“Vanessa’s ma’ called me a couple of weeks ago, asking me if I knew where she was. She said she’d gotten a detective to look into it.”
“That’d be me.”
“Have you found anything? Any leads?”
“The situation isn’t good. She was kidnapped by an illegal organisation. It looks as though she’s involved in the sex slave trade.”
“My god! Vanessa? This can’t be.” Benny broke down. “And what about Heather?”
“Heather went missing with her, we don’t know of her whereabouts either.”
“Do you think they could still be alive?”
“It’s quite likely. But I’d say she’s undergone some level of… abuse.”
“Who are these people?”
“If I knew that, I’d be knocking on their door instead of yours.”
The television played a news update. Somebody had gone missing. Benny turned the volume up and they both watched a report on a Senator’s missing boy. It said the boy suffered a mental condition and can’t identify himself or understand where he is. The Senator came on the television and pleaded for anyone with information to come forward.
“People just get snatched up all the time, don’t they, Detective.”
“By the black mouth of the devil. Swallowed up overnight.”
“I tried with her, I really did. To be a good dad; a good husband. Sometimes people just aren’t built for certain things.”
“I hear you, Benny. I’ve been thinking that way myself lately.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I don’t know. Maybe swing by her house and clean the place up. Listen for any phone calls, she may escape and come home.”
“I could do that.”
“Thanks. I… I mean we, at the department, need all the help we can get on this one.”
Chapter 6
Vanessa was shoved into the back of a van by Dr. Phalanx’s orderlies. She fell hard on her back and lay there with her hands tied behind her while Dr. Phalanx and Dr. Ferngehn sat on either side. Dr. Phalanx reached down to her crotch and grabbed at her vagina and ripped the thing apart, blood and fat burst between his fingers. Vanessa’s scream was deafening.
“That’s what you get for being such a cunt. Do you know who that boy was? He was the son of our entire source of funding! And now he’s dead because of you.”
“The little shit deserved it.”
“He was just a harmless little retard, you didn’t have to kill him. His father was just trying to allow him to taste the fruits of his wealth. But now that this has happened, we’re finished. If only you’d been the subservient little snake bitch you were supposed to be.”
“I won’t do a fucking thing you tell me to do. I’ll bite off every dick that comes near me.”
“And I’ll remove your fucking teeth and feed you to a pit of dogs.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“YES I WOULD. Your little stunt back there has ruined the whole operation. We need to pack up and move now.”
Dr. Phalanx turned to Dr. Ferngehn. “How do you feel about Europe?”
“I quite like Europe,” Ferngehn said.
“Great. And it’s summer at the moment. Yay!”
“What are we going to do with her?” Dr. Ferngehn asked.
“I’ll have a think about it. Whatever it is, it won’t be nice.”
“Wonderful.”
Chapter 7
When they arrived back at the factory she was dragged out of the van and thrown into her room. An orderly came up and punched her in the side of the face, knocking her out.
She woke up sometime later to the smell of burning flesh. She could hear movement all over the factory. It sounded like they were packing up. She hadn’t believed them until then and feared it meant her death was coming. To die would be a nice escape, but how they were going to do it made her extremely anxious.
The door opened and Dr. Phalanx stood there looking at her. He was holding a shaved chihuahua under his arm. The pink canine was writhing around like a giant baby mouse, slick and covered in oil. Dr. Phalanx dropped the dog on the ground and left the room, shutting and locking the door behind him.
The sounds in the factory continued until some time in the early morning. Vanessa had tried the door many times, begging to be let out, starving to death. She wandered over to the centre of the room and the chihuahua approached her and began to lick her hands. She patted the oily dog and hugged it, longing for her baby. She held the dog before her and began to cry.
“I’m so sorry.”
Vanessa enclosed the dog’s head in the expanse of her open mouth and felt it trying to breath as she swallowed the head. Tears ran down her white eyes as the dog’s forelegs folded back at her lips and snapped, the whole of the dog disappearing down her gullet, bones crushing, skin corroding, suffocating. She was no longer hungry.
She woke after a long sleep and crawled over to the toilet. Her anus began to discharge a black slime that left her body with the ease of running water. She got to the bowl, sat and pushed out the white remains of a dog skull. It floated on the surface of the slime like a drop of milk in a barrel of oil. She looked up to see the door to her room was open.
The factory was empty. The floor space cleared entirely except for a small crate in the centre. She approached the crate and unwrapped the cloth inside it. Heather lay sleeping as though nothing had happened at all. Vanessa cried tears of joy as she woke her baby up and examined her body for any harm. She was fine. She left the factory with Heather in her arms and found an old hessian sack and wrapped herself in it. She walked home in the middle of the night, not daring to let anyone see her body in its current state.
When she got home she put Heather in her cot and took a shower. Her body was alien to the homely environment. She went through all of her clothes trying to find a top that fit, leaving a pile all over the floor. She examined her torn vagina and wrapped it in gauze.
“Mummy’s going to the doctor tomorrow,” she said. “Gonna get myself all back to normal and put this behind me.”
She slept with Heather beside her that night. “The nightmare is over, baby.”
Part 3
MOLTING
Chapter 1
In the morning Vanessa woke, changed Heather and got dressed. She went to the kitchen and opened the fridge and the only food left was a bunch of bananas.
“Not too bad — edible.”
She took a banana from the fridge and began to eat it. She went to the bedroom and broke off a piece and fed it to Heather. Then there was a knock at the door. Vanessa grabbed Heather and tippy-toed out of the room. She went to the living room and peeked through the curtains and saw a man standing at the door. He looked like a policeman, but she couldn’t be sure. The man walked around to the side of the house and Vanessa panicked and went to the kitchen. She moved the kitchen table to one side to get at the basement door. She opened the latch very quietly and crept down the stairs, shutting the door behind her. She put the light on and tended to Heather, hoping she wouldn’t cry and give away their hiding place. She barely used the basement since Benny had left. He used to fix up old bicycles down there. A few still sat in the corner collecting dust. She waited for some time, listening to the floorboards, hoping the man wouldn’t come inside.
When she hadn’t heard anything for a while, she put Heather into a small drawer and shut it, keeping her secure from the tools lying around the basement floor.