Russell Andrews - Midas

He struggled to turn over on his side, felt his face brush up against something. A new smell overwhelmed him. Leather. He coughed and the force from the movement made his eyes fly open. The smell of leather was coming from a shoe, just inches from his face. He heard the rustling of cloth. His vision was wavy, his senses jumbled, but it seemed like a pant leg moving. Then he heard a drone, a harsh, steady buzz. The light-it seemed to be streaming in from a window-was making him wince, but his eyes stayed open, and Justin thought, I’m on a plane.

It felt familiar. Looked familiar. His head twisted and he saw something, his brain couldn’t quite take it in, then it clicked: a large fuel tank, like the one he’d seen in the small plane that Hutchinson Cooke had died in. His head turned again and he saw the shoe move. A quick sudden movement. He anticipated the blow a moment before it happened but there was nothing he could do about it. The kick came and the pain in the side of his head was sudden and overwhelming. He had another brief wave of nausea, then there were no more smells, no more sensations, and his eyes were shut and there was only darkness again.

When Justin woke up again, the drone of the plane had disappeared. So had the stale air, replaced by the smell of dirt and humidity and sweat. His head ached, behind the eyes, from whatever drug had been used to put him out, and in his right temple, where he’d been kicked. His mouth felt dry and dusty, his tongue was coated with crust, his throat constricted. Things were quiet; he ascertained no movement around him. The sense of elation was still missing and the deep crush of resignation was overwhelming.

It was life as usual, Justin decided.

He slowly stood up, was overcome by dizziness, looked for someplace to sit back down and realized there was nothing to sit on. Only floor. He took a step toward the wall, leaned heavily against it, surveyed the room he was in. It was small, the size of a cell. The wall he was leaning against was made of stucco and he assumed the other three were the same. The front wall had a wooden door that he didn’t even bother trying. He knew it would be locked. The door had a small slat in it. The slat was shut now but Justin figured it could be opened from the outside. A way to peer in. When closed, no way to peer out. On the opposite wall, maybe eight or nine feet off the ground, was a small window. It let in just a sliver of air and sunlight, and as best as Justin could tell, there were bars across it. He looked down now. The floor was dirt. Nothing fancy about it, just hard-packed dirt.

He felt a dull pain in his chest, opened his shirt and looked down to see an ugly purplish bruise immediately below his heart. It’s where they’d shot him, using some kind of tranquilizing bullet or dart. Some sort of stun gun. He hoped it’s what they had used on Reggie. He told himself that it had to have been. It was too painful to think otherwise. He had to drive the picture of her-sprawled on the bed, turned on her side, her head thrown back, twisted in fear-out of his mind. He wondered if she were alive. If she were there or if they’d only taken him.

He turned suddenly, lurching at a noise that came in through the tiny window. A bird maybe. Or wind. Or a branch rustling against the roof. The movement made his chest hurt like hell but Justin ignored the pain. He decided that pain was the least of his worries. What bothered him the most was that he didn’t have a clue what the most of his worries was.

All he could do was wait.

He tried jumping up to look out the one window but his head and his chest felt like they’d explode, and it didn’t matter anyway because he couldn’t see a thing. The slit was too narrow and there was nothing to hold on to to keep him eye level with the opening for more than a moment. He could hear sounds wafting in. Nothing specific, but he took the noise to be other human voices. He wondered if there were other prisoners there. Probably not, he decided. More likely workers. Or people who had absolutely nothing to do with this and were oblivious to his circumstances. Briefly, he wondered where the hell he was, but he cut off that line of thinking when he realized it was pointless. He could be absolutely anywhere. At least anywhere warm. That was all he could ascertain: the breath of air that managed to find its way in through the sliver of a window was hot for November. So he took a guess: Florida. That was the best he could do.

He waited for what he figured to be an hour. Maybe even two. He was still not alert yet, although the fog caused by the tranquilizer was beginning to lift. But he waited, not letting the solitude bother him, until it had been long enough that he thought, Where are they? Why hasn’t anyone come? And then maybe another hour passed and still nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Justin was hungry now. And thirsty. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d eaten. Hell, he didn’t have any idea what time it was. Or how long he’d been unconscious. He assumed it was the same day, the day he’d been taken, but he couldn’t even swear to that.

He’d tried to keep his brain clear. Knowing that, at some point, someone was going to come in and question him, he wanted to be as loose as possible. He didn’t know how far his interrogator might go, but he didn’t want to make it easy on him. He didn’t want any names or facts right at the front of his brain, nothing that would roll quickly out of his mouth.

Less noise was filtering in from outside, but Justin was still certain that what he did hear was human voices. No specific words were understandable, though. He had only the vague sense of a current of conversation.

He tried counting to keep some estimated track of the time. Each time he reached sixty, he’d make a little mark in the dirt. When he reached five full counts of sixty, he’d make a larger mark and erase the smaller ones. At some point, after about ninety minutes by his clock in the dirt, exhaustion overcame him. He had done nothing but count, occasionally pacing the length and width of the room, but still he was tired. The fatigue was stronger than his hunger. He lay back down on the floor, made himself as comfortable as he possibly could, although comfort wasn’t a priority; he was so tired it didn’t matter what position he was in. His eyes closed and, within moments, he was asleep.

The next thing he knew, he was jarred awake by a stabbing pain in his back.

His head jerked up and his eyes opened. A man in military fatigues was standing over him, holding a rifle. The man slammed the butt of the rifle into Justin’s back, in the same spot he’d obviously just hit to jab him awake.

Justin sat up, the pain fully registering now, hot and searing. The soldier jabbed at him again with the butt, this time clipping Justin in the chin, knocking him flat. Justin rolled onto his side, used the motion to propel himself to his feet. He took a wobbly step toward the soldier, stopped short when he saw there was a second man in the room. That man was holding a pistol, pointing it at Justin. Standing now, Justin let his arms drop to his sides. The first soldier stepped forward, expressionless. His right hand moved quickly, too fast for Justin to react, slapping him across the face. The crack resonated throughout the room and Justin could feel his cheek redden. He swayed backward but didn’t lose his balance. The room fell silent again and all movement stopped.

“Where am I?” Justin asked.

The man’s hand moved a second time, just as quickly. Justin felt the slap again and staggered several steps back this time.

“What the fuck do you want?” he said. “Or is that too tough a question for you?”

This time, when the man’s right hand flew toward his face, Justin was ready for it. His own right hand intercepted it, but he was weak, his resistance was low. The soldier was strong enough to push Justin backward, and he lost his footing. As Justin’s hands went to his side, trying to give himself some balance, the man in fatigues threw a hard right to the gut and Justin went down. He sat on the floor, gasping for air.