The Water Ran Red with Blood

The water ran red with blood.

“We made quite a mess this time, my dear,” he said. She swathed his fingers in a soft, white cloth, lathered with soap, and with tender care massaged the crevices and wrinkles in his hands. Using circular motions, she scrubbed away drying smudges of blood from under his nails up to his elbows.

“He earned every second of agony for thinking he could so blatantly betray us,” she responded gently. “The surprise on his face when he realized we’d already seen through his deception months ago and used him to leak false information. That’s always my favorite part.”

“Watching you stop him dead in his tracks, how you tore those screams from his mouth. It leaves me,” he said, a rumble of thunder emanating from his chest, “hungry.” His steely blue eyes flash crimson as he stared into her soul. He snatched the cloth from her hand and tossed it behind him. It landed, splat, on the floor of the shower. 

Foamy suds tainted crimson escaped through the drain, washing away the evening’s exciting events and making way for celebration. The constant din of hissing water was interrupted by breathless gasps, and groans of pleasure. Large hands excavated her ribs and back, then wrapped around slender wrists to raise them over her head. His back shielded her from the shower while he captured her mouth, digging her lips apart with his tongue.

“Allow me to reward you for your excellent handling of that traitor,” he murmured forehead pressed to hers. 

“Just another day of being your wife, my love,” she teased, grinning.

“Such a good girl, aren’t you?” The fingers of one hand locked her wrists in place, freeing the others to stimulate already known weaknesses while seeking new delicacies. 

A shudder conquered her movements, and she eagerly surrendered for her reward. Her sweet voice resonated through the steam rising out from behind the glass door. “Oh Leo,” she sighed in blissful satisfaction. 

“I’m only getting started, Nora,” he brusquely decided.

Blindly groping for the shower knob, he shut off the water, and then bodily shoved open the shower. He carried her along with a towel to the bed, planting her back into the sheets. Their bodies joined in synchronized harmony, colliding to the beat of a sadistic melody uniquely their own, and their voices of ecstasy a menacing chorus.

By the time she woke the following morning, Leo’s hair was wet again. Nora watched him button up his dress shirt. Strips of sunlight streamed through partially opened blinds hanging over the eastward facing bedroom windows. “Going somewhere, dear?”

“I received a message this morning,” he informed, and sat on the edge of the bed to tie his polished shoes. “An incident in the facility last night.”

“And they waited this long to contact you?”

“I’ll be reprimanding them harshly.”

“Intelligence is in such short supply these days,” she remarked, and received one of his dry chuckles. Nora uprooted from under the duvet, and landed against his back with her arms around his neck. “Have you eaten and taken your medicine?”

“Yes,” he answered, plucking one of her delicate hands to tenderly press against his lips. “Will you be joining me?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she replied. “I’ll be along shortly.”

“Good girl,” Leo approved, patting her hand lightly in gesture. Nora unraveled her arms from around him and sat back on folded legs. He stood, and half turned, appraising her unabashed nudity as he donned the jacket that paired with his business attire. Confident strides carried him toward the door, pausing long enough to don a black fedora with a white cloth stripe from the rack on the way out.

The rest of the two-story home was spacious and luxurious. Expensive paintings lined the walls toward the balcony overlooking the foyer. A chandelier catching light from the ceiling windows made the white walls glitter. Leo descended the stairs with a hand in his pocket, moving with assured swiftness. At the last step, he turned and walked up the hall to the dining room, equipped with an oak table having enough space to seat four times the amount of people that occupied the house. Beyond that, he entered a sitting room, where book shelves lined one of the walls. Reaching into a space between books, he turned a knob and opened the hidden door behind it to push open. Stairs led down into a cellar, racks of wine on every side of the small, finished room. His fingers gripped the neck of a vintage bottle, twisted it clockwise, and pushed. To his right, the wall slid down, and revealed a slim elevator with a weight capacity of no more than five-hundred pounds. 

Overhead, a circular fluorescent fixture dimly lit the barebones lift, and a square console with a single unlit button. Leo pressed it, and the door slid up to conceal the secret entrance. Simultaneously, the motor hummed to life and carried him underground.

Leo was deposited in his office after the door slid open around him clockwise, and he stepped out. His arms filled out a lab coat with a stainless steel plated name tag on it reading “Leonile – Director”. On the wall of the office behind his desk hung a few proudly framed PhD certificates – human genetics, molecular biology, virology and gene therapy. He and his wife funded and managed this small research facility. Director was an apt title. Everyone answered to him. Nothing happened without him knowing it eventually. He picked up a silver suitcase from the shelf of a cabinet on his way out the door of his office, which locked shut automatically with a whispered click.

A researcher with less credentials than him joined his quick pace down the corridor, blathering about a breach in lab room three. Leo grunted intermittently to indicate a mild level of active listening. Each stainless steel door he passed was equipped with slender, hybrid locks. They utilized a key code along with thumb print recognition, and a built in camera to record the person who entered on either approved or failed access attempts.

“It was her teenage son,” the researcher reported.

Leo grimaced with a frown. “How?”

“A localized EMP device scrambled the lock, making it disengage.”

“That he reached the facility in the first place speaks to inadequacies.” Arriving at lab three, Leo inspected signs of charring around the burned out door lock from the inside of the lab. “Where is he now?”

“Quarantine, sir, with his mother. We monitored him all night and administered every vaccine we have, but nothing’s working.”

“His condition?” Leo strode away from the door, moving deeper into the facility.

“Critical. It won’t be long before he succumbs to the virus.”

Moving swiftly through the brightly lit halls, passing several more labs, Leo asked, “Is all of the data being recorded? Vital signs? mutations?”

“Yes, every detail,” the researcher curtly answered.

“Good. Ensure all of it is transmitted to me immediately.”

Two teenagers stood outside of the air locked quarantine bay. Their sneakers covered in dried mud, arms crossed, talking anxiously among themselves.

The director paused, glancing briefly at the boys before turning to his subordinate. “Edward, why are they still here?”

The taller boy glanced at the name tag on Leo’s lab coat. “Sir, this was our fault. We put Shaun up to this.”

Leo’s slender index finger danced across the numbers on the lock’s touchscreen, and then his thumb landed in place to be scanned. The security panel beeped twice, and the sophisticated lock clicked. Glaring icily, he asked, “And how do you feel knowing that you’ve cost your friend his life over an irresponsible prank?”

Eyes wide with incredulous horror, the boy failed to articulate an answer before Leo disappeared inside the sealed room.