never just torturing anyone.

  That was... oddly comforting.

  They moved him into the emergency room slowly, the doctor on duty glanced at his wounds and wanted to call the police immediately. Brian stared at him but didn't say anything. What could he do if the guy did call them? Running away was simply not an option, since he didn't think he could walk yet. Fear lanced through him, making him feel weak and sick.

  Lancaster laughed, a bitter and dark thing, and recounted everything the police had done and pointed out that it had all been illegal at the time and then told the doctor that if he tried to call the police in on this now, it amounted to aiding and abetting a criminal action.

  When the doctor left the agent shook his head, "That's not true by the way. If he reported it right now it would die in dispatch, hopefully, but nothing would happen to him. I just don't want the police in the area to know where you are yet. Save on problems if they decide to get all worked up. We have other people coming, back-up, they should be here within the hour. After that, it will be less of a problem."

  They gave him an I.V. and ran tests for hours. They wanted a urine and stool sample, but would have to wait, Brian told them dryly, since he hadn't eaten or had much to drink in... He paused, not knowing exactly how long he'd been held prisoner.