Boom Goes the Warehouse

Death; it’s a strange thing. It can happen at any time and without warning.

It’s been only a couple of hours since I’ve gone into hiding. As much as I want to, I can’t reappear into society. Not without my face pasted on every screen, newspaper, and poster there is in the country.

They say I’ve done something really bad. Horrific. I shiver at just the thought of what happened. It was chaos, and I was a fitting scapegoat. 

The TV was turned on, a local news station. I stop in my tracks when I see my parents at the podium, holding each other in tears.

“Please, Faye. Turn yourself in. Don’t drag this on, it will only make things worse.”

My heart breaks then at the sound of my mother pleading for me to turn myself in for something I didn’t even do. The fact that she believes I could even do such a thing hurts the most. She knows me. I would never do something like this.

But it couldn’t have been me. Last I remember, I was miles from the explosion, from the captives. And yet, when I awoke in a hospital bed, I was restrained, the metal of the handcuffs digging into my wrists.

No one told me what was going on. The only information I ever got was from the nurses, the little snippets of conversation I would hear in hushed tones. 

Tortured. Captives. Explosion. Faye Keating. 

It was later that I learned that an abandoned warehouse was found, in the middle of nowhere, rented out in my name. Inside was an atrocious sight. Even those who had seen the most haunting things stood frozen in their places, unable to comprehend the severity of the situation. How could a monster do such a thing? 

The story rocked the nation. The world. Everyone was watching on in horror. Everyone blamed me, even when I pleaded with them to believe me. I had been knocked unconscious and moved to a motel a mile from the warehouse. It’s a crazy story, but it’s true. There’s no other way to explain what happened. The news continues to flash pictures of the scene, the few that the officers managed to take before the warehouse exploded. There’s no point though, as all the pictures are blurred, so as not to display the graphic images.

There had been blood everywhere, and the place reeked of rot. Burnt flesh. An enormous pile of bodies lay heaped together in another smaller room that branched off from the main space, stacked almost to the ceiling at various levels of decay. The oldest body had been dead for over seven years, killed back in 2012. The most recent was only four days ago. Emaciated people of all ages—anywhere from three to ninety-four—were found in the warehouse, some locked in cages like animals. Others with their hands bound to the wooden support beams. The youngest of the captives were tucked away into a corner of the space, completely mute after the trauma they experienced. Dirty mats were spread throughout the space to be used as mattresses, buckets for the bathrooms. The clothes that were left on the captives were only strips of fabric, turned brown from years of grime. In yet another room, the walls were filled with tools, red from layers of dried blood. What looks to be three long, metal operating tables sit in the middle of the room, restraints at the hands and feet areas. There were two drains in the ground so that the blood could trickle down the drain instead of flooding the cement floor. My fingerprints were found on almost every surface in and around the warehouse. My bank accounts had unexplainable amounts of money that disappeared on the 27th of every month. There was evidence found at my apartment that the police have not yet released to the public. 

Not even five minutes after SWAT and local police officers entered the warehouse, the building exploded. The explosion took out all the captives—sixty-three in total. That’s not even counting the members of law enforcement in or around the warehouse that were incinerated instantly. The ones who had flying debris slammed into their bodies at over a hundred miles an hour, breaking bones, slicing through flesh. There wasn’t even anything left to bury. Fifty-eight officers gone, just like that. Another twenty-two wounded—unimaginable pain inflicted by burns and infection. It all pointed to me, and yet…

I didn’t do any of it. 

But how could I prove that to people whose only thought in their mind was Shoot now, ask questions later? There would be no explaining myself. I’m done for.

Kneeling down, I drop my head into my hands, my mind racing. What am I going to do? I can’t hide forever. It won’t be long until someone spots me and calls in law enforcement. And that’s only if they don’t decide to take matters into their own hands. Tears sting at my eyes but I force them away. Now is not the time to take pity on myself. In just the past twenty-four hours, over 200 people lost someone that they loved. Instead of planning their holidays together, they are being forced to set up funerals. Just that thought tears at my heart. If I could somehow turn back time and prevent all this, I would. Even if I am cleared of all suspicion, everyone will still recognize me as the woman who was suspected of being responsible for the deaths of over 120 people. And who knows exactly how many bodies were in that pile, sitting in the back of the warehouse for years. Now, their families may never get the closure they need. They will go on believing that their loved one is out there, perhaps alive and well. Not dead, after suffering years and years of abuse and torture and ridiculous experiments. 

Slowly, I stand up, taking a deep breath. Think. 

I freeze, my heart pounding in my chest. Something bad is about to happen. Like a deer in headlights, my eyes dart to each of the windows, the blinds shut. 

Without warning, something slams against the door. Once. Twice. It is on the third time that it collapses in on itself and several SWAT officers appear, dressed head to toe in black gear. A majority of the windows are smashed in and officers jump into the apartment, surrounding me. 

“Get on your knees! Hands on your head!” They’re all yelling at the same time. My head swims, and I struggle to understand what they’re trying to tell me to do. They’ve all got their guns pointed at me, fingers on the trigger. The first sign that I’m going to try something, they’ll shoot. 

Would that be so bad? No matter how this turns out, I will always be one of the most hated people. 

As I drop to my knees, I hear a long beeping noise. Most of the officers don’t notice it, as they are too busy yelling. But some do, and they turn their heads, searching for the origin of the sound. 

Beep beep beep. 

More and more of the officers turn their attention away from me. The beeping is getting louder, like an alarm that creeps into one’s dreams. 

My mind connects the dots a split second before…

BOOM.

And just like that, everything goes black. Seven hundred lives taken in just a matter of thirty hours. And it was all my fault. I was too late.