THE VILLAGE
Chapter
7
The Forgotten
My biggest fear in life is to be forgotten." - Evita Perón
Hotchner needed to see the photograph but it was under his straw and he was not able to move now. He reached out his left arm towards it but couldn't reach.
Help me – I need to see the picture – I need to prove that there is something outside of this place – I need to prove that Spencer exists somewhere......
Hotchner started to cry
-0-0-0-
At last it was dark outside. Spencer was desperate to get into the building and get Hotch out of there. He couldn't believe what the women had told him. Hotch was officially dead, so they could mistreat him as they wished. He wasn't even sure he was still alive..........
'We can go now.' Julia said. 'We can get him.'
'Aaron.' Spencer said. 'He is called Aaron Hotchner. We call him Hotch.'
'Let us go then!' Julia handed Spencer some keys. 'I think one of these fit.' she said.
Julia and Morag watched as Reid tried all the keys in the lock. The fifth one he tried turned smoothly and the bolt slid silently back.
'We're in!' he whispered. The women ran over to him, and the three entered.
They were in a large empty room about twenty feet square. A man was sleeping in the opposite corner of the room. In the centre of the floor was a grating, and above that was a burning torch. Reid crept up to the sleeping jailer and pistol whipped him.
He stayed asleep.
He took the torch from its sconce and held it to the grating.
'Julia, wait outside with Morag, just in case we are caught.' He gave Julia the key. 'I'll get Aaron out.'
As the women obediently left, he knelt by the grating.
'Hotch! Are you there?' He noticed blood on the grating. Had Hotch tried to escape?
There was no answer, and the room below was very dark. There was a ladder on the floor. Reid opened the grating and lowered the ladder.
Reid slowly went down the ladder. The smell of human waste and dirt and blood was strong, and he put his hand over his mouth and nose. When he reached the bottom of the ladder, he held the torch in the air trying to find Hotch
He was lying prone stretched out, his hands reaching for something. He knelt at his side and touched him. He felt the cold flesh tremble beneath his hand.
'Hotch, it's Spencer. I've come to get you out.'
'No.' he whispered shakily. 'I am dead.... please don't hurt me'
Spencer pulled him onto his lap, and held his head against his chest.
'I will never hurt you, You are not dead, Hotch. You are free now.'
He felt his friend's body shake with emotion.
'Help me Spencer, help me.'
Aaron's skin was white and filthy. He was naked and bleeding and injured. His right arm hung uselessly and his collar bone was obviously broken. Reid fervently hoped that his mind was intact.
'Can you stand, Aaron?'
'Picture....' Aaron indicated the pile of foul rotting straw. Reid went to it and found a photograph under the straw. He was sickened by what he saw. A photograph of his own funeral. He folded it up and placed it in his pocket. Then he went back to Aaron.
He was valiantly trying to move. He was on his knees and left elbow, attempting to get up. Reid put his arm around him and helped him to get up. Aaron leaned on him, Reid taking his weight.
'Come on now, Hotch. Time to leave.'
He took a faltering step towards the base of the ladder and his legs gave way. Reid lowered him gently to the floor. He wasn't going to make it like this. He would have been able to lift him if not for the pain he himself was suffering.
He was going to have to ask the women for help.
'I am going for help. You are going to be fine, Hotch.' If only he could believe his own words.........
He stood and looked down on his friend; normally a strong healthy man, somehow he looked small amd helpless lying at his feet.
'Please don't leave me......'
'I'll be as quick as I can' he said, and climbed the ladder. There was no one about. The women were waiting in the trees.
'Were we too late?' Morag asked.
'Is he dead?' Julia looked as if she would cry.
'It's ok.' Reid said. 'He's alive, but too weak to get out. I need your help to get him up the ladder. Come on, quickly!'
The women didn't move. Reid reached out his hand.
'Quickly! Come on!'
'We can not go in there, or we will not be able to come out.' Julia said. 'We can only go in with permission.'
'To go in there is to be forgotten.' Morag said.
Spencer felt his world slipping away. 'Please, I came out. I'll make sure you do too.'
'We can not.' Julia said again, and the two turned to leave.
Spencer looked back at the open door, and back to the women, desperately trying to think of how he could persuade them. He grabbed Julia's arm, and Morag ran.
'Please, Julia. You have to help me. That man is very special to me.'
'You love him?' she asked, her eyes full of sorrow.
Spencer hesitated, unsure as to how she would react.
'Yes.' he said. 'I love him, but we aren't lovers.'
'Do you want to be?'
Again, Reid was not sure how to respond. He decided that the truth was the best option.
'Yes.' he said softly.
'Then I will help you.'
She put out her hand and Spencer led her into the storage room.
'My father showed me Hotchner when he first came here. He was refusing to eat.' she said with her hand over her mouth. 'We must hurry in case Morag tells the elders.'
Spencer went down a few rungs of the ladder and reached up for Julia.
'Come on.....Aaron needs you.'
'I'm afraid.' she said, holding back. 'This is forbidden.' He noticed that she was shaking, and was on the verge of tears.
'I promise I won't let anyone hurt you.' he said. 'Please....' He reached out his hand again. This time she started down the ladder.
'Well done!' Reid said, stepping off the other end onto the wet floor. He watched her come to the bottom, and turn to face him.
'This is horrible.' she said, her hand over her nose. 'I had no idea it was so bad.'
Reid was kneeling by Hotch.
'Aaron,' he said. 'I'm back, and I have brought someone to help us.'
Aaron turned his head and looked up at Reid. 'Please don't hurt me again. ......Please let me sleep.'
'Hotch, It's me, Spencer. I will never hurt you.'
Reid lifted him into a sitting position. Hotch cringed when Reid came close to him.
'Please, Hotch. I won't hurt you. Julia will help us.'
Between them, Reid and Julia got Hotch on his feet, but he was too weak to walk. They half carried half dragged him to the ladder. Julia began up the ladder backwards, with her arms around his chest, holding him tightly to her. Reid followed them, facing forwards, one arm around his hips. Gradually, one step at a time, they made their way up the ladder and out into the room above the oubliette.
Julia sat on the edge of the grating still clinging onto Hotch. He was on her lap, slumped forwards, his hair across his face, his lovely eyes closed. Gently Reid took his weight and lifted him off her. She saw there was blood on her dress.
'He's bleeding. What did they do to him?'
'He's been raped.' Reid said bluntly. 'We have to get out of here to somewhere safe.'
'I had no idea it was so awful.' Julia said. 'Even our own are put in the oubliette. I can't believe father would let this happen.
'Help me lift him.' he said.
They put his arms over their shoulders. He cried out when they moved his broken right arm. He was still unconscious as they started towards the door.
That was when they saw one of the village elders standing in the doorway.
'Father!' Julia breathed. 'Father I am sorry I hit you.'
Reid's hand was on his gun in his pocket. If necessary, he would shoot their way out.
'Morag Ffey told me what was happening. I will tell her I was too late.'
'Father?'
'Just go.' he said. 'Run and don't stop running.'
'But.....'
'Just run!'
'Come on, Julia, or do you want to stay.'
'If I stay I will be forgotten.' she said, looking at her father.
He nodded slowly. 'Go.'
They carried the unconscious man past Julia's father.
'Just one moment.' Reid and Julia froze. Had he changed his mind? Was it just a test?
He was removing his coat.
'Let your friend wear this.'
Gratefully Reid took the coat and Julia helped him dress Aaron in it. They buttoned the front closed, and carried on towards the trees. Julia looked back at the silhouette of her father standing in front of the oubliette building.
-0-0-0-
They stumbled through the trees into the night. There was no moon and the darkness was absolute. The stars, had they been in the mood to notice, were bright and in their millions with no light pollution to spoil the view.
But Reid was slowing down now. The groin pains he was experiencing were starting to spread across his abdomen, and he was finding walking difficult. Julia was tiring, and Hotch was still sleeping.
Reid stopped.
'Can't carry on' he said. 'Hurts too much.'
Carefully they laid Hotch down on the bracken and sat either side of him.
'Is it hurting?' Julia asked Reid.
Reid nodded and lay back on the fronds. He closed his eyes, and didn't notice Julia had moved until he felt her undo his trousers.
'Hey!' he shouted, sitting up. 'What are you doing?'
'I'm going to help you. Now lie down and do not move.'
Reid did as he was told, and Julia began to pull out the tubules. Reid bit down on his lip as it felt as if his insides were being pulled out. His hips lifted off the ground as the first one slid painfully out of his skin. By the time she started on the fourth, he was crying with agony.
'Please, no more.' he said.
'I've almost done.' she said, and slowly another pulled out.
Reid made a. 'Mmmmm...' sound and he tasted blood in his mouth.
'One more.' She said, and carefully pulled the last one free.
'They might bleed a bit.' she said. But there was no answer. Reid had passed out.
Wonderful..... in the middle of the night, in the woods, pitch darkness, and two unconscious men!
She laid back on the soft bracken and looked up into the sky. Imagination wasn't encouraged in the village. Only sadness and disappointment ever came from being imaginative. She understood now that it could draw people away from the village, and the elders never allowed that.
Julia thought back to the time that she realised how important she was to the village, being the last 'perfect' baby to be born there. So why had her father allowed her to leave? The whole situation worried her.
Why had it been so easy to leave?
That was when she heard the dogs.
They were still a way off yet, but they were fast and she had to get moving. She stood up and looked at the two men at her feet. She had thrown away so much for them, she could still not quite believe it. She shook Reid.
'Reid, wake up. They've got the dogs out!'
Reid slowly fluttered his eyes open.
'The dogs are coming. We have to go. We will have to leave your friend and run.
'I will not leave him.' Reid replied. 'How could you even think that?'
'I have to go.'
Reid took the gun out of his pocket and checked the clip.
'Stay, Julia. I promise no one will take you back. I will protect you.'
Julia looked at the gun in Reid's hand, then she looked at Hotch lying next to him, and she marvelled at so strong a love that Reid was willing to die at his side rather that run and save himself. She wanted to be part of that love. She sat trembling at his side, as the sound of the dogs got closer.
