Shudder Page 15

  One of the men leered at me. “I’m not sure what the point is of making it so complicated. The agent seems to work just fine.”

  “I still don’t know why we’re not artificially inseminating,” said another man. “I know that the argument’s been made that it requires a certain amount of distasteful ‘hands-on’ activity on our parts, but I think the results would be much more favorable.”

  “You gonna jack ‘em off, Foster?” asked another man.

  I curled my lips in distaste.

  Foster clenched his jaw but was silent.

  “She’s worked wonders thus far,” said Bartholomew. “I think we need to give her idea a shot.”

  “The truth is, Bartholomew,” said Foster, “you’re far too invested in the immortals. You find general population entertaining. This is all some kind of warped little game you want to play because you’re too old to think of anything more exciting to do.”

  Bartholomew wasn’t fazed by this criticism. “Oh, perhaps so. Does it matter what my motives are?”

  “It matters if you’re wasting our time making us think up scenarios for the immortals,” said another man.

  One of the men looked at me. “Thing is, we’re limited in the kinds of things we can make happen down there. You want them in danger, and you want them to work together to save themselves. How do you propose we do something like that?”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. I hadn’t really thought through the logistics of my idea. Bartholomew seemed so pleased with it that I thought it was good enough as a concept. “Well, maybe we should start by listing the kinds of dangers they could be in down there.”

  “That’s just it,” said Foster. “We don’t want them hurt. We need them intact.”

  “You had no problem depriving us water for days,” I said, glaring at him.

  “Your little stunt with the cameras pissed me off,” he said, glaring right back.

  “But that was different anyway,” spoke up someone else. “That was a consequence for actions. If they end up in danger for no reason, I highly doubt it’s going to have the desired effect. They’ll be too caught up in wondering why we’re fucking with them.”

  That was true. We’d have to find some other way to make this work. I had to admit I enjoyed trying to figure this out. “What if they thought it was an accident?”

  “Aha!” said Bartholomew. “You see? I told you she was genius.”

  “She’s still one of them,” said Foster.

  I flinched. “I’m not. You had me killed. Now I’m one of you, whether I like it or not.” I didn’t bother to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

  “What kind of accident?” asked one of the men, bringing us back to the topic at hand.

  “I don’t know,” I said, searching for something to say. “Something that could happen and they wouldn’t suspect we were behind it. Like the power going out?” I realized belatedly that I had said “we” instead of “you.” I felt guilty about all of this. Was I being an idiot? I knew where the door was. Should I be running away? I could get help and come back? No. I wasn’t leaving without Jason. I had to figure out how to get him out. Once I did that, I’d leave. Until then, I had to play the game.

  “We could cut the power,” said someone, “but that would mean that we couldn’t see what was going on. The cameras would be dead.”

  “The lights could be out and the cameras could still be running,” I said. “They wouldn’t know the cameras were on.” I bit my lip. “Of course, I guess if it was dark, we wouldn’t be able to see anything.”

  “The cameras are equipped with night vision,” said another man.

  “I still don’t see what would make them think losing power was an accident,” said Foster. “They’ll think we’re screwing with their heads.”

  “They will if we tell them it is,” I said.

  “What?” Foster threw me a withering glance. “How would that work?”

  “We send down a note with the food,” I said. “It says that the power’s going to go out for a few hours and that they shouldn’t be alarmed. That all the doors will be unlocked and the temperature control will be completely off. Then we turn off the lights, lock them in, and blast cold air on them.”

  A man raised a finger, grinning. “I like it. Dark and cold. They’re going to want to be close.”

  Bartholomew nodded. “Yes, that’s a nice touch.” He considered. “But you said they should work together to save themselves. How can they do that in this scenario?”

  Crap. I’d completely forgotten about that. “Can we have them locked in the main room again? Same drill as before with Emma?”

  “Certainly,” said Bartholomew.

  “Well, we’ll tell them in the note that if anything goes wrong, the food shaft will still detect if something goes in it. We’ll give them a pen and paper, and tell them they should let us know if there are problems that way, since the cameras are off.”

  “They’ll think we aren’t watching them,” said one of the men. “She is genius.”

  Despite myself, I felt a little proud. “Then we make sure the food shaft is electrified. They’ve got to get their message to us in that shaft while it’s juiced up and shocking them.”

  Bartholomew gave me a slow smile. “Very nice.”

  Foster shook his head. “You actually think this is going to work?”

  “I do,” I said. I was kind of sure of it. “But I wouldn’t expect it happen during the danger. It’ll happen after they’re safe. It’s the kind of thing people do to affirm that they’re alive after something harrowing.” I couldn’t help but think of Jason and me in a hotel room, after he’d shot the Sons and rescued us. This would work, and I wasn’t sure if I could forgive myself for doing it.

  * * *

  Foster was outside my door. “Bartholomew doesn’t think that anyone needs to keep an eye on you, but I don’t agree.”

  “Good for you.” I started to close the door in his face.

  He wedged his foot in it. “Aren’t you going to be polite and ask me in?”

  “If I don’t invite you, are you banned forever?” I said. “We are vampires, aren’t we?”

  He shoved the door open and stepped inside. “You’re very funny, Miss Jones.”

  “I guess there’s no way to make you leave?”

  He shut the door.

  I sighed. I went over to the couch and threw myself down on it. “Please don’t get comfortable. I don’t want you around.”

  He sat down on the chair. “You’re playing Bartholomew, but I see right through you.”

  “Do you?” I said. I actually regretted being rude to him suddenly. Maybe he was going to get me thrown back in a cell. But he hadn’t been very polite to me earlier. It would have also looked suspicious if I’d pretended to be his best friend.

  “You’re trying to get out of here,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of anything to say without giving myself away.

  “I guess you don’t recognize me.”

  I looked at him sharply. I hadn’t expected that. “Should I?”

  “Maybe if I were bowing,” he said. “The last time I saw you, you and your boyfriend were in Italy, and I was pledging to protect him with my life.”

  I furrowed my brow.

  “I infiltrated the Sons for Bartholomew,” he said. “I was looking for a book that Professor Moretti had. About King Arthur. I saw you recognize it in the library.”

  I sat up straight. “Bartholomew said the book was a dead end.”

  “Oh, it was. Bartholomew thought that the line of King Arthur was a line of immortals. He thought we’d be able to use the book to track them down. It turned out that the blood was too diluted by this point to make much difference. The descendents of Arthur had to mate with someone who also had immortal blood for their children actually to be immortals themselves.” He shrugged. “I did find your boyfriend’s brother, however. I shot him, and he didn’t die. So I brought him back here.”


  “So you have nothing to do with the Sons,” I said.

  “Other than posing as a member for a while, no,” he said. “I did like the way they dressed, I guess.” He smiled.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Keeping an eye on you, like I said,” he said. “Bartholomew’s an idiot. They brought the two of you in here even though I told him it was a bad idea. I knew who you were. After all the propaganda I got fed when I was pretending to be in the Sons, I watched you and Jason. You’re bad news.”

  I shrugged. “Bartholomew snapped my neck. I can’t go anywhere or else I’ll die in a month.”

  “Whatever you are, you’ve probably got some way around that,” said Foster.

  “No,” I said. “The power we had is gone.”

  He smirked. “Sure it is.”

  “Why else would we still be here?” I said.

  He appeared to consider that. “Maybe you’re telling the truth. Maybe you aren’t. No matter what, I don’t trust you.” He settled in the chair, looking me over. “Why are you playing games with the kids downstairs?”

  What was I supposed to say? “You ever been locked in a room for a month with no human contact?”

  He shook his head.

  “Well, it was either that or help Bartholomew.” I picked at the arm of the couch. “And there is the blood.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “The blood is pretty great.” He leaned forward. “But you wouldn’t betray your boyfriend for that, would you?”

  “I already have,” I said, and I didn’t have to fake the amount of shame that crept into my tone. It was true. I was doing this to try to save us, but I was crossing a lot of lines. That seemed to be the way my life worked. Nothing was easy. And I wasn’t ever going to be some kind of saint.

  He smirked. “I almost believe you.”

  “I couldn’t care less what you think,” I said. “I don’t want to go back to that room. I like the shower here.”

  “Oh, you care what I think,” he said. “Because Bartholomew’s belief in you will only take you so far. So if you really don’t want back in that room, you better not slip up. And I’m watching you.”

  “Good for you,” I said again. “I guess that’s what you folks like to do around here, isn’t it? Watch?”

  He got up and sat down next to me on the couch. “Oh, I’ve been watching you since you got here.” He leaned in close. “I’ve seen everything.”

  I stood up.

  He did too. He brushed my hair away from my neck and whispered in my ear, “That was quite a show you put on down there. You’re very... athletic.”

  “Fuck you,” I said.

  He just laughed.

  * * *

  Foster took me to the control room later that evening. He had keys to the elevator. I assumed everyone did except for me. Maybe I’d get some eventually, but I didn’t know if I could wait that long. I needed to figure out how to get someone’s keys. And I needed to find out where Jason was and how to get him out of his room. Near as I could tell, the keys only worked on the elevator. The locks on the doors were electronic, controlled by the computer.

  Bartholomew was already inside, along with the men from the meeting earlier today. “So lovely to see you, my dear,” he said, leading me to a seat.

  “Is it a good idea to put her near a keyboard, Bartholomew?” said Foster.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” said Bartholomew. He gestured to the monitors. “As you can see, they’ve already found the note we sent down. They’ve read it, and they look concerned.”

  I directed my attention to Boone’s and Grace’s confused faces. They were talking about how nothing like this had ever happened before.

  Bartholomew turned to me. “So, when do we kill the lights and start everything?”

  “Does Emma know about this?” Grace said. “Maybe we should find her.”

  “Now,” I said. We couldn’t have Emma there. It would screw everything up.

  “You heard her, boys,” said Bartholomew.

  There was a clatter of keys being struck as the men typed into various consoles. The monitors went black, and Grace screamed.

  After a second, the cameras adjusted, and now we could see them again, although they looked strange and green, with oddly gleaming eyes. I was familiar with the way night vision looked from enough mockumentary horror films that I wasn’t surprised.

  “Boone?” Grace was saying, reaching out in the darkness. “Where are you?”

  Boone’s hands brushed Grace’s, and he grabbed them. “Gotcha.”

  “Well,” said Boone, “they said the power would go out.”

  “Why do you think they’re doing this?” she said, huddling close to him.

  “Routine maintenance?” He squeezed her shoulder. “Maybe Jason, Jude, and Azazel aren’t dead, and they’re causing trouble up there for them.”

  “Do you think so?” There was so much hope in her voice. It broke my heart. I was alive, but I wasn’t causing trouble for our captors. I was doing that to Grace and Boone.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Look, they said the doors wouldn’t be locked. I can help you find your room.”

  “You’re going to leave me alone?” she asked in a tiny voice.

  “What’s wrong? You scared of the dark?”

  “No.” Grace drew herself up, even though Boone couldn’t see her.

  Boone was feeling around for the door.

  “Boone, do you think it’s getting colder in here?”

  “Maybe a little,” he said. “But they said the temperature control would be off, so—”

  “Shh,” she said.

  A second of silence.

  “Why am I being quiet?”

  “Do you hear that? There’s air coming through the vents. They’re on.”

  Boone had found his way to the door. “Weird. Maybe they’ll go off later?” He turned the door handle. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “The door’s locked,” he said.

  “Why...?”

  “The air’s still on, the doors are locked,” he said. “Something’s not right.”

  Grace chewed on her lip. “They said the doors would be unlocked.”

  “And that the temperature control would be off.”

  “So whatever’s going on up there, it’s not going the way they said it would,” said Grace. She hugged herself. “That air coming through the vents is really cold.”

  “Yeah,” said Boone. “It is. Look, the note said that if things went wrong, the food shaft would work.”

  “You think we should try to send them up a note, like they said?”

  Boone shrugged. “I don’t know. They’ve never done anything like this before. They’ve never given us a way to communicate with them.”

  “It must mean that they didn’t anticipate this going well. Whatever’s happening, they expected issues,” said Grace.

  “Okay,” said Boone. “Let’s write the note.” He closed his hand around Grace’s again and together, they felt their way back across the room until they found the paper and pen we’d sent them.

  Grace felt around the edges of the paper. “I can’t see. How am I supposed to write?”

  “Do the best you can,” said Boone. “And keep it simple. Just write, ‘Doors locked. Air on.’”

  “Okay,” Grace said. She began to write. We could see that her note was little more than an illegible scribble. Foster and some of the other men laughed. I started to join them, and then felt as if I were betraying the two of them. They didn’t know all of this was a setup. They were worried. “Done.”

  “Cool,” said Boone.

  “So, I’m just going to put it in the food door,” she said. The two were close to it. Grace ran her fingers over the wall until she touched the metal door. It shocked her. She screamed and fell backwards.

  “Grace?” said Boone. He knelt down on the ground and crawled to her inert body. “Grace, are you okay?” He shook her. “Wake up!” I could hear the worry in his voice
. He really did care about her. He rocked back on his heels, and drew a hand over his face. “You’re going to be okay,” he said more to himself than her. “You’re going to wake up in just a minute.”

  The minutes dragged by. Neither Boone nor Grace moved. He had taken her hand, and he was squeezing it tightly.

  She looked so small and helpless down there. I didn’t like it. Why was I doing this? For a monster like Bartholomew? I had to find a way out and soon.

  Grace gasped and sat up.

  Boone put his arm around her to support her. “It’s electrified.”

  “No shit.” She clutched her chest.

  “You okay?” he said.

  “I’m... yeah. I think so. Give me a second.”

  He pulled her close. “You scared the hell out of me. Maybe you should let me try to get to the door.”

  Grace didn’t seem to mind having Boone hug her like that. She smiled a small, satisfied smile that only we could see. “You can’t get to it. It’ll shock you.”

  “Maybe if we used something that didn’t conduct electricity,” he said.

  “Like what? Our tennis shoes? Oh, I forgot, we don’t have any.”

  Boone was thinking.

  “The table tops are wood,” Grace said. “Maybe that might work. We could slide one over and push the note down it?”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t do anything at all,” said Boone.

  “What?”

  “The power’s out,” he said. “The cameras aren’t working. They can’t see us. This is our chance to try to get out of here.”

  “How?” she said. “The doors are locked.”

  Boone was on his feet, stumbling through the darkness. “I don’t know. But I bet Jason would have an idea.”

  Grace felt in the blackness. “Where are you?”

  “Here.” He’d found a table. He turned it over onto its side so that he could roll it. “What do you think would happen if I hurled this table at the door? You think it might break it down?”

  “I don’t know.” Grace was wandering towards the sound of Boone’s voice.

  I heard the sound of Foster chuckling above me. “This isn’t working at all how you planned, Miss Jones. Didn’t you think they’d try escaping?”