The Darwin Effect

by Mark Lukens

  She stared at him, waiting for him to explain further. It seemed like she could tell that he was hiding something.

  He sighed and confessed. “Before I was on the bridge, I was up on the upper level, standing in front of the airlock door. I must’ve been walking in my sleep. I was having a dream … a nightmare—the same one I told you about before—and then I woke up in front of the airlock door.” But he left out the part about the new words written on the airlock door and the black marker he’d had in his hand when he woke up.

  Sanders stared at him like she was seeing a different person suddenly. “So it isn’t just me and Ward sleepwalking,” she said and winced with pain.

  “Maybe it’s all of us,” Cromartie said. “Maybe we’ve all been sleepwalking and we haven’t realized it.” He had a picture in his mind of all of them wandering around the ship at different times, perhaps even passing each other in the corridor as they stumbled along in their sleepwalking stupor, oblivious to each other.

  “We need to find Ward,” Sanders said. “He killed Butler. He just killed Abraham, and he’s going to kill again.”

  “We need to get you some painkillers and a wrap from a first aid kit,” he told her. “They have first aid kits in the bathrooms in each of our rooms.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” she growled. “Just go find Ward.”

  Cromartie ignored Sanders’ commands and helped her down the hallway to her room. “Let’s get you to your room.”

  They entered Sanders’ room and she practically collapsed down on the end of her bed.

  Ward shut the door and then he turned and stared at Sanders. “You okay?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “I’ll be okay. Rolle’s out there somewhere. You need to find Ward before he kills Rolle next.”

  “I’m not leaving you here alone,” he told her.

  She winced again, still gripping her thigh, holding her leg very still like it was painful to move it in any way.

  “I’ll go look for the first aid kit,” Cromartie said. He was about to head for the bathroom in Sanders’ room when the door behind him flew open.

  He turned around, his hands up and ready to defend himself.

  Rolle stood there in the doorway. He stared at Cromartie in shock for a second and then his eyes shifted to Sanders. “I heard Sanders yelling. What’s wrong?”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “Abraham’s dead,” Cromartie said.

  “What?” Rolle breathed out. He backed out of Sanders’ room, already heading down the hall.

  Cromartie glanced back at Sanders. “Stay right there.”

  “Where else am I going to go?” she moaned.

  Cromartie darted out of Sanders’ room and hurried down the hall. He met Rolle as he was coming back out of Abraham’s room with the pale look of shock on his face.

  “It was Ward,” Cromartie said. “Sanders saw him in there. He slammed her into a wall and then ran.”

  “Where?”

  Cromartie shrugged and looked down the corridor towards the bridge. “She said he ran that way. He could’ve gone to the kitchen, the bridge, or up to the third level.”

  Rolle nodded and then looked away, staring with wide eyes like he was trying to understand all of this but it was going too fast for him right now.

  Cromartie stared at Rolle. “Where were you?”

  The accusation snapped Rolle’s attention right back to Cromartie. “I … I was … I was in the rec room.”

  “Working out?”

  “No … just … just spending some time by myself.”

  “And you didn’t see Ward run past the rec room?”

  “No,” Rolle answered.

  Cromartie didn’t reply. So Ward wasn’t down at that end of the ship, and that meant that he couldn’t be down below in the storage level. Ward had to be on the upper level. He remembered hearing someone running in the corridor when he’d been on the bridge a few minutes ago. It had to have been Ward out there.

  But Rolle’s story didn’t feel right to Cromartie, and he couldn’t figure out what was bothering him about it. Sanders’ story didn’t feel right to him, either. Nobody’s story felt right.

  What about your story? his mind whispered. You woke up in front of the airlock door with a black magic marker in your hand. What were you doing before you woke up there?

  Cromartie shook the voice in his mind away and stared at Rolle. “You haven’t seen Ward for a while?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “Let’s get back to Sanders. She’s hurt. Ward hurt her ankle when he slammed her into the wall.”

  Rolle’s eyebrows scrunched in concern and he was already marching down the corridor to her room like there was finally something he could do to help.

  They entered Sanders’ room and she sat in the same spot at the end of her bed, her hands on her thigh, her eyes half-closed.

  “It was Ward,” Sanders said as soon as Cromartie and Rolle entered her room. “He ran out of Abraham’s room when I saw him and he threw me into the wall.”

  “I know,” Rolle told her in a gentle voice. “Cromartie already told me what happened.”

  “She didn’t see the knife on Ward,” Cromartie said.

  “Oh God!” Sanders yelled. “Will you stop defending him? How many times does he have to do this before you believe me? It’s Ward. He killed Butler and now he’s killed Abraham.”

  “Okay,” Cromartie said. “Just try to relax.”

  Rolle looked at Cromartie. “She’s right. We should have done something about Ward while we had the chance. It was him all along. We need to do something now. We need to find him before he attacks us.”

  Rolle looked back at Sanders and squatted down beside her. “I just want to take a look at your leg. Okay?”

  She nodded quickly, giving him permission.

  He rolled up her pants leg a little and touched her ankle gently.

  The flesh around Sanders’ ankle didn’t look too swollen to Cromartie, but he wasn’t a doctor like Rolle was.

  She winced in pain as Rolle touched her ankle, biting her lips to keep from crying out.

  “You think it’s broken?” Cromartie asked Rolle.

  Rolle shook his head. “No. There isn’t much swelling. I think it might be twisted. A bad sprain maybe. Not broken, but obviously very painful.” He popped back up quickly to his feet. “There’s probably a first aid kit in her bathroom. If not there’s one in mine.”

  Cromartie just nodded.

  Rolle was already hurrying for the bathroom door at the other end of Sanders’ room.

  Cromartie watched Sanders who seemed to be getting her breathing back under control now that she was sitting down on her bed and off of her feet.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her.

  She just stared at him.

  “I should’ve believed you about Ward. I should have trusted your instincts.”

  She didn’t say anything. She could’ve said that she’d been right all along and now Abraham was dead because Cromartie wanted to make one hundred percent sure that Ward was guilty before they did anything. She could’ve said a lot of things, but she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t want to rub it in right now, or maybe she was in too much pain to gloat.

  Rolle was back with a plastic case in his hand. The case was white like nearly everything else in these rooms and it had the words FIRST AID printed on the lid. He opened it up and started pulling items out. “Should be something to wrap your ankle with in here, and some kind of painkillers.”

  Cromartie pulled the knife he’d been carrying out of the belt around his pants and he held it in his hand. He looked down at the knife and a thought struck him suddenly.

  He looked at Rolle. “Where’s your knife?”

  Rolle cocked his head a little like he was trying to understand the dumb question Cromartie had just asked. “It’s tucked down in my belt underneath my shirt.” He even reached down by his hip and touched the knife handle sticking up out of his belt like he was making sure it w
as still there. “Why?”

  Cromartie turned his attention to Sanders. “What about you? Where’s your knife?”

  She stared right back at Cromartie for a moment, and then she shook her head slightly. “I … I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t have it on you when you went to Abraham’s room?” Cromartie asked her. “You always carry it with you. We all do.”

  “Uh … yeah. I thought I had it.” She checked her waist like she was looking for it. “But I don’t know where it is. Did you give it back to me after I … after I was in the freezer?”

  “Yes,” Cromartie answered her. “Remember? After we were on the bridge, I gave it back to you before you went back to your room.”

  Sanders shook he head slightly like she was trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind. She looked a little confused, backpedaling. “I don’t really remember.” Then her face brightened a little. “What about the hallway? Maybe I dropped it when Ward attacked me.”

  “It’s not in the hallway.”

  “Well, maybe he took it when he ran.”

  Cromartie just stared at her.

  “I really don’t remember,” she said in a low voice.

  “What happened before you heard Ward in Abraham’s room?” Rolle asked her.

  Sanders took a moment before answering, thinking it over, like she was getting her story straight in her mind. “I … I was sleeping. I woke up … like from a noise. And I left my room and went out into the hallway. That’s when I heard Ward in Abraham’s room.” She looked around at her room like a thought had just occurred to her. “I don’t remember grabbing my knife before I left. I was real groggy.” She looked at Cromartie. “Maybe I never took my knife out of here. Yeah, I don’t think I ever took it with me.”

  Rolle walked over to the built-in desk and chair. He checked around, but there wasn’t really any place it could be hidden. He checked under her bed, and then looked through the sheets and covers on her bed. He walked over to the closet and looked inside “I don’t see it anywhere.”

  Cromartie couldn’t understand how Sanders could’ve misplaced her knife when she had been the one so adamant about all of them carrying a weapon at all times.

  But he decided not to press her on it right now. Maybe she was confused. Maybe she had hit her head when Ward slammed into her. Maybe he did take her knife when he attacked her like she had suggested. They could worry about that later. Right now they had more important matters to think about—like finding Ward.

  “I need to go look for Ward,” Cromartie told them.

  Rolle stared at Cromartie. “Maybe you should wait. Let me go with you.”

  He shook his head no. “Someone needs to stay here with Sanders. I don’t want Ward coming back for her.”

  “You could stay with her,” Rolle said. “I could go look for Ward.”

  Cromartie shook his head, already dismissing that idea. He was several inches taller than Rolle and outweighed him by at least twenty pounds of muscle that he’d built up over the years on construction jobs. Ward was a survivalist, a fighter, a killer—Rolle would be no match for him.

  “Sanders needs medical attention,” Cromartie told Rolle. “She needs your skills.”

  Rolle seemed to consider the logic of it, and finally he nodded his head in agreement.

  “Besides,” Cromartie said. “I’m the one who fought against detaining Ward in the first place. I’m the one who kept defending him. I’m the reason Abraham got killed. It should be me who goes after Ward. It should be me who puts an end to this.”

  Sanders just stared at him, and then she nodded slightly.

  Cromartie nodded back at her. He wished Sanders wasn’t hurt. He wished she was going with him to hunt Ward down. He wished she had his back, but she was injured too badly right now.

  He was on his own.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Cromartie left Sanders’ room and he closed the door behind him.

  Sanders and Rolle watched him leave. Sanders stared at the door for a moment and then Rolle turned his attention to her.

  “Let me take your shoe off,” he told her.

  Sanders nodded.

  Rolle crouched down on the floor in front of Sanders. He gently removed her sneaker-like shoe that had come with her clothing in the room. He tossed the shoe over by the wall, out of the way of her injured foot. He grabbed the plastic first aid kit from the corner of the bed and rummaged around in it until he found a rolled-up elastic cloth bandage packaged in clear plastic. He ripped the plastic off and began to wrap the cloth around her foot and ankle.

  Sanders winced as soon as he touched her ankle.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Keep going.”

  Rolle wrapped part of the cloth bandage around her ankle, and then he stopped for a moment like a thought had just occurred to him. He touched her toes gently.

  “Can you wiggle your toes?” he asked.

  She wiggled them.

  “Hmm,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. The sprain just doesn’t seem that bad.”

  Sanders just stared at him.

  “I mean,” Rolled continued quickly, “I know you’re in some pain, but it just doesn’t look like that bad of an injury.”

  “Well, I’m sorry you don’t believe me,” Sanders said through clenched teeth. “But I’m telling you it hurts.”

  “Can you stand up on it now? Do you think you can put all of your weight on it yet?”

  Sanders sighed and struggled up to her feet as Rolle held on to her right arm for support. She tried to put all of her weight on her left foot and nearly crumpled to the floor, groaning in pain.

  Rolle held on to her, keeping her from falling. “Okay, point proven. Let’s get you back down on the bed.”

  After he helped her back down to the end of the bed, Rolle grabbed the rolled bandage and wrapped more of the cloth around her ankle as tightly as she could bear.

  She hissed a little at the pain, leaning back on her elbows, watching Rolle.

  He looked up at her. “Is it okay? It needs to be kind of tight. I know it will hurt for a moment, but eventually the compression will help it.”

  Sanders nodded at him to keep going.

  Rolle went about the process slowly. He tried to be as careful as possible as he wrapped the rest of the cloth bandage around her ankle.

  After he was done, he stood back up and took the first aid kit with him over to the desk where he’d left his knife next to the lamp.

  Sanders watched Rolle for a moment; his back was still to her. She glanced at the knife beside the first aid kit.

  “Here, take these,” Rolle said as he turned around.

  She snapped her eyes away from the knife and watched Rolle as he walked over to her with two small pills in his hand. The pills were white like just nearly everything else in these rooms.

  “What are they?”

  He shrugged. “Says painkillers on the container, but it’s probably some kind of aspirin or ibuprofen. Either one should help with the pain and inflammation.”

  Sanders plucked the two small pills out of his palm.

  “I’ll get you some water,” Rolle said and headed for the bathroom.

  Sanders held the two pills in her hand and watched Rolle enter the bathroom. Her eyes darted back to the knife sitting on the desk top next to the plastic first aid kit. She moved over towards the corner of the bed, ready to spring across the room for the knife, but then Rolle came out of the bathroom with a plastic cup of water.

  He stood next to Sanders at the corner of the bed, staring down at her. “You shouldn’t be moving around right now.”

  She nodded and smiled at him. “Yeah. I … I just wanted to get a little more comfortable?”

  “At the corner of the bed?”

  She didn’t say anything. She tossed the two pills into her mouth and Rolle gave her the plastic cup of water. She chased the pills down with the water that had a faint chemical a
nd iron taste to it.

  “Thanks,” she said and handed the cup back to Rolle. “If you want to help Cromartie find Ward, I can wait here.”

  Rolle shook his head, already dismissing that idea like it was a bad one.

  “It’s okay if you want to go,” Sanders told him. “You could give me your knife so I could protect myself in case Ward comes back. You could get another knife for yourself from the kitchen.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Where’s your knife?”

  “I told you, I … I must’ve lost it. Or maybe Ward took it. But if you give me yours, you can go help Cromartie. I really think two of you should go after Ward. He could be very dangerous. I think we’ve already seen how dangerous he can be.”

  Rolle seemed to be thinking her suggestion over for a moment. “I don’t want to leave you here by yourself. You’re in no shape to defend yourself right now.”

  “I would feel better if you would just let me hold on to your knife,” Sanders said and smiled at him.

  Rolle backed away from Sanders like he was suddenly suspicious of her. He moved towards the desk and reached out behind him for the knife sitting on the desktop without looking at it, keeping his eyes on Sanders the whole time. Then he grabbed it. “I think I’ll hold on to the knife for right now.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  As soon as Cromartie left Sanders’ room, he thought about checking the storage area just to be sure. But he hesitated a moment before going that way.

  Sanders had told him that Ward had run away towards the front of the ship, towards the bridge.

  If he could believe her, his mind whispered. But he chose to believe Sanders’ story even though some of it wasn’t adding up in his mind. And he chose to believe Rolle’s story about being in the rec room. What other choice did he have? He didn’t want to waste time down in the storage area while Ward doubled back down here from the upper level.

  Even though Sanders said Ward had run this way, Cromartie knew that Ward hadn’t run to the bridge because he’d been there earlier. From the commotion and running he’d heard in the hallway when he was on the bridge, he had to assume that Ward must’ve fled to the upper level.