Road to Grissom: Part three of the Aftermath series

by Duncan McArdle

  The dropped ceiling was a fairly standard business-like affair, with over a hundred of the small tiles spread evenly throughout the room’s entirety. Separating them was a fairly typical metal frame, itself suspended from the real ceiling above, that more than likely propped up a series of cables that might once have carried the electricity, phones and internet access throughout the stadium.

  For the vast majority of tiles, there was little of any interest to be found. They were perfectly placed, in good condition, and seemed as if they’d been in the same position completely untouched for as long as this room itself had been built. But there were a few exceptions, and as that alone was all Devon currently had to go on, the blonde man narrowed his gaze as if to focus his attention, and then began inspecting once more.

  Around six tiles in all appeared to be slightly raised, or at least curled up in one corner. This was a tell-tale sign that they’d previously been lifted out of place, and was the focal point for any suspicion both men had so far raised. But Devon knew better than to jump the gun on such an assumption. The reality was that they were probably out of place from some maintenance work once carried out, or perhaps from being knocked into when the furniture had been removed from the room – Devon was fairly certain this room must have served a purpose at some point, and not simply been left empty since its original creation – and so bearing that in mind, Devon quickly discounted the concern.

  “I think we’re good”, he eventually said, upon his inspection coming to a conclusion.

  “You sure?”, John asked, still more mouthing the words than speaking them so as to avoid being heard.

  “Not certain, but confident”, Devon replied, himself more willing to vocalise. “The doorframe’s clean, roof tiles look pretty standard, and there’s nothing in here for them to have hidden anything behind”, he explained.

  “What about people outside?”, John asked.

  “I can’t see anyone through the cracks”, Devon said, “But I wouldn’t talk too loud just in case”.

  Nodding in confirmation, John didn’t bother to ask where Devon’s expertise had come from. It was fairly apparent that he wasn’t just guessing his way through the process.

  “I’m gonna’ go ahead and assume you tracked our journey in here too?”, John asked, himself still mentally reciting the list of directions.

  “You bet”, Devon replied confidently with a smile, “One of the first things they taught me in captivity training”.

  “Well in an ideal world we’ll be walking out of here no problem”, John said, “But from the way they’ve treated us so far”, he continued, nodding down to Devon’s wound, “this doesn’t really seem like an ideal world”.

  “Agreed”, Devon replied, “What do you think they want from us?”.

  “Well, we’re still alive”, John pointed out, “So my guess is information”.

  “Information on what?”, Devon asked.

  “Us, our supplies, our camp”, John began to list, “Guns, food, hell pretty much anything of use”.

  “How do they know we have any of that though”, Devon pointed out, “They just picked us up off the street. We’re miles from home, no obvious signs of where we’ve come from, we’re nomads”.

  “Then let’s keep it that way”, John said, emphasising the words so as to make Devon understand. If they were going to be interrogated for information, the last thing they wanted to do was give away the fact they belonged to a camp filled with the kind of people and supplies some would kill for.

  Suddenly, both men’s necks snapped towards the door as a slight clanging noise sounded out throughout the room. It didn’t particularly sound like somebody walking, nor did it sound at all threatening, it was quite simply, a noise. But when you find yourself in a situation where you know quite literally nothing about what’s going on or where you are, even the slightest of noises could give away a world of clues.

  “Sounded like one of the pipes”, Devon pointed out, now looking up at the ceiling tiles that he knew would conceal all the utilities of the building.

  “Running water”, John pondered out loud, “If they’ve got running water, then they’ve got it damn good here”.

  “Running water?”, Devon repeated, “Running from where? Everything around here’s contaminated, there’s no way you’d get me drinking from the system now”.

  “Maybe there’s a sealed reservoir close by, hell maybe they’ve just got a big tank and it hasn’t run out yet”, John suggested, before grimacing slightly at the much more sinister thought that had just entered his mind, “Or maybe they ain’t too worried about the quality of the water they’re gonna’ be using on their captives”, he said.

  Devon went silent. Like John, and most other soldiers who’d done the kind of work they’d both done, they’d each been put through a rigorous form of torture training. Putting them in real life torture environments, they’d been subjected to some fairly gruesome things – whilst of course under medical supervision – and had been coached on the best ways to respond. All in all, they represented a duo that were perfectly capable of handling themselves in a torture-esque situation, but that didn’t make either of them any more excited about the prospect.

  Before any further thoughts about such unfortunate things could surface however, another series of noises sounded out, and this time they were much more distinctive. The sound of footsteps rose in volume, getting louder with each step as the owner of the feet got closer and closer to the room John and Devon resided in. Both men looked at each other, before returning their gaze to the door, just as the footsteps reached their loudest point, and then stopped.

  Muffled discussion followed. Devon – the closer of the two – made a valiant attempt to decipher the conversation, to glean some tiny part of the discussion that might somehow be useful, but it was no use. For all he could tell, it was just as likely they were talking about the stadium’s easiest escape route as it was that they were discussing how to best frost a cupcake.

  Before long, the speech halted, and then the sound of keys rattling filtered in through the small gaps around the door. Eventually, a single key was evidently identified, before being thrust into the lock and turned, until the clicking of the lock gave the unambiguous notification that someone was about to make their way inside. Devon shifted to his side slightly, hoping to distance himself from whoever was about to enter.

  But the door didn’t open right away. Instead, muffled discussion resumed once more. Sensing that they might have a few moments, Devon repeated his earlier manoeuvre of shuffling his way up the wall, until he was back on his feet. He knew it wouldn’t be wise for someone to walk in and find him stood up, walking around without supervision, but he also knew that they stood a much better chance of survival if they stuck together.

  With that in mind, Devon quickly walked across the centre of the room towards the back wall, where John remained seated on the floor. Time was of course of the essence, but Devon knew better than to sprint. The aim of the game right now was to give away as little as possible, and that included notifying whoever was outside that those inside had the power to get up and move around. Devon needed to remain silent.

  Arriving at the far wall, Devon span around and placed his back against the cold painted surface, before descending slowly to the ground. Taking care not to do so at a pace that would produce too much of a sound, he took several seconds to reach the even colder concrete floor below, and upon doing so, was almost immediately followed by the sound of someone grasping something right outside, and the sight of the handle a few metres in front suddenly descending downwards.

  John and Devon watched as the door swung slowly open, and a somewhat haggard but nevertheless intimidating looking figure stepped in. Six foot in height, with a red checked shirt tucked into his jeans and grey hair that at least some of which reached down to his shoulders, the man briefly looked to check where his two captives were located – so as to avoid being ambushed – and then slowly walked into the room, follow
ed closely behind by another man, who closed the door behind the pair.

  “Name’s Rust”, the first man said with a sickening lick of the lips and an uneasy air of confidence.

  Chapter 29: The grand tour

  The individual known only as Rust was a curious character. He had the fitness and physical capabilities of a young man, yet the look of one about to keel over in their old age. Despite only being sixty, Rust’s hair had long since turned grey, and at this point was long enough to drop below his shoulders. Tied up in a ponytail, several loose clumps of flaky grey spilled out from the front, framing his face and encompassing his overall look of a skinny wise man more than capable of handling himself.

  John wasn’t sure if it was due to some strange personality trait, or whether it was all a part of some even stranger intimidation technique, but ever since the man had introduced himself, all he’d done was pace. He’d so far done at least seven or eight full circles in the far corner of the room, adamant he wouldn’t get too close to his captives, and unwilling to say another word until he was done doing whatever it was that he was doing.

  The other man meanwhile had opted to stand in the other corner nearest the door, but this time was choosing to do so in a completely still manner. Making much less of an entrance, the huge, dark skinned, almost perfectly round individual had obviously been brought in as some kind of muscle, but from his sheer size, John was fairly certain he’d be easy to simply push over. That said, the pistol he had gripped in his hand made that a fairly risky approach.

  In any case, John found Rust to be a far bigger concern. Despite the older man’s skinny shape that showed off little to no muscle, his eyes alone told a very different story. The struggles and hardships of a person were often scribbled across their face, and Rust was no exception. Here stood a man who’d been everywhere and done everything, the kind of person you really didn’t want to find yourself up against, and wanted even less to give a reason to dislike you.

  “So now, I’m… I’m real curious”, Rust finally began, cutting through the silence of the room that had descended since his decision to stop walking around in circles, “Just how exactly are you two still alive right now?”.

  John remained silent, and Devon – who quickly looked over to John to confirm the approach they were opting to take – chose to do the same.

  “C’mon now fellas, this is all going to be a lot smoother if y’all can be just a little bit accommodating”, Rust reasoned, “I feel we’ve done that much ourselves when we didn’t just gun you both down the second we saw you”, he added, before looking over to Devon, who was now scowling back at the man, “Well, gunned down to death anyway”.

  John remained silent. Even if he hadn’t been trained for such situations in the military, he was confident he would have grasped the concept from the countless TV shows and films that had aired over the years. Anything a person said in a situation like this was useful to the interrogator, not to themselves. The best way to make sure you gave nothing away when being asked a question, was to say, and do, exactly nothing at all.

  “See we know you’re both a part of a group”, Rust continued, undeterred by the wall of silence he’d more than expected to encounter, “Else you’d probably both be dead by now”, he explained. “More so, I know from the pretty small amount of supplies that you had on you that you folks were obviously just on a little trip out here from somewhere, else you’d have a whole lot more to carry”, he continued, looking up briefly in case of a response, before heading back to his spiel. “Now some of my colleagues argue that you two might just be some real shitty scavengers”, he said, smiling slightly at what he clearly felt was an unlikely situation, “But I know that ain’t the case, else you two would have been dead a real long time ago, right?”.

  At this point, it was becoming clear that Rust was good at what he did. He hadn’t shown any disappointment at a lack of verbal response – one of the first mistakes a poor interrogator ever makes – and was oozing with enough confidence to make it seem as if this was his day job. As ridiculous as such a fact would be, it wouldn’t have surprised John to find out that such a well-established base with what he was certain were malicious intentions really did have an interrogator on retainer.

  John knew that eventually he’d need to end the silent treatment. Given their current situation, refusing to speak only got them so far. Eventually they’d need to find out information for themselves in order to orchestrate some kind of escape, and the best kind of information for that purpose was almost certainly going to come from someone’s mouth. Of course, he could instead bank on the possibility they would be freed by their own people, but having little to no information on the innards of the stadium or the group occupying it, he was far from knowing who the victor of such a battle might be.

  “How about we take a tour”, Rust suggested suddenly.

  John flinched. It was if the grey-haired man had heard his very thoughts.

  “C’mon boys, on your feet. Let’s show you what this place has to offer”, he continued, walking over to Devon and pulling him up onto his boots, before pacing over to John and doing the same. Neither man was going to pass up the offer of getting free intel on their new home.

  Happily John paced over to the door, led by Rust and passing by the huge mass who had remained stood in the corner, sharing a brief and fairly awkward meeting of eyes with the man as he did. Devon followed close behind, both men with their hands tied behind their backs, back out into the hallway of doors on either side that John assumed were once some kind of offices and storage rooms.

  As well as repeating the original list of directions he’d memorised in order to refresh his memory – and check his work – John also made every effort to take in even the smallest of details that were now visible to his unhooded vision. From the obscure cracks in the paintwork to the continued presence of a dropped ceiling, and the guard stationed at the end of the hallway, no detail was useless, and John knew it would be the smallest ones that added up to have the biggest impact.

  Following close behind Rust’s long pony-tail, John and Devon were led along a series of different hallways, performing the same twists and turns and passing through the same doors they were certain they’d navigated earlier, until they eventually arrived at a large metal door. Withdrawing a key and placing it into the lock, Rust clicked the mechanism to the side and then slowly pushed the door ajar as he walked through, beckoning for John to follow.

  What lay beyond the doorway was a huge, open space that represented one of the many foyers of the stadium. Situated on the ground floor, its massive structural pillars curved high into the rooftop along huge panes of glass that led all the way back down to the ground, giving a once incredible view of the outside area, now more commonly seen as a vast greyness, if not for the fact it was obscured by the familiar sight of dust and dirt.

  Clearly this had once been one of the most populated areas of the stadium, no doubt more used to housing thousands of cheering fans, each of them waiting in long lines to get drinks and snacks before heading back into the main seating area. Standing there, John could almost hear the roar of the crowd as they celebrated some incredible achievement in an event they’d spent months of their lives looking forward to. He could feel the anticipation of thousands of eyes watching a free-throw, and the pain a losing side experienced at the end of a penalty shootout. This place had once been the sort of place where dreams were realised, where incredible accomplishments were achieved and huge losses were felt. But now, John could only hear the echo of his own shoes, as those thousands of spectators were reduced to a significantly smaller assembly of people.

  That said, the group now visible to John was by no means small. Adding to the four-person gang he was being escorted along as part of, John was surprised to see a number of other figures nearby. Stationed at regular intervals along the open area, at least twenty or so guards stood weapon in hand, their attention temporarily drawn over to the arriving group before returning to their de
signated areas. Each of them were well armed, well armoured, and seemingly well trained, to the point where John couldn’t help but wonder if they’d been handpicked and carefully placed as a fairly strategic show of force.

  As well as the guard of honour, John could also see a sizable grouping of mostly males at the very far end of the area. Still armed but dressed in a much less consistent manner, at least forty or so bodies were distinctly visible even from this great distance, increasing the number of guards now known to be present at the stadium significantly. Given that this was just the first few minutes of their tour, John was beginning to wonder if they’d woefully underestimated the competition.

  “This is the south wing”, Rust began, “As the name would suggest, there are three more just like it, giving us a whole lot of room to play with”, he bragged, in a kind of strangely unenthusiastic tone that gave the impression he was far from bragging despite the clearly impressive feat he had just informed them of. “Have to say though that this one right here is my favourite, no glare from the sun morning or night, and probably the cleanest of the four too”, he explained. “Yep”, he said, looking round in a circle and tilting his head back to allow him a panoramic view both side to side and up and down, “She’s a real beaut’”.

  At this point, John wasn’t sure if Rust was trying intentionally to come off as a strange, slightly unhinged individual, or if that was genuinely his persona. Whatever the case, John was making sure to spend more time focusing on the area he was now able to view up close, and was paying special attention to the various doors he’d so far seen. If they were really going to get out of here, chances were good that it was going to be through one of those doors.

  “Let’s keep walking”, Rust announced, interrupting John’s train of thought and leading them towards the large group at the other end of the wing. “We’ve been in this place a long, long time. We’ve dealt with people, dealt with the dead, and dealt with just about everything else that got thrown at us, but we’re still here”, he said, “So believe me when I tell you that this place, she’s got a real special place in the heart of everyone here”, he continued, “Even the ones who don’t like sports”.