Infidel's Corner Read online

“Gained the Director’s favour?”

  “Yes, he even told me his real name,” said Mezox as he finally turned to his father with a contented smirk.

  “Wow, lucky you.”

  “I sense someone’s very jealous.”

  Alex scoffed with a sarcastic snort. “I couldn’t give a rat’s arse about what he thinks.” He sat on the sofa’s ledge, forcing Mezox to shift up. “I just want you to tell me what was done to my laser.”

  “Didn’t you inspect it? – I mean, it was pretty obvious.”

  “Much of it was destroyed – but tell me,” said Alex as he nudged closer to his son. “Did you modify the cannon or capacitance end?”

  “The cannon,” said Mezox, concerned about his father’s reaction.

  “And?” said Alex with a hopeful glint in his eyes.

  “I insulated your disks from adjacent interference.”

  Alex’s wide-eyed stare relaxed into a sense of confusion and deep thought. His elbows rested on his lower thighs, hands rubbing his face. “Of course,” he said as though mumbling to himself. “It’s always the simple things we overlook. How had I missed that?”

  Mezox paused with his own realisation. “Those disks were more than accelerators, weren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Alex declared. He stood, appearing to sob while wiping his left eye. “I have yet to understand its implications.” He then turned and knelt in front of his son. “What you did – which was a great thing, it means I can’t stay here much longer.”

  “What, why?”

  “Our need has now expired.”

  Alex’s face and words had installed an immediate sense of fear. A bolt of ice shot down his spine. “What do you mean?”

  “The Director has what he wants. He will want to guarantee the weapon’s secrecy. Anything could happen to us, and I cannot risk it.”

  “But, he’s promised me a better position.”

  “He’s softening you up. He doesn’t trust me to disclose every aspect of the weapon’s secrets.”

  “Because he’s always suspicious of you?”

  “The Directo’s never liked me, and only through his paranoia is he correct by accident. I’ve always kept one step ahead of him. Now I’ve run my course – come,” said Alex springing back onto his feet. “We must prepare.”

  “But, wait,” demanded Mezox. “Where are we going to go?”

  “Don’t worry about that right now.”

  “No,” he declared and continued by stipulating, “I’m going to need a little information first, don’t you think?”

  Alex huffed and turned back to his son. “Fine, what do you want to know?”

  “Alright, what is so special about these disks, and where the bloody hell will we go?”

  “You must never mention this to anyone, ever – do you swear it?”

  “Of course. I swear on my life,” said Mezox having raised his right hand.

  Alex paused hesitantly. “Long ago, I worked as a physicist to decipher the nature of particle behaviour in the application of new weapons. Early on, after playing with a D-ring accelerator, a new hypothetical vision just popped into my head. You see, the D-ring unit forces particles into a wider radius. Then, I thought” –

  “What would happen if the reverse were to happen.”

  Alex was stunned. “How did you know?”

  “I reverse engineered a disk. I understand that electrons are made to spin, they destabilise and form an in-phase wave. It would leave an emptied core with a momentary but powerful positive potential used as the accelerator.”

  Alex wondered, “Was it easy going – to figure it out?”

  “In a way, but that’s as much as I could fathom.”

  Alex was disappointed at how, partially educated, his son solved one of the disk’s fundamental secrets with relative ease. His move to confiscate designs from work was made worthwhile. “That’s just the beginning. I came to realise that such a principle could explain particle behaviour; a mode of action in the amalgamation of energy into units of mass.”

  “How would that work?”

  “Our ability to manipulate particle behaviour’s the challenging part. On the quantum scale, the core can draw back the retreating wave with ease. It collapses and expands again, turning it into a stable, pulsing, collection of dense energy.”

  “And you think my addition solves that conundrum on a larger scale?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know. Several issues exist, but we must explore what you did right and why - another reason to leave now,” pleaded Alex.

  “But where?”

  Alex finally dared himself to say it, “Infidel’s Corner.” He spent the next hour attempting to sell the idea, undoing his son’s first impressions via the media.

  To leave at first light was the plan. An alert and clear mind work best while preparing for any adventure. An early night’s sleep was therefore prescribed. And so, at nine that evening, the house fell silent.

  After a quick shuffle on the sofa, Mezox fixated himself on the disk and its potential applications. For reference and imaginative overlay, he sought to retrieve the shack’s souvenir from his jacket. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t locate it. His mind became dominated by a thorough reviewing of where and how he lost it. There were too many potential scenarios for him to pinpoint any given moment.

  An hour later and it continued to plague his mind – until moonlight shadows grazed past the window. His heart pounded hard against the inner ribcage, and ears tweaked in response to the sound of scuttering.

  He pounced off the sofa and scoured his dark surroundings again and again. No matter which way he faced, it felt as though someone was behind him and about to breathe down his neck. An onset of silence sent the temperature plummeting around him.

  An indiscernible sound originated from the hallway, but nothing was present. He approached for a closer inspection of the poorly lit cave, hoping to find a rodent. His sluggish advancement down the hall revealed no source of the noise. All attention shifted to the front door, at which moment it crashed open, revealing several white lights pointed in his face. Their luminescence grew as he froze with fear. A strike to the face sent him tumbling to the ground. Semi-conscious, his limp body was dragged outside as others continued to rush in.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Atheist

  Monsters howl and slither through our darkest dreams, toying with us before giving the final chase. Escape so seldom. We either wake to escape the torment and horrors of the dream world or stay and endure it. For some, like Mezox, it didn’t matter which way one turned. Terror awaited day and night.

  Glimpses of beasts continued their pursuit as Mezox stirred feebly, only to vanish as the cold environment diverted his survival mode. Semi-aware, he naturally reached for a blanket, but its absence frustrated his senses. He sat up in a desperate bid to retrieve it but paused in a heightened state of awareness that renewed all fears. The floor was solid as a rock - both damp and gritty.

  Momentary amnesia soon abated for a complete recollection of what transpired. The one confusion was his location. All other concerns were reserved for his father.

  The environment, dark and eerier, offered no answers. He etched backwards until his back slammed against a stone wall. There, he relaxed and listened. A mild and constant whisper of air was the only audible feature. The wind was putrid; a mix of human waste and rotting meat.

  His arms scoured the local area. A stick laid adjacent to him. From there, he followed its length to discover a ball joint. The sudden horror sent him panting like a dog.

  A fresh attempt to calm down was marred by his gruesome discovery. He whimpered from emotional overload, withholding any utterance of crying aloud like an animal.

  Tears further blighted his vision. A streak of faint light emanated from his left. Upon wiping his eyes, an indirect glow of moonlight was seen through a narrow opening in the wall. His urge to investigate was overpowered by dread and the cold. And like a child frightened of
the dark, he called out for his father. The only response was that of his voice echoing across the room.

  With hands tucked beneath armpits, arms folded between his chest and raised legs, he observed the moon’s projection move steadily across the floor. It revealed a cobblestone-like feature.

  In what seemed like a blink later, the first hint of daylight had broken through. There was no perception of the passing hours, nor a sense of respite. However, his visual acuity had improved. And, in line with the morning’s luminescence, there was a chance to better assess his surroundings.

  To his right were a row of rusted poles and a door. And across the room was a dead body, he presumed – until its chest moved up and down ever-so-slightly. The individual was too small to have been his father.

  Mezox climbed to his feet in a not too unfamiliar fashion and edged closer. The stranger was in his early forties, but Mezox couldn’t be sure. The man was filthy with matted facial hair but also battered black and blue.

  Unable to wake the man, his attention shifted to the narrow window behind him. It held no bars nor glass. If it were any wider, he would have happily climbed out regardless of the consequences. A whiff of fresher air and the dreaming of another place was all it had to offer.

  Despite the misty haze, the River Thames was visible. In the distance, various buildings billowed plumes of smoke as Londoners initiated their day. The sun’s rays would have been lucky to pierce the thickening blanket despite the cloudless but chilly conditions.

  Doors slammed with indistinct voices that echoed through halls. The Tower had sprung to life. But, being there wasn’t for the living. Men laughed as others whelped and groaned in agony, begging for a merciful end.

  He wondered as to the depravity one must possess to find such joy in a place of sheer anguish? A chance to discover appeared imminent as someone approached in fits and starts. Mezox played dead as the heavy-footed man traversed the halls, setting fire to wall-mounted torches. As if the setting wasn’t creepy enough. Yet, the footsteps faded away after a minute.

  The orchestra of misery grew to intolerable levels. The smell of fresh blood mixed with the rot. It was sufficient to question whether he had died and entered some sort of hell.

  An hour later, an old and warty woman wheeled bread and water down the corridor, inch by inch. She paused outside Mezox’s cell and stared at him before laughing almost maniacally, exposing her toothless void.

  She reached for a foot-long baguette and tore it in half with her unkempt hands. The two halves were thrown at him as the wench continued to laugh. Mezox demonstrated his resolve by munching on the bread while staring back. The hag shoved her face between the bars and said, “Do you like pain, boy?” before returning to her hysterics.

  Mezox continued to ingest the bread after her departure. And just a few bites in, he pondered as to whether the food was laced with poison. The thought didn’t disrupt his appetite.

  Out of the blue, his roommate declared, “I hate that bloody woman. I’d love to punch her teeth in.”

  Mezox aided the stranger in sitting up. “She hasn’t got any teeth.”

  The man was baffled. “I guess someone must have beaten me to it then.”

  Mezox sat next to the stranger and caught his breath. He introduced himself.

  “Just call me ‘Joe,’” he said. “So, why are you here?”

  “I’m not sure to be honest with you.”

  Joe chuckled. “Well, why not,” he said before tapping Mezox’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I get it.”

  “And you?”

  “No offence, but you could be an informant.”

  “Oh. Well, do informants injure themselves on purpose?”

  Joe examined the mark on Mezox’s forehead. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they went that far,” he said. “I can disclose their reasoning.”

  “That’d suffice, I guess.”

  “Okay. They say I’m an Atheist, you see, and” –

  “What’s an Atheist?”

  “Umm, someone that lacks the belief in a deity.”

  “You don’t believe in God?”

  “I didn’t say that,” asserted Joe.

  “Alright. Why do they think you’re a disbeliever?”

  “My family suspected it a few years back and surprised me with an intervention; a priest. I played along with the exorcism until I broke out in laughter. This convinced everyone that I was possessed by the devil for some reason. Anyways, they soon reported me.”

  “It sounds more like your family held a grudge.”

  “Not really,” said Joe in deep contemplation. “My mother claimed that, out of concern for my soul, I had to go through it. This is their method of encouraging repentance.”

  “There’s a way out?”

  “I must renounce my Atheism, get baptised blah blah blah. Until then, I must work in the coal mines – I’m here for a review and persuasion via their demonstration of tender Christian love.”

  “You must be a disbeliever if you refuse to comply,” assumed Mezox. “How can you be an Atheist?”

  “Because I can,” insisted Joe. “Tell me, have you ever really stopped to think why you believe in a deity?”

  “God just makes more sense.”

  Joe giggled. “How?”

  “Uh, what about the creation of the universe. Or that of life?” posited Mezox.

  “Or what about that of your God? – seriously, don’t tell me he’s infinite and immune to your self-styled logic because you’re too emotionally inept to deal with the harsh realities of reality.”

  Joe glanced over to find Mezox eyeing up the floor. “I don’t mean to upset you, kid. Your dissonance exists because the faithful have shielded themselves from criticism since the dawn of linguistics.”

  “At a time I need God, you say such things.”

  “Religion’s not the only source of comfort. And besides, it hinders one from accomplishing something productive.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, such as hope. There’s always hope if one in our situation, say, plans on escaping as opposed to waiting for the door to unlock itself.”

  “And yet you’re here,” he said sobbingly.

  “Yes, and with or without some deity,” said Joe as he tucked into his half of bread. With a mouthful, he continued. “Both you and your captors have faith in this same God, but desire polar outcomes. There’s an end result. You, or they, will say that God desired it. If God desired it, then what was the point in praying?”

  “Whatever. Just tell me how to get out of here?”

  “If you’re as genuine as you say then, give them nothing - No, really,” he exclaimed. “I don’t look too brilliant for it, I’ll admit, but I’d be dead otherwise.”

  Mezox paused in thought. “So, you’re here for other reasons?”

  Joe sighed. “You could say that my story was just the beginning.”

  The unmistakable patter of shoe against stone approached, silencing their conversation. Two jailers appeared; a small one that held a lantern, and his larger key-handling colleague. The giant; slow, sloppy and grunting like a pig, struggled to open the door. He prescribed three kicks before the door gave way. Mezox wished the door wouldn’t surrender despite such brute force.

  The giant kicked Joe’s legs, striking his calf muscles. “Get up you gaytheist infidel,” said the giant with a deep register.

  In that instance, Mezox understood the accusations levied against Joe.

  “You know I prefer it when you call me ‘darling,’” said Joe.

  The giant stood straight in confusion.

  “Don’t pretend you and your boyfriend don’t share an iron maiden together.” Joe then turned to Mezox. “At least we can tell who the daddy is in their relationship.”

  The giant reached for Joe and moved to strike him. Lantern man objected. “Eh, keep him fresh for later. He’ll get what’s coming to him.”

  Lantern man advanced on Mezox. “Chief has a special plan for this one.”


  Mezox didn’t resist as the giant applied rusted shackles.

  In sympathy, Joe loudly declared, “Remember. Give them nothing, unless it’s a good kick in the teeth.”

  “I soon made you regret that,” angrily said lantern man.

  “Yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night.”

  The jailers stormed out with Mezox in tow. Lantern man continued to stare Joe down until they vanished across the poorly lit corridor.

  Mezox was hurried down a set of spiral stairs and other narrow passages. He became witness to various acts of horror being inflicted upon victim after victim. In one chamber, people, including children, knelt before the pillories that apprehended them. Their dishevelled expressions gave a flavour of his near-immediate future.

  Elsewhere, iron-maidens stood open and ready in dark and dank rooms, demanding a fresh meal. Their spines had a chromium finish and polished to near perfection. Spikes aren’t so sharp when exposed to the elements.

  Further along one lengthy passage, various expressions of pain were heard. To his left were other cells littered with hapless and emaciated men. Few could await their destiny by sitting.

  Without warning, he’s pulled to the right by the cusp of his shoulder. He found himself in a warmer and larger room. Ahead sat three bishops behind a long table adorned with books and a brass cross as its centrepiece.

  The elder bishop sat in the middle. He owned a large and somewhat bushy white beard. It didn’t help that the man was in a red and white dress. This Santa-like figure’s presence would offer nothing amiable. The only goodies in his bag originated - if anywhere - from the depths of hell. They turned pages in pure quiescence.

  One page caught the lead bishop’s attention as his eyes raised before squinting at Mezox. He then leaned to his left and whispered in the clergy’s ear, who subsequently departed from the scene.

  In a daring bid to observe his surroundings, Mezox found a wooden structure with a series of ropes and pullies fading into the dark background to the left of him.

  Footsteps indicated the bishop’s presumed return. However, this individual decelerated as though sneaking up behind Mezox. An apple was bitten into and chomped on almost relentlessly while devoid of any chewing etiquette. Mezox was increasingly tempted to turn and ask, “Are you ever going to swallow that?”