Ten – part 18.

‘Happy Christmas.’ The Bearded Man has a brightly wrapped present under one arm, silver bow and all. He passes it to me. I drop it on the floor. ‘Open it.’ I don’t move. He glides over the room in an instant, drops his bulk on my outstretched arm and places his knife across the second knuckle of my small finger. ‘I’ll not ask twice.’ I nod and he gets up.

I take the parcel and open it. Inside is an old Barrat’s shoe box. I pull off the lid. Lying inside is small calendar courtesy of the distillery.

‘So you know the date.’ He smiles as he says it.

***

I’m sick. Burning up sick. My head is grinding out a headache that threatens to open up my skull and my guts are a toxic acid bath. Skin hot to the touch I shiver like a bike on a cobbled street. The mound of aspirin and five two litre bottles of water left for me are all gone.

I want to die.

***

The fever has gone. I’ve lost more weight and the Bearded Man isn’t happy. ‘You need to eat.’ I feel so far away from eating.

‘You’ve lost too much weight.’

I look at him. So what? ‘I…’ It’s the first word I’ve uttered in months. The Bearded Man does his ghost move trick and pain screams up my arm as the top of my small finger on my left hand is removed with a practiced slice of his knife.

Ten – part 17.

When the Bearded Man next appears he is carrying a set of bathroom scales under his arm. ‘Stand on these,’ he orders.

I struggle to my feet and stand on them. Two stone down on my fighting weight. I slump back to the floor.

‘Too much weight loss.’ With these he retreats through the door and returns with a half dozen bags of food. ‘Eat all of this by the time I come back or I slice one of your fingers off.’

Then he’s gone. I split open the bags and find a mix of junk food and soft drinks. You could feed the Broons for a week on the contents. I’m not hungry but the thought of losing a finger forces me to dig into the first sandwich pack.

Three days and the food is gone. I’m bloated and the bucket under the stool is overflowing. The Bearded Man returns with the scales. ‘On again.’

I feel my stomach wobble as I stand.

‘Better,’ he says. He looks at the bucket. ‘I’m not emptying that. Make a hole in the floor and bury it. He leaves two more bags of food and drink, crinkling his nose at the smell. ‘Your doing well.’ Then he’s gone.

It takes me a good few hours to dig out a hole in the corner with my bare hands, deep enough to take the bucket’s contents. I drag it over to the hole. Spilling some of it.

I wretch as I tip it in.

Ten – part 16.

A single window, high up, has an old curtain nailed across it. It sheds light on a second door. There is a room beyond this one but the door is locked. My clothes are rotting upon me and I spend most of the time lying in a ball. Sleep my only escape. I crave sleep and from somewhere deep inside I crave a far longer and more permanent sleep. The tools are lying around. Shards of glass. Enough to slice skin. I’ve piled them into one corner and covered them with dirt. They could be weapons against the Bearded Man or they could be my get out of jail free card.

Outside the planet is going into deep freeze. The blanket does the bare minimum to stop me freezing. I have dug a small pit and pull the earth over me at night.

Apart from the Bearded Man there’s no sign of a functioning world beyond.  No one comes along to check the cellar. Thinking back to the night I was brought here it can’t be more than a hundred steps back to the distillery road. A hundred small steps to freedom.

The next time the Bearded Man appears there’s snow on his shoes. He has a bundle in his arms and throws down a thick sleeping bag that needs washed. I crawl in. Silent. He drops a dozen Mars Bars and four two litre bottles of water on the floor. ‘This needs to last you a week,’ he says.

Ten – part 15.

Night and day no longer matter. They mean nothing. Time is a concept. Not a reality. I was released from the manacles and stocks at some point. My arms and legs flopping to the ground. An eternity before they began to respond.

When they started to work I crawled to the door and worked at the wood and handle but it is carved from a solid oak tree and the bolts, hinges and lock are industrial.

Every day I listen for sounds outside but only wind, rain and animals keep me company. Where in the hell is everyone?

Each time the Bearded Man appears he has a plastic bag of drink and food. When he freed me from the wall there were two bags. Stuffed with snack food and pop.

He clears the soil bucket when he remembers but the smell in the room must be painful. I’m immune. A filthy blanket I found in the corner keeps some of the cold out but the temperature drops by the day and the light around the door is present for shorter and shorter periods.

I tried shouting one day. Breaking the rule. I was still shouting when the Bearded Man walked in. He pushed me to the floor and used his knife to carve a small slice out of my shoulder. Standing up he looked down on me, eyes burning. ‘I told you no noise. Make another squeak and I’ll remove your manhood. Understand.’

Since then I’ve played the silent monk.

Always nice when you get sent a picture of someone reading your book. The fact he’s a great friend is even better – trust me your best friends can be your biggest critics. Thanks Andy.

Ten – part 14.

In the Bearded Man’s other hand is a plastic bag from the Co Op. He drops pulls a baseball cap. From the bag.  The San Francisco emblem is fading on the front. Sitting on top of it is a plastic holder. We are in American bleacher world. The holder will take two cans of beer and curly straws meet at the peak and drop down waiting for a mouth to grab them. He rams the cap on my head. Removes a can of coke. Pops the ring pull and places the can in the holder above me. He shoves the straw into my mouth and I suck like a baby on their first bottle. I drain the can in seconds. The Bearded Man pulls a sandwich pack from the bag and splits the cellophane.  He tears off a chuck and pushes it into my mouth. I chew. He feeds me the rest of the contents, chicken salad, in stages.

‘When you learn to behave you can feed yourself.’ His voice has lost the edge from the night before.

‘For f…’

The knife is at my throat. The speed of his movement ghost like. He nicks the skin on my neck. ‘Did I say you could talk?’ I don’t move. He lifts the knife away.

‘The rules are simple. No noise and you live. Noise and you die. Understand?’

I nod.

‘Good.’

He cracks another Coke and rams it home. ‘Take it easy on that one. I may be gone sometime.’

Ten – part 13.

I’m seated on a stool and it feels like there is a hole in the middle of it. My trousers are round my ankles and both feet are fixed to the floor. Cold wood against my buttocks and feet. I struggle to move but I’m fixed tight. In the dim light supplied by the cracks in the door I inspect the fixings that hold me in place.  Ancient manacles, from your best Hammer House of Horror movie, wrap round my wrist and are held on the damp, stone wall by rusting chains. My feet sit in stocks held shut by a brass padlock and fixed to the floor with bread roll sized bolts. I don’t have to figure hard why I’m sitting on a stool with hole and my pants at my ankles. I struggle against the restraints but they are rock solid.

My mouth is dry. A dusty carpet. Sucked of moisture. I try to shout out but the noise is an ant’s fart. My tongue roots around for liquid but swollen and spilt it finds none. My body’s desire for water doesn’t seem to stop it needing to vent some. My gut is drum tight and I’m fit to burst. I try to hold on but after twenty minutes I let rip and torrent bounces of metal beneath me.

For a moment the relief is wonderful and then the door swings open and the Bearded Man walks in. This time he has a hunting knife in his hand.

Ten – part 12.

I yank my fingers clear and something scuttles away. A mouse? Rat? I keep my hands off the ground. I want to shout out but not yet. Not quite yet. I need the Bearded Man to be gone. I count to a thousand in my head and decide that is no where near enough. I pick a random figure. Two thousand three hundred and forty seven. After that I’ll shout myself hoarse. But off course I don’t. I’m too scared.

At some point I feel my eyes close and I fight it. Sleeping with rats waiting to gnaw my eyes out is not a good agenda item.

An hour later my eyes close and my head drops for the last time.

I’m gone.

***

I wake up as a hand grabs my face. A wet cloth is slapped over my mouth. A sickly sweet smell engulfs me. I lash out and my head is pushed down – scrubbing in the dirt. I feel woozy and twist my head. I see the door. Light beyond. Framing the Bearded Man’s bulk as he presses the clawing cloth to my lips. Gasping I helter skelter my way down to unconsciousness.

***

As I rise from the darkness I feel like my meager dinner is coming back. I try to throw my hand to my mouth to catch it but it doesn’t want to move. I’m confused. Unsure. My arm is pinned. Both are. Splayed out like Christ on the cross. I’m starfished against the wall.

Ten – part 11.

Total darkness isn’t something that many sighted people deal with well. A cosy bed in a dark room is one thing. Being thrown into a cellar is another. The absence of light plays tricks as the cones and rods in my eye sockets play fireworks. I slither my foot through the dirt and draw back as my toe catches something sharp. I decide to squat down. Blood seeps down my cheek and the broken tooth will start to bitch soon.

I clear a space in the debris of the floor as best I can and cross my legs. Thinking is the order of the day but none of this makes sense. Where in the hell are the workers in the distillery? Who leaves a stranger asleep in a strange place? Kidnapped at gunpoint for walking in the wrong field. Where’s the sense? Where’s the good reason? I breathe deep. Filling the bottom of my lungs. Inflating them until my chest moans and curses. Hold it. Let go slowly and try and calm my over-clocked heart.

I open my mouth and let my jaw hang. Someone once told me it improves your hearing. The wind outside is picking up but the sounds is muffled. Like a sound through a thick dish cloth. A drip snips at stone somewhere. Other than that the world is dead.

I dig my fingers into the earth and rub it in my palm. Wet. Gritty. I extend my arm to explore further.

Something touches my fingers.

Ten – part 10.

It’s amazing what a loaded 12 bore can do to make you overcome a gubbed ankle. My pace is dictated by the pressure of the barrels. Drilling into my skin. The Bearded Man is in a hurry and there will be a dance floor full of bruises around my spine to deal with if I get through this. He coughs. ‘To the right.’

‘I can’t see.’

‘You don’t need to see – just walk.’

My feet are turning to blocks as the lack of shoes sucks the heat into the cobbles below.  I want to inch forward but the Bearded Man is urging me to take up one hundred metre pace. My toe takes a brick wall full on and I shout out.

‘Shut up and work your way to the left.’

I grab at the stone wall and Marcel Marceau my way along the brickwork. My hand hits a right angle and I stop. ‘Keep going. Follow the wall.’ The Bearded Man has done this before.

Four turns later and I feel like a blind mouse in a maze. My hand hits wood. I hesitate. ‘Take another three steps and stop.’ I obey and with a click a lock is thrown. ‘Inside.’

‘Look…’

The barrel of the gun burst my cheek open and shatters a crown I’ve need seeing to for a while. ‘

‘IN. NOW.’

I stagger through the doorway and feel cold earth beneath my feet. A shove in the back and the door is slammed shut.