“Obviously they didn’t tell us for a reason, so as not to contaminate the experiment or something.”
“That artwork isn’t graffiti,” 2 said, pacing the room as if it were a prison cell. “Either it’s disguised to look like graffiti, or we’ve just misinterpreted it as graffiti. It’s something else.”
“Like what?” 3 asked him.
“It’s like a portal, or something. I’ve looked at it up close. It’s all made up of tiny numbers; zeroes and ones. Binary numbers. I don’t know why, but it’s something weird. It isn’t the work of kids with spray cans.”
“Okay, what if you’re right?” 5 said. “All the more reason not to avoid it. It’s obviously something we’re meant to interact with. Look, it’s in the confessional, the bedrooms, the showers, the laundry… all the places where we live aside from the mess hall. What does that tell you? They do not want us to avoid those rooms!”
“I don’t care,” 3 said. “I hate to lose the money, but after what I saw in the confessional I won’t sleep beside that stuff again. I swear it was trying to suck the life out of 2.”
“Oh man, you don’t know that,” 5 said. “Look, I’m as creeped out as the rest of you, for sure.; I saw that thing, too. And I told you what I thought I saw in the shower with me — probably the same entity. I don’t know what’s going on, either. But we really have to think about what we’re doing, here.”
“The place is haunted,” 6 stated simply, “and they know it.”
“Well, if that’s true, maybe they want us to communicate with these spirits or whatever they are, and the graffiti is kind of like a… Ouija board or something that lets them come through. Isn’t it kind of exciting besides being scary?”
“Fuck that. Enough. I’m sleeping here — final.”
3 looked 2 up and down closely, as if examining him for lamprey-like scars left on his skin where the inky cords had been attached. She didn’t detect any discernible marks. Regardless of this, she stated, “I’m not doing any more confessions, either.”
“Me neither!” 6 said.
“You will forfeit this test, I swear,” 5 said, her tone becoming more sharp.
“I don’t care!” 3 snapped.
“We’ve all done plenty of confessions by now, and we’re all okay.”
“Well I guess it doesn’t happen to us every time we’re in there — maybe it’s just because 2 fell asleep — or maybe it does happen to us every time but we’re kind of hypnotized, and we don’t realize it. Maybe we can’t see it happening to ourselves, but other people can see it. We don’t know because no one has watched anyone else do a confession before.”
“Well,” 5 retorted, “we’re just taking your word for this, really. You’re the only one who claims they saw these goopy strings connected to 2.”
“Oh, you bitch,” 3 hissed. “Are you calling me a liar? Why would I lie about that? We’ve all seen enough weird things now… we know it’s all true, even if we don’t understand it!”
2 narrowed his eyes at 5 with fresh appraisal. Since he’d seen her dragging the chair and sleeping bag into this room her behavior had struck him as erratic. He didn’t doubt now that she had put the doll heads in the bags; after all, hadn’t she been the one who originally discovered them? He said to her, “I don’t get you. You were as spooked as anyone by what we saw in that room. But now suddenly you get all calm and adventurous.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t spooked,” 5 insisted. “But yeah, maybe now that we’re seeing more clearly what we’re here for, what we’re meant to experience, I’m just accepting it and rising to the challenge like the rest of you should be doing. Per your agreement!”
“Put your money where you mouth is,” 3 said, “and go sleep in the girls’ bedroom alone tonight, and the rest of us will stay here.”
5 stared hotly into 3’s eyes for several long seconds, and then said, “Okay. Okay, I will.”
“No,” 6 said. “Don’t do it.”
“Go ahead,” 3 said. She raised her arms dramatically. “Rise to the challenge.”
“I will, ladyboy. And I’ll collect my four thousand dollars while the rest of you walk out of here with empty pockets. You’ll have gone through all of this for nothing.”
“Don’t go,” 2 said. “We don’t want you to do that.”
“Oh let the bitch go,” 3 said, pulling 2 back a few steps by his arm. “Let her be a hero and show off for Dr. Onsay.”
5 turned toward the green metal door, which thus far still stood open. She paused in its threshold, and glared back at the other three subjects. “You’re going to ruin this whole test.”
“So be it,” 6 said. “Goodnight, then.”
“You’ll be sorry.”
“I think it’s you who’ll be sorry, when you wake up with a ghost standing over you,” 3 said.
“Well, magic portals or not, I guess we can’t run away from ghosts anyway,” 5 said, just before she backed into the hallway. “There’s one inside every one of us.”
10
2 woke with a single blurted sob, and sat up in his sleeping bag. 3 sat up quickly beside him, immediately rubbing his back. “What’s wrong, honey? Honey, calm down.”
6 sat up, too, eyes unnaturally wide. “What? What is it? What?” He looked around frantically at the room’s four walls, as if expecting to see a half dozen faceless figures stepping out of them all at once. From across the room, six scattered doll heads leered at him instead.
2 took several deep breaths, and got out, “I was dreaming about my Mom. God, I wish this test was over with already. How much longer do we have to stay here? When will they let us know?”
Still rubbing his back, 3 asked, “What’s wrong with your Mom, honey?”
“She has cancer. Uterine cancer. I hope she’s been doing okay without me.”
“Ohh… poor honey. Poor Mom. Wow, so many people get cancer, huh?”
“Fuck, man, you gave me a heart attack.” 6 drew himself out of his sleeping bag, paced and stretched at the same time. “Hey, I wonder how 5 made out last night. I can’t believe she really had the guts to sleep alone down there.”
“Well, she did explore that old brick building over there alone the first time,” 2 reminded them. “She’s tougher than we gave her credit for.”
“We should go down and look in on her.”
“Go ahead,” 3 said, “I could care less.”
“Hey,” 2 scolded her, but he was smiling. 3 noticed the tears still in his eyes and wiped them away with her thumbs.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” 6 muttered, watching them.
2 glowered at him. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m going to go look in on 5. You two lovebirds can stay here and do whatever.”
“Maybe we will do whatever,” 3 said defiantly.
“Hey, while you’re down there,” 2 said, “see if our breakfasts have arrived.”
“What, you want room service delivered to you?”
“Okay, so don’t bring us our food if you don’t want to. We’ll be down when we’re ready. I’ll tell you one thing, and I don’t care if they’re listening anymore: I stopped taking those meds. I suggest you two do the same.”
“Good idea,” 3 said. “This is all too much now.”
“Well, wait a second there,” 6 said, “that might be going too far. Not sleeping beside the graffiti is one thing, but I’m sure those meds have a lot to do with this whole test, somehow.”
“I’m sure they do — but I’m not taking them.”
“Whatever, man,” 6 said, leaning his back against a wall as he pulled on and laced first one sneaker, then the other. “But I’m not going to stop. I do still want that four thousand bucks, you know.”
They watched him haul on the metal door and exit the room, leaving it jammed halfway open behind him. As soon as he had left, 3 turned impulsively toward 2, took his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth lingeringly. Their tongues swished wetly around each other. Immediately 2 felt his penis stiffening, at the same time that a drowning klaxon in his mind tried to blare: I’m kissing a man. Kissing a man…