by Wilson, Tia
“I’ll have the chef draw up a meal plan for the next three days and you can look it over and see if its to your liking,” Slattery said.
“What about meals after the three days,” Lewis said chewing a chunk of the greatest steak he had ever tasted as juice ran down his chin.
“Lets not worry about that for now,” Slattery said with his usual crooked smile and he turned and left the corridor swinging the heavy metal door shut behind him.
I’d love to rip that fucking smile off your face Lewis thought as he shovelled fries into his mouth. When he was finished Lewis slid the tray back out under the bars. He stood in the far corner of the cell to get a better view of the outside world. The corridor in front of the cell went off to the right for twenty or so meters and ended at a brown metal door. Three other cells lined the corridor.
“Anyone else here,” Lewis asked. Nothing. “Hey any other unlucky fuckers here?”
He heard a rustle of cloth and then a dry laugh. “Hey chief, I saw them dragging you in unconscious a couple of hours ago. How’s the head?” asked the voice from a few cells away.
“It’s all good. They are feeding me some grade A food, whats up with that?” Lewis asked.
The other man coughed a deep rattling wheeze and said, “They like you to be strong for your fights. They give you only the best of the best. Nothing is too good for their sport.”
“How long you been here man?” asked Lewis.
“Three weeks or four maybe. I’m not sure really. You’re the first new inmate since I got here,” he said.
“What is this place?” Lewis asked, “I was on my way to be transferred to another prison and bam I’m brought to this freak show.”
“Same here. I was being moved from gen pop to a low security prison to finish off my last year of time. The last thing I remember is throwing my stuff into a bag. Then I wake up with a bump the size of an orange on the back of my head and I’m in this hell hole.”
“What is it,” Lewis said getting impatient, “is it a government run work farm or something?”
“You heard the man Slattery. You’re here to fight. You win your fight then you get to live another day. I’ve had three fights so far. I don’t know how many more I can take,” he said trailing off.
“Is it the drug cartels, the mafia what the fuck is going on, are they betting on us for money?” Lewis said.
“Look man you ask too many questions. None of that stuff matters. You fight when they call on you,” he said.
“Whats your name?” Lewis asked.
“Phil,” he said.
“I’m Lewis, good to meet you Phil. Look who are we fighting? You won three already, are they setting us up with chumps?”
“I don't know, I don't know,” Phil said repeating it over and over again.
“Hey man snap out of it, pull it together, who do we fight?” Lewis shouted.
Phil never replied, he kept chanting and repeating the same line over and over again. Lewis had known guys like him in the joint. One day they seemed perfectly fine and then something snapped inside and they never came back from the void they fell into. A prisoner in the next cell on death row had one day started listing the months of the year again and again. Lewis knew the man was lost as he spilled into whatever personal hell his mind had created for him. I’ll never be like that Lewis had thought to himself. I’ve a strong mind and strong body and no guard or prison cell was going to strip him of that.
He paced back and forth across his cell, it took him three steps to cross it from side to side and five steps from back to front. Lewis counted his steps as he walked. At a thousand steps he would change his path from left to right and then alternate from back to front. The movement kept him focused and his mind turning. He rolled around a few ideas in his head about what the place could possibly be. He kept returning to the idea that he was caught up in some underground fighting and betting ring. It all seemed to make a twisted kind of logical sense. The ring needed a constant influx of fighters and where was a better place than a prison. The prison was a place with a selection of the most hardened men, both physically and mentally who society had discarded and no one would care if they went missing. That had to be it Lewis thought to himself, some drug lord had set up an underground fight tournament pitting inmates against each other. He spit onto the straw covered floor and cursed to himself. If he was right he was nothing but a disposable slab of meat who was going to get wheeled out to fight for a baying crowds amusement. This is not how it is going to end for me Lewis promised himself as he began to pace faster back and forth.
CHAPTER FOUR
Twin Rock
The faded and peeling sign read ‘Twin Rock’ and directly under it was printed ‘All are Welcome’ in a curling cursive font. They drove through the main street and Grace saw a toy shop with a sun faded window display, a bar with a poster in the window for a local band and Tom pulled the car to a stop outside a hardware shop with a wooden sign with an image of a man chopping down a tree.
The main street looked like it could have been from one of a thousand small towns around the country. Some small business’ were boarded up and the town had a faded charm to it that Grace liked. Across from where the had stopped was a diner with a neon light above the door, ‘Gail’s Place’, it said in curving glass. The place looked like it could seat twenty or so patrons and Grace could see it was half full. A few of the people inside turned to look out at the car across from them, some pointing and smiling in her direction. She waved across at them self consciously and two older men waved back at her.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Tom said getting out of the car and going into the hardware store. A bell over the door rang as he entered. The streets of the town were empty and Grace could see at the end of the street a wooden pagoda in a well tended park. She looked in at Tom and she could see him talking to the man behind the counter.
Grace got out of the car to stretch her legs and she walked down towards the park at the end of the street. She passed by a general store with ads stuck in the window on small cards. Most seemed to be advertising forestry jobs in the local area. As she got close to the pagoda she could see a young woman with a baby in her arms sitting down and leaning against the wooden railings. Grace sat on the wooden steps and looked across at the wooded area at the back of town. She could make out a clearing were people had built cabins.
“Beautiful day out,” Grace said to the woman.
The baby gurgled in the woman’s arms and she said, “Sure is. Are you new to town?” the woman asked as the baby twisted and turned in her arms.
“I got here a few minutes ago. I came here with Tom. Do you know him?” grace asked.
The woman’s eyes went wide and she stared at Grace with her mouth open. After a beat she said,”You’re her aren’t you?”, as she got up and walked over to Grace. The woman stuck her hand out and Grace shook it. “I’m Anne Twill by the way. Can I ask if you would touch my babies head? I’d be mighty thankful if you did.”
“I don’t know who you think I am,” Grace said standing up.
“You’re here to bring the tribes together. You will end the great division and bring peace and harmony to all bear kind. I knew it was you as soon as I saw you approaching. You have a quality about you, an inner light that we can all sense. Please,” she said holding her baby out towards Grace. The baby kicked his legs and was tensing its body as his face began to redden. His face was scrunched up and he looked like he was about to cry any second.
Grace looked from the woman to the baby, not knowing what to do. She reached out and stroked the soft skin of the babies forehead. The change was nearly immediate, as the baby stopped twisting in his mothers arms and the flush of red faded from his face. The baby gurgled at Grace as its heavy lids slowly closed into a restful sleep.
“See,” the woman said. “You are the one,” she said, as the baby let out a sleepy burble.
Graces ordered and structured life seemed so far away from her now. She wis
hed she was sitting in her apartment right now with everything around her neatly stacked and placed to her exact specifications. She yearned to be in her kitchen where every label in her fridge was turned to the front and everything ordered alphabetically in her cupboards. As appealing as it sounded to be back in the cocoon of her own space she knew it would mean one thing, not being with Tom. That was something she was starting to realise she didn’t want to happen. She never believed in the myth of love at first sight and she didn’t think she loved Tom, and yet she couldn’t stop thinking about him even through all the fear of the last few days. Constantly at the back of her mind was Tom, she felt like she could do anything when by his side. Her desire to have a well ordered life seemed to burn in the fires of her feelings for Tom. This is all happening too fast she thought to herself as she stared blankly ahead.
“Are you okay?” the woman with the baby asked.
“Sorry,” Grace stammered and then sat down on the pagoda steps, “I’m not sure whats come over me. This town, the things Tom has told me they are a little overwhelming. I still feel likeI’m inside a fairytale.”
The woman kissed her babies head and looked at Grace with kind eyes and said, “My husband felt the same when he found out about me.”
“You’re a bear,” Grace said interrupting her.
The woman smiled and said, “Most of the town is. There are some husbands and wives who are human, they know the truth about us. Otherwise our clan keeps to itself mostly and has since the beginning of time.”
“You’re married to me, one of us, a human I mean,” Grace said stumbling over her words.
“Fifteen happy years this coming winter. We are not the only mixed couple in town, we are rare but there are a few of us. Bears generally like to stay with their own kind, but sometimes you meet someone and everything falls away and you would do anything to be with each other. I can see in your eyes that you might of met that someone special already.”
Grace glanced away, thinking about Tom again. It was all she seemed to be able to focus on lately. “I don’t know yet, everything is still so new. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that shape shifting bears exist,” she said with an exhausted laugh.
The woman reached out and rubbed Graces shoulder and said, “It will get easier for you I promise that. You’ll soon see we aren’t much different from regular humans, we all want the same things that you folks do. Give it a chance.” Tom came out of the hardware store and looked up and down the street. He saw Grace and waved in her direction. “Looks like your someone special is calling you,” she said.
“How do you know it’s him,” Grace asked as she stood up.
“We bears know things, we can sense things that humans might miss. I live above the diner on main street, call into me any time you want someone to talk to. My door is always open for a new member of our town.” the woman said and then kissed the top of her babies head.
Grace smiled at her and then walked up the street to meet Tom. His face was tight and serious when she got to him. “What were you doing?” he asked her in a worried tone.
“I wanted to explore a little. I was speaking to a nice woman named Anne Twill at the pagoda,” Grace said.
Tom sucked in air sharply and pointed at the pagoda, “Anne Twill has been dead twenty-five years. You couldn’t have been speaking to her.”
Grace looked back at the pagoda and it was empty. Her mind spun and she felt a tickling crawl across the back of her neck. If transforming bears existed she thought maybe ghosts and other horrors were out there waiting to be found. She could feel the blood drain from her face and said, “Is it a bad omen if a ghost contacted me?”
Tom looked at her face, a stiff mask of seriousness and pointed across the street. Anne Twill was very much alive and opening a door beside the entrance to the diner.
Toms serious face dissolved and he burst out laughing. Grace punched him playfully on the arm.
“You lier,” she said laughing with him, “I was ready to believe anything. If you told me the creature from the black lagoon lived in your towns lake I would have fallen for that too.” Grace went to punch him again and he grabbed her fist and pulled her close to him.
They stared into each others with wide grins on each others face and then they kissed. Sparks wheeled and buzzed through her body as he held her tight. When the kiss ended she felt lightheaded as a pleasurable warmth spread through her core. Her lips hummed from pressure and she ran her tongue along the back of it enjoying the buzz of electricity.
“I have to go away for a few days,” Tom said and the pleasurable buzz quickly dissipated in Graces body, now to be replaced with something else, a dark and oily serpent curled in a corner draped in shadows and waiting to digs its fangs into the first ankle to gets within striking distance.
“For how long?” Grace asked hoping to hide the gnawing worry she was feeling already.
“One week. One of our clan elders is being held and I’m going to go and get him,” Tom said.
“Can’t someone else go and be the hero,” she asked.
“I have to go. The clan is depending on me. We know were he is being held and it will be very easy to get him back. The man is called elder Silas and he is very important to our clan. If you knew what those other twisted animals do to our sort you would never ask me to stay.”
Grace felt a twinge of regret for coming across so needy. “I understand,” she said.
“Don’t worry you wont be alone. The whole town will be very interested to meet you. The elders have set up an apartment across the hall from your new ghost friend Annes place. So you will have some company,” he said and reached up and held her face gently, “don’t worry about me. Im going down south with eight other guys. We will be in and out and back quicker than you think. Before I go I want to take you in to meet Elder Franklin, he runs the hardware store.”
The hardware store looked like it hadn’t changed in decades, an old noticeboard hung in the entryway and faded calendars with pickup trucks, tractors and harvesters hung beside yellowing ads selling the latest tools and workwear. At the back of the store was an old wooden counter its surface shiny from a plethora of transactions and general chin wagging sessions the clientele would have, most of the time they were in the store to talk rather than buy. Standing beside the cash register and stroking his snow white beard was Elder Franklin. His head was as smooth as a golf ball and just as dimpled, with several ruts and indentations across his great dome. His large stomach hung over the waist of his blue jeans and his belt buckle had at least three different leather pouches attached to it. As grace walked towards him he dropped the tools catalogue on the counter and stared at her openly.
He outstretched his hand and Grace took it. Her hand was engulfed in his huge mitt as he shook her hand with vigour. “It’s amazing to finally meet you. I’m Elder Franklin, one of the seven elders of this ancient clan. Tom has been telling me all about you and I’m sure you have a thousand questions about us.”
Grace nodded her head as Elder Franklin continued, “All in good time my young lady. Everything will be answered and explained to your full satisfaction. I know Tom has told you that he has to go away for a few days. I think its best you take that time to relax and get settled into town life. When Tom returns we will have a town meeting and you will get a chance to meet everyone. We have set you up across the street in a very nice apartment, and Tom tells me you have already made friends with your new neighbour. Anne and her husband are both fantastic people. If you need any help do not hesitate to ask them and if they cannot help you, you are always welcome here and I’ll help you out as best I can.” Franklin nodded at Tom and then picked up his catalogue and returned to it. Grace could see the time for conversation was over with him.
“Lets go,” Tom said and left the store with Grace following.
“Well, that was abrupt,” Grace said.
