“Open it,” the woman said from the other side.
“It’s locked from this side. You can’t open it from there?”
“Do you think I’d still be down here if I could?”
“Well, I can’t kick it down. It’s too strong.” He turned for the stairs. “Maybe I can find a crowbar or something. I’ll be right back.”
“No, don’t leave me!”
“I’ll just be a minute.” As he headed up, he wondered how long she’d been there. A couple hours? A day? Two?
Reentering the laundry room, he knew there was an easier solution than hunting for something he could break down the door with. There had to be keys somewhere. The problem was, the most likely place they’d be was with the dead man.
Overcoming his reluctance, he went back into the bedroom. The search was mercifully quick. In the top drawer of the dresser, he found a set of keys sitting next to a wallet, and was back at the basement door in no time.
Half a dozen keys were on the ring. The one that worked was the fourth he tried. As he pushed the door open, the woman rushed past him, knocking him to the side.
“Come on,” she said as she started up the stairs. “We need to leave before he comes back.”
“Before who comes back?”
She paused on the steps, hesitating, “Um, my, uh…Mr. C-C-Carlson.”
She started heading up again.
“Wait,” Ben said. “What does he look like?”
She looked back at him. “What?”
“What does this Mr. Carlson look like?”
“Doesn’t matter. We need to get out of here.”
“Tell me.”
She shot a look toward the top of the stairs as if expecting someone—Mr. Carlson, no doubt—to be standing there. When she looked back at Ben, she gave him a quick description that perfectly matched the dead man in the bed.
“How long have you been down here?” Ben asked.
“Please, can we talk about this someplace else? I can’t stay here any longer.”
Not waiting for him to respond, she raced up the rest of the way and disappeared into the first floor of the house.
Before heading after her, Ben glanced into the room where she’d been. It was not what he expected. Modern, a big TV, a large bed, a sitting area, even a refrigerator. The kind of apartment a college kid could only dream about.
Resisting the urge to go in for a better look, he ran up the stairs. It wasn’t hard to tell which way the girl had gone. The front door to the house was wide open. When he stepped outside, he spotted her in the middle of the street, not far from his Jeep, staring at the house.
“Is this your car?” she asked as he neared her.
“Yeah.”
“I need you to get me out of here, okay? Before he comes back.”
“What’s your name?”
“Me? Uh, Iris. Are you going to take me or what?”
“I’m Ben,” he said. “Iris, Mr. Carlson isn’t coming back.”
“How the hell would you know that?”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“I don’t know. A few days ago.”
“Is that how long you’ve been in the basement?”
“Not even close.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know,” she said, defensively. “Why is this important?”
“Has it been more than two weeks?”
“Yeah. I think we can safely say that.”
“Iris, Mr. Carlson’s dead.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, I’m serious. He died of the flu.” Ben gestured toward the other houses. “Everybody did.”
Her lips parted in a wary grin as she backpedaled. “Right. Everyone’s dead.”
“They are,” he said, matching her step for step. “Just listen. Do you hear any cars? Any voices? Today’s New Year’s Day. It’s beautiful outside. Don’t you think there should be people in their yards? At least some kids playing?”
She pointed at him. “Stay right where you are.”
“I’m not trying to scare you, but it’s the truth. Look around. We’re the only ones here.”
“I swear, don’t you take another step.”
He stopped. “I don’t know what happened to you in there, but Mr. Carlson is dead, and you don’t need to worry about him anymore. You’re all right. He can’t do anything to you now.” He nodded back at the house. “He’s lying in his bedroom. Been dead for days.”
“Oh, I get it. This is some kind of mind game, right? You’re one of…Mr. Carlson’s buddies he always talks about, aren’t you? You’re trying to screw with me.”
“The only thing I’m trying—”
Before he could finish, she turned and sprinted down the block.
“Help!” she yelled. “Help me!”
Ben stood there for a moment, stunned. He had obviously handled that poorly. The question was, what should he do now? Let her run off and figure things out for herself?
Like you could do that.
With a groan, he took off after her.
15
MUMBAI, INDIA
11:54 PM IST
SANJAY COULD SEE Darshana, Arjun, and Kusum sitting together in the middle of one of the fenced-in confinement zones within the walls of the survival station. Though they were too far away for him to see any cuts or bruises, they didn’t appear to have any obvious injuries.
After Prabal had shown up that morning, Sanjay had spent as much time as he could searching for the others before the sun rose too high, and then worked his way back to the building where they were supposed to rendezvous. For hours he hoped Kusum and the others had been able to find someplace to hide, and were simply waiting for night to make their escape, but then, not long after three p.m., he spotted Arjun being transported in the back of a UN-labeled truck.
Sanjay had hurriedly worked his way back to the building he had used earlier to spy on Pishon Chem. From there, he watched as Arjun was escorted into one of the holding areas, where he was greeted by an already captured Darshana. The only good news was that Kusum appeared to still be free.
Knowing he had to risk being seen, he moved back into the city to search for her, ducking into whatever hiding spot he could find every time he heard soldiers nearby. Right before six p.m., several cars raced past on an adjoining street and screeched to a halt a few blocks away. Sanjay moved down an alley until he reached a building close to the spot where the cars had stopped. Using the stairwell just inside, he made his way to the roof, and positioned himself so he could look down on the street.
No!
Kusum was backed against a parked car, facing four UN-clad soldiers.
Her voice drifted up to Sanjay. “I did nothing wrong. You should not treat me like this. I am already heading to your survival station.”
“We are merely offering you a ride,” one of the soldiers said.
“From the way you are acting, I do not think I want your ride.”
“It is only a precaution. I must insist.”
“And I am telling you no.”
Sanjay looked from one soldier to the next, wishing he could do something. But even if he had a rifle and knew how to shoot it, he wouldn’t be able to get all of them before they did something to Kusum.
“You can either walk to the car, or one of my men will carry you,” the soldier said.
The back and forth went on for a few more minutes, but ended with the inevitable—Sanjay watching as his wife was driven away.
The rest of the evening he’d spent watching the compound. For the longest time, there was no sign of Kusum. Finally, thirty minutes earlier, she’d been led out of the main building, into the same fenced area where Arjun and Darshana were.
Sanjay was convinced whatever the fake UN personnel had planned for them wouldn’t be good, and knew he had to get them out. In fact, if possible, he had to get all the prisoners from both holding areas out, too.
In his favor, he’d spent a lot of time at the
compound when he’d worked for Pishon Chem, had even lived at the on-site dormitory, so he was very familiar with the layout. There were three official entrances in all: the front and back gates, and a door along the perimeter wall across from the administration building.
Unofficially, one could always try going over the wall, but the broken glass cemented across the top would make that very difficult. There was, however, another way, also unofficial—a way that had the additional benefit of being located in a remote, seldom used part of the compound. It was an area where previous tenants had dumped things like wooden crates, old machinery casings, rusty empty barrels, and worn tires. Sanjay had no idea how long the junk had been there. He just knew the Pishon Chem people had left it untouched. Behind the piles of rubbish, a dip in the ground near the base of the wall had eroded from years of monsoons until the bottom of the wall had been exposed, and a channel to the outside created. Without much work, Sanjay figured he could widen it enough to get through.
How he would get everyone out the same hole in a timely manner, he’d figure out later.
Right now, he needed to concentrate on getting in.
__________
KNOWING HER PARENTS would forbid her if she told them what she intended to do, Jabala sneaked away from the school, pushing one of the motorcycles they had obtained, until she felt she was far enough away that she could start the motor without anyone hearing it.
She took with her only four items: a large bottle of water, a flashlight, the satellite phone with its charger, and a backpack to carry them all in. After talking to Leon from America, she knew, despite his warning, she had to go to Mumbai. It seemed he had valuable information about the survival stations that Sanjay and Kusum needed to know now. Waiting for them to return might be too late. Anything that would lessen the danger her sister and brother-in-law were facing was worth the risk of the journey.
She didn’t let the fact that she didn’t know exactly where they were deter her. She was aware of what part of town they would be in, and was confident she could find them.
So she rode into the night, only her bike’s headlamp lighting the road in front of her. Everything else was blanketed in an unnerving darkness. To keep her mind off what might be out there, she turned the trip into a game, seeing how long she could stay on the centerline without drifting to the side.
By the time she reached the outskirts of Mumbai, her record was fourteen minutes.
__________
PULLING THE DIRT out of the way wasn’t the issue. No, the issue was the large rock sticking out of the ground, limiting the space to squeeze through. Sanjay thought he could move around it, and knew that both Kusum and Darshana would have no problems, but Arjun would never be able to slip through. Chances were, many of the other prisoners would get stuck, too.
He had no choice but to dig it out, wasting twenty minutes he could have been using to free everyone. When it was finally out of the way, he slipped through the hole and into the compound. Moving quietly, he headed around the piles of debris and between two storage buildings. On the other side was the parking area Pishon Chem had used to keep excess vehicles—a couple dozen Jeeps, nearly as many light trucks, and a handful of sedans. At the time, Sanjay had barely given them a second thought. Now he knew they had always been intended for use after the flu outbreak.
Unlike before, the lot was nearly empty. All the Jeeps were gone, as were most of the trucks. The only vehicles left were three pickups and five sedans.
Leapfrogging his way through the lot, he moved from vehicle to vehicle until he neared the main building. This would be the difficult part. He had to run along the side of the building, over to a storage area, and then around an annex before he finally reached the back of the holding areas.
It took him two minutes to reach the annex building and drop to the ground at the corner. Peeking around the edge, he could now see the holding areas. The one to the left was where Kusum, Darshana, and Arjun were located. It was a bit farther away than the other one, and he would have to travel across an open area to get there, but there was no moon tonight and little other illumination bleeding into the area. If he was careful, he should be okay.
Forcing himself to move at half speed, he crawled across the open ground until he reached the first of the double fences. He studied the enclosure. No one was outside, which meant they all had to be inside the only building.
He checked the guard posts he could see from his position. No one seemed to be paying the holding areas any attention. From his shoulder bag, he removed the heavy-duty wire cutters he’d found in a shop several streets away. With one hand gripping the handle, and the other covering the snips to muffle the sound, he began to cut. He went up and over two meters in both directions, creating a flap. After he passed through, he put the flap back in place so it wouldn’t be noticeable. He made a similar opening on the inner fence, pulled it out of the way, and entered the holding area.
Please do not let that have been the easy part, he thought.
Hugging the building, he circled around to the door and went inside. From his observations, he’d determined no guards were inside the holding areas, so, as he’d hoped, he didn’t find any inside the barracks, either. What he did find was a room filled with twenty bunks, three beds high, the seventeen current residents scattered among them.
A few moved at the sound of the door opening and closing, but most remained as they were, some snoring, some breathing deeply, every last one asleep.
He found Kusum, Darshana, and Arjun at the far end, the women on the same lower level of side-by-side bunks, with Arjun sleeping on the mattress above Darshana.
Seeing his wife, Sanjay had never felt so relieved in his life. Though he had not admitted it to himself, he had known there was a chance he’d never be this close to her again.
He leaned over and gently touched her shoulder. “Kusum,” he whispered. “Wake up.”
She stirred but remained asleep.
“Kusum. It’s me. Wake up.”
She blinked and looked at him, half asleep, then her eyes widened.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Why did you let them catch you?”
He hugged her and whispered, “No one caught me.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“I came for you.” He pulled the wire cutters out of his bag and showed them to her.
“You broke in?”
He nodded.
The change in her expression was quick and dramatic. First she was stunned and confused, and then she was angry.
“Are you crazy? You could have been killed.”
“How could I let you stay here? If I was the one trapped, you would come for me.”
“I would not.”
“You would,” he said. He didn’t have to see it in her eyes to know he was right, but it was there anyway. “Now get up so I can get you out of here.”
“Not without the others.”
“Of course not.”
“I don’t mean just Darshana and Arjun,” she said, correctly sensing that was his intention. “We need to get everyone out of here.”
“And we will, but I need to show the three of you the way out first so you can help me. All right?”
This time she was the one who pulled him into a hug.
__________
IT DIDN’T TAKE long for Jabala to realize the empty darkness of the country was preferable to the partially lit silence of the city. The reality of what she was seeing kept fighting with her memories of how things used to be. Even at this late hour, Mumbai had always been active, always full of people.
Not tonight. Not ever again.
The closer she got to the center of the city, the more the noise created by her motorcycle concerned her. But the thought of getting off and walking terrified her more, so she settled for lowering her speed as much as she dared so that the drone of the engine would be kept to a minimum.
Ten minutes later, she was glad she did. The reduced sound allowed her to hear a car he
ading in her direction. She killed her engine and moved tight against a taxi parked at the curb, just as the lights of the car came into view.
She was trapped, no way to get around the parked cars and hide without drawing attention. The best she could do was sink down to the street, and act like she was one of the corpses that littered the city. Dropping quickly, she turned her head so that she was facing the parked car, and froze.
The car on the road rushed past her without even the slightest hint of slowing. As soon as the sound of its engine faded, Jabala stood back up, and started to move the motorcycle away from the car, but stopped. She’d been lucky that time, but she might not be so lucky if it happened again.
Like it or not, it was time to walk.
__________
SANJAY AND KUSUM decided the best method for getting everyone out was for the two of them to escort the remaining detainees in small groups to the hole in the wall, where Arjun would help them through from the compound side to Darshana waiting on the city side.
The actual guiding of people to the hole went smoothly. Convincing them they needed to leave was the problem. Most still clung to the belief they were in the hands of the UN, and would soon be given the vaccine. But even the most die-hard of those was troubled by the way they’d been treated since they’d arrived, so while some did put up a fight, in the end they all agreed to go.
When the last person from the first holding area was safely on the other side of the wall, Sanjay turned toward the interior of the compound.
“Where are you going?” Kusum said, grabbing his arm.
“There are still more people back there,” he replied, pulling the wire cutters out of his bag. Where did she think he was going?
“No,” she said, pulling him toward the wall.
“What do you mean, no? We cannot leave them here. You said so yourself.”
“Sanjay, the ones in the other area are all showing signs of the flu. Darshana and Arjun saw several of them brought in earlier.”
So that was the difference, he thought. She was right. They couldn’t risk escorting them out. While he, Kusum, Darshana, and Arjun had been vaccinated, the people they’d rescued had not. Any exposure to the disease was likely to kill them all.
Eden Rising Page 14
