Strangeways

by Matthew Samm

  She checked the damage. Lances of stinging pain radiated from the cut, but it was a shallow flesh wound, nothing to worry about unless it became infected. She reached into her belt and pulled out a tube of anti-bacterial gel, squeezing a small amount into her hands and rubbing it into the wound.

  She wiggled her shoulder slightly to test the pain. Very little. Alix climbed to her feet and moved to the log cabin, hugging the rear wall and peering around the sides. Deserted. In the distance, up a small rise and shrouded in more trees, a much larger structure peeked through the foliage. It was like the lord’s manor; the best residence was always withheld for the most powerful person in the city. In this case, it would be Hellcat. Alix decided to head there if there was no luck in the surrounding huts and cabins.

  She moved to the front of the lodge. There was a single, small window frame, although it lacked glass. Alix crouched underneath and lifted her head to steal a look inside. She saw nobody, but there was a cage. Perhaps Isaac had been held there?

  She slunk across to the door and twisted the handle, feeling it turn effortlessly. There wasn’t even a lock, and no latch to keep it in place. When the wind kicked up, Alix knew the door would bang and crash on its rudimentary hinges.

  She slipped inside and stood in the darkness, allowing the door to fall back to its original position. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark as what little light entered through the ineffective window illuminated the objects inside.

  There was scant furniture or items of any interest. Underneath the window, there was a mock-up desk; a slab of wood hacked reasonably flat and then pinned to smaller, hacked cubes of wood for legs. A stool nestled underneath; more cubes stacked on top of one another and then fixed with whatever metal could be hammered into them. There was no back, so whoever sat there would be unable to recline.

  Alix glanced around the rest of the room. By the door, two small wooden pieces jutted a few inches into the room and resting between them stood a single spear, like the others, fashioned out of a wooden shaft and repurposed metal tip.

  The only other item in the room was the cage, where her brother had perhaps been kept when he arrived on Strangeways, before his visit with Mad Jack. It was well constructed, claiming the most useful ingredients from the crates as well as the attentions of a skilled constructor. ‘There must be one somewhere on Strangeways,’ Alix thought. If she ever found herself inside, she wouldn’t be able to break out.

  She began examining the door to the cage, which did not have a lock, but rather a modified padlock threaded through a chain. It was difficult to make. So little light filtered through the gloomy window that she found herself leaning close to the door, her nose practically touching the steel.

  That was when the figure stood up.

  Alix shrank back away from the cage, knocking over the stool and cracking her lower back off the table. Her right arm clattered into the door which gaped wide before coming back to rest in its original position. Had anyone been outside, they would have seen the door open of its own accord and would surely investigate.

  Alix didn’t move; waiting for the din to settle and her heart to slow. There were no sounds from outside. Alix hoped she’d avoided alerting anyone.

  “That wasn’t the smartest idea, was it, young lady?” said the voice from inside the cage.

  Alix’s breath came in shallow gasps, but slowly returned to normal. “Well, it wasn’t the plan was it?” Alix returned, implying she’d been scared, and it was the woman’s fault she’d made all the noise. “You could get me killed; you know!”

  “I’m already dead,” the woman said, “officially at least.”

  “What do you mean? Who are you?” Alix wasn’t sure she had the time to listen, but there was something about the woman that seemed familiar.

  “You’ll work it out,” she said, willing Alix to turn the cogs and understand who she was.

  Alix became impatient. Her anger flared and she was about to snap that she didn’t have to time to play games when her mind gifted her the answer. The woman’s face had seen better days and used to be treated to a city’s life. Now, it was in disrepair, slowly rotting away and being reclaimed by Strangeways, like everything else on the island. “You’re…” her mind searched for the name.

  “That’s right. You’ve got it. Nearly there,” the woman said, clearly enjoying the games.

  “You’re Kat Gilburn!” Alix declared, but her brows shrunk as quickly as they’d arisen. “But, you’re dead!” Puzzlement flooded Alix’s face as she tried to work out why Kat was here, alive, her body ragged, left to die in a cage on an island full of criminals.

  “Correct, my dear! You got it! I knew you would, you were always so smart! What do you think? I look good for a dead woman, don’t I?” Kat had stood up and begun wiggling her hips, doing her best impression of a swimsuit model. The image disturbed Alix and made the bile threaten in her throat. It was as if a corpse had arisen and tried to seduce a man in a bar. Despite the image, Alix laughed. She’d always liked Kat Gilburn and had been deeply hurt when she was murdered.

  “Why are you here, Mrs Gilburn? I thought you were dead?”

  “As I said, my dear, I am officially, but here I am; returned!” She pulled herself up to the makeshift bars and tried to stick her head through, baring her teeth.

  Alix felt both sickened and sorrowful. Kat must have been here since her ‘murder’. That had been years, hadn’t it? The effect was stark. On the outside, off Strangeways, Kat Gilburn had been one of the most insightful journalists in New Manchester. She’d worked at the Tribune with Elletta Bly, in fact, she’d tutored Elletta. Elletta had only become the raging bulldog against the Wardens after Kat was murdered.

  “What happened, Mrs Gilburn?” Alix still couldn’t call her by her first name. The last time they’d met, Alix had been under ten and it was always polite to address respectable people formally. All these years later, she still couldn’t call her ‘Kat’. Alix had immediately slipped back into the same headspace as a decade previous.

  “You think I was killed by my husband, don’t you? That was the story, I bet, wasn’t it?”

  Alix ran her thoughts backwards. That had been exactly the story. “You were having an affair with your editor at the paper. Your husband found out and killed you. It was a crime of passion.”

  “The editor wishes he could have this,” she said, returning to the previous booty shaking. Alix felt sick. “Alan was seeing someone at the office, but it wasn’t me. He liked that woman in the lunchroom. She served him the best steaks and always knew the best places in the city to eat. She wanted him for his money. He wanted her for her meat.” Kat chortled to herself, the snorts machine gunning from her mouth and nose in uncontrolled bursts.

  A sudden horrifying thought came over Alix. “But they executed your husband for it!”

  Kat’s joviality evaporated instantly, and she sank to the ground, her whole body disappearing into the shadows. She became just a voice. “I knew they would. All these years, if they came for him, I’d hoped he’d be spared somehow, but I always knew.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Gilburn,” Alix whispered, truly sorry for the heartache she’d just inflicted on a fragile Kat.

  “It’s OK, my dear. I needed to hear that. My husband didn’t deserve it. He was a good man. I miss him terribly.”

  Alix thought she heard sobs of agony come from the shadows. Alix thought nothing less of her. Such news would break the strongest of people. How would she feel if her brother had died, after all she’d been through today? She brushed the thought away.

  “How long have you been here, Mrs Gilburn?” Alix asked, wanting to know if her brother could have been in the cage before her.

  “I don’t know. Months. Years. Ice ages. When your only indicator of passing time is the light through that window, it all melts together.”

  “So, you were here last night?”

  “Last night. Last month. Last year. Last millennia.”

  Alix’s heart aud
ibly sank.

  “Why the troubles, my dear? You don’t have to stay here.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought my brother might have been in there last night.”

  Kat emerged from the shadows, seeming to spring to her feet with the dexterity of an antelope. “Young Isaac? Young Isaac is here? What did he do to be put here on this cursed island?”

  “Nothing,” Alix replied. “He’s not done anything. Mad Jack came in the night, well, men who work for Mad Jack. They took him because the Wardens executed Mad Jack’s son.”

  Kat smiled through the bars, showing again those blackened teeth. “Mad Jack’s not the one you need to worry about, my girl,”

  “What do you mean? His son swore his father would avenge him, and then they came that night and took him! He’s here somewhere, and I have to find him before he ends up in a cage for the rest of his life like y…” Alix broke off, knowing she’d overstepped and feeling instantly guilty. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t want anything to happen to him. Mad Jack didn’t get his name for nothing. Who knows what he’ll do to Isaac?”

  “Not Jacky.”

  Alix rolled her eyes in frustration. “Who then?”

  “There are others more dangerous than him.”

  “Who?” Alix felt herself growing more and more intolerant of this verbal game. “Is it that woman they call Hellcat?”

  “She’s one, but haven’t you noticed there are women and children here? What have they done to be put here? Have they all stolen their bodyweight in candy?” Kat raised one eyebrow, encouraging Alix to think her meaning through.

  “They must have done something if they’re here,” Alix insisted.

  “Even the children?”

  Alix couldn’t think of a way around this thought. No child deserved to be here. At best, they’d simply been born here rather than sent, but if they were, they shouldn’t be here now. They should be taken into the warm embrace of New Manchester’s bosom, where they could nurture into fully fledged and contributing society members.

  “OK, I’ll admit, the children shouldn’t be here, and we should change that, but that’s what progress is all about. We find the best system we can and then we mould it into something better, and the Wardens are the best system. They’re the only group that has ever in history delivered true justice and you know it!” Alix surprised herself at how passionately she felt about the Warden system, the system of which she was an active part.

  “If you say so, young lady…” her answer lingered in the air like a climber with a snapped rope.

  Alix waited for her to finish the thought, her agitation growing with each second.

  “Just remember, some people get a taste for power, and can’t get enough. It grows and festers and then nothing seems to put their brakes on. They use their power and influence for their own ends. It was my articles that got me here and brought my husband his death.”

  “I don’t understand, Mrs Gilburn and I’m sorry for what’s happened to you, whatever the reason is behind it, but I need to find my brother. Was he here? Was he here, last night?”

  “Not been here,” said Kat, allowing the subject to change. “I’m sure he’ll be around though. They all come here if Jacky wants them.”

  “If he wants them?”

  Kat smiled, the corners not quite reaching her ears. It was a smile that relished knowing something that someone else wanted to know. “Young Isaac has always been headstrong. I bet he knew what was happening and he didn’t like it. Even from a young age, Isaac knew something wasn’t right with the Wardens, didn’t he? He didn’t like his father, although that’s not too hard to understand.” Kat paused, hovering on this last sentence, feeling a personal bile rise in her throat and then slowly slide back down. “Jacky probably has young Isaac out there now, doing what Jacky wants.”

  Alix thought back to the man in the forest, whose footsteps had been so very close to stepping on her face and condemning them to die a death far worse than one in the cells. Kat’s words, on their own, might have been dismissed as the ramblings of a traumatized woman, but not when coupled with the sounds in her own ears. The man in the forest sounded familiar. She felt certain. It was her brother. It had to be. Kat was right.

  A sudden urgency gripped Alix. She couldn’t let him settle into a new life on this hellhole. More than ever, Alix felt an unrelenting compulsion to get her brother off the island, even if she had to drag his unconscious body off there herself. Whatever happened, Isaac could not stay on the island and fall in with Mad Jack.

  Alix nodded at Kat. “You’re right. I heard him in the forest. I wasn’t sure it was him, but I know it was now. I’ve got to find him. I can’t let him get ensnared with Mad Jack!”

  “As I said, it’s not Jacky you need to worry about.”

  Alix felt like erupting and yelling at Kat to stop saying that, but then she finally heard her meaning. Somewhere, deep within her ramblings, she was trying to tell Alix a truth. “Mrs Gilburn, what did you mean when you said it was your articles that landed you here and got your husband killed?”

  Whatever light there was in the darkened hut seemed to wither even more, but Alix focused on Kat’s eyes, which seemed to illuminate and flicker with hidden memories and truths. “Ask yourself, young lady. You know what I wrote about. Who would have the most to lose by my words?”

  Alix understood what she was saying finally and started backpedaling away from the cage like it was on fire. She shook her head as her voice tumbled out with no concern for its volume. “No! No! I don’t believe it. I know what you’re trying to say and you’re wrong!”

  Alix clattered into the back wall again, her arm striking the door for the second time. Once more it flew open and shook the hut before bouncing back to its nestled frame.

  “I don’t believe it! Take it back! The Wardens are the only system that’s ever worked! We do the job people need doing, while you just sell lies in that stupid newspaper!”

  “The truth always hurts at first, Alix, but don’t run from it. It’s always better to live in the light than be content in the dark.” Kat seemed to shrink back to the shadows, disappearing from view, back to her life of solitary depression.

  Alix remained by the door. She felt infected by the cage and the sickness within and as she allowed Kat’s final words to run over her, she failed to notice the hut door open.

  She never saw the blow that knocked her out cold.

  12

  Alix felt the pain before she saw the light. Her head throbbed and each movement gifted a sudden thud of agony that penetrated from the contact point on the back of her head and spread across her entire skull. Whenever it did, all of her senses seemed to fail, and she was plunged into a state that lacked any input except that which her inner consciousness granted. She briefly wondered if she had died but decided against that possibility. The pain hurt too much.

  Right from the beginning of her Warden’s training, Alix knew the cardinal rule. You never see the strike that puts you down. She’d never seen nor heard the person who sent her to the dirt floor of that hut, but she felt the repercussions now and while the pain brought despair, it paled into insignificance when she thought of how she’d failed. She imagined her father’s disappointment. Some Warden she was if she’d been overcome so easily. She’d beaten herself.

  It was all over. They’d found her. They knew why she was there, they had to. If they didn’t recognize her uniform, they might recognize her; and if they didn’t recognize her, they’d probably know who Isaac was and that he was on Strangeways.

  Finally, the darkness gave way to light as she opened her eyes a fraction, and dull figures started to sharpen up in her occipital lobe.

  There were three of them and a fourth at the rear of the room, although that person was out of focus, too far away for her mind to make sense of.

  She chanced moving her arms, fully expecting them to be bound and not understanding at first why she could move them. Instinctively, her hands drifted up to her skul
l, trying to feel the damage. There it was. Her scalp raised near the back; her hair matted with what could only be blood. It was a gash under the hair, and judging by the created ridge, it was quite a deep ravine of pain.

  “She’s awake, boss,” said a deep, monotone voice from off to her right.

  “Go get Jack. Tell him she’s awake if he wants to come and see her. Tell him not to rush. I’ve got a few things to talk about before he gets here.” It was a woman’s voice, a drawl or a purr that ended with a trilling chortle.

  Alix heard footsteps heading away from her and a door open and shut. The footsteps continued on the other side until they drifted away to nothingness. Without conscious effort, her Warden sense kicked in. Hardwood floor. The smell of treated oak and no trace of the damp so prevalent in the other buildings she’d entered that day.

  Alix had only opened her eyes slightly and had closed them just as suddenly, but she became aware of a figure looming over her and the rustle of clothing as the figure crouched down. On the floor next to her left leg, she heard a heavy, rhythmical tapping, like someone was drumming their fingers on a table. Each drum carried an extra ting of metal. They were claws and coupled with the woman’s voice; it could only be the woman known as Hellcat.

  “Are you awake, my lovely?” said the woman, her accent causing almost as much pain as the wound on Alix’s head.

  Alix didn’t return any acknowledgement, hoping they’d leave her alone, thinking she was still unconscious and letting her come around more slowly. She could even have a good look around the room if they disappeared and maybe she could find a way out. No such luck, Hellcat didn’t buy it.

  “Oh, dear then, I guess I’ll just have to have a little root around up top.”

  Alix felt the steel nails begin walking up her shoulder, pricking her neck as they found naked flesh. When they began to climb her skull, Alix knew where they were heading. Hellcat was going to dig around her injured head with those nails.

  Before she could stop herself, Alix flung an arm up to intercept Hellcat’s, who sprung backwards, landed in a crouch out of Alix’s reach.