The Henhouse

June 10th, 2019 - 6:12 AM

A hallucination shouldn't be this persistent, Justin realized. Besides, he recognized these alarms. They were the same ones from dinner last week. The blackout.

Justin shot up from the bed and automatically made his way for the door. With hallways so dark from lack of sunlight, again his only hope was to follow the blue-green arrows embedded in the floorboards. These lead not towards the elevator like last time, but instead to the television screen, which now read:

LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT DUE TO ADVERSE WEATHER. REMAIN INDOORS.

Lockdown? He looked around. Nothing had changed but the patio doors, which were now blocked off from the outside with a metal sheathing.

He heard mumbles of confusion behind him.

"No, no," murmured Peter. He backed away from the screen. "We're doing this all wrong...."

No one else seemed able to articulate their thoughts for a moment. Jonah darted towards the patio doors and tried opening them, to no avail.

"Locked."

"Okay. Let's not panic," Ella said. "This base is clearly well-built, I'm sure it can withstand a lot of-"

"Oh, wake up, Aurora," Jonah cried. "There is no 'adverse weather.' Get it?!" She looked about her. "Skies were clear from dawn to dusk yesterday, I saw them. Red sunset." She shrugged. "'Red skies at night, sailor's delight,' anyone?"

"But... that doesn't make sense..." Justin mumbled.

"What?"

"It doesn't make sense. I mean, it's not like we were planning on going anywhere-"

"Well, maybe we should be," Dany said. "I'm getting damn tired of this place. We could get the money some other way-"

Jonah scoffed. "Where the hell else would we get paid this much for just sitting around?"

"Then maybe we shouldn't have all tried 'sitting around' as a financial strategy," he retorted before rubbing his eyes.

Justin looked over his shoulder for Ivy, but she'd already quit the room. Peter was also gone; he must have followed her out.

"Well... we're here now," Justin offered. "So we're just gonna have to figure this out and make the best of it."

"'Make the best of-' What is this to you, a wrong turn on a GPS?" Jonah spluttered. "We are now trapped in this place, no idea where Ginger is, blood getting sucked out of us like we're personal factories for the Red Cross-"

"Yeah," he snapped. "So complaining about it is sure gonna help us now, right?"

Jonah paused, stunned. Even Dany seemed taken by surprise.

"Jonah," Justin started, "what did you guys really find in that closet the other day?"

She and Dany glanced at each other and didn't look away for several moments. Jonah was too proud to gulp with nerves like Dany, but her ragged breathing told him enough.

She turned back, preparing herself.

"Ammunition."

Now it was time for Justin to pause. His stomach soured.

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah." Her voice was deep and sober. "A ton. Looked like it was mostly for handguns. There weren't any actual guns with them, and, you know, we sure didn't know what to do with it, so... we've left it all there."

"Where'd Ivy go?" Ella asked the room. Jonah, Dany and him shrugged at her before a voice answered:

"Her room."

Artie pointed down the hallway. Justin hadn't noticed him come out to the living room with the rest. He looked wary, cautious... but Justin didn't stay to ask why.

"Thanks."

He dashed off to find her. She needed to know about the closet; Justin doubted that Jonah or Dany had told her on their own.

He found the door to Ivy's room ajar. Swinging it open, he found her writing madly away in her book.

"Ivy-"

Her head darted up at him like a deer facing headlights. Her eyes were bloodshot. He wondered if she'd taken a pill, just now.

"Justin," she greeted him. Her voice was robotic. Scripted. "Have you seen Peter around?"

"Ah... no...?"

"Hm. Well, maybe he went back into his room. I'm getting worried about him," she declared. "I want to see him."

She tossed her notebook aside and stood up from her desk, walking out of her room while prompting Justin to follow. Ivy's paces were so quick that Justin had to jog to keep up.

Side-by-side they passed Peter's door. Confusion slipped through him but he said nothing, letting Ivy take his wrist and pull him behind her into Casper's room, closing the door as soon as they'd entered.

"I-"

Justin was caught by how vacant the room looked, now. Casper's row of framed photos had disappeared, the dresser drawers were empty as though ransacked. Even the bedsheets had been removed, leaving a sagging, naked mattress behind.

"I know what you wanted me to say," Ivy started. "But it couldn't be there. They've just installed a new camera in my room."

"A- that- what?" Justin spluttered.

"I just noticed it this morning, waking up from the alarms. I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure it's only been done to my room-"

"Listen, Ivy... they- they can't just put up a camera by your bed while you're sleeping. I mean, it'd be pretty hard to not notice someone creeping into your room in the middle of the night to do something like that."

"Except I wasn't sleeping," she said.

Justin paused, thinking. If Ivy had spent another night in the living room... it wasn't impossible.

"Anyway," she resumed. "...You should know that that's not the only one, either. This whole place has been bugged from the beginning. Not just mics, but cameras, too... which wouldn't have been too surprising, I guess, if there weren't so many of them. They've been put just about everywhere. I've 'accidentally' broken some of them, and I've kept tabs on all the others... but I never know if I've found them all."

She looked around the room, as though expecting to find yet another then and there.

"Listen- I know why we're all here. ...At least, I think I do. But everyone needs to know about it. It should be all together." She gulped. "...I- I think you'll understand, once you hear it."

Justin's head spun.

"And... uh, everything else?" he asked her awkwardly. His eyes flickered around the room, remembering its last occupant. "Does it make more sense, now? Do you know where-?"

"No," she confessed. She was clearly irritated at the fact. "That's the problem. But... look, there's too much to talk about between just us. We need to find a way to get everyone together without it being conspicuous. ...Ideas?"

"We'll figure something out."

He was about to leave, but then remembered.

"I-Ivy..." He gulped. "There's something else you should know about. Jonah and Dany-"

"I overheard it all," she told him bluntly. "And you'd better hope no mics did too. Otherwise...."

A pause passed between them.

"Well, let's just say... if they don't trust us," - she looked to the ceiling - "the last thing they need to hear is that we don't trust them, either."