30 Days in the Hole

"Wanna do something fun?" Baron's sinister smile was met with whoops and hollers from the crowd. They bound Marty's hands and ankles with black electrician's tape and booted him into the pit. Everyone watched from above as he peeled his pulpy face from the metal floor and laboriously lurched onto his back, propping his pulverized body against the side of the empty tank. His hair fell over his severe brows obscuring his swollen, dirt-caked face as he spit red between his legs.

Baron wiped the blood off his knuckles and yelled down, "You're done, Marty. Done fighting us at every turn, done causing chaos, done hurting us."

Marty didn't look up.

Baron kicked dirt into the pit. "We have a chance to create a new world, the way we want it. And we won't tolerate your behavior. We will be back to decide your punishment. Until then, enjoy your new home."

Marty snorted and felt the eyes on him disappear one by one as their footsteps faded. He spent the rest of the day listening to the faint sounds of village work and voices that wandered into the pit. At night he was in too much agony to sleep and too angry to relax. He held up his taped hands, running the edge of his finger on the left side of his face, over the eye swollen shut and the lacerated cheek, then the tender nose, the busted lip, the loose teeth, then down to the worst of the wounds--the ribs that made moving, breathing and staying still unbearable. He winced and knocked the back of his head against the wall, letting his rage blind his pain.

As soon as he was certain he had spent an eternity down there, Dean and Jesse slid down the pool walls like they were on skateboards. They each took an arm and hoisted Marty out, dragging him through camp towards a small tent. Everyone around paused their work for a second, meeting Marty's hateful eyes. Baron was cutting up deer meat and didn't even acknowledge him.

Dean and Jesse pushed Marty through the tent flaps. It was bare inside expect for a bench and a pile of old blankets on a tree stump. Dean pulled a knife from his back pocket and sliced the tape from Marty's hands and feet. Jesse pushed his signature black goggles onto his forehead, revealing pink rings around his perpetually concerned eyes. He dragged a chain and cuffs out of his satchel. As he secured Marty's ankle to the tree stump, he said simply, "Cam will be in soon."

Marty tightened his lips and stuck his chin out, turning away from the boys as they ducked outside.

About an hour later the slit in the tent opened. Marty squinted at the figure emerging from a triangle of biting light.

She had an armful of makeshift medical supplies--some salvaged from the crash and some made here in camp. She set a basin on the bench next to Marty, who just watched her through his blood crusted hair. She poured water into it, then laid out a series of sponges, towels, gauzes, and ointments.

She sighed and finally looked at him. She was expressionless, as though she was a cashier at a 7-eleven slugging through another monotonous day of work. "Take your shirt off."

Marty pressed his brows together.

Cam closed her eyes in frustration. "I can't heal you if you don't cooperate."

"What's the point in healing me if Baron’s just gonna kill me," he croaked through gritted teeth.

"He’s not going to kill you." Cam leaned over the basin and swirled the sponge around in the water. "Even though you deserve it."

Marty looked down at his feet. He had known Cam since they were 10 years old, and she still treated him with the same cold indifference.

"Now take it off." She repeated.

He rolled his eyes back into his head and shrugged off his heavy military green jacket. He halted and winced as he tried to pull his undershirt off.

"Stop, stop." Cam put the sponge down and picked up a pair of shears. Marty stiffened at the touch of the cold metal on his skin as she snipped his shirt off from navel to neck. She traced her eyes over the purple and green welts along his ribcage, then ran a hand over a particular protrusion.

"I have to put your ribs back in place."

Marty shrugged.

Cam walked around to the other side of the bench and wrapped her arms around his torso from behind. Marty looked down to watch her hands clasp together in front of him and tried to wriggle out of her grip. She only bared down tighter.

"Inhale," she commanded. She tightened her grip.

"Exhale," she said as she jerked his body upwards with a sinewy pop.

"Gah!" He wriggled out of her grasp and clutched his ribs.

"Better?"

Marty deliberated and met her eyes. He grunted reluctantly.

She wetted the sponge again and began washing the dirt and blood from his shoulders, back and neck. They were silent again, only the sound of water dripping and the puckering of the sponge filling the tent.

One she reached his face she put the sponge down and grabbed the water basin, dumping it over Marty's head. He torqued his head at her and glared with shocked fury, his jaw clenched and residual water spraying from his lips with each huff, hoping for her sake he did not detect satisfaction in her eyes.

She swooped closer to Marty in a way that made him jump back slightly, then positioned herself in between his legs as she swept the hair, staining his face with pink streaks, out of his eyes and ran a comb through it once to get it out of the way. She smelled like campfire. She began to dab the grime from his skin with a rag, not particularly gently, until his angry face was visible. He cast his eyes down.

She unscrewed a tiny tin of salve and smoothed some on his cheek and eye. She stooped a little to survey the split in his lip. She lightly tapped the ointment on the bulk of the cut, then ever so slowly rubbed it in to the rest of his lips, running a finger around and around them in a circle.

He flicked his narrow eyes up at her. Her eyebrows were not flat with disdain like before, now they were turned upwards. She met his gaze and Marty jerked his head away from her. She did a 180 and swatted her supplies back into the empty basin and on her way out she tossed Marty a towel from the stump. She slipped out without another glance.

~

The next few days went the same. Marty alone in the tent all day, sitting, sulking, pacing around the stump, until Cam came in through a triangle of sunlight to bring him food and check on his injuries. Her opening and closing the tent flap was the only split second of daylight he got. The rest of the day and night he could only hear everyone pass by, talk, chop wood, laugh around the crackling fire, open and close the perimeter gate.

They never said much to each other the first few days. Cam seemed as upset to be there as Marty.

He remembered seeing her on the playground at school with her friends, a whirlwind of blonde hair flying back and forth on the swing set, her smile so big it just about eclipsed her face. He usually sat alone in the grass playing cards, trying to look like he preferred his own company. They didn’t see each other for ten years after elementary school, until they bumped into each other last year—the first day of this survival experiment.

~

One morning, Marty woke up to the sound of the sudden pelting of heavy rainfall. Anticipating Cam's arrival, he rose from the ground and shimmied up onto the work bench. Beads of water kept plopping down on the crown of his head and into his eyes when he looked up at the pinhole in his tent. He sighed in frustration and ran a swollen hand up his forehead and pushed his wet hair back.

Cam was in the doorway, but this time she fastened the tent flaps open. She never left them open. Marty gawked outside at the camp as though he were looking at a dirty magazine, trying to drink in the scene. The camp looked the same as it always did, except wetter. Water cascaded off the tin roofs and splashed into buckets, it collected on the flat, wide plants until their leaves were so laden with water they stooped and sprung back up again. A few people were out and about, scrambling out of the rain with their jackets pulled over their heads. Marty shifted his gaze above the perimeter walls and at the whisper of mountain peaks far away. He closed his eyes and turned his head away.

Cam watched Marty until he opened his eyes and looked at her. She turned around and set a bag of bread and tomatoes on the ground and got out the medical supplies. Marty's broken bones were set and his cuts were closing, his bruises paling. His attitude, however, seemingly could not be healed.

She changed his rib bandages first, then his broken arm, put more ointment on his broken nose. She looked especially displeased when checking the cut over his eye.

Scanning the slice through his eyebrow with her thumb on his temple she said, "I'm going to have to put stitches in that cut. It’s not healing right."

Marty scoffed. "Bet you'll enjoy that."

Cam dropped her hand in a huff and fished around in her backpack for the needle and thread. "Unlike you, I don't get off on inflicting pain on others."

"Doesn't seem like you get off on healing them either."

She put a hand to her hip and glared at him. "I am constantly trying to mend wounds of the people you maim every day. Every day. So no, wasting medical supplies on a loose cannon like you is not my idea of a good time."

He turned his body toward her, his sharp, bulging eyes locked on her. "Then why do you agree to do it?"

The rain occupied the silence for a few moments as they stared into each other, unblinking; Cam's chest heaving with ire and Marty's sardonic eyes challenging her. Marty stuck his chin out and tipped forward toward her as if waiting for her to hit him. Cam took a heavy step closer, her insides boiling, face pink and fists balled up at her sides. Marty slowly slipped off the bench and stood up, vertebra by vertebra, until he could feel her heavy breath on his skin. His narrow eyes widened, and his face softened as he noticed the freckles on her nose, her down turned lips, the soft waves of hair clinging to the rain on her temples. Cam’s irritated face grew confused as she noticed Marty’s shift in energy. His usually cruel, piercing eyes were now wide, soft, and longing like a child’s. Her eyes darted back and forth between his, uncertain. With each breath, her chest rose, warmed as it barely grazed his, then fell, cold and heavy, craving the heat. Rain was dripping from the hole in the tent and running off Marty’s hair, now wet and stringy in front of his forehead. His posture sank a little and his mouth opened as he looked at Cam’s lips. Cam swallowed.

"Because," She turned abruptly back to her bag, unwinding a spool of surgical thread, "that's what good people do." Marty watched over her shoulder as she started to thread the needle. After several failed attempts she finally tied it and turned around.

“Sit down.” She avoided his eyes. Marty leaned against the bench; his arms extended behind him. She positioned herself on his right side, trying not to touch him; her left hand reluctantly bracing his face and her right positioning the needle for the first poke.

“This won’t feel good.” She paused, breathed in, and on her exhale, pushed the needle through his skin. With the exception of an initial sharp inhale, Marty was silent but stiff. As they both got used to the process, they loosened up; Marty relaxed his shoulders and Cam softened at his side until she was braced against him. As her working hand weaved in and out of the cut, her left hand on his face shifted over time for better leverage, to his jaw, then under his chin, it cupped the back of his head, brushed hair out of his face at one point, then slid down his neck and stopped at his chest. Marty kept his eyes fixed on the floor. After finishing the last stitch, Cam knotted the thread and reached behind her for the scissors. When she turned back around, she jumped a little—Marty’s blue saucer eyes were boring into her, his lids heavy. She snipped the line quickly and as soon as she set the scissors on the bench, she felt his face close to hers, his hot breath on her skin. She closed her eyes as they hung their heads there, foreheads barely touching, breathing into each other.

She broke away abruptly, grabbed her supply bag and ducked out of the tent. She ripped down the tent flaps when she exited, leaving Marty alone in the dark, the leak in the roof pelting his head.

~

Cam didn’t come the next day. In fact, Marty was left alone for a few days.

He perked up at every sound of footsteps approaching, readying himself for Cam to slip through the flap, manufacturing the conversation they would have in his head. But she never came.

He would spend the days soaked in silence, alone, chained to the stump, left to drown in the swamp of degrading thoughts sloshing around in his brain. He knew someone slipped in while he was sleeping each night, because when he woke up there was a bag of fresh food on the bench.

After three days, the tent flap finally opened. Marty’s neck muscles tightened with a sharp inhale then released as she saw who it was. It was Holloway who poked his blonde head in instead of Cam. He looked at Marty for a second and then came in the rest of the way, rather cautiously.

Marty tilted his head at him, forming his words carefully after his vow of silence. "You my new nurse?"

Holloway ignored him best he could and hesitantly rifled through Cam's medical bag, trying to avoid eye contact. He inched toward Marty and worked on removing his stitches, periodically checking to make sure his ankle chain was still anchored to the stump.

On his way out, Marty called out, "Any chance you can stitch up this hole in my tent too?"

"Not a chance." He heard him reply from outside.

~

The next day Marty watched the tent doors for hours, wondering who would walk through them. If anyone.

Much to his chagrin, it was Holloway again. With a bag of food and a fresh jug of water.

It was Holloway for the next few weeks. He never said much and was in and out quickly.

It left Marty a lot of time to mull everything over. Mostly worry about how they would decide to punish him, and get angry about being trapped, think how he could escape, how to fix the damn hole in his tent before it rained again, remember the feeling of Cam's healing hands. He shook the last thought away. It was the last one he had before he fell asleep.

~

When he woke up Cam was in his tent.

He sat up and looked at her with surprise. She was leaning against the bench, her hand resting on the big iron strapped to her thigh.

"Decision's been made on your punishment. Baron and the rest of us are waiting for you outside."

Marty clenched his jaw.

Cam walked over and unfastened his ankle chain from the stump, reattaching it to his hands behind his back. She took a moment to glance at his stitches.

"Holloway did well."

Marty scoffed. "He's a lot gentler than you."

He thought he detected the inkling of a smile, but Cam's face was difficult to read. She seemed like she was trying harder than usual to not show any emotion.

She led him outside for the first time in a month.

The biting light of day seared his eyes. They were watering profusely, and he could barely keep them open, like someone cut open a potent onion nearby. He kept blinking at the blurred shapes around him as Cam lead him through the camp. They were clearly walking through a crowd of people; Marty heard them whisper his name and mumble as he passed by.

His vision finally cleared as Cam stopped him in front of the camp gates. They turned around to find everyone in the camp huddled before them, Baron standing with arms crossed at the helm.

No one spoke.

Marty maintained his composure, but his heart was hammering against his ribs. He and Baron engaged in a staring contest. Finally, Baron nodded at Cam. Marty felt Cam behind him, unlocking his shackles. With an ironclad click, his hands were free. He rubbed his wrists and looked around.

Cam waved above her head to the guards perched on scaffolding on either side of the gate. A kerrang of metal-on-metal scraping echoed through the camp as the gates jolted open. Cam looked up at Marty through heavy eyelids, her mouth thin and tight.

They were banishing him.

"Good luck Marty." Her jaw clenched as she signaled the guards again. He stood in defeat, watching the doors slowly swallow Cam's body.