Bleeker Hill

by Russell Mardell

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Did your father never teach you about fate, child? Did he never show you how all your paths were already planned? Did he never share his dreams with you, Mia? Such a dereliction of duty.’

  ‘Please…’

  ‘Please? Such manners. Such innocence. Such purity of heart. You don’t belong here, Mia. He should never have brought you, and you should never have come back. You were warned, but you chose to ignore.’

  Her right arm suddenly flared as each lettered scar carved there threatened to rip open. She swallowed a scream, refusing to give the hideous thing in front of her the satisfaction she knew it was searching for.

  ‘Do you not understand, Mia? Don’t you know what this place is?’

  ‘I know what went on here.’

  ‘What happened here, Mia?’

  ‘People died here.’

  ‘No. What happened here, Mia?’

  ‘They used to kill people here. People were executed.’

  ‘What happened here, Mia? What happened here?’

  ‘I don’t…I don’t understand?’

  ‘Of course you do, Mia, of course you understand. What happened here, child? What happened?’

  She met the shifting face before her and slowly breathed the word he wanted to hear: ‘Judgement.’

  ‘The sanctimonious good judged the irredeemably bad. Fate, Mia, people felt they had the power to decide the fate of others.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘You do? Yet still you are here.’

  ‘I had no choice! Don’t you see?’

  ‘I see everything you stupid child! You have no idea what I can see and do!’

  ‘It wasn’t my choice!’

  ‘Choice?’ His voice shifted, curdled, and started to snarl. ‘None of us had choice you naïve and foolish child! What makes you so special?’ Kendrick grabbed at his head and shrieked, forcing the snarling voice away. ‘Everyone…everyone wants to speak. How tiresome.’ The deep voice was back, the shining eye whites fixed again on Mia. ‘They called me mad, your people. They decided I was insane. Those great arbitrators of right and wrong. Whilst they continued destroying people here, they decided I was the madman. Look how far you have all progressed. Look at this civilized world you have created.’

  ‘You are thirteen?’

  ‘BH13’ Sullivan said through a croaked whisper at the wall, unheard by Mia and ignored by the warped mimic of Kendrick before them.

  ‘It is easier to discard a number. That was the brand they gave me. Your people.’

  ‘These aren’t my people.’

  ‘Your father was an assassin. A butcher. Are you so sheltered as to really not see what is so blatantly obvious? A sin remains a sin no matter in whose name it is committed. There will always be people to judge your sins. But your people were looking the wrong way. Your people feared the living. What a delicious irony.’

  ‘I had no part in coming here. Neither of us did.’

  ‘But yet you are here.’

  ‘This place is evil.’

  ‘No. No child. This place is judgement. Evil is up to you.’

  ‘Let us leave,’ Mia asked softly, taking her right hand from her side and holding it to Kendrick in a show of submission. ‘Please. I don’t want to be here. We don’t want to be here.’

  ‘Should I open the door?’ He laughed at the look of horror that sprang to her face, his own shifting again, blurring like an image behind a rain-lashed window.

  ‘Please…don’t do this…’

  ‘Do you doubt me? Do you question that I could?’

  ‘No! Please…please listen…they made me…’

  His voice broke into a weedy, blubbing mimic and repeated the words like a parrot. The voice was her father’s.

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Why come back child, why do that?’ The growl had returned. ‘I walked with you. Don’t you remember? I walked through you and the smell of fear was ugly. I smell it again now. Why child? Why? I showed you compassion by showing you death. We thought we were rid of you. But no. Not this girl. The girl who came back.’

  ‘Who are you? Tell me. What is your name?’

  ‘Who are you? That’s what should be asked. Why never ask that?’

  ‘I asked you a question.’

  ‘So many questions.’

  ‘No answers.’

  ‘It is not my job to satisfy you. It was you that came to me. You were not invited. You were not welcome. Yet still you come…’

  Kendrick raised a hand up, turning the palm to the ceiling. Above them the hatch handle started to turn, just slightly, the hideous metal squeak of its release shrieking and then dying, like tyres screeching to a stop. The sound made Mia jump, her hands instantly gripping her sides as she fumbled her stance and swayed uneasily on her feet. Kendrick’s smile grew. He seemed pleased with himself.

  ‘Please…please don’t…’

  ‘Does it not impress you?’

  ‘Clever. Very clever.’

  ‘A gift, Mia,’ his words were slow and controlled and carried an arrogant pomposity. He shot a hand out to one side and suddenly a line of fire erupted along the wall, just beneath the hatch. ‘I’ve been in your dreams. I’ve looked into your soul. I know your fears.’ He laughed manically as he looked into the dread in Sullivan’s eyes as the fire bent its course above him. Kendrick turned back to Mia and his voice dropped further, each word vibrating through her. ‘I can smell your fear, dear. Your fear is near, dear and I can smell it again.’ Kendrick threw his head back impossibly far, his throat seeming to bulge as he did. ‘The girl that came back’ he said to the ceiling as he started to rise off the ground. His arms moved out to the side and seemed to extend, the fingers on each hand splaying wide like twigs growing from a branch. ‘Daddy is so disappointed in you.’

  ‘You’re not my father!’

  ‘I’m everyone.’ He moved back to the ground slowly and brought his arms out in front of him. His left wrist began to turn as the hand moved completely around and then started to bend back on itself. ‘You should hear how this wretched little man screams inside me. What end for this horrid little man called Kendrick? Should I make him face his fears too? Is that how he must meet his judgement?’ He pulled his right hand to his shirt and ripped it open, poking and prodding Kendrick’s bare chest with one long finger. ‘Tell me, Mia, by what means should we carry out Mr Kendrick’s sentence? Because if I made him face what he fears most I would have to open the doors and let the living in. It is they who he is most scared of, those that seek to destroy what you have all created. You should hear how such a thing makes him scream. Should I let them have him, Mia? What should I do, child? Tell me.’

  ‘Stop this! Please! Stop!’ Sullivan was screaming towards the pistol on the ground, his voice broken and weak like a crossed phone line. He made a lunge for the gun and crumpled into a heap next to Turtle’s bare feet.

  ‘I did it for you darling, I need you to believe me.’ The voice coming from Kendrick was suddenly high and light, a female voice, gentle and loving. The thing was looking down at Sullivan and Kendrick’s face was slowly floating away again.

  ‘No,’ Sullivan said in a shattering whisper. ‘No. No!’

  ‘This guilt, darling. This guilt will kill you.’

  Kendrick’s face had been replaced by that of a woman, her beautiful features dancing over Kendrick’s head like a super imposed photo. Mia stared back in a stunned reverence, her mouth hanging open at one side as her teeth started to grind together. She had seen her before. The woman’s face had been etched on her mind; her body lying over the barbed wire of the pen outside, slain trying to escape. Now the face was turning down to Sullivan as Kendrick’s body crouched low and his long fingers and arms wrapped themselves around his knees.

  ‘She asks for you often. I don’t think she can see you yet. She doesn’t belong here.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Sullivan shouted, a hand shooting to his one good ear and slapping a blood drenc
hed palm over it as his other hand continued to fumble for the pistol.

  ‘It was an accident, darling. You know it was. You were trying to save us. You did save me. You were protecting us. She moved behind him. She was running from him, not you. You couldn’t have seen her. In that split second, you couldn’t have known. She doesn’t blame you. There is no blame. She only wants to speak with you again and tell you that she loves you.’

  Tears were pouring from Sullivan’s eyes, flooding the bloody mush of his nose. His fist was clenching around his ear and then slowly beating against it trying to stop the words from hitting him.

  ‘Daddy?’ Kendrick asked in the voice of a child, tilting his head to one side and staring out through those empty holes in his face. ‘Why did you shoot me daddy?’

  A roar suddenly erupted through Sullivan, and Mia felt it tear into her, sealing off the fear that had exposed her. The gunshot that followed sounded like little more than the popping of a champagne cork by comparison. It happened so quickly that Mia took a moment to process the information before her. She was looking between both bodies; the bloodied mess of Sullivan and the corrupted shape of Kendrick, now lying flat on his back, rolling from side to side in agony as a blood smear grew out of a charred hole at the top of his shirt, and still she couldn’t seem to grasp what had happened. Kendrick’s neat little hands were up in the air, reaching for her, like the hands of a child demanding a hug. The horrid watch waggled around on his arm, broken of its clasp.

  ‘Help me! Please! Oh, someone…’ It was Kendrick’s voice again.

  Sullivan wasn’t moving. Mia dropped to her knees and ran her hands over his back. He was breathing but it was slow and weary. His eyes were unblinking, fastened on Kendrick, drinking in the sight.

  Kendrick rolled to his side, his pleading eyes finding Mia again and widening in hope, as his hands grabbed out to her. She looked above him, then beyond, convinced there should be something else to see. She stared into the darkness, then up to the ceiling. She looked behind her and then back to Kendrick. The fire still burned its amber streak down the wall but it wasn’t enough.

  ‘Hello?’ she found herself saying.

  ‘Hello? Mia? Help me…’ Kendrick replied.

  Mia stood and stared off down the corridor. ‘I asked you who you were,’ she said into the empty corridor. ‘Answer me!’

  The response came from behind her; an ear-piercing screech at the ceiling as the hatch handle eased itself slowly around, turning against an invisible pressure before springing the lock and letting the hatch yawn open to hands and legs and bodies, tumbling out of the ceiling. High above her she heard another noise, a heavy rumble like the heavens themselves were passing comment on her, and in her mind, in the small piece left to carry her from this spot and move her on, she saw the giant entrance door sliding open and a hundred bodies charging through. She heard muffled voices coming together, the steady blooming screams of triumph and the sharp blood curdling wails of an old and empty rage and then all the sounds were one and it blew through the never ending corridors of the safe house like a howling gale, searching her out, looking to sweep her up along with anything else in its path. Mia turned and began to run.

  5

  They were a river in the corridor, a chaotic tide that swamped all, pushing through the empty spaces. Kendrick drowned under their force. Hands and legs found him, fists and feet broke him. He was lifted up between them like rubbish as wave after wave probed him and crashed through him. They were in his mouth, blasting through his eyes, cresting his chest and stomach and looking for a way in. He screamed one final time and then he felt his mouth ripped open and he gave no more. Further down his chest had let the flood in. The river dropped him down and then tore him apart.

  They landed on Sullivan, body after body dropping on to his back or trampling over his outstretched arms; just one more part of the grotesque carpet along the corridor marking their way. He lay still, letting the last shallow breaths leave him in their short, jagged sighs. He saw a blur of feet and legs move past him and the wild jerking frame of Joe Kendrick beyond rolling helplessly on the floor. Then the bodies and the legs had become one and drawn a darkened veil over Kendrick’s body and Sullivan closed his eyes, fell into the emptiness and waited, letting another darkness take him to his own ending.

  6

  Mia ran until it hurt, moving around the ends of corridors before pounding the next and repeating the process in a blind and hopeless effort. How ugly the place looked, she suddenly thought. It was a bizarre thing to allow herself to contemplate in the circumstance but she couldn’t help it. For the first time since she had stood at the entrance and let her mind wander the shelter, she was actually taking stock of just how unedifying the scenery was. She had heard it described as a tomb, a prison, and a maze and it was all of those things, yet something more too. Those things suggested an ending, and yet to Mia the building was just a beginning, a prelude to the running down of a clock.

  Tick-tock.

  Time he had said. Just get as much of it as you can. She could hear a dull ticking in her mind. She was running out of time and running out of space.

  The sounds of the others pressed around her. She could hear them above and behind, getting nearer, footsteps across the floors like encroaching thunder. She was running in circles – she knew it, she knew this place – and sooner or later she was going to be closed off. But what else was there but to run? To grab whatever time was left?

  She looked ahead of her at another sharp turn and pushed into her memory, planning her move. Past the next corridor her path would split in two, feed left and right and then she would be faced with a decision. Time. Which would afford her the most time? Her mind felt frayed, a tenuous notion, it was flattened and worn and gave her nothing. Tears were pins in her eyes, skewering the last of her resolve. She wiped them with a clenched fist and as she turned the corner and hauled herself on she let her memories snap free and drift away. She had no time for such an indulgence.

  At the split in the corridor she took the right hand path. Ahead of her orange light caressed the walls, twinkling and dancing its colour from the floor to the ceiling. A line of doors stood open along one side and each was emanating an impossible glowing life from within. The corridor shone and its brilliance was suddenly overwhelming, a lost sun on the deepest winter night. Mia was at the first door before she realised her mistake. The light was changing, shifting, flicking and popping and growing brighter. She could feel the heat from the first door reaching out to her and then the heat was a long tentacle of flame, bending around the frame, crawling up the wall and smearing along the ceiling. She stumbled back, turned sharply and retreated, running back the way she had come.

  At the intersection she could see the end of the first corridor coming alive with figures moving forward as if falling from the shadows. The gathered roar was almost deafening but Mia refused their advances and carried on through, running at full tilt down the left hand path of the crossroads. The flames came again almost instantly. They bloomed together in front of her, drawn out of the walls. She ducked the first but couldn’t escape the next and she felt her bare arm singe as it cut through the dancing licks. It was bending and stretching, arching over her and jabbing forwards as she passed it. Behind her she heard screams as the oncoming invaders found themselves greeted by the enveloping amber rage; figures were dropping to the floor, rolling back and forth as they batted hopelessly at the pulsing flames. The rest of the pack were backing off, turning into their neighbours and fighting as they tried to push away as one from the fire. Gunshots sounded behind them and more people fell. Mia felt something pass her cheek and explode at the wall to her right but gave it little heed. She was fully held by what was happening in front of her.

  She pushed on again, stumbling past doorways and leaping wayward over small patches of fire that seemed to be bursting up through the heavy set floor at intervals. The heat was immense and suffocating, it looked for her, chased her down and taunted her.
Once more a flash of amber erupted in front of her, slicing over her head like a giant arm, and this time she was knocked off her stride, dropping hard to her knees before tilting forward and seemingly falling through the floor and into thin air. She turned in the emptiness, spun over through the blackness and then thudded against an uneven, lumpy ground.

  The empty hole in the floor above gazed down at her, a lonely moon slowly swallowed by the sun. Streaks of orange stroked at the space as the flames above her started moving together, bending and wrapping around each other, pushing up, growing out and looking down. For a brief moment, held suspended there above, the flames seemed to form a figure but they broke apart as soon as the idea came to her, pushing out to the walls and the ceiling again and submerging both, sealing off the open hatch. Gunfire tore through the emptiness, the loud cracking pops and bangs like a private fireworks display she couldn’t see. She could hear them screaming and shouting high above her and in her mind she could see the blackened and defeated bodies on the floor, eaten by the flames or dropped by a bullet, and yet she could feel nothing. There was no pity and there was no revulsion. There was just nothing at all. A part of her had already escaped.

  The smell where she lay was pungent and sharp. It was in the walls and the floor, infested in the darkness. She had smelt traces of it wafting through the corridors above and now here she was at the source. It was the first time since arriving that she was grateful for the shadows and the gloom. She saw edges of shapes, dull, partially defined suggestions at the walls, yet what troubled her lay not at the walls but beneath her, amongst the ragged, perversely misshapen floor. A hand was against her cheek, she was sure of it, the rigid, bony ends of fingers tapping at her skin whenever she moved her head. She shifted her feet, feeling and probing at the uneven surface, and then her hands began to ease out to the sides, gently touching whatever they found, trying in vain to give her answers that would disprove her fears. But her grabs at a wilful delusion were hopeless. She knew where she was. She had been here before. Someone had shown it to her and left it hanging in her subconscious.