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The Perfect Weapon

a horror story

'You don't understand,' cried Laura, 'the British Army wouldn't do this!'

Even in their dire situation, Tina had to laugh at this hopelessly naive platitude. She stood with Laura and Michelle at the ingress to an underground cell. It contained a medieval-looking chair which was bolted to the floor and had wires sprouting all over it, as well as shackles attached to its arms and legs.

To the right was a cabinet with a sound box on it. Michelle had turned this on and a cacophony of male screams had filled the room before she hastily switched it off. All three women held administrative posts at the garrison currently above their heads.

It had all begun with a rumour among the paratroopers. Tina, who'd worked at the garrison for ten years since leaving school at eighteen, had been dating one when she heard it.

'I say rumour' she'd said to Laura and Michelle months prior, 'it's more like an urban legend. A homeless teenager finds his way onto the base and is kept like a slave by the new recruits. They inflict all kinds of horrible abuse on him for like a week until he's found during a parade one morning, dressed in a spare uniform.

'The bigwigs think about chucking him out but are scared of the scandal, and then one of them brings up this secret project they've been working on. Illegal research to make the perfect weapon: a soldier completely without conscience, who likes killing so much it's like heroin for him.'

Although she didn't believe the conspiracy bit, Tina didn't think that the bit about the teenage slave was all that farfetched. Armies thrive on damaged boys, breaking them down and building them up. Who knew what a bunch of horny 19-year-old squaddies were capable of?

Her own dad had told her about an incident in the '70s where a gay soldier was tied to the front of a land rover and driven about at high speed. She'd broken up with her boyfriend after he snapped during a minor argument and pummelled her.

'They're not all queer, though' Michelle had said as a counter to the story of the boy and what was done to him. Just like Laura, she was fundamentally naive. She didn't understand that sex wasn't always about physical attraction, that sometimes the pleasure derived was more about the subjugation of another human body. Tina envied her friends.

As well as the setup of the story, she could also believe that the garrison would try to avoid another scandal. Eight years ago a girl was smuggled onto the garrison for what was described in the papers as an orgy, but which Tina considered a gang bang 'at best.'

Still, she hadn't believed that the British Army was running a secret brainwashing facility. She would have filed that away with such tall tales as the royals being lizards and the earth being flat. But when Michelle found the door in the cellar office of the administrative centre and called her friends down to see what she'd discovered behind it, more than a little suspicion crept in.

The cell was at the intersection of two corridors. Michelle hadn't explored what might lie to either side of the cell, and none of the women seemed eager to.

'There has to be an explanation,' said Laura, striding forwards to explore the cabinet. She took a cardboard box from it and on lifting the lid recoiled in disgust, uttering an obscenity. Tina had a look. It was filled with violent pornography. 'Looks like Prince Andrew's overnight bag,' quipped Tina.

'That's not funny!' Laura shouted. She was crying now. If the garrison wasn't mostly deserted apart from the military personnel that lived there, Tina might have shushed her. She realised with a sudden sickening clarity that she and the girls were effectively alone down here, in whatever this was.

'I'm going to tell Major Boothroyd,' whined Laura, like a child threatening to report that a boy had pulled her pigtails. 'They can't get away with this.'

'Who do you think "they" are?' snapped Tina. Laura recoiled and reached unconsciously for her crucifix pendant. Tina sighed. 'Look, I'll tell you what we're going to do.

'We're going to put that box back, turn the light off, shut the door, go back to our office, put everything back as it was, and then have a nice cup of tea before we decide to do anything else. Is that amenable to you?' She caught herself using the language of internal emails and winced.

Michelle nodded and put the box back. She turned the light off. As the cell plunged into darkness the door from the office clanged shut and green fluorescent lights along the corridors snapped on.

'What now' said Tina, refusing to acknowledge that she was channelling her fear into annoyance so as to subdue it. She walked briskly down the corridor (running would have acknowledged her fear) and grasped the door handle. It wouldn't turn.

Now she'd really had enough. She started hammering on the door and screaming at whoever was likely or unlikely to hear to let her out or else she'd do things to them that would make the KGB blush.

'Tina... Tina...' It was Michelle. Tina returned to her senses and let Michelle, a large 36-year-old woman who to her twentysomething friends filled the role of Mother Hen, wrap her up in her arms. 'It's alright' Michelle said, rocking her baby back and forth, 'I've got my portable charger and as soon as my phone's back on I'll call the Major.'

'Old Boothroyd won't help you now.' The voice was familiar but cold and contemptuous to a degree that rendered it alien. Tina and Michelle looked at Laura, who stood at the door to the cell, holding a remote. She pressed a button and the screams on the sound box started again. Only now they filled the corridors. Her wiry muscles tensed below her rainbow jumper.
Written by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)
Published
Author's Note
This is a piece of flash fiction - 1,000 words.
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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