Hell and Gone

15

You’re my dog, see? You bark when I say bark. You fetch when I say fetch. You roll over and play dead when I tell you to.

—The Punisher, Circle of Blood

AS HE SHOWERED the scum off his body, Hardie couldn’t help but wonder why life kept putting naked ladies in his path.

The last time Hardie met a naked woman—well, topless, anyway—he’d ended up shot, abducted, then dumped here. Her suntanned breasts had been an omen of many horrible things to come.

So what did this naked-lady omen mean?

Hardie dried the top of his head with the edge of a white terry-cloth towel that had been bleached so many times it felt like cardboard. Inside the small closet was another suit, a duplicate of his stained and ripped suit; below that, a drawer containing three sets of boxers and plain white T-shirts.

As he dressed, Hardie wondered where his other suitcase was right now. Probably in a dank police evidence locker. Tagged, bagged, and put into indefinite storage. Unless Deke had managed to check it out and send it to Kendra. Last personal effects and all that. All the time that had passed—weeks, maybe even months—they had to think he was either missing for good or dead.

No, that wasn’t right; Deke still believed. Because she’d said it herself:

Deke sent me.

Hardie lay down on the stiff mattress and tried to put both hands behind his head. His left arm set off little fireworks displays of agony, as if to say NO, YOU MAY NOT DO THAT. Hardie settled for his right hand, balled up into a fist, behind his head, and his left arm resting loose and semistraight. He put his feet up. He closed his eyes. He tried not to think. Just for a little while…

A knock jarred him out of his reverie.

“Warden,” a soft voice said. “May I see you?”

Hardie sat up, using his right arm for support. It was Whiskey. She was short, dark-haired, compact, and wore a deadly serious expression meant to offset the fact that she looked like a teenager. Hardie said nothing. She took his silence as an invitation, and walked across the room before sitting down at the edge of the bed near his feet. Okay, then, make yourself right at home. Whiskey remained seated at the edge of his bed, staring at him with big brown eyes. Hardie was confused.

“What is it?”

She inched closer, then unceremoniously placed her hand on his crotch.

Hardie acknowledged that he’d left himself wide open, so to speak. But she couldn’t seriously be hitting on him, could she?

Whiskey’s hand, though, pushed against his balls like she meant it. This was no accidental brush. She gave them an experimental squeeze, looking him dead in the eyes, the ghost of a smile on her face. It was the kind of strange smile that some people could make by turning the corners of their mouths downward; the smile was all in the eyes.

And then she squeezed his balls hard as a vise and pushed Hardie’s entire half-crippled body up against the wall. Her other hand flew to his throat and squeezed that, too.

“You will never do that again.”

Hardie’s body didn’t know to do with the pain on two fronts. His air had been cut off expertly—strongly. Whiskey’s grip was unreal. But the pain in his balls was the stuff of legend. Entire organ systems seemed to want to shut down immediately. Hardie gasped. Whiskey leaned in closer.

“You will never embarrass me in front of prisoners, Warden.”

Yes you crazy bitch yes I’ll call just take your hands off my testicles, please…

The twin grip on his balls and throat suddenly released. Her head cocked. Someone was speaking to her through the bud in her ear. Hardie could hear the faint buzzing. Then she turned her gaze back to Hardie, said “never” one last time, and ran out the door.

As soon as his internal organs unclenched enough to allow him to do so, Hardie sat up, reached for his cane, then started after her as best he could—cane-leg, cane-leg, cane-leg, cane-leg—through Victor’s empty room. Nobody was in the control booth, either, or Yankee’s quarters, or the food delivery room. Instead he found all four guards in the break room, batons in hand, yelling at someone.

“The hell’s going on?”

Hardie inched forward and saw that it was the prisoner called Horsehead.

Out of his cage.

The mask had slid up so that his mouth was uncovered. And he was snarling. Spitting. Cursing in Italian at them all. Holding his hands palms out, fingers curled like claws.

Victor turned his head quickly and noticed Hardie. “Stand back, Warden. We’ve got this.”

How the hell did the prisoner escape from his cell? Granted, the bars were old and rusted, but it still didn’t seem possible.

“Everybody ready?” Yankee said.

X-Ray nodded, as did Whiskey.

“Let’s do it,” Victor said.

Four against one—it wasn’t really a proper fight. Even for a foe as formidable as Horsehead, who lashed out with a flurry of fists and elbows and even a few desperate head butts, trying his best to gouge an opening in the wall of human bodies that were standing all around him. But the guards had electrified batons and saps that quickly pounded the resistance out of the prisoner.

After the beating, two of the guards dragged Horsehead back out to the main floor, a guard on each limb. Hardie trailed behind. By the time Hardie reached the main floor, the stage was already set. The sirens were blaring, the lights flashing. The other three prisoners were stirring, climbing to their feet and moving toward the bars like toy robots with comically large heads.

“What’s this, now?” Hardie asked.

“Escapes aren’t treated lightly here,” Victor said. “The other prisoners have to learn that any attempt will be met with an extreme—”

“You’re not understanding me. What are you going to do?”

“Standard procedure.”

“Do they bust out of their cages that often?”

Horsehead was on his knees, X-Ray and Yankee standing guard on either side. Whiskey carried over a rubber hose, which was attached to a wall fixture. When Horsehead saw the hose, he didn’t react. Not at first. He lowered his head, resigned to what was coming, as if it had happened before.

Christ, were they going to pull the old police trick of beating him with a rubber hose?

When the hose reached him, Horsehead launched a punch into Yankee’s stomach, then spun a few degrees on his knees and tried to do the same to X-Ray. No fancy moves, just blunt-force trauma. But X-Ray dodged the blow. Horsehead climbed off one knee, foot planted on the ground. X-Ray slammed a baton into Horsehead’s left shoulder blade and squeezed the trigger. ZZZZAP. Horsehead screamed in Italian and then Whiskey jammed her baton into his chest—almost as if the guards were trying to complete a circuit through the man’s heart.

Hardie took a step toward them.

Victor, circling on the periphery, said: “He’s fine. He’s going to be fine. The batons are tuned to nonlethal charges.”

Horsehead’s body got the message. His knees slammed back down onto the concrete, and his large muscled body wobbled there for a moment before collapsing to the ground. X-Ray and Whiskey zapped him a few more times on his head, neck, and the bottoms of his feet, and Horsehead’s body wobbled like a creature who’d been deboned.

“Goddamn it!”

“It’s almost over,” Victor said.

But it wasn’t. The guards were intent on finishing what they started. Horsehead was hauled back up to his knees, held in place. By this time, Yankee had recovered. He slapped Horsehead, slapped him again, a third time, then a fourth until his mouth finally flopped open and the hose nozzle was jammed in. Another guard held it in place by squeezing the top and bottom of Horsehead’s face, forcing his jaw shut. The water was turned on. The gush was violent and uncontrolled. It seemed to spray everywhere, out of the sides of Horsehead’s mouth and nose as his whole body began to writhe and guards struggled to hold him in place.

“Oh, fuck this,” Hardie said, and started forward with his cane.

Victor held up a hand, curled into a fist, and pointed it at Hardie. “Warden, stop.”

“Let him go,” Hardie said, a few steps closer now. He’d smack the guards with his goddamn cane if he had to. There was a difference between discipline and torture.

Then something squirted out of Victor’s wrist, nailing Hardie in the face. By the time he was trying to wipe it away with his sleeve, his eyes and nose were already on fire. Hardie, now blinded, screamed and lashed out toward Victor with his cane. Someone tackled him from the right. He yelled and tried to spin in midair, crashing onto the concrete floor with Victor on top of him.

“I told you not do that! You don’t understand! You stop this and we lose! Be sensible!”

“Get off me.”

“Will you please trust me?”

“Fuck you!”

Victor punched Hardie in the face, then used those few seconds of shock and confusion to put him in a crazy super-tight headlock. The lock was so tight and expertly rendered that it both threatened to cut off his air supply and essentially paralyzed Hardie from the midtorso up. He couldn’t even think a word, let alone speak it aloud.

“Listen to me, mate—I like you and all, but you’ve just arrived here, and you’ve got to learn to trust somebody, otherwise you’re not going to make it. We need you, just like you need us. That’s the only way this can work.”

Hardie wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but couldn’t move his jaw.

He could only watch as Horsehead fell back to the ground, choking almost silently, hideous gurgling in his throat, stomach bloated. X-Ray slammed a baton into his belly. Water gushed out of his mouth and he coughed for real now, a wet furious bark. He voided his bowels. They allowed him a few moments to recover, waiting at least two seconds between each bark, which let them know it was time to begin again.

Prisoner Two listened to the water-hose torture from the other side of the floor. She tried to return to the philosopher’s peaceful backyard garden, but was snapped back by the sound of the man’s frenzied barking. Her nervous system wouldn’t allow her to ignore that. Something about the man’s voice broke her heart.

They were no doubt putting on this show to impress the new warden. This is what needed to be done, this was how they handled business down here. All very familiar. But the new warden didn’t seem all that impressed.

Of course he wasn’t. He was Charlie Hardie, fugitive hero.

What she couldn’t figure out was why he was here.

Was it a taunt? Her abductors knew her assignment was to find Hardie. They had lured her to that hotel with the promise of new intel—a source who had claimed to know where Hardie had been hiding. Had they had him all this time, and now just shipped him here to taunt her? Or to see what he could get her to reveal? He’d been gone a long time. They could have done things to his mind. They could have completely broken it and rebuilt it from nothing. He could be here to pry apart her mind, see how much she knew.

Listening to Hardie’s reaction to the torture, however, led her to believe this wasn’t the case. The man still cared; the man was still a fighter.

She’d have to wait until they could be alone to know for sure. She just hoped he was smart enough to make that happen.

Hours later, Hardie woke up in his bed. His face and neck still ached from where Victor had punched and choked him. Whenever he swallowed, his neck muscles throbbed, to the point where he started to worry that his airway might seal itself up. His buddy, good ol’ Victor, was all apologies, of course. Had to do it, Warden. You’ll see. For the good of the facility. Blah blah freakin’ blah.

Why had he bothered?

His mind should be concentrating on escape, not on saving people. Saving people was what got him into this hellhole. Freakin’ Horseboy was probably a multiple murderer who skullfucked his victims and ate unborn children. And he just endured a face full of chemicals and a good old-fashioned choke-out to intervene on his behalf?

Enough of this.

Focus on getting out of this place.

Hardie had struggled up to a semisitting position when a calm voice spoke into his ear.

“Hello, Mr. Hardie.”

Oh, boy.

The Prisonmaster, at long last.

Finally, someone who could tell him what was going on here. Hardie knew it was pointless to threaten him. He had zero leverage here. Instead, he had to draw him out. Learn whatever he could about what this place was—maybe even where it was. What he was supposed to do, except get the crap beat out of him by his own colleagues?

“Uh, hi,” Hardie said.

“Welcome to site seven seven three four,” the Prisonmaster said. “I know the staff is excited to meet you.”

“Yeah. Real excited.”

The voice in his ear was real, but it still felt strange, like he was talking to himself.

“I detect a note of sarcasm in your voice, Mr. Hardie. It’s too soon in your tenure to be jaded, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t ask to be here. Do you have a name besides Prisonmaster? Who do you work for?”

“We all have the same employer. As for my identity…well, you know by now that’s not how we work.”

“Yet you know my name.”

“Yes, of course I do.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

Be the bigger guy, Hardie told himself. Draw him out. Learn something about this place.

Instead, Hardie blurted:

“I don’t understand what the fuck you want me to do down here.”

There was a pause on the line. Hardie thought he heard the sharp intake of breath, as if he’d offended the sensibilities of the man on the other line. He closed his eyes, tried to channel his former partner, Nate Parish. Nate was great at this stuff. He could draw a man’s deepest, darkest secrets out of him during a street-corner conversation. Hardie was never good at that. Hardie usually just hung in the background and watched, in case things got out of hand. With Nate, though, they never did.

“Mr. Hardie, we want you to do what you do best. Guard things. Wasn’t that your previous job? Guarding the homes of the rich?”

“This isn’t exactly a house.”

“No, it is not. Your task is much more important than protecting the material goods of the overprivileged. You are, in effect, protecting many homes, all across the country. Because the individuals incarcerated in this facility are those worst kind of predators. They destroy without guilt. They need to be contained. And your job is to contain them.”

“Don’t know if you’ve been down here lately, but things are a little out of hand.”

“Which is why you’re there,” the Prisonmaster said. “We want you to bring some moral rectitude to the facility. In the time without a warden, it’s lapsed a bit. This facility can be great again. It’s why you were chosen for the job.”

“Like I have a choice? I mean, I didn’t ask for this.”

The Prisonmaster sighed, almost inaudibly. “Your personal circumstances really don’t matter. You were selected for this job. As I understand it, you owe a considerable debt to our employers. But that’s no affair of mine. I’m just here to help you run the best facility possible.”

“Right. While you’re enjoying the sun up top somewhere.”

The Prisonmaster said nothing.

By now, Hardie thought, his dead partner Nate Parish would have deduced a hundred things from the conversation so far—if this guy went to college or not. If so, the specific college. And beyond that, which dorm complex he stayed in freshman year, and even beyond that he would probably be able to narrow that shit down to a handful of rooms. Hardie? All he knew about the Prisonmaster was that he was up there, and Hardie was stuck down here.

“Well, do you have any requests?” the Prisonmaster asked.

Hardie fought back the urge to request that the Prisonmaster insert his head into his own ass. But then remembered that he did have a few things to ask.

“Yeah. The food. Everyone’s tired of the breakfast foods.”

“Ah. This may take a while. The food service department is slow to change, but I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?”

Hardie racked his brain. There was something else…

“The heat. We need more heat down here. It’s freezing.”

“I will see”—there was a pause, as if to imply that the Prisonmaster was eagerly taking notes—“what I can do. Is there anything else, Mr. Hardie?”

“Yeah. Tell me what this is all about. Why I’m down here. Why you’re keeping people in cages in this secret prison. And most importantly, who the hell you people are.”

The Prisonmaster exhaled so forcefully it seemed like he was blowing right into Hardie’s ear.

“You may feel slightly discouraged, but remember this—the facility is what you make it. Everything in your file indicates that you bring unorthodox solutions to difficult situations. I believe you can bring great change to the institution.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And those people—by the way, they’re not people, Mr. Hardie, let’s make that clear from the beginning, they’re monsters, and they are being kept in cages to make the world a safer place. You were chosen because you possess a certain skill set. You’re down there to help make the world a safe place.”

Right, Hardie thought. But who’s keeping the world safe from you bastards?