The Only Way Out IS Death, page 15
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Albert cries. ‘It’s 11:30—’ He frowns at the clock. ‘Is that right?’
‘No,’ says Malik, and his voice is sharp, very sharp. ‘That’s not right.’ He looks at Preston. ‘Please run up and check all the clocks on the first floor. Jillian, please check them on this floor. Anders—’
‘Sure, I’ll do the second,’ he says with an exaggeratedly weary sigh, and they both set off.
‘Won’t they all show the same time, Malik?’ Jillian asks, confused.
‘They will,’ he says tightly. He doesn’t offer any more explanation than that.
Soon, Jillian, Preston, who was clearly sprinting, and then eventually Anders, report their findings—11:30 exactly.
‘So, all the clocks in the same place have the same time. Woohoo,’ Anders yawns. ‘What was the point of that?’
‘How long did it take you to get up there?’ Malik asks calmly, his gaze fixed on the clock.
‘A few minutes, I guess,’ Anders shrugs.
‘So time froze when you went up?’
‘What, no—’ The penny drops. ‘Oh.’
‘What?’ Preston asks, still confused.
‘Look at the clock, Preston,’ Malik says.
Preston does. At least five minutes have passed in the whole exercise and the clock still shows 11:30. I notice now the second hand isn’t moving.
‘Someone has sabotaged the clocks. We have no way of telling the time.’ He looks grimly at the door. ‘And no easy way out.’
It’s no coincidence, and certainly an omen, that the time is set at around the time Gideon was murdered. Nobody says it, but everybody knows who is responsible. There is only one person not present here, and she is out for blood.
25
DESCENT INTO MADNESS
‘What do we do?’ Jillian asks no one in particular, breaking the silence.
‘We should go back to our rooms and confirm that all of our clocks are indeed broken, which I suspect they are,’ Malik says grimly. ‘Sierra set off the alarm hoping to bring us down here in a panic. That way we wouldn’t think to lock our doors. I fear that she has succeeded.’
‘We don’t know where we are, and now we don’t even know when we are,’ Anders grumbles.
‘Let us reconvene in the morning at…’ Malik stops, glances more at the clock and says, ‘We’ll meet in the dining hall, and wait till everyone wakes up before discussing anything.’
We nod our assent and head back to our rooms. The room doors I can see in front of me are wide open. Sierra’s mocking us and reminding us that she still has power.
I’m so tired of this shit.
I get into my room and lock it. I see the fragments of the broken clock on the floor. Too much ground to cover to cryptically set the time in each room, huh? Well, this does the job. I still can’t check the time now. So tired.
I strip off my clothes, throwing each item away to a different part of the room. They have the stench of blood and death about them. I stand naked in the strange hotel room, probably being watched right now by some creep through a camera. They’ve seen it all already, what does it matter if they see it again? Maybe this whole thing is being filmed to entertain some sick billionaires who are placing bets on who will reach the end.
I wonder what the odds are on me.
I walk slowly to the bed, my limbs aching as if they belong to an old farmer. It’s not just the clothes, I realise. It’s also me. I am covered in the smell of death, and it has clung to me since I got here. Maybe Sierra’s right. Maybe the smells stop registering after you’ve been around them for a while; we’ve gotten so numb to the idea of death that it doesn’t shock us anymore.
I don’t know if that’s true, though. I remember the cold-hearted selfish bitch I was when I came in here, and I wish I was her right now. Maybe I wouldn’t feel all the emotions I am feeling; the pain and anguish and horror and…loss I feel at the deaths of these people, almost all of them strangers. It’s all buried deep inside me, and if I get out of here it’s going to take a lot of therapy to dig it out and process it. My therapist would have to be anyone BUT Sierra.
I shiver involuntarily and realise that I’ve been standing naked by the bed the entire time I ruminated. I crawl into the blankets and cover myself with them. Once more, I wish that I could switch these lights off. I bury my head in the pillow and put another one on top of me to block out the light, and try to sleep.
When will this madness end?
I wake up much as I slept: confused and disoriented. My eyes flick to where the clock stood, and I grimace when I remember the events of last—before I went to sleep. I stumble out of bed and change into some fresh clothes. I have no idea if I’m late for breakfast or not, and the dim, artificial light burns into my eyes. I leave the room, lock the door firmly—not that there’s any point to it anymore—and head down to breakfast. I meet nobody in the corridor, which means I’m either super early or super late. That turns out to be of minimal concern, because when I reach the restaurant, I’m greeted with a startling sight. Jillian, Preston, Malik, Albert, Anders and Ashwini are sitting together at a table, but they’re all staring at something I can’t see. I speed up and enter the room to see that they’re staring at Sierra, who is setting a plate down in front of herself and arranging her napkin neatly on her lap.
What the fuck?
I sit down at the table with everyone. Preston answers my unspoken question in a whisper, ‘She just…came in. Like five minutes ago. Stood at the table and acted weirdly normal, then told us she wanted to have her food on her own, put some on a plate, and then walked off to another table.’
‘Did she mention anything about the clocks or last night?’ I ask, baffled.
‘No,’ Albert responds with a scowl. ‘She’s not acknowledging any of it.’
‘What do we do?’
Malik opens his mouth to respond but stops when he sees Sierra getting up and coming over to us with a gentle smile on her face. She looks almost like she did when we first arrived here.
‘Good morning, Kiriaki,’ she says with a smile. ‘At least, I think it’s morning. The clocks don’t seem to be working, and somehow the clock in my room fell off its stand and shattered into pieces!’
Jillian and I glance at each other uncertainly. Malik asks in his completely neutral tone of voice, ‘So you have no idea what happened to them, Sierra?’
She shakes her head and her face turns thoughtful, ‘Tell me, was there an alarm last night or was I dreaming?’
‘There bloody well was, and you weren’t there,’ Albert says accusatorily.
Sierra doesn’t seem to notice, and her face is a mask of sadness. ‘After that…after horrible business yesterday, I just…I just couldn’t bear to be around anyone. I slept, and when I heard that awful sound, I put some pillows over my head to block it out and tried to go back to sleep. I’ll be honest, I couldn’t care less at that moment if anyone was leaving. Shock does that to you, you know? It wraps you up in your own grief.’
I study Sierra, and…it’s hard to believe she’s lying. I know she must be, but either she’s lying very well, or believes that she’s telling the truth.
‘But I see that you all are here, so nobody was able to leave. Maybe someone took advantage of that chaos to stop the clocks? Did they enter my room without me knowing then?’
I have a feeling like an insect is slowly crawling down my spine.
‘What?’ She looks genuinely surprised. ‘You look like you think I had something to do with it.’ She laughs and lifts up her pants. The vial on her leg is intact, the yellow zapper dull, the skin around it unburnt. ‘Remember what the mastermind said? If any of us try to damage hotel property, we’ll be punished. But I’m fine, aren’t I?’
She seems open, honest, and actually amused at our suspicion. But she’s right. If she had broken the clocks, she would have been punished. Why would the mastermind have taken exception to this rule and let her ruin their perfect game?
But I can’t focus on that right now, because this version of Sierra is really throwing me off. Is this the same woman who threatened us? I just can’t reconcile her with the enraged, vicious, terrifying woman we saw yesterday. She seems to read that on our faces because she says,
‘And…for all the things I said,’ she looks down at her feet, and her voice grows remorseful, ‘that…that wasn’t me. That isn’t who I am. I…I let my darkest impulses and fears get a hold of me. I gave in to the anger and the pain. I said things that were cruel, and I didn’t mean them. I’m truly sorry, but I understand if you cannot forgive me.’ She raises her head with a small smile, ‘Thank you for listening. I’ll go now.’
She turns back to her table, and I can feel a dozen tiny creatures skittering across my skin, all of them feasting on my fear, my uncertainty and anxiety.
Sierra sits and begins to eat. We look at each other, nobody looks like they know what to say or think when we hear a loud gagging noise. We look over quickly to Sierra’s table and see her choking, almost frothing at the mouth. She stands up woozily, and before any of us can get to her, she throws up on the floor. She leans against the wall, gasping for breath, and then looks up at us with wild eyes.
‘Which one of you…’ she gasps, drawing deep breaths in. ‘Which one of you,’ she says in a stronger, strangled voice, ‘tried to poison me?’
The madness isn’t going to end anytime soon. It seems it is only just beginning.
26
POISONED THOUGHTS
Ashwini, who is already beside Sierra to check if she is okay, picks up the plate of food and sniffs it.
‘It does smell a little off, but I can’t be sure,’ she says, holding the plate out to Jillian, the only other person who has extensive experience with chemicals. Jillian takes a sniff as well and crinkles her nose. She hands the plate back to Ashwini and leaves without a word, heading towards the kitchen. We all wait, confused and unsure of what to do, while Sierra breathes heavily against the wall. Jillian is back within a minute and she’s holding a cup in her hands. Without explanation or prologue, she brings it close to Ashwini’s face. ‘Smell,’ she orders. Ashwini raises her eyebrow but complies. Immediately, her eyes widen.
‘What in the world?’ she blurts.
‘Yes,’ Jillian says, turning to us. ‘There’s detergent mixed in Sierra’s food.’
The air is more of bafflement than shock.
‘That’s…one way to do a deep cleanse,’ Anders mutters.
‘Someone tried to poison me!’ Sierra gasps and shudders. The colour is returning to her face. ‘Probably the same person who poisoned Gideon! They want to finish the job!’
‘If that mystery poisoner exists at all,’ says Albert drily. ‘I think they would be able to make use of something better than detergent.’
‘Maybe they ran out of poison?’ Preston asks.
‘Perhaps, the more pertinent question to consider is how did they have any poison here in the first place?’ Malik observes. ‘I’m assuming the mastermind searched us when we came in. I don’t see how they could have it unless the mastermind placed it here for them to use.’
‘They’ve not kept any other weapons to use, though,’ Jillian counters. ‘Why only poison?’
‘Does it matter?!’ Sierra snaps, and she looks at us with wide, desperate eyes. ‘Someone poisoned Gideon, and that’s a fact. It doesn’t matter how they got it, what matters is that that person is trying to hurt me too.’ Her eyes fill with tears. She was never this expressive before, and Gideon’s death seems to have completely thrown her personality into chaos. ‘I…I apologised for behaving badly yesterday. Was I not allowed to be upset and lash out after I lost someone so close to me? Does that mean I deserve to be persecuted and looked at with suspicion?’
‘Oh, cut the melodrama,’ Albert says irritably. ‘Someone must have just mixed in some detergent by mistake. It was right there in the kitchen. Or maybe the boy was cooking and thought it was seasoning,’ He sneers at Preston, who flushes brick red. Preston opens his mouth to say something, but then closes it and looks away.
‘Did anybody else get sick?’ I ask. ‘Any weird-tasting food?’
Shrugs and shakes of head all around.
‘Malik, was there anyone in the kitchen before you came in?’
‘Well,’ Malik says slowly, ‘I didn’t see anybody and there was no sign that anything had been disturbed. But, regrettably, I don’t know what time I arrived, for obvious reasons. So, I can’t give you an accurate timeline.’
‘So, somehow, detergent got into Sierra’s food, and only Sierra’s food, and there was no trace of it before she arrived here.’
‘You’ve got another case to crack, Kiriaki,’ Anders says, twirling his pen. ‘The case of the spontaneous laundry!’
‘Stop it!’ Sierra snaps, and there’s anger in her eyes once more, although nothing like the previous day. This is indignation, not vengeance. ‘Why aren’t any of you taking this, me, seriously? Gideon’s poisoner is still unknown, and they could still be at work, ready to attack any of us! They were willing to kill once, and that means they’d be willing to try it again. Why won’t any of you understand that?’
‘We do,’ I placate her.
‘I don’t,’ Albert says dismissively. ‘Shraddha was the poisoner and was just trying to confuse us. All this is a hue and cry over nothing.’
‘Still,’ Malik says, ‘it wouldn’t hurt to be on guard.’
‘Yes, because I’ve been super relaxed since I got here,’ Anders snarks.
Sierra looks at each of us angrily and then closes her eyes. She murmurs something under her breath, and when she opens her eyes, she looks much calmer.
‘I apologise again for my outburst. I’d like to re-join the group, if possible, and prove to all of you that I am not a threat.’
There is a feeling of unease at this, but we don’t rightly know how to say no. Plus, it would be helpful to have the most suspicious person around us instead of by themselves, plotting.
We sit back down and I pile some food onto my plate. We’re eating mostly tinned food nowadays, and it’s awful, but I need to keep my strength up. Sierra refuses to eat anything more, saying that she has lost her appetite. Jillian quickly brings a mop, which Sierra insistently takes from her and cleans up. I eat in the meanwhile, making sure to sniff my food and examine it carefully before eating anything. Albert watches me with sardonic amusement.
‘Now that all of us are here,’ Malik says, convening the meeting, ‘we need to decide how to proceed—’
‘I still don’t know why you think you’re our leader or something,’ Albert sneers.
‘I’m merely leading a discussion,’ Malik says calmly. ‘I’m not dictating anything. There are now eight of us which means that our pairs-arrangement will still work. However—’
‘But the pairs-arrangement didn’t really work last time, did it?’ Sierra puts in, her voice polite but firm.
‘That was because, and I’m sorry, your partner left the group,’ Malik says, matching her tone. ‘It may have been for a valid reason, but he left his partner alone nonetheless, putting you both at risk. If he had let you accompany him, he wouldn’t have been vulnerable. Therefore, I think the partner arrangement still works.’
‘Okay,’ Sierra says, anger flashing momentarily on her face. ‘And do we stick with the same partners all day or…’
‘As before, we will reconvene at—’ Malik stops as he realises the problem. ‘Ah.’
‘What?’ Sierra asks, confused.
‘We can’t reconvene for lunch,’ Ashwini says grimly. ‘We have no way of knowing what time to meet back here.’
‘We have no daylight or anything either,’ Preston says, looking up at the artificial lights and wincing. ‘We have only these lights all over the place, and it’s not like we can switch any of them off to even make it seem dark.’
‘Thank you, Captain Obvious,’ Anders comments.
‘You can do better,’ Preston retorts.
‘The point,’ Malik says, and I can see even his patience cracking a little, ‘is that we have no way of setting a schedule. For that matter, we don’t have a way to set a time for going to sleep—’
‘Preston won’t know how many water bottles to drink,’ Anders adds laconically.
‘Will you shut it?!’ Preston snaps. ‘You’re constantly butting in with your bullshit! We’re trying to do something here!’
‘Oh?’ Anders raises his eyebrows, still full of amusement. ‘I wasn’t aware that your father was here to tell you what to do.’
Preston rises and snarls, ‘I’ll take that pen and shove it up your—’ Anders rises as well, whether to run or fight is unclear.
‘Enough,’ Malik snaps, and his voice is like a whip cracking in the air. Preston and Anders immediately stop moving. Anders even stops smirking. ‘This is a bad enough situation without this nonsense. So quit it, now!’
The pair of them drop back into their seats and nod sulkily.
‘Children,’ Albert mutters, not too softly.
‘We don’t have a schedule,’ Malik repeats, his voice less stern but still firm. ‘Can anyone think of a way of actually bringing everyone together at one time?’
‘What if we have a person or a pair of people round everyone up?’ I ask. ‘It’s not that big a hotel.’
‘This is a pointless conversation,’ Albert says impatiently. ‘We’ve gone over all this before. A person shouldn’t leave their partner, and yet they did. A person should be protected when they’re with a partner, but Gideon was still poisoned while near all of us.’
‘Yes,’ Sierra says, her arms crossed tight. ‘A wily killer will inevitably manage to find a way to trick the partner, or maybe even kill both of them together.’
‘Isn’t killing more than one person against the rules?’ I ask.
