The tight flesh pitted under Evan's touch, the way only blood-pooled edema feels. Slowly, methodically, he shimmied the jeans off Boyd. He would have preferred not to humiliate the dead man by de-pantsing him, but he couldn't roll the cuff up past Boyd's knee. Besides, this unseen dishonor was the least profane step of Evan's plan. Gently, he took the makeshift carving tool and placed it just to his side. Evan was glad the room was dark, saving him from looking at the crude blade. He gathered himself up, in a hunched over position, and extended the corpse's leg as far as the knee would allow.

"Callie, could you sing for me again?"

"My throat really hurts. I don't know if I can."

"Please, Callie? As a favor, for me?"

"Alright. Any requests? Hopefully something that doesn't burn my voice out?"

"Anything you want. Dealer's choice. Just keep singing for me, okay? No matter what you hear, just keep singing."

"Evan, you're scaring me."

"I know. But it's not that bad, I promise. Just keep singing and we'll both be alright. I promise."

Evan closed his eyes. The world around him swam with fuzziness. A white noise invaded his ears, spiraling through synapses and penetrating his bones. He worked his foot up Boyd's stretched leg until the sole of his shoe ran against the bulge of kneecap. He couldn't tell what song Callie was singing, but he knew she was, the static surrounding him altered in amplitudes.

He took a deep breath.

The foot came down with as much force as he could muster. Bones broke and tendons snapped, thunderclaps within the echo chamber of his prison. Callie yelped with the first sound, but continued her muted music through cries of diminishing returns. Evan stomped until the cracking noises were replaced by wet, squelching ones. The muscles of his stomach contracted with a violence matching his actions. He pushed the sickness aside, grabbed Boyd's leg and rotated it a full three hundred and sixty degrees about the knee.

Evan kneeled and reached out for the vulgar knife. At first, he tried steady breathing techniques, but sawing through the bloated skin and muscle proved an arduous task. Thick, oozing blood made it hard for the dull bone to find purchase in the rotting meat. After only four or five minutes, sweaty saline began to sting the corner of his eyes. He noticed Callie's song had stopped, and he had substituted the cadence of his own labored breathing. When the femur stopped making any cutting progress, Evan scraped it across the floor, bloody lubricant creating a rudimentary whetstone. Turning back to task, his exhalations became full-on grunts of exertion. Finally, Boyd's foot and calf came away from the rest of him.

Evan scooted back and laid against the wall. "All done. See? That wasn't too bad. We're okay." He wanted to nap. Sleep the sleep of fairy tale characters until this was all over with. Or at least until he had enough strength to attempt a proper escape. He had time, but Callie might not. She sounded worse with every passing hour. As if in response to his thoughts, she growled with hunger pangs from the next cell.

Instead of succumbing to the fatigue, Evan opened his eyes and pushed himself up. He grabbed Boyd's severed leg, wielding it like a club. He hefted it, making sure that it didn't flop around too much at the ankle. There was some bending, as the body was old enough to have passed through the stage of rigor mortis, but it was stable enough to suit his purpose. Gripping the gruesome prop by the foot, he raised it above his head and jumped. The overhead grate popped up, much higher than he was able to achieve with his fingertips. Still, it wasn't able to complete its arc, and fell shut with an ear-splitting slam.

"Oh god! That hurts so much! Evan? Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I told you we're getting out of here. I've almost got it. Just cover your ears, alright?"

Evan jumped again. He tried different spots, along the edge as well as in the center. Each time he shoved the cover open, it crashed right back down. Every failure immediately signaled by a taunting bang. Evan kept leaping, pushed by fear and resolve in equal measure. He was about to spring again when he realized that Boyd's leg had escaped his grasp on the last jump. Frantically, he shone the feeble watch light. He scanned the floor between button presses, searching for his lost little limb. When he caught no sight of it, Evan looked about the cell wildly.

Finally, he glimpsed it. It dawned on him that the grate hadn't collided as loudly the previous time. It was a stroke of luck so dumb, Evan couldn't fathom why he hadn't planned it that way in the first place.

Lodged close to the corner, on the side away from the grates hinges, Boyd's foot stuck out. The wedged appendage left a sizable gap, four to five inches wide. It was surely enough to squeeze an arm through, then leverage the rest of the body up and into freedom. Evan shot a glance over at the dead man, who seemed to be looking up at him, as if to ask approval.

"Did you make it? Talk to me, Evan."

"Not yet. Just be patient, I'm not going anywhere without you. I got it open, but I've still got to get out."

"Oh my god. I knew you could do it! Please hurry, please."

Evan picked a spot below the largest gap the grate allowed, yet far enough away from the limb that he wouldn't displace his only hope of propping the cover open. He leapt again, stretching himself as far as possible, and his fingers caught the edge of the stone. Struggling, Evan gathered all the strength he could muster, arms flexing to bring the rest of himself to the top. His fingertips couldn't handle the weight, and slowly scraped their way back to the precipice. With an exasperated whimper, he fell the short distance to the stone floor. Refusing to give up, he turned the watch light on and took a hold of Boyd.

"I'm sorry about this buddy." He whispered.

Evan propped the corpse up underneath his jumping spot, then folded it over, making it as tall of a booster table as he could. He climbed atop, pressing Boyd's face into the ground as he steadied himself. This time, when he jumped, his fingers caught the lattice-work of the grate. He felt the grille shift as it bore down on the flesh and bone blockage. The watch light flicked out, leaving him suspended in the dark. Evan carefully swung his legs out and propped himself against the wall. He was able to slowly walk up the stone, in a sort of a reverse rappel.

Inching his way up, a shoe finally slipped though the gap, followed by a calf, a knee, and a thigh. Fully steady now, Evan slipped one arm through the aperture, while the other clung firmly to the lattice. Almost half of his body was now on the upper level. With a last ditch effort of power, Evan let go of the grate and wriggled out though the breach. The girth of his body pushed the grille up high enough that Boyd's doorstop limb fell back down to its owner. As he rolled away, the gate crashed shut for the last time.

He lay there, eyes moving back and forth in the dark, unable to believe he was really out. He clicked the button on the pirated watch. The room was carved stone all around, a ceiling that curved and blended with the walls into a perfect semicircle. The illumination couldn't determine the length of the room, but that appeared to curve as well.

Evan cried out, "Callie!"

"Over here! You made it! I can hear you above me."

"That's right. I told you we'd get out of here. Glad I kept those car keys."

"Oh, you're a genius. I could kiss you!"

"Just hold on."

Evan found that Callie's grate wasn't locked either. He bent over and lifted her cage lid. Looking down he saw the girl's waif thin form, her pasty skin made worse by the soft blue tinge. She looked up at him, smiling and wide-eyed. Evan imagined that at one time, that smile was radiant. The kind of smile that brought young men to lurid drug dens, to poison themselves for someone else's profit. Now the grin was crazed, beautiful only in the fact that it signified faith and second chances. Evan lowered himself to the ground and held his hand out to her.

She reached up to him, fingertips grazing. The charms from a golden bracelet brushed his arm, metal hearts and music notes fluttering against his flesh as she jumped, then they were palm in palm as he clasped to her.

Even though she must have weighed just over ninety pounds, her hanging mass strained the muscles from Evan's arm to his hip. "Try walking up the walls", he suggested. "That's how I did it." With some pressure alleviated, they made enough headway for Evan to get to his knees, then in a hunched position. That was when they heard the hum.

The fluorescent light burst brilliantly on them. Evan was blinded, unable to shield his unprotected face. Callie screamed and lost her footing, dragging Evan back down to the ground on his knees. As his vision cleared, Evan looked up to see a set of metal double doors part, and a pair of hooded figures emerge. Callie observed the fear spreading across his face.

"Nooooooo! Evan, please! Please don't drop me! Please!"

He was frozen to the floor. His muscles went slack as his strength left him. Callie's shrieks did not exist to him, only the wraiths held his tunnel vision. The figures looked at each other for a moment, then back to Evan. In acknowledgement, they pulled back the hoods of their robes, revealing pale dead skin and sunken faces. Even through gray, cloudy eyes, Evan knew they saw him perfectly. Rational thought fled and the primal lizard brain took control.

Survive.

Callie's weight became a Sisyphean burden. His free hand pried at her fingers as she clawed at him to keep her grip. Tears streamed down her face as she cried his name, drawing blood from desperate fingernails as she gouged the length of his arm. The specters moved forward, gradually, but with deliberation. Evan couldn't tell, but he was crying too. Every finger he wrested from his arm was replaced with another scratch before Callie clamped down again, still struggling to extract herself from the pit. Her charms beat a haunting jangle.

As the wights bore down on him, Evan struck a last ditch effort. He swung Callie out, then back in sharply, knocking her hard against the solid wall. Her shouting stopped abruptly as the breath was knocked out of her. Her iron grasp relented, and she clattered to the bottom of the hole. One of the smacking sounds could have been her ankle snapping, but Evan was already turning to run. He was halfway to the opposite set of double doors when he heard the sound of Callie's grate slam closed. He broke through those doors, her pleas chasing him until they swung shut.

"Evaaaaan!"

His plodding footsteps rang through the chamber. He passed over dozens, maybe hundreds of identical grates populating the floors in intervals. Room to room, he ran. Déjà vu set in, surging through duplicate doorways and series of prison pits. Each room bent right, like being on the world's largest NASCAR turn. Sometimes, the voices of strangers called up to him as he sprinted past. More than once, Callie's voice echoed out to him through the next doorway.

"Evaaaaan!"

He checked behind him occasionally, making sure the hooded men weren't on his tail. Every five rooms or so, an ingress appeared in the wall. Evan stopped to try them, briefly at each one, in fright that his pursuers would materialize behind him. They were locked, every god damned one.

There was no gas left in the tank. Wheezing, he pressed on, stumbling more than running. His vision blurred at the edges as he made his way through another brightly lit hallway. The doors at the far end opened and two shades strode briskly towards him. The lights flickered, but it was only Evan's consciousness. He tripped over his own legs and sprawled out, half over stone, half over a grate. The cool metal pressed its mesh pattern into his face.

Once again, the universe pitched to darkness.