The Freeze (Barren Trilogy, Book 3) Read online

  Jerome put his hand over mine and squeezed.

  I was glad he was there, that I didn't have to feel alone in this. It was what these people wanted—to isolate us and make us helpless.

  The car ride dragged out into forever and I was so hungry that I was lightheaded. At last, we pulled down a narrow alley lined with garbage cans, Dumpsters, and burned-out signs for a couple of seedy places. The cab stopped next to a crooked sign that hung over a metal door with peeling paint. I struggled to read the words on the sign in the headlights. The Pink something. I was sure it wasn't anything good.

  Chalmers folded his hands. “We're heading inside that door right there.” He was confident. He didn't have to be anything else. “It's not what you think.”

  I got out and stood by the car, waiting for Jerome. Right behind me, Alana and my father got out of the other cab. They waited while the scary silent woman stood next to them. She gestured them forward. I hadn't heard her say a word yet.

  Chalmers held the door to the strip joint or whatever open for us. There was a dim light shining on the ceiling inside, one shaped like a star. It was dingy, with brownish dust coating it. It lit a hallway that had other stars painted on the walls, some of which were peeling. It didn't look like a strip club at all. Maybe this was only disguised as one.

  “Inside,” he ordered.

  I didn't have a choice. I stepped in.

  Jerome and I had to walk single file down the narrow hallway and into the semi-dark. My eyes struggled to adjust and I about ran into a corner, then turned to the right to find another star light casting its dim glow. I thought the décor was pretty appropriate for Operation Stardust. This place smelled old and musty, like it had been here for years and hadn't felt fresh air in a long time.

  Feet shuffled and no one spoke. The silence was worse. At last, after walking down an incline that felt like it was going into the earth, we came to another steel door.

  This one had a faint, glowing number pad on the front.

  Chalmers pushed in front of me and Jerome while Alana breathed on the back of my neck. They were keeping us mashed together. Easier to control.

  Chalmers hesitated and moved in front of the number pad like he was trying to hide whatever combination he was putting in.

  I stretched, leaning to the side a bit in the process. The woman cleared her throat, but not before I caught the first three numbers Chalmers put into the pad.

  Five, three and six.

  There was a fourth number, but I missed it. The door beeped a second later and swung open with an official click.

  There was light. Lots of light.

  I squinted as the woman cleared her throat again to urge everyone forward. Jerome linked his hand with mine and I wasn't even horrified that Dad must be able to see it. The room ahead of us was expansive. Full of people, computers, desks and cubicles. I felt like we were stepping into a secret underground office.

  “Inside,” Chalmers said. “This is the Stardust Headquarters of New York. Welcome.”

  He didn't sound very welcoming. Jerome and I stepped into the room as my eyes adjusted all over again. I hadn't seen this much light in weeks and it was already giving me a headache. The sounds came next. Typing. Something beeped and someone else muttered. I glanced at a woman with very manicured nails who was typing away on a laptop. She had a steaming mug of coffee next to her. A mug of coffee. A luxury in this new world. On her laptop screen was a camera image of an intersection and what looked like a market with busted windows. People walked in and out with grocery carts while she was participating in some online chat on a side window. These people were monitoring the city through secret cameras. They were spying.

  “Are those traffic cameras?” Jerome asked.

  “Yes,” Chalmers said. “Some of there. Move on. Your business isn't here yet. Let me show you what we do.”

  Yet. They wanted us to join these people who might have been spying on us for years. I'd never look at those traffic cameras the same ever again.

  The agents led us through the room, which had about forty people, mostly middle aged men and women who were all dressed like they were well off. We turned a corner—the room was set up like a giant plus sign—and to another steel door. Chalmers opened it to a small hallway that had four doors in it, one of them labeled PRISON BLOCK in tiny letters. The other door was labeled REC ROOM and the third, the one to the left of us, STORAGE.

  Chalmers opened the STORAGE door.

  And beyond it was a huge space the size of a Sam's Club, all underground and lit by huge overhanging lights.

  And in this space were tall shelves upon shelves of food and bottled beverages. There was enough here to feed an army.

  “This is our store room,” Chalmers explained as if this were normal news. “We ship to bases across the country from here. We also take shipments of food from the surrounding area, both from the military and from our civilian gatherers.”

  I could only stare. This was where they were putting their stash and keeping it from people in need. This was the food for the privileged people like David. There was so much food there was a small fleet of cranes parked on the side of the room, ready to do some hauling.

  Chalmers closed the door. “I'll show you your starting quarters. Come with me.” He patted his pocket again, reminding us that his gun was there.

  He took us to the steel door labeled PRISON BLOCK. There was another combination pad on this one and I wasn't sure, but it looked like he was entering the same code. Five, three and six along with some other number I couldn't see. I couldn't be sure, of course, but I could feel the silent woman's gaze on me.

  They were putting us in prison. Getting us ready for whatever they wanted us to do.

  The next hallway was darker and lined with blue carpet. Closed metal doors with tiny windows lined the hall and there were dozens of them, stretching away into the dim light. More dingy stars clung to the ceiling and cast a sheen on the metal doors.

  They were cells.

  There wasn't any other explanation for this. Maybe the Stardust people were more interested in extracting information from us than actually employing us. But why show us the store room?

  Dad spoke up. “Tell me the real reason you brought my daughter here.”

  “She will need a bit of time to come around,” Chalmers said, walking up to the fourth door on the right. “You will all need a bit of time.” He turned a handle on the front of the door. “Laney, step in, please.”

  “Is that a gas chamber?” I asked. The walls inside were plain white. The floor was, too.

  “Of course not,” he said with a smile. “We do not want to harm any of you. Please, step inside.” He moved his hand closer to his pistol again.

  I looked to Jerome and Dad. I leaned to the side and Chalmers held the door open wider so I could see. There was a cot and a metal toilet that would not be warm to sit on, but nothing else.

  The woman cleared her throat.

  “Laney, please,” Dad said. “We don't have any other options right now.”

  I could hear the agony in his voice. If I wasn't good, I would pay. Worse, the others would pay. If I didn't do this right, he would suffer the same fate as Mom, just faster.

  So I released Jerome's hand, gave him and Alana and Dad one final look, and stepped inside.

  Chalmers closed the door on my cell, almost like he was trying to avoid making noise. I whirled around as the door clicked, leaving me isolated and alone.

  * * * * *

  I didn't know how much time passed.

  Being alone in that room destroyed all sense of it, like I was dealing with the days leading up to and right after Mom's passing all over again. I laid on the cot and slept. Sometimes, I sat up and stared at the plain white wall. I dreamed sometimes that I was out in the city, foraging for food out of trash cans, but most of the time my sleep was muddled and groggy. Even my normal nightmares didn't know how to manifest in here.

  It was all nothingness. Plain, white nothingne
ss.

  There was a flap in the door where food came through sometimes. It was bland, plain white bread, pork, and spinach every meal. Water came, too, sealed inside a foam cup with a straw. The bright light in my room never turned off, day or night or whatever it happened to be outside. Sometimes, I would peek out the window, but it was tinted so that I couldn't make out anything outside. I wondered if people were looking in, trying to see what I was doing or making sure I wasn't trying to kill myself.

  I hadn't seen Alana or Dad or Jerome in what felt like days. Perhaps, years. Maybe the storm that was supposed to arrive was already burying the city.

  The Stardust people were trying to drive me crazy. I had to hold it together. They wanted me disoriented so I'd do what they told me.

  I didn't know what had become of the others. Maybe they were in their own cells. Maybe they were already dead. There was no way to know.

  So between meals, I laid on the bed with my eyes closed. It didn't matter if I had them open or closed. It was all monochrome either way, but at least with my eyes shut, I could pretend I was somewhere else for a while.

  “Laney. Sit up, please.”

  My eyelids shot open and the plain white room tore me out of a strange dream I was having about a beautiful park full of dangerous cliffs. Jerome and Alana and I had been having a picnic there but it was hard to find a spot that didn't have death waiting. The dream dissolved like morning dew as I blinked. I had a headache like I had been sleeping for too long. My stomach growled and I had to go to the bathroom, which was an issue since Agent Chalmers was standing in front of the toilet, sunglasses covering his eyes and arms folded over his chest.

  It was a strange shock seeing someone in this space. I had been alone for hours or maybe days without anything other than silence and these walls. Solitary confinement was mental torture. I had to remember that.

  “Sit up, please,” Chalmers said, backing away to keep his distance.

  “I want a shower,” I said. I knew that I smelled bad. I probably hadn't been the best before he even found me. Of course, we'd jumped into lakes and rivers whenever we could on our drive across the country just to rinse off and it had helped, and even used an abandoned high school shower right before crossing the border to Kentucky, but since getting to New York there had been only the Hudson River and it had been way too cold for the thought of bathing to even enter my mind. “I want one now.”

  “And you will have one, Laney. All you have to do is listen to us.” He faced the closed door as if someone were standing right outside. Of course he had brought backup. Jerome and I were supposed to be dangerous, even though right now, smelly and trapped in this room, I felt everything except for that. I was scared, scared for Alana and Dad and for everything that might be happening out there. I had to see them even before I took the shower, even if I just got to glimpse into a cell or two.

  I looked down to keep Chalmers from seeing the desperation in my eyes. It was what he wanted. He had the shower to work with and I was going to keep it to that if possible.

  “Are you listening?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is a large storm bearing down on the city,” Chalmers said. “It's worse than the forecasters thought it would be, with hurricane strength winds and a predicted storm surge of about twenty feet. How much do you know about storms?”

  “A little,” I said. “Dust storms, mostly.” I was actually relieved he was telling me this. Now I had some sense of what was happening outside. That is, if he was telling the truth.

  “Most people know the storm is coming,” Chalmers continued. “Looting has reached a high point and most food is being hoarded at this time. The stores are mostly empty and a lot of people are evacuating the city. However, there is a stockpile of canned goods underneath the very same Holiday Inn you found your father in. We're interested in that.”

  “So you want me to go and steal Sheri's stash,” I said. Whatever the Stardust people had promised her was betrayed now.

  “What did that woman do for you?” Chalmers asked. “She is a selfish woman who is only looking out for herself.” He paced in that way that made me nervous. “She is using others for her own ends.”

  I could see where this was going. Chalmers was trying to play me against Sheri. Sheri might have given me away to the Stardust people, but she had been offering some people shelter who had nowhere else to go, even if it wasn't for free. She might have even been scared for her own life when she decided to let the agents camp out in her place. Sheri was better than a lot of people I had met on my journey.

  “You want me to go and kill her,” I said.

  “It is for the greater good,” Chalmers told me. “We know you and Jerome are capable of this. This is your food that you are defending. Your right to survive. That hotel owner is weak and trying to prey on others.”

  “Why can't you just walk in there and do it yourselves?” I asked. “Aren't you better trained?” I didn't like Sheri, but I couldn't just walk in and kill her.

  Chalmers looked ready for this question. “Operation Stardust will work better if people like me are out of sight. Our success depends on that.”

  I remembered the radio guy telling people to stay home and away from the stores so the army could waltz in and take the food. This was like that.

  “So I'm here to do the dirty work so people don't get suspicious,” I said.

  “You've been in the hotel before,” he said. “People in that area will expect you to go there again and loot. Everyone's doing it. There are food stashes in places that people don't expect. Under law offices. In the subways. Even the homeless have places they can hide their finds in. They're especially adept at stealing and stashing away their goods.”

  All of my hunger vanished. These people even wanted to murder the homeless in order to get more food for themselves. And what would me and Jerome get? Scraps, probably. Or worse—the best food and shelter available. They would want to make sure they gave us an offer that we couldn't refuse.

  “I see you're listening. That's great,” he continued, stopping against the wall. His suit crinkled as he reached towards his pocket. I couldn't see the gun from this angle, but I didn't need to. “Sheri is a very resourceful and dangerous woman. There are even rumors that she's involved in organized crime.”

  I thought that was a little much. Sheri just struck me as someone trying their best to survive with what they had. I had run over two men back in Arizona, but they were planning on killing us and torturing us all and I had no choice. Sheri had only been protecting herself. I thought I'd been done taking others' lives into my hands, but I had been wrong. Very wrong.

  Now I would be taking them.

  “This would be a boon for the surrounding area,” Chalmers said. I knew it was a lie. “It will give others a chance at surviving if she is taken out of the picture.”

  Yes, I thought. You. Chalmers was really playing up the propaganda thing to try to sway me to his side. I wasn't buying it. As if he sensed that, he stepped closer.

  “Laney, we have your father in his own cell. He's right next to you. So is your best friend, Alanis.”

  “Alana,” I corrected. They didn't even care enough to get her name right. She and Dad were the expendables. The ones who weren't “strong” enough to save. They hadn't proven themselves. “By the way, she toughed out that journey right along with me and Jerome. I don't know why you're overlooking her.”

  “Alana is...more fragile than you are,” Chalmers said. He remained two feet from me so I was eye level with his hands. “She's more emotionally unstable. I can tell that you are more accustomed to harsh reality than she is. Jerome, too. You and Jerome have what it takes to survive and help our species move forward from this disaster. Nature is not kind, Laney. It never has been, which is why we have dedicated thousands of years to getting out of it. These are not nice times. I'm sure you understand why we're taking these measures.”

  I did and he knew it. But if I didn't hold out and turned into jus
t another David, what would be the point of surviving? For the last few weeks I had seen myself as either a failure or Death itself, scythe and all, in that sketchbook, but now it was becoming reality as if my drawings had bled into the real world. It was all some big, cruel joke.

  “We can maintain your father and Alana, but only if you cooperate with us,” Chalmers said. “Your cooperation will ensure that we are able to get enough food to feed any extra people. If not, I'm sure you'll understand what we will need to do next.” He looked down at me with those black pit sunglasses, not taking his eye contact off.

  My whole body tensed. This was how David had exerted control over his followers. This guy reminded me of him on every level, only now he had people to threaten me with. I could kill Sheri...or I could kill Alana and my father and be responsible for the deaths of more people I loved.

  I trembled.

  I was on a chain.

  “Laney, what is your decision?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jerome and I were put into a tiny office to talk about what we wanted to do. It reminded me of those hospital conference rooms where nothing good happened. The place itself was threatening to close in on me. The walls were plain white, just like my cell, and the table was a light brown color that reminded me of vomit. These people had purposely picked out the worst colors to make everything in there, as if they had studied which ones made people the most nervous.

  They had brought Jerome in here right before I arrived. He shook his head as I entered and they closed the door behind me.

  “I'll kill Sheri,” he said. So they had already spoken to him. “Laney, you've had enough. When we get there, just let me do the deed.” I could see the nerves in his big brown eyes. Jerome was terrified. He had never killed anyone. I had. Two, maybe three times or even more. I couldn't tell.