by Mark Lukens
“I can’t imagine what you’re going through. To lose your wife and children. To not know what happened to them.”
“We all have people we’ve lost,” Cromartie said. “It’s not just me.”
“Not children,” Sanders said. “Not me. I couldn’t imagine losing children.”
Cromartie swallowed hard and nodded. “It was a terrible dream, but it was a lovely one at the same time. For a few moments I got to spend some time with them again. And for those few moments before the bomb came, everything felt so normal.”
Sanders nodded and pulled her hand off of Cromartie’s hand.
“But the strangest part of the dream was what my daughter said to me right before the blast took them. She said: You have to listen to MAC. And then she said: There’s only one way out and you have to ask him.”
Sanders cocked her head a little in confusion. “That’s kind of the same thing Butler told me in my dream.”
“I know,” Cromartie told her. “When you told Rolle what Butler said in your dream, it made me think of what my daughter said in mine. It seems strange that we both had nightmares and the people in them both said something similar to us. It seems like more than a coincidence.”
Sanders nodded in agreement. “Okay,” she said and seemed a little more excited. “So, maybe our subconscious mind is trying to tell us something. What if we all know the answer, but we can’t get to it? What if we were told the answers before we boarded the ship, and because of the memory loss, we can’t recall it?”
“Maybe,” Cromartie answered.
“We need to try to remember.” She paused like a thought had just occurred to her. “Your daughter in your dream … she told you to ask MAC. She said that MAC knew the answers, didn’t she?”
Cromartie nodded. “Yeah, but I already asked MAC about the way out.”
“Yeah?” Her eyes lit up with hope. “What did he say?”
“We were talking back and forth on the computer earlier, right before I heard you scream inside the walk-in freezer.”
Sanders nodded, impatient now for him to continue.
“I asked MAC if there was a way out of this and he said there was a way out. I asked him what it was and he told me the way out was the airlock door.”
Sanders looked confused.
Cromartie shook his head in frustration. “I’ve been thinking it over for a while now, and it has to be one of two things. Either MAC is malfunctioning, or maybe MAC is taking my question literally. The airlock is the door off of this ship—it is the only way out.”
The weight of Cromartie’s words seemed to fall on Sanders now, all hope ripped away from her. “Well, maybe we need to re-word the question to MAC.”
Cromartie shook his head, dismissing the idea. “I don’t think it’s going to help.”
“But why would we dream the same thing?” Sanders asked him. “I mean, we heard the same thing in our dreams, almost word for word.”
“I don’t know,” Cromartie groaned. “Maybe it’s just more side effects from the suspended animation.”
The word “side effects” seemed to bring a thought to Sanders, depressing her even more. “Speaking of side effects, Ward’s right. I had him pegged as the killer and here I was doing the same thing he was—sleepwalking. Only I had a knife in my hand when I was sleepwalking, ready to stab Butler.”
“Sanders …”
“What if I did it, Cromartie? What if I killed Butler and don’t remember doing it?”
“Just because you woke up in the freezer with a knife in your hand doesn’t make you the killer any more than we were sure Ward was the killer. That’s the point I was trying to make to you earlier. We don’t know for sure who the killer is.”
“But someone killed her,” Sanders said. “I’m sure of that. And someone dragged her body up from the storage level to the freezer.”
Cromartie nodded.
Sanders thought for a moment. “That’s it,” she said.
“What?”
“Butler wasn’t a heavy woman, and I know I’m a strong woman, but I think it would’ve been difficult for me to drag her body from the storage area up to the freezer.”
Cromartie just stared at her. “What are you saying? That only leaves one of us men as a suspect?”
“Abraham is older and thin,” Sanders said.
Cromartie remembered how much Abraham had struggled with carrying Butler’s body down to the storage unit. “But that doesn’t mean he’s incapable of doing it,” Cromartie said. “Especially if he was sleepwalking.” And he thought Sanders could pull it off, too—but he didn’t want to say that to her.
“Fair enough,” Sanders said.
“So you think that narrows the suspects down to me, Rolle, and Ward.”
Sanders shrugged. “You know who I’ve got my money on.”
“Or there’s another possibility … two people could’ve dragged her body up here.”
Sanders’ eyes lit up as the revelation dawned on her. “Yeah, I didn’t think about that. What if more than one of us killed Butler? What if there are two of us doing this? Or three of us?”
Cromartie nodded, but he had an even scarier thought that he didn’t want to say aloud: What if it was all of us?
THIRTY-FIVE
Hours later Cromartie was back in his room.
He was sleeping and he was dreaming. He was back home again, back in his own house with his family. It was that same Sunday morning again. A pancake breakfast was being prepared by Julie and the kids.
Julie was at the stove again, wearing that ugly “Little House on the Prairie” apron that she knew he hated. He hated that apron, but he loved seeing it on her again right now.
Cromartie knew he was in the dream again and he knew he didn’t have long to see his family, to be with them again. He would cherish these few moments that he had with them. Julie was so happy. The kids were so happy. He was happy.
Carrie had already brought the platter of pancakes to the table as Cromartie folded the newspaper up neatly, closing the pages on the terrible news stories about nuclear war and death and destruction.
No bad news today, he told himself. He wasn’t going to read the newspaper. He wouldn’t think about those things. He was only going to think about his family and not ignore them this time. God, how many times had he missed breakfast with them because he’d been out checking on a construction job? How many school plays had he missed? How many soccer games?
If he could just have another chance.
And he was getting that chance now.
But the time was already gone … the windows were already darkening, the air horn siren was already wailing out its warning from somewhere outside.
Death was coming … it was coming for his family.
He felt the tears in his eyes because Julie and Joey were already frozen in fear in the middle of the kitchen, their eyes wide with terror as they stared at the bay windows beyond the small table where Cromartie sat. And now the windows were already bright with the blast wave that was rushing towards them.
The glass pitcher of milk slipped from Julie’s hands just like it had in the last dream, shattering on the floor. The bowl of fruit crashed to the floor just like last time, bright pieces of fruit amid the sharp shards of white glass flying out across the floor in all directions.
“Please …” Cromartie whispered. “Not again. Don’t go.”
He looked at his daughter.
She looked so sad as she waited for the annihilation that was rapidly approaching. “You have to do it, Daddy. It’s the only way out for you and the rest of them. It’s the only answer … the only way out.”
The blast came.
His family was vaporized in an instant, their screams choked off before they even began.
Cromartie tried to lunge for Carrie. He tried to knock her down and out of the way of the blast, but his hands and arms went right through her body as it turned to ash in an instant. He fell down to the floor among her ashes that blew away
in the nuclear wind.
He was on the floor when the front door flew open in the living room and the two men in dark suits and ties entered.
“Time to go, Robert Cromartie,” one of them said.
He could see the men but they seemed blurry, washed away in the bright light.
Everything morphed around him from bright light to grayness. It was like a mist all around him, like he was trapped inside an endless fog.
He heard voices inside that fog, and he knew it was the two men in the dark suits talking. They were saying the same thing over and over again, and this time Cromartie heard what they said before he drifted off into darkness, this time he heard the answer …
• • •
… he woke up right in front of the airlock door. He stared at the large metal door for a moment, breathing hard. He saw his reflection in the dark rectangle of thick glass. He saw the warnings and writings all over the door. He saw the gigantic green button to the left of the door underneath the clear plastic cap.
He backed away from the airlock door. His heart was thudding in his chest and he was having a hard time getting his panicked breathing under control.
He’d been sleepwalking. He had walked up here and stood in front of the airlock door in his sleep.
Just like Ward had done.
Just like Sanders had done.
But then he saw the words someone had scrawled on the airlock door in black marker and there were more words added to the end of the sentence now: THIS IS THE ONLY WAY OUT … FOR ALL OF US.
He stared at those words for a moment, and then he looked down at his hands … at the black marker in his hand.
Oh God, no!
Cromartie threw the black marker down the hall in horror.
Was it him? Was he the one who had written this message on the front of the airlock door? The handwriting looked the same, the letters looked the same. Had he known the terrible answer all along?
The voices from his dream echoed in his mind. He heard the two men in suits and ties talking right before he drifted off from the grayness into total darkness. He heard what they had been saying right before the darkness … and then he had woken up here on this spaceship. The two men had been talking to each other, maybe thinking he was already unconscious from whatever drugs they had given him, or maybe not caring anymore if he heard them. But he’d heard everything they had said.
He knew the truth now.
He knew the answer.
“MAC,” Cromartie whispered. He looked up at the crowded ceiling of ductwork and wires as tears slipped out of his eyes. “Is it true? Is this the only way?”
“I’m afraid so, Cromartie,” MAC answered.
He had to tell the others the truth.
Cromartie hurried down the hall, past the jogs of protruding walls, then to the metal stairs. He flew down the stairs to the second level and headed through the other corridors, making his way to the bridge.
No one was on the bridge. Cromartie walked over to the captain’s chair and stared down at it, at the tangle of seatbelts and wires coiled up in the seat. He brushed his fingers over the wide metal arm of the chair, over the display buttons, and then the joystick handle at the end of it. How many times had he done this before? Why hadn’t he seen the answer before?
A noise out in the corridor woke him from his daydream. It sounded like someone was running out there. And then everything was silent again except for the constant hum of the machines behind the walls.
Cromartie smiled, his spirits were lifted a little now that they finally had an end to march towards, a goal all of them could commit to. He would gather everyone in the dining area and tell them what he’d learned in his dream. Of course they would be shocked. They wouldn’t believe him. They wouldn’t want to trust him. They wouldn’t want to follow him and this insane plan of his.
But they would have to trust him if they wanted to know the true answers to why they were here on this ship … they would have to believe him.
Then Cromartie heard more commotion out in the corridors somewhere, muffled thumps, then a yell of surprise.
What was going on out there?
He looked at the rounded metal archway that led out to the main corridor on the far side of the bridge for a moment. He didn’t see anyone out there; he didn’t see any shadows dancing along the walls.
And then he heard someone yelling from far down the corridor.
It was Sanders. She was calling for him.
She was calling for help.
THIRTY-SIX
Cromartie raced down the corridors until he came to the doorways to their rooms. Sanders was outside of her room, leaning against the corridor wall, favoring one leg like it was injured. She winced in pain.
He rushed up to her, nearly out of breath from his dash down the corridor. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
Sanders nodded as tears ran out of her eyes. Her skin seemed even paler under these fluorescent lights high up on the walls. She held her thigh, gripping it.
“What happened?”
“Ward,” she said and seemed to be gasping for breath. “He ran out of the room and slammed into me—slammed me into the wall. I fell and twisted my ankle.”
“Bad?”
She nodded. “I can hardly put any weight on it.”
Cromartie put his arm around her shoulders, holding her up and supporting a lot of her weight.
“Why was he running?”
She nodded back at the open doorway. “That’s Abraham’s room. He came out of there. Abraham’s dead.”
Cromartie felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “What … what do you mean?”
“He’s dead,” she said again.
“I need to go in there and look,” he told her. “Can you stand by yourself for a minute?”
She nodded and leaned back against the wall.
Cromartie hoped to God that Sanders was having another hallucination. He rushed inside Abraham’s room and then he stopped in his tracks.
Abraham was on his bed, flat on his back and staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes that were glazed over with death. His throat had been slashed, cut wide open. Congealed blood stained the rough edges of the wound in his throat, blood stained his white shirt, and blood was splashed all over the white bedsheets beneath him. The blood was so bright red against the stark white room. He reached out with a trembling hand towards the end of the bed, towards Abraham’s feet. He had to touch Abraham’s foot … he had to make sure that he was really there.
It was real. Abraham was dead.
Cromartie rushed back out of the room and he hurried over to Sanders. He put his arm around her shoulders, holding her up again. “Where’s Rolle?”
Sanders shook her head, still wincing in pain, breathing hard. “I haven’t seen him.”
“How did you … why did you go into Abraham’s room?”
She eyed Cromartie for a second like she didn’t appreciate his suspicious tone. “I was walking down the hall and I heard this … this noise coming from Abraham’s room. It sounded like someone was talking, maybe shouting. The door was open. I went inside and saw Abraham on the bed. I saw all the blood … And then I saw Ward. He was right beside the bed, staring down at Abraham’s body. And then Ward turned and looked at me, and then he ran right at me.”
“Ward didn’t say anything?”
“He was babbling,” Sanders said. “Saying something like: he didn’t do this and it wasn’t what it looked like.”
Cromartie shook his head, thinking for a moment. “Did he have the knife with him?”
Sanders seemed to think it over for a moment.
“The knife, Sanders. Did Ward have the knife with him that he used to kill Abraham?”
She finally shook her head slightly like she was confused. “I’m not sure. It all happened so fast.”
Cromartie took a deep breath, thinking things over for a few seconds. Then he locked eyes with Sanders. “Can you stand here by yourself for another minute?”
She nodded and braced herself against the wall.
Cromartie rushed across the hall and entered Abraham’s room again. He looked at the bed and then around Abraham’s body, even feeling cautiously along the bedsheets, careful not to disturb any of the blood or the position of Abraham’s body.
No knife.
He got down on his hands and knees and looked all around on the floor and underneath the cot-like bed.
Still no knife.
He checked the desk, the small closet, and then the bathroom. He didn’t see any blood splatters anywhere else in the room except for the bed, and he couldn’t find the weapon.
Ward must’ve still had the knife on him when he attacked Sanders, and then he ran.
But something didn’t feel right to Cromartie; he couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but things weren’t adding up here.
He hurried back out to the corridor. “I don’t see a knife in there,” Cromartie told Sanders.
“Maybe he had it on him,” she said. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
“If he would’ve had the knife on him, then he would’ve had blood on him. On his clothes, his hands, maybe even blood splatters on his face. Did he have blood all over him?” He felt like he shouldn’t have to be explaining this to someone who was a police officer.
“I don’t know!” Sanders snapped at him, and then she calmed down quickly. “Like I said, it happened pretty fast. He slammed me into the wall and ran.”
“Which way?”
She nodded her head, gesturing down the corridor where Cromartie had just come from.
Cromartie looked down the hall, and then he looked back at Sanders and shook his head a little. “I just came from that way. I didn’t see Ward.” But he remembered hearing someone running out in the corridors a little earlier, someone running up the metal steps to the upper level.
“Where were you?” Sanders asked, suddenly changing the subject.
He stared at her, and he swore he saw suspicion in her eyes.
“I was ... I was on the bridge.”
“What were you doing there?”
Cromartie hesitated. “I was looking around.” He wanted to tell her about the answers he had discovered, but right now they had more pressing matters … like finding Ward.