by Grant Hunter
In the distance, I heard a group of people shouting. Of course, I had promised them their money. I took a deep breath while I was watching the camera and realised that it was still broadcasting.
‘This isn’t over yet, Jack.’
Holding my gun in front of me I kicked open the door of the hotel-like room where I had slept before. Everything was just as I left it. There was no trace of Jack. Savagely I pulled the drawers open. I pulled out everything, hoping for something personal, a clue, something. There was nothing.
‘Damn!’ Of course, he wouldn’t be here. That would be illogical. I tapped my bare feet impatiently on the cold floor.
‘Now I’ve got you. I know where you are.’
Of course, he was broadcasting from the Net X. With determination I ran out of the room, through the corridor and down the spiral staircase. I almost stumbled across the guard I had stabbed who was still there, as if he was just resting. I passed by the toilets and when I approached the foyer, someone slammed the door just in front of me. I heard the rattling of iron chains and hammered on the door wildly, shaking it and pushing against it with my shoulder. It did not move at all to let me out.
‘You can’t escape, Jack. I’ll get you anyway.’
I stepped up against the door, but stopped when a pungent smell hit my nose. In another situation I would probably have liked it. I had done that as a child, when we were refuelling the car, I liked to sniff the petrol vapours deeply. My mother always found it weird and told me that it could not be good for my brain.
‘Jack, what are you planning?’ I screamed.
The door felt hot and I backed away from it. Dancing flames crept into the room.
‘Fuck!’ I recoiled. Had he set the whole place on fire?
‘Angel?’ I screamed as I ran back to the arena. ‘Angel?’ Maybe she had escaped? Maybe I was the only one here?
Traces of blood remained over the floor, as silent witness to what had happened here. Now it was dead silent. Breathlessly listened for any sound of something or someone, but there was complete silence.
The dark room lit up and I saw the camera focussing on me.
‘You’re a monster. Where did you take Angel and those people? Where are they?’
There was a mechanical sound, a beep and then someone breathing heavily.
‘You still think you can win this. But you have underestimated me, Ms. Quinns. Before you came here I checked you out. I know everything about you. I know who your parents are. I know you used to have a dog and I even know how that ended...’
I swallowed.
‘I know all about everyone. I have to, with what I do. Surely you don’t think you can beat me? And certainly not by turning my viewers against me.’
A projector screen came down from the ceiling.
‘W-what are you going to do?’ I had the same feeling of powerlessness I had with what happened to Lucky.
‘You don’t think I’m going to let these billions be taken away by a silly girl? See what you have on your conscience. Let it be a warning to anyone trying to thwart me. You cost me a fortune, Ms. Quinns. Thanks to you I have to rebuild my island of games somewhere else. That’s why this is a reality show to remember. You want fireworks? Then you will get fireworks!’
From the corner of the corridor a projector sprang on, which lit up the screen.
‘All live,’ a voice sounded in the dark.
‘Where are they?’ I recognised the surroundings, but could not quickly place it.
‘Do you want to know what is happening? Wait, I will turn on the sound for you. Because this is especially for you, Naomi. This is your fault.’
‘You are disgusting.’
‘Thank you. I take that as a compliment. Bread and Circuses pander to the masses that’s the way it has always been. I only filled a gap in the market. So sit back and enjoy the show.’
On the screen I saw Angel screaming something at the camera. Her eyes were wide open. Suddenly the sound rumbled from the speakers.
‘Please... let us go!’
She groaned out and only when she stepped aside did I see what was going on. Flames were burning a body that was performing a macabre dance like a living torch, moving to a melody of screams. I threw my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut. Suddenly I knew where they were. It was the cold room I had been hiding in before.
I turned around. How could I watch those people burn, all trapped like cattle? I started running, heading towards the hospital that Angel had dragged me from. I left the screams behind me, thankful that the sounds could only be heard in the hallway.
The hospital room was dark, with Gabriel’s body half over the bed and the rucked up sheet covered in what was now dried blood. I looked up and saw a small window, with bars in front of it. I wouldn’t be able to escape from this room. Desperate I ran back down the stairs, to the next door, near the arena, and opened it. Immediately I smelt an odour that took my breath away. It smelled of fungus, animals, and something that I had never smelled before and would now never forget. Suffocating, I entered the dark room. When I saw the stretchers, with bags marked with a big X-sign on them, I knew enough.
‘Don’t. Don’t look, Naomi,’ I whispered.
However, as if drawn by a magnet, I walked to one of the bags and unzipped the thing. A nauseating smell of decay penetrated my nose. I had to hold onto the stretcher, but the wheels were not locked and it rolled away and I lost my balance. In a reflex I grabbed the plastic that slipped to the floor. Then a face was clearly visible.
In horror I let out a cry, when I saw the battered face which I almost didn’t recognise. The skin was black and blue and the eyes were open. Because of the paleness of the face, the eyes looked like buttons that were stuck to it. Like a doll left at the door of a Halloween party to scare everyone.
‘Oh, God, Mercedes...’ I whispered. ‘What have they done to you?’
The tongue lay like a black sausage in the open mouth. My gaze shifted further down, to the arm, which lay loose next to it. As if it was a relic, like the Egyptian slaves who were buried with their dead masters. I had to keep looking, morbidly curious. When I saw that the legs were also falling out, I quickly zipped the thing up again and ran away, down the hallway. Angel had to be in the other factory, in the old slaughterhouse, and my sense of direction told me that I had to take the big iron door at the end of the hallway to get there.
Because of the ever increasing heat I felt that I was getting close. It was as if I was trapped in a smouldering furnace.
A camera hung above the door. The plastic edge melted slowly and dripped down like candle wax. The smoke billowed through the door and made me gasp. The heat was becoming unbearable, droplets of sweat streamed down over my forehead. Because of the smoke that suffocated me, I could not stop coughing. I could not reach the door, so I ran back to the room of death and pulled the first stretcher towards me. It was heavy, but I pushed the cart in front of me, through the hallway, against the burning door. I almost choked in the dense smoke but pushed the stretcher away from me, with all my strength, towards the door. There was a loud bang and the bag flew off the stretcher, against the door, which remained closed. The plastic caught fire immediately and a stench of burnt meat filled the hall.
‘Oh, shit! shit!’ I groaned.
The stretcher flipped upside-down. I walked over trying to ignore the smouldering package on the ground. I shoved the stretcher again as hard I could against the door, I lost my grip, and flew forward. A huge flame shot outward and I screamed as flames grabbed me. I threw myself on the ground and rolled back and forth wildly to put out the fire on my body. My hair scorched and started to smoke, but the smell was disguised by the stench of burnt meat from the thing next to me.
For a second, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It must have been a fat woman. The body bag smouldered and was like a weird paste on the face. She was covered in black dust and I didn’t know whether it came from the body bag or from the fire that danced around her.
<
br /> The ceiling was cracked and part of it came down. It was good timing, Jack would definitely believe I was dead. But I had lost precious time. Images of Angels burning body shot through my head. Was it too late? No time to waste! I thought as I jumped up and pushed using the hot stretcher to open the door further. I ran through the fire, ignoring the pain of the heat on the soles of my feet and scorched hands. I ran, away from this factory and towards the huge hall opposite, which I recognised as the slaughterhouse and where the fire didn’t burn so fiercely. The door was closed by a latch, which I pushed up with a piece of metal that I found on the ground. Once inside I tried to remember how to get to the cold room, shouting Angel’s name as I did.
In the distance I heard an alarm sounding and I also thought I heard the sound of helicopters, but instead of running outside, I pulled on the door of the cold room, with all my strength. It was too hot to hold on, so I had to put a cloth around the lever. Still I felt the heat coming through to my hands. This stinging pain was difficult to ignore, yet I didn’t give up. I heard nothing but a weird “humming” behind the door, as if something was trying to escape.
‘Angel!’ I shouted again.
The cloth smouldered in my hand and I tried to ignore the pain, which was becoming more and more difficult. My right hand was burning and I could smell my own flesh. But I couldn’t move the door at all. I heard sounds, voices. They came from behind me. In slow motion I turned to them. A firefighter ran to me, his arms spread wide. Tears ran down my cheeks, or maybe they were drops of sweat. I didn’t know anymore. He called something. His mouth opened and closed, and he jumped aside just in time when a beam came down in front of his feet. The crackling of flames and Angel’s screams drowned out his voice. My legs gave way and I collapsed in his arms.
When I woke up I felt a burning pain in my legs. Panicked I wanted to get up, but something stopped me. As much as I struggled, I couldn’t rise. Only when I looked into the kindly eyes of a woman who I had never seen before and who was bent over me, the oppressive feeling ebbed away. She smiled and nodded at me as she was holding me.
‘Everything is fine. You are lying on a stretcher. The emergency helicopter is waiting. It’s over.’
All the terror left my body and I sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.
‘Hey? Are you back with us?’
‘Jen…’
‘Jesus, you scared us.’
Above my head I could see a bag of liquid drip. It ran into a transparent tube which disappeared under the cloth. Everything around me was too light, too clean and too bright. For the first time in a very long time I felt no pain, no sadness, no need to struggle for survival. That was probably what heaven would be like, but I wasn’t there.
I twisted my head a quarter turn, ignoring my visitor. I stared out the window, to the grey sky, and blinked my eyes to get a clearer picture.
‘We’re so shocked,’ she repeated.
‘Get lost...’ I turned back to face Jen and was wondering whether I could jump out of my bed, wrap the wire around her neck and pull it tight. But my body felt like lead and I couldn’t move. As if it had a will of its own, I raised my right hand from under the sheet and made a sign with my middle finger. It must have looked strange because of the thick bandage that was taped around it. Her eyes opened wide and she flushed redly from high in her neck.
‘I know everything and there will be a day that I will make you all pay for it.’
Tears flowed down her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry, Naomi. I didn’t know they would go that far.’
‘Why did you do it? Money?’
She put her hands over her eyes. ‘I didn’t want to...’
But I didn’t let her carry on. ‘Get the fuck out. You ruined my life.’
I closed my left hand, grabbed the little button next to my bed and pressed it nervously, a nurse arrived quickly. ‘What can I do for you?’
I pointed to Jen. ‘Away, she has to go away. Before I wrap this cable around her neck...’
‘Quiet, Ms. Quinns. I think you had better go,’ the nurse said to Jen and I held the angry tears trapped in my eyes until I knew for sure that she had left.
The nurse replaced the bag above my head and pulled the sheet aside. She checked the bandages that were apparently also wrapped around my legs. ‘Do you want something for the pain?’
‘No,’ I sobbed.
‘Your parents just left. I will let them know that you are conscious.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Obviously, your friend managed to wake you up.’
‘That wasn’t any friend of mine. How long have I been here?’
The nurse smiled and threw the old bag in a pedal bucket. ‘One day. You have slept for hours. You needed that. After what I’ve seen on TV, it’s not surprising.
‘The fire was set purposely to destroy evidence.’
‘Really? They didn’t say that on the News. Can I tell Detective Miller to come in? He has been waiting in the hall for a while.’
I nodded.
‘Oh, actually I shouldn’t tell you, the doctor should do that, but the burns on your legs are first degree. You must have an angel watching over you!’ She winked at me and left the room.
‘An angel watched over me,’ I whispered while I held back a tear.
Almost immediately a tall man came in. He didn’t look like a detective. He wore a leather jacket and had a long lock of black hair, which hung in front of his eyes. I vaguely recognised him.
‘You were investigating Sharon’s murder…’
‘That’s right, Ms. Quinns.’
‘You can call me Naomi.’
‘Fine.’ He paced back and forth next to my bed nervously. ‘We think that there is a connection between the Fuller case and this battlefield. Therefore, we have a few questions. Mrs. Sanchez told us earlier that you were inadvertently involved in this network.’
‘Oh my God, Mercedes...’ I whispered. ‘She talked too much. That’s why they killed her.’ I held my hands over my eyes. ‘I was so blind and dumb!’
Miller grabbed a folding chair and sat next to my bed. He looked at me curiously and handed me a tissue, which I took gratefully.
‘I-I saw her. B-before the fire. and others also...’ I shivered.
Miller nodded and grabbed his notepad and a pen. ‘Any objections if I record everything?’
I shook my head and immediately he took a recording device out of his pocket, pressed the record button and put it on the side table next to my bed.
‘Do you think you are able to answer some questions, Ms. Quinns?’
‘Yes.’
‘What we found in the IRC was unimaginable and we hope you can give us some answers.’
‘IRC?’
‘Industrial Riverbed City, the abandoned industrial complex where we found you. Apparently not as abandoned as we thought.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘There are experts at work as we speak. What they found is like a war zone. Identifying the victims will take a long time due to the nature of the injuries.’
‘Burns.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve been lucky.’ It sounded like I wasn’t.
‘You could say that. What happened there for God’s sake?’
I took a deep breath and stared out through the hospital window. The grey sky had given way to a grey-blue sky with passing clouds here and there. I saw airplanes in the distance; they dragged thick white streaks behind them, Criss-crossed. Like a grid – or perhaps more like a spider’s web – that kept the blue sky hostage. The corner of my mouth trembled when I only saw the immense web and everything else faded.
‘Prey...’ I whispered.
40
Leaves fell from the trees in a steady stream like heavy rain. I stared at the sky, between the branches of the tree whose arms reached high above cloaked in snow, up to the white clouds, from which the flakes drifted lazily down. The icy cold wind froze my lips despite the coconut oil salve. I stuck out my to
ngue to catch the flakes. It was a very different world here, even though it was not even an hour’s flight from Heathrow, and only five months had passed.
I wandered with the exuberant retriever puppy in the Warrensburg Woods, near my family home. I picked up a stick, one more time, and the young dog barked enthusiastically at me.
‘Ready...’ I smiled.
Even now, I couldn’t enjoy this new white world, with the memories still so fresh in my head. Since I had been discharged from the hospital, my parents never left my side. They told me that they had been in England for days and the police had been constantly hassling them. That Detective Miller had talked to Justin and that thanks to him they had arrested a number of people and had raided many properties. Nobody asked me if I had told the truth after Jack Willow had been released. Apparently he had a cast iron alibi and I had taken this into account. Even Justin did not wonder why I lied. He repeatedly repeated that it was his fault that he had not immediately gone to the police, and I calmed him and tried to explain to him that it was not his fault, that they had not taken him seriously when he had come up with his comic book story. That I was thankful that he was working with Miller now to decipher the code in the comics, to get behind the Network within the darknet. He proudly told me that he had found number combinations in the comics, which referred to servers, and that they had got behind the IP addresses. It honestly did not interest me at all.
My parents had arranged my return flight and bought a new puppy for me, to help me forget about my pain. Something that Roger den Hoeven - our family psychiatrist had advised. Almost immediately after I returned home, I started to visit him more often and it was almost like it was before. Bi-weekly conversations, to work through all my traumas, or to find me a happy place, as he called it. Oddly my fears seemed to get worse. Peacefully, I stared into the far distance, at the world shrouded in a lonely sterile layer, like the Royal London Hospital where I had stayed for a week.
Today I did not want to speak to Roger. Actually I never wanted to speak to him again. If he were ever to discover that... I kicked a heap of snow away, which made Cookie start to run excitedly back and forth. I threw the branch away from me and the dog ran after it, wagging his tail.
