Academic Assassins

by Clay McLeod Chapman

  It made sense that he would want me to follow in his footsteps and lead an uprising until Kesey was in our control.

  Who knows? Maybe he was right. But if I took this place over, how long before I turned into some power-mad despot like Peashooter had back at Camp New Leaf?

  I rested on my cot and stared at the ceiling. I didn’t move much. You wouldn’t either after the amount of electricity I’d taken. The voltage never left my bones.

  “Good night,” Peashooter broke the silence that had settled over us.

  “Is it night already?”

  “Might as well be. It’s night forever down here.”

  Twice daily—or was it three?—a Styrofoam tray would slide through a metal slot in my door. All I ever saw was the hand that slipped it inside.

  Always on the tray was a stale loaf of bread with grey chunks of something or other baked in. They may have been fruit at one point—now they were off-color lumps of bland nourishment, like your sweet ol’ grandmama’s holiday fruitcake.

  Peashooter had nicknamed it “The Fruitcake’s Fruitcake.”

  “Bon apetit,” I said before gripping the loaf with both hands and gnawing on a corner. I needed to make a pretty sufficient premasticated pˆte of the stuff before fighting back my gag reflex and forcing the mouthful down. “This tastes awful.”

  “Your stomach gets used to it after a while,” Peashooter suggested from the neighboring cell.

  I discovered a few alternate usages for my fruitcake beyond sustenance:

  1. PUTTY: I could spackle the cracks in the ceiling, if I wanted.

  2. A BALL: I could spit out a rounded mouthful and bounce it off the walls.

  3. PAINT: By softening the loaf up with my saliva, my palm quickly became a painter’s palette with one color—a mealy off-brown.

  My cell’s gray walls became a canvas.

  Time for a little redecorating…

  A little dab here…

  A little dab there…

  “What are you doing?” Peashooter piped up, momentarily pulling me away from my mural.

  “Just sprucing the place up a little.”

  “What I wouldn’t give for a window,” Peashooter said. “Just a window overlooking a field. I would stare at that grass for weeks and never blink.”

  “A book wouldn’t be so bad,” I said.

  “There’s no escaping the Black Hole. Not even into the pages of a book.” He recited a line from Nineteen Eighty-Four—“‘Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull….’”

  Why read Orwell when you’re living it?

  The more I thought about it, the more I slowly realized there were two kinds of freedoms worth fighting for.

  There was a physical freedom. That takes breaking out.

  Then there was an inner freedom, a place inside your mind where you can escape when the world around you closes in. Nobody, not Merridew or her Men in White, could take that away. That’s where I’d find my freedom in a place like Kesey.

  Maybe I wasn’t breaking out after all. Maybe I was breaking in to my own mind.

  “Still there?” I asked. “Or am I talking to myself?”

  “Who says I’m not just another figment of your imagination?”

  “Are you?”

  This is how Merridew breaks you. Kesey takes away what matters most—contact with others—until you begin to question your own sanity.

  You might not be crazy now, but you soon will be….

  When basic human interaction is taken away, when you never know when one day ends and the next begins, the baggage of your brain drops away. The parameters of your world contract. Everything gets smaller. Your sense of self fades.

  You start to question who you are.

  Whatever you thought you knew about yourself—that was all wrong. Whatever you believed about yourself—that was never true.

  That person doesn’t exist. That person never existed.

  That’s what Merridew wanted me to think.

  When I was out in the woods, I had lost myself. I lost the idea of who I am. I thought I had hit rock bottom in that cave—but maybe there was a little bit further down to go. Maybe I hadn’t really hit the bottom until I made my way to the Hole.

  There never was a Spencer Pendleton.

  There. I said it.

  Spencer Pendleton was just an image. A character in a book.

  He was never real to begin with.

  Who am I then?

  What am I?

  Peter Pan?

  You have to fight, Peashooter would say. Fight back against Merridew’s attempt to turn you into another one of her mindless, hollow shells.

  I took a long look into the abyss of solitary confinement and saw myself for who I truly am. I am not a hermit. I am not a Thoreau living in the woods any longer.

  I wanted to live. I wanted to be free.

  I wanted my Tribe—my friends, my family.

  I want to be an Academic Assassin.

  The florescent tubes buzzed over my head.

  In my head.

  I don’t know how long it had been—days? weeks?—before the lock to my door released with a rusty squeal of grinding hinges as the door swung open.

  Grayson sauntered in. He immediately spotted my mural.

  “What do you think?” I said as I stood beside it, rather proud of my work—the Tribe’s stick figure in masticated mush, spear raised over its head. I had used my Fruitcake’s Fruitcake to paint, struggling to convince my stomach to digest the rest.

  “Merridew wants you prepped,” Grayson said with little fanfare.

  “What about Sully? Peashooter? You’re gonna leave them to rot down here?”

  “Pea—what?”

  “Bowden. Jason Bowden. The kid in the next cell.”

  Grayson looked at me like I was crazy. “Nobody’s been in there for months.”

  I snorted. “Nice try.”

  Grayson shook his head as he approached. “Suit yourself.”

  “Peashooter!” I called over my shoulder. “They’re coming for me!”

  No response.

  “Peashooter!” I pushed past Grayson.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “Get back here!”

  Launching into the hall, I peered through the window of the neighboring cell.

  “Peashooter!”

  It was empty.

  “Peashooter?!”

  Grayson was on me in a flash, forcing my chest against the door and pressing my face to the window.

  “Where is he?” I shouted. “What have you done to Peashooter?”

  “Nobody’s been in that cell since you got here.”

  “You’re lying! You moved him, didn’t you? Where is he? What’ve you done with him? Peashooter! Peashooter, can you hear me?! Peashooter—?”

  “For your own protection,” Grayson said. He and his Men in White had shackled me to the frame of my cot in a four-point restraint. Two had to pin me on the mattress while Grayson quickly cinched the padded cuffs around each wrist.

  Once my hands were secure, they moved to my ankles, tightening the straps so there was no sitting up.

  “Miss Merridew will pop her head in,” Grayson said. “Hang tight ’til then.”

  “Let me go let me go let me gooooooo….”

  That had to have been hours ago.

  Felt like hours.

  I couldn’t feel my hands anymore. The cuffs strapped to my wrists cut off the circulation. There was the slightest tingle in the tips of my fingers, but that eventually faded. Now I didn’t know if my hands were even there anymore.

  I closed my eyes. That was all I could do. Kesey had taken everything else. The only freedom I had anymore was whether or not my eyes were open or shut.

  To see or not to see? That’s the only question.

  Open and close…

  The cave or the Black Hole.

  Open and close…

  Night or day.

  Open and close…

  Light or dark. />
  Open and close…

  Life or death.

  The time between reopening my eyes began to drag further out, the seconds minutes hours extending themselves until I spent more and more time in the dark.

  I preferred hiding behind my eyelids. It felt safer in the blackness.

  In the cave of my skull.

  “How are your wrists?” The voice seeped through the grate behind the toilet.

  I didn’t respond.

  “Don’t give up, Spencer. You’ve come this far. You’ve got to fight. Fight back.”

  “Says who?” I asked with a dry laugh. “You? You’re just a voice in my head.”

  “That’s crazy talk.”

  “I’m in the loony bin, aren’t I?” I shouted. “I’m strapped to my bed. I’m talking to my imaginary pal. If that doesn’t make me certifiable, nothing does….”

  Staring up at the ceiling, I felt the first tear run down the left side of my face. Even if Peashooter was only in my mind, I didn’t want him to hear me cry.

  “You’ve lasted longer than anyone else,” Peashooter said. “Remember the first sentence in Peter Pan? ‘All children, except one, grow up.’ That’s you, Spencer. You’re the closest thing to Peter Pan this place has. You are our only hope of overthrowing Merridew and claiming Kesey. All the Lost Boys need Peter now.”

  I thought about it as I stared at the ceiling, momentarily losing myself in the buzz of the florescent light above me.

  “What if I want to grow up?”

  Wake up, young man,” a soothing voice whispered into my ear, gently dragging me back from my slumber. At first, from the hazy depths of my dreams, I could’ve sworn it sounded like my mom. “It is the beginning of a brave new world….”

  A whip of electricity suddenly lashed at my spine and my back arches upwards eyes bolt open WAKE UP CALL WAKE UP CALL and the electricity releases me just as quickly as it came, sending my body flopping back to my cot. I would’ve sprung up to the ceiling had my wrists and ankles not been in their restraints.

  Merridew sat at the edge of my bed, her C.R.U. in one hand, my tattered copy of Peter Pan open in the other. “I should feel honored. To be cast as Captain Hook! That must make you Peter Pan, correct?” She read from the book—“‘The truth is that there was something about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage, it was not his engaging appearance….It was Peter’s cockiness.’”

  Merridew laid the book down on her knee and stared at me.

  “Indeed, it is your cockiness that has earned you this time in solitary housing. Your cockiness has earned you every last volt of electricity. Your cockiness has brought all of this upon you, Spencer. Remember that.”

  “Please.” I tried to roll over in my cot. “No more shocks….”

  “Excuse me?” She leaned forward as if she hadn’t heard me.

  “Just stop,” I begged.

  “Stop? Stop, did you say? If you would like the shocks to stop, I would suggest you stop undermining my authority.” Merridew affectionately rubbed her hand over my buzz cut. “I must admit you surprised me, Spencer. Most residents merely use physical violence. You, however, attempted to educate your fellow residents. But what were you trying to teach them? What could you have possibly achieved?”

  I muttered a quote from Nineteen Eighty-Four at her—“Two and two makes five….”

  “We are quoting Orwell now, are we?” This only seemed to please Merridew. “What if I told you that Orwell was one of my favorite authors? His writings have been rather inspirational here.” She recited Orwell without a second’s hesitation. “Posterity will never hear of you. You will be lifted clean out from the stream of history.” The quote flowed from her mouth so eloquently, as fluidly as anything she had ever said—that, at first, I hadn’t realized they were Orwell’s words. “Nothing will remain of you, not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You will never have existed.”

  She noticed the surprise on my face. “Don’t be so shocked. I was an avid reader when I was your age. Brave New World. The Chrysalids. A Clockwork Orange. These books saved me. Helped me advance in life. They were truly special to me. Dare I say sacred? I would read them over and over and over again until I could recite them from memory…I lived within their pages.” Merridew sat upright and unlatched the cuff around my left wrist.

  “Look at you. Poor thing. Your wrists must be sore by now.”

  She freed my right hand. Then my ankles. I managed to pull myself into a sitting position on the cot and rub my wrists.

  “You have visitors,” she said. “Should I tell them you are indisposed? I am not sure if you are ready for guests.”

  “Please…” My voice cracked, brittle under my breath. “I’ll do anything.”

  “Anything?”

  “Just…please. Let me out of here.”

  “I will allow it.” She rested her hand on my shoulder. “But you should perhaps consider what you say. We do not want our guests to get the wrong impression, now—do we?”

  I shook my head, no.

  “People have a difficult time understanding what happens here,” she said. “It would be such a shame to backpedal now, after all of the progress we have made.”

  I nodded my head, yes.

  “Can I trust you?”

  I nodded again, yes yes.

  “Are you just saying that because you believe that is what I want to hear?”

  I shook my head, no no no no no.

  “Before we go,” she said, “Let me remind you what happens to those residents who betray my trust.”

  Merridew turned to the door and called out, “Bring him in.”

  I heard the soft shuffle of footsteps outside the door.

  Grayson escorted Babyface into my cell, his eyes sunk back into his sockets. Babyface slowly turned his head toward me, his vacant eyes meeting mine. Even after making eye contact, it still seemed as if he couldn’t see me.

  My chest clamped. I could hear this voice in the back of my head whispering—Your fault, Spencer. This is all your fault your fault your fault.

  Merridew prodded him. “Is there something you would like to tell Spencer?”

  Babyface looked at me without looking at me. “Welcome home.” His voice was flat. Dry. Free of any emotion.

  “Babyface,” I entreated. “It’s me. It’s Spencer. Your friend. I’m sorry…”

  “Do not be sorry. Be happy. I am happy.”

  “Please. Whatever she did to you down here, you have to snap out of it. You’ve got to fight back—”

  “You will love it here,” he said. “All of us do. Eventually.”

  “This isn’t you.” I shook my head. “I know it’s not.”

  “This is me.”

  “Fight it. You’ve got to fight back!”

  “I love it here. And soon…Soon, you will too.”

  “What a good boy.” The sugar plums in Merridew’s cheeks grew pink underneath her face powder. “Thank you. Now, Spencer—I have one last question.”

  She held up her right hand, her thumb nestled into her palm.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Four,” I said without a second’s hesitation.

  “Hmm….” She examined her hand, as if to silently count her own fingers, then she held it up to Babyface. “How many fingers do you see?”

  He hardly glanced at her hand. “Five, ma’am.”

  “Five it is.”

  I wasn’t allowed to receive guests in the visitors’ room. Merridew probably thought I would incite a riot. Too risky for me to be seen amongst the other ants.

  Merridew escorted me into the wooden chambers of her office. As soon as I stepped inside, I spotted Mom sitting before Merridew’s desk. She immediately stood up and rushed over, swallowing me in her arms and hugging tight.

  Mom wasn’t alone. Gazing over her shoulder, I saw a man sitting before Merridew’s desk—in the same
chair Sully had sat in—staring back at me. Something about his features registered at the back of my clouded mind. He looked familiar.

  Where did I know him from?

  I couldn’t find him.

  Who is he?

  “Good to see you, Spencer,” the man said. “How are you holding up in here?”

  That voice. I recognized that voice. A name slowly materialized in my mind.

  Simms.

  I had to navigate my way through the last few short-circuited months before finally identifying him. The longer I looked, the more he rose back into focus.

  Mr. Simms. The custodian at Greenfield Middle.

  Mr. Simms. Tribal elder.

  Mr. Simms. Originator of the Tribe.

  His hair was grayer, but he still had the same tender expression that I remembered when he looked after Peashooter and the rest.

  What was he doing here?

  “I reached out to your mother when I heard what happened,” Simms said. “I’ve been silent about this for too long. I needed to say something—so I told her the truth.”

  The truth? What’s true? The truth will set you free….Who said that? Clearly whoever had never spent time in Kesey.

  Mr. Simms could tell I was struggling. “I told her about the others. The Tribe. Peashooter. Sully. Yardstick. I told her how I brought them all together back at Greenfield. I even told her how we tried to get you to join us. How….How everything just got out of hand. How I let it get out of hand. I told her everything, Spencer. And I told her I’d do whatever it takes to get you out of this godforsaken place.”

  Get me out?

  Was this a trick? Some kind of pop quiz?

  I froze up. Had Merridew designed this tribal reunion to see how I’d react?

  If I answered incorrectly, what would happen to me?

  Would I get shocked?

  Would I be sent back to the Black Hole for the rest of my teenage life?

  “To bring you home, Spencer,” Mom spoke up, snapping me out of my litany of questions, “we need your help.”

  Merridew stood ten steps away, hands held behind her back. I felt her sickly sweet cough syrup breath spread down my neck, the aroma of it wrapping around my throat. I could nearly taste it.

  “It’s okay.” Mom stepped forward. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”