The smeared, sooty windows are too high to see through and too small to crawl through. If I could climb up to them, I’d have to try to squeeze myself through a tiny space lined with broken glass. And the Black Riders might have their motorcycles parked just beyond these cellar walls.
There are stacks of old iron bed frames and dusty boxes full of moldering paperwork, books, dishware and clothes. There are bicycles with their tires flat and their greasy chains drooping on the floor. There are chairs and tables and narrow old-fashioned school desks, nearly all of them in some way broken, missing legs and arms and seats.
A few of the broom handles, a shovel and some shards of broken crockery I pick up and muse over for a while, thinking about their possible use as weapons. I find a box with some silverware including butter knives. Maybe if I can take the next person who enters this space by surprise… I find a mop bucket in a dark corner behind the furnace where I can relieve myself.
In the farthest recess of the cellar, where the light doesn’t reach, I feel the surface of another door. It’s a plain wood door and it’s unlocked. When I turn the knob and find I can push it open, my heart starts thumping and my mouth goes dry. Maybe it’s something they overlooked. An exit. It’s pitch black in this hallway or stairwell or whatever it is. I run my hand along the wall for the light switch, toggle it back and forth just in case, by some miracle, it works.
Ignoring the image of rats scurrying out of the way, enormous spiders dangling in front of my face, I push my way into the room, walking blindly, holding my hands out before me, waiting to feel something, like a railing, like another door. My hands brush the top of a vacuum cleaner—I can feel the bag—and my feet kick against more boxes.
Soon I’m stopped by rows of dust-coated shelves. There’s not much on the shelves, a few plastic bottles of what I guess are old cleaning supplies. In back of the shelves is a wall of cold cement. I make my way around every corner of the room. It’s disappointingly small. I wade into a thick tangle of spider webbing at one point and it gets in my mouth, my eyes. Disgusted, I stumble from the room, trying to wipe myself clean.
It grows dark outside and light again before anyone comes to the door.
When I finally hear the shuffle of feet just outside the double doors, the hunger has been back for a while. It feels worse than before. I’ve been lying curled on the dirty mattress, my stomach clenched tight like the fist of a bareknuckle fighter. It’s hard to concentrate on anything. Only when I sleep do I get some relief. Weak light sifts through the grime-smeared little windows ringing two walls of the room.
I hear whispering, people jostling against each other. By the time I’ve struggled to my feet, woozy and unsteady, it’s too late to think about grabbing a broom handle or a jagged sliver from a broken plate. I curse myself for being so muddle-headed that I hadn’t thought to bring weapons to the mattress with me, hide some of these things close by.
One of the doors is shoved open and slams against the cellar’s inner wall. It’s dim in the passageway just outside the room but I can see a row of heads, maybe four or five people, all about my height or taller, all about my age. For some reason I was sure only one person would show up to deliver the food and that I might have a fighting chance.
“We have something for you,” the voice of a female says. I don’t recognize it. “Bring us your plate and the water bottle and we’ll give you this.”
I stay where I am, standing on the mattress, the huge metal ducts of the furnace hanging over me like the long arms of a protective uncle.
“How long…” I have to clear my throat. It feels like I haven’t spoken in a month. “How long do I have to stay here?”
“We’ll have to see what they decide,” someone else says.
“Hurry up!” the female says. “Do you want to starve to death?”
My mind fills with questions. Why did you finally decide to feed me? Where am I? What comes next? But I want the food and water more than anything.
I pick up the empty plate and bottle and drag myself over to the group in the doorway. None of them have ventured inside. They stand in a deep pool of shadow and none of their features are distinct. They nudge each other and pull back a little as I approach. There are at least five of them.
The girl who spoke finally takes a few steps into the room and sets a dish and another plastic bottle on the floor. I can see, just for a few moments as she passes through a shaft of weak daylight, long brown hair tied neatly in a ponytail, a thick, soft-looking sweater and the face of a young girl with big eyes.
The girl grabs the knob of the open door and pulls it shut behind her without waiting for me to give them the other plate and bottle. “That was close…” I hear her say as the group clumps back down the passageway. I hear laughter, shouts, feet clattering into the distance.
I set the empties near the door so they can grab them next time and pick up what they brought. I stuff a hunk of bread into my mouth—not as stale this time—and hurry back to the mattress.
Three
A string of days passes, at least five, maybe six. Time blurs. The only thing that changes is the light, slanting in from different directions as the day goes from morning to noon, to night. I find a box of marking pens and realize I could start making hash marks on the wall to signify each day that passes but, by the time I think of doing this, I’ve already lost track of how long I’ve been here.
The high point is when food is brought once a day. It’s always the same group who brings it. They don’t say anything to me, don’t answer my questions. Every day while the hungry hours slowly pass, I picture myself charging at them with a shovel or lurking in wait behind the door with a butter knife in my hand. But it seems pointless.
What would happen if I whacked one of them on the head or cut one of their arms? They’d beat me back, slam the door shut and probably let me starve. But I can’t accept the idea of just giving up. Escape seems impossible. Taking revenge on all of them at once seems impossible but I have to keep thinking about it. Thoughts of escape and revenge are all I have. Along with memories of the past.
The food they give me is not enough. My arms and legs are feeble and my stomach feels as tight as a drum. I’ve learned to make the water last rather than gulping it down as soon as I’ve finished eating. There’s an old, corroded sink in one corner of the cellar but the faucets don’t work. The pipes groan but not one drop comes out. There’s always the same bread, an apple, sometimes half a plate of mushy oatmeal.
And I feel so dirty, encrusted with filth, coated in dust and grime. If they left me here long enough, they might come down one day and find my mummified body curled up on the mattress like an antique, sawdust-stuffed child’s toy.
Water.
Water to bathe in, water to drink.
I keep having that dream where Larkin and I are talking about having all of us, the boys and the girls, go swimming in the creek together. I wish I had told him that was a fine idea. When I wake up, I have a horrible feeling that I missed something important—the memory of the two of us jumping into the water together, swimming side by side under the hot summer sun.
Four
One day the door opens to reveal only one indistinct shape standing in the murky half-light of the cellar. Whoever this person is, it takes an eternity for them to say anything, to do anything but stare at me. From my spot underneath the furnace, by squinting hard, I can make out the small, thin body of a young man. He doesn’t appear to be carrying anything, no plate of food, no bottle of water.
My head swarms with tiny black specks as I push myself up from the mattress. It’s darker than usual. Rain is beating at the windows. Thin trickles of damp are making their way through the cracks, seeping down the walls.
This boy keeps standing there, not saying a word. I ease myself back so I’m squatting on my heels, waiting for him to break the silence. At last he takes a few steps into the room. “God, it stinks in here.” The voice is familiar but I can’t place it at first.
“What did you expect?” My voice is a croak, ragged and frail. I feel like a ghost talking. I’m angry that whoever this is, they didn’t at least bring me some water.
I get to my feet and shuffle toward him. I feel like I’m a hundred years old, creaky and wizened. As I get closer, I can see his face a little better in the rain-dimmed daylight and realize it’s William. I stop about a dozen feet away from him and we stare at each other.
“Where’s your friend?” I say. “Jendra?”
“She’s busy. We don’t do everything together.”
“But I bet you’re disappointed she’s doing something without you.”
He makes a face like I’m a fool if I think I can get under his skin.
“Don’t annoy me,” he says. “Because I have good news for you.”
“Good news?” I look past him, at the murky passageway framed by the open door. If I was healthy, I could simply shove him out of the way and run past. If I was eating enough, I could take a broom handle and smack him unconscious. But he must know how weak I am.
Even so, he watches me warily, like I’m a caged animal that just slipped through its bars. But he seems weakened as well. Without Jendra, he’s visibly less confident, diminished. He’s missing his better half, the more powerful of the two.
I edge a few steps closer and he holds up his right hand with his palm outstretched, signaling me to stop. I try to think of something, anything I can do to take advantage of the situation but my mind is sluggish, my arms and legs possessing all the power of soggy noodles.
“Very good news. We’ve talked it over and—if you promise to behave yourself—we can let you up above.”
This stops me in my tracks. The words take a few moments to make sense to me. It doesn’t seem possible that he’s standing here, saying this after all I’ve been through. That it’s this simple.
He holds his hand up higher and takes a step back, as if he thinks I’m going to try to charge past him. “But we’re going to be watching you. All the time. The younger ones you were traveling with are with us. In fact, they’re here is this building, right above where we are. And you don’t want them to get hurt, right?”
What he’s saying takes my breath away. I feel a gush of strength, a little adrenalin starts to flow. My heart beats faster. I’m starting to think that maybe I can shove him aside and run past.
“Why are you being so good to me?” I ask.
“To be honest, we need this room. They’re bringing in someone else tonight. Besides, we want to put you to work. You can help us out with the younger kids. I’m sick of being stuck here.”
After days of being trapped in this cold, gray, dismal place, this is information overload. My sleepy mind reels.
They’re bringing in someone else.
I start to wonder, is there another one like me out there who’s done something to them that’s so awful they want to punish whoever it is as much as they’ve punished me?
But much more important is the fact that he’s telling me that Emily, Stace, CJ and Terry are somewhere above me, in this building. And he’s going to take me to them. If he isn’t lying. If this isn’t some new torture. I swear to myself that I will make him pay if it is.
Finally I say, “Let me put my boots on.”
Five
William and I head up a stairwell. It’s hard to keep up with him. I’m breathing heavily and my heart is beating fast. None of the lights in the building work and he doesn’t have a flashlight but he seems totally familiar with where we’re going.
On a landing between flights of stairs, I tug at the back of his jacket. “Stop for a second. I have to catch my breath.”
A little light is coming from up above and I can just make out the shape of his wiry body pulling away from me. “Don’t come too close,” he says peevishly. “I should take you outside and hose you off. If we had running water. But I guess I don’t have to worry about you trying to make a break for it. You couldn’t make it halfway down the block.”
I hate how haughty he is, how unkind. “Do I scare you?”
He grunts. “Not without your rifle. I’m not saying that you’re not tough. You had to be to survive for as long as you did out there. You were good to those kids.”
“When I get my strength back…”
“We’ll have to see how tough you are then.”
“Why do you do it, William?” I ask abruptly.
“Do what?” He sounds confused.
“Help them. Moira and the others.”
“Because…” For a second I think he’ll give me an answer but he never finishes his sentence. I can sense that there’s something he’s afraid of, especially now that he’s alone, without Jendra. He’s worried, not just about me but about something that’s about to happen.
“Let’s go,” he says.
At the top of the stairs, out of the stairwell, we stop at one end of a long corridor. To one side there is a row of tall narrow windows. They reach up to a ceiling far above our heads. Rain pelts cracked glass, seeps through sodden sections of plastic and cardboard where the window panes have been smashed away and someone’s tried to plug the open spaces. It’s cold in here, drafty. Opposite the windows is a series of doorways, some open, some shut. There’s no movement, no sound.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“We call it the Orphanage. It used to be a grade school. This is where we put all the younger kids until they get old enough to join the rest of us.”
He looks at me. I can see his face clearly for the first time. There’s the large scar above his right eye I noticed before, shaped like a crescent moon, as if someone had cut away a moon-shaped piece of his flesh years ago. He doesn’t look as neat, as well-groomed as he did before. His sandy hair is shaggy, uneven and greasy. Splotches of pimples are clustered around the corners of his nose. His clothes are wrinkled, the cuffs of his jeans and his shoes mud-stained.
“We have to climb up to the next story. It’s a big building but there’s only two floors.”
He’s not ordering me around as he says this. Maybe now that he can see me clearly, he feels a little sympathy for me. But I’m sure it’s only a little sympathy, if any. I’m not expecting much.
I nod my head and follow after him. This time I push myself so I don’t have to stop to catch my breath on the next landing. We emerge at the end of another long hallway, the same bank of windows on one side, doorways on the other.
We walk about halfway down the corridor. I look outside at masses of ashen storm clouds pressing down on the roofs of empty houses. There are fallen trees, the usual tangle of cars stopped every which way, possessions looted or abandoned scattered across front lawns, sidewalks. Then I hear a murmur of voices from an open doorway that grows louder the closer we get.
The murmur becomes the sound of children playing. Someone raises their voice about someone else taking something that’s theirs. A pair of heavy doors with glass wire-mesh windows is propped open with boxes of books.
Then someone inside the room kicks a blue rubber ball out into the hall, like the ones I used to play kickball with in school. It smacks against the steel-gray pipes of an old radiator squatting below the windows, ricochets against the opposite wall and skitters toward my feet.
From the room, a small boy darts out and runs toward me. Right away I see that it’s CJ. He’s looking at the ball as he runs and doesn’t realize it’s me until he’s only a few feet away when he glances up and skids to a stop. He’s confused for a few seconds and then his face breaks into a smile. He runs at me, throws his arms around me and clutches me tightly.
I run my fingers through his thick curly hair and whisper his name. Then he turns his head and calls out, “Stace, Terry!”
CJ’s older brother and Stace run out, stop for a moment, mouths open in surprise, and fling themselves at me. Three pairs of arms grip me tight, not minding how I smell or what I look like. “I’m so glad to see you guys,” I say, my voice breaking, unsteady.
Sta
ce pulls back for a moment so she can look me in the eye. She’s got the fingers of my right hand in a tight squeeze. “We didn’t think we’d see you again. Ever,” she says.
Over her narrow shoulders, other children are drifting into the hallway to see what the commotion is. I see five, six, seven of them. The clothes they wear are oversized, ill-fitting like castoffs from older siblings. Their hair is long and unruly, faces and hands smudged, knees and sleeves stained. I don’t see—
“Where’s Emily, Stace?”
She drops my hand and looks away, her face suddenly scrunched up tight. Then she looks at where William is standing near the old radiator. He’s shifting from one foot to another, rubbing his hands together. I imagine he’s uneasy, unsure of what he should be doing now that I’m free to mingle with the others. “She’s with them,” Stace says, pointing right at him.
Six
A troll-like creature with a grimy face and matted clumps of hair dangling across its shoulders stares at me. It takes an effort to convince myself that this is my own reflection.
The lips I see are swollen and split. The skin is worn and hard, drained of color, scratched and bruised. I look so much older than I am, so much older than I was just a few weeks before.
I have a bowl of water with me, perched on the edge of one of the sinks. I’m on the second floor of the Orphanage, in the large girls’ room at one end of the hall, studying myself in the depths of a dirty mirror. I’ve found a wash cloth and towel that are almost clean and an untouched bar of soap.
This is the morning of my first full day above ground, free of the cellar. Unbarred, uncaged.
I unzip my jacket, unbutton the few buttons still attached to the heavy wool shirt that’s under it until I’m down to just a flannel tee shirt, a grubby gray thing I haven’t taken off since we arrived in Raintree. I cup my hands, dip them into the cold water in the bowl and begin to splash my face and arms and hair. I drop the bar of soap into the bowl and try to work it into lather.
What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) Page 9
