Souther rolled the big door closed, then walked over and cut Aaron's restraints. He picked up the lamp and led Aaron to the cannery's main floor break room: a space the size of large bedroom with a kitchenette; a legless, maroon-velvet sofa; and a large, heavy wooden table.
There was a small door in the back of the room that Aaron and Willy had always been too afraid to open. Souther didn't have that problem, of course. Without hesitation he turned the knob and opened the door wide.
A clammy vapor wafted up into Aaron's face, smelling of mold and urine. It was icy cold and damp against his skin, contradicting the Biblical fire-and-brimstone he had expected to encounter in hell.
"Go on down," Souther said, gesturing with the lantern.
Aaron could only imagine the myriad of horrors waiting for him down those stairs. He stepped cautiously through the low door and started down the steep steps. Souther followed closely, his lantern casting a hazy gloom over the forbidding space as they descended into thickening darkness.
At last Aaron's shoes found the packed earth of a dirt floor, and he paused to look around. The room was basically a rough concrete cube, about ten by ten feet, and mostly empty.
Souther set the lantern on a box and pointed to a corner. "There's a coffee can over there if you need to pee," he said. "When you're ready to talk, bang on the door and someone will hear you." Then he turned and climbed back up the stairs.
Aaron sat down heavily on a blue plastic milk crate. There was a fresh bottle of water sitting in the dirt next to him. He looked at it for a moment. They say you can last three weeks without food, he thought, but only three days without water. Then he twisted it open and drank deeply.
Souther paused near the top of the stairs. "I'll find your mother with or without your help, kid," he said. Then he ducked through the door and locked it behind him.
Aaron screwed the cap back onto the bottle and set it in on the box with the lantern. Then he leaned back against the cold concrete wall and fell asleep.