A couple of guards stepped forward to separate Crichton from his tablemates, as Jo continued to move around the room. When he neared Abby, she poured all the hate she could muster into her eyes. When he noticed, the boy paused.
“And this one,” he said raising a finger to point at her, glancing over his shoulder at the other woman. The moment he turned back to face Abby, she spat on the boy. The shock on his face was rather satisfying.
Wiping the saliva off on his shirt, Jo continued his walk around the room, his shoulders taking on a hunch they hadn’t had previously. Guards began releasing Abby from those next to her, taking more precautions than they had with Crichton but otherwise not reprimanding her for the spitting episode.
“No one else,” Jo finally said, walking shamefaced back to the woman’s side.
She paid him no attention as her cold eyes continued to sweep over the group. Abby watched her as she was brought over to where Crichton stood against one wall. Their legs were then lashed together.
“Which one in here tried to talk the most?” the woman eventually asked the scarred twin.
“That woman there. Kept trying to talk to the little ones,” he immediately replied, not having to think about it.
Abby noted he had pointed to Ellen whose three boys were all bound at the table with the other children.
The woman shook her head. “Which one tried to talk to other adults the most?”
“Her,” Scar-twin pointed at Brittany, who had been doing her best to keep people calm and unafraid despite the blows she had taken for it.
“Bring her too, then,” the woman decreed.
“It’s all right,” Brittany immediately told those around her as the guards made for her position. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Quiet,” Bruiser grumbled, smacking her upside the head, as he had already done many times before.
Brittany kept quiet as she was untied from her neighbours and hauled over to Abby and Crichton.
The woman turned to the other twin, the clean one, to ask her next question. “Not including the children or the adults brought in with them, who here has been the most docile? Who’s been co-operative?”
“I’d say him,” Clean-twin rasped. He had no obvious external injuries like his brother, but it seemed he had taken some internal damage at some point, his voice hoarse from it.
“And who seems to be the most afraid?” the woman asked next as the guards grabbed Seth, the supposedly co-operative one.
“Him.”
Abby hadn’t been able to see the face of the man that Clean-twin pointed to, because its owner had never raised his head since she had arrived. As the guards removed him from the table, a whine escaped the man’s throat. The sound was like that of a pitiful dog, but there was a familiarity to it for Abby. Her memory of the sound was validated when she saw Clive’s face. It was actually a relief to see he was the most fearful, as his fear wasn’t directed at the attackers, not entirely. Clive had various mental problems and neuroses that he had suffered from since before the Day. He didn’t like being near a lot of people, he hated being touched, he wasn’t fond of the outside, and change was a nightmare for him. Sitting in the truck that constituted the entrance in their fence was the perfect job for him, as he virtually never left the cab and was completely okay with rarely interacting with other humans. He had been in the motel where Lauren had been taken, never leaving the bathroom he had crawled into. On the Diana, he spent all his time locked up in his room, which was down the hall from Abby’s. Josh had been taking care of him as best he could while aboard the ship, and Abby had heard that pathetic whine of his a dozen times as the doctor entered Clive’s room after chatting with her. Abby would rather have him as part of this little group than someone completely sane and afraid of the invaders. She suspected she knew what was going to happen, even with her limited imagination.
Tied together at the legs and waist, their arms still bound behind their backs, the five people removed from their seats created a sort of chain gang.
“All right, I think that’s enough. I’ll take them from here, thank you.” The woman smiled and nodded to the guards. “I believe you know how to get to the basement from here,” she spoke to Crichton who formed the head of the line. “Please lead the way.”
Crichton scanned the room, looking into the faces of everyone remaining behind. He then turned without a word or gesture and walked awkwardly through the door, forcing Abby and the others to follow. The woman tailed Clive, who shuffled along awkwardly, with his head down and shoulders hunched, occasionally letting that somewhat eerie whine escape his throat.
“Journey, why don’t you go above ground and find the rest of the children? I’m sure they’d love to see you,” the woman spoke as they reached the stairwell. “I hear they’re gathered around a train of some sort.”
“I’d rather stay with you,” Jo said in a quiet, sheepish voice.
“And I’d rather you didn’t. Go on now.”
Jo trudged up the stairs as they headed down, turning and casting a forlorn look at the woman.
As they moved downward, they passed either a man or woman posted at the doorway to each level. Every one of them greeted or acknowledged the woman trailing them so that Abby was able to learn her name was Logan. They stopped only once on their descent, at the water treatment facility.
“Have you gotten in yet?” Logan asked the man in the stairwell.
“Not yet,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Jo told us that he saw what looked like important equipment near that door there, so we don’t want to go blasting through it. We’ll have to wait for the torch. It’s unfortunate that some of these rats managed to get in there and barricade it before we could reach the place.” He sneered at Abby and her group as he said this.
“Keep trying,” Logan told him. “Continue on,” she then said to Crichton.
As they reached the parking level, Abby glanced over the railing, down the stairwell to where the door led into the power generation facility. A bright light and sparks filled the lowest level. She quickly determined that they were trying to cut their way in using a blowtorch, which was what the man on the water treatment level was waiting for. Abby grinned to herself, knowing there was no way they were getting in like that, not without a hell of a lot of time and a whole ton of fuel. That door was thicker and more secure than anything else in the entire Black Box.
Within the concrete structure of the parking level, several of the invaders were busying themselves around the large elevator shaft. It wasn’t easy to see from a distance, but it appeared to Abby that they were lowering supplies down. They clearly planned on staying.
Logan directed the line of prisoners to a corner of the space, where a ring of folding chairs had been set up. The calm man who had told the stinking man not to kill Abby was there. He counted how many people had arrived tied up and removed two chairs from the ring, readjusting the others to form an even circle. Abby didn’t like seeing that man here. Something about him creeped her out, and knowing what this was likely to end up being, made his presence worse.
“Stand along the wall, please,” Logan ordered the line.
They did as commanded. The calm man started with Clive, untying him from the group and bringing him over to a chair. Clive kept squirming in his seat, threatening to slide off or tip it over while the man attempted to tie him to it.
With the speed of a striking viper, the calm man slapped Clive’s face; not as hard as he could, but hard enough to no doubt sting. Clive’s whine took on a higher-pitched note, but his body locked up, allowing the man to finish securing him. He continued along the line, tying one person to a chair at a time, so that Abby was second to last, and Crichton was put in the final seat. Abby noticed with ill-ease that she could clearly see each member of the group that had been brought down.
“This is going to be simple,” Logan spoke, circling around the outside of the ring like a shark. “I’m going to ask questions, and you’re going to
answer. Easy, right?”
No one acknowledged her. Abby focused on Seth, worrying about him the most since he had been labelled the most co-operative.
“I’ll start with something simple. Who’s in charge of this place?”
No one moved, everyone continuing to ignore her.
“I’ll try again. When there’s a problem, such as me and my people breaking and entering, who do you all turn to?”
Silence and grim faces.
The man stepped into the ring, seemingly picking Brittany at random, and slapped her across the face. This time he slapped hard, the sound of flesh striking flesh loud within the concrete corner. A tear escaped Brittany’s eye, but she pressed her lips firmly together as the side of her face began to bloom red.
“No? No one is going to tell me?” Logan continued to circle, her voice never changing in tone. “Let’s try something else then. Who has a key to that door downstairs?”
No response.
Smack! This time it was Crichton who was struck. His face remained unchanged beyond the handprint that formed.
“Who has a key?”
This time Abby felt the sting of the blow. There was a horrible bite to the way the man slapped, but Abby merely sat up straighter. She had been slapped before, when she was younger and by someone whose strike had a deeper emotional impact. This man meant nothing to her.
“Who has a key?”
Smack! Clive this time, with his sad whimper.
“I want a key.”
Smack! Abby again, this time on the same side of her face that was already swollen and bruised. She bore down on the pain, refusing to say a word. She thought of the time her mother had slapped her, not nearly as hard but even more painfully because of who she was. It was one of Abby’s last memories of her family. They didn’t want her to go to a school in Toronto; they wanted her to stay close where they could continue to drive God into her, hoping to cure her of her lesbian ways. Abby had always been quiet during those years, simply taking the emotional abuse, but once she had her escape, she let all her anger out. She told her mother all the things she thought about her and God at the time, a vile stream of words kept inside finally released. Abby hadn’t even been able to get it all out before her mother’s hand struck her face. They hadn’t spoken directly to one another since, and Abby felt fine knowing that she was most likely dead.
Logan asked about a key to the generator room until everyone had been slapped at least three times, some of them more. No one said a word, not even Seth who had locked eyes with Crichton’s cool, calm gaze.
“How do I get your people out of those other rooms?” Logan abruptly changed her question.
When still no one spoke, the calm man drove his fist into Clive’s belly. Clive couldn’t even whine, as his breath explosively escaped his lungs. Instead, the sound he made was an awful gasping, as his lungs attempted to suck air back into them.
“I’d rather not have to kill them all, so how do I get them out peacefully?”
Clive was struck again, this time the toe of the man’s boot striking the soft spot beside his kneecap. When Logan asked again, the top of Clive’s thigh was hit, and then his upper chest, and finally he was punched full on in the face. Blood trickled down the fence guard’s chin from a split lip. Before Logan could ask again, the man pulled out a pistol, although he held it by the barrel, ready to swing the thing as a club.
“Stop! Leave him alone!” Brittany finally cried out.
Thinking of her family, Abby glowered at her. Claire, and Peter, and Lauren were in those rooms, along with Hope, Cameron, Dakota, and Brunt. Brittany had no real family, and Abby wasn’t sure she had friends who had become like family. At least Seth had those, which might have been why he managed to keep quiet.
Logan stopped her circling behind Brittany and leaned down to speak in her ear. “He’ll stop hurting you and your friends when you answer the question.”
“I can get them out,” Brittany spoke, licking her dry lips briefly as she thought up what to say. “I’m their grief councillor, they’ll listen to me.”
“No they won’t,” Abby quickly spat out. “Sure, they come to you for comfort, but they’re not going to leave their safe zones because you ask them to. Maybe one or two, but the rest will stay put.”
“I helped evacuate the Diana,” Brittany retorted.
“Yeah, but you didn’t start the evacuation; no one would have moved if you had tried.”
“Will you tell me who your leaders are? Who can get them out?” Logan asked Brittany.
“No,” Brittany said sheepishly to the floor.
“And what can you tell me?” Logan turned her gaze to Abby.
“I’m not telling you anything.”
Logan drifted over to stand behind her and speak in her ear as she had with Brittany. “So you want the pain to continue?”
“Bring it on, bitch.”
The man who had been inflicting pain nodded, having seen some signal from Logan. He quickly flipped his gun around, pointed it at Brittany, and pulled the trigger. The gunshot pounded into Abby’s ears, her natural reflexes causing her to flinch and nearly knocking over her chair. She was shocked as she looked over at Brittany, a hole in her shirt expanding with red. The woman had been shot in the heart, not the head.
“And she was the one most likely to give me information based on her being the first to crack,” Logan said to the group. “The fact is, I still have a whole room of people up there. I’ll kill you all and bring down another group, let them see your corpses. Maybe then one of them will talk.”
The gun swung to point at Abby. Tears escaped her, unbidden, but she kept her teeth clamped firmly together. She would die for her family if that’s what was needed of her. She sent out only one silent prayer while she sat there, staring down the infinite blackness of the barrel. She prayed for a headshot, to not be turned into a zombie after her soul had departed.
“Stop,” Crichton spoke quietly before the trigger could be pulled.
“I didn’t expect you to crack,” Logan said to him.
“I’m not cracking. I’m not going to give you answers to your questions, not all of them, but I will negotiate.”
“And who are you to negotiate?”
“I’m one of the leaders you’re looking for.”
“Crichton—” Seth seemed ready to argue against him, but he was silenced by Crichton’s sharp gaze.
“Before we discuss anything, however, you have to do something for me.”
“Really?” Logan sounded intrigued. “And what might that be?”
“Keep that poor woman from turning. No one deserves that, and even you must see the danger in it. Never trust that you have control when a zombie’s in the mix.”
Logan walked around to look Crichton in the eyes, entering the circle for the first time.
“How do I know you really are one of the leaders?” She leaned down so that they were eye to eye.
“Abby, I want you to tell them what you know about me.” He spoke without looking at her, keeping his eyes on the woman before him.
“Crichton—”
“Just do it, Abby.”
Abby sighed. She didn’t want to talk, but it seemed that this was the way it was going to go. Crichton must have some sort of plan if he was willing to talk.
“Commander Crichton was a high-ranking mercenary for Marble Keystone,” Abby started, watching the reaction that always occurred when Keystone was mentioned. “During the evacuation of Leighton, he was put in charge of a prison outside the city that evacuees were brought to. Once it was obvious that Keystone had fallen, he loaded all the survivors into a convoy and headed for Toronto, where a pair of planes were waiting. These planes took us all to the ocean where a ship was being prepared for us. That ship was the Diana you heard Brittany mention. Crichton was in charge there, keeping us all safe for five years, until pirates finally managed to sink us. Crichton’s been protecting people from the start.”
“That’s a n
ice story, one in which a name could easily be replaced with another.” The entire time that Abby spoke, Logan hadn’t even glanced at her, keeping her attention on Crichton. “Who are the other leaders?”
“I won’t tell you that.”
“Do you even have other leaders?”
“I won’t tell you that.”
Logan sighed and stood up straight. She turned to the man with the gun. “What do you think, Aster?”
The calm man, Aster, shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt to talk to him.”
“Keep her from turning first,” Crichton insisted with a nod in Brittany’s direction.
Aster aimed and fired so quickly that Abby was startled again, having to bite back a cry, alert to the fact that the gun had been pointed at her up until that moment. Another hole appeared in Brittany, this time along the hairline of her hanging head. Bone and brain matter erupted out of the other side, splattering along the back of the chair and floor. Abby turned her head away.
“All right, Commander Crichton. Let’s talk.”
***
Abby found herself in yet another seat, but this time her hands were bound in front of her. She thought for sure that when Logan decided to talk with Crichton in a more comfortable room, Abby and the others would have been left behind with Aster, or brought back to the cafeteria. Instead, they were invited to come along; probably as a security measure, to make sure Crichton always knew who was really in charge of the Black Box now. It had been very surprising when a new pair of guards untied her arms from behind her back, and retied them in a way that allowed her to hold some ice chunks chipped out of the Black Box’s freezers and wrapped in rags. She wanted to refuse any help or act of kindness from these people, especially after what had just happened to Brittany, but she knew that if both of her eyes swelled badly, it would be a hindrance she couldn’t afford.
“There, this is better, isn’t it?” Logan commented, pulling over a chair to sit facing Crichton. Abby, Clive, and Seth were all kept to one side, separate from them.
“Thank you for the ice,” Crichton began politely as if his legs and waist weren’t bound to the chair he sat upon.
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