The rest of the day passed like a prolonged, painful episode of déjà vu.
As before, Ollie found himself processed and tossed into a cell full of alternately terrified and angry prisoners: five men, this time, and one woman. Some were silent, some were sobbing, some were ranting. Blood pooled in his cheeks. Throbbing pains racked his head and upper body. A bowl of steaming sludge sat near the door, untouched, next to a stack of bowls and spoons.
Ollie ignored it all. He sat curled against the wall, stared at his knees, and waited. He kept his head hung low. The bag was gone, but he still did his best to hide his face and minimize his height. He could not get recognized as an escapee. His name was Devin now. Devin the Abuser.
When the cell door opened, Ollie jumped to his feet before the guard even gave the instructions. He knew what was coming. Who was coming. A few minutes later, they approached the winding staircase, and he began to climb. And climb, and climb. His leg muscles burned like the ovens at Queen’s Pizzeria on Thacher Street, and still he climbed. Behind him, the others gasped and faltered. But Ollie did not cry out, or slow down. He gritted his teeth, and he climbed.
Finally, the group arrived at the door to the white room. It was just as clean and sparse as he remembered: One wall studded with holes and numbers, another wall blank. Two empty chairs sat on a platform in the center.
As the guards lined them up against the wall, a few of the prisoners collapsed onto the ground from exhaustion. Ollie stayed on his feet and moved to the head of the line. This time, he wanted to be first. He did not want to hear their wails for mercy, or see their grisly crimes projected onto the alabaster wall. He wanted only to see the Reader.
Ollie knew he could not end up back on the fifth floor or, God forbid, anywhere worse. He had one goal: to get to the Knockdown fighting floor. That’s where Tera was, so that’s where he had to go. And the yellow-haired Reader was the only one who could get him there fast. His job, now, was to talk her into it. He knew from his visit to the Warden’s office that they wanted volunteers. So, he would volunteer. No problem. Easy-peasy. He cracked his knuckles as his throat went dry.
To his left, a door opened. The guards straightened. A ripple of fear traveled through the room.
She had arrived.
Ollie wasn’t jarred by her appearance this time: the deep folds of skin, or the thick, gravity-defying pile of golden dreadlocks on her head. Her gray eyes were so large they took up most of the upper half of her ancient face. She floated past the line of prisoners without looking at them, then stepped up onto the platform and took a seat.
The woman blinked her big lids. Then she addressed the line of prisoners. “You are here for a reading,” she said. “I will see all that you have done. And you will pay for your crimes. Only what you owe.”
The guards echoed reverently: “Only what you owe.”
It was the same speech she’d given the last time, and probably every time. Though Ollie was willing to bet he was the only prisoner who had ever heard it twice.
The woman’s long, twisted fingers curled in her lap. “I am ready,” she said.
A red-suited guard approached the line. Wordlessly, he grabbed Ollie by his collar and hauled him to the platform. Ollie took a step up and stumbled into the empty seat.
The Reader’s face was as blank as the wall behind her. If she recognized him, she gave no sign.
“I want to be a fighter,” Ollie blurted, before she could speak. “For the Knockdowns. I volunteer.”
The old woman seemed not to have heard him. “Hold out your hand,” she said.
“But I volunteer,” he said again, quickly. “I’m ready.”
She regarded him calmly, curiously, not unlike a cat watching a fish in a bowl. “Hold out your hand,” she said again.
Ollie’s heart hammered. Had she not heard him? “You don’t understand. I have to get to the fighting floor. I’ll be great. Look at me. I’m huge. I’m a great fighter.” He swallowed, realizing too late that great fighters probably didn’t say things like, “I’m a great fighter.”
Annoyance flashed across the Reader’s face. She gave a casual nod to one of her guards, who stepped closer and reached for Ollie’s arms. They began to wrestle, Ollie holding his arm stiff while the guard expertly fought to lift it.
It’s not working, he thought, hysteria beginning to rise. Why isn’t it working? His eyes flitted around the room as his mind raced. He saw the line of prisoners, more approaching guards, and the ancient woman, now growing impatient in her chair. He saw the wall full of holes, each one numbered. All out of order. Seventeen. Forty-two. Twenty-nine.
A second guard held down his right arm while the other lifted his left.
Ollie’s pulse jumped in growing panic. Holes. Numbers. One hole, he now noticed, looked different from the rest. That hole was bigger than the others, and higher. It had no number at all. He leaned forward, straining against the guards’ strength. No, wait. He had it wrong. The hole didn’t need a number because it was a number! Perfectly round. A zero.
Zero.
What had Ajanta called it? Not the fighting floor… the fighting pit. As in, down below. Lower than level one. Zero!
“Widow Hibbins!” he shouted.
At that, the Reader startled. She held up a finger; the guards dropped his arms.
“Is that…your name?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to: The look of surprise on her face and the thin, pressed line of her mouth said enough.
“I have a message for you,” Ollie said, talking fast. He pushed the guards’ hands away. “From George Herrick. He told me to tell you, ‘Zero.’”
Jesus, he hoped he was right. If he was wrong…if this was wrong…God only knew where he was going to end up. His legs began to tremble.
Finally, she spoke. Her voice rumbled like a coffee grinder. “Is that so?”
Ollie gave a rapid nod.
“Let me see,” said the Reader.
“See…what?”
She held out her hand.
He hesitated. But what choice did he have? He had to make her understand.
Their palms touched. Ollie concentrated, remembering that day in Blackstone Park. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, something flickered on the wall. A grainy, black-and-white movie, pouring from her hand. He saw himself, standing in the park. Fern-like trees and brackish water materialized behind him. Tera stood to his left. And to his right, the impossibly old man. George Herrick. Former Deputy-Sheriff of Salem Village, 1692. Transporter and persecutor of witches.
Everyone in the white room watched as Herrick leaned forward, whispered something into Ollie’s ear, and then slumped. Dead.
The woman lowered her hand, turning away from the wall to look at him.
“I didn’t hurt him,” Ollie whispered. “I swear. I didn’t even touch him.”
The mountain of dreadlocks lurched as her head tilted to the side. Then she asked, “What did he say?”
Ollie blinked, trying to remember the exact words. “He said, ‘Tell Widow Hibbins zero. Lion’s feet will dig. As I am, so he will be.’”
“What else?” she asked.
“Uh, after that, he said, ‘The rightful ones tarry in the place that is not a place. All will be mended. The waiting is done.’ And then…he just…died.”
“I see.” The yellow-haired woman looked down at her twisted hands. The silence lengthened, making him squirm. When she looked up again, she raised her index finger and pointed toward the wall pocked with holes. Her eyes still on Ollie, she called out, “Zero.”
Two of the closest guards stepped forward. They grabbed Ollie’s arms and dragged him out of the chair. A third guard appeared with a tall, rickety ladder that seemed to be made of twigs. The guard propped the ladder under the unnumbered hole and stepped aside.
“Climb,” he said.
Ollie looked back at the woman, a.k.a. the Reader, a.k.a. Widow Hibbins. Then he faced the ladder, held his breath, and began to climb. By some miracle, the first rung held, then the next. He was genuinely surprised when he reached the top.
“You will give what you owe,” she called up to him. “Only what you owe. Do you understand?”
He sighed. Of course, he understood. Ollie knew exactly what he owed. He looked down at the dispassionate guards and the trembling group of prisoners. He looked down, one last time, at Widow Hibbins. And then he dove head-first into the tube, eyes wide open to the darkness.
* * *
The terrifying tunnel was like a waterslide without the water. Or the fun. Ollie stretched his arms in front of him and clenched his teeth as he sped through twists, turns, and stomach-churning sudden drops, waiting for the inevitable moment when his thick belly would bring the ride to an abrupt stop. He would die there, trapped. The bodies would pile up behind him for years before anyone figured out the problem. What would they do then? Wait for decomp to turn the bodies into skeletons and then wash the whole mess out with a hose?
Ollie was imagining the wet pile of bones when he felt the tunnel give way to empty air. He landed, hard, and let out an “oof” of pain and shock.
Krite. What was with this place and all the hard landings? Would it kill them to throw down a pillow or two?
He struggled to his feet, holding a hand on his back like a 90-year-old man. He seemed to be in a hallway. A bespectacled attendant stood at a podium nearby, looking much like a host in a restaurant, though Ollie strongly suspected that he wasn’t about to be led to a table for drinks and Buffalo wings. The man reminded Ollie of the chairlift operator he had met when he first entered the Neath: blue jumpsuit; clipboard; no eye contact, whatsoever.
With a slight limp, Ollie approached the podium.
“How many for entry?” the man asked, not lifting his eyes from the clipboard. He did not seem at all surprised that a giant, pale, disheveled prisoner had just fallen through a hole in the ceiling.
Ollie wanted to tell the man that he was, clearly, alone. A single person. One person. He wanted to scream and slap the guy’s cheek and tear that goddamn blue-crayon of a jumpsuit off his body, leaving the smug asshole to stand there, naked and scrawny, surrounded by shreds of fabric on the dirt floor.
Instead, he exhaled and said, “One.”
With a satisfied swish of his pen, the man made a mark on his clipboard. Then he adjusted his glasses and shouted over his shoulder: “One for entry!”
Two Reds appeared almost instantly, rounding the corner as though they had been waiting there. Each guard grabbed one of Ollie’s arms and began dragging him.
“Easy, I’m coming! You don’t have to—”
Before he could finish the sentence, the guard on his left reached out and punched Ollie’s head. Just punched it, savage and fast, with the force of a coiled-up spring. The pain was an explosion of color. Ollie’s vision swam. His legs gave out. And suddenly, they did have to drag him.
Time passed strangely after that, and Ollie couldn’t say for sure how long they traveled in the hallway. But by the time they reached a vast open space, he could see well enough to figure out where he was, and the knowledge bent his lips into a smile.
The pit. It had to be.
The first things he noticed were the birdcages. Colossal, swaying birdcages in a wide variety of shapes. They hung at different levels; some high up near the ceiling, others closer to the ground. But these cages didn’t hold birds—they held people. Fighters, if he had to guess, waiting their turn to fight.
He knew it as soon as he saw their faces: purpled and swollen, scrappy and wary. They all reminded him of Dozer, complete with an array of eyepatches, slack jaws, and missing teeth. Some huddled in the corners of their hanging cages, while other gripped the bars and stared down at him with grizzled curiosity. And hostility.
The smell of the place was surprisingly neutral; not nearly as throat-closingly nasty as every other Herrick’s End floor he had stumbled across. It was the size, he assumed. The pit was big enough to dilute the stink, leaving only a vague odor of mildew and mud and, oddly enough, ginger. He definitely smelled ginger. Or that could have been the blow to the head.
The guards dropped his arms and approached another two guards, and the four of them commenced a garbled staff meeting. Ollie could only make out every third or fourth word, but he heard enough to understand that they were bickering about the available cage space, or lack thereof, for this newest prisoner. They also seemed pleased about his size, and pleased that the Warden would be pleased about his size. While they talked, Ollie’s eyes flitted around the cavern in desperation: Where was Tera? He didn’t see Dozer, either.
They were both supposed to be here. The plan depended on it.
He was squinting into the dusty haze, trying to see into the uppermost cages, when the meeting ended. The guards were sharing a joke. “Let’s see how he does in there,” one of them said, then grabbed Ollie’s arm and pushed him to a set of stairs. The men guffawed in the mean way he recognized from his youth; bullies gathering force, feeding off each other. That sound usually meant bad things for Ollie.
The stairs led to one of several suspended walkways above the ground. Ollie couldn’t tell if he was still dizzy from the head punch or if the platform itself was swaying; either way, he was having trouble keeping his balance. His feet clanked on the metal grates as he walked.
The guard stopped beside one of the hanging birdcages. “Running low on space, so you’ll have to share,” he said, grinning. “You two should get along just fine.”
Slowly, painfully, Ollie turned his head. Inside the cage, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was the largest human being he had ever seen. He recognized him right away: The Mallet. The undisputed champion of the Knockdowns. Pounder of men. Breaker of bones. Peeler of skin.
Ollie’s throat went dry. The Mallet stared at him through the bars, expressionless.
The guard inserted a key into the door and yanked it open. Ollie flinched. The Mallet didn’t move.
“In,” said the guard, and Ollie heard the note of cruel amusement in his voice. The door slammed shut behind him.
“Have a good night, boys!” Laughter reverberated around the cavern.
Ollie stayed rooted to his spot. The swinging motion was subtle, but enough to turn his stomach. A single thought echoed in his mind: I will die in this cage. Probably torn to pieces. Maybe crushed. He held on to the bars for balance as he looked up at the legendary brawler now standing only feet away. Ollie expected to see rage, or dumb brutality, or maybe a ferocious sneer that bared a set of filed-down, pointy teeth.
Instead, he saw something else entirely. The Mallet’s expression wasn’t menacing, or angry. It was only…sad. And then the mighty man opened his mouth to speak. “You’ll get used to it,” he said, his voice deep and thick. “After a while, you don’t even notice it.”
Ollie stared at him.
“The swinging, I mean,” the big man continued. “They hang us for security. They think it makes it harder to escape.”
“Does it?” Ollie asked, finding his voice.
“Eh,” The Mallet shrugged. “Maybe.”
“You’re…”
“I’m Leonard.”
“But I thought—”
“They give us names when we get here. Ridiculous names.” He laughed softly. His hair was balding and caramel colored. “But you can call me Leonard.”
Of all the names on the planet, that was perhaps the last one that Ollie would have guessed belonged to this terrifying hulk of a man. “That’s…my church,” he heard himself say.
“What?”
“My church, back home. It’s St. Leonard’s.”
“Ah,” the big man said. “Well, I can assure you, it was not named after me.”
“Right. No.” He cleared his throat. “I’m Ollie.”
“Very nice to meet you, Ollie. Welcome to my cage.”
Ollie loosened his grip on the bars. If this man intended to kill him, the attack did not seem imminent. If anything, the Leonard Formerly Known as Mallet gave off an air of…exhaustion. Resignation, maybe. Ollie could suddenly picture him sitting behind a massive desk, chewing on a massive pen cap and typing up a massive report for his boss. Ordering a massive cake for his coworker’s birthday. At the very least, he seemed uninterested in immediate violence.
“You must be a volunteer,” Leonard said. “One of the brave and stupid? Trying to improve your station?”
“Something like that,” Ollie replied. “And you?”
The big man laughed again. “No, not me. I am not one of the brave. I am one of the duped.”
Ollie wasn’t sure how to respond. “You look brave,” he offered.
Leonard smiled. Aside from his size, he was astonishingly ordinary looking. Bronze skin. Sturdy neck. No tattoos. “The Warden lured me with a job offer,” Leonard said, staring out into the darkness of the pit. “A ‘security position,’ they called it. Temporary. Luxury accommodations. More money than I’d know what to do with. Plenty of money to send back home. Of course, when I got here, there was no job. I was not an employee; I was a prisoner. A prize pit bull in a fighting ring.” Leonard’s smile was bitter. His legs were still crossed; now, he rested his hands on his bended knees in a kind of meditative pose. “And I’ve been here ever since.”
Ollie stepped closer, losing his grip on the bars. His voice dropped to a whisper. “But you’re twice the size of these guys! Those guards? You could…” he faltered, his thoughts coming in a rush. “You could… I don’t know, do something! You could get out of here anytime you wanted to!”
Leonard shook his head. “The Warden won’t allow it.”
“What do you mean, he won’t al—”
“He has my family,” Leonard interrupted, his green eyes turning hard. “Or at least, he knows where they are. And how to reach them. If I—” he stopped. The unfinished sentence hung in the air between them, its meaning clear. Leonard straightened. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been a while since I’ve talked to anyone. Most of the time they keep me alone. I guess I’m…”
Ollie was shocked to see the man’s eyes go glassy with tears. Whatever he had expected of the dreaded Mallet, this was not it.
“But why would the Warden make you come down here? I thought all the fighters were volunteers, looking for rewards. And the Knockdowns were just…stupid shit. Entertainment for the prisoners.”
“Is that what you heard?” Leonard replied, looking amused. “I’m sure that’s what he wants everyone to think. But no, the Knockdowns aren’t for the prisoners. In this place, nothing is for the prisoners. Nothing good, at least. The Knockdowns are for the Warden. Just another one of his sick, twisted inventions. He enjoys watching people suffer.” His voice had gone brittle.
Ollie remembered watching the slick-haired Warden pass him in the hallway, surrounded by cloudy-eyed, captive children. Remembered the yellow fog, the severed arm. The body of Rocco crumpled on the office floor. Solitary confinement for those who crossed him. The screams of prisoners, endless, agonized screams, behind closed doors. He shivered.
“I’m getting out of here,” Ollie said, surprising himself. “You should come with me.”
The big man let loose a surprised, quiet chuckle. “Good on you. It’s important to have dreams.”
“I’m serious,” Ollie insisted. “I have a plan.”
Leonard looked at him with an expression of pity. “Sure, kid. Don’t we all.”
Before Ollie could respond, another shout echoed through the cavern. “One for entry!”
Leonard’s eyebrows lifted. “Two in one day? That’s strange.”
Moments later, two guards dragged in the newest Knockdown volunteer. Ollie ran to the edge of his cage and peered through the bars, straining to get a look at the man’s face. The prisoner, likewise, was looking around, searching the cages. Their eyes met.
Dozer stared up at Ollie with an intense expression of confusion.
Ollie stared back, almost weak with relief. Against all odds, Dozer had received his message, and followed his instructions. He nodded down at his friend. Trust me, he tried to say, using only his body language and his eyes. It’s all going to work out fine.
The guards conferred together, then walked up three stairways and tossed Dozer into a cage high above. Ollie watched him go with a thudding heart. He was here. Tera wasn’t, yet, but Dozer was. The plan was clicking into motion. It was a start.
“Every finish needs a start, right?” he said out loud, maybe to Leonard, maybe to himself. But as he gripped the bars and looked around at the yawning pit, the hanging cages, and the helpless, battered faces, even he had to admit that this particular start wasn’t looking terribly promising.