by Ike Hamill
Jenko’s voice sounded too far away—“It’s someone’s house, I think.”
“What?” she asked.
“I’m not sure if anyone lives here yet, but they will soon, I bet,” he called.
Her curiosity and loneliness overcame her fear. She ducked her head and shined her light into the hole. She could see Jenko’s light flashing around in there. It wasn’t as far as she thought. She clenched her teeth and pulled herself in. The passage opened up and Carol found herself inside a cozy cave. The rocks were just as smooth in here as they’d been on the surface of the island, like they’d been worn down from eons of wind and waves. Even the low ceiling looked smooth and eroded.
Jenko explored the far corner, where supplies were stacked.
He laid his hands on a kerosene heater—“This is still warm, but just barely. There’s tons of stuff laid in here. These cases are still all intact, and nothing has any dirt or dust on it. I think this was all moved in very recently. There’s no trash, and no sign of wear on anything.”
“What’s it all for?” asked Carol.
“Could be a hideout,” said Jenko. “There’s a bunch of fresh water here, and over there it looks like that hole has seawater at the bottom. Could be used as a toilet. I bet a single person could live down here for a month before needing more supplies.”
“What a horrible way to live,” said Carol. She hugged herself with her free arm.
“There are worse things,” said Jenko. “Try spending a month in prison in Costa Rica.”
“Where would you sleep?”
“There’s a sleeping bag and some mats over here,” said Jenko.
“No clothes,” said Carol. “Or toiletries.”
“Maybe they haven’t brought that stuff yet,” said Jenko.
“Nothing to read, nothing to do. Maybe the person who’s going to live here doesn’t need any of those things,” said Carol.
“So why would Don send us here?” asked Jenko. “Any ideas about that?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I’ve got one idea how we can find out what’s going on here, but you’re probably going to hate it,” said Jenko. He pulled one of the mats from under the sleeping bags and propped it in the corner of a couple of rocks. He sat with his back to the far wall and pulled his bag between his legs.
“What’s your idea?” asked Carol.
Jenko dug in his bag and pulled out a gun and a taser—“I say we wait and see who shows up. Then we can ask them what it’s for.”
“But we have no idea if anyone is even coming back here,” said Carol.
“Oh, I think they’re coming back. My gut says that they stocked this place up because they’re going to use it soon. This is the best lead I’ve got. I’m going to see it through.”
THE LIGHT CLICKED OFF. The pink glow was not just coming from the entrance hole, it was also coming from the cracks in the ceiling. The well-supplied cave wasn’t as airtight as she’d assumed. The light clicked back on.
“Do you mind?” Carol asked.
“What?” asked Jenko.
They’d been together for hours, and aside from an unintentional nap, she’d been awake for about twenty-four. She knew that she was already irritable, but it really seemed that Jenko was deliberately trying to get on her nerves.
“Can you just leave the light on or off?”
“I’m exercising my irides,” said Jenko.
“Say what?”
“The plural of iris,” he stated.
Carol sighed.
“Your iris is responsible for contracting to reduce the amount of light that gets into your eye. As you get older—which I’m sure you’ll appreciate very soon—the muscles of your eye start to get a little lazy. Well, it’s not just the muscles, the lens of your eye also starts to lose its elasticity, but that’s a different problem. The one that I’m currently hoping to stave off is night-blindness,” said Jenko.
“By turning your light on and off in a cave?”
“Yes,” said Jenko. “By exercising my irides, I’m helping them stay toned, so I can preserve my night-vision. You can let yours get all flabby if you’d like, but I want mine to be sharp and focused, so to speak.”
“Can’t you just leave your light on and then open and shut your eyes?” asked Carol.
“Well,” he started to object, but then paused, “I guess I could. Why did you turn your light off.”
“One,” said Carol, “I wanted to see how dark it would be. Two, I wanted to save the batteries. Isn’t that bad for the bulb, turning it on and off?”
“These things are LEDs, you don’t have to worry about the battery or the bulb. They’re not too bright, but of course that’s not a problem if your eyes are properly fit,” said Jenko. He pointed the light directly into his eyes and then shut it off.
“What exactly do you do, anyway?” asked Carol. “You never told me.”
“Well I don’t do anything anymore,” said Jenko. “And I think I did tell you that. My last assignment was to assist and protect Lynne without her knowing. When she got abducted, naturally I was fired.”
“Oh,” said Carol. “What was Lynne doing?”
“That’s a really good question,” said Jenko.
“I could tell you exactly what the assignments were, but what she was doing? That’s anyone’s guess,” said Jenko.
“And what’s your guess?”
“They must have thought there was money in it somehow,” said Jenko. “That’s the only reason a company like that does something. Who knows, maybe they just wanted to figure out this whole Passage thing so they could market it better than Gregory. He’s certainly made a wad off the idea.”
“You think the reason he’s immortal is so that he could make money of it?” asked Carol.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” said Jenko. “Look, I’m just an investigator. That’s not exactly what I was doing, but that’s what I am. They hired me because I’ve been in more than a few scrapes during my career, and I always manage to come out on the right side. They knew that Lynne wasn’t going to last more than a day unless she had someone looking out for her. So, they hired her for her eyes, and me for the rest.”
“So you’re a thug,” said Carol.
“Yeah, but a smart thug who can make connections. And an aging thug, too,” said Jenko. “What do you do?”
“I told you, I’m a human resources manager,” said Carol.
“Oh right, for a TV station,” said Jenko. “What’s that like.”
“Boring. I mostly do, hiring, firing, benefits, and training. Well, I don’t really do those things, I just coordinate them,” said Carol.
“Sounds calm, and safe.”
“It is,” said Carol. “Well, except for the occasional psycho who gets upset during a termination meeting.”
“Oh yeah? What was the worst?”
“The worst was a tech guy,” said Carol. “He was convinced that everyone was out to get him and he wasn’t going to stand for it. I’ve seen eyes like that before. When I was just out of college I worked for a while in the wing over at KVHI.”
“I thought it was KVMHI?” asked Jenko.
“They changed the name,” said Carol. “While I was there. They decided that Mental Health Institute had negative connotations, so they just took the Mental out.”
“Huh,” said Jenko.
“It was actually kinda apropos. They took the mental out just at the time they seemed to be thinking less,” said Carol.
“Good one,” said Jenko.
“It was Brad’s joke. He was a guy who worked on the wing. Anyway, after a while you could tell when people would flip over. They’d stop using their brains and just flip into some kind of weird animal state. That’s when they would really be dangerous.”
“And that’s what happened with the guy you had to fire?”
“Yeah, pretty much. He wasn’t directing the anger at me though. That was a relief. He thought his boss had hired him just to torture hi
m. He had those same eyes, like one of the guys on the wing. He even kinda looked like one of the patients, with that stringy gray hair. This guy, every time he’d get released he’d go live in his dad’s apartment building until he’d have another episode. They always knew it was coming because he’d just sit in his apartment, in a rocking chair, listening to George Harrison albums.”
“That does sound crazy,” said Jenko.
“Yeah, he really was. His neighbors would call the police as soon as they heard one of those vapid, repetitive songs. Everyone knew what his next move would be,” said Carol.
“Which was?”
“He’d go down to the corner store, strip off his clothes, and defecate in the ice cream freezer. All the time with those crazy eyes.”
“That’s odd,” said Jenko.
“I know. It was chilling,” said Carol.
Jenko laughed. “I get it. Shit in the freezer? Chilling?”
“Oh,” Carol giggled. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“All the funnier,” snickered Jenko.
“SO SERIOUSLY, HOW LONG are we going to stay here?” asked Carol.
“As long as it takes,” said Jenko. “Look, if you have to go so bad, use the hole. I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s for. The dissolving toilet paper is right next to it, and the water washes everything away.”
“You’re pretty sure?” asked Carol. “You’ve already used it twice, and you’re only pretty sure?”
“So go ahead,” said Jenko. “You’ll feel better.”
“I can’t,” said Carol. She brushed some crumbs from her pants and folded her arms. They’d just finished a nice meal Jenko had pulled together from the crates of supplies.
It was bright enough in the cave now that they could see without their flashlights. Some light reflected up through the little passage, and some light filtered down through the cracks in the rocks above. Occasionally the wind whistled around, or the shifting air brought them the sound of the surf, but generally the cave was very quiet.
“I know I felt pretty strongly that this island was what Don was pointing us to, but it seems foolish to just wait out here based on that,” said Carol. “Your friend Billy seemed to think that we should be investigating my job,” said Carol.
“Yeah, he also tried to kill you,” said Jenko.
Carol rolled her eyes, and then had an idea to get Jenko moving—“Hey, what about the boat?”
“What about it?”
“You rented it,” she said. “That guy’s going to come looking for us, or call the cops. Somebody’s bound to see it there.”
“I didn’t rent it, I bought it,” said Jenko.
“You what? Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I thought you might freak out. We hadn’t known each other long. Hell, we still haven’t,” said Jenko. “But you do have a good point about the boat. I should go move it someplace a little less obvious, in case someone approaches from the same angle we did. We’d hardly have the element of surprise.”
“Good,” said Carol. She pushed up and stood.
“You should stay here,” said Jenko.
“I’m not staying here.”
“Yeah, it makes sense,” said Jenko. “You can use the hole, and I’ll leave a gun. Then, if anyone is outside we’ll have them from both sides.”
“I hate guns,” said Carol.
“The taser then,” said Jenko. “Hardly even a gun. And you can use the hole while I’m gone.”
That argument made sense to Carol.
“Okay,” said Carol. “But you have to be quick. And we can’t stay here forever. It’s depressing.”
“Excellent,” said Jenko. “I’ll be right back.”
Carol sat back down and waited for him to leave. He poked his head down the little passage and then pulled back so he could exit feet-first. He’d left her the taser with no instruction. Carol rose and turned on her light so she could inspect it. Remembering she had a limited amount of time before Jenko returned, she then proceeded to examine the strange toilet.
Poking around, she discovered a container of apples. She munched on a big Granny Smith while she unstacked big containers and examined the contents. Three of them, stacked vertically, covered up a small side-passage. Carol moved the top two and investigated. It didn’t go far. She’d hoped for a real discovery, but she’d only found a space about the size of a closet.
Something scraped and puffed near the entrance. It didn’t sound like Jenko, it sounded like a big animal. Carol shrunk back to her little alcove. She remembered the taser and reached around the corner to grab it. She pulled it back just as the chuffing sound entered the main cavern. Carol fumbled and turned off her lamp. She sat in the near-dark gripping the taser and her light.
“They’re on their way,” a voice whispered. Carol exhaled as she recognized Jenko’s voice. He appeared around the corner, blocking her from leaving. “Stay back,” he said.
“I thought you were going to attack them?” asked Carol.
“There’s a bunch of them, and they’ve all got guns. Looks like they’re bringing someone this way. I just barely made it back without them seeing me. We’ll just out and see what happens. If it looks like they’re going to stick around, then we’ll jump out and surprise them. We should be able to take them out in this enclosed space,” Jenko whispered. He had two guns. He set them down to put on a headlamp.
Carol nodded and shrank back. She had her own plan—she would hide back in her little alcove and shoot anything that came near with her taser.
A voice was preceded by heaving breathing and grunting—“Don’t do that,” said the man. “Yeah, that’s better.”
The other side of the conversation wasn’t loud enough for Carol and Jenko to hear.
“Okay, move her slow,” he said. His voice was stuffed up. Jenko leaned forward and Carol held her breath.
Carol heard a ripping sound. It repeated five more times. She counted with her chin tucked down to her chest. A new light began to glow from the main room. It came on at the same time as a hissing sound.
“Yeah,” said the voice. He laughed and the volume faded out.
They heard the low grind of a heavy sliding stone.
Jenko waited another minute before he poked his head out again. Instead of settling back down, this time he kept moving. Carol waited. His head came back around the corner and startled her.
“They’re gone,” said Jenko.
Carol got halfway up and then sat back down. She had no desire to find out whether Jenko was correct.
“Hey stranger,” Jenko said from the main room. Carol could hear the smile in his voice.
She moved quietly to the corner and peered around. The hissing and the light were coming from a lantern sitting on top of one of the crates. By its light, Carol saw Jenko propping up Lynne’s head. She appeared unconscious.
“Is she okay?” asked Carol.
Jenko smiled at Carol and waved her out. “I think she’s been drugged, but aside from that she seems to be in pretty good shape.”
Carol came out slowly and went over to the passage instead of joining Jenko—“They’ve blocked us in.”
“That’s okay,” said Jenko. “We’ll find a way out. Lynne? Lynne, can you hear me?”
Lynne groaned.
“I can’t believe this worked,” said Jenko, looking over to Carol. “I never get this lucky. What a break.”
“I’m glad for you,” said Carol. “I just hope we’re not trapped in here.”
“They didn’t bring her here to die,” said Jenko. “They could have just as easily taken her out to sea and dumped her overboard. They brought her here with all these supplies because they want her alive, so we’ll be fine.”
“Three people can’t live on this stuff as long as one,” said Carol. “What if they don’t come back before we all starve to death.”
“Well all three of us aren’t going to starve to death,” said Jenko. “Eventually cannibalism will take over. Likely there w
ill still be at least one of us left—the one with the least amount of will power probably.”
“Very funny,” said Carol. She pointed her light down the exit passage and found it blocked with a large rock.
“Hey, don’t mess with that yet,” said Jenko. “They may stick around for a little while. Let’s just cool it for a minute, okay?”
“Okay,” said Carol. She came over and regarded Lynne. “I thought you said her arm was broken?”
“Oh, that’s right,” said Jenko. “I was so excited to see her, I forgot about that." He picked up Lynne’s arm and inspected the elbow. He moved it back and forth several times and then shrugged. “Sure looks like her. I wonder if she has a twin or something.”
Lynne groaned.
“You there?” asked Jenko.
Lynne’s eyes fluttered.
“Bleah,” said Lynne. She stuck out her tongue and ran them over her lips. She squinted as she worked her jaw around. “You,” she said flatly.
“Yeah, me,” said Jenko. “Where you been?”
“Where have you been?” asked Lynne. “You told me there was nothing to worry about, then I got abducted. Thanks a bunch.”
“Yeah, but it’s going to be okay now,” said Jenko.
“Easy for you to say,” said Lynne. “How many people have tried to kill you recently?”
“Only one,” Jenko smiled.
“Veyermin pay you to track me down?”
“Nope, fired me,” said Jenko.
“Figures,” said Lynne. She pushed up to her elbows and regarded the cave. “Hey, don’t I know you?” she asked Carol.
“Sort of,” said Carol. “You came to my house a while ago? About the Changeling?”
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” said Lynne. “So where the hell are we anyway?”
“An island,” said Jenko.
“Where though?” asked Lynne. “I left Boston what seems like days ago, but they had me drugged most of the time. The only times I was awake I was throwing up everywhere.”
“Oh, Maine,” said Jenko. “Midcoast.”
“Charming,” said Lynne.
Carol moved to Lynne’s feet and began to pull the heavy tape from her ankles. It had been torn, but not removed from her pants.
