The Six: Complete Series (2 page)

As the footsteps got closer, he knew he should run. The crowded main road was only a hundred feet away from where he stood, but he was stopped, frozen in place. All he could muster was to walk inch by inch and focus on the faint blue light illuminated in front of him. Just keep moving. Don’t stop. They get you when you stop trying to run.

The footsteps stopped. “Hello? Excuse me?” a sweet voice asked behind him.

Simon clutched his phone tight in a fist and stopped walking the moment he heard her voice. It was soft, like a little child’s. From the faint light of his phone, he saw a woman wearing a thin dress that was gauzy from constant use. She was young, no more than twenty, but had the weariness of a woman twice her age.

“Can I help you?” She took a step forward while he took one back. He wasn’t taking any chances with anyone, even her.

Her tired eyes look up at him, pleading. “Do you have any change? I just need a little to buy formula. My baby, she’s just six months old.”

He took another step back as she put her hand out for money.

“I-I might,” he said. His hands shook as he dug them into his jacket pocket. All he could feel was a crumpled dollar bill.

“Here,” he said as he placed it in her hand.

“Thank you.” She smiled gratefully as she delicately grabbed the bill. Before he even had time to register what was happening, she clamped her nails around his hand.

“Hey!” he said as he tried to pull his hand away from her grip. She was much stronger than she looked. Her grimy nails dug deeper and deeper into his skin.

Her eyes lowered as she hoisted up her skirt. Attached to her thigh was a tight band that held a small syringe in place. She snapped the top off the syringe in her teeth and spit it across the alley way.

“Help!” he screamed as loud as he could.

It was no use. No one in the store could hear him. He kicked at her leg and pushed her away with his other arm, but it didn’t deter her. She lunged forward and stabbed his bicep with the needle. He could feel its contents course through his body immediately.

“What is that? What did you—” The words slurred and coagulated in his mouth as his muscles seemed to melt to the ground. He flung his hand out towards the wall and dug his fingers into the concrete in search of a grip.

She pushed him to the ground with a strong shove. His head slammed against the side of the wall.

Before he finally passed out he let out one last “help”.

“...he waking up?”

Simon rolled over on his side and immediately felt a shock of pain from the giant welt on the side of his head. He slowly opened his eyes. There was no pillow, no bed stand, and no mother standing at the door beckoning him to breakfast.

A pair of hands shook him. He groaned a questioning noise.

“I think he’s okay,” the female voice said. “Are you okay?”

There was a bright light above his head that assaulted his eyes as he struggled to focus on what room he was in.

“He’s fine,” a gruff voice said. “Just leave him alone.”

The hands lifted off his body, and he could make out the outline of a tall woman in a black suit. She backed away from him and stood to the side with her arms crossed. “We shouldn’t just leave him.”

Simon went to sit up, but the nausea hit him like a speeding bus. He turned over and vomited onto the floor beside him.

“Great. Just great,” the gruff voice said.

He wiped his mouth and looked at the group in front of him. The woman in the suit stood by the wall and, to her right, a girl cowered on the floor with her arms wrapped around her legs. The man with the gruff voice strode over to him. He was in blue scrubs and had stubble that grew along his cheeks. He paced back and forth across the room in front of Simon, his hands perched on his hips.

The room was no bigger than the average doctor’s office and had concrete walls on all sides. There was a door in the corner with three locks that ran down its side. Simon was on the floor and felt the rough graininess beneath his fingers as he forced himself to sit up.

Along one wall was a boy, no older than twenty, who stared up at the ceiling with a listless intensity. Next to him was an older man in his late thirties, wearing a crisp black suit and styled hair. He stood expressionless with his hands in his pockets, like he was waiting for a bus.

“Where are we?” Simon asked.

The man in scrubs stopped pacing for a moment and shook his head. “No idea. Thought you might know. Apparently you’re the only one they brought in unconscious.”

The girl against the wall let out a muffled cry and buried her head further into her bent legs. The woman next to her slid to a crouch and rubbed the girl’s back in a fruitless attempt to calm her down.

Everyone stared at him. He didn’t have time to panic. “I have no idea. I was at work, and this woman came up and stabbed me with some needle. Then I was here.”

The scrubs man walked to the door and pounded it with a clenched fist. “Hey!” he screamed. “Let us out!”

The teenage boy sighed. “Shut up!” he screamed.

The man pounded again. “Hey!”

“Shut up!” the boy shouted even louder.

The girl let out a wail that echoed through the room. The scrubs man turned towards her and glared. “Make her stop crying,” he said to the woman.

She simply shrugged. “She’s scared.”

“We all are,” he said.

Simon moved closer to the boy whose eyes darted wildly from wall to wall. He needed an ally, or at the very least, someone who could help. Everyone had found a spot on the floor except for the one who hadn’t stopped moving since he woke up. The boy next to him didn’t look at anyone else. There was a lost look in his eye as he tugged at the string attached to his hoodie.

Simon moved closer to the boy. Each time he got near, the kid moved in turn.

“What’re you doing?” he asked.

Simon stopped where he was. The kid had turned his whole body away like Simon had maggots crawling on his skin. The look of disgust on his face was jarring. “I just—”

“Don’t talk to me.”

“Hey, c’mon...”

The boy pulled his hood over his head and buried it in his knees.

“He was in here when I got here,” the girl said as she pointed to the kid. “He was here first. Maybe he knows something.”

The man in the suit sighed loudly. “Lila, we’ve been over this. And over this. He won’t talk.”

The scrubs man walked to the corner of the room and ran his hand along the edge.

“What are you doing?” Simon asked.

“There’s got to be a way out—like a crack in the plaster or whatever. They can’t seal us in here forever. Where’s the air comin’ from?” He walked the perimeter of the room, stepping over everyone to do it.

“Sit down,” said the man in the suit.

He pulled at the door again. “I’m doing more than you. Why are you just standing there? Help me out.”

The suit man stayed at his perch with his arms crossed.

“C’mon. Help me!” His shouts went unanswered around the room. Simon tried to spot where the small whiffs of air conditioning were coming from. The scrubs man was right; it needed to be coming from somewhere. As far as he could see, the room was a solid block. Even the door was one solid piece, without a hint of a gap in the metal or vents that brought in their cool air.

“Give it up. Don’t you think we tried?”

The scrubs man gave another yank. “Yeah, well lot of good it did you.”

Lila looked up and wiped away a tear. “We’ve been here for a while. Benjamin tried already. We all screamed so loudly, and it didn’t do anything. We screamed and screamed for an hour, and they didn’t come. Nobody came.” The words sent her back into another crying fit.

The man in scrubs lifted his hands in frustration. “Doesn’t anyone else care that we’re stuck in here, and there’s no one outside that’s answering the door? I mean, seriously. What is going on?”

No one said a word.

“Don’t any of you care? What’s wrong with all of you?”

Again there was silence.

The man stared out again, and his eyes changed from fierce determination to absolute panic. He spun back to the door and began to claw at it. “Let me out!”

It wasn’t until then that Benjamin finally moved. In three long steps, he got from the wall and walked to the door. He grabbed the man by the back of his shirt and slammed him against the door. “Calm yourself,” he said.

The man wriggled and seemed to want to escape his entrapment. Benjamin used his other hand to push against the man’s chest and pin him to the wall.

“Shit, man. I can’t breathe.”

Benjamin didn’t let up. Instead, he let the man’s body move from squirming and panicky to calmed and lax. “You cannot panic. None of us can. What’s your name?”

“Dennis,” he said with a nervous squeak.

“Dennis. I need you to lower your voice, for all our sakes. Do you understand me?”

Dennis nodded. Benjamin lifted his hands and walked back to his spot on the wall. Dennis collected himself and walked back out to the center of the room like nothing had happened. “Does anyone have any idea what’s going on?” he asked in a calm mannered voice.

Five heads collectively shook no. “They spiked my drink,” Lila cried, “and then I woke up in here.”

The woman in the suit patted the girl’s back again to stifle the new series of sniffles. “I was with a patient. They just told me to come with them. This man put a bag over my head and drove. So, I have no idea where we are.”

“They didn’t knock me out. They abducted the man who was supposed to take me to the airport. The driver had a gun and told me not to fight, and I didn’t,” Benjamin said.

The kid sat with his eyes not focused on anything. Simon nudged him a bit, but his body was stiff. “You all right?”

Dennis moved in a little closer to the boy. “Yeah, how’d you get here?”

Lila lifted her head up. “He was here when I got here. It was just us for a really long time.”

“What’s your name, buddy?” Dennis asked.

The boy’s fists clenched at his side.

“He’s that guy. On TV,” Lila said quietly.

Dennis looked the kid up and down. “No shit. I thought I recognized you. Mike or something, right?”

“Milo,” Lila said.

“Ah, that’s right. Big shot over here thinks he’s too good to talk to us.”

Milo shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not?” Simon said.

Milo’s eyes shot over, betrayed. Dennis took that opportunity to address the room. “Oh, well, isn’t that convenient. What are you, like some mole for them out there? Do you know something we don’t know? Is that it?” Dennis took long glides over to Milo and hovered over him.

“Get away from me,” he said.

Dennis kicked at Milo’s shoe which just sent the kid further into the crouched position he’d put himself in.

“Dennis, stop it,” the suit woman said.

“Shut up,” he said. “I’ve got this.” He kicked at Milo’s foot again with enough force to launch his shoe from its planted spot on the ground. Milo barely caught himself before tipping over.

“I don’t know anything. I don’t know where we are, okay. I don’t!” he shouted.

“I don’t believe you,” Dennis said. “How long have you been here?”

Milo shook his head. “Long enough.”

Simon couldn’t take it anymore. With the little strength he had, he got himself off the ground and stood between Milo and Dennis. He braced himself for the inevitable push to the floor and kick to the face. Instead, he felt Dennis’ labored breath on the back of his neck as he stood in defeat. Milo gave the smallest smile as his attacker backed away.

As Simon walked back to his spot against the wall, he saw Edwin’s basement materialize around him. He could see the chipped plaster wall and the matted carpet. As Dennis talked, he heard the muted sounds of Edwin speaking to people upstairs. Those people, those stupid people, walked right above his head as half the state was out looking for him. Those idiots sat in that man’s living room as he lay starving, scared and tied to that pole. He felt the panic rise up his spine.

Simon barely made it to the wall. He gripped the concrete with his fingernails so hard he felt his nails bend against it. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t stop hearing Edwin’s footsteps walking down the stairs.

“What’s wrong with you?” Dennis asked.

There was a hand on his shoulder, a gentle touch, but he still wrenched his way out of it. “Don’t.”

“Sit down.” The woman in the suit placed her hand on his chest. It took everything he had not to push her away. The room pulsed with each shallow breath.

“You’re not breathing well. Take a deep breath and try to push my hand up.” His eyes were closed as hard as they could go. He struggled for a breath, and another did not come easily.

“Fantastic,” he heard Dennis mutter, “Now we’ve got to deal with this.”

“Shut up,” Lila said.

Simon pushed his back against the wall and tried to ignore the fact that the rest of the room was staring at him. “Just breathe, all right?”

He wanted her to go away, but he couldn’t catch his breath, let alone form any coherent thoughts. Every time she touched him all he could feel was Edwin’s hands, and it made everything so much worse.

A small voice spoke out from the corner. “Marie, I think he wants you to stop.”

She crept back and, with each step, the feeling started to lessen. Normally he’d run outside, lie down, and feel the fresh air in his lungs. In this room there was only the stale stream of frigid air and the faint stink of bleach and ammonia. When he shut his eyes, he imagined the sun heating his arms and the never-ending expanse swelling around him. No walls, no locked doors, just open fields.