by Fleet, Ricky
“Get off me, you fool!”
“Sorry, I’m just so happy to be away from those things. I’ve never even seen them before today.”
“Enough talk! Get against the wall!” Gloria ordered.
“Yes, ok,” they blurted, complying instantly.
“If you make any sudden moves, I’ll shoot you,” Jonesy added.
It was highly unlikely. If the men were part of a suicide mission, they could’ve already stabbed Sarah and DB in the confusion. If their goal was to bide their time and let the rest of the prisoners in, they would be out of luck. Unsure what to think, Sarah used three thick zip ties on each man before turning them around.
“Let’s get you somewhere warm and we can talk.”
“That sounds wonderful, thank you.”
Feeling the residual sensation in her fingers of the bony wrists, she started to pat them down from neck to foot. They were emaciated to the point of being skeletal.
“I can’t feel anything. We’ll give them a strip search once the fire’s blazing.”
**********
“Are you comfortable?” asked Gloria. As the closest thing to a psychologist, and with her uncanny ability to sense the true motives of a person, she was leading the questioning.
“Yes, thank you.”
Both men were naked except for their underwear. A detailed examination had revealed nothing untoward. Gloria winced inwardly, maintaining the firm, serious exterior until her mind was fully made up. Both men looked even worse now that their tattered clothing had been removed and they sat in the firelight. Sunken cheeks. Grey, sallow skin. Bruises all over their bodies. Protuberant ribs. Sharp lines of pelvic bone barely able to support the trousers which had effectively fallen down without assistance. They looked like nothing more than concentration camp victims from the books she’d read on Auschwitz and Dachau. Considering their alleged status as prisoners of madmen, it wasn’t far from the truth.
“What’re your names?”
“I’m Jack Oldman,” said the first. His blond hair looked washed out and closer to white. The blue eyes were honest and expressive beneath a heavily lined forehead. He could be aged anywhere between thirty and forty five. Gloria estimated it at the lower end of the scale, attributing the pasty, worry etched features to unrelenting stress and fatigue.
“And you?”
“Carson Cooper,” mumbled the second. He was close to falling asleep, head lolling. Dark black hair hung from his head, greasy and lank. Once uniformly long, patches had been hacked away close to the scalp. The brown eyes that could be seen sporadically from below exhausted, heavy lids spoke of pain and fear.
“My name’s Gloria. I was a teacher in the old world. How about yourselves?”
“Landscape gardener,” said Jack.
Carson started to snore, his compressed neck causing his lips to flutter and wheeze.
“Mr. Cooper,” Gloria said forcefully, using the same tone she had used for decades on dozing students.
His head shot up and he looked around in confusion. “What? Where?”
“You’re in the castle. I asked what you did before the apocalypse.”
“Oh. I was a music teacher.”
“You were in school at the time?” Gloria asked. There were no high schools for miles around, which meant he had got home through the hell, saved his family, and made it to the prison.
“No, I’m a substitute. I travelled around covering classes while I looked for something more permanent.”
“I see.”
Gloria studied the men for a while. Carson resumed his snoring, and Jack grinned nervously, looking at the fierce looking men and women stood behind the interrogator.
“On the count of three, I’m going to ask you a question. Do you understand?”
Jack nodded, but his face registered confusion at the proposal.
“One, two, three. What’s your wife’s name?”
“Rachael, but we’re not married yet,” he replied instantly.
Gloria nodded. “Children?”
“A baby, Kyle. He’s seven months old,” Jack replied, lowering his head. Tears trickled onto the chalky skin of his chest.
“Where are they now?”
He was unable to look up immediately. Choking back his simmering anger and distress, he spoke to the carpet instead. “Locked up. They make her leave him alone for hours while they… do things to her.”
“What kind of things?”
“I think you know,” he said, little more than a whisper.
“Where are they locked up? In the main wings?”
“No, they keep us in seg.” He saw the lack of understanding on their faces. “Sorry, the segregation wing. I’ve even started to sound like them.”
“Segregation?” asked Sarah.
“It’s where all the pedophiles get locked up. It’s meant to keep them safe from the normal prisoners who try and hurt them. It worked when the guards were in charge. Now, not so much.” Even with his own horrific situation, he was unable to summon any sympathy for the molesters. He’d even caught one man licking his lips at Kyle as the family had been marched past. Given half a chance, he would’ve beaten the man to death himself.
“How many are down there with you?”
“Paedos?”
“No, families.”
“Around thirty. They keep us well away from each other so we don’t get to talk, or plot. As if we’d try anything surrounded by psychos and killers.”
“And the zombies,” mumbled Carson.
“Yeah, them too. I’ve been smelling them for months, you know. The smell wafts through the ducts and windows. But seeing them for the first time…” He trailed off, haunted by the rotting, slimy, green and yellow skin, and the oozing white eyes that couldn’t possibly see, but still stared.
“I’d like to ask you the same question, Carson. What’s your wife’s name?”
He looked up groggily. “Fiona. But I call her Fee. We’ve been married for two and a half years.”
“Children?”
“Only one now. Grace. She’s three.”
“What do you mean, now?”
“I couldn’t save my eldest, Ethan. He was at school six miles away,” he said, deflating further to the point he might just fade away. The tears were genuine, Gloria could see that much.
“I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter much now. I wish I’d never bothered leaving the house. We could’ve taken the decision to end it together and stayed as a family in the afterlife.”
Gloria was tempted to argue the point. Seeing the utterly bereft emptiness behind his eyes told her it was a fully justified position. The love she bore her students was limitless. She knew the pain that tore into her every night at the ones she hadn’t been able to save. If she lost Sam or Braiden? Unthinkable. Even Winston was becoming like a third adopted son to her.
“I’ve got no more questions,” she said, standing up and handing over to Sarah with a knowing look. These men weren’t expert liars, just broken shells of their former selves.
“Thank you, Gloria. I need to ask you some questions now if you don’t mind?”
“Go ahead,” said Jack.
Carson grunted, midway between the sleeping and waking world.
“Who was it that attacked the gates with you?”
“A guy named Pesci, I think. Although I heard some people call him Harry Stone.”
“And he was a prisoner?”
“He was a fucking nutter, even for a prisoner. Pardon my French.”
“In what way?”
“He was like a robot. He had nothing about him, no smiles, no raised voice, nothing. He damn near beat one of us to death while we were working the tunnels. But he didn’t shout, or even seem angry, he just kept punching and kicking until someone pulled him away.”
“It seems we’re better off with him dead then.”
“You’re not kidding. He scared the crap out of me.”
“Luckily, my husband foresaw th
at the prison would try something. I hate to even think of what might’ve happened if he’d succeeded in crashing through the gatehouse.”
“I’m so sorry about that,” Jack said, voice tight with apprehension.
“Don’t worry, I’m not holding you responsible. Did I hear you right a moment ago about working on the tunnels?”
“Yeah. We’re made to dig for most of the day.”
“It’s no wonder you’re so thin with all that work.”
“They starve us too. All the good stuff goes to the top boys who run the wings.”
“Well I can arrange for a hot meal,” she said, turning to Winston. “Would you mind heating up some beef stew?”
“I’ll get right on it, Mrs Taylor. I’ll try not to eat it all on the way back.”
Gloria scowled at his self-deprecation and offered to help. Handing the shotgun to Louise, they left the warm bedroom and disappeared.
“We were hoping to get back and see if our contact had managed to leave a map of the tunnel exits. Things have been a bit difficult here so we haven’t managed to make it back. Now you’ll have the privilege of showing us where they are.”
“What for?”
“We hoped to go back and attempt a rescue at some point,” Sarah explained.
“You’ll never make it inside, much less get to our families and free them. I’m more than happy to mark them on a map for you, though.”
“Is it really that well defended?”
“They’re paranoid as hell. If they’re not watching for enemies, they’re watching each other. We heard rumors that one of the prison gangs was going to try and take over. It means there are guards everywhere, twenty four seven.”
Jonesy bowed his head and cursed under his breath. It was just as he feared. Kurt would have to forget any notion of getting the civilians to safety, the loss of life on both sides would be unimaginable. It was hard to swallow, especially considering that he’d enlisted to protect the innocent, but sometimes reality outweighed hope.
“I’d appreciate that, even if we can’t use the information to help.”
“Do you have a map?” Jack asked, eagerly.
“Don’t worry about that right now. How many prisoners are there?”
“Between three and four hundred. I think a hundred or so are the real deal, murderers, armed robbers, that kind of thing. The rest are drug dealers, people in for assault, stuff like that.”
“How do they live?”
“I don’t understand the question. They live off of our hard work.”
“Sorry, I meant where do they stay? Are they locked up? That kind of thing.”
“Oh, I see. The four main wings have an equal share. Except for the Fowler brothers out of Liverpool. Word has it that Craig keeps them weak because they’re the biggest threat. They sleep in the cells, obviously, but most aren’t locked away any more. Only the weaker cons are kept secure until they’re needed. For whatever that might be…”
Sarah caught the inflection and evident disgust. “Why did you say it like that?”
“I can’t be sure if it’s real or not. I mean it can’t be, can it?” he said, looking at her for support of an unspoken assertion.
“What?”
“One of the other fathers said that he found a fingernail in the stew.”
“I don’t imagine the cooks are too worried about hygiene any more. A biter could’ve just dropped a clipping in the broth.”
“No, not a clipping, a whole nail. With… meat still attached.”
“Are you saying they’re eating people?” Sarah gulped, her stomach churning in revulsion.
“They can’t be. It’s barbaric,” muttered Jodi.
“It’s probably just me being paranoid after being locked up in that awful place,” Jack said, trying to appear upbeat. He failed and his eyes glazed a little. “It’s just that when someone disappears, meat is on the menu the next night.”
“The families have been disappearing?”
“No. Only the molesters from what I can tell, but it’s not for the gauntlet. These people vanish on other days.”
“Gauntlet?”
Jack explained the whispers of his fellow detainees, the overheard conversations between the guards mocking a particularly gruesome death.
“They’re monsters,” snapped Louise.
“They were monsters before. I don’t know what we’d call them now,” suggested Sarah. The situation was getting worse by the moment. It was one thing to use people as slaves. It was entirely another to butcher them for food or sport, even if they were the dregs of humanity.
“Demons,” muttered Jodi.
Sarah looked at her. “That’ll do. What else can you call pure evil?”
“We have to do something.”
“We can’t,” replied Jonesy. “We’ve got obligations to our own for now. If an opportunity presents itself, I’ll be the first over the wall.”
“I just feel so terrible. All those people suffering.” Unable to continue, Jodi turned and left the room.
Winston knocked at the door and entered with two steaming bowls of food. Putting them on a small table, he lifted the whole thing and placed it before the men. Carson, although fast asleep, started to stir as the scents teased his olfactory receptors.
“Gloria and Jonesy will keep an eye on you,” Sarah explained, cutting the zip ties. “We’ll talk more later.”
Jack looked at them all through a different lens. Yes, they were dangerous people. But dangerous to their enemies, not the innocent. Or at least he hoped not.
Chapter 25
Matt sat in the pitch black trailer, the words of Claire still ringing in his ears.
I hope you’ve got used to being raped, it’s going to be a rough day for you tomorrow. She gloated, placing a variety of pokers into the luminous coals of the forge. Long and thin, short and thick. The horror of today would pale in comparison to what the sunrise would bring.
“Boss, what do we do?” asked Ryan.
“We get raped to death with red hot pokers,” giggled one of the men. A broken mind and hysteria contorted the words so that Matt was unsure of the source.
“We keep quiet while I think,” he replied.
“I never thought I’d die like this,” moaned Paul.
“Just shut the fuck up!” Matt grumbled.
They had been brought to a stripped out trailer. One of the forty foot holiday village caravans that he’d been taken to as a child. The internal walls were missing, as was the bathroom and kitchen. The static home was a makeshift prison and, judging by the stench of stale piss and shit, one that had seen a great deal of use. A series of metal bars had been welded to the inner frame. The survivors were sat with their backs to the railings, tied securely to the thick iron.
Darkness had fallen some hours ago, or so it seemed in their fear shaken minds. Time lost all meaning as the minutes ticked away toward their dreadful fate. Matt wasn’t going to go out like this. At his shoulder, a poorly welded strut protruded by a couple of inches past the main frame. A few solid blows would see it pierce his skull and end the possibility of a vile death at the hands of the depraved leader. Only the men at his side and the tiny package inside his mouth prevented the tempting suicide.
“We’ve got one chance to get out of here. If it doesn’t work, I’d suggest biting your own tongues off so you can bleed to death. It’s a lot less painful than what that crazy bitch will do to you.”
“You said we had a chance?”
“I like it here. It’s dark and cold,” giggled the insane man.
“We do, but it’s going to be difficult. Now keep quiet while I try.”
Probing with his tongue, Matt loosened the small, hard packet between the cheek and gum. There was no way he’d have got away with concealing it in the prison, but the Gypsies seemed to be filled with an unassailable confidence. Apart from a cursory pat down, they didn’t concern themselves with a cavity check. During the few seconds of distraction when Andrew’s boat had ex
ploded, he’d slipped the package from pocket to mouth. Moving the wrapped razor blade onto the tip of his tongue, he twisted his head to the right and prayed. Flicking it from his mouth, the small packet hit the faecal crusted carpet and bounced. The bound wrists only had about eight inches of lateral movement in either direction before coming to one of the upright struts of the frame. If it was out of reach by an inch, it might just as well not exist.
Here goes.
Feeling around, his nails scraped at the dried excrement, flaking it away from the cheap carpet pile. Straining all the way to the right where it dropped, he probed with exaggerated care one square inch at a time. Too much haste could see him accidentally knock it out of reach, and then it would mean a crushed skull from suicide or the anal invasion of a thousand degree steel rod. Staring into the darkness but ‘seeing’ with fingertips, he found nothing.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“What’s going on?” asked Paul.
“Just shut it will you?” Matt growled, silencing the questions.
Steeling himself for the pain of suicide, he knew the chances of the blade bouncing underneath his hands were infinitesimally small. He’d have felt it. Without hope, he shifted position and started to poke at the brittle carpet fibres, ignoring the revolting mess that had made them so stiff. A further ten minutes of searching proved unsuccessful and he let out a sigh of disappointed finality. That was that then, he thought, feeling the furthest patch, knowing it would be just as barren as the rest. A click of nail on plastic paralyzed him and he sat rigidly against the frozen metal. What was that? He strained as far as possible against the ropes and gingerly stretched out his middle finger. The thick nail touched the edge of the packet and he carefully withdrew. Breathless with excitement and anxiety, he considered what to do next. There would be only one shot at this. A single slip or mistake would see the tiny packet move forever out of reach. Attempting one last time to stretch the ropes at his wrist, Matt put everything into it. He grimaced as the fingers started to go numb from lack of blood. Slumping back, it was useless. Lennie had done an expert job on making sure they were up to the task of holding the powerful Scotsman.