The Dying of the Light (Book 2): Interval

by Jason Kristopher

  Captain Anderson stepped inside, standing over the moaning figure on the ground, and looked at Shaw. “Need some help, son?”

  I wasn’t sure how it had happened, but I was in a second Jeep distantly following Captain Anderson as we all raced for somewhere that someone said was important. I have no idea what’s going on, I thought. Not exactly the first time that’s happened.

  I’d been joined in the Jeep by the station’s resident doctor—a man named Stirling—as well as Marcie Thompson and a man I’d been introduced briefly to as Captain Graves. Though why either of them was along, I also had no idea. Stirling drove like I did, which was more than a little disconcerting when you considered what he was driving on was mainly hard-packed snow and ice. I tried not to think about it.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, not expecting any of the very intense people in the vehicle to actually answer, but Marcie spoke.

  “We’re going to have it out with our dear Mr. Warner, ya know,” she said. “He’s always been something of a jackass, he has, and now that we have a chance to have a little chat about what he’s been up to with wee Jenny… well, it’s about time, is all.”

  “Jenny? You mean Jennifer Shaw?”

  “Aye, the very same. That’s how we knew to come here when were lookin’ for Shaw and Jim. Shaw woulda made him come straight here, looking for his wife.”

  I was still lost, but it was getting a bit clearer. “I must’ve missed something. What’s he been up to, then?”

  “Well, according to Sabrina—that’s Dr. Tanner, ya know, Jim’s girl—according to her, Warner’s been lying the whole time about her and why he’s had to keep her locked up.”

  “She’s been locked up? Wait, what?”

  “Aye, Warner said he had to lock her up since he came at her with a knife, but some are sayin’ it ain’t so and didn’t happen that way. So we’re going to have a look.” Her face took on the look of a woman about to do serious harm to a man, and I’m not ashamed to say I flinched a bit. I’d only seen that look once or twice, and it had never ended well for the man involved. Fortunately, I’d thus far managed to avoid it being directed my way. “She’s my friend, too,” Marcie continued. “And I aim to see what he’s been lying about.”

  We arrived a moment later at the shed, with several cars around it and Anderson’s man Denson standing guard outside. I noticed a couple of others apparently following tracks in the snow, on the other side of the building. Stirling was the first out of the car, grabbing his medical bag and rushing inside before Denson could do more than start to raise his hand.

  I nodded at Denson as I approached with Marcie and Captain Graves, and he gestured for us to go in.

  It was crowded inside, most of us standing on the outside of what looked to be a cell of some kind. Anderson was standing at the door to the cell, with another man trussed up with duct tape on the floor, securely gagged as well. Captain Graves moved to examine a hole in the wall opposite the door, and Marcie flew past me, approaching the cell door, where Anderson took one look and let her through. She joined Stirling and Shaw and, presumably, Jennifer, who was sitting up clutching her side with one hand and holding tight to Shaw with the other. I walked up beside Anderson, making no move to enter the cell. It was crowded enough in there already.

  “What the hell have we got ourselves into, Frank?” I asked.

  He shook his head as he glanced over his shoulder. “One hell of a shitstorm, David.” He lowered his voice and stepped partly to one side, keeping an eye on the door. “As I understand it, the girl is Shaw’s wife, who this asshat”—he paused to give the man on the floor a solid kick in the ribs, and got a low moan in response—”has been keeping locked up in here, drugged, for about three years. Meet Dr. Warner, by the way.”

  I looked down at the scientist who supposedly was in charge of the whole of the Antarctic continent. “Why the hell…?”

  Anderson shrugged. “The story goes that she went crazy and tried to kill him, so he locked her up. Says she’s been crazy ever since, and that’s why he kept her drugged.”

  “But we don’t think that’s the real story, do we?”

  “No. Shaw told me there’s no way she would’ve tried to kill Warner, even if she was going crazy about her husband not coming back. It wasn’t in her to kill someone like that. Now, you and I know even the strongest people can snap for no apparent reason—”

  I winced, knowing he was talking about my self-induced coma at the sight of his now-wife, who had reminded me too much of my former fiancée Rebecca. “There’s always a reason,” I said. “Just because we don’t know the reason doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

  “Exactly. So the doc here is going to give her something to counteract the sedatives she’s been on and we’ll see what she has to tell us.”

  “What about her side? She’s injured. What the hell happened there?”

  Anderson scowled, and, for the record, the man could win a damned contest for the expression, if there were such a thing. Small creatures died when he frowned at them. Well, not really, but it was pretty fearsome. “She was shot by Warner’s helper.” He saw my incomprehension and continued. “Apparently this guy, Duncan or whatever, was supposed to kill her and dispose of her so Shaw would never find her. She was supposed to end up as one of these ‘Lost’ they’ve been talking about, and we’d be none the wiser and half a world away from anything that would’ve tied them to it.”

  I shook my head. “But it doesn’t make sense! Why go to all this trouble? Why frame her for attempted murder, then lock her up, only to decide to kill her just when none of it mattered anymore? I don’t get it.”

  A strained, feminine voice came from inside the cell, and Anderson and I both turned to see Jennifer Shaw holding herself up on the cell bars with one hand, her other arm wrapped around Shaw’s shoulders as both Marcie and the doctor looked on, ready to catch her if she fell. “I believe I can answer that question, Captain.”

  “Jen, you don’t have to…” said Shaw, pain evident on his face. I knew what that felt like, to see your wife in pain and not able to do anything about it. And worse, knowing that the only thing you could do for her was to end it all. I shook my head, dismissing Rebecca from my thoughts.

  “I do, Billy,” she said, staggering forward until she and her husband were outside the bars and she could stare down at her captor.

  Her former captor, I thought. Because it’s pretty damned clear she’s never going back in there again.

  “Give me a gun,” she said, holding out her free hand to Captain Graves, who’d been silently standing to one side. Without a word, the man produced a pistol from some as-yet-unseen holster and handed it to the woman.

  “Mrs. Shaw…” Anderson started to say, but when she turned her gaze on him, I saw something I’d never thought I’d ever see: Captain Frank Anderson, United States Navy SEAL (retired), backing down. He held up his hands as he stepped out of the line of fire.

  I can’t say I would’ve done any different, given the look on her face.

  “Now, Jack,” she said, his name sounding like the dirtiest epithet ever devised as she pointed the gun unsteadily at his forehead. “Now, we’re going to have a little chat. And if you lie, even once, it will be the last thing you do. Understand?”

  Warner, his nose bleeding down over the duct tape, clutching his side where Anderson had kicked him, started to shout behind his gag, but a swift kick from Marcie right where it hurts most caused him to double over and start nodding frantically behind the tears that now trickled from his eyes.

  Jennifer glanced Marcie’s way with a smile, and the Scottish girl shrugged and smiled back. “I never liked him, anyway.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dr. Stirling was still fussing over Jennifer, now that we were all seated around the small desk in her newly-restored office. Shaw hadn’t left her side for a moment, and we’d had to shove Marcie out of the room. It was more than a little cramped and stuffy with just five of us in here.

/>   “OK, Doc, why don’t you tell us what happened, exactly?” said Anderson, taking the lead. I was surprised that Jennifer hadn’t said anything, but apparently she was willing to let others talk, for the moment. I imagine being drugged for nearly three years straight had something to do with that.

  “Well, I can’t be certain exactly what he was giving her, for starters. Some sort of tranquilizing cocktail, clearly, but he didn’t get it from me. I’m not sure where it came from, but it did the trick. Any larger of a dose, or for a longer period, and it’s likely we’d never have gotten her back.” The older man leaned forward and squeezed her hand, eliciting a small smile from Jennifer. “As it is, it was tough to counteract. I just…” He broke down and began sobbing quietly. “I’m so sorry, Jennifer. I tried, I really did, but they were always watching, and I couldn’t do anything…”

  Jennifer hobbled to her feet and pulled the very skinny man into an awkward hug, both looking fearful of hurting the other. “I know you did, Brian. I know. It’s OK.”

  Shortly, the doctor had composed himself, and Jennifer turned to us as she sat back down. “He really did try to help, but the first time they caught him trying the lock, Duncan beat him. So hard it left bruises on his bones. He had to stitch up his own wounds, and yet he still came back and tried to help until I told him to stop, during one of my few bouts of lucidity.”

  “So they kept you drugged, but why? Why not just kill you?”

  Jennifer stayed quiet, looking a little embarrassed, and Dr. Stirling stepped in. “She would never explain it this way, so I will. The fact is that we all trusted Jennifer’s leadership so much that Warner knew we couldn’t afford to lose her. She was our source of morale. As long as she was still alive, there was still hope for her to recover, and that kept hope alive for the rest of us.” He looked at her admiringly, and she shook her head.

  “Well, at any rate, the point is that people felt sorry for me, and Warner didn’t think he could kill me. Even though there were times when I wished he had.”

  There was more than a little bitterness in her tone, but I couldn’t fault her for it. I’d felt like going crazy because I lived in a huge underground bunker most of the time, but at least I got to go outside every once in a while. This girl had been living in an eight-by-ten cell and using a bucket for the bathroom for three years. I had no right to complain about anything ever again.

  “So why’d you try to kill him?” Anderson said, looking at her closely.

  Jennifer smiled a grim smile. “I see you don’t grow much moss, Captain.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  I must’ve looked confused, because Jennifer laughed at me quietly. “The captain here is a quick study, Mr. Blake. He picked up on something I said.” She stopped laughing and looked me right in the eye. “I did try to kill Jack Warner.”

  I sat back in my chair, shaking my head. “Normally, I consider myself a smart guy, but today… maybe you should start at the beginning.”

  She nodded. “So when Billy didn’t come back for a while, I got depressed. Then ‘a while’ turned into a year, and then two, and I just didn’t have the will to go on. I barely ate, slept most of the time, let Jack take over my job as Area Director, since he’s the only one who wanted it. I consider myself a pretty strong person, but it was a difficult time. Nothing seemed to matter anymore, and with our rations being reduced yet again, I just figured it would be easier to give up. I almost became one of the Lost, but couldn’t find the willpower even to do that. Then we got the transmission from the Texas and everything changed.”

  “That would be the submarine parked on the Bay?” asked Anderson, leaning forward intently.

  “Yes, exactly,” said Jennifer. “I’m not surprised you recognized it. SEAL?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I thought so. So is Captain Graves.”

  Anderson nodded. “I figured. He has the look about him. Not many of us make captain, though.”

  Jennifer looked down for a moment, then back up. “Jeremiah—Captain Graves—he isn’t technically a captain, actually, but I’ll get to that in a second. .” She sat back in her chair. “It was about three years ago when the word first came in through our ULF equipment. Just Morse code at first, but then we were finally about to get voice communications up, after I convinced Warner to supply us with the power. They had nowhere to go, they said. Their home port, Honolulu, was gone, overrun. They’d been to San Diego, but there was nothing there. Then they’d set out for the Panama Canal, intending to head for Washington or Norfolk, but with no one there to operate it, there was no way they could cross.

  “Captain Graves told me that one of the sailors had suggested stopping in here to resupply, and the boat’s executive officer had vetoed it, for security reasons, or so he said. By that time, the captain of the Texas was dead, and the XO was a bit… off. There was a, well, the word is mutiny, as much as I dislike it. Jeremiah came out on top, and they came here. I don’t even know what his real title is. We all called him ‘captain’ as a courtesy, and it stuck.

  “When they arrived, the ice was starting to thicken and they didn’t make it out in time. So they were stuck here, and after a few months, decided to stay.” She smiled as if a fond memory had come to her. “There were more than a few couples that got their start during that time. Fortunately, birth control is one of those things we’ve got plenty of down here. After all, what else is there to do? We had a couple close scares with pregnancy, but nothing ever came of it, so fortunately, no babies to take back to the world.”

  “‘Jeremiah’?” Shaw suddenly asked with an awkward expression.

  Jennifer looked at him, then away. Suddenly, the tension in the room had jumped about ten notches.

  Trying to ratchet it back down some, I coughed. “Can you get back to the part where you tried to kill Warner?”

  “Uh, yeah. So things were looking up, and even though I was feeling better, I didn’t want my old job as area director. Too much stress. I took over for Reuben Hacker, working in the aeroponics bay with Marcie, after Reuben… left. He became one of the Lost, too. I think Jack was worried I might try to take over again, even though I told him over and over I wasn’t interested. He was always hanging around, asking questions and insinuating things, but no one ever paid any attention to it.”

  She frowned, and continued in a darker tone. “I was locking up one night, and I’d turned off the lights but was finishing up in the office when I saw Warner and Duncan come into the room with flashlights. I stayed down and watched, because no one was supposed to be in the bay when I wasn’t there. Warner had a key, of course, but there wasn’t any reason for him to be there, and certainly none for Duncan.”

  “Turns out, his latest antics were just the tip of the crazy iceberg. He and Duncan were adding something to the dietary supplement we give out to everyone at every meal. It’s a mix of various vitamins and things we developed with the help of Doc Stirling to make sure everyone is as healthy as we can get them. I couldn’t see exactly what it was, but they were pouring it from a bucket. I started to ask them what was going on, but someone made a noise outside and they switched off the lights instantly.” She paused, a hand at her throat. “Can I have some water?”

  I handed her a bottle from the pocket of my ACUs, mesmerized by her story. She smiled and as she drank it down. “Thanks. I haven’t talked this much in quite some time. Where was I? Oh, right. So here they were, sneaking around where they shouldn’t be, and I knew there was something fishy going on. So I followed them when they left. It was rough, running across the snow without being heard, and driving without headlights, but I managed. They ended up at a shed we used to use for storage.”

  She turned to Shaw. “You know, that one out on the east end, where we put all the spare parts for the tractors and things?”

  Shaw looked confused. “Yeah, I know it. But why the hell would they go there?”

  “That’s what I wondered. So when they were gone, I found one of the broken win
dows and went in… and…” She turned green, and I don’t just mean metaphorically. I’d never seen someone turn quite that shade.

  This oughta be fun, I thought.

  “What did you find?” asked Anderson.

  “He… they…” she shuddered, clearly uncomfortable with the question, and Shaw wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened a bit, then relaxed, and took a deep breath. “I found out what they were putting in the dietary supplement. Meat. The only meat left on the entire continent,” she said, looking up at us.

  I must’ve looked confused again, because she had to spell it out for me.

  “People. They were putting people in the food.”

  A little later, I was talking with Anderson in the area director’s office while Shaw took his wife to get the first restful sleep she’d had in years. We’d been going over Warner’s crimes, trying to come up with a fitting punishment. It was tougher than I thought. How did you punish someone who had killed people, frozen their bodies, then cut up and served their remains to others without their knowledge as a protein supplement?

  “There’s nothing in the manual to cover this,” said Anderson.

  He and I were at a loss, other than the obvious death sentence, when the young and powerfully-built Captain Jeremiah Graves approached. He saluted Anderson, who smiled slightly as he returned the honor, and he started to salute me, but I waved him off. “I’m a civilian, Captain.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, turning back to Anderson. “Sir, I was ordered to report to Director Shaw, sir.”

  Anderson looked the young man up and down. “What group are you with, sailor?”

  “Special Warfare Group Three, sir. Delivery Vehicle Team One, sir.”