The Fifth Room

by A J Rushby

  Whatever it is, I need to cross it and find some sort of shelter.

  I climb the first steep hill and as I reach the top, which flattens off immediately, I grind to a halt, unsure of what I see in front of me.

  Now the view is not of lush, green grass, but something else entirely. Some kind of sculpture looms in front of me, all large, thin pieces of wood, both red and plain, jutting towards the sky in jagged shards. There are hundreds of pieces of wood standing before me in different configurations, some like fences, some like tiny houses, all stretching, reaching, angled towards the sky. I couldn’t see it from down below near the water, and coming upon it suddenly like this in the half light—it’s surreal and unexpected.

  I try to see further up the hill, but the clouds aren’t being helpful. I wait a moment and they shift again, highlighting something metal beyond. I crane my neck and see something large and smooth and white further up again.

  It doesn’t take long to work it out. I’ve somehow stumbled into a sculpture park, or art gallery or something.

  Probably the worst place in the world I could want to try and break into to access a phone.

  Fantastic.

  I reach up and rub my eyes and try to think what I should do next. Get away from here, that’s what, I tell myself. If I try to enter an art gallery or whatever this is, I’ll have security guards and police all over me in under a minute.

  I turn on my heel and begin to backtrack then, down towards the water. Not too far along the side road I’d seen what looked like another large boatshed. Surely there’d be a phone in there? It looked like a business. I doubt a boatshed would be alarmed. But then I’d thought the mechanic’s workshop wouldn’t be alarmed either, so what would I know?

  I run down the hill and back along the small side road until I see the top of the boatshed shining in the moonlight. There’s another, smaller slip road that leads down to it and I take a right into it and try to work out where the door will be as I go. There are a couple of high windows on this side of the building, but nothing I’ll be able to access easily, so I keep going. The clouds move again then, and as I reach the front of the boatshed I see there’s a jetty sticking out into the water. And here, around the corner, is a larger concreted area and what looks to be the front doors of the boatshed. They’re locked with a chain.

  I want to scream out with frustration and tiredness, kicking out at the door with my good leg, pummelling it with my fists, but can’t risk making a noise.

  Keep going, I tell my body, which wants to do anything but.

  Keep going.

  So I do. I take off again, rounding the next corner of the building, which is dimly illuminated by a streetlight back on the road. I see some windows.

  Please be unlocked, I think to myself. I really need to catch a break. I need that phone. I need that phone to call my dad. I don’t know how much energy I’ve got left in me. I don’t know how much longer I can keep going and I’m terrified of what will happen if I stop.

  I take the few steps I need to reach the window closest to me. As I inspect it, I’m hopeful. There are three along the side of the building—all single hung windows that I’ll need to slide up. They all look old and weathered like this one.

  I try the first window, placing my hands on it and trying to move it upwards, but I can’t. It’s quite solid. I get the feeling it might not have been opened for some time.

  I run to the second window.

  As soon as I put my hands on it I feel that it’s quite loose. Almost immediately the frame begins to move upwards.

  I can’t believe my luck.

  I push it up as high as it goes to see if it will stay.

  It won’t, I see, as it slides back down again.

  Right. I need something to jam it open with. I run back around to the front of the building where there’d been some workbenches and look desperately for something, anything, that might do—an offcut of wood. After a moment or two I find a metal ruler, grab it and run back, picking up a wooden box that’s been left lying around. I stick the box below the second window, push the frame up and jam the ruler along the side.

  The window holds.

  Not wanting to lose any time, I immediately step up on the box, stick my hips on the bottom of the window frame and begin to attempt to shimmy inside. I try to look around me, but I can’t see a thing. It’s dark inside. I can see only large shapes, most of them far away from me. I feel with my hands and come into contact with nothing. I have to risk it. I have to get inside. I continue to shimmy forward and, before I know it, I’m further in than I thought and I’m falling, my hands splayed out in front of me, ready to save me.

  I’m about halfway to the floor when there’s a loud crack as my head meets something hard and metallic.

  There’s a moment of sharp, ringing pain as I cry out and fall helplessly to the floor of the boatshed.

  And then everything goes black.

  ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE HOURS AWAKE

  My whole body jerks to attention and I open my eyes. I don’t know where I am. Everything around me is dark, only a sliver of light shining in from some windows above. I sit up slowly, unsure why my head is pounding the way it is. Tentatively, I reach for the right side of it, realising I’ve knocked it on something. What, I don’t know.

  I sit for a moment, trying to think. Why does everything hurt? My right temple, my knee, my neck. I try to recall how I got here and where I am and immediately get the feeling I’m supposed to be looking for something. My laptop? No, my phone. I think it was my phone.

  What I need is a light switch.

  Why didn’t I turn the light on when I got out of bed?

  I think I’m in my hotel room in Vienna. The one where everything’s white. But wait, didn’t we leave there? Are we back there again? I reach out my left hand for the bedside table, and the lamp. I can’t feel the bedside table. But I’m not on a bed at all. And yet I desperately want to go back to sleep. Why am I not in the bed?

  My thoughts swirl and bump into one another.

  Nothing is making sense. I must be dreaming, except I don’t think so. The floor is cold and hard and dirty and real beneath my hands, the grime pushing its way under my nails.

  I’m not dreaming.

  I get onto all fours, keeping my weight off my sore knee with my hands, then stand slowly in case there’s anything around me, touching the surfaces around me as I go. My head feels like it might split in two at any moment. I try to make out shapes in the darkness and work out where a light switch might be. In the end, I find a door just beyond the last window before I find a light switch. It has only a simple deadbolt and I twist it open. Before I exit, I turn the light on.

  I’m definitely not in any hotel room in Vienna.

  I’m in what looks like some sort of shed. A boatshed by the looks of it.

  I remember something then—I needed to get inside. It was important that I get inside the boatshed. I just don’t know why.

  Wait, that’s right. To find my phone. Though why it would be in here I have no idea.

  I wonder why I thought it would be in here?

  Stepping outside, I close the door behind me with a bang and look around, trying to identify anything familiar. There’s a jetty. I remember that jetty. I remember coming around that corner there and seeing it. Hearing the water lap against it. I turn to my right and walk towards the right hand side of the building—the way I’d come.

  I continue along the building, bringing my hand to my head as I go, the throbbing getting worse rather than better. I remember this little slip road. Those trees. I remember walking this way. Running. Running towards something or away from something? The man on the train. I can’t recall. Everything seems so mixed up. Vienna and Frankfurt. Steen and Ryan. My phone. No, wait. Not my phone. A phone. Dad. Emily.

  Gingerbread.

  I keep wandering as I spot things I remember. A grassy hill. I walk up that. It’s steep. And then it’s not so steep. It flattens out.

>   I look up, confronted by a large … object. It’s a sculpture that looks like a strange cubby house built by oversized children, pieces of wood nailed together haphazardly. Some of the planks are painted red, others not.

  I kick my shoes off and feel the soft grass, cool beneath my feet. I’m so tired. Perhaps if I just lie down for a moment everything will seem clearer and my head will stop hurting and everything will make sense.

  I sink down to the ground and think about how I’d love to pull the grass up and over me like a doona and sleep forever.

  I’m smiling to myself at the thought of this when a voice speaks up.

  ‘I see a person,’ the voice says from further up the hill. ‘The camera’s showing someone at the edge of the sculpture.’

  Steen, I think to myself. He’s come to pick me up from the party. I try to lift my head to tell him I’m here, but now I’m lying down it’s too hard to move. I just want to sleep. My eyes close again, then re-open. That doesn’t make sense. Steen’s gone. I went away, didn’t I? I left.

  ‘Down here. This way!’ the voice says, closer now.

  I frown. That’s not Steen. I’m pulled from sleep again. I try to get up and fail, my body unwilling to move, even though my brain tells it to. Begs it to.

  No, I really have to get up now. I have to try harder.

  With a groan, I roll onto my stomach and get up on my hands and knees, then wince as I put weight on my right knee. Why does everything hurt so much?

  Get up, I tell myself. Get up and run.

  But I only fall back to the ground.

  ‘It’s her. It’s definitely her!’

  I look up to see someone I don’t know towering above me. Someone with a camera on his head, of all things. No, wait. I know him. He’s from the coffee shop in Vienna. There was Sachertorte. I spilled my water. I remember that.

  But something’s very wrong. This doesn’t feel right. None of us should be here.

  I try to move again. But I’m so tired. I feel like a bug sprayed with insecticide, in the final throes of death. Struggling. Struggling and losing the will to go on. A twitch here. A twitch there.

  I hear more people, though I can’t see them at first. I see their feet. They come to stand beside the guy with the camera. One of them bends down. He looks very familiar. I think his name is Matthew, but it doesn’t fit his face. It’s the wrong face. Or wrong name. Maybe both.

  ‘Miri,’ he says. He shakes my shoulder, which makes my head move.

  My head. I groan.

  ‘I think she’s injured,’ a voice says, close to me. The camera guy? I’m not sure any more. I don’t care. ‘Yes, look. She’s gashed her knee. And check out the right side of her head, near her temple.’

  Someone swears in a gravelly voice. ‘Here, pass me the syringe and the ketamine,’ he says.

  I feel the sting in my thigh.

  After that I don’t feel anything at all.

  SEVENTEEN HOURS LATER

  My eyes flicker open to see a plain white ceiling. I’m in bed. The one attached to my lab. And while it feels familiar, I get the feeling I shouldn’t be here for some reason. I turn my head to the right and catch sight of the bedside table. I remind myself to be careful. Ryan’s ID card is in there. Inside my book.

  I frown. That’s not right. I turn my head back and look at the ceiling again.

  And that’s when everything falls into place.

  Steen. Ryan. Andrew. Lauren. Marcus. The Society. Running.

  I sit up, my head pounding. And I scream.

  I keep screaming as I scramble backwards towards the bed head, still trying to get away.

  ‘Stop! Miri, stop! It’s all right. It’s all over. I’m here,’ a voice says, scrambling up from the floor on the other side of my bed.

  Steen. It’s Steen.

  But I don’t stop screaming. I can’t. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know what’s happened. I throw off my covers and swing my legs out of bed, but the moment I try to stand, my head spins horribly and I have to sit back down again, scared I’m going to vomit.

  I see the bedding then on the floor of my room. It looks like Steen’s been here for some time, though how long that’s been, I don’t know.

  My head. My head. I reach up and grab it as it pounds away. I want to scream again, but it hurts too much. I lie back down with a whimper.

  ‘You’re safe. It’s all over,’ Steen’s voice says again, hovering above me.

  He repeats the words until I’m able to open my eyes a crack and look at him. Slowly, hesitantly, he reaches down and touches me on my right shoulder.

  When I flinch, he pulls away.

  ‘You’re safe. It’s all over.’

  He repeats the phrase, over and over again. They wash over me and, finally, I hear him.

  ‘It’s really okay? We’re really okay?’

  Steen nods. ‘Yes. You don’t need to worry.’

  But I can’t stop. My body can’t stop. Every single one of my muscles is still ready to jump up and run.

  ‘Help came? The Society … they’re not experimenting on Ryan’s body?’ I’m finally able to put the words together.

  ‘You don’t need to worry any more. It’s all over and they’ll explain everything later. Right now you just need to rest. You need to get better.’

  Help came. I’m safe. Steen’s safe. They’re not experimenting on Ryan. I don’t understand what’s gone on, but I trust Steen is telling me the truth. I feel the fight leave my body then.

  It’s all over.

  My body relaxes into the bed and I feel Steen cover me back up again with the blanket.

  ‘My head hurts,’ I groan. ‘A lot.’

  Steen sits down on the side of the bed and his face appears before mine. ‘Can you remember what happened?’

  I think for a moment, tentatively rolling over onto my back. ‘I don’t know. I remember bits and pieces. Everything feels very mixed up and the wrong way around.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’ Steen takes one of my hands and gently guides it up to my right temple. There’s a huge egg-shaped lump there. ‘You gave yourself quite a knock.’

  I don’t remember that. ‘What happened?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘You’ll have to tell me sometime.’

  I attempt to think back. ‘There was a dog,’ I say. ‘And a cat. Ugh, that cat. The fridge. I opened the fridge to get some light and the cat wouldn’t shut up.’ I remember more. ‘I couldn’t get to a phone. I couldn’t do it. How long have I been asleep for?’

  Steen twists round so he can see the clock on the wall in the lab. ‘About seventeen hours. I think you needed it.’

  ‘They gave me something.’

  ‘A shot of ketamine, I think. To get you back here. So you wouldn’t fight.’

  I take my hand from Steen’s and bring it to my head again, wincing. ‘I couldn’t get to a phone. I’m sorry. I tried, but I couldn’t.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter any more. Don’t worry about that.’ He takes my hand and holds it tight.

  I frown, which also hurts. ‘What do you mean it doesn’t matter? What happened?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’ His eyes slide away from mine. ‘You’ll understand soon.’

  ‘Understand what?’ There’s something about his voice. It’s so strange. He sounds … defeated. ‘Wait. That was true about Ryan, wasn’t it? They’re not experimenting on him?’

  Steen pauses for a moment. ‘No, they’re not experimenting on him. There’ll be a debriefing. There’s a lot to say.’

  ‘What? What do you mean?’ When I was running, I seriously thought that if they caught me the Society might … I don’t know. I didn’t want to know.

  Steen sighs. ‘The Society understands why you ran. You don’t need to be worried. As I mentioned, there’s a lot to say. But first we’ve got to clean you up. They wanted to do that while you were asleep, but I wouldn’t let them. I knew you wouldn’t like that. Not after what had just happened. I put s
ome disinfectant on your knee, but left it at that. Your shirt was so dirty I had to cut it off and I didn’t think you’d want to wear scrubs again, so I put you in one of mine.’

  I run a hand over my torso. I’m wearing a light blue shirt, the cuffs rolled up. I don’t want to think about me being unconscious, Steen dressing me, it’s … ugh … embarrassing. But he’s also right. It makes my chest tighten imagining them having their hands on me. Touching me. I’m grateful Steen knew what I needed, even when I had no voice to speak for myself.

  Steen’s hand moves up then, to touch my neck softly. ‘This just needs cleaning up,’ he says. ‘But your knee’s a mess. It’s going to need a good clearing out and quite a few stitches.’

  He stands up then and moves around to the other side of the bed, kneeling beside it.

  ‘It’s not that bad, is it?’ I push myself up onto my elbows and then immediately regret the action—my head spinning—and lie back down again. After a while, I try the manoeuvre again. Slower this time.

  And I finally see my knee properly.

  Someone has torn off the bottom of the blue scrubs I was wearing, which means I get a good look instantly. It’s worse than I’d thought. There’s a real gash, the skin puckered back on either side. ‘Great,’ I say, lying back down again. ‘Just great.’

  Steen pushes himself up. ‘I’ll go find someone to suture it for you.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No.’ I push myself up again, not caring how sick it makes me feel, and grab at him. ‘No, I don’t want to see them. Not yet. You do it.’ We’ve had plenty of practice suturing pig skin. Steen is more than able.

  He takes a step towards me and hesitates before he speaks. ‘You need someone more skilled. If I do it, it’ll scar.’