Chapter Five

She didn’t read the packet.

Addey peeked out the porthole window. Dark blue ocean extended for miles—eternity for all it mattered—in every direction. She was a good swimmer. Richard had failed to mention she enjoyed the Olympic-size pool at the YMCA on the weekends during high school. She could hold her breath for nearly four minutes and swim two miles without serious exertion.

Two miles won’t cut it now. Two hundred miles wouldn’t cut it.

She had no way of knowing if she was sailing on the Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean—or perhaps they were traveling along the Gulf of Mexico? The sky and the water were a miserable compass.

Addey walked up to the door of her room and turned the knob. It opened, to her surprise. Nobody was waiting in the hallway to intercept her, so she skulked down the corridor. Every room was empty, though she caught a sleeping man in one chamber. He looked familiar. He had been on the plane beside her. Would Richard visit this man as well?

She didn’t wait to find out.

The hallway ended with a set of stairs. She walked out onto the deck, the sensation of exposure and vulnerability keeping her moving. The ocean was steady and unrolling. Richard had said they had a twelve-hour journey ahead of them. That gave her plenty of time to scope out a place to hide.

Looking out, there was a food court a short distance north of her position. A man was entering the food court dressed like her: white shirt, black pants, nice shoes. 

She darted under a set of stairs and discovered a door.

The door was spray-painted: Crew Only.

She feared personnel might be behind the door, so she opened it slowly. Darkness met her upon crossing the threshold. Inside, something lent the air a thickness. She could cut the humid net with a knife.

The door slammed behind her. She raced to it, trapped in pitch. She frantically traced her hands up and down the door, but there was no handle.

She banged and kicked at the barrier, failing to care about being discovered anymore. “Open this door, please! I’m sorry. I’ll go back to my room. I won’t try and hide again. I’ll read the packet. I’ll memorize it!”

Expelled breath distracted her from the breakdown. The thickness of the exhalation sounded like a horse. She kicked at straw. Each step, her pumps clopped. She couldn’t sneak up on anybody or make a quick getaway.

She edged farther into the dark room. It was expansive; she kept her hands out at all angles and had yet to touch a surface. The smell of excrement invaded her nostrils as well as the tang of iron and meat. Taking in the smell, she backed into a hay bale.

She whispered, “What is in here?”

Hrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The low rumble was that of a snarling dog.

She stopped. What could she do now? Every step would alert whatever was in the room. The blinking dot at her foot caught her eye. The tracking device.

So much for hiding out.

Without realizing it, she was crawling on all fours.

Go straight until you hit a wall. Follow that wall to a door.

She executed the plan. Her fingers were outstretched, extended as far as possible in front of her. She scraped her knees during the daring journey. She felt the wounds form, abrasions turning into torn skin.

Humphf!

Hrrrrrrrrrrrr.

She kept moving. Whatever was huffing and puffing knew of her presence, and freezing in place wouldn’t change that.

Shrick! Shrick! Shrick! Shrick! Shrick!

Metal scraping against metal, fiery bright sparks were rendered from the back corner of the room. She had a good distance from the thing that shared the room with her. She crawled faster, almost to a door—and this time with a handle. Her nails broke on four of her fingers when they collided with the door. She pushed in the short bar, opening the access, and dumped herself forward. Instantly, she was colder. A motor hummed above her. A faded lightbulb gave weak definition to the room.

She was inside a giant refrigerator.

Her screaming was prevented by her cupping of her own mouth. Taking it all in, she gawked at the steel shelves stocked with glass containers of human heads, hands, eyes, intestines, fetuses and other hunks of meat she couldn’t identify. They swam in brine-colored fluids, pickled and preserved. The collection was thousands strong, enough to fill six semitrucks. It was so vast she sank from the enormity of it.

Her back was firm against the wall. Where could she go? Certainly not back where she had come from.

She couldn’t prevent her wandering eyes from studying the random items about the room. Slabs of animal meat hung from hooks, among racks of ribs and pig bodies. Steel barrels were marked “assorted innards”. The rims were blood caked. Tendrils of cold fog parted to reveal new sections of the compartment, and one section stopped her completely. Black body bags were stacked on the floor like cordwood. She counted seventy-five before giving up. She hadn’t accounted for a quarter of the supply.

Human bodies.

What do these people really do here?

She refused to give up on escape. She was cautious as ever. The fog lifted once again and gave shape to animals shrink-wrapped and preserved in fluids: goats, sheep, bison, deer, antelope, grizzly bears, cattle, and hammerhead and tiger sharks.

She hit the end of the room, and, stuck in a corner, the nearby door beckoned her. Addey crossed to it in a hurry, flinging the exit open. Her entrance stirred the locked-up inhabitants in the narrow hall. The doors of the chambers reminded her of those used at asylums, except the peepholes were covered by sheets, obscuring the view inside. Concussions rattled the floor. The mewling of live animals attacked her ears. Goats and sheep dominated the corridor’s population, she believed, as well as chickens that flapped their wings, shedding feathers inside their wire kennels. The stench was eye watering.

She pinched her nose at the overpowering smells. She slipped through a thin aisle, working around stacked-up crates and wooden cages. The glare of eyes stared back at her from within. They were as confused and horrified as their watcher. She skirted as fast as she could without falling onto the floor strewn with hay and pellets of feed.

Another door at the end of the corridor encouraged her on.

She turned the knob and threw it shut behind her. This time, her nose couldn’t identify the use of this chamber. Doors to unknown rooms were not only shut, but locked with sizable padlocks and chains. The circular windows peeking into the rooms were draped over by cloth. Addey edged toward one of the doors, curious. She pressed her ear against the wood’s grain. Silence. No animal cries. She touched the fibrous cloth and lifted the edge. She stared through the glass, but it was all darkness.

“Don’t peel that back!”

Her arm was twisted behind her back. She yelped at the surge of awful pain coursing up and down her arm. Her mouth was cupped. Silenced. “Shhhh, you’ll wake them. We can’t have that. We’re not there yet.”

She caught Richard in her peripheral vision. An agitated expression ruined his otherwise amicable face. He glistened with a layer of fresh sweat. His inhaled and exhaled hard, spent from a run.

He breathed out in relief. “You can’t just walk about the place. You’re allowed to go to the kitchen and recreational area, and that’s it. Are we in an understanding? If not, I’ll toss you over the side and let you drown. I’m not putting up with any shit from you regardless of how much we need you.”

She nodded, still unable to speak.

“That tracking device on your ankle gave you away,” he added as an aside. “You forgot, didn’t you?”

He released her. He was purple-faced and flushed from exertion. He scowled at her. “You’re very lucky you weren’t shot, or worse…very much worse.”

She rubbed her arm up and down to reduce the ache. “What’s ‘very much worse’ mean?”

He placed his pointer finger against his lips. “Not so loud.” His eyes kept wandering from her to the doors. He whispered, “I barely caught you in time. We could’ve had a situation on our hands. The last time this happened, six people ended up dead.”

“The last time what happened?”

His harsh stare mutated into pride. “You’re very intuitive and interested in this place.” He pointed back the way she had come. “Let me show you something. I take it you haven’t read the packet.”

“No,” she confessed. “I’m scared. Is that so wrong?”

“We’ve been in this business too long. Call us a bit jaded.” He closed the door softly behind them. The din of the caged animals continued, but he rushed her through that chamber and back into the refrigerator. “Follow me into the next room.”

She rooted her feet to the floor. “I’m not going back out there. I heard them, whatever they are.”

He produced a flashlight from his holster. “The things in there are secured and asleep. We inject enough sedatives in those puppies for a three-day sleep. Try not to make any loud noises, though. They tend to wake at screams. It’s an instinct thing. A hunting mechanism.”

Richard squeezed her arm to the point it robbed the extremity of circulation. “Open your eyes and wake up. Snap out of whatever place you are in your mind. This is serious. I’m sorry your brother was gunned down, and I’m sorry your life has been taken away from you. That’s the way it worked out for me too. Why do you think I’m here? Does anybody cry a fucking tear for me? I’ve been exploited too, and so have many other unfortunate souls. The pity party will never show up. But we are saving lives, if it’s any consolation. Somebody has to, and jobs like these are thankless, so get over it.”

He let go of her. “I’m also impressed with you. I’ve actually been with you the whole time. You’re resourceful. You think on your feet. You can go far in this job.”

“How far can I go in two years?”

He stifled a bitter laugh. “Everybody fails to connect the dots, so I’ll spell this out for you. The government pays a task force to act when something around you happens—murder, car wreck, robbery, whatever—and they kill you without actually taking your life. So this organization, the PSA, pays for your clothes, your trip out and to feed you and keep your life a secret. Do you think two years is enough of a trade? We can’t reintroduce you into society. You’re here for life, Addey. The contract you signed was bullshit. I hate to break it to you. Start dealing with it before we get to the island.”

She braced herself against the shelf, but she turned to face a human head with its eyes wide open inside of a jar. “Jesus Christ, what the hell is happening to me?”

She wept for herself, for Deke’s funeral she wouldn’t attend, and her family who would be mourning two deaths instead of one.

They can’t do this to people.

He shone the light in her face. She glared at him for the rude gesture. “You fucking asshole, who do you think you are? Sure, you’re here, you’re jaded as hell, but we can be civil about it. Don’t you shine that light in my face again, or I’ll shove it up your stinking ass!”

He clapped. “Yes, show some animosity. There’s fight in you. Dig deep and find it. You’ll be needing it. Cowards die here. You’re not a woman anymore, you’re a tough bitch. Don’t be afraid to defend yourself. It’s allowed.”

What did Mr. Quinn say to me? “Never be afraid to defend yourself. Nobody will hold it against you.”

“How will I defend myself?”

He clenched his fists and mashed them together. “Brute force, for one. Knuckles, those pumps on your shoes can gouge out eyes—think like that from now on. You establish yourself from the get-go, or else they’ll turn you into their pet—and to be their pet is to commit slow suicide. They’ll torture you, rape you and eat you alive. You really should’ve read the packet. It would save a lot of explaining.

“You’ll be given the weapons I have, but you have to be confident in their use. Be resourceful in a different way. You have that quality we’re looking for. Do a good job, and you won’t be working the shit jobs for long, I promise.”

He pointed to the door. “So are you ready to see what you missed in that other room?”