Has anyone been taking in the foreshadow?
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I slowly shook myself into alertness, finally waking up. I felt recharged mentally, but my body still felt like I was clubbed with bricks. The bleeding in my arm was staunched, and I warmed up to normal body temperature, slowly recovering.
Zack was in the drivers seat, he was watching me wake up, "Hey there." He said cautiously.
"Hey." I rolled my shoulders, wincing, "Look, I'm sorry about yelling at you. You didn't deserve that, you were just doing the right thing, bringing me home and all."
That's when I looked out the window, seeing an unfamiliar parking lot. "Wait. Where did you bring me?" I looked more frantically in the car, "And where did Brian go?"
My eyes went back to Zack, he looked on my solemnly, as if he looked into a coffin with honor. "What's going on?"
He sighed, undoing his seatbelt and turning off the car. He snaked into the back seat with me, taking my hand.
"There's something we need to talk about."
He'd only said that once before- freshman year when he told me he was being abused by an ex-boyfriend. He only said that if he wanted to bring up something gravely serious. This time he held my hand, indicating it was about me.
My voice wasn't ready to speak and it whispered, "What is it?"
"Alice, I don't want to bring you home because you're going to be committed."
"Committed?" Jesus, my parents. I knew it. It was something they've always threatened me with, something like a dark cloud shadowing and haunting my conscience since childhood. They were old-fashioned 'respect-obey-and- you'll be okay' kinds of people. Running away had done it.
"Yes. I don't want it to happen. Neither of us do."
"Us? You mean-"
"I told him; yes. He was disgusted with it. He said he'd do anything to keep you out of there. He didn't tell me what he was going after in that apartment building, but he's coming back. Trust us, Alice, please. We're going to protect you."
"I don't need any-"
"Shit-LOOK!" Zack said, jumping back.
From down the street, like a shark in the water, doom arrived in the shape of a great white monster. It rocketed down the loop toward the entrance of the complex. It was the white van after me.
"Shit. Zack, what do we do?!"
With consideration on an impulse he said, "Come on, we'll hide in my building. It's right across the street, we'll make a run for it."
We were in a parking space between two other cars. Zack smartly undid the back window and we slipped out. I could run just fine, but Zack insisted on grabbing my hand and leading me on. We darted across the street and into the open lot of his building, our targets were different from each other.
"Zack, you're a co owner, do you have a key to the front door or something?"
"No, I only have my ID and our machines aren't running yet. Sneak into the back here."
Zack was skinny enough to slip through the crack in the chain link fence. I put my foot on the chain and hoisted myself over, not sparing a second to measure my chance of doing the same as him. He spotted me down and we took a second to catch our breaths.
"Look, " I said, nodding at his Chevy in the other lot. "They know that we were there. They're going through everything and shaking your car out like a handbag."
"Let them. I don't have anything important in there."
I left him there staring after his car, I was intent on looking for a way in. Zack all of a sudden panicked, losing his head. "Shit, Alice! Get in! They saw me; not you, they saw me and they're coming over here, we have to hide you!"
We rushed into the building. Every corridor leading to long identical halls with doors were caged off like the Titanic's lower barracks. Construction prevented us from entering good hiding spots. We fled down the only steps we could find- they lead to a rotten-smelling cellar.
"Zack, it's a dead end!" I felt around the wall of the cellar. Behind us, a ray of natural light flooded down the staircase, we could hear people coming.
I touched a faulty tile on the wall. "Dude . . " I said, looking in. It was pitch black inside.
"Go, Alice, it's your only chance. I'll stay out here and get rid of them."
"It's friggin DARK, man!"
"Don't wuss out on me, get in, I'll tell you when they're gone. Just stay quiet."
I did so, stepping into the dark hole. I was amazed to find it kept going, I no longer needed to duck. I was in a room now. I shut the tile behind me, standing quietly in the dark.
It felt like hide and seek for a second, I strangely had to go to the bathroom very bad.
Outside, I could hear Zack talking to other men.
"Hello gentlemen, can I help you?" He said coolly.
"Are you the owner of a Green Chevy located in the parking lot across the street?"
"No. I don't own a car."
"What's your business in this building? Why did you run in here so quickly from behind that fence?"
Zack made a sound that nearly made me laugh, he was a good actor too. It was mix between an annoyed unt and a click of the tongue. "Excuse me? What's my business here? Sir," I could hear him going through his wallet jauntily, "this is my EYE-dentification, sir, and I sir, own this building, sir. What is MY business here, . . . sir, what is YOUR business here?"
The men nervously said some things. I was slowly retreating as they continued, I wanted to find a light switch, something in here smelled like gas.
I did the same walk found in The Pit and the Pendulum by Poe, touching the wall and counting steps as I found my way along. Aha. There!
I found a switch, clicking on a light. Right away I covered my mouth and sank to my knees.
A little skinny, starving, dirty boy in a highchair was in the middle of the room. It was the most bazaar thing on earth. But I knew it was wrong. I covered my mouth to keep from speaking.
He was clothed in a t-shirt and a soiled diaper, though he looked too old to have one. A tray with wood blocks and rotten food was across his lap. He was bolted into place by means of shackles, and a black blindfold was over his eyes.
The chair he was in had splinters protruding from the legs- it was breaking slowly over time. His legs, arms, and neck had wounds on them, apparently from wood-
and apparently from someone else doing it to him.
Rushing forward, I twisted the vice-like cuffs open on his arms and legs, the boy started babbling incoherently Don't kids speak around this age? If he made noise anyway, I'd be caught.
I put my forehead against his, whispering, "Shh, baby, shhh. Don't speak...shhh. I'm Alice, I'm getting you out of here. As soon as the bad men go away, you're getting out of here. Shhh."
The boy listened, intrigued. Just before I undid the blindfold, a kick landed precisely between my shoulders knocked me onto the floor.
For obvious reasons, I bit my tongue, not crying out. I rolled onto my back quietly, looking up. It was Her.
Annie.
She was bald, a gun pointed at me in one of her shaking hands. Something small and metal was in her other hand. Our eyes met, mutually, our goal was to keep this quiet. Just outside, Zack was still trying to get rid of the orderly men. I was so close to him . . . but so far away. I wouldn't dare call for him.
Annie tossed something my way. It was a straight razor.
"Pick it up." She hissed, lowering her gun.
I did, nervously, I had to go to the bathroom more than ever now.
She pointed to her wrist, and then to me. Making a line with her fingernail horizontally on her flesh. She looked at me furiously, demanding it.
"No." I whispered.
She took a step forward, raising the gun and pointing it at the wall- Zack was on the other side.
Hastily I did it, taking the threat seriously. First sitting myself onto my knees, bending forward miserably again. I cut a light pink line onto my wrist. I showed it to her.
She was angrier now, she ordered me to do it again. Just as I placed the cold, sharp angle of the razor onto my skin, she put her hand on mine, pushing down.
Blood bloomed out of the line she and I made, I bit down hard and forced myself not to scream. Tears flowed down my cheeks, I shuttered at the humiliation it was- being forced to commit suicide. The power was in my hand to stop any moment, but at the same time it wasn't. She was over me, forcing me to dig deeper and dig harder until I felt something pulse under my skin. She made me slice it open. Blood became darker, browner, and more rapid. My whole arm shook. I whimpered like a dog.
"Good. The other one. Hurry." She was looking between me and the door.
I switched hands.
I was getting nauseous, I swooned at the pain, but remained helpless and quiet. I opened up my other wrist, she added an extra weight to my stroke, nearly knocking me out cold with the activity of pain in my arm. The razor was so deep that half of it was missing under my skin . . .she hated me THAT much. My fingers were on the surface of the split, I pulled at the razor despairingly. It was stuck.
"Please, no." I said. She did anyway.
She mercilessly ripped it out of my arm, taking a river of blood with it. I was sobbing now.
My heart raced, everything inside me knew it was under attack and close to dying. I looked up with watering eyes, and mumbled with chattering teeth, "Stop. Please. Just look at the child, look at him, he's going to die."
She ignored that, looking down on me disgustedly. I didn't care about that. She was a killer, and I was done for, so was that poor child behind me. I tried to hide my wounds to make myself live a bit longer in my clothes, but she hit my face and ordered me to keep them up. I showed them to her like an offering to a god. I was on my knees, completely at her mercy.
She walked around, I couldn't focus on where she went. The red rivers leaked in identical lines down to my elbows and approached me. I closed my eyes, shivering. It hurt so much, and I was getting so woozy.
Something splashed onto my upturned arms, at first, it was water, but then it burned. Then I was on fire on the inside. I squeeked out a cry and fell on my back. That gas smell was real gasoline. She dumped it onto me via bucket and stood watching as I twitched with deathly agony.
Blood REALLY flowed now. I was really going to die this time.
Then the baby started to cry.
Annie went over to him, putting the bucket against his lower lip and tipping a film of yellow fluid into his mouth, the baby sputtered, puked, and went silent.
Zack came bursting through the door, I could faintly see through the spots in my vision that he was not alone, the men had heard the commotion too and were coming in.
He jumped right into the situation, I sat up, screaming, "ZACK-! NO!"
Annie turned, full metal, and pulled the trigger in his direction.
*****
Brian was amazed and relieved to see the men in white looking so confused. They hadn't found who they were looking for in the van, and went to the building across the street. It was safe to assume that they could lead him to the others.
He came out of the shadows and made his way cautiously across the street to Zack's. The two of them must have stolen away when Brian as still searching the apartment.
Unsuccessfully, of course.
Brian took a moment, sitting on a hidden slab of concrete with his head in his hands and feeling hardened all over again. He found out two months ago that Annie Keller had a bastard child for about three years that she's been hiding from him. Her only mister had been him- not on his terms, of course. It's kind of like getting herself pregnant, isn't it?
He couldn't care less about himself.
He was after his responsibility. A boy that he would do anything to father. Not that he was the fatherly type, -in fact, he's always been phobic of children, babies etc. - but the problem was that it was about time he faced his fears. Faced life. He's lived as an icon and an inhuman god his whole life, this was his chance to do what was right.
A year ago in November he was ready to marry the most important woman in his life, and she was taken right out from under him. This time he wasn't going to fail to put a family together. A family that's been kicked into ashes by God himself for so long now.
But that's the perk of being the antichrist, isn't it? He thought, smiling to himself. I don't follow God's plan, I make my own.
He got to his feet, knowing he had to go in there to find the two of them. Undoubtedly they were hiding, Brian would be cautious about getting seen too. Brian knew he'd have to find them and explain to Alice (especially) what was going on and what his plan is.
Entering the building, he found everything sealed off and seemingly leading him down to a cellar. Nothing happened other than the sound of Zack talking to the orderlies, until-
BLAM!
That was Annie's gun. He shrank into the shadows, proceeding cautiously, more bravely than he could imagine he ever was.
Alice's voice was behind a thin, open wall, she was crying and moaning. A baby began to cry with stressed, deafening sadness along with her sobs.
Fire raged inside him at that moment, going animalistic.
His family was in danger.
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The stressball of a chapter I just typed damn near broke one of my pretty red nails! Sheisse. I'm going to end here to repaint them. ;D Till next time.