The Dead Boy (8 page)

            His
teacher's voice, he remembered. Asking a question during computer time, his
teachers extraordinarily thin finger tapping a logo on the screen. The logo
said 'Google'.

           
I'll
Google it,
thought George.

            His
body fell still and his eyes flickered and rolled back and the locked door and
the rank cell didn't matter any longer.

            He
wandered The Mill once more, sifting through the broken and tortured minds
within its awful walls for a mind that might, perhaps, be willing to listen.

*

Francis
held Ben's hand as they sat on their cot in a rotten cell. His face was white
with pain and she was powerless to help him.

            No
help would come. They had
disappeared
. The world would never find them.
She understood this perfectly well. Whatever was in store for them, there
wasn't any doubt that it didn't have a happy ending. Soldiers don't snatch people
at gunpoint, then confine them in a horrific cell, broken bones ignored, only
to let them go later with a handshake.

            This
wasn't the kind of thing you saw on the news. This was the kind of thing that
news reporters never heard about...if they ever did, Francis was in no doubt
that the reporters, too, would be in there right along with her and Ben.

            She
figured Ben - they'd finally exchanged names, the last time he'd been conscious
- would be pretty much useless for what she needed to do. He was banged up
pretty badly. Broken ribs, leg, probably with a concussion, and that at the
very least.

            Unconscious
now for hours, she wondered if he might even die.

            Whatever
she was going to do, she would have to do alone. 'Whatever' summed it up
neatly. She was in such deep shit. This was the part where the heroine died. She
wasn't immune to bullets. The door wasn't going to spring open to reveal some
swarthy adventurer. There were no windows, no secret passages, no loose bricks.
On the way to the cell, everyone they'd passed had been armed with at least a
pistol, if not a rifle, too. Dark eyes, the lot of them. Like they'd killed
before and were entirely comfortable with it. These were not ordinary soldiers.
This was not an army installation. This was not a
game
.

            She'd
never met a killer until the night before.

           
Must
be, what...twenty-four hours now?

            No
way to tell. But she figured she'd been around killers for that long at least.
Once, worried about the gym and yoghurt and granola bars. Now, surrounded by
death and waiting for it to knock on a locked door.

           
We're
fucked
, she thought.

            Another
thought popped into her head, though, and this thought wasn't hers.

           
Help
me
.

            Francis,
startled, stared around the stark cell, imagining there was someone with them.

            But
no.

            She
looked around the walls, the ceiling. Maybe there were speakers. Maybe this was
all some kind of experiment, like a CIA thing, hallucinations, psychological
warfare...

           
No.

            She
shook that thought away, because that was easy, a lie, and she didn't want
false comfort. At the end of this, there wasn't going to be a form to sign, or
a questionnaire.

           
You
know this doesn't end like that.

            'Ben,'
she said, softly at first. He didn't want to wake up. She forced the issue and
pulled both eyes open.

            'What?'
he said. Groggy voiced, and his face only a couple of shades off pure white.

            The
thought, or whisper, or voice, whatever it was, came again.
Help.

             'You
hear anything?'

            'Like
what?'

            'Listen,
Ben. Shh, and listen.'

           
Help
me.

            'There.
You hear that?'

            He
shook his head very slowly, and closed his eyes again.

           
Great,
thought Francis. 

            But
the voice in her head didn't want to be still.

           
HELP
ME.

            'Fuck!'
she said. She slammed her palms over her ears to block out the words - it was
deafening. But it wasn't from
outside.

            A
trickle of blood ran from her nose.

            'What?'
said Ben, blinking wildly, like he was scared, but at least more awake than he
had been for hours. 'Your nose...you're bleeding...Francis?'

            Francis
couldn't tell him right then. The not-so-little voice spoke, and she found
herself listening...except she knew she wasn't exactly
listening
.
Someone was dialling her internal number.

            'Shut
up,' she told him. 'Let me listen.'

            The
voice belonged to a boy, for sure. She listened and muttered her replies, but
it was her thoughts that spoke to the boy, not her words.

            Ben
said nothing. After a few moments, she wasn't aware he was with her at all.

            No
sight, or vision, but pure sound. Her eyes drifted closed, and there he was,
entirely in her mind and her hearing, as though she wasn't in a filthy cell at
all, but on a couch somewhere, maybe, with good headphones and blissful, cool,
dark.

            A
child, only, but the owner of the voice in her head had the confidence and surety
of an adult.

            And
she liked what the kid said, too.

           
Is
this real? Is anything that happened since yesterday real?

            She
imagined that thought was her own, but the child picked up on that, too.

           
If
it is just a dream, Miss...does it matter?

            The
kid made a hell of a lot of sense. If she listened, maybe they'd get out alive.
Maybe they'd die trying, but then, they were going to die anyway. This was life
or death.

            A
kid speaking in her head was the least of her worries, and if the whole thing
was just in her head, then it was a very persuasive hallucination.

           
Only
one way to find out for sure,
said the child.
In a minute, two soldiers
outside your door are going to come in and shoot you and the man.

           
'Shit,' said
Francis, this time out loud.

            'What?'
said Ben, pulling her some way back to the room. 'Francis...Jesus...talk to
me.'

           
She glanced at the
policeman. He could barely move. He had blood on his chin. She didn't remember
him having blood there before. She thought maybe it was from inside him.

            The
kid was talking, though, and she wanted to listen to the child more than she
wanted to be in the cell.

           
I
can't stop them,
she thought back to the boy.
I'm on my own.

           
You
have to,
came the reply.
I'll show you how.

            The
door opened in her head half a second before it happened for real. Francis saw
everything play out and did it just like the images in her head. Acting, but
for real. Fuck up her mark and she'd die for real, too.

           
Move
to the back of the door.

            Francis
moved, quickly, from the bed, just like the kid told her, as the first man
entered. Ben looked up, confused. The guard expected two prisoners and only saw
one. There was nowhere else the woman could hide.

           
Push
the door. Hard as...

            She
threw her whole weight hard and fast against the door. The door hit the hand
holding the gun - a sharp wooden edge against bare knuckles.

           
Duck.

            She
ducked as the second guard pushed through the doorway and fired wildly toward
her. The shot deafened her, but she listened to a voice that was inside, not
out.

            The
first man through the door had dropped his pistol when the door smashed his
knuckles. He recovered quickly, slammed the door back at her, trying to push
her away so he could pick up the weapon at his feet. But, low now, she was
closer to the gun.

           
Pick
it up.

            She
did, partly following instructions, partly moving on her own, intuitively.

           
KICKSTANDSHOOTLOWSHOOTHIGH.

            She
did all four things in almost perfect time with the words in her head. Her foot
caught the one with the broken knuckles at the juncture of thigh and hip. She
stood and fired low, then recoil she hadn't expected send her second shot
higher. Two shells hit the floor. The guards were still standing, but only
because each propped the other up in the doorway. One shot somewhere important
in the chest, dead instantly. The guard whose gun she held wouldn't need it
back. He wasn't dead, but made a horrible sound, like a groan and a plea in one.

            Francis
didn't need a voice in her head to tell her she needed to toughen up. Finish it
now, or she might as well shoot herself and Ben both right here.

            Wincing,
almost apologetic, she fired a third bullet into the groaning man's forehead.

            There
was no time to freak out. Blood hit the wall, splashed on the back of her hand
and the top of the gun (
slide
, she thought). Her ears rang, but she
didn't need to hear anything
outside
. She'd just fired a gun in their
room. The sound would have travelled. Other soldiers would hear. They'd have
guns and be a damn sight better with theirs than she was with hers.

           
MOVE
NOW.

            Francis'
nose steadily dripped blood and her eyes glazed. She thought, distantly, that
maybe the voice wasn't just talking to her, but controlling her, too...

            But
if the owner of the voice could save them, she would let him.

           
TAKE
THE SOLDIER'S KEYS. SAVE ME.

            Please.

            She
took the keys and the man's pistol with her, too. Ben spoke, saying something,
but any sound outside faded away, everything blocked but that voice. Ben shook,
pale, so weak he could barely stand, and then only on one leg. She dragged him
up and out.

           
Let
the voice lead,
she thought.

            She
took one last glance at the soldiers on the floor, dead because of her, but
because of the voice, too.

           
Let
him lead, and live.

           
Ben's didn't
seem to be able to focus. If he didn't get help, he was going to die. No doubt
about that. With the boy in her head, maybe they could all get free. Either
way, it wasn't like anyone was offering better options.

*

MISS
- THERE'S SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO SEE.

           
Don't
shout
, she thought back to the voice in her head.
Whatever you're doing,
I feel like my head's going to explode.

           
SORRY.
Sorry. I'm eight. Better?

           
Better
,
thought Francis.

           
Stop
just here.

           
Kid's
got some balls
, she thought on reflex.

           
Thanks
,
he thought back at her, though she hadn't meant to communicate that last part.
She smiled, even though she was afraid. Sweat poured down the small of her back
and between her breasts, from both fear and half-dragging Ben along. Ben tried
to take some of the weight from her. The pain must have been awful - his leg
broken so badly the bone jutted into the trousers of his filthy uniform. Blood
ran from his lips and down his chin now, probably, she thought, from a lung.
His breath came in ragged gasps even though she had almost all of his weight.
He'd hardly said a word since they'd got out of the cell. Dragging a man with
just the one leg wasn't something she was used to, or ever wanted to be.

            'Ben?
You coping?'

            His
only reply was a curt nod.

            She
almost wished he would offer to stay behind.

           
Here,
said the kid.

            Francis
and Ben halted before a wide window looking into what was once maybe a
maternity ward - the room where the babies were kept in incubators. Ben paled,
looked like he was about to puke. Francis' vision wavered, too. But while Ben
looked away, she forced herself to look. To fill up on it, so the next time she
pulled the trigger she wouldn't flinch.