Kent Kelly - The Girl Who Bled Forever

ANOMALY VICTIM [AV]: SAVE ME

(There is a struggle atop the grass. The girl is whimpering, screaming. Someone is on top of her, we see camo fatigues and the oily orange hunting vest of a tanned man with burly arms. He seems at first to be hurting her, but he is trying to stop the bleeding of the stump which still pumps arterial freshets into the wind.)

(The girl’s face tilts as she begins to lose consciousness. Her eyes flicker open-shut-open as their deeply-lashed lids turn into blurs. She shrieks and seems to cry out, something like:)

AV: OH GOD THE ICELIGHTS

(And then:)

AV: MOMMY

(And the tape goes black.)

(There is an indeterminate-length severance of the discoverable record at this point; we do not know whether files are missing, lost or simply non-extant. Due to Agent Morgenstern’s medical leave and apparent resignation, and the lack of otherwise-sourced interrogation/interview tapes of Subject following Evidence File Two, we are not fully aware or cognizant of what transpired. What is known is that Morgenstern was convinced to return to service by the personal urgings of [redacted], and specifically to Project Octagonal Red, in early 2020. We resume with a session — perhaps the very next session, chronologically — which she conducted with Subject in either late 2020 or early 2021.)

(Handheld camera, calibration in process. Gliding view of medical white-on-white and then in-focus. A transparent cell in fluorescent light, glittering reflections along the steel mesh triangles impregnated in Lucite walls. An unused, muffler-gasketed diesel generator can be seen at corner right. Subject is crouched in one corner behind the Lucite despite the presence of a translucent safety bench to his immediate left. He is soiled, unshaven and lined with age, belying the two or three years which have passed. He does not look up when the camera is socketed into a bracket arm on the exterior of his prison, but he does when the gray-draped figure sits gently behind him. Anna. Perhaps he smells and remembers her perfume.)

CAPTAIN RAMSEY [CR]: Oh, I had no idea. (He stumbles up to the bench and kneels on it, hands pressed against Lucite, puffing out a visible mist of breath into his own haggard and reflected face.)

(The camera person grumbles, the view reels as the camera is unsocketed and locked in closer to the opposite side, over the generator. We still see Anna’s hands and knees, and sometimes her reflections against the safety glass. Tubing is pushed aside. Green-raster monitors glow in the distance behind a clear plastic curtain of some kind which undulates beneath an air conditioner. Tears of moisture bead down its farther surface, giving the scene an illusion of gentle rain.)

ANNA MORGENSTERN [AM]: Hello, Alan… Captain.

CR: Anna. (Composing himself, sitting awkwardly and backwards upon the narrow bench.) You look wonderful.

AM: Mere flattery. (Smiles wanly.) A new tune, I suppose.

CR: I’m so glad you came back to all of this. To me.

AM: (The camera shifts away from Anna, focusing on Subject.) I don’t want this to be personal.

CR: It is.

AM: I know. I don’t want to be… pulled. From this.

CR: Pull a Salinger, you mean. (Winks sarcastically.) Get kicked off this plum of a career-kicker, am I right?

AM: Right now, I am right here.

CR: Well then. God, I missed you. (Putting on airs to hide the wetness in his reddened eyes.) Let me treat you like old times. Want me to go rough on you?

AM: (Half a chuckle, turning into a sigh.) I might like that.

CR: Right. So, Agent Morgan.

AM: (A real laugh this time, warm yet frail.)

CR: What are you doing here, ma’am?

AM: (No response. Her expression cannot be seen, but her hands fold over the exposed knee where her yellow notepad has tilted off to one side. It falls and she catches it by a corner. The pen goes clattering.)

CR: Thought you might be in Syria by now, or God-knows-where. Were you involved with the new anomaly’s riot suppressions at the embassy? Damascus, wasn’t it?

AM: So you’re keeping abreast of current events. And no, not I.

CR: Friends?

AM: Sisters in arms, perhaps.

CR: Are you a full agent now? 935 Pennsylvania? [Believed in Prime to be the address of an FBI facility in Washington, D.C., perhaps even headquarters.] Liaison to Langley, perhaps? [Unknown.]

AM: Oh, such sweet nothings, Captain.

CR: (Despite himself, he grins. Scarring is visible for the first time near to his lower left lip.) I’m whispering everythings , ma’am. Actually.

AM: Let’s begin.

CR: Amen. What is wanted? They sent you because I stopped volunteering information to the others? Are you sure you want to do this?

AM: Indeed. And let me do this. I am the investigator here.

CR: Tough like old times. It’s lonely without the machine guns.

AM: There’s the gas, rather.

CR: There is indeed. Kindly don’t incapacitate me.

AM: (Amused, yet sad.) We shall see. I really don’t know how to begin, you know.

CR: It scars you. Seeing it. I know. But I can talk to you now like I couldn’t before. Too many months now. It’s years, isn’t it? I’ve wanted to talk to you.

AM: And what do you mean?

CR: You’re one of us now, Anna. Forever and never whole. You’ve seen .

AM: I wish with all my heart I hadn’t.

CAMERAMAN, OFF-SCREEN: Strike that later?

AM: No.

CAMERAMAN:… All right.

CR: So you never told me. Granted, they carried you out, so you’re excused. But still, you never told me.

AM: What precisely?

CR: What you think you saw. The girl, crawling out of the hole.

AM: The elder image. The thing.

CR: Ancient, yes. But an innocent girl regardless. A human soul.

AM: Special effects.

CR: (Incredulous.) What did you just say?

AM: Headquarters is no longer convinced the video is real, Alan. There’s the grain, for one thing. The static. And the fracture down the middle. Being privy to tangentials you’ve never seen, I’m almost inclined to agree.

CR: You’re almost… you’re almost inclined. To agree.

AM: We can be reasonable, you and I. I can be convinced, perhaps, that it was—

CR: (Pounds the Lucite surface furiously, stands wavering.) No! It was real . You know it. Say it, Anna.

AM: Alan—

CR: Say it!

AUTHORITARIAN VOICE, OVER SPEAKER: Step away toward center, please. Or better yet, sit down.

(To Anna’s apparent surprise — she clenches at a silver ring on her left hand, turning it back and forth with a pallid thumb — the Subject immediately complies. He sits, drifting down slowly.)

CR: Surely you’ve reviewed the tape. And you’re still convinced it’s nothing more than—

AM: I was saving a second viewing until after I spoke with you, Captain. Tonight.

CR: You haven’t even watched it again? Special effects? Are you unhinged?

AM: I don’t know how, and I don’t know who. But the editing, the editing was phenomenal. Yes. But none of that was real. It was a horror-hoax.

CR: What have they done to you?

AM: A horror-hoax, we’re nearly certain. Footage made with a scared little girl, I know she was abandoned on the highway.

CR: Then you know her name. You know a lot more than you let on in our first conversation.

AM: I didn’t know any of that then. The mother is in prison now. A capital sentence was barely averted. She basically murdered her daughter by abandoning her in [redacted] at the edge of winter.

CR: I know.

AM: This sick person filmed, edited. Did the effects later, using footage of her murder in process.