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
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 alclass="underline" 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.