Disorder in the House

[scribblerrigby]

(it was that, or Mr. Bad Example, for the title. Also, sorry for the long-windedness of this. It's a sequel to Silent Footsteps, and it refers to and takes place the evening after the events in Night Life)


He was supposed to correct lab reports, today. Same damn answers to the same damn questions. Over and over again. And his house was so big and so empty and so damn QUIET.

Aaron Fleischer sat at his desk at home, hopelessly bored. He knew he should focus on his work, but his thoughts kept traveling to the monster in his basement. She should be waking up about now. He'd drugged her this time to remove the dead man from her enclosure.

He grabbed a canvas bag that rested by his feet, headed towards his basement, and thought back to days ago, when he first shot and captured the thing, and his subsequent accommodations.

He’d fitted bars in the corner of his basement for his own purposes, and they enclosed a sizeable corner. They were strong enough to contain a furious werewolf, so Aaron was confident they could hold Sara. After searching for a while, he’d also managed to dig out Dagny’s old kiddie pool. It was a decent size, with a six foot diameter, and walls that were a little over a foot and a half high. He’d placed it in her enclosure and filled it with water.

When he captured her, it had taken a lot of anesthetic to keep her under, but he’d managed to fix her up satisfactorily. The first time she awoke, she had picked at and reopened her stitches so often that he had to drug her and make her a space collar. She didn’t stand for that at all, but it was pretty funny while it lasted. It was soon enough, though, that she learned stitches meant bad painful things, and left them alone.

He had brought the janitor’s body down to see how she would react, but other than snuffling suspiciously at it, and taking a few hopeful slurps at whatever blood remained inside the man’s body, she showed no interest in it.

Several quick chops and a trip out in his boat later, the shriveled, innocuously wrapped pieces of the school’s janitor were drifting well out into the Pacific Ocean.

Aaron spun the dimmer switch upon reaching his basement, only slightly lighting the area. It was dark and dank. Half of the space – the one Aaron used as a secondary office - boasted a dingy brown rug and the terribly fake wooden wall paneling that only the 70s could have produced. Sara’s cage was through a small open doorway and on a bare, concrete floor occupying the only free space that hadn’t already been taken up by large pipes, his heater, and other basement utilities.

He walked to his desk, sat down, and switched on his basement computer. It was an old, clunky piece of junk – ten years old, and still chugging away with a copy of Windows 98. But it ran, and he didn’t mind having to limp it along in the basement as a backup of sorts, whenever he needed a change of scene from his usual working area. Which was often. God, he got bored, easily.

A stray cat slept its drugged sleep inside Aaron’s canvas bag. Aaron kicked off from the wall, propelling his office chair towards Sara’s cage. He caught himself smoothly on one of the bars, and with his other hand, lifted the woozy cat out of the bag softly murmuring, “I brought a present for you, Sara. I know you like these ones.” He pushed it through the bars, then chuckled to himself. He’d taken to talking to her whenever she was awake. She never gave any indication of understanding him when she was conscious – this was even more pathetic of him to talk when she was delirious.

His tests he had run earlier that week were inconclusive – other than the obvious facts that she was cold-blooded, humanoid, and hematophagous, he knew little more about her than he did when he shot her. He’d freely admit that she was bizarre – that fun type of bizarre that involved werewolves and succubi and all sorts of things nobody would ever admit to having existed.

The mystery of Sara's identity, however, still remained.

He switched on his CD player; Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London began playing. Ugh, that reminded him – he was hours away from this month’s full moon, and Sara was in his cage. He should’ve thought that one through. But she was too interesting to kill, and too dangerous to release…

An extra-grating creeeeaaaaak from the computer indicated that the internet was up and ready to use.

He wheeled the chair back to the computer and clicked the envelope icon. Enhancement ads. Newsletters. An email from Dagny. Aaron junked the rest, clicked on Dagny’s letter, and spun around in his chair to face Sara, waiting for her to wake up.

[jollyjohanna]

Sara was slowly waking up. She twitched in her sleep once, twice and then started to lift her head up from the dirty towel she'd been sleeping on. She shook her head and then tried to rise up on all four, but she suddenly felt dizzy and toppled down to the floor again.

Lying flat on her stomach she started to go through her priorities. First: was she in danger? She decided that she was not - she was still caught in this same area, but there still didn't seem to be any major threats around. Unless you counted the man who was sitting a few feet away, and she knew that if he had wanted to hurt her he would have done so while she was asleep. Since he wasn't moving or making any sounds she decided to ignore him for now.

Second priority: was she hurt? There was definitely something wrong with her - she was moving sluggishly and slept more than she used to. Normally she just slept when she wanted to, but somehow she was being forced to sleep. And she didn't like that at all.
She knew that these periods of forced sleep had something to do with the man, but she didn't understand how it worked.
Otherwise she was feeling better than she had before - she healed fast, and the wound in her abdomen barely hurt anymore. She was feeling a bit hungry, but that wasn't important right now.

Third: was she still stuck? She stood up slowly this time, and using the bars as a support she made the same round that she always did when she woke up. But there was no use - the bars still wouldn't budge, no matter how hard she yanked. She could feel the man looking at her, but she ignored him. When she got out she would stop ignoring him, but that was a later issue.
When yanking and pushing at the bars showed no viable results she put her forehead between two bars and started to push. But this didn't work either - her head got stuck in between, if she kept pushing she'd tear off the blue knobs on the side of her head and then she'd lose her heat-sensitivity. Not that she knew that her ability to sense heat was centered in those knobs, but she understood that getting out of this cell wasn't worth self-mutilation. Not yet, anyway.
Besides, even if she managed to get her head through she didn't think her body would fit through, and then she would be stuck between the bars. Easy prey.
She slowly pulled back her head - her slippery skin made it kind of easy.

Now that she'd clarified that she wasn't threatened, hurt or able to free herself, she decided to do something about her growing hunger. She picked up the limp cat from the floor - it was first now she paid it any attention at all. She held it around the neck, and it protested weakly against this treatment - it meowed and batted at her with it's paws. But there was something wrong with it - a normal cat would scream and claw at her. She lifted it up to her face and sniffed at it. It had a tinge of something unnatural - something that reminded about her own drowsiness. She unceremoniously dropped it and decided to deal with it later. She was still hungry, though.

Finally she lifted one hand and felt around her neck, but no. Her thing was still gone.

Now that she'd gotten her prioritized activities done she started to pace back and forth on all four in her cell. She knew that the man in the chair still was looking at her, and suddenly she stopped. There was something about his smell...
He often smelled different when he came down to this place - of different people and places. But this was not the same - this smell came from him, and it was both unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. She had noticed it during their first encounter, but couldn't figure out what it was... and now it was stronger than ever.
Just to be sure she put her head between the bars again, but this time she put out her jaws rather than her forehead. The flaps around her circular mouth opened up as a flower - now that the mucous membranes inside were exposed she could feel scents stronger.
She snuffled in the direction of the man, but there was no use - she still couldn't understand what that smell was. She snorted and retreated to her pool.

Before she went into the water she turned around and hissed a low, defiant hiss at the man. Then she slid into the pool, out of sight.
After a minute or so her hand emerged from the water and grabbed the cat, that dizzily was standing up and now was trying to walk towards the metal bars, and dragged it into the pool.

[scribblerrigby]

“Good evening, Sara.”

The creature pulled herself up using the bars, and groggily began to explore her surroundings. Aaron pushed his glasses up his nose and leaned forward in his chair to watch her. Sara made her usual rounds, attempting to pull the bars apart and squeeze through them, before finally giving up and focusing her attentions on the little stray in the cage.

“Food, Sara,” Aaron said, indicating the cat as Sara picked it up.

Aaron’s revolver sat innocently next to his keyboard, alongside the locket, tools, dissected remains of a GPS child locator watch, and the slightly crumpled picture of Sara and Jake. He picked the gun up; with small clicks, he loaded it with several blanks. Did she understand that this was what got her the other night?

Sara wandered towards him again, this time poking and spreading her jaws through the bars. Might as well give it a try. Blood will be her reward; the threat of the gun would be her punishment. He didn’t like the memory of that circular jaw and those teeth inches from his face, anyway.

“No, Sara,” he growled, pointing it at her, anticipating a reaction. Skinner, eat your heart out. Sara retreated into the pool, though it seemed more of her own frustration than anything to do with the gun. Fine.

He spun around, set the gun back down and studied the picture. The date was a little over seven years ago. The Sara in the picture could conceivably be around his age, and the kid could be his daughter’s age by now. Had he known any Saras? Did Dagny know any Jakes? Last names could really be helpful... He considered asking Dagny in his response to her email. If Sara was still around and contained during Dagny’s next visit, he could even show her. His daughter always liked to know what he was up to…to an extent.

He placed the picture in the scanner, pushed the button, looked at the monster sulking in the bloodied water, and lifted the locket. He’d given it a new chain, one from his wife’s collection she’d never bothered to take with her when she left.

Sara had healed very quickly after her gunshot and stitches; that reminded him of a planarian worm, or even – she seemed amphibious – newts. A sick thought briefly crossed his mind – if he were to cut her in half, would he just end up with two of them? At least he’d have a control and variable for his examination. Bisection aside, the regeneration did interest him. If his hunch was right, and she had once been human, there had to be a way, whether through science or magic, to duplicate that aspect. If only he had the time… Between the day and evening classes, along with his own…extracurricular activities these past few days, he hardly had the time for a proper, careful examination. And he’d blown the last of his anesthetic on Sara, and hadn’t had the chance to get some more...

The scan was finished, and Aaron pulled the picture back out of the machine. The room was silent save for the strains of classic rock from the CD player and an occasional little feline blub from the water.

He wheeled closer.

“I want to crack your rogue genes, Sara. You’re the only one of your kind I’ve met. But, there’s no room – or time - for a controlled experiment…”
Whether she ended up more of a creature of science, or one of magic, he was determined to understand it. He’ll replicate it, mimic it. Use it. He had been absently toying with the necklace in his hands.

The wolf clawed impatiently in the wings of his mind. With relish, he let some of it creep in; his dreams of vivisection became a lot messier. He was willing to gamble his sanity and sense of self for the sake of information, and he had to admit that was slightly thrilling.

“And there’s another problem,” He folded the photo around a small black square; together they just barely fit inside the locket. “See…you are in my cage. Pretty soon, I’m going to have to put another find of mine in that cage. Call him Fluffy. Fluffy can open doors. Fluffy can't open that cage, and I have very little interest in cleaning up any sort of mess he would otherwise probably leave behind, today. But I can’t let you go without putting myself in any sort of danger, your capture being blind luck in the first place… And I’m still talking to you,” he added, laughing a small, smooth, slightly bemused laugh, meeting her blank stare. “I don’t know why I keep doing that.”

He snapped the locket shut, checked the weight – a bit heavier, hopefully nothing too noticeable - and then held it up by the chain, inches in front of the bars.

“Anyway…we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Do you remember what this is? Why have you kept it all this time? Do you want it back?”

[jollyjohanna]

Sara wasn't afraid of the gun simply because she hadn't realized that the burning pain she had experienced before had something to do with it. She didn't even see it since her eyesight was cloudy at best. All she could see was that the man was pointing something in her direction, but that didn't really interest her as soon as he kept his distance.

She was floating on her back in the shallow pool while sucking the blood out of the cat. It had the certain tinge that she didn't like - a somewhat sharp taste that all her meals down here had had. She didn't like it. She wanted her prey to screech and fight back, not just to protest weakly as this cat had done. It was unnatural.

When the cat was empty she tossed it out of the pool and it landed on the concrete floor with a wet thud. She took the opportunity to glance over at the man - he was moving toward her again. At first she ignored him, since he was out of reach for her anyway. But then the object he held caught her interest. It was... she didn't know the word for it, but she knew what it was. It was hers. Her thing.

She quickly crawled out of the pool and toward the bars, trying to get a better look at it. She cocked her head at the side and stared with her blank eyes - at this close range even she was able to see what it was. Now she was certain. She let out a low, soft hiss but didn't move toward the man.
He was making noises again, but she couldn't understand him. With one arm he held out her thing towards her, not so far from the bars. Sara didn't move a muscle. He was close now.

Without a warning she suddenly made a leap toward him. She was a bit slower than usual due to just having waked up from being sedated, but she still moved fast.
BANG! Her face hit the metal bars, but she didn't care - her arms were reaching out between them, trying to reach as far as possible. But she wasn't aiming for her thing. No, instead she tried to grasp the mans outstretched arm. If he didn't withdraw it or move aside and she managed to get a grip, she would push herself from the bars as hard as she could so that he would hit the bars in a similar way as she just had done. And then she would do it again and again and again.

[scribblerrigby]

He should have caught it, he should have responded. Too slow, too distracted. He’d underestimated how fast she’d recover from sedation.

A flash of movement, a sudden jerk wrenched him forward out of his chair; a sharp pain and metallic clang rocked his head, and he felt himself falling. He looked up, dazed, and he swore. He’d been pulled out of his chair, which had rolled harmlessly away, and Sara now had his arm in her grip. Her stare was as blank as ever, but Aaron thought he could detect some slight, smug satisfaction.

With a snarl, he pulled his arm back towards himself. His long fingers closed around her slimy wrist, and with an inhuman burst of strength, he wrenched it off, losing his balance and toppling backwards with the effort.

The locket clattered to the floor, coming to rest near the base of the bars.

He lay where he had fallen for a moment, fought to remain conscious, strove to look past the sparks already popping in the corner of his eyes, the fuzzy surroundings, and the erratically pulsing light surrounding him. He was too stubborn, too strong-willed to allow himself to quit, now.

Stupid, stupid.

After some time, he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, panting, skin tightening around taut muscles. His mind was fuzzy. It was hard to remember what he’d been doing, why he was there. He growled. He’d tear that cocky little leech apart for doing that.

Tearing apart. For studies. Yeah, science. He shook his head. Whatever.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Sh!t. This was insane. Time was running out. He couldn’t kill her, anyway. He didn’t WANT to kill her. She was still useful, and still interesting.

Aaron sluggishly made his way back to his desk. He pulled himself up, clutching his desk to support himself, fingers digging into the wood. This was slowly spiraling out of his control. This was unacceptable. He looked around the room, desperate for ideas, all studies forgotten, mind instead working furiously to get out of this predicament.

Locket. That’s right, he still had the GPS. He smiled – a slightly pointier grin that still didn’t reach his now-flat, black eyes. Maybe all wasn’t lost. It was an insane gamble, one that depended on Sara’s alertness, her attachment to the locket and her memory of the night he captured her. Hardly reasonable.

He scooped the gun off the desk and spun around, still unsteady, aiming to fire closely over her head. If all went well, he’d use it to shepherd her out of her enclosure and out of his house. The GPS ensured he could find her, later.

He slowly unlocked the cage.

[jollyjohanna]

The sound of his head colliding with the metal bars felt satisfying. Sara prepared herself to do it again, but before she could do it he managed to pull lose from her grip. He was stronger than she had expected, but when he lost his balance he showed that the impact at least had had some effect on him.

Sara wasn't completely intact from rushing into the bars face first, either - while still watching him intently she lowered her head and spat. Three needle-sharp pointy teeth fell to the ground together with some thick green blood, but she didn't seem to care and it wasn't like she didn't have more of them.

Then she noticed something on the floor, near the bars. Her dim eyes went from the man, who now was getting up on his hands and knees, to the locket. Then her hand slipped out between the bars once again, and she grabbed it and hung it around her neck.

Then she went back to watching him again. He was leaning towards his desk now with his back turned against her. Something in the way he moved made her uneasy, a tenseness that hadn't been there before. Since she didn't understand any complicated cause and effect she couldn't think stuff like "maybe it wasn't such a good idea to make him mad by bashing his head", but she knew that it would have been better if he had died.

Then he turned around again, walked up to the door and - opened it. This made Sara hesitate. If the same thing had happened earlier she would just have attacked him as soon as she had gotten the possibility, but... she might be nothing more than a mindless animal, but she wasn't a stupid animal.
The way he moved, the way he smelled, the way he had stopped making those nonsensical but not hostile sounds he had always made before... He was wary of her, but not afraid. This made her on her guard. He wasn't acting like a prey. Besides, she had just had that cat.

So was he a threat? Yes - he had hurt her before and could do it again. But after opening the door he hadn't tried to attack her. Sara's instinct were clear on this - a dangerous threat should only be approached if it was the last way out. It would be preferably if she could get away without a fight.

To decide if he was a dangerous threat that should be avoided or a regular threat that should be attacked and neutralized she crouched down in front of the now open cage door, just as if she was going to attack. But instead of throwing herself at him she made a low throaty sound - it sounded as the mix of an angry growling cat and a hissing snake.
She watched him intensively to see what his reactions would be.

[scribblerrigby]

When Aaron opened the cage door, Sara hesitated, glancing warily over the open doorway before examining him. He could sense her beginning to reek of something - not quite full-on fear, but she was definitely uncertain. Understandably. She was a cornered animal. Would she run? Or fight? Aaron was hoping she'd choose the first option.

He pointed the gun, flicked his tongue anxiously and stared directly at her, lips drawn back in a mirthless attempt at a smile that looked more like a sneer. His stance was tense, quivering; he leaned slightly forward.

She crouched like a cat about to spring and let loose with a weird, threatening hiss.

“None of that now, Sara!” he barked harshly, bristling. With a snarl, he aimed and fired closely over her head, hoping the noise and the threat would drive her out of the cage.

The recoil threw his balance more than it usually would. He faltered slightly as the room dimmed dangerously, and a wave of nausea hit him. He blinked, fighting back unconsciousness - no, he can't, not now - then steadied, bringing his gun up to prepare to fire again.

[jollyjohanna]

Sara flinched and immediately stopped hissing. The loud sound was the same she had heard earlier - when she had gotten wounded. One of her hands instinctively went down to the stitches in her stomach, but she didn't feel the same pain she had felt earlier.
First now she made the link between the man, the sound and the pain. When he was attacked or threatened he somehow caused that sound, but it didn't always harm her. Perhaps she would have to be close for it to harm her.

She backed a few steps on all four until she realized that he wasn't moving towards her or blocking her escape path. This wasn't an attack. Sara walked slowly towards the open cage door, and when he still didn't move or made that sound again she stuck out her head.
She sniffed in the air. During her time held captive she had been sure to memorize where the exit was, where the man always came from when he visited. She suddenly jumped out, bounding off towards the stairs like a dog who had been promised a walk.

She climbed up the wooden stairs in an almost fervent way, but was met with another hinder - the door in front of her was closed. She started to scrape on it, letting her nail-less fingers slide over the doors surface. It passed over the door handle but she didn't press down since she didn't know how.

((OOC: Sorry, couldn't resist screwing with Aaron some more XD))

[scribblerrigby]

There was some raw satisfaction to be had in the way Sara flinched and backed away from him, and the now-nervous manner she behaved, snuffling the air for any danger.

Yes, Sara. I’m the master, here.

She bounded up the stairs, and he followed, moving stiffly, warily, holding the gun in front of him. He was on edge. The hair on his neck stiffened.
Then, he remembered he had shut the door behind him when he came down several seconds before Sara made the same discovery, and he cursed, following her to the stairwell.

Sara was hunched over in a ball on the top step. She stared, perplexed at the door. Her hand slid down the door with a small, wet squeak. The door didn't yield, unsurprisingly, but Sara desperately pawed at it again, and again.

Aaron observed from the bottom of the stairs. She was almost pitiful, really.

He sighed and looked at the gun in his hand. It still contained the rest of the blanks he had loaded earlier, to intimidate her. Though he knew they could be dangerous at close range regardless, he hadn’t anticipated being close enough to Sara to test that statement.

But he hadn’t anticipated a lot of what had happened that evening.

“All right, Sara…I’ll let you out,” he said. Softer, resigned, though his voice came out flat, and words were more of an effort.

With one foot in front of the other, he edged up next to her on the narrow stairwell, the slime streaking his pant legs and shoes as he attempted to squeeze past her to reach the door. He groaned. He’d have to get her through the house and out the front door, too. And damn it, she’d be trailing the slime across the carpets, and he didn’t want to explain that to the carpet cleaners, much less attempt cleaning it, himself.

For a moment, he stayed in that awkward position: his arm stretched over the monster, handrail pressing uncomfortably into his back, monster at his front. His posture was stiff as a rail, he was still nauseous - presumably from the blow to the head, and weird pains had begun to wrack his body.

With a sudden lunge, he stretched his hand and flicked the door handle, nearly toppling over Sara with the movement. The door clicked and swung open.

“Just don’t rip my arm off for the effort, okay?”

[jollyjohanna]

Sara froze when the man walked up the stairs next to her. He was so close that she practically feel his blood pulse through his body. But the last time he had been this close and she had attacked it had ended up with her getting a hole in her stomach, and she didn't want to try it again.

Besides, that unnatural smell was now so strong it was revolting. She didn't want to prey on him, she didn't even want to touch him. (She could have made an exception if he let his guard down, but since he was so alert it was no idea.) All she wanted was to leave this place, to get away from this man and get back to her cold lake, where she could swim and hide and hunt as usual.

When the door slid open she stumbled out in the new room. She hadn't seen this place before and spun around looking for a way out. When no apparent exit showed itself she let out a hiss of dismay. Was it a trap? Had she been caught again? Her instincts screamed to her to get out, but she had no idea where to go.
If the man were trying to guide her she paid him no attention

Suddenly she noticed a welcome sight - grass, vegetation and the dark night sky outside. Outisde. The promise of freedom hung in the air. Sara leaped towards the outside world, knocking down a bunch of newspapers from a nearby table, but was abruptly stopped by the glass door between her and the yard.

She stumbled back, one hand clasping her face in a perplexed way. But then she shook her head to clear it and before the man would have a chance to stop her she bounded into the next room, a light room with wood floor and tiles on the wall.
She tried to halt, but her feet and hands were still slippery from the pool water. The sound of broken glass, shattered plates and scattered cutlery echoed through the house after she crashed into the kitchen sink and knocked down the dish rack on the floor.