by Kevin Brooks
After I’d put the note in the lift I stayed in there for a while, staring up at the camera. I knew it was pointless, but I did it anyway. I was feeling all gripey and irritable and I couldn’t think of anything else to do. So I just stood there, staring up at the camera, waiting to see what happened. Nine o’clock came and went and the lift didn’t move.
‘Go on,’ I said to the ceiling. ‘Beam me up. I promise I won’t do anything. I just want to see you, have a little chat.’
Nothing happened.
I smiled. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?’
Nothing.
I waited another minute, then sighed and stepped out. As soon as I cleared the door, the lift started to hum, and I immediately jumped back in again.
It stopped humming.
I looked at the ceiling. ‘I suppose if I push this too far you’re going do something unpleasant, aren’t you?’
The silence was beginning to annoy me.
‘All right,’ I said, stepping out. ‘I’ll catch you later.’
As I walked down the corridor I heard the lift start up. The door closed, the hum hummed, and the lift went up. I went to the bathroom, ran a cold bath, and got in fully dressed.
Now it’s nearly lights-out time. My clothes are still soaking wet and I’m lying under a blanket, shivering. I think he’s turned the heating down. Vindictive bastard.
But at least I’m clean.
Jenny’s been quiet all night.
Anja hasn’t shown her face since this morning.
Fred’s making the occasional howling noise.
I’ve had an idea about the camera in the bathroom.
Saturday, 4 February
No new clothes, nothing to read. Fred’s still out of action. I’ve solved the bathroom problem and been electrocuted.
When the lights came on this morning I showed Jenny my bathroom idea. It’s so simple I feel like an idiot for not thinking of it before. Jenny tried it out first. When she came back she was grinning all over.
‘How was it?’ I asked.
‘Brilliant.’
Her face was radiant. It was wonderful to see. I wanted to stay there soaking it up, just bathing in her joy, but it made me feel too good. It was almost embarrassing.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I suppose I’d better go and give Miss Snooty the news.’
I went along to Anja’s room, knocked, waited for her to answer, then went in. She was still in bed. The room smelled bad. Her eyes were all puffy and her hair was knotted and dull.
‘Yes?’ she said.
There was a packet of cornflakes on the floor and a big chunk of bread on her bedside cabinet.
‘Yes?’ she repeated.
‘How are you today?’
‘What do you want?’
I glanced at the bread. ‘Midnight snack?’
‘I was hungry.’
‘You can eat with us, you know. We’re not savages.’
‘Did you want something?’
I held up the sheet I was carrying in my hand. ‘Privacy.’
‘What?’
I showed her the head-sized hole I’d torn in the sheet. ‘You just slip it on,’ I explained, ‘like a poncho. You can go to the bathroom, have a wash, use the lavatory, and he can’t see a thing.’
‘Is that it?’
I looked at her. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘Ecstatic, I’m sure.’
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I stared at her. She was lying quite awkwardly, kind of scrunched down low in the bed with her knees raised and one arm under the blanket. The other hand was fiddling nervously with the silver necklace round her neck.
I sniffed the air, looked round the room, then looked back at her.
‘What?’ she said.
‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
I left her room and went down the corridor into the kitchen. I looked in the sink, then in the cupboard, then under the sink. I stood there for a moment, looking all round the kitchen, then I went back to Anja’s room. She was sitting up straight with the sheet pulled up tight to her chest.
‘Would you mind telling me what you’re doing?’ she snapped.
‘Where is it?’
‘Where’s what?’
‘The washing-up bowl you’ve been peeing in.’
‘The what?’
She was trying to sound disgusted and hurt, but it didn’t quite work.
I sighed. ‘The washing-up bowl from the kitchen is missing. My bet is that you’re hiding it under your sheet. You’ve been peeing in it, haven’t you? I can smell it from here.’
‘How dare you?’
I suddenly felt very tired.
‘Listen, lady,’ I said, ‘I know it’s not nice being watched all the time, but we’re all in this together. Think about what you’re doing. You pee in the washing-up bowl, you empty it out in the bathroom, you put it back in the sink. We wash our plates in the bowl, we eat off the plates, we get germs from your piss, we get sick, we die. Is that what you want?’
Her face was bright red. ‘I was going to –’
‘No, you weren’t. Look, you can’t just think about yourself all the time. You can’t just hide away in here and hope that everything will go away.’
Her eyes blazed for a second, then she looked down, ashamed. ‘I’m scared.’
‘We’re all scared.’ I picked up the poncho/sheet and threw it on the bed. ‘If you need to use the lavatory, use that. And make sure you wash the bowl thoroughly when you put it back.’
God, this place is getting to me.
After the lift went up this evening I spent some time staring at the closed door. Staring and thinking. Thinking and staring. It’s a hell of a door. Smooth, silver, grainy, solid, sealed. No gaps at the side, no gaps at the top, no gaps at the bottom. No markings. No flaws. No scratches.
After staring at it for a while I got a saucepan from the kitchen and gave the door a good hard whack. It didn’t do any good, but it made me feel a bit better. I hit it a few more times, then kicked it, then dropped the pan and slapped the door with both hands. A bolt of lightning shot through my body and knocked me to the floor.
The door was electrified.
That was two hours ago.
My hands are still tingling.
Tomorrow is Sunday. I’ve been here a week. Seven days. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime, other times it feels like no time at all.
Memories come and go.
Home, the house we lived in before Mum died. Dad. School. The station, the subways, the big metal sculpture at Broadgate … it’s all gone for now, another world, another planet. Light years away. But the little things … I still remember the little things. Half-formed memories of growing up, little stories, myths. Moments. Street things. Timeless things. And things that aren’t so timeless. Like last Sunday morning. I can still remember the feel of the platform under my feet, the smooth grey concrete, cold and flat. I can feel the weight of my guitar digging into my shoulder. I can hear the dong of the E-string as the guitar bounces against my back. What else can I hear? Sunday morning sounds. Pigeons scuffling about. Early morning traffic. The big platform-guy’s steel-tipped shoes clack-clacking on the concourse. Bully-boy shoes. Clack clack. Clack clack. Clack clack. Then the sounds fade, the film in my head jumps forward, and I’m in the back of the blind man’s van. The van lurches on its springs and I know he’s climbed up behind me and I know I’ve been had, but it’s already too late. He grabs my head and clamps a wet cloth over my face and I start to choke. I’m breathing in chemicals. I can’t breathe. There’s no air. My lungs are on fire. I think I’m dying. I strugg
le, lashing out with my elbows and legs, kicking, stamping, jerking my head around like a madman, but it’s no good. He’s strong, a lot stronger than he looks. His hands grip my skull like a couple of vices. After a few seconds I start to feel dizzy, and then …
Nothing.
Next thing I know it’s seven days later and I’m still sitting here thinking about it. And what’s really annoying is I’m no wiser now than I was then. I still don’t know where I am. I still don’t know what I’m doing here. I still don’t know what he wants. I still don’t know how to get out. I still don’t know what the future holds. I still don’t know what I’m going to do.
I can’t stand it.
I hate it. Even this, this stupid notebook, this diary, whatever it is. I despise it. I mean, what’s the point of it anyway? Who am I writing to? Who are you? Why am I talking to you? What are you going to do to help me?
Nothing.
Less than nothing.
If you exist, if you’re reading this, then I’m probably dead. Because if I ever get out of here the first thing I’m going to do is burn this notebook. Burn you. You won’t exist any more. But then …
Just a minute.
If I get out of here and burn you, if I delete your existence, does that mean you won’t ever have existed?
Shit, that’s hard thinking.
Let me think.
You have to exist now. Otherwise I’m dead.
But I’m not. And neither of us knows how this is going to end …
So that means …
Shit.
I can’t be bothered with it.
I don’t feel well.
I’m going to sleep.
Sunday, 5 February
It’s sometime in the afternoon. I’ve had really bad diarrhoea all day. My mouth is dry and my belly hurts.
I can’t get out of bed.
No energy to write.
Later, evening.
I’m still in bed. I don’t know what time it is. I’ve been asleep. I can hear the others talking in the kitchen. Jenny, Anja, Fred. It’s a comforting sound, but kind of depressing too. I feel left out. Everyone’s finally talking to each other and I’m too sick to be there. It’s not fair.
Fair doesn’t come into it.
Later still.
My stomach seems to have settled down. It’s still hurting a bit, but it’s not too bad. Just a dull ache, deep down inside me. I haven’t had to go to the bathroom for a while, which is good. Constant diarrhoea is a really shitty thing to have. No joke. Diarrhoea, bubbling guts, bad smells … very bad smells. This room absolutely stinks.
Jenny’s been bringing me bowls of soup all evening. Hot soup, hot milk, cold towels. I keep telling her I don’t want to eat anything, but she keeps on bringing it anyway. Just in case, she says. Every time she comes in she tries not to wrinkle her nose at the smell, but she can’t help it. I don’t blame her. It’s a nose-wrinkling smell.
I’ve insisted she sleeps somewhere else tonight.
‘But you need looking after,’ she said.
‘Whatever I’ve got might be catching,’ I explained. ‘Who’s going to look after me if you get ill?’
‘Well …’ She wrinkled her nose again. ‘I suppose I could sleep in the room next door.’
‘At least you’ll be able to breathe.’
She smiled awkwardly.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave my door open, OK? If I need you, I’ll knock on the wall. And if you need me –’
‘I’ll whistle. I’m a good whistler.’
She whistled, just to show me what she meant. Then she picked up the tray of cold soup and left.
Fred popped in a while ago. He says he still feels like shit, but he thinks he’s over the worst of it now. He doesn’t look too good. He’s lost a lot of weight. His eyes are kind of watery and his nose is all runny. He looks like someone who’s just getting over a really bad dose of flu. He didn’t say much, just asked me how I was doing, hoped I was getting better, that kind of thing. It felt odd at first, being alone in a tiny little room with this grizzly-bear-sized man. It made me feel a bit edgy. A bit cramped. After a while though, after I’d realized he wasn’t going to eat me or anything, I started to relax a bit. I talked to him. I asked him how he was doing, what he thought about things – escaping, getting out, that kind of thing. It was kind of OK, just the two of us, talking about stuff. Strangely relaxing. At one point he even smiled at me. He’s got surprisingly nice teeth. Smaller than I imagined. Whiter too.
I don’t know what kind of teeth I expected him to have. Maybe tattooed ones, or fangs or something.
Before he left he gave me a friendly pat on the arm. You know, one of those man-to-man/see-you-later-mate pats. I don’t think anyone’s ever done that to me before.
It felt pretty good.
I’m beginning to like him.
About ten minutes after Fred left, Anja came in. She brought me a cup of tea. First thing she said was, ‘I can’t stay long.’ Like she’d got somewhere really important to rush off to. I nodded at her. She just stood there holding the cup of tea. I think she wanted to thank me for not telling the others about our little secret. You know, the peeing-in-the-bowl thing. I could see it in her eyes. Uncertainty, guilt, conflict. She wanted to thank me, but when the moment actually came, she chickened out. Her breeding got the better of her. She smiled a tight smile, put the tea on the cabinet, and scuttled out.
I sighed to myself and reached for the cup.
The tea was disgusting.
Monday, 6 February
Now we’re five.
When the lights came on this morning the lift was already down and a fat man in a grey suit was asleep on the floor. Fred found him. He’s got his appetite back now and he was up early looking for something to eat. He heard a snoring sound coming from the lift. He saw the fat man, dragged him out, then yelled for us to come and see.
We went and saw.
Jenny first, then Anja, then me.
I don’t know if it was just because I’d spent the last day in bed, but the image of the three of us stumbling out of our rooms and crossing to the lift really got me down. Our appearance – bedraggled and pale, heavy-footed, weary-eyed – and the way we walked, with the passionless excitement of death-row prisoners …
God, we all looked so weak, so hopeless.
Fred was standing proudly over the fat man, like a cat with a dead mouse.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Look what I got.’
We looked. The man was in his late thirties, fat, with curly black hair and dandruff on the collar of his suit. He was lying on his side, snoring loudly, with the tip of his tongue poking out from between his lips.
I bent down to check his pulse.
‘He stinks of booze,’ I said.
Fred sniffed. ‘Drugged?’
‘Maybe. I can’t smell any chloroform though.’
I leaned closer. The fat man opened his eyes, coughed once, then puked up.
His name is William Bird. He’s a commuter. Lives in a village near Chelmsford, works in London, in the City. Management consultant or something. Yesterday evening, after work, he met a man in a bar at Liverpool Street station. An unremarkable-looking man, he said. Suit, raincoat, glasses, moustache. This man was also going to Chelmsford. They shared a few drinks, talked about money and cars, then got on the train together and shared a few more drinks from the trolley.
‘I remember getting on the train,’ Bird said. ‘But after that …’ He shook his head. ‘It’s all just a blur. I must have passed out.’
‘Pissed?’ asked Fred.
‘Not that much.’
Fred looked at me
. ‘Roofies, probably. Or Special K. Something like that.’
I nodded. Roofies is the street-name for Rohypnol, a drug that knocks you out and makes you forget everything. Stick a couple of roofies in someone’s drink and they won’t know what’s going on. Special K is ketamine hydrochloride, an animal tranquillizer.
Bird looked at me. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’
Yeah, I thought. You’ve probably walked past me at Liverpool Street about a hundred times. You’ve probably given me a hundred dirty looks, or ignored me, or chucked your empty fag packet in my guitar case.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said.
Bird loosened his tie and looked around. ‘What the hell is this place anyway? What’s going on? I’ve got a meeting at three.’
I left the others to give him the good news and went back to my room for a lie-down. I wasn’t feeling too bad, but I still didn’t feel up to much. I certainly didn’t feel up to explaining to a fat commuter that he was imprisoned in some kind of underground bunker by an unknown man with unknown intentions, that there was no way out, nothing to do, no privacy, no life, no hope, no NOTHING. That we could all be here for years …
We could be here for years.
No, I didn’t feel up to that.
I’m going to sleep.
Woken by the sound of shouts and crashing metal, then the lights went out and a high-pitched whistle screamed through my head. The loudest, most agonizing sound I’ve ever heard. It probably only lasted about thirty seconds or so, but it felt like eternity. I thought my skull was going to crack.
I still had my hands clamped over my ears when the lights came on again and Jenny rushed in and told me what had happened. Apparently, Fred attacked one of the cameras with a saucepan. To protect himself from getting sprayed, he’d covered his head with a sheet and wrapped his hands with bits of torn T-shirt.
‘What happened to him?’ I asked Jenny. My ears were still ringing and my voice sounded muffled.
