Jeffrey Thomas - Subject 11

Opening the door, he saw the room was empty. Graffiti extended now to the ceiling and floor — obscuring the former blood stains — but the wounds he had gouged in all four walls were still there. Good. His gaze lowered to the pair of eyeglasses with white frames lying on the floor beside the chair. He couldn’t recall to whom they had belonged, but after a moment of hesitation he went to them, retrieved them, folded the glasses and slipped them in his breast pocket. Then he left the room and continued on toward the storage room upstairs. His smile returned. He couldn’t wait to show 3 the key… then take her with him to go test it. He trusted his intuition utterly now, had no doubt whatsoever that this key was the instrument of their freedom.

“Hey,” he gushed, slipping past the still half-open green metal door, “hey—”

He stopped in his tracks on the graffiti-covered floor.

Somehow the graffiti had spread across the floor without affecting the strewn doll heads. The collection of unrolled sleeping bags. The group of chairs in one corner — and the chair that stood alone, and vacant, in the center of the room. The graffiti had crawled up and consumed the walls, the ceiling. The graffiti had created a new confession room.

“No,” 2 choked. “Oh no.” His body sagged. His soul sagged within him. He stepped further into the room, turned in a slow shambling circle. Perhaps she had simply gone out into the complex in search of him… perhaps if he just stayed here and waited for her to return…

His thoughts froze like a startled deer before it bursts into flight, when he heard a distant unearthly scream. It ululated, echoed with a watery resonance, rang in his ears and in the hollow of his chest. But ultimately, after only a few moments, it faded away and was gone.

2 dropped the copper pipe, and it clanged by his feet. He pressed the palms of his hands hard into his eye sockets, and released a single barking sob. He had never learned her name. He hadn’t even known her name.

He backed up blindly, hands still crushing his closed eyes. He would not forget her. He swore he would not allow that to happen.

He backed against the chair at the midpoint of the room, and fell into a sitting position upon it. And still he blocked his eyes.

He sat that way for an indeterminate amount of time. It might not even have been a linear “arrow of time.”

Then, he raised his head and lowered his hands from his eyes. He blinked, but perhaps from the pressure against them his eyes were blurry, so he reached into his breast pocket, withdrew his eyeglasses with their narrow lenses and fashionable white frames by Roberto Cavalli, and slipped them on. Yes, oh yes… much better.

Dr. Once twisted around a little on the chair’s vinyl seat, this way then that, surveying the room. “Yes,” he spoke aloud to the walls, as if making a confession to no one but himself. His voice bore only the barest tease of an accent. “Quite good.” Water damaged, the scabby mottled walls looked diseased, but were at least completely devoid of graffiti.

He was more than satisfied. Like a Mobius strip looping in on itself, the experiment was ended and had just begun.

Dr. Once rose from his chair, and before leaving the room — leaving the building — double checked that he still had the key in his pocket. He withdrew it, and fingered the green plastic tag, the tag which bore in metallic gold the number that was his name.

Jeffrey Thomasis an American author of weird fiction, the creator of the acclaimed milieu Punktown. Books in the Punktown universe include the short story collections PUNKTOWN, VOICES FROM PUNKTOWN, PUNKTOWN: SHADES OF GREY (with his brother, Scott Thomas), and GHOSTS OF PUNKTOWN. Novels in that setting include DEADSTOCK, BLUE WAR, MONSTROCITY, HEALTH AGENT, EVERYBODY SCREAM!, and RED CELLS. Thomas’s other short story collections include WORSHIP THE NIGHT, THIRTEEN SPECIMENS, NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS, DOOMSDAYS, TERROR INCOGNITA, UNHOLY DIMENSIONS, AAAIIIEEE!!!, HONEY IS SWEETER THAN BLOOD, and ENCOUNTERS WITH ENOCH COFFIN (with W. H. Pugmire). His other novels include LETTERS FROM HADES, THE FALL OF HADES, BEAUTIFUL HELL, BONELAND, BEYOND THE DOOR, THOUGHT FORMS, SUBJECT 11, LOST IN DARKNESS, THE SEA OF FLESH AND ASH (with his brother, Scott Thomas), BLOOD SOCIETY, and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: THE DREAM DEALERS. Thomas lives in Massachusetts.

Subject 11 © 2014 by Jeffrey Thomas.

All Rights Reserved.

Cover photo and cover design by the author.

Author’s photo by Colin Thomas.

Subject 11 was originally published as a limited edition hardcover book by Delirium Books, 2012.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN-13: 978-1499516838

ISBN-10: 1499516835