The Shelter

by Peter Foley

  “I know.” The Pastor signals something to the two men by his side. “Continue.”

  “Okay. Well, before this big concrete bunker was built, this whole site was a destination for some of those British prisoners. Some of the worst offenders in the British Empire were imported right here to a penal colony. Back then, the empire was big and it goes without saying there were a lot of troublemakers, drunks and generally difficult bastards, that kind of thing. This place was a labor camp that held nine thousand people, all sent here from across the empire.”

  “You know history, Drew. That’s good. Every person should study history. Knowledge is power,” the Pastor says, seated on a chair brought to him by two men. The Pastor leans back. “You seem to know this place in some detail. Somewhat impressive for a drunk.” His words boom through the hall.

  “Yeah.” Drew continues to sip from his glass. “You see, some of my ancestors were brought here.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “Practically half my family tree, back in 1872. I’ve been fascinated with this place since I found out. In a weird way, it feels like a spiritual home. It was part of a network of international prisons across the world, and this was the most infamous prison of them all. It was supposed to be escape-proof. One way in, no way out. Armed guards and half-starved dogs patrolled the grounds, or so the internet tells me. The place became notorious for two types of criminals; repeat offenders and those who committed some of the most heinous crimes, Jack the Ripper-types, etcetera. You wouldn’t believe what my ancestors did to get sent here.”

  “Do you think they would be proud of the man you are, Drew?”

  “Who knows, once this place got a hold of them, who knows? You see, this place was set up to change men, to reform them, supposedly, through work. The idea behind it was that if a man was productive, if he felt useful, he would feel purpose and release all his criminal ways. A noble idea, I suppose, but I don’t think it quite worked out that way.”

  “And why’s that?” The Pastor smiles.

  “I think it’s because this place became no more than a production site. An industrial prison, where convicts were used as forced labor. They had to cut timber, build ships, ground grain – that kind of thing, and conditions were not good.”

  “No?”

  “No. The inmates were assigned to different jobs. All harsh work. The worst jobs were in the flour mill. It was a big treadmill walk, you know, like, fifty or sixty men all on top of a big wheel, turning it as they walked. It was physical and psychological punishment for their evil doings.” Drew takes another sip from his glass.

  “Inspired by Jeremy Bentham,” the Pastor says. “Beating a prisoner only entrenches criminal behavior, so the world needed to find another way to repurpose their minds; work. Every man should have a knowledge of history…”

  “Yeah. You know, say what you will, but at least a beating is an upfront obvious act, with an obvious end. You see, Jeremy’s idea of redemption through work might sound nice and fluffy, but it was as extreme as the old medieval punishments, he just took it in another direction and to a different end and it didn’t work for everybody, of course.”

  “Of course it didn’t,” the Pastor says.

  “Excuse me?” Drew takes another sip.

  “Physical punishment is useful in reforming character, but it can only achieve so much. Using work as an alternative is really neither here nor there, work is simply a practical necessity. No, each person is a lock that must be picked, everyone has their own folly, their own pressure point that will reveal itself in time. Pick the lock and anyone can be made malleable.”

  “I guess.”

  “Of course you guess.” The Pastor smiles.

  “So, anyway, the authorities had to build a separate prison for the men who were too rough for the rest of the inmates, a place to house the most violent and unpredictable criminals. This newer prison had thick-walled cells, a foot thick I think, and the inmates wore hoods, no communication was allowed. The men in there were locked up twenty-four hours a day in total silence, surveillance all day, every day. If I’m not wrong, this bunker, in a previous life, was that prison.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “So, where’s the Hole, then?”

  “The Hole?”

  “The Hole. Prisoners who misbehaved would be sent into the Hole. It was a, er, small room, well… a hole really. They’d throw people in, lock the door and leave them in the dark for as long as it would take them to go mad. Some of the prisoners that spent time in the Hole told tales of a Blue-eyed Monster that would lurk inside, it was said to come out in the total darkness and bite people to death.”

  “Quite.” The Pastor breathes in a long breath.

  “Right here, in this room, was a church hall for the worst inmates. It was an interesting kind of church. All the pews had restraints attached, to hold the inmates down, and blinders, so the convicts couldn’t see anyone but the Pastor. Very odd. Again, it didn’t really reform them.”

  “But it helped many.”

  “No. One spring, the men were pushed too far and violence broke out. Some men survived, but for those who weren’t so lucky there’s a cemetery known as the Isle of the Dead, where over a thousand inmates are known to be buried in a mass unmarked grave. In 1887, or thereabouts, after the violent deaths, the world’s most infamous prison was closed and written out of history, almost completely. Some say the bunker was retained and maintained throughout the years by various administrations, for various reasons.”

  The Pastor applauds Drew, his slow hand clap echoes off the walls. “Well done. You are very familiar with this place. That’s very good, a surprise, but very good. Drew, with your intimate knowledge of this place and with your family ties to it, it’s only fitting and it’s only proper that you should die here.” The Pastor stares at Drew.

  The Pastor’s words derail Drew’s train of thought, he flinches and searches for some words to solve the puzzle of their meaning. He replays the words in his mind, scanning them for sarcasm. Scanning and searching, he can’t form a reply. The Pastor continues.

  “Drew, the wine you have just drunk was poisoned. It was laced with cyanide. You, Tom, Judy and Oscar have all been poisoned. You have approximately five minutes to live. But don’t worry, you’ll be comfortable, it will be painless. Be calm.”

  Drew looks across the room. The three other people brought to this place all have wine glasses in hand, half empty. “Hazel, if only you knew how prophetic your words turned out to be,” he mutters. His body rises with a deep intake of breath, his chest sinks as he exhales and, inexplicably, he realizes that every inch of his body is trying to physically restrain laughter.

  26

  Short is the life of the proud

  Oscar, the young man and one-time usher for the Pastor, observes the rim of his poisoned chalice. It’s wet from his lips. A single red drop stains the outer glass and falls to the ground as a glittering red tear. His feelings are no secret. His shoulders droop, his eyes lift to the heavens then lower to the floor before closing tight. One tear drops from the corner of his eyes; it’s followed by many. Heartbreak, in the sound of a sigh, escapes on his breath.

  “Father,” he says.

  “Yes, son.”

  “Thank you, Father. Thank you for looking out for me and for giving me a second chance at life. Thank you for looking out for my momma. If it’s okay with you, can I say a few words to my momma?” Oscar opens his eyes and fixes them solemnly on his feet as his tears fall and fall.

  The Pastor considers the question.

  Oscar looks at his shoes and waits for the Pastor’s approval, until a blur in his periphery takes his attention. Young Tom is sprinting towards the lectern, and towards the Pastor. Tom’s eyes are wide, his hands are fists and his feet are fast across the floor. With a jerking impact, one of the guards from the Pastor’s side, followed by another from the door, seizes Tom and throws him to the ground. Quickly and ugly, a one-sided confrontation sees Tom outnumbere
d two to one.

  One man stands over Tom and grips him around the neck, forcing him to his knees. The second man holds Tom by the midsection. Tom’s face is twisted red with struggle. He claws at the arms around his neck.

  Not like this. Have mercy, good God, please not like this, not this way, prays Oscar as he watches Tom’s terrible end unfold.

  Constricted breathing and forced grunting fill the otherwise silent hall. More thrashing, more savage movement, more heavy breaths teach the two men that Tom will not back down – even on his knees he will not relent. Summoning all the power in his legs, he rises against the weight of both men.

  The man around his neck stumbles, staggers and falls over his heels. The man around his waist falters and grabs Tom by the shirt collar. Tom resists the downward pull and strikes the man. With his collar torn, Tom stands tall and sets his eyes on the Pastor. The first man lunges at Tom’s legs from behind and tackles him to the ground. The man at his side, still holding a handful of shirt, kneels on Tom’s back.

  “How dare you!” the Pastor says. “How dare you try to attack Father! Shame on you! After all I have done for you! My gosh, you never really know a person. My gosh!”

  Tom stirs again, pushing against the knees on his spine. The Pastor speaks over the three men like an indignant father.

  “Don’t do this! Don’t do this! Tom! Why can’t you be like Judy and go peacefully into the night? Go with dignity! Go with dignity, I command you! Have some dignity!”

  Flat on his stomach, Tom’s body is rigid as he resists the weight on top of him. His energy to fight evaporates.

  “Have some respect, Tom. Look at Oscar and be like him,” the Pastor says, finally.

  “Father, could I please see my momma?” Oscar pleads with red eyes.

  “Oscar,” the Pastor says, sharply, “rather than talk to your mother I think it would be more appropriate if you wrote a few words down for her. I will see that she gets your letter. Let us spare her the anguish of seeing you like this.”

  Tears flow freely from Oscar’s eyes. Nurse Chamberlin taps him on the shoulder and hands him a scrap of paper and a pencil. On his site of death, he begins the record of his final words thus: “Momma, I’m so sorry that this is all I leave behind. Please remember me and know that I love you. In a moment, I’m going to join Dad.”

  Tom’s heavy breathing and the scratch of Oscar’s pencil are the only mark of time’s movement.

  “What you lack in time, you have in certainty,” the Pastor says. “Bless you, my children. You are free from worry, you are liberated from all of life’s troubles. Be grateful. Let us bow our heads.”

  Drew looks along the pews, to the last seat on his right, to Judy. Judy’s a plump, dark-haired twenty-something. She holds her arms in her lap, hiding her hands in the sleeves of a gray sweater that is too big for her size. A momentary flourish of dignity passes on her face, a moment that’s quickly defeated by panic flashing like a summer hurricane.

  “You’re brave,” Drew says to her, a little too loud for the room.

  She coughs and holds her head in her hands. She shrinks into tragedy.

  Time is all gone, no more to spend, no more to waste, none to find, too late to make, this is how it ends, forever. It’s time now, time to go. No more pain. At this moment of passing reader, let us reflect. I wish I had been better.

  “Congratulations, Drew, Judy and Oscar,” the Pastor says. “You all came through that test just fine.”

  Judy bursts into sobs. Tom tries again to wriggle free. The twisted tableau of his body eventually relaxes as he gives up entirely.

  “I had to test your loyalty, Tom. You failed. There was nothing poisonous in that wine, but you will be paying a visit to the medical bay. You will not be well for some time.”

  The two men haul Tom off, dragging him by his arms with his feet sliding behind him. The Pastor rises from his chair. “Drew, you’re quite a character. You know, the only way to really know a man is to see him under extreme pressure, to see how he reacts under the influence of fear. You are either extremely brave or a complete fool. At this moment, I’m not sure which is true.”

  “You know what they say, you can’t fool a fool, so cheers,” Drew swigs the last of his wine, then walks around the pews and collects what Judy, Oscar and Tom had left in their glasses. The Pastor watches as Drew sups the dregs.

  “I can see inside a man’s soul, Drew. I can see every fault and every virtue, and when I look into yours all I can see is a mess. You know the saying, ‘If a man is not the master of himself then he’s a servant to anybody’? If ever a man needed salvation, it’s you, Drew. Just what has life done to you?”

  27

  Wine is the answer, what was your question?

  Fuzzy from the wine, Drew wanders into the Common Room. Like the night before, the band play while dominoes are slammed, people talk, some knit, others sit and listen. Looking for a chair, Drew sees Hazel waving a hand over at their usual table. She has kept a seat free.

  “Where the hell did you go?” she asks.

  “Me? Where the hell did you go? I’ve been stuck in the Sermon Hall with that maniac Pastor. He’s definitely mad. Have you seen Tom?”

  “No. What’s happened?”

  “The Pastor pretended to poison me, Tom and a couple of others.” Drew glances across the room. “Tom didn’t like what was going on; there was a scuffle.”

  “I don’t blame him. I don’t like what’s going on either,” Hazel says. “And poisoning? A pretend poisoning? Like the pretend healing? This isn’t normal, Drew. I don’t know what the Pastor’s intentions are, but he’s dangerous and we’re stuck in here with him. What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know, but I know someone who can probably give us more information.” Drew stands and waves his arms across the room. “Judy! Judy! Come sit with us.”

  Judy was trying to make a low-key entrance on account of the tears she has shed. Blurry black smudges still run down both her cheeks from reddened eyes. Drew’s noise and animation turned all heads in her direction. To get this horrible, overexposed moment over, she briskly walks through the crowd towards Drew and Hazel’s table.

  “Hazel, this is Judy. Judy, this is Hazel.”

  They nod politely.

  “Thank you for what you said earlier,” Judy says to Drew. “You dealt with being poisoned very well. Imagine if he had actually poisoned our drinks?” She rubs her face to remove the makeup smears from her cheeks.

  “This crazy pastor of yours,” Drew says, “what’s he about?”

  Judy doesn’t speak. Tears swim in her eyes.

  “Are you, okay?” Hazel asks.

  “No, he’s, he’s…” Judy wipes away a new tear from the corner of one eye and looks around the room. In a whisper she says, “I can’t talk here.”

  Hazel turns to Drew. “I told you something wasn’t right!”

  “I don’t have the blood pressure for this,” Drew says. “Don’t leave us in suspense, if there’s something we should know just tell us.”

  “You need to leave this place, if you can,” Judy says, with a deliberate expression of severity, as if to transmit, without words, all of her visions and memories of the Pastor. The twinkle of the electric piano and the loose thump of slow percussion plays in the background.

  “He’s a vampire,” Drew says. “He looks like one.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Hazel snaps.

  “Nothing’s wrong with me, but I’m not so sure about Tom, or Stephen. Did you see Stephen earlier? Something’s definitely wrong with him.”

  “He looked drugged out of his mind,” Hazel says.

  “It looked like clozapine, or something like that,” Judy says. “I’ve seen that look before. My uncle was committed to St Marc’s for the good of his mental health and the safety of others, after he said he heard voices. He attacked his neighbor with a weed whacker.”

  Drew sniggers, but Judy continues, still wiping stray tears from her cheek with the
cuff of her sweater. “One time at St Marc’s he got mad over dinner. He threw a chair at a picture on the wall and punched the serving lady twice in the back of the head and tried to spit on her. The spit missed but the punches knocked her down. He only wanted one more spoon of mashed potatoes, it was his favorite. They tasered him then put him in lockdown. He spent a day in the seclusion room. After a day of looking him over they said he had Intermittent Explosive Disorder, so they sedated him. After that, every time I went to see him he had that look in his eyes.” Judy turns her face and makes an earnest attempt to wipe her cheeks again.

  “You missed a bit,” Drew remarks, pointing to Judy’s smudged makeup.

  “I feel sorry for that other young man,” Judy says.

  “Tom? He’ll be okay, he’s a fighter,” Drew says.

  “I’ve no doubt. But the Pastor, you don’t know what he can do to people.”

  Drew and Hazel ask more questions, trying to elicit more details about the Pastor and the church, but Judy dismisses their questions as fearful things.

  As the night gathers on and with more questions going unanswered, Drew’s concern for Tom grows, he scans the room again for any sign of him.

  Drew turns to Hazel. “Tom will be okay, won’t he?”

  Her response is not expressed verbally but via bare expression, one of slow contemplation, and it stirs Drew. With a sudden resolve, Drew stands. “Okay. Goodnight, ladies. I’m going to find Tom.”

  28

  Behold, I stand at the door and knock

  With no sight of Tom in either the Common Room, the Sermon Hall or the corridors adjoining, Drew fixes his mind on finding the medical bay. He paces every available corridor, inexactly striding in any direction he finds. Each corridor is a windowless dark square tunnel flanked on either side by closed doors belonging to private rooms. Impatiently, he paces past door after door after door until, at the very end of the very last corridor, he discovers his objective – the medical bay. It’s a door much like any other; wooden with a thin timber frame. It differs from any other door in only one aspect, to its side is a tiny wall-mounted hand-painted sign that reads “Medical Facility”.