Michael Bunker - WICK

“We’d have gotten it far worse than you did if we tried to alert you in any way,” Bulldog said. “But I did try to warn you as best as I could under the situation.”

“And what was the situation?” Clay asked.

“Well, no one in that cell block has eaten anything in a week, and we were on half-rations before that,” Bulldog replied, matter-of-factly. “The leaders in there decided, when they saw you walk in, that maybe you’d be of some help, but instead you took pictures. After they couldn’t get you to help them, they decided to do just what they did. To be truthful, I didn’t think they’d do it. But, as you can imagine, they aren’t particularly… pleased… with your participation or help. Frankly,” he said almost sorrowfully, “I’m surprised you aren’t dead.”

Clay hung his head down and felt the tightness in his neck. “I was going to show those pictures to somebody in order to get you help, you know? I came in out of the blizzard half dead myself, and was trying to figure out how best to handle it.”

“Ahh, yes. Well, they couldn’t have known that, I guess.”

It occurred to Clay that these men—at least Bulldog here—spoke absolutely perfect English. Not a trace of any accent. Not from Russia, not even from New England. Not from anywhere. He spoke perfect accentless English.

“Anybody want to tell me what’s going on here?” Clay asked, painfully arching his back and testing to see if he felt any serious organ or bone injuries. He was pretty sure he had a couple of broken ribs. Couldn’t know if there was bleeding somewhere on the inside.

“Well,” Bulldog said, hanging his head and shuffling his right foot against the concrete floor and pushing on the mattress, “I just told you. It seems you got caught up in a riot.”

“That part I had figured… ummm…. what is your name?” Clay asked.

“I am Mikhail. This tall one here is Vladimir Nikitich and the other one by the door is Sergei Dimitrivich. You can just call us Mikail, Vladimir, and Sergei.”

“Your English is impeccable,” Clay responded, icily.

“Why wouldn’t it be? We’re Americans,” Mikail shot back.

“None of this makes any sense,” Clay said, continuing to feel with his hands down the length of his legs, engaging in an extended medical self-examination as they talked.

“You don’t know the half of it, Comrade,” Sergei sneered, looking toward Vladimir and laughing.

“Listen,” Mikail interjected, “what’s your name, anyway?”

Clay looked up to Mikail, straining to see anything—any light at all—through his swollen right eye.

“Clay.”

“Well, listen, Clay. For the three of us, I am really sorry that this has happened to you. I know that you may not believe that, or you may not care, but it is true. I really didn’t want any innocents to get caught up in what’s going down here right now.” As he talked, his right hand found his own rib cage, and he seemed to unconsciously press against his ribs one at a time as though he was counting them. “You’re in a bad spot. So are we. None of us asked for this.”

“Ok, so you’re sorry,” Clay said, looking Mikail in the face with his one good eye. “So, why don’t you guys let me out of here and I’ll just be on my way.”

Mikail shook his head. “That’s impossible, for two reasons. One,” he held up one finger to illustrate his point, “is that there is one hellacious blizzard going on out there. No one could go anywhere even if they wanted to. Two,” another finger popped up, “is because we’re not in charge. In fact, we’re probably the worst allies you could have right now… except, of course, for all of the other maniacs in this place.”

Mikail turned and began to tap the wall with his hand, then looked back at Clay with a worried look on his face.

“It’s not possible for you to understand the politics of this place, Clay. You don’t even know where you are. But,” he indicated ‘out’ by making a circular motion with his hand, “the rest of these guys are real criminals. Some of them are the worst kind of criminals. Whereas we,” he indicated the three there in the room with Clay, “are political criminals. They think we’re spies. Listen.” He stopped and walked toward the cell door, looking out for a moment before poking his head back in. “Forget all of that. None of that is going to make sense to you. I just say all of that to tell you that we are not your enemies, and those guys out there are not your friends. They’re rifling through the place as we speak, looking for food. That’s all they can deal with right now. Todd is dead, and if they find any other guards around here, those guys will be dead, too. I’m thinking that the back to back storms basically doomed the place. I’m not sure that any of the other guards even made it out here after the Hurricane. I’m thinking Todd’s been manning this place by himself. So, when no food showed up and things ran low in the cafeteria, he just decided that no one would care if we starved to death.”

Clay stared for a moment, trying to take it all in. Mikail looked at Sergei and Vladimir, “Well, I think that’s about it, Clay. An unnecessary chain of unfortunate events and now, shall we say, things have gone a little haywire.”

Clay just looked at Mikail, not sure what to think about anything he was hearing. He slipped off the bunk onto the mattress on the ground and sat there, pulling his legs up to his chest. Mikail crouched down, looking at Clay face to face. He whispered conspiratorially, “The new bosses, those thugs out there, they sent us in here because we speak good English, which is exactly why they hate us. That is why they suspect us of being spies. They don’t trust us. But they use us, you see, because our English is good. We’re here to find out if you can help them. To find out what you know.”

Clay shrugged, wordlessly. What could he tell them? He knew nothing. He showed as much in his face, as a way to answer.

“These young men and boys will kill you, Clay. That’s a fact. They almost did it before, but we were able to stop them. So, we’re supposed to find out just who you are and if you have any value to them.”

Clay shook his head, slowly. Strangely, the effects of the hypothermia had worn off, but the world he’d stepped into seemed to have shifted. It was as if the beating—perhaps it was the adrenaline—had served to heighten his awareness and his thought processes were back to normal, but the world had gone sideways in the bargain. He felt like he’d walked off the edge of the earth. He believed that Mikail wanted him to tell him something but he had absolutely nothing to tell him. He was a guy who had hiked out of the city and into the mountains and seemed to have wandered into a world not of his making. The only thing he knew for sure was that his only way out of this was going to be to convince someone, somewhere, to let him leave.

“Well,” he said, after some thought, “I’m Clay… I told you that. I am a hiker and a traveler that got lost in the storm. The second storm, not the first one. I was fine after the first one. I’m from upstate but I’ve been living in Brooklyn for the last six years. I got out of New York because of the storm, and because I just want to get home. I’m trying to get home to Ithaca. Then the nor’easter hit. I got completely turned around. I was unprepared. I made stupid decisions. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I stumbled into this place. One whole section of the external fence is down, by the way. That’s how I got in. Anyway, I stumbled into this place about half dead and frozen and I was able to plead with that security guard named Todd to let me in to warm up and dry out. That’s all that I know, but it’s the truth.”