The World Without Flags

I turn back to Squint’s body and think desperately. At some point, someone is going to come and find him. They will drag him away and my only chance to escape with Eric will be lost. The both of us will end up in the Doctor’s experiments. I remember the wriggling maggots filling up in the plastic tube. In desperation, I get down on the floor and reach out with my arm as far as I can. I push my shoulder against the bars so hard, I’m afraid something might break, but it’s no use. I finally give up and sit down in the corner of the room, rubbing my shoulder.

Time passes. Any moment I expect one of the others to come in and put an end to all my hope. But no one comes. I stare at Squint, listen to his haggard breathing which has gone shallow and rapid. I study the blood dripping from his eyes, watch it grow darker until, after an hour so, the corners of his eyes are almost black, even the milky, dead one. Squint’s body just lays there, taunting me. I can almost feel the little brass key that opens the padlock to my door in the front pocket of his shirt. I can feel it pressing into the cement floor. Or at least I imagine I can. It’s so tantalizingly near.

In the time that passes, I imagine what I would do if I had the key. How I would get Eric out of the warehouse. How I would sneak out to the forest. How I would push and prod and drag Eric into the forest, find some hole or cave to crawl into, and hide for days. I groan in frustration.

“Unh,” Eric says on the floor.

“I’m trying,” I tell him.

“Mergh.”

“Quiet,” I say. “I’m thinking.”

“Mergh.”

Suddenly I realize the sound isn’t coming from Eric. I creep forward.

Squint is getting up, rising from a puddle of vomit and mucus. I watch as he picks himself up, strands of black mucus stretching from his face. He stands, his jaw grinding back and forth, his eyes dripping black blood.

“Mergh,” he says.

85

“Come on,” I say to him. “Come on, Squint, you ugly bastard, come here.”

Squint just stands there, his back hunched. He’s looking at the back wall behind me, or seems to be. He doesn’t move.

I wave my arms at him and jump up and down. I pull Eric to his feet and wave his arms up and down, hoping Squint will come to his own kind, I guess. I kick at the door, making it rattle. I even sing him a song. Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s doors, I sing. Knock knock knockin’ on heaven’s doors. But Squint doesn’t move. He doesn’t do anything.

Only sometimes he goes, “Mergh.” And that’s it. He stands there steadily, hunched forward like a gorilla, dark drool running from the corners of his mouth. The Worms have started to come out of the corner of his eyes too. I can see them waving there.

To make matters more frustrating, I can now see the key to my cage. One end is hooked on his front pocket. I can see the outline of the rest in his plaid, puke-covered shirt.

I’ve tried everything and I can’t get Squint to make that one, that one little step toward me. That’s all I need. One lousy little step! I could pull him toward the bars, get the key, open up the door and Eric and I would be gone. Gone! But the only thing that gets the attention of these things is water, and I don’t have a single drop of it. I’m so dry that I can even muster up any spit. I pace the cell, knowing that at any second, someone else could come, and that would be the end of us. Think, Birdie. Think!

I stop suddenly. I rush over to Eric and turn him so he’s facing the wall. Then I rip two long strips of cloth from his drooly towel and carefully stuff his ears with them. Finally, I take off Eric’s shirt and wrap it around his head, hoping he can’t hear a thing.

Ready at last, I go to the back of the cell and pull down my pants. I squat in the shadows of the corner and concentrate. “Come on, come on,” I mutter. Just when I think I won’t be able to, I begin to pee.

It makes the wet, splashing sound on the cement that I hoped for.

Immediately, Squint picks up his head. “Mergh!” he says through his clenched jaw.

I really let it fly. It sounds like there’s a waterfall in here. Excitedly, I watch Squint step one, two, three times until he comes to a stop right against the bars! “Mergh! Mergh!” he groans, his arms reaching inside toward me.

“Gross,” I answer, and then, done peeing, I pull up my pants and run toward Squint. I duck under his grasping arm and then reach into his front pocket.

The key!

“Unh,” says Eric at the back of the cell.