Hell and Gone

“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.”