by Jeff Olah
Against the back wall, Sean leaned to the side and peered around Randy. “Was that my sister? What are they doing?”
“Sean, don’t move. And don’t try to help, no matter what.”
He didn’t respond.
The leader of the group, moved out of view into the lobby. Muffled voices could be heard before he reemerged alone and started up the hall toward the row of cells. Randy backed away from the door, but only four feet. He stood with his left foot forward and watched as the man approached the cell door.
“You’re Randy, correct?”
Randy said nothing.
“Listen, I don’t want any problems and I am definitely not here to cause you any harm. All of your friends are safe. We just have a situation and need your help.”
“Why would I help you?”
“That’s a good very question. I’m going to open the door and when I do, you will need to remain calm. I’m going to back away from the cell door and take you to the rest of your group. I will answer any questions you have then. Do you understand?”
Randy cut his eyes at the man nearly ten years his junior. “You don’t seem worried?”
A look of genuine confusion bled into the young man’s face as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to the cell. “Worried, now what on earth would I have to be worried about?”
“You have no idea who I am, who any of us are. You’re just going to pop the door to the cell and hope I don’t tear your head off? That doesn’t sound like a move that a smart man would make and with the way you’re dressed, I mistook you for a smart man.”
“You’re right,” the young man said. “I know your name and only one other important thing. Unfortunately for you, that thing has to do with the people I have locked up on the other side of the building. If my sources are correct, the pregnant woman, Megan, is carrying your unborn child. Well, as of right now she is in perfect condition and all you have to do for her to stay that way is remain calm.”
“You don’t know anything, least of all what I would do to you if you lay one hand—”
“Really?” the young man asked. “You’re seriously going to resort to a feeble threat of revenge used in every single action movie ever? Let’s just stay civil here and we’ll both walk away in one piece. I realize that if you and I were one-on-one out there on the streets, you would tear me apart. But we aren’t and I have someone you want kept safe, so let’s just stop pretending otherwise.”
“Your name.”
“Excuse me.”
“Your name,” Randy repeated. “I’d like to know who I’m taking orders from. If you expect me to do as you ask, I want your name.”
“Fair enough, my name is Mitchell Blake. I’m thirty-one years old and have been in this city since the beginning. I’m originally from Denver and have killed eighteen uninfected humans and more Feeders than I could ever hope to count. Now, what else do you need from me before we proceed?”
Randy stepped toward the cell door, although he didn’t respond.
Sliding the key into the lock, the young man said, “Okay then, I’ll take your silence as a sign that you understand. You follow my directions and the women will walk out of here unharmed; you have my word.”
As the door swung open, Randy turned to Sean and motioned toward the hall. He let the boy walk out first and then followed him out past Blake. They waited as Blake closed the cell door and then started down the hall, taking the lead. “Let’s go boys.”
Stepping quickly to match the brisk pace set by Blake, Randy spied what appeared to be multiple Feeders already inside the building. Through the large interior windows and three rooms over, there were too many to count. He turned to Sean, who from the look on his face had just become aware of the same thing. “Randy—”
Stopping at an intersecting hallway and waiting for the pair, Blake interrupted. “Come on men, you’re not going to want to miss this.”
As they rounded the corner to the right, Blake had moved to the third doorway and held it open. Randy moved in first and held his hand out, stopping Sean before he too saw what awaited them inside the former interrogation room.
Back to Blake, Randy asked, “What the hell is this?”
228
Even before fully opening his eyes, the darkness invaded him. His head pounded and both knees ached. From his seated position, he attempted to stand only to find out that he had been bound by the ankles and wrists to the seat below. Struggling against the restraints, Mason pitched forward in an involuntary response to the nausea that rose from deep within. He began to dry heave, although with nothing but two days’ worth of suffering sitting alone in his empty stomach, the sensation quickly passed.
Leaning back and squinting through the blank space enveloping him, his vision began to clear. Only faint trails of artificial lighting filtered through the hollow cavern as he slowly became aware of his surroundings.
At his back, a flat surface hard surface and a roof not more than two feet above his head. Directly in front, he could just make out the profile of another chair and to its left yet another. They were secured at the backs and sides with chains and locked in place to the metal framing of the interior. With the white noise in his ears finally trailing off and transitioning into a low hum, Mason now knew where he was.
The interior of the van must have been painted black and used for this purpose more than once. This certainly wasn’t Cedric’s van, as the cab looked to have been walled off from the cargo area and focusing on the back doors, he noticed there were no visible handles. The rear of this van was used as a mobile prison and nothing else.
With the spinning in his head beginning to slow and the nausea only marginally annoying, Mason sat motionless and just listened. Through the low vibration of the motor idling and intermittent pulsing of wind whipping through the underbelly of the van, he made out a pair of voices.
They were growing nearer and in closing his eyes and listening for their footfalls, his mind pictured them descending a flight of stairs. The low bass in every third step told him it must be a wide concrete descent with eighteen to twenty-four inch steps. As they moved toward the rear of the van, he could just make out two male voices he had yet to recognize.
“What are we waiting for?” asked the first.
“Looks like he’s giving them a gift.”
“A gift? Why doesn’t he just have us drive up to their front door and gun them down one by one as they walk out?”
“You know Blake; everything has to be a head game. He wants them gone, but also wants them to think they had a hand in making the decision.”
“So, if he wants them out of the city and likes torturing people, why not just bring them here and put them in the maze?”
“Too easy, I’m sure he has something planned for Goodwin and Tobias after this whole thing blows over. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Has he said something?”
“You know he’d never tell anyone. He likes to see the look on people’s faces when they finally figure out how messed up he really is.”
Picturing the last place he remembered being on two feet and through the process of elimination, it didn’t take long to place the voices. Obviously not Blake himself, these men must have been part of the six man crew he drove into the parking garage with. He didn’t care which two and although every cell in his exhausted body begged for mercy, he couldn’t wait to meet them.
His senses adjusting to the darkened cargo area, Mason now had a better visual of the rear cabin. And although he knew the smell of scorched flesh was coming from his own hand, he looked down at it anyway. Not quite able to believe the sight just below his forearm the words came, although under his breath. “New bandages, that’s odd. And why doesn’t it hurt?”
Closing his eyes and momentarily hesitating for what was to come, Mason clenched his jaw. He pushed back into the hard plastic seat and as the restraints around his ankles constricted, he drew the three remaining fingers of his left hand into his palm.
>
A flash of brilliant white and then everything blinked out. His vision, the voices from beyond the cabin, and the shared pain felt over every inch of his soul. It was only for a second, or at least that’s how long it felt. He wasn’t absolutely certain as time had no meaning now and as everything came rushing back, so did the sensation that told him something had been done to his hand.
As long as he kept his three fingers stationary and his focus concentrated elsewhere, the unbearable throbbing from earlier in the day became little more than a dull ache. Releasing the tension from his legs and sliding back down in the chair, the men outside continued their conversation.
“It’s been freakin’ cold out here at night lately. I wish he’d get the show on the road.”
“You know Blake; he just loves the whole production.”
“Is he going to follow us across town when we deliver these guys?”
“He didn’t say, but I would think he wouldn’t miss seeing Goodwin and those other idiots. I know he wants to be sure that after Tobias is finished with whatever he’s doing to these guys, that they leave town. I think he’s giving them until morning.”
“And then?”
“Well, if they don’t leave, I guess we get to have some fun. You know, it’s been like three weeks since we’ve actually got to hunt. I pray that Tobias does what he usually does.”
“What’s that?”
The second man’s voice was now an octave lower. “I was with that group for the better part of six months. I’m betting he’s gonna tell Blake to go screw himself. And when he does, it’s gonna get interesting.”
“Tobias knows about Blake, doesn’t he?”
A long pause followed by three or four quick strides away from the van and then a moment of struggle. “I got it.” The sound of a large object slamming to the pavement and then two dampened blows had Mason holding his breath. He listened as the sounds trailed off and the men returned.
“That’s the first time we’ve had one inside the gates in a while. Get Johnny up on the walkie and let him know to go check the yard. That’s where they got in last time.”
“You have some on your shirt.”
“Yeah, whatever. Just get Johnny on the line. Blake will be pissed if we screw this thing up tonight. All we need now is a horde of Feeders to come through as we’re trying to drive out of here.”
Another momentary pause, Mason assumed the first man was doing as he was told. “Johnny… come in.”
Dead silence.
After ten seconds, the same voice barked into the night. “Johnny, are you there? Come in—”
The second man interrupted. “Okay, I’m sure he’s just got his walkie turned off. Blake isn’t going to like me interrupting his show, but I’m going back inside; stay here. And if he wakes up, put him back to sleep.”
229
The illusion was off-putting, almost as if the entire space were one solid block. If not for the smattering of dried blood along the various walls, the spaces would be indistinguishable. The Plexiglas sub-rooms sat in ten foot by ten foot cubes, stacked side by side. They ran the length of the eastern wall, beginning from just outside the lobby to where the building ended at Sixth Street.
The pre-fabricated structure must have been brought in and pieced together, one short section at a time. The nearly invisible walls ran from floor to ceiling. With no obvious defects in its elaborate design or ensuing fabrication, the only exits appeared to be at either end of the confusing labyrinth.
Eleanor sat alongside Megan, Savannah, and Elizabeth. They huddled close at the rear of the room nearest the entrance and stared back into the maze. The protections offered by the many layers of thick engineered plastic were built only as a temporary enclosure. And although the space occupied by the trapped Feeders was three rooms over, the man known to them as Mitchell Blake would decide how long that remained.
Elizabeth turned and buried her face into Eleanor’s shoulder as her husband Jack was pushed into the third space. The room nearest the Feeders and two away from where the women sat motionless held a much different atmosphere. From the blood-soaked floor to just over head high, the walls were painted in velvet handprints, partially obstructing the far end of the room where Jack was imprisoned.
“Elizabeth,” Eleanor said. “He’s back, and it looks like Randy is with him.”
Elizabeth instead peered back through the transparent structure and waited for her husband to make eye contact. She mouthed “I love you,” as he nodded and put his hand over his heart.
Addressing Eleanor, she said, “How do we get out of here?”
She couldn’t think of anything to calm the young woman that would sound even remotely believable, and given their current situation, even Eleanor had her suspicions that this may be where everything would finally end. “I don’t know, but given that Randy is still alive, we need to stay strong.”
“We have to get to Jack,” Elizabeth said. “I know what that room is for—we all do. That sicko built this thing as his own torture chamber and he’s using my husband as bait. We have to do something.”
Without addressing her concerns directly, Eleanor used the only logic she could think of that would offer a bit of perspective. “Okay, we know they left the children with Cedric and his wife. We know they put Mason in that van and although he’s out cold, he’s not dead.”
“How does that even help? Yes, the others are okay for now, but that does nothing for Jack. He’s trapped in that room just waiting for… for who knows what. We need a plan and we need one now.”
Movement on the perimeter cut short their conversation. They watched as Blake guided Randy and Sean to the seats near the edge of the adjoining room. Motioning first toward the space that held Jack captive and then back at the women, the impeccably dressed man turned and smiled.
Back to the men seated before him, Blake appeared to be explaining their predicament. This was something he failed to do with the women or with Jack as he was forced into the room at the center of the maze. The only courtesy he offered was “This will all be over soon.” He told them to stay quiet and that they would soon be released.
He was lying.
Unable to contain herself for another second, Megan pushed away from the others and moved to the far wall. Only sixteen feet separated her from the father of her unborn child. She looked back at the three other women, scowled, and then began slamming her fists into the two-inch thick transparent wall. “What are you doing!” she shouted. “What do you want from us?”
Blake turned away from his apparent conversation and cut her a look. Her voice and the sound of her anger never escaped the enclosed room. She kicked at the wall and again pounded her fists. “Answer me you coward, what do you want?”
“Megan,” Eleanor said. “I don’t think this is going to help. He doesn’t seem to like—”
“I don’t care, I really don’t care at this point.”
From the other room, Blake turned away from Megan. He pointed toward the door and waited as Randy and Sean stood and walked to the opposite end. He moved to the far corner and picked up something roughly the size of a television remote control. Staring down at the device, he worked the keypad with his index finger as a speaker in the ceiling buzzed to life. “Enough!”
Megan shook her head, her voice now coming across at more of a conversational tone. “No, I’m not finished. You owe us an explanation. We’ve done everything you’ve asked, some things that we don’t quite understand and you haven’t even answered one of our questions. We deserve to know why you’re doing this.”
Blake’s entire demeanor hardened. He spoke into the handheld device, although his voice didn’t come through the overhead speaker. As Megan turned to Eleanor and Savannah for validation, the looks on their faces told her something changed.
Two armed men pushed through the door and forced Randy and Sean back to their seats. They stood with Blake as he responded to Megan. “Just so we are clear, my voice is being broadcast throughout this bu
ilding. So yes Megan, I can hear your every word and what I’m about to say, I will only say once.”
Moving back toward the wall and in full view of all four women, Blake began. “I owe you and your friends nothing. If it weren’t for me and my men, Marcus Goodwin would have come through that building and killed everyone inside.”
Beginning to respond, Megan noticed Randy motioning for her to stay quiet. She met his eyes and although she complied for the moment, she held her ground at the forward facing wall.
Blake continued, “I saved each and every one of you from whatever that crippled old man had planned. So as of this minute you are all on borrowed time and should remember that. Goodwin and I have come to an understanding. He wants your little group handed over to him and in exchange he is willing to leave the city and all of its resources without a fight… a fight he would ultimately lose.”
Turning briefly from the window, Blake reacted to something else in the room. Speaking specifically to Megan he said, “Randy has asked me to let all of you go. He says he will take your place and will do anything I ask. I’m sorry to say but what is about to happen has already been agreed upon between Goodwin and myself.”
Staring into the distance, Blake waited for the right words. “Okay, here is the answer to your question of why. Why would I do this, because I can… that, and I’m bored. Listen, Goodwin wanted all of you, although I negotiated him down to only the men, oh and he didn’t really care about you Jack. He really only wants Mason, Randy, and Sean. He said he has a history with them. He agreed to let me have the rest of you in exchange for one more day in the city. I figure he doesn’t have much time left anyway, so what’s one more day? As for the rest of you, let’s just say that you will be providing my entertainment for the very near future.”