Panic Button

Ten

“Why the hell are we flying to Oslo?” Max demanded.

He was standing in the aisle next to Jo, both of them looking defiant.

“All in good time,” Alligator teased.

Gwen began to sob from her seat, pleading with them to sit down, to just do as Alligator said.

“No more,” Jo said, “We’re not playing any more.”

The speakers crackled faintly, then Alligator made his next move.

“Very well, you give me no choice but to initiate another forfeit. Let’s see…”

The touch screens flickered into life, rifling through Jo’s friend profiles. She watched in abject terror as familiar names and faces scrolled across the screen. So many innocent people.

“No!” Jo shouted. She couldn’t allow him to harm anyone.

“Then take your seats,” Alligator said as the screens flickered into life.

“Please,” Jo said to Max as she sat down.

Last man standing, Max looked around the cabin at the others — at Jo’s pleading eyes boring into his. She’ll be the death of me, that yummy mummy, Max thought as he reluctantly sat down.

The words ‘ROUND 3: DO OR DIE’ appeared on the monitor screens in front of the terrified passengers. An atmosphere of dread fell over the cabin like a dying breath.

Dave shifted uncomfortably in his seat as the animated Alligator returned to their screens.

Gwen glanced out of the dark window at the stormy night sky, biting her fingernails.

Jo and Max exchanged frightened glances — no brave faces to put on this time.

“You will each be given an assignment,” Alligator instructed. “Failure to complete your assignments will result in more deaths. I will gladly kill more of your friends if need be. Or your families.”

Blank terror fell across Jo’s face. She thought of her little Sophie and Dawn, all alone at her home. Her mind conjured screams of terror from her loved ones, and she put her hands to her ears as though to block them out.

Max looked at Jo, concerned. “And if we refuse to play along?”

“Please — don’t cross him,” Jo said.

“Finally, Jo makes a constructive comment. Better late than never…” Alligator purred.

Jo frowned. Why single her out?

“Jo, please report to the ‘diary room’.”

Puzzlement flashed across Jo’s face. She glanced at the others — they looked just as confused as she did.

“My little joke,” Alligator continued, “Please proceed to the bathroom, alone, and close the door behind you.”

Jo had witnessed enough horrors to know it was the best course of action to simply do as Alligator instructed.

She stepped into the bathroom, mental images of the shotgun blast that killed Dave’s friend Rory, Max’s pal Alan’s murderous fall from the stairwell, reminding her that their captor’s threats were far from idle. The vivid recollection of those brutal deaths heightened her anxiety. Her heart pounded as the bathroom light clicked on. Remembering Alligator’s instructions, she closed the door, sliding the lock mechanism shut.

She looked around nervously, almost jumping out of her skin as the Alligator’s sardonic face twitched into life on the big TV screen.

“Locate the headset and put it on,” Alligator demanded.

There were speakers in the bathroom too, his voice permeating every inch of the aircraft like an airborne virus.

Jo’s eyes scanned the bathroom, and then she saw it — a white and silver headset on the little ledge next to the lavatory. She picked it up and put it on, sitting down on the closed lid of the toilet. She sat facing the large TV screen projecting Alligator’s grinning face back at her.

“Can you hear me Jo?” Alligator’s voice boomed through the headset.

Piped into her ears through the headset, his sinewy tones took on an additional air of menace. It felt like he was in the close confines of the bathroom with her, a killer whispering directly into her ear. Jo shivered.

“Yes, I can hear you…” she said, nervously.

“I’m going to give you an assignment. If you arouse the suspicions of your fellow passengers, or if you fail to complete your task, then your daughter Sophie will be killed.”

A video window popped up on the screen opposite Jo.

From the fixed high-angle perspective of a security camera, she could see the tiny form of her beloved baby girl, curled up on a metal cot bed in a bare, low-lit room. Jo leaned forward, feeling for a moment like she could reach into the screen and stroke Sophie’s hair, just like she did whenever her little girl had nightmares at home.

“You bastard! What have you done with her!?” Jo sobbed.

“She is perfectly fine. See?”

“Is this live — what I’m seeing!?”

“Yes. Would you like me to wake her?”

Sophie appeared to be asleep, rough woollen blanket clutched in her little hand. She was, thankfully, fully dressed and bore no obvious signs of any violence. Better to keep it that way.

“Don’t you touch her!”

“Remain calm, Jo. No harm will come to her — as long as you do as instructed.”

Jo was seething. “I swear if you touch her…”

“Remain calm,” Alligator replied, his voice sterner than ever. “Now, I know that you aren’t the sort to take action in a crisis, so I have set you a task that requires very little effort. I want you to look on top of the little mirrored cabinet over there…”

Listening to his instructions, Jo began to feel sick to her stomach.

They all watched Jo as she returned, tearful, to her seat. Dave looked at Gwen, whose eyes dared him to say anything. Max looked at Jo, concerned.

“What is it? What did he say?”

The others exhaled, shuffled in their seats. It was the question they all wanted to hear her answer.

Jo’s eyes glistened with tears and she shook her head feebly.

“Come on. What the hell did he say in there?” Dave asked, sounding more frightened than aggressive.

No answer came from Jo’s lips. To Dave’s dread, it was Alligator who responded.

“Dave. Please report to the bathroom.”

Dave remained rooted to his seat for a moment, torn between pressing Jo for more information and answering Alligator’s call.

“Now Dave,” Alligator demanded.

Begrudgingly, Dave rose and headed for the bathroom. He paused and looked back at Jo before entering. Her face was in profile as she stared blank-eyed out of the window.

A tear trickled down her cheek; an ill omen adding to his already fearful apprehension.

Dave’s tired mind raced.

He’d locked the door behind him and put the headset on just as Alligator had instructed, sat on the closed toilet seat. The reptilian voice told Dave he had a ‘very special’ task to perform. After all he’d seen so far, after the humiliating mind games, he was feeling less than co-operative.

“And I should give a shit about your ‘task’ because…?” Dave said, glaring at the cartoon Alligator on the screen opposite him.

“Ah, you want me to twist your arm,” the Alligator preened. “Very well.”

The on-screen visual turned to digital noise for a few short seconds, before switching to another camera-eye view.

This time, the screen showed the interior of a gloomy garage. The image lurched and flickered as the cameraman took a couple of steps nearer to a figure in the centre of the garage. Dave stood up. He stepped closer to the screen so quickly that the headset was torn from his ears.

“Sarah!” he gasped.

“She can’t hear you, Romeo,” Alligator said.

Dave watched in horror as the image became clearer. Sarah was balanced precariously on a tall wooden barstool, her hands tied behind her back. Tears streamed from her terrified eyes, running over the thick gaffer tape wrapped tightly around her mouth. A noose of thick rope was tied loosely around her neck. A muffled sob escaped from her mouth as she teetered on the stool then regained her balance.

Dave had never seen her looking so distraught, so vulnerable. It chilled him to his very marrow. He recalled how carefree, how happy, she had looked in the raunchy picture text she’d sent only that morning. It felt like an age ago, seeing her like this.

“You fucking bastard! Tell me this is a set-up! You’ve had your fun, now let her go…”

He remembered the headset. It was dangling from its cord, a sick parody of Sarah and that awful noose. Dave grabbed at the headphones with sweaty hands. They slipped from his grasp as he fumbled to put them back on.

“Now, I know this is difficult for you Dave, but I want you to think about the consequences of your actions for once — perhaps for the first time in your life — because they will determine whether your fiancée lives, or dies…”

For all his flaws, for all his bad behaviour, Dave knew he loved Sarah. What the eyes don’t see won’t break the heart, he thought, I’m sorry babe, truly I am. I’ll make it all better; I won’t let them do this… Not to his Sarah. Nothing could get in the way of their wedding, the honeymoon; he had it all planned out.

And so, for once, Dave shut up — and listened.

Gwen sat in agitated silence waiting for the bathroom door to open. Jo hadn’t uttered so much as a single word since she’d emerged from Alligator’s ‘diary room’. Whatever he’d said to her in there just didn’t bear thinking about. And what could he be saying to Dave right now? Gwen had to admit to herself, she couldn’t help but thinking whatever it was, Dave had it coming — his laddish behaviour and smutty comments had been kind of fun at first. Jo seemed to be pretending to have a good time, but Gwen found her edgy mood a bit grating.

Conversely, Max seemed a little too wrapped up in himself, taking his ‘man of mystery’ persona a little too seriously for her liking. At least Dave had been game for a laugh, especially about his piercings and that bump on the head, crazy bastard. But as the game had progressed, and they’d all heard what Dave had been looking at on the web, Gwen had been given no choice but to reassess his personality — and she didn’t like her assessment, not one single bit. His clownish exterior was hiding something nasty, she felt sure of that, a strata of filth permeating his entire being.

The door clicked open, rousing her from her thoughts, and she watched as Dave emerged. To her surprise, the skin around his eyes was red raw with tears. He moved to the back of the aircraft, footsteps dragging on the floor, and leaned against the hull. Gwen craned her neck to glance back at him. He was sobbing into his shirtsleeve. Maybe she had been too harsh in her assessment of him. He was human like everybody else. She felt a little sorry for him.

Just then, Dave glanced back at her, his eyes streaming. He returned her pitying look with a hateful glower that made her break eye contact.

“Gwen. You are up next,” Alligator said.

She shuffled in her seat nervously, then gathered all her strength and walked quietly to the bathroom. Please help me God, she thought, terrified of what she might face beyond that door.

The bathroom had lost all of its earlier glamour, feeling like a cold, threatening place to Gwen now. She sat down on the closed lid of the toilet, hands trembling slightly as she place the headphones over her ears.

“Actions speak louder than words, Gwen,” Alligator intoned, “So I have something to show you.”

His grinning green face disappeared from the big TV screen opposite her, replaced by a video-feed. The camera lens view revealed a drab concrete room, like a storage unit. Audio of muffled cries kicked in over the headphones. The sound disturbed Gwen gravely. And then she froze in her seat, recognising the figure the cameraman was closing in on.

“Emily? No!”

Her sister was tied to a heavy wooden chair. Perversely, the chair was beautifully upholstered, designed for comfort, not the torture for which it was being put to use now. Emily had thick gaffer tape wrapped around her mouth, preventing her from screaming as she struggled against her bonds. The rough rope keeping her arms tight to those of the chair had broken her skin, making livid red bracelets of her wrists.

“Emily… please don’t…” Gwen pleaded.

“It is time for you to take someone else’s advice for once,” Alligator responded harshly, “So I suggest you listen closely.”

On the screen Emily bucked in her seat, terrified, as the cameraman poured petrol from a canister all over her.

“They say being burnt alive is an agonising death,” Alligator continued, matter-of-factly.

“Stop! Please stop!” Gwen sobbed.

“I will let her live only if you manage to complete one simple task…”

Gwen listened intently, her eyes widening with horror as Alligator described what his task would require of her.