Hi All,

Here is another installment, hope you continue to enjoy.

WARNING! Things get rather grim in this chapter. If that sort of stuff bothers you, please read no further and there is a mild language warning in this chapter as well.

Thanks as always to the Usual Suspects, you all keep me on the right track.

Special thanks to Kreek- (Who along with several Torinos, just won a second place award for Smarm story in SG1 Fanfic!) Congrants my friend! And I couldn't have finished this chapter without your help, pally, Thanks!

Chapter 6

Bay City Maximum Security Prison

"When did this happen?" Hutch asked, exasperated and disbelieving at this turn of bad news.

"Yesterday," The warden looked away for a moment before continuing, "Look Detective Hutchinson, I understand you're upset. I realize that you need answers from Marcus, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem very likely that he'll be able to answer them anytime soon. The inmate responsible did a real number on him." The aging, pudgy man shook his head as he turned away and moved to look his barred window to the exercise yard below.

Hutch joined him and peered through the bars, he was simmering with pent up frustration. He had to work hard to think cognitively. The yard area was lit up to near daytime brilliance by several huge lamps; there wasn't a shadowy spot to be found. No one was in the yard; all were locked in their cells for the night. "How did it happen?" He asked in a conversational tone as he studied the warden's posture and facial reactions. Something wasn't right here.

The warden gave a long sigh; "He was on cleaning detail with one other guy. Marcus is a lazy one, wasn't pulling his share, finally the other inmate had enough-"

"Let's not kid each other warden. You're just tryin' to blow smoke up my ass." Hutch interjected, exasperated, "I don't need to be a detective to tell when someone was trying to snow me. And that's exactly what you're trying to do here, isn't it?"

"What ever are you implying, detective?" The overstuffed man huffed as he waddled over to his desk and sat down in his equally overstuffed executive chair. He leaned back and steepled his fingertips, peering over them at the blond detective in a condescending manner.

Hutch looked away from the man, weighing his options and wondering if he should continue this discussion with the warden. He knew he was wasting time here. He could quite literally feel it slipping away from him… Starsky had been missing far too long already, and now to find out that he was in the hands of Simon Marcus's goons, for nearly five days? Dear God… Those animals had done a real number on him in just twenty-four hours… What havoc could they have wreaked on his best friend in ninety-six plus hours?

Hutch struggled to suppress a shiver of fear and dread at the horrific pictures his mind rapidly painted for him. He yanked an imaginary blanket over those pictures and some how managed to regain his internal composure. Goaded by those images, Hutch returned his gaze to the warden, who was attempting to look busy.

The lanky detective locked eyes with the warden, "What most likely happened here was that some inmate wanted to make a name for himself by offing Marcus. Nothing gets the attention of the other inmates like taking out someone famous. Am I right? But then, what does it matter to you? So what if Marcus dies, right? Whose it gonna hurt that there is one less scumbag sliming up your cells? Marcus killed nine people…" Hutch then corrected himself, "He was convicted of killing nine people, and there are likely many more we don't even know about."

He shook his head and paced the length of the room, before returning and smacking his knuckles down hard on the warden's desk as he leaned in to glare at the man for a moment before continuing. "You most likely turned a blind eye to a threat to Marcus. As much as I despise that man, he may be my only means to finding my partner. By permitting this attack, you may just have caused me to lose theonlypossible lead tomy partner." He leaned in closer to the warden and hissed "You had better pray Marcus survives. You also better pray he recovers quickly enough to help me find my partner before… before he becomes number ten." The irate blond stabbed his index finger into the man's spongy chest, giving it a firm poke.

The warden lifted his head up sharply and raised a haughty eyebrow, "That a threat detective?"

"No, it's a promise." The irate blond wheeled about and exited the warden's office. He would inform Dobey about Marcus and his captain would see to it that Marcus got proper medical care. They only needed him healthy enough to answer a few important questions.

As he exited the Maximum Security Prison, Hutch felt a drop of water on his neck, another hit his hand. A rumble drew his attention upwards. He looked to the heavens above, attempting to look beyond the buildings and the light pollution to see the clouds, even though it was now fully nighttime. A flash of lightning illuminated a portion of the sky, revealing sagging clouds, pregnant with rain.

There was another flash of lightning, closer this time. Hutch automatically counted the seconds until he heard the crack of thunder. The storm was moving closer to the city. The blond sped up his pace, wanting to get to his car before the approaching deluge soaked him. The sky began to increase its rumbling and the lightning flashed ever faster, heralding the storm's arrival. Though the dark hid its approach, he could hear the hiss of rain as a sheet of rain moved towards him, he broke into a sprint, digging in his pocket for his car keys as he ran.

He spotted the LTD under a lone lamp in the parking lot and increased his speed a notch as the sheet of rain drew ever near. He nearly made it when the deluge overtook him and he was drenched in seconds. Feeling a little disheartened, Hutch slowed his run to a trot and upon reaching to car; he noticed that he had forgotten to roll up his window. "Dammit!" But on the bright side, he had managed to remember to lock the door; he rolled his eyes at his stupidity. 'What good was it to lock the doors when you left the driver's side window wide open?' He chided himself.

Hutch quickly opened the door and slid in, only to find that the front seat was nearly as soaked as he was. He dropped his head and rainwater dripped off his locks and into his lap. How much more of this could he take? He shook his head and took a deep breath, drawing in a huge lungful of air. He held it for a while and exhaled slowly. He rolled up his window, then wiped a tired hand down his face and inserted the key in the ignition, turning it. The engine gave a tired 'errr' and went silent. He tried again and got a clicking sound that quickly faded to complete silence.

"Dammit!" Hutch pounded the steering wheel with his hands; hitting it hard "Dammit!" he repeated as he hit the wheel once more. He gritted his teeth and turned his attention to the rumbling, flashing heavens above him, "Why dammit? Why Marcus and why now? What am I suppose to do now…? Oh God Starsk… I'm tryin'" He gave the steering wheel a final bang before folding his arms over it and dropping his head onto them, he gave into tears of born of sheer frustration.

XXXX

A rumble woke him.

Starsky thought it was his stomach. He adjusted his position on the dirt floor and shivered with the cold. He was curled up as tight as he could get, attempting to keep what little body heat he had. It was an impossible task. He felt a sharp pinch to his finger and jerked his hand away from the pain, automatically sticking his finger in his mouth. He tasted the sharp copper of blood on his fingertip.

Having something liquid on his dry tongue brought on a frenzy of thirst and he sucked at his finger until he realized what he was doing. 'Could I be a vampire if the only blood I suck is my own?' He wondered as he popped his finger out of his mouth and held it in front of his face, but it was pitch black in the bottom of the well, he couldn't see his damaged finger, or anything else for that matter.

The saliva on his finger was thick and sticky; he could almost get his fingers to stick together with it. "Hey Mickey lookit this… I've got superglue for spit!" He cackled dryly to his rat companion. A frown crawled across his face as he wondered why he was trying to show the rat anything in the complete darkness of the well. A flash of light high above him caught his attention. He turned his head and looked up; maybe the lawnmower guy was back. He thought about calling out, but decided to wait to see if the action was repeated. He knew he had to conserve his energy if he wanted to survive.

The flash didn't repeat didn't repeat and he didn't hear anything, so he closed his eyes and pulled his arms in close to his chest, pulling his tee shirt over his nose so he could breathe down the neck of it and on to his cold chest. It wasn't much, but it helped a little. He was almost asleep when he heard the rumble again. He cracked one eye open and then the other one. There was another flash of light. He blinked stupidly up at the occasionally lit up hole, far above him.

Moments later, a deep bass rumble reverberated down the shaft of the well. Another flash brightened the top part of the shaft. Starsky perked up a bit more, slowly pushing himself into a sitting position. Lightning. It was lightning. The next rumble was louder, which meant the storm was closer. His breath caught in his parched throat, and he began to wish for the rain to fall.

XXXX

The rain had finally stopped, thank god.

Hutch tossed the tow truck guy his money and stuffed his billfold back into his back pocket, the LTD was purring like a contented cat now. He made a face at the car. The rain had stopped a few minutes ago and the air had a nice clean ozone scent. Hutch got back into his car, dreading the squish of water when he sat down. His wet underwear was slowly creeping into his butt crack and he tugged at it from outside of his pants, but gave up after a few tugs. There was no point to it since it would just creep back in later.

He grabbed his mic and informed Dobey about Marcus and his condition. After gaining his captain's assurance that he would see that Simon Marcus got any proper medical care he needed, Hutch hung the mic up. He caught a glimpse of himself in the rear view mirror 'Hutchinson, you look like hell.' He looked away from the mirror and put the car in gear.

After driving back into town, Hutch pulled into Huggy's to get a beer. He was still soaked but well beyond caring about that. He ambled in and plopped himself down on the nearest barstool, halfheartedly pulling at his creeping underwear as he did so.

Huggy took in the blond's bedraggled appearance, and attempted a little levity "You look like something a cat coughed up." He wiped the counter, giving the man time to respond.

Hutch favored him with a sour expression, "Gimme a beer."

"Comin' right up." The bar owner poured a glass and plunked it down on the counter in front of the detective. "I take it that your meeting with Marcus it didn't go well."

The detective shook his head, "It didn't go at all." He proceeded to fill Huggy in on what happened to Marcus. After he finished, he peered up over the rim of his beer at his informant friend, "Please tell me you've got something?"

"You wanna know who the governor is sleeping with, I can tell you. You wanna know if a certain judge is…you know," Huggy lifted a pinky finger straight up in the air, "I can tell you. But any word about Starsky? I can't tell you. There's nothin', zilch, zip… the streets are silent on this-"

"Hug-gy" Hutch broke the black man's name up into two syllables "Tell me something, anything."

The thin man sighed, "What few of Marcus's loyal followers that were left after his sick dreams turned to dust, split Bay City months ago. Went to Utah, or so I heard."

"Utah?" Desperation tinged the softly asked question. "That's it?"

"It's shaky info at best, but yeah, that's it." Dark brown eyes, full of sorrow connected with pleading light blue eyes. They held for several heartbeats before Hutch silently stood up and walked stiffly towards the exit, his beer untouched and his damp underwear still firmly wedged.

"I'll keep tryin', somethin's gotta turn." The bar owner called after the hunched shouldered, retreating figure.

XXXX

"It's comin' Mickey, it's comin'!" Starsky grinned up at the circular hole high above him. He felt like cheering each flash of lightning, each clap of thunder. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. A surge of fresh rain laden air washed down upon him, he closed his eyes and drank it in. The stench of the well, of himself and of the long dead man fled his nostrils, replaced by the clean, fresh breeze.

He licked his dry lips with his equally dry tongue as he craned his head back, anticipating the feel of liquid in his parched mouth. Soon he would have all the water he could drink… until the next time it rained. That thought brought him up short. He needed something to keep water in… but what? The ironic thought of being in a well and worrying about what to keep water in made him giggle. He stopped as quickly as he started, it was no laughing matter.

Starsky automatically patted his pockets and then rolled his eyes at his own antics. He didn't have anything but lint in those pockets. His clothing would not hold much moisture and would dry out after a day or two. He didn't relish the notion of being cold and wet, hypothermia would kill him quicker then thirst would.

He needed to have something to hold water. Who knew when, or if, he would have anotherchance to collect water. He had already attempted to drink his own urine, but he hadn't been able to produce more then a teaspoon or two of the stuff. It had taken a lot of fortitude to force himself to drink it, but he had. It was every bit as vile as he thought it would be. He shivered at the notion. He was never gonna tell anyone what he had done to survive down here, if he ever got out, that is.

A boom of thunder pulled him back to the matter at hand, none of that mattered now - he was going to get real water, but what to hold it in? It hit him. It was disturbing, but he had a solution. He worked to swallow the knot in his throat as he crawled to where he had reburied the dead man's skull and dug it up. He carefully brushed the dirt off of it. "Sorry buddy," he apologized to the grinning skull as he tipped it upside down and knocked the dirt out of the brainstem hole. At least he hoped it was dirt that was coming out.

He removed the jawbone and set it back into the shallow hole, carefully covering it back up. He had to be practical about this, but he thanked the nameless man for his gift of his skull, soon to be a water container. It wouldn't hold a lot of water, but if he drank enough before the well dried up again, he should be able to last another week or so.

Provided that the well didn't fill so full that he drowned. That was a very disconcerting thought. The curly hair man wished he could see Mickey, but knew that rats were great survivors. If too much water got down in the well, the rat would lose its fear and climb on him.

The lightning flashed faster high above him, the thunder rolled rapidly on its heels. The storm was nearly directly over him. It took a great deal of effort, but he climbed to his feet and stood in the center of the well. He could hear the rain falling and closed his eyes in preparation of the coming deluge. It began to hit him and he slowly spread his arms from his sides as he felt the first drops, opening his mouth, sticking out his tongue. Like he had done when he was a child, back in New York, as if he were expecting snowflakes instead of raindrops to fall. The notion brought a brief smile to his face.

A clump hit him in the head. Starsky frowned. 'A clump?' He wondered as another one hit him, 'Since when is rainwater clumpy?' He popped his eyes open and squinted upwards. Dirt continued to rain down and scraping sounds could be heard between thunderclaps. Slowly the circle above him disappeared and the dirt stopped falling.

The hole was covered.

"No!" he gasped.

Someone had covered the well; there would be no rain, no water.

Starsky tilted his head back and screamed, "NOOOO!"

TBC