Paintshark (26 page)

Tettlow still clutched his birthday cake and stood rooted to the spot, his eyes blinking madly in the night, Leedon made a grab at him, his voice dripped in urgency. “COME ON, TETTLOW, MOVE!!”

They sprinted to the bottom of the rock face between the half-platform and started to climb up the ladders fixed to the rocks to reach home, Tettlow lagged behind has he held his birthday cake in one arm. Leedon climbed ahead and roared over his shoulder to Tettlow, “DROP IT! DROP THE CAKE AND MOVE IT!”

Tettlow whimpered, “It’s my birthday, I can’t, don’t let them get me.”

Leedon’s voice was more angry than desperate. “THEN CLIMB! DON’T LOOK DOWN, DON’T LOOK DOWN, CLIMB AS FAST AS YOU CAN!”

Tettlow didn’t look back, he just climbed behind Leedon on the ladder opposite him, getting the hang of climbing with one hand faster than he’d thought, if he’d had looked back he would have seen the platform full of vines snaking their way across and heading to the rock face where the two men made desperate their escape, both of them were almost at the top and it was Leedon who felt the temptation to look behind him and wished with all his heart he hadn’t. The Vines were scaling the rocks, twisting and turning past and over ever jagged edge of the cliff, he didn’t have far to climb and now his voice was desperate has he looked over to his remaining companion. “WE’RE ALMOST THERE, TETTLOW.”

The skeletally thin body of Tettlow responded by clutching his cake tighter, making some sponge fall on to the pursuing plants. A tremor of relief shuddered through Leedon’s body as he hauled himself over the top of the half-platform, rolling himself over to the other ladder he waited for his friend to play catch-up, cursing him for still having the cake in his arms, finally he grabbed the remaining arm as Tettlow’s head had passed the penultimate rung of the ladder and hauled him to safety and looked him in the eyes to calm him down.

“Look at me, Tettlow.” Tettlow looked behind him. “Look at me!” He did this time, head shivering. “We’re going to have to make a break for it now, ok?” The birthday boy nodded. “Ok on three…now!!”

The two men sprinted to the entrance doors and Tettlow realised that he had found climbing with a cake in one hand easier than running with a cake in one hand, as he tripped and fell but managing to turn at the last moment so as not to damage his cake, the cake still in its baking tin fell to the ground and to Tettlow’s horror began to roll away to the side of him. Leedon heard a despairing groan and looked behind and saw the slim figure of Tettlow chasing after his cake whilst the vines bore down on him, with focused ferocity Leedon screamed at him. “LEAVE IT! LET IT GO!”

But his shouts were wasted on the determined chef as now he criss-crossed his legs and gave chase to Tettlow, who was bending down to collect the cake, seamlessly oblivious to the onslaught of killer vines behind him, standing up he felt a sudden sharp tug on his right arm.

“Time to go now.” It was Leedon, pulling at his sleeve and this time Tettlow listened to him, with the cake safely back in hand he followed Leedon to the entrance doors to the block and for the first time he could actually hear the sounds of the slithering vines on his tail.

“LET US IN!” shouted Tettlow which was the first time he’d shown any encouragement for escape which briefly impressed Leedon, they both banged on the huge reinforced doors expecting the prisoner on door duty to open it.

Relief hit them hard when they could just about hear a voice behind the door and the faints sounds of scratching as the bolts were being pulled back, bent over double, and panting heavily, Leedon gave a huge smile to his friend, but Tettlow didn’t smile back, he just stared at Leedon who twitched a bit as if someone had just pricked him with a fine needle. He didn’t move from that spot, just trembled slightly as the unseen vine slithered up his leg, around his waist and began to squeeze.

Leedon’s nose began to bleed and he even had time to wipe it before the realisation of his imminent demise kicked in, he smiled whilst shivering to Tettlow who had sunk to the ground with his back against the wall, clutching his cake and shaking with fear.

“Hap pi bur day,” were the final words that came from Leedon’s mouth, as the huge door finally was opened and Tettlow fell in, all the prisoner guard at the door saw was Leedon being put to death by the vines, but he didn’t scream, not once, the others did so for him.

Elias sat in the canteen alone, it was quite late at night but the remaining member of the catering staff on duty had fixed him something to eat before he left the kitchen, it had been a while since Elias had eaten using utensils, twelve months apparently.

The wooden cup at the side of the plate contained some sort of home-made alcohol, another treat from the chef.

He had been staring at the food on his plate for so long that it had gone cold and that was when he decided to eat, slowly at first and then shovelling in the remnants and mopping up the gravy with what passed for bread in these parts, he hadn’t even noticed Nayan sidle up next to him as he finished.

“I’ll give the cook your compliments,” he chuckled.

Elias took a deep breath but Nayan spoke quickly again. “Couldn’t sleep? It takes some getting used to on your first few weeks.”

Elias answered with ice in his voice. “I don’t want to ‘get used’ to it.”

He turned to Nayan but not looking in his eyes, the floor did for now. “You forget, I have been here longer than a few weeks…one year I’ve been here, seems like only yesterday.”

He went back to picking at his plate, and took a long swig from the cup. “And you know what a lousy day yesterday was.”

Nayan put a comforting hand on Elias’s shoulder, but Elias failed to register the gesture.

“I am leaving this prison, Nayan, and you’re not going to stop me.”

Nayan pulled his hand away and Elias looked him in the eyes for the first time and noticed the scars on Nayan’s face. It was a handsome face and the scars didn’t really change that, but it seemed that his eyes had borne witness to too much death and despair, whether it was in the prison or in his past life as a security guard for Big Man. It made Elias wonder, and the sound of Nayan’s voice bought him out of his thinking.

“I am not here to stop you, Elias, I am not pointing out that you cannot leave this prison, I’m saying that you may not want to leave this prison.”

Elias’s body tensed as Nayan continued. “The vines will put pay to that, look around you, most of these people are teachers who were persecuted for doing the job they love, they’ve had their schools taken away from them, their jobs stripped and for what? Just to provide fodder for some gratuitous violent game show? So now they’ve been thrown into a prison miles away from all the reality TV nonsense, here, they can read, write, sing, write poetry, write music, act on the stage, dance in our theatres, be the people they trained to be, be the people they wanted to be, this is their utopia, here they can breathe. Why would they leave? There’s nothing back there for them now, try to escape and get attacked by killer vines, or stay here in a new paradise? They would rather study the arts than succumb to a violent and needless death from the vines that fill the earth below.”

Elias wasn’t in the slightest bit interested. “Then every teacher here is a coward?”

Nayan began to raise his voice. “It seems all you care about is yourself and your own problems, Mr Glaucas, this is a prison with cellmates…friends who are in the same situation as you, who think like you, doing everyday things.”

Elias snapped. “STANDING UP TO A BULLY AND NOT BEING LIKE EVERYONE ELSE PUT ME HERE AND MAY HAVE GOT SOME OF MY STUDENTS KILLED…nothing scares me anymore, I’m not afraid…I just want to see my daughter.”

Nayan whispered, “We all have something that scares us; a man without fear is a ghost, Elias, is that how you want to end up?”

“I died one year ago, Nayan, so you save your speeches for someone who cares, I don’t want to hear it.”

Nayan got up to leave. “I’m sorry you feel this way, Elias, maybe you’ll feel differently in the morning…you must have faith.”

Elias finished what was in his cup and slammed it hard on to the table. “What’s the point of having faith if you’re too afraid to use it?”

As Nayan walked through the corridors back to his quarters, an out of breath Faris ran into him and for once the relieved and out of sorts comedian was serious.

“I think we have a problem,” was all he said and that was enough to make Nayan follow.

Elias opened his eyes and looked around; he was tired of having to remember where he was every time he woke up but this time came quicker than the last, although a slice of panic flashed through him as he thought he may have had been asleep again for another ten years and he didn’t recognise this room he was in. He leapt out of bed and his head buzzed with the effects of a hangover and he wore his prison outfit and not his hospital robes, something didn’t add up and beginning with a stumble through a door, Elias turned it in to a run.

Most of the prisoners on Section One were gathered in one of the assembly halls; there was a huge window looking out to the other prison sections separated by giant sized stilts.

There wasn’t much to see as it was still dark outside and the assembly hall was flooded with artificial light.

Nayan, Jago and the prison officer, Dandridge, in close company looked out of the window and were pointing at spots outside while the other prisoners were mumbling between themselves, the mumbling increased as Elias entered the room. Just by chance Dandridge turned around and noticed him and tapped Nayan on the shoulder with his eyes locked on Elias.

The teacher walked through the assembly room of prisoners, some he recognised from his stay at the Network’s pleasure and he gave a nod to them, his eyes focused on an empty cake tin on a table with what seemed to be bits of chocolate scattered around it, on the same table sat Faris, Aubrey and the young man, Bevin.

Elias was truly glad to see them, he was upset the last time he saw his ex-cellmates in the hospital ward when they came to visit and he wanted to make sure there were no hard feelings even though he knew his new form of incarceration had nothing to do with them, but he wanted to show willing.

Elias intended to walk straight up to Nayan to see what the fuss was, but thought it was a little to rude to waltz right up to this ‘leader’ when he hardly knew the man, so he pulled up a chair and sat opposite Aubrey who greeted him warmly but after all these years was still unimpressed with most of the company he now kept.

“I say, look at all these ruffians, it’s an absolute shower!”

Elias’s weak smile broadened as he rubbed his face and listened to Aubrey’s upper class rant, he eventually found a gap and spoke.

“So what did I miss?”

“The toilet I think,” said Faris, mockingly holding his nose, Elias kept up with the smiling as he reached over and examined the cake tin. “Whose is this?”

Bevin eagerly answered as if he was still at school and Mr Glaucas was testing him on an end of term question. “Apparently word is that a few guys from Section Two went out earlier tonight to–”

Nayan cleared his throat ceremoniously and everybody stopped talking, even Bevin begrudgingly stopped, annoyed as he wanted desperately to tell his tale. Elias on the other hand was amazed at the respect Nayan had from his fellow prisoners.

“Listen, my brothers, I’m not going to lie to you and pretend that everything is alright…I’ve got too much respect for you than that, the truth of the matter is everything isn’t alright, we have a monumental problem and I don’t know what we can do about it. Three prisoners…” he corrected himself, “Three brothers from Section Two went out late last night after the curfew and only one returned, the other two were attacked and killed.”

The room went from steady silence in to a chorus of chatter, Nayan waited for a while before continuing. “They were killed, we think on the upper-half platform on Section Two.”

As most of the room were still talking amongst themselves, Elias asked a question, “Killed by what?”

Nayan began to pace for a while and then stopped dead in his tracks. “They were killed by vines.”

Shouting gripped the room as prisoners sprung to their feet and for the first time hurled abuse at Nayan.

“YOU HAD BETTER CUT THE CRAP, NAYAN,” some yelled.

“WE DON’T WANT TO HEAR THAT STUFF,” said another.

Both Dandridge and Nayan could understand their anger and subsequent terror, for years the prisoners of Gommerstall, no matter what kind of Incarceration their prison life was to be, whether they were being frozen in stasis or serving their sentence naturally they all knew if that they stayed of the ground and kept themselves in the stilted prisons, than they would be safe, safe from the creeping horrors that lived under the ground which had a thing for human flesh.

The vines could not scale the walls and that was what everybody thought would keep them safe from harm, but it seems those days were well and truly over.

Dandridge pulled Nayan aside and whispered to him. “Is there a chance that Tettlow is lying to us?”

Nayan shook his head firmly. “Tettlow isn’t a murderer; he doesn’t have the attention span to kill anybody and besides,” his voice grew to include the other inmates, “I have something to show you, could you please all gather around the window, my brothers, I have something to show you, I didn’t want to show you earlier as I didn’t want to freak you out.”

He turned back round to Dandridge. “And that includes you too, my friend, I didn’t turn on the outside spotlights under Section Two until everybody was here and ready.”

The big man paused as little inmates strained behind tall ones as everybody was vying for spaces to see what the big fuss was about. Nayan waved to a prisoner on the door to the assembly hall with what seemed to be pre-meditated instructions, the inmate shot off down a corridor as the most of the inmates never even noticed he’d gone, a few moments passed as the runner came back into the room and bowed his head to Nayan, whatever the instructions were for the task, they had been completed