Flying and Voices
Flummoxed.
That's the only word I have that truly describes how I feel when they unlock the cell door and march me back to the interview room.
Confused is another good word for this.
I am also feeling like I'm going to chuck my guts and this head spinning light headedness is sort of stopping me from going off on one and having a sort of tantrum. They virtually throw me into the chair I'd been sitting in before and five cops stay in the room with me.
'Talk.' Piggy says.
'I've talked.' I lay my head on the table. 'I don't feel well. I need my stuff. It's medicinal you know.'
'I'm not giving you your smokes or snort. Even if I wanted to I couldn't. They're being analyzed down in our lab.'
I make a groan of defeat. Not a sound you'll hear too often, but today it just leaps from me like the sound of a dying cockroach. Maybe not a cockroach…I've not heard one of them die before, but a dying something. 'I've told you everything.' I say into my arm that I've wrapped around my head. I need to keep my eyes closed for now. Vomiting across the table into piggy's lap isn't going to help my case. If I even have a sodding case.
'In your own time. I need to know what happened that night. From the time you cooked up supper to when you woke up in the morning. Everything. Every last squeak and slap. All of it.'
I take a sly peek at him and sigh. 'I've told you everything. Look I'm not going to apologise for anything because that's just not something I do, but if you don't give me my shit back and let me sort my head out I'm going to projectile vomit right over you.'
Piggy mutters something to someone who leaves the room. 'Don't get too excited, he's going to get a bucket for you. Now talk to me. Tell me what happened because I know you didn't kill those kids, but I think you know who did.'
'A bucket? How the fuck is a bucket going to help me?' I don't bother looking up at him. I really do need a smoke. Not the kind of need you have when you need a blast of nicotine but the sort of need you have when you think you're going to collapse and never wake up again. That sort of need. Piggy's hands slamming on the table make me jump slightly and I peer over my arm at him. 'Was that totally necessary?'
'Talk to me.' He says again. He's an insistent son of a whore.
'I cooked dinner. Spencer had a shower. He thought he heard something and got spooked. Thought he heard something outside. I told him it was the wind, but I'm not sure it was. No point in getting him even more freaked out than he was though. He went to bed. I locked up. Oh at some point we ate and I washed dishes. We went to sleep then woke up with that mess over us.'
'That's a much better start. Did you have sex?'
'Not with Spencer. I don't think…maybe? I'm a bit confused about that. I think I might have, but it really wasn't my intention. But maybe I did. Or maybe….' I'm cut off from what I'm saying by the piggy hands pulling my head up off the table by my hair.
'Maybe? You don't remember?'
'It's not always too memorable. I'd been smoking. The mind gets cloudy sometimes.'
'You remember that you cooked and Spencer showered and you remember that he was scared of something and you remember washing dishes and going to bed, but you don't remember if you had intercourse with him? He is less memorable than washing dishes?'
I pull my head back away from his hands. 'I don't do dishes as often as I do Spencer. Of course it's more memorable. I can also assure you that had my head been in the right place – which reminds me – where's the bucket? If my head had been in the right place and things didn't feel so damned wrong then I'd have been more aware of the situation. Unfortunately sometimes things get past even my great brain.' I pause and look around when the cop and a red bucket appear at my side. 'We should have been safe. That was the whole fucking idea of going there; it should have been safe, so when he was going on about hearing things I ignored him. Not because I didn't believe that he'd heard something, because I'm telling you something shifty was going on at that place. It felt wrong. It's why I didn't want to get carried away sodomizing Spencer. I thought I'd just stay awake like I usually do. I never sleep when the situation isn't one hundred percent secure. Never.' It is at this point that I utilize that bucket. Splash-back is never a nice thing. I got splatters of hot vomit on my face which I slowly wipe off with my finger tips. 'I'm not feeling too well. Those smokes will fix my current crisis and allow me to communicate with you much easier. My thoughts are continuously being interrupted by the need to chuck. And sneeze.' And to prove that I sneeze a nose full of snot and blood across the table. 'Excuse me. It went further than I expected.' I stick my fingers in the mess on the table. 'This can all be avoided you know. This and this.' I use the bucket again. The smell is really quite nasty. I can smell it even though my nose is mostly clogged with clots of blood. 'Now I've told you what happened. I'll be going before my other orifices begin to drip and squirt. You don't want that to clear up do you?'
Piggy is standing up. He has a nice spray of blood over his shirt and across the side of his face. He's rubbing manically at his eye. 'You dirty son of a bitch!' He shouts at me.
'Hardly my fault. You are with-holding my medication. You could kill me.' I watch the rubbing of the eye and it makes me smile. 'It's OK you know. I'm not diseased or anything. You can't catch anything from me. At least I don't think so. Last time I was checked I was clean. Then again I've been having some fun since then. Maybe you should get that looked at.' I sneeze again…only this time the sneeze makes my eyes water and my ears pop and something warm and wet crawls out of my ears. 'I need my fucking smokes you bastard!' and as I lie my head back down on that table my stomach ejects more lumps and bits and liquids which smell like they've come directly from Hades and I think maybe they have.
-o-o-o-
I sit on my bed with my arms tightly wrapped around my legs and my forehead resting on my knees. I've put my pants and shirt back on. If something happens I don't want to be worrying about my towel falling down. I sit in silence for about five minutes before the banging on the door starts again and the television springs back into life. I pulled the power from the television; there's not way it could suddenly come back on again. It's not possible. I ignore the door and I equally ignore the new blast of howling around the window and move slowly to the TV. I check that it's not plugged in and now I am confused because I know that I pulled the plug but there it is firmly back sucking power from the wall. I pull it out again and the shapes dancing across the screen stop and the noise stops. At least the noise from the TV. I cannot stay in this room. There is something very horribly wrong with this place and I need to get out. Walking on feet that feet like that they'd much rather be going in the other direction I walk to the door and pull it open. The hammering stops as soon as I touch the door handle and obviously there is no one there. I don't think there is anyone there. The corridor is in pitch darkness but I can see the lights blinking around the top of the elevator. A quick decision now. I will go and request a different room. A room which is normal. A room off a corridor with lights. I leave my door open and walk along the corridor with one hand on the wall. I let my fingers brush gently across the wood of the next door along and the door immediately begins to vibrate beneath my fingers. I pull them away and wipe a new crop of sweat off my brow and walk onwards. When I reach another door I make sure that I don't touch it. It's strange what darkness does. I am sure this corridor was shorter when it was light. It seems to be going on forever now it is dark. When I reach the elevator I note that the lights above it are blinking on and off on random floor numbers. The little light next to the arrow button I would need to press isn't doing anything. I decide that going in an elevator in a place with somewhat faulty electrics is not the wisest thing a person could do. I make for the stairs and begin to walk down them. Again they are mostly in darkness. The only light is coming from each landing where there is a brightly lit floor number above a door. I keep going down. I have a ghastly feeling deep down that someone is creeping down the stairs behind me. I'm sure I hear their foot steps, but acoustics and fear do strange things to your sense of hearing and logic. I can almost feel hot breath on the back of my neck and so I spin around. 'Floyd?' I whisper back up into the darkness. 'If that's you stop messing with me will you?' Was that someone's heavy breathing? Was that another footstep? If it had been Floyd he'd have answered me. I know he would. I'm almost sure of it and anyway isn't he still down at the local cop station? Slowly I move around to face the correct way again. I hold tightly onto the hand rail and then I run. I make down those damned stairs faster then I've ever done stairs before. I think I'm doing two at a time, but that might be my imagination, which seems to be messing wonderfully with my head tonight. I slide around the corner for the final lot of stairs and I feel it. I know I didn't just fall. I felt the hands on my back. One on my shoulder and one between my shoulder blades and I heard a small chuckle of laughter and then the hands pushed. My momentum was such that it was just not possible to do anything about it. I fairly took off and flew down that last flight. My hand which was holding so tightly onto the rail was no match to the force which ripped it away. I think I could see the wall coming for my face. I think I got a flash of light out of the corner of my eye telling me I was on floor 'G' and I heard my body smash against the wall and floor. I didn't move. I just lay there. I was waiting. I knew there was something there and I didn't want it to come and finish me off if it looked like it had already done the job.
I could feel the small rush of air as something landed next to me. My head smacked up into the corner, one arm under me and the other just splayed out at my side. My legs curled up under my body. I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't think that whatever it was would now complete what it had started.
'Hurts does it?' a voice enquires. A voice which wasn't Floyd, but I don't reply. I try to take small breaths so as not to draw too much attention to myself, which was insane, it was stupid, but my head was pounding and my body aching and I could feel warm wetness against the cheek which was lying on the floor. The smell of blood. I felt bony fingers prodding me. 'Wake up boy. I want you too feel this pain.'
I let out a small groan. If he or she or it wants me awake to feel the pain then it doesn't want me dead. At least not yet. I let it know I can feel the pain.
How long do I lie there for? I don't know. It might have been minutes or hours. I lost track. I don't even know if I was conscious for the whole time, what I do know is that whatever it was stops talking and prodding and when I take a quick look around me, whatever or whoever it was has gone.
I manage to roll over onto my side and then I gently feel my head. There is a lot of blood coming from a place just above my left ear. I'm bruised and I'm more than a little bit terrified. If I'd not wanted out of this place before I certainly do now. I push myself up to kneel and then using the wall as support I stand.
'Oh lord it hurts.' I say in a sigh.
My knees feel like they want to fold up under me and put me back on the floor again, but I'm not going to give whatever it was that pushed me that pleasure. I walk slowly with one hand on the wall and the other over the bloody mess on the side of my head. I'm amazed that I'm able to walk at all. That fall, or push, could have so easily have killed me. Step by careful step. I pause between each and listen out for the sound of something coming back for me. This is taking far longer than I would like it to, but at least I am moving and the door with the glowing G above it is getting closer. I feel a nasty churning in my stomach which is threatening to drag whatever I have in my stomach up and into my throat but again I'm not going to let my body give into the fear. At last my hand leaves the wall and moves towards that door.
I stop. Suddenly I don't want to touch it. I don't want to feel that eerie vibration I felt from the other doors. I don't want that to feel like anything but a normal door. My head feels light and a headache is beginning to settle in. My hand aches from where it was wrenched from the hand rail and was that a noise from the next landing up? Did I just hear something? Is it watching me and mocking me because of my hesitation? My hands are shaking and I know the shock of the fall is beginning to make me think illogically, but I'm sure I heard something. Something other than my heart pounding in my chest and my short wheezing breaths. I grab that door handle and push it down and pull the door open. I was expecting bright light. I was expecting noise from the other guests, but there is nothing. Complete silence. Not even the sound of a ticking clock or dripping water. It reminds me sort of the way things went silent when Floyd and I crossed into the shadows of that place by the lake. I'm hyperventilating; I know I am. I'm beginning to panic more than I was already, but I step with caution out onto the brown and orange patterned carpet and let the door close behind me.
The area I am in is the main reception. To my left is the check in desk, to my right is a bar area, straight in front of me is a small restaurant and beyond the check in desk is the double doors which will open up into the outside world and safety. I half walk and half stumble to the reception desk, but there's no one there. There is a bell to ring and so I place my hand on it and ring it a couple of times.
'Don't you break my dinger.'
The voice comes from a door behind the reception desk.
'I need some help.' I take my hand off the bell as someone walks out to see what I want.
'It's a bit late.' The man is about six foot six or maybe more and about five foot wide. He's in a hotel uniform of sorts and has a cigarette hanging from a tight unhappy looking mouth set in an unshaved bloated looking face. 'What've you done to your face?' He asks without moving the cigarette from between those lips.
'I fell, I was…., I fell.' I take a deep breath. Although the guy doesn't seem too welcoming it's nice to see a face. 'And I need to change my room. I need a different room.'
He removes the smoke from his mouth and stubs it out on something behind the desk. 'Fell where? Did you break anything?'
I give a slight painful shake of the head which causes an explosion of pain. 'I just hit my head.'
'I meant did you break any hotel property. You will have to pay for any damages and you can't have another room. We're full.' He leans on the desk looking at me closely. 'I hope you've not smeared blood everywhere boy. I don't want to have to charge you extra to get a cleaner in specially to clean up your shit. The regulars wont touch blood these days. Too many risk factors involved. Where did you fall exactly?'
'Full? You can't be. I've not seen another person.'
He sighs. 'Yes we are full and you've not told me where you make your mess. I'll have to put up a sign or something if it's in a public area.'
'The stairs. Just through the door. Are you sure you don't have another room? Can you check that please?' I need to sit down. I need a drink. 'Is the bar open?'
He looks over to the dark area where the bar is. 'Does it look open? What's wrong with your room? They're all the same basically.'
How can I tell his person about what happened in my room? He will never understand. I don't even understand and the longer I am talking to him the more I am wondering if I imagined it all. Maybe I did just slip on the stairs. Maybe I had a nightmare; it wouldn't be the first time. It surely won't be the last. 'Do you have a first aid box or a medic? I need some assistance.'
'No rooms, no medics or first aid boxes. Sorry boy, you'll have to sort yourself out, I need to go check you didn't break anything.' And he moves out from behind the desk and walks with surprising swiftness considering his bulk towards the door I just came through.
I'm not going to stay here. I can't. Everything about this place just feels so wrong. I watch as he goes through the door and then walk as quickly as I can to the main exit doors. They had big brass handles of which I pull one and slide through the door and onto the paved area just outside. There are dying plants in big pots either side of the doors and five stone steps going down to the street level. I know I can't just wander off. The cops will be all over me like a rash and so I sit down on the top step and put my head in my hands and I wait. I intend staying here until daylight and then I will call the police and request somewhere else to stay. I'm not going to spend another night in that place.
-o-o-o-
What happens is they keep slapping me with the paddles and rush me by ambulance to hospital. I want to shout at them to pack it in. Dad might enjoy the paddles but they're not doing too much for me except giving me a pain in the chest. My heart's not doing much but sitting there silently in my chest. A big needle with something in it is stuck in me and it kind of hurts.
This makes me think that I'm not dead. You don't feel pain if you're hurting still do you? And if I'm still hurting I don't want them to give up on me and start cutting me open. Then again, if they did they'd see those bastards crawling around inside me wouldn't they?
The voices sound panicky as a tube is stuffed down my throat and air is forced into my lungs. I don't want this. I don't freaking need this! Why can't they just leave me to rip….
Oh crap….
I'm waking up…but my heart is not doing anything yet, they're going to think I'm some sort of zombie, and maybe I am. The great undead zombie Sam…out to eat brains and such. Actually I don't need to be a zombie to feel the desire to do that. Or I've always been a zombie and didn't know it? They – those things inside me are digging deep in my groin and because I am in effect a dead kid I'm not strapped down too well. The paddles have quit finally so I think they've given up on me. I bet if I had loads of money and was famous they'd not give up so fucking easily, however, that's not important really, what's real important right now is that I've got a blanket over me and the ability to get my hands on my groin and start digging out those mother fuckers who are causing all of this mess going on with me. My nails are short and I don't have a sharp thing now, but I can still dig in. I can still scratch and scratch and dig and dig until I feel blood. It is then possible to tear my way in. Now, this is my genitals I am mutilating here, and as I'm only a kid – so they tell me – I've not had a lot of time to enjoy what I should be able to enjoy over a long life time. I need to be careful.
Concentration is important here cos I don't want to do so much damage that I'm never able to enjoy comforting hands there again…
Shit!
'What the hell?!' someone is shouting and the blanket is being pulled away and my hands are not where they should be and they're not doing what nice boys do. Actually they're not doing what any sane person would do. With this thing down my throat I can't tell them to help me get them out, but I sure as hell thrash about like a complete loony when they move my hands away from doing their job.
'Get that heart monitor back on. Something's not right here!' Another shouting voice and I'm writhing and struggling against them, but there are more of them than me…and Holy Wowzers! My heart is going again and it's beating like there's not going to be a tomorrow and I wonder if there actually is cos there is something horribly wrong with the fact that I cant move my legs, and something equally horribly wrong with the voice in my head.
We've got a job for you Sam. Just relax…once the job is done you'll be free. You want to be free don't you Sam?
And then the voice is laughing at me…and when they pull the tube from my throat I start screaming.
'Get it out of my head! I don't want it in my head! It's inside me…it's going to make me do real bad stuff!'
Does that sound like I've gone bonkers? Judging by the looks on their faces it might well do…but things are going fuzzy and strange and the pain is going and I can't feel much at all.
