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Chapter Four
REESE
Looking around to finda safe way down this hill, I spot a mass of rocks that look easy to hop down, but hesitation and unease fill me slowly. The silence up here is eerie, but I have to be at least a half mile from the town below me. I readjust my bag over my shoulders and head down the hill toward the houses and buildings—a normal city/town, whatever it is. It isn’t Chipley, that’s all I know.
It takes less than a half hour to reach the main street, where I find shops lining the side of the smooth, paved road. Oh my God, I’m actually free—I can go call Mom and tell her I’m alive and here, wherever here is. I run toward the first shop on the corner and reach for the glass door. Tugging at it, I quickly realize the inside is dark and the door is locked. It must be out of business, but at least the next store is only a couple dozen steps away. I rush over for that door, pulling at it, using all of my strength, but it doesn’t budge either. This shop is dark, too. I look down the length of the street, noticing there are no people anywhere in sight…no signs of life. The silence and emptiness reach out to me, filling me with trepidation; although, it could be a Sunday morning and I would have no clue. That would explain the empty streets and closed stores. I’ll assume that’s the case. I just need to find a police department or a hospital where I’m sure I can get some help and find out where I am. Picking up my pace, I jog halfway down the street until I hear static similar to the sound of a hand-held radio.
“Possible Juliet. Lake and Main Street,” a voice abruptly breaks through the static.There is someone around here.Where? I turn in a circle, searching in every direction, desperate to find whomever this is.
“Hello? Is someone out there? I’m lost. I need help!” I shout, still turning in circles to make sure my voice carries down both directions of this empty street. Sweat is beading at the nape of my neck and my hands are shaking as I wrap my arms tightly around my chest. “Hello?”
The sound of heavy footsteps grows in unison—multiple people are running, and the echo of footsteps is becoming louder by the second but I can’t see where they are coming from. “Don’t move,” a man’s voice carries from around the corner. “Put your hands up where we can see them.” I recoil from the sound and the words being shouted.I didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t hurt me.I still haven’t done anything to warrant this reaction after all of this time, so why am I being treated like a criminal? My hands are shaking more now as I unwrap my arms from around myself, forcing the heavy weight above my head. My chest aches with pain and fear as my heart beats heavily on my ribcage.Who are these people?
Within seconds, hands are on my back and my wrists. My face is being pressed into the brick edifice of this closed bakery, and words are hitting me like punches—words I can hardly make out because of how loud they are. Within seconds, I’m turned around, now facing the reality of what is standing in front of me.What is this?Men, dressed in grass-green plastic suits with gas masks attached to their faces—faces I can’t see. They speak English and they’re reading me my rights, again for an unknown reason. I take the time to look at each one of them, their even disposition, even the one who’s still yelling at me.
“I came from Chipley,” I say, ignoring the man telling me not to speak. “I don’t know where I am and I don’t know why I was in Chipley or if that’s the real name of the place, but that’s where I have been held hostage for years.” Three or five years, I still don’t know. Are they listening or ignoring every word I’m saying? Am I making sense or talking in dizzying circles? I feel dizzy, I feel like I want to collapse right here, curl up on the ground and cry myself into unconsciousness.
But I don’t give in to the despair. I remain still, as I was told to do.
They all look at each other, not that they must be able to see much other than the dark shadows of their eyes behind the masks, but maybe they’re confused. I’m confused. I’m lost. And stuck here, wherever here is. The man who had been yelling at me grabs me by the arm and begins dragging me in the direction they came from. My feet are hardly touching the ground, other than the toe of my boots hitting every other inch of the sidewalk. The man’s hand is tight under my arm, pinching my skin so hard I’m sure it will bruise.
We move down several streets, all of which look like traditional downtown areas, lined with apartment buildings and cars. “Where am I?” I ask, pleading, assuming no one will answer me, but I’ve wanted to know since I was taken from the hospital in my hometown. I want to know where I am right now and where they are taking me. I want to know what they are planning to do with me, if they are going to hurt me or kill me like I wish so badly they would.
“The Institution,” one of the other men says, pulling me in through a set of doors. Inside, the lights are dim. Chevron-striped paper decorates the walls of the hallway we are walking through, but it’s peeling in each corner and the ceiling is stained with yellow marks. A scent of rain mixed with mildew grows more prominent, assaulting my nose as we walk farther. Finally, we enter a different hallway and continue past closed rooms on each side, all with white lights beaming from the small, square windows on the doors. My heartbeat is again pounding inside of my chest, warning me of danger, and betraying my death wish. Despite my all my experiences, I still fear the unknown of whatever will happen next.
One of the men kicks open a door, allowing the light to overflow into the hallway. I’m dragged inside, lifted up and placed down on a cold, metal table. Straps are tightened across the length of my body and I now know whatever is happening here is no better than what was happening a few hours ago in the bunker. “What are you doing to me?” I cry out. Do they have remorse or any sense of emotion, watching a woman shudder in fear to the point of tears. Does this make them happy?
“What do you see?” one of them asks. “Explain in detail everything you see right now.”
I blink my eyes a few times, clearing away the pooling tears while also waiting for the pain of the brightness to subside, but the light is so white; it’s like one of those dentist lights that are supposed shine into your mouth, but it’s directly aimed at my eyes. “I can’t see anything with the light so bright,” I answer. Again, they all look at each other.
One of them turns the light away but only slightly, making it a touch easier to see everything around me. “Again, I’m asking you to tell us exactly what you see.” Why are they asking me this? Obviously, I can see. I found my way to the center of their town, didn’t I?
“You—you are all dressed in plastic,” I stutter. Taking in only a slight breath, I continue, “green suits, complete with gas masks of some sort. I cannot see any of your faces, however. This room is covered in steel—the walls, this table, the drawers, and the door. There are windows to the left,” I twist my head to look over, “but they are all blacked out.” I turn back toward the five of them, trying my hardest to focus on each one. I thought there were originally six or maybe seven, but now there are only five men hovering over me. “What else do you want me to tell you?”
“State your name, please.”
“Reese Daniels. I’m—eighteen—or maybe twenty, I’m not sure. And I realize that answer probably isn’t helping me prove my innocence, but I’ve been told differentiating stories of how long I was held captive in Chipley.” They don’t believe a word I’m saying. I can’t see their faces but the silence confirms what I can imagine.
“Chipley, huh?” one of the men says as he places his hand over my forehead, pressing my head back down against the table, rougher than necessary. Another checks my eyes with his flashlight, causing an ache from the brightness to return. “What happened on May fifteenth in twenty-twelve?”
“What is today’s date?” I ask as my mouth is pried open with a tongue depressor.
“August third, twenty-seventeen,” one of them responds. I can’t tell who’s speaking at this point. They’re all so close together and I still haven’t seen any one of their faces.
I pull away from the tongue depressor to answer them. “I don’t know what happened on that date. I was living in a shed, like I said.” In hindsight, a shed I would have been better off remaining in until I rotted into the ground.
“Have you been experiencing day-terrors?”
“What?” I look at each one of them, waiting for whoever asked the question to elaborate.
“Nightmares during the day,” he clarifies.
“I’m living in a nightmare. Can you not see this?” I croak. Lifting my head once more, I press my body against all of the restraining straps as another man walks in with a caddy full of medical equipment. One of the men yanks at my arm, pushing my sleeve up to my shoulder, carefully maneuvering it under the body straps. A needle is injected into my arm and blood is drawn into several vials over the course of a couple minutes.
“Stay put while we get this blood work evaluated.” Like they have given me a choice. All but one of the men leave the room, forcing me to lie here, still, staring up at the ceiling, which has many yellow stains in here, as well. The man they left me with isn’t speaking, which makes it easier to lose myself in my own thoughts ofwhy I’m here,how I got here, andwhy did I leave Chipley? What I do know is, there are no normal people in sight and the men are all dressed in plastic suits with gas masks, which means there is something contaminating the air, something I have likely been exposed to by now.
