They Will Come

Scott arrived at Seabury early, very early. He went to the hospital first, since he wanted to sort out first whether Alan was the guy rescued from slavery. Scott wasn't sure which he hoped for. He wanted Alan alive and safe, but he would never wish years of abuse on his baby brother.

"Visiting hours don't start until half eight," the receptionist said, barely looking up at Scott.

"Maybe you could help me out. I'm looking for someone and I think he might be here. His name's Alan Tracy, but he wouldn't have had any ID on him. I've got his picture." Scott was grateful he'd bothered to bring his wallet, and pulled out a passport photo that he kept tucked into the front.

"That's our John Doe," she said, finally taking notice of the man in front of her. "The police have been trying to track down his family. He's in room fourteen on the third floor." Apparently she'd forgotten what she'd just said about visiting hours.

Scott, as he raced up the stairs, wasn't sure whether he should dance or cry. Alan was alive, but he'd been through hell. Still, everything would be alright now. They'd found him. After so long of searching and not knowing, they'd found him. Scott's thoughts were jumbled and racing, as contradictory as his emotions. He didn't think he'd really believe their search was over until the moment he opened the door to the room and saw Alan there.

The police officer, however, had other ideas.

"I'm afraid you can't come in here," he said.

"Please, I need to speak to him," Scott said.

"We've had enough reporters and interviewers who need to speak to him. I'm not allowed to lnyonnyone in without the proper authorisation."

"Will this be authorisation enough?" Scott asked, reaching for his wallet to get the photo out again.

"If you continue your suggestion, I will arrest you for attempting to bribe an officer of the law."

"What?" Scott looked at his wallet and realised what it looked like he was doing. "No. I'm not trying to bribe you. I was getting this." He pulled out the photo and handed it to the officer.

"I think the man you've found might be my baby brother."

The policeman looked at the photo for a few moments, clearly not sure whether to believe it. He gave Scott a long look, probably trying to spot the similarities that would confirm their relationship. Unfortunately, they took after different parents, so Scott was probably the one brother who looked least like Alan. If John had come, they might have believed it more readily.

"If you give me your name, I'll see if he wants to speak to you."

"It's Scott."

Scott shifted from foot to foot as he waited. There was still a chance he was wrong. There was still tsligslight possibility that the man inside just looked like Alan. He needed to know for sure. He kept expecting to wake up at any moment and discover that the whole lead was just a dream. Those few seconds he waited outside the room were an eternity as he fought down the unendurable needknowknow.

When the officer came out, he looked slightly shaken and unsure.

“He’s gone.”

“What?” Scott pushed the other man inside and darted into the room. Sure enough, it was empty. The window was open, showing the obvious escape route. The fear was a solid force in Scott’s gut as he ran to the window and looked down, terrified of seeing Alan in a crumpled heap on the ground below. He didn’t know whether to be relieved that there was no sign of him.

“He’d shoved his pillow under the covers,” the officer said, “I need to report this.” Scott barely heard a word. He was simply thinking of his brother, lost again when they had been so close. The uncertain that had lasted too long now seemed like it would never end. He had been so sure they’d found him.

Looking down, Scott saw a small piece of white on the bedside table. With his name on it. A little note on a scrap of paper. His name, in Alan’s handwriting. Fingers trembling, Scott lifted it and opened ut. ut.

‘Why didn’t you come for me?’

Hot tears stung Scott’s eyes, as he remembered that promise he’d made all those years ago. He’d promised he’d always come for Alan, and he’d let him down. His baby brother, the one who had always turned to him for protection, had been tortured and abused. He, the one person Alan had relied on to come and free him, hadn’t.

Scott barely registered it as the officer returned with a plain clothes detective. His mind was empty of everything but the knowledge that he’d let his brother down, failed so miserably that Alan must surely hate him now. Scott sobbed in a way that he hadn’t done since Mum had died. All the hope he’d had of finding Alan was now destroyed. It was too late. Now he couldn’t save Alan, and Alan hated him for his inadequacy.

***

The slave stood in the room he had been imprisoned in for too long. The police had cleared the house out for evidence. There was enough of it. Most of those held here w be be testifying, pointing out those who raped them at a price. The slave had only been taken by his master. He’d been the special one, but he’d seen the others, screaming and begging as someone slammed into them brutally. He remembered the dark girl. She’d stopped screaming by the time the third man had taken her. She’d been dead before the last had finished.

The filth of this place wasn’t so obvious now. Blood and semen had been taken and analysed, but the walls and floor of smalsmall cell still held traces of the stains. Some dirt would never really be washed away. His master’s hands on his skin. The images that burned his eyelids. He’d been forced to watch as the dark girl was tortured and killed for trying to escape. Raped again and again until her broken body had finally given up.

He had never even learned her name, but her screams would echo in his ears for as long as he lived. Her eyes, filled with rage and pain, would always burn on his retina. This place would possess him forever. Even his freedom wasn’t enough. Outside of these walls, he would still remember. Even if they destroyed this building and all trace of the crimes committed within it, a piece of it would exist in his memory. The foulness was inside of him, contaminating him with his filth. He’d tried washing, scrubbing at his skin for hours on end, but it wouldn’t come out.

He sat down in the corner of the cell that had been his, and emptied the contents of his bag onto the floor. Setting up a beaker, he began to mix up the drugs in the correct quantities. He knew what he was doing. Knew what he was making. It was the only way.

Time passed slowly as he prepared his mixture, the silence of the empty cell surrounding him with comforting familiarity. Here there was no one who could be contaminated by his touch. Every time someone got close to him, part of the filth that coated him got brushed off onto them. He would never be clean and soon he would make everyone around him just as dirty as he was.

The tears burned his eyes but he fought to stop them from falling. Tears were weakness. Tears showed them they’d won. Tears were forced out of him, not given freely. Like everything else.

As he worked, the old mantra returned. The words flowed as the tears failed to. It was an irony that he returned to the mantra that had failed him. He had ceased to believe before he had been rescued. He had given up, surrendered to his captors and his despair. Only now, when the last piece of himself had been stripped from him, could he truly believe the words he whispered into the darkness.

“They will come for me. They will come for me. They will come for me.”

At last, his mixture was finished. The drug that would cure his sickness. The darkness within him would never be clean again, but with this he could make them understand. Punishment for his suffering. Punishment for abandoning him in this place. They would learn what he had gone through.

He stood, leaving his cell. The empty corridors were filled with memories and accusations. The pain this place had branded him with remained in the walls and floors. Like him, this place would never be free of what it had been. Screams and cries assailed him from the past as he walked. He was still a slave here, even with his master gone. He still felt alone and afraid, trapped in a nightmare that refused to end. A prisoner in his worst fears.

He remembered the telephone. He’d seen it once, at some point close to the beginning of his slavery. He had no idea how long he’d been trapped here; time was measured in lengths of pain. But he remembered that he’d had hope then. He’d seen the phone and thought about ways to get to it, ways in which he could call for help. That hope had only brought him further pain.

Now it would bring justice.

He dialled the number, listening for the cautious ‘hello.’ The voice was so familiar and so desired, but the slave felt his frightened breaths washing over the receiver, carrying his vile sickness down the telephone line.

“Scott,” he whispered, “why didn’t you come for me?” And he slammed the phone down.