The Millstone

CHAPTER FIVE: "THE PLOUGHSHARE"

The floor shook. Then it shook again. As Bennett collapsed in a heap, gasping for breath as though he were sinking underwater, he thought it might never stop shaking.

"Out of here!" a guard shouted, tugging him to his feet. He was too weak to fight back or to cry bloody murder or even to yell out in protest. Christina Clarke was dead. Nothing could be done about it now.

She should have meant nothing to him. She was a liar, a plant, a spy, a dirty little narcissist who thought it'd be fun to draw him into her web for reasons that were beyond him. At least, that was what he told himself to lessen the pain as the minutes slipped away. Except they weren't slipping away this time. Each one was individually and painfully being yanked out of his chest.

His lungs were filled with broken glass. This, surely, would kill him.

Osric had done it. As Bennett glared into his eyes in the darkness that night, glowing like cats', he knew without knowing how that he was guilty. It was the way he set his eyes on the ceiling, the way his words trailed off as though he thought he might fly away from this place if he wished it hard enough. He had the look of a traitor.

Even so, Bennett couldn't get himself to speak to him. Merely associating himself with someone who'd done something so horrid would be a straight violation of the albeit shaky code of conduct he'd set for himself during his time here. Instead, he resorted to staring blanky at him whenever he wasn't looking. Eventually, Bennett thought, he'd notice the eyes boring into the back of his neck and he'd break down and he'd confess.

One evening, when Osric was away on dishwashing duty, Bennett snatched the poem from under his pillow. The crease in the paper seemed to have been folded and unfolded countless times. Clearly, Osric took great pride in the thing that he'd written. A different sort of feeling overtook Bennett's nerves as he read the second stanza.

Twelve little rebels,
Gazing up toward heaven.
One was backstabbed by his friend.
And then there were eleven.

The fact that one of them would have to die hadn't been known when he'd written those lines. Logically, there was no way it was anything other than a coincidence. Besides, the numbers didn't match; there were thirteen of them when he'd done the deed. In that part of the poem, there'd been twelve.

He went back to the first stanza. One fell in and drowned himself, and then there were eleven. It might have been the most unsettling line of the entire poem. All the others -except for the last boy – clearly died in freak accidents, but this one was open-ended. "Fell in" implied it had been an accident. "Drowned himself," made it sound like he'd done it on purpose.

Clarke hadn't drowned herself. Bennett came to the conclusion that he was merely reading into the scribbles of a madman and threw the paper back under the pillow.

Time itself seemed to slow down as the days passed. No longer was there a hanging sense of dread, but a hanging sense of anticipation. They'd been promised they could keep their lives beyond the sixth week if they chose one person among them to die. The State had kept that promise. But what would happen to them now? Would they stay here forever, as Simon had so ominously suggested?

Dinner became calmer. Without the (imminent, at the very least) threat of death, the captives found they could bring themselves to talk to one another on somewhat friendly terms. The druggie named Duncan proved to be quite a good friend, in particular. Because of him, the rubbing alcohol in some of the patients' rooms had to be put under lock and key. Bennett didn't make the connection until Caddell pointed it out to him one night. He'd grown more observant over time. Bennett felt like the opposite. As far as he could tell, he'd only gotten dumber.

Also, their lessons with Dr. Abraham continued as usual. Sometimes, they joined with Dr. Carmine's group of three, or with Dr. Ravenstill's group of four. Rarely were they placed with Buck and Byron from Stringer's team. Whoever was planning their schedules had clearly pulled them into isolation after Clarke's death.