Peter’s mother has checked all the escape possibilities. Windows, doors. The burglar-proofing and insulation are top-notch. No sound will get out. And none will come in. Same for the air. The provisions will last for a few days yet. The family places importance on fresh produce. Wicker basket produce. No oatmeal. No bread laced with preservatives. No more time. All the timekeeping devices in the flat are electronic. The computers and mobile phones are dead. Why are they dead? Why won’t the windows open? Why is there straw on the floor? Peter’s mother throws herself against the door. Super shut. The burglar-proofing. It is so quiet that it produces a rushing sound in her ears.

Bumping several times into door frames, Peter’s mother crawls into the room where the Russian’s brain swims in its soup. “Are you still alive?” she asks, sitting on the edge of the bed. “How do we get out of here, why isn’t the electricity working, and why is it so warm? What is going on?” The brain is silent. Somewhere there in absolute darkness. She may be imagining it, but she thinks she detects a slight scent of decay. Peter’s mother feels her way to the corridor; there’s a cabinet down there with a flashlight inside. So now she’ll go get the flashlight and screw the fucking fuse back in or whatever the hell you do with fuses. She finds the light, but the doors are locked. “Solid as a tank,” the Russian had once said boastingly. Another rattle of the windows, a shout at the windows, the realization that it won’t help, fighting the panic, wondering why the underfloor heating is boiling hot despite the apparent loss of electricity, making the air stuffy, the deer in the pantry seems to wave—and from afar a soft knocking sound. Peter’s mother needs a few minutes to figure out where the noise is coming from. It’s coming from—

Below.

From the flat where

The

EIGHT-YEAR-OLD PROSTITUTE

Has run through the dark and shaken the door, which opens easily. She has always been locked up. Had been. A strange feeling, that she’d like to share; she calls into the darkness, nobody answers. The others are already asleep. Again, or still. They eat and sleep, they talk little, they live with reduced energy, but contentedly. Or perhaps they just live without a thought about contentment. Or lack thereof. Love. Joy. Strange words. Perhaps they’re living the perfect flow.

Nobody has been there for a week now. As if they’ve been forgotten here. There’s a supply of food, more than they could use in a year. Pills, water, fizzy drinks, cookies, all there. VR games, consoles, and pillows all over the place, where they can lie and wait, without calling it waiting. They lounge around, eat cookies, and grow. So the door is