P Deutermann - The Moonpool

It was no contest. The dog must have weighed over a hundred pounds, and between the dead weight, the horrible slaughterhouse noises, and the dog’s own squirming, the man simply could not hold on. They both fell to the ground, and I held my breath. I thought surely the rottie would let go and then go for the man’s throat, but he didn’t let go. He began pulling the screaming man along the fence, back toward the corner from which he had appeared, matching each scream with a growl of his own and a sharklike shake of his massive head, as if determined to drown out the human’s piteous cries and simultaneously rip off his prize. He dragged that poor bastard all the way down the fence line, jerking backward around the corner, and then backed into the trapdoor, where they both disappeared into sudden silence.

I remembered to breathe. I looked over at the guards, who had gone back to their routine of walking back and forth along the interior walkway, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The rest of the detainees in the exercise area were still frozen in their tracks, as was I. I’m sure we were all wondering what would happen next, inside that door, but the show was definitely over and that was that. It had taken all of maybe ninety seconds. I glanced back up at the top floor, and this time I thought I saw a blurred white face in Moira’s window.

Okay, neighbor, I thought. Still want to make a run for it? I looked back out at the fields and woods beyond the perimeter fence. The trees were perhaps two hundred yards across the open field from the fence. I assumed the river was just beyond that tangle of willows, scrub oaks, and haphazardly piled flood debris.

But then I saw a welcome sight.

Frick and Frack were looking back at me. They were sitting just inside the tree line, clear as day, if you were looking.

When I recovered from my surprise, I began walking casually toward the perimeter fence, conscious of the fact that absolutely no one else was getting anywhere near it. I was sure the guards were watching and wondering if the madness was contagious, but then I turned around at the chalk line and did a light jog back to the other end of my pen. I did this twice more, and each time confirmed that I could see my shepherds’ heads sticking up through the weeds just inside the tree line, watching me.

Okay, I thought, if they’re watching me, then there’s a human out there, too, hopefully with binocs. On the third trip back to the perimeter, the whistle blew. I scoped the guards out of the corner of my eye. They were gathering to assemble the detainees to go back into the building. I got to the white line, stopped, stretched, got down on one knee with my hands on the ground, and pushed the other leg out behind me. Then, keeping my body between the guards and my hands, I made an imaginary pair of scissors out of my two hands and mimed cutting through the fence. I got back up and walked casually to the other end, where a guard was waiting for me. I heard another Marine bark out a command, reminding the small line of prisoners that there was no talking allowed.

“Nice pet you-all got there, Marine,” I said. “What’s his name?”

“Kibble and Bits,” he said. “Step out. Fall in. No talking. Clear?”

Clear as a bell, I thought. I stepped out, fell into line on the sidewalk, and shut my yap. If the dog hadn’t already done it, they were going to have to amputate that poor bastard’s foot.

That evening after supper I went in to use the bathroom. There was a message soaped on the mirror: Well? It was signed MM and followed by the words erase this. I erased the message with a wet cloth, picked up my soap bar to reply, but then put it back down and went about my business. On balance, I still didn’t know if I could trust Moira to be who and what she said she was. First of all, what were the chances they’d put a man and an attractive woman in conjoined rooms? Even with all the elaborate key card security, she’d still managed to get into my room. And how had she done that? With a conveniently dropped key card, which was never reported missing? Third, she was a wild-eyed redheaded female. I’d tangled with one of those in my younger days, and tangled was the operative word. In my view, red in the head meant Celt in the blood, and that tribe had always and only been about mortal combat.

I wedged my door open with a towel, retrieved her skivvies, and put them on the edge of the sink. Then I retreated to the relative safety of my room. Whatever I was going to do about escaping, I wasn’t going to complicate it with Mad Moira.

Unless, of course, I wanted use of that magic key card.

I sat down at the little desk and thought about it some more. Obviously, there was no going over the fence in broad daylight with that thing on ready-alert. So: first things first. See if my guys out there got the message about cutting the fence. I got up and looked out the window. It was raining again, and now there were tendrils of fog creeping up from the river through that band of trees where I’d seen Frick and Frack. Maybe tonight, they’d make their move.

The next day was gray and overcast, but without the rain. I took my usual exercise period, this time around midafter-noon. Which exercise pen you got depended on the whim of the guard, but I’d noticed that the first guy in the lineup after coming out of the building went to the first pen to our left, and so on. I set myself up so that I was shut into the same pen as yesterday.

I did my standard exercise package, but ended up near the perimeter fence instead of the base of the pen, where I faked a leg cramp. I sat down on the grass and did a little kabuki, pretending to suffer through the act of straightening out my “cramped” thigh muscles. In between grunts and twitches, I examined the fence. I was looking for signs that it had been cut, but it hadn’t.

Well, shit. So much for that.

Then I scanned the grass and weeds outside of the pen. Immediately beyond the fence was the perimeter running track the Marines used. Beyond that, it was just wet weeds and foot-high grass all the way to the edge of the woods. And, yes, there were signs something had come across that field to the fence. Subtle signs, but to anyone who’d done any tracking, they were there.

I examined the fence again. I had to be very careful here. I had to assume there was a video camera focused right on me because I was lingering near the forbidden fence and the white line of death-by-rottweiler inside the pen.

I stood up, and then sat right back down again with a grunt of simulated pain. Two feet closer to the fence. I stared hard, but the fence was intact. What wasn’t intact was all the clips along the bottom of the panel of chain-link wire in this pen. They were all there, but they had all been severed. Assuming there was enough slack in this fence, I should be able to push my way out under the bottom of the chain-link.

Okay. The guys had been watching.

I got back up again and hopped around on my good leg while trying to make the other one work properly. In the process I turned out toward the woods, pointed at my watch, and then stretched three fingers against my stomach. Then I began limping back toward the other end of the exercise pen. I saw one guard watching me, but he looked more sympathetic than alarmed. I hobbled back to the end of the pen and sat down on the ground again, continuing to massage my thigh muscle.

“You okay?” the Marine asked quietly through the fence.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Fucking cramp.”

“Heard that,” he said, one workout guy to another.

I kept up the gimp act all the way back to my room. I heard the last cohort of exercise-bound people being mustered out in the hallway, and it sounded as if my next-door neighbor’s door had opened and closed. I waited fifteen minutes, and then went into the bathroom, where I took a long, hot shower to soothe my “cramped” limbs. When I was finished in the bathroom, I soaped a single word onto the mirror: talk.