Strangeways

by Matthew Samm

  Her punishment, and she didn’t know how far that would stretch, would make sure Mad Jack remained the leader. Not only was he the strongest on the island, but he needed to prove his power to his minions.; he had to show he could still destroy a Warden in her prime.

  Alix wasn’t ready. She’d wanted this moment, but she wasn’t ready. She was still broken by Isaac. Her head continued to throb, and she just wanted to curl up into a corner and die. She wanted to let it be over with.

  “In this room,” he continued, pausing every so often to rack up the tension even more. He was doing a fine job, perhaps even better than the cell announcer back in New Manchester. “In this room, we have a person who has committed the worst crime of all. It is worse than murder.” Another pause. “It is worse than kidnapping. It is worse than jaywalking!” he crooned, riding the waves of laughter and cheers from his tribe, the gathered horde come to watch Alix suffer.

  “No! This person is a traitor! They are guilty of betraying their people. Of turning their back on the ones who’ve cared for them!”

  There was another pause. Alix felt a flicker of confusion. She’d betrayed no one. Too late did she realize his true scheme.

  He nodded to Hellcat. She’d been stood near Isaac, her arm either around his shoulders or holding the crook of his arm like a family would. In an instant, she seized his arm, watching him grimace in shock, surprise and pain, and marched him to the ring.

  As she marched him along, Mad Jack applauded, alone at first and then the rest of his minions joined in. By the time Isaac reached the ring, the noise was deafening, and Alix watched as Hellcat released his arms and he instinctively raised them to his ears. He’d never looked more like a child. He’d been thrown into the shark tank and thought himself a whale.

  Alix wanted to move to save him but couldn’t. She was still restrained, Mad Jack’s plans not fully implemented yet.

  “Now! We have our criminal and he deserves the punishment for his crimes, but who shall we task with this grand project? Who shall we gift this great honor?”

  There were cheers from the crowd and various people, all of them frightening, bayed and rolled forward, clamoring to receive the honor. They all knew who the alpha was in this pack and they wanted to maneuver themselves as close as possible.

  Mad Jack waved them away, his voice climbing above the racket to cut through and make itself heard. “No, no, no! You haven’t earned it. You don’t know the meaning of this honor! No, this must be done by a professional!”

  Alix knew immediately what his next words would be and the thought slotted into place within her brain. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Why hadn’t she realized this was his plan? It was all a game to them, and she was the entertainment.

  This was not about justice; it was about fun and retribution for all the crimes New Manchester has vented onto the inhabitants of Strangeways. They wanted that same release. The same release the victims received back in the city, that shining light where all live in the warm embrace of the law.

  “Thankfully, the fates have deemed it prudent to gift us with such a professional…”. His hand swept a path to Alix, carving a road through the crowd as they parted to see who he was pointing at.

  Alix felt herself pushed in the back; her hands still bound. She felt herself begin to topple but managed to steady herself, thinking that her balance might be returning a little, although her head still throbbed with a dull ache.

  When she reached the ring as well, she saw Isaac, his eyes pleading with her. He looked, for the first time, like he didn’t belong in this group. He looked like a scared little boy. She nodded to him, telling him that it would all be OK. She hoped he understood. They didn’t utter a word to each other, just held each other’s gaze until she had to break away to get into the ring. She struggled to do so without using her hands.

  When she’d climbed onto the platform of raised mud and wood, one of the henchmen cut her bonds. Her arms fell to her sides and she felt her arms shake, the lactic acid build up instantly beginning to dissolve. She waved her arms from side to side, easing out the tension, feeling that ache disappear.

  She faced Mad Jack, who stood in the middle of the ring, beckoning both Isaac and Alix together in the centre. He held both their wrists when they arrived, hoisting them up into the air as if they were both his champion. Alix felt the wrench in her arm, the tendons stressed, and the terrible power noted. She truly believed he could wrench her arm completely off if he wanted to.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Now is the time for our main event. The traitor, Isaac Venner, will face justice at the hands of our very own Warden.” He paused, allowing the tension to reach a crescendo. “Alix. Venner!”

  Once more, the crowd bayed for blood. Mad Jack had not specified the type of bout this was to be. Perhaps he just wanted some entertainment, or did he want her to kill him? She didn’t know and the instability began nagging at her gut. So many possibilities and no way of knowing which the best route would be to take.

  If she chose to fight and ‘punish’ her brother, she could control the level of his punishment and ensure he wasn’t hurt too badly. Perhaps that would be enough, but it would drive an irreparable wedge between. Then again, maybe that was what was necessary.

  Alternatively, she could fight, and Mad Jack could demand more. He could demand that she kill Isaac, as his son had been killed in the cells just the other night. Alix knew she couldn’t do that. But if she refused, Isaac might be killed on the spot. They both might be. No one stood up to Mad Jack and lived to tell the tale. How else could he have become so powerful over the years?

  Alix faced her brother. He was waiting for his cue. She could see in his eyes that he would follow her lead. If she chose to punish him herself, he would fight back, as if they were training, except this time, they would train with a realism previously unused. She looked him in the eye, tried to steel herself to the task at hand. She felt, at this point in time, that it might be the only way to save her brother from the life he was preparing to lead. She had said before, that she would get him off this island if she had to drag him off.

  She raised her fists and Mad Jack clanged a rusting bell beside his throne chair. He sat down as he did so, preparing to watch this most entertaining of battles.

  The two siblings advanced on each other. Playing for blood this time.

  14

  She had only advanced a few meters before the power in her muscles ebbed away. What was she doing? She was preparing to fight her own brother! She was preparing to inflict serious injury, as she’d done countless times before in the cells, on her own brother for the joy of an insane warlord and his bloodthirsty followers.

  The whole situation seemed so manic, as if she’d been immersed in a dream that continually switched between nightmare and hope.

  She stood in the centre of Mad Jack’s training ring as the boos began to ring around the chamber. She shook her head and continued to do so until the jeers subsided. She turned to face Mad Jack. “I’m not doing this,” she said, remembering her fears for what Mad Jack would do next, but not caring. She could only fight the here and now and she knew she couldn’t raise a fist in anger against her own brother.

  Mad Jack looked over her shoulder. “Isaac. You have your orders. You must survive this punishment if you are to prove your mettle amongst your brothers and sisters.”

  Alix was genuinely unsure about whether he would engage with her or not. Surely her brother wouldn’t stab her in the back?

  She waited. No attack came.

  Mad Jack spoke again, his face thunderous, the black pits of his eyes burning into him, his voice lowering to the point where he didn’t sound human anymore. “You will, or the consequences will be…severe.”

  Isaac’s hands raised again in stuttering steps. He was fighting the urge to rebel against Mad Jack now. Isaac knew what he was doing was wrong, but he also believed he was in the right place for him. The mental load was tearing him apart.

  Alix
almost made the decision for him. She knew it would have been the wrong thing to do, but there was a sisterly, and almost motherly part of her, that wanted her brother to feel happy and to charge his own path, regardless of where the path led. She didn’t believe he was evil and because he wasn’t, she nearly attacked him for real, removing the indecision and the weight of choice from his brain.

  She managed to restrain herself. It wouldn’t have been right.

  Moments later, Isaac dropped his hands and shook his head as well. He wasn’t the rebel. His eyes fixed the ground; closed. Not daring to see the reaction from those around, his new brothers and sisters.

  Mad Jack, for the first time, dared to show the type of person he was. His face seemed to twist and malform into a bestial creature’s. The venom from his features quickly penetrated the room and the crowd shrank back. They had seen this look before, and it was enough to cull all their enthusiasm.

  Alix felt the energy die. All life was sucked from the room. She knew that there were to be repercussions for their rebellion. He couldn’t let it stand.

  With one swift movement, he’d leapt from his throne chair and into the ring. He didn’t say a word but strode towards her; irrepressible, unstoppable. She shrank back, all of her Warden abilities leaving her. She felt like the mouse when it notices the snake approaching, transfixed by its eyes, unable to move but knowing death was certain. Her hands never even rose into a guard.

  Mad Jack grabbed her by the shoulders, and she felt the power in that grip. Her shoulders seemed to bruise from the sheer pressure and there could be no resistance to what he wanted her to do. He turned her so that she was facing the henchmen who’d brought her to the ring, and he threw her back into the crowd. She never even hit the ground.

  She landed on them and they quickly rebound her wrists behind her back. She wondered what was going to befall her. Would they take her out and kill her? Cold fear squeezed her heart. This could be how it all ends, and she’d never see her father again. She’d never see her brother again.

  She’d have to live, for however long they gifted, with the knowledge that she had utterly failed. She had not done what her family needed. She was a failure to all who needed her. True, she might have punished a few criminals who deserved it in the cells, but what were a few low lives? When something monumental had come up, she’d been found wanting. She didn’t need to imagine her father’s disgust at her failure; she disgusted herself and it was even more powerful than her father’s.

  “You are what passes for law and order in your city?” bellowed Mad Jack in her direction. “Your job is to punish those who deserve it and you’ve failed! You are not strong enough to be one of us! You must know that law must be preserved!” He was now speaking directly to her and all the other people in the crowd seemed to fade out. “I will instruct you in how to bring justice!” he said, his voice lowering to a low growl that still sliced through the air like a hot wire. “You. Will. Watch. And you will learn.”

  Alix knew then what he intended to do, and she screamed. It was the only manner of offense she had left. Her hands bound, her chance missed, she could do nothing else. All of her screams fell on stone and bounced away back into the crowd, where they died, trodden on by the jubilant crowd and Mad Jack’s victory.

  She tried to turn away, but the guards would not let her. They forced her to continue watching. They forced her to witness true law and order, carried forth by a single person, embodying all those living on the island he inhabited. She felt the calloused hands grip her neck and the back of her head, forcing her eyes to stay on the ring.

  That’s when the punishment began.

  Mad Jack turned to her brother, cold hate swirling in those black eyes. Isaac shrank back, but, to his credit, did not try and escape the ring. Even if he’d contemplated doing so, the first blow would have separated him from any sensical thought.

  It hammered down towards Isaac’s head. He didn’t want to fight Mad Jack. He was defeated before the blows began falling, but he still, instinctively raised an arm to try and fend off the blow. It was completely ineffective. Mad Jacks steely arm plummeted down and crashed through his defense, following through to connect with his temple. The follow-up blow glanced off the top of his head and carried on down to his collar bone, crumpling him to the floor in a sea of screams and whimpers.

  There was no time to recover for Isaac. Mad Jack continued the attack. He wasn’t human anymore. He was a demon of terrifying proportions. A monster made flesh that wanted to tear and rend flesh, destroy and consume. His victim was her brother, and she was entirely helpless to stop what was happening.

  Alix struggled to move her head again, but the hands were still there, and she could not. She closed her eyes instead, hearing the dreadful sounds, noticing that the crowd had silenced. The violence against a young boy too much even for them to stomach. Hardened criminals turned to jelly by the demon who ruled them.

  Finally, the noises stopped, and silence reigned over the training room. In the air, Alix could smell a copper-ish tang that she knew to be blood. She dared not open her eyes. She couldn’t hear her brother. She didn’t know the condition he was in. Was he dead? She felt the tears start to fall and she didn’t care. Three family members gone in just over a month. Mad Jack’s promised vengeance fully enacted.

  She had a feeling that darkness was approaching her. Still, she refused to open her eyes to see. She couldn’t. While they were closed, the reality of what happened stayed locked away.

  “Open your eyes, girl!” commanded the voice close to her face. It was a bestial growl and seemed to command her thoughts.

  She did. Her eyes flickered open and came into focus. The vision before her made her legs quake and the sobs shudder from her eyes and lips. Mad Jack stood a few feet away and his eyes burned into her; those demonic eyes, burning to her core, insisting that she obey and that she take in every ounce of punishment he had just doled out.

  “Observe justice. Observe power. You and your father and your Wardens. You rent power. Only here is it taken for good. You have failed, Alix, but don’t worry, you will both be spared. You will live with your shame and one day, perhaps I’ll let you leave. Who knows, I might even invite your father to pick you up.” He began wiping the blood from his knuckles and face with a piece of cloth, before nodding to the henchmen.

  They began moving her away from the ring, away from her brother, where she desperately wanted to be. The crowd parted before them; the silence still strong in the cavernous room. Alix could feel all their eyes boring into her. What were they feeling? Was it hatred? Sorrow? It didn’t feel like hatred to her. It was more akin to shock.

  They weren’t animals, she learned at that moment. They were emotional beings that had many poor behaviors and urges, but still, the majority had the reason and the soul to understand what had just happened and they understood her despair.

  She was carried through the door and out into the balmy air. It felt wonderful to her skin, but immediately brought feelings of remorse. She was now away from her brother and enjoying the environment’s sensation. He could be dead, and she was enjoying the weather! She felt sickened by herself and by her inadequacies.

  She was taken across a clearing and up a gentle hill to a semi-natural structure. It was further into the centre of the island and carved out of a natural overhang of rock. The structure was again of high quality like it had been commissioned for its purpose. The outer walls were bricks and as she entered the building, she noticed the temperature change. It was another holding cell, however, this one was far larger than the one containing Kat Gilburn, the journalist. This cell was designed to keep people alive and not allow them to rot away to nothing. The cell sat embedded in the rock and accessed via a thin corridor that ended in the cell door; a heavy wedge of iron that contained a lock and a serving hatch, just like the prison doors of older times.

  The walls of the actual cell were solid rock. On each of the walls, a thin opening had been carved out letting in so
me light to avoid the pitch darkness of a cave.

  Alix was thrown inside. Several bunks were pressed against the walls and there was a rudimentary toilet; a seat and a hole into the earth. A lid could be lowered over the gaping chasm to shield the inhabitants from the ungodly effluence within. The whole set up was more similar to a New Manchester holding cell, back in the big city, than a Strangeways lockup for rotting away.

  The door slammed closed and the lock twisted, the echoes reverberating off the walls and making their way to her ears several times over. As the noise faded away, she began to feel the silence press down on her. It was like a blanket smothering all sound, all sense, all hope. Would she rot in here, like Kat? Is this the place they put people they truly wanted to be rid of?

  With nothing to do, except run her thoughts and her pain over and over again, she waited and watched as the sun began to dip and the shade changed. At one point, the tiny windows drilled through the cave wall cast shadows that slowly crept across the jail door, almost pointing to the only way she might ever even see freedom again; the serving hatch, which did not contain a lock. She couldn’t bring herself to look through. It would be torture.

  Not as torturous, she mused, as wondering what might have befallen Isaac? Was he dead? Mad Jack had told them he’d let them live, to survive with the shame, but her brother was nowhere to be found. Could he have died of his wounds? The sickening thwacks of bone and flesh made her retch as they made their way through her thoughts.

  Then the thoughts would die away again, only to reappear a short time later, where they’d run around all over again.

  Finally, after the twilight set in, she heard muffled footsteps. There was the sound of metal being turned and the crude lock slid back, revealing a visage of torment. It was her brother.

  The damage to his body was extensive. His face; that precious, young face was shattered and swollen, a deep gash cut across the top of his nose; his jaw was bruised, and his cheeks looked like poppies, black contact bruises surrounded by a halo of crimson red. His hair was matted, and both his eyes were swollen shut.