Nine by Nine
Marcus counted the steps off in his head again. It wasn’t an exact measurement of the room, but after seven months, it hardly mattered.
Nine by nine, time by time. Around the bend, and feelin’ fine. He ran the mantra through his head, the poor rhyme he’d created to help him keep the crazy at bay. Marcus couldn’t really be sure how long he’d been in the cell, in the trap he’d sprung on himself.
The thick cement walls of the cell held in his even loudest screams, soaking them into their dark gray surface. Food was sent into the grate above him at regular intervals, and he had to be careful to get underneath it as soon as he heard the tramp of boots, or he’d have to scrape his dinner off of the floor. Water was provided the same way – thrown from cold buckets down into the cell whenever his jailors felt like it. Once, he’d had to wait for two weeks for a single drop.
Speaking to the men who held him did no good. Repeated attempts to make any kind of contact was met with silence, even the old “sick man” ploy. No matter what Marcus said, no matter how he howled, he was ignored.
Nine by nine. He thought it as hard as he could, forcing himself to draw it out in his mind, to sound out every syllable in his imagination. It kept him calm, somehow, kept him from bashing his head into the walls in desperation, from ending it all.
There was no predictable timeline for his release, since he’d chosen this exile voluntarily. A guilty conscience had led to the final realization that he’d never be able to live with what he’d done to Charlie – even if he was long dead and gone. Unless Marcus suffered, unless he endured some kind of penance, he’d never be whole, never be worthwhile.
The self-incarceration program had seemed like such a simple solution. No trials, no lawyer fees, no judges and no need for anyone else to know what crimes he’d committed. It wasn’t as though he had that many friends, and not much effort was required to convince those he did know that he was taking a trip, exploring the world before he turned forty. In truth, he’d never left the city, but taken a taxi straight from his apartment to the local enforcement bureau and confessed his crimes. The man who’d helped him had been friendly enough, though with the same eyes all the G-men had, the ones that said “I’m a stone-cold creep,” the ones that gave lie to the honeyed words that came from pale lips.
Marcus didn’t care; he had a crime to pay for, and if karma wasn’t going to get the job done for him, he was determined to do it himself.
Of course, he hadn’t read the fine print. Sure, there was a lot of it, but he assumed that there were certain sanctions in place, certain rules those running the program had to abide by. As it turned out, he’d essentially signed his life away.
The contract he’d so readily agreed to had come floating down through the grate only a few days after his incarceration, when hope was still strong and warm. A thorough read through the tattered paper – since he had nothing else to occupy his time – revealed that he’d given up his status as a citizen, and that as far as the government was concerned, he was an “acceptable loss”. The term was familiar; it meant they could do whatever they wanted with him, and owed him nothing. At least the contract had given him toilet paper for a week.
Around the bend, he though as he took several slow, deep breaths. Feelin’ fine.
He wasn’t. Not any more.
The sound of the grate opening threw him off-pace, and he stared up blankly as sunlight flooded in. Outside exercise was not an option in his prison, and he’d gotten used to the darkness, used to the feel of stone under his hands as he did his best to keep his body in shape, keep it from atrophying completely.
Light hurt.
There was a thud in front of him and then the screech of the grate being shut once again. Hands against his eyes, Marcus saw nothing, only heart a faint scrape in the darkness before a force slammed into him, slamming his back against the wall.
Mouth open, he tried to force a scream, but nothing would come. An unused voice had left him with little power, no chance to cry out – not that it would have mattered. He pushed back hard, shoving with all the force he could bring to bear, and caught a hard puff of air in the face, a hot breath expelled as breath was pushed out.
He was no longer alone.
Sight returning, he made his away across the cell toward his attacker, who was on one knee and struggling to rise. A quick blow to the back of the neck sent the larger man to the floor, and he drew up one foot, intending to finish what had been started permanently.
“Wait!” The man bellowed, and Marcus felt a shiver run up his spine, as though Death had brushed his shoulder as he passed by on his rounds. That voice was impossible.
The face was impossible too, something he was sure he’d seen for the last time thirteen years ago, sinking into the churning water of the Bay. There was no coming back from the Bay.
“Marcus!” Charlie cried out, crawling forward on the concrete. “Please!”
Backing away quickly, Marcus put himself tight to the wall, trying to escape the specter in front of him, the thing that could not be.
“It’s me, you moron!” The would-be Charlie called out. “And you owe me an explanation – you owe me your life!”
Nine by nine, he thought, stepping around what didn’t exist in the middle of his cell, time by time. Dead brothers didn’t simply re-appear.
- D
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