Another voice joins the conversation. “You have to be quiet. I’ve heard him moving about today since he brought her. He’ll be down here soon. We have to be quiet.”
I slap the wooden wall. “What is this place? Rory! You let me out! If this is some kind of fucking joke, it’s not funny!”
A voice that hasn’t spoken yet, but is very close to me, whispers harshly from a crack in the dark wall. “This is hell, and we are his. Just do everything he asks and be everything he asks. There’s no escape. Only madness. He’s locked you up like he did all of us. This is a prison, you understand?”
“No.” I lift a finger to the corner where her face is and feel her breath as she continues.
“My name is Be— Jane. My name is Jane. I came here six months ago, I think. But I can’t be sure. What’s the date?”
My brain pauses, fully frozen, to try to answer her. “March 22, I believe.”
“2014?”
I shake my head. “15.”
A soft sob slips from the crack in the wall. “Oh God, of course it is. I’ve been here since last May. Nearly a year.” Her voice breaks, and for a second I think she might fully cry. But she doesn’t. She accepts it and moves on almost immediately. It’s creepy and not very reassuring. It’s much more a sign of what is to come for me than I think I can comprehend.
“I was in a car with my boyfriend. And now I’m here.”
“A Jeep?” she asks softly, her delicate word ripping a huge hole in my stomach and heart.
“Yes.”
She whimpers again, but it sounds like a laugh. “He’s the best boyfriend ever, isn’t he?” She giggles again, but it’s as if someone is dragging a knife down her arm, forcing the pained giggle out. “Until he’s not and you’re here.”
“Where are we?” My throat is dry and coarse.
“I don’t know. It’s underground—I know that. But there is nothing else. No water dripping, no traffic, no noise whatsoever. It’s just us and silence and him. But he’s not here all the time.” Her voice is so familiar, like it’s been inside of my head.
I immediately know where we are. We’re at his cabin. The dank air doesn’t smell the same in here as the crisp air outside, but I know that’s where we are. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. “Has anyone ever escaped?” I whisper back into the corner, feeling my own breath landing back on me.
“I don’t know. A couple of the girls have been here longer than me. Some have left, but not ’cause they escaped.”
I don’t want to talk anymore. I need to find a way out. I rifle my pockets for my phone, but it’s gone, so I lift my hands and run them along the walls the whole way around. I am truly in a dugout. It’s a room surrounded by dirt and wood, and the floor is straw the entire way. My brain tries to whisper things about bugs and the stuff I can’t see, but I don’t let it. I sit back on the bed and wait. He will come, and I will kill him.
“You have food in the corner at the end of the bed. It’s in a bar fridge next to the toilet. There is food and water there.” The girl, Jane, whispers, “The light can be a friend in the dark.”
I scramble to the end of the bed, feeling for the fridge. I had noticed the toilet on my circle around.
And there it is. I fling the door open, flooding the dark space with light. As my eyes adjust I am surprised by what I find. It’s much nicer than I anticipated. Much.
It’s cleaner and less like a dug hole in the ground. More like a cellar. The ceiling is cement, perhaps the oddest part of the room, and the floors are cement with straw covering them. Some of the walls are wooden, and others are old cement that’s broken down and looks a bit like dirt. The bed is stacks of hay with blankets over the top, and the small white bar fridge is my only company. The crack where Jane whispers from is in one of the cement-and-dirt walls. The cracks are decay. In the dim light I can see her dark eyes in the shadows. I might not have seen the color if not for the ghastly state of her pale skin. She is white like I have never seen. Gray almost. When she leans in I can see she has different-colored eyes. One is dark blue and the other pale. She blinks and backs up, making them both appear dark again. Her face changes in the shadows, making me think I have seen her before, and then maybe not.
“The food gets refilled when he comes, so it’s feast or famine, but he always comes.” Her puffy lips are cracked and sore. She looks exhausted and hollow. Her oddly colored eyes reflect only blankness.
“Do I know you?” I ask, thinking I can’t help but feel like this Jane has crawled around inside of my head.