~The Dead Of The Night~
~Friday, Halloween, Midnight
R.D. had them cuff Bosco in the main part of the coal basement, under the street side of the building. The part they all live in. He wants Bosco to be right there with them, living amongst them. But he has them take Faith to another side of the basement. He has different plans for her. He wants her to experience the isolation and fear of incarceration. So they take her to the part of the basement under the back side of the building that is darker, colder. No one stays in that side of the basement because the walls and floor are always wet from water seepage.
The only one who goes to this dingy area is Benny, who is following them as they drag Faith over there. Benny is in his twenties but he is retarded, with the mental capacity of a five year old.
"R.D. she's going back to the other side though...right?. Why are you taking her here. This is mine." He starts picking up items on the floor as they walk. "This is my stuff. See? These are all mine." He is almost in tears as he paces around them, clutching his toys tightly in his arms. "This is mine...you said. She can't have this. I don't want her in my stuff."
"Don't worry Benny. She won't touch your stuff." R.D. assures him, talking in a very soothing tone. "I'll show you."
They drag Faith up to the farthest wall where there is a cast iron pipe protruding from the cement and running four feet across, about an foot up from the floor, then back into the cement wall.
They cuff her hands around it, and then R.D. pulls out a roll of duct tape. He balls her hands into fists and tapes them up so she can't use her fingers. "See Benny...she can't touch anything. And so she don't kick you, we'll tape her feet together. Is that better?" He says reassuringly.
"Ok...she can't use my things either. They're mine...she can't have them. This is where I keep my things. All the stuff I have...right here." Benny says like a spoiled child.
"Then you can have her too. Would you like that?"
"I can? For good?"
"Yes." He says with a smile.
"Ok then...she can stay here with my other stuff." He giggles like a child for a minute, but then his face turns scared. "Wait...she'll be looking at me. She'll be watching me when I do stuff." He says.
R.D. patiently takes a deep breath and looks around. "Ok Benny...I have an idea." He picks up an old pillow case that Benny had a bunch of rocks in and dumps them out. "What if we put this on her so she can't see you?"
As he says it, he pulls it over her head, tying a knot in the bottom around her neck.
"There...now she can't watch you." Benny smiles and claps his hands. "Now you have to take care of her Benny. If she makes noise you have to punish her." He holds up her nightstick. "If she talks to you or if she screams, you just hit her with this until she stops." He demonstrates by whacking her on the leg with it.
Benny gets all excited about his new responsibility. "Give me the stick. That's mine right? I can keep it. And no one else right R.D.?"
"Right Benny." He smiles at him like a proud father and then he heads back over to Bosco, to see how he likes his new home.
The dull throbbing in Faith's head keeps nudging her to think. Thoughts come floating in and out with an underlying feeling of dread that she half recognizes, and half tries to suppress. She could feel herself being moved around and logic tells her that she's been injured so maybe paramedics are treating her...but a feeling comes instinctively... warning her that something is wrong. Something she can't handle, and she just can not bring herself to consciousness.
*** [Saturday morning, 4:32 a.m.]
Bosco wakes to the cold, damp, darkness that is still encasing him...like a tomb. His body trembles as if to shake it off, and in his mind...he knows that he needs to do something. No one is coming to help him...not even Faith. He feels an air of anger about that. She is his partner...he needs her help...she should be here for him.
He tries to remember the events that led to this. They were on Hobo duty. He remembers riding in their RMP. He remembers Faith checking an alley with a flashlight...against his wishes. They should have just moved on.
She found an injured bum, and then chased the perps that hurt him. He remembers following her through a doorway into a dark building. She knows he hates the dark, but she led him in there anyway. He remembers entering the darkness and...that's it...he was on the stairs...falling. He fell down the stairs and she must have run off after the perps, leaving him behind. His pain, blends with anger, leaving every fiber in him discomforted and cold.
There is something more though...what about the hand cuffs. And then there's that jag-off talking in riddles. Something he said begs to be remembered. That statement he made...someone else said that to him too...not long ago. The meek inheriting...that crazy bastard that spit on him. Faith left him here, and that son-of-a-bitch found him and put him in his own cuffs. His anger overtakes his thoughts. Wait till I see her...that bitch...we'll see how she likes working with a new partner.
He stews in his discomfort, feeling sorry for himself, and plotting retribution for his pain and suffering. He has never been in so much pain and it gets worse as the hours pass. He drifts in and out of consciousness, waiting for someone to get him out of this dilemma. Waiting for his partner to come back and save him.
But there is still something else...something is giving him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. A feeling like something sad has passed through him. It was in the words that strange man spoke to him. He said he took someone from him. The guy asked if Faith was his best friend...he said she was gone. Went kicking and screaming. What the hell did that mean.
He gets a hollow feeling in his chest and his heart sinks into it. "No...no...Faith!" he calls out in desperation. It can't be true...she can't be... He can't finish the thought. He tries to call her name again but he chokes up. He searches his mind to remember more. He suddenly remembers her gun going off, and the image in the flash. The living dead attacking her. Demons he created with his own venomous words against the homeless. "Nooo!" He moans.
His mind searches for proof to contradict what his heart feels. Faith arrested that guy...they wouldn't have killed her because of it. She didn't even want to do it. She did it because he insisted. "Oh God, what have I done." He sobs out loud, very much alone now. Frustration and anguish consume him. He feels the world spinning, spiraling down.
He lays there crying...instinctively crying for his own situation and helplessness. Crying at the thought that he will never see her again. He pictures her over and over, in the midst of those people. He hears her screaming for him. His name...her last breath. She must have felt deserted. She must have been terrified.
And he did desert her. He let her go into that alley alone...he let her enter the building alone. He didn't want to search that dirty building or handle another dirty hobo. So he waited at the top of the steps for her to do it, stalling, knowing that she would bring them up to him. Then he froze. He froze on the steps while she screamed for him. A hot pain flashes through him, and with it flashes the images of those creatures, swarming over her again. It haunts him.
***
The gentle nudging on her leg brings her out of her sleep. For a brief moment, it was all a dream. She takes a quick breath, which draws the cloth tightly to her face. The sack over her head is real. Her hands instinctively try to reach for it and they are stopped, painfully bound to metal. The tape binding her fingers, is real. The throbbing of her broken finger and the soreness on her face and arms and body...the attack...was real. And the nudging on her legs, the feel of rats scampering over her, and then nibbling at her...all real.
She screams without control, kicking her legs in nervous spasms to scare away the newest unseen assault. She twists to her side and curls up, crouching against the wall she is bound to. She strains to listen above the sound of her breathing which is coming in quick, labored sobs. She hears something to her right. Someone is standing there...she can feel it.
Her voice is shaky. "Who's there?" She listens but hears nothing. "Please...help me." She still gets no response. Maybe no one is there. Her mind is stressed beyond the point of comprehension, because...this can't be really happening to her. She screams out for help again, this time, screaming to be heard from far away. Then she listens, desperate for any response at all, but nothing comes. She hears the sound of creaking pipes and strange echoes off in the distance, and nothing more.
As she regains control of her breathing, her hearing becomes more acute. She can hear the sound of rats scampering a short distance away. Then she hears the squeals of a rat fight, or was it a child giggling. Momentarily, she looses touch with reality.
"Emily?" she calls out. Her mind comforts her with a memory from a safer time. Not just before this happened, but way back, to when Emily was the giggling child. To the time when she adored her mother, and her and Charlie's worlds revolved around her. When Fred was the unreliable one...the missing parent...before she became a cop; a job she took so that she would be able to take care of her children without Fred.
Her eyes fill with tears as it dawns on her how cruelly that turned on her. Now Fred is the adored parent and she is the one that is never there for them. The one that her children...at least Emily...resents. Maybe Charlie too. She doesn't even know him. She's come so far detached from their lives that they may not even miss her now that...now that she's gone.
She is gone...she's sure of it. They are going to kill her, or maybe they've left her here to die, but the worst part is that they are giving her time to miss the things she will leave behind. Forcing her to think about the people in her life, and what her death will do to them. And she cries harder thinking that she never made amends with her daughter, that Emily may even be glad when she is gone.
"You better be quiet! Or you'll get this." A voice pushes her out of her thoughts as it draws closer. Benny waves the night stick at her, not comprehending that she can't see it. "I mean it too." He adds forcefully.
Hearing a voice, she is more relieved than startled. "Help...help me, please." Words come spilling out of her mouth, "Oh God...please, I can't see. There were rats. Rats were on me. Please...you gotta help me. I can't see...I can't...my hands. I can't get the rats off me..."
Benny swings his new stick at her, catching her in the shin. It makes a hollow 'cracking' sound and produces a welt immediately.
She screams out and pushes herself back against the wall with her legs. Benny gives out an excited squeal. "I told you...I said...you better be quiet." He swings it at her again, and connects with her ribs.
"God...don't...please!" She slides backwards, away from the direction of the blows. "Stay away from me!" She screams. The cuffs reach the end of the pipe and she can't back away any further. "Stop! Please...don't kill me!" Her voice has reached an hysterical pitch.
Benny giggles excitedly...childishly...and swings the stick again, clipping her on her forehead. This one stuns her into silence. Her body relaxes and she teeters on the edge of awareness, afraid to let go completely for fear that she will never wake up. She feels blood soaking into the cloth over her head, and it itches as it travels down her face.
*** Saturday 6:15 p.m.
Bosco's anger is now aimed at the hideous people who have hurt them. And the anger he felt towards Faith, has now turned to guilt. And it's eating him up.
He made her do all the reports alone, offering to help like it was a favor rather than what was expected of him. He did what ever he felt like doing and she...unconditionally took up the slack for him. She covered for him...always. She backed him even when she didn't want to.
He thinks back to when she had cancer. When he ran after that guy who killed his own family. She was sick...and still she followed him in. He got mad at her for not being there, even though she was there...sick...and yet she apologized to him. She told him all afternoon she was sick...he ignored her...and made her feel like she had let him down. What a shit he was to her. He never admitted this before, not even to himself.
She never let him down...she was there for him when he went after the bastard that hit his mother. She was there when he was pinned in the Russian mob shootout, and even though he took another partner, she is the one that laid down cover for him. She was there when he had his breakdown...no matter how hard he'd tried to push her away. He insulted her...he was mean. He pictures the hurt in her eyes when he asked for a new partner...not once but twice.
He dumped her for Cruz. He turned his back on her over and over... until he needed something from her. And she always let him back in...even when it caused problems for her in her marriage. And now he needs her...not even remembering that she needed him first.
Bosco goes through a list of emotions. Anger, sadness, guilt. He isn't good at being on the receiving end of crime and punishment. But he is being punished...for the way he treated her. He is scared to think that if Faith can't help him...who else will? There is no one else who would lay their life on the line for him. And even if someone does...can he survive and move on without her? A thought seizes him with fear...he 'is' without her...and look how well he's doing.
***
.
***
~Friday, Halloween, Midnight
R.D. had them cuff Bosco in the main part of the coal basement, under the street side of the building. The part they all live in. He wants Bosco to be right there with them, living amongst them. But he has them take Faith to another side of the basement. He has different plans for her. He wants her to experience the isolation and fear of incarceration. So they take her to the part of the basement under the back side of the building that is darker, colder. No one stays in that side of the basement because the walls and floor are always wet from water seepage.
The only one who goes to this dingy area is Benny, who is following them as they drag Faith over there. Benny is in his twenties but he is retarded, with the mental capacity of a five year old.
"R.D. she's going back to the other side though...right?. Why are you taking her here. This is mine." He starts picking up items on the floor as they walk. "This is my stuff. See? These are all mine." He is almost in tears as he paces around them, clutching his toys tightly in his arms. "This is mine...you said. She can't have this. I don't want her in my stuff."
"Don't worry Benny. She won't touch your stuff." R.D. assures him, talking in a very soothing tone. "I'll show you."
They drag Faith up to the farthest wall where there is a cast iron pipe protruding from the cement and running four feet across, about an foot up from the floor, then back into the cement wall.
They cuff her hands around it, and then R.D. pulls out a roll of duct tape. He balls her hands into fists and tapes them up so she can't use her fingers. "See Benny...she can't touch anything. And so she don't kick you, we'll tape her feet together. Is that better?" He says reassuringly.
"Ok...she can't use my things either. They're mine...she can't have them. This is where I keep my things. All the stuff I have...right here." Benny says like a spoiled child.
"Then you can have her too. Would you like that?"
"I can? For good?"
"Yes." He says with a smile.
"Ok then...she can stay here with my other stuff." He giggles like a child for a minute, but then his face turns scared. "Wait...she'll be looking at me. She'll be watching me when I do stuff." He says.
R.D. patiently takes a deep breath and looks around. "Ok Benny...I have an idea." He picks up an old pillow case that Benny had a bunch of rocks in and dumps them out. "What if we put this on her so she can't see you?"
As he says it, he pulls it over her head, tying a knot in the bottom around her neck.
"There...now she can't watch you." Benny smiles and claps his hands. "Now you have to take care of her Benny. If she makes noise you have to punish her." He holds up her nightstick. "If she talks to you or if she screams, you just hit her with this until she stops." He demonstrates by whacking her on the leg with it.
Benny gets all excited about his new responsibility. "Give me the stick. That's mine right? I can keep it. And no one else right R.D.?"
"Right Benny." He smiles at him like a proud father and then he heads back over to Bosco, to see how he likes his new home.
The dull throbbing in Faith's head keeps nudging her to think. Thoughts come floating in and out with an underlying feeling of dread that she half recognizes, and half tries to suppress. She could feel herself being moved around and logic tells her that she's been injured so maybe paramedics are treating her...but a feeling comes instinctively... warning her that something is wrong. Something she can't handle, and she just can not bring herself to consciousness.
*** [Saturday morning, 4:32 a.m.]
Bosco wakes to the cold, damp, darkness that is still encasing him...like a tomb. His body trembles as if to shake it off, and in his mind...he knows that he needs to do something. No one is coming to help him...not even Faith. He feels an air of anger about that. She is his partner...he needs her help...she should be here for him.
He tries to remember the events that led to this. They were on Hobo duty. He remembers riding in their RMP. He remembers Faith checking an alley with a flashlight...against his wishes. They should have just moved on.
She found an injured bum, and then chased the perps that hurt him. He remembers following her through a doorway into a dark building. She knows he hates the dark, but she led him in there anyway. He remembers entering the darkness and...that's it...he was on the stairs...falling. He fell down the stairs and she must have run off after the perps, leaving him behind. His pain, blends with anger, leaving every fiber in him discomforted and cold.
There is something more though...what about the hand cuffs. And then there's that jag-off talking in riddles. Something he said begs to be remembered. That statement he made...someone else said that to him too...not long ago. The meek inheriting...that crazy bastard that spit on him. Faith left him here, and that son-of-a-bitch found him and put him in his own cuffs. His anger overtakes his thoughts. Wait till I see her...that bitch...we'll see how she likes working with a new partner.
He stews in his discomfort, feeling sorry for himself, and plotting retribution for his pain and suffering. He has never been in so much pain and it gets worse as the hours pass. He drifts in and out of consciousness, waiting for someone to get him out of this dilemma. Waiting for his partner to come back and save him.
But there is still something else...something is giving him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. A feeling like something sad has passed through him. It was in the words that strange man spoke to him. He said he took someone from him. The guy asked if Faith was his best friend...he said she was gone. Went kicking and screaming. What the hell did that mean.
He gets a hollow feeling in his chest and his heart sinks into it. "No...no...Faith!" he calls out in desperation. It can't be true...she can't be... He can't finish the thought. He tries to call her name again but he chokes up. He searches his mind to remember more. He suddenly remembers her gun going off, and the image in the flash. The living dead attacking her. Demons he created with his own venomous words against the homeless. "Nooo!" He moans.
His mind searches for proof to contradict what his heart feels. Faith arrested that guy...they wouldn't have killed her because of it. She didn't even want to do it. She did it because he insisted. "Oh God, what have I done." He sobs out loud, very much alone now. Frustration and anguish consume him. He feels the world spinning, spiraling down.
He lays there crying...instinctively crying for his own situation and helplessness. Crying at the thought that he will never see her again. He pictures her over and over, in the midst of those people. He hears her screaming for him. His name...her last breath. She must have felt deserted. She must have been terrified.
And he did desert her. He let her go into that alley alone...he let her enter the building alone. He didn't want to search that dirty building or handle another dirty hobo. So he waited at the top of the steps for her to do it, stalling, knowing that she would bring them up to him. Then he froze. He froze on the steps while she screamed for him. A hot pain flashes through him, and with it flashes the images of those creatures, swarming over her again. It haunts him.
***
The gentle nudging on her leg brings her out of her sleep. For a brief moment, it was all a dream. She takes a quick breath, which draws the cloth tightly to her face. The sack over her head is real. Her hands instinctively try to reach for it and they are stopped, painfully bound to metal. The tape binding her fingers, is real. The throbbing of her broken finger and the soreness on her face and arms and body...the attack...was real. And the nudging on her legs, the feel of rats scampering over her, and then nibbling at her...all real.
She screams without control, kicking her legs in nervous spasms to scare away the newest unseen assault. She twists to her side and curls up, crouching against the wall she is bound to. She strains to listen above the sound of her breathing which is coming in quick, labored sobs. She hears something to her right. Someone is standing there...she can feel it.
Her voice is shaky. "Who's there?" She listens but hears nothing. "Please...help me." She still gets no response. Maybe no one is there. Her mind is stressed beyond the point of comprehension, because...this can't be really happening to her. She screams out for help again, this time, screaming to be heard from far away. Then she listens, desperate for any response at all, but nothing comes. She hears the sound of creaking pipes and strange echoes off in the distance, and nothing more.
As she regains control of her breathing, her hearing becomes more acute. She can hear the sound of rats scampering a short distance away. Then she hears the squeals of a rat fight, or was it a child giggling. Momentarily, she looses touch with reality.
"Emily?" she calls out. Her mind comforts her with a memory from a safer time. Not just before this happened, but way back, to when Emily was the giggling child. To the time when she adored her mother, and her and Charlie's worlds revolved around her. When Fred was the unreliable one...the missing parent...before she became a cop; a job she took so that she would be able to take care of her children without Fred.
Her eyes fill with tears as it dawns on her how cruelly that turned on her. Now Fred is the adored parent and she is the one that is never there for them. The one that her children...at least Emily...resents. Maybe Charlie too. She doesn't even know him. She's come so far detached from their lives that they may not even miss her now that...now that she's gone.
She is gone...she's sure of it. They are going to kill her, or maybe they've left her here to die, but the worst part is that they are giving her time to miss the things she will leave behind. Forcing her to think about the people in her life, and what her death will do to them. And she cries harder thinking that she never made amends with her daughter, that Emily may even be glad when she is gone.
"You better be quiet! Or you'll get this." A voice pushes her out of her thoughts as it draws closer. Benny waves the night stick at her, not comprehending that she can't see it. "I mean it too." He adds forcefully.
Hearing a voice, she is more relieved than startled. "Help...help me, please." Words come spilling out of her mouth, "Oh God...please, I can't see. There were rats. Rats were on me. Please...you gotta help me. I can't see...I can't...my hands. I can't get the rats off me..."
Benny swings his new stick at her, catching her in the shin. It makes a hollow 'cracking' sound and produces a welt immediately.
She screams out and pushes herself back against the wall with her legs. Benny gives out an excited squeal. "I told you...I said...you better be quiet." He swings it at her again, and connects with her ribs.
"God...don't...please!" She slides backwards, away from the direction of the blows. "Stay away from me!" She screams. The cuffs reach the end of the pipe and she can't back away any further. "Stop! Please...don't kill me!" Her voice has reached an hysterical pitch.
Benny giggles excitedly...childishly...and swings the stick again, clipping her on her forehead. This one stuns her into silence. Her body relaxes and she teeters on the edge of awareness, afraid to let go completely for fear that she will never wake up. She feels blood soaking into the cloth over her head, and it itches as it travels down her face.
*** Saturday 6:15 p.m.
Bosco's anger is now aimed at the hideous people who have hurt them. And the anger he felt towards Faith, has now turned to guilt. And it's eating him up.
He made her do all the reports alone, offering to help like it was a favor rather than what was expected of him. He did what ever he felt like doing and she...unconditionally took up the slack for him. She covered for him...always. She backed him even when she didn't want to.
He thinks back to when she had cancer. When he ran after that guy who killed his own family. She was sick...and still she followed him in. He got mad at her for not being there, even though she was there...sick...and yet she apologized to him. She told him all afternoon she was sick...he ignored her...and made her feel like she had let him down. What a shit he was to her. He never admitted this before, not even to himself.
She never let him down...she was there for him when he went after the bastard that hit his mother. She was there when he was pinned in the Russian mob shootout, and even though he took another partner, she is the one that laid down cover for him. She was there when he had his breakdown...no matter how hard he'd tried to push her away. He insulted her...he was mean. He pictures the hurt in her eyes when he asked for a new partner...not once but twice.
He dumped her for Cruz. He turned his back on her over and over... until he needed something from her. And she always let him back in...even when it caused problems for her in her marriage. And now he needs her...not even remembering that she needed him first.
Bosco goes through a list of emotions. Anger, sadness, guilt. He isn't good at being on the receiving end of crime and punishment. But he is being punished...for the way he treated her. He is scared to think that if Faith can't help him...who else will? There is no one else who would lay their life on the line for him. And even if someone does...can he survive and move on without her? A thought seizes him with fear...he 'is' without her...and look how well he's doing.
***
.
***