by Iain Ryan
Archibald starts to turn newspaper clippings in the manila folder on the coffee table, eyes glancing down as he speaks. ‘On the upside, this little mess brought you to us. So it wasn’t a total waste of time. Except—’ he sighs ‘—except for poor Jenny. But then that’s the problem with dramatic interventions, they can be very unpredictable. I have no idea why she killed herself. Terrible. Just terrible. Now, oh dear, I feel like you’ve led me frightfully off-topic.’
Archibald gently taps his hand on the coffee table. He’s thinking. He has his hand resting on a newspaper clipping, a quarter-page photo of my mother and father.
‘Don’t hurt them,’ I say.
‘Who? Your family? Never. Never! It’s you, Erma, it’s you who wants to hurt these two. I barely know them. That’s what we were talking about, wasn’t it? Yes, that’s right, we were going to talk about your twin today. The magical Dora.’
‘My sister.’
Archibald’s eyes brighten and I see I’ve been played.
Stop talking.
This is a trap.
It’s all been coming to this.
‘No,’ he says. ‘There’s quite a bit of biographical information in these news pieces and we did our own research as well.’
‘And?’
Stop it.
Don’t engage.
Fuck.
‘Well that’s the thing, isn’t it?’
‘What’s the thing?’
‘There’s no sister. There’s never been a sister. You are an only child, Erma. Always have been. On your own, your whole life. Dora is a figment of your imagination. As much of a fantasy as Sero. Dora’s just a way of dealing with all the nasty secrets you’ve kept hidden, buried back there in your frail little mind. You need to be free of Dora, I think. It’s definitely time.’
I can hear the wailing in my head before it belts out my mouth. The first scream almost chokes me and then all I’m doing is screaming. Not living, not breathing, not speaking, not thinking. Just screaming.
Back in my hole, I fall apart. My great unravelling.
It’s starts with Euan.
Euan the handyman, the yardman.
Euan and I skinny-dipping at night in the family pool, a week into his employment, a week he spent reshaping the hedges in the rear garden as I read Archibald Moder novels on the deck. What happened in the pool wasn’t such a big deal, not in and of itself. We were both young idiots, both fit and lean. Both up for it. Familiarity leads to attraction, as they say. And a week is familiar enough when you’re that age.
But it kept going.
I got pregnant.
My mother paid for the abortion. I wouldn’t tell her who the father was. I thought I loved Euan. Loved him enough to put my mother through that nightmare. She was raised Catholic, so paying for it made it even worse. In her eyes, she wasn’t just committing a sin, she was spreading the corruption around, infecting me. That was one side of it. The other side was that – as a Catholic – she knew someone she could call. She knew who to pay. She made the appointment from a number already in her phone, whoever that may have been.
Then I had the car accident – not Dora – on the way to the first meeting at the termination clinic.
I broke my arm and both my legs.
I completely wrecked myself. Just ruined.
I lost the baby.
The recovery was long.
Weeks.
Months.
My father was around for the first part but then he got back to work. He went back out there on the road, taking meetings in hotel lobbies and uptown bars.
My mother kept Euan around.
Euan dressed my wounds and helped me to the bathroom. He played the compassionate secret boyfriend but he also slipped into my room at night. I told him no but I couldn’t fight him off in my condition. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t get away from him. Over the course of a long summer, I learned a lot about Euan. You never really know someone until they have power over you.
I survived it.
That’s all that counts.
Eventually the visits with Euan tapered off and somewhere in there, in the last days of that nightmare, I found myself smoking a joint in the upstairs en suite, spying my mother fucking Euan in the rear cottage down the yard. I don’t know how long it had been going on but I assume it was from the start. I figure that’s why my mother employed him.
Two weeks later, my father comes home and we all sit down to dinner. Dad’s so oblivious – or stupid – that he actually invites Euan to stick around and eat with us. Euan is, after all, the son of a family friend. And somewhere in there, in that family dinner after all we’ve been through together, in the white noise of friendly banter and This is great, dear and all the smiles and secrets and submerged horror, I snap and take a dinner fork and ram it into Euan’s face repeatedly, creating wounds that require three dozen stitches and permanently blinding him in one eye.
I guess that’s how I eventually told them what happened.
Not with words.
Not with treatment.
But with a kitchen fork and an out-of-court settlement.
After that, I headed north. North to where all communication with my past is virtual, at a distance, where nothing is real. I came north, to academia, where I studied narrative and built my own timeline with Dora.
Dora who wanted the baby, who still has the baby.
Dora who marries Euan instead of letting him destroy her family.
Dora who gives my parents what they want.
Dora who reverses and rewrites things so that none of us are hurt.
Dora the impossible.
My invisible sister.
The one who becomes the container for all the complicated things I just can’t fucking live with anymore. The compartment. The version of me where everything worked out just fine and where all the violence inside me is totally unnecessary and unrequired and locked away. Inside me, Dora writes a version of the world where I don’t have blood and viscera on my hands and where I can forget the appalling cries of my own mother, watching on as I try to kill her lover in front of her. The world where my father isn’t holding my rapist, crying out for me to stop.
But not anymore.
Dora’s done. Stripped away.
And here I am at last.
I know I’m near the end when Sadie starts talking to me more. ‘Now, are you gonna behave? Because if you promise to behave, I might let you out to talk to the other girls for a spell. Might.’
She keeps the door open longer each time and I get a bead on her: drawn features, late-fifties, her skeleton body always draped in the same black tube dress hanging off her like an oversized sock. Sadie keeps a taser on her, giving it a buzz to ground home whatever she’s saying.
‘Now stay still while I put the mask on.’
Bzzzzzzzzzzz.
‘Now heel for me, girl, that’s right.’
Bzzzzzzzzzzz.
‘Now promise me, go on.’
Bzzzzzzzzzzz.
I promise, every time.
The taser is a problem. I figure I’ve got one shot at getting out of here and the taser can stop me cold. On the other hand, when I’ve got the taser in my hand …
Sadie, I promise I’ll behave appropriately.
I promise.
Then one night music floats down and heavy footfall moves across the ceiling. We have guests.
‘Hey?’ says Laura through the hole.
‘What’s happening up there?’
‘Sounds like Harlan has friends over again. This might be it.’
‘I’m ready.’
‘We’re going to be OK,’ says Laura.
I say it back. ‘We’re going to be OK.’
I stand.
I start warming up.
An hour later, someone beats on the door of my cell and Sadie’s voice says, ‘Erma, do you want a shower?’
‘Yes.’
The door opens and I’m already in position, already wearing my mask.
Bzzzzzzzzzzz, goes that taser. She holds it close and I can see blue flashes even with my eyes squeezed shut.
‘Out.’
I step into the little hallway, careful to slump against the door frame as I move. I’m supposed to be bombed on whatever it is they’re putting in the water.
She grabs my ear and yanks me up. ‘Get on.’
On the way down the corridor, I try to slow her down – crying out in pain, dragging my shoulder against the wall – all so I can let my eyes adjust to the light. The corridor is less than a metre wide, meaning I can’t throw a proper punch in here. Or use the walls. It’s too tight.
The hall puts us out into a room lit with tube fluorescence. I make myself fall and scan around through the veil of my hair. It’s the twenty by ten metre bunker I saw before: four bunk beds on one side and a kitchen on the other. There’s a door ahead and another on the left. There’s the grubby lino floor and three pairs of bare feet, ankles, shins.
The feet belong to the girls I’m trapped down here with. As Sadie yanks me back up, I get my first good look at them. They’re all in their twenties. They look clean but emaciated and ghoulish from the treatments. Chalk-white skin. Ginger dye-jobs. Glasses. They all stare at me through the exact same set of lenses, each with the vacant eyes of the drug-addled and hopeless. Laura stands in the middle. She nods silently.
The door on my left opens.
A man steps out. He’s big, tall enough that he needs to stoop to fit his frame under the bunker’s low ceiling. ‘Is Doctor Lecter joining us tonight?’ he says to me with a smirk. I can’t place his face but he doesn’t look unfamiliar either. I suspect he’s one of the orderlies who carries my wheelchair up the stairs.
‘In there,’ yells Sadie and she foists me towards the door. It’s a bathroom. The bathroom Laura tells me adjoins my cell. It’s a barren room with a tiled square in one corner for a shower, a toilet pedestal, a set of steel lockers and a small sink unit and cupboard. The orderly stares at me through the doorway as Sadie closes the door behind us.
‘Strip’ she says. ‘You smell like shit.’
I slip my underwear down. It’s all I have. That and the leather face mask. I touch the mask and look at Sadie.
‘That stays on until you learn not to bite.’
‘I won’t.’
‘I said no. Now don’t just stand there looking at me like some retard,’ screams Sadie. ‘Get in that fucking shower.’
Bzzzzzzzzzzz, goes the taser.
Standing beneath the warm spray of the water feels jarring and alien.
‘Wash your cunt,’ says Sadie. ‘Use soap.’
I turn away from her. I take deep breaths. The water trickles around the crevices of the mask. I start to get my bearings. I start doing the maths.
Two paces to the towel.
Five paces to the cupboard.
Seven paces to the door.
Fourteen paces, total.
A second per pace.
Three seconds to dry my hands.
Two seconds in the cupboard.
I turn off the water.
Sadie frowns. ‘Well, well. You done already? Normally I have to drag you fucking girls out of here. Maybe you are gonna be one of the manageable ones?’
I tell her, ‘I want to get this over with.’
‘That’s the spirit. I always tell the girls, you do as you’re told and nothing bad will happen.’
Someone screams outside. One of the girls.
A heavy object hits the bathroom door.
Sadie jolts. ‘What the hell?’ She checks the taser, tsk-tsking. ‘I told those girls a million times.’ She puts her hand on the doorknob. ‘Stay right fucking there.’
She goes out.
Adrenaline pumps through me. Time slows to a glacial set of precise movements.
I dry my hands.
I open the cupboard beneath the sink.
I grab the blade, the butter knife I’ve sharpened into a bright shiv. It lies on the floor of the cupboard, a few centimetres from the hole Laura made. Between scattered shampoo containers is the two-litre Coke bottle filled with water, the one that has kept me alive and clean these last few weeks.
I walk to the door, counting.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
More shouting from outside.
A girl yelps.
Four.
Three.
Two.
I step out.
Sadie is crouched down, coughing.
The orderly is also on the floor. Laura’s under him, her arms flailing. He’s beating her. I dart around them and go for Sadie, grabbing the left shoulder of her dress before she can get back up. She reaches for my wrist but I have the blade at her throat before she can do anything. I yank her up and around and back us both up against the wall and scream for everyone to stop moving.
The orderly sees us and lets Laura go.
The blade slices into Sadie’s throat a little, a warm trickle at my fingers.
‘Mum?’ says the orderly, pleading.
‘Stay the fuck down,’ I scream back. ‘Where’s the taser? Laura. Find the taser.’
Laura scrambles around on the floor and freezes as she spots something across the room. One of the other girls steps straight towards me. She’s got the taser in her hand, stretched out. She doesn’t hand it to me. ‘Mum,’ she whispers.
I hear myself holler as the familiar blue crackle sparks but it’s Sadie’s body that convulses instead of mine.
Sadie slumps down.
There’s a weird pause in the room.
I look at the girl with the taser and say, ‘Don’t do that again.’
‘We’ve got to move,’ says Laura. ‘Time to move.’
Sadie blinks back into consciousness. I yank her up and shove her into the corridor. She says, ‘Gary? Gary?’
I shout over my shoulder. ‘Don’t let him get up.’
The girl with the taser moves across the room. Sadie and I are about halfway along the corridor looking back when I hear the taser buzz again and the orderly in the kitchen cries out. Sadie screams back to him.
‘Shut up or you die right now,’ I shout.
At the end of the corridor there’s a steel sliding door like something you’d see attached to an industrial walk-in freezer. There’s no lock on the door, just a small keypad by the handle.
I push Sadie flush with the opposing wall. ‘What’s the passcode?’
‘I’ll do it,’ Sadie croaks.
‘No! Say it!’
She stops. There’s a camera above the door, pointed right at us. All of this mayhem has probably taken about two minutes. Every second presents a threat. I take the knife and jab it into Sadie’s side a few times. As she slides down the wall, I catch her under the chin and point the blade into her cheek.
I tell her, ‘You’re about to die right here.’
‘One, two …’
She fucking pauses.
‘… Zero …’
I let her go. Sadie actually smiles, some dark reserve left inside her.
I punch the code into the box.
One.
Two.
Zero.
Three.
I’m a researcher. I know Archibald Moder’s birthday. Twelfth of March. The door slides open.
I step into a room. Timber veneer. Satin curtains. Warm lighting. My eyes skim over other details.
Steel hooks in the ceiling.
A bed with a harness and stirrups.
A video camera on a tripod.
There’s a doorway in the far corner and a set of stairs leading up. I cross the room and have one foot on the first step when I hear something and turn.
Sadie has dragged her punctured body across the threshold of the bunker and is trying to escape. Our eyes lock for a split second – this elderly woman pleading silently – before her body is yanked back inside by one of the girls. Horrible sounds echo out of the cor
ridor as I creep up the stairs.
There’s a closed door at the top. A bright strip of light along the sill. I pat around for the knob and find it.
I hold my breath and twist.
The door opens.
The next room is bigger. There’s a set of four green felt pool tables. No windows, suggesting we’re still underground. The door I’ve come through is a large book cupboard fitted to a hinge – a secret passage. I go to the nearest pool table. I put the shiv down and pick up a pool cue. Fighting with a staff isn’t my style so I unscrew the cue and hold the two halves. This means I’ve got a weapon for each hand and far better reach.
I’m still weighing the pool cue batons in my hands when a man rises into view. He sits across the room on a black leather couch. He rubs at his eyes, having just woken from a nap. His eyes focus on me.
‘Are you—’ He smiles. ‘Why are you naked?’
‘I just stepped out of the shower.’
He gestures to my face. ‘Why are you wearing that?’
The mask. I’m still wearing it.
I say, ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Alfie. I’m one of Harlan’s mates. Has the party started? How long have I been down here?’
I start to move towards him. ‘How many people are upstairs?’
‘I don’t know. Why?’
‘Alfie, there’s four of us locked in the basement. They’ve been keeping us prisoner down there. You need to help us.’
‘What?’
I see fear flush through his eyes. Animal instinct.
‘What is this?’ he says.
‘Alfie …’
He makes a run for it. I catch him as he corners one of the pool tables. My first few blows are sloppy but they work. He goes down. I keep beating him and he screams, ‘OK, OK, OK,’ but it’s too late for Alfie.
When I’m breathless and finished, I notice Laura is by my side.
‘Is he dead?’ she says.
