by Abe Moss
The woman turned away, observing something out of Emmett’s view. A few seconds later, she pulled out a uniform and handed it over. Wanting only to escape the eyes of those around him, he hurried to the exit, pushed his way outside into the cool corridor air. He shivered. He stepped into his uniform and pulled it up around his shoulders, stuffing his arms through. He received many strange looks from already-dressed children passing by.
Before he’d zipped up his uniform, before he even knew where he was going next, he hurried away from them, out of sight, out of range.
But this part was over, at least. He’d made it through. Soon, he thought, perhaps he’d be like the others. Unafraid. Unashamed. Calm. Going through the motions. Bored…
Defeated.
As he zipped himself up, never slowing in his aimless wandering, he spotted his roommate once more. Gratefully, he quickened his pace and did what he was beginning to realize made things much simpler in this alien place.
He followed.
✽ ✽ ✽
It was an hour or so after they’d locked the doors to everyone’s rooms. He wasn’t sleeping yet, but nearing it. Thoughts abstracting.
He was alerted by the sound of the door beeping, unlocking. He scooted near the edge of his bed, his body against the curtain, his ear to it, listening. Footsteps entered. They paused. Then they moved away, away from him, toward his roommate’s bed.
In a low, gentle voice, a man whispered, “You’re needed.”
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought the voice belonged to the same guard as before. As always. Emmett pushed his head against the curtain, determined to hear everything they said. His roommate mumbled tiredly, too low to understand.
“Come now,” the guard said. “They’re waiting.”
“I don’t want to go,” his roommate countered, fully awake now. His voice was thin and pleading.
“You have no choice. It won’t be for long.” A moment of silence. “The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you’ll be in bed again.”
“What will I have to do?”
The man made a sound, dismissive. “Ms. Marks will tell you everything you need to know.”
His roommate let out a disappointed sigh.
“She doesn’t tell us anything. She just wants to scare us…”
“Hurry up.”
Movement as his roommate slid sluggishly out of bed. Feet on the hard floor. Their steps traveled through the door together, into the corridor. Emmett didn’t dare peek from his cubby until he heard the sound of the door closing shut, and the beep and click of its securing locks. Then he pulled his curtain back, squinting in the harsh white light. Across from him the bed was empty and he was alone.
He feared one night they might come for him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AFRAID FOR YOU
Emmett was thankful for the strict routine. Though he never felt any less alone, over the course of a couple days he felt less lost. He learned the way to the cafeteria, to the yard, to the library, and back to his quarters without the need to follow anyone. When it was time for showers, he knew just what the chime meant, and where to go and what to do. He remembered the number on his uniform, so that when he stepped up to the window in the Drying Room, he told whomever waited across the counter “C26” and right away they pulled his clean uniform off the rack and handed it to him.
He also finally learned his roommate’s name.
One night, as he often did, Emmett felt the urge to pee. He climbed out of bed and tiptoed to the toilet, sneaking behind the curtain quietly as possible, doing his best not to pull any of the rings along the curtain rod as it squealed quite shrilly. When he was finished, he slipped out and, tiptoeing back to bed, saw from the corner of his eye the curtain to his roommate’s bed cracked open. A small face peered out.
“Are you awake?” Emmett asked rhetorically, more as a means to allow the boy to respond if he wished, or to stay silent in pretending.
“Yes,” he answered. The boy pulled his curtain open a little more.
Emmett returned to his own bed, sliding in and rolling around to face the room, leaving his curtain open likewise. They watched each other, saying nothing, waiting for the other to speak. When it seemed the boy might not saying anything again, Emmett started.
“What’s your name?”
“Zachary,” he spoke promptly. “Fernandez. You?”
“Emmett Callahan.”
Zachary pulled his curtain open wider still, eyeing the door as though to check that they were alone. “You’re new here.”
“How long have you been here?” Emmett asked.
Emmett couldn’t help noticing how devoid of expression the boy was, between thinking and remembering and speaking and asking.
“A couple months, I think.”
“How old are you? I’m seven.”
“Same,” Zachary said.
“Do you know anyone else?” Emmett asked. “I don’t know anybody.”
“No.” Zachary reflected some more. “Not really. Just names…”
“Who was that the other night?” Emmett couldn’t wait any longer to ask. He’d thought about it daily since it happened, dreading the night it might happen to him and not knowing what to expect. “The man who came to get you after showers?”
“That was just Officer Hollings,” Zachary said. “He’s one of the guards in our ward…”
“Is he the one with the weird eyes?”
“You mean the really blue eyes? That’s him.”
So he had a name, Emmett thought.
“What did he want? Where did you go?”
Zachary rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling of his cubby hole. “Just tests.”
“Tests?”
He turned his head toward Emmett, his little eyes studying him. Perhaps he was remembering what it was like to be in Emmett’s shoes—to know so little about this place. So far, Emmett was of the opinion that it wasn’t so bad, at least not nearly to the extent of the stories he’d been told. But the others here, the children he saw daily, the way they carried themselves, their faces—they told a different story.
“You’ll see,” Zachary said. “There are lots of tests.”
“What kinds of tests?”
Sighing, Zachary leaned forward and grabbed his curtain. Pulling it closed, he said simply, “You’ll see.”
Leaving no room for further questions, a little disappointed, Emmett followed suit and closed his curtain as well.
To his great disappointment, when their door unlocked the following morning, the chimes announcing breakfast, Zachary did not wait for him to rise. As Emmett climbed out of bed, he saw he was already gone.
✽ ✽ ✽
Emmett was eating lunch when he sensed someone standing behind him. He turned slowly, then jolted when he saw them. The same guard—Hollings, Zachary had called him.
“Finish your meal quickly,” Hollings told him. “Then follow me.”
The guard—Hollings—waited at Emmett’s back as he scarfed down the rest of his lunch. He opened his carton of milk and drained as much as he could before spilling some down his chin and the front of his uniform. Then he stood and they made their way toward the door labeled Ward C.
“Where are we going?” Emmett asked.
Hollings gave no sign of having heard him.
Soon they were headed down a corridor with only a handful of doors down its length. One was labeled “Testing C”. Another was labeled “Evaluation C”. The door at which they stopped read “Analysis C”.
Hollings knocked on the door and they waited. Emmett looked down the corridor from whence they came, where no other children were in sight. Then, as he opened his mouth to ask again about the purpose of this trip, the door was answered. It opened, and someone stepped into view to meet them. A woman…
“Hello,” she said to Hollings. When she saw Emmett, her eyes grew bright and she smiled as though pleased to see him. As Emmett recognized her—with a chilly, sour clarity—he immediat
ely felt quite the opposite. “Oh, and hello again!”
It was the woman from the police department. Her name escaped him now, but he wasn’t entirely sure she ever gave it. All he remembered was the distinct, desperate hope he’d felt that he’d never see her again.
Hollings gently guided Emmett into the room as the woman stood aside to let him in.
“Thank you, Officer Hollings,” she said, and closed the door.
Much like the office in the police department, this room contained little more than a desk and some chairs. Not much to look at.
“Hello, Emmett,” she said, leading him toward her desk. “Do you remember me?”
Emmett didn’t say whether he did or not. He simply walked with her, and sat in the chair as she gestured for him to do so. Rather than circle the desk to her own chair, she leaned against the edge of the desk beside him, her feet just a few inches from his, ankles crossed prettily. She leered down, her eyes resting along the bottom rim of her glasses.
“Yes. You remember me.” One of her feet bounced playfully atop the other. She watched him for a painful amount of time. The air was stuffy. The room was void of sound. Not the tick of a clock, or the blow of an A/C vent. “Do you remember what we talked about last we saw each other?”
He shook his head. She smiled.
“Would you like to know how your mother is doing?”
He looked up at her then, at her sharply bisected eyes peering at him through the rim of her glasses, as she couldn’t be bothered to tilt her upturned face toward him. Pleased with herself, she slid from her desk and went to her own chair. She took a seat with a satisfied sigh.
A small plaque sat on her desk. It read: Dr. Edwina Marks.
“You can call me Dr. Eddy, if you’d like,” she said, catching him reading it. “I tell all the children that, but none of them do.”
She clasped her hands under her chin.
“Your mother is doing well, in case you were wondering.” Those digging, probing eyes crawled over him, watching for some kind of tic or reaction. “Do you miss her, Emmett?”
He looked down, observed the drying milk on the front of his uniform. “Yes.”
Dr. Marks reached for a binder on her desk, which she turned toward herself and opened it fully. She took up a pen, flipping through the pages inside.
“Would you like to see your mother again someday?”
“Yes,” Emmett answered at once, though he tried to hide his piqued interest. Hiding his feelings, however, wasn’t his strong suit.
“I want you to see her again, too,” Dr. Marks said. She produced something from one of the binder’s pockets. She pushed it toward him, across the desk, a small 3x2 photo. “Is this how you remember her?”
It was his mother, all right. But it was no ordinary photo. The light on her face was too bright and washed out many of her defining features. She wasn’t smiling for the camera, either. She appeared as though she’d been scolded for something, and the guilt was too much to bear. Helplessly sorry. She could do nothing but look into the lens which sought to capture her guilt, and she was trapped inside of it.
“This picture was taken a few months ago. Not long after she hid you away. Does she look like you—” Dr. Marks paused. “Oh, I’m sorry, Emmett. Here…” She opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a box of tissue, which she offered to him on his side of the desk. “She does look sad, doesn’t she? You must miss her terribly. I know she misses you…”
Skipping the tissue box, Emmett reached for the picture and Dr. Marks pinched it in her fingers before he could get to it. She placed it back inside the binder.
“Maybe I’ll make you a copy of this, to keep if you’d like. If you remain on your best behavior.” She began flipping through more of the pages. “Now that I mentioned it, I forget if I asked before… Where was it your mother hid you away, again?”
Emmett slid back in his chair, feet dangling a good six or seven inches from the floor. He folded his arms across himself, securing his will to remain silent on the matter.
“Oh, that’s right. I believe you couldn’t remember.” She regarded him seriously, as though waiting for him to see reason. “That’s all right. I only asked to see if you might be more helpful today. To see if you’re on your best behavior.” She made a sound of satisfaction as she flipped to one page in particular. She turned the binder so that it faced him, and pushed it toward him. “Does that look familiar to you?”
Emmett leaned closer to get a better look. It was a black-and-white photo of a house. It took him a moment to recognize it.
“This house belonged to the late Lionel L. Holmes,” Dr. Marks said. “Founder of Holmes Homeware. Ever heard of him?” She gave Emmett only a second to respond, which of course he didn’t. “No? ‘Holmes is where the heart is?’ That was the company slogan. Pretty successful business he ended up with. Not as much these days, however…” She withdrew the binder, swiveling it back around toward herself. “I already know that’s where your mother took you. Stashed you away like an orphan, because, well… she knew of course you would be one.”
Emmett squirmed, patting his legs for pockets which didn’t exist, wishing to stuff his hands inside or else he might start nibbling at them.
“Lovely people, the Holmes. Irene, late wife to Lionel Holmes, was something of a saint, wasn’t she? It takes a very generous heart to do what she did. Truly terrible what happened. Absolutely awful. Were you there for it, Emmett? When it happened?”
He stayed silent. She shook her head in pity.
“Must have been horrifying. You poor thing. Traumatic. Do you think about it much?”
The truth was that he thought about it so often it’d become something like a default state of mind. When he wasn’t thinking of something immediate, like finding a place to sit at breakfast, or getting through the showers as quickly as possible, his mind reverted instantly each time to those insidious, creeping thoughts. They were always swimming there just under the surface, bobbing up and down between the few thoughts he had control over. He dreamed of them. Woken by dreamy shotgun blasts in the middle of the night.
“No,” he said.
The pity never left her visage, however fabricated it was.
“You must be so much stronger than your friends. They couldn’t wait to confess to someone, to be comforted. Poor, poor children. You’re quite resilient, Emmett, I’ll give you that…”
“My friends?”
Dr. Marks couldn’t help the smile that found its way to her mouth—a smile so maliciously delighted, Emmett wished he hadn’t asked.
“Oh, yes! All of them. All your buddies. Tobie. Clark. Jackie…” She bent forward, holding Emmett’s attention as he pressed himself deeper into his seat. “They told me everything. That’s how we found out about the Holmes house, and what happened there. They’re still not finished cleaning up. Can you believe that?” She finally closed the binder. “Are you sure you didn’t want to talk about it with me? It helps, you know. When traumatic things happen, it helps to share your feelings with someone, just to have them listen. It’s hard keeping everything to yourself. Such a burden. Do you know what that means? Burden?”
“I…”
He was now distracted by the details which plagued him, the little things he tried and succeeded to suppress most days. The gruesomeness of it. The meaning of it—that those people he’d bonded with at one point in time or another no longer existed, that he’d seen them beyond their points of existence. Lifeless. Empty vessels.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Dr. Marks nodded understandingly. “I understand. You’re doing your best to forget. It’s hard, huh? It’s painful.” She waited, giving Emmett a chance to add something, or maybe to change his mind. “Just know, the sooner you open up, the sooner and… easier it will be to put it behind you.”
If it wasn’t for her phony attempts to assuage him, or the box of tissues on her desk taunting him, he might have cried. He certainly wanted to. He was over
whelmed with it now—the memories. They were like dreams to him. Nightmares. Like remembering things that couldn’t have happened. Unreal. Even if he was currently living out their consequences…
“I’m so afraid for you.” She held him gently with her feigned benevolent gaze. “I’m afraid you’re going to bottle all this up in that soft, malleable little head of yours. So impressionable. Something as traumatic as this can have frightening effects on a mind like yours, Emmett, if you let it. And you don’t want that. I don’t want that. It’s the last thing any of us want. For you to end up like your mother…”
His stomach gave a sickening lurch. He looked at her then, and she grimaced sympathetically. She leaned back in her chair.
“That’s all right. Perhaps next time you’ll feel more comfortable, and you’ll be able to talk about it more, hmm?”
She took a deep breath, which led to a soft yawn. Then, with the last ounce of performance she had in her, she gave him a friendly smile.
“That’s enough for today. You’re free to go.”
She gestured toward the door, that forced smile never faltering. Emmett stood from his chair. His legs wobbled underneath him like cold jelly. Once he was out of her office, he shuddered with relief. Although the mere knowledge that he’d be forced to speak to her again soon filled him with instant dread.
✽ ✽ ✽
Emmett lay in bed doing his best to fall asleep. For whatever reason, those thoughts of the Holmes house haunted him more deeply than before. Try as he may to push them away, they forced their way back, loud and vibrant and cruel.
Mrs. Holmes’ severed head visited him that night, appearing to him in the black of his restless mind, looking into his mind’s eye with its dead ones. He tried brushing it off, but it remained. It followed. He imagined himself sweeping it from the table onto the floor, hurling it out of sight, altering the memory with a new one, but somehow it rolled back, seeped through the wood until it lay before him once more, eyeing him defiantly. Its dead lips uttered not a sound.
To his surprise, something eventually did distract him. An unexpected noise outside his cubby. A voice.
Zachary’s voice.
