J Bryan - Dominion

Time passed and he grew absurdly happy they’d never had a child. Or bought a dog. Madeline bristled at the idea of “dog hair” and “dog smells” in their home. The dog would be stuck inside by himself, with no one to take care of him. He wondered what happened to the pets of those disappeared by Terror. He decided it was better to have a small dog, because they would probably kill a large dog when they raided your home. A small, fearful dog who ran and hid at the first sign of danger.

Had Sully had a dog? He couldn’t remember. He hadn’t seen one at Sully’s house.

A cat might be a better choice. Cats were better survivors on their own.

He knew what happened to the children of the disappeared. Older teenagers would be interrogated, probably, but the younger ones would be given over to Child and Family Services, their fate to be decided by Liam O’Shea and his kind. He wondered what they did at the Child Salvation Centers.

He was grateful he had no children.

Time passed and he slid into a dark, comatose sleep. He dreamed he was hiking across an endless white glacier riddled with cracks as deep as canyons. In the distance, almost at the horizon, he saw Sully stooped over, trudging forward into the cold wind. Ruppert tried to call his name, but he’d lost his voice.

?

He awoke to a loud wailing sound that burned his cold, stiff ears. The door panel opened and two large men in black coveralls reached in and hauled him out of the cell. The cell was sunken below floor level, so Ruppert was up and over a ledge onto another concrete floor. The air here was only room temperature, but it felt like a soothing sauna to Ruppert. He sucked in a deep lungful of the warm air, then accidentally sighed as he breathed it out.

“Don't get too comfortable,” one of the men said. They lifted him to his feet.

“Sooner or later you’ll wish you were back in there,” the other said. He had a flat nose that looked as if it had been broken long ago. “Get walking. We’re not carrying you.”

The men stayed close on either side as they walked up the dusty gray corridor. More metal doors were sunk low in the wall on either side of him.

“Is Madeline here?” he asked.

The first man, who had a scar twisting from his ear to his throat, stopped him with one hand and punched Ruppert in the jaw with his other.

“First rule,” he said. “No questions. You don’t ask anyone anything. Understand that? We own all the questions here.”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?” Scarface asked.

“I don’t know what he said.”

“Yes,” Ruppert said. “I said yes.”

Scarface hit him again, this time in the gut. Ruppert doubled over, slumped to his knees, and struggled to draw air.

“What was that for?” Ruppert asked.

Scarface grabbed him by his shirt. “Did you just ask me a question?”

“Yes. No.”

“Now he’s lying,” Broken Nose said. He grabbed Ruppert’s hair and turned Ruppert’s head to look at him. “You’re asking questions and telling lies.”

They threw him to the floor and kicking at his ribs, his shoulders, his head, their boots slamming into bruises still raw from his beating in the van. When his nose was bloodied and one eye was swollen, they jerked him back to his feet and made him walk.

The first stop was a large industrial sink, where Broken Nose dropped a metal grate over the basin, then drew on a pair of latex gloves. He grabbed Ruppert’s forearms and pressed them down on the grate, so that Ruppert’s bound hands were underneath the wide-mouthed faucet.

Scarface retrieved from under the sink a large plastic jug half-filled with a brackish, dark green fluid. He unscrewed the cap and bared his teeth at Ruppert.

“Don’t move your hands,” he said. He began to pour the fluid over the sticky bindings that glued Ruppert’s hands together, which now looked like a mass of old, dirty caulk.

The clumps of binding began to bubble and steam, dripping off his hands as fluid and acrid white smoke. He watched the drops of white liquid spatter the grimy basin, burning into the dark crust around the drain. He wriggled his fingers around, making sure Scarface poured it over the large clots sticking to his palms and between his fingers.

His hands began to itch, and then to burn. The green liquid, or its reaction with the dissolving paste, was eating into the skin of his hands. He hissed and tried to draw back, but Broken Nose just tightened his grip on Ruppert’s forearms.

“Burns a little, yeah,” Scarface said. He replaced the jug under the sink, then lit a cigarette. “It’s got to get in there good if you want that crap off your hands.”

The painful burning intensified. It felt like he’d grabbed a double handful of poisonous jellyfish tendrils and squeezed them tight. The burning spread underneath his fingernails, and deep into his knuckles. His teeth ground together, every muscle in his arms seized up tight, and he tried not to shout his pain, understanding that his captors would beat him if he complained.

The bindings on his hands continued to dissolve, with a sound like frying eggs, bubbling and dripping-it looked and felt like his hands were melting away, right down to the bone.

“You know what helps with that?” Scarface said. “Water. Just plain, cold water.” He positioned the wide mouth of the faucet directly over Ruppert’s hands.

“Water does help,” the broken-nosed guard said.

Scarface touched the handle over the sink. “You want me to turn this knob here?”

“Yes,” Ruppert said.

“Yes what?”

“Please. Yes, please, sir, please turn on the water, Jesus God it hurts.”

“I think he called you Jesus,” Broken Nose said.

“Is that right?” Scarface leaned in close to Ruppert. “Did you call me Jesus? Do I look like God to you?”

“Please.” Ruppert’s voice was a pained hiss. His fingers were bent into sharp hooks. He thought he could feel his fingernails peeling away.

“That looks like enough to you?” Scarface asked the other captor.

“Looks okay.”

“I think it’s enough.” Scarface turned the knob and a broad column of cold water fell onto Ruppert’s hands, washing away the reacting chemicals and soothing his pain a little. He twisted and turned his hands to make sure everything got washed off, just as he’d been stupid enough to do when Scarface was pouring the acidic liquid.

“Make sure you get it all,” Broken Nose said. “You don’t want any bone damage.”

When his hands were thoroughly rinsed, Ruppert looked them over. A tangle of red, bleeding stripes was burned into them, from his wrists to his fingertips, and the muscles in his fingers felt very weak. His fingernails were actually intact, though a couple of them felt loose, like scales ready to be shed.

They marched him up a dusty concrete stairwell and down a gray cinderblock hall into another windowless room, which was empty except for a heavy wooden chair with leather cuffs for the wrists and ankles. They strapped him into the chair, then left the room.

Ruppert sat alone for a very long time, but with no way to judge time he could not really tell if it was twenty minutes or an hour, or more. His hands throbbed; the nerves in his fingers felt as if they’d been exposed to the open air. He glanced several times at the room’s only other feature, a mildewed green curtain that partitioned off one side of the room. He could not tell how much space was behind the curtain, or if it was just a wall.

His back was to the door, so when it finally opened again, he couldn’t see his captors until they walked in front of him. Scarface placed a folding card table in front of Ruppert, while Broken Nose positioned a chair on the far side of the table, facing Ruppert. They left again without a word.