Terrible thoughts filled my mind. I wondered if Winn were dead. Still in the room, body decaying and rotting away.
Was Winn sick? Barely hanging on, desperately in need of medical care? Could Winn hear my knocking but was unable to even lift a hand to knock on the drainpipe?
When food came, I got off the bed and banged the tray against the door, hit it with all my strength, bending the tray in my hand and leaving dents in the metal door.
Soon guards came to the door, opened it, looked in with surprised but disapproving faces.
I knew they would beat me but I cried, “Where’s Winn? You need to check on Winn.” In my panic, I’d forgotten that the prisoner’s name wasn’t Winn and that was only the name I’d given them. But my desperation left no room for logic.
The guards didn’t have batons though. One of them held an electroshock weapon, and as soon as I saw it, I yelped, and went to run away, but it was too late. Tiny barbs shot into my filthy clothing, and hair-like wires sent a burning, convulsing shock through my body. And then the guards left, leaving me on the ground, trembling, gasping. When they left, there wasn’t any more pain, but I was filled with dread and unease, hoping to never experience something like that again.
I wouldn’t act up anymore. Wouldn’t make any more noise. But I kept my face pressed against the pipe and cried for Winn.
CHAPTER 42
At some point I must have fallen asleep, or perhaps I slipped into the awake but dazed and incoherent state that I sometimes languished in for days. Without stimulus, without a break in routine, one can fall into a sort of waking catatonia, neither aware nor unaware, letting time unreel like a ball of kite string. I don’t know how much time passed, but when I came to my senses, I heard a noise outside.
Footsteps.
There were lots of footsteps, more than I could count, more than I’d ever heard, out in the hallway. There was shouting out there, too, and the lights in my room flickered.
Then there was a tremendous explosion. I heard it, and it was deafening, but I felt it, too, and the vibration shook my insides. Then came what I took to be gunfire. Rapid runs of machinegun fire and the pop-pop-pop of smaller weapons. More shouting. What could it mean? I huddled on the floor. I could only assume this had something to do with the disappearance of Winn’s signaling, but how? Outside my door there was a commotion of footsteps and voices and then a short but powerful boom, and the door was dished in and deformed and suddenly hung limp on its mangled hinges. The door swung open and a cloud of acrid smoke billowed into the room.
From this cloud a woman appeared, but she did not wear a pencil skirt or stylish shoes. She was not tall nor was she young. She was old, stout, and draped in a long coat. She was not a soldier or police officer. She wore spectacles that were small and scratched, and her hair was short and wild. She entered with a slight limp, and she supported herself with a cane. There were others with her, and these also were not dressed like any others I’d seen. No uniforms, no machineguns or armor.
“Here she is,” said the woman over her shoulder. “We found Alison.”
More shouting echoed through the hallway and I heard my name repeated. I heard distant gunfire and explosions. The woman looked at me. I huddled on the floor in the corner where the sink pipe was.
“Hi, there,” she said.
I was too afraid to answer. It was the first time I could ever remember that anyone had actually said anything to me.
“Do you know me? Ya don’t know me, do ya?”
I shook my head.
“I’m Ruby,” she said with an unmistakable heaviness. “Let’s get you the hell outta here.” She stuck her fingers into her lips and blew a loud horse-whistle.
Two people came into the room and helped me to my feet. They gingerly guided me into the hallway. My senses blazed. I wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, away from here. But I stopped.
“I can’t go with you,” I said, “without my friend.”
I looked to the place where I assumed there would be another door, but it had been wrenched loose, like mine. Coming out of the door were two people carrying between them a thin, bedraggled figure. His face was wet and clammy and gray and overgrown with a filthy beard.
Winn. Had to be.
I stumbled toward the door with the man and woman still supporting me.
“We gotta hurry,” someone said. “They’ll be back with reinforcements soon.”
Ahead of us were a few more people, assisting a young man who was wearing similar clothing to me. He was limping, leaning heavily on a man beside him.
Outside the enormous concrete fortress, an armored truck sat idling. There was a door in the back of the vehicle, and I waited while they helped several other people inside. They looked like me and were dressed like me. Desperate-looking, shattered. Then they lifted me and placed me inside. There were two benches that faced each other. A few people seated on the benches were bleeding. Others were smeared with soot, their eyes darting around, impatient.
One of them smiled at me, a big man with a fringe of beard around his round face. He smiled and nodded and patted my shoulder with his beefy hand.
I could smell blood and gunpowder and the sewer stench of myself and the other prisoners. Still, I thought, this must be what heaven was like. The hardships and sorrow are over and now you can rest. It’s hard to describe exactly how that felt. It was joy, overwhelming joy. I felt it in my whole body, so much that my heart actually physically hurt. Tears streamed down my face. Sitting next to me was a young man, shocking thin and pale looking, dressed like me, filthy like me. He was crying, too.
“Thank you,” he said to the big man. “Thank you so much.”
And I likewise turned to each of them. “Thank you. Thank you.” The tears ran down my face. The others smiled back, nodding.
Then they were helping Ruby into the truck.
She looked solemnly at me. “This ain’t over yet,” she said.
The bearded man they’d taken from the cell next to mine, the man I assumed was Winn, was lying on his back, wrapped in a blanket. I looked down into his face. He’d saved me, and now he lay here looking like death. He was pallid and slick with sweat.
“He’s got an infection,” said Ruby to no one in particular. “Looks bad. Looks real bad.”
CHAPTER 43
I worried for the man, my so-called wall-mate, the man I’d called Winn. Ruby said his name was Chase. He was obviously someone close to her because she doted over him and fussed about him even as she barked orders at the others. Before loading him in, they’d cut off his shirt to reveal two oozing black wounds that smelled terrible.
Ruby had produced a small bottle of clear liquid—probably moonshine—and had poured it over the wounds. Then she scrubbed his torso with a clean cloth. The man was unconscious, and even with the vehicle’s bouncing and the whine of the diesel engine and the caustic liquid poured over his festering injuries, he didn’t stir in the slightest. I wrung my hands.
Another of the rescued prisoners, a young man they called Arie, likewise seemed completely consumed with the welfare of Chase—he wore deep creases in his forehead as he stared at the man on the cot in the center of us all. I assumed they knew one another.
Through his knocks on the wall, Chase had rescued me. It had kept me physically alive. Perhaps the young man didn’t know him either but had been similarly rescued. Had Arie been on the other side of his wall?
We drove for a long time. I wanted to know what was going on, ask fifty different questions, but I was exhausted. Someone pressed two small red pills into my hand and gave me a bottle of water. “Take these,” she said. “It’ll help you relax.” Someone else had thrown a blanket around my shoulders, and after the initial clamor, the transport vehicle got quiet and pleasingly warm. My eyes grew heavy. They shut once, and I opened them again. They shut again.
To my embarrassment, when I opened them again, I wasn’t in the truck anymore.
I hadn’t just fallen asleep. The drugs r
educed me to something beyond sleep, because I didn’t wake when the truck stopped nor when someone evidently moved me from there to a bed. When my eyes fluttered open, I found myself in a green nylon tent. The sun shone on the fabric, giving it a warm, comforting glow. I was lying on the most comfortable bed and pillow I could ever imagine, and I was wrapped in a frowzy flannel sleeping bag.
At last, I thought. A pleasant memory.
Sitting next to the camp cot there was a bottle and a small burlap sack. In the bottle was cool water with a sweet mineral flavor. In the sack were two small apples. I drank and ate voraciously.
I arose, drank the rest of the water, and unzipped the tent. Nearby in a big camp chair was the large bearded fellow who’d given me had told me that I’d be all right that night in the transport vehicle. Had that been just last night? He rocked himself up out of the chair when he saw me.
“Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “We were thinking you were a regular sleeping beauty.”
“How long have I—”
He looked upward, squinting, calculating. “Almost thirty-six hours,” he said with a chuckle.
I gasped.
“Don’t worry about it. Francesca gave you some sleeping pills. Plus, after what you’ve been through, you needed the rest.”
I nodded, as I looked around at what appeared to be a city of the nylon tents. And trees—a dense forest of the most beautiful trees.
“I’m Woolly,” said the man extending his giant paw. I extended mine, and we shook hands, mine dwarfed in his.
“Alison,” I said.
He smiled. “I know who you are.”
“You do?”
“Afraid so,” he said, smiling again. “But don’t worry. We’ll explain everything. We thought you might want to get cleaned up, so down the path a’ways we have a tub with hot water waiting for you.” He handed me a bundle. “Here’s a towel and some clean clothes.”
“Thank you,” I said, looking down at the clothes. “Woolly?” I asked looking back at him. “You know who I am? You knew me before all this?”
He nodded frankly.
“Were we—were we friends?”
He blushed deeply. “Yeah. Good friends,” he said.
I smiled. “What was I like?” I felt like a shell of a person. Who we are, what we’re like, so much of that is based on our experiences. On our memories. I had none. Not many, anyway.
Woolly rubbed his scruff of a beard. “That’s hard to answer. You were nice—are nice, I mean. Always took the time to talk to me. Hard-worker. Didn’t mind being on dish-duty or helping haul rocks, things like that, even if you couldn’t lift much. But, uhm.” He paused, glanced down. “You’re different from most the folks here.”
“How so?”
Woolly shrugged. “I don’t know. You seem to think the impossible is possible. You take action.”
I looked at the ground. “I caused a lot of trouble, didn’t I?”
“Hey,” he said. “No risk, no reward. Anyway, go take your bath, and then come get some food and we’ll talk. It’s barley stew tonight.”
The tub sat in a copse of trees on a hill that overlooked a ravine. A small fire burned there with buckets of water and a kettle to boil it. There were coarse rags for washing and few hunks of what looked like homemade soap. I lowered myself into the tub.
It was a cloudy day. Banks of gray damp clouds moved across the face of the sun, and the valley glowed and shadowed by turns. It was glorious. I scrubbed myself, soaked myself, ran the soap through my hair. My feet and fingers were completely pruned when I finally got out to dry.
As directed, I joined Woolly and some others, including Arie, around a campfire. My hair was still damp, but I was clean and warm and the fresh clothes were soft and comfortable. I was given a crock of hot soup. It was simple but very filling, better than anything I could remember ever eating.
Noticeably absent were Ruby and Chase.
But that’s where Woolly recounted everything he knew—about the pandemic that almost wiped out civilization, the serum that erased our memories, how I’d joined Ruby’s small gang, and on and on. Arie laughed to hear about his leadership in Lotus. I was surprised to learn that Chase and I had been lovers. All that Woolly told us—it didn’t seem real. It felt like campfire stories. And finally, Woolly explained how we’d gone looking for an antidote and ended up back in the Agency’s hands and how Ruby found out and put together a rescue team. They’d lost one man in the effort, the news of which caused all of us to grow solemn and to stare into the fire.
Then Woolly asked us what it’d been like in the prison cells. Arie and I had similar stories—of mind-collapsing tedium and desperation and hunger and abuse. And of the tapping on the wall to communicate. So Chase had been Arie’s wall-mate, too.
“And Chase,” I asked. “How is he?”
“Doing better,” said Woolly. “Ruby won’t let him get any worse. I think he’d be scared to even try. Color is returning. Antibiotics seem to be working.”
“Good,” I said, nodding. I didn’t want to say it, but I wanted desperately to see him. In part because I was curious about this man with whom I apparently had a past relationship, but also because I felt enormous gratitude to him. He’d been my beacon of hope in those dark cell days, and I needed somehow to let him know.
“So Ruby, is she still mad at me?” I asked. “For—well, everything.”
Woolly and the others were silent, exchanging glances with each other.
“Yeah,” Woolly said, almost apologetically. “She’s still mad.”
“But she’ll be okay with me, right? I mean she rescued me.”
“There’s no way Ruby would’ve let you suffer in the Agency prison, Al. Despite everything, she cares an awful lot about you. She always has.”
I bit my lip. “I can’t imagine what I was thinking when I let that prisoner go.”
“No one else can, either, Al,” he said.
CHAPTER 44
The next morning, I joined the others by the campfire and was brought a cup of what everyone referred to as “mountain tea.” There were also eggs, a little fish, and some coarse, grainy bread. It was all just so delicious. I looked around for Woolly, then I heard someone say he’d be along later.
Arie was there, too, eating his breakfast. We’d been told that we were mother and son, but there was an awkward unfamiliarity between us. Arie nodded toward me by way of greeting, but said nothing.
Behind me I heard a harsh voice. “Lookie who’s up and feeling better.”
I turned to see Ruby and Chase coming down the trail to the meal area. Ruby was limping and using her cane. Chase had a blanket draped over his shoulders. He walked slowly and carefully.
The other campers gave a cheer. Chase waved back, though he looked perplexed at the recognition. Camp chairs by the fire were pulled out and Ruby and Chase were helped into them.
“Well, well, well,” said Ruby. Her voice had an edge to it, a chiding quality. “Lookit all three of youse here, together again. Good. Cuz I wanted ta give us some instructions, so listen up.”
She took a deep breath, looking slowly at Chase, then Arie, then me. We sat still. I could almost feel her gaze on me, like it was something physical that pushed against me.
“Ya’ll look like crap,” she pronounced.
We smiled nervously.
“Especially compared to whatcha looked like just a couple months ago, which since ya can’t remember I’ll tell ya was just fine. Ya’ll were doin’ just fine. And so that tells me you had it hard in that there prison. So—” here she slapped her leg “—you three are gonna take some time to rest and heal up, ya hear? I don’t want you worrying about chores or cooking or pullin’ your weight, at least not yet. You focus on building your strength and recovering.”
“Ruby, I—” I began, wanting to talk to her about the incident that had started all of this, the incident I couldn’t remember but somehow still felt poignantly responsible for.
She raised her
hand up to stop me. “I don’t wanna hear it. Just do as I say and stay outta my way. Capeesh?”
We nodded.
“Good,” said Ruby. She slapped her knee again. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. I got things to do.” She rose unsteadily, using her cane as a lever to pry herself from the chair. Then she hobbled away, leaving the three of us alone together.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Chase.
“There’s room for improvement,” he said, wincing as he shifted in his chair toward me. “But it beats yesterday.”
A man named Andre brought Chase a plate of breakfast and mountain tea. Chase balanced the plate on his knee and took a sip of the drink. He sighed. And I understood what his sigh meant. It is soothing to the soul to be in a safe place with something warm to drink. It was soul care. A new memory, still only the first of a very few we even had.
“Do you know who we are?” asked Arie.
Chase nodded. “I got the basic story. We were co-conspirators and, later, after some, um, trouble, we were prison neighbors. Right?”
We nodded.
“So,” Chase went on. “We’re friends.” And then he gestured toward me with his mug, “And, um, apparently, something more.” He smiled awkwardly.
I blushed deeply and cleared my throat. “Yes, that’s what they told me.”
“Leave me out of this,” said Arie with evident sarcasm, waving his hand dismissively.
Chase smiled faintly and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.”
“I don’t remember you either,” I said.
“Right, but what I mean to say is that I’m sorry that I don’t remember you. You seem like someone I would want to remember.”
Was he—flirting?
It all seemed so strange. Like we were play-acting roles. Like we’d just been given parts in an acting class and were told now to play our parts.
Among These Bones (Book 3): Maybe We'll Remember Page 20
