Michael Bunker - WICK

“Wow,” Clay said, looking over the veritable feast. “Good thing I still have my teeth.”

The young boy nodded, smiled politely again, and then turned to leave.

“Wait… you,” Clay sputtered, not knowing what to call the youth, “what’s your name?”

“I don’t speak the English,” the boy said, shyly and with a very heavy Russian accent.

“Someone forgot to tell your mouth,” Clay responded.

“Vasily,” the boy replied, again with a very thick accent, looking over his shoulder as if he were doing something very wrong. He stepped back out into the hall, and then quickly returned back to the cell with a case of water in plastic bottles, still in the plastic wrap. The writing on the water bottles was, he assumed, in Russian.

Clay grabbed one of the bottles of water and twisted off the cap and took a long swig of water. “Where’d you get the food, Vasily? I thought you guys were all starving to death.” Indeed, Vasily did look slightly thin, though not in any way approximating starvation or even some kind of malnutrition. His eyes were clear and bright, and his hair had been cut recently and he looked strong in a sinewy kind of way.

Vasily did not reply, but something in his eyes tried to communicate with Clay and he wrapped his hands nervously in his faded orange prison shirt not knowing if he wanted to flee or stay and talk.

“Are they going to kill me today, Vasily?” Clay asked, taking a bite from the toast, his good eye rolling back in pleasure at the taste of the salty, melted butter and beautifully toasted rye bread. When he looked back to Vasily, he smiled at the boy again, just waiting for a reply.

Vasily did not reply, he just nodded his head and walked back out of the cell. The lock ticked closed but this time the light was left on.

The next two meals that day were the only other interruptions to Clay’s somewhat welcomed solitude. Lunch was as bountiful as breakfast had been, though Clay could not be sure exactly what each of the dishes were or what they contained. There was a cold, sour soup that Vasily called “Okroshka” which had some green leafy vegetable, large pieces of potato, and chunks of fish. It was delicious. There was actually a small dab of some white caviar with small crackers which he did not enjoy, but then there was a heavy pancake topped liberally with butter and sour cream which was perfect. There was more coffee to drink, along with a shot of vodka. The only things he left on his tray after lunch was the caviar and the vodka. He laughed to himself as he looked at the un-tasted vodka. Last time I had vodka, I got thrown in jail!

Supper was a bowl of what looked like beet soup with ample pieces of meat (he could not tell if it was beef or venison or some other meat) and heavy dollops of sour cream on top. This was served with thick chunks of black barley bread with butter and a couple of sliced cucumbers.

“Maybe they’re getting me ready for my execution,” he told Vasily, “fattening me up so they can eat me.” The boy, who either did not understand or did not appreciate gallows humor, simply paused at the door as if to say something, but decided better of it and then disappeared again.

He was left alone without visitors for a few hours after his supper, and then, about the time that he figured it might be starting to get dark outside, he heard a knock at the door and recognized the tall figure of Vladimir peering in. Why knock?

Mikail led the procession into the cell and Vladimir and Sergei came in behind him. Both leaned up against the walls with arms crossed affecting a youthful position of arrogance and unearned power, like thugs who had just taken over the playground. It had become evident to Clay that Mikail was the man in charge and it didn’t seem that he minded letting Clay know that either.

“Good evening, Clay,” Mikail said with a cold smile of mock friendliness.

“Hello,” Clay responded unemotionally. It was apparent to him that the façade of good cop had been dropped. Mikail had apparently decided to now deal with him as who he really was, whatever that could be. With the better lighting and some minimal use of his right eye, Clay now noticed that Mikail was probably in his early 20’s, older than Clay had originally thought, though youthful enough to pass for an older teenager. Sergei and Vladimir did not look to have reached their 20th year yet and were maybe in their late teens.

“I hope you have enjoyed the food. Things improved for us radically once we’d taken the town,” Mikail said, with just a hint of pride.

“So there is a Russian town around here?” Clay asked.

The three young men started to laugh, Mikail laughing the hardest, and it took a moment for him to return to his more serious demeanor.

“Yes, Clay, there is a Russian town around here. Right here in America. Warwick, as we informed you earlier. And like a wick draws up oil, so Warwick has drawn you into itself. It is our town, and now we run it.”

“Congratulations. Ok, so what does that have to do with me? Why am I still here? Why are you still acting like I should know something I don’t? Why was I beaten? What comes next?”

“Easy, Clay” Mikail said, “You are still here because we have not yet decided what to do with you. You are a hostage. The rest can wait for now.”

“Do I get a phone call?” Clay asked sarcastically.

“Maybe you could if the phones were working, or if anyone else in the tri-state area had electricity. But…” Mikail paused, taking a deep breath. As he did so, Clay could sense the bravado drain out of him, replaced by a level of stress and weight that the young man was not entirely used to. The crown weighs heavy on the head of a king .

“But,” Mikail continued, “it seems that the fortuitous duet of storms that has plunged this part of America into utter darkness, has had—is having—some serious effects. We were able to take this prison—and all of Warwick—because the guards and many of the employees either couldn’t make it here to work, or chose not to come in for some selfish reason of their own. As we mentioned last night, the prison didn’t even have a ghost staff on duty when we took over. The town fell just as easily.”

“I don’t know Warwick, and I don’t know Russian, and I don’t know you, and I don’t have any idea what any of this is all about, Mikail,” Clay stated, frustrated and starting to get angry.

“We’re pretty sure that you are telling the truth, Clay. Unhappily, whether you knew it or not, whether you were a spy or not, whether we took over the prison or not, you probably were not going to make it out of here alive,” Mikail said in a matter-of-fact tone. He showed that he was not particularly concerned one way or another with what Clay thought about what he was saying. “You see, you’ve stumbled into a very secret compound, Clay. Once you got into this building, you were not getting out alive. This place doesn’t exist. Warwick doesn’t exist. As of last night, man, you don’t exist.”

“What is all of this, then, Mikail? Why are you telling me any of this? Do you think that you are some movie villain, some brilliant psychopath who has a soundtrack playing everywhere he goes and likes to talk his victims to death? Why not just do whatever it is you’re going to do?” Clay asked.

“We’ve come to take you to a meeting, Clay,” Mikail said, smiling. “We’re waiting on word that a ‘high value target’—is that what you people like to say?—has been captured, then we’re going to have a little town meeting in the gymnasium. Nothing so sinister as you imagine. We’re just filling time, being neighborly. I am glad you liked the food.”

As Mikail finished talking, Clay saw another young man enter and some words were shared between him and Mikail, and then the young man exited again without having looked at Clay at all.