The Cage - Chapter Seven

The twelve sat motionless and watched as Mr. Boss wheeled himself out of the observation room, switching off the light.

“There’s a way out?” said Jendy, excitedly.

“Evidently,” said Alan. “But I’m not sure where. We’ve checked everywhere.”

“Well we must find it!”

The six members of Group 2 split up, spending the rest of the day scanning every inch of the living and sleeping quarters for any sign of an escape route, but still none was found. No crevice where a wall might be pushed away, and no button that could be pushed to reveal a secret passageway. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all solid, thick, and impenetrable without any tools.

The day ended with no more hope than it began with. That night, sleep was harder to come by for them than it had ever been. They all felt as if hope had been sent to them and then yanked away like a cruel trick.

Maria lay in bed, staring into the darkness of the room. She didn’t know what to think anymore. Why are we being kept here? she thought to herself. It doesn’t make any sense.

For close to an hour she laid there, eyes wide open and mind racing. She felt herself quickly become sleepy before the night took her off to dreamland, the only place she now felt happy and complete.

The visit to the land of dreams ended abruptly that morning, with the piercing scream coming from the living quarters. Maria clumsily ran toward the scream. It was Jendy, and she was pointing inside the cage. Inside the cage, five of the members were just starting to wake up. Hanging from a rope was the lifeless body of Seth, slowly swinging side to side. When each of the other five members of Group 1 saw this, their eyes widened, and they backed away from the body. The rest of Group 2 soon entered the living quarters and reacted with similar facial expressions, some screaming and crying.

“How did this happen?” Alan said, trying to keep things calm.

“I.. I… I don’t know!” yelped the short Mexican woman in the cage.

“None of you woke up when he was doing this?” said Alan. “How could you have slept through someone hanging themselves in the same room?”

“I guess we’re all heavy sleepers!” snapped the short, skinny middle-aged man in Group 1.

Alan approached the cage and looked up toward the ceiling. One end of the rope was tied around Seth’s neck, and the other was tied around a hook, eighteen feet from the cage floors.

“And how did he even do it?”

A gasp game from behind Alan. It was Jendy.

“One of them killed him!”

“What?” retorted Harry.

“He couldn’t have done that by himself!”

“How would any of us get the rope up there? And then somehow get Seth’s neck into a noose and lift him up that high?”

“I don’t know, but it must have happened!”

“Maybe Seth was just a more impressive climber than we thought!”

“You think he climbed up these walls?” said George. “Like he’s Spider-Man or something? These walls are flat, too flat to climb on. No cracks to put your feet into, and the walls are too far apart to brace yourself against two of them. And where did the rope come from, anyway?”

“Well, how else do you explain it?” said Jendy, scowling at Harry. “I bet it was you!”

“Me?”

“Yes you! You’re the one hopping on the defensive! That usually means you’re guilty!”

“What, did you go to law school?”

“Well no, but it’s just common sense!” Jendy said, walking up close to the bars of the cage. “People don’t hop on the defensive if they know they are innocent!”

“Shut up!”

She tapped the bars, and said “I’d say to throw you in jail, but you’re already in one!”

Harry lurched forward from his seat, reaching his arms out of the cage and just missing Jendy’s skinny body.

“These bars just saved your life, you know!”

“Alright guys, let’s calm down,” said Alan. “Let’s think about this logically—”

“Easy for you to say, preacher!” blurted Harry. “You’re not the one accused of murder, and you’re not stuck in this cage with a corpse!”

“I understand, but—”

“Oh shut up, all of you, you don’t know what it’s like to be in here! Unable to move, unable to have an actual bathroom, you got it made compared to us out here!”

“Yes, but—”

“Yes, but nothing. Get us a blanket so we can cover the body, would you?”

They untied Seth’s body and laid him on the floor, covering him with a blanket.

“Wait!” Harry said, peering upward toward the ceiling. “There are cracks in the wall up there, by the hook, do you see them? Those weren’t there before!”

He grabbed onto the rope and started pulling himself up, slowly reaching the level of the hook. There were crevices in the wall that formed a two-feet-by-two-feet square. He gently nudged the square, and the small piece of wall fell inward.

“It’s a tunnel!” he screamed, releasing a burst of laughter. “This must go somewhere!”

He crawled into the tunnel, which was caked with dirt and spider webs, and led into darkness. He stuck his head out of the tunnel.

“Do we have a flashlight?”

“Not in here, at least,” a skinny, middle-aged man said. He looked out of the cage. “Flashlight?”

Maria ran over to the utility cabinet. Inside it she saw a hammer, some nails, cleaning supplies, candles, and a flashlight. She pulled out the light and handed it to the man, who tossed it up in the air to Harry. He disappeared back into the tunnel.

The tunnel seemed to wind in circles, up and down and side to side. For twenty minutes Harry followed the tunnel, sticking his face through many spider webs, at times finding it hard to breathe. The tunnel went upward, with small steps on the walls allowing him to climb. Above him, he felt fabric and some metal. Harry grabbed on to the metal and tried to push it to the side, and it moved some. He brought his arms down into the tunnel to catch his breath, as the object that was above him quickly moved to the side.

Harry looked up to see the faces of Alan and Bishop staring at him. He stuck his head out of the tunnel, only to realize he was in the main living area. He slammed his fist down on the floor and swore.

“You’re kidding me, right?” he yelped. “That tunnel leads from that room to this room!”

“Well, at least you’re in here now,” said Alan, pulling him up to his feet.

“I suppose,” said Harry, “but still, who builds a tunnel like that, seriously?”

“Who does any of this stuff?”

“Granted.”

“I am certain we looked under that couch before, but there wasn’t a tunnel,” Alan said, peering curiously into the dark hole in the ground.

“Let’s get the rest of the group out here,” he said.

Over the next few hours, Harry climbed back through the tunnel and helped the other four living members of his group climb the rope and crawl through the tunnel. Soon, all eleven of them were in the main living area.

“While you’re not completely free yet, you’ve definitely moved up in the world,” Alan said to Group 1, forcing a smile. “You now have working bathrooms and plumbing and, of course, more space.”

In turn, the five members of Group 1 showered. The sound of plates scratching across the floor made a small smile appear on everyone’s face, as it was lunch time. Harry glanced into the cage and sighed.

“Evidently, whoever feeds us didn’t get the memo that we’re not in there anymore,” he said, pointing at the six plates of food sitting on the floor in the cage, far away from the opening. “I guess, at each meal time, one of us will have to go get the food and slide it through the bars. Seems they also don’t know about Seth… at least we’ll have an extra plate to split.”

Harry crawled back through the tunnel one more time, sliding the bowls of grits through the bars before crawling back to the main living quarters. The eleven of them sat in silence, eating. Ten minutes later, the skinny man from the cage broke the quiet.

“Anyone up for charades?”

The other ten stared at him.

“Oh, come on, this place shouldn’t be both depressing and boring.”

Slowly, the other ten agreed.

“Group 1 versus Group 2,” he said.

For three good hours, the eleven of them played charades. Gone were the thoughts of entrapment and death and loneliness and home. There was joking around and laughter, the patting of backs and the giving of high fives, and the occasional hug, even between those people who had previously been at odds with each other. After the game ended, with Group 1 winning by the slightest of margins, the conversation lingered on for hours, with each person giving a more detailed life story than they had in the past.

Supper came, and Bishop volunteered to fetch the second half of the plates. The conversation continued long after dinner was finished, with the last of the eleven going to bed at near one o’clock in the morning.

At half past one, Harry stood and walked into the bathroom, closing the door. When he opened the door to return to bed, Ally was standing there.

“I need to talk to you,” she whispered. Harry nodded and followed her into the living quarters, where they say down on the couch.

“I wanted to thank you,” she said, “for pulling me out of the water. I really appreciate a big man like yourself saving me.” She put her hand on his chest. “I know we didn’t start off on the right foot. I thought you were a real jerk for a while, but you showed some heart. I think there is a compassionate, sweet guy under there somewhere. Is there any way I can thank you?”

“Oh, no, just doing what is right,” he said.

“Well, I’m sure I can do something for you,” Ally said, eyeing him suggestively.

“Wh… wh... what do you m…mean?”

“Oh you know, Mr. Jones. Is there a Mrs. Jones?”

Harry shook his head nervously.

“Good,” Ally said. She removed her shirt and starting kissing Harry passionately on the lips and neck. For the first few moments he went along with it, enjoying the attention. His eyes then opened and darted from side to side and up and down, and he quickly pushed Ally away from him.

“No, I can’t,” he said.

“You can’t?”

“It’s just not right,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It’s just not right.”

“Well, I can make it right,” Ally said, pushing her body up against his.

“No! I’m sorry, but, no. Please put your shirt back on,” he said, staring at the wall, with a near-depressed expression on his face.

“I don’t understand. You’re a guy, I’m a girl, and—”

“I’m sorry.”

And with that, he walked back into the bedroom, rubbing his eyes.