Southern Ouroboros

by Matt Kilby

  “I told you,” Joe said. “I’m done.”

  “Good for you,” Pharaoh nodded and drove a spike through Joe’s temple.

  The darkness was instant and sent Joe to bed to wake again from dreamless sleep. This time, the light was solid white instead of blinking red, which meant the door to the long, white hall would be closed. He doubted it’d stay that way long, but a short peace was better than none at all. Yawning, he swung his legs over the bed and stepped onto the carpet. He took a short detour to the bathroom to empty his bladder and then shuffled into the kitchen to decide what to eat for breakfast. Of course, coffee had to come first so he went to the cupboard where there was always a full can and plenty of filters thanks to the grocery gnomes. He imagined little men in green fatigues restocking his provisions while he slept, his body mending from its daily death. If he had requests, he could tell them to the ceiling, but otherwise they gave him plenty of variety. One cabinet held different brands of cereal, and the freezer’s shelves were organized by meat, including thick steaks stacked like bricks. He considered thawing one to have with eggs to celebrate his day off. Then he opened the first empty cabinet.

  He should have seen it coming, but his gut still sank as he opened another. The freezer and refrigerator were empty too. Instead of restocking, they cleaned him out. He didn’t need to guess why.

  “This is my punishment?” he glared. “You think that’s going to make me fight? I thought you knew me. Well here’s a test. Let’s see how much more stubborn this power made me. I bet I could give my dad a run for his money now.”

  The speaker didn’t answer. He walked to the couch, surprised they hadn’t taken his television too but found out why when he turned it on. The only channel was Food Network, the current program showing how to sear a steak. He shook his head and laughed, giving them a good one before his stomach growled. With a sidearm toss, he flung the remote hard enough to break the screen, though the sound still came through. Yanking the plug from the wall, he went back to bed.

  He slept another hour before he smelled fried chicken and sat up to find the central air blowing. The assholes pumped it in the same way a mall food court drew customers. He imagined the soldier behind the glass, the Asshole Supreme, at the counter of a Cinnabon, glazing the filled racks, but the thought turned too quickly toward the food itself.

  “You’re not going to win,” he grumbled at the vent as if his captor lived there, but the only response was the light blinking red.

  He still wouldn’t fight, but dying would kill time. So he walked down the corridor to find Pharaoh leaning against the wall with a drumstick in one hand, licking the grease off the fingers of the other.

  “Want a bite?” he held the chicken leg out with a smile.

  “No thanks.”

  “You sure?” Pharaoh stopped the food short of his mouth. “As I understand it, if you punch me in the face it’s yours. Hell, you look like you want to do that without the incentive.”

  Joe nodded but then shook his head as he sat in the same spot as before.

  “You don’t want to do that,” Pharaoh closed his eyes long enough to shake his head too. “They don’t give a shit about your principles.”

  “Why does it matter? I can’t die, so I just have to deal with the hunger. I can hold out as long as them.”

  “I don’t think so,” Pharaoh said. “Believe me, I know hunger. You want to know where I came from?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you because it might be useful at this point in your life,” Pharaoh sat in front of him, crossing his legs the same way.

  “I was homeless once,” he continued and held the uneaten drumstick up. “I couldn’t tell you why—a lot of little things added up. I lost my job in a recession and had trouble finding a new one. Too much free time got me drinking, and my wife left with my kids soon after. I was alone and didn’t have nobody to ask for help when I was evicted.”

  “Tough break.”

  “Bad choices,” Pharaoh shook his head. “I deserved what I got. I didn’t beg. I didn’t look for a shelter. I ate out of dumpsters behind restaurants, scavenging until a man found me and asked if I wanted to change my situation. He said I could live like a rat or a king, and I told him I didn’t have much choice. He said I did, but I needed to trust him.”

  “At least he talked to you. He had his men shoot me with enough tranquilizers to take down a dinosaur.”

  “Not the same guy.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They told me he died last year in a place called Pine Haven.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Grady Perlson.”

  Joe suspected it all along but hearing his name spoken again forced him to close his eyes with a heavy sigh. “What did they do to you when you got here?”

  “Same thing they did to you,” he shrugged. “Same thing they do to all of them. You go to sleep and wake up feeling like you could fight a tank with your bare hands. Then they send you into the hall to prove you can.”

  “That sounds about right,” Joe lied. If Pharaoh told the truth, it might be best to hide the fact he was different.

  “Now, I can give you this chicken or eat it myself. It don’t matter to me, but we ain’t going anywhere soon, so we might as well get along, even if we are here to kick each other’s asses.”

  “That would be nice, but I’m not eating and I’m not fighting. I won’t hold it against you if you beat or kill me for your food. You have to do what you have to do. At the same time, I do too. If they want something from me, they need to pull back the curtain and ask. Otherwise, I’ll sit here until this whole facility crumbles into the dirt around me.”

  “You guy’s hear that?” Pharaoh looked up as he got to his feet. “I tried.”

  “You did,” the speaker squawked, “and we appreciate that. We’ll try something else.”

  “You should have listened,” Pharaoh looked back as he walked to the wall and leaned again, taking a bite out of the drumstick. Behind Joe, doors opened in a rhythm of pneumatic breaths. Footsteps followed and sounded like all the others came to join them. Joe didn’t bother to look back, keeping his eyes on Pharaoh as he ate the drumstick and tossed the bone on the floor.

  “Anything specific you want out of us?” He selected a bull whip from the wall and flicked his wrist to send it to its full length. At the end, a metal barb tapped the floor. With a grin, he looked to Joe.

  “Just don’t kill him quick,” the voice said.

  “I think we can handle that, right kids?”

  As if it was their cue, they came forward in a swarm, passing Joe to take their own weapons. The blunt ones went first and then those with smaller blades. When the stragglers were left with instruments best suited to kill, they took them with disappointed looks, knowing they wouldn’t get to participate until the end. When each was armed, they made a circle around Joe with Pharaoh in front.

  “You sure about this?” he asked with a squint.

  Joe answered with a nod and shut his eyes, taking a deep breath as if it would hold back the pain. With a crack, Pharaoh’s whip came fast to tear Joe’s shirt and the flesh beneath. Like a starting gun, it sent each of them forward, one at a time. All would get a turn. Some even made it to round 2. Swords and axes didn’t have to kill if they were in creative hands. He lost fingers and toes and wondered how he would grow those back but lost consciousness before he found out. The pain followed him into the dark, etched as surely as those memories of how Elaine smelled when she leaned her head on his chest. He tried to die, wondering if he could choose not to come back to life. But as his eyes fluttered toward waking, he knew better than to hope. With a breath as much sigh as yawn, he opened them in some kind of lab on a cold metal table, naked and covered with electrodes.

  Alone, he waited to see if anyone checked on him. When no one did, he pulled everything off one by one. He expected some alarm to go off, but when he was free, there was silence. Slipping off the table, he w
alked to the door and into a short hallway. At the end, another door led into a small room with a large mirror on his right and a larger table in the middle. Two men sat at the end facing Joe, and he couldn’t stop his laugh as he walked to where they expected him to sit. The whole set-up was too close to the conference room at Starks Prison to be a coincidence. The Asshole Beyond the Glass sat in Warden Carmichael’s place, and the man beside him wore a white lab coat, though Joe himself never had. In this scenario, he would be Grady and was grateful Starks Prison at least let the inmates come to their sessions dressed.

  “Have a seat, Dr. Richards,” the man in the lab coat gestured to the plastic chair across from him. Despite the situation, he wore a friendly smile and waited for Joe to settle. “My name is Dr. Frederick O’Neal. I’m sure you have questions for me, and I’m here to answer as many as I can. But I do want to preface this meeting by saying there are things I will not tell you. While Sergeant Ford and I disagree on many of the methods used to test you, we are of a singular mind on one thing: as resilient as your body has proven to be, your mind is more fragile. You know this as well as anyone here. There are things you are not ready to understand and may suffer severe psychological trauma in hearing. The last thing we want is to make someone who appears to be, by all definitions of the word, immortal also schizophrenic. Delusional. Psychotic. Do you agree?”

  Joe ignored the question as he put his forearms on the edge of the table. “I was just whipped, beaten, broken, disemboweled, and dismembered. Nevermind my single nagging thought is that the two of you are responsible for that. Nevermind that I really want to kill both of you right now. How am I sitting here in one piece?”

  “An excellent question,” O’Neal nodded deep. “Unfortunately, we don’t know. You simply heal, even from the most mortal injuries. Fascinating to witness, I must tell you, and frustrating that I can’t tell anyone. If my colleagues back home had an idea of what I’ve seen—”

  “We’d execute every one of them,” Ford muttered and met the doctor’s eyes.

  “Of course,” O’Neal managed another smile as he turned to Joe. “That’s why they can never know.”

  “I can kill him for you,” Joe sat back. “I’m planning to anyway, so why not now? You could take me home and throw a dinner party to show me off. Hell, I’ll be your pet god if you show me the door.”

  The doctor offered a short laugh so tinged with nerves it vibrated in his throat. He glanced to Ford as he did.

  “Do you think we brought you here without planning ahead?” the soldier sneered. “You scratch your balls in a way I don’t care for, I’ll put so much of that green shit in your veins you’ll piss fluorescent the rest of your life.”

  “Here I thought we were just talking,” Joe said. “I could try and take my chances. The worst I get is another hangover, but you—how confident are you I’ll go down before my hands are around your throat?”

  “Send him back,” Ford grunted. “Starve him a month and see how much fight he has.”

  “Is that all you wanted?” O’Neal asked Joe. “To threaten him?”

  “I want to know what this is for,” Joe shifted his attention to the doctor.

  “This is not the way to those answers,” O’Neal explained as if telling a child. “Despite your resilience and strength, cooperation is your best weapon. Give us what we want, and we’ll give you what you want.”

  “Then I want more,” Joe sharpened his focus.

  “You’re not getting out of here,” Ford said.

  “I’m afraid that’s not negotiable,” O’Neal added.

  “I want Wolgiss. Face to face. He wants to punish me for taking Grady, fine, but he can’t be a coward at the same time.”

  “That isn’t possible either,” O’Neal said.

  “I say let him handle this himself, if this jackass is so important,” Ford snapped.

  “It’s not that he won’t,” the doctor shook his head. “He can’t.”

  “I understand,” Joe said. “Whoever he’s living inside will do. I can tell the difference.”

  “Fine by me,” Ford said, “but if I were you, I’d start fighting again so you’ll be ready.”

  Dr. O’Neal shook his head with a long sigh that said he gave up. Standing, he tapped a finger on the table and stared at Joe.

  “Is that what you want?”

  Joe nodded.

  “And you’ll fight if we agree?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” the doctor huffed as he left.

  “But you need to show us you’ll cooperate,” Ford added. “No waiting for Wolgiss. You fight as soon as we put you back or the deal’s off.”

  “Fine,” Joe said.

  “Good boy. Anything else or are we done?”

  “I’m still going to figure out a way to kill you.”

  “Fair enough,” Ford raised his eyes. A thump of air sounded above, and a sharp pain pricked the top of Joe’s head, spreading numb warmth. They shot a tranquilizer into his brain, and the room swirled as his head dropped to the table.

  He woke in his room and stumbled to the toilet. It’d been so long since he ate, he didn’t vomit much. When he controlled the heaves enough to stand, he shuffled out and noticed the cabinets in the kitchen open and stocked. With more urgency in his step, he went to the refrigerator and opened the door to find a steak thawed and ready on the top shelf. A small envelope sat in front with a folded paper inside: a single sentence before O’Neal’s signature.

  I can’t give you Wolgiss, but fight hard and I’ll help you meet who’s really in charge.

  15

  A few hours after her dinner with Ben, Suzanne made up her mind. She couldn’t waste time waiting. Her only chance was before Robert found the tape, if he did, or Ben found out she told him. Sitting in the dark, she didn’t know what she expected. That Robert would listen, for one, and then set her free once he murdered his brother? Losing Ben would more likely make things worse, as he warned her. If he really was all that kept the lumbering psychopath in check, she needed to move.

  She tugged the cuffs down around her wrists, thumbs too swollen and tender to try forcing them out again. That’s what impatience bought her, though she had no way of knowing about the fishbone now tucked against her cheek. She was careful not to lose the bone as she slipped it between her lips to brace with her teeth. With a calming breath, she tilted her face toward her hand, stretching until her neck muscles screamed. The bone danced with the struggle, pricking her wrist twice before finding the cuff. She pushed, waiting for resistance to tell her she found the spring holding the teeth in place. The cuff popped open and caught again but opened enough to squeeze her hand through. She bit back the agony of her throbbing thumb, but with one hand free, the pain didn’t matter anymore.

  She pulled the bone from her teeth and worked on her left hand. Once out, she still had to get through the cell door and up the stairs to whatever door kept her down there and then past the house and field, all the way to the hotel where she left Vick. Even then, she might not be safe. She got out of those cuffs once but was back in them within a couple of minutes. What made this any different? She didn’t know. When the second cuff sprang open, she didn’t care. Somehow she was getting away.

  She crawled to her toilet bucket, glancing at the red blinking light in the corner of the ceiling. It didn’t matter if either of them watched, she reminded herself as she dug for the knife. Either she would die or live, but she wouldn’t stay a prisoner. Squeezing the steak knife in her fist, she rose and walked to the cell’s door.

  The padlock wouldn’t go as easy as the handcuffs. For starters, she never tried one before. She couldn’t think of anything to tell her how to pick a lock with a steak knife and fish bone, but she didn’t have any choice. Lockpicks were thin pieces of metal, so digging one around might work. That meant the fishbone, which seemed more fragile as she stuck it into the lock. Sure enough, it gave too much, coming out half an inch shorter. Whispering a c
urse, she put her forehead to the bars and thought. She couldn’t tell if desperation or time in the dark cleared her head but soon imagined the key that opened the lock. Then she figured it out.

  Keys had an end to do the bulk of the work but also a part to grip. The fishbone would never manage that, but the knife might. She jammed in the tip, leaving room to push in the bone. If it broke again, her escape was over, so she scraped around in silent prayer. She needed a miracle and then one happened. The lock gave in segments, each tumbler setting until the hasp snapped open and hung on its ring. She tossed it on the ground as she walked to the stairs.

  She took each riser slow to avoid a single betraying sound, though she didn’t know if the stairs led anywhere close enough for the brothers to hear. At the top, the hinged door could have opened in a field, near the house or maybe not. The further away they kept her, the harder it’d be for the police to tie them to it, which concerned Ben more than anything else. But as smart as he pretended to be, he must not have thought about that. Lifting the wooden hatch far enough to peek out, she found herself in the floor of the backyard shed, its door cracked. He didn’t put locks on those doors either, she realized as she lifted further to slither out on her stomach and crouch within the shed. Instead, floodlights beamed from the shed to the front of the house with nowhere to hide along the way. That didn’t help her chances of running, not if either brother waited at the window. Or rigged traps along the way. Maybe this was a game, part of her torture and their fun. Squatting, she debated playing, but a sound cut the thought as short as her gasp. At the house, a door slammed.

  She couldn’t tell if it was the front door or back or if one of them came her way. The only way was to stick her head out and risk being spotted. Squeezing the knife, she kept as still as possible and waited forever before a car engine started and the familiar blue sedan eased down the driveway. Ben left, which improved her chances, though the situation was far from perfect. Just because Robert was big didn’t mean he was slow, and there was little question what he would do if he caught her. As she debated, she glanced back to the hatch and understood. The door had a padlock after all, on the floor beside it, though she doubted it was an oversight. Putting her face to the shed’s door, she stared out at the backyard and total darkness, the other side of the house as well lit as this one. Though she couldn’t see that far, she had a strong intuition there’d be something at the back of the yard to keep her from slipping away through the trees. The only way out was through the house, and the only way she would manage that was to kill Robert. As bleak as the prospects were, she would never walk downstairs to that cage again. With a breath, she darted through the bright light into the shadows and crept toward the back porch.