Page 72 of Sundowners
CV: We were in sessions fourteen hours a day with breaks twice a day for eating. We learned meditation and how the body uses energy, what that looks like, how different energy is perceived by the body. That was the first six months I was there. The days were long, and I was tired because I couldn’t sleep well in the dormitory—
RSA: Do you think you can tell me a little more about that?
CV: Yes. It was a large gymnasium with bedrolls. We weren’t allowed any personal items, only our clothing and our sleeping things. There were at least sixty of us in this room, men and women, and the Leaders did not allow us to talk, but when they left, the others would talk, or do other things, and it did not feel safe to me, so I didn’t sleep.
RSA: And do you think you can tell me about the experiments?
CV: The experiments were terrible. When it was your turn, you were taken to a room that was mostly dark. People would come into the room and crowd you into the corner. If you were lucky, they didn’t speak to you, they just pressed against you and held you in place until you thought you might scream or pass out. Sometimes it was cold, sometimes it was too hot, stuffy. And some of the people would say things to you and laugh at you, and when it was men, they would tell you things and…”
RSA: It’s okay, you don’t have to speak any more on this.
CV: There was one man who came in, and he would make you see things in your mind. I don’t know how he did it, and sometimes I thought I was going crazy. Or maybe I was asleep and having a nightmare, but then I’d feel the brush of clothing against my skin, or feel someone’s breath on the back of my neck, and I’d know that the terrible things I saw were because of him. He would show me things…sexual things…torture things…
RSA: And how long were the cycles of experiments?
CV: They would keep you there for days in a room by yourself, and you never knew when it was your turn, there was no regular schedule.
RSA: Did anything else happen during your time there that made you want to leave?
CV: One of the girls who slept near me, Anna, she told me that there was to be an initiation soon, and that some of us would be chosen to move to the next level of training. She was excited to do it, she said she didn’t know what was involved but that she would be able to heal people with her mind. I thought she’d spent too much time in the experiments and that she wasn’t well, but she was determined. She said once they initiate you, you can learn about Exchanges, and then you could survive without food.
RSA: And that made you want to leave?
CV: They were already keeping us hungry. They did it on purpose, I think, to keep us at their mercy. To keep us needing them. I noticed once when I was getting my food that there was a door at the back of the kitchen and people came in and out, but there didn’t seem to be a lock. I started to watch the Guardians who watched us while we slept and while we were in class, and there were times of the night when they went outside to the courtyard. I thought maybe if I could get into the kitchen, I could get out. So I tried it. I was so afraid when I got outside that I almost went back in. But then I saw light coming from the courtyard. I looked through the bushes and watched as they brought Anna into the light, two of the Guardians, and instead of the white we always wore, she wore black. And there was a person in red standing next to fire and…
RSA: It’s alright.
CV: They took her clothes off—and they bit her. The Guardians and Leaders who had been watching over us. They bit her on the shoulders and arms, and then the person in red pressed a hand to her mouth and when they pulled their hand back, Anna had blood on her mouth. I ran. I didn’t want to see any more. I thought I would die if I stayed there. I thought they were killing Anna. I thought they would killme.
Rhonda sighedand pawed at my leg, pulling me from my thoughts.
“What does it all mean?” I ran my hand through my hair and fell back against the couch as Rey came in.
“Hey, I’m gonna head into the station and see what they got out of that house last night. You want to come with?”
“I want to find Creed,” I said. Rhonda sat up and looked at the door with her ears up. “I need to know…”
“Maybe Lexi was wrong,” Rey said. “Or maybe she saw something easily explainable?”
“I wanthimto explain it to me.” I rubbed at my head again. My ear had been ringing all morning, but it was louder now. Rhonda leaned against me, pushing me back into the couch.
“Maybe you should stay here and get some rest. Let me find out what’s going on, and then when I get back, we can make a plan.”
I nodded, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest. I read through the rest of the interview with Carolina, then read the notes from the other folks I’d talked to.
It was raining when I woke up on the couch with a heavy weight pinning me down.
I opened an eye to find Rhonda staring at me.
“You let me fall asleep?”
She stretched and dug her doggy elbows into my gut before she gracefully left the couch and stood by the door expectantly.
“I suppose you want to go for a walk?”
Her stare told me all I needed to know.
And over thenext three weeks, we developed a routine. Eat, walk, teach, walk, eat, sleep. We walked the beach, we searched the neighborhoods, we hung out on the Boardwalk, she came with me to campus when I needed to teach in person, and sat beside me during my online courses. The only place I didn’t take her was Puesta Del Sol, because I figured folks might freak out if they saw her. She was quite imposing, and people definitely gave us a wide berth.
