The Killer Among Us: Part Two

When a person you don’t know dies, you feel sad for the people who knew that person. When a person you know but aren’t close with, you’re shocked when you’re told about it. But you’d never expect someone who’d grown close to you…

to be gone.

“Either way,” I said. “Yvette is dead. Someone on this ship, known or not, murdered her. Some of us may be next. There’s a killer among us.”

The room went silent as the words sank in. During a seemingly innocent game of hide-and-seek, Levi found Yvette dead in the electrical room. As shocked as we all were, everyone had to be on their toes. I knew I was.

“Have you reached someone else through the communication systems?” Oaklynn asked, wiping her glasses. “I mean, someone literally died here. Just now. Literally. And no one except us knows. We need—”

“I’ll get on it,” Bryce interrupted her. “Garrett, Pearl. You guys can come with me to navigation. The rest of you, stay safe and do whatever. Use the buddy system for all I care. Just… don’t go into Medbay if you don’t want to be scarred. That’s where Yvette is now.”

And with that, the emergency meeting was over. Of course Bryce didn’t want me to go to navigation. But who was I to care? I didn’t want to be in the same room as him anyway.

Diva, Garrett, and Dumb Blond on the ship shuffled out of the room, while Oaklynn walked Levi in her arms and out of the room so he could continue sleeping. The atmosphere quickly became awkward in the room since it was just me, Cooper, Bernard, and Paisley. These were all people I didn’t know too well. Heck, I hadn’t even come up with nicknames for them yet.

“Hey, so…” Bernard mumbled, surprisingly loud enough for the rest of us to hear. “Cooper, right? You did the autopsy on Yvette… How’d you do that? Aren’t you, like, twelve.”

“Fifteen.” Cooper corrected. “My mom’s a doctor and works for the Hospital Mothership. I’ve picked up a thing or two.”

Clearly more than a thing or two if he did an autopsy.

Cooper shifted in his seat before sighing. “I’m really sorry for you, man. Like—”

“Thanks.” Emo widower said flatly. Oh, there’s the nickname. “Is… is it okay if I can go see her?”

“Sure, man. Just, like Bryce said, it’s kinda scarring.”

Bernard sighed, clearly a whole in his heart. “It really doesn’t matter much anymore.”

The two boys got up from their seats and left admin. Paisley sighed beside me.

“If feel so bad for him. I mean, from the looks of it now, he loved that girl. Yvette, I mean. Maybe he needs a hug.”

She must have noticed my sour expression, so she chuckled it off afterwards. “Sorry, Rashida. It must seem weird of me to say something like that. I mean, a hug is a sign of affection. And it seems super weird that I’d say something like that cuz I’m like four years younger and I barely know him but. Sometimes people do needs hugs… right?”

I guessed I could see where Paisley was coming from. Much like her appearance, she seemed friendly. Maybe a little too much, considering the dire situation we all were in.

How could she focus on someone else’s emotional state when someone was literally just murdered?

“Sure.” I shrugged it off.

Paisley got up from her seat. “Well, I’m going to check up on them now. Oh, and if you need any hugs, just let me know.”

Paisley left admin with a friendly smile, leaving me alone in the room.

***

Staying in admin doing nothing was pointless. Eventually, I found myself wandering the halls of the Skeld, running through my own thoughts while memorizing the details of the ship.

That’s when I heard someone freaking out in a room nearby.

Navigation.

It could only be one person.

“What the heck is going on?” I asked barging in. Pearl bumped my shoulder on her way out for no specific reason, while Garrett and Bryce turned to face me.

Dumb Blond ran his hand through his hair, his face obviously panicked. “The communication cords have been cut for goodness sake! Now we can’t let anyone know what’s happened on this darned ship.”

I peeked my head under the dashboard. So, yeah. More than a few wires were cut, making it impossible to reach the outside world. Someone definitely didn’t want us about the homicide. But honestly, Bryce was overreacting.

“Can’t you just fly the Skeld to the Justice Mothership? Then we can finally—”

“Um, Rashida,” Garrett began slowly. “About that. You’re going to wanna see the rest of the scene.”

Crawling out from the wires under the dashboard, I could finally see where they were coming from. The entire flight deck and controls had been trashed.

Every.

Single

Piece.

Everything was useless. The radar was smashed, along with the engine monitors. Even the steering wheel had been hanging of its column. The atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted. We were literally sitting ducks. No communication with others, no flying the ship to someone where they could seek help.

We were on their own with nothing to protect them from the coming slaughter. Whoever that person was, he or she wanted us gone.

“That’s a problem,” I said glancing over the damage again.

“And that’s an understatement.” Bryce huffed, folding his arms. “I don’t even know if we’ll be able to fix this with the resources we have here, let along survive on the ones we got.”

Wait, what did he mean by survive? I knew there was a killer someone on this ship, but surviving on the resources?

That’s when Levi came running in, clinging onto his older cousin in just a few seconds. He was followed in by Oaklynn, and a stack of papers. She dropped them all on the ground, and began spreading them out.

“I got the information on what we got left,” she explained, pushing up her glasses with her wrist. Weird tactic to place the info, but whatever. The rest of us crouched around her as she explained with her nasally voice. “So we’ve only been here for a day or two. And without communication or being able to go anywhere, welp we got a dilemma on our hands. I mean, food is okay for about a week. Water for no more than five days… then oxygen is probably the lowest problem. We only got about a two days supply for that.”

“So,” Garrett began. “It’s either this impostor that’ll kill us, or running out of air.”

“Yeah. Like that. Reminds me of a time where—”

Drowning out her annoying yapping, I leaned back and took a breath. We were dead either way. One of my hands wrapped around my wrist to check my pulse.

Yep, my heart rate definitely increased. Neither the sudden revelation or my frightened self was a good sign. I tried to control my hitched breathing, but it was no use. I was afraid. And I couldn’t do anything about it. I really didn’t want to die. No one does.

I felt arms wrap around me from behind. They were relatively small. And pudgy.

“It’ll be okay.” Levi’s kind and small voice whispered in my ear. “We’ll be okay.”

Of all people, how could this child be more calm than me? Was he really not that afraid of death? Did he not understand the situation we were in?

“We need to get off this ship.” Bryce stood up quickly. The rest of us copied his action, Levi hanging on my back. Although did Oaklynn stayed on the ground.“And as soon as possible. Gather everyone. I need to… come up with something.”

My mind raced for possible solutions. If only this tiny ship had escape pods like the bigger ones.

Wait a darned minute.

“Doesn’t the Skeld actually have escape pods?”

Dumb Blond’s eyes grew wide. This is why he was dumb. And blond. “I’m so stupid!” See? He even admitted it himself. “Get everyone to the deck. Now. I’ll—”

That’s when the room went dark.

And for the longest ten seconds of my life I was surrounded by darkness.

Everything was quiet. Silent. I wondered if I was dead for a split second.

The lights came back on but instead…

Everything was red.

***

Sirens began blaring rhythmically. I remembered this hypothetical scenario played out in my Ship Anatomy Course in elementary school. Though I’d never thought this would ever happen.

“Check all the critical points, now!” Bryce demanded, bolting out of the room himself. He disappeared down the hall. Garrett peeled Levi off my back and then ran off with him.

I looked down to Oaklynn, her eyes wide in fear, frozen in her place. If she of all people wasn’t going to do anything, I knew I had to be better. So I left navigation and ran down the redly illuminated hall.

I didn’t know exactly where I was supposed to check. Bryce never cleared that up. I hoped I’d see Garrett again after all of this. Heck, I just prayed that I would survive this.

The alarm pounded in my ears. It pounded in sync with my quickened heartbeat. My hands were clammy and my hair seemed to weigh me down. I didn’t want to go on…

but I had to.

Rushing down the spiral stairwell, I finally remembered where I was going.

The deck. That’s where the escape pods were. And a critical point.

The light painted everything in sight in a dark red that I almost didn’t notice the figure trying to tie a rope around their waist. This… person had taken one of the spacesuits. And noticing the extreme humming to the room, the doors were opening.

If those doors opened completely, the vacuum of space would suck everything out. And this person, with the rope around their waist. Whoever this was, they expected to live through this. This person was the impostor.

“Hey!” I called out.

The figure had a helmet on, so I couldn’t see their face. But I charged towards whoever was under it.

This person began running towards the doors. They were almost open.

I cursed under my breath and took hold of the rope. That’s when air began flying out of the room, lifting me off the ground immediately. This rope was now my life. I clung to the thread as everything was being sucked into the black void. And I mean everything.

I was too scared too kept my eyes shut and not watch. The only terms of escape easily slid out. The boxes of the food and water supply now fed the stars. As I was almost out of the doors myself, I turned back to the person who had to be at least six feet of rope in front of me and in space.

This person… wasn’t a stowaway.

I knew because her helmet wasn’t secured on right. And she was trying to climb the rope back into the Skeld for one more chance of survival.

Literally, the situation took the air out of my lungs. So when I tried to scream her name, all that came out was a silence. But both of us knew what I was going to say.

Pearl.

Even though we were basically floating off to space with no helmet, the fear in her eyes… It matched what my insides felt like.

Fear.

Hopelessness.

Regret—

There was a loud wham. My life flashed before my eyes. Gravity came back as I fell nine feet, crashing down on the metal ground. Air filled my lungs so fast, it felt like they were crushed. So did my whole body. My initial scream was like a croak as a pang rushed through my body. And once I got my heaving under control…

I let out the most harrowing scream I’d ever heard.

I was left on the ground for who knows how long. My insides were throbbing, and I was sure I was dying. Well, I didn’t know. I probably wasn’t the most conscious person either.

But someone lifted me up. Not off my feet, but that person held me close on the ground. I felt a soft murmur, which turned in a muted calling, then slowly formed into words.

“Rashida, are you okay?”

The blaring stopped, and everything was in a regular white light. Regaining my strength, I found a familiar pair of green eyes hovering over me.

“Rashida…”

“…Am I alive?” I managed to rasp.

Garrett smiled warmly. “Very much alive.”

That’s when I clung to him as hard as I could. I didn’t want to let go. Like everyone else I knew, I wanted to live. And I was alive.

Gasping, I snapped back into reality. I sat up, wincing, but trying to observe the room around me. Bryce stood by one of the lockdown boxes, and the sad part was, he was easy to spot. Everything else, all our resources on this ship were gone, because of…

“Pearl.” I whispered. Turning to the transparent docking doors, there she was. The rope she was tied to had been cut off when the doors were shut, leaving me inside and her out there. She had to have been rushing because I could see her face clearly without that helmet of hers.

Her tears were still floating next to her, her face showing the most sorrow I’d ever seen. And around her, everything else we needed to survive. My brain did a great job of painting the horrid picture into my memory.

“Why would she do such a thing? What was the motive?”

“That’s impossible to know,” Bryce said, crouching near me and Garrett. “She was the daughter of the Astor family. She literally had everything. What was the point of this?”

“That’s literally what I just asked but in a different sentence,” I replied blankly.

Dumb Blond rolled his eyes. “Now is not the time. Since we no longer have anything to get us by, we need to get this ship up and running so we can get out of here. And live. Is that understood?”

“And why—”

“Look,” Garrett placed a hand on Bryce’s shoulder, still holding onto me. “Rashida almost died just now. And she had a pretty nasty fall, too. She could have internal bleeding or something, and she needs help. We can focus on fixing the ship in just a few minutes.”

Dumb Blond exchanged glances between Garrett and me. Then he groaned and got up from his feet. “Fine. I’ll go let Cooper know. Only one the condition that Rashida doesn’t die on me. Two people died in the past few hours, I don’t need another death on the Skeld.”

As he walked away, I was able to give a sigh of relief for the first time. It was, well, relieving. Then I looked back up at Garrett. He was just… smiling down on me. I raised my eyebrow. “What?”

“Well, you just survived a near death experience—”

“Almost survived. I still gotta get this ‘injury’ you mentioned under control first.”

He gave me a cheeky grin. “I’m certain you’ll be alright.”

For a while we just sat there, stupidly smiling at each other. It was weird but… strangely nice. “A person kinda starts looking like at psychopath if he keeps staring at something for too long.”

He rolled his eyes, but in a playful manner. “Oh, you and your snarky comments. C’mon now, let’s get you patched up.”

Garrett pulled me over his shoulder. For once after this whole incident, I felt somewhat relaxed, and maybe even okay. Even though Pearl was gone, the impostor had been dealt with. All we had to focus on now was getting the ship patched up and—

“Guys! SOMEBODY!” Oaklynn came running down the stairs. But instead of feeling annoyed, she had a freaked out expression on her face.

Something happened.

Something that wasn’t good.

Once she reached Bryce, that’s when she stopped to let the tears flow.

Something was certainly wrong.

“Hey, hey, hey. What happened?” Bryce tried to calm her down by holding her arms. That didn’t do any good. Oaklynn was spiraling like that staircase.

“Oaklynn,” I tried reaching out. She stopped and our eyes met. The fear and sadness… it was unsettling. “Tell us what happened.”

She grasped Bryce’s arms as she tried to calm down. Tears still silently streamed down her face after a few more soothing breaths.

“Oaklynn…?” Bryce tried again.

I could feel the dread building up in the room. And it wasn’t even resolved when she said…

“It’s Paisley.”