Coffin Hop Day 2 – Six Millimeters

Today’s Coffin Hop post is a piece of flash fiction I wrote which first appeared in The Sirens Call Issue #2. Don’t forget to leave a comment if you’re interested in winning a digital copy of my novel Days with the Undead: Book One. At the end of the week, I’ll even be giving away print copies of a few books – just for fun. Make sure you get in on the actions!

Six Millimeters

© 2012 Julianne Snow

Six millimeters. That’s the diameter of the hole through which I peer. I know that it’s dangerous for me to look, I don’t want to make her angry but how else am I to know what is going on.

Nineteen days. That’s how long I think I’ve been here. I don’t even know where here is but I am not alone. So far I have been left alone, witness to all that is going on around me.

Three. That’s the number of fingernails I broke the first day of my captivity. One of them is really bad and the pain makes me think that it might be infected. I don’t dare ask for help; I know what happened the last time someone did.

It was five days ago. A new one was brought to the collection of wooden crates in what I assume is a basement or perhaps an underground bunker. It’s cold and damp and smells like dirt, mold and unwashed, fetid bodies.

She was smart for the first sixty minutes, keeping quiet. Lessons are learnt quickly down here; crying out is distinctly frowned upon. It’s part of the rules you are given on the seemingly endless walk into the cool clout of the subterranean cavity. Sometimes we cry a little but the minute the telltale sounds of doom approach, silence resonates.

Not five days ago. Five days ago she couldn’t hold it in, begging for her life, promising any number of things. Through my minuscule window I could just make out the svelte but muscular frame of our captor. I’ve only seen her face once and it was as breathtaking as it was frightening.

It took only a few moments for those pleas to enrage our warden of terror. The rest of us listened in silence as the lock was meticulously unlatched and the door opened. From my vantage point, I could see the body of the new one as it flung itself down at the feet of our captor. We listened as a captive audience to the husky sounds of her voice, asking the new one if she was stupid. It was at that moment that we knew a punishment for disobedience truly existed.

It was horrible. The sounds of death beat at our ears like the rhythmic flaying of the drums. The new one ceased to make any sound and we knew that it was over. A part of me wishes that I could have helped her in some way but what good was I from the other side of a sheet of reinforced wood? I exist in my own prison, catching clandestine glimpses of a world not fit to live in.

My guilt keeps me company but what was I to do? I am just an observer of fate revealed in six millimeters.

Don’t forget to visit the rest of the Hoppers here.