Free The Cipher by Kathe Koja Page B

murmur: "So when can I see it?"
    "See what? The Funhole? Haven't, hasn't Na— Shrike taken you there?"
    "Oh yeah, we saw the room."
    What the hell ? "But you didn't go in?"
    "Yeah, we went in, but you know what happens."
    When absolutely cornered, I reach, always, for the truth. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about, I really don't. You went in the room, that storage room, but you didn't see it?"
    Slightly affronted, leaning back and his gaze suspicious, was I fucking with him or what? "It's like Shrike says, you have to be there."
    We stared at each other, this was making no sense at all to me when suddenly my mind translated his words into something even more senseless: not "you have to be there" but "you have to be there," meaning me, which meant nothing. What did I have to do with seeing the Funhole, and why would Nakota say I did? She was a liar, sure, a twister, but what could she possibly get out of such a silly story, and what exactly had she said to convince Randy that what he saw would somehow improve with my presence?
    "So." Randy crossed his arms. Big arms. "When can I see it? Tonight?"
    The sensation of being boxed in, trapped in a cusp moment of purest choice, warred with a weird diluted glee, what the hell, right? What the hell. It's not my goddamned hole anyway now is it, not my personal property, it doesn't have my name on it. Whatever happens won't be my fault.
    "Sure," I said. "I get home about six."
    "All right" Randy's smile restored, I thought he would actually shake my hand but instead he punched my shoulder, lightly, a gesture so adolescent that for a minute I misunderstood and stood, my own grin fixed, waiting to get smacked again but this time less tenderly. "I'll give Shrike a call. See you later, man," and gone, cold air blowing in his passing, and watching him all the way to his car, wondering, still my stupid grin until my friend the deserter came up to me, tapped me on the back.
    "Friend of yours, Nicholas?"
    "Guess so."
    I reached, seemingly without my own consent, for the phone: call Nakota. Then: no. No I won't. Let her find out from him. Still grinning, put the phone down, and as I did I saw my bandage, soaked and bubbling, a rich reddish gravy leaking fresh across the counter and I blotted it, fast swipe with my sleeve, went at once to the bathroom to peel free the clotted gauze and rinse the wound, the hole, the running water not as fast as the leak, drainage they call it, this was drainage all right. "Look at that shit," I said to myself, finally not even rinsing but just letting it run, run, if it was blood, I thought, I'd be bleeding to death.
    It went on so long it got embarrassing: somebody, the new guy knocking at the door, "You okay in there?" and me watching the flow, mumbling something; at last he went away. Finally, without slowing, it just stopped. With my left hand, clumsy but getting better, you know what they say about necessity, I extracted my little Band-Aid tin of gauze and preclipped tape, made a new bandage, watched a careful moment to make sure it wasn't going to start up again. Nothing. Nothing but the white innocence of the gauze, the crisscross tape, my sallow flesh.
    The rest of the day dragged. Was I actually excited about my new job as ringmaster, hur-ry, hur-ry, hur-ry, step right in to the greatest hole on earth, you betcha. For once exercising my bullying rights as assistant manager, I made the new guy close up, drove home too fast for the weather, slewing and skidding, arriving a little before six.
    Cold enough, in the entryway, to see my breath, cold enough to stiffen my normal hand as it tried to work the key, lumpy feel of my fingers and impatient, I used my right hand, ignoring the pain for that moment, sorry I had the next. Boom, boom, migraine throb in my palm and I had to sit down, right hand cradled in left, coddling my cut-rate stigmata and the knock on the door, loud and brisk, already?
    "Come on in," I said, too quiet, had to say it again