I was screaming.
I don’t know for how long I was screaming, or at what point I would stop screaming. Maybe I had been screaming for decades. Maybe centuries. Maybe my entire life up to this point has been one big, long scream of pain and fear and anger, stemming from my inability to adjust or confine myself within the walls that are identified as “a decent life.”
Who . . . are you?
Those words. Those goddamn words. Those words that echo and resonate even now within my skull, pounding away at my brainstem as though they were a drill pushing through my concrete head. I was a statue, one of those residents of Ellis twisted and gnarled from pain and suffering.
And those awful words were the going to break me.
I stopped screaming and opened my eyes.
I could remember coming here. The boys from security had picked me up off the floor and dragged me here from the chamber with the Dan-Howard machine. Tom and Tom, good lads. I had hired them to be inconspicuous and to keep the secrets of this place to themselves, and they excelled at both. Big Tom lived in a small trailer outside of town and usually wore wife beaters with coffee and liquor stains on the chest. Little Tom always dressed like it was about thirty degrees colder than it was, and probably had a nice girlfriend from out of state.
Anyway, Tom and Tom had pulled me down the hallway towards the isolation wing, where we generally keep people who needed a short time-out after a tantrum. Usually, it was full-- tensions run high in a secret pseudo-government facility-- but “luckily” they had an extra cell perfect to keep the boss while his entire world was crumbling around him.
It wasn’t much to look at. White walls and floors like the rest of the facility, and fluorescent lights shining down on the small cot and toilet in the room-- both white, again.
I really do wonder how long I’ve been here for.
Time moved slowly in Ertragen. We kept few windows for the sake of keeping our work as private as possible, except obviously things leak out now and again. The boy at the diner-- from what felt like a lifetime ago-- was proof of that. The only way to tell time from inside the complex was from looking at a clock and there weren’t any within view of my tiny cell.
Even though I had light shining from the lights above me, it was like being buried alive in this room, except I knew I was on the fourteenth floor of the complex. If somehow I was able to dig through the concrete and steel mass behind me in a desperate attempt to escape I would find myself looking out over evergreens and rolling hills with nowhere to go but down.
“Hey, Tom? You there?”
Click, click, click. The sound of Little Tom’s leather black loafers clicking against the white tile that lined the hallway.
“Yeah, boss? What can we do for ya?”
“I was wondering if I could get something to eat?”
“Sure thing, boss. We just gotta ask the Man first.”
I figured that that would be the case, and so I smiled and nodded. Maybe I’d luck out and this would mean I wouldn’t have to face that awful man myself. All I wanted was some bread, after all.
Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out exactly as I had planned because--after what felt like an eternity-- The Man from Nagai was standing at the door of my cell with a BLT sandwich and a bag of salted chips.
“How are you feeling, Mr. Benton?”
“I’m okay.”
The man nodded and handed me the food through the slot in the door. I sat on the edge of the bed and dug in, while he opened the door, dragged a chair in, and sat across from me.
“How is the sandwich?”
“Not bad. Needs an extra couple pieces of bacon, though.”
The man sat back and stared at me as I ate my meal. His eyes stared deep into my gut, making it turn even as I enjoyed the meal as best I could. Finally, I asked, “Why are you here?”
“I thought that I would check on you, Mr. Benton.”
“No, why are you here?”
Silence. As expected, there was no way this man would answer such a direct question. It would be out of character for him to tell me anything about his motives, the same as it would be out of character for me not to ask.
“How’s Lily?” I asked, knowing that I would get no further asking the Man of Nagai anything that didn’t directly concern myself and my personal life.
“Your wife is fine.”
“Is she?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
Silence, again. The only sound in the sector was the whir of the air conditioning and the sound of Little Tom watching an old football game down the hall. I could feel my fists clench-- nearly involuntarily-- and the blood in my veins start to pulse. Why won’t he tell me where Lily is?
“Where is she?” I asked again and still received deafening silence as an answer. Just that blank stare as the man sat looking at me. Even now those eyes scared me, even now he put his talons into my soul and drew blood.
But this was different. He had crossed a line, and I thought even he knew it.
“Where is she?”
“She’s safe,” he responded immediately, “Your wife is safe, Mr. Benton.”
I nodded and sat back, satisfied. It felt like a small victory-- the first of many, I hoped-- against an overwhelming force. I had finally gotten an answer from him. After all this time, he had finally answered a question. She’s safe.
I finished my sandwich, still sitting in silence with the Man from Nagai, when I heard the click, click, click that signified that Little Tom was walking down the hall. After what felt like an eternity, he stood at the doorway.
“Boss?”
“Hmm?”
“If you’re feeling better, I think the order of hamburger has arrived in the loading bay. Perhaps you and . . . “ he looked at the man and drew a bit of air, unsure what to call him either “your friend might want to go meet them? You know, show them around the place?”
“Thanks, Tom,” I said, not looking at him, “I’ll head over there in a few minutes for the inspection. Could you go check on Jared in cell 2C and Grant in cell F17 for me?”
Tom looked at me, confused for a moment before smiling. “Yes, boss, right away.” He turned and walked away. Click, click, click.
He may be a bit dull, but he was able to take the hint.
I stood up and stretched, and the man seemingly copied me. After we had both gotten whatever knots were in our bones unknotted, I turned to face him.
“So . . . uh . . . will you let me out?”
The Man from Nagai smiled. Cold knives pierced my chest and stomach and shivers went up and down my spine. I had seen Hell once, and this was even worse.
“Why don’t we take a walk, Mr. Benton? I have something to show you. And I think you deserve some answers.”
I knew-- instinctively I knew-- that, although this was what I had begged and prayed for since I started here, that I wouldn’t want to hear the Man from Nagai’s answers. That they would be even more drills against my stone corpse, but this time hitting my heart and piercing my soul and shattering my arms and legs rather than just drilling into my useless mind.
And, suddenly, I was back to fear and doubt.
“A-answers?”
“Why, yes, Mr. Benton. Answers about your father,” the man said, moving towards the door of the cell.
“Mah- mah- my-my father?” I stammered, hardly believing him.
“Yes, your father. And his work. And your work.” The man had moved out of the cell and shut the door behind him.
I forced a smile, “H-How am I going to go with you if you l-lock me in here?”
“The door has always been unlocked, Mr. Benton. You just had to step through it.”
With that, the Man from Nagai walked down the hall, not turning back to see if I was truly following him. I cautiously opened the door of my cell and, like a dog obediently following its master, started after him.
