Tunnels 02, Deeper

exchanged glances.
    "Kept? What for?" Will asked.
    "As slaves. For a couple of centuries they were made to mine stuff the Colony needed. It's different now -- they do it in exchange for food and the light orbs they need to live. The Styx don't force them to work like they used to."
    "That's nice of them," Will said dryly.

     

11

    Mrs. Burrows was in the dayroom of Humphrey House, an establishment that purported to be a haven of recuperation, or "a respite from your day-to-day worries and strife," if you believed the brochure. The dayroom was her domain. She had commandeered the largest, most comfortable chair and the only footstool in the place, and, to sustain her for the afternoon's television viewing, had stuffed a bag of hard candy down the side of the chair. One of the orderlies in the home had been persuaded to pick these up for her on a regular basis from the town, but they were rarely shared with any of the other patients.
    As Oprah came to an end, she flicked through the other channels in a frantic haste. She ran through them all several times, only to find there was nothing on that remotely interested her. Thoroughly frustrated, she stabbed at the mute button to silence the television and leaned her head back against the chair. She missed her extensive video library of films and favorite shows much as a normal person might mourn the loss of a limb.
    She sighed a long and forlorn sigh and the irritation receded, leaving in its place a vague sense of helplessness. She was humming the theme from Murder, She Wrote in a mournful and desperate way when the door thumped open.
    "Here we go again," Mrs. Burrows muttered under her breath as the matron breezed into the room.
    "What, dear?" inquired the matron, a rake-thin woman with her gray hair tightly pulled back into a bun.
    "Oh, nothing," Mrs. Burrows replied innocently.
    "There's someone here to see you." The matron had made a beeline for the windows and now heaved back the curtains to flood the room with daylight.
    "Visitors? For me? Mrs. Burrows said unenthusiastically as she shielded her eyes from the glare. Without leaving the chair, she attempted to get her feet into her slippers, a tawdry pair of stained, fake suede moccasins with the backs trodden down. "Hardly likely to be family -- not that there are many of them left, not now," she said, a little soulfully. "And I don't imagine Jean has stirred her stumps to bring my daughter all the way here... Haven't heard a squeak from either of them since before the New Year."
    "It's not family , it's a lady from social services," the matron managed to make herself heard, before opening one of the casement windows with incantations of "That's better."
    Mrs. Burrows gave no reaction to this piece of news. The matron rearranged the flowers in a vase on the window ledge and gathered up some fallen petals before turning to her. "And how are we today?"
    "Oh, not so good," Mrs. Burrows answered, laying it on thick with a whining, despondent tone and finishing her sentence with a small groan.
    "I'm not surprised. It's not healthy being cooped up indoors all day -- you ought to get some fresh air. Why don't you go for a walk on the grounds after you've seen your visitor?"
    The matron stopped and swiveled back to the window, scanning the garden beyond as if she was looking for something. Mrs. Burrows immediately took notice, her curiosity piqued. The matron spent her every waking hour tirelessly organizing people or things, as if her calling in life was to impose some sort of order over an imperfect world. A human dynamo, she did not stop -- in fact, she was the complete antithesis to Mrs. Burrows, who had put the struggle with the last mutinous slipper on hold for the moment to watch the matron's atypical inactivity.
    "Is something the matter?" Mrs. Burrows asked, not able to keep silent any longer.
    "Oh, it's nothing really... just that Mrs. Perkiss swears she saw that man again. Quite beside herself, she was."
    "Ah." Mrs. Burrows nodded knowingly. "And when was this?"
    "This morning, first thing." The matron turned back into the room. "Can't figure it out myself. She seemed to be getting on so well, and, all of a sudden, these strange episodes started." Frowning, she looked at Mrs. Burrows. "Your room is directly under hers -- you haven't spotted anyone out there, have you?"
    "No, and I'm not likely to."
    "Why's that?" the matron asked her.
    "Bit bloomin' obvious, isn't it?" Mrs. Burrows replied bluntly, finally