He started peeling the garlic, cutting up the dill and horseradish, with the knife that somehow seemed less of a threat now, as if it had been a man who’d turned out to be a scarecrow. In short instructions, Taron told Colin how to stuff the cucumbers into jars, how much salt to add, and how much water to pour.
Colin wasn’t going to argue about being let out of the cage at this point. He reached through the bars and felt one of the raw cucumbers before smelling its earthy, fresh scent. “Do you grow those yourself?”
Taron nodded without looking up, focused on his work. It only then struck Colin that the pickled onions he’d had for one of his meals must had come from Taron’s garden as well.
Colin sighed and prepared the first jar as he’d been told. It felt good to complete a task instead of giving himself unlimited leisure time. “When I was a kid, I would help my grandmom with her vegetable garden. She would make all those incredible jams and marmalades, and her own fruit juice,” he said with a smile, remembering the little bench under the apple tree where he used to play on sunny days. That was before his life had become increasingly rigid once his parents had returned from working abroad and taken him back.
That must have piqued Taron’s interest because he did glance his way every now and then. Did he have no other job? Was this what he did all day? Some of the books he’d brought Colin had a stamp of the local library, so he probably wasn’t a big spender.
Maybe, just maybe, he appreciated the company, no matter what he’d said.
Colin went on, handing Taron the jars to put back into the box. “I used to like all this kind of stuff when I was younger. I would swim all day and I built my own tree house, which had the benefit of a nearly unlimited supply of fruit. This really feels a bit like a trip down memory lane.”
Yet when he watched Taron’s thick fingers work the knife on the horseradish, he could only wonder about the fate of Peter McGraw. Where had Taron hidden the body? Had he cut it up into little bits as well?
Had he ended up as fertilizer for the garden?
Would Taron grow impatient with him too?
Chapter Nine
Every day, Taron assigned Colin a different job, but always one he was supposed to do in the cage. It was depressing, but even with Taron not talking much, having another human being with him down here counted for something. Once, Taron even stayed to watch some TV with Colin. He’d sat in the armchair that still had stains from the blood which had soaked into it on the night Taron brought him here, but he didn’t seem bothered by the rusty spots and even smirked when Colin commented on the events on screen.
Still, the excitement and novelty of manual labor were running out fast, leaving Collin frustrated with the inaction. Each day was more or less the same, with Taron only spending a couple of hours tops in the bunker. If Colin was lucky, he’d have a cat with him, but the passing time was starting to gradually freak him out. Days lost their rhythm, and despite there being no daylight to disturb his mornings, he kept waking up too early or laid motionless waiting for sleep that just wouldn’t come. He felt dirty again, and while he was taking regular sponge baths and changing into fresh clothes every day, he missed the opportunity to submerge in water, and when he did sleep, he dreamed about walking barefoot in damp grass.
Yet he was locked up underground, like a vampire during the Arctic summer.
Every day, the walls seemed that bit closer to the cage, and he wondered if this place would be his tomb.
Colin didn’t have a perfect grip on time, but either Taron was taking longer than usual, or Colin was getting so anxious about his solitude. He couldn’t tell the how long it had been anymore since Taron had last come down. The familiar screech of hinges was something he usually greeted with excitement, but today, he just sat there, tired even though he hadn’t done much.
His brain ached from the constant ruminating, as if it were swelling inside his skull. The sight of the boots emerging from the trapdoor had such a visceral effect on him that, despite the frustration and anger, he still felt his heart speed up in anticipation.
He hated Taron, yet also yearned for his presence every single day, and the dichotomy was slowly driving him mad. “You’re late.”
Taron frowned at him and kicked the cage. He put down a McDonald’s paper bag that seemed so out of place in his hands Colin’s mind went blank at first. Taron had been away, not just working on his freaky off-grid fantasy homestead.