“First of all, tell me everything. If you lie, I will know, and I will continue to cut you. No one knows you’re here. I have the only key to this facility. We could be here for days if need be. I’m sure you understand that the truth is the only way out of this for you now?”
“Anything,” Ben said, spitting the blood from his lips. “I’ll tell you anything.”
“That’s good, Ben, you’re learning. I like that. Okay, let’s start from the beginning. If you leave anything out, or if you lie, I will start with your eyes and work my way down to your testicles. Trust me, there’s no easy to way to do this. It will hurt. A great deal. And what really gets people is that they sometimes think I’m bluffing. They don’t think that for very long.”
With the threat of the blade just inches from his face, Ben answered every question Igor gave him. On it went for what seemed like hours until finally, his voice hoarse and his will truly shattered, Igor left for a smoke.
He returned two minutes later with a small, silver tray containing a needle and thread and a clear bottle of orange liquid.
“You did well, Ben,” Igor said, setting the tray on the table. “Let’s get you fixed up, and then we’ll introduce you to Gregor. You will remember what to say when he questions you, won’t you? I won’t have to visit you in the night and continue where I left off, will I?”
“No,” Ben said firmly. The pain had started to dissipate. The first injection of root compound acted quickly. Any desire to sob and beg had long gone. His will had been broken; his fear had run out. All he felt now was a savage desire to end Igor’s life and that of anyone else who would use him.
Throughout the hours of pain and threats, Ben came to realize the futility of it all. Life to these people meant nothing. It was bad enough what the croatoans were doing to the people, but so far, he’d learned that humans were far worse to their own kind.
He eyeballed Igor as the torturer wiped Ben’s face clean and stitched the wounds. Just a few hours ago, those skilled fingers had brought pain, but now, they sutured his wounds with delicate skill.
That Igor wanted Ben to lie to Gregor told him more than he had told Igor. Despite the pain, he hadn’t given up his friends. For all Igor would ever know, Maria and Ethan were dead, and Charlie and Denver had disappeared into the forest, leaving him behind. Ben would continue with the plan, give Gregor the bead and the location of the decoy shelter, and make sure he dealt with Igor before the bastard had a chance to act on his threat.
There was a clear division on the farm between Igor and Gregor. Ben thought about it as Igor continued treating his wounds. It seemed that Igor wasn’t happy with his status and planned some kind of coup against Gregor.
This gave Ben something to work with. An angle he could exploit. Although Igor was highly skilled in pain, he wasn’t very smart when it came to language and intent. His motivations became obvious during the interrogation. He hadn’t even realized he had shown his hand early.
Even on the ship, Ben was the best poker player, figuring out the other crew members’ plays before they did themselves.
“There,” Igor said, “that’s the last of them. You’ll tell Gregor that Charlie did these. You will tell him about a decoy shelter to get him out of the way and play along, and tomorrow, I’ll go visit the real one. Have Gregor take you at dawn. And if the weapons you promised aren’t there… Well,” Igor turned and indicated with a sweeping gesture his future fate among the meat hooks.
“Don’t worry,” Ben said. “I understand clearly. You will get everything you deserve. Now, shall we go see Gregor? I’m eager to get this over with.”
“Good little pig,” Igor said, smiling, showing his yellow, decaying teeth.
Yes, Ben thought, you will get everything you deserve.
Chapter Twenty-One
Charlie pulled back the camouflaged tarp, revealing a rusted Ford F-150. The oncered paintwork had given way to a colonization of orange rust. Among the conquering march of time and decay, small islands of defiant paint remained.
Leaves and twigs covered the hood, clinging to the surface.
Charlie swept them off and cleared the debris from the cracked windshield.
The noon sun streaked through the surrounding trees and gleamed off the glass, the cracks refracting a rainbow of light in thin slivers.
A solid metal lockbox took up a quarter of the rear bed. It contained a few days’ supplies, water, ammo, a pair of shotguns, and an old Army tent.
Pip jumped up into the extended cab as soon as Denver opened the passenger door, curling up on an old grey blanket between the two front seats.
Ethan stood by the river’s edge with his mouth open as he stared on. They’d hidden the truck in a tight copse of trees and shrubs the week before as they scouted the harvester’s route.
Charlie waved him and Maria forward from their temporary camp.
“Does it run?” Ethan said, running his hand along the fender as though it were an ancient relic. To Ethan, it probably is, Charlie thought. He’d have only seen them on whatever brainwashing videos the aliens had given to them to watch.
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “Of course it runs.”
“How did you keep it working all through the invasion and the ice age?” Maria asked as she joined them.
“My old Army friend was a mechanical genius,” Charlie said. “Between him and a colleague of mine, we sourced spare parts and kept it running. With so many people dead and so many vehicles abandoned, it’s not difficult to source fuel and parts. Back in New York, there’s a number of Ford dealers and warehouses that we got replacement parts from.”
“So where are we going?” Maria said as Denver loaded up more supplies and the weapons taken from the croatoans.
“Going to take a trip to the East Coast. The Big Apple. Come on, get in; we need to set off if we’re to get there in good time. It’s going to be a long journey. The roads aren’t exactly easy these days,” Charlie said. He held the rear passenger door open and waited for Ethan and Maria to settle in.
Denver jumped into the front passenger seat.
Once inside, Charlie turned the key, and after a few splutters, the old diesel power plant roared to life, belching out a little black smoke before purring like a wild cat. He put it into drive and slowly pulled away from the hiding place, keeping the wheels on the harder parts of the forest floor.
From their shelter in Mohan Run, a small clearing within the forest, Charlie drove the truck out through the trees, only once scraping against a branch, and joined the hard surface of Interstate 219. The plan was to head south to I-80, which would take them all the way into New York.
Fragments of blacktop had long peeled off the road. Multiple croatoan-engineered environmental changes, especially the ice, had conspired to ruin the surface. But as long as he stayed vigilant, they could make good time.
“I would have expected more cars and trucks,” Ethan said, leaning forward from the rear.
“That’s the kind of thing you see in the films,” Denver said.
“He’s right,” Charlie added, steering around a ten-foot-wide pothole and accelerating onto a clear patch. “When the invasion happened, it took many by surprise, but the war waged for a number of years. Plenty of time for people to get off the roads and go somewhere safe. You’ll see most of the cars still parked near people’s homes or service stations and car lots. The roads were deserted during the war to allow military traffic to get into position without worrying about the public.”
“Where are all the bodies?” Ethan asked. “I’d have expected to see more.”
Charlie looked at the young man through the rearview mirror. He didn’t really know what he was asking. The idea that billions of people were butchered had to be entirely alien to him. There just wasn’t a way for someone like him, so detached from his own species, to fully comprehend what had happened.