by Simon Clark
‘Name?’ Instead of anxiety or fear she appeared calm – strangely calm.
‘I’m Mason Konrad,’ I told her. ‘Have they harmed you?’
‘Why should they?’
‘Your clothes … did they take them?’
‘They made me uncomfortable. I threw them away.’
So! This is no ordinary girl. I took another step backwards in the darkness. That absence of light got under my skin now. I mean, if a naked girl spoke so oddly what did she look like? Her breasts felt normal; as did her waist. But why did she speak in that way? As if detached from the reality of being in some black hole God knows where.
‘Mason?’ Her voice came as whisper through the darkness.
‘Yes?’
‘Where are you?’
‘Don’t worry, I’m close to you.’
‘Good.’
‘Are you frightened?’
‘Frightened?’
‘Do you know where you are?’
‘I’m with you.’ There was shimmering quality to her voice. ‘Will you hold out your hand so I can find you?’
My hands were staying firmly by my side until I knew what I was dealing with here. I tried my questions again. ‘What’s your name?’
No reply.
‘Where are you from?’
Silence.
‘Did they bring you here?’
No answer. This is getting bloody crazy, I told myself. She’s turning out to be a figment of my imagination just like old Natsaf-Ty, keeper of the flaming crocodiles. Deep breath, Mason. Try again. ‘You must remember your name?’
‘I’m sorry; I’m making you angry.’
‘I’m not angry.’ Slap her; make her talk. OK, that’s one of those devil-speaking-in-your-ear moments. My nerves still jangled from the attack by the Echoman. Hell, part of me suggested strangling her before she could do anything freakish. Or was it my balls telling me to do something freakish to her? I remembered the way my veins tingled when I touched her naked breasts.
‘Why have you stopped talking to me?’ The huskiness of her voice brought back the tingle.
‘I haven’t, but you’re not so generous with your answers, are you?’
‘I’m sorry—’
‘You’ve already apologized once.’
‘Sorry—’
‘Three times.’ Was I being snappish because there was a danger I’d speak in a way that would soon become over-friendly?
‘It’s difficult to explain,’ she murmured, ‘I want to tell you my name is Madeline—’
‘Why don’t you then? I won’t bite.’
‘I’m sure it is Madeline, but for some reason it’s not important anymore. I’m standing here in the dark. In one way I know I should be scared, but it just doesn’t trouble me. I’m OK about it. Does that seem strange to you?’
‘You’re probably disorientated. Madeline.’
‘Yes.’ A breathy ‘yes’ as if she relaxed.
‘Did you see who brought you here?’
‘No.’
‘They didn’t hurt you in any way?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You must feel cold.’
‘Do I feel cold to you?’ An invitation to touch her. Was that innocence on her part? Or guile?
For now I kept my distance. ‘I’m wearing a T-shirt,’ I told her. ‘I’ll hand it to you.’
This quickened her voice. ‘You’re giving me your clothes?’
‘The T-shirt anyway. Are you OK with that?’
‘Yes, I’d love to wear your T-shirt.’ For the first time there was some heat in her tone. Before I could even remove the garment, however, a light shone down from above. Of course, once I’d shielded my eyes against the dazzling blast it was only natural to squint up against the glare and see who the hell was there. But all my eyes were rewarded with was that searing shot of light. Still shielding my eyes, I turned my attention to the woman, Madeline.
She was naked as she stood there beneath the brutal light. Her eyes were part closed against its brilliance. Here was a woman around my age, twenty-eight. Neither plump nor skinny, her body was athletic without being chunky. Her naked limbs revealed subtle bulges of muscle; her breasts were dark-tipped; her hips had a pleasing breadth to them, and there’s no denying I felt a tingle of desire. Madeline had the tautness of a long distance runner. That formation of firm muscle extended to her face. Rather than soft, her features were sharply defined – high cheekbones, a strong nose and jaw, a pair of sharp dark eyes beneath black eyebrows. Her short dark hair emphasized the strength of her face. And she stood naked, and unashamed, and magnificent. For a moment the power of her attraction held my attention so I noticed nothing else. Thrills of arousal titillated my nerve endings. Then, at last, I forced myself to pay attention to my surroundings. Unlikely there would be an easy exit; however, I needed to form a picture of my prison, because surely that’s what had happened. The Echomen had jailed me. One good thing, the guy who’d attacked me had been removed – somehow.
So this is my cell: visualize it. A long narrow room formed by two concrete walls around seven feet high; they’re hastily built, mortar squeezes from joints, the blocks are uneven; at the base are careless gaps; this has been built in a hurry. The floor is tiled; these have been here years. They’ve had decades to mellow, so white tiles are speckled with tawny flecks. Every five feet, a row of black tiles, six inches wide, run from left to right. My cell is thirty feet long. It ends in a white tiled wall at each end. Not far from me is a brown blanket next to a plastic bowl. In the bowl are bottles of water and cellophane-wrapped cookies. They don’t want me to starve. File that, it’s important. They’re keeping me alive for a little while longer. But what of my cellmate?
Madeline was faintly familiar. If she came from Tanshelf we might have attended the same school. She was the right age for us to have been there together. Then again, I might have simply passed her in the street from time to time. Heaven knows, she’s beautiful enough to have made an impression on me.
‘You are cold,’ I told her.
She looked down at her breasts. ‘Gooseflesh. You noticed this?’ Which could be Madeline-speak for ‘sheesh, you were staring at my boobs.’
‘Here,’ I handed her the T-shirt. Eagerly she slipped it on, taking pleasure from my body heat still warming the cotton. I followed up with, ‘Don’t I know you?’
‘I’m not sure. Do you?’
‘You’re from Tanshelf?’
‘Hmm.’ She folded her arms in such a way she could stroke the fabric that had been next to my skin. I took the ‘Hmm’ to be an affirmative rather than an expression of sybaritic pleasure at being clad in what I’d been wearing just a moment ago.
‘You look familiar,’ I told her. ‘Very familiar.’ A creeping unease worked itself up my backbone. ‘Have you seen me before?’
‘I don’t think so.’ She smiled.
‘Never heard the name Mason Konrad?’
‘Mason Konrad?’ She liked repeating the name. ‘Mason Konrad.’
‘Madeline, are you taking the piss?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Have you seen this scar before?’ As I showed her the gouge marks, I called upwards into that retina-drenching light. ‘Hey! Is she one of yours?’
No reply from above, although I heard my voice echo as if it had gone booming up into some high-roofed cavern.
Hugging herself, she beamed at me with so much sex in the smile it reached out and teased my balls. ‘Mason, you’re nice.’
‘Am I?’ It took effort to keep my voice cold. ‘Am I really?’
‘You smell nice, too.’ In a way that was both pretty and winning she lifted the collar of my T-shirt so she could give it a mischievous little sniff from the inside. Without trying, I pictured her beautiful body beneath the flimsy fabric. I stared at her short dark hair. My hand immediately went to my own hair – my own short, dark hair, and possibilities began to whirl inside my head.
‘So you’ve neve
r seen this scar?’ I flashed her the Y again.
‘Nope.’
‘Nope?’ I mimicked her carefree ‘Nope’ as I snatched hold of her left wrist and looked at the back of her hand. My grip was brutal. Madeline smiled as if I’d only brushed the skin with the lightest of touches. I know what I expected to see there. What would be etched deeply into the skin. I’d seen the Y-shaped scar duplicated on the back of the trucker’s hand, and on the hand of the man who attacked me here in my cell just minutes ago.
‘What have you found?’ she asked, with such a lovely giggle that my heart lurched in my chest.
I took a deep breath before delivering the answer. ‘Nothing.’ Both hands were unblemished; OK, a freckle or two, certainly no scar. ‘Madeline? Can you remember anything else about yourself? Where you live? Have you—?’ The killing of the light stopped my voice dead. Once more we were in total darkness. Me, holding her wrist, the skin made mine tingle. She rested her hand against my chest in such a gentle way that a delicious shiver ran through me. I released her wrist then put my arm protectively around her shoulders. She allowed herself to sink against me. Why I hadn’t done this before I don’t know, but I lifted my free arm above my head to feel for the top of the concrete wall. Now the darkness was back would be a good time to climb over the barrier and vanish from the Echomen’s lair – because lair it undoubtedly was. Lair and jail. Maybe death chamber? The bastards want to kill me – remember the truck driver? Remember Old Snotter? The once harmless drunk who tried to suffocate me? And where is Eve? Where is Mom? The darkness stabbed me through and through with edgy thoughts. Had they hurt my mother and sister? The moment I reached up, though, expecting to find the top of the wall with thin air above it disappointment dropped like a stone inside of me. Although I couldn’t see it now, or against the glare of light earlier, I realized that a metal grid formed a roof to my cell. So that’s where the clanging footsteps came from. Echomen walking on the ‘roof’. The metal grid rested (bolted probably) on top of the concrete walls to form the lid that kept me in.
Then these three things happened:
One: from the darkness above a cascade of petrol doused us.
Two: a narrow beam of light shone directly downward through the grid roof. It illuminated a man of around fifty with a wild mane of silver hair. He stood twenty paces from me, probably entering the cell through a hatch when we were plunged into darkness. With the light came a second cascade of petrol that drenched him from his bushy head to the brown boots he wore. The boots were the same colour as the leather belt he wore with a wolf’s-head buckle in gold-coloured metal. It didn’t match the rest of his clothes, that belt. Was he given it as a present and felt obliged to wear it? Was it a souvenir from his youth? The wolf head might have had huge meaning for him in his teens. Now when he buckled the belt around his waist it might reconnect him with happier times from the past.
Three: exactly halfway between the white-haired stranger and me, a small object dropped from above to clatter on to the tiles. The illumination revealed the object to be a cigarette lighter.
Soaked with petrol? The appearance of the petrol-drenched man and the lighter? The significance wasn’t lost on me. The newcomer started to run at the same moment I did. Only after five paces I fell to my knees.
chapter 12
In that cell the sole source of light was the narrow beam that shone directly downward behind the man who now ran toward the cigarette lighter on the floor. Even so, enough light bounced from the wall and white tiles to make the wolf’s-head belt buckle flash, while the man’s eyes blazed at me as if they were balls of blue fire. Madeline didn’t appear freaked by the approach of the petrol-soaked man. She merely stood back, then watched with a serene expression.
Already the fumes made me gag; they filled my chest like I’d been abusing solvent; a giddy vertigo tried to topple me. Even so, by the time the stranger reached the cigarette lighter I deliberately dropped to my knees. The cold spirit raged on my lips where the petrol had run into my mouth, stinging the flesh. Thoughts spat through my head: petrol-soaked man grabs lighter; he’ll rush at me. No doubting what his plans are: he’ll put the flame on me. The petrol will turn me into a human blow-torch.
I knew I couldn’t hope to use the lighter on him. The moment I ignited it, the vapour would ignite, then we both ignite. As far as I knew, there was no place to get rid of it, even if I reached it first. We’d end up wrestling all over the fucking floor for possession. So here I was on my knees. The guy armed himself with the cigarette lighter. He ran toward me, fumbling at the little silver wheel on the thing. Scrape … scrape … scrape … as he rotated igniter against flint.
I’d thrown myself to my knees where the blanket and bowl had been left. My leg bashed the bowl across the floor to scatter cookies and water bottles. Then I had the blanket in my hand. Straight away, I rubbed at my face, hair, shoulders and bare chest, trying to soak up that drenching of fuel. No way could I dry myself properly; it’s like I’d bathed in petrol; it dripped from me; it sprayed from my hands when I shook them. I left petrol footprints on the tiles. But I got the blanket good and moist with premium octane fuel. The silver-haired man bore down on me, eyes blazing, mouth becoming a leer; a human shark coming in for the kill. Scrape, scrape, scrape – his thumb worked the igniter wheel to produce the spark. Petrol soaked him, too; more so than me because he wore clothes, the fibres holding it there. A volatile mixture that’s not just flammable, it’s explosive. If you’ve seen a burning car explode you know what I mean. When lunatics drink fuel and light a cigarette their lungs blow out through their chest in sheets of flame. That stuff is liquid dynamite. Five paces from me, petrol-man is slowing so he can concentrate on getting his fuel-slippery thumb a purchase on the silver wheel. Scrape, scrape … I’m ready. The moment he grunts with fascination as the blade of yellow pops from the end of the lighter that’s the moment I throw the blanket over the guy. It would be no trouble to him to swat it aside but he uses the hand that holds the cigarette lighter. The fuel-drenched blanket catches light. His arm bursts into flame. That arm becomes a living fuse wire that carries the blue fire up to his shoulder where it explodes the vapour streaming from his hair. One second later he erupts. He’s a whirling, screaming meteor, running blindly into the concrete wall. The impact leaves pieces of burning man on the block work. That howling, mortal fireball attempted to run at me, but his eyes must be seared by now; he can’t see a thing and trips over the water bottles. Past the point of no return, he lies writhing in agony as the petrol-soaked clothes blaze with all the fury of a furnace. Gone.
‘He can’t hurt us now!’ I shout this back to Madeline who stands watching. All the time she shows no horror. A little smile turns up the corner of her lips. The golden fire lights up her eyes.
I’m still stinking with fuel, still dangerously volatile in more ways than one. So I kept my distance from the burning Echoman. No doubt about it, he had to be one of those creatures. Although he didn’t resemble me. Or anyone I knew.
The second his movements slowed as the blood began to boil inside his heart, I heard a roaring. What I took to be negligent construction work that had left three-inch gaps between some of the concrete blocks where the wall rested on the floor became obvious. It became obvious where we were, too. This was a swimming pool. A disused one that had been partitioned by concrete walls. Sure enough, water gushed through gaps in the block work. This was no trickle. It was a full-blooded torrent of fresh water. It swirled round the burning corpse to kill the flame. Soon it was up to my knees. I made use of the water, too. I was only dressed in shorts so I’d dry fast with or without bath towels. Despite the biting cold of the water I plunged myself into it to flush the gasoline from my skin. It’s no fun wearing a coat of high octane to start with. I didn’t want the Echomen repeating the trick with the cigarette lighter. Even though the water didn’t get any deeper than my knees I managed to completely immerse myself. Madeline did the same. Even as I climbed to my feet the water began to
run back out again. Shallower, shallower, shallower. In moments it did nothing more than slick the tiles at the bottom of our customized swimming pool. My attacker was nothing more than a charred mess now. The force of the draining water had carried the body against the wall. Now it lay beached on the otherwise clean expanse of white tile.
This was a good moment to tell my jailers what I thought. ‘You made it so fucking easy! Call that an attempt on my life? I killed him like I’m going to kill all of you!’
Madeline looked at the grid above her head, too. Her face had a pleasant, relaxed expression, as if she did nothing more than gaze up at an attractive harvest moon.
When the lights went out I moved fast. Guiding myself by touch alone, I found the burnt corpse. With luck, the Echomen didn’t use any kind of night-scope to see us in the dark. Sure as eggs-are-eggs they’d remove the body in the dark, just as they did with the other guy who attacked me. First, I want to see what’s in your pockets. The guy’s clothes were crispy to say the least. Artificial fabrics had fused with his skin. Again by fingertip searching I located his pockets. You never know, there might be a knife, or a gun. I figured that he would have carried some additional armament but – damn it. Nothing. Not even a handkerchief. Clanging footsteps sounded overhead. The Echomen are coming to collect their fallen hero. Some fucking hero. They’d made an incompetent attempt to murder me. Patting the burnt corpse I searched for anything that would help me survive down in this cell. The body smelt like roast pork. The face had become a hard crust with a nose that felt like a lump of baked pastry. A loud clang came from above my head; a hatchway opening?
Damn. Frustration made me want to curse. Yet, this might be the only chance I got to salvage something of use. My hand closed over the man’s belt. I remember it was a sturdy strap of leather. It should have survived the fire to a certain degree anyway. Fumbling for a moment in the darkness I finally discovered that wolf’s-head buckle. Heat still lingered there despite the soaking in cold water. Even though the hot metal stung my fingers, I opened the buckle. More sounds from above; they were coming for their comrade. If I didn’t move quickly they’d find me there, too. Come on, come on … I prepared to pull the belt through the trousers’ loops. No need: the fire had burnt them to ash. The belt slid easily from that dead meat’s waist.
