Thing Seven: Cynical Thriller...

The Cell.

A Micro Short Story by Sean McGovern

For Kimmi – I hope you like it.

I wasn’t really shocked that they put me in a cell.  It was bound to happen at some point, and having missed my hellion years, they had finally caught up with me at the Taco Bell for reasons they couldn’t explain.  I suppose they had hoped for something a bit more dramatic – a daring raid on my sanctuary in the dead of night, knowing that I’d be wide awake but not wanting the normal folk to see them drag me out, or making my car and I vanish into the back of a trailer on the highway or something.  Not ordering enough food for three people at the local Taco Bell, though.  I mean, who wants to hear about the time you caught your arch nemesis because their server couldn’t remember if they had said soft or hard shells?

“Aren’t you,” one of them, who kind of looked like a cross between Ben Affleck and those breeds of dogs that look like someone’s swatted them in the face with a large dictionary, asked.

“Hungry,” I finished for him.  “Yes,” I said, “yes, I am.”

And then they debated about attacking me in a flash – one of them shouting that they couldn’t draw their guns or the civilians would get wise.  I looked at the civilians, who were looking at the three of them, then back to me, then all over the Formica clad hellhole for hidden cameras or people in very large hats to hide same cameras.  It took the them five minutes before deciding to just use the handcuffs and claim I was a known arsonist, while I stood there, motioning the acne clad douche behind the counter to please hurry up.  I kept saying, “Soft shells, soft shells or I swear to the gods you’ll die a virgin,” under my breath, Pretty convinced that next would come the argument about who’s cuffs to use, but Pug Affleck was finally gaining some competence.  I had finally gotten my box of tacos when they surrounded and cuffed me.

And brought me to here.  Wherever here is.  Or was.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I woke on a plank, laying like a cat on the back of a couch – totally at ease with the fact that my arms and legs were hanging over a fairly impressive drop.  The plank was thin enough that if I had shifted in my sleep I would have fallen to my most likely death.  I opened my eyes and peered down, looking into the pitch dark.  The Them were weird, and I was pretty sure they were trying to fuck with my head, so I wouldn’t have put it past them to have put pillows at the bottom of the pit.  I kept still wondering just how in the hell they had gotten me here – like they had had tightrope walkers to deposit me there, or the rest of the floor was retractable…or the pit wasn’t actually that deep.

I sat up slowly, listening for the plank to creak or just snap.  I padded my pockets, just to have something to do – I could already tell that the Them had removed everything that I could have dropped to gauge the depth of the pit.  Padding my pockets just confirmed that they had even taken the change from Taco Bell.  I was ok with that part, really – I hated carting around change, and jingling and figuring out just how damn far the pit under you goes.  Really annoying.

I began scooting back, trusting my jeans to keep the worst of the splinters from my ass.  After a very long moment I reached the stones that signaled safety.  I rose slowly, and brushed myself off while scanning around the gloom. Darkness there, and not much else.  There was enough light to let me see that the walkway I stood on was about a foot wide, and the walls gleamed with some slick substance.  I reached out to it, but could smell the tang before my fingers made contact.  “Motor oil,” I muttered, “what the hell?”  I took the walkway around the circumference of the pit, keeping part of my gaze on the floor in case they had had the forethought to put some of the oil on the ground where I might have done them some good.

I thought of my old maxim, and looked up.  Nobody ever looks up – one simple fact that ends up being more important than you’d imagine until you correct it.  I knew what I’d see up there – whoever Them had hired to build this place was almost following the synopsis to a “t” – if they had been asleep in English class.  With their headphones on.  And had only read the title.

It was a pendulum.  Of course it was a pendulum.  I could make out the dull shine to the brass, and someone had thoughtfully pointed at least one bulb right at the damned thing so it would catch the blade and give a dramatic reveal to its sharpness.

There was a click about me, and a rhombus of light shot through the gloaming, smacking to a stop on the plank before being displaced by the shape of a human head.  “Fall yet,” asked a voice.  I looked up from the former square of light on the board to its point of origin, watching the head lean in and then begin slowly shifting to let the light hit a few different parts of the board.  “Can’t see a damn thing,” the voice said.  “Paul.  Yo, Paul!  Can we turn on the lights in here?”  Oh, no, I thought, I know that voice.  “No, not in here, in here!  The fucking chamber!  Why not?  Well, why the fuck did you not put better lights in it?  ‘Trying to be more green’? For crying out – you goddamned tree hugger, if you wanted it to be more green you could have put in green bulbs!  This is fucking amateur hour, for fuck’s sake!”

“Hey, Shithead,” I called out.

There was a pause.  Finally the head said, “Fuck.”

“Yeah, I thought it was you.  What they hell are you guys trying to pull?”

“We’re going to make you talk,” Shithead said.

“What?  By putting me on a plank?”

Another long pause.  “It’s all part of the presentation,” Shithead said.  “It’s to break you.  To make you talk.”

I heaved a sigh.  I had a lot of stupid people in my life.  Herb had the common sense of a drowning ant, Amanda had no concept of an inside voice, Nate Turla…shit, it was almost a miracle he could tie his own shoes in a basement without falling down a flight of stairs.  But Shithead, once again, took the cake.  That’s a problem with smart people – if they know they’re smart, they tend to think they’re smarter than they are.  A thought which makes me sigh again because I had gotten picked up at a fucking Taco Bell.  But I shrugged it off.  Sometimes, when your brain won’t brain, it’s at the worst possible moment.

“Talk about what,” I hollered up at him.

“You know,” he said.

“Wait, whoa, don’t go mixing Poe with Kafka, Shithead – either tell me or let me go.”  Turla had given Shithead his nickname, which had been funny, since Turla had been nice to Shithead.  Turla was nice to everyone, though, no matter what he thought of people.  He might have been inane, but he was a good spy.  Shithead, though, had been an easy target – genius intellect mixed with an ego the size of Texas that wouldn’t pop no matter what reality tried to do.

“Start the blade!” he called.  I heard s murmur behind him.  Shithead must have missed it, because his “what” wasn’t a bark of command but an actual question.  I heard him conversing with the off-screen Paul, and the head actually vanished from the window.  Hissing voices and barely controlled rage filtered down.

I leaned back against the wall, hearing the squish of the oil against my back, and muttered “fuck” a few times.  I sat on the walkway, and peered down into the darkness of the pit.  I had to glance up and smile when the words coming out of the window became audible.  “Fine!  Fine!  Turn on the lights in the other room, and when I say so, turn on the motor for that one!”  The head of the Shit one returned to the window.  “Back in a tick!” he said, and the window closed.

Shithead should have known that the darkness wouldn’t bother me.  Or the enclosure.  Or the grease.  Apparently he had forgotten everything he knew about me.  One wall came alive with light, and the stones parted, the round edifice coiling back on itself to reveal another stone wall.

I blinked slowly a few times.  “Oh, very impressive.  An oiled wall cleverly hidden behind another oiled wall?  Genius!  Shithead, you have really hit on something – you’re a Bond villain speech away from failing miserably, so start talking.”  The revealed wall began pealing back.  And there was Turla, engulfed in life, hanging upside down.  Whoever had applied the rope had apparently had a mama bear’s sense of safety, because all I could see were his feet at the top and his head at the bottom, and coils of rope in between.  “Turla,” I asked.

The window opened, and Shithead filled it.  “He can’t hear you yet.”

“He’s awake?”

“Yeah.”  He must have made out my expression.  “I’m shocked, too – I mean, all of the blood had to have gone to his head three days ago but he hasn’t passed out yet.  I think it only really hits him when he’s sleeping.”  The head turned, looking over at Turla.  “That’s the only way he could sleep through his snoring.  Ok, Paul, start it.”

Turla began shifting, moving to his forward and my right.

“This is the best you have?” I asked, watching Turla begin to stir.  He looked like he was saying “weeeeeeeeeeeeee!” but I couldn’t be sure.

“We needed a pendulum.” Shithead said.  “For your torture,” he added helpfully.  I pointed up to the large brass blade.  “Uh…yes, that.  Um…well…”

“Well what,” I prompted him.

“It it only move down like that,” he said, and looked back to Turla’s penduluming form.  “And”

“And you made it too bit,” I said.  I started laughing.

“Hey,” Shithead said.  “Hey!  Hey, look, I didn’t draw up the schematics, you bitch!  I’d have made sure it worked!”  I kept laughing.  “Hey, your friend is about to get his head bashed in!”

And I kept laughing – these were the people we were afraid of?  Supposed to be afraid of?  The conspiracy to end all conspiracies, the long whispered of Them, the They who were behind everything.

Turla was still saying “weeeeeeeee!” as he oscillated back and forth.  I heard something go “ping”, and a deadpanned “Aw, crap,” come from Turla’s cell as he plummeted into the pit under him.  This was followed by an “oof” and a “YOMT!”  Shithead and I looked on in numb silence at the cell.  After a long time, Turla stood up, still decked out in the massive ropes.  “Ouch.  Ouch.”

“Oh, Goddamnit,” Shithead said, and closed the window.

“Hi, Nate,” I said.

Turla looked at the clear wall.  I guess he couldn’t see me through the light.  “Mine was full of pillows,” he said, what was yours filled with?”

“Do you know who I am,” I asked.

“Nah, they put in some sound distortion thing in here, fucks up everyone’s voice.  Oh, your jailer’s name is Shithead, trust me on this.”  He smiled.  Turla rarely had an honest smile, but this one seemed pretty sincere.

“I know,” I said, but decided to not say who I was.  “Just have to make it two more days,” I said.

“Why,” Turla asked.

“Because that’s how the story goes,” I said.  “They’re Them – they have to follow the script.”  I looked up at the pendulum, making sure it was still there.  “As close as they can.”

Turla nodded.  “Well,” he said, “what’s the story?”

“The Pit and the Pendulum,” I said.

Turla mimicked my slow blink.  “Man…Wikipedia and Roger Corman fucked these people up,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.  “It’s…it’s good to see you again.”

“Likewise,” he said, “person behind the mirror with the voice of a MacDonald’s drive through.  Good to see you, too.”

And now…here we are.  Turla has been sleeping on and off for the past day, which is good – he rarely sleeps.  When he’s awake he’s pleasant enough, and doesn’t get frustrated while trying to Houdini his way to freedom.  He said he hopes they didn’t strip him, but then, I have that same hope.  One more day before the Us arrive.  I just hope they follow the script, too – I need a few more moments of useless drama in my life.