Ike Hamill - The Vivisectionist

“Want to try them now?” asked Jack.

Stephen stopped mid-stride — crossing the floor of the bishop’s room from white tile to white tile. “I thought you needed my help moving something,” he said.

“Yeah, I do, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take a detour, right?” asked Jack.

“Nah, let’s keep moving,” said Stephen.

At the end of the tripwire hallway, they waited patiently in the dark for the door to the white room to open. Next, they made their way up the ladder to the attic. Both boys looked for the nest of baby rats, but the home had been vacated.

“Shit, how are we supposed to trigger that door?” asked Stephen. “Don’t we need something alive?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got another way we can go,” said Jack.

They hunched over the empty nest. Stephen straightened up and looked at Jack. “Another way?”

“Yeah,” said Jack. “Remember that vent that ended with the pole? That’s a shortcut to the basement. You just have to know how to get out from there.”

“Oh,” said Stephen. Jack expected him to be more inquisitive and had prepared a story about finding that shortcut when he had gone back for Stephen’s bag. It was a flimsy story, time-wise, but he thought that Stephen would buy it. In truth Jack had stolen away to the hotel the past couple of nights. The pole did descend all the way to the basement, but Jack knew even more about it.

Jack continued on to the long jump, and Stephen followed. They made it across the gap with practiced ease. Walking down the stairs to the spiral room, Stephen commented — “I forgot how long it takes to go this way.”

“Yeah,” agreed Jack.

The boys didn’t communicate much through the next few obstacles. Stephen needed help scaling the ledge in the wide passage, but it was easy for Jack to jump up and then give him a hand. When they arrived at the door that progressed to the smaller vents, Jack led the way to remind Stephen the way to the pole.

“Okay — I’ll see you at the bottom,” said Jack, grabbing the pole. “it’s like thirty feet down, so you’ve got a ways to go. I’ll shine a light for you so you can see when bottom is coming.”

“Cool,” said Stephen from behind Jack.

Jack kept his flashlight out and tucked it under his arm. He had studied the trap at the bottom of the pole, and was pretty sure he could avoid sliding all the way down. If Jack's plan worked, he could capture Stephen without harming him. If it went wrong, he would certainly lose Stephen’s trust.

Either way, Jack had the advantage because he knew the way out. He swung his legs over the edge and started a very controlled slide down. When the room opened up, Jack gripped the pole to stop his descent. He pushed off so he could extend his left leg backwards. He felt the ledge and shoved with his arms, away from the pole. He stood on a small ledge built out from the wall. Jack jumped to the floor and leaned over to the pole so he could look up to Stephen.

“Okay,” Jack yelled, “come on down.”

Stephen slid down fairly quickly. Jack pointed his light upwards as a beacon to Stephen. As soon as he saw Stephen’s feet come into the room, Jack shut off his light, leaving Stephen in the dark.

“Hey!” yelled Stephen. Jack didn’t want Stephen to see the wire-mesh cage below him.

“Keep going,” said Jack. “Just my batteries.” Jack heard Stephen touch down on the floor and then heard the clank of a cage closing around his friend.

“What the fuck?” asked Stephen. Jack flicked on the room lights with a switch next to a door. The bright lights made both boys squint. The lights revealed the steel cage around Stephen, which had sprung up to pin him in the corner of the room.

Jack reached for the gas mask hanging from a hook on the wall.

Just before he donned the mask, Jack said “Sorry buddy, but I need a gift.”

Jack pulled the mask over his face and Stephen’s protests were briefly silenced by the noise of pulling the straps past his ears. Breathing through the mask, Jack reached over and flicked the other switch on the wall. The first switch was marked with a little picture of a light bulb, but this one showed a small cloud. Throwing this second switch caused white gas to emerge from small holes in the walls around Stephen. Ninety-nine percent sure that the gas wouldn’t harm Stephen, Jack watched with excitement and curiosity as the gas reached his friend and Stephen began to pass out.

“I can’t believe you. Why are you doing this?” slurred Stephen.

Jack didn’t have a chance to answer before Stephen slumped to the floor of the cage. Jack sighed into his mask and nearly made the mistake of removing it. Instead, he kept the mask on and strode over to the lever to release and reset the cage. He saw no marking on this lever, but its position led Jack to believe that it would disengage the metal walls confining Stephen.

He was right, but hadn’t expected the force with which the cage would disengage. One of the panels crashed down on Jack’s foot and numbing pain shot up his leg. Jack staggered back, once again reaching for the mask, but stopped himself before he removed it. He hunched over looking at his shoe. The way his left foot felt, he wouldn’t have been surprised to find half of it amputated by the crashing cage, but there it sat, looking normal.

Jack looked up at the dissipating cloud and waited for his foot to stop throbbing enough for him to continue. Unshouldering his pack, he unzipped the big compartment and dug to the bottom. He found several tie-wraps, a roll of tape, and a bandanna. He considered his next moves: roll Stephen over to bind his hands, gag him, and blindfold him.

Stephen had slumped against the wall with his head turned away from Jack. Just then something occurred to Jack: he should have checked on Stephen immediately. Stephen might be asphyxiating, or already dead from the gas.

Jack limped over to Stephen and nearly entrapped himself before he remembered the cage. The trigger for the cage wasn’t obvious, but it had something to do with putting weight near the base of the pole. Jack noted the missed detail as he realized that he didn't have a good plan for getting Stephen out of the cage area without getting imprisoned himself.

Jack slowed his thoughts, emptying his head so he could consider the problem from the designer’s perspective. A good trap must have a way to extract the victim with no danger to the predator. He looked around the room, but saw no other controls.

Jack returned to the cage lever to give it a second look. Pulling it again, he discovered a feature he missed the first time: after pulling it down, you could lock it to the side. Jack smiled — that must be the way to lock-out the trigger, he thought.

With this small victory, Jack limped back to Stephen, confident the cage wouldn’t engage. He rolled Stephen over and grabbed his wrist. He felt a strong pulse. He breathed a sigh of relief, removed Stephen’s backpack, and arranged Stephen’s limbs so he could pull him away from the wall. Jack found it difficult to work with the gas mask on, so he moved quickly to immobilize Stephen.

Pulling Stephen’s wrists behind his back, Jack used his tie-wraps as handcuffs. Next, he put tape over Stephen’s mouth and tied a blind-fold across his eyes. Jack finished with several loops of tape around Stephen’s legs. Jack didn't secure Stephen's legs tight, but wound the tape around several times.

Jack heard a distant electronic beep, just once, and couldn’t pinpoint its origin. He stood straight up, his ears tingling. Jack took several deep breaths and then returned to his mental checklist. Stephen was ready. Now he needed to take Stephen’s limp body to the examination room.

Jack rolled Stephen onto his back, and checked Stephen's breathing. Jack limped over to the door. While searching the hotel on Sunday night, Jack had established a fairly detailed mental map of this part of the hotel — he knew that down the hall, on the left, he would find a closet which held several jugs of liquid and a big dolly.