The Long Dark

by Billy Farmer

  “Go get the bastard from the conference room. Make sure you lock the stairwell doors on your way back up. They’ll be coming sooner than later,” I said.

  Sam checked the pistol for sufficient ammunition and headed out the door. Titouan slung the rifle over his shoulder and was on Sam’s heels.

  “Titouan,” I said, “he needs to be alive. No stupid shit.”

  He spat another mouthful of blood but nodded his head in agreement.

  After she was cleaned up and bandaged, I secured her to the chair with the duct tape. Only then did I check her pockets for weapons or other useful things. I suppose I should’ve done that before taping her up like a mummy, but frisking was new to me. She spat a bloody glob on me as I removed a small vile of white powder from a small pocket on the front of her coat. The poison, I thought.

  I wiped the spit off my face without bothering to say a word. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

  “I found this hidden in the baby blankets,” Avery said.

  Tish asked to see it, but she was interrupted by Kelley’s loosing of expletives towards Avery. I told Kelley I would tape her damn mouth up if she didn’t shut up. She slammed her head into the headrest of the chair, cursed, and settled into a hard stare at me.

  Avery rebuffed Tish in favor of giving what he found to me. It looked like a small tube of toothpaste. You wouldn’t have wanted to brush your teeth with it, though. Whatever the stuff in the tube was a little of it went a long way, and damn did it smell terrible. I then realized the stuff on Kelley’s coat smelled exactly like the stuff in the tube – exactly like the Grays.

  “They’re the same, aren’t they, William?” Avery asked.

  Before I could answer, the conference room door opened. Sam and Titouan dragged a man inside. He looked to be about as bloody and battered as I was. I remembered the bruising on Miley’s hands. I wondered what answers he got that he didn’t bother telling me. I would get my own answers. I hoped I wouldn’t have to resort to violence like Miley had.

  I pulled a chair over to where the man was roughly made to sit. Like I had with Kelley, I gave him a healthy wrapping of duct tape. Enough to make him uncomfortable and hold him firmly in place. I spun him around in a direction where I could talk to both he and Kelley at the same time.

  As the man became more in tune with his surroundings, he finally chanced a look over at Kelley, who had been sitting next to him the entire time. He seemed to have prepared himself for the worst. He was putting on his best nothing-gets-to-me attitude, but that carefully crafted persona fell apart, even if for just an instant, when his eyes locked on to Kelley’s. She croaked something that resembled his name, and then fell completely silent.

  The whole exchange lasted only a few seconds, but it was just enough that I knew the two were more than just colleagues in some evil organization. They shared something much deeper than that. Even though that gave me an advantage in our negotiation or interrogation or whatever the hell it was, I soon found out neither of them were much for telling me the things I needed to know. Not without the proper motivation anyway.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the man.

  “Bob,” he said, surprisingly affable for someone who had been beaten to a pulp. From the bloody bandage on his thigh, it was pretty clear he had also been shot.

  “Well, Bob, we need some answers, and you’re going to give them to us.”

  “I don’t know anything, but I wouldn’t tell you if I did,” he said, smiling like he was posing for a picture.

  "That could lead to some bad things for you and Kelley here, but I would prefer not to do that.”

  “You’ll do what you need to do, of course,” he said, with a grimace, as he moved his injured leg.

  Kelley seemed pleased by this. “We aren’t going to talk, you monster.”

  Tish, by this point, was standing uncomfortably close to Kelley and Bob and pacing back and forth. Her face was painted in a scowl, and her hands shook as she walked. I looked at Sam. He just shook his head and gave a worried shrug.

  “There’s a comfortable couch in Miley’s office if you need to rest,” I told her.

  “I’m fine,” she replied. She wasn’t.

  I turned most of my attention back to the interrogation. “So, Bob, what are you doing in Barrow?”

  "I'm a cab driver. You wouldn't believe the money you can make up here. I've been sending money home to my folks back in Boston. In ten years, I’ll have made more than most people make in two times that,” he said. It was obvious to me he had practiced his spiel numerous times. I wasn’t buying it, at all. I’d seen Avery show more enthusiasm talking about electromagnetism.

  “Boston, huh? You don’t have much of a Boston accent, “I said.

  Bob cocked his head and grinned. “Been gone for a while.”

  Titouan’s face was blood red. Sam didn’t seem overly enthused, and Tish was wearing a groove in the floor. I was losing control of the entire situation. I needed to get them to talk, or I was going to have a revolt.

  “You know what, William, fuck him. How long are we going to sit here and wait for them to talk? They aren’t going to,” Titouan said, favoring his jaw.

  “You’re playing exactly into how they expect you to react--”

  Before I could stop him, Titouan flung a heavy stapler at Bob. It hit him on the left side of the face, causing a large laceration below the left cheekbone and extending to his earlobe. At least the fucker’s smile was gone. It was replaced with a loathing I’d never seen up until that point in my life. If he’d had the chance, he would’ve killed Titouan with his own bare hands.

  “Dammit. We’re not doing that, Titouan,” I said. “Get your shit straight or you’re going to have to leave the room.”

  I saw Sam shaking his head out of the corner of my eye. “Titouan’s right, son. Look at ‘at sonofabitch. He’d kill us in a second if he thanks he can. Ya know what? Fuck ‘em, William. ‘Ey want ta play like ‘is, we might hafta play ’at way, too.”

  Never looking away from the phone, Avery asked, “Why do we need them to talk, at all?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “We have this.” Avery picked up Kelley’s phone and held it aloft for everyone to see.

  Bob shot Kelley a wicked glare. Another tell.

  “If I can crack this phone, I should be able to glean a considerable amount of information about who these people are and what they have done. The hard part will be learning the necessary Korean, but with enough time, I believe it can be done,” Avery said.

  “So North damn Korea, then?” Sam asked.

  Avery thought for a moment before answering. “That is a decent supposition considering our shared history.”

  Silence filled the room. I wanted what Avery said to percolate with Bob and Kelley a little while before continuing with the quasi-interrogation. While I was pretty sure Avery would be able to crack the phone, I couldn’t be certain of that. Bob and Kelley didn’t need to know that, though. I wanted to them to think it was a forgone conclusion that he could.

  The dead air was too much for Bob. I could see he was close to breaking, so I kept waiting. After maybe five minutes of silence, his guard was lifted, if only briefly. Not what I was hoping for, but it showed he would break under the right circumstances.

  “Now they’ll know...” He stopped himself, and after regaining a modicum of control, he continued with the lines we would become accustomed to from the Order. “You were supposed to have killed the phone. You brought dishonor to you, your family, the Order, and most significantly, our great leader.”

  Avery uttered something under his breath, maybe a prayer, and after a couple seconds, he said, “I got it to boot. The phone’s software is based on the Linux Kernel. I can work with that in my sleep. If I can get into the phone, and assuming I can learn even cursory Korean, there should be a great deal of intel on this phone.”

  “Looks like I don’t need you guys. I can find out what’s on that phone.”

/>   Kelley began to cry. She turned to Bob and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Think of the cause, dammit,” Bob said.

  “When I learned you had been captured, I knew I had to do something.” Kelley, realizing she was saying too much, broke into Korean for the rest of what she said.

  “You know it doesn’t work that way. We’re both dead now.” He then said something quickly in Korean.

  Kelley shook off whatever Bob had said, and then turned towards me. “If he tries to access certain things on that phone without the access code, it will self-wipe. It will not give you a warning, either.”

  “Okay. Why would you--”

  Tish began yelling, “William, you can’t listen to her. If she gives you a code, it won’t be what you think it’ll be. Do not listen to her.”

  “Don’t do anything else to that phone. Put it down right now,” I said.

  He put it down on the table as if it were a hot potato.

  “Why would you tell them that?”

  “She said it because she wants to live, Bob.”

  “None of us will have any choice in the matter when they storm this place and kill us all. In the grand scheme of things, Kelley and I are disposable, especially so now,” Bob said, tears and blood streaming down his face.

  “We’re not disposable, and your friends aren’t here yet. How about you talk, and we let you go before they get here. You let us worry about ourselves.”

  “What happens when they run back to their people and tell them we’re here with this damn phone, William? They can’t live,” Titouan said.

  Bob broke into a string of angry Korean aimed at Titouan.

  “You and Tish are losing your shit. I need you guys to calm the fuck down.”

  Sam joined in the chorus. “I swear to God, son, if you speak in ‘at shit one more time, I’m goin ta walk over ‘ere and cut yer little piener off, ya sonofabitch. William is a might bit nicer ‘an I am… too damn nice.”

  Bob laughed before looking at me. “You’re losing your friends. They’ll turn on you before you get anything out of us.”

  “My friends are like family. We might disagree about things, but they won’t kill me out of some honor bullshit because of it. Tell us what you know.”

  “I don’t know--” Bob said.

  “What can you offer us?” Kelley interrupted, choosing to take the opposite tact of Bob.

  “You can’t, Kelley--”

  I told Bob I’d tape his damn mouth shut if he didn’t close it.

  Kelley’s eyes flitted as she looked at Bob. Her face didn’t bear any resemblance to the angry, hard, cold featured thing I’d come to know. There was a genuine if not fleeting tenderness to her facial expressions. She was torn, there was no doubt about that, but it was clear there was something in her life more important than the stupid Order, or whatever the hell it was called.

  For Bob’s part, he struggled with the signals she gave him. It was clear watching him that he cared about her, even though he managed to stay much more guarded than she had. That was, until he finally found out what her weakness was.

  She shook her head in the affirmative to Bob, gave Sam a quick probing glance, and began to say something to Bob in Korean. Bob’s face instantly metamorphosed into something he fought hard to stop but had no power against. Whatever it was she told him had a profound effect on him. He was suddenly just an early twenty-something male. The pretext that existed just moments ago was, at least for the time being, something that was suddenly much less important. I had them.

  I focused on Kelley. She was the weak link. “Talk, Kelley.”

  “Dammit, William. You can’t listen to her. She killed a baby for God’s sake. Do you really think she’s going to tell you the truth,” she said. Tish was just less than an arm’s length away from Kelley at that point. I thought she might actually attack her or worse.

  “Sam,” I said. Knowing without telling him, Sam limped towards Tish.

  “I think it’s time for you guys to get our things ready to leave. I’ll handle the rest of this.” I looked at Sam specifically. “I got this, man. I got it.”

  He examined me for an uncomfortably long time before finally complying. As Sam guided everyone out, I was struck by something. The trust my friends had in me wasn’t boundless. By not including them in the decision-making process, I was straining the bond that held us together.

  Before Sam left the room, I told him to gather up the supplies that Miley had left. I told him that only he and Titouan should have access to the weapons. He left the room without as much as a grunt. Tish, however, was letting her displeasure be known.

  Tish ran back into the room. “Goddamn it, William, don’t listen to those animals. They’ll trick you, and we’ll end up dead.”

  Tish and Kelley shared odd glances.

  “Tish, please. I got this. You have to help the others with the supplies.”

  “Get off me, Sam!” Tish yelled as she jerked away. She then stumped down the hall way. Sam shook his head and then followed.

  Avery was last out of the room. He nearly walked into a chair because he couldn’t take his eyes off the phone. He closed the door behind him. I waited a few moments before I began talking to Bob and Kelley. Once I thought we had our privacy, I didn’t waste any time. “If I’m even a percent as good as I think I am at reading people, Kelley is pregnant. Let me help you guys, please.”

  Kelley began to shake her head no, but couldn’t hold back the torrent of emotions that had crippled her will. “I’m sorry for not telling you, Bob. I knew none of this was supposed to happen – we weren’t supposed to happen.”

  Even hard-assed Bob was broken by this point. “Do you believe him?” Bob asked Kelley, nearly crying himself.

  “I am a man of my word. I just want my friends to be safe. I know you guys aren’t the planners of all this crap. I don’t care about you. I just want to live through this, and I know you two do too. So live, dammit. Allow your baby to live.”

  Bob had one more foray of insults in him. “We were taught that you are all liars and cheats. I don’t believe a word you say.”

  "Dammit, Bob, we’re running out of time. My friends are all I got right now, and I’ll do everything in my power to protect them. If you love Kelley like it seems she loves you, you’re responsible for her, and you’re certainly responsible for the damn baby she’s carrying. Tell me what you fucking know. Now!”

  “I just can’t,” Bob said, sobbing. “My family’s honor is at stake here. I’m sorry, Kelley.”

  Kelley looked at me and then at Bob, and then asked, “What do you need me to tell you?”

  “Everything you know.”

  ***

  “William!” Someone screamed my name. I was in shock, which wasn’t uncommon during those early days, but that time was different. My view of the world was completely upended in the short time it took Kelley to tell me what she knew. It was shattering. Things were never going to be the same. Not in my lifetime, anyway. Maybe never.

  “Are you alright?” I felt a light pressure on my shoulder.

  Pictures flashed through my mind. Put together they produced the effect of a flip book. A great many were of good times I had growing up. There were pictures of birthday parties at Avery’s, which were always great. The one that kept popping up the most was a picture of mom. She was sad, but she was almost always sad in pictures. I wanted to hug her one last time, but I couldn’t. All my anger towards her was gone, dissipated like the heat off the pistol that suddenly felt heavy in my hand.

  “You have to get up, William. Please,” Titouan said.

  I remember holding the pistol. I don’t remember how it got in my hands, though.

  “Shit. There’s vehicles outside, and hundreds – maybe thousands of Grays. We gotta go, son,” Sam said.

  I told them the Grays couldn’t get in, and not to worry… I then remembered feeling pain across my face. Somebody slapped me.

  “It ain’t just damn Grays. There’s a bu
nch of people like those two,” someone said.

  Like Kelley and Bob, I thought. Yeah. Then I remembered. “No,” I whimpered. “I shouldn’t have done that…”

  I think I was standing at that point. I didn’t want to look, but I knew I had to. There was blood everywhere. There was blood on me, and even in my mouth, which was becoming too damn common. The metallic taste made me want to vomit again, but I somehow managed not to.

  “Last time! They’re on the second floor right now. Get your shit together, or they’re going to kill us! We’re going to have to fight,” I remember Titouan saying.

  There was gunfire outside and glass breaking somewhere. I had to get my shit together. I wasn’t going to let my friends down again, and I needed to be a man about what I did. I needed to see it. It would be closure, of sorts. It was just a snapshot of the coming brutality – the remorseless world we woke up to. If I was going to keep my humanity, I needed to own up to my own brutality. It hurt to see what I did… but that meant I still felt remorse. That separated me from those who meant to do me and my friends harm.

  Kelley’s face was gone. Bob’s face was mostly intact. I must have been about out of bullets by the time I got to him. I made one count to the forehead, though. He wasn’t going to walk away, that much was sure. They sure as fuck weren’t going to live out their goddamn love story with all the pain they had help cause. I made sure of that. It felt wrong, though, but everything was wrong.

  Kelley was pregnant, though… Dammit.

  Avery patted me on the shoulder. I remember that as well as what he said. "We have to go, bud."

  “Alright,” I said.

  “We’re going to have to fight our way out,” Titouan said, in a voice I almost didn’t recognize. He was changing. I wasn’t sure for the good or not, but he was changing.

  “No more fighting. At least for now, anyway,” I said.

  “William,” Sam said, trying to be as patient as possible given the current situation. “Grab the rifle. We goin ta have ta fight our way down to the first floor. Come on now, son. We need ya.”