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question? Wouldn’t anyone want to know what I’ve been doing with little Marion’s parts?
    As much as I want to be open and honest with him, I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t let anyone know about the loose tile and the tunnel beneath it. As a prison official he’ll be obligated to report it to the warden and then I’ll be moved to another cell and lose my only hope of escape. I can’t risk that. I’ll have to lie.
    I smile at him.
    “Why, I’ve been eating them, of course.”
    ( suck… )
    Dr. Hurst’s pipe has gone out.
     
    I’m ready for the tunnel.
    My cell’s dark. The corridor has only a single bulb burning at the far end. It’s got to be tonight.
    Dr. Hurst lied. He said he’d stop the body parts on my trays but he didn’t. More and more of them, a couple with every meal lately. But they all get dumped down the hole along with the rest of my food. Hard to believe a little eight-year-old body like Marion’s could have so many pieces. So many I’ve lost track. But in a way that’s good. I can’t see how there can be much more of her left to torment me with.
    But tomorrow is Thanksgiving and God knows what they’ll place before me then.
    It’s got to be tonight.
    At least the diet’s working.
    Amazing what starvation will do to you. I’ve been getting thinner every day. My fat’s long gone, my muscles have withered and atrophied. I think I’m now small enough to slip through that opening.
    Only one way to find out.
    I go to the loose tile and fit my fingers around its edges. I pried it up with the spoon earlier and left it canted in its space. It comes up easily now. The putrid odor is worse than ever. I look down into the opening. It’s dark in my cell but even darker in that hole.
    A sense of waiting wafts up with the odor.
    How odd. Why should the tunnel be waiting for me?
    I shake off the gnawing apprehension—I’ve heard hunger can play tricks with your mind—and position myself for the moment of truth. I sit on the edge and slide my bony legs into the opening. They slip through easily. As I raise my buttocks off the floor to slide my hips through, I pause.
    Was that a sound? From below?
    I hold still, listening. For an instant there I could have sworn I heard the faintest rustle directly below my dangling feet. But throughout my frozen, breathless silence, I hear nothing.
    Rats. The realization strikes me like a blow. Of course! I’ve been throwing food down there for weeks. I’d be surprised if there weren’t a rat or two about.
    I don’t like the idea but I’m not put off. Not for a minute. I’m wearing sturdy prison shoes and stiff, tough prison pants. And I’m bigger than they are.
    Just like I was bigger than Marion…
    I slip my hips through the opening, lower my waist through, but my chest and shoulders won’t go, at least not both shoulders at once. And there’s no way to slip an arm through ahead of me.
    I can see only one solution. I’m not comfortable with it but there’s no way around it: I’m going to have to go down headfirst.
    I pull myself out and swivel. I slip my left arm and shoulder through, then it’s time for my head. I’m tempted to hold my breath but why bother? I’m going to have to get used to that stench. I squeeze my head through the opening.
    The air is warm and moist and the odor presses against my face like a shroud freshly torn from a moldering corpse. I try to mouth-breathe but the odor worms its way into my nose anyway.
    And then I hear that sound again, a rustle of movement directly below—a wet rustle. The odor grows stronger, rising like a dark cloud, gagging me. Something has to be behind that movement of stinking air, propelling it. Something larger than a rat!
    I try to back up out of the opening but I’m stuck. Wedged! The side of my head won’t clear the edge. And the odor’s stronger, oh god, it’s sucking the breath right out of me. Something’s near! I can’t see it but I can hear it, sense it! And it wants me, it