Strangeways

by Matthew Samm

  Then she was gone. The old lady went back to the front room and calmed the others. Somewhere off in the house, the baby had finally got the attention it needed and quietened. Indeed, it felt like the entire house was unnaturally still.

  Alix risked a glance around the corner and saw that someone had opened the front door. She felt a spike of terror as the young man had an unfettered view into the house. Alix’s face would have been in clear view. She realized, however, that the sun streamed down outside. Inside the house would have been shadowed. She could not be seen. All that would change when the young man entered the house.

  Alix quickly pulled her head back and hugged the faulty wall. Her final view of the outside world was the young man, pushing up to what passed for a doorstep, and the rest of his group retreating into the forest.

  Mad Jack, Hellcat, the third henchman; they were leaving. Alix felt an urge to follow them, but she couldn’t. The young man had entered the house.

  “You know why I’m here,” he said, putting as much growl into his voice as he could muster.

  “We do,” said the old lady, “but you’ll not get it.”

  Alix knew this would not end well for someone, but there was at least one thing the young man hadn’t bargained on. He would not be facing a house full of old women. He’d be facing a Warden.

  And he was alone.

  7

  “You saw what happened out there, didn’t you?” he said.

  “Of course, but why do you think that would make me change my mind?” It was the old lady speaking to him, defiance dripping from her words. She was completely unafraid of him and even, remarkably, Mad Jack.

  “He’ll kill you. He’ll kill all of you. You know that!” The boy’s words were designed to be powerful, but, as before, they lacked conviction. He was almost begging them to take him seriously.

  “Maybe he will, Domenyck, but we know you won’t,” the old lady said.

  “You’re wrong,” Domenyck replied. “I’ll do it!”

  A new voice piped up, a girl’s voice. The voice was immature, carrying the youthful energy of someone who wasn’t even in double figures yet. “You won’t hurt me, Dom. You’re nice!”

  Alix once more felt the dissonance of someone whose belief system had been challenged. The baby was bad enough, but now there was a sweet, innocent girl. What crime could she have committed to land here? She certainly had never been to the cells. She must have been born here. Once more, there were people on the island who had committed no crime at all.

  Back in the front room, Alix heard footsteps. The tread was heavy, made by thick boots and clearly coming from ‘Domenyck’. He was moving around in a circle and for a moment, Alix readied herself. If he came into the back room, he would not get the chance to see her.

  She didn’t think he would. He was thinking, the movement helping the thoughts move around his head. He didn’t know what to do. Alix recognized that feeling. Many times, her father had pressured her with some test, and she’d been unsure what had been for the best. Every decision she made brought with it the fear of his disappointed gaze and that feeling of dread it conjured in her. She hated to disappoint anyone, but especially her father.

  She imagined the thought process going through Domenyck’s mind. He’d be starting from a dissentient position. He didn’t want to kill anyone, but he’d be constantly weighing up the alternatives to killing someone and seeing if they outweighed the pain caused by actually killing someone.

  If he concluded that it wasn’t worth it to do the deed, he’d try and convince himself that it was. He’d put forward little arguments in his mind. ‘It’ll be hard to do, but just this once. It gets easier’, maybe, or ‘if I don’t do it, maybe Mad Jack will kill me. I have to do it!’ That’s what the pacing was for. It helped to get through the painful internal conversation. Alix knew. She’d had plenty of them herself.

  Finally, the tread stopped, and she heard Domenyck’s overcoat rustle as he turned. “You know this is right. Your men have broken Jack’s laws. They’re gone now, so you must pay the penalty.”

  “Why don’t you just call him dad, Domenyck? They’ll be back. If they’ve broken Jack’s laws, he should take it out on them,” said the old lady.

  ‘Domenyck is Mad Jack’s son?’ Alix thought, her mind returning to the cells and the execution of Robert Brooks; Domenyck’s brother.

  “He would, but they’ve run off to the north end of the island. He thinks they’ll come back if you pay for what they’ve done.”

  “So why are you here, Domenyck? Your father is making you do his dirty work?”

  “Shut up! That’s none of your business!” Domenyck fired back. The old lady had struck a nerve.

  Another woman spotted a weakness in Domenyck’s armor. “He sent you to beat a group of women, didn’t he?”

  Domenyck didn’t say a word.

  “You won’t do it, Dom,” whispered a third woman. “You’re not the sort. You’re not like your dad.”

  The women erupted in a chorus of similar phrases. “You’re better than him,” one of them said. “You’re not strong enough to do this, Dom,” said another. “We always knew you were a good person, Dom,” said a third.

  Alix hesitated behind the wall. Which way would this go? She recognized Domenyck’s impossible situation. Do something you find revolting or face consequences that were just as revolting.

  The little girl spoke again. “See, you’re nice, Dom. You won’t hurt us.”

  Finally, the twisting, unseen battle inside Domenyck overwhelmed him and he snapped. “Shut up!” he bellowed, taking the leash off his emotions and engorging his voice with the authority he’d sought before.

  The women in the front room immediately fell silent, sensing they’d pushed him too far. Their immediate future hung in the balance.

  “I am my father’s son! You will respect me! You will do what I say!” he shrilled, his voice untamed and uncontrolled. “You’ve got one more chance. Give me what they stole, or I’ll do what Ja…what my father wants!” He’d gained a little more control over his emotions and as he did, the power began to wane from his words.

  “We don’t have it,” said the old lady. “Do what you must.”

  It was a final ultimatum. She was forcing him to choose. Would he crack and walk out, in which case he would lose all face in front of these women, their men and his own father? Or would he carry out whatever threat he’d been sent to do?

  “This is your last chance, old…”

  “…You’ve said that already, Domenyck. Get on with it!”

  It was the push too far.

  Alix heard a flurry of movement from the scene. Domenyck was storming into the other back room.

  “Give her to me!” he bellowed.

  Alix heard the young girl scream, a shrill, splitting noise that sliced through the air and punctured eardrums. There were thumps as heavy forms fell to the ground. Alix knew the women were trying to stop Domenyck from doing something, but he had pushed them to the floor, surging forward towards his ultimate goal.

  The girl screamed again, and the sound changed pitch as he dragged her back into the front room.

  Alix risked a look into that room. She was horrified by what she saw. Domenyck had the girl by the hair, her face contorted in pain. She wanted to scream but doing so would cause her hair to tug and the pain would be too much so she couldn’t.

  “You think I’m weak!” he shouted. “You think I can’t do anything! You think I’m useless! I’ll show you how much you should respect me!”

  Alix continued to look horrified as Domenyck began to take off his belt. For a moment, she feared the worst for the little girl. There are some things too terrible to imagine and the thought of something like that happening to one so young, chilled Alix to the core. She was a hair’s breadth away from intervening. No one would go through the worst while she was there, but Domenyck spoke again.

  “Your men are cowards! They have deserted you. You refuse to do what my fa
ther asks. You know his penalty.”

  “Please don’t,” murmured the old lady through whispered tears. Around her, the other women balled and begged, sobbed and whimpered.

  Alix had now forgotten to stay hidden. She wouldn’t have cared if he’d seen her at all. Her head poked further around the wall, watching the scene unfold with greater clarity.

  Domenyck took his belt off completely and began swinging it around his wrist, coiling the leather strap in this palm until the final foot of the belt hung loose, weighed down by the heavy buckle.

  Alix caught a look at the clasp. It was a ruddy brown and looked a little like brass, although she knew that was unlikely on Strangeways. It was more like that it was rusted iron from one of the crates. Either way, someone on the island had exceptional craftsmanship. The buckle was fashioned into the shape of a hound, its lips pulled back, its teeth bared and dripping.

  “You don’t have to do this,” whimpered the old lady. “Please don’t hurt my granddaughter.”

  Domenyck’s face twisted with the turmoil. “I have to,” he said, his own eyes gleaming with tears.

  He pushed the girl against the wall, turning his back to the women. He raised his arm, the buckle swinging loose underneath and catching the sun’s rays as it bobbed back and forth. He turned one last time to the women. “I’m sorry,” he said and closed his eyes.

  The belt buckle began its terrifying descent. The house filled with screams.

  8

  Domenyck’s eyes must have been closed as the belt swung downwards. He didn’t want to see the damage he was about to inflict on a little girl. His blindness ruined his aim, and the buckle caught the stonework before her body, sapping all the power from the blow. He opened his eyes to see his miss and raised the belt again. He couldn’t miss this time, to do so would be to invite ridicule from the witnesses, when he wanted to inspire both fear and respect.

  No second blow fell.

  The screams lit a fire in Alix, and she leapt from her doorway, covering the space of the front room in a matter of milliseconds. She caught Domenyck’s hand as it reached its peak, where the potential for maximum kinetic energy hid. He’d just begun his descent when she caught his wrist, guiding the force away from the little girl’s body and twisting the arm up his own back.

  Domenyck squealed with both shock and pain, but before there could be any counter movement, Alix clattered his head off the stonework. He crumpled to the floor, his senses separated from his consciousness.

  Alix released his arm and let him fall, watching as the second blow from the stone floor added insult to his injury.

  No one in the house moved. Alix regarded Domenyck’s form and then became aware of a whole set of eyes on her like laser points. The house remained silent for a few extra moments until the whispering started.

  “What has she done?” someone said.

  “We’re all dead now!” said someone else.

  “You should have given him what he wanted,” a third woman accused the old lady. There were murmurs of agreement from some.

  “Nonsense,” the old lady replied. It was our food, just because the north islanders have new people doesn’t mean they get to cut into our food.”

  “But Jack will come now, and he’ll kill us all,” rang the chorus of voices along with accompanied agreements.

  “Enough!” Alix interjected. “You don’t have much time. He’ll come around soon, and when he does, we need to make sure he can’t move. I have a few things I want to ask him.”

  In the background, the little girl sobbed, clinging to her mother who was stroking her head and apologizing for not intervening as Alix had. The baby had begun to wail again.

  “Do you have a chair?” Alix asked, addressing the matriarch; the old lady.

  She nodded.

  “Good. Do you have something to tie him with?”

  The old lady nodded again.

  “Excellent,” Alix replied. “Tie him up.”

  One of the women disappeared into the rear room, the one Alix had not been in and came back with a chair. It was not the sturdiest of constructions, but it would serve its purpose.

  From the same room, someone else brought back crude steel cabling, clearly recycled from old crates. Alix smiled. He’d never be able to wriggle or break his way out of that. They just needed something to secure it with.

  Alix placed the chair in the centre of the living area and dragged Domenyck over to it. She lifted him with minor effort and asked one of the women to help her guide him into the chair.

  That done, she wrapped the steel, high tensile cabling around him multiple times and dragged a loose end to the stone wall, threading the end through the same gap she’d used to spy on the outside events. She managed to coil the line around and through a separate hole so that there was a loop around one of the stones in the wall.

  She pulled tight, making sure the stone could not be jarred loose. It was secure, deeply wedged and pinned by the weight of all the other stones in the house. Then she tied it off and walked back towards the unconscious body of Domenyck, pinging the cabling as she went. It was taut and cruel. If he struggled, he would cause more damage to himself than the rope.

  She’d left a second loop near his body and wrapped it around Domenyck’s neck loosely. “Choose someone,” she said, pointing to the elderly matriarch.

  “Yulia,” the old lady said, and the young girl’s mother looked up from her daughter’s hair where she’d been kissing and snuffling since she’d managed to get her arms around her again. “Yulia, I think you should have this honor,” she said again.

  Yulia hesitated, but eventually nodded, prying her daughter from the death grip she held around her leg and reassuring her. She walked over to Alix and took the end of the loop. If she pulled hard enough, she’d strangle Domenyck.

  “Do not pull on this unless I tell you to,” Alix commanded, looking Yulia in the eyes and ensuring she would obey her. “This is too important for you to get your own back right now.”

  Yulia nodded again and Alix could see she meant it. There was as much evil in her as there was in Domenyck. Once more, that pang of doubt welled up in Alix. Why was she here? She wasn’t a monster.

  Domenyck’s eyes began to flutter and a soft moan of agony escaped his lips. When he came into focus, he saw his position and began to panic, struggling to understand where he was and why he couldn’t move.

  Alix nodded to Yulia, who pulled the cabling, causing the steel to bite into his throat. As the air flow ceased, Domenyck lost all his strength and ceased his struggles, his eyes beginning to bulge. Yulia had the pressure too high, but Alix kept the choke on for a few more moments until she was sure he’d comply. She pointed a finger quickly at Yulia and she stopped pulling on the cord.

  Domenyck’s eyes began to soften and his face, which had been turning an uneasy shade of purple began to lighten again as blood flowed down his neck and back to his heart.

  “Don’t talk,” Alix ordered. “I have some questions and you have the answers I need.”

  Domenyck did as he was commanded. He looked at Alix but didn’t talk.

  “You’re Mad Jack’s son, aren’t you?” Alix asked.

  Domenyck nodded.

  “Well done, you didn’t speak. That’s some people’s last mistake,” she threatened. She was going with the flow, the words awkward on her lips, making things up as she went along. She’d never done anything like this before, but what did that matter? Her father had tested her often enough for her to know you just forge ahead; take things as they come.

  Domenyck didn’t know whether this was common in her life or not. He had no idea about whether he’d survive this encounter or not. His eyes did soften when Alix said, ‘well done’, despite him trying to hide it. When he thought Alix might have seen it, his face turned sour again, trying to cover the brief moment of acceptance he’d just heard.

  Was that all it took to break this guy? Was his self-esteem so low, that even a compliment would be enough for
him to sing?

  “You can speak for my next question, do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  “I said you can speak, do you understand?” Alix repeated.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I understand.”

  “Good. You were with Mad Jack outside, weren’t you? That was Mad Jack, wasn’t it?”

  Domenyck took a moment, before doing as he was told. “He doesn’t like being called Mad Jack. You shouldn’t call him that.”

  “Answer the question. Was it him?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need to find him and you coming in this house means I’ve lost my chance. Where will he go?”

  Domenyck looked momentarily panicked. “I don’t know,” he said, clearly worrying that this answer would not be sufficient.

  “Are you lying to me, Domenyck?”

  He shook his head.

  Alix nodded at Yulia again and she pulled tight on the cable.

  Immediately, the shock returned to Domenyck’s face as he turned instantly beetroot and his eyes began to bulge again. They were fixed on Alix as if he was trying to get her to lessen the pain so he could have another go at answering her question.

  Alix held the cabling in place for a moment longer, extending the agony a fraction of a second, before ordering Yulia to slacken the pull.

  “I don’t know where he’ll go, but maybe I can help you,” he begged, his eyes returning to human form and his breathing coming in great gulps, making up for the seconds he’d gone without that most underrated resource; oxygen. His gulps suggested he worried he’d lose that most basic life-giving gift again, so he needed to fill his lungs to the brim and then continue filling.

  “Why would you help me?” Alix asked, kneeling in front of him. His eyes were fixed on the ground. He couldn’t look at her, but as she knelt, she noticed his eyebrows flicker meaning his eyes had darted forwards, probably watching her knees as they planted onto the uneven floor.

  She raised her hand to his chin and gently nurtured his eyes until they looked into her own, feeling the slightest push on her hand as he initially tried to fix his gaze to the ground again. There were tears. He was trying to hide the tears. Alix felt sadness well within her chest and the tough guy persona she’d used evaporated. She even felt guilt assault her heart while the cabling was still wrapped around his neck. “You’re not like them, are you?”