English in the Dark

Delivering English, Chapter 14

English lay in absolute darkness; it was not like being in a darkened room or even in a room with no windows and a closed door but an actual complete void of light, which caused his eyes to begin to hallucinate stars and spots

of light. His heartbeat in the darkness was like a bass drum pounding in his ears until the voices came closer. He could hear them speaking about a coal chute and an old hospital beyond the tunnel. English knew the voices well and was aware that if they uncovered him here, it would be his end, so he lay in silence, waiting and listening for as long as it took.

Several minutes earlier, English had opened the iron gate successfully, exposing the dark tunnel beyond it, and that was when he first heard the distant voices and footsteps coming toward the end of the hallway in the basement above him. At first, he stood frozen, but he quickly realized he would be seriously punished if he was found in the subbasement. He looked around frantically for a place to hide, but the only place that wouldn’t require him to crush his body underneath a huge mass of wooden pallets was in the tunnel. English stared into the tunnel briefly before abandoning this idea; he had no idea how far back it went or whether the men coming downstairs had flashlights that would easily expose him. He ran toward the stairs as the voices grew closer, and then he turned and went into the morgue. There is a saying that extreme situations call for extreme measures; English recalled this as he made his decision and began to push his body into one of the nine drawers that made up the back wall of the room. He sealed the door behind him just as the footsteps reached the base of the stairs.

The smell in his hiding place was overwhelming; English tried to hold his breath as long as he could but ended up breathing much harder as he gasped for air moments later. It was then that he realized that this container, although not completely airtight, did not receive the amount of oxygen required by life, and he began to panic. The tray he was lying on was, like the walls and the door, made of stainless steel and radiated cold throughout his body; it was likely this very sensation that helped English slow his breathing and calm down. While he worked at putting himself into an almost-meditative trance, English listened to the conversation going on outside, being certain to capture every word that was said. For once fortune appeared to be somewhat on his side, as the questions he’d had about the dark abyss at the other end of the subbasement were being answered for him while he lay in his icy tomb.

The voices outside went on about how tools and one or more bodies needed to be removed from the asylum. English was beginning to understand not only that he had the beginnings of a plan for their escape but also that they were running out of time. Escaping from Hartley served two important purposes: the first and foremost was to keep his friends and himself from the obvious harm that would come to them there, and the second was to enable them to expose David Sanders and the others to the authorities and with any luck, get Hartley shut down for good. From this conversation, it sounded like the evidence of all of Sanders’s wrongdoings was about to be removed, and that simply wouldn’t do.

Outside English heard what sounded like a fight between Sanders and Jack; he wondered why anyone would want to be around someone like David Sanders but realized quickly that, given the opportunity, Jack Barrister would gladly take over Sanders’s cruel role at Hartley. English was beginning to struggle to stay calm because the air was running out in his chamber. He began counting the seconds as he breathed in, held his breath, and let go. “One, two, three, four, five,” he whispered to himself as he let out a breath and struggled to take the next one.

“You’re not going to jail, Paul; none of us are,” English heard Sanders say. The voices were calming down now and getting somewhat quieter as their bearers headed toward the stairwell. English pulled his arm up past his face and palmed the door, searching for the handle to let him out as soon as they were gone, but there was no handle. The irony of his situation was that he had found the perfect place to hide, but cadaver drawers were not designed to allow dead bodies a way out; English was trapped and rapidly running out of air.

The voices and footsteps of Sanders and the others with him had gone. In the darkness, after slamming his hand repeatedly against the door, English realized no one actually knew where he was; it could be months before anyone found his body in this place. Using his legs, he forced his entire body against the door while using only his hands to protect his head from the impact, but the door would not budge. English was breathing harder now and knew that at this rate, he would run out of air soon.

He ran his hands along the edge of the door slowly, searching every inch for a sign of weakness. Midway up the side edge of the door, English found the first of the two hinges the door pivoted on. He fumbled desperately with this hinge to try to remove the pin that kept it locked in place, but he could not get it to move. As he gasped for breath, English couldn’t help thinking that if only he had longer fingernails he might have been able to survive this experience. Just then he remembered his father’s pocket watch, which still resided in his front pocket. He rearranged his body once again so he could reach down and retrieve the watch, and then he opened it and began to work its finest edge against the hinge. In spite of the cold, English was sweating, which made gaining purchase on the pin that much harder, but he worked at it nonstop until he felt it give way just a bit.

“Shit!” English screamed in the darkness as the pin fell back in place before he could grab it. He could hear his own breathing now, labored and straining for air, as he put the watch’s edge back into position. The pin moved again, this time much more easily. English slowly moved his finger over the pin, grabbed it, and yanked it free; he was halfway to freedom. Immediately he put the watch into position to remove the second pin. He could feel his muscles burning throughout his body as he struggled to find enough oxygen to stay conscious. After what felt like hours, English managed to loosen the second pin. Once again he held his breath, grabbed the pin between his sweaty fingers, and pulled; the pin came free. English, on the verge of passing out, mustered all his energy and thrust his body once more against the door, which exploded outward and into the room.

He gasped for air like a swimmer who had been underwater for far too long as his body fell several feet downward to the floor; the door to the chamber, still clanging around on the floor, made a terrible amount of noise. As he tried to catch his breath, English did what he could to listen for the sound of anyone coming down to investigate the noise, but he heard nothing; it appeared that he had survived.

English searched the floor and located his father’s watch, which had fallen when he collapsed from the drawer. He picked it up, looked it over for damage, and then noticed the time: it was nearing twelve o’clock. If there was one thing that was consistent at Hartley, it was the mealtimes: breakfast was at eight o’clock, lunch at twelve, and dinner at five. There had been no exceptions to this structure since English had arrived. Knowing he could not easily sneak back into the group area, English’s plan was to join the group en route to the cafeteria. If he was unable to make this deadline, he would be stuck in hiding for another five hours, and he would have to hope no one noticed his absence in the meantime.

English rushed to reassemble the door he had just torn off its hinges and hurried out of the morgue, going up the stairs and down the basement hallway. Once again, as he crept up the stairs toward the building’s main entrance, he was cautious of the presence of any staff member or area guard. Seeing that there was no one around, he ran up the next flight of stairs and into the second-floor hallway, where he continued slowly. As he approached the end of the hall, English heard the doors to the group area open and the patients begin to walk in his direction and toward the cafeteria; it appeared he had made it.