about the door at the end?’
‘Let the cops open that one,’ Caitlyn says. ‘We’ve seen enough.’
I shake my head.
‘Bevan,’ I say.
I turn and run back towards the last locked door at the end of the corridor, heaving the axe over my shoulder. This is what a good man does, Slim. Good men are brash and brave and fly by the seat of their pants that are held up by suspenders made of choice. This is my choice, Slim. Do what is right, not what is easy. Crack. The axe drives into the final door. Do what is human. August would do this. Crack. Lyle would have done this. Crack. Dad would do this. Crack.
The good-bad men in my life helping me swing this rusty axe. The doorknob falls off and the splintered door pops open.
I push it wider, stand in the doorway as it swings to a right angle. Caitlyn’s feeble light is waving behind me, beaming over my right shoulder to settle on a pair of blue eyes. An eight-year-old boy named Bevan Penn. Short dusty brown hair. Dirt over his face. Caitlyn steadies her light on the boy and the scene becomes clearer. The boy stands in an empty room with a concrete floor and concrete walls like the other rooms. But there are no workbenches or shelves in this room. There is only a cushioned stool. And upon this stool is a red telephone and the boy holds the red telephone’s handset to his ear. Confusion over his face. Fear, too. But also something else. Knowing.
He holds the handset out to me. He wants me to take it. I shake my head.
‘Bevan, we’re gonna get you outta here,’ I say.
The boy nods. He drops his head and weeps. He’s lost his mind down here. He holds the handset up to me again. I walk closer to him, grip the handset tentatively. I bring the handset to my right ear.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello, Eli,’ says the voice down the phone line.
That same voice from last time. The voice of a man. A real man type man. Deep and raspy, weary maybe.
‘Hi.’
Caitlyn watches me, stunned. I turn away from her. Turn my eyes to the boy, Bevan Penn, watching me, expressionless.
‘It’s me, Eli,’ the man says. ‘It’s Gus.’
‘How’d you find me down here?’
‘I dialled the number for Eli Bell,’ he says. ‘I dialled 77—’
‘I know the number,’ I say, cutting him off. ‘773 8173.’
‘That’s right, Eli.’
‘I know this isn’t real,’ I say.
‘Sssshhhhh,’ the man says. ‘She already thinks you’re crazy enough.’
‘I know you’re just the voice in my head,’ I say. ‘You’re a figment of my imagination. I use you to escape from moments of great trauma.’
‘Escape?’ the man echoes. ‘What, like Slim over the Boggo Road walls? Escape from yourself, Eli, do ya, like the Houdini of your own mind?’
‘773 8173,’ I say. ‘That’s just the number we’d tap into the calculator when we were kids. That’s just “Eli Bell” upside down and back to front.’
‘Brilliant!’ the man says. ‘Upside down and back to front, like the universe, hey Eli? You still got the axe?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good,’ the man says. ‘He’s coming, Eli.’
‘Who?’
‘He’s already here, Eli.’
And then a fluorescent bar light fixed to the ceiling above us shimmers twice and flicks on. I drop the handset, let it hang from the cord. The whole underground hall is lit up now, ceiling lights buzzing to life from one main power source.
‘Oh fuck,’ whispers Caitlyn. ‘Who’s that?’
‘That’s Iwan Krol,’ I whisper.
*
It’s the flip-flops we hear first, the rubber thongs of a menacing Queenslander descending the concrete steps to this man-made hell bunker. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop. Rubber on concrete. Walking down the hall now. The sound of busted doors swinging open. First door on the left. First on the right. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop. The second door on the left swinging open, kicked at twice. A long silence. The sound of the second door on the right swinging open. A long creaking swing, the hinges busted. Another long silence. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop. Rubber on concrete. Close now. Too close. My weak bones stiffen. My amateur heart frozen. My amateur mongrel lost to me now.
Iwan Krol reaches the door to this room. The red telephone room. He stands in the entryway. Blue thongs. Light blue short-sleeved button-up shirt tucked into dark blue shorts. He’s an elderly man now. But he’s still tall and muscular and sun-damaged. There is strength in those arms. A man who works a farm when he’s not sawing the limbs off