Aftershock & Others Read Online Free Page A

cell.
    “Dinner, creep,” says the guard as he kicks the tray forward with his shoe.
    “The name is Mich, Hugo,” I say evenly, refusing to react to the sight of those eyes.
    “That translates into creep around here.”
    Hugo leaves. I listen to the squeaky wheels of the dinner cart echo away down the corridor. Then I look at the bowl of grapes again.
    The eyes are still there, pale blue, little-girl blue, staring back at me so mournfully. They think they can break me this way, make me pay for what I did. But after all those years of marriage to Louise, I don’t break so easily.
    When I’m sure Hugo’s gone I inspect the rest of the food—beef patty, string beans, French fries, Jell-O. They all look okay—no surprises in among the fries like last night.
    So I take the wooden spoon, the only utensil they’ll let me have here, and go to the loose floor tile I found in the right rear corner. I pry it loose. A whiff of putrefaction wafts up from the empty space below. Dark down there, a dark that seems to go on forever. If I were a bit smaller I could fit through. I figure the last occupant of this cell must have been a little guy, must have tried to dig his way out. Probably got transferred to another cell before he finished his tunnel, because I’ve never heard of anyone breaking out of here.
    But I’m going to be a little guy before long. And then I’ll be out.
    I upend the bowl of grapes and eyeballs over the hole first, then let the rest of the food follow. Somewhere below I hear it all plop onto the other things I’ve been dumping down there. I could flush the eyes and the rest down the stained white toilet squatting in the other corner, but they’re probably listening for that. If they hear a flush during the dinner hour they’ll guess what I’m doing and think they’re winning the game. So I go them one better. As long as they don’t know about the hole, I’ll stay ahead in their rotten little game.
    I replace the tile and return to my cot. I tap my wooden spoon on the Melmac plates and clatter them against the tray while I smack my lips and make appropriate eating noises. I only drink the milk and water. That’s all I’ve allowed myself since they put me in here. And the diet’s working. I’m losing weight. Pretty soon I’ll be able to slip through the opening under that tile, and then they’ll have to admit I’ve beaten them at their own rotten game.
    Soon I hear the squeak of the wheels again. I arrange my tray and slip it out under the bars and into the corridor.
    “An excellent dinner,” I say as Hugo picks up the tray.
    He says nothing.
    “Especially the grapes. The grapes were delicious— utterly delicious.”
    “Up yours, creep.”
    Hugo squeaks away.
     
    I miss my pipe.
    They won’t let me have it in here. No flame, no sharps, no shoelaces, even. As if I’d actually garrote myself with string.
    Suicide watch, they call it. But I’ve come to realize they’ve got something else in mind by isolating me. They’ve declared psychological war.
    They must think I’m stupid, telling me I’m in a solitary cell for my own protection, saying the other prisoners might want to hurt me because I’m considered a “short eyes.”
    But I’m not a child molester—that’s what “short eyes” means in prison lingo. I never molested a child in my life, never even thought of doing such a thing. Especially not Marion, not little eight-year-old Marion.
    I only killed her. Nothing more.
    I made her part of the game. The October game. I handed out the parts of her dismembered body to the twenty children and twelve adults seated in a circle in my cellar and let them pass the pieces around in the Halloween darkness. I can still hear their laughter as their fingers touched what they thought were chicken innards and grapes and sausages. They thought it was a lark. They had a ball until some idiot turned on the lights.
    But I never molested little Marion.
    And I never meant her any harm, either.