by Iain Ryan
You continue into the forest and follow a small ridgeline that gently sweeps up from the floor. Within minutes, you cannot see the giant door behind you; the jungle is far too dense for that. You wander down through undulating country. As the rain comes gradually heavier, you find yourself drawn down an incline into a small clearing. In the clearing, you find a cave. A dark hole in the hillside.
A sickening emptiness blossoms in your gut.
You know this place.
You have been to this forest before.
You remember this cave.
‘No,’ you say. ‘No.’
This is the same forest. The same cave. This is the land you started out from. That is the cave from which you woke, all laid out in this dungeon like an occult replica or …
No!
This cannot pass.
It cannot be.
You have never left this place.
ERMA
They keep me in a room the length of a coffin. Tiles on the floor. A drain in the centre. No light. Once a day – give or take – the door opens and a thin woman in a black dress gives me water and rice. I eat with my hands. I cry for help. I thrash at the walls and beg. The rest of the time, I lie in the darkness and dream of the barbarian. Sero remains locked inside me.
They pull me out. There’s two of them. Two men. I recognise one. He’s the guy from the car shed. Drew. I’ve had the time to put Drew’s name to his face, to remember him. Drew is the guy from the pub way back at the start, the one who tried to pick up Jenny’s sister. Mister Glasses-Or-No-Glasses. They make everyone look smarter. And here’s the kicker, he’s also Andrew from my favourite Missing Person flyer, as well. The flyer in my handbag, wherever that is. Drew and I have been circling each other all this time.
Drew and the other man – both wearing surgical masks against the smell of my piss and shit-stained clothes – drag me out of the box while I scream for help. Drew’s eyes tighten as he grabs at me, yelling for me to shut the hell up. He works quickly to pull me out and along a corridor by my ankles. I scream again. I sense movement and scan around. My eyes are fucked but through the haze I can see three girls standing at the end of the corridor as I’m dragged towards them. The girls are all wearing white surgical gowns. No shoes. Three of them, the same: bright red hair, shoulder length. All three of them wearing identical black spectacles.
I scream for help but they step aside as I’m dragged past. I see flashes of the room:
Bunk beds.
A grubby kitchenette. A circular table.
Walls thick with dirt.
Soundproofing and cheap carpet.
A bunker.
I feel the sting of a needle behind my right knee. It’s the other man. The man who helped Drew haul me out of my cell. And now I recognise him from before, from however long ago, from the house, the car shed. The doctor. I grab for his arm as he withdraws the syringe and I pull him down into my closed fist. I’m weak but he keels over, clutching his throat. Drew drops one of my legs in the struggle and it’s all I need. I twist the foot he’s holding and pull it out of his grip, turning my body and getting ready to stand. I get halfway into a crouch when my legs soften. I shout something to the girls but it comes out garbled and underwater. They’re clearer now:
The same nose and cheekbones.
The same lips.
Beautiful, in another setting.
They’re all very thin, very gaunt.
Three daughters.
That’s the last thing.
The rest is chaotic and dreamlike. I’m sitting down but moving. The skin on my face hot and thick. There’s greenery and sunlight, then shade, then a booming voice and a hand patting my hand and knee before the sting of another needle and then more movement, breeze on my skin, the tinny tone of a dictaphone playing back and electronic sounds and a keypad and a door closing and I’m back in my coffin, back in the darkness where I’m thrashed around by nightmares and memory.
Days pass in the hole but I’m not like I was at the start. I’m relaxed and compliant now. I stop screaming. I spend my life asleep, dreaming of Sero and the fantasy world. I start to feel this is where I belong.
And I can’t really remember anything else.
I think they’ve taken me out a few more times now.
I hear whispers.
I have visions.
Or, I should say, I feel them because they’re without detail. All contour. No reason or story.
Endless.
I see the door open.
Drew and the doctor are standing there.
The doctor has a taser in his hand.
He reaches out.
Sparks fire.
I stop drinking the water. I don’t know why. Some reason. Something deep down inside, a soft voice that tells me it’s poison. I don’t drink poison. I remember that much, at least.
I see the door open and sound floods in: voices and music and footsteps. A group of men, a party, coming from upstairs. The thin woman in the black dress steps into the door frame. She has something in her hand, a beam of light.
Another silhouette pops into view, just a head.
‘See,’ says the woman. ‘I told you she was bleeding. You picked a bad time of the month for this little shindig.’
The lights go out.
I see the door open.
A man and a hose.
The water is like a waterfall blasting down from some mountain creek but, as good as it is, I’m sobbing through it, terrified but not so terrified that I don’t take secret sips.
I see the door open and they drag me out and I don’t know why. I don’t know how long I’m away but I know I’ve been outside when I return. There’s dirt in my eyes. And aches and scabs.
I come to and my head is bobbing violently, straining the muscles of my neck.
I’m outside.
Grey sky.
Shrubs.
Flowers.
Clean air.
The crunch of gravel.
I try to move my arms but they’re fastened to armrests. I realise I’m strapped to a wheelchair.
‘Where, where is this?’
‘Doctor Bridges, are you awake? Oh my.’
Harlan’s voice. Archibald’s assistant. I can’t see him. He might be the one pushing me.
‘Yeah, I’m awake.’
‘That’s interesting,’ he says.
My vision firms up. I watch the garden peel away as we come along the crest of a tapering grass hill. A chilly wind comes up off the hill, nipping at my skin, my eyes, my ears, my mouth. Something’s wrong. Something’s covering my face. I use my peripherals and see brown blurs around the rims of my eye sockets. They have me in some kind of mask.
‘Here we are,’ says Harlan.
We enter a small grove of kurrajong trees, a green canopy swaying.
‘Not much of a day for it,’ says Harlan.
I tug at my restraints. My legs are trapped too.
In the clearing under the trees, Archibald Moder sits in a camp chair. He has a walking cane between his legs, a Thermos by his feet, two steel mugs set up on a flattened timber stump beside the chair. ‘Ah, Erma. How are you today? Good I hope,’ he says as I’m parked in front of him. He reaches over and pats my hand. ‘They’re predicting rain so we might have to be quick today.’
‘What have you done to my face?’
Before he can answer, Harlan says, ‘She seems more alert than usual. I’ll talk to Sadie about it.’
‘That’s fine, that’s fine,’ says Archibald. ‘I’ll be OK. Actually, no. Do you have that contraption with you, Harlan?’
‘What contraption?’ he says.
‘The little camera. Come take a photo of her.’
Harlan leans over Archibald’s shoulder and aims a digital camera at me. The lens buzzes. He checks the screen and takes another photo.
‘Now show her,’ says Archibald. ‘Dear child, this is what happens when you try to bite Doctor Dalloway.’
I don’t remember biting
anyone but my jaw has ached for a few days now. I look at the camera screen and my heart begins to race. I’m wearing a brown leather mask, a crude, home-made thing. At the mouth, there is a grey mesh grill weaved in. The mask is strapped to my head with a series of belts and buckles.
‘What is this? Where am I?’
‘I can take it from here,’ says Archibald.
Harlan’s footsteps fade.
Archibald says, ‘You must be thirsty.’ He pours black tea into a cup with a straw. With some difficulty, he unstraps one of my wrists so I can drink. Once I have the tea in hand, I swallow it in one long pull.
‘You are thirsty, then?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Erma.’
‘If I ever get this other hand—’
‘Stop! Erma!’ Archibald withdraws a notebook from his pocket. ‘I need you to comport yourself today. I’m expecting a guest. I’m afraid I’m going to have to reprimand you for that. It’s tiresome but you’ve scarcely given me a choice.’
Archibald slowly gets to his feet. His eyes harden.
‘Archie?’ I say.
He stands beside me and I watch with slow dread as he loosens the belt of his grey crimplene pants. He slides the belt free and the pants fall. And then Archibald Moder, the man I spent years studying, folds his belt in two and brings it down across my bare thighs.
Thwack.
I scream.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
I keep screaming. I’m scratching at my constraints with my free hand. I need to move, to get away, but it’s pointless – thwack, thwack, thwack – each blow coming faster and faster. Spit flies from Archibald’s mouth and eventually I close down. I stop struggling. I don’t know how long it lasts but, by the end of it, I’m immobile, my eyes squeezed shut, letting it happen.
‘Now, where were we?’ he says, wheezing.
I reopen my eyes.
Moder is back in his chair, wiping my blood from his hands with a handkerchief. His pants remain around his ankles. ‘Oh yes. The drinking. Why aren’t you drinking your water, Erma? You’ll die if you refuse water. You know that, don’t you?’
‘I was … I don’t want to die.’
‘No one wants you to die, Erma. We’ve made fine progress here. Fine progress. Up until recently you were doing well. We were working on that temper, that violence in you. And it was going very, very well, I’d say. Do you know you were doing so well?’
‘I can’t remember anything.’
‘That’s the medication.’
‘What do you want with me? Why are you doing this?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Let me go. I don’t want to be here.’
‘Oh Erma. I can’t do that. I let your friend go before she was ready and look how that turned out. No, no. We need to push on. Your sessions have really been progressing well. Last week, you were finally starting to open up. Can you remember our chat about your family?’
I shake my head. I’m slipping away, going into some kind of shock, letting something delayed take hold. Blood trickles down my legs, drips onto my feet.
Archibald gets his notebook back out and says, ‘You told me about Euan, your twin sister’s boyfriend. The man who got you pregnant.’
‘Not … we aren’t twins.’
‘Go on.’
‘We’re not, I mean, no. No. Fuck you! Fuck you! I’m going to fucking kill you, Archie. I’m going to—’ and I still have a hand free so I lash out. I reach out and try to claw at him but am nowhere near close enough to land a blow. Archibald swats me away with his belt. He catches me around the neck and shoulders with more stinging blows but it doesn’t stop me. I struggle until I manage to drag my chair over, slamming myself into the dirt.
In the distance, I hear Harlan hollering.
‘You’re right. She’s not herself today,’ Moder says.
My body is hoisted back up with the chair. It isn’t gentle. Harlan clamps my free hand and straps it back in. He puts another belt around my chest. I’m completely pinned. ‘Are we going to punish her?’ he says to Archibald. ‘I want to.’
‘I don’t know. Erma? Erma!’ Archibald moves forward on his camp chair. ‘Can you behave yourself, please. Can you?’
Getting no reply, he nods to Harlan.
Electricity crackles.
A bolt of agony blasts through my side, snapping my body into a rigid contortion.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
This is it. A seizure. A heart attack.
Something.
But then the pain relents as fast as it arrived. I slump back in the wheelchair and take deep breaths. I want to vomit but I’m too scared.
‘Keep that thing out. Just in case.’ says Archibald. ‘Now take that wretched mask off.’
Harlan dumps something in my lap and works on the mask. When the mask comes free, I look down and see I’m nursing a taser. Harlan picks it up and waves it in front of my face. ‘Bitch, you try to hit Dad again, I will fry you like a roast chook.’
‘Harlan, please,’ says Archibald.
Harlan walks away. I want to follow his movements, scared he’ll tase me from behind a second time, but my restraints are too tight and I can’t swivel far enough around to see him. My mind races. Archibald’s talking to me, asking questions that I can’t really hear. My ears are trained on Harlan. This is all animal instinct now. Survival mode.
I hear a sound coming from Harlan’s direction. Wheels in gravel. Footsteps in gravel. Another wheelchair coming and all the while Archibald prattles on, ‘… and I really think it best if you open up further about this because, as you know from my work, human behaviour is a set of choices. That’s all it is. But, Erma, we don’t always make them, that’s the thing. Sometimes there are other aspects of our lives that dictate the choices, things that set the choices, Erma. Erma, are you listening to me?’
The second wheelchair can’t be more than a few feet away.
‘Erma?’
‘Yes?’ I say.
‘Are you listening?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your life is like one of my books. Everyone’s is. There is no infinite amount of choice, as we all imagine. We think there is but, in fact, our choices are extremely narrow, almost to the point of no choice at all. Do you know that a gamebook is composed of about four hundred sections? That’s it. Just four hundred sections. That’s the entire universe of a gamebook. And yet it feels free compared to a regular novel, doesn’t it? Such a liberation. But it’s not, is it?’
I shake my head. The other wheelchair draws closer.
‘Four hundred moments to choose from. That’s fate. That’s what it is. Fate’s the thing we never want to talk about. We have all the free will in the world and nowhere to put it, because of fate. I mean, look at us. Look at us, Erma. In our case, there’s a through line, a red thread, a fishing line bringing you to me, isn’t there? If you look back, it’s always been there. Always. You read my books as a child and now here you are. You chose this, in a roundabout way. Just as there is an intersecting line steering me to you, to here, to this very spot, something I chose from my limited options.’ Archibald waves to someone behind me. ‘What I’m saying is, fate is real, Erma. The red thread. It brought us here. It brought you and it brought him as well.’
I hear a grunting sound. The second wheelchair is placed alongside mine.
‘Say hello to our other guest Erma. Don’t be rude.’
I’m heaving air.
‘Say hello, Erma, or Harlan is going to hurt you again.’
I look. It’s a man. He’s not strapped to his chair but he isn’t getting out of it on his own. I doubt he can walk. The man’s head is freshly shaved and one of his eyes is bandaged shut. The lower part of his face is covered in jagged stitches. A thick piece of gauze holds his jaw in place and some sort of fluid is being pumped into him from a bag swinging from a thin steel pole mounted to his chair. As I’m taking a
ll this in, the man’s good eye twitches: a white dot amongst the purple bruising. He scans me with manic intensity.
The man grunts at me. The recognition hits.
Sam Hell.
The carpark. This man crawling away from me.
My hands dripping with blood.
‘Erma!’ screams Archibald. ‘What did I just say! Be polite!’
I find my voice but it comes out quiet.
‘Good, good mor—’
‘Louder.’
‘Good morning, Roberto.’
I see the door close and the world disappears into a void so rich and real that everything I’ve done in my life starts to play out in my mind. All the successes and failures that brought me here, they all jostle for attention in my subconscious like birds attacking me. This is Archibald Moder in my head. His advice scratching at me. For hours on end I see myself plotted out in a dark sky – for the first time in my life – and it’s all one big pattern of flight. A map of four hundred sections. Clear. Emotionless. Except for some missing piece …
A line divides the map. A line between what’s real in my past and the lies, the narratives, the delusions. My borrowed stories. My choices. That’s all I am. I see that now.
Eventually, I sink.
Time evaporates.
A fever swells.
Ants find me in the hole and crawl under my scalp, creeping out of my ears and nose and from the ducts of my eyes.
I’m sweating, bringing something to the surface.
I’m close to finished.
SERO
43
You stand in the tall trees and hard rain and look into the mouth of the cave – the start of everything – and you know you need to go back inside.
The interior is as you remember.
Brown dirt.
