“What—? What’s happening? Where am I?” Her voice was small and scared. “What did you do to me?”
He looked at her, shocked. “I woke up here, just like you.” He clanged the handcuffs to corroborate. It worked. There was something new in her face—understanding. For a moment, they were locked in each other’s gaze, sharing their fear.
There was more stirring around her on the floor, and her eyes drifted down. He couldn’t see. But whatever she saw made her jump up and back. Her hip collided with the desk and the room-service menu toppled over. She gave a small, curt squeal.
He could see her more clearly now. Jeans. Light yellow hoodie. Just your average girl. As he looked, he saw that there was something on her left breast. A sticker of some kind. “More people,” she said, gasping. “There’s more people.”
“I know.” Speaking was becoming easier, like an engine rolling over and starting up. “How many?”
“I don’t... I can’t...”
“I need to know how many.” Why? Why was it important? Maybe because every extra person would make this so much worse.
Upon hearing his voice—his full voice—something must have sparked in her mind. She looked at him—her eyes wide and full. That look he saw nearly every day.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Aren’t you—? Don’t I—?”
Don’t I know you? This was only going to delay things. He always existed on the fringe—he wasn’t recognizable at a glance but a double take would do the job.
“You’re...”
“Yes, yes.” He usually would have loved it. But not now. “How many?”
“Oh God... There’s four people. A girl. Two men. And a woman. I don’t know if they’re...”
“Are they breathing?”
“I think so. They’re moving—the woman and the girl anyway. I don’t want to check.”
“No, no, you need to get to the door, okay?” He was losing her again—she was shaking her head. Hysteria—the enemy of progress. He took in a deep breath. “Just get out of here. Go and get help. You need to go and get help, okay?”
“What is this?” she said, her eyes darting around the floor. He was glad he couldn’t see what was there.
“I don’t know—but please, the door.” He was almost pleading. What had he been reduced to already?
Can’t wait to see what you do next.
The girl kept her eyes up, not looking at the floor. She made her way across his vision, toward the alcove. She must’ve been able to see the door. He was right about where it was. Of course. The girl made two exaggerated movements, side to side. She was dodging bodies. He didn’t have to be able to see them to know. She disappeared from view into the alcove.
He leaned on the cuffs, forward this time, and craned his neck, but he couldn’t see her. He heard her try the door, fumbling with the handle. The shake of it. But he didn’t hear the door open. Why did the door not open?
“It’s locked,” she said. “It’s... The key-card light’s red. I can’t...”
Another sound. Another scraping. The girl was trying the lock—the physical one.
“It’s...it’s stuck. It’s locked.” How could it be locked?
“Do you see anywhere the key card could be? Like a holder on the wall to activate the lights?”
“No, there’s nothing. There’s...”
“Look through the peephole,” he said, “someone might pass by. There may be...” Someone. Anyone.
A beat. And then, “I just see the corridor.” Banging. She was banging on the door. Bang. Bang. Bang. She kept at it, louder and louder, until it sounded like she was punching the door. “Hey. We’re trapped in here. Someone! We can’t get out.”
And above the banging, he heard and felt something else. Another presence. A mumbling. As if someone was whispering by his right ear. He turned and looked into the eyes of an old woman with blankets of long black hair. They looked at each other, and he wished he was able to block his ears, as she began to scream.
5
It felt like his ears erupted as the old woman emitted the shrill, coarse sound that seemed so loud it could alert everyone in the building. She jumped up and backed herself into the corner nearest to him, so it was hard for him to see her—his blind spot.
The banging stopped, or at least he thought it did. His ears were ringing. He looked across the room, to the alcove the girl had disappeared into, but he faltered along the way. There were faces—two new faces. Just like the girl had said.
A young girl—younger than the one at the door—at the end of the bed. Maybe she was seventeen at most, and she was wearing some sort of black sweater. She had a large pair of purple headphones around her neck, a wire snaking down into her jeans pocket. She tried to stand up, but her legs gave way and she dropped out of sight again.
A young man, slightly to Sheppard’s left, fared better. He was slowly becoming conscious, but as soon as he opened his eyes, he snapped to alertness. He was wearing some kind of jumpsuit, pure white. There was something on him, a sticker, matching that of the girl’s. Some writing. Impossible to read across the distance. He looked around, with more of a sense of wonder than confusion. When he saw Sheppard, he just stared at him.
The girl, the man, the woman—how many had the blonde girl said? Four. One more. The old man. The man he had seen when he looked over the left side of the bed.
The blonde girl appeared from the alcove, a look of dejection and shock on her face to mix with the panic.
The screaming woman must have seen her too, as she shot toward the girl, moving around the bed with a speed unreasonable for someone so delirious. The teenage girl darted out of the way of the woman, and Sheppard saw her decide to shuffle under the desk, wrapping her arms around her legs. A good but ultimately futile defense.
The black-haired woman grabbed the blonde girl by her arms and shook her, finally stopping screaming to utter, “What is this place? Is this it—the consequence, the punishment? I must endure it.” She pushed past the girl and ran into the alcove, then a loud BANG, as if she had just collided full-pelt into the door.
The blonde girl, discarded by the woman, lost her balance and collided with the young man, who in turn toppled over, into something—or someone—new. There was a grizzly “Ouch” from a new mouth.
The two responsible scrabbled up and away from the new voice. Sheppard knew the look—apologetic toward authority. He had seen it worn many times. They both made their way around to the right side of the bed, as though they were using Sheppard as a blockade to whatever was coming.
As the blonde girl came closer, Sheppard could see what was on her sticker now—the sticker they all seemed to be wearing. It was white, with a red bar on the top—one of those stickers one would see on a team-building exercise at work.
HELLO MY NAME IS... on the red.
And then scrawled in black felt tip on the white—Amanda.
Sheppard looked at it, and then, by instinct, looked down at his own chest. It was the first time he had looked down and he was a little surprised to see he was wearing a white shirt, a dress shirt, and on his breast, his own sticker.
HELLO MY NAME IS... Morgan.
A fresh bout of “What the hells?” burst in his mind.
He looked back up. The blonde, Amanda, was looking too. She looked down at her own sticker, and then they both looked at the young man’s.
HELLO MY NAME IS... Ryan.
“That right?” Sheppard said, nodding to her sticker.
“Yes,” she said. “How do they know my name?”
“Amanda.”
“Yes. But people call me Mandy. Mandy Phillips.”
“Yes,” the young man said, “Ryan Quinn.” He pointed to his sticker on his—yes, it was a jumpsuit—and a rather strange one at that.
“Morgan Sheppard,” Sheppard said, but Ryan just
nodded.
“I know. I’ve seen you on...”
“How is the door locked?” Mandy interrupted, thank God. “Is this some kind of reality thing?”
“What?” Sheppard said. Reality thing?
Technically, everything’s a reality thing.
Against everything, he almost laughed. But Mandy had meant a reality show and hadn’t he thought the same thing? And then it clicked. Why she’d calmed down when she realized who he was.
“Where’re the cameras?” she said, looking around.
He frowned and Ryan looked at her, not quite getting what she was talking about. Mandy thought it was all some kind of stunt too. His TV studio was indeed pure evil, there was no doubt about that, but even they wouldn’t stoop to kidnapping and, most likely, drugging. “I’m sorry, Amanda—Mandy, but this is real. I woke up here, just like you.” An age where reality television was all but fantasy. Why not believe it? But this was real. He could feel it. And as he caught her gaze, he realized that, really, she knew it too. She could see it, but that didn’t mean she wanted to. Her smile dipped. “No...”
He was going to lose her again. He needed her. Her and Ryan. He couldn’t move, which meant they had to be his eyes.
“Mandy. Ryan. I need you to keep calm. And try to keep everyone else calm. You need to see if you can get me out of these.” He nodded upward to the cuffs. His hands were almost totally numb now—limbs just along for the ride.
“A key,” Mandy said.
“Yes—a key. See if there’s a key around.”
There was little chance of it just lying around. Whoever had handcuffed him, handcuffed him for a reason. For a... Wait. A new question. A new big question. Why was he the only one handcuffed? They had chained up the famous guy—but no one else?
Mandy went around Ryan and started searching. But Ryan was still. He was looking at Sheppard, trying to puzzle out whatever was in his head. He seemed calm though, which was good.
As if to prove how he should be acting, the woman with the long black hair reappeared, only to charge into the alcove again. A slamming sound. She was going to hurt herself. “Is sorry not enough?” in her shrill voice. “This is Hell. Hell.”
Sheppard knew better than that. Not hell. Hell wasn’t a place. Hell was inside, deep inside. He had found it a long time ago.
“Hell. Hell. Hell,” the woman shouted, almost singing it. “And you’re all here with me. Why might that be, I wonder?” She slammed against the door again, and cackled. Insane. They were locked in here with an insane person.
Sheppard looked back at Ryan. He appeared to be wrestling with something, and the longer it took to come out, the worse Sheppard thought it was.
“Ryan.”
He almost jumped at his name.
Ryan leaned in and whispered in his ear, “I need to tell you something.”
A clearing of the throat. Ryan and Sheppard looked at each other—the noise didn’t come from them. They both looked around to see the old man steadying himself precariously against the wall and the bed, trying to get up. When he finally managed, his face changed to anger. “What on earth is going on here?” Sheppard felt Ryan step back. “Anyone? Tell me. Now.”
He was a smart man in an old-fashioned way, wearing a gray suit and a dulled tie. His dark skin was illustrated with a weathered way of worldliness and the flecks of a pepper-pot goatee. His hair was black, obviously dyed, with patches of gray showing through. His face seemed to rest comfortably in a scowl and his round glasses were slightly askew. On his chest, above his left pocket, his very own sticker—HELLO MY NAME IS... Alan.
All eyes in the room were on him. Mandy had stopped what she was doing to look at the new arrival. Even the teenager under the desk was staring at him with wide eyes. It was clear that this man commanded attention.
“I—I...” Even Sheppard felt himself back down. He didn’t usually do that. He usually stood strong against anyone. But the compromising position...
“What is everyone looking at?” Alan barked, and looked down. “What?” He ripped his sticker off and crumpled it up. He smoothed the patch of his suit down. “You can’t stick things on this. It’ll leave a bloody residue.” He threw the sticker into the corner and glanced around again. “Well?”
Sheppard decided to be honest. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Alan said. “You don’t know? Of course you don’t. What is this, some kind of new TV show? Some Channel 4 rubbish. Dear God, tell me it’s not Channel 5. Well, looks like you’ve included the wrong arsehole. I’m a barrister, idiot. I know my rights and the rights of everyone in this room. Look around. That’s five lawsuits staring you in the face.”
“For the last time,” Sheppard said, out of frustration, “this is not a television program.”
“Of course it isn’t.” Alan looked up to the ceiling. “I want out now please. And I want everyone’s name involved in this sham.” When no one answered, Alan stepped toward Sheppard again. “I’m a real person, unlike you. I do important things. Like...” He looked at his expensive watch. “Dear Christ, the MacArthur case. I have to be in Southwark by two.”
Sheppard’s blank look only seemed to rile Alan more. Everyone else was quiet, not wanting to incur any wrath themselves.
“The biggest case of my career and you people have put me here. Well, you are going to learn the harshness of the law when I get out of here. And I’m not talking about your studio, or your company. You. Sheppard. You.” Alan enunciated these points with jabs at the air.
Realization by denial, by mania, by acceptance, by anger and, Sheppard saw out of the corner of his eye, by mere disapproval. The teenager, whose sticker was unreadable without his glasses, watched Alan while taking her headphones from around her neck and putting them over her ears. Sheppard suddenly felt a strong kinship to her, as she shuffled farther under the desk—clearly trying to disappear into it.
“I’m sorry,” Sheppard said, although he didn’t know why.
“Nonsense. Utter nonsense.”
Sheppard felt movement beside him. Alan seemed distracted too. Sheppard looked around. Ryan was moving over to the window. He realized what the young man was about to do. Ryan grabbed at the curtains, clutching them tightly, and with one swift movement, he flung them open.
There was a flash of sunlight, instantly stinging his eyes. After the relative darkness of the room, the light felt too much. He blinked once, twice, trying to blink the multicolored spots away. He looked to the window, looking outside. Buildings. Tall and thin. They were high up. The buildings were familiar, the backdrop he could so easily trace with his mind. He was looking out at Central London. But why did that feel so wrong? Why did it all feel...
And then he remembered.
6
Four hours earlier...
They barreled into the room in each other’s arms. She was kissing him, deep and strong. A passion he hadn’t felt in a long time. He managed to reach out and slot his key card into the light slot, and the lights turned on. They were back in his hotel room, upstairs from where he had met her—in the hotel bar. She pulled him back in and he was lost in her, and the night.
“Pas maintenant, monsieur television. Not now.”
She regularly lapsed into French. Drunk. Which only made her so much hotter.
She hadn’t known who he was at first, and he found that endearing. He bought her a drink, and she spent the rest of the night Googling him on her phone, wondering why people were talking to him all the time. The Art Opening being held in the hotel function room eventually thinned out, and they were left at the bar with each other, talking into her phone. Foreign Siri didn’t recognize his London accent.
She pushed him down onto the bed and crawled on top of him, hungry, nipping at his neck with her lips—sliding up him.
“Mind the tux.” He laughed.
“Viss
ez le costume!”
“You understand I have no idea what you’re saying, right?”
She straightened up and got off him. “Got anything to drink?” she said.
He gestured to the minibar. There were a few things left in there at least.
Her head disappeared into the fridge and she pulled out one small bottle of white wine and one of bourbon. They had known each other for all of two hours and she already knew his drink of choice. Was this what finding “the one” felt like?
“Avez-vous de la glace?”
“One more time,” he said, laughing.
“Sorry,” she said, adjusting her language. “Er...do you have any ice?”
He gestured to the desk, where he had put the ice bucket, already knowing it had all melted. She picked it up, looked inside and smiled. “I’ll go and get some then.” She lunged at him and kissed him rabidly—the ice bucket remnants sloshing onto his trousers. He didn’t care. This woman was something else—something new.
She pulled back. “Je reviens.” And she rushed out of the room with the bucket under her arm, slamming the door behind her.
“Okay,” he called after her. He got up from the bed. “I should have paid more attention in French class,” he muttered under his breath.
He walked over to the mirror and took off his bow tie, undone and hooked around his neck. He took his suit jacket off and put it on the desk chair. He stepped forward and checked his eyes. The paranoia had set in a month ago. It had started when he had had to do a segment on liver cirrhosis on the show. The liver had the power to regenerate. A night of heavy drinking, and afterwards the liver works back to what it was before. But heavy drinkers (over years) damaged the liver so much that it would just give up. Therefore the damage would stick. Early signs included abdominal pain (which would have been dulled by the painkillers, even if he did have it); advanced signs included the whites of the eyes turning yellow. (At least, all of this was what he gleamed from the internet when he was curious after the show.) He had never considered himself a hypochondriac but...
Guess Who Page 2