“They’ll step in if they think he’s going to bleed to death,” Falstaff said behind him. Daniel turned around and blinked at the enormous man filling the next bunk. “That’s Barker. He’s done this kind of thing before. He reacts badly to his roles.”
Daniel looked at Barker again. A low, terrier-like growl came from under the panting. “I don’t think I’ve seen him before.”
“Really? How long do you think you’ve been here?”
It surprised Daniel that he was so unsure of the answer. “A few months.”
“No.” Falstaff flushed. “Sorry, but it’s been much longer. Over a year, year and a half at least. I was here when you came in. At least that much.”
Impossible. If he’d actually been gone that long, his family would think he was dead. They’d be trying to move on with their lives. But it couldn’t be. Admittedly he was a little fuzzy about the beginning, but that seemed only weeks ago.
“You were out of it at first. They usually are. There’s the shock of the transition, and the pull of the family left behind. You feel acutely responsible. Some never recover—they’re damaged permanently from the time they arrive. For that reason I don’t think the roaches use everyone they retrieve. Well, I know, they don’t.” He nodded at Barker. “He was probably in the infirmary when you first got here. The roaches shouldn’t even bother with anyone less than stable—they make unreliable subjects. Not that the roaches would ever listen to what I have to say.”
“What are they testing? How long it takes us to break?”
“We’ve played the most dangerous human beings who’ve ever lived. Why did those people do what they did? The roaches must think we’re a terribly troubled people. We live in Hell but we aspire to Heaven—that’s the drama of being human. The disparity makes us troubled, even insane at times, but we pretend not to be just to get through the day, work our jobs, care for our families.”
Daniel glanced at the observation windows. The roach heads were gone. He wondered if he and Falstaff were being recorded. “If this were a science fiction movie, I’d think they were testing us to see if the human race was worth saving.”
Falstaff laughed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
A groan came from somewhere deep in the building, rising into a howl that must have been open-mouthed and wrenching. “What is that?” Daniel hoped he wouldn’t have to hear it ever again.
“Our werewolf,” Falstaff replied. “He does that from time to time. Our Gilles de Rais. A fifteenth-century Breton knight. A serial killer of children, I’m sorry to say, hundreds of them. The poor fellow’s name is Henry—I never caught the last name. He was a nervous, agitated type, but fairly harmless, I think. Gilles de Rais was the first role he was given after he arrived. He never completely came out of it.”
The howl came again, louder than before, ending with a cracking, tearing sound, as if the vocal cords had shredded. “Can’t they stop him?” Daniel covered his head with the blanket.
“Not without killing him, and I suspect they’d prefer to continue studying him. Eventually his voice gives out.”
Even as the last word left Falstaff’s mouth another howl began, this one so fractured, so human, that Daniel could only grit his teeth and fill his head with some random interference until the weakened voice died.
“They’ve l—lied to us! They’ve lied to us a—all our l—lives!”
The blanket-covered lump in a bunk several yards away had hatched, and there was Alan, his Bogart, eyes glassy as he shouted at an invisible audience.
“Alan! You’re back in the barracks now!” Falstaff shouted at Bogart.
“B—but they’ve b—been lying to us!” Bogart‘svolume was only slightly reduced as he stared at Falstaff.
Falstaff looked somewhat shaken. He said nothing for a moment, then asked, “Who, Alan? Who has been lying to us?”
“Everyone! Everyone t—telling us how to be a m—man, what we’re s—supposed to do, how we’re s—supposed to feel, what w—women are supposed to mean. I have two d—daughters—!” He pinched his face, snagging bits of skin in his fingertips and pulling, as if trying to rearrange or remove his features. Daniel could feel the anxiety like a blast rippling across the room.
“Alan!” Falstaff yelled over him. “Who were you last night? Who were you playing?”
Bogart/Alan stopped babbling and looked fixedly at Falstaff. “S—Speck. Richard Speck. B—born To Raise Hell. I had n—n—no feeling, like always. Just nothing while I d—did, well, whatever I thought I o—oughta be doing. I s—should have, I shoulda been one of them. I w—wanted everything they had.” He spoke in a heavy Southern accent, with a thickness in his throat. His eyes appeared to be in some other place. “I w—wanted them, but they r—reckoned I was a p—pig. I d—disgusted them, and you know what? D-damned if it didn’tjust m—makeme more d—disgusting.”
He did something with his hand, brought it to his mouth, the fingers curled and open, took it away. A pantomime of drinking. “I b—broke in, whenever I c—could, took what I could. Course they was always c—catching me, putting me back in a c—cell. I’d been d—drinking heavy that n—night, so heavy I was just s—syrup. I could h—hardly get my h—head off the floor. When I left the bar I just w—wanted a woman to clear my head.
“It was the lights, y—you know? I just f—followed the lights up to that house. I had my g—gun out, and I asked her where her c—companions were, and I forced my way in.
“I told them I wasn’t going to h—hurt them, that all I w—wanted was their m—money. That’s what my m—mouth said. But I was feeling pretty s—sick, and the sick was thinking s—something else, I r—reckon.
“I made them s—sit on the l—linoleum floor f—facing me. I looked at each one of them. They give me their m—money, then S—Shirley, my ex-wife, she c—come in. She c—couldn’t a been there, but she was. I put the g—gun to her cheek. Course later I f—figured out she weren’t S—Shirley, b—but by then it was too l—late. I cut a sheet into strips and t—tied them all up.
“Then t—two more of them n—nurses come in. They was all n—nurses. These two screamed and r—run into a bedroom. I pulled my knife and ch—chased them through them b—bedrooms, stabbing and having sex, it all kinda r—run together, that’s the way it w—went, until it were all d—done.” Bogart fell silent then, sounding sleepy, exhausted, his head down.
“Alan, it was just another part. That wasn’t you. You were just along for the ride.” Daniel was surprised by the gentleness.
Bogart raised his head. “R—really? Is that t—true?” There was an eagerness in Bogart’s voice that embarrassed Daniel. “None of it was m—me?”
“Absolutely… none of it.” Daniel could detect a note of hesitance. The big man stood and grabbed Daniel by the shoulder. “Let’s get some air.” He couldn’t mean outside, and the windows were all secured, but Daniel stood up anyway.
The walls of the barracks were off‑white with random, rose‑colored blotches and some darker more unpleasant blotches. Some sections were missing surface layers, fading to a patchwork of stone and faded brick with the odd bit of antique wood and iron filigree attached—but nothing complete, nothing to indicate what the original piece or function had been. The ceiling was the most damaged—thoroughly water-stained and unstable.
Unlike the floor of the waiting room, the surfaces of the barracks were well-swept. But the deteriorating ceiling left a light fall of pale dust every morning on bed blankets and exposed heads.