JOHNNY GONE DOWN by Karan Bajaj Read Free Book Online Page B

over me.
    ‘Don’t worry. You aren’t going blind. It’s pitch dark,’ said Ishmael.
    I felt a sharp relief despite the situation.
    ‘Where are we?’ I asked through gritted teeth. It hurt to speak, but I resisted the urge to cough up blood again. I tried to use my arms to sit up, but something restrained my wrist. I pushed again, and a heavy mist seemed to surround me. I drifted away again.

    ‘Eat it,’ said a voice.
    I woke up again. My face touched something cold; iron or steel, perhaps. A tumbler of some sort, maybe it contained water. I tried to lift myself up. Again, something dragged me down.
    ‘Don’t try to get up,’ said Ishmael. ‘We are tied to the wall.’
    ‘Where are we?’ I asked.
    ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Someone hit us on thehead in the city centre. You fell face down. I thought you had died.’
    I felt dead. I needed water. My throat felt rough, as if someone was rubbing sandpaper on my tonsils.
    ‘Water,’ I said hoarsely.
    ‘They’ve mixed some rice and water in the bowl,’ he said. ‘Lap it up. This is the only thing we’ll get to eat today.’
    I tried to sit up again. Every inch of my body throbbed with pain, and I felt cold metal against my wrist.
    ‘Don’t get up. One of your wrists is tied to the wall with a chain,’ he repeated. ‘Try to lap it up.’
    I moved to my side and collapsed from the effort.
    Focus.
    Slowly, carefully, I managed to move little by little, until my face reached the bowl. My tongue touched a liquid that smelt like rotten fish and I began lapping greedily. Blood mixed with rice and water, the best meal I had ever had in my life. I lapped until my tongue scraped the bottom, and then I licked the sides until every drop was gone. Exhausted, I lay down on my side and drifted out again.

    Finally, some light. I looked around. My left wrist was in a manacle tied to a crumbling cement wall. Ishmael was tied to the opposite end of the tiny cellwe were caged in. We faced another cell like ours with a dark, unlit corridor in between. Somewhere behind us there was probably a door from which the tiny rays of sunlight trickled in.
    ‘Are you okay?’ Ishmael asked.
    ‘No,’ I said, tasting the mucus and blood in my mouth. But I was alive, my mind was working. They hadn’t killed us. We could still find a way out.
    ‘I’m hungry,’ I said, looking at him in the faint light. Two angry cuts stretched from his eyes down to his heavily bearded cheeks, and his face was bruised and swollen like a balloon.
    ‘The chef serves his gourmet meal only once a day.’ He smiled, revealing two missing teeth in the front.
    I ran my tongue over my own teeth. I tasted more blood, but my teeth seemed intact. ‘How long has it been?’ I asked. It hurt to speak, and my stomach growled, roared, with hunger.
    ‘A week; maybe less, maybe more. You’ve settled well into your routine. You sleep the whole day, lap up the food, and sleep again. A good way to pass time.’
    ‘Why have they…’
    A sudden noise. I heard footsteps approaching our cell. A short, nondescript Cambodian man with a scar on his face entered the cell. He was in plain clothes, not the dreaded black dress with red bandana.
    He wasn’t a Khmer solider, I thought cautiously. Maybe the old government was back.
    The man stood in front of us and screamed out something in Khmer. Then suddenly, without provocation, he slapped me. I held up my free left arm to ward him off. He rolled his fist and hit me, again and again, until the familiar taste of blood filled my mouth. The pain was so excruciating, I was surprised I didn’t pass out. It was Ishmael’s turn next, and he took his beating with a passive, almost cheerful expression, his shaggy blonde mane now caked with dirt and blood.
    The man left as suddenly as he had entered. I glanced at Ishmael. He looked like a pale, frayed, worn-out ghost of the guy I had seen at the airport.
    I opened my mouth.
    Ishmael looked at me and signalled frantically