A throat-ripping howling interspersed with trapped-animal panting.

Heavy breathing.

Then more screams- louder. Ear-clapping expulsions that had no shape or meaning… like the soundtrack from the rancid core of a nightmare.

I pictured a torture chamber, shrieking black mouths, convulsing bodies.

The howling bore through my head. I strained to make out words amid the torrent but heard only the pain.

Louder.

I leaped up to turn down the volume on the machine. Found it already set low.

I started to turn it off, but before I could, the screaming died.

More static-quiet.

Then a new voice.

Soft. High-pitched. Nasal.

A child's voice:

Bad love. Bad love.

Don't give me the bad love.

Child's timbre- but with no childish lilt.

Unnaturally flat- robotlike.

Bad love. Bad love.

Don't give me the bad love…

Repeating it. Three times. Four.

A chant, Druidish and mournful- so oddly metallic.

Almost like a prayer.

Bad love. Bad love…

No. Too hollow for prayer- too faithless.

Idolatrous.

A prayer for the dead.

By the dead.

2

I turned the recorder off. My fingers were stiff from clenching, my heart thumped, and my mouth was dry.

Coffee smells drew me to the kitchen. I filled a cup, returned to the living room, and rewound the tape. When the spool filled, I turned the volume to near inaudible and pressed PLAY. My gut knotted in anticipation. Then the screams came on.

Even that soft, it was hideous.

Someone being hurt.

Then the child's chant again, even worse in replay. The robotic drone conjured a gray face, sunken eyes, a small mouth barely moving.

Bad love. Bad love…

What had been done to strip the voice so completely of emotion?

I'd heard that kind of voice before- on the terminal wards, in holding cells and shelters.