Justice (Chapter Eight)

Chapter Eight
“First night’s the worst.”
“Yep, then you get used to dark and cold and half starving and stop crying and you stop caring.”
“Don’t look at them, whatever you do.”
“Don’t move on the sheets – your sores will bleed.”
“Head down. All the time.”
“Eyes down.”
“Don’t run. Don’t even bother. No one makes it.”
“You just have to last the time, then, well…”
“You go somewhere else –you go to put your training to use and once it’s done, they let you go home. That's how it is. I’ve heard.
The voices fell into the night and made their way, languidly, into my head. They were my only solace in the dark.
Isaac and I had been split up on the forecourt of Darkmoor; they’d had to carry him off – a sack of meat hung between two red pillars. The Red had taken me to the foot of the East tower. Standing directly underneath it, the spike stabbed into the sky indefinitely. Only when I leaned my head right back could I make out the bulge that signified the start of the boulder-like fist crowning one more of Sense’s less than subtle architectural acts. From the exterior, it seemed as if there was no way to enter the sheer, black pinnacle. It was an impregnable, marble Chess piece. I shrugged my shoulders at the Red; she brought out a hand-held scanner from her overalls, swept it across the pristine surface in an array of complicated sweeps and, in seconds, a marble doorway receded.
The spiral stairs within were tight and glossy. I walked, the Red on my heels, my head still thumping from the blow across my temple. With my hands cuffed and the floor oil-slick, I had to concentrate to avoid losing my footing. We stepped up and up and up. The Red used her scanner as a torch – its blue beam of light darting between my legs as we climbed. There were no windows or arrow slits -only darkness. We marched on in an airless vertical mine.
Finally, the stairs opened up into a huge circular room, a cave divided into sub-sections by red drapes hanging from reels of barbed wire spun across the ceiling. Again, the vault appeared windowless, the only way in or out was via the long stairs we’d traversed. The Red peeled back a tattered drape with false majesty to reveal a line of ten iron wrought beds. Each bed was unusually short and narrow –about four foot long and only a foot across. Only one was unmade. I moved towards it and the Red un-cuffed me. She handed me a pile of linen,
“Do it.”
“Yes Sir!”
The sarcasm in my tone was enough for her to strike me again, but it appeared that her rage had been sated, for the moment at any rate.
As my hands closed around the sheets, a shudder pulsed through my fingers and up into my body. They were not made of cotton. They were not made of nylon. They were not even made of plastic. No, they were made of hair – human or animal, I couldn’t tell, but the coarse texture immediately set my whole body to itching. I made the bed, trying to do so with as little contact with the sheet as possible. I wondered who the hair belonged to – a parasite like me or perhaps a dead parasite who failed to outrun the dogs? The Red handed me a clean set of white overalls and gestured that I should change into them. I did so, ignoring the fact that I had to undress in front of her. I would prefer her looking me up and down to Fake Finger any day.
The sounds of shuffling feet forecast the arrival of a band of nine girls in soaked, no longer white overalls. They stood and stared. Some were tall, some were short, some had filth-smeared faces and some had eyes so devoid of emotion they appeared to be mimicking china dolls.
All of them were bald.
Their scalps held little more than a bristle of what once was. My hand touched the sheet and then my own mousey hair. It seemed that I’d learnt one thing today at least.
The Red left us and walked towards the stairs. She disappeared and the silence continued. The girls remained completely still; I mirrored them. After an age, the sound of heavy stone heaving into place twisted its way upwards. Only then did a tall girl with soft, hazel eyes move towards me. She bent her mouth to my ear, her lips brushing against my lobe and said,
“We won’t be talking to you now. We need to sleep. You must do the same.”
Her voice was only a fraction louder than breath, silky and whispering.
As if on a well maintained Japanese conveyor belt, the girls simultaneously lifted up their hair sheets, dropped onto the dwarf sized beds and slipped into unconsciousness.
I sat alone, watching over them, and tried to make sense of the day’s events. It didn’t seem too great a leap to assume that Isaac was in the West tower, probably in a similar set-up to this -if he wasn’t in a hospital ward or being fed to the dogs. It was hard to tell with someone like him. Big mouth equals big trouble. Also, it didn’t seem irrational to presume that these girls were all parasites, most likely in Darkmoor because they had challenged Sense in some way and now they were being punished. From what I’d seen so far, it seemed a Medieval set up. We would be broken until we repented and turned our shining faces to the glory of Sense. I had a lot to look forward to. I resigned myself to the shelf, it hardly qualified as a bed, and tried to rest. I wondered what Maggie would make of this place, if she woould have any bright ideas as to how to escape.
Deep in the night, I woke to hear the first girl’s whisper. Then the next and then another. They used no names, they spoke in generalities and, although informative, their comments did little to allay my fears.
“Do whatever they ask you to in the training.”
“It’s worse if you don’t – whatever you think is bad, seriously, they can make it worse.”
“And don’t talk outside this room. They’re listening now. They don’t seem to care if we talk at night, but they’ll hear everything.”
“They’ll shave you tomorrow – pray you get a Red who can handle a razor.”
“It’s not like you can wash it here anyway.”
And so the night whisperers went continued.
In the dark, the thought that plagued me was not losing my hair. That, I knew, was out of my control. Nor was my sleepless night entirely attributable to the hair bed clothes that brushed and chafed against my skin until pink wheals decorated me like an abstract painting. No. Not even the thought of whether I would ever get out of this place prevented me from sleep.
What kept me awake was Shannon. She was here. She was wearing orange and I had seen her with Fake Finger.