He was laughed at and taunted.
“You know what happens when you disrespect me, boy?” The door to his cage had an almighty click as the cylinder of the locking mechanism was breached. The Gardener angrily reached out at Robert, who punched him in the face.
This caused him to fall back and drop the keys he had in his hand. Riled by the actions of a child, he hadn’t noticed and instead retorted with his own fist. Robert was already too weak to fight back and fell down quickly. Dragged by his feet, that he was flailing in a bid to kick his way free, he was pulled out of the fake door, banging his head in the process. The Gardener grabbed a baton off the shelf as he passed it. The door slammed, leaving a frightened Alexia and me in the room.
I heard the faint words through the door from our captor. “I’ll teach you not to mess with daddy, boy. I’m going to fuck you… up,” he said with a sneer and an eerily long pause.
The noises dissipated as Robert was pulled away from the cage.
“Get the keys,” I ordered Alexia. She didn’t react, not knowing what was happening to her brother, terrified of what was going on.
“Alexia, please. Listen to me. I need the keys.”
She came to life, somewhat, and reached over to the keys and handed them through the bars. I grabbed her by the hand to her surprise, looked her dead in the eye and promised that I would get us out. She nodded, tears in her eyes.
Something told me in that moment she knew what was going to happen to our brother, and what he had probably just saved her from. I fumbled with the keys and tried to unlock my own cage, eventually succeeding.
It’s amazing what you learn when you’ve spent so much time in the dark. My eyes were attuning to the smallest details in the room, assessing what could and couldn’t be used. I didn’t unlock my sister’s cage, but she begged me to.
“I can’t, not yet. I need to figure out what we are going to do. If we blow it now, we’ll never get out. Please, trust me. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”
It was a promise I was determined to keep but was probably not in the best position to offer. A small bag of sawdust was in the corner, so I quickly grabbed it, moving it into my cell to consider as a makeshift pillow. I moved to the shelves, laden with tools, some sharp, some blunt. Dried blood was on the end of some of them. I dreaded to think how they had been used. I took a star screwdriver and put it in my pocket. I looked at the fake door and realised I was going to have to see what was on the other side, properly.
I turned to the door and as I was pressed against it, revealing the smallest light on the other side.
“Please don’t go. Please don’t leave me alone here,” Alexia pleaded.
“I promise I’ll be back. Trust me.”
She nodded, through tears and it was the last thing I saw as I closed the fake door, leaving it only slightly ajar. My focus shifted around the room, and I struggled to find anything of use. Empty barrels were in the room, which I figured might make for a good makeshift ladder to reach the vent but decided to leave them in place.
I could hear distant slapping sounds, coming from a small hallway that I hadn’t recognised. It wasn’t the way I was brought in. I tiptoed into the shrouded corner of the room to see where it led. I heard my brother whimpering at the beating he was receiving. I took the screwdriver out of my pocket, wielding it in an upright fashion, knowing I may be forced to use it.
I crept closer and snapped my view to some useful items: a container of oil, old pieces of wood, and general maintenance items. This basement must have been a storage area. I scanned the area until the sound of my brother refocussed me. I kept moving towards the sound, pressing firmly against the wall in the process.
I peeked around the corner to another opening, much like the area with the barrels; only this one had a bed, and an old fashioned, massive camera. It was like a film set, with lights, cameras, and a white sheet.
Youthful naivety couldn’t comprehend exactly what it was used for at first, but I could sense that it wasn’t for anything innocent. I looked closer at the bed to see a number of straps on each of the corners, evidently used to restrain whoever had the misfortune to lying on it. With hindsight, I often think back to reading Mallory’s diary and her unfortunate experience; presuming this was the place it happened.
I slowly edged forward. The noises were coming from behind a small area of the room, shielded by a curtain. I hid behind the large camera and peeked forward, to see the Gardener, who by this point having thought about Mallory’s diary, figured was the infamous Jack. He had a name, though beasts didn’t deserve one and I certainly wasn’t about to use it, as that would suggest I had a modicum of respect for the fact he was an adult and I was a child. He was beating Robert across his bare back, his shirt ripped off; blood was seeping from the newly formed cuts.
The Gardener opened his mouth, undoing his belt. “Remember what happened last time? You are my property. You are all mine.” His trousers had fallen to his ankles and he was working his slimy hands down Robert’s back. I knew I had to act quickly. I knew I had to stop what was about to happen.
Robert was struggling to keep himself upright, struggling to form any sort of protest in response. I had my screwdriver but didn’t want to risk blowing any attempt at escape, or either of our lives, as that would leave Alexia alone. I picked up a small piece of metal, a solid rebar that was at my feet; not knowing if it was a part of the set, or a weapon used to beat someone else.
Without a second thought, I backed up slowly so I could make my retreat, and then launched the piece of metal into the corner of the room, opposite Robert. It bashed off the wall and landed beside some tattered old boxes. The noise of the clattering was alarming in the echoey room.
“Who the fuck is there? Cyril?” the beast demanded. I could hear him fumbling with his trousers, as though he had a shred of guilt and didn’t want to be found by anyone else. I ran away, tiptoeing back to the cells for fear of being caught. Armed with a screwdriver, I moved like a ninja, soft-footed and carefully back to the room.
As I opened the fake door that I’d left slightly ajar, I put my finger to my mouth and tried to hush my sister, who was quizzing what had happened and where I had been. I closed my cell door, not snapping the lock back into place, hoping I wouldn’t be caught out.
Hearing footsteps in the distance, I knew it was him. I knew he was investigating the noise in the event it was one of us. How on earth he could have thought it was us, I don’t know but before he could get close, I tossed his keys to the other side of the room, out of reach.
The door flew open, and Robert was with him. He dragged him into the room and ushered him back to his cell. I felt a minor victory knowing I had prevented any further assault. The Gardener noticed the keys on the floor. He fumbled and felt both of his pockets, realising they were his. He muttered to himself about how they ended up there and then put them back in his pocket. He scanned the room, looking to see if there was anything amiss.
My heart was racing, hoping he wouldn’t see that my lock was undone. He looked at the cells and to his pocket, like a tennis match going on between them. He snapped the lock back in place on Robert’s cell and Robert foolishly retorted, “Is that all you got?”
I admired Robert’s bravery considering what he had just been through, but it clearly only served to anger our twisted host. He sneered and left the room, sexually unfulfilled and incredibly pissed off. The fake door slammed and all I heard was Robert’s whimpering. He was in pain and there was nothing I could do right now.
We sat in silence, taking in the happenings. Unaware of the time, or what was going on; I lay there thinking, constantly. The only thing going through my head was what the hell we could do. I was thinking, feeling the call of the void, and playing out numerous scenarios that could end in one of us being seriously hurt, or worse.
I must have fallen asleep as I jerked awake, my brother and sister also hadn’t moved. I truly wasn’t sure how long I had been out, but I knew that doing n
othing was the wrong thing to do. I got up, opened my cell to my brother’s surprise, and made my way out of the room. I left the door open and worked one of the barrels into the room, setting it discreetly in the corner of our celled room. I was going to use it to get up into the ventilation shaft later.
My sister was watching me intently and had worked her way up from her protective stance. She stood at the cells with a huge smile of admiration on her face. I looked back at her proud and said two words to her. “I promised.”
She smiled, saying she was lucky to have me as a brother. That they both were. Robert was so pained by his latest beating he was in and out of consciousness. I pulled at a small piece of the barrel and got some of the wood together and peeled it into small stands, getting a splinter in the process. I sucked in air through my teeth at the same moment the wood slid into my skin. I pulled at it and thankfully, managed to get it out so as to not live with the discomfort, not that it would have made my current residence much worse. I gathered some of the wood strips and stuffed them into the keyhole of my cell. It was the only way I could safely ensure my cell would remain unlocked.
“You really are clever, brother,” Alexia said to me, practically infatuated with me. Truth be told, I didn’t really know what brought it all on. I like to think that it was my intellect, perhaps combined with the sheer will to survive. My entire time in this God forsaken place was a trial, a test of endurance and stamina. As I was assessing the vent above the barrel, the thoughts of how long I had been here made me snap into the memory of my arrival.
It suddenly dawned on me that there was a boy when I arrived at Fort Rose. He was nowhere to be found after going to the proverbial cage. He wasn’t here. Where the hell was he? Something in me switched right then. It was obvious we weren’t safe and that we were in danger, hell, I watched my brother get a beating earlier. The risk of being beaten and hurt I understood, but death? Was that other boy killed? Did someone take him away? His personal effects weren’t taken from the dormitory when I thought about it. I had forgotten his name and given that I had barely seen him in the fleeting seconds of that night; he was faceless in my mind’s eye. What happened to this poor kid?
“Robert?” I quizzed, knowing my brother was not really in a fit state of repair and probably not eager to chat.
“Yeah?” he responded through sheer willpower.
“Was anyone else down here when you got here?”
“Just George.” Robert started weeping. He was inconsolable. He was so dehydrated that his tears were struggling to leave his body. I thought better against asking where George was, or what had happened to spark that reaction.
“That bastard,” he said, as I smiled to myself thinking what one, as we were amongst many.
“The bastard that did this to me, killed him. I couldn’t do anything to help.” His tears getting beyond comfort. They echoed in our new bedroom, destitute of any sense of security. Part of me was expecting it. Part of me wasn’t even shocked, but I still stood there in disbelief.
I wanted the ground to swallow me whole knowing that one of the kids had actually been killed. It motivated me to do something to help us all, to help us get out. I was praying that Mallory’s letter had reached the right person.
“You couldn’t have known what would happen, Robert,” Alexia said softly.
It didn’t console him. I felt helpless. He was right in front of me and I couldn’t get to him. I felt a wave of empathy wash over me, the kind I have never experienced before. My brother was broken, mentally and physically. It brought Alexia to tears as well. All I could do was to stay strong for him, my sister, and figure a way out.
I left the room, determined and driven to make a change, to get to my brother. I searched the maintenance shelves and didn’t find anything then it hit me. Of course! The piece of metal I threw. I snuck down the hallway and was met with a comforting silence, knowing that no one else was there. I walked around the corner and froze in place. There he was.
The Gardener was resting on the bed, with a television and a Betamax player at the foot of it on a small stand. He was sleeping, with his trousers at his ankles, exposing his penis. Playing on the television was a video of Erin, unconscious and battered, as the beast resting in front of me took away her innocence. This was recent.
I snuck up behind him, armed with a screwdriver and fought the urge not to hurt him back. I raised my hand in the air, with the blade of the screwdriver glistening against the light from the television. The sounds and grunting of pleasure emanating from the video awoke a demon inside me, as I knew I could enact swift vengeance on the son of a bitch in front of me. Erin… I wish I could have been where I was now, before you got hurt. I could have stopped him. I could have saved you.
That very thought of saving Erin was enough to make me lower my hand. Doing what I was thinking of doing now wouldn’t help anybody. I’d be endangering myself, and my other brothers and sisters. I looked down at the sexually exhausted cretin in front of me, knowing I had the power of his life in my hands and I had chosen to spare him. Truth be told, I knew then and there that that decision, that moment, would forever define me. My life reached a crossroads and I had taken a path, completely different to the possible alternative.
I continued to sneak into the corner, looking for the metal rebar that I had tossed earlier. I had to sneak in front of Jack, the Gardener, in order to get to it. Dammit! It was now or never. All of the courage I could muster, I counted silently. Two, three, four. I crept quietly to the rebar, looked over my shoulder and could see that bastard snoozing softly. I kept edging forward and was jolted upright, startled by a loud snore of sorts. Staying true to my mission, knowing I was right under his watchful gaze if he opened his eyes, I crept up like a ninja and grabbed the rebar. It scraped quietly across the ground, which sent shivers down my own spine. I quickly hid behind the tatty boxes piled up, carefully concealing myself from the bastard on the bed.
That scrape had obviously altered him as he was beginning to stir. Sheer panic washed through my body. I was struggling to breathe at the thought of being caught. One of the scenarios I had conjured in my brain moments before as I was stuffing my lock with wooden chips felt as though it was becoming real. What would happen to me if I was caught? Would I get a beating like Robert? Or worse, would he do to me what he alluded to doing with Robert? Or worse yet, what I had seen him do to Erin on that video. That was the one moment in my short life that I had felt completely and utterly powerless. I was a wounded gazelle in the den of a lion, hiding and praying he couldn’t sense my fear.
“Cyril?” I heard amidst the sound of his grunting on the video. The sound of skin on skin echoing through the room from the video was sickening. Thankfully, from my current position, I couldn’t see the screen, just the back of the television.
“You are a fucking animal, Jack,” I heard. Oh my God… Father was here. Now I was really in trouble. He probably knew I was out of my cell. I’d left the door ajar again. Dammit! If he knew I was out of my cell, they’d probably punish the others to find me.
“I learnt from the best,” I heard him say back.
“You didn’t learn this from me, you sick fuck. I don’t do… this… to the children,” I heard Father retort in a disgusted voice.
Part of me was mildly grateful, as Father might consider me quite resourceful and take pity on me if I was found. The room became silent as the background noise and grunting stopped.
I heard the television get powered down, alongside the Betamax player. I heard, through gritted teeth. “But you’re happy to make the fucking money from these videos. Hypocritical cunt.”
Then it dawned on me and I edged my head out to scan the room, Father wasn’t there. It was him on the end of the video. So, these sorts of videos were one of Father’s cash streams… disgusting.
Suddenly, I felt slightly more at ease that there was only one devil in the room, not two. It didn’t change the fact I was still in danger. At least I knew my brother and sis
ter were okay for now, that no one knew I was out of my cell. It was getting back without being found. The dimly lit room was enough to make me think it was possible to make it out somehow. It was the most terrifying, exhilarating feeling I’d ever felt. I was about to dance with a devil in his own version of hell.
I gazed around the room, trying to plan my route back. The white cover behind the bed seemed like one possible route. The safer of the many routes from the boxes to the hallway back to my cell. The irony of a prisoner wanting to get back to their cell wasn’t lost on me, even at that age.
It hadn’t dawned on me that I was actually in the presence of a killer. Robert said that the man in the same room as me killed George. I almost tricked myself into another anxiety attack just thinking about it. My heart thumping, I figured I had three choices. The sneaky route behind the white backdrop was where I was most likely to elude the Gardener. The bolshy, direct route sneaking around the various camera equipment, largely exposed to a watchful gaze with one wrong step leading to me being another victim, or the suicidal approach of running right at him, sticking the screwdriver in his neck and rushing back to my cell; a fitting end for a child killer.
I sniggered at the fact the devil on my own shoulder was trying to force direct combat and murder as an option, before electing for the safer approach behind the backdrop. There were greater forces at work, and I had to get back in one piece. I could fantasise about the other options when I was back in the slightly safer territory.
I counted in my head again, willing myself to make my first move. I heard my captor readjusting his belt, so I peeked out the corner, conscious that he would be looking at the ground. This was it; I snuck up and moved slowly behind the white backdrop. I felt alive. I felt as though I was a secret agent, on a mission to save the sorry souls that had also found their way to this hell hole.
He was moving around, clearly readjusted. I could hear his footsteps edging towards me from my right-hand side, from the location of the boxes that I had just been hiding behind. His back turned to me; he fumbled with the top of the box, moving the flaps. I heard the clash of plastic cases, assuming it was him returning the video to his warped collection. A heart attack right now would be a just end for such a person. I crept out from behind the backdrop and as lightly footed as I entered the room, I glided back out into the hallway. It felt as though my heart was beating louder than anything else I was doing. As terrified and alive as I felt sneaking back to my cell, I felt nauseous from the adrenaline pumping through me. The swift, fleeting dance across the room where I was undetected worked wonders for my self-esteem. I felt invincible.
Dancing With Devils Page 17