The Only Way Out IS Death, page 6
Somehow, the days pass. There is still a lot of uncertainty and anxiety in the air, to be sure, and most of our meals are eaten in silence or inconsequential chatter. When we do speak, though, it is about our circumstances. It’s been a week now, and it’s our third meal of the day, which we usually have before we turn in. Ashwini and Sierra have joined us, and I bring up something that has been bothering me.
‘I doubt it’ll help us much at this point, but who do you think is really behind all of this?’ I ask.
‘Well, one doesn’t rise to the positions we have without making a few enemies,’ Jillian shrugs.
‘And politicians are not exactly well-loved,’ Malik says drily, the closest I’ve seen of humour from him.
‘But think of it this way: This whole thing is too elaborate to be targeted at any one of us. Why bother with the rest? The more people that “die” at once, the more suspicious it becomes, doesn’t it?’
‘What’s the point of keeping us alive?’ Jillian frowns. ‘What is this whole imprisonment scenario?’
‘Maybe the person feels empowered by the control they are currently exerting over us,’ Sierra says easily, taking a sip of her wine.
‘What kind of person would do that, you think?’ Anders asks her, faux eagerness in his voice. ‘Please do give us your expert opinion.’
‘Well, it’s hard to give an analysis from such sparse—’ Sierra begins, but Anders is already shaking his head.
‘Dr. Sierra, you talk as if you’re getting paid by the word. Tell us what you really think, simply. You can whisper it in my ear if you like. I promise I won’t report you to the Psychiatry Board when I get out.’
Sierra studies him for a second before she turns to the group and says, ‘I can give you observations that any reasonable person would have thought of, although the term “reasonable person” is quite an oxymoron.’ She smiles to herself. ‘Sorry. Psychiatry joke. Quite simply, the person who has orchestrated this whole affair is very, very motivated. In their minds, there is some vital reason for doing all this.’
‘So they’re nuts, is what you’re saying?’ Anders asks flippantly.
‘We try to avoid words like that,’ Sierra says, frowning. ‘Mental illness is a vast spectrum, and frippery like that prevents us from seeing where someone lands on that spectrum.’
‘Frippery?’ Anders cocks an eyebrow and grins. ‘Are you being homophobic now?’
Sierra’s face scrunches up in confusion. I roll my eyes and say, ‘Ignore him. Please continue.’
She nods and does so, ‘Most people associate mental illness with “irrationality”, but that is not always the case. I’d say that if the person who has made all of this was truly “irrational”, we would have been easily found by now.’
‘That is an accurate assessment,’ says Malik, and there is just a trace of respect in his voice. ‘This would have been impossible without vast resources and a piercing intelligence.’
‘So you’re the mastermind?’ Anders says in mock shock.
‘They well could be very intelligent,’ Sierra is saying to Malik. ‘But that doesn’t have anything to do with their emotional states. You can have low emotional intelligence while still being extraordinarily clever. Some attribute the ruthlessness of CEOs to this very factor.’
Jillian gives a short laugh. ‘Some of my employees would agree with you there.’
‘So this person is being driven by some intense motivation, something that is so important to them that they will risk everything and eschew all sense of morality.’
‘So, a fanatic?’ I ask.
‘Of a sort, yes. Though what their agenda is, I don’t know enough to speculate.’
‘I doubt that it’s religious,’ Malik comments. ‘I don’t see any religious overtones here’
‘The mastermind could think he is God,’ Anders points out.
‘To what end? Punishing sinners?’
Anders shrugs, playing restlessly with his pen.
‘I think it’s related to the pandemic,’ Jillian chimes in. ‘After all, that event we were at—which was clearly staged by the mastermind—had to do with the pandemic. The fact that we apparently have a virus strapped to our leg would support that idea too. Some sort of sick irony.’
Everyone instinctively looks down, and I repress a shudder. I try to avoid thinking of it by saying, ‘Well, we are in a sort of lockdown. Isolated from the rest of the world. In that way, it does kind of make sense, I suppose.’
‘But who would do such a thing?’ Ashwini, who has been silently listening, asks. ‘I’m a doctor, for God’s sake. What about the pandemic would incite a mass kidnapping?’
Everyone is silent for a few moments, before Malik says, quietly and with a slight tinge of annoyance, ‘There is one organisation that’s been gaining a lot of ground recently, and they’ve been very vocal about the pandemic.’
‘Who would that be?’ I ask.
‘XNet, of course,’ he says.
Everybody seems to agree with his statement, but I’m a little lost.
‘Sorry, who or what is XNet?’
Malik raises an eyebrow at me and Anders seems amused. ‘How’s the weather there?’ he asks.
‘Where?’ I’m thrown by the random question.
‘Under the rock where you’re living.’ Then he chuckles at his own joke.
Ignoring him, Malik says, ‘XNet is a collective of people, mostly anonymous, that congregate in various dark corners of the Internet. They’re conspiracy theorists and crackpots, trying desperately to spread fake news that enemy countries purposely engineered and spread the pandemic, or that the entire government machinery is complicit in spreading it in an effort to exercise control over the public. Lots of unfounded nonsense like that.’
‘Could they have even organised something like this?’ Jillian asks sceptically.
‘Personally? I doubt it. Nobody really takes them seriously as a security threat, more of a cultural one.’
‘They’re all probably overweight nerds locked alone in their rooms, typing away on their computers about why women won’t fuck them.’ Anders smirks and turns to Sierra. ‘What’s your expert opinion on that?’
I don’t hear the answer. Something Anders said…locked alone in their rooms…a thought that has been nagging at me all day comes to the forefront, and I interrupt Sierra,
‘Has anyone seen Monte all day?’
Everyone turns to me. They think for a second and shake their heads.
‘He didn’t come to take food?’
‘I’m fairly certain I was up before anyone else,’ Malik says. ‘He may have taken it before me, but nothing seemed disturbed from when I last went to bed. So I doubt it.’
‘I don’t think I saw him around during lunch either,’ Jillian adds.
‘Has he not eaten all day, then?’ Ashwini frowns.
‘Maybe he just wasn’t hungry today,’ Anders says dismissively.
‘He’s diabetic,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘He needs to eat regularly.’
‘How do you know that?’ he asks, but I ignore him. There is a sinking feeling in my chest. Something is wrong. I can feel it. Abruptly, I stand up.
‘We need to go check on him,’ I announce.
‘But what if he’s just sleeping, or doesn’t want to be disturbed, or just ate food without us knowing?’ Jillian asks, surprised by my sudden announcement.
‘Then we’ll know, and we won’t have to worry.’ I am already stepping away from the table. I can’t risk not knowing what Monte is up to. ‘I’m going.’ I look at Dr. Ashwini. ‘Please come with me?’ She nods immediately and stands up. After a second, Malik and Jillian do too. I’ve turned around and am already walking when I hear the scraping of others’ chairs.
We all stand tensely in the lift. There’s a heaviness in the air. A sense of dread has pervaded us, without us realising. Nobody tries for comfort or reassurance.
We rush down the corridor, and when we reach the long line of similar-looking doors, I ask, ‘Wait, do we know which room is his?’
Dr. Ashwini is already walking towards one opposite the elevator—room number 5.
‘Yes, I had come earlier to try and talk to him.’ She raps smartly on the door. ‘Monte, are you in there?’
There is no response. She tries the handle, but, as expected, it is locked. We all crowd around the door as she tries again. ‘Monte, please let us know you’re in there. Just that much, please.’
Silence. We strain our ears but can’t hear a single sound from inside. Malik bangs his fist hard against the door, harder than Ashwini had. ‘Monte!’ he booms, louder than I’ve ever heard him speak.
‘What is this racket?!’ a voice yells.
We all jump, because the voice had come from behind us, not from behind the door. It is Albert, in nightclothes, looking annoyed. He had emerged from his room.
‘Monte’s not been seen all day and he’s not responding now,’ Jillian says tersely.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ Albert says derisively, but nobody really pays any attention to him. Malik continues banging and calling through the door.
‘I don’t hear a sound,’ he says, his ear to the door, and I can see him tense for the first time. ‘I doubt anyone could have stayed awake through all that banging.’
‘We need to break the door down,’ I say.
‘We’re not supposed to damage anything!’ Albert yells. ‘Remember the rules!’
‘Just because you’re okay with standing by and sneering, Albert, doesn’t mean we all are,’ I snap savagely at him. ‘Monte may be hurt, and if we don’t get in, all our lives may be on the line. So fuck the rules, and fuck you.’
Malik and Anders have already taken up positions in front of the door. They slam against the door with their shoulders repeatedly. The sturdy wood yields after a few tries, and they stumble inside. We enter soon after them, and then Jillian’s cry pierces the air.
They say that, given enough time, human beings can find ways to adapt to any situation.
But that’s the thing about adapting to bad situations.
You become complacent.
And you miss things.
And then you find yourself staring in horror at a man soaking in a tub of his own blood.
9
BET ON MONTE
There he is. What, just a few short hours ago, had been a living, breathing, person, full of hopes and aspirations and a lot of fears, is now…this. A mass of flesh, cut open and soaking in his own viscera.
I turn away immediately at the sight of it, at the smell of rust that infuses the air. Sierra, Jillian and Anders turn away as well, and even the generally unflappable Anders looks pale. He says, in an uncertain voice, ‘I’m going to call the others,’ and he is gone, without waiting for a response or acknowledgement. I steel myself and force myself to turn. I have to see this. Whatever has happened to Monte affects all of us. It affects me. I turn my head slowly. I look past Albert, his mouth in a hard line and his arms folded, but with a decidedly unbothered, almost gleeful look in his eyes. I glance at Malik, who stands like a statue, staring in stony silence. I see Dr. Ashwini, bending over and examining the body with a professional eye. And then…there he is. Or what used to be him.
Monte lies in the palatial bathtub, his back against one end, his arms on the edges, as if he is relaxing after a long day. But one only has to look closely at the arms to see a long, jagged line, down the centre of each one. The arms are soaked in blood. The blood has spilled over into the water, which makes Monte look like he had been bathing in blood. Bathing in his own blood. Monte’s face is pained, scared, full of horror. Which…is pretty in line with how the past few days have been. Dr. Ashwini steps back from the tub, frowning, and bends down to the ground. Then she straightens back up, grabs some toilet roll, and bends again. Rising, she holds in her hands a kitchen knife, the kind we use daily here, completely covered in blood.
It is at this moment that Preston walks in. He takes one look at the grisly scene, and his face turns pale and he turns around and immediately, almost comically, throws up on the wall opposite the bathroom. We all cringe, and Albert shouts, ‘Really!’ at him.
Ashwini snaps, ‘Sierra and Jillian, please help him clean that up.’ As they do so, Anders returns with Powell, Gideon and Shraddha. Powell swears loudly, Shraddha makes some kind of sign to ward off spirits, and Gideon closes his eyes, clutches his pendant in his right hand over his heart, and begins murmuring under his breath in prayer. Anders still barely looks at the body, his head down, his pen firmly gripped in his hand instead of waving around.
‘Powell,’ says Ashwini, referring to him directly for, I think, the first time since we have arrived here. ‘Come here and tell us if you can see anything of value.’
Powell scowls at her, but she is clearly in charge at the moment, so he steps forward and gives the body a cursory once-over. He shrugs and says, ‘Looks like a cut-an’-dry case of suicide to me.’
‘And to you, Doctor?’ Albert asks, and he isn’t trying very hard to suppress his glee. ‘What does it look like to you?’
Ashwini thinks for a few moments, looking at the body before she says carefully, ‘I’m not a forensic pathologist, so I can’t be sure, but yes, it does very much look like suicide.’
Before Albert can say anything else, a deep, booming voice is heard, a voice that echoes in the room and the corridor outside.
‘A body has been discovered!’ It is back, the horrid, mechanical, gleeful voice of the mastermind, playing once more from speakers we cannot detect. ‘Everybody, please move to the lobby. Since I am not without mercy, you have fifteen minutes to compose yourselves and pay your respects to the newly deceased. After that…we shall move on to the next phase.’
The voice cuts off.
‘Well, then,’ says Albert, and the triumph in his voice is quite clear now. ‘There you have it. Someone has fulfilled the “selfless” act, and we can all go free now. It was not the way I would have wanted it, but—’
‘You sicken me,’ says Ashwini, snapping at him. ‘A man lays dead within arm’s reach of you and you don’t even care.’
Albert doesn’t flinch. ‘He took his own life. I am not responsible for that, and it is undoubtedly tragic that he was placed in circumstances where he felt he had to, but his sacrifice means our freedom, and I am not going to apologise for being happy about that.’
‘It’s not as if you apologise anyway,’ she snarls at him.
He shrugs and says, ‘Correct. I’ll go change and then wait in the lobby. I’d rather not be set free in my nightclothes.’ With that, he leaves the bathroom. Shraddha, Preston, Sierra, Anders, Jillian and Gideon slowly shuffle out as well. It is only me, Malik, Powell and Ashwini.
‘Aren’t you all going?’ Ashwini asks sharply.
I shake my head, as does Malik.
‘I…I…feel like I should look around a little more. I…don’t know if I can just walk away so easily.’ Because I need to be sure this is what it looks like. We can’t afford any mistakes.
‘Something like that for me as well,’ Malik adds.
Powell grunts, ‘Doesn’ feel right to leave a crime scene so fast.’
Ashwini nods and returns to studying the body, frowning. I brace myself. The clock is ticking, and I need to hurry.
I step closer to the tub. I need, need to look at it. I need to see what the others refuse to.
To begin with, I once again consider Monte’s body. But before I can do anything further, Malik says, ‘I’ll look in the main room while you check here, Kiriaki.’ I nod vaguely and begin my examination.
It is a little hard to see at first in the cloudy water, but it is soon apparent that Monte is fully clothed. That is how I have often seen it on TV, but that hardly counts for anything.
‘Are people in this kind of situation usually clothed when found?’ I ask Powell.
Powell seems startled at being questioned but shrugs and says gruffly, ‘Yeah. People who go out like this usually don’t wanna bother anyone with clean-up. This way ya don’t have to see ’em naked, either.’
I’m surprised that Powell responded to me, and that was more words than he has ever said to me at once, but I don’t question it. Death does things to people. I nod and glance at Dr. Ashwini. Her lips are pursed together, and she is staring intently at the body, as one would stare at a puzzle.
‘Is there something wrong, Doctor?’ I ask her.
She doesn’t look at me at first, and then turns slowly to me. She opens her mouth slightly as if to speak, and then closes it again. She finally shakes her head and turns back to the body.
Okay. Weird.
What is she not saying? Maybe further examination will yield the answer. How does one do this? Okay, let’s try figuring out something from what’s most obvious first. The clothes…these are the same clothes he was wearing yesterday, aren’t they? They are. His face…I shudder. It is the face of a man in intense pain. But how else would someone look when they were bleeding so profusely? Wait, what’s that…just below the chin, on the neck, obscured by the bloody water…I take a bit of toilet roll and clean his neck. Ashwini frowns at me but doesn’t stop me. She leans closer too and we see…that the skin on the neck is darker than the rest. Ashwini’s frown deepens, but she still doesn't say anything.
The arms…the arms are the main thing. They are grotesque but I suppress my gag reflex and peer at them. Long cuts down the centre of each arm. The arms are on either rim of the bathtub, soaked in blood. The wall next to the bathtub is splattered with blood, but the floor around it is more watery than bloody.
I look at the bloody knife, which is a steak knife. It certainly looks sharp enough to cut through skin. Something is strange here. I can’t think of what yet, but it is.
Malik looks in and says, ‘It’s almost time. We should move.’
I nod and ask him. ‘Did you find anything?’
He shrugs in that noncommittal way of his and says, ‘We’ll see.’ Then he leaves, and the three of us follow. Silently we ride down to the lobby, where everyone has seated themselves in a circle once more. Albert cries, ‘Ah! I thought you were going to miss it! How sad it would have been to stumble just at the end of the road.’
