by Harvey Click
Amy put the blanket back over her head and began to cry again, quietly this time.
“As for good and evil, let me ask you if you consider your country good,” Sandoval said. “Here in your country tens of thousands of people were lobotomized with the full approval of your good government, and tens of thousands more in the good and civilized countries of Europe. Many were lobotomized solely for the convenience of their families or because they were slow in their schoolwork—far less reason than I had for lobotomizing your brother. Children as young as four were lobotomized. Tell me, Miss Jackson, can there be a reason that’s consistent with your notion of ‘good’ to lobotomize a child of four?
“No. There’s only strength and weakness. Good and evil are fables invented by the weak. And where will you get strength? Will you get it from the God that you sort of believe in? Here, I printed out an ancient prayer for rescue. I’ll put it here on the floor of your cell so you can mumble it over and over to your heart’s content, and then you can see how many angels God sends to rescue you.”
Amy heard the whirr of his wheelchair moving back to the door he had come through, and she heard the door closing behind him. The guard was still away, and she took the blanket off her head to see if his keys were still on his table. They were, and the little light under the security camera was still red.
No doubt it was one of the traps Sandoval had promised. The red light meant nothing; they were watching her to see if she had the power to move the keys and to see if she would try. If she managed to move them and open her cell, she’d be rewarded with an icepick through the eye.
But she had to try—anything was better than this. She stared at the keys, doubled up her fist, and quietly chanted what she could remember of the telekinesis spell.
Nothing happened, and before long the guard came down the stairs and scooted another bowl of broth beneath her bars. This was a different guard, shorter and skinnier, and he stared at her as if he’d never seen a woman before. He retrieved the chair that Billy had dragged to her cell, sat down beside his table, and stared some more.
She ignored the bowl of broth because she felt too sick to eat. There was a folded piece of paper near it on the floor, apparently the prayer Sandoval had printed out for her, and she ignored that too. She lay down on the wooden shelf and covered herself with the blanket from head to toe. She didn’t want the guard to be able to stare at her legs or her face or any other part of her body.
It occurred to her that if she could unlock her cell and unlock the door to the room where they had killed Marci, maybe the wire noose and dumbbell would still be there. She would use the noose on herself without hesitation. She would close her eyes and roll the dumbbell off the table and be done with it all. This she wanted more than food or prayers.
She very quietly chanted the spirit-travel lullaby. Nothing happened, but she kept chanting it over and over because the melody was soothing. Finally she grew tired of chanting it and opened her eyes and saw that she was perched in a tree above the big flat rock in the center of Secret Place. The sun was sinking behind the hills in the west, leaving a purple bruise in the sky.
She wondered why she was here. Maybe Billy’s home no longer felt like home because of what they had done to him, and maybe the compound no longer felt like home because of what they had done to her comrades. But Secret Place felt gloomy and ruined as well because of what they had done to Marci. Amy no longer had a home to go to, even in spirit.
“Mary, is that you?” someone asked.
It was Neoma’s voice, and Amy moved her owl-head in all directions searching Secret Place for her. “Where are you?” she cried.
“Unfortunately I’m Sandoval’s guest at the moment,” Neoma said. “I hope you’re free.”
“No, I’m locked up in his basement,” Amy said. “Are all the others dead?”
“I don’t know,” Neoma said. “I was knocked unconscious and brought here, and I don’t know what happened to the others. They tell me only one other is alive, and apparently it’s you.”
“That’s what they told me,” Amy said. “Were you hurt? Did you have a concussion?”
“No, just a little knot on the back of my head. Were you hurt?”
“Not much. I’m okay now. If I can find the strength I’m going to fly around and see if I can find any of our friends.”
“You won’t find them,” Neoma said. “There can’t be enough still alive to rescue us, supposing they even know we’re here, so by now they’ve fled to their separate hiding places. Maybe if they can recruit some good people to help them they’ll come back someday and attack the house, but that’ll be months down the road. This debacle was entirely my fault, Mary. Their blood is on my hands. I’m so sorry that you weren’t able to escape.”
“Please don’t think that way, Milady. We all did our best, especially you, but you know what they say—the best laid plans of mice and men and all that. A listener in the barn ruined everything.”
“No, I ruined everything.”
Amy wanted to say something to make Neoma feel better, but nothing came to mind. “At least we’re here together, Milady,” she said. “You must be in a cell on the other side of the basement.”
“No, I haven’t been in the basement,” Neoma said. “For a while they had me locked up in the house, but I tried to escape and they moved me. I managed to kill one of them.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m in the factory, which they’ve turned into the shittiest hospital in the cosmos. They have me tied down to a gurney with a dozen straps and chains.”
“Why are you there? Did you get hurt?”
“No. A little while ago the doctor brought in a weird gizmo with some switches and dials on the front and two long cords with electrodes at the end. I think they’re planning to punish me with some electro-shock treatment.”
My God, Amy thought, they’re going to give her the icepick!
“What are you thinking?” Neoma asked. “I can hear you thinking something, but I can’t make it out.
Amy thought of a cinderblock wall and said, “Nothing, Milady. I’m just thinking of how much I miss you. I…I love you.”
“I love you too, Mary,” Neoma said. “I love you with all my heart.”
Amy began to weep, and when she opened her eyes she was back in her cell, her face still covered by the blanket. She chanted quietly and tried to spirit-travel again but wasn’t able. The lullaby brought her no comfort, so after a while she stopped chanting and sat up.
The skinny guard was dozing in his chair, and the basement seemed deathly still. The only sound was the noise of terrible thoughts raging in her head. Desperate for something to silence them, she picked up the paper Sandoval had left on the floor and unfolded it. The prayer was titled Psalm 140, and the first verse was, “Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man: preserve me from the violent man.”
There were thirteen verses, all of them pleading for deliverance from enemies: “Let burning coals fall upon them; let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again.” Amy read the lines over and over and then began to chant them quietly in the sort of plainsong used for Neoma’s spells. This woke up the guard, and when she saw him staring at her she draped the blanket over her head and continued chanting the psalm quietly beneath it, barely able to make out the lines in the dim light.
She had hoped the prayer would bring her comfort, but it didn’t. After a while she stopped chanting and tried to sleep.
Chapter 21
Amy dreamed that she saw Neoma lying naked on the big flat rock at the center of Secret Place, but when she reached out to touch her she realized that it was a statue carved out of marble, a classical Grecian statue of great beauty but devoid of life. She pressed her forehead against the cold marble and whispered words from her heart, hoping they would bring the stone to life.
She was awakened by noises above her head, the sound of people running back and forth upstairs. The guard heard it too—he
was awake and looking confused. He poked a number in his phone, spoke to someone, and then hurried up the steps, leaving the door open.
Now Amy could dimly hear voices from upstairs but couldn’t make out what they were saying. A minute later Karl and three other men hurried down the stairs and rushed past her cell without even glancing at her. Karl unlocked the door that led to the tunnel, and one of the men said, “Damn, I hate that stinking hole.”
“Shut up and get moving,” Karl said. He stepped in after the other three and shut the door behind them.
Amy smelled smoke and saw a plume of it drifting through the open doorway at the top of the stairs. The house must be on fire, and she knew that Blackwood had never had a fire department. If Sandoval’s men didn’t put it out, the burning house would collapse through the floor into the basement and she would be incinerated. But she’d probably be dead before that because the fire would suck the air out of the basement and she would suffocate.
Of all the damned miserable ways to die.
The guard had left his keys on the table and even his sword. She remembered Neoma had once said that fear brought out the best in her, and she felt fear now, more than fear, sheer panic. She made a fist, and fear sang the words of the telekinesis chant with perfect clarity. The keys flew off the table and landed on the floor of her cell.
The second key she tried unlocked her cell. She ran to the table and grabbed the sword. She looked up the stairs through the open door and couldn’t see or hear anyone up there in the pantry, but just as she was about to climb up somebody came running down.
She ducked behind the steps. It was the skinny guard. He went to his table and was apparently looking for his sword when she plunged it into the back of his neck. He fell backwards, his legs twitching as if trying to run from death, and she wasn’t sure what to do next. Another batch of men could be coming down any minute.
She ran to the door in the wall beside the stairs and managed to unlock it with the first key. She had forgotten all about Mack Riley until he said, “Hey, what the fuck’s going on in this dump?”
She couldn’t just leave him to die, though she was tempted, and this time she fumbled frantically with all three keys before she managed to get his cell unlocked. He tottered out and headed straight for the stairs.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked in a loud whisper.
“I’m gonna go up there and get me a fucking drink,” he said.
He was already on the third step when she grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him back down.
“They’ve got your booze in that room over there,” she whispered. “But I’m not giving it to you unless you keep your voice down.”
“That’s cool,” he said, and he started tiptoeing like a slapstick comedian toward the door she had just unlocked. “I’ll be just as quiet as a titmouse. Here titty, titty, titty.”
“Wait a minute,” she whispered. “First you’ve got to help me drag this body in there.”
“Hey, that’s gonna be my new motto, I drag for drink,” he said, laughing loudly at his own joke.
The guard had stopped twitching, but as they dragged him into the next room he left a wide streak of blood on the floor, like an arrow pointing to her hiding place. She locked the door behind them and was relieved to see that Marci’s body had been taken away, though the bloody noose was still hanging from the ceiling.
She wondered what to do next. The elevator would be even riskier than the stairs because they’d hear it whirring, but at any minute Sandoval and some of his men could descend in it fully armed. She opened the accordion-gate and slid the small table into the center of the cage. At least now Sandoval would have some trouble getting to the basement.
She was trying to unlock the other door without making any noise when Mack Riley said, “Hey, where’s all this fucking booze? I don’t see no booze in here.”
“Shut up,” she whispered. “It’s in the next room.”
“Speaking of titties, I like the way you’re dressed,” he said. “Do you know your ass is sticking out like a big ripe peach? So wha’d they arrest you for, indecent exposure?”
He began to laugh again, and the misery she’d been feeling all day suddenly exploded in a violent rage. She jabbed the tip of her sword against his belly and pushed him back against the wall.
“You see what I did to that guard?” she said in a whisper that was more like a snake-hiss. “If you don’t shut your fucking mouth I’m going to cut you open like a bag full of wet shit. I intend to get out of here alive, and the last thing I need is a brainless loudmouth wet-head slowing me down.”
“Sure, lady, sure, don’t get so fucking uptight,” Mack Riley said. “I was just trying to be friendly. Hey, watch out, that goddamn thing’s sharp.”
“Are you going to shut up and help me?”
“Sure, lady, anything you say.”
She backed up and found a bit of grim satisfaction in seeing a small spot of blood on his shirtfront. She went back to the door, grasped the knob and turned it quietly, hoping to find some of her comrades but afraid of finding enemies instead.
She opened the door and found neither, just a dark dirty basement. She flipped on the light switch inside the door and saw a big boiler, two water heaters, a utility sink, and some shelves filled with junk. There weren’t any steps to the upstairs, but there was a wide steel door at the far end. It apparently led to the outdoors, and beyond it there were probably steps wide enough to bring down a new boiler, but it was secured with a steel crossbar chained down with a big padlock.
She would have to go back and use the stairs to the pantry. She returned to the guard’s body in the middle room and unbuckled his belt, which had a cheap scabbard attached to it. She was unzipping his pants when Mack Riley said, “Lady, you are one sick chick. In case you ain’t been paying real close attention, that guy’s dead.”
“Shut up and get his shoes off,” she whispered.
While Mack was untying them she noticed that the back of one of his hands was tattooed “JIM BEAM” and the other “PBR.” He noticed her looking and said, “It’s convenient. I can tell the bartender what I want just by raising my hand. Usually I raise both of ‘em.”
The gray pants were too big for her, but they stayed up when she buckled the belt. She rolled up the cuffs and tried on his shoes. Fortunately he had small feet, though not as small as hers, and she didn’t want to put on his sweaty socks. With her sword she cut some strips off the bottom of her hospital gown and stuffed them in the shoes.
Mack Riley helped her get the guard’s shirt off, but unfortunately the back of it was soaked with blood. She rinsed it in the utility sink in the next room. There was only a slow trickle of rust-brown water, but eventually most of the blood seemed to be gone. She wrung out the shirt, turned her back on Mack Riley, and pulled off her gown.
“Here titty, titty, titty,” he said.
“Shut up,” she said. She buttoned up the wet shirt, tucked it in, and turned to him. He was still grinning from his titty joke.
“Listen to me,” she said. “If we don’t manage to escape from this hellhole, do you know what they’re going to do to you?”
His grin disappeared. “Sure, I’ve heard some rumors,” he said. “But that’s just drunk talk.”
“Where’s your friend Jerry Jefferson?” she said. “Did you know he was arrested?”
“Sure, everybody knows that.”
“Well, have you seen him since? Did you see him sitting in one of those cells back there?”
“No.”
“No, and you’ll never see him again,” she said. “I saw what happened to him. They hung him upside-down naked from a tree, and demons ate him. They stripped the skin right off his body while he was still alive and they ate it like bacon. They ate his eyeballs, Mack. They ate his nuts—and he was still alive and screaming when they did it.”
Mack’s face had gone white. “How do you know my name?” he asked at last.
“Never
mind that. Just try to sober up and use your head for a little while, and maybe we’ll be able to escape. But if we don’t get out of here, you’re soon going to be hanging upside-down from that tree and demons are going to be chewing on your nuts like strawberries.”
“Shit,” Mack said, his face drained of all color. “I’ll be good. You just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Just get us outta here.”
The dumbbell was still on the floor. Amy loosened the thumbscrews, removed the weights, and handed the bar to Mack. It wasn’t long, but it was heavy steel and could do some damage to a man’s skull.
She quietly unlocked the door to the room with the cells, eased it open an inch, and didn’t see anyone. She hurried to the bottom of the steps. The door at the top was still open, with black smoke drifting through it. She heard people tramping around on the floor above her head but didn’t hear anyone in the pantry.
“I’ll go first, you come up behind me very quietly,” she whispered.
Mack nodded and raised his steel bar, and she started up the stairs hoping that he wasn’t planning to hit her with it. No one was in the pantry, but the door to the kitchen was ajar and she saw a man standing at the sink trying to fill a bucket with water. Only a trickle was coming out of the faucet.
Another man came in with an empty bucket, and the one at the sink said, “You’re gonna have to wait a minute. This one’s only half full.”
“It’s the goddamn pump,” the other man said. “There’s hardly anything coming out of the sprinklers.”
“No, it’s the well,” said the man at the sink. “It’s going dry on us.”
“We got all that rain the other day.”
“Yeah, but that damn well’s been going bad for a long time. This whole place is falling apart.”
The man at the sink grabbed his bucket and hurried out while the other man shoved his bucket under the faucet. He had his back to Amy, and she ran in and plunged her sword through it. He was still clutching the edge of the sink and collapsing to his knees when Mack pushed past her and grabbed the man’s sword from its scabbard.
