If they did well at the meetings, if they behaved themselves, if they did not cry or struggle or protest (unless crying, struggling, and protesting were part of the purchase order), and if they pretended to like it, then the following Thursday would be a "One" day.

"We lived for those," said Arnold; then, after a moment, added:  "You had to live for something, you know?"

Grendel and Connie would go into town with a list of items the others had given to them.  He would buy each of them one book from the bookstore, one movie from the video store, one new piece of clothing, one food of choice from the grocery store, one snack item ("And chewing gum counted," said Arnold, "which I never thought was fair."), one new toiletry item, and one piece of miscellanea—a tablet of writing paper, a jigsaw puzzle, a deck of playing cards, a music CD, etc.  "The clerks and checkout girls always thought he was a father spoiling his child," said Rebecca.  "They thought all the stuff he bought was just for one kid."

"We got pretty good at combining the stuff we needed on the list," Arnold said.  "Since we only got, like, one toilet item each, one of us would ask for toothpaste, the other one would ask for mouthwash, someone else would ask for toilet paper, stuff like that.  We did the same thing with the snacks and the food, so we would have enough for meals.  I would ask for bread, Christopher for sliced cheese, Rebecca would want lunchmeat… you know.  That way, we would always have everything we would need.  If we were careful, we could make all the 'One' day food last maybe eight or nine days."

"Providing we remembered to ask for a two-gallon jug of water," added Christopher.  "Sometimes we would need the food more than the water."  He shrugged.  "If you got thirsty enough, there was always the toilet tank."

"We all got hooked on Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket," said Rebecca.  "Connie picked them out for us.  She recognized the books because she got to see the first two Harry Potter movies."

Then Thomas spoke up:  "I like Lemony.  Lemony is very funny."

"He never cared about the movies we asked for or the books we read," said Christopher.  "If we did well, we got whatever we asked for."  He looked up.  "So, after a while, we always made sure we did well."

No one said anything for a few moments after that; they only sat staring at me.

"What?"  I said.  "Am I missing something?"

"You can learn things from books and movies," said Arnold.  "If you start picking the right ones."

"That is enough with 'Twenty Questions,'" said Christopher, rising to his feet.  "He is a janitor, not a journalist.  There are only two more things he needs to know."  He crossed to a corner of the room and picked up a large green-canvas duffel bag; from the way he struggled with it, whatever was inside must have weighed quite a bit.  It rattled.

"Christopher," said Rebecca, the warning evident.

"Time for all of you to shut up," he snapped at her, then heaved the duffel bag onto the foot of my bed.  "All right, Pretty Boy, have you gotten your sufficient jollies listening to all of this?  Do you have a nice, nasty story to shock your pretty friends with?"

"I never asked about—"

He backhanded me in the mouth; hard enough to hurt but not draw blood or raise welts.

"BE QUIET!"

Rebecca jumped up, activating the Taser again, but froze in place when Christopher pulled the gun from the back of his pants and pointed it right at my face.  "Sit down, Rebecca.  I killed the last guy and I will kill him if you push it, understand?"

Rebecca gave me a sorrowful look, then laid the Taser on the bed and sat down, hands folded in her lap, looking at the floor.

"Now," said Christopher, slipping the gun into the back of his pants, "it is time you understood a few things.  Do you know why there is only the four of us?  After all, we have told you about the others.  I assume even a janitor can do basic math."  He began unzipping the duffel bag.  "In the last four years, twenty-one children have passed through the House of Heorot.  Not all of them adapted or learned as well as we did."  He grabbed the unzipped bag at both ends, and began turning it upside down.  "I think it is time you met a few of them."

He gave the bag a violent jerk and the yellow bones tumbled onto the bed; pieces of hands, pieces of arms, legs, feet… and skulls.  There must have been a dozen skulls of various sizes in the pile forming in front of me but I didn't count, I was too busy crying out and pressing my body against the wall and headboard as the pile tumbled out and forward, clacking, rattling, one nearly-whole hand flopping outward and almost touching my leg as a skull skittered down the pile and rolled down the length of the arm, coming to rest almost perfectly in the center of the opened hand; until that moment I had managed to not scream but as soon as that skull came to rest and I read the name—RANDY—written in black marker across the top I couldn't hold it in any longer and let fly, just opened my mouth as wide as I could and screamed from the bottom of my balls upward, twisting my head from side to side and wishing to hell my eyes would just close but they wouldn't, no matter how much I begged them to, they just kept staring at that skull and that name and then my legs gave out and I collapsed but Christopher was there to catch me from behind, one arm across my torso, the other coming around my shoulder so he could press his hand over my mouth and hold my head still—

"Take it easy, Pretty Boy," he whispered into my ear.  "They are long past being able to hurt you.  They are long past being hurt.  Take a good look, Pretty Boy, look long and hard.  See that hand right there?  That belonged to a little girl named Jennifer.  She was four.  It took me three days to super-glue that hand back together, and even then I did not find all the bones, there were too many.  That is why there are so many pieces.  Unless you were right there watching when he cleansed them of their undisciplined flesh, you would have no idea which bones belonged to who.  But I was there for all their cleansings, hear me?  And I know all the bones by name, all of them!"  He spun me around to face him.  "I did not have to dig up any of them, either."  I started to say something—or maybe I started to scream again, I don't know—but he pressed his hand over my mouth again.  "You do not get to talk now, you get to pay attention.  Do you know why we were always so careful to make the 'One' day food last as long as possible?  Come on, Pretty Boy, take a guess!" On the last word, he twisted my head around so I could have another good look at the bones.

"Oh, Jesus…" I groaned.

"You see, we did not always get 'One' days.  Sometimes during the meetings one of us would squeal when we should not have, or maybe he would see a tear in one of our eyes, or sometimes one of us would have the gall to bleed too much!"  He snapped my head back around; he was right in my face now.  "Have you ever been starving, Pretty Boy?  Have you ever been so hungry that the emptiness in your stomach begins to swell?  Do you have any idea what it is like to go without food for so long that you start chasing spiders and cockroaches?  I once broke Arnold's nose over a couple of silverfish!"

"You got that right," said Arnold.

"I will let you in on a secret, Pretty Boy—when you have been left chained up in a basement room for two weeks with only water from a toilet tank to drink and the occasional bug for protein, you will eat anything that is put in front of you, even if it is something that you had to help slaughter, even if it was something that had a name and could call you by yours.  I suppose we should be grateful that Grendel had a thing about germs and at least cooked it first!"  He yanked me to my feet, spun me around, and pushed me down into the chair.