IMMOLATION: CHAPTER 44

Who would have thought being numb would hurt so much? It wasn't the sharp pain it had once been, and at times Judge Dervin thought it was all in his head. That throbbing, burning ache in his arms, legs, and spine from sitting, bound, for so long. At least they fed him. Once a day, some unrecognizable substance trickled through the long tube his captors had run through the ceiling and hung just within reach of his lips. An identical setup beside him fed the other man. The food, if it could really be called that, never satisfied and more often than not it made them sick.

“...another collapse this week...” the news reporter was saying over images of a collapsed coal mine with emergency crews scattered about.

“That's new,” the other man said.

“Is it?” Judge Dervin asked with mild interest. His eyes threatening to close as he slipped briefly unconscious.

“It was suppose to be just nuclear and oil,” the other man shook his head thoughtfully. “But I suppose Feather Weight was more successful in his part of all this than we originally thought possible.”

“Talks among the United Nations have dissolved,” the news reporter continued, “as the warring between the Middle East and Asia has finally spilled over into Europe in response to the loss of these coal mines.”

“You're destroying the world,” Judge Dervin said as his head bobbed back up, awake.

“Yes,” the other man agreed sadly. “Don't know how we couldn't see it at the time that that was what would happen. We thought we were saving the world. Still,” he said, brightening up, “wars come and go, eh?”

Judge Dervin wanted to spit in the mans face but his mouth was too dry to manage it.

“Don't worry,” the other man said, reading the hate in Judge Dervin's face. “I'm not likely to ever see the outside of this room again.”

“I hope you're wrong,” Judge Dervin said.

“Oh, they'll let you go eventually, I'm sure,” the man said. “It's not in their nature to kill.”

Judge Dervin snorted his disbelief.

“Well,” the man corrected himself, “not up close and personal.”

“No,” Judge Dervin had to agree given the lengths to which their captors had gone to keep them alive, feeding them, cleaning them off once a week. It wasn't the sort of thing people did when all they intended to do was kill you. “That's what they had you for.”

The other man was silent. It took no great effort on Judge Dervin's part to piece together the truth. In their first few moments together, the other man had admitted to being a killer, and that Samantha had once been a captive here, in his house. Judge Dervin tried multiple times to get the man to admit to killing Samantha, but each time he'd failed and the other man had taken to falling silent now whenever the subject was brought up.

“One of these days you'll tell me,” Judge Dervin said.

“And I've told you before that I'd be a fool not to assume they're listening in on us,” the other man replied. “Now can't we put all of that aside, given our current situation, and at least have some pleasant conversation?”

Judge Dervin felt his head begin to droop once more and his vision flickered with his blinking eyelids.

“Don't fall asleep now,” the other man said, his so voice strong and forceful that Judge Dervin could help but obey, “They're bound to be feeding us soon and you've missed the last two days.”

Judge Dervin filled with regret at being denied the peace of sleep in exchange for the retching the food would certainly induce. However, he couldn't deny that if he continued refusing to eat he would die. He couldn't give up, not now, not with his daughter's murderer a mere arms length away. No, he'd eat, force down the terrible food if only to build up sufficient strength to escape his bonds and then...he wasn't sure. In his current state all he wanted to do was kill the man beside him, but that wasn't justice. Samantha deserved justice.

Footsteps overhead heralded their daily meal and both men quickly moved into position to catch as much as they could in their mouths. Within moments, the thick, sour substance began to make its way down to them. Judge Dervin forced himself to keep eating even though his body kept trying to vomit. The sludge was like oatmeal that had gone bad days ago and the overwhelming smell suggested that such a guess couldn't be too far from the truth. Thick rubbery clumps, remnants from previous days feedings, were forced down the tube and threatened to lodge in his throat but there wasn't enough time to chew.

At last the flow ended and both man sat, panting from the exertion of gulping down their days worth of food in only a matter of moments. For a while, neither spoke and they occasionally convulsed as their bodies continued to try and purge. Bits of the gruel slid down Judge Dervin's cheeks and onto his shoulders and chest, soaking through his clothes and chilling his skin wherever it touched.

“So what happens now?” Judge Dervin asked when several minutes had passed without further complaint from his stomach.

“What do you mean?” the other man asked, still with a pained look on his face.

“Your group,” Judge Dervin said, “what's next on the agenda?”

The other man just shook his head. “The world was suppose to figure that part out,” he said. “But it looks like we overestimated them. We hoped that our actions would force the worlds leaders into working together to find clean alternative energy sources. We thought we were going to save the world.”

“How long before this escalates into another world war, do you think?” Judge Dervin asked with malice in his voice.

“Oh I think we're already there,” the man said flatly. “Not everyone's shooting yet, but that's just a technicality nowadays.”

Judge Dervin spat a particularly large mass of gruel at the man which struck him square on the side of his face. “You disgust me,” he said.

The man flinched from the splatter of putridity and shook his head violently to remove the clinging globules.

“I have never pretended to be anything other than what I am with you,” the man said, “and so why you must repeatedly sink down to such base levels of behavior?”

“Were you honest with her?” Judge Dervin asked. “Did she know who you are? Did she?”

The man hung his head. “No,” he said, “she thought I was bio-engineer, which I am, but that's not really the point of your question.”

The man shut his eyes and Judge Dervin thought he could make out a few tears among the filth running down the man's face.

“You're a fine actor,” Judge Dervin growled.

“I am not pretending!” The man nearly shouted at judge Dervin, his face suddenly red and angry.

“Well you must have done to get my daughter to trust you!” Judge Dervin shouted back.

The man was about to respond when his body gave a sudden jerk and he vomited all over himself. Once it began there was no stopping it and the awful smell of sick filled the room. Judge Dervin looked away, wishing he could plug his ears to the wet splashing and plopping that was happening right beside him. His own stomach trembled as guttural utterances were cut short with each eruption. Some of it splashed onto his arms and lap but there was little he could do about that.

At last, it stopped.

“If you thought that stuff was foul going down,” the man began.

“Oh shut up!”

“Sorry,” the man said, “bad taste.”

“You'll get no sympathy from me,” Judge Dervin stated, still not looking over at the man.

“And I neither expect nor deserve you to,” the man replied, smacking his lips and spitting a few times. “That's better.”

“How did you do it?” Judge Dervin found himself asking.

“That is a topic I believe you would find even more distasteful than my recent gastric expulsions,” the man said with obvious disgust.

“I want to know,” Judge Dervin pressed, turning back to look him.

The man shifted as best he could in his chair and didn't meet Judge Dervin's eyes.

“Bought her a drink,” he said at last with forced levity. “She didn't even realize she was drugged until we were in my car and halfway out of town.”

Judge Dervin swore under his breath. He'd taught her better than that. No matter who the person was, no matter how well trusted...but it had been years since they'd last spoken. Who knew how many of his lessons she'd retained. Obviously not that one.

“By that time,” the man went on, “she was too out of it to really fight back and, well,” his voice tapered off.

“Did she die quickly?” Judge Dervin asked.

The man didn't answer.

“You told me when I first arrived here that she use to sit in this chair,” Judge Dervin said, his throat constricted. “Did you do to her what they're doing to us?”

Still, he did not answer.

“Did you make her live like this?” Judge Dervin shouted louder than before.

The man cringed back from the volume of Judge Dervin's voice.

“Please,” he said, “they'll hear you.”

Judge Dervin hesitated. What would it matter if anyone heard them? 

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Thoughts on Judge Dervin and Tea Leave's 'relatinship'?