DAYS GO BY slowly here. If I weren’t trying to be so meticulous with a plan of escape, I may have lost track of time. A week could have been a month. A month, three months. It feels like I’ve been here that long. I feel like I haven’t seen Sky in two years.
It’s been three days.
None of the meals have been quite as eventful as my first one here. There is something about Rusty that seems to provide a certain protection. I didn’t realize my fortune until yesterday at lunch. Rusty and I sat down at a table alone. No one bothered us. No one tried to sit with us. That is, until Carver and his twin, Alex, plopped down next to us on the bench seats, letting their trays clank loudly against the table.
Fear snagged ahold of my throat at the sight of them and I half expected a brawl to take place, but Rusty seemed in control of the situation.
“You’ve landed yourself a pretty good cellmate,” Carver said to Rusty.
Carver didn’t look at me even though he sat less than a foot to my side, but Alex stared into my eyes almost like he was lost in thought.
“He doesn’t put up much of a fight,” Carver continued. “He’s got a mouth on him. He’s weak. He doesn’t know where he can and can’t sit.”
“He knows where he can sit,” Rusty said. “He can sit with me.”
Alex’s eyes on me felt like someone had set a mattress over top of me. Despite the strength and defiance I wanted to portray, I found myself looking down into my bowl as if the twins weren’t even there.
“He works in sorting like Alex and me.”
Rusty sighed. “What do you want?”
“Permission.”
“Permission for what?”
“To mess up your boy.”
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough of that,” Rusty said nodding toward me. “Those bruises aren’t going away anytime soon.”
For the first time since they sat down, Carver looked in my direction. “I obviously didn’t do the job I intended.”
“Let me just say this: you lay a finger on my friend, Liam, here and I’ll make sure someone makes you digest your own toes. Am I clear?” Rusty held the spoon in his hands like it were a knife.
Carver and Alex were both looking at me like they wanted to eat me for lunch, but I only got a glance at them. I felt like a coward, a small child hiding behind his father’s coat. I wasn’t afraid of what the two of them could do to me. Pain meant nothing to me anymore. I just didn’t want to be a target. I had done nothing to them. I certainly didn’t deserve their attention.
“You two get out of here, you smell worse than the greyskins,” Rusty said.
The twins obeyed, but not without staring me down. As they left the table, I met their eyes like I had been the one to win the fight. But I had nothing to do with it. Somehow, these men respected Rusty. For some reason, everyone around here did. Our table was empty because of Rusty. Perhaps he hadn’t given anyone permission to sit near him and to be at his table was a badge of honor given to me by random chance of being his cellmate.
“Those two are nothing but trouble,” Rusty said. “But you know that already, don’t you.” He pointed at my face when he said this.
“Why is no one sitting with us?” I asked.
“Because I don’t want them to right now.”
“Are you more dangerous than I know? Should I be worried?”
“You’re in a death camp. You should always be worried.” Rusty scratched at his nose. “As for me?” He leaned in close and whispered. “Sometimes people just have to believe you’re something you’re not. That’s all power is anyway.” He pulled away from me and dipped his bread into his soup, sopping up the broth. “We’re all just lost souls stuck in a bag of bones and skin. Just trying to make it to the end.”
An ambiguous term, “the end” means different things for different people. I think for Rusty, it’s the day he steps foot outside of this prison.
For me, it’s the day I step outside the Containment Zone, hand-in-hand with Sky.
It’s been two weeks and I’m not any closer to escaping this place than I was when I first walked through the gates. My nights are sleepless, despite the exhaustion from working in the fields. Somehow I’ve managed to stay alive even though I have watched as two fellow inmates were ripped to pieces by a group of greyskins. I have learned that sometimes the scrambling pigs aren’t enough to keep the greyskins distracted.
It’s not my thoughts of escape that keep me awake, however. It has been two weeks since I’ve seen Sky. I’ve looked for her at meals, but haven’t seen her. I haven’t had the guts to look too hard because I don’t want the guards or any of the inmates to get suspicious, particularly Rusty.
The man has some influence here. I don’t know how he earned it or if he’s even dangerous, but if he is, I don’t want him to have any leverage over me. That’s the danger of anyone finding out about Sky. Even more, I would hate for the twins to learn about her. So, I keep my head down, and I don’t talk to anyone but Rusty. Even then I keep things superficial.
I have found the older man to be more of an ally than I could have hoped for. I’m starting to think the guard had told me negative things about the man just to get in my head on my first day, but Rusty has been nothing but an asset to me. Apart from the twins leaving me alone at meals, he talks about the various ways he’s tried to escape in the past, but leaves out many essential details. Wouldn’t want me to know too much in case I’m a rat, I’m sure.
So far, I haven’t had to deal with the twins at work since our groups haven’t merged for any reason yet. Still, when they pass by me, they are sure to give me looks that scream we’re going to gut you. It’s only a matter of time.
Whenever I try to talk to Rusty about his current plan of escape and even offer to tell him some of the sure-to-fail plans that pop into my head, he gets quiet and acts like I’m not talking to him. He will only talk about escape when he wants to. He doesn’t trust me, and I don’t expect him to.
One day, over a meal of broth (they had run out of bread when Rusty and I had reached the serving bar), I asked Rusty why he stayed quiet when I asked him about his plans.
“Trust,” he said.
“I get that,” I answered. “But there has to be a point where we can work together, right? Our chances of figuring out an escape plan are a lot higher than if you go it alone.”
We were able to talk more freely since no one ever sat on our end of the table. Most wanted to avoid me like the plague, considering I had a mark on my back the twins aimed to hit. And no one seemed to want to mess with Rusty. Somehow he’d gotten the reputation as someone who needed his space, and the other prisoners were happy to oblige. I couldn’t imagine he’d done anything too bad since he was still alive. Perhaps the guards don’t care what prisoners do to each other. From what I have gathered, the twins didn’t even get scolded for beating me senseless.
“My experience tells me that I have to go it alone,” he said. “First, you haven’t offered anything to make me trust you. You’ve told me nothing about yourself.”
“You’ve told me nothing about yourself either,” I said.
“I’m not trying to get you to trust me,” he countered.
I nodded at this and stared off toward the women of the camp. I wished I could see Sky without standing up and searching.
“I’m afraid there’s not much to tell you,” I said.
“Here’s the thing,” Rusty said as he cleaned under his fingernails with a spoon. “You’re hiding something. Don’t get me wrong, that’s fine. You’d be crazy not to be hiding something. The only problem is, I don’t know what you’re hiding. Could be that you’re a rat. Could be that you killed a whole host of Screven soldiers. If you’d done that and Warden Black didn’t know about it, you’d be a dead man for sure once he found out. So, I get it. But until I know for sure, I can’t trust you. So, my lips are sealed.”
I thought about countering with, but you are open about trying to escape. Then I remembered the mantra repeated throughout this desolate camp: If you’re not trying to escape, you’re suicidal. The guards don't care if you're trying to escape. But if they catch you, they will kill you, or at least punish you severely. I hadn’t seen any executions yet, so that’s good.
When the guards turn on the blazing lights in the corridor announcing the morning with yells of insults and commands for us to stand at attention in our cells, I hear a few of them mention something about newcomers and questioning.
“What are they talking about?” I whisper to Rusty as we stand next to our beds.
He wipes the sleep from his eyes and swears under his breath.
“Every new person has to be questioned by some higher-ups from Screven,” he says. “It’s usually a man named Holbrook. The man’s a crook. Really close to the leadership there. You know about Jeremiah, right?”
“Not much,” I say. “I’ve heard the name plenty, but I don’t know anything about him.”
“Well, you should,” he says. “He’s our leader, like it or not.”
There’s no time to discuss the fact that I had heard about the man since I was a child, meaning he has to be old by now. It’s possible he’s not too old to still be in power, but I was shown a picture of him when I was a child, and he didn’t look so young then.
“He’s also the reason we’re here,” Rusty says. “Anyway, the questioning is intense.”
The guards walk the corridors, calling out numbers of inmates to step out for questioning. I know I will be among those called out. What kills me the most is that Sky will be questioned too, I’m sure.
“What do you mean, intense?” I ask.
“Holbrook’s looking for something,” Rusty says. “I’m not exactly sure what, but it’s something. He thinks pain will get it, too.”
“We’re to be tortured?”
“I survived. You’ll survive.”
I bite my tongue when my first reaction is to tell him that I’m not worried about me, particularly since I have a way to deal with pain unlike anyone else. But if Sky is going to feel the same kind of pain, I’m not going to dull it for myself. I refuse to numb myself when my daughter is subjected to the same torture.
There is no time for further discussion. One of the guards calls out my number and Rusty nods at me with a lifted eyebrow. “Good luck,” he says.
I don’t like not knowing what’s happening and why. My entire life has revolved around reason and understanding. I don’t have that here at Vulture Hill.
About twenty of us gather in a group in front of a couple of guards. Then, the order is given that the rest of the inmates file out to breakfast. Davis emerges from his office and stands in front of us, probably wishing he could be the one to administer whatever torture we are to be subjected to.
“Today, you will be questioned,” Davis says. “It’s a slow process, but one every inmate has to go through.” He seems to stop short of letting a grin spread across his face like he has a secret the rest of us don’t know. In fact, he does. And I seem to know more than the other inmates, though that’s not saying much.
Rusty didn't have time to give me the details, and I’m surprised he hadn’t let me in on the secret before now. Maybe he’d been here so long he’d forgotten about it. Or perhaps he was lying to me just to scare me. There is no telling with him.
We’re led down the corridor by Davis and a set of guards and are taken outside into a morning that is already burning hot with a sun that makes us turn our faces to the ground. We then make our way to a building I’ve never been in. The guards open a set of double doors and lead us in through another corridor, this one almost too dark to see right in front of us.
We walk slowly as not to stumble over each other. As our eyes adjust to the darkness, we pick up the pace some and we go through more doors. A left. A right. A right. Two more lefts. I’m not sure why I think it’s important to remember the turns exactly, but I aim to learn every square inch of this place as I’m able. I don’t know the significance of this building yet, but knowing the way to our destination may prove useful in the future. More than likely, it will not. Still, it doesn’t hurt to know.
Finally, all of us are in a large open room lit only by the windows next to the ceiling—about fifteen feet up. The place is empty but for long benches against each of the four walls, broken up only to accommodate the doors in and out. The stone is the same dull beige color as the walls and ceiling, as dreary as the entire camp.
Each of us is seated side-by-side, and the guards stand near the middle of the room, talking to each other, their guns slung over their shoulders loosely. They aren’t concerned with an uprising. They’ve been oppressing people so long and so successfully they aren’t worried about a group of underfed, sleep-deprived prisoners.
My clothes feel much looser than they did when I first came here. Not that food was in steady supply before. Now, it’s steady but meager.
We all look the same for the most part. Bald men. Malnourished. Sunken eyes and defeated looks. I don’t feel defeated yet. I have hope, even if I haven’t made any progress. Escape is a long game, not a short victory. I don’t know what kind of time I have, or the kind of time Sky has, but I can’t rush anything. It’s just like finding the cure for the virus. Throughout the process, there are meticulous observations with almost unnoticeable changes every day.
I am resigned to the fact that it may take a couple of years or longer before I make enough progress to get out of here. I know I need to find a way to connect with Sky. Even if we can only get messages to each other once per week it would be better than nothing. The trick is finding out how to initiate that conversation. So far, the mess hall seems like the best bet, but I haven’t even been able to find her there. It would seem dangerous trying to drop messages to each other in such a public place, but it may be a way to hide in plain sight.
Of course, right now all I want to know is if she’s okay. If she has a good cellmate. If anyone is giving her trouble. I want to know her job. Is she getting enough food? There is too much to find out before I can start communicating with her about the possibility of escape.
“I saw you on the bus over here,” a voice says, cutting into my thoughts.
I turn my head to the right, the man next to me smiles wide, his teeth scattered and yellow. I do recognize him as someone who was already on the busload of people when I was captured and brought on. I nod at him.
“Heard you were caught trying to get through some caverns,” he says.
“And where did you hear that?” I ask, feeling annoyed. I don’t want to attract the guards by engaging in small talk with someone of no use to me.
“Guards talk. Inmates talk. Word gets around. You can find out anything if your ears are open.” He reaches out a hand for me to shake. “The name’s Chet.”
Reluctantly, I shake his hand then steal a glance toward the guards hoping they didn’t see it.
“Liam,” I say.
“I already know that. I make it my job to know as much as I can about all the people in the camp. How else are you going to escape a place like this if you don’t know the people you’re dealing with?”
He says this in a normal tone, his voice echoing off the walls and I want to grab the man by the throat.
“Are you crazy?” I whisper harshly. “You’re going to get us killed.”
“They’re not paying attention,” Chet said, waving at the guards. “They’re too busy talking about women or gambling or some other nonsensical garbage.”
“Don’t talk to me,” I say, scooting a few inches away from him as though that would accomplish anything.
“That guard over there,” Chet says, pointing at the group, “is Jon. He owes another guard, Wallace, a lot of money from a card game. I hear Wallace is ready to throw him to the greyskins.” He brings his hands up to his mouth. “Hey, Jon!”
My insides freeze and my eyes go straight to the ground, though I can’t help but look upward to see if the guard reacts.
“You figured anything out with Wallace yet?”
The guard slowly walks toward us, a scowl across his face. “Excuse me?”
“There was an old comedian who said he worked his way up from nothing to extreme poverty,” Chet says loudly. “Looks like you’re working your way back down to nothing. You’re gonna be one of us if you don’t stop your gambling!”
Jon stops a few feet away, staring at Chet like he was looking at an alien.
“You know what I would do,” Chet says, whispering this time. “I would hide a few cards up your sleeve. Play a few guards below your station, gather up the money you need, pay off Wallace and just stop playing altogether. I can show you some sleight of hand if you want. Danger is once you learn how to do it, it’s hard to stop.”
There is a long silence after Chet says this, and I’m convinced that Jon is going to pull a knife from his belt and cut the man’s throat. Instead, however, the guard shakes his head and leans in close.
“I don’t know who you are,” the guard says, “but you talk too much.” He looks behind him at the other guards who are eyeing him curiously. When he looks back at Chet, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he straightens himself and walks away as though nothing had been said at all.
“You’re insane,” I say under my breath. “He could have killed you.”
“Nah,” Chet says. “He’s going to take me up on the offer. Didn’t you see it in his eyes?”
I want nothing to do with this man. He either cares nothing for his own life or he’s certifiably crazy. In either case, he will only serve to bring me down or at best become an unwanted distraction.
“That guard over there,” Chet says, pointing to the guard nearest the door. “His name is Hutch. I think he’s still a teenager. Kind of a stupid kid, I think. Doesn’t have a clue what’s going on around here. I’m pretty sure he thinks this is some kind of retreat or something. I think Warden Black likes having him as a personal guard. Dumb enough to not blab about the things he sees. Too stupid to betray him. Too dumb to see the atrocities the other guards commit.”
“So, he’s innocent of all this,” I say.
“I didn’t say that. I just said he’s stupid. Stupidity doesn’t change the side he’s on.”
“I don’t want you to talk to me anymore,” I say. “You’re trouble.”
“We’re all trouble,” he says. “But I’m the kind of trouble that’s of some value. I’ve got good information about the outside.”
“The guard was right. You talk too much.”
“I know what I’m saying and when I’m saying it,” Chet says. “I’m a more calculated man than you might think.”
I doubt that, but I let the statement stand. I would rather be interrogated and tortured than be associated with a character like Chet. He is dangerous for someone like me. Someone with secrets. Someone with a secret daughter in the camp.
If Chet makes it his business to know everything about everyone, I have to be careful around him.
When the door on the other side of the room opens, my heart nearly pounds out of my chest. A group of guards come through first, then it’s a group of bald women, as haggard and slumped as the men. I recognize one or two as some of the new arrivals and then…
It’s everything I can do to keep myself seated. A small form emerges from the dark corridor—a twelve-year-old girl with a shaved head and dark circles under her eyes. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since we were separated at the entrance gate.
I’m not ready for the flood of emotions welling up in my chest and head. My lungs heave and tears fill my eyes. I swallow the tears back as much as I can, but one slips out, and I wipe it away before anyone notices.
Sky is seated almost directly opposite of me about twenty or so paces away. When she looks up, it’s almost like magnets on her eyes that catch my gaze, and she too looks like she’s about to cry. But I don’t think it’s because she’s hurting or suffering any more than anyone else. She recognizes me, though perhaps finds me odd-looking without my shaggy hair and trimmed beard.
I scan her for bruises and cuts as best I can from this distance, but I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. She looks too skinny, probably getting even less food than the rest of us because of her size, even though she should be getting more because she’s a growing child.
Anger threatens to overwhelm me, but I shove it aside as best I can, just so I can enjoy the moment of seeing my daughter again. I was starting to think something terrible had happened. And if it had, how would I have known it? It wouldn’t be like they would make an announcement. I did hear mention of a woman dying from a greyskin infection about two weeks ago when we’d first arrived, so I suppose I would have heard something about a young girl’s death as well.
When the guards call out the first number, a man stands up to my right and is led through a door to my left by the guard named Hutch. The prisoner is the first to go in for questioning. What this is about or why we’re actually here, I have no idea. Rusty had said a person from Screven was looking for something. Now, I don’t care. It has given me the chance to see Sky. To know that she’s alive and not too broken.
She keeps her eyes fixed on me and offers a smile that nearly breaks my heart in two. With the right corner of my mouth, I smile briefly, then let my lips fall back into a straight line.
Davis says something to the other guards that I can’t hear, then leaves the room, hopefully for good. The other guards instantly seem to relax a little more, letting me know that even they aren’t immune to Davis’ overwhelming presence.
Five minutes go by, and a guard comes out from the door to my left and calls out another number. This time it’s a woman who stands and makes her way to the mysterious room beyond.
Either the prisoners who go in there are led out by way of another exit or they are being kept in another room somewhere. In either case, they don’t come back here.
Twenty minutes go by after several other prisoners are called in. Chatter throughout the room grows, even among the guards. They don’t seem to disapprove of talking among the other prisoners.
I know it’s crazy to attempt. I know I should just stay seated where I am. To draw attention to myself is the dumbest idea. But I have to try something. I have to talk to Sky. Even if it’s just to say hello.
When I stand, the guards immediately take notice. I lift a hand in the air and take a deep breath. “I wondered if I might stand and walk around,” I say. “My backside is falling asleep, and honestly, I feel nervous about all this.”
The guards look at each other, then one of them shrugs. “You try anything you won’t get very far.”
“Sir, if I wanted to try something I would have done it a long time ago. I’m a weak man without a gun. I just want to move my feet if you’ll let me.”
“Go ahead,” the guard says, shaking his head. “That’s fine for all of you. Go ahead and move around. Make sure you listen for your number to be called.”
It’s a small mercy the guards are willing to give us in exchange for feeling powerful. Asking permission is the ultimate admission of powerlessness. Giving permission feels more powerful than to deny it.
“And you call me the crazy one,” Chet says under his breath.
I ignore him.
When I start walking around the room to stretch my legs, it only takes about thirty seconds before others start doing the same. I am pleased when Sky quickly picks up on what I’m trying to do and starts walking the perimeter of the room casually.
Thankfully, I’m not even the first of the prisoners to cross over to the other side to talk with the women. A man near the corner of the room instantly goes and sits next to a woman and starts talking to her, though they are sure to keep a foot between them. The guards look in their direction but do nothing to dissuade their conversation.
The guard, Hutch, pops his head out and calls another number, this time a woman stands and makes her way to the questioner.
I slow my walk, waiting for Sky to make her way around the room. The noise has picked up some, and I’m afraid the others are starting to get too loud which might force the guards to separate us, but they never do. They just engage in their own conversations, probably too tired of enforcing meaningless rules on inmates who pose no threat to them.
Sky comes within two feet of me, leans against the wall and scoots down to the floor, keeping her eyes fixed on the door ahead of us, the doorway we will all go through for questioning before the day is over.
I whisper to her, making sure to keep my voice lower than the noise of the room, trying to move my lips as little as possible in case anyone is watching. I glance at Chet who had stayed in his seat. His eyes were on his feet and he seemed to be muttering something to himself. This risk is something I might not have taken only two weeks ago, but I can’t bear to see Sky and say nothing to her.
“Are you well?”
“Yes,” she says just above a breath. “You?”
“Yes. Have they hurt you?”
“No,” she says. “You?”
I wonder if she can still see the faint bruises on my face from my run-in with the twins a couple of weeks ago.
“No.”
“I think we’re about to be tortured for information,” she says. “But they won’t kill us.”
It kills me to think she already knows this, yet I find encouragement in the fact that she’s not fretting over it. I should have guessed she wouldn’t be too worried. Sky has always had a level head on her shoulders.
“It’s possible they won’t hurt you,” I tell her, trying to offer some comfort. “You’re a child.”
“I’ve thought that already,” she says. “But they will try to hurt you. I want you to use your ability.”
I look around when she says this, terrified someone may have overheard us. Not a single person in this room looks our way, nor can they hear our words, each of them engrossed in their own nervous conversations.
It brings comfort to Sky to know that I can withstand torture. She knows how much pain I can endure and not feel it—that strange power that manifested itself about a year ago. Even though I refuse to use my unique ability when my daughter faces the same kind of pain, I offer some assurance.
“If it comes to that, I will. How is your cellmate?”
“Nice,” she says.
“You’re eating enough?”
“As much as I can,” she says.
“Your job?”
She hesitates.
“Your job?” I ask again.
“Disposal,” she says.
I feel like someone just punched me in the stomach. Two weeks ago I wouldn’t have known what that meant. But I’ve learned that disposal actually works in conjunction with sorting. I rack my brain, trying to think of times I may have not checked closely enough to see if the greyskins we sent off for disposal were completely dead.
“Were you…”
She cuts me off. “I’ve never been hurt,” she says. “I’m still here, you see.”
That’s not the kind of job a twelve-year-old should have. Why couldn’t she have been given laundry or something else mundane and safe? My horrific shock turns to anger, and I can feel my cheeks getting hot.
This isn’t the time to express my anger. There is nothing I can do to change what she has to do every day. There is no advice I can give her. She knows to be cautious. She knows to watch every move she makes around greyskins, even ones that seem to be dead.
I know she had to have been there when the one woman was killed. She was at least in the field. How close she was, I don’t have the stomach to ask.
“Progress?” she asks me.
I’m ashamed to inform her that I am no closer to getting us out of this place.
“It’s going to take time,” I say. “It may take a long time.”
She doesn’t seem disappointed. In fact, when I steal a look at her face, she seems determined, like she knew I wouldn’t be far yet.
“I’m doing what I can, too,” she says. “But you’ve got our secret in your back pocket.” She looks up at me when she says this and I can’t help but grimace as a profound sadness overtakes me.
“I’m not sure they will care about it,” I say. “But it’s our last resort.”
Our last resort. It will be little more than a cry for attention to these people. I imagine in a time of complete desperation, someone has made a wilder claim than having made the cure for the greyskin virus.
Maybe not. It might just be crazy enough to catch their attention.
A guard opens the door at the other end of the room and sticks his head out.
“Three-three-three-three,” he calls out.
“That’s me,” I say under my breath. I want to reach out and squeeze Sky on the knee or shoulder, but I don’t dare. The wandering eyes throughout the room will not see who we are. Not today. And I particularly don’t want a loudmouth like Chet to see anything.
I don’t look down toward Sky. I don’t look back to offer assurance. I walk straight to the door and enter another dark hallway.