Monster: Chapter 1
A/N: This is an AU take on the disappearance of Richard Castle before his wedding at the end of Season 6, leading into Season 7. As the title indicates, this is a rather dark tale, so please be forewarned. I considered rating this M (as I did Magic, but got considerable flack from those who read it expecting a bit of a sex-fest).
I just want to throw out a different take on what might have happened to Castle, focusing on three things: What did Castle actually experience through during that missing time? Why was he taken in the first place? And finally, how far will Kate Beckett go to get him back? As always, thanks to all of you who read my stories.
DISCLAIMER: None of these characters are mine, but they are memorable. Thank you Mr. Marlowe.
The Hamptons, May 13, 2014
Kate Beckett stands in a torn wedding dress, angry tears staining her cheeks. For the past half hour, she has watched what should be the most beautiful day of her life – so far – reduced to rubble. It is fitting that she stands next to the burned out shell of Castle's car, staring ahead. Her fears, her sadness, the utter shock has been now replaced by a simmering fury.
The firefighters have done their job, putting out the flames. Her first clue that he isn't here is the smell. She stands within feet of the destroyed vehicle, and the smell of burned flesh should be pungent in the air. But that distinctive odor is absent. Her heart leaps for a moment, and her faith is rewarded when she peers inside and sees the empty front seat. A second glance shows no burned corpse in the backseat as well. A quick check shows no one in the trunk. No stone will be left unturned.
She half smiles, her confidence growing. He's not here. He's gone. Then it hits her and her smile fades, the anger intensifies, and a worry that only love can birth begins to set in.
He is gone.
Late evening in Chesapeake Bay on a tiny isolated island offshore from Tangier Island, May 13, 2014
There is a distinctive taste in Richard Castle's mouth as he awakens, his head groggy and spinning. He blinks a few times, trying to get his bearings. It is very dark, and he is lying on a twin bed. He slowly raises himself up to a sitting motion, placing his feet on the ground. Looking at his legs, his heart begins to race. His pants are gone, replaced with bright orange pants, and a matching bright orange button up shirt. It immediately reminds him of a prisoner's outfit.
"God, am I in jail?" he thinks to himself, wondering just what in the hell has happened to him. The dual itching and stinging still resident on his neck causes him to instinctively reach for the back of his neck.
"There was a needle," he remembers suddenly, as his memories now slowly come into focus. He remembers talking on the phone to Kate and . . .
"Kate," he exclaims out loud, and now his eyes widen, as full panic finally sets in. He was supposed to get married. Married to the woman he had chased for six long years. Obstacle after obstacle they have overcome, and now within minutes – within half an hour of their wedding – this happens? But what is 'this'? Where is he? Where is Kate? Is she all right? Clearly someone has attacked him. Did they attack Kate also?
Then he thinks of his daughter. Is Alexis safe? The thoughts begin to overwhelm him.
"Where in the hell am I?" he says aloud. Now fully awake, his memories are no longer cloudy. He remembers the black car speeding up behind him, tinted windows blocking his assailants. The offending car continued bearing down on him as he hung up his phone call with Kate.
"I told her twenty minutes," he recalls and checks his watch. No watch. They've taken it. Whoever 'they' are.
The car had caught up to him and bumped him off the road into a ditch. He had slammed his car to a stop, keeping control of the vehicle for the most part, but hitting his head on the driver's side window had left him disoriented. He vaguely remembers the car doors opening and hands pulling him out of the car, roughly. A prick of a needle to the neck turned out the lights as darkness consumed him.
Now awake, he works his tongue around in his mouth. It is dry, and he is thirsty. He glances around. There are no bars, so he quickly realizes he is not in a cell, not in jail. He now quickly reconsiders that vague definition as he notices his surroundings.
He is in a one room building, that much is for certain. The room – the entire building, that is – can't be more than twenty feet by twenty feet. He stands now, and begins to do an inspection, the fear inside him pinching his chest, growing inch by inch with each step he takes. He goes along each wall before confirming his fear.
No power. No light switches. No electricity. No air conditioning. There is a single window that lets light in from outside, and thankfully there is a full moon tonight, bathing the room in a soft glow. A single toilet sits in one corner, so obviously there is plumbing, but no sink anywhere. The only water sits in the toilet bowl, and he is parched.
"Right the first time," he thinks to himself, and then says out loud, "This is a jail."
Hygiene can be damned at this particular point, as his dry tongue and scratching throat win out, as he drops to a knee, and sticks his hand into the toilet. The water is clear, and smells fine. He brings the liquid to his lips and quickly drinks, making a loud slurping sound. Satisfied that the water is at least drinkable – for toilet water, that is – he quickly grabs a few more handfuls, taking in the life-giving water and licks his lips when he is finally sated.
He stands upright again, staring down at the toilet, suddenly fighting the urge to retch the water back into the bowl. His heart continues to race, as he realizes what he has just done, and this only minutes into what now can only be considered an incarceration.
He continues his walk of discovery, realizing there are no cabinets, no closets. Only the toilet and the twin bed. Nothing more.
Scratch that. There is a small box that sits in the corner opposite the toilet. He walks over to the box, picking it up. It is of noticeable weight, maybe thirty to forty pounds. It is too dark to tell what is inside, so he brings it over toward the single window and opens the box. Inside are roughly three dozen cans of food. Beans, primarily, but as he pulls them out, one by one, he sees a few cans of beef stew. Each can has a pop top. A single plastic spoon sits at the bottom of the food box, along with a bottle of vitamins. His brow furls, confused now.
Whoever his captor is, obviously they want him alive. He's been given enough food and vitamins to keep him alive for a short period of time. But he also knows this food isn't an awful lot, it can run out in a week or more if he doesn't discipline himself. He does the quick math. 36 days of food if he limits himself to one can per day, 18 days of food if he splurges and opts for one in the morning and one in the evening.
"I'll figure that out later," he thinks to himself. For now, he has food, and . . . and water, yeah.
He takes a final glance around the room and then looks at the door.
"Surely it can't be that simple," he muses to himself. Yet he is pleasantly surprised when he turns the nob and the door opens. It's dark, but he quickly lets his eyes adjust, once again thankful for a full moon on this cloudless evening. He quickly makes out the barbed wire fence that surrounds his small cabin. He estimates roughly fifty feet from the cabin to the fence. He covers the distance quickly, and finds himself standing next to a fence that stands some twelve feet off the ground, barbed wire rows every three vertical inches. He quickly scans the perimeter outside the fence, and notices a second fence of equal height barely a foot beyond the first fence. Someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble to keep him in.
Or, to keep something out!
That thought petrifies him, as he hears the sound of night wildlife beyond the perimeter, and he unconsciously takes a few quick steps backward, toward the cabin. He glances out to the adjacent fence side, and chuckles at fate's irony. It's been years since he has seen one of these. He walks to the small structure, confirming that it is an old-fashioned, hand pump connected to a small well. Hanging on the pump handle is a small bucket.
Water.
"Better than toilet water," he muses aloud, working the pump and verifying that it actually works, as water comes out of the small spicket, into the bucket he has placed below. He sticks his hand in, tasting the water and nods his head. Drinking and bathing water, he assumes, to go along with the canned food and the toilet, and the small bed.
"Not exactly something I will use my Marriott points for," he smirks to himself, trying to find a bit of humor to break the monotonous fright that has set in.
He continues to check out the outer surroundings, and notices the helipad landing area.
"So that's how I got here," he realizes, now also realizing that escape is going to be pretty difficult, to say the least. He decides that he will likely get a visitor from time to time, if nothing else to replenish the canned goods. He reflects again that he is alive.
"If they wanted me dead, I'd be dead instead of here," he says out loud, while again wondering just who 'they' could be. Who has he pissed off so thoroughly that they would resort to something like this? The question immediately frightens him, as he considers how many people he and Kate have put away. The list could be endless.
Kate.
He glances up at the night sky and thinks of her. He feels the tears – tears of frustration – as they begin to pool in his eyes. He thinks of his wedding again, now realizing for the first time that he may never see his bride-to-be again. He doesn't want to be pessimistic, but it is clear that someone went to a lot of trouble to do this. Someone with a lot of money, and a lot of means. Then it hits him that not only does he not know where he is, but he realizes that Kate cannot possibly have any idea what has happened to him. Unless whoever has done this sends her a ransom note. For now, that's the best he can hope for. He has plenty of money, and she knows how to access it.
If there is no ransom note, however, Kate will never figure this out. If they cleared the car accident scene, then she would have no idea where to even start. It would appear that he simply left her at the alter . . . before they could even get to the alter. Was that the plan?
"God, she is probably devastated," he thinks to himself. Not out of arrogance or pride, but just realizing that – once again – someone of value that she loves has been taken away from his favorite detective. The frustration becomes too much as Richard Castle is overcome with grief, his hot tears finally spilling. In his grief, he lets out a primal scream to the heavens, his arms above his head, shaking his fists at the non-offending sky.
The guttural response – a loud roaring, growl from beyond the protective and confining fence – embeds a fear that he has never known inside the novelist, sending him running – sprinting – the final forty feet or so into the cabin, slamming the door. His breathing is ragged and accelerated, and he realizes he needs to tone it down, or he's going to hyperventilate.
"What in the hell was that?" he wonders aloud, his heart still jackhammering inside his chest. Out of a misplaced sense of safety, he sits with his back against the door, as if that will keep anything out. Minutes later, as his heartbeat finally slows, he has to chuckle again at himself.
"Barbed wire fence, you idiot," he says to himself. "Nothing is getting in here unless it can fly." Even his imagination cannot conjure up flying dinosaurs, so he knows he isn't on some prehistoric island.
"An island," he wonders. He hopes beyond hope that he is not on an island. At some point, he is confident he is going to figure out a way over or through, or even below that damn fence. But what is on the other side of it that he heard. And if he is surrounded by water . . . well then, that could be game over.
He closes his eyes, willing himself to calm down. He mentally pulls the dedication from the novel, Wild Storm, into his mind. Five hundred signings was the goal, before taking off for the honeymoon. He sees – in his mind - the words he penned in the pages, dedicated to the woman he loves.
'To My Always, You Make Saving the World Magical'
He smiles, trying to remain calm amid the frightening scenario that unfolds before him. He and the detective have been in some pickles before.
He and Kate sit freezing in a trailer container.
They are chained and battling a tiger, for crying out loud.
They stand in front of a dirty bomb, seeing the final seconds tick down.
She lies in the grass, bleeding out in front of him.
She stands on a time bomb, and they stare at one another, amid another countdown.
Yeah, they've been through the ringer, but nothing quite like this. It suddenly dawns on him – in each of those situations, they thought that they were facing the end. They are going to freeze to death. They are going to be eaten alive. They are going to go up in a ball of flames. She's is going to bleed to death. In each of those scenarios, they were certain that was it. Death was upon them.
In each of those scenarios, they were wrong. The revelation gives him a jolt of strength, an injection of resolve. He has been in life-or-death situations before – many times – and won.
He cocks his head, not sure of what he is hearing. He closes his eyes again, remaining perfectly still. His keen ears do not deceive him.
Helicopter blades. Approaching fast.
He stands quickly, and runs to the door, opening it, and flashing out into the enclosed yard, waiting to greet the chopper as it lands at the helipad. Instead, the aircraft hovers just beyond the fence, some six to eight feet off the ground. Castle idly wonders what is happening. Anyone who gets out isn't going to be able to get past the fence. A puzzled look stays on his face as the craft continues to hover above the ground.
"Why aren't they landing?" he wonders aloud. His question is answered quickly and decisively, as a man is suddenly thrown from the chopper, which quickly rises into the sky and banks away from the enclosed encampment.
"Don't leave me!" the man screams at the departing aircraft, watching it clear the trees and quickly bank out of sight.
"Hello," Castle yells to the man on the other side. "Hello!"
"Who in the hell are you?" the man asked, agitated and excited.
"My name is Richard Castle," Castle responds. "I'm a prisoner here."
"Looks like we both are," the man replies, disgustedly. "Think I twisted my damn ankle when the bastards tossed me out," he continues, sitting on the ground as he rubs his ankle.
The sudden roar, the sheer volume causes Castle's knees to turn to jelly, and his legs give way. He drops to the ground, and even in the relative darkness, bathed only by the moonlight, he sees the fear in the eyes of the man across from him, less than twenty feet away.
The noise – clearly an animal – is closer now – much closer, and the unfortunate man knows that his only chance for survival lies in his ability to scale over or through the imposing fence. He makes his way, hobbling, to the fence, afraid to place his hands on the dangerous barbed wire. His mind, however, is made up for him when he turns and sees the incredibly large lion clear the trees behind him.
"God in heaven, where am I?" Castle wonders in fear, as the more unfortunate man on the wrong side of the fence jumps upward, screaming as the barbed thorns bite into his flesh.
"Help me!" the man screams. "Let me in! Please, I beg of you –"
"I don't know how!" an equally frightened Richard Castle screams back, exasperated at his lack of options. "Is there a gate anywhere?"
"How the hell should I know!" the man replies, his voice rising even higher as his blood drips from his hands, feet, legs – every part making contact with the fence.
"I don't –"
A second lion appears in the distance as the first beast launches itself airborne, pulling the screaming man down off the fence, the barbed wire tearing flesh from his face and chest and arms along the way. His screams pepper the night as the large beast drags him away into the trees, growing louder and more fearful. Castle can only watch, his hands over his ears, with hot tears of frustration exploding down his cheeks.
"Noooooo!" Castle screams has he hears the screams of the unfortunate man suddenly stop – leaving only the rustling and the growling of the great beasts as they feast on their catch.
"Oh God, oh dear God," he cries over and over, as he runs – stumbling – back to the cabin, slamming the door shut, and moving the twin bed in front of the door, upright. Logical or not, he wants as much between himself and the hungry lions as possible.
He throws himself to the ground against the wall opposite the door, and places his hands over his ears once again, closing his eyes. The man's screams – though long extinguished - still echo in his ears, as Castle clenches his eyes tighter, forcing the image of Kate Beckett into his mind. He tries to picture her in the wedding dress he didn't see. He tries to picture the vows they didn't say. His breath raging out of control, coming rapidly, her face is the last thing he sees before the blessed unconsciousness takes him into the darkness.