Eventually, what I had first assumed to be the man’s mindless obsession shifted into…something more self-aware. Jules, the only one of us who could get close to him, and honestly, the only one of us large enough to really compare to him, kept trying to get him to stop, and at one point, tried to block his way when he went to move to a different machine. The huge fucker just stood chest to chest with Jules, his jaw as slack and eyes as distant as they had been since we entered, sounding confused…and then he pissed all over him. In the halflight, as Jules sprang back, cursing, uniform soaked, I swore I saw the man sneer nostrils flared, his cock half hard as he pushed past Jules and worked through the next set in his routine. Jules went home to clean himself up, and the rest of who remained discussed whether we were going to have to drag him out of there by force. As we reached the decision to get some gas masks if necessary and drag him out, he dropped the barbell he’d been lifting with a clatter, announced that he was finished, and that he could leave with us.
We suggested he go to the hospital to get checked out and cleaned up, and he refused. He didn’t want to go to a hospital, he insisted that he felt perfectly fine, and he didn’t see any reason at all why he needed to get clean. I told him that there was no way he would be riding back with us anywhere smelling like that, and he just shrugged. “I don’t even know why you’re here. I was just doin’ my workout, when you barged in here.” His voice was gruff, with a practiced stupidity I didn’t quite believe was authentic. I told him that someone had called 911 and reported a rape victim, and since he was the only person in the area, we assumed the call had meant him. He looked down at himself, clenching and unclenching his fists a few times. “I…I mean, at first…” he muttered, then shook his head. “No, I’m fine, but…but I…I’m sorry for, uh, pissin, earlier, I don’t always have the best control or focus when I’m workin’ out. Is he…around? The guy I soaked? I’d like to apologize.”
“He’s back at the station,” I lied, “Why don’t you ride back with me, answer a few questions I have, and you can get a chance to apologize then.”
“Am I under arrest? I didn’t do nothin’,” he said.
“You’re welcome to do whatever you want…though I would like to know why you were trespassing on private property here. If you were here of your own volition, then I’ll have to charge you with squatting.”
He got real quiet. I didn’t understand what he was playing at, at the time. Why not just come out with it, and admit it? Then again, if he’d been in here more than a few days, he would have had no idea about the other case that had just come to light. Right then, he thought he was alone. “There’s others, you know. You aren’t the first one to deal with this. I know it seems impossible, looking at yourself, but I’m willing to believe just about anything you tell me about him at this point, after what I’ve seen already.”
Another inscrutable look, but one which I was certain contained some anger. That surprised me more than just about anything else had, that day. It was enough to convince him to come along with us back to the station to take a statement, at least–he rode back with me, giving me plenty of time to get…accustomed to his musk. It was heady, but it also wasn’t…old, if that makes sense. Rather, it smelled fresh in a way I couldn’t quite describe, and as I adjusted to it and found myself able to breathe a bit more normal, I felt a stirring in my crotch, and my cock started to harden inexplicably. I distracted myself with some basic questions–getting his name (Ray Campbell), whether he had anyone he wanted us to contact (no one that he was willing to name), and where he lived, so we could get him a change of clothes (an apartment downtown, though at the mention of clothing, he gave a dismissive grunt). I radioed someone to head to his apartment, with his permission to enter, and then we arrived at the station. I got him a blanket, but the only clothing I had for him was a jail jumpsuit. He took it, begrudgingly, and we went into an interview room to discuss the actual subject at hand.
He stonewalled me, right from the beginning. If Bernard had been confused and befuddled by what had happened to him, Ray seemed to fully understand what had happened, but hid it, poorly, behind a feigned ignorance, stupidity and dullness. He didn’t know how long he’d been in the shipping container. He didn’t know anything about who had put him in there, what they’d looked like, or why they had forced him to workout. Instead, he kept trying to flip it around, poking and prodding about the other people I had mentioned this happening to…and so, since he was going to see it at some point anyway, I got the tape of the interview Bernard had done on the nightly news, and let him watch it while I got us some food. It was then that the men I’d sent to his apartment returned, empty handed. The landlord had told them that Ray had disappeared four months earlier, leaving all of his shit behind, and when no one came by to pay the rent, he’d claimed everything in the place, pawned the valuables and junked the rest, and was already renting the apartment out to someone else.
Four months. Bernard had been in that basement for a week (or so he’d said), and Ray had been missing for at least four months. I checked for a missing person report, or anything, but there was nothing–perhaps the one thing Ray had been honest about was that he didn’t have anyone he wanted to contact. Armed with some information, at least, I went back into the interview room, and found the tape finished, and Ray was agitated, pacing the small room, back and forth, muttering to himself something I couldn’t make out under his breath. When I arrived, he did his best to protect the air of idiocy he’d been attempting with me, but he was off balance. I thought, maybe, I’d be able to get something out of him now.
Bracken's Corner 