New Tricks

A/N: For what it's worth, I'm going to tell you a bit about my intentions with this. I was experimenting with narrative voice, meaning that I had a sacrifice a bit of my usual style. If you--as a reader/reviewer--have a comment on how this affected my story, than definitely don't hesitate to point out my weaknesses. I'm expecting quite a bit of negative feedback because I tried a new thing, so whatever you have to say is appreciated. Thanks. :)

We are put in cages.

Usually, they are the kind with overlapping wire that fishnets over the ceiling. They are built from a stubborn alloy that refuses to bend--iron, maybe--and are stacked atop each other in a cubic array. But they reserve those for the smaller of us. I am big, so they have moved me to a vaster cell with three others like me. We are trapped behind thick metal rods that rust beyond a show of character, like we have committed a crime and are to be punished.

I am not sure if this is true. I have not broken any written law, but to my knowledge the rule now is that you are not allowed to be outside alone (as long as you are bare-necked) and, because of this discrepancy, I still do not know whether I was kidnapped or arrested.

I do not know much about the death penalty, or what they call euthanasia. I am bringing this up because everybody I have met in here is afraid to die. Their mouths clam up and their shoulders get cold at the mere mention. Maybe for good reason. One of my cellmates is called Jeffords, and he tells me that he has seen his friends dragged down the corridor and through the double doors. The double doors are two colossal slabs of scarlet-painted steel that are very heavy. I know they are heavy because the man in the overalls --he is called Doris by those of us who enjoy the use of names--has to haul open the left door with all of his might, muscles in his bicep contorting, nose wrinkling with the effort. When he gets it to swing on its hinges, he slips inside, and it slams shut behind him faster and louder than a mousetrap.

Jeffords has a theory that when they take you away like that, it is because your upkeep is no longer worth their time, and they put you down. He said it exactly like that--"put down" instead of "kill".

Nobody knows for certain what goes on behind the double doors, mostly because no one who goes there comes back.

Jeffords is very old and big, older and bigger than me, and he is compiling a whole list of theories. He claims that the other prisoners lost their families and were all stolen viciously from vacant alleyways. According to him, each and every one of them were deposited in these types of orphanage-prisons throughout the state. I do not believe him. This is a ridiculous theory, because the tyke who sleeps across the corridor has been yapping all week about the family he used to belong to.

The tyke who sleeps across the corridor is called Scoundrel, and he is much smaller than me. On bad days, he will slump into a fetal position, body seizing and clicking like a broken engine, quaking with spastic sobs. After some time of watching him, an untamable sound will escape his black lips; a screeching wail that scrapes inside my ears like a lion's claws against a chalkboard.

Many of the others who have been taken are like this. They suffer emotional instability. Jeffords thinks it is because the Keepers--that is what those of us who enjoy the use of names call the men who have taken us--have identified their breaking point. He calls them abusive. I asked him how he would expect a prisoner to be treated, and he did not answer for awhile. We both sat until the cement froze beneath our bottoms, and then he told me that he thinks different people have different ways of dealing with situations.

I have learned that this is what Jeffords says when he does not know what to say.

Today, the itching started.

First there is an uncomfortable tingling, like a cloud of bugs is gnawing at my skin. The itch creeps onto me like a spider perches on the wall. It hides peacefully on my blind side until its visage hits me suddenly and without preface. It puts me in a craze, and Fletch from down the corridor says that around lunchtime he can see my head start snapping back and forth in some possessed search for my conquerer. After that, I begin to tear at my own skin like I am trying to get underneath. I am scratching myself raw.

I have this feeling all the time now. It is an unsettling feeling that sinks like two stones in the pit of my gut, except that they are abrading against each other as they go down. My chest is weighted down like a barbell and my mind does not know what to do with itself.

I think this is how it feels to be afraid.

We call the people who have stolen us Keepers because of a saying that Boy used to use. I do not know much about Boy. I have only heard stories of him. Most of the stories are told to me by Cara. She is younger than me, but has been here for longer. She says that Boy was a sight to see, with eyes gray like heather and golden hair. There is a weak spot in the cement by the bars of his old cage, and he would wriggle out of his cell at night through a hole he'd dug out with his nails. He would run back and forth down the corridor, and with the fervor he ignited he might as well been a steamroller smoking and screaming. He went dancing and leaping about and causing a racket. It would worry the rest of them, Cara told me, because they were all afraid that he would get caught. But Boy was reckless and unafraid. When the Keepers would come in, he would scramble back through the gap and pretend to be asleep at the far end of his cell.

On good days, he would find trinkets on the table near the door. Ones the Keepers forgot to take with them on their way out. A ring of keys. A paperclip. He would sneak his loot back to the hole after he had picked the room clean. "Finders keepers, losers sweepers," was what he liked to chime. Cara says that overtime everyone took a liking to his rebellious activity. They cheered him on when he took the floor, rallying behind him in a staggered frenzy, voices echoing wildly throughout the chamber. One night they were heard, and Boy was not fast enough to get back into his cage. He was dragged by the neck to the doors, his own voice battling a chorus of furious shouts, and then he was gone.

It is a sad story, mostly because I would have loved to have met him.

Cara says that it is gloomier now because there is no one like him here anymore.

There are a few of us in the prison who like to keep things nameless. I am thinking it is because they like maintaining a certain degree of separation. I do not. I do not like the anonymity. When somebody has a name, it helps me to remember who they are and what they have told me, and the memories I have made with them. If there are no names, then there is nothing to grasp onto.

I do not know much about the Keepers themselves. All I know of them is what I have experienced firsthand. And that is only a fleeting memory. I recall standing in the center of the street, sunlight pulsing over the asphalt in waves. I was out for a jog alone. The village was empty-or so it looked--and people were packed up in their houses, because it was Christmastime and around Christmastime, everybody wants to be inside. But I liked the outside. I liked the chill that slapped between my eyes on a windy afternoon. There is also the fact that I could not have gone inside, even if I did want to.

A blue van climbed the shoulder of the road and rumbled to a halt. Two men in black caps got out, wielding ropes of various sizes. They were talking loudly, fog clouding from lips like breathed fire, which I remember. It was like they were speaking through microphones. They were laughing, and swinging the ropes in their hands. I thought nothing of them until I realized they were coming towards me. Then I ran. I reckon anyone would have if two strangers were coming towards them with a roll of twine.

After that, it is all a blur of hands and hair being yanked from my body, and the cries coming from my own mouth like those of a wounded animal.

I am told I am supposed to be best friends with these kinds of people. I do not have a clue as to why. I can not imagine any of the Keepers having any friends at all.

Today, Boy came back.

I knew it was him right away, mostly because he had eyes gray like heather and golden hair. There was an unruly grin on his black lips, and he was unbound by ropes. He bore a silver chain around his neck and an air of intrigue. All of us prisoners were drawn huddled right up to the bars, eyes magnetized. I heard questions about where he had been, and why he was here.

A whisper grew to a muddle of yells and shouts; contagious and uncontrollable, even as we tried to tame our own crescendo. The Keepers had brought Boy in; two of them were walking behind him.

And suddenly, in the climax of our excitement, the Keepers stopped walking. "This one's here to join us again, fellas," one of them said, though I am almost sure I am the only one who heard. The Keeper who had spoken thrust his key in the old lock and chinked it ajar, beckoning to Boy. Then he knelt down and made a sound between his teeth. Like the sound the wind makes before it slaps you between your nose on a windy afternoon. He said, "Here, Boy."

Boy's hair stood on end. His head jerked to the left. His grin morphed into a snarl, and a thunder came up from deep in his throat until his voice quaked. He begin sprinting back and forth down the corridor. A big ruckus. The Keepers tried to catch him, anger swelling in their chests. Everyone else was cheering him on, and I could feel myself joining them, as if it was something I had always done or wished to do.

Finally, the Keeper called Doris caught him around the neck. After that, it was all a blur of hands and hair being yanked from his body.

Boy did not give up like I had. His limbs flailed persistently, a guttural sound howling from deep in his chest like that of a wounded animal.

Then his voice died, as quickly as the breeze slaps you--a mistake, surely--neck snapping in the meaty fists of the Keeper.

Gone.

Doris was stunned. He let out a perturbed cry, face ghostly as he dropped Boy's limp body. Everyone was shocked. Doris fell back, cussing under his breath. The Keepers spoke quickly in hushed tones before retreating behind the double doors.

And then it was done.

We all stared at Boy for a long time. None of us could speak. We waited for the Keepers to return, because they were the ones who told us what to do, and for once we could not remember how to act of our own accord. We waited for longer than I have ever waited, until two Keepers I have never seen before bustled into the room like there was something they were keeping secret. One of them was holding a trash bag. The other one picked up the body and put it inside. The first of them walked over to my cage, abandoning the bag on the floor. He reached his hand through the bars and brushed my head with his fingers, chin clenched tight. His face was stony. I was still. I could not remember what to do.

"Good Boy," he murmured, and then I knew.