UNSCATHED

Chapter 3

TASHA slowly began to feel distaste for the rest of her flatmates; the way they tutted at her clumsiness; the way they repeated themselves; the way they made everything into a crisis; the way they had no shame in openly criticising each other, then acting as if they were best friends.

When Pique made comments –- when he spoke at all –- it was only banter. He was polite, or what passed for polite in his world, which was not polite at all.

    She told him that talk of the Warehouse before she moved in had made it sound like the Second Coming. The next day he came into the lounge wearing a t-shirt saying that Jesus was, in fact, coming.

     Maybe He was; if He was, He could make the Warehouse somewhere no longer needed.

Underneath the picture it said in smaller letters, "look away"

She laughed until her eyes watered.

She'd told him of the torturous weeks in other places -- and even in the Warehouse -- where she was forced to wait ever longer before using the toilet for no good reason, often even forbidden from using the toilet when getting up in the morning; the pain then had been such that she would have preferred to have been dead.

The force of his rage had been legendary, his growls and screams terrible to hear, as if her pain had been his own; but other than that he spoke no words apart from to reference something he had once seen in which that very thing had happened.

It was full of blue-skinned people with purple hair, he told her, and dark green claws, and they killed those who refused to do their will using the power of thought and evil red light. He told her she would love it, and as usual he was right.

How had she been expecting him to respond to her?

It is all right, my darling, you are safe now?

What had she been expecting to happen?

Had she been expecting him to rescue her from the Warehouse so they could dance through a wood bathed in golden light?

Black light maybe, with twisted trees full of creatures with long shaky fingers and terrifying roars.

What he did do was put his face very close to the top of his fellow inmate's head and make vomiting noises down her neck.

He told her he'd been a good cook and that he had a good recipe for her.

"I'm so hungry," he complained.

She'd never known anyone who ate so much. She could see why; yogurt, fruit and jelly were the main desserts at the Warehouse. They made her gag. The Staff could never see how she managed to get her dried pork down.

Confused, she thanked him, but she wondered why he'd suggest a recipe since she'd never be able to recreate it.

He looked at her and smiled.

I have a good recipe.

Her stomach turned over.

For you....

Jokingly she said he'd last longest if he ate her. He hissed in response and his mouth fastened on her wrist like a pit bull. Her wrist was so small it fitted inside it.

She had told him she had never been to a concert outdoors; his voice slid into better pronunciation that it usually had.

"Oh!" he said. He put his hand on his forehead and pretended to swoon. "I have never been to a concert out-of-doors!"

It sounded so funny coming from someone looking as he did, she couldn't help but laugh.

Sometimes he sounded a lot older.

"Don't cry," he'd say, "do something with all that pain, all that rage that's inside you. Can you write?"

Tasha nodded; she loved writing.

What rage?

The rage that shocked most; the rage she always tried to tell herself was a thing of the past.

I'm here, Pique had said to her. I'm here with you. No problems at all....there's no problem.... don't let them get to you.

Whether he meant inmates or staff was unclear.

When someone criticised her choices, however small. Most did.

I'm here with you.

Tasha closed her eyes.

When she'd been waiting for ages, because they were short-staffed, or because someone wanted something picking up that they had dropped, and her stomach was killing her.

She didn't think she'd been left waiting for hours, not like in the other homes.

Whether he was saying these things by rote, or as something he felt he had to say, or he was being sarcastic, didn't matter; she wished he'd keep saying it.

When her throat hurt and there was nobody to get her a drink.

He'd joked that the Warehouse was so short of staff she'd be dead before anyone got there.... if he didn't get his machete out first.

She'd had a friend at school who was always threatening to "get his machete out", and she'd squeal and cover her face in the way schoolgirls often did; then she'd fall about laughing, seeing the reference to said "machete" as something else.

     Tasha needed to drink a lot to prevent medical problems. She drank so much she'd been told her kidneys were in danger of packing up. When she was younger there had been a story about a man who was so thirsty he drank the sea but it hadn't helped him.

Most did not behave this way; maybe the Warehouse did suit her.

It wasn't as if she'd be doing all the necessary things that most her age did was it?

Sometimes she sat looking at Pique for so long that she almost forgot to eat. She'd just look at her mugs of tea as if she'd never seen one before. She forgot to empty the bag of her water, which strained and sloshed on her leg.

"Someone has annoyed you, haven't they, Tasha?" he'd say. "I can tell."

Tasha nodded; it was usually one of two reasons; either needing a drink, or needing to dispose of said drink later. It was all she ever needed. Staff were happy to provide drinks, but some inmates did not agree with Tasha's great need for same and snapped at her to wait. Tears started in her grey eyes.

"Calm down, Crying Freeman....." said his sarcastic tone.

Crying Freeman shed tears after every kill; he'd killed many, so was always crying.

Her needing help was nothing new, and it really wasn't other inmates' place to tell her –- or anyone else – what they needed.

"Axe or ice-pick? Choose one!" Pique demanded.

"Ouch!" Tasha cried, ".....head's splitting...."

"So, off they go," said Pique, "to a basement with black walls and strange symbols. I put music on really loud. Really loud. There Then I start to hit them – did you say with an ice-pick, Tasha? --. hard . The floor's covered in their blood."

He was livening up; it seemed to be one of the few, if not the only thing that livened him up.

"Their blood's all over the walls, floor, ceiling. I put some in a glass for a little companion I have with me. She's listening to my soundtrack and it makes her just go to liquid," –- he looked at Tasha and smiled –- "she likes that, doesn't she?"

Tasha nodded.

"Then I bend down and lap up the rest of the spilt blood." He made a slurping noise. "My little companion doesn't realise some of it is hers.....".

Tasha dropped her mug of tea, eyes huge. "Stop it!" she cried. "Stop it!" She was indifferent to many of the other inmates, but this didn't extend to wishing for their deaths.

"Oh, come on," said Pique, "you love horror!" He laughed. "Oh, stop it," he mimicked. "Threaten me just like that," he said.