Redgrave: An Erotic Horror Read online

  Brimms honked the horn again.

  “Hurry the fuck up, Sikes! I got places to go, man! And I can’t go nowhere till you relieve Sgt. Bowens and I drive his ass back to the squadron. Come on, you’re cock blockin’ me!”

  He honked once more and I turned to punch the code into the keypad. The door beeped a couple of times and then clicked, my signal to pull. I yanked the rusty metal door open and stepped inside, securing it behind me.

  Inside the main door was a small room that looked to have once served as some sort of clinic check-in and waiting room. As I stood alone in the quiet entry room, I felt uneasy. I hated the building as a whole and its bizarre way of welcoming me into its embrace made me nervous. Eerie silence hung in the air, thick and heavy like a damp fog.

  The window once used to keep track of patients was covered with a rusty metallic mesh and secured with a padlock. A few cracked school-style plastic chairs lined one wall and an old television was against the other. It was the 1970s console type encased in wood, with built in speakers to each side of the screen. I remembered having a similar one in my home when I was a kid. I’d sit in front of the speakers, which had been covered with purple velvet and looked like theater curtains, and wait for the curtains to open and a miniature band to start rockin’ out on a tiny stage. As I looked at the cloth-covered speakers now, I hoped to God they wouldn’t open.

  I laughed under my breath and wondered if any of the guys had these ridiculous, wimpy thoughts? Or was it a girl thing?

  Would Brimms have any of these thoughts as he entered or would he just barrel through and get right to work? He’d probably already be beating off.

  Hanging above the TV was an odd, framed painting of a man sitting in a rocking chair, a robe draped over his slumped body. His mouth was open wide, stretched way beyond what any human’s should, and his teeth were chipped, exploding outward. Shoving through them and out of his mouth flew three small missiles, heat seeking I guessed, as one had already wrapped around and was headed behind him, where a woman stood. She must’ve been the man’s wife as she too was old and slumped over, mean looking, with a hot frying pan in her hand. Smoke sizzled from it.

  I chuckled under my breath. The painting was funny, but creepy at the same time. The expressions on the old couple’s faces just seemed sinister. The loud knock of the building’s heater kicked in and startled me a bit. It rattled and coughed and smelled of singed hair.

  Nice.

  I found the one item in the room that actually looked like it had been brought in by a modern military team. A large, metal safe stood its ground next to the only other door in the room, the mouth of the beast that led deeper into the Air Force base’s Security Forces confinement building. The safe was used to hold weapons for any visiting cops, but since I’d been advised to leave my gun at the armory, it simply served as a reminder of how vulnerable I was.

  I passed the safe and banged on the closed metal door once, waited, then banged two more times. A few seconds passed in silence. Then came the tinny sound of Sgt. Bowens calling out form the other side of the door.

  “State your name!”

  “Airman Sikes reports as ordered!”

  “Whiskey.”

  “What?”

  “I pass you whiskey.”

  I could use a little bit of whiskey at the moment. Some Southern Comfort and Coke sounded refreshing.

  “Oh…kilo, sorry,” I replied.

  Here I was, in the real military, feeling like some little girl worried that I would be refused entry into the neighborhood clubhouse. This was the boys’ hangout. Girls didn’t belong in the confinement building.

  Well fuck you all. I’m here. I’ve manned up enough to show up for duty in this big, bad scary Honeycomb Hideout of yours. So open the fucking door!

  After a couple of clicks and beeps, the door popped open. There stood Tech Sergeant Bowens, an older black man with a greying mustache and short cropped hair. He stood back on his heels with his fists at his hips like a super hero with his cape blowing in the wind. Sgt. Bowens had no cape, but he did have a bag of pork rinds in one fist which at the moment was leaking crumbs onto the carpet. I lowered my gaze to give him a hint at the mess he was making.

  “You know, Airman Sikes. That may be the only time Sgt. Bowens passes you whiskey.”

  “Come on, Sarge, everyone knows you’re the town drunk,” I joked.

  He let loose with boisterous laughter, his trademark. Finding him without a smile on his face and without cracking jokes would be like finding a bear without its fur. Happiness was the man’s coat of armor.

  “What took you so long? The upstairs guy got here twenty minutes ago.”

  The upstairs guy.

  I squeezed my thighs together and enjoyed the familiar ache of wanting between my legs. He was right upstairs.

  Easy…easy…easy. Don’t be easy. Make him beg for it.

  “Had to stop for snacks. Just found out they were finally letting me pull this post and I know once you enter…”

  “THERE’S NO ESCAPE!” Sgt. Bowens called out like he was the Wizard of Oz or something. “Bwahahahaha.”

  “Sounds like you need to escape.”

  “Good call on the snacks. I had a Slim Jim and a Dr. Pepper, that’s it for twelve hours.”

  The Bronco horn blared outside.

  “Who is that?” Sgt. Bowens asked.

  “Who do you think? Brimms.”

  “He better keep it down. I’ll have to go out there and lock him up at attention. Bwahahaha.”

  I stepped around the old sergeant and he slapped a big hand onto my shoulder.

  “You don’t have a gun, do you?”

  “No.”

  “And what’s in the bag? Sorry, but I have to see. Just part of the deal. We have to hold each other accountable. Checks and balances, you know. We haven’t had anyone in confinement like this since…well I don’t even know. Since long before I got to this base. That’s why they’re using such a shitty building.”

  I opened my backpack and moved a few things around, showing him that I only had a bag of chips, a box of Hot Pockets, a bottle of water, two notebooks, and a couple of DVDs.

  “I don’t get why we don’t just use one of the two cells back at the squadron,” I said.

  “The storage cells?” he asked and then laughed. “Have you seen those things? I think everyone’s too lazy to move all that junk out of ‘em. Aside from the occasional fight in the base club, a domestic dispute, or a drunk driving charge, we don’t usually have to hold anyone longer than a few hours before we turn them over to their chief.”

  He pointed down the hall, pointing in what I guessed was the direction of the prisoner.

  “This is a rare situation. And they don’t want this guy having access to anyone else. They say he’s a strange bird.”

  Once Sgt. Bowens was satisfied I didn’t have any unauthorized items, he led the way into what would be my humble abode for the night. Just inside the entryway was a small office with a funky old, brown couch, a desk, a TV with a DVD player, and a small nightstand with a microwave on top. That was all.

  I dropped my bag down onto the couch and looked at the room around me. It wasn’t so bad. Could be worse. Could be like one of the sedans we often spent the night sitting in, trying to dodge the heater beast, the blast of warm air that puts you straight to sleep when you’re stuck guarding the ass end of an airplane on a frozen flight line.

  If Sgt. Bowens could last twelve hours alone in this place, I could too. And technically I wasn’t alone. My friend was upstairs. Senior Airman Chapman, my Texan friend with the attitude, and almost the looks, of Iceman from Top Gun. He thought he was the coolest of the cool. He wouldn’t be my type…if he wasn’t so fucking hot.

  “Alright,” Sgt. Bowens said, breaking the silence. “Quick breakdown. You can hang out here. Consider this your Barbie Dream House for the night.”

  Wow that wasn’t sexist. I imagined he’d call it a Bat Cave or a Man Cave if I were one
of the guys.

  “My own dream house,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

  “Watch TV, read, whatever. Every hour you have to check the prisoner. Then do a walkthrough of this floor and the basement. Check all windows for possible break-ins or rescue attempts and check all outlets for fire hazards. Record your checks on that clipboard. It’s pretty self-explanatory.”

  “Check the windows for break-ins?”

  “I’m sure nothing like that would happen, but you never know who this guy knows. So check the windows in case someone tries to help him escape.”

  Sgt. Bowens pointed at the ceiling.

  “Chapman is upstairs. He’ll take care of that floor and the one above. So don’t worry about it. Just stay down here. The other night we caught the two guys on duty playing cards in the stairwell. Not a single check had been recorded. Apparently they planned to fill in their check sheets before relief showed up in the morning. Not a good thing. They’re lucky we had no break-ins or fires.”

  Sgt. Bowens reached to his belt and pulled out a handheld radio and a large Maglite flashlight. He handed them over to me.

  “These are your weapons for the night. Those and your wit. Keep ‘em all fully charged.”

  I clipped the radio to my belt and slapped the huge flashlight against my open palm.

  “I really feel like a prison guard now. So where’s my prisoner?”

  Sgt. Bowens left the room and gestured for me to follow. In the hallway, on the wall right across from the Barbie house, was a small rectangular, plexiglass window. I leaned in close and peeked in, but the room on the other side was pitch black.

  “He’s in there alright,” Sgt. Bowens assured me.

  “So I just check him each hour through this window?”

  “Yep.”

  I shined my light through the window and followed the beam as it rolled over a toilet. I moved right and saw that the only other object in the room was a cot. The prisoner slept with his body and head covered by a blanket. His ankles and white socks peeking out from the bottom of the blanket were the only indication that he was actually in the room.

  “The only contact you’ll have with him will be through that window. You will never open the door. You won’t even have keys to open the door. If there’s a friggin’ fire he doesn’t leave that room without an armed escort. And that will only come if you call in the request. Chances are, you won’t even see him. I’ve been here a couple of times through the night and he didn’t move a muscle. Should be pretty uneventful. Just watch your movies and do your checks. Plain and simple.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked as I passed the flashlight beam through the room one more time. I stopped at the figure in the bed, trying to catch a glimpse of the man who’d been such a hassle to my squadron, causing them to scramble and come up with the manpower to watch just one single prisoner.

  I don’t know why I wanted to know his name. It’s not like that bit of info would matter. It just felt so…cold, thinking of him as just The Prisoner.

  “Redgrave. Lieutenant Milo Redgrave.”

  As Sgt. Bowens spoke the prisoner’s name, one of the man’s feet jerked. It caught me by surprise.

  “He just moved.”

  “Well, that’s common with human beings, “Sgt. Bowens joked. “Let’s hope he keeps moving or we, you, are gonna have some major explaining to do.”

  Sgt. Bowens turned and walked toward the door. The realization that I was about to be alone hit me and I felt that sinking feeling in my chest again.

  “So that’s it?” I called out in an unexpected high-pitched voice.

  Traitor, I said to myself as I thought of how scared I sounded.

  “Well, here are some house rules,” Sgt. Bowens called out as he reached for the door. “No weapons and no phone. It doesn’t work. Use your radio if you need anything. No visitors. It’s forbidden. No one enters at night except during an emergency. If there is an emergency, like a health matter, anyone who enters must lock their weapon in the locker out front. Weapons are only allowed inside when planned moving of the prisoner is going down. Oh, and not that this is going to be an issue since he doesn’t say a friggin’ thing, but absolutely no talking to the prisoner. He has a blanket. He has a toilet. That’s all he needs. You’ll be locked in until I get here in the morning.”

  “Wait, what?” I said, again, my voice sounding shakier than I wanted it to. “You’re locking me in here? Like I have no way to get out?”

  “Yes, the night shift gets locked in. It’s the only way to ensure no one comes or goes.”

  “Sgt. Bowens, that’s ridiculous.”

  “It is what it is. You have a problem with it, take it up with the Commander. And that you can do tomorrow, after you’ve been locked in. Bwahahaha.”

  I grabbed Sgt. Bowens’ arm as he was about to leave.

  “Wait, what…what did he do?”

  The sergeant raises his eyebrows. “They didn’t tell you?”

  I shook my head. Surprisingly, even with the gossip-hungry airmen on my flight, nobody had said a word.

  Sgt. Bowens moved in close to me and spoke just above a whisper.

  “Good. They’re not supposed to. He was part of the intelligence squadron. Smart, but a friggin’ loon. They say he was just really odd. Would work alone at a desk, rocking in place. Didn’t have many friends. He was AWOL a couple of months when the cops caught him off base at a rave. He was in a back room, leading some kind of satanic ritual. He was cutting off his own face with a razorblade when he was arrested. Most of the skin was already gone.”

  “Holy shit. You’re fuckin’ with me, right? He’s a military guy. How does that happen? And how did that not spread? This is Anchorage. You’d think that would at least be on the news or something.”

  My nerves were dancing all over my body. I wished I’d never requested this post.

  “Like you said, he’s a military dude. And he’s intelligence. You think they want that leaking out to the whole friggin’ city and the rest of the world? I’m only telling you this cause you’re here and you’re brave enough to pull the post. None of the other chicken shits wanted it. So keep it to yourself. It doesn’t need to be party gossip if you know what I mean.”

  I leaned back against the wall and steadied myself. This was insane. I couldn’t believe it. This was a member of the United States Air Force. How the hell did he even make it past basic training or through whatever technical school he’d had to attend to make it to his job? Hell, he was a Lieutenant, which means he’d gone through some sort of officer training. I looked up and saw Sgt. Bowens smiling.

  “You’re fuckin’ with me. That’s not funny,” I said as I punched the sergeant lightly on his chest.

  “What?” he replied. “I swear. You know me. I joke, but this is no jest, my friend. The man on the other side of that wall is one sick son of a beast. He cut himself up bad. The doc stitched him up the best he could but it’s still really nasty. He has gauze wrapped around his head and face. Redgrave. What a name.”

  The Bronco horn blasted out in the parking lot.

  “That kid is too friggin’ antsy,” Sgt. Bowens said. “I better get moving before he drives that truck through the front of the building.” He opened the door. “Well, you’re on your own now. Take care.”

  He walked out and let the door slam shut behind him.

  I winced at the sound of the metal door closing. I looked over my shoulder at the rectangle window in the wall and hoped the sound didn’t wake Redgrave. After hearing his story, I prayed the man would sleep through the night. Being unarmed and locked up with a madman was absurd.

  The CLICK CLICK of the sergeant locking the door on the other side seemed insanely loud. It ricocheted down the hall.

  CLICK…CLICK…CLICK…CLICK…

  I had to fight back the urge to cry out for the door to be opened. I wanted to bang on it like a child throwing a temper tantrum and tell the sergeant I’d made a mistake and had changed my mind.

  But I co
uldn’t.

  This was it. I’d made the decision and I needed to see it through.

  The hall suddenly seemed so dark. Only soft orange light bulbs shone down from the ceiling and only at twenty foot intervals. It looked as if a few of the bulbs were out, creating shadowy spots along the corridor.

  I took a deep breath and ran a hand through my bangs.

  You’re such a puss.

  I was afraid and knew that I shouldn’t be. I’d been trained to fight in wars. I was an expert shot with the 9mm pistol and the M16, was certified to fire the M249 SAW machine gun, the M203 grenade launcher, had been trained on weapon retention, self-defense, baton fighting techniques, and had even gone through pepper spray training. That one sucked.