The Detainee

by Peter Liney

  “Delilah!” she hissed impatiently, and I felt the jolt of her anxious tug transmitted down the line.

  Someone slipped, there was a wrench on the chain, then they righted themselves and we staggered on. We were up to our thighs now, doing that kind of jumpy little walk you do when you’re trying to hurry through water, lurching one way then the other. But there were no reference points for your senses, no way for your body to know what to do. We had to keep moving, but everything was screaming that it had no information, that all it could feel or see was darkness and water. It slowed us so much the kids began to catch up, their yelling becoming more and more eager as they scented blood.

  We were on this long, gradual bend when the glow of the first of their torches began to come around it and suddenly we were immersed in orange light, flickering and tossing our shadows into a state of panic.

  Whoever it was gave a cry of triumph, calling back to the others.

  “We got ’em!” he screamed. “We got ’em!”

  I glanced back. Even at this distance, and with the glow of only one torch, there was no mistaking the big lanky kid who’d been outside that day. Nor the fact that he was carrying a machete.

  “Go!” I screamed at the others, the need for silence now gone.

  There was a splash behind us and I realized the tall kid was already in the water. Behind him another torch appeared. Then another. Jesus, we were going to be slaughtered.

  I don’t know what it was at the bottom of that water, but it was slippery as hell. Everyone was sliding all over the place. Twice I held on to Jimmy to prevent him from going under. But I couldn’t stop myself. My foot shot out from beneath me like someone had wrenched it away. I tugged at the little guy, hoping he could save me, but the next thing I knew I was underwater. I tried to right myself, fell over again, then managed to regain my footing with the aid of the others.

  “Keep going!” I shouted, not able to bear the thought of us losing ground cuz of me. But it was too late. The tall kid was almost upon us, his torch in one hand, his machete in the other, swinging it back and forth, chuckling to himself, like he couldn’t wait to slice somebody open.

  The tunnel took another bend, a much sharper one; we couldn’t see the pursuing group, only him. Mind you, he was enough. By virtue of being that much taller than anyone else he was nowhere near as deep in the water and found it that much easier to get along.

  I thought about stopping and trying to take him out. He might’ve been tall but he wasn’t that solid. But with a machete, and that reach of his, I didn’t fancy my chances. Certainly not unarmed and slipping and sliding all over the place. I looked around for something I might use. A length of timber, even a brick to throw, but there was nothing.

  Then, to my astonishment—Jesus, I could hardly believe what I was seeing—Lena suddenly stopped and turned to face him. I mean, I would’ve prevented her, but I was so surprised she was past me before I realized. Even the kid looked puzzled, like there was something he might’ve missed. Then he smiled, raised his machete and stepped forward to cut her down.

  “Lena!” somebody screamed—I think it was me—but I needn’t have worried.

  She didn’t fight. She did something far more sensible, that maybe I would’ve thought of if I wasn’t so dumb. She swept her hand across the water and drenched his torch. The flame died and everything changed. Apart from the faintest glow from the pursuing group we were in darkness again.

  The tall kid stopped in his tracks, screaming for the others to catch up. “Come on! Get here, will ya!”

  Before they could arrive, Lena pushed us through a small, unnoticed opening in the wall and we slipped away.

  I found myself in this narrow service tunnel, no more than a couple of feet wide, stumbling along behind Jimmy, giving him the occasional push, aware of this sudden mustiness, that dank odor you get at the crotch of a building. I slipped again and had to reach out for the wall to steady myself. It felt all soft and slimy, like it was alive, and from then on I did my best to avoid touching it.

  Behind us the tall kid was still shouting to the others to catch up, that he had us trapped. I heard them arrive, their cries of frustration when their torches revealed nothing, but they soon spotted where we’d gone and began to follow.

  I gave Jimmy another shove, told him to move it, but he was going as fast as he could. A few moments later I felt the ground beneath me beginning to rise, the water growing shallower. There was a splashing up front. It sounded as if Lena got out. Then Delilah, then Jimmy. I fumbled around, found some steps, and followed the others up and through a doorway.

  “Wait,” I said, tugging back on Jimmy’s hand.

  “What is it?” Lena whispered.

  “Keep going,” I told her.

  I gave her a nudge, the three of them moving on, though after a few moments I heard them stop. I guess to wait for me. Jimmy whispered to Lena, asked her what I was up to, but she told him to shush.

  Slowly the light of the flickering torches grew nearer. I crouched behind the door, listening to them getting out of the water, starting to climb the steps. It was only when someone’s shape actually filled the doorway, when his torchlight spilled through, that I finally swung the door, hitting him with every bit of strength a half-fit old big guy could muster.

  Whoever it was, and it wasn’t the tall kid, got it full smack in the face, and I’ll tell you, the way that door rebounded off him, he must’ve been made of rubberized rock. He fell back against the others, bounced off them and ended up in a twisted heap across the doorway. But his machete, which I’d been hoping to get my hands on, clattered down the steps.

  I cursed to myself, but at least had the presence of mind to learn from Lena. I grabbed his fallen torch and tossed it into the water. I then turned and hurried after the others, taking Jimmy’s hand, rejoining the human chain.

  Lena led us this way and that, through an endless maze of confusion and darkness. Along tunnels narrow and wide, through more flooded areas, across some kind of metal walkway, then back into another tunnel. The kids got left way behind. Tell the truth, I didn’t have a clue where we were myself. Not till I heard a greater depth to our echo, felt a certain familiar sense of spaciousness, even a familiar smell, and realized we were back at the main hall.

  “Let’s go,” urged Jimmy, who’d also worked it out.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Up top!”

  He started toward the entrance, but I called him back. “Jimmy! Wait!”

  “What?” he asked. “Big Guy! They ain’t that far behind!”

  “We can’t leave,” I told him.

  “What?”

  “We can’t leave,” I repeated.

  “Why not?”

  “’Cuz if we do, it’s all over. We’re back the way it was.”

  There was a momentary pause, then Delilah’s voice came out of the dark. “Shit,” she muttered, obviously having taken my point.

  “What else can we do?” Jimmy asked.

  I fumbled in my pocket, unwrapped my matches, and struck one. For some reason I needed to see their faces to say this. “We can’t leave . . . and we can’t let them leave either.”

  There was a long pause.

  “What are you saying?” Delilah asked.

  “I don’t know. But we can’t let them go.”

  They paused, weighing it up in their minds, a white-faced grimness descending upon us all. Lena turned away, like she didn’t want to participate in this conversation. My match went out and I struck another.

  “You don’t mean kill them?” Jimmy said.

  I didn’t answer, just shrugged, and he turned and stared into Delilah’s face, like they were searching for something from each other. The little guy started to shake his head, as if the idea of the hunted becoming the hunter was just too much for him.

  “We can’t,” he said.

  “There aren’t that many of them,” I told him. “Half a dozen at the most.”

  “Three,” Lena
announced, speaking for the first time since the subject had been raised.

  I turned to her. “You sure?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. But, Clancy . . . no killing, huh?”

  I sighed. I hadn’t really had it in mind to do anything, just stop them from leaving, but at least that made one decision for us.

  Again the match I was holding went out and this time I didn’t bother to strike another. We all knew the decision had been made. We also knew it was one we could never have imagined making: to turn on the kids, to go after them, we wouldn’t even have dared dream about it.

  The one advantage we had was that we knew the tunnels. Or most of them. All of us could just about find our way around in the dark. The kids had only one torch left, one final source of light; if we could extinguish that, it might give us a chance.

  Mind you, up against that was the fact that they were armed with machetes: razor-sharp, deadly, that could slice through anything with just one swish. I thought about sneaking down to Jimmy’s workshop, pulling out some tools we could maybe use to defend ourselves, but it was too close to where we last saw them. In the end, Lena took Jimmy with her to the garden to see what they could find there while Delilah and I kept watch over the tunnel up to the entrance.

  If it was going to come to a fight I couldn’t imagine Delilah being much use, but she was as determined as anyone that those kids wouldn’t leave. In fact, sitting there in that alcove, whispering to one another, listening out for the sound of footsteps or an unfamiliar voice, I realized she shared none of the little guy’s reservations.

  “They ain’t getting past me,” she croaked determinedly. “No matter what.”

  “Delilah. I don’t want you getting involved in any fighting,” I told her, mindful of the fact that she hadn’t fully recovered from the blowout. “Leave this to me.”

  She grunted a little louder than she meant to. “You really think it matters?”

  “What?”

  “I’d rather be killed here than go back up there.”

  I never said anything, but I knew what she meant. She didn’t want to live without tunnels, and I didn’t want to live without Lena; and both of us were prepared to do anything, pay any price, for what meant so much.

  “It ain’t going to come to that,” I reassured her.

  Lena and Jimmy returned laden with a lot of stuff I wouldn’t normally associate with combat. Two shovels, a rake, a bundle of pea-sticks, a roll of twine, and a couple of plastic containers full of water. Can you believe that? But the thing was, when they explained it to me, it made perfect sense. Water to douse the torch, sticks and tools to fight with, and twine to tie the kids up afterward. Well, that was the theory. The practice might prove a little different.

  Jimmy briefly argued the point, but we decided that he and Delilah should stay and guard the way up to the entrance while Lena and I went in search of the three kids. I mean, Lena has to go, no one knows the tunnels better than her, and I was the closest thing to a fighting force we had, so as far as I could see, it more or less decided itself.

  No sooner had the little guy accepted the idea than he started to think up their “battle plan,” the best way he and Delilah could defend the exit. When we left they were cutting off lengths of twine and stringing them across the tunnel. The idea being that when the kids tripped over the twine, our two crack troops would rush out and pulverize the hell out of them with gardening equipment. I mean, I never said nothing, I didn’t want to hurt Jimmy’s feelings, but I hoped to hell it wasn’t going to come to that.

  Slowly and silently Lena and me made our way back down to where we’d last seen the kids; her carrying a container of water, me a shovel raised and ready. Despite it just being the two of us, she still insisted on taking my hand and I have to admit, entombed in all that darkness, knowing how at home in it she was, I was pretty glad of it.

  God knows how long it took. Every now and then she’d stop, sniffing, listening, then venture forward again. We didn’t say anything to each other, or not in the conventional sense. Just a squeeze of the hand now and then, a twist of the fingers, a nudge, a grip on the upper arm. Strange how we’ve developed that since I’ve known her. How all those gestures human beings make—the smile, the frown, the shrug, the wink, whatever—have been translated into a language of touching. Really, we don’t need to say a word to each other anymore.

  We descended some steps, turned into a service tunnel, then slowed right down and I realized we were back where we’d last seen the kids: near the door. Lena stopped. I could hear her quietly sniffing the air and I knew she could smell someone. I squeezed her hand to ask where and she pointed in front of us.

  I raised my shovel higher, getting ready to swipe at anyone who came at us, but Lena slipped from my grasp and moved forward. I tried to stay with her, but before I knew it, she was gone. I fumbled around, reached for her, and touched nothing but wall. What the hell was she doing? Then her voice came to me from out of the darkness.

  “Clancy,” she whispered.

  I inched my way forward, waving my hand in front of me, eventually finding her squatting down over something. I soon realized it was the kid I’d hit earlier, that he was still unconscious. The others must’ve just left him.

  We thought about it for a while, then decided to take him over to one of the storerooms near Jimmy’s workshop, where we could lock him away and he could come around in his own sweet time.

  I got him up on my shoulder, no trouble, he wasn’t any size at all, but it still felt a bit odd having a kid draped over me. I couldn’t actually see him, but sure as hell I could smell him. It was like a mixture of wild animal and garbage. He reeked: his clothes, his body, his hair. I’d already searched him once, just in case he had a knife or something, but on my way over to the storeroom I started to feel a little uneasy and stopped to frisk him again, just to be sure.

  When we got him locked up, Lena and I gave each other a quick hug. One down, two to go. The only trouble was, where were they? Where was the tall kid? The one who worried me the most.

  “Maybe we should go back up,” Lena said.

  I muttered my agreement. I mean, those kids could’ve been anywhere, but it was hard not to worry about Jimmy and Delilah all on their own, maybe having to face them.

  This time Lena took me down a long service tunnel that intersected many of the main ones, including my original running track. ’Course, it was all just black to me. Everything’s black. Jimmy reckons he’s starting to see something, that his eyes are adjusting and he can pick out faint shapes, but I think he’s imagining it. You do start to hear things differently though. To get these notions on size and shape. I mean, I could tell we were approaching another intersection with a main tunnel. There’s just this sense of impending space, of freedom opening up to sound.

  I was about to mention it, to tell Lena what I could now “see,” when I suddenly noticed this faint orange glow in front of us. I grabbed her and pulled her back before she could step out into the main tunnel, though actually, I think she’d been about to do the same to me.

  We retreated a couple of paces, the glow starting to grow on the wall opposite, the sound of muffled footsteps and whispering coming our way.

  Lena tapped me on the shoulder, passing me the container of water. I mean, can you imagine? Two vicious little drugheads approaching, armed with machetes, looking to hack us to pieces, and there I was lying in wait for them with a garden tool and a container of water. What sort of big guy was I, for chrissake? Krusty the Clown?

  Lena stepped back a pace so I had a good swing. I mean, as dumb as it might sound I had to get it just right. Miss that torch of theirs and it’d probably be the last thing I ever did.

  I waited till the very final moment, just as the light of their flame began to swing down the service tunnel, then leapt out and threw everything at them.

  I had an instant to see the look of alarm, of astonishment, on their faces as the water arced through the air and then hit the flame. For
a moment it crackled, it spluttered, it even flared back into life, but then finally it went out.

  “Get him!” the tall kid screamed.

  It was crazy. I was so intent on making sure I had the right angle for my throw that I lost my bearings, and when I turned to leap back into the service tunnel I cannoned straight into the wall and ended up on the ground. Someone must’ve taken a swing at me with a machete, cuz I heard it smash against the brickwork only inches above my head. Again the tall kid yelled for the other to get me, but they became confused who was where and the second kid kept screaming to the tall one not to hit him by mistake. I stayed where I was, prostrate on the ground, wondering what the hell to do, when suddenly I felt Lena tugging at my arm. I was just about to follow her when the second kid lit a match.

  They saw us, raised their machetes and advanced our way, but a gust of wind blew the match out. Both of them cursed, the tall one shouting for another match to be lit and I took the chance to leap at them.

  There was a confused struggle, legs and arms going everywhere, a lot of yelling and screaming, and I heard the box of matches fall to the ground. Then someone ran off, and whoever I had hold of, I guess it was the smaller kid, broke free and backed away. However, in the brief instant that the match had been lit, I’d seen enough of the tunnel to know he was backing himself into an alcove.

  He started shouting at me from out of the darkness.

  “Come on! Come on!” he screamed, daring me to come closer, the sound of his machete swishing back and forth. “Come on!”

  I hesitated for a moment, wondering what the hell to do, one step nearer I could be cut in two, then Lena’s voice came to me from out of the dark.

  “Left . . . Right . . . Left.”

  I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. It didn’t make no sense. But she kept saying it over and over.