by Hakok, R. A.
*
I COME TO SUDDENLY, like someone’s just flicked a switch inside me. The experience is abrupt, jarring, and for a few seconds I just lay there, blinking in the gray half-light, awake but empty, unsure of what I am now, or who I might have been before.
There’s a strange taste in my mouth, like metal. A smell, too: charred, sulfurous. I look around. The room I’m in is small. Concrete on three sides, the fourth, bars. The narrow cot I’m lying on takes up most of the floor. At the foot of the bed a toilet, without seat or lid. Above it a steel mirror, bolted to the concrete. Otherwise the walls are bare. Something’s wrong, though, not with the room, but…
It takes me a moment to work it out. There’s no color, just gritty, ashen tones. Everywhere I look it’s the same, just grainy shadows, shades of gray and black.
Is this how I see things now?
A helpful voice inside my head suggests that’s the wrong question. It wonders how I’m seeing anything at all. I look around the cell again. The voice has a point. There are no windows. The corridor beyond the bars is dark.
I sit up slowly, noticing for the first time that my ankle is bandaged. There’s a sensation there I recognize as pain, but somehow it’s distant, unimportant. For a moment another memory – the creak of a hinge closing; something hard, metallic pressing there – threatens to break the surface, but then slips under again.
From somewhere outside my cell, the fitful chug of a generator. A different memory shifts, slowly uncoiling itself. But when I reach for it it retreats, just like the first.
I stare down at my ankle again. I wonder if I am injured anywhere else. I roll my shoulders. The smell becomes momentarily stronger. I tilt my head to one side, testing the air, trying to work out where it’s coming from. It’s heavy, cloying. It clings to my nostrils, so thick and rich it’s almost a taste.
The generator grumbles away in the background, its lumpy clatter muted by the concrete between us. I probe for a little while longer and then all of a sudden it hits me.
A heavy wooden chair. Leather straps, tight across my arms, chest.
Something bad. I was afraid.
A metal cap for my head.
A tumble of memories now, each more vivid than the one before.
Cold water streaming down my cheeks, the briny taste of it in my mouth.
A small man with pale eyes and a cane, his hand on a lever.
The hairs on the back of my neck rising on a wave of gooseflesh.
A loud bang and an instant of unbearable pain.
Suddenly I’m standing. It happens so fast I put a hand out to steady myself. But it’s unnecessary. There’s no dizziness, no disorientation. I stare down at the thin mattress, at the shallow indentation where I was just lying.
What just happened?
I don’t remember deciding to get up. I was thinking about it, and the next thing…
I bring the back of my wrist to my nose.
I know what the smell is, now.
I hold out my hand, flex my fingers.
Have you ever smelled burning flesh?
Have you smelled your own?
It’s not just the smell, though; I realize I can feel every singed hair, every inch of bruised, charred skin. My mind isn’t ready for this; it baulks at the sheer volume of information, the absence of control. There’s another part of me, however, an older, animal part, the part that never cared to trade tooth and claw for reason and intellect.
That part is already rejoicing.
I return my gaze to the bars, just as the last of the memories slot into place.
Mags.
I can’t be here.
Next thing I know I’m standing at the front of the cell, barely aware of the sequence of actions that brought me here. I grasp the thick steel, but it won’t budge. A voice inside my head, familiar, but somehow calmer, quieter, tells me I should pay attention to that. The rest of me’s already busy shouting. At first my cries come incoherent, wordless, but soon they settle around a name: Finch.
I keep it up for what seems like an eternity. At last from somewhere off in the darkness I hear the soft click-tap of heels and cane on concrete. As they get closer I can make out the heavier footsteps of two others behind him. I can smell them now too, the faint odor of their sweat. From the end of the corridor there’s the sound of a gate opening, and then a flicker of candlelight. It grows steadily brighter, bringing with it traces of color.
At last Finch appears in front of my cell. The men take up positions on either side of him. I know their names. Tully and Knox.
Finch leans forward on his cane, regarding me through the bars.
‘And how is the patient feeling?’
‘How long was I out?’
He waves the question away, as if it is unimportant.
‘How long?’
‘A matter of hours.’
‘You need to let me go.’
‘All in good time, Gabriel. All in good time.’
‘No, now. I’ve shown you it works. That was the deal.’
He shakes his head.
‘You are back with us, and that is indeed encouraging. A proof of concept, so to speak. But you offered me a transformation, not merely the right to preside over yours. Rest assured, once your part of the bargain has been satisfied I will release you.’
‘She doesn’t have that time.’
His pale eyes grow brighter, but he just shakes his head again, more slowly this time.
‘I’m sorry, Gabriel. We had a deal. A man’s word is his bond, and I mean to hold you to yours.’
I feel a rage then, sudden and terrible, rising up inside me. I grip the bars tight, press my face to the cold steel. The quiet voice warns me that this will do no good, but the fury in me drowns it out. My lip curls upwards in a snarl.
‘Let me out, you son of a bitch.’
Finch’s face hardens, his features twisting with appalling suddenness. He raises a hand and the one called Knox steps forward, shoulders tight, his muscle-bound body following a simple program his much smaller brain has not yet thought to re-evaluate. He raises his hands, cracks his knuckles, signaling the ease with which he could snap my bones.
The quiet voice speaks again, telling me it is still not too late. There is another game to play here, a smarter one.
Just step away from the bars.
The other part of me is in no mood to heed that advice, however. I tilt my head to one side, watching the big man’s approach with disdain. He moves so slowly.
The voice sighs. For now it cannot compete with the anger. Instead it puts itself to better use, measuring distance against the reach of my arm.
Not yet.
Wait.
Wait.
I relax my grip on the bars. He’s still coming forward, as yet unaware of the mistake he’s made. I allow him one more step before I reach through - very fast, oh, so very fast - and slip my hands behind his head. His eyes widen, only now beginning to sense the trouble he’s in. I feel the first hint of his resistance, but he’s left it far too late. I grasp tightly, bracing my feet against the steel, then yank him towards me. There’s a soft crunch as his face slams into the bars and he goes limp. I hold him there for a second then release my grip, letting him slump to the floor.
Tully takes a quick step back with the candle, showing more intelligence than I had earlier allowed him. Finch’s expression doesn’t change, but his eyes seem to shine. I jab a finger at him.
‘You let me out. You let me out now.’
For a long moment he doesn’t budge. Then without warning he lifts the cane and takes a step closer. He glares back at me through the bars, and now those pale eyes seem hot enough to strike sparks from the steel. When he speaks again his voice has lost all of its softness.
‘You should take care not to offend me, Gabriel. If you do you will have to stay in there until I feel better towards you.’
He holds my gaze for a long moment. Then without warning he steps back. His voice softens again
.
‘Well, I believe it is time. Mr. Tully, if you please.’
Tully sets the candle down. When he turns back towards me he’s holding a familiar metal flask, a length of fraying cord looped around the handle. He sets it on the ground, pushes it forward with the toe of his boot. Finch taps it with his cane.
‘To sustain you.’
Tully slips his hands under Knox’s shoulders and starts dragging his limp form down the corridor. Finch continues to examine me through the bars. The flickering candle casts ugly shadows over his face.
‘I have to say, Gabriel, I don’t much care for your new look.’
He lifts the cane, points it through the bars.
‘I fear we may have left you out there in the yard a little too long.’
*
AFTER FINCH HAS GONE I retrieve the candle from where Tully left it and bring it to the back of the cell. Above the toilet there’s a small square of stainless steel, bolted to the concrete. I hesitate for a second, then step in front of it. Years of neglect have left the metal dull, but it shows me enough.
The eyes that stare back at me from the mirror have sunken deep into shadow. The virus has taken a knife to the rest of my face, too, carving away my cheeks, sharpening my jaw, thinning my nose. I run my hand over my newly-shorn scalp. It’s done its work there as well; my fingers can trace every curve and angle of the bone beneath.
Finch was right. I’ve definitely looked better.
I lean a little closer, holding the candle up. It takes a few seconds to find it, but when I tilt my head just the right way I catch a flash of something behind, like a fish, knifing through water. I was expecting it, but it’s a shock nonetheless.
I return to the cot, but I can’t settle. I’m not tired, and even if I were I couldn’t sleep now, assuming that’s still a thing I do. If Finch was telling the truth about how long I was out it’ll be four days since Peck took Mags from Fearrington. By now they’ll be well into Virginia, more than half way back to The Greenbrier.
I can’t be here.
I return to the bars and start shouting. That does little except rile up the fury in the cell next to me, but I keep it up for a while regardless. Eventually I grow tired of listening to my voice just echo off into darkness. I don’t have it in me to sit still, so instead I take to pacing the thin strip of concrete between bed and wall. The generator continues to chug, marking indifferent time with its lumpy idle. I return to the bars every now and then to call out to Finch, but I don’t hear from him. The candle burns low. At some point I start to feel a scratchiness behind my eyes. When I rub them it doesn’t ease it, and before long an overwhelming tiredness comes over me. I lie down on the cot.
Seconds later I’m out.
I come to some unknowable time later, eyes blinking wide. For a while I just lie there, staring up into grainy darkness, heart pounding, while my brain reboots. When at last the memories return I look around. The candle’s little more than a guttering flame in a puddle of wax, but it’s still lit. I can’t have been out for that long. I jump off the bed and start hollering for Finch again, but I get no more response than I did earlier. I return to pacing, back and forth between cot and wall, even though there’s barely a couple of strides to it. Soon after the candle burns down, flickers out.
After that it grows hard to keep time straight.
Sometime in what I judge to be evening of the following day, but which could in reality be earlier or later, I finally hear a sound. I stop to listen. A metallic squeak, listless, languid, like a wheel in need of grease; faint with distance, but growing louder. I rush to the front of the cell and press my face to the bars.
It reaches the end of the corridor, stops. The gate creaks open and it resumes, accompanied now by footsteps. A glimmer of light and moments later Culver appears, a candle in one hand, a jerry can in the other. Seconds later Finch follows in an old wheelchair, his cane across his lap. He doesn’t look well. His head’s been shaved; shadows deepen his eyes and his already narrow features look stretched, gaunt. Knox stands behind, a strip of tape stretched across his busted nose. He glares back at me from the raccoon eyes that go with it, but keeps both himself and his charge to the far wall, well out of reach. There’s no sign of Tully.
I beg with Finch to let me out, but he has just the one word for me:
Patience.
He delivers it without looking in my direction and then his wheelchair passes beyond the stretch of corridor visible from my cell and is gone. I hear their procession come to a halt at the end. The noise from the generator builds as the door is opened, then drops again as it closes behind them.
I grip the bars, straining to hear. It seems like they’re in there for a long time.
Suddenly the pitch from the motor increases, like someone’s goosed the throttle, and I think I hear the whir of a fan. Seconds later there’s a deafening bang, and I start, even though I’m expecting it. The diesel engine drops back to an idle for a few minutes and then suddenly picks up again. There’s a second bang. Was that part of the plan? Did they have to jolt me more than once? I have no way of knowing.
A little while later the door at the other end of the corridor opens. A burning smell fills the air.
Culver appears in the corridor outside my cell. I call out to him to release me but he scurries on by, his head down. Finch follows a few moments later, slumped forward in the squeaking wheelchair. Knox pushes him past my cell without stopping. I plead with him to let me out, but he ignores me too.
I keep shouting after them to come back, long after they’ve gone.
But none of them ever do.
*
IT WON’T BE MUCH LONGER NOW, that’s what I tell myself.
At least at first.
A man’s word is his bond, those were Finch’s very words. I repeat them over and over as I pace the narrow stretch of floor between cot and wall. People lie, I know it, but Mac said that was one of the few rules Finch abided by. As soon as he comes to he’ll release me. It can’t be much longer. I was only out for a couple of hours, and I’m sure I was sicker than he looked, going in.
I try and work out where Mags will be by now. Far as I can tell we’re coming to the end of the fifth day, which should put them north of Boones Mill, maybe even as far up as Roanoake. Peck will take them the long way around, to avoid going over the mountains, I’m sure of it. That’ll add time to their journey. It’ll be three days yet before they’re back at The Greenbrier.
I can still make it.
As the hours slip by I start to doubt myself, however.
I return to the bars to listen for any sign of my release. But all there is is the listless chugging from the generator.
What if something went wrong and Finch didn’t survive? He certainly didn’t look well when they wheeled him out. Maybe Culver and Knox took the opportunity to be rid of him? But if that was their intention surely they could have done it easier than with the chair? And where was Tully during all this? Is he gone for good? Is it only Knox, now? I begin to wonder if what I did to him wasn’t a mistake. If Finch doesn’t survive I could be relying on his kindness to let me out of here.
The voice inside my head says I told you so.
I return to the front of my cell and take to hollering again. It does me little good. My cries echo down the corridor, but nothing ever comes back. All that’s left in their wake is the distant drone of the generator.
A night passes, then, as best I can tell, another day. I take to reciting the lists I made in the hotbox. My recollection of Marv’s map does not improve, and the number of Juvies’ names I can remember never gets higher than twenty-two, but I do not seem to have lost anything more as a result of my time in the chair.
I think.
Truth is I have no way to be sure.
I still shout for Finch, but less frequently now; nothing ever comes of it. Peck will already be in the foothills of the Alleghenies; the day after tomorrow they’ll be back at The Greenbrier. Whatever Gilbey has plan
ned for her after that, I’m going to be the best part of a hundred and fifty miles away when it happens, with the whole of the state of Virginia between us.
And these bars.
I have failed. The certainty of it settles beneath my ribcage, a gnawing hole in my gut that has little to do with the hunger that has now started to plague my waking moments. I feel the anger building inside me, that I will be powerless to stop it.
The voice inside my head tells me to stay calm, that no good will come of letting that other part of me back in charge. But sometimes the feelings of rage and despair grow too strong to be resisted. When that happens it’s like a barrier descending, inside my head, and that part of me capable of directing my actions is trapped behind it. The barrier’s not a solid thing, like a blast door or the roadblock that rises out of the ground at the entrance to Fearrington. It feels more like the wire that braces Eden and Mount Weather’s tunnels. It allows me to see through well enough, but while its down it’s like my hands are off the controls, my role reduced to that of passenger, spectator, while the other side of me does what it must to vent its fury.
To my surprise that part proceeds mostly in silence. There are no howls of rage, no wordless, incoherent cries. Mostly I grit my teeth and take to testing my strength against the steel. That bears no more fruit than my hollering does, however. The cell has been designed not just for those who were content with their captivity. It meets each of my assaults with its own patient resolve, happy to wait until the last of them has been spent.
The creature in the next cell stays quiet for the most part, but when I take to shouting or to wrestling with the bars it stirs, and for a while after my anger has been spent and I have returned to my cot I hear it, scuffling backwards and forwards on the other side of the wall that separates us.
The hours slip by; I give up on keeping them straight. When my eyes grow scratchy I sleep, or whatever absence of consciousness now passes for that. I can’t say I care for it much. I don’t think it lasts for long, but without the candle I have no way of knowing. Only one thing I’m certain of now: no one’s coming to let me out. Dead or alive, Finch won’t be keeping his side of the bargain. I eye the flask he left, sitting outside my cell. I tell myself I won’t drink from it, but the truth is I could have rolled it further along the corridor, put it out of my reach, once and for all, if that really was my last word on the subject. I remember what Mac said, that night in the print shop. I might have skipped a meal here and there, but I hadn’t yet come to understand hunger. I stare at the flask a moment longer, then go back to pacing.
