The Darwin Effect (17 page)

“Bad?”

She nodded. “I can hardly put any weight on it.”

Cromartie put his arm around her shoulders, holding her up and supporting a lot of her weight.

“Why was he running?”

She nodded back at the open doorway. “That’s Abraham’s room. He came out of there. Abraham’s dead.”

Cromartie felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “What … what do you mean?”

“He’s dead,” she said again.

“I need to go in there and look,” he told her. “Can you stand by yourself for a minute?”

She nodded and leaned back against the wall.

Cromartie hoped to God that Sanders was having another hallucination. He rushed inside Abraham’s room and then he stopped in his tracks.

Abraham was on his bed, flat on his back and staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes that were glazed over with death. His throat had been slashed, cut wide open. Congealed blood stained the rough edges of the wound in his throat, blood stained his white shirt, and blood was splashed all over the white bedsheets beneath him. The blood was so bright red against the stark white room. He reached out with a trembling hand towards the end of the bed, towards Abraham’s feet. He had to touch Abraham’s foot … he had to make sure that he was really there.

It was real. Abraham was dead.

Cromartie rushed back out of the room and he hurried over to Sanders. He put his arm around her shoulders, holding her up again. “Where’s Rolle?”

Sanders shook her head, still wincing in pain, breathing hard. “I haven’t seen him.”

“How did you … why did you go into Abraham’s room?”

She eyed Cromartie for a second like she didn’t appreciate his suspicious tone. “I was walking down the hall and I heard this … this noise coming from Abraham’s room. It sounded like someone was talking, maybe shouting. The door was open. I went inside and saw Abraham on the bed. I saw all the blood … And then I saw Ward. He was right beside the bed, staring down at Abraham’s body. And then Ward turned and looked at me, and then he ran right at me.”

“Ward didn’t say anything?”

“He was babbling,” Sanders said. “Saying something like: he didn’t do this and it wasn’t what it looked like.”

Cromartie shook his head, thinking for a moment. “Did he have the knife with him?”

Sanders seemed to think it over for a moment.

“The knife, Sanders. Did Ward have the knife with him that he used to kill Abraham?”

She finally shook her head slightly like she was confused. “I’m not sure. It all happened so fast.”

Cromartie took a deep breath, thinking things over for a few seconds. Then he locked eyes with Sanders. “Can you stand here by yourself for another minute?”

She nodded and braced herself against the wall.

Cromartie rushed across the hall and entered Abraham’s room again. He looked at the bed and then around Abraham’s body, even feeling cautiously along the bedsheets, careful not to disturb any of the blood or the position of Abraham’s body.

No knife.

He got down on his hands and knees and looked all around on the floor and underneath the cot-like bed.

Still no knife.

He checked the desk, the small closet, and then the bathroom. He didn’t see any blood splatters anywhere else in the room except for the bed, and he couldn’t find the weapon.

Ward must’ve still had the knife on him when he attacked Sanders, and then he ran.

But something didn’t feel right to Cromartie; he couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but things weren’t adding up here.

He hurried back out to the corridor. “I don’t see a knife in there,” Cromartie told Sanders.

“Maybe he had it on him,” she said. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“If he would’ve had the knife on him, then he would’ve had blood on him. On his clothes, his hands, maybe even blood splatters on his face. Did he have blood all over him?” He felt like he shouldn’t have to be explaining this to someone who was a police officer.

“I don’t know!” Sanders snapped at him, and then she calmed down quickly. “Like I said, it happened pretty fast. He slammed me into the wall and ran.”

“Which way?”

She nodded her head, gesturing down the corridor where Cromartie had just come from.

Cromartie looked down the hall, and then he looked back at Sanders and shook his head a little. “I just came from that way. I didn’t see Ward.” But he remembered hearing someone running out in the corridors a little earlier, someone running up the metal steps to the upper level.

“Where were you?” Sanders asked, suddenly changing the subject.

He stared at her, and he swore he saw suspicion in her eyes.

“I was ... I was on the bridge.”

“What were you doing there?”

Cromartie hesitated. “I was looking around.” He wanted to tell her about the answers he had discovered, but right now they had more pressing matters … like finding Ward.

She stared at him, waiting for him to explain further. It seemed like she could tell that he was hiding something.

He sighed and confessed. “Before I was on the bridge, I was up on the upper level, standing in front of the airlock door. I must’ve been walking in my sleep. I was having a dream … a nightmare—the same one I told you about before—and then I woke up in front of the airlock door.” But he left out the part about the new words written on the airlock door and the black marker he’d had in his hand when he woke up.

Sanders stared at him like she was seeing a different person suddenly. “So it isn’t just me and Ward sleepwalking,” she said and winced with pain.

“Maybe it’s all of us,” Cromartie said. “Maybe we’ve all been sleepwalking and we haven’t realized it.” He had a picture in his mind of all of them wandering around the ship at different times, perhaps even passing each other in the corridor as they stumbled along in their sleepwalking stupor, oblivious to each other.

“We need to find Ward,” Sanders said. “He killed Butler. He just killed Abraham, and he’s going to kill again.”

“We need to get you some painkillers and a wrap from a first aid kit,” he told her. “They have first aid kits in the bathrooms in each of our rooms.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she growled. “Just go find Ward.”

Cromartie ignored Sanders’ commands and helped her down the hallway to her room. “Let’s get you to your room.”

They entered Sanders’ room and she practically collapsed down on the end of her bed.

Ward shut the door and then he turned and stared at Sanders. “You okay?” he asked her.

She nodded. “I’ll be okay. Rolle’s out there somewhere. You need to find Ward before he kills Rolle next.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone,” he told her.

She winced again, still gripping her thigh, holding her leg very still like it was painful to move it in any way.

“I’ll go look for the first aid kit,” Cromartie said. He was about to head for the bathroom in Sanders’ room when the door behind him flew open.

He turned around, his hands up and ready to defend himself.

Rolle stood there in the doorway. He stared at Cromartie in shock for a second and then his eyes shifted to Sanders. “I heard Sanders yelling. What’s wrong?”

“A
braham’s dead,” Cromartie said.

“What?” Rolle breathed out. He backed out of Sanders’ room, already heading down the hall.

Cromartie glanced back at Sanders. “Stay right there.”

“Where else am I going to go?” she moaned.

Cromartie darted out of Sanders’ room and hurried down the hall. He met Rolle as he was coming back out of Abraham’s room with the pale look of shock on his face.

“It was Ward,” Cromartie said. “Sanders saw him in there. He slammed her into a wall and then ran.”

“Where?”

Cromartie shrugged and looked down the corridor towards the bridge. “She said he ran that way. He could’ve gone to the kitchen, the bridge, or up to the third level.”

Rolle nodded and then looked away, staring with wide eyes like he was trying to understand all of this but it was going too fast for him right now.

Cromartie stared at Rolle. “Where were you?”

The accusation snapped Rolle’s attention right back to Cromartie. “I … I was … I was in the rec room.”

“Working out?”

“No … just … just spending some time by myself.”

“And you didn’t see Ward run past the rec room?”

“No,” Rolle answered.

Cromartie didn’t reply. So Ward wasn’t down at that end of the ship, and that meant that he couldn’t be down below in the storage level. Ward had to be on the upper level. He remembered hearing someone running in the corridor when he’d been on the bridge a few minutes ago. It had to have been Ward out there.

But Rolle’s story didn’t feel right to Cromartie, and he couldn’t figure out what was bothering him about it. Sanders’ story didn’t feel right to him, either. Nobody’s story felt right.

What about your story?
his mind whispered.
You woke up in front of the airlock door with a black magic marker in your hand. What were you doing before you woke up there?

Cromartie shook the voice in his mind away and stared at Rolle. “You haven’t seen Ward for a while?”

“No.”

He sighed. “Let’s get back to Sanders. She’s hurt. Ward hurt her ankle when he slammed her into the wall.”

Rolle’s eyebrows scrunched in concern and he was already marching down the corridor to her room like there was finally something he could do to help.

They entered Sanders’ room and she sat in the same spot at the end of her bed, her hands on her thigh, her eyes half-closed.

“It was Ward,” Sanders said as soon as Cromartie and Rolle entered her room. “He ran out of Abraham’s room when I saw him and he threw me into the wall.”

“I know,” Rolle told her in a gentle voice. “Cromartie already told me what happened.”

“She didn’t see the knife on Ward,” Cromartie said.

“Oh God!” Sanders yelled. “Will you stop defending him? How many times does he have to do this before you believe me? It’s Ward. He killed Butler and now he’s killed Abraham.”

“Okay,” Cromartie said. “Just try to relax.”

Rolle looked at Cromartie. “She’s right. We should have done something about Ward while we had the chance. It was him all along. We need to do something now. We need to find him before he attacks us.”

Rolle looked back at Sanders and squatted down beside her. “I just want to take a look at your leg. Okay?”

She nodded quickly, giving him permission.

He rolled up her pants leg a little and touched her ankle gently.

The flesh around Sanders’ ankle didn’t look too swollen to Cromartie, but he wasn’t a doctor like Rolle was.

She winced in pain as Rolle touched her ankle, biting her lips to keep from crying out.

“You think it’s broken?” Cromartie asked Rolle.

Rolle shook his head. “No. There isn’t much swelling. I think it might be twisted. A bad sprain maybe. Not broken, but obviously very painful.” He popped back up quickly to his feet. “There’s probably a first aid kit in her bathroom. If not there’s one in mine.”

Cromartie just nodded.

Rolle was already hurrying for the bathroom door at the other end of Sanders’ room.

Cromartie watched Sanders who seemed to be getting her breathing back under control now that she was sitting down on her bed and off of her feet.

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

She just stared at him.

“I should’ve believed you about Ward. I should have trusted your instincts.”

She didn’t say anything. She could’ve said that she’d been right all along and now Abraham was dead because Cromartie wanted to make one hundred percent sure that Ward was guilty before they did anything. She could’ve said a lot of things, but she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t want to rub it in right now, or maybe she was in too much pain to gloat.

Rolle was back with a plastic case in his hand. The case was white like nearly everything else in these rooms and it had the words FIRST AID printed on the lid. He opened it up and started pulling items out. “Should be something to wrap your ankle with in here, and some kind of painkillers.”

Cromartie pulled the knife he’d been carrying out of the belt around his pants and he held it in his hand. He looked down at the knife and a thought struck him suddenly.

He looked at Rolle. “Where’s your knife?”

Rolle cocked his head a little like he was trying to understand the dumb question Cromartie had just asked. “It’s tucked down in my belt underneath my shirt.” He even reached down by his hip and touched the knife handle sticking up out of his belt like he was making sure it was still there. “Why?”

Cromartie turned his attention to Sanders. “What about you? Where’s your knife?”

She stared right back at Cromartie for a moment, and then she shook her head slightly. “I … I don’t know.”

“You didn’t have it on you when you went to Abraham’s room?” Cromartie asked her. “You always carry it with you. We all do.”

“Uh … yeah. I thought I had it.” She checked her waist like she was looking for it. “But I don’t know where it is. Did you give it back to me after I … after I was in the freezer?”

“Yes,” Cromartie answered her. “Remember? After we were on the bridge, I gave it back to you before you went back to your room.”

Sanders shook he head slightly like she was trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind. She looked a little confused, backpedaling. “I don’t really remember.” Then her face brightened a little. “What about the hallway? Maybe I dropped it when Ward attacked me.”

“It’s not in the hallway.”

“Well, maybe he took it when he ran.”

Cromartie just stared at her.

“I really don’t remember,” she said in a low voice.

“What happened before you heard Ward in Abraham’s room?” Rolle asked her.

Sanders took a moment before answering, thinking it over, like she was getting her story straight in her mind. “I … I was sleeping. I woke up … like from a noise. And I left my room and went out into the hallway. That’s when I heard Ward in Abraham’s room.” She looked around at her room like a thought had just occurred to her. “I don’t remember grabbing my knife before I left. I was real groggy.” She looked at Cromartie. “Maybe I never took my knife out of here. Yeah, I don’t think I ever took it with me.”