Part 27 (1/2)

Something in her changed, a collapse in the sternness of her face, and she was crying as she started across the floor on her hands and knees toward Josh. Lewis thrust her forward with his shoe on her rear, forcing her to crawl faster.

No one spoke. They all watched silently, fearful of their own lives and sick with the shame. But there was nothing they could do in the face of that insanity.

She reached Josh where he lay, frozen and confused, and Lewis said, ”Three,” and she moved again, just her hands this time, trembling as she unb.u.t.toned his pants and pulled them down over his hips.

”You see?” Lewis said, a smile come over him. ”Now you know he's only twenty. Look at the f.u.c.king b.o.n.e.r rising up. Good to go even when shot. Do it! Two, one.”

Josh couldn't help the erection. He wanted to tell her that. It was not in his power to stop it. And suddenly he was thinking of Stephanie, and his drawings of her, and the night when he'd arrived at her house with his father's gun and demanded that she be with him again, that she kiss him, make love to him. It was his punishment to relive that awful moment, to have his erection surge upward in spite of all the shame he felt and even the injury to his leg, with the others watching, with Brother Mike watching, a gun at her head, and her trembling hands touching him as she wept.

And then the fumbling stopped and her hands fell away.

”I can't,” she said.

He shut his eyes. He did not want to see her life end in a spray of blood and brains.

”What in the h.e.l.l are you doing?”

Roy stood at the top of the stairs, very still, watching Lewis.

No one had the courage to speak up.

”You sick skinner b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Roy said. ”Did someone f.u.c.k your mommy and make you watch when you were a snot-nosed kid?”

Lewis's gun lifted to Roy. ”She's going to make it up to him. She's going to suck him off. Or she's going to suck on this gun.”

”Oh, she is, huh?” And he waited, as if daring Cooper Lewis to act.

”Did you find it, Roy?” Jacko said. ”Can we get the f.u.c.k out of here now?”

Josh wanted to hear yes, but Roy shook his head instead, eyes still on Lewis. ”It says dig all right. But I guess we need to dig deeper. I never seen Fenton so mad.”

Josh knew what he had to do. He struggled to pull his pants back up, embarra.s.sed and angry, and he called out for their attention.

”I know where he is, Roy,” Josh said. ”You get Lewis away from us. You tell Fenton to let her go, and I'll tell you where Hammond is.”

He wondered if they understood what he was offering them. Roy only stared.

”What do you mean where Hammond is?” Roy asked. There was no mockery in his tone, no dismissal.

”He's here,” Josh said. ”In Ditmarsh. I figured out what Crowley was telling us. You'll never find him unless I tell you.”

”He's here?” Roy asked again.

”I'll tell you where when you let her go.”

Roy tipped his head back and laughed. ”In Ditmarsh all along.” He bellowed down the stairs into the darkness for Fenton to come up.

”They'll kill him,” Brother Mike said. ”He's helpless.”

”What do you want from me?” Josh asked.

Brother Mike didn't answer.

48.

Fenton looked as though he'd been digging for coal, his hands and face black, his eyes buggy. Josh wouldn't tell them what they wanted to know until I was free of them, and Fenton said I'd be free enough, locked in down there. Josh agreed and let them toss me down into the darkness.

It hurt bad. I lay at the bottom of the dark stair, and I couldn't see a thing, not even a crack of light where the door must have been. It was so black I wondered if I were unconscious or floating through s.p.a.ce. I winced when I pushed myself up. Pain is weakness leaving the body, the recruitment poster said, but I knew that pain was gravity attaching you to the here and now. I crawled into the first narrow cell, out of the hallway, out of the line of sight, and sat up against the wall.

A minute later, maybe ten minutes, I heard the door open. I wondered if it was my rescue or my end. The light did not fill the dark pa.s.sage outside but splashed through like a pa.s.sing current. I heard a heavy thud, a groan, and a cry. I knew it had to be another body tumbling down.

”Brother Mike?” I called. I listened but heard nothing. Then the sc.r.a.ping sound of someone crawling. I should have gone out and found him, but I waited instead, still paralyzed with my own fear and the failure that smothered any desire to help.

”It's me,” the voice said, and the creature slithered in to join me.

Josh, my rescuer, leaned up against the other wall. I heard him pant and groan.

”They're gone now,” he said. ”There's no reason for them to come back.”

I nodded and closed my eyes.

Hours went by, I presume, or only seconds. I woke up in the same absolute darkness and wondered if he was still present or if the arrival had been a dream. I nudged his foot with my own and heard him cry out and start to cough. I wanted to know he was still with me.

A little strength had come over me. I felt a touch of the old me creeping back in. Resilience is the last thing to go. It keeps surging back like a forgotten tide, even when you think it has been banished for good. It was followed by anger. Disdain. Maybe loneliness, the great force beneath everything that keeps mas.h.i.+ng us together.

”You told them that Hammond is here?” I asked him. ”Why did they believe you?”

”Because it's true,” he said. ”He's been here all along. Crowley knew. That's what he was telling us.”

My brain moved slowly, m.u.f.fled by the darkness, the gears in it cranked and turned.

”Is Hammond Roy?” I asked. All along.

He coughed. The sound didn't go anywhere, just flapped from his chest and stopped in the air.

”No,” he said. ”It was dig.”

I waited.

”The G was a six. Ditmarsh infirmary six,” Josh said. ”I was in Ditmarsh infirmary three. Crowley was in DI-two. Hammond in DI-six. I figured it out.”

I tried to think it through and understand. DI-6? I counted down the cells in my mind and came to the one where the man with no fingers or toes, no face, sat on the edge of his cot and waited for the world outside to go by.