What Goes Around

by Rollins, Jack

  ***

  She woke to a ringing pain in her head and a coughing fit. Something had been shoved in her mouth and she was almost totally submerged in stinking sewage that washed to and fro. A hand grasped her arm, stopping her from going under.

  “Keep your mouth shut, dear,” a cheery voice advised. “Or the water’ll give you a iffy tummy.”

  With a growl, she wrenched herself free from the grasp of the woman who had spoken and sank under the surface without touching the bottom. She emerged seconds later, choking on effluent, and banged her head on the top of the cage inches above the surface. If the water got any higher they’d all drown.

  “Shush, you’ll attract their attention,” another voice said. “It’s not been fed yet and they’re bound to be looking for someone.”

  The speaker was a skeletal male of indeterminate age. They all looked like that if you held them captive long enough – Morgana’s dungeons were full of them.

  The woman who had first spoken did so again. “Best take that rag out of her mouth, poppet, or she’ll choke.”

  “We’re all dead anyway,” said a second, younger female voice.

  Morgana almost pulled her tongue out by the root in her haste to get the offending wad of material out of her mouth. Her stomach growled, the need for blood overpowering all other imperatives. “What are you talking about?” she croaked, eyeing some glistening detritus bobbing near her head.

  “He’s got us, hasn’t he?” the younger female voice said. A pair of large blue eyes dominated a filthy little face partially submerged in the rank waters.

  They were trapped in the confines of a large metal cage six feet by six and almost totally underwater. Visibility beneath them was limited because of the water’s viscosity. The top of the cage was covered and three sides of it were flush against a wall or some other barrier. On the remaining side, a continuous line of cages could be seen, rammed against each other and containing gaunt and subdued captives. Except that wasn’t quite right. There weren’t multiple cages, just one separated into different sections by a single set of iron bars on each side. The cage next to them was much bigger and bereft of occupants. The slap, slap of the water and the slide of hands seeking better purchase on the bars punctuated the silence.

  Morgana clung to the bars of the cage like the other residents. How deep was this water?

  The clatter of booted feet roused her.

  “Right, pull together now. One, two, three,” said a woman’s voice.

  A small hatch in the roof opened and fell back with a screech of metal on metal. A square of light appeared, followed by a grinning hooded face and then a metal pole which plunged into the depths of the cage, forcing the occupants to fling themselves against the sides.

  Morgana pressed against the bars, ready to lunge out of the water and leap for the open hatch, but her traitorous body would not obey and she managed only a derisory splash of her arms in the water, like a baby bird fallen from its nest. The drug was still in her system and there was no way of knowing when that would change. Thanks to the new arrivals, however, she now knew that one of the so-called walls had to be a platform of some sort and, hence, the way out – if she ever figured out a way to escape.

  The pole flailed around in the cage like a living thing, knocking the skinny male from his perch into the effluent and pushing him under. Bubbles popped to the surface, accompanied by a muffled gurgling.

  A coarse laugh rang out above their heads. The hooded one’s yellow-toothed grin grew wider. “Aw, look at ‘im go. This one’s a fighter, this. I should’ve put money on ‘im.”

  Two other hooded figures joined the first. Together they pulled on the pole which had the skinny captive thrashing on the end of it. He emerged from the sewage gasping like a mutated fish, attached to the pole by a collar. One of the other fisher’s of men threw a grappling hook, which pierced the captive’s chest, lodging in one of his ribs.

  Laughing and joking, the trio pulled him from the water, his blood turning it a dark crimson. Morgana salivated at the scent . The smell of sewage was only marginally worse than the perfumed rot in her own nest.

  The skinny male fought on, feet kicking at the hatch, blood spattering down into the water and onto his erstwhile roommates, his only reward raucous jeers and a reign of blows to the head. His right foot quivered as he was pulled free of the cage, leaving only an oblong of grey ceiling once more.

  “Right, take these rags off, clean it up in the pool and leave it for the Lord,” said one of the fishermen.

  “Who died and put you in charge then?” whined a second male voice.

  “You’ll be the one dying if you don’t belt up,” said the first.

  “Just ‘cause you think you’re the favourite.”

  “I’m the one that feeds Him, all right? Or maybe you’d like to take over, is that it, eh? Go on then, you stupid inbred little fucker, be my guest.” A slap, like a gunshot, rang out.

  There was a pause.

  “You didn’t need to do that, Silas! ‘Sides” – the man sniggered as though nothing had happened – “I’d rather tenderise the meat anyway. He likes it better like that.”

  The renewed thud of booted feet against flesh could be heard, followed by a long drawn out howl of, “Please, no.” The skinny male was still alive.

  “Come on, we don’t have time for this. We’re screwed if we don’t give Him the offerings while they’re fresh.” The third voice was girlish and educated. “Hurry up and take him through, Murdo. Don’t bother with the pool, we’ll be through in a bit.”

  The hatch was replaced with a heavy thunk and then locked. Sounds of dragging were overlaid with a refrain of “ohgodohgodohgod” before receding into the distance. Someone started to climb onto the roof of the next cage with a jingling of keys.

  “No, don’t lock that one, Silas,” the girl ordered. “We’re getting a new batch later. C’mon, we need to check Murdo isn’t fucking it up again.”

  Footsteps; a door was opened and slammed. The captors had business elsewhere. The fact that they called each other by name spoke volumes about the likely chances of survival.

  “Where are we?” asked Morgana.

  “Shush. They’ll hear you and come back for someone else. It’s what they do,” whispered the younger woman with the large eyes.

  “Fine, if you won’t tell me… Hey there!” Morgana called.

  “Oh, for goodness sake – what a fuss!” said the first woman. “All right, I’ll tell you what I know. Just try not to make any noise. Not exactly sure where to start though…,” she said, trailing off.

  “Jesus,” the younger girl spat in disgust, “you’re such a useless cow. Guess it’s all down to me then, as per usual. Okay,” she said in a bright voice as though explaining something to a small and confused child, “my name is Jade and this is Claire. The guy who was just ‘selected’ for food duty is Robert, but I’m guessing he’ll be an ex-Robert any minute now.”

  “Please, dear,” Claire protested, “you mustn’t talk like that.”

  “Shut it. I’ll kill you myself if you don’t, I swear to God. Christ, as if it’s not bad enough being the next meal in some monster’s cupboard, I have to be locked up with flamin’ Mary Poppins here. You’ll be telling me next that if life hands you some lemons, you can use them to clean up this shitey cage.” She slammed her palm on the rancid water, forgetting her own injunction to silence.

  “What do you mean, ‘monster’?” Morgana asked.

  “We don’t exactly know, dear,” said Claire, wiping waste from her forehead. “We hear it sometimes. It screams and its, er, helpers, the ones you’ve just seen, attend to it.”

  “Attend how?”

  “How do you think?” Jade sneered. “They feed it and we’re the dish du jour.”

  Morgana knew from her own extensive experience of imprisoning and torturing victims that most of them passed through a series of stages, starting with angry disbelief and ending with cowed acceptance. If she had to guess
, she’d have said this pair had been stashed here for a couple of days at most. Victims didn’t generally make for the most coherent of companions.

  There was a low hubbub now from the other cages, as though the occupants felt safer after dinner had been selected and served.

  She tried again, reduced to reason because she didn’t have the strength for rage. “How did you end up here?” she asked Jade.

  “Well, now that you ask, I won first prize in a competition and it’s everything I could have hoped for and more,” said Jade. “What the actual fuck, you nosy cow?”

  “It’s okay. You need to relax and focus your energy into your chakras,” Claire said, reaching out a hand to the younger woman, a gesture that was rebuffed with an angry shrug.

  “I’ll go first, shall I? Alrighty then, although I don’t want you to think I’m hogging the lime-light!” Claire said as though nothing had happened. “I was going to get some shopping for my elderly neighbour. She’s a real sweetie actually,” Claire continued, warming to her story.

  “Of course you were,” Jade muttered.

  “Pardon? What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. Just get the fuck on with it before we die of old age. Never mind, I’ll go first because I’ll top myself if I have to listen to any more of this.”

  Morgana was still drained of energy – had she died and gone to Hell after all? It was all she could do to grip the bars to keep her head above the rancid water.

  “Any chance of hurrying this along?” she asked. Once she had her strength back and the information she needed to get out of this literal shit-hole, dining on this pair would be her number one priority. But no, that was wrong – someone else topped that particular shit list.

  “Jesus, you’re so fucking impatient,” said Jade with no apparent irony. “All I know is that I was out clubbing and met this guy. He was hot and hetero, which should have been my first clue that it was too good to be true. But before I could work that out he gave me a spiked drink. Everything went all woozy and I must have passed out. Next thing, I’m here, in this cage, World-of-Shit, with the pair of you.”

  “And as you can see, there are others like us,” said Claire as though imparting an invaluable nugget of wisdom. “Not as many as when we were put in here, though, judging by the drop in the noise level.” She sniffed and something fell from her nose. The water was a little below body temperature so the two women were shivering.

  Morgana nodded at Claire. “What happened to you?”

  A man started screaming a woman’s name until the sound was cut off. Only Morgana had heard the slap of a palm on the man’s face a split second before a voice whispered, “Shut up. It knows.”

  “As I said, I was on an errand and cut through the local park, which I don’t normally do. It wasn’t late – around two – and the day was quite mild, but already getting dark like it does at this time of the year. I decided to sit on a bench for a bit and gather my thoughts because my husband and I have been having some problems. We’ve been in separate bedrooms for a while now, which actually is a big part of the problem. Anyway,” she said a little louder as if anticipating an interruption, “this strange wee woman sat next to me and asked me if I knew how to get to Pumpherston.

  ‘That was weird in itself considering we were in Edinburgh, and before I knew it we were deep in conversation and she was telling me about the problems in her own marriage. You know, in the bedroom department, as it were. Quite interesting it was, too. Well, she offered me a drink of tea from a flask, which I accepted and then… then I don’t remember much else,” she said.

  “Okay, we’ve all been drugged and brought here,” Morgana cut in. “And according to you it’s to feed some creature you’ve not seen. Do the keepers feed you or is there some other routine?”

  “Keepers?” Jade scoffed. “Well, that’s one word for them. And no, they don’t feed us – are you insane?” Her voice rose. “Didn’t you see the state of Robert? He’d been here longer than Claire and I and would’ve starved if he hadn’t been… took. And yeah, there is a routine. You know, the one where they appear out the blue to haul one of us out to feed that thing. Why the fuck didn’t I just go home to Kev, like I’d planned? Oh God, Kev.” Her voice broke and she started to sob.

  A wave of nausea passed over Morgana, almost causing her to slip back under the surface. She strengthened her grip on the bars. She never did very well in close proximity to so much iron, albeit iron that had been converted into steel. The old ones all had that reaction to the metal. Garlic and crosses and the rest were just fanciful bullshit, but iron had its own raw magic that weakened most of the supernaturals she could name. That, combined with the residual effects of the unaccustomed drug, and she was as helpless as any human – a novel and unwelcome first.

  She would have to manipulate this idiotic pair to do her bidding using nothing but her wits. The old myth about vampires being able to overcome an individual’s will was exactly that. She took what she wanted by extreme force once she had trapped her human victims with the aid of strong sexual attraction and stronger drink. That was why she scoured the city’s pubs and clubs: they were the victim pools of choice and they had never failed her… until now, when the tables had been turned.

  Noah was in for a surprise when she got hold of him.

  “There were four of us in here originally,” said Claire, as though she was a guide giving the grand tour of a stately home. “An older lady called Marsha was brought in just after me. Really nice she was, too. Taken, though, just like that. So the guards, for want of a better word, have visited us three times, including the time they brought you. I have no idea when they’ll next appear, either. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here – it’s hard to say with no sunlight, no real way to tell the passage of time. I was the second in this cage, after Robert, but for whatever reason I haven’t been chosen.’

  “Story of your life, that, isn’t it? Don’t worry though. I’m sure it’ll be your turn soon,” said Jade.

  “If I were them, I’d pick you first,” said Morgana to Jade, a small smile tugging the corners of her mouth.

  “Wh-what?”

  “You heard.”

  “Yeah? And why’s that then?” Jade’s voice threatened tears.

  “Because you’re young. And juicy. I’d also pick you first just to stop your incessant whining. You shouldn’t be too pleased, though, because you don’t exactly have much competition. Claire here is a bit long in the tooth and stringy with it,” she said, making a chewing sound. “Although to be fair, she does give you a run for your money in the irritating bitch stakes.”

  Morgana grinned, then cursed as Jade resumed her godawful sobbing. She was meant to be getting them onside, not indulging in casual sadism just for the hell of it.

  “That’s a terrible thing to say,” said Claire, genuine shock in her voice. “I demand that you apologise.”

  “Oh, all right, if you insist. I would pick you but you’d have to keep talk, talk, talking like you do,” said Morgana, the monster peeking out before she shoved it back down hard into its oubliette. “All better now?” She couldn’t kill them yet, but the urge was growing at an exponential rate.

  An idea struck her. She took a deep breath and dived down, channelling the overwhelming rage to counteract her body’s lassitude. She anticipated the bottom to be a few feet or so under them, but her expectations were confounded. This sewage pit had to have a bottom, it was just a matter of how far down. Muffled voices shouted to her to come back, unaware that it was better for them if she did not.

  The matter in the water was thicker down here and she saw nothing. Her gut – her very core – burned with proximity to the iron of the cage as though she had been set alight. Lungs bursting, she thought she would have to admit defeat and return to the surface – until her hands struck the brick floor.

  She swam along the bottom, feeling her way over bricks and old bone shards. Had some people just let go, preferring to drown rather than to f
eed the beast, whatever it was? There were barriers beyond three sides of the cage, making the weakest point the bars shared with the next one along. The girl had said one was to be left unlocked, hadn’t she? Morgana began kicking at them without success until, moving along, her feet failed to connect to anything but water. It took her oxygen-starved brain vital seconds to work out she’d found a hole, one which on further investigation was big enough for her to slip through and into the next cage. Thank the gods she didn’t believe in there was only one set of iron bars.

  Whoever had built this particular prison clearly hadn’t considered that the prisoners would be able to swim down this far, hadn’t dreamed one of them might be a vampire. She wriggled through the hole, catching her hair on a protruding bar. She jerked her head, desperate to get back to the surface, leaving a clump of it behind for her pains. She thrashed up, up, up, making slow progress through the slurry and breaking the surface in the adjacent cage. Her former cage-mates looked on, mouths open, speechless for once. The occupants of the next cage over were so far gone they didn’t react at all. Being in the shit affected most like that.

  Resisting the urge to head-butt the spot where the hatch was, she stayed put, fighting for breath. This had to be the unlocked cage the girl had been talking about, otherwise she would die here. Vampires lived long lives but they could die just like everything else. Bracing her feet on the bars, she launched herself at the metal hatch, again and again, hands and forearms bearing the brunt of the impact as her footing slipped and slid. It wouldn’t budge. Was it the wrong cage? There was only one way to find out: she punched upwards with all her strength. There, it had shifted, hadn’t it? Scrabbling, she pressed herself against the hatch. And then she saw it: a chink of light. Tiny, but enough to tell her this was indeed the right one, the cage that was hungry for new occupants.

  “If you stopped and thought for a second you’d realise how selfish you’re being,” said Claire.

  “Move it, you stupid cow,” said Jade. “And get us the fuck out of here.”