Grey

by Kayley Barratt

  She drops my hand and takes a deep breath. “Someone I used to know, she was really smart.”

  I smile. “She sounds it. What happened to her?”

  “She went away for a while,” she says. “She’ll come back though. I believe it. Do you?”

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

  “Tell me about the outside,” she whispers. “Salome says children go to school and play all day.”

  “That’s right,” I say, even though I’m not sure. “They do. They play games and draw pictures.”

  “That sounds boring.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, it does.”

  “Must be better than here. I don’t remember much from the outside, I know that my parents hurt me and they put me here because I was bad. But I wasn’t bad, they were the bad ones and they hated me being good. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “I hope God allows me to have birthdays,” she says. “That would be cool.”

  “He will. You’ll have lots of birthdays. And you’ll sing all the time and run, and… you’ll be free.” I turn away, choking on my cries.

  “Free,” she repeats. “I know that this place is bad and the people here are bad, but I’m glad that I was sent here. If not, I would never have met you. I don’t want you to be sad, I don’t want anyone to be sad. I’m ready to go.”

  “Why would you say that?” I cry out, distraught that a child would want to die, would want to be taken from the world.

  “Because lying is a sin,” she says. “And I don’t want to anger God before I meet him. I’ll tell him all about you, Elizabeth. I’ll make him listen to everything you’ve been through and I’ll tell him how lost you are and that you need his help to find your way home.”

  “If anyone could make God listen, I think it’d be you.”

  “I’m not scared anymore,” she says. “Salome thinks I am but I’m not. Because I know that there’s something better, and I’ll be going there and I’ll be waiting for you all to join me. Thank you, Beth, for everything. My sister.”

  “You’re welcome,” I cry, leaning my head into hers. “My sister.”

  “Our father who art in heaven,” she whispers to herself. “Hallowed be thy name. Our kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

  “For thine is the kingdom,” we say together. “The power and the glory. For ever and ever.”

  “Amen,” she says.

  + + +

  Mary got worse in the night. There was nothing I could do for her but to hold her hand as she shook, and slipped in and out of conscious. The fever claimed her again and forced her into a horrible delirium, she became so scared that she began begging for me or Salome to end her pain. Neither of us could do it.

  At four-thirty in the morning, Mary went into a kind of anaphylactic shock. My hand still remained in hers and I still felt her pulling on it, as though she was fighting to remain.

  At four-thirty-five in the morning, Mary slipped away.

  And she was finally at peace.

  Chapter 45

  Salome paces back and forth across the facility, her fingernail digging into her teeth. I watch her with concern as she begins thumping her fist against a wall while screaming. Her screams wake up the other patients around us and they all hoist themselves up in their beds, tiredly looking on.

  “I’m gonna kill her,” Salome screams, punching the wall again. “I’m gonna kill that bitch! As God is my witness, I am going to suck every inch of air out of her lungs and send her to hell!”

  I glance down at Mary as Salome continues to scream, for an elderly woman, she sure does have a voice on her. My hand stretches out to hers and I take it gently. She is still warm, still composed, still here. But she isn’t. Her eyes are open, glaring up at the ceiling and the look of her makes my body keel over with a trembling, silent cry.

  “Are you listening?” Salome begins banging against the locked door, trying to pull it apart. “I know you’re watching, you bitch!”

  “Salome,” I whisper. “Stop.”

  She doesn’t hear me. Instead, she takes crazy to a whole different level, and marches over to one of the doctor’s desks and starts yanking at the drawers. It’s locked, but that doesn’t stop her. She pulls and pulls until the drawer breaks apart, and it sends her flying backwards—she composes herself and scurries the floor for anything she can find. I watch as she picks something up and places it behind her back, just as light flicks on from outside the door.

  I take a breath as I hear a key being pushed inside the lock of the door and a few moments later, it opens. Salome stands, walking closer to the door, determined and dangerous. I don’t know what she’s planning to do, but I have no energy to try and stop her.

  A doctor walks in first, he is frantic and displays signs of terror on his pale face. He glances around the room and then he steps out of the way for the woman from earlier to come through. She is the same woman that was stood at the end of my bed staring at me, the woman Katherine called ‘Sister Joan’ and the same woman Salome said had whipped Mary.

  “What is going on in here?” she demands, her eyes scrolling around the room. And then, her eyes land on me and then Mary, and she steps closer. “Get Pastor,” she orders to the doctor.

  Pastor. That name is familiar to me. Familiar than anything else. I glare down for a moment, shaking my head. A man’s face comes into my thoughts. A man with a moustache and slick dark hair.

  That behaviour won’t be tolerated at Cross Academy.

  I remember something. I’m beginning to remember something. It hurts, it hurts to remember because I’m not sure that I want to. But I have to. I let the images swallow me. Elijah. His face, his lips, crushing mine in an alley. It’s like watching a slideshow of my life on a computer screen. Carol, she was beaten, humiliated—I saved her. I took a chance on her when no one else would. I scratch at my head, letting the next batch of images overwhelm me.

  Mary. She slept across from me, she would smile at me every morning and every night. She would wake me up when she had nightmares, she would take every pain that they inflicted upon her and turn it into something positive.

  There are just pieces. Nothing is whole, nothing is complete. I’m still highly confused, but I’m beginning to remember who I am.

  And who I want to be.

  “Elizabeth,” Joan says. “Step away from the body.”

  I hold on tighter to Mary’s hand and I lift my eyes up, narrowing them. “My name is Beth.”

  “What?”

  I rise from my chair, my body trembling with sudden anger. “My name is Beth. And her name, was Mary. And you killed her.”

  Joan stares at me head-on and then a confident laugh escapes from her lips. “Her name is body.”

  “Your name is body,” Salome says, creeping behind her.

  Joan turns sharply, and then Salome’s hand pushes against her stomach and Joan lets out a large gurgle sound as Salome twists something inside of her flesh. Salome pulls back her hand which reveals a pair of giant scissors that are coated in thick blood.

  Joan’s hands grasp around her stomach as she struggles to speak, she doesn’t get much of a chance because Salome’s fist is suddenly meeting her face. The impact throws Joan backwards, and she trips over herself and crashes into the floor.

  The blood spills out from Joan’s wound, marking the white flooring with an angry red. I should feel something by witnessing her downfall, I should probably feel glad or smug; but I feel nothing. There is no justice in watching a woman bleed out, there is no promise for the world to be a better place. There is just the gentle sound of another heartbeat losing its value.

  Salome looks at me as she shakes off her bloody hand. “That felt good.”

  “What do we do now?” I say.

  Her lips curl into a smile. “We run.”


  “Run?” I demand, trembling at the thought. “Where?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m not sticking around to be thrown into an exorcist re-make. Are you with me?”

  I stand still, just staring at her, unsure and scared. “What about everyone else?”

  “We don’t have the time to go over this, we need to go now. You can either choose to stay here, to stay a prisoner, or you can come with me now and we can get help.”

  I glance back to Mary, my eyes filling with small tears as I look upon her still, lifeless face. I can’t remember her again, I did, I think, but now everything is blank again. I can’t remember why we’re here, what we’re doing, I can’t remember myself, but then I can, then I can’t. What’s happening to me?

  The confusion begins to swallow me, taking me to a place that is no friend. I look back to Salome, my eyes wide and conflicted.

  “Make your choice,” she says.

  Chapter 46

  My mind is screaming run. The longer I remain conflicted, the longer I’m beginning to lose focus on what I am doing. I’m conflicted for so long, too long, that Salome’s patience with me is pushed to the brink. She crouches down by Joan’s still body and grabs the keys from her hand, gently squeezing them into her palm as she moves back to the door.

  “I can’t make the decision for you,” she says in a rushed voice while wiping sweat from her forehead. “And I can’t wait. I’ve waited too long. It’s now or never.”

  I just stare at her. “I…”

  “I hope you find your freedom,” she says, and then she turns and bolts through the open door.

  I watch as she disappears into the unknown darkness of the corridor and I tighten my arms across my chest as I slowly begin to back up to the far side of the room. I walk backwards until I am inside my own cubical and the sound of the rain captures my attention as it pounds against the window.

  I fall down at the wall underneath the window, breathing heavily at the memory of tonight. I remember it all clearly. I remember lying beside Mary as she slowly lost her battle with death, I remember her hand squeezing mine and I remember whispering to her that everything would be alright.

  Why would I lie? Nothing is alright. That young girl is dead, Salome is escaping from something and there is an unconscious, probably dead, body of a woman on the floor who is lying in her own blood. I begin thumping a fist into the side of my head, trying to work it out, trying to work out why I can no longer remember something that I began to remember. It was clear to me, as though I could reach out and touch it, but now it’s gone, scattered into the air.

  I begin to cry, pushing my knees to my chest as I cradle them softly.

  “Salome. Mary,” I say to myself. “Katherine. Beth.”

  I remember the names and I know vaguely who they belong to, but nothing is certain. My body falls tired and weak from crying, and I’m not sure how long I’m on the floor for before I hear footsteps running into the room around the corner.

  “Check her pulse,” a male voice commands.

  “There’s a pulse, but it’s weak.”

  “Well what are you waiting for? Get her to a cubical, idiot!”

  “Yes, Pastor, right away.”

  I flinch at the name, my body jolts with fear and I curve my head so that I’m facing away from the noise. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t block their voices out. They’re coming from all directions—they’re torturing me, teasing me, they know where I am and I’m suddenly not safe.

  “Get me the CCTV footage! I want to see what happened.”

  “Yes, Pastor.”

  “And issue a count of all the patients in this room. I want to know if anyone is missing.”

  “Yes, Pastor.”

  “Now!”

  “Hey,” a voice says, the voice sounds close, too close. “It’s me. Elijah.”

  I glance up, rubbing my soaked eyes. “I don’t know what happened, I didn’t see anything, I—”

  “It’s okay,” he whispers, crouching before me. “You can trust me. Are you sure you didn’t see anything? It’ll show on the footage if you did.”

  My face begins to tremble as I hold in another cry. “I… I don’t…”

  “Did anyone escape?”

  I nod.

  “Salome?”

  I nod. “She told me to go with her. But I couldn’t.”

  “You did the right thing,” he says. “I’m sorry about Mary.”

  “She was so scared,” I whisper, sniffling. “There was nothing we could…” I trail off, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Listen to me, this is very important. Did you attack Joan? The woman?”

  I shake my head.

  He takes a breath of relief and then rubs his chin. “Stay here.” He rises above me, still rubbing his chin and then he walks around the bend, back into the commotion of noises.

  I sink deeper into the wall, holding onto my legs to keep me still and then it dawns on me that I just told him that Salome escaped. I shouldn’t have done that, why did I do that? What if he tells the people out there? What if Salome never makes it?

  She told me she hopes that I find my freedom, whatever that means, but what if I have just cost her hers? Is freedom running away from here? How can I find it now when I’ve just given it up?

  It’s hard to understand what is right or wrong. It’s hard to make a decision when I don’t know what the decision consists of. Everything is blurry and dark—and despite occasionally being pulled back into some light or hope of remembrance, I keep falling into the emptiness.

  I don’t want to trust Elijah, but I’ll have to, he has kind eyes. The eyes that make promises with just one glance.

  Salome’s fate rests upon him now.

  Chapter 47

  “Where is she?”

  I flinch as Pastor screams in my face. I think he is called Pastor, that’s what the others call him, that’s a funny name. Pastor. It reminds me of pasta. Do I even like pasta? I stare into the air as I think about the taste of it. Is it squishy or solid? Does it melt or is it chewy? Great, now I’m hungry.

  “Hello!”

  His strong arms suddenly shake my shoulders, over and over again. I just rock back and forth as his red, breathless face pants against mine.

  “Is anyone home?” he screams, still shaking me. “Where did she go?”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “It’s useless,” a female voice says from behind him. “Her memory is gone.”

  Pastor stops shaking my shoulders and spins around. “In fifteen minutes? I don’t think so!”

  “She doesn’t even know who she is anymore,” the voice says. “The dosages must have done more damage to her temporal lobe than we thought.”

  “How is that possible?” Pastor demands. “You were supposed to wipe her long-term memory, not her short term!”

  “Do not raise your voice to me,” the voice says dismissively. I glance around Pastor to see a tall, broad-shouldered woman standing in between the two walls of this odd-looking bedroom. “I acted on initiative and I delivered.”

  “You delivered a vegetable. She’s no use to us in this state.”

  “I have all of the men scouring the grounds,” the woman says. “She won’t even make it to the fence.”

  “I want her shot on sight.”

  “We can’t risk the—”

  Pastor cuts her off. “Don’t argue with me on this. She attacked a supervisor, she is on an attempted murder charge. I want her dead.”

  The woman takes a large breath and then her eyes flick down to me. “What about her?”

  I glance up to Pastor, wondering what she means. He stares down at me, rubbing his fingers against his prickly stubble.

  “She knows too much,” he says. “Even without her memories, she’s a threat.”

  “I disagree.”

  “You always do,” he says, a light smile touches his face.

  “She didn’t go with the fugitive. She stayed. Her memories might have surfaced for a f
ew moments but they were quickly suppressed again.”

  I hold my breath as Pastor suddenly crouches down to the floor and begins running his hand along the side of my jaw. His fingers gently entwine with my hair and he pushes them backwards around my ear. I stare into his bright eyes and he smiles at me wonderfully.

  “Yes,” he says, reading my eyes. “She’s gone, for now. But Elizabeth is still in there.”

  “Elizabeth?” I whisper.

  “I’ll put her under another dosage,” the woman says. “That should keep her down for good.”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “She’s strong. Perhaps, too strong. I sensed it the day that I met her.”

  “Isn’t that why you’ve kept her alive this long?”

  His hand still plays with my hair, he stares at the side of my face, as I stare back at him. “I have my reasons.”

  “Are those reasons still valid?”

  “Why did you have to be so arrogant?” he demands from me softly. I have no idea what he’s talking about. All I can do is watch him in silence. “All you had to do, was wait.”

  “Wait,” I repeat.

  He nods. “I’m sorry it had to be like this. Please forgive me.”

  His body begins to rise from his crouch and I look up at him, blinking in confusion. Why would I need to forgive him? Has he done something to hurt me? I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?

  “What is your choice?” the woman asks him. “If she’s no use to you, then put her out of her misery.”

  “You know it’s not that simple, Katherine.”

  “There is a dead girl across the room, a supervisor undergoing emergency surgery and a fugitive on the run. Far be it from me to point out how simple this is.”

  “She has her eyes.”

  “A genetic convenience.”

  “No,” he says. “She has her intelligence too. Her strength. She’s—”

  “She is never going to believe in our ways,” Katherine says, finishing his sentence. “She is no different to the others.”

  Pastor shakes his head, his eyes glancing back down to me. I sit so still against the wall, like I can’t move, like I’m glued. I’m not sure what is happening. I can understand them and I can listen to each word, but none of it makes sense. Who are they talking about? Whose eyes do I have? Whose strength do I have?