the kitchen vanished. He was sitting on the edge of the cot. The cell with its door and its stinking hole that ate his piss and shit. Who knew what time it was, what day, what month, what year. He had been in this place forever.
“Theo? Are you listening to me?”
He licked his lips, tasting blood. Had he bitten his tongue? “What do you want?”
A sigh from the far side of the door. “I gotta say, Theo. You do impress me. Nobody holds out like this. I think you’ve got some kind of record going.”
Theo said nothing. What was the point? The voice never answered his questions. If there even was a voice. Sometimes he thought it was just something in his head.
“I mean some, sure,” the voice went on. “In some cases you could say it goes against the grain, carving the old bitch up.” A dark chuckle, like something from the bottom of a pit. “Believe me, I’ve seen people do the damnedest shit.”
It was terrible, Theo thought, what staying awake could do to a person’s mind. You went without sleep long enough, you made your brain stand up and walk around day after day after day no matter how tired you felt—you did push-ups and sit-ups on the cold stone floor until your muscles burned, you scratched and slapped yourself and dug at your own flesh with your bloodied nails to keep awake—and before long you didn’t know which was which, if you were awake or asleep. Everything got blended together. A sensation like pain—only worse, because it wasn’t a pain in your body; the pain was your mind and your mind was you. You were pain itself.
“You mark my words, Theo. You do not want to go there. That was not a story with a happy ending.”
He felt his awareness folding again, taking him down into sleep. He dug his nails hard into his palm. Stay. Awake. Theo. Because there was something worse than staying awake, he knew.
“Sooner or later everybody comes around, is what I’m saying, Theo.”
“Why do you keep using my name?”
“I’m sorry? Theo, did you ask me something?”
He swallowed, tasting blood again, the foulness of his own mouth. His head was in his hands. “My name. You’re always saying it.”
“Just trying to get your attention. You haven’t been yourself much these last few days, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”
Theo said nothing.
“So okay,” the voice went on. “You don’t want me to use your name. Don’t see why not, but I can live with that. Let’s change the subject. What are your thoughts on Alicia? Because I do believe that girl is something special.”
Alicia? The voice was talking about Alicia? It simply wasn’t possible. But nothing was, that was the thing. The voice was always saying things that were impossible.
“Now, I thought it would be Mausami, the way you described her,” the voice went merrily on. “Back when we had our little talk. I was pretty sure my tastes would run in her direction. But there’s something about a redhead that just gets my blood boiling.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about. I told you. I don’t know anyone by those names.”
“You dog, Theo. Are you trying to tell me you put the wood to Alicia, too? And Mausami in the condition she is?”
The room seemed to tip. “What did you say?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. You didn’t hear? Now, I’m surprised she didn’t tell you. Your Mausami, Theo.” The voice lifted to a kind of singsong. “Got a little bunski in the ovenski.”
He was trying to focus. To hold the words he was hearing in place so he could grasp their meaning. But his brain was heavy, so heavy, like a huge, slippery stone the words kept sliding off.
“I know, I know,” the voice went on. “It came as a shock to me, too. But back to Lish. If you don’t mind my asking, how does she like it? I’m thinking she’s an on-all-fours-howl-at-the-moon kind of girl. How about it, Theo? Set me straight here if I’m wrong.”
“I don’t.… know. Stop using my name.”
A pause. “All right. If that’s how you want it. Let’s try a new name, shall we? How about: Babcock.”
His mind clenched. He thought he might be sick. He would have been, if there had been anything in his stomach to come up.
“Now we’re getting somewhere. You know about Babcock, don’t you, Theo?”
That was what was on the other side, the other side of the dream. One of Twelve. Babcock.
“What …