I pump the plastic soap dispenser, and pearly pink liquid spits into my palm. I scrub off the grime of the drive. The water is tepid now. I wash my face, my hair, everything. I stand under the spray, eyes closed. I want to lie down and sleep for an eternity. I don’t want to get out of the shower, I don’t want to put on the jumpsuit. I don’t want to go through the door. Every door I go through is just another door I will have to go through to escape this hell, if that’s even possible.
Eventually, I turn off the water and step out of the shower. A red jumpsuit and a pair of white underwear hang on hooks on the wall. Beneath the clothes is a pair of slippers. I put on the underwear and jumpsuit. The fabric is oddly comfortable, just the way Alice described. The suit fits me perfectly. The slippers are too small. I put them on anyway and step through the door.
I find myself in a narrow room. The woman I traveled with is standing in front of me, next to a chair, wearing a blood-red jumpsuit identical to mine. Block letters on the front spell out the word PRISONER. There is a tall table next to the chair. With its elegant marble top it looks out of place. In the center of the table is a wooden box. I shudder to think what it contains.
The woman reaches up and pats at her hair self-consciously. Her skin is still damp from the shower, but her hair is dry. “There’s no way out,” she says.
She’s right. There are no other exits. I turn back toward the door I came through, but it has already shut. I think of JoAnne in the shrinking glass cage and begin to panic. I move the handle, but it won’t open. We’re trapped.
I turn in a slow circle, surveying the room.
“Please sit,” the woman says tentatively. When I don’t move, she repeats, “Please.” Her eyes are red, and I can tell she’s been crying.
I walk over to the chair and sit.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Why?”
She’s quiet for a minute, and then she begins to sob.
“Are you okay?” I know the question is absurd even as I ask it, but I want her to know that I understand how she’s feeling.
“Yes,” she says. It’s clear that she’s struggling to regain her composure, her dignity. She opens the box and begins rummaging around. Hearing the sound of metal on metal, I feel queasy.
“What’s in there?” I ask, afraid of the answer.
“They gave us a choice,” she says. “One of us needs to walk out of this room with a shaven head. They said I could decide. They said that if there was a single hair remaining, they would shave both of our heads and something worse.”
“You’ve decided?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
A shaved head. I can live with that, no problem. The more disturbing question is why they’re putting us through this. If they’re giving her a choice, they’re likely to give me one too. What will my choice be?
68
As the razor buzzes over my scalp, I think of Eliot and Aileen. JoAnne had called them Eli and Elaine. Maybe the Portland paper had the names wrong. Maybe JoAnne did. Either way. Is it possible that I misheard? Our ears often hear what they expect, rather than what is said.
I remember another couple who disappeared while kayaking in the ocean. It happened somewhere north of Malibu, a couple of years ago. They were considered missing for weeks, until their two-person kayak was found with a jagged bite in the hull, bits of shark teeth still embedded in the fiberglass.
What if someone from The Pact read that story and considered it a plausible narrative for a couple like Eliot and Aileen? What if Dave’s wife’s cancer was also just that—a plausible scenario?
I think of the 107 people searching the shores of Oregon for signs of Eliot and Aileen’s disappearance. That’s the number the newspaper article gave: 107. I think of them all walking the length of the long beach in single file, heads bent, searching for clues buried in the sand. If I disappeared, would 107 people show up to look for me? I’d like to think so, but probably not.
The newspaper article was from three months ago. I wish I’d had time to search for the update. Did the friends give up? Or are they still out there looking? If I disappeared, how long would they look for me?
69
All of my hair is gone, but the woman continues to rub her hands over my scalp, searching for anything she might have missed. She stops every now and then to pick up the razor, rub in some lotion, shave a real or imagined follicle. She seems obsessed, terrified of unknown consequences. Her hair is coiffed in the tasteful manner common to well-to-do women of her age—expensively bobbed, blond but not too blond, highlighted in a way that draws attention to her attractive cheekbones. I sense that she spends a lot of time on it each morning. I can understand why she made the choice she made. Still, the thoroughness with which she shaves my head seems almost cruel.
Stepping back, she says, “It looks perfect.”
The guilty always find a way of rationalizing their behavior, making it sound as though they’ve done you a favor.
From the intercom speaker in the ceiling, we hear a woman’s voice. “Well done. Now, Jake, it is your turn to choose.”
I knew it was coming. Still, my body tenses.
“We have two holding cells,” the voice says. “One is dark and cold, the other is bright and hot. Which would you like?”
I look at the woman. I sense that she has a husband who always allows her to choose—chocolate or vanilla, window or aisle, chicken or fish. Fortunately, I am not her husband. As she begins to open her mouth to tell me which she would prefer, I say, “Light and hot.”
“Good choice, Jake.”
The door swings open and a lighted path leads us down a hallway and into a common area with eight cells. The intercom comes on again: “Jake, please step into cell thirty-six. Barbara, cell thirty-five.”
So that’s her name. Barbara and I look at each other, but neither of us moves. “Go on,” the voice says.
Barbara steps toward her cell, stopping just short of the door. It’s dark inside. Barbara reaches out and clutches my hand as if I might somehow save her. “Go ahead,” the voice says. Tentatively, she lets go of my hand and inches inside. When the door slams shut, Barbara lets out a frightened yelp. I walk resolutely into the other cell, acting braver than I feel. The fluorescent lights are painfully bright, and the temperature must be close to a hundred degrees. The door slams behind me.
There is a narrow metal bed attached to the wall. One sheet, no pillow. A toilet hangs from the wall. A worn copy of The Manual sits alone on a single shelf. I ignore the book and lie on the bed. The lights are so bright that I have to lie facedown with my head buried in the sheet.
Hours pass. I sweat, I fidget, I don’t fall asleep. From the cell next door, I hear Barbara scream twice, then nothing. I survey my cell again, my eyes still trying to adjust to the blinding light. I’m so thirsty, but they haven’t brought water. If all goes wrong, I tell myself, I can drink the water in the toilet. It would probably last for five or six days. And then what? I try not to think that far ahead.
70