The Darwin Effect

by Mark Lukens

  “You’re a sick son of a bitch!” Cromartie screamed at the computer screen.

  Then he heard a noise from beyond the archway that led out to the hallway. Someone was moving around in the corridor. It sounded like somebody had just entered the kitchen, maybe raiding the food.

  A moment later he heard a scream from the kitchen.

  It was Sanders.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Sanders was asleep in her bed, facing the wall when she woke up suddenly.

  She was lying on her side and the knife was right beside her in the bed. She knew it probably wasn’t the smartest idea to sleep with the knife right next to her, but she wasn’t going to be caught empty-handed when Ward came for her.

  And she was sure that Ward would come for her. He knew that she was his biggest threat. He might have the others fooled, but not her. She was a cop and she used to arrest slime like Ward every day. She had an instinct for things like this, and she trusted her life with those instincts.

  She lay there for a moment in the semi-darkness. She had left the lamp on low over the desk as she usually did. She wanted to be able to see the room immediately when she woke up—see Ward right away.

  She realized that something must have woken her up. She was pretty sure she’d been sleeping.

  Was it Ward? Was he in her room right now? Had he slipped inside the room without her hearing him?

  She had tied a few pieces of silverware together with some twine and hung the contraption from the door handle to alert her in case someone tried to open her door when she was sleeping, and she didn’t remember hearing her homemade alarm clanging.

  Had she slept through the clinking of the silverware?

  She lay very still for a moment, still facing the wall, her ears straining as she listened. Her hand moved slowly underneath the sheet, her fingers curling slowly around the knife handle.

  Then she heard the crinkling of plastic from right behind her. It was the same sound she’d heard before.

  It was Butler—she was back in her room again, her body and head still wrapped in the plastic.

  Butler was breathing. Sanders heard the sound of the plastic sucking into Butler’s mouth and nostrils, crinkling there against her face for a moment before blowing back out with her exhale.

  Sanders could even feel the cold radiating from Butler now. Somehow Butler had come from the freezer and now she was standing right beside her bed.

  Sanders spun around in her bed with the knife in her hands. Butler stood there right beside her bed, exactly as she had imagined it. The tatters of frozen plastic were stuck to her skin, but now her arms and legs were free from the plastic. Strips of plastic and tape hung down from her hands and arms like the loose wrappings of a mummy. Her hands barely hung on at the ends of her wrists, the frozen gash where her wrists had been slashed was so wide now.

  “Oh God, no … it can’t be …”

  Butler breathed in and the plastic formed to her face, pasting to her flesh like a clear mask for a moment. And then she breathed out, puffing up the plastic with air, her exhaled breath fogging up the plastic for a moment until she inhaled again, sucking the plastic back to her face.

  “Why do you keep coming here?!” Sanders screeched and jumped at Butler to stab her.

  Sanders was cold … so cold suddenly. She was freezing …

  Then someone grabbed Sanders’ arm, stopping her from burying the knife blade into Butler’s face.

  But Sanders wanted to do it; she wanted to stab Butler in the face and end that crinkling sound, stop her from breathing. Stop her from visiting her bedside.

  Sanders opened her eyes and she saw Cromartie’s face right next to her. His eyes were wide with both fear and concern, his breath coming out in a mist in front of him. His fingers were wrapped around her wrist, digging hard into her flesh, holding her knife-hand still.

  “Cromartie,” she croaked. “What are you doing here?”

  He didn’t answer her.

  Sanders looked away from Cromartie and she saw Butler’s frozen body still completely wrapped in plastic and clear tape. Butler’s body was in a sitting position, slumped against a shelf of food and the wall. Thankfully Butler’s face was hidden behind an opaque whiteness of ice now, and she looked like a frozen lump of human-shaped plastic now.

  Sanders realized now that she was standing inside the walk-in freezer.

  With Cromartie.

  With Butler.

  With a knife in her hand.

  What was she doing here?

  She looked back at Cromartie. “What happened?”

  “You were screaming,” he told her and he loosened his fingers on her wrist, but he looked wary, like he was ready to defend himself in case she thought about attacking him.

  “I … I …” She looked back down at Butler’s frozen corpse, and then at the freezer all around them, then back at the open door. She could hear noises outside the door. The others were coming to see what the commotion was.

  “I think you had a nightmare,” Cromartie said in a gentle voice. “I think you may have been sleepwalking.”

  Ward was the first one in the doorway of the walk-in freezer, his eyes wide with shock. Rolle and Abraham were behind him a moment later.

  “What’s going on?” Ward asked.

  Sanders lowered her arm, the knife feeling suddenly heavy in her hand, and it also felt like a symbol of guilt.

  What had she been doing? She remembered Butler standing beside her bed and then … and then she was here with the knife in her hand, about to stab Butler in the face before Cromartie stopped her.

  “She had another bad dream,” Cromartie explained to Ward and the others. Then he spoke in a low, gentle voice to Sanders. “Come on, let’s get out of the cold.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  They were all in the dining area. Cromartie had broken their food rationing agreement and heated up some cups of the bland coffee for all of them.

  Sanders sat at the built-in table with a cup of hot coffee cradled in her hands, warming them up. She was shivering, but Cromartie thought her shaking might be more from the nightmare than from the cold air in the freezer. She couldn’t have been in the freezer too long, he guessed, or she probably already would’ve tried to stab Butler’s frozen body before he had gotten to her.

  Ward paced back and forth, full of his usual pent-up energy. “So, let me get this straight. Sanders was sleepwalking while having a nightmare, and then she tried to stab Butler’s body in the freezer.”

  “It was only a nightmare,” Cromartie said and then he looked at Sanders. “Right?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Want to tell us about the nightmare?” Rolle asked.

  Sanders looked at him.

  “Only if you want to,” Rolle added quickly. “Only if you’re ready to talk about it.”

  Sanders glanced at the others. Her hands were still trembling noticeably and she set the coffee cup down on the table in front of her, spilling a little of the mud-colored liquid over the rim of the cup. She clasped her hands together in her lap underneath the table and looked down at them for a moment.

  “I never had nightmares before,” Sanders finally said, her eyes still on her hands.

  Cromartie watched Sanders and he was stung by her sudden vulnerability. She had always been so tough since they had woken up on this ship, but now she was shaken not just by her nightmare but by the helpless act of sleepwalking—the realization that she hadn’t been in control of her own body for a while.

  She looked up at them, glancing from one to the next as she spoke. “It was the same nightmare I had before. Butler was in my room, wrapped up in the plastic and tape, just standing there beside my bed. I could hear the plastic crinkling as she breathed into it, as her body moved inside of it. In the first dream, I could smell her blood before I even turned around in bed to look at her. And this time … this time I could feel the cold coming off of her. It was so real.”

  “So I’m not the only one who�
��s been sleepwalking,” Ward said with a smile. “I wonder how many of us have been sleepwalking and doing things without remembering them.”

  Cromartie wanted to punch that smug smile off of Ward’s face. The anger he’d felt earlier at MAC was surfacing again and he wanted to lash out. But he needed to control himself.

  “Ward, please,” Rolle said. “I don’t think you’re helping with the situation here.”

  “No,” Ward snapped. “You guys wanted to lynch me because you saw me sleepwalking and standing in front of the airlock door.”

  Cromartie felt that twinge of anger again when he heard the words “airlock door.” A way out, MAC had told him on the computer screen. Well, no shit, he thought … the airlock was a way off the ship all right, a final way out of this ship. Was it a tasteless joke from a sick and twisted computer that had woken them up in the middle of suspended animation, or had MAC been speaking literally of the only way off this ship?

  “If I was even sleepwalking,” Ward continued.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Rolle asked him.

  “How do we know that Abraham really saw me sleepwalking and standing in front of the airlock? How do we know that he wasn’t dreaming the whole thing up? How do we know he wasn’t hallucinating?”

  “That’s bull,” Abraham spat out. “I know what I saw.”

  “Do you?” Ward challenged, looking right at Abraham for a moment.

  Abraham didn’t reply.

  Ward looked at everyone else. “How can any of us be certain of what we’ve seen on this ship? How can any of us know what’s real and what’s a hallucination? Hell, what if I’m still in suspended animation right now and dreaming this whole thing?”

  His words silenced them for a moment.

  “That’s impossible,” Abraham finally said. “If you’re dreaming this whole thing, then how come I can control what I’m saying right now?”

  “Maybe you’re the one who is dreaming this?” Ward said with that smug grin back on his face again like he was enjoying this, like he was a lawyer proving a critical point in his argument.

  “This isn’t a dream,” Cromartie said and looked to Rolle. “It can’t be, can it?”

  “A possible sharing of a subconscious dream,” Rolle said as if it were a possibility.

  But Cromartie refused to believe that.

  “MAC,” Ward called out.

  “Yes, Ward.”

  “Am I still asleep in suspended animation right now? Is this all a dream?”

  “No, Ward. You are completely awake.”

  Ward looked at the others and shrugged.

  “You’re supposed to be awake right now,” MAC continued in his eerily calm and chipper voice. “It’s in the program.”

  Ward wagged a finger at Cromartie and the others, his smug smile turning into a lunatic grin now. “That computer’s got more than a few wires loose, I’m telling you that.”

  “Then why do you keep talking to it?” Abraham grumbled.

  Ward ignored Abraham’s question.

  Rolle turned his attention back to Sanders who was unusually quiet through their exchange. “That’s all that happened in your dream?” he asked her. “You woke up in your dream and saw Butler standing beside your bed?”

  Sanders didn’t answer right away and the rest of them were quiet, waiting to hear what she had to say. She looked down at her hands again, and then she finally shook her head no. “There was more,” she whispered.

  Cromartie remembered Sanders telling him about her first nightmare after it had happened. Had she left a part of it out? Were there things she wasn’t telling him? Secrets she was keeping?

  Rolle sat down on the bench seat beside Sanders and leaned towards her a little, waiting patiently for her to continue.

  Even Ward stopped pacing and seemed curious to hear what Sanders had to say.

  “I was laying on my side in bed,” Sanders said. “I was facing the wall. But I could hear Butler. I could hear the plastic crinkling from behind me. I could hear her breathing.”

  Rolle nodded like he’d heard all that before. But he didn’t push Sanders; he let her take her time.

  “I rolled over and saw Butler in my room,” Sanders said. Her voice was low, almost child-like. “She was moving around inside the plastic, and her arms were free, pieces of the plastic and tape were hanging down from her arms. She was reaching out towards me. And her hands were just barely hanging there because the cuts … the cuts in her wrists were so deep …”

  “Did Butler say anything to you in the dream?” Rolle asked.

  Sanders looked at Rolle, locking eyes with him. There were tears in Sanders’ eyes now. “She said there was only one way out of here.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “What way?” Rolle asked in a gentle voice.

  Sanders didn’t answer. She just looked down at her hands clenched together in her lap again. She was wringing them together. She shook her head. “She didn’t say.”

  Rolle nodded. He laid a gentle hand on Sanders’ shoulder, leaving it there for only a moment. “It’s okay,” he whispered.

  Cromartie watched Sanders. He was sure she was going to break down now and start sobbing, but she held it together. She sucked in a huge breath and let out a slow, shuddering exhale. It seemed to him like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders now that she had told everyone about her nightmares. He felt now was the time for him to come clean, too.

  “After Sanders’ first nightmare,” Cromartie told them, “she asked me to go down to the storage area and make sure Butler was still there. She knew it was irrational, and so did I, but I knew it would make her feel better. So I did it.”

  The others watched him for a moment.

  “And when I went down to the storage rooms, Butler’s body was gone.” He looked right at Ward. “That’s the reason I was down there.”

  Ward just shrugged. “None of this means anything if we can’t trust what we’ve seen, if we can’t tell reality from fantasy. How can you guys be so sure one of us even killed Butler? Maybe she killed herself and one of us picked up the knife and put it somewhere else without remembering it.”

  Rolle watched Ward, and then he looked at Cromartie and nodded slightly like Ward had a point.

  “I still think we should all hold on to our knives for protection.” Abraham said. “I still think Butler was murdered and one of us did it. Whether that person remembers doing it or not doesn’t matter. The point is we need to protect ourselves.”

  “And any one of us could be the suspect,” Ward reminded them, his eyes right on Sanders. “I think I should get an apology.”

  Sanders stared right at Ward, the fire back in her eyes now.

  “I don’t think I’m the main suspect anymore,” Ward continued. “I wasn’t the one woken up in the freezer trying to stab Butler’s dead body.”

  “We’re all suspects now,” Abraham said.

  “Come on,” Cromartie said. “This isn’t helping.”

  Ward headed for the archway out to the corridor. “Well, if this meeting is adjourned, then I’m going back to my room.” He didn’t wait for anyone’s permission.

  • • •

  After everyone went back to their rooms, Cromartie asked Sanders to come with him to the bridge—neither of them felt like going back to sleep anyway.

  “I need to talk to you,” Cromartie whispered to her. “It’s about the way out of here.”

  She looked up at Cromartie from the bench seat with a mixture of confusion, fear, and hope in her eyes. She drank down the last of her coffee, and got up to follow Cromartie to the bridge.

  They sat down in front of the bank of computer screens on the one side of the bridge, both of them sitting beside each other in the swivel chairs—the same chairs they’d sat in before.

  Sanders seemed to be coming out of her state of shock quickly, returning to the tough cop she’d been before in another lifetime.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I had
a nightmare earlier, too,” Cromartie told Sanders in a low voice as he leaned in closer to her. He kept glancing at the archway to make sure no one was coming down the hall. From where they sat on the bridge, there was no way any of the others could get close enough to hear what they were saying without Cromartie seeing them first.

  This was the safest place to talk, Cromartie thought. Except for MAC—he was always listening.

  “I had a dream about my family,” Cromartie told Sanders. “I was home again. My wife and children were there. We were in the kitchen. It was a Sunday morning and we were making breakfast. Pancakes. I was reading the newspaper and my daughter was there with a plate of pancakes. She told me that it was time to eat.”

  Cromartie stopped talking as his throat constricted with emotion. He shook his head and felt the tears in his eyes. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  Sanders reached out and took Cromartie’s hand in hers. It was such a gentle gesture from such a tough and strong woman. He saw that her eyes were misting up now.

  “There was this siren outside,” Cromartie said after clearing his throat. “It was wailing. It sounded like an air raid siren or something. I don’t think there’s a siren or anything like that where we live, but it was in the dream.”

  Sanders nodded for him to continue, still holding his hand gently.

  “The kitchen turned dark suddenly. And my wife and kids, they were staring at the bay windows, at something that was coming from outside. There was this really strong wind out there. Then there was this bright light and I knew, like how you know in dreams, I knew it was the nuclear bomb blast coming for them. And then they were vaporized in a second, destroyed in the light.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sanders said. “It must’ve been horrible for you to see that in your dream.”

  Cromartie nodded and wiped away his tears. He shrugged. “Of course, I don’t know if they died in a bomb blast. I don’t know if they wasted away from radiation poisoning or some other kind of sickness. I don’t know what happened to them at all.”