This is my first attempt at this sort of thing. I hope you enjoy it. I
would like to thank Teresa Sanchez and Phebe Douglas for their input and
help with the sex areas of the story. Author's Warning: this story
contains views that are controversial and loosely based on the
occurrences of World War Two and the Holocaust against the Jewish people.
None of this story is true and no event or depictions of the people
involved are meant to resemble or justify any action taken in reality.
This story is meant to be fiction and hopefully entertaining to any who
read it. (This version is replacing the original version posted earlier)
This story is copyrighted 2002. No posting at any location without
advance permission by the author.
Jerrie
The Scorpions Sting (Revised)
by Jerrie526
Prelude:
April 30, 1945, Berlin, Germany
The room was lightly lit and verging on twilight setting. It was sparsely
decorated with one part of the room closed off from the remainder with a
partition of glass. There were two doors leading into and out of the
room, one in either part of the partitioned area.
There was a small panel in one of the walls that looked like it was
secured in place but movable. In the two parts of the room were two
occupants: a young girl of approximate age of 16, who happened to be tied
to the chair she was sitting on. A wrap of cloth gagged her mouth and she
was frantically looking for a way to get loose from the binding but an
expert had tied her up too well.
The other occupant of the room outside the partition was tied to stakes
set into the floor. It was a man of about 50 to 60 years of age but he
had weariness in his eyes the belied his physical age. His dark hair was
parted from the right side and swept left above his left eye. His
mustache was a brief spread barely the width of his nose.
It was the face of one of the most feared and hated men in the world:
Adolph Hitler! One could wonder what he was doing being subjected to the
humiliation of being tied to a floor in a bare room and why he was not
screaming his head off to be let loose. He was totally quiet and calm
despite the indignity of his position.
A faint scrabbling sound was suddenly heard in the room as the small
panel was raised in the farthest wall away from him. As he raised his
head to look, the girl in the glass enclosure's eyes flew wide at the
sight of the huge amount of black scorpions were skittering into the room
where Hitler lay. The scorpions were all in a highly agitated state and
were acting ready to strike at the first object they could find. Of
course, people in the outside room had constantly stirred them to get
them into this state.
To say the least, they were pissed off and ready to strike. Almost as
one, they spotted the man lying on the floor and proceeded quickly
towards him. Only now was there any sort of movement from him as he
acknowledged the nature of these poisonous insects. He barely had any
time to show fear on his face before they were on him and striking him
with their lethal stingers.
As the first few struck him, he screamed in extreme pain. Now they were
all over him and repeatedly striking him. His body was convulsing with
every strike and it was only a matter of minutes before he would be dead.
One single scorpion moved rapidly away from the main trunk of his body
and headed straight for his head. He had received many hits in his face
but this one started crawling up his hair and used it as a purchase for
it's claws and braced itself for striking. Once it was ready, it struck
once in the man's temple where the spine broke through the skin and bone
to inject the venom into the brain. One huge spasm from the man and he
was dead from the deadly toxin.
At this point, all the scorpions stopped completely and did not move at
all. They just held their position where they were. It was as if they
were waiting for something to happen. As one, all the stingers and
claws pointed straight away from their bodies and towards the ceiling. A
misty substance started coming out of Hitler's body and coalescing near
the ceiling of the room. It then moved towards the girl in the glass
enclosure. It passed through the glass as if nothing was there. Contact
was made with the girl's body and the mist vanished from sight. Her body
started twitching hard and within seconds the mist reemerged from her
body and dissipated into nothingness. The girl then fainted in her bonds.
As if seeing this as a sign, the scorpions all relaxed and slowly moved
away from the body and towards the opening in the wall from which they
had came. Once they had all left the room, the trap door dropped back
into place and isolated them from the room again. The only door to the
main room opened and two men entered the room. One looked to be a doctor
while the other wore the uniform of a Nazi SS officer with the rank of
Colonel. The doctor was none other than the Fuehrer's personal butcher,
Josef Mengele. He bent down to lightly touch the dead man's neck. Feeling
no pulse, he stood back up and pronounced "The Fuehrer is dead. We must
now complete the disposal of the body as he requested of us."
The SS officer motioned with his hand towards the door and four burly
soldiers entered the room and deftly picked the body up and went silently
back out the door with it.
The other men then looked towards the girl who was still unconscious in
the chair. Mengele turned to the Colonel and said, "We need to get the
girl ready for evacuation. Both the allied armies are too close and we
have been delayed from this process because of all the shelling that has
been going on around us. Our timeline is short and we need to go. I have
ordered the disposal of all that knew about this, but we cannot be
certain that they will be killed before the allies arrive here. But we
need to go now or we will never get out of the city. I have a small plane
hidden and waiting for us to arrive but it will be close."
The Colonel replied, "If we are to see the plans of the Fuehrer through,
then we must meet with our people in Argentina. All are awaiting our
arrival but we have to get to the submarine that is waiting for us. I
know the necessity of the airplane but if it is shot down, all the plans
for the raising of the Last Reich will be to naught and our future will
be destroyed."
"Then my friend, we need to leave immediately. Come, let us get the girl
and go. She will be out of it for the next 48 hours recovering from the
systemic shock she has gone through with the process."
Both men exited the room only to reappear seconds later inside the glass
partition. Instead of untying her, they quickly cut the ropes binding her
into place and grabbed her arms before she could fall over. Mengele bent
over and picked her up in cradle like he would a sleeping child and
exited the room. (Fade to Black)
Chapter 1:
The Near Future (10 years from now)
Being a big city police officer has never been what I would term as a
good life but I can tell you, it is fulfilling if you have the need to
keep busy. I have been a police officer for 27 years with the last 15 as
a detective in the homicide division. While I still have to investigate
any murder that comes up, I do not have to pound a beat like the junior
officers do. I am good at what I do and I have rarely been able to not
close a case.
But a recent case has been a puzzler to me. The corpse of an old woman
was found in an alley in one of the ritzier parts of the city. With the
possible Future President in town on a campaign tour and the body being
found near his hotel, we had to be circumspect and get the case solved
quickly. The biggest puzzler to the whole deal is her body was covered
with huge welts that were blackened with decaying flesh. Nobody could
really understand what caused the welts but from closer looks, there were
tiny pinholes in the center of each one.
It looked like some sort of poison was injected randomly into her body.
We finally have been able to get an ID from her fingerprints and that is
the reason I am in the process of going to see the Candidate at this
time. You see, he employed her for many years and before that his father
also employed her. At least our records indicated that she has worked for
their family since the early 1950's when she immigrated to this country
after World War II ended and things settled down from the conflict. It
seems she was a war orphan in Germany and she had no family there after
the War ended.
I kept wondering what sort of monster would subject an old woman to
random injections of some sort of poison and then dispose of her body so
callously. I had to interrupt my train of thought as I pulled into
the valet parking area of the hotel. I exited my car and displayed my
badge and ID for the attendant. I informed him that I would be returning
in approximately 1 hour. I could not trust my vehicle to anyone, so I
locked the car and went indoors.
As I entered the lobby of the hotel, all I could think was, too posh
for me. It seemed that everything inside was covered in gold or diamonds.
It was definitely a place for the wealthy to stay. But a Five Star hotel
such as this has it's own legacy to live on and this place did so with a
flair.
As I approached the front desk, the clerk looked up with a sneer on his
lips as he looked me over. I was wearing my best working outfit but it
did not come close to matching the outright glamour of the hotel.
Therefore, I was completely out of place.
The clerk said, "May I...Help?you, sir?" with a tone of arrogance in his
voice.
I presented my badge for inspection and said, "I am Detective Richard
Ashton of the LA Metro police force. I am here to see Presidential
Candidate Marcus Skorpio."
With a visible sneer on his face, he said, "Do you have an appointment
with him? He is a rather busy man, you know. Besides, he is feeling under
the weather at the moment and the Secret Service is not wanting to have
him disturbed."
After hearing this little speech, I was feeling a bit upset at his gall
and downright rudeness. I pulled out my police badge and ID and stated,
"I have to see Mr. Skorpio and it is a matter of importance concerning a
member of his staff. Her body was found two days ago in an alley a few
blocks from here and I need to get some information about what we should
do with her body." Taken aback by this information, he said, "I will call
up to his room and find out if it is permissible."
Taking my badge and ID for verification, he went behind the desk
partition and started talking to a man that carried the look of a manager
and heatedly talked with him and gestured my direction. With a flustered
look on his face, he came back and went to the switchboard and made a
phone call presumably the Mr. Skorpio's room. He was looking at my ID and
was reading information off it and was giving it to the Secret Service
agent on duty.
He hung up the phone and returned to where I was waiting patiently and
said, "You will have to excuse the wait Detective Ashton. You understand
how the Secret Service works when there is anyone going around the
channels trying to see someone as important as a Presidential Candidate.
They have to run your information through their computers before they
will permit you to see him. They said they would call back in just a few
minutes as soon as they had what they needed."
"That is fine with me. I understand and know the reasons behind it. Ever
since the Presidential Campaign of 2004 when all the candidates were
randomly but eventually assassinated by terrorists, the security is tight
around them. But I have no choice but to wait for them. I will just take
a seat on one of the chairs and wait for them."
I went over to my choice of deeply padded chairs and sat down. The chair
itself was almost uncomfortable because it was TOO comfortable. I cooled
my heels waiting for the OK to see Mr. Skorpio. The wait was nearly an
hour long. Finally, I spotted two stiff looking men in black suits and
mirror sunglasses walking towards me. As I stood up, the taller of the
two, a man that was a good 6" taller than myself and, being 6'2" tall
myself made him look even bigger and looked like he could break me in two
without blinking, said in a deep rumbling voice, "Det. Ashton? We are
here to take you up to see Mr. Skorpio. If you would, please come with
us."
My would-be guides split and turned away on either side of me. The sheer
sizes of these two men were incredible. I took close peeks at them both
and was sincerely glad that I was on the side of the law. These two were
mountains of men and bigger than many of the larger officers in the
precinct. I could not help but be awed by their sizes.
They proceeded to guide me towards the elevators. They inserted a
special key into an isolated elevator. It had to be the penthouse
elevator where special people such as Presidential Candidates, Presidents
or someone like that stayed. As we entered the elevator, I had the
feeling that these men would love to take their huge hands and break me
like a worn out plastic toy. They were very dangerous men and I felt the
danger hanging off of them as tangible as anything I have ever felt did.
Normally, a Presidential Candidate would use the Secret Service for their
bodyguards but Mr. Skorpio used private bodyguards from a well-known
security firm. The company was well known for hiring only the biggest
people they can find and training them in all forms of martial/military
arts to the point they were walking weapons. I repressed a shiver down my
spine while thinking about their eyes scanning me over from behind their
mirror glasses.
As we reached the floor where Mr. Skorpio was staying, my escorts started
visibly relaxing but they still kept the edge on in regards to my
presence. I was then guided into the presence of Mr. Skorpio. First
impressions are everything in my business. I did not like him from first
glance. Why you ask? Let me explain that my instincts as a detective have
always been of the highest caliber and I rarely am wrong in my 'hunches'.
Believe me when I say, I felt the most horrible feelings when I was in
his presence. Here was a man, which according to the news has been sick
for the last 2-3 days with an unknown illness that the doctors could not
explain. He was pale and weak but he still had an aura about him that
made my skin crawl. Being only 50 years old, he was one of the youngest
people to run for the office of President of the United Sates. The only
person younger was John F. Kennedy (God Rest His Soul).
Mr. Skorpio gave me the feeling of walking through a slime pit. His eyes
looked tired but betrayed a hidden evil in the glance he gave me. I have
never been able to explain it to my peers and one time, one of them made
the comment that I was having a psychic episode whenever I had one of my
"feelings". But the feeling I was having was one of extreme evil and one
I could not get rid of.
In trying to maintain a straight face and not put a sneer of disgust on
my face, I said, "Mr. Skorpio, I am Det. Richard Ashton of the LA Metro
Police and I have the duty to report to you that your employee, Helga
Schmidt has been found dead a few blocks from here. We have been trying
to find a relative for her but there was no one on record for her. You
were the only person listed as a contact in her file and that only being
that you were her employer."
In a weak voiced reply he said, "Ms. Schmidt had disappeared about three
days ago and I had feared for her safety. She had been in my employ since
my father died 20 years ago. And she had served him since about 1947 when
she emigrated from Germany after the end of the war that left her an
orphan. She had survived the war by sheer luck and was nearly dead from
starvation by the time the Allied Forces ended the war and was able to
bring in food supplies for the population.
My father felt sorry for her since her whole family was killed in the
bombing of Berlin in the months before the end. She managed to narrowly
escape but it left her with a dislike for anything German and so she left
that country and tried for two years to get enough money to leave Europe
for the US. During that time, she had to literally fight for her
existence to accomplish that. So, tell me Detective, how did she die?"
"She was killed by a multitude of injections of an unknown poison. We
have been trying to find out what sort of poison it was. But so far, the
origin has evaded us with the exception that we have discovered that it
is organic and has already started decaying to the point that we are
scraping hard to try to find the source. I am afraid that we will never
find the source if the decomposition continues any further."
Mr. Skorpio looked at me with a bland sort of look that registered as
non-caring. "Well, I certainly hope that your people are out scouring the
city trying to find her killer. She was well loved in my family and will
be sadly missed by everyone."
"Is there anything that you would like us to do with her body?"
"I must tell you that her living will was to have her organs donated and
then her body was to be cremated. But I know that she would have to be
hooked up to life support systems for that to take effect, so the thing
that would have to be done is to have her cremated immediately. I will
have her ashes taken to Germany where she was born and scatter them in
her family estate. Since all her known family was killed during the
bombing of Germany, all there is remaining is open land with a family
graveyard."
"I will see to it that is done as soon as the post mortem is completed
and the body is no longer needed."
Mr. Skorpio suddenly got a strange look to his eyes and shouted, "NO! I
forbid you to desecrate her body like that. She is dead and nothing will
change that. She MUST be cremated immediately!"
I was puzzled by his outburst since there was really no reason to get so
vehement about the issue. "I must point out to you, sir, that we have to
do the tests so that we can determine what it was that killed her. Once
we have established what the poison is, we will turn her over for
cremation."
"Detective, I must insist that she be cremated now. You do not know whom
it is that you are dealing with if you go against my request."
"Mr. Skorpio, if you insist on this request, I am afraid that we will get
a court order that prevents you from carrying through with that until we
have finished our investigation. We can do this the hard way or we can do
it the easy way. For all intents and purposes, I would prefer it to be
the easy way. You can make it hard but you will lose in the end."
I put out my best steel glare and affixed his eyes and began a stare
down with him. I was rapidly beginning to detest the man tremendously
and it was all I could do to keep my head straight. It would not do the
department any good if I lost my head because I took an instant dislike
to a presidential candidate.
He continued to glare back at me for several moments like he was thinking
about what I said but did not want to. At last, he said, "So be it if it
must be. But I warn you, that if her body is not promptly turned over for
cremation the minute the investigation is done, you will be hearing from
my lawyer. Good day Detective."
I knew that my interview was over by the abrupt dismissal. This was a man
not to be trifled with. I took my leave with my two escorts right with
me. Once again, they were tense and back to being on trigger reflexes. I
was guided back to the elevator and once it arrived, I was forced into it
by both men grabbing me by my arms and nearly picked up by them. It
startled me somewhat by the change in their demeanor since I was already
leaving. They let the doors close and then let me go. I looked at one and
then the other and at once said, "Guys, I hope you realize that what you
just did is grounds for assault charges to be filed against you. Any
bodily contact with an officer of the law while he is on duty is
considered assault and is prosecutable. I will be filing the charges once
I get back to my office. You can expect a visit from arresting officers
later today."
A moment of silence followed my speech and to my surprise, they both
burst out laughing in deep rumbles. The bigger of the two looked at me
still laughing and said, "Little man, you would best forget that the
incident happened. You do not know whom you talk to. You are being let
off easy at this time. You would be truly wise to not anger Mr. Skorpio.
That is all I will say."
As the elevator opened back into the lobby, I walked out, turned and
looked the two over. "Gentlemen, rest assured that I will remember your
faces and we will have words again in the future. Until that day, I bid
you adieu."
I turned back and exited the hotel. I was seething inside and my mind was
racing a million miles an hour. This group of people was very shady and I
could not pinpoint why I felt this way. I had some investigating to do if
I was to find out why. I had work to do.
??? Chapter 2
After I left the hotel, I went back to my car and got in. I was searching
my feelings deeply and was trying to figure out why I disliked this man
so much. Sure, he felt horribly slimy and had the feeling of being a
crook. But for as long as there have been politicians, there have always
been crooked ones. But this goes deeper than that. I could not place why.
I pulled out from under the carport and took the slow way out. I had some
things to think about but I also wanted to see the area and see if I
could fit a pattern into my thoughts. I pulled out to the street and
drove around the block to take a look at the hotel perimeter.
As I drove around, I came to the loading dock. There was a group of
people loading a crate of some sort into a private courier vehicle. I
paused to look at the work going on. Every one of the people that were
touching the crate had on thick leather protective gear. It was almost
like they were trying to keep something from touching them. All of them
were handling the crate with kids' gloves. Like they were afraid of it. I
wondered why. I came to a complete stop and watched them. I spotted my
two friends or I should say, the two idiots who were the bodyguards for
Skorpio guiding the workers to the truck.
NOW I was interested! The crate was not large enough to hold a body but a
corpse could be cut down and put into something this small but I doubted
that the workers would willingly carry a corpse like that. They got the
crate in the truck and sealed it. I took note of the license number so
that I could track it. It would only take a few minutes to find out who
owned this vehicle but I felt that it could wait until I get back to the
office. Just to be safe, I brought out my laser reader and read the VIN
of the vehicle. It was one of the most useful tools developed for police
use. Vehicles were now required have installed an identity transponder
that utilized a transmitter that read off the VIN if a certain laser
frequency hit the vehicle or from a special satellite. We were able to
track a vehicle instantly by this process. Stolen cars were a thing of
the past since this little gem was introduced in 2009.
The VIN was safely stored in the CPU in my belt personal assistant. Ah,
the wonders of modern technology. Computers that sat on a desk were
obsolete; laptops were no longer needed. The precursors to my assistant
were the PDA's that were highly touted in the early 21st Century. They
were only good as glorified address books. But my little beauty was the
size of an old style pager. A wireless reader transmitted the video
signal to my sunglasses, which displayed the data behind the right lens
of the glasses.
Communications to the central Police computer main frame was nearly
instantaneous with the advent of molecular communications. My assistant
was also my mol-phone. That is short for molecular phone. I was never out
of contact with the office since my assistant could transmit my position
to them all the time. That goes the same with my fellow officers. It
certainly has saved a lot of lives when it can pinpoint every person's
exact spot.
I felt there was nothing else I could do here so I decided to go back
to the office and fill out my contact report. HAH! Fill out a report!
What a joke. I would dictate it to my assistant, which would transmit it
to the central computer that would then transmit it to my desk display
for a hard copy for signing and filing. I still had things to do but it
would wait until I got back.
Once I returned back to my office, I gathered the paperwork that was
completed and waiting for me. I looked it over to make sure that
everything was perfect before signing it and filing it. I had received no
calls during the day and my assistant showed that there had been no calls
while I was in standby mode. I am always in standby while I am doing
interviews such as earlier in the day. I had been expecting a call from
the morgue about the poison found in the old woman's body. That was my
next priority.
Instead of calling them, I decided that it would be best to go over
there and talk to the M.E. in person. I was building a suspicion after
this morning but I had to have proof before I could go making an arrest.
As I walked into the ME's office, I came up on a very puzzled man. Jack
Martingale had been a member of the ME's office for longer than I had
been on the police force. He was getting close to retirement but he still
had a few years to go before he would do so. But I have never seen him
puzzled before.
"Jack, what seems to be the problem?" I asked.
"Well, Rich, it seems that no matter what I do to find the origin of
this poison, there is nothing that I can find out for sure as to what it
is. All that we have been able to find out is that it not a mineral
poison as we first suspected. It has the properties of an organic poison
because it is degrading so fast that we have not been able to secure a
good sample. In a few more hours, we will not be able to use it anymore.
Then we have lost our edge in finding the cause or the source of the
poison. Once that happens, we might as well dispose of the corpse, as it
will not be worth the effort. Also I did get your fax on the disposition
of the body and it will be as directed."
"I can see your dilemma here and I am trying to track down some leads
from her past. I cannot believe that I hated her former employer like
I did. I have never taken such a dislike to someone so quickly."
"Who was her employer, if you don't mind me asking."
"You would be surprised that it was the presidential candidate Marcus
Skorpio. I had the displeasure of interviewing him this morning. I have
never met a more disagreeable person in my life."
"That is very strange Rich. The majority of the Americans of voting age
agree that he will be the next President of the US. He is the most loved
candidate since John F. Kennedy. He is a shoe-in to be elected by the
largest margin ever according to the latest polls."
"Well, after meeting him this morning, he has lost my vote. That man is
possible danger to us. Don't ask me how I know this but it is a feeling
that I have had. How do you think I have succeeded in my job? I follow my
feelings and instincts."
"Rich, I am not asking that at all. I am just saying that he is loved by
the people with his views and stance on our decade long war on terrorism.
Oh, he'll win all right. That I have no doubts about."
"Ok, Jack, I get your point. Now let's get back to the issue at hand. Is
there any sort of classification of the poison that you could put it in
besides 'organic'?"
"Rich, if I had a fresh batch of the poison, I might be able to give you
a good idea what it was, but with the quickening decay and the lack of
freshness, I will never be able to determine what it is."
"Well, keep working on it as long as you can and see what you can get out
of it in the time you have left. I will keep back in touch with you. If
you find out anything, let me know as soon as you can."
"Will do. I will talk to you later."
I made my exit as puzzled as Jack was. It was not looking good as to
finding the source of the poison. I had little hope on finding a fresh
source of the poison, so I had to go see if I could find a lead of some
sort. I did need to go back and look up the information on the courier
truck that I saw earlier.
As I sat down to my desk, I pulled up the info on the truck and entered
the VIN in the system. It came back immediately with the license number I
took down before I got the VIN. It was registered to a local company that
was headquartered about 5 miles from the office. I think I was going to
have to go down there and do some questioning as to what was taken from
the hotel earlier. If I got lucky, I might be able to find something out.
Since it was getting near the time I am scheduled to get off, I might as
well leave early and go by and check things out.
The drive over to the office was rather boring since I was tired and
also needed something to eat. It has been a long time since I had
something to eat. I would get something after I left the courier service.
As I pulled up to the office, my senses tingled again in warning. Two
times in one day was about a record for me. This place was very seedy
looking and in a very badly needed state of repair. As I got out of
my car, I could not help but wonder where every one was. Must be inside.
I went up to the door, checked it and noticed it was open. I went into
the office area and scanned around. Nobody was in view. Thinking that
there had to be someone in the back area, I went out to see if I could
find someone. Still no one around. Where was everyone? Since I could see
no one, I started doing some looking around to see if I could find the
crate removed from the hotel. The pickings were rather slim since it
looked like the company did not do much business. I had a seen a door
that looked like a storage room near the back and I made my way towards
it.
It had a small window in it that I looked in to see what I could find.
There was not light inside the room but what was coming from the
warehouse area lightened it a bit. I could see a crate that had the
general shape of the one I saw earlier in the center of the room. I
opened the door and entered the room. I could not see a light switch
anywhere. I closed the door and pulled out my mini-mag flashlight and
switched it on. Damn! I forgot to replace the batteries earlier. I had
used it that night looking for clues where the old lady's body was found.
It went dead before I was able to complete my work so I had to borrow one
from the coroner's assistant. I fumbled around the room trying to find a
switch. Since my eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness, I could not
see where I was going. I tripped over a pipe or something that was on the
floor. Since I could not see where I was going, I fell headfirst into the
crate I was trying to reach. The impact of my head on the side caved it
in and stunned me severely. I could not move because my head was pounding
hard. It did not feel like I had split my scalp open but I could feel the
start of a contusion raising.
Just then, I heard a woman's voice shout out, "Is anyone there?" I was
not able to say anything since I was still a bit stunned. I could hear
footsteps coming across the concrete floor towards the door. At the same
time, I could hear a sort of rustling coming from inside the crate I had
broken open. What was going on? As the woman got to the door, I saw her
face look into the glass. But at the same time, I felt a sharp sting on
my arm. Because it hurt severely, I screamed out in pain. Suddenly, more
stings struck around my body! What was going on? My body felt like it was
on fire. I screamed again in pain.
I tried to get the woman to open the door so that I could get out but she
was frozen in place out of fright. I could feel something crawling over
my body but then felt more stings. I do not know how many times that the
invisible stings struck me. Dozens, by the way it felt. I felt my
strength waning and I could hardly move. I could hardly hold up my head.
I knew I was dying but from what? Barely conscious, I felt a crawling
sensation up my face. I could not see what it was but I knew my end was
coming. God! The pain! It struck my temple! My head was on fire! Then
blessed darkness swallowed me.
*******************************************??
The young woman just outside the door could hardly believe what she was
seeing. Once she was able to get the lights on in the storeroom, she was
able to see an older man lying on the floor covered in scorpions. Nasty
looking black things. Suddenly, they all stopped their movements and
pointed their tails and claws into the air. Not knowing what was going
on, she stood with her face to the glass staring in curiosity.
Without warning, a misty sort of substance emerged from the corpse lying
on the floor. It hovered there only momentarily and as if spotting a way
out of the room, flew straight through the glass of the door and bisected
the young woman's head. Her eyes flew open wide in surprise. Then closed,
as she quickly became unconscious. As she slid down to the floor in a
heap, a second mist flew out of her body and hung in the air five feet
above her body and then exploded silently into nothingness. Silence
reigned the warehouse completely.
Chapter 3
Ever so slowly, I became aware of things again. I last remembered a
searing pain in my head before passing out. I felt utterly weak and
drained of energy for some reason. I could hardly move. What happened
to me? I heard a voice from close by say, "Well Detective, I think it is
about time you woke up. You have been a very bad boy and you should be
punished. But then again, I think you have already been punished."
My eyes flew open wide as I recognized the voice that was talking to me.
I was surprised to see Marcus Skorpio sitting about 10 feet from me. But
where was I? The room I was in was not familiar to me and it had the look
of being a secured room. Bars in the windows outside, very small window
in the door that had a small door in place of glass.
"I must say, Detective, you should have heeded the warning my men and I
gave you. Then you would not be in the position you are in."
"What do you mean, 'position'?" I replied weakly. My voice sounded
strange to me. I could not place why.
"Well, for one thing, you are dead. We evacuated you out of the city
after the workers for my courier service came in later and found you and
the girl from the office. We had to torch the building to hide your
demise but unfortunately, the investigators discovered your body in the
smoldering ruins of the building. Your personal belongings as well as
your dental records identified you. But since your body was burned down
to the skeleton, all there was to identify you was the small remains as
well as your car outside. They figure that you set it off by tripping
over the cleaning chemicals in the storeroom you were in."
With my weak voice I said, "What do you mean, my body? I am right here!"
"Not hardly detective. You have joined the ranks of the recently deceased
and reborn." He went over to the door, knocked on it once. It opened a
couple of inches and a hand mirror was handed in to him. "Take a look at
this and tell me what you see."
He held the mirror up to my face. "No! What have you done to me!" I
screamed.
"Who? Me? Detective, you cut me to the quick! I did nothing. You
personally did it to yourself by not minding your own business and not
taking my men's warning. By butting in where you did not belong, you not
only killed yourself, you killed the poor girl whose body you inhabit."
He was not lying to me. I could see the evidence in the mirror. Looking
back at me through large doe-like sea blue eyes was an extremely good-
looking young woman, with dark auburn hair, very young looking too, about
19-20 years old, old enough to be my daughter if I had one, not to
mention that it was the face that I saw looking in the window of the door
while I was being stung. I looked back at him and asked, "Wha?how is this
possible?"
He looked at me with a very smug look on his face. "You are the
detective, you tell me." I had to do a lot of thinking. If I was the girl
that was from the warehouse, it had to have been caused by whatever it
was that came out of the case. But for the life of me, I could not think
right. My thoughts were fuzzy and sluggish. I recalled a crawling
sensation over my body. I also started to recall other details too. The
stinging sensation I felt all over my body started to bring back a
recollection of something. "Scorpions!" I blurted out.
"Ah, so you did see what they were."
"No, I didn't. I deduced it rather."
"If I may ask, how so?"
"Well, for one, I felt something crawling over me when I was on the
floor. The crawling of legs, then there was the matter of the stinging.
There are only two types of creatures that crawl and sting. Both of them
are of the spider family. One is the family of spiders such as black
widows, brown recluses', as well as a few others that are not native to
here. The other one is a scorpion. Of the two, a spider is deadly but it
is slower to poison and takes a lot more than one is able to inject
enough poison to kill a person so quickly. That leaves the scorpions.
Since a spider's movement cannot be felt that well, I felt the weight of
something as well as something grabbing on to me to hold on. Hence, the
deduction of the scorpions."
"Very good. You get a passing grade for the deduction. Not that it will
do you any good. I am afraid that you will not get to use that knowledge
against me. The world will not see you again. You will be going away for
some 'Special Training' and I can guarantee you that you will not be able
to use anything you know against me."
Cold fear ran through my body. Remembering my feeling earlier when I
interviewed him, I asked, "Since I am in another person's body, I can
only guess that you are not the person who was born in that body."
"You are better than I anticipated. That makes you even doubly dangerous
to me. No problem about that. We have ways of taking care of the
dangerousness. You won't miss it either."
"But who are you?" I asked.
"My dear detective, if you haven't guessed it by now, I was Helga
Schmidt. You know, the person whose death you were investigating."
"How did you ever learn the trick of killing yourself to change to a new
body? Let alone how did you figure out the scorpions would cause the
change?"
"I am sorry but I will have to keep some of my secrets to myself. I can
only hope that you never are able to deduce the truth behind my secrets."
With that, he rose from his chair and again knocked on the door. It was
opened by one of my old friends ? his tall bodyguard. He gave me a huge
lopsided grin that said a lot. What I was able to read was, 'I warned you
and you didn't listen. Now you are in for it.'
I tried to sit up but I was so weak that I could barely move. I think I
am going to have to take it easy for a while until I am able to build up
my strength again. As I lay there on the bed, I had to try to think
things through. My first priority was to try to escape from this madman's
clutches. But to do so, I would have to have my strength back. I thought
about my situation.
I was a woman and no longer who I could claim to be. Who was this girl
that I had become? What was her family going to do about her
disappearance? I had no answer for these questions. One of the benefits
of this was that I was young again but I felt guilty about the loss of
the girl. Did she die in my body? Either way I looked at it, she was dead
and I was in her body.
I wondered how long it would take me to recover. I would guess not very
long since it hasn't been that long since we found the body of the old
woman and she had only been dead about 10 hours before she was found. By
the way Skorpio was acting and from what he had said, I didn't think it
would be too long before I would be able to get up out of the bed. I
had to just lay there and think. I tried not to think about the body I
was now wearing. I was doing a mental inventory of the differences of
this one and my former body.
One thing for sure, I felt so much smaller than was normal for me. I felt
like someone put me through a very hot basin of water and immersed me in
it long enough to shrink my skin and thus my body. I was able to lift my
hand to my face and inspect the hand I now possessed. My word, it is so
tiny and delicate that it was hard to consider that it was of any use to
a person. I was going to have to learn to use it. I reached up to feel my
face. My features were as delicately feeling as my hands looked. My nose
felt like a tiny piece of flesh that was barely there. I did not get that
good a look at my face while Skorpio held the mirror. I was growing
sleepy from physical exhaustion, which I could only attribute to the
change of bodies. I lay back and closed my eyes and was soon asleep.
Chapter 4
As morning came pouring in through the window of my enclosure, my eyes
opened with a realization that I was feeling much better. I sat up on the
bed with a momentary dizziness that cleared rapidly. It seemed as if
everything had grown larger. As I stood up, a physical problem arose: I
had an extreme need to use a restroom. Since I had no idea how long it
had been since my body had used the restroom, I had to find one quickly.
Since there was no other door in the room that indicated a bathroom, I
had no choice but to go pound on the door. My tiny hand barely made a
sound and hurt like crazy when I doubled up my fist to hit the door.
The hatch in the door opened to reveal an ugly face. A deep rumbly voice
asked, "Yeah, whatcha want?"
God I could hardly see the hatch. It came barely to the top of my head. I
replied, "I have an extreme need to use a restroom, please." I hated
the sound of my voice. It was still weak but it was too feminine for my
ears.
"Wait here while I call Mr. Skorpio."
"Please hurry or I won't have to wait."
I had to wait entirely too long for my liking. Each passing moment caused
my discomfort to increase. Finally, the goon came back and opened the
hatch again. "Move back to the window. If ya come close to the door,
ya'll be hurt."
Since I had no desire to be hurt, I did as they said. One man entered the
room with a gun in his hand. A second man entered the room with what
looked like a bucket. He sneered at me and said, "This is the only toilet
ya get until Mr. Skorpio says that ya get anything else."
I asked, "Is there any chance of being able to get a shower? I do not
know how long I was out of it but I just caught a whiff of myself and I
stink. I would like to be able to clean up."
"Mr. Skorpio has plans for ya and part of the plans have nothing to do
with getting cleaned up. So ya'll just have to deal with it."
"Ok, since you want to play warden of my prison, how about something to
eat? If Mr. Skorpio has plans for me, it obviously isn't for me to starve
to death. If he wanted me dead, I would never have woke up from my sleep
or what ever it was."
"We will be back shortly with something for ya to eat. You're right, he
doesn't wantcha to starve to death. Plus we ain't heartless. Ya're a
human bein' regardless of what's happened to ya."
"Thank you for that. Now, would you please go so that I can use my
'toilet'?"
As he moved to the door, he turned back towards me and said, "Ya sure are
a pretty little thing. If ya need anythin' holler out for Max and I will
come. See ya later sweet thang."
Gads, I could just gag with what he said. Like I really want to have
anything to do with him. Besides, I was not a woman in my head, only in
my body. Not that I wanted anything to do with that but I really had no
choice in the matter. I would have to adapt or I would go crazy. I have
seen so many things through my years on the police force that I felt that
something like this was a given. Weird as it was, not everything is
impossible. I realized that when I was waiting for my chamber pot, I was
incredibly tiny. I could not have been over 5' tall.
My whole center of balance was way off and I had a hard time standing on
my feet. I will have to continue my thinking later before I have a worse
problem to worry about, my bladder was killing me and felt like it was
about to explode. As I lowered the loose pants that I had been wearing
since I came to yesterday, I realized that I had never seen my crotch in
the condition that it is in right now.
Matters forced the issue and I practically tore my clothes off to relieve
myself. The bucket cut into my derriere pretty bad but by the time I was
finished, I did not care. Anything just to get rid of the internal
pressure. I knew women had to wipe down there but I had nothing to do so
with. I am not sure that I could do it right anyway. The whole thing was
too new to me to be too curious and to tell the truth, it really
frightened me to do much about it.
I heard footsteps coming down the hallway outside the door and I felt
that I needed to rearrange myself to keep some sense of decency. As I
looked up at the door, I noticed the hatch was open partially and there
was a blue eye looking inward at me. I was so pissed off that all I could
do was scream at the pervert. I may not have been a woman for very long
but I have never felt so humiliated in my life. I could hear a deep voice
outside the room yelling at the idiot to get away from the door and get
back to his guard duty.
The door opened again and again I backed up to the window. No sense in
causing problems. God, these guys were huge! I had been fairly tall
before but now, my sheer tinyness made them look to me as if they were
giants. I waited while the person from earlier brought in a tray of food.
He set it down on the bed and then left the room again. I was assailed
with incredible smells emanating from the tray. My stomach suddenly
growled as if there had been nothing in it for days. But I had no idea
how long it had been since it had had any food in it. I sat down and
practically polished it off in minutes. Afterward, I felt bloated but my
hunger was sated for now. I put the tray beside the door so that they
could take it away later. I was so bored and was rapidly becoming sleepy.
I lay down on the bed and was out like a light.
Chapter 5
As I came to, I felt like I had just run a marathon under water. My head
felt heavy and my tongue felt like cotton. The only time I had ever felt
like this was when someone had administered a Mickey Finn to me and
knocked me out. As I became more aware of my surroundings, I realized I
was strapped to some sort of table and I could not move. I was getting
tired of being unconscious. It was getting to be a bad habit that I would
have to break. This time, I was not in a bedroom but I was in a dark,
dank area that looked like an old storage room. There did not seem to be
any windows to the outside. I was also beginning to hate storerooms! Look
at what happened the last time I was in one!
"Well, Detective, I see you are awake again. I do so apologize for the
abrupt change of address but I could not take the risk of you finding a
way to escape the room before I could get you properly trained."
"You know, I would really like to know what you mean by having me
'trained'."
"My Dear Young Lady. I really do not think that you should be able to go
back to your old profession of a police officer. So I am going to have
you trained to a new career. One more suited to your?umm?shall we say,
your obvious gender. Or more importantly, we could say, your SEX."
"I have no idea what you mean."
"You see, I cannot have you going to the law and blowing things sky high
on me. So, I have to make sure that things never make it that far. You
would not believe some of the things my people and I have learned over
the years about what to do with a human body. We have discovered that it
is possible to completely rearrange the human mind using some, how do we
say, exotic drugs and other little tricks. But the funny thing is, none
of them work on someone who has not been subjected to the changes that
you have been. So you are susceptible to these techniques and so you will
be adjusted to the point that you will not remember your past life."
At that point, one of the men came into the room and stood at attention
with his right arm extended straight out. "Mein Fuehrer, the doctor has
arrived and will be ready in 10 minutes."
"Quiet, you imbecile! We cannot reveal ourselves at this time. Never do
that again in our present circumstances!"
"I hear and obey."
I quietly took in this little revelation brought in by accident. I was
thinking furiously. He was just called 'Fuehrer' and there was only one
person who was ever called that and that person was Adolph Hitler. He
had been dead since 1945 and had killed himself at the end of WWII in
Europe. His body was never found but his guards had said that they had
cremated his body. This was getting more interesting by the moment. Now
I am beginning to see the light. Hitler did die but he lived on and
escaped Germany somehow. He escaped as Helga Schmidt.
She was in her late seventies or early eighties. The time frame fits well
for her age and the end of WWII. It fits in a weird way. I am dealing
with Adolph Hitler and I have to find out what he intends on doing. Wait
a minute, I told myself. He is running for the President of the United
States. Now I see what he is up to. He could not take over the world
while he was Chancellor of Germany, but he could surely take it over as
the President of the United States! Oh, shit! We were in deep trouble if
he is elected. I cannot let that happen. I had to get out of here and
warn people about his plot. But I could not do so strapped to the table.
At that moment, a younger man entered the room. Skorpio greeted him with
pleasure in his voice. "Joseph, how good of you to join us on such short
notice."
"Marcus, you are looking well since the last time I saw you. I take
it you ran into a small problem?" He cast a furtive glance my direction.
"We had a bit of a snoop when we were trying to get the box sent back
here. He was unfortunately caught in the same room with them and
accidentally broke it open when he tripped over a pipe. If it had not
been for the fact that the manager had been in the restroom prior to
leaving for the night, nothing would have happened. As it was, he was
able to look around long enough to find the crate and then get lucky when
the girl showed up outside the room. Now we have to retrain her for a new
occupation."
"You know the radius of contact has to be within fifteen foot before the
soul can enter a new body after being separated from the original husk.
Why did you not give the specific instructions to keep the crate in the
full rear of the room? This could jeopardize our whole operation here if
this gets out. A matter of fact, why did you not kill her before she woke
up out of the transformation coma?"
"I'm sorry, but that was not an option. You do not know who the person
was that used to occupy that body. I could not bring myself nor allow
anyone to kill my own relative."
"How could you know who she was?"
"You know as well as I do that you cannot avoid the urges and feelings of
a new body. I had to hide a pregnancy from you when I gave in to the
temptations of the body. It was back in the 1950's after I started
working for Marcus's father. I could not overcome the urges of the body
and I succumbed to them. I had a child that I did not want to keep
because it would be too hard to follow my designed path. I had to hide
the whole pregnancy and then I dumped the baby at a hospital so that it
could be adopted to a good family.
My instincts made me keep track of my baby through the years. I tried to
make things go well for him over the years. He married a beautiful woman
but it took them until 1992 to have any children. He ran the courier
service that we primarily used for our transportation needs. The girl is
my granddaughter. She was running the business while her parents were out
of town on a well-needed vacation. If I had known that the place was
going to be searched, I would have made sure that she went home early.
But as you know, I was still under the recovery time from my last change.
I had forgotten how draining it was on the body. I could not think well
enough to predict what he was going to do."
"You are right about the urges. We get so wrapped up in trying to move
into our new roles that after time, everything starts building up to the
point of explosion. Well, we have to make the best of a bad situation.
Now what do you have planned for her?"
"I was thinking about converting her over to one of humanities oldest
professions."
"You mean make her a prostitute? You would turn your own granddaughter
into a common whore?"
"You as well as I realize that the previous occupant of our new bodies
are obliterated when the new soul invades the body. She is dead and there
is nothing I can do about it. I will have my justice with the new person.
She deserves nothing but the worst but I cannot bring myself to see her
body killed. I think what we need to do is set her up with a past history
that will be the only one she remembers. Then we can set her up with one
of our associates in New York to make money for our cause."
"If that is what you want to do, then we can get started whenever you
want."
"There is no better time like the present. Get started right now."
"Alright, let's clear the room. Can you get me a bright light so that
I can get my work area lit?"
One of the people on his way out of the room grabbed a large lamp on a
stand and brought it back over into the area where I was tied up.
'Joseph' brought the satchel he was carrying and set it on a table that
was near where I was strapped. He started pulling out all sorts of
bottles with chemicals as well as syringes. The last thing he pulled out,
of all things, looked like an old fashioned CD player. There was also a
folder that had what looked like CD's in it. 'Oh, great, I get to listen
to him hum to his music while he brainwashes me', I thought. He went over
to a cabinet and pulled out a helmet shaped affair. It had cords dangling
from it that looked like headphone cords. I did not like the look of this
thing.
"Well, my dear, I apologize for all that you are going to go through but
you won't remember any of it by the time I am done. We have gone through
a lot of research over the years trying to perfect the process and
finally achieved wonderful results. Before we proceed, let me explain
ever so briefly what I am going to do. All the bottles that you see here
are several compounds that we will use to give you a new personality.
Unfortunately for you, the mixture will be highly addictive to you since
there are several illegal drugs here such as heroin and cocaine but you
will not have to worry since we will see to it that you have a regular
supply. The main ingredient of the mixture is what caused your change to
begin with. It is the venom of the star scorpion."
I had a puzzled look on my face that caused him to stop his explanation
briefly. "I see that you have never heard of this type of scorpion. I
cannot tell you much about it but only that the breed was found in Egypt
during the searches for hidden tombs during the 1930's. The Fuehrer was
adamant that we have plenty of gold to supply our country with the
monetary base for us to be able to do everything that we had to do. He
sent out search parties throughout the world to find hidden stashes of
gold. One of the greatest sources of gold through the years was in Egypt.
We sent out thousands of people to Egypt to search for lost tombs. And
believe me, we found thousands of tons of lost gold. We had a lot of time
in which to get the gold out of the country to Germany.
"One day, there were workers trying to break into a newly found tomb and
the floor gave way under one of the workers. He fell into a hidden
chamber that was filled with the scorpions. He sudden arrival angered
them immensely and the attacked him. It did not take long to kill him and
within seconds of his death, one of the other workers around the hole
became unconscious. It took them more than two days to wake him up. He
was in what we have come to call the transmigration coma or as you heard
it, transformation coma.
We have since come to call it just the Coma. When the man awoke, he was
weak and nearly delirious. When we were able to calm him down, we asked
him what he remembered. We were shocked to say the least when he said all
he could remember was falling into a hole and then seeing all kinds of
scorpions crawling over him and stinging him. The doctors that were
treating him felt that he was lying and would not believe him. But the
more they talked to him, the more convinced that they had discovered a
way for people to live longer than their God given term of life. They
then called me to investigate the matter closer. During those days, I was
just someone who was researching medical problems.
"Before I could arrive in Egypt, the man died. The reports from the
doctors gave his last minutes as being very strange. He acted like his
body was rejecting him. They reported that the minute he died, they
noticed a misty substance emerge from his body. Not sure what to do, they
could only look. The mist spread out and vanished right before their
eyes.
I arrived only hours after the incident and I was very disbelieving to
the report. I had no choice but to figure out what was going on. Over a
period of months, I began to get a good idea of what was going on with
the scorpions. I did a lot of experimenting to figure out what it was
that they did. This was before the beginning of the war but I was still
able to use a vast population of people that the Fuehrer had declared as
useless. I learned a lot about the scorpions and their stings. I do not
know how many people I killed during my experimentation but I eventually
figured that the only way a person could survive was if the new body was
of the opposite sex.
A lot of the newly changed went mad with their new situations and had to
be put to death. I had to find a way to keep the mind from going insane
and get the person to live more than a week. It took the stabilization
catalyst of the scorpion's venom to realize this. Now, it takes several
doses within the first month to allow the person to keep from going
insane. But I figured out that if I were to take other things and mix
with the venom, I could control the thoughts of a person and was soon
able to recreate a personality.
"Unfortunately, all my experiments were terminated because we could not
let this information out. The Jews used for the experiments were all
killed and disposed of once their usefulness was finished."
I was suddenly aghast at the realization that suddenly hit me. "Mengele.
You are Josef Mengele."
"Oh, my. How astute you are. Nobody has been able to figure that out
before. But then again, my ramblings sort of passed along a lot of
clues as to who I was."
I now got an extreme sense of dread inside. Here was the one man that
could not be found after the end of WWII. And he was going to brainwash
me into being a new person. I had to get out of here. And do it now. My
struggling became furious in my efforts to get out of the straps. I was
unable to get loose since the bonds were too tight around me. I was
really starting to panic.
"Now, now, my dear. You just need to relax. This will be over before you
know it. Just think of it as me saving your life. You will go insane if
you do not have these doses of venom. It is better to start early before
you start showing the symptoms of insanity."
He quickly filled a syringe from one of the bottles. "Now this will burn
for a few seconds while it is absorbed into your body." He quickly
swabbed my neck with alcohol and injected it into the artery of my neck.
He was right. It burned horribly. Not as bad as the fire I felt while
being stung but still it was bad. Within seconds, it calmed down and my
body relaxed. Oh, I felt so good. My body was starting to tingle as if I
was being charged with electricity. My body really started to feel good
and I started feeling spurts of eroticism throughout. My nipples erected
and my crotch grew wet. I was starting to moan from the feeling. As
quickly as it started, it went away. It left me with a feeling of lacking
and needing more.?
While I was still in the throes of ecstasy, he quickly filled two more
syringes with some of the other fluids and injected me with them. Then he
put the weird helmet over my head and lowered the visor over my eyes. I
heard a lot of clicking outside the helmet when all of a sudden, the
visor in front of my face lit up with images. My ears filled with all
sorts of noise and rapid clicking sounds. The images my eyes were seeing
were weird and seemed to move in a speed that was too fast to understand
what they were. I could not blink. I could only look at the flashing
images before my eyes. It rapidly became my world. I lost myself in the
images.
Chapter 6
As I woke up, all I could think was 'I really need to get to work. 'I'm
horny as hell'. I got up out of my bed. I stretched my silky little body.
I needed to take a shower and clean myself up from my last night's work.
I would rather take a shower after I get off work because I need to get
rid of the smell of sex before I go to bed. But last night, I was so
tired that I just hit the bed without cleaning up or even taking my
clothes off. I still could not believe that I dropped out of college to
become a hooker. But after seeing what some of my friends made after a
good night's work, it beat what I was making as a waitress.
I had always been told that I was beautiful but I could never see it. I
knew I was good looking but I always felt there were people that were
more beautiful that I was. Once I was able to put on my working face, I
became better looking. Lucas did demand that all his girls look the best
that they could for the customers. I knew I was one of his favorite
girls. He even gave me a working name of? "Tiny Tina" as a play on my
size and my real name of Mina.
Meanwhile, I had to go through my morning ritual of stretching and other
aerobic exercises that helped keep my body toned and looking it's best
for my customers. I had called them Johns a while back but Lucas nearly
slapped me silly for that. I had to learn to call them 'customers' since
they were buying a service, even if it was my body they were buying. I
had to turn in all my money to Lucas each night after I got done. I had
all the clothes I could want, my food was provided as well as anything
medical that I needed.
I had to take my birth control pills faithfully but I also had to make
sure my 'customers' used a condom. There are too many nasty diseases out
there not to be ignored. Too many of my co-workers were careless and came
down with AIDS and had to be even more careful. One of them even killed
herself after she was diagnosed with it. We are supposed to get checked
every six months for anything that might make us sick. One checkup she
was fine and the next one she had fullblown AIDS.
She was so scared that all she could do was vomit all the time and then
one day when she did not show up for work, we all got concerned and