Frostitute 3: The Finishing School: A Violent Tale of Supernatural Revenge Page 4

  "Thank you for giving me the opportunity, Ms. Hubbard," she replied formally. "I will not let you down."

  "Your training begins tomorrow. Go ahead and eat, then get some sleep. I'll have one of my people get you some more suitable clothing."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Over the days that followed his encounter with the mystery woman known as Prisoner Zero, Mark McCrudden found (much to his consternation) that he just couldn't get her out of his mind.

  By day, he simply went about his business, sticking to his tried and tested method for getting by as a corrections officer that was new in his current position and determined to prove himself: He kept his head down, his mouth shut, and his eyes and ears open. He laughed at all of Nate's jokes, no matter how shitty or racist they were, and volunteered for any shit jobs that needed doing. He also made sure that the coffee pot was brewing and full at the start of his early morning shift, so that the senior guards would have a fresh cup of joe waiting for them when they rolled in to start their shifts.

  It worked like a charm. Nate signed his training log book without complaint, clearing him to independent duty beginning the following week. There was one final round of administration to take care of, part of which entailed entering his fingerprints into a biometric database. He knew exactly what the point of that was: After all, he hadn't encountered any biometric readers elsewhere in the prison, other than the one that guarded the inner door to Prisoner Zero's cell.

  Still, he didn't want to rush things. McCrudden made sure to keep his nose clean, ingratiating himself with the other guards to just the right level, striking the perfect balance. After all, he reasoned, you wanted to be liked and accepted, but it was a fine line between that and being seen as a brown-nosing ass-kisser. He liked to think that he was walking that line pretty well.

  A month passed. The face of the dark-haired woman sometimes came to him in his dreams. He lay awake at night while his wife slumbered alongside him and stealthily rubbed one out, thinking all the time about the comatose woman and imagining what delights were to be found beneath those crisp white hospital sheets. All he had caught was a quick glimpse when Saunders had unlocked the door; there had been no chance to appreciate Prisoner Zero's curves, the contours of her sleeping body, which could oh so easily appear to be...dead.

  The fantasy burned within him, tormenting him to the point that he was practically consumed by it. He wanted to see the mystery woman again, wanted to have her all to himself. No, Mark corrected himself, not wanted...needed.

  He was becoming obsessed, yet still he restrained himself; despite passing the nondescript steel door several times each day, he fought down the urge to let himself inside. For some reason, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that it was some kind of test — that maybe he was being watched by the warden or her guards, ready to pounce on him if he tried to overstep his bounds.

  After six weeks had passed, the opportunity finally came knocking. One of the night shift guards was retiring, and despite the fact that it came with a small pay differential, nobody seemed to want the job. Mark grabbed it with both hands, explaining to his less than thrilled wife that they could use the extra money and besides, it was necessary for him to get established in his new position. She reluctantly acquiesced, and so the following Friday evening saw Mark punching in at nine o'clock for his first eight hour overnight shift at the ADX.

  He could hardly wait.

  Inmates spent twenty-three hours out of every twenty-four locked up in their cells. To make matters more interesting, the guards varied the time of their exercise hour at random: Sometimes they were hauled out of bed at three o'clock in the morning to stretch their legs, while the same thing could just as easily happen at three in the afternoon...or any time in between.

  McCrudden made his rounds as usual, getting himself used to the feel of the prison after dark. It was essentially the same, thanks to the ever-present fluorescent lighting, except perhaps a little quieter. Even the maniacs that were incarcerated here retained something of their natural circadian rhythms.

  The guards patrolled alone, but paired up with a buddy when it came time to escort a prisoner out for exercise. Mark's partner for the evening was Randy Lewis, a short, muscular redhead from Alabama whose main distinguishing feature was that he had no neck. That, and a wicked case of little man's syndrome.

  "Gettin' on for two o'clock," Lewis said, as though McCrudden couldn't tell the time for himself. "Y'all should probably take your break now. You got thirty minutes, 'ccordin' to the book, but most of us agree to take an hour."

  "An hour sounds good," Mark said, trying to hide the eagerness he was suddenly feeling. This was it. Zero hour for Prisoner Zero. "I'll go take a walk, stretch my legs."

  "Sounds like a plan to me. You got your radio." Lewis indicated the walkie talkie that was hooked on to Mark's belt, with its mic clipped to the left epaulet of his shirt. "You get lost or need some help, just holler, 'kay?"

  "Sure thing. Thanks, Randy."

  The two men turned and went their separate ways, with Lewis disappearing in the direction of the closest guard room while McCrudden took off at a fast clip in the direction of Prisoner Zero's cell.

  By the time he reached it, he was a little out of breath — not because he was out of shape (like most corrections officers, he worked out, primarily as an insurance policy against the day he ever got jumped by an inmate) but because every cell in his body was tingling in anticipation at what he knew was coming next, every nerve ending sparking thanks to the wave of adrenaline that was coursing through his veins. He could feel his heart pounding like a jackhammer inside his chest, and for the first time in a long time he felt alive, truly alive.

  His fingers were trembling so hard that it took two attempts to unlocked the outer door. Looking over his shoulder (fucking stupid, he chastised himself, because who was going to be out and about at this hour?) McCrudden checked to make sure that the corridor was empty. Satisfied, he closed the outer door behind him and applied his fingertip to the biometric reader.

  Although he had been caught on several cameras, Mark knew exactly how things worked around the ADX by now. The other guards wouldn't think twice about seeing him strolling along the corridors — if they were even watching the monitors at all, which was by no means a given. Every door in the facility was alarmed, so that if anyone other than a guard was to open it, a siren would go off in the guard room. This was exactly why the guards felt perfectly safe in flipping through magazines or surfing the web on their phones and tablets instead of scrutinizing the video screens.

  The inner door opened at his touch. McCrudden stepped inside. The room was dimly lit, with much of the illumination coming from the medical equipment itself. He could hear the ventilator hissing again, its regular mechanical rhythm somehow reassuring. There were two registered nurses and a doctor on duty at all times, and he could only assume that they were able to remotely monitor the vital signs and other readings coming from this medical cell.

  Stepping around the side of the medical bed, he laid a hand gently on the plastic handrail, helping him to keep his balance as he gazed once more upon the beautiful, enigmatic woman.

  Fuck, she was beautiful.

  The air was cool rather than cold, and yet the first thing McCrudden noticed was that the woman's nipples were prominently visible beneath the sheets, two raised bullets atop what appeared to be moderately-sized breasts.

  He reached out a hand and gingerly pulled back the sheet. The woman was wearing a pale blue hospital gown (he presumed it was of the backless variety) that ran from just below her clavicles to her knees. Drawing the sheet further down to her feet, McCrudden let it fall to the floor. He didn't know how long she'd been laying here in this bed (at least six weeks, he figured) but her tanned legs still had great muscle tone. They were legs to die for, Mark saw, purpose-made to wrap themselves around a man's hips or the side of his head.

  Watching her face carefully, he was relieved to see that the woman didn't reac
t in the slightest to losing the sheet. Her eyes remained closed. Condensation fogged the clear plastic breathing tube in time with each exhalation.

  She wasn't going to wake up, he realized. With just a little bit of imagination, the woman could almost be taken for dead...which was exactly the way he liked it.

  No alarms sounded. No thunder of boots in the hallway outside to indicate that he'd been busted. He looked around the room for cameras; if they were there at all, then they were well-hidden.

  This was his moment, he decided. It was now or never.

  He reached out and grasped the hem of the gown, sliding it slowly upwards, above the knees, then the thighs. A thatch of bushy dark pubic hair made him gulp. It obviously hadn't been trimmed since she had gotten here, however long ago that was, which was fine with him; Mark had never seen the appeal of a shaved vagina. He thought the things were fucking ugly, if truth be told, and was much happier when he was in one than looking at one.

  The woman's belly was a little on the soft side, yet she couldn't be called fat. He continued to slide the gown up towards her head, exposing two breasts that appeared to make up in firmness for what they lacked in size. McCrudden bunched the gown up around her clavicles and chin, taking care to keep away from the breathing tube that protruded from her mouth.

  Unable to help himself any longer, the corrections officer reached out and grasped the comatose woman's breasts. They were indeed every bit as firm as they looked, and although he usually preferred his tits to be softer and more compliant, Mark wasn't going to complain. He was entranced by this woman, enraptured by the sight of what had to be a goddess, resplendent in all of her naked glory.

  He massaged the breasts for a moment, reveling in the sensation of kneading them over and over again. The woman did not stir. Were it not for the incessant mechanical hiss of the ventilator and the subsequent rise and fall of her bare chest, it would have been impossible to know for sure whether the woman was even alive.

  That was what finally decided him. Clambering up to kneel on the bed, McCrudden parted the woman's legs with his knees and shuffled forward until he was in between her shapely thighs. It was the work of just a moment for him to unbuckle his duty belt and slip down his pants and underwear. His cock was already fully erect, and just for a second he paused to admire the sight of his all-conquering phallus as it stood outlined against the helpless body of his victim.

  He knew that what he was about to do was wrong; terribly wrong. One would be greatly mistaken to believe that Mark McCrudden wasn't aware of that. But unlike most of society, he lacked that part of his psychological makeup that regulated a sense of guilt. He simply didn't have one, which was something that his long-suffering spouse suspected but lacked the willingness to truly confront.

  Mark McCrudden was a sociopath.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The first phase of Anya's training and indoctrination had been rather basic. In some ways, it was similar to the experience of going to boot camp, although she had no real way of knowing that. One of the main differences was that boot camps were all about forming a cohesive training unit, whereas she was given nothing but one-on-one attention. Although it cost The Agency a great deal in terms of both time and resources, this massively inefficient process was really the only way to handle a special case such as hers.

  Gina explained that field operatives normally did go through the training process in small cadres of six to eight, but with the sheer strength and power that the undead woman possessed, she could easily end up breaking a fellow trainee in half if she got distracted for just an instant. It was a risk they simply couldn't afford to run.

  The Agency set Anya up with a new identity and bank account, along with a false social security number that was recycled from a woman who had died back in 1985. That didn't bother her in the slightest; it wasn't as though the woman was going to need it again, after all, and the government recycled those numbers all the time.

  When she'd enquired somewhat tentatively about her pay and benefits, Anya was amazed to find out that she was making somewhere close to $150,000 a year...far more than the take-home pay she had made from fucking random strangers in seedy Denver motel rooms, especially after her shitbag of a pimp had taken his cut. Of course, there was always a down side: back then, she hadn't had to pay any tax. Now, Uncle Sam was taking out a pretty hefty chunk for the IRS. What was left over was still a very comfortable amount, however, and as the days passed she began to cautiously count her blessings and settle into the groove of this strange new life of hers.

  Every so often, she got to watch the current batch of regular trainees being put through their paces. They ran from place to place within the walled-off compound while drill instructors called time or yelled at them to move their asses. She didn't know exactly which part of Kentucky they were in, but it was hotter than a rattlesnake's ass and as humid as all hell. All six of the trainees were drenched in sweat just moments after starting their regular morning run, which always went for at least six miles and sometimes twice that long. By the time they were finished, the trainees looked as though they had just stepped out of the shower fully-clothed, their military-style BDUs plastered to their bodies with damp rings beneath the armpits and around the crotch.

  Fortunately for her, sweat, heat, and humidity were no longer a problem. No matter how warm the surrounding environment became, Anya's skin was always ice cold, as if she had just stepped out of a refrigerator. Nor did she ever get out of breath, unlike the panting trainees who would fight to suck air into their tortured lungs at the end of each run. She didn't require food, drink, or oxygen in order to survive.

  Just human blood.

  Anticipating this need thanks to the contents of Supervisor Agent Padilla's report, Training Director Hubbard made sure that a liter of fresh human blood was delivered to Anya's door each morning before the training day began. It was always warm, as though it had been freshly extracted from the vein just moments before delivery, and Anya assumed that somebody somewhere close by was donating it for her.

  Unwilling to drink the stuff, Anya instead chose to pour it over her naked torso prior to stepping into the shower each morning. By the time she switched it on and the water had warmed up as much as it was going to, most of the blood had soaked itself into her flesh. What little still remained on her skin was simply washed off under the shower head, dumped in the same way that a living person might casually discard the dregs at the bottom of a coffee cup.

  She didn't know what would happen if she went without blood for too long, or even what exactly constituted "too long" in the first place; hours, days, or weeks? She could only wonder. Anya had heard childhood tales of the vampyr and seen some of Hollywood's efforts to scare viewers with similar stories. Was that what she had become now? A blood-drinking vampyr?

  No, she scolded herself, that was silly. Anya was every bit as content to walk around in the bright light of midday than she was at midnight. She had no desire to sleep in a coffin or a hole in the earth, and could be in the company of people without wanting to bite their necks. She felt no form of blood lust whatsoever. She was...something else, and whatever that something may be, she was going to need the help of somebody far better versed in supernatural lore than she was in order to help her figure out exactly what that was.

  When she'd broached the subject with Director Hubbard on one of her frequent visits "just to see how you're getting along," Gina had brought in an older gentleman who had to have been in his late sixties. To Anya, he looked like the archetypal college professor, right down to the salt-and-pepper beard that was tinged with grey and the threadbare tweed jacket that he wore on top of a button-down flannel shirt and corduroy pants. Two twinkling brown eyes regarded both ladies with apparent amusement, peering above the tops of half-moon crescent spectacles.

  "Recruit Anya Kurlyenko, I'd like to introduce you to Professor Niall Walsingham. The professor heads up our Arcane Studies Division."

  "For my sins." Offering Anya a rueful
grin, he shook her hand. When the skin of his palm made contact with hers, his expression changed to become one of professional interest. "Let me guess: Lich? Either that or a revenant."

  "Agent Padilla is going with revenant," Hubbard interjected helpfully. "Miss Kurlyenko was murdered, Niall. I'll allow her to tell you the story herself, of course, but suffice it to say that she made a deal with the Devil, if you will."

  "Is this true?" The professor massaged his bristly chin thoughtfully. When Anya nodded, he went on, "Then if there is a matter of revenge behind your resurrection, Miss Kurlyenko, I would tend to concur with Supervisory Agent Padilla's assessment. Tell me, Anya — may I call you Anya?" She nodded. "Thank you. Tell me, Anya, did you get any blood on you after your...return?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "And did that have any unusual effects upon you?"

  "It made me feel...stronger. Faster."

  "How much stronger and faster?" He held up a thumb and forefinger very close together. "Just a little, or..."

  Anya shook her head, favoring the academic with an uncharacteristically coy look. "To give you an idea, Professor Walsingham, I bent a man in half. Backwards. Snapped his spine in two and tried to insert his head into his own asshole."

  "Er..." For the first time in quite a while, Niall Walsingham was lost for words. Gina Hubbard tried to cover what had to be a smirk by pretending to cough into her hand. Finally regaining his composure, he said, "That had to...quite extraordinarily difficult."

  "Oh yes. Turns out that it cannot be done." She looked him straight in the eyes. "But I can assure you it was not for the lack of trying..."

  "This happened, um, after you had been exposed to blood? Fresh human blood?"

  "Immediately afterward, Professor, yes."

  "Mm-hmm." He stared off into the corner for a moment, his affect becoming suddenly pensive. After collecting his thoughts, he went on, "You can most likely be categorized as a revenant, sure enough. All of the pieces fit. The blood. The urge for vengeance. The superhuman strength. The cold skin...all of it. The only thing is, revenants are usually pretty thin on the ground these days."