Chapter 17 #2
Granted, a hole large enough for a squirrel or a groundhog might not be large enough to accommodate a human. But this was all clay held up by boards, and I would damn well dig my way out if I had to.
I made sure the net was firmly tucked around my neck, grabbed the lantern, and shoved the drape aside.
It was amazing the difference that lantern light made, compared to a single candle. Even turned down low, I could make out the slight rise and fall of the man’s chest. The hollows of his ribs no longer looked like canyons. He looked unhealthy, but not like he was dying.
His eyes were closed. He might have been asleep. Perhaps eating rodents was exhausting. My mind skittered away from waking him up. It would be cruel to wake a man who’s obviously so miserable.
(the crunch of tiny ribs under teeth)
I shuddered. No, I didn’t want to wake him up.
The walls of the room were lined with burlap that had been tacked up over boards.
I tugged at a panel and a broad strip tore away in my hands.
I started to toss it aside, then decided I couldn’t afford to waste anything that might be useful, and brought it over to the bare table instead. Now where was that light coming from…?
I pulled down more burlap until I finally located it.
There was a gap between the boards and one of the support pillars, perhaps six inches wide, and in this gap, something had bored a hole.
I peered into it, angling the lantern as best I could, and saw that it ran generally upward.
An animal burrow, by the looks of it. Or a hole dug by animals, anyway.
I carefully avoided looking at the dead animals. If a parasite could drive a possum to try to break through a door, presumably it could also drive one to dig.
And even to climb onto a table and offer itself up as a meal…?
I remembered the wasp and the cockroach. Yes. Apparently even that. Whatever was going on here, it seemed that it was a horror spawned as much by nature as by … whatever Halder had done.
Enough. It doesn’t matter right now. What matters is getting out.
The burrow was large enough to fit my arm into, no more.
(Not that I had any intention of sticking my arm into a dark hole that was currently being used by infected rodents.) Could I widen it?
Possibly. It would take a great deal of work digging through the clay, but it wasn’t as if I had anything else going on.
The gap between board and upright was too small for me to fit through though.
I examined the board and my heart sank. A foot wide and two inches thick, and reeking of creosote.
The smell made my nose wrinkle, but it drowned out the slowly increasing rot from the pile of gutted animals, so I was forced to be grateful.
The board had been nailed into the ceiling beam from the other side, so that the weight of the earth pushed it more firmly against the support. I put my shoulder against it and shoved. I might as well have been trying to move a brick wall.
All right. Look at this logically. If I could break through a two-inch plank, I’d simply have broken down the door, but maybe I didn’t need to break it.
If I could dig out the space behind it, maybe I could loosen the nails and get the board turned slightly.
I only needed a few more inches of clearance to fit my head through, and then it was just shoulders and contortion, right?
… sure, yes, of course. A walk in the park, definitely.
I tested the edges of the burrow. Hard orange clay, gritty and mixed with small pebbles. I’d heard Jackson curse it often enough. Shovel-breaking stuff. “Good thing I don’t have a shovel to worry about,” I said out loud, and barked a laugh.
Ah, we’re moving on to that stage of the breakdown, I see.
Well, if a groundhog could do it, so could I. I had smaller claws but a bigger brain. And an enamel pan.
It took hours. The clay did not want to yield.
I scooped up water and poured it over the edges, trying to soften them, which didn’t help much.
Clay takes up water slowly and gives it up even more slowly, which is why I was standing in an inch of water right now.
I chopped at the edges of the hole with the pan, scraping off fractions of an inch at a time, until it felt like I was trying to shave my way out.
Still, the hole got bigger. When I finally allowed myself to take a break, the opening was twice as large, and I’d dragged several pounds of earth out from behind the board. I gazed at it, feeling a flush of triumph.
Granted, a hole ten inches wide was not notably more useful than one five inches wide, but at least I’d accomplished something. Maybe I’d get lucky and it would rain. Then I could stand in a foot of water and haul mud out until it collapsed or I did.
Don’t think of the woman, the blood thief, buried alive. Don’t think of her trying to chew her way through the clay. I gritted my teeth. Perhaps I too was buried alive, but at least I had plenty of air.
My shoulders and forearms ached. So did my neck, from wedging myself against the board and digging blind behind it. Nature was also calling, which presented its own set of challenges.
I did not want to use my sleeping area as a latrine, but I had no intention of hitching up my skirts in a room full of botflies.
I settled for using my trusty enamel pan as a crude chamberpot and carrying it downstairs to dump out.
I had not previously considered the many, many uses of an enamel pan in adversity, but I was about to declare my undying love for this one.
How long had it been since Phelps came? How much more light did I have? Had it been hours? It felt like hours.
I had just started digging again when the man on the table said, “What are you doing?”
I was so startled that I dropped the pan. I picked it up hastily and looked over to see that he had turned his head to face me. The dried blood lay in a flaking brown mask over the lower half of his face and his teeth seemed very white against it.
“Trying to dig my way out.”
He considered this while I scraped more clay loose. “Why?”
“A distinct lack of social engagements,” I snapped. What the hell kind of question was that?
“So you’re trapped here too?”
Oh. Perhaps he hadn’t realized. No, why should he? He must have thought that I was working with Halder and Phelps. And you were, weren’t you? Halder, anyway.
Shut up.
“Yes. Phelps locked me down here.”
“I see.” His voice sounded stronger, no longer so dry and raspy. Squirrel guts must make a serviceable lubricant. I scraped more clay out of the hole, wondering what to say next. I had so many questions that I hardly knew where to begin.
Are you sure you even want the answers?
Really sure?
(the crunching sound of tiny ribs)
… yes. I do.
Stupid question. Of course I wanted answers. I always did, didn’t I?
“I thought you were with them,” the man said.
My laugh could have etched glass. “I’m not.” I tested the board again. It continued not to yield in the slightest.
It occurred to me that I was being extremely short with a man who had, let’s face it, been manacled to a wire table for at least a week, probably more.
I was not in the best emotional state myself, but compared to what he’d been through, the last few days had been a pleasant stroll through the woods.
“Sorry,” I said, stepping back from the hole. “I … um.” I glanced over at him, at his limp hands hanging down like rain-blown peonies, and the long, dreadful nails. “You’ve been down here awhile,” I said finally.
He made a rough clicking sound in his throat. It took me a moment to recognize it as a laugh. “Yes,” he said. “Awhile.”
He turned his head a little when he said it, and perhaps it was because of the better light or just the angle or something about the way he held his mouth, but suddenly I recognized that face.
I knew him. I had seen him just recently, not as a living man but as a watercolor sketch, the planes of the face sketched out by someone who thought he was handsome, even though there was nothing handsome about him now.
“My god,” I said. “You’re Saul Gregor.”