Thirteen

by Tom Hoyle

  “I can personally vouch for Chief Inspector Hatfield,” he said. “I have worked closely with him for many years and trust him completely.” Megan’s parents nodded. “And I know how easily young boys get caught up in these gang problems. The stabbing and shooting that Adam has committed are only too common, I am afraid.”

  Megan shouted, “So why was I dragged off the street?”

  The assistant commissioner turned to Megan’s parents. “I am so sorry that your daughter has become involved in this. I hope that you will all be able to move on now that she has chosen to come back.”

  “Chosen?” This was all going wrong. Megan put her head in her hands and cried. Just before midnight, she was driven home.

  And her life lumbered on, slowly, fractured.

  Adam lay with headphones in his ears, his arms tied to the metal frame of a bed. His face was cut and bruised. Viper entered and yanked at the wires. Ugly noises leaked into the room until she pressed a button on an iPod under the bed.

  Adam looked away as Viper whispered, “You will regret what you’ve done and what you are.” She grabbed Adam’s hair and a fist-shaped area of pain formed on Adam’s skull. “That’s just a little tugging. Prickly, isn’t it? Do you notice how you can’t concentrate on anything else? Now, it pleases me to make the pain worse.” Viper pulled until her fingers were tightly together. “Understand?”

  The pain was much sharper now. Adam held his breath and let out a small groan that turned into “Okay.”

  Viper let go. “Doesn’t that feel good? You must learn to appreciate the absence of pain.” She patted his hair down as if he was an animal.

  She thrust the headphones out, heard distant cymbal-like sounds, put them back on him and left. Minutes passed to hours: the screams and grotesque descriptions in Adam’s ears went on and on. Dorm Thirteen sounds.

  37

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, TO SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2013

  Sometime in the early hours of Wednesday, December 4, Viper entered Adam’s room with two men. She stopped the noise. However hard Adam tried to think of something else, a jumble of horrible images fought to remain in his mind. He pictured a sunny field containing his family and friends.

  “You smell of piss. It’s time for you to get tidied up,” said Viper. “Don’t think about trying to escape. You’re underground here.”

  Without warning, Viper hit Adam. Blood dribbled from his lower lip. “That,” she said, “is for thinking about escaping. Yes, thoughts are punished here as well.” She left the room, laughing. “If you try to escape, or I think you’re trying, or even considering it, then worse things will happen.”

  “Okay.”

  The two men untied Adam and pushed him into a room opposite. There was no lock on the door, and the toilet was stained. The shower was filthy and the water cold, but there was a thin curtain; being behind two barriers, however slight, gave him a few moments of independence. There was no soap and no towel, so Adam dried himself with his T-shirt. He looked at the wristband that Megan had given him. He thought of his parents. Despair sat heavy in his stomach and his body sagged. He felt as if he were on a boat surrounded by thousands of miles of empty ocean.

  The men stood, arms folded, outside the door.

  When he returned to his room there was a black cloak on the bare mattress, which he was told to put on. It stretched down to Adam’s feet. He wanted it to be ill-fitting and itchy, but the fabric was warm and comfortable.

  The men took Adam into the corridor and turned left, away from the main entrance. They went through a door and down, the light fading with each step. At the bottom a patch of stone floor in front of Adam was dimly lit; he was placed at the very edge, a wall of darkness in front of him. There was a hollow rumbling sound. Then he heard steps recede behind him and light ebbed away as the door slowly shut. There was complete darkness and silence.

  Adam didn’t move except to raise his hands in front of his face, palms out, instinctively shielding himself in case something flew at him. About two minutes later the rumbling started again. They must be near to the tube line; Adam had heard a similar sort of sound once at Leo’s birthday party in the basement of a restaurant. They were eight and had joked about it being a dragon.

  After the rumbling Adam heard a slight rustling and a tiny sniff. There was someone or something else down here.

  Then a flicker of light: a match had been lit. Faintly, Adam saw a robed figure about eight paces away. It was Viper. She held a match to a candle, then another, and another. After the fourth candle, a second robed figure was vaguely apparent, kneeling at an altar. Adam couldn’t see who it was, but the voice was unmistakable. Coron. “Come and join us,” he said.

  Adam stepped forward. Viper had moved to the stone altar to light two candles, one at either side of a large leather-bound book. She moved on to light other candles, thirteen in total.

  Coron gestured for Adam to kneel. Adam resisted for a few seconds, then eased himself down on Coron’s left. He saw Viper smile as she returned to Coron’s right.

  “Adam,” Coron started, “we are a special trinity. I will be Lord; Viper is the best of my disciples; you are the sacrifice, appearing again after two thousand years. In the world, there are no others like us. The universe is a play: we are the main characters. The Master has spoken. Go ahead and read.” Coron indicated for Adam to look at the book.

  Adam stood up and approached the altar as another rumbling passed underneath them. The book contained small handwritten lines, hundreds of words on each page—hundreds of thousands of words in total. Adam glanced at one line in the middle: “The blood from his hands will flow like merciless streams. . . .” Then, a few pages on, another line: “She will serve Lord Coron with a love that is ocean deep. . . .”

  The same words appeared over and over: blood, sacrifice, death, pain, service, love . . . A lot of the phrases were similar; it was an obsessive outpouring of insanity. Page after page after page.

  “Turn to the beginning,” said Coron.

  Adam flicked back, and several times, near the bottom of the first page, he saw a name in the margin. His name. He turned to the very last page: “Adam.” At the top of the last page: “Adam, a willing sacrifice . . .” Sometimes his name was in capitals. He flicked back. “ADAM is a sack of filth that will burst open if he becomes fourteen.” It was rambling, inconsistent, bizarre. The words seemed to spill from the pages and float in front of his eyes.

  Adam was thinking about tearing the book up, or tipping a candle onto it, when Coron called him back: “Come and kneel before the Master.”

  Adam returned, his mind needled by the phrase willing sacrifice. He knelt.

  There was silence, and then Coron boomed, as if in triumph, “The Master is here. Let us listen.”

  Adam glanced across. Coron and Viper had both closed their eyes.

  Coron saw burning pebble eyes, a wrinkled face and a thin, cloaked body. He heard the Master speak: “Well done, Coron. You have served me well by bringing the boy here.”

  “Thank you, Master,” said Coron.

  “I hear him,” said Adam.

  Sound again welled up in Coron’s ears. “The boy must serve me. He must be a willing sacrifice. He must become one of us.”

  “Yes, he will,” said Coron.

  “Yes,” added Adam.

  Coron turned to Adam, eyes half open. “Can you see the Master?”

  “No,” said Adam confidently, “but I heard him.” He thought frantically for something he had read on the last page of Coron’s book, hoping to deceive him. “He says that I must be a willing sacrifice.”

  Viper frowned. “Lord Coron, he mocks us.”

  “No,” said Coron, excited. “He has repeated the words of the Master. He did hear.”

  The Later Days

  In Adam’s room The Great Book was laid out on a table. Some sentences had been written out tens of times in pen, like lines set as a punishment at school. Others had been copied and decorated, and about ten w
ere taped to the wall. Soon the room was papered with quotations from Coron’s book.

  Adam had even drawn a picture of the place of his sacrifice: it was a very tall triangular-shaped building that tapered away to nothing. It looked like a shard of glass.

  Many times, Coron entered and smiled in his deranged way. A willing sacrifice indeed.

  On one occasion, Adam knelt next to Coron, his eyelids pressed tightly shut as he said, “Master: make me the perfect sacrifice. As it says in your book, ‘lambs are slaughtered just like sheep.’ And raise up Lord Coron.” Adam’s arms were outstretched. “Let the world see the moment of my surrender.” Coron was manically energetic despite an almost complete lack of sleep: he gave a high-pitched ecstatic howl. A willing sacrifice indeed.

  On Wednesday, December 25, Viper sat, catlike, on Adam’s bed while he leaned against the wall.

  “How did it feel to kill in the service of the Master?” Adam asked.

  “I enjoyed it,” she said airily. “Just as any hunter enjoys killing prey.” Then, blandly, openly, chillingly, “God makes it enjoyable so that we are enthusiastic for our work.”

  “What about Simon, your brother?”

  Viper looked deep into Adam’s eyes. “Sidewinder made it happen. I was ashamed of him. I enjoyed the power I had to extinguish him.” She leaned forward. “You almost had a sister: Megan. She has left you alone here. Betrayed you. After all that you had done for her. And you are forgotten. Now she spends her time with other boys. Laughing with them. Leaning against them. Kissing them. Just imagine if you had a chance to avenge that betrayal.”

  “Yes,” said Adam. “I can imagine it.”

  The attempt at brainwashing continued day after day after day after day.

  Hour after hour after hour.

  Minute by minute.

  Every second.

  38

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2013

  Hatfield pushed Adam against a wall in his room, dislodging a couple of the sheets of paper. “Your friend Megan has been reported missing. Vanished into thin air.”

  Adam seemed interested rather than worried. “Is she here? It would be glorious if she could join The People.”

  Hatfield paused and eyed Adam carefully. “No. She has evaporated. Her parents are mystified and banging on the police station door. As are yours still. Your parents are eaten up with grief, you know that?”

  “My parents don’t understand about The People. And they’re not my real parents anyway. True parents would be proud that my sacrifice ushers in the new kingdom.”

  Hatfield’s manner eased slightly. “Do you know anything about Megan’s disappearance?”

  “I think I should speak to Lord Coron and the Master.”

  At that instant the door opened. “And as if by magic, we are both here.” Coron’s head jerked from side to side. He was much thinner, even gaunt; his hollow eyes stared at Adam. “We want to know what this means.” Coron now always used we. “Tell us about Megan.”

  Adam leaned forward. “In The Great Book it says that the energy of sacrifice strengthens even God.” Adam returned Coron’s stare. “Megan’s sacrifice will strengthen me.” Adam paused, bitterness tightening his mouth. “Why should she live? Why? When I am here because of her.”

  Coron pulled his arms in close to his body and bellowed. “The Master is within me. And you are my wise son. Just as the old god sacrificed his son, so I will sacrifice you!”

  Adam reached out and rested his hand on Coron’s shoulder. His words reflected the style of The Great Book: “I am indeed your son. Let us find Megan together.”

  This could work, thought Adam. This will work—if Megan has read my letter.

  About an hour later, Hatfield reappeared. He paused before speaking, looking from Adam’s left eye to his right and back again. “Get in the shower,” he said, almost under his breath.

  Adam had learned to endure the cold, but this time he heard the outer door open while he cleaned himself as best he could. Adam feared it was Viper, so shielded himself with the curtain and peered out. But it was Hatfield, who wouldn’t hurt him without Coron’s permission.

  “I’ve brought you a towel,” said the chief inspector. “And a change of clothes. We wouldn’t want anything carried out of this building.” Hatfield picked up everything—socks, boxer shorts, jeans, T-shirt and sweatshirt—and left a pile of fresh clothes.

  “Keep a gun to my back, Mr. Hatfield. It is only wise that you make sure I don’t return to my old ways. I have nothing to fear.”

  Adam put on the new clothes and was guided away from his room and upstairs. This was the first time he had been above ground in three weeks.

  He immediately realized what a busy building it was. Coron’s writings contained vast amounts of information about his plans, the carnage that explosions would cause, and the nature and location of Adam’s sacrifice, but there was nothing about the numbers of people involved. There were easily thirty or forty people around, possibly more.

  “Any second thoughts?” Hatfield asked Adam as he stood next to Coron.

  “No. I will lead you to her.”

  “If you shout once that door is open,” said Hatfield, “you will get about two words out.”

  Ignoring Hatfield, Adam spoke to Coron. “Lord Coron. I will not do these things.”

  Viper draped a backpack over her back. “I am very excited at the prospect of Megan’s return. Very excited. Just as you have changed, so will the world.”

  Adam walked to the car with his head down and meekly directed the driver to the right address by the quickest route. Hatfield sat on his right and Viper on his left, with Coron in the passenger seat. Two men and two women were in the car behind.

  The driver pulled up on the same side as Simon’s flat, and the other car stopped directly across the road.

  Adam eased himself from the car and walked quickly toward the door, Coron, Viper and Hatfield coming with him. Adam didn’t turn to see the others take up positions in the street.

  Hatfield nodded and smiled as he saw which building Adam was leading them to. He glanced across to the park. So Adam had been here the whole time, he thought.

  They climbed four flights of stairs: fifty-two steps. When they reached the door to the flat, Megan was less than twenty-feet away.

  Hatfield nudged past Adam and struck at the lock with a hammer and chisel, then pushed a thick piece of wire inside.

  A door opened downstairs, and a head appeared at the bottom of the last flight of stairs. “What’s going on, man?”

  Chief Inspector Hatfield immediately responded. “Police. And if you don’t get back in your room I’ll send some of the drug-squad boys around to investigate that smell.”

  There was muttering and the sound of a closing door. And the door to Simon’s old flat swung open.

  “Go ahead,” Coron whispered, leaning very close to Adam’s ear.

  Adam stood in the doorway.

  “Step in.”

  Adam walked in, two paces ahead of the others.

  There was no sound, just the ticking of a clock. Time slipping away.

  Coron was barely audible now. “Call for Megan,” he mouthed.

  “Megan. Megan?”

  “Say, ‘It is Adam.’ ”

  “Megan, it’s Adam.”

  “Say you are alone.”

  “I’m alone, Megan.”

  “Tell her to come out. And louder. Say that everything is all right.”

  Adam spoke louder. “Megan, you can come out. Everything is all right. You know you can trust me.”

  Nothing.

  The other three joined Adam in the flat.

  Adam turned. “I don’t think she’s here.”

  Coron spoke slightly louder this time. “Try again. Tell her that you’ve escaped. Say that you promise.”

  “Megan. Listen. I’ve escaped. Megan?” Adam shrugged. “She really isn’t here.” Then to himself, “Where is she?”

  Megan heard everything.

 
; The other three moved into the flat. Hatfield went to the table where London maps and tube printouts were scattered, holding them up for everyone to see. Viper went toward the kitchen and Coron into the bedroom. After a few minutes they were sure Megan was not there.

  “Tear this place apart,” said Coron, wringing his hands aggressively, twitchy with nervous energy. “The Master wants to be certain she isn’t here.”

  “She must be out,” said Adam. “You could put a man outside to catch her when she returns.”

  “I’d thought of that,” said Hatfield. “We’ll get her, don’t worry.”

  After the possible hiding places had been ruled out, there was a search: Simon’s few books were flicked through, the bed was cut open, the underside of drawers checked—every possible place examined.

  Adam took a glass and poured a drink, offering one to the others. Hatfield scowled. Viper accepted. She held up faded cushions for Hatfield to cut into with a penknife. Finally Adam pointed up to a door in the sitting-room ceiling.

  Hatfield raised his eyebrows. He stood on a kitchen chair and eased up the hatch. “Flashlight?”

  Adam spotted one on a shelf that contained lots of odds and ends. He fumbled about getting it and switched it on. Hatfield pushed his head through to the loft space and shone the flight-light around. “Nothing.”

  Adam headed to the bathroom.

  “Hey, where are you going?” said Hatfield, jumping down off the stool.

  “For a piss. You can stand next to me and have a look if you like. I’ll leave the door open.”

  Viper smiled as Adam passed.

  Megan held her breath.

  For about ten seconds there was the sound of Adam spraying into toilet water. Hatfield looked through the door twice at the distinctive shape of a young man urinating.

  “Let’s go,” said Coron. “I’m going to send someone up here to wait for her return. Also, check whether she’s back with her parents. We want her, don’t we, Adam.” It was a statement, not a question.

  They left, Hatfield taking one last look around before he closed the door.