The girl that had been discovered snooping around the Draiman property had fallen asleep in the chair she was tied in. “Wakey wakey”, the voice of a sweet woman said. The voice reminded her of her mother. “Come on, dear, I haven’t got all day. I have grandchildren running around the house that I’d much rather be spending time with.”
She slowly blinked awake. “So you’re Mrs. Draiman?” she said sleepily.
“Who were you expecting, Mrs. Clause?”
“No, just not you. Maybe one of your daughters.”
“None of my girls look enough like me to pull this off. Most of them look more like their father.” The woman pulled up a chair and sat in it backward. “Now, why don’t start by telling me your name?”
“Why?”
“Look young lady, I don’t have the patience for this today. You can either start talking or I can start hurting you. Which would you prefer?”
The girl looked at the Draiman woman. “I don’t think you’ll do it. I don’t think you have the stomach for it.”
The woman looked over her shoulder toward the door. “Morbus, may I borrow your K- Bar?”
“Of course, Boss Lady.” The bodyguard removed his knife and handed it to the woman.
“Take off one of her shoes then give me something to make a tourniquet with.”
A shoe came off and Morbus handed her a length of rubber tubing. “Here you are.”
“Secure her foot to the floor for me”, she asked as she started tying the tubing tightly around the calf. Once she was secured, the woman looked up at the girl. “You should feel your foot starting to go numb. Not that you care, but this is because I used the tubing to cut off blood flow through the popliteal artery. Now, you can either give me your name, or I start cutting off toes because there is still nerve sensation, maybe not a lot in the way of activity, but you’ll still feel it.”
“You still won’t cut off my toes.”
The woman positioned the knife over the girl’s big toe. “Last chance”, she said a little sing song. The girl spat in the woman’s face and the woman leaned on the knife, severing the toe from the body. “You were saying?”
“You crazy bitch! You just cut off my toe!”
“I warned you. Now, you can start talking”, the woman repositioned the knife, “or you can keep losing digits. Once I’m done with all of your toes, I’ll cut off your feet. Then, I’ll move up to your hands. If you still don’t want to talk after I’ve cut off both hands and feet and all ten fingers and toes, I’ll just cut my losses and shoot you right between your eyes. Either way, whether you talk or not, my husband and I have decided that you’re not leaving here alive. What better way to make sure that doesn’t happen than to do it myself. Not that I don’t trust Morbus, but as you can see, I’ve grown a little bit impatient the older I’ve gotten.”
The girl looked at the woman. “You want me to talk, but you’re not going to let me live? Why should I talk?”
The woman repositioned the knife. “Would you rather die with most of your pieces attached, or detached?”
“Cut it off, I don’t care.”
The woman adjusted the knife so that it was over all four of the remaining toes. “Are you sure?”
“I can’t feel my foot anyway.”
A sadistic grin crossed the woman’s face as she untied the tourniquet. “Fine. Now you’ll feel it when I cut off the others. I was trying to be nice.”
Blood and sensation rushed back into the girls foot and she started to scream in pain as blood spurted out from where the toe used to be. “You’re fucking psycho, you bitch!”
“I told you I was being nice. Seeing as you want to keep playing games, I’m done being nice. Nice just died. Give me your name and why you’re really here or I will cut off the remaining toes on this foot.”
While all this was going on, Morbus stood back and watched. Brie, I wish you could see this, you and David. Maddie has become quite the psycho in her time. The girls is a spitfire. I hope Colton knows what he got himself into when he married this girl. The look on his face was one of pride.
“Morbus, do you have a machete I can use? She still doesn’t want to talk. I think it’s because she doesn’t think I’ll kill her.”
“If she were smart, she’d believe it. I still remember what you did to you cousin. Barrel against her head and BOOM! Bits of brain and blood everywhere. It was so pretty.”
The woman smiled, hiding her confusion well. “Oh yeah. Memories. She shouldn’t have been working with the Utopians.” Morbus found a machete for the woman only to turn to see her with a pistol in her hand, the barrel against the young woman’s head. “You heard what my husband’s former bodyguard has just said that I did to my own cousin. What makes you think that I won’t end you?”
“You’re a Purist.”
“No, I’m a Libertarian. The cause of liberty is what I fight for. I don’t like violence, but if it has to come to that, then that’s what I’ll do. You have until the count of five to start talking before I splatter your brains all over the shed because I’m running out of patience. Five, four, three, two, one…”
The girl refused to talk so the woman pulled the trigger and watched the back of the girl’s head explode. Morbus applauded. “Beautiful Maddie. That was shades of your mother, all over again. Nearly brought a tear to my eye.”
---------------
When Maddie and Morbus made their way into the house Jake looked at her expectantly. “So, dear, what did you learn?” he said with a laugh.
“Nothing. She refused to talk so I ended her”, Maddie had a cold smile on her face.
“Nice. You think Mom and Dad would be proud?”
“I think they would be”, Morbus said. “Jake, you sister here… shades of your mother. She reminded me of the day your mother killed her own cousin.”
“What?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask about that since you mentioned it out in your shed, but what are you talking about?” Maddie asked.
“You two were both still fairly young. Malachai was ten or eleven. No… Malachai was almost 13. You kids were all playing when I brought the woman into the house. Utopian uniform, the whole nine. Your mother recognized her immediately and flipped. ‘What the fuck are you doing here wearing a Utopian uniform?’, your mother screamed in her face. She kept giving bull shit excuses, then your mother put a gun in the woman’s face. ‘You have five seconds to tell me the truth’, and the woman did. Your mother blew her head off. Your Dad was cautious that she didn’t turn that gun on him, got it from her and when she came to, she bolted for the bathroom and puked, not from the fact that she killed a woman but because she was covered in brain matter.”
“That’s pretty fucked up”, Jake laughed. “I never thought Mom would do something like that. Mom’s not cold blooded like that.”
“You don’t know you mother as well as you think you do”, Morbus said. “Maybe you should ask her about some of the things she did during the Occupation. You mother is an angel, granted, but she can and will do some pretty evil things to take care of her family if need be.”
Maddie and Jake exchanged a look. “We’ll have to do that sometime”, Maddie said. “I wonder myself what some of these stories are now that you say something. Mom doesn’t strike me as the type to go psycho like that.”
“You don’t know your mother like you think, Maddie. None of you do. There are two people in this world that know her well enough to know some of the things she did back then and one of them is buried in Arlington. The other happens to be your father, of course.”
“Buried in Arlington?” Maddie said. “Uncle Matt?”
“Yeah. Uncle Matt doesn’t know about your mother beating the hell out of the General while she was pregnant.”
“Pregnant with whom?” Jake asked.
Morbus pointed to Maddie. “Her. I was still a gopher when it happened. Karyn was in class while a couple of the others and I were delivering groceries and the daily newspaper. Your Dad had a real thirst to know what was going in the country then. The day your Uncle was arrested by the Utopians she freaked. You’ll have to ask your parents the rest of it. I don’t really know it all.”
Jake nodded. “I don’t remember that.” He frowned.
“You were two, Jake. Malachai might remember it.”
“I might asked him about that.”
Malachai came down the stairs shaking his head. “Don’t bother. I don’t remember it happening either. I know it did because I remember Aunt Tina and Aunt Nikki talking about it, but I don’t remember it actually happening. I didn’t see it. Dad had us taken from the room. Mom didn’t know she was pregnant, though. I can tell you that much.”
“Oh, I think I’m going to have to call Mom and ask her about a few of these things”, Maddie said.
“I wouldn’t. At least not for a few days”, Jordan said, coming down the stairs to get something to eat. “She and Dad have Reece out for a visit and fact finding mission. I asked them to get back to me on what he has to say.”
“Who’s Reece?” Jake asked.
“Levi and Jasmine’s father.”
“Ah. And you want to know what Davina’s been saying to him behind your back?”
“Pretty much. When I talked to Dad last he mentioned that he was thinking about inviting Reece out to see the kids and all that, so I asked if he did to get back to me on that in case I end up divorcing Davina after all this is over. Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to hit the gym. I’ll see you in a little while.”
After Jordan left, Jake pushed himself to standing. “I’m going to join her. I’ve actually been waiting on her to get up. I’ll see you all later.” And with that he walked away.
----------------
The guards were doing what Morbus had done for the band during the Occupation. They were destroying the evidence from the girls’ arrival and subsequent death. They cleaned out her pockets and tossed everything into the fire with her body. They were looking for identification, but found nothing. “Who travels without ID?” Travis asked.
“Someone who’s either planning on dying, doesn’t plan to be found out, or someone who wants to get lost and not be found”, Morbus said as he approached the place where the boys were burning the bitch Maddie had just offed. “Have you boys tried looking for a vehicle nearby?”
“Nope. Maybe we should?” Will said.
“Yeah, William, maybe you boys should get out there and look for it. Carter and have the rest of this mess. Get out there and see if she left a vehicle. You know where the boarders of the property are. Start looking and stop acting like you don’t know any better. How am I supposed to trust Reckless Disregard’s safety to you if you’re making rookie mistakes?”
The boys were gone with a flash. “You’re being tough on them, huh?” Carter asked.
“I have to. I’m retiring after this run as Morbus. Disturbed is retired. They don’t need me to protect them anymore. David lives in Israel; John still lives in Austin, Dan in Chicago, Mike in Milwaukee. There’s nothing left for me to do. I was trained to protect Disturbed and their families. Well, Disturbed is no more. It’s time for Morbus to fade to black as well.”
“Metallica reference. Nice”, Carter laughed.
“I may have worked my entire life for Disturbed, but I did listen to other bands. I like Metallica.”
“James Hetfield was a God.”
“If you say so. I say he’s nothing but a man. I’ve met him. Nice guy.”
“Is there anyone in the music business you haven’t met?”
Morbus thought about it for a few moments. “I would have loved to have met Dimebag Darryl. David has fond memories of partying with him and Vinnie. He actually went to Dime’s funeral.”
“Cool. Now, you mean Dimebag Darryl of Panthera, right?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, just making sure that we were on the same page.” He stared into the fire. “Did you do this often for the band during the War?”
“Actually, yeah. You’d be surprised at how often I was getting rid of the evidence for one thing or another. Hell, I just informed two of the Draiman children about some things their Mom did during the Occupation- one of which I did exactly what we’re doing now afterward.”
“Is Maddie as crazy as her mother?”
“I can’t tell you that. You’d have to judge it for yourself after meeting Brie Draiman. In my opinion, yes. Madison GreyEagle is as insane as her mother.”
“Does Brie Draiman know that you think she’s insane?”
“Yes, I’ve made my opinion of the Boss Lady very clear to her and she isn’t offended by it. As a matter of fact, she says it a compliment. She and David both say that it’s a prerequisite to be crazy to be around them. They believe the crazier the better.”
Carter laughed. “I hope that I can meet them. They seem like my kind of people.”
Morbus joined in the laughter. “If you’re lucky you’ll get to find out.”
---------------
On the other side of town, Davina was looking around the house she and Jordan had shared for the last 10 years. She paced through the house and looked around the kids’ rooms and watched the ghosts of Jordan sitting in the floor playing with the kids. She knew it was a trick of the mind; a memory locked in the building.
She walked through the living room and watched as she taught Jordan to Hula and do the traditional dances of her homeland, then making love on the couch after the lesson. Once her parents returned from their trip, they showed them their dance. It was poetry in motion.
Tears flooded her eyes as she went into their bedroom, recalling all of the nights the two of them would make love- and fight. Their fights would forever be trapped in the once hallowed halls of this house.
I’ve got to make this right with Jordan, she thought. If I want to keep the comfort I’ve become accustom to then I need to be the bigger person and go to her and apologize. I just hope that she’s rational enough to see that I’m trying to do what’s best for us.
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