“What do you want to do?” she asked.
Adam sat down beside her. He looked at the baby. “I want to sleep with you.”
“But we’re just friends,” she said.
“I know. Just for fun. And you won’t have to pay me for the drugs.”
Vanessa smiled and looked at Adam from the corner of her eye. “That’s prostitution, Adam. I’m not a prostitute.”
“I know, I didn’t mean that. I just think you’re lonely.”
Vanessa reached for his pocket once again and made a lazy moan.
“You want to get higher?”
She nodded, too duped to speak.
“Okay.”
Vanessa spent the next ten minutes getting higher and when she was incapable of moving Adam took her top off and sunk his face in between her enormous breasts. Then he took her pants off and bent her over on the couch, her body a silent and dead weight. He peeled her underwear down to her mid-thighs, not bothering to take them off entirely, and began to fuck her. He pulled out after some minutes of not feeling much and licked his fingertips and touched her asshole, lubricating it enough to not wake her from her stupor as he jammed his penis inside it. When he’d come he got up and put his pants back on and then dressed Vanessa. He carried her by the wrists out to her car and put her in the backseat. He went back into the house and collected a sleeping Heather. When he had them both in the car he locked the front door of her house and drove to a secluded part of town full of rusted factories and empty fields. The town’s industry had atrophied to a dank wasteland. This was a place nobody wanted to go. He was going to be on time.
Chapter 6
Vanessa was sitting on a log with her back to a dense forest, weakly clutching her baby in her arms. She looked up at Adam, who stood before an enormous abandoned factory. Vines clutched to the red bricks that reached as high as the broken windows thirty feet up. There was the vague sound of running water in the forest behind her, the low hum of machines from the building. Everything seemed soggy and on the verge of rusting away. Adam was panting from exhaustion for reasons Vanessa did not know.
“Where am I?” Vanessa mumbled.
“This is the place you wanted me to show you.”
“What place?”
“Remember? I told you about that research company, how they wanted volunteers.”
“No.”
“I guess you were pretty high. They’re paying people top dollar to test foods and stuff. You wanted me to take you. Now we’re here.”
“I don’t remember talking about this at all.”
“You wanted to come here. It’ll help you pay your rent. Hell, you could do a lot more with what they’re paying.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ve rung the bell, they should be coming soon.”
“Who?”
“The people who run the tests. I’ve gotta go.”
“Don’t leave me here.”
“Your car is here, just drive home when you’re done.”
“But I don’t know where I am.”
Adam was already gone, vanished around the corner of the factory. She thought she mustn’t be far from home if he left without driving. She assured herself it would begin to make sense to her the more she went along. She needed the money enough to not get up off the log, and her body ached; her genitals throbbed. Her head was too cloudy to speculate why.
The roller door of the factory began to rise and she watched a man come into view, standing there holding the death switch on the side wall. He wore a white lab coat and black pants. His hands and face were pale, his features soft and bland like a defined crash-test dummy. He had a half smile and simply said: “Miss Moore,” the way a doctor calls you from a waiting room. She stood up, cradling her baby close. She bounced Heather in her arms like a shield as if to say, ‘don’t hurt me, I’m with child.’
“How did you know my name?”
“You called us earlier. You said you were coming in.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
Embarrassed, she began to believe him.
“Of course I did. That’s right.”
“Come this way, Miss Moore. We have many questions to ask you.”
She was lead into a portable office, the type commonly used on construction sites, and asked to sit down on a plastic chair before a desk. She was given a glass of water, which she downed in one go, desperately thirsty. The man introduced himself.
“I’m Dr. Ferngehn, operations assistant. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Vanessa.” He sat down behind the desk and pulled from the drawer several pieces of paper stapled together at the corner. He began by asking her name, getting her to spell it out. Then her address, occupation, he asked if she had any close relatives staying with her. She answered thoroughly, wanting to seem as capable and enthusiastic about the program as possible, worried her drug use would come under speculation. The questions veered towards what seemed irrelevant to Vanessa.
“How do you know Adam?” Dr. Ferngehn asked.
“Adam? I work with him. I know him from work.”
“He drove you here, is that correct?”
“Yes. What’s he got to do with anything?”
“Not much really, we just like to know how test subjects are referred to us.”
“Oh, ok.”
“And your child, does your child have any special needs?”
“Heather’s fine. My baby won’t be getting involved in… whatever it is I’m doing here. What am I doing here?”
“Your baby will be fine, we just don’t want the thing dying on us while you’re incapacitated.”
“Excuse me? Inca-what?” She began to panic.
“Please, go sit.” He pointed to a small couch at the rear of the office.
“I am sitting.”
“Yes,” he smiled, “but in a moment you’re going to pass out and we think the couch is a better place to do this.”
She looked at the empty glass on the bench.
“Go and sit down, Vanessa.”
She clutched her baby tight in her arms and stood up, wondering if she could make it out of the office and flee, but standing only made the drugs work faster, and she stumbled onto the couch. She looked down at her baby.
“Whatever you do, please don’t hurt my child.”
She made herself comfortable knowing that soon she’d be too drugged to move. Her mind filled with vague ideas of what strange atrocities possibly awaited. She began to mumble a lullaby, perhaps for the baby, but more for herself. She just wanted her mummy to come and tell her everything was going to be okay.
Chapter 7
Vanessa woke up strapped to a bed in a dark room. The walls were made of concrete and soaked from rainwater seeping through the shabby iron roof. There was nothing in there but a toilet and a small hand basin with a blot of flattened glue above it where a mirror used to be. She could hear wheels moving toward the door outside. The door opened and another man came in, wheeling a television on a steel frame. He was tall and thin with white blonde hair, sharp features you could cut glass with, and baby blue eyes.
“I am Dr. Phalanx. You can call me Gerald.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Watch.”
He plugged the television into a power socket and pressed play. The screen flickered to an image of long grass.
“I don’t understand,” she argued. “Where’s my child?”
“Your child is fine,” he said. “Watch the video.”
The video went from the thick grass to a clearing where a large python lay, slowly consuming a goat, headfirst. There was no sound on the video, just the silent swallowing of a full sized goat by an enormous python.
“I think you have the wrong video.”