Pulp Ink
Page 22
As they rush him past, you get only a quick look at him, but it is enough to notice something rare and remarkable. He lumbers along, resisting with all his might, despite the fact that he is most certainly altered, drugged up. Not a hint of filth or pestilence or cowardice emanating from his form. He is almost pure anomaly: muscular, thick through the chest but well-toned. Young and unbroken. Nothing like the rest of them.
The team leaves without as much as a nod in your direction. You tell yourself they are all assholes, anyway.
You have to admit you are curious about the newbie. Any time now, you could walk over and look at the newbie in his cell, but you don’t. No hurry.
At noon, you get to your feet and make the rounds. You gather a stack of five freeze-dried meals from the supply closet and dole them out, then go back for another stack of five. Two a day for the rest of their lives. You try not to count the number of prisoners, but it’s impossible. The number finds its way into your head like a snake seeking warmth. Sometimes you catch a glance of a prisoner through a service slot. Always the silhouette of a ghoulish figure, hunched and foul, scurrying away from the sliver of light that the slot lets into the cell.
You ready yourself with food for the new prisoner. He’s fresh; the newbies sometimes try to grab your wrist through the opening. Not so with this one. His cell is silent; he sits with his back against the damp masonry.
“You,” he whispers as you slide the meal in. “Help me.”
The words ask for help, but his voice is strong. He is calm and unafraid. No, he isn’t begging for anything. More like he’s offering you a chance do yourself a favor by helping him.
The only sign of vulnerability is the way he’s breathing. Deep but rapid breaths, like he isn’t getting enough air. You wonder what’s wrong with him.
“My name’s John,” he tries. “What’s yours?”
Speaking to the prisoners is strictly forbidden. You don’t know how they know when you break the rules, but they know, they just know. Cameras maybe, but you’ve never seen any.
Hugo broke the rules. Brought an mp3 player to work. When he relieved you at four, he was holding the fucking thing in his hands like he just brought a new puppy home for the kids. That was the last time you saw Hugo. But you try not to think about that.
Your eyes return to the newbie. John. You wonder what he did to cross the Krechniak Family. Most of them owed money or knew something they shouldn’t. Some die here. Others, they let go, only to gun them down a day later. You’re only certain that ending up here means the death of all hope. The sound of water from leaky pipes is just mood music.
***
On the way to work, you tell yourself it was just a dream. You were in John’s cell and you were a prisoner instead of a guard. You were in John’s and he was in yours and you couldn’t breathe and no one would help you. But it didn’t mean anything.
John does not leave your thoughts. That dark, penetrating stare. He never takes his eyes off you.
At work, you notice Freddy is wearing the same gray hoody and jeans he had on the other day, snot stains and all. Jesus Christ.
The fucker seems more animated than usual. You haven’t seen him since the newbie arrived a few days ago. He rises to his feet as you enter the receiving area.
“This new one’s something else, ain’t he?” he says.
You nod.
“Clean cut.”
You say yep and nod as he goes on and on. You picture Freddy with a long, fat gash across his face. If you weren’t a coward, you would consider killing him. You can’t imagine anyone more deserving, nor anyone missing him.
“Anyway, got to go,” he says. “I need a long shit.” As if he’s telling you to be grateful he didn’t use the toilet all the guards share. Thanks, snot dick.
When Freddy leaves, you find yourself skimming a newspaper he left behind. Usually you don’t like to read the news. Too much reality is bad for the constitution. But the paper is one distraction the bosses tolerate, for whatever reason, and it’s right in front of you.
What’s weird is this paper is a few days old and no one’s thrown it out. You wonder why. A blurb about a carjacking catches your eye. The car was found empty on the south side, miles away from the driver’s route from home to work. Bullet holes in the windshield. The vehicle’s owner was a tax attorney, John McPherson. You read the rest of article, but there’s only one additional detail worth consideration. McPherson is a known asthmatic, and his inhaler was found beneath the driver’s seat.
***
At home, you sit at the kitchen table wondering what it all means. You’ve never been one to believe in fate. You spoon macaroni and cheese, so overcooked it’s almost sludge, into your mouth. After dinner, you fish into the hardware drawer and find what you’re looking for in only a few moments.
Looking at it, holding it, knowing it might save John’s life – it’s impossible not to think about where it came from. You try your best, but it’s the image of Hugo sliding out from under your sheets, pennyroyal blue, that comes to you when you let your guard down. You watched with one eye open as he slipped on his boxers, a pair of old jeans, and a plain white t-shirt. He fastened his watch, too tight, to his left wrist. He was out the door a moment later and you rolled to one side and fell back asleep. When you woke, the inhaler was just sitting there, abandoned on the night table. You told yourself to remember – bring Hugo the inhaler – but it slipped your mind as you got ready.
“No big deal,” he whispered at work when he came in to relieve you. “I hardly ever need it.”
He pulled out that fucking mp3 player and slipped on his earphones as you walked toward the door.
“They could be watching,” you said. “Are you fucking crazy?”
“I guess that’s what love does to a guy.”
***
You come to the new prisoner’s cell and open the service slot. He looks squalid and sickly, a shell of what he was when he first arrived. He’s breathing heavily, almost wheezing. Same as yesterday and the day before.
You slide his dehydrated meal onto the small windowsill inside his cell. You hold back for a moment, then fish into your pocket. You pull out the inhaler, quickly, cupping it with your hands to hide it from the cameras that may or may not exist. You set it on the shelf next to the meal packet.
The inmate bounds across his cell and grabs the inhaler.
“Thank you,” he says between gasps.
You do not reply.
“I wish I could repay you,” he says.
The words almost form on your lips, but you halt yourself. There’s nothing you can do.
***
You dream of John again. This time, there is no prison, only flesh and sweat and labored breathing. John is Hugo and Hugo is John and you are John and Hugo. The three of you form a cloud of indiscernible humanity, like fragments of an idea coming together to form a coherent thought.
When you wake, every centimeter of your skin feels Friday in the air. Something tells you the Doctor will be in rare form today, and that John will be the focus of his attention. The Krechniaks will want him mangled and defeated, not just in storage.
In the car, you think about the last time you saw Hugo, sitting there with his mp3 player, carefree and boyish. But it had to be the headphones they couldn’t tolerate. If it was your relationship that got him killed, you’d be dead, too. Damned fool. When he disappeared, you just froze up. Pretended everything was fine. Did your job. But now it’s inescapable, the reality of the situation. Hugo is dead, but it’s not too late for John. You could still help him, maybe even save his life.
When you get to work, Freddy looks at you quizzically.
“Didn’t you hear?” he says. “You’re off today. I’m working a double.”
“Since when?”
“Got the word last night.”
“What the fuck?”
“How do you think I feel? I’m the one who has to work all day. And my bowels are killing me.”
; Jesus Fucking Christ. You walk out and let the door slam behind you. Does someone know you gave John the inhaler? If they did, you’d probably be dead, not suspended. Is this some kind of fucked up second chance? Go home and think about what you did, mister naughty. It would be your third chance if they really erased Hugo for what you did after hours. It’s hard to imagine anyone in the Krechniak family forgiving anybody, but you have to admit, the whole thing would be a pretty fucked up coincidence: random vacation time on the day John gets tortured. Yeah, right. The alternative is crazy but somehow more likely. Maybe someone in charge of the place actually likes you.
Or just likes to fuck with you. You glance at your watch. The Doctor will be here in less than an hour. You head to your car and check the trunk. Not so much as a tire iron. In the glove box you find an old, rusty screwdriver. It will have to do.
***
You’re sitting behind the front desk when the Doctor comes through the front door. The leaky pipes seem to slow their dripping in deference to him. He wears light green gloves and a butcher’s apron. And open toed sandals. He carries a thin black valise. At first he gives you nothing more than a casual glance as he walks by, but then he turns back to you.
“I thought Freddy was working today.”
“Yeah, change of plans. He went home sick.”
His face contorts as he approaches. “What is that fucking smell?”
You are honestly surprised. It’s not like the Doctor to lose his composure, not even a little. You look down at the nook under the desk. You can see the handle of your screwdriver sticking out of the layers of gray hoodie and back fat. It’s amazing how well his body fits under the desk, all things considered.
“I think Freddy shit himself on the way out the door.”
More like the dead body’s bowels evacuated. You try to think about the exact moment when his pathetic bouncing body was transformed from a person fighting for his existence into a dead, twitching thing. You’re afraid the thought of it will make you smile.
“What did you do, rub your hands in it?” The Doctor is visibly disgusted. “The smell’s all over the room.”
“Sorry. I tried to clean it up.”
He reaches into his bag and comes out with a small bottle of ammonia. You wonder if it came with his L’il Torturer send-away kit.
“Try this,” he says. “But I’ll need it back later.”
“Sure thing.”
The Doctor moves toward the cells muttering something about professionalism. You listen for the sound of the cell door clicking open.
You hear the door swing open, followed by a clicking sound, the Taser the Doctor uses to subdue his patients. He will bind John with the shackles built into the cell wall and wait for him to come to. You will have to wait for John to wake; the Doctor will be most vulnerable when he is preoccupied. You apologize inwardly to John and promise you’ll be there soon.
You hear the sound of an electric motor kicking on. Saw, drill, or belt sander: You’re never sure which is which. You pull the screwdriver out of Freddy’s back fat and wipe it on the hoody. You rise to your feet and crack your back. You check your shoes and trudge toward John’s cell. The door is ajar and the Doctor has his back to you. You step inside, careful not to brush against the door. John’s eyes are rolled back into his head, and the Doctor is hunched over like an office drone typing away. He senses you only when you are within inches, and he turns as you plunge the flathead into the fleshy spot between his neck and shoulder. His ghoulish, gloved hand reaches around to intercept the weapon, but it’s too late.
The drill he was using on John rattles to the floor. You yank the screwdriver free and stab at his face. The first time, you miss the eye socket and the tool ricochets off his the facial bone. The second attempt slashes across his nose and tears it into two pieces. You wonder if he saw Hugo before he died. Maybe they took him to a warehouse somewhere and let the Doctor have a turn with him before they executed him. On the third try, you bury the metal tip of the screwdriver in his eyeball, and it pops like a cherry tomato. As he slumps to the ground, you twist his neck until it snaps, just to be sure.
You look up and realize John has been looking at you, probably since the moment the drill stopped digging into his pectoral muscle. He is wearing only boxer shorts and is bleeding from two or three places. You reach into the Doctor’s pockets and find the keys to the shackles. John wheezes and coughs. You pull his arm over your shoulder and help him step over the Doctor’s pathetic corpse. John mutters something when he trips on one of the Doctor’s sandals, but he seems barely conscious. You guide him to front room and set him in the guard’s chair.
“Just a second,” you say. “I just need to key the combination, and we’re free.”
You press the buttons and wait for the heavy door to sigh as it unlocks. You hear it click open only an instant before something heavy strikes you on the back of the head. You slump over, half dazed, trying to place the blow and where it came from. As you roll onto your back, you catch sight of John standing over you, awake and alert, both fists clenched. He kicks you hard in the chest and you roll over again on your stomach. You wonder if this was his plan all along, or whether he saw Freddy’s body under the desk and decided you weren’t to be trusted. Not that it matters. You feel his foot strike you hard in the face, and the light seems to flee the room. You can feel blood and teeth seeping out of your mouth. You feel something moving hard and fast make contact with your spine – probably his heel – followed by a loud crunch.
You hear footfalls and the door swinging shut behind him. He says nothing by way of parting. You fight against the desire to drift off, to slip into unconsciousness. You try to remember what time it was when the Doctor arrived. Well after ten, but the swing shift doesn’t start until four.
Hugo won’t arrive to find you for hours yet. No, not Hugo, Duane. It’s Duane who works the swing shift now. Hugo’s been gone for years…
-
Matt Lavin is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Iowa. He has a bachelor’s degree from St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY and a master’s degree in American Studies from Utah State University in Logan, UT. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from numerous venues, including Braided Brook, Broome Review, Mysterical-E, Paradigm, Prick of the Spindle, and Thrillers, Killers ‘n’ Chillers.
Table of Contents
Editor’s Note
Requiem for Spider
Jack Rabbit Slim’s Cellar
The $5 Mil Hak
Padre
The Creation of Ice
Zed’s Dead, Baby
Your Mother Should Know
You Never Can Tell
A Whole Lot of Rosie
The Lady & the Gimp :
A Peter Ord Investigation
A Night at the Royale
Clouds in a Bunker
The Wife of Gregory Bell
If Love is a Red Dress – Hang Me in Rags
A Corpse by Any Other Name
Surf Rider
The Slicers’ Serenade of Steel
The October 17 Economic Development Committee Meeting
Threshold Woman
Redlining
Jungle Boogie
This Little Piggy
Comanche
Misirlou
The Only One Who Could Ever Reach Me