The First Rule of Survival

by Paul Mendelson

  ‘Jesus. This whole thing is camouflage. Look down here. The entire roof is man-made.’

  Don peers through the door and sees a huge, dimly lit concrete basin, cast into the ground like a high-sided rectangular swimming pool.

  ‘There is a padlock on the metal gate down here,’ Don says.

  He looks up at de Vries, who is holding his revolver.

  ‘I know.’

  Don stands up, but does not move from the trapdoor.

  ‘Wait for back-up,’ he says.

  ‘Why?’ de Vries asks angrily.

  ‘Because it is possible there is someone there, guarding him.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’m going in. If you want to stay here and guide in the teams when they come, that’s fine by me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Stand back.’ He pushes gently but firmly past Don, begins to climb down the metal ladder. He is about to shoot at the lock, but he looks back up at his warrant officer.

  ‘It’s been seven years, Don.’

  ‘So, what difference does twenty minutes make?’

  ‘Because it’s twenty minutes longer. You don’t understand. Now, stand clear.’

  He aims his gun, turns away from the lock, and pulls the trigger. The shot reverberates around the concrete container, but Vaughn still hears the clink of metal as the lock hits the ground. He looks back to see the gate swinging open.

  He calls up: ‘It’s open.’

  He jumps down to the concrete floor, waits for Don to follow. When he reaches the floor, Don draws his revolver, keeps it in his palm. They walk quickly across the wide space, looking up at the chickenwire mesh ceiling, on top of which are logs, branches and fynbos to hide the entrance. Through the occasional gap they see sunlight, and there are sufficient beams to light their way. Ahead of them, set into an otherwise blank grey concrete wall, is a pair of metal double doors, painted dark green. As they approach them, De Vries stops, points down at the ground.

  ‘Blood – and drag-marks. Look, heading towards the doors.’ He moves around the area, looks out from the dark patch, then steps at a diagonal. ‘And down here. More blood. Much more.’ He squats by the patch, picks up a small twig, pokes it into the pool: thick shavings gather at its point. ‘This isn’t old.’ He looks up at Don. ‘This could be where Steven and Toby were killed.’

  He rises, steps around the blood and moves towards the door, following the second trail, the parallel indentations as feet on a dead body might make. This second trail is bloodied. He takes out a handkerchief, and is about to pull at the door handle when he stops. To the left of the door, lying on its side, is a long roll of thick grey polythene, about two metres in height.

  De Vries says: ‘That’s the wrapping. This is it. We’ve found the murder scene.’

  Don moves to the wrapping, examines it without touching it. ‘It looks the same. And there is blood all around here.’ He jumps back when he realizes that his shoes are caked with a mixture of sticky dark red glue, fallen leaves and twigs. He looks for de Vries, but he is already reaching for the doors.

  ‘We should wait.’

  ‘No.’

  The left-hand door is heavy, and even with both of them pulling, it opens stiffly. Ahead Vaughn sees only a long wide passageway, concrete-lined, slowly descending.

  ‘Find something to jam this door open,’ de Vries says. ‘We’ll need the light.’ Don collects short fallen branches thick enough to jam under the door, pinning it back against itself. De Vries steps inside, stops; indicates to Don. It is a rifle, thrown down behind the door.

  ‘Murder weapon. Let’s hope to God it’s covered with Marc Steinhauer’s prints.’

  He waits for Don to study it, then begins to walk. Don follows him down the damp, cold walkway, out of the sunlight into almost complete darkness. Their footsteps echo and are then swallowed; Don believes that their breathing sounds louder.

  As the passageway levels out, so the gift of daylight evaporates. Don reaches for his key-ring, switches on a tiny key-finder bulb. It lights only a few metres ahead of them, but it is enough for them to be able to keep on. Don takes each step gingerly, but de Vries strides on into the dark, and Don finds himself scampering to keep up. They reach another door, half open, darkness beyond. Don searches the area around the door with his flimsy light. It seems to be the only access to and from the corridor.

  The door itself is incredibly heavy. When De Vries tries to shift it, it scarcely moves. He turns sideways and squeezes through the gap, stands in the pitch-black, his hands searching for a side wall, for a switch. He feels only cold rough concrete. Don pushes his hand through, lighting his way, squeezes through. Now, a corridor, this time painted in grey-white, stretches at right angles to the entrance walkway. To De Vries’ left, there is a pair of double doors, the word Decontamination stencilled on it, black on dark green. He shivers, turns back and faces right. He gestures Don to keep up with him and begins to walk down the corridor.

  The first iron door to his left is locked. There is no title on the door. The second is open wide. Don takes the lead into a room which resembles a boardroom, wood panelling lining three walls, maps and diagrams displayed on the fourth side; a long dusty table with chairs either side of it. The smell of damp and decay is pervasive, bitter in the nostrils, tickling in the throat. Don walks the perimeter quickly; finds no other exits. He runs his hand over the back of an upholstered chair at the head of the table and recoils. His fingertips itch from the icy velvet sensation of mould. He wipes his hand on his trousers, rejoins De Vries and they move back into the corridor, shadowed by flickering silhouettes of men both cowed and charged. At the far end, De Vries can see a low green light.

  ‘Look – there. Ignore the other doors.’

  They shuffle quickly down the corridor, De Vries stumbling and regaining his balance, until they reach a pair of doors on their left leading onto yet more passageway, and a single extra-wide door, above which a small green light glows. On the door, stencilled in black, is the single word: Gevangenis – prison.

  Don pushes on the door and it slowly opens inwards. De Vries puts his shoulder against it, heaves until it is wide enough to allow them entry. His hand automatically feels the wall adjoining the doorframe, finally hits a switch, presses it. Four glowing grey lights illuminate the room in which they stand. Don switches off his key-fob light and pockets it. De Vries realizes that they are in an anteroom. To his left is a counter with kitchen equipment, including a microwave and a pair of camping gas rings. To his right, old-fashioned tape machines stand in a line on a trestle table. Above them, incongruously, a line of hooks holding handcuffs and rigid arm-restraints. At the far end, three pale grey garments. De Vries baulks: they are straitjackets. The smell in here is different; staleness, but somehow fresher than the previous rooms. Ahead of them is a second door containing a very small square observation window, glazed with wire-hatched safety glass. The door is ajar, and through it de Vries can see steel prison cells – three in a curving line.

  De Vries turns to Don. ‘Touch nothing.’

  Don nods. De Vries pushes the door, and it swings open easily. The cell-block is concrete-lined, without paint; only three dim white lights illuminate the room. There are no windows, no natural light. Ahead, three cells, divided only by iron bars. The smell is faint, but pervasive: sweat and urine. De Vries looks around, realizes that he is holding his breath; consciously breathes, the smell infecting his nostrils. He looks up again.

  On the walls nearest the cells, he sees A4 digital prints on thin, mottled paper: the three abducted boys, frightened and humiliated, naked in their cells. Pictures indicating growth; their heights and weights marked in felt-tip next to years at the bottom of the shots. On the floor, there are toys: old boxes of board games, lids stained and dirty, puzzles, colouring books, even some soft toys. He looks up, away from them, away from what he sees as totems of his failure, and surveys the cells. The outer two cell-doors are open, but the middle cell is locked shut. There is no one insid
e any of them.

  De Vries stands at the threshold of the far-left cell, looks inside at piles of clothes, a narrow mattress atop a concrete base, a toilet, basin and shower head above a drain in the floor. There are no possessions to be seen.

  ‘He is not here,’ Don states.

  De Vries just stares at him, his eyes wide with shock, shoulders slumping.

  Don looks at his cellphone.

  ‘There is no reception. They do not know where we are. We should go back to the surface, at least the entrance. Let them know we are here. Let them know we have found it. The Crime Scene guys will need to search this. We should back out.’

  He sees that de Vries is frozen.

  Don walks over to de Vries, holds out his hand at de Vries’ shoulder. Before he touches him, de Vries jumps, announces, ‘Bobby Eames could have escaped; he could be somewhere else on site.’

  ‘Why not discuss that when we have back-up?’

  De Vries suddenly walks away, out of the room.

  ‘No. You go up. I’m searching the rest of this place.’ He brushes past Don roughly, hurries through the anteroom, then comes back and opens the door to the microwave; swings it shut again.

  ‘You have not got gloves . . . sir,’ Don insists.

  De Vries ignores him, turns sharply then exits the door to the prison and turns to his right, pushes through the double doors leading onto yet another passage. He stops, looks back at Don, who has followed.

  ‘Give me your key-torch. You go back up.’

  Don hands him his key-ring reluctantly. Then makes up his mind.

  ‘Okay. Be careful – and if you see us coming, call out so that we know it is you.’

  De Vries nods grimly, watches Don begin to edge his way back along to the corridor, knows that once he reaches the corner, daylight will leak into the area and guide him.

  He switches on the light. There is complete silence; a stillness to the cold air which chills him deeply. He shivers in his summer suit-jacket, feels the sweat on his torso, begins to swing the light from one side of the passage to the other. Most of these doors are open, leading to dormitories on one side, lines of metal beds topped by thin, mouldy mattresses. On the other, spartan offices, a desk and a single metal-framed chair. Each room untouched, waiting to be woken.

  The corridor runs deeper and deeper away from the entrance, downhill, and de Vries’ breath shortens as his adrenalin kicks in. The key-light flickers. He shakes it, and it begins to fade. He switches it off, stands stock-still, waits for his eyes to adjust, realizing that when the interference on his eyeballs slows, he has a vague awareness of his surroundings. He moves forward, letting the blurred grey-scale pictures in his head change slowly, refocus. He enters one of the side rooms, hunting for a light switch, but finds nothing. He backs out, squints, sees nothing, moves on. Then he hears a sound which stops him. He halts, listens, but hears nothing. He draws a breath; holds it.

  ‘Bobby?’ His voice is tinny, strained. He listens as the soundwaves move out from him and evaporate. He steadies himself in the dark.

  ‘Bobby Eames? This is the police. You are safe.’

  He hears the words vibrate again in the concrete walls, feels a wave of motion roll ahead of him. He perceives no reply. He shivers, suddenly disorientated. He makes himself step forward, his arms extended, knows that he must move. Ahead of him, he senses a change, and when his hands touch icy, sticky metal, he recoils. He has reached the end of another corridor. The only exit from it is through more double doors. He leans against them, but this time they are unmoving, locked. De Vries wonders what he can do now.

  He turns back and sees nothing but ephemeral floating ghosts on his retina, the kaleidoscope of pictures he used to see when, as a child, he rubbed his eyes and then closed them. He has reached the end . . . It takes him several seconds to understand this.

  He stands on the spot, begins to turn slowly, hunting for any speck of light. The cold closes around him and he begins to shiver uncontrollably. He tries to steady himself, to think clearly, but his mind seems numb. He holds his breath. In the background, he hears a low hum. He tilts his head in the darkness, all his focus on identifying the sound and from where it emanates. He walks back up the pitch-black corridor, hugging the right-hand wall, sensing more than knowing that he is getting closer to the sound.

  He finds a door, grasps the cold metal handle and pushes down, gently shouldering it open. He stands in the doorway, sees no end to the darkness, hears nothing louder than a hum; he no longer knows if this is real or just a memory deep in his head. He backs out and continues along the corridor, finding the next handle, nudging the door open. This time, the noise increases markedly, and he can see a faint green light glowing just above floor level. He walks gingerly towards it, feels the top of a counter or cupboard. He impatiently pulls out the key-light from his pocket and fumbles with the switch with frozen fingers. The pale light illuminates a grey-white chest freezer. He reaches to open the lid, but sees the tainted gold metal of a padlock. The key-light begins to fade and he switches it off once more. He knows that whatever is in this freezer is considered worth preserving. There is very limited power in this place, yet this machine consumes, presumably every day, all day. If it is perishable food, its source may provide a crucial clue; could even lead to identifying the purchaser.

  De Vries waits for his eyes to adjust again, and then he leaves the room, hands extended in front of him. He negotiates the door, turns right and walks as fast as he dares to the cell area at the far end. In the small kitchenette he finds a tin-opener and a can of baked beans. He retraces his steps to where he thinks the open door to the freezer room is located, his own heavy intermittent breathing blocking out the humming. He runs his hands along the wall, feeling the chalky, damp paint on the concrete cover his hands. Finally, the noise is discernible and he almost falls through the open door, stumbles to the far side and places the key-light on the lid. He switches on the light once more, long enough to insert one handle of the tin-opener between the lock and the front edge of the freezer. Then he takes the tin can and, using it as a hammer, he tries to lever the lock either from the front of the cabinet or from its lid. The light flickers and de Vries knows he has little time.

  He takes one last swing at the tin-opener. The lock comes away from the lid, the key-light jumps and lands on the floor – extinguishes – and de Vries hears the metal of the lock jangle against the side of the freezer. He catches his breath, struggles to find the fallen key-light, locates it, and returns to the cabinet. His fingers fail to find purchase on the front of the lid and, when he locates a small groove, the lid still will not open. He sweeps his right foot around the floor until it hits the tin-opener. He bends and picks it up, finds the groove beneath the lid once more and inserts the handle. Now, with leverage, he hears the seals break and a pronounced hiss as the lid opens.

  He pushes the lid up and back until it hits the wall. He retrieves the key-light and wills it to produce a few moments of light. He shakes it and switches it on. The beam is brighter for a moment and de Vries points it inside the freezer, and sees nothing but a long white-wrapped parcel. His brain tries to process what he is seeing, tries to form a coherent guess as to what it might be. As he leans inside, it produces an answer: it is a small body, legs bent slightly upwards. De Vries feels his heart begin to pump. He sees that the form is covered in a white sheet, frosted and stiff. He takes hold of an iced flap and pulls gently. It does not budge. The key-light falters once more. He pulls harder and there is a high-pitched cracking squeak as it comes loose in his hand. Beneath, de Vries sees a waxy, frostbitten face, brittle stalks of hair, an indentation in the boy’s cheek where skin has come away with the sheet – skin that de Vries has pulled from him. The key-light dims and dies, and de Vries fights the icy bile in his throat, his eyes bulging.

  He throws the key-light to the floor, hears the plastic click echo and hiss between the walls. He knows he has seen Bobby Eames. Cannot know from the flickering glimpse, but
knows all the same. He begins to hyperventilate, his mind racing through seven years of yearning to find this place, seven years to dream that he could tear down the walls of hell and rescue his lost boys.

  He stands in the absolute darkness, listening to his own straining breathing, feeling the huge weight of concrete, of earth, on top of him. At that moment, he hears himself speak, but does not understand the words; hears himself cry out, registering only a screeching like an animal in pain, an animal to whom you cannot explain what it is feeling. Now he feels only a determination, an iron sense of self-will, that the walls will close in on him, collapse over him; seal him in with seven long years of wretched failure and hopeless misery.

  He stumbles towards the door, but he does not pass through it. He finds it and slams it, lets the deafening echo run through his entire body. He crouches down, falls forward, his palms grazing the cold rough floor. Then he struggles to his knees, wraps his arms about himself, staring straight ahead, overcome with the finality of his failure, enveloped by the darkness. He tries to hear something, anything. Not even the unending hum from the freezer breaks the silence he endures. He cannot even hear his own sobbing.

  Vaughn de Vries searches empty corridors, opens one door after another. Each room is like the next: cold and dark but for a single dim green light. Each time he sees it, it fades to nothing. In the blackness, he sees children’s faces; each baring a grim smile – a rictus. He slams the doors, listens to the shattering noise echo and reverberate down the never-ending corridor, until it joins the patter, chatter, of distant echoes. He opens a door to a freezer that takes up an entire room, and from it tumble score after score of rigid, frosted childlike bodies. As they fall before him, they disintegrate, one after another – until nothing exists but piles of bones that seem nothing so much as an avalanche of jagged snow. He turns to the room behind him and sees three frozen corpses on metal tables. He sees the children struggle to open their eyes, desperate to breathe. Their lips part and then their faces begin to crack and shatter . . .