Act II, Scene V
Darkness.
The sound of breathing.
ELLIOTT: I'm warning you! I'm an extremely bad kidnap victim! I'm whiny and when I get scared my voice gets even more nasal then before which, I know, seems unlikely and I talk even faster when I get scaredandI'mprettyscaredrightnowohpleasedon'tkillmemyparentsarerich-
Her hood is removed, allowing her – and us – to see what's going on. She's sitting in a small windowless cell, bound hand and foot to a chair. Mr. Friendly – with full beard – is looking down at her with no small sense of palpable exasperation.
MR. FRIENDLY: Lady, I normally count myself a patient man. But I'm being forced to rethink my opinion of myself, because I'm contemplating killing you right here and now if you don't shut the hell up for five damn minutes!
ELLIOTT: I don't find that attitude helpful to my feelings of anxiety right now, thank you! Now from my surroundings – dank cell, handy chair, your expert use of knots, and the very efficient way you stormed into our camp last night to abduct people, I'm assuming that you've kidnapped people before – don't you think you should have a better grasp of how to calm their nerves?
MR. FRIENDLY: Are you for real?
BEN: She's right.
Benjamin Linus – or Henry Gale – has appeared at the door. He walks in, tsks disapprovingly at Mr. Friendly, and smiles at Elliott.
MR. FRIENDLY: Who the hell is this?
BEN: You mean you don't know, Tom? This is a very famous girl.
MR. FRIENDLY: (darkly) She will be. I'm gonna kill her.
BEN: (sharply) That will be all, Tom...check on our other guests, will you?
ELLIOTT: There are others?
BEN: (smiles disarmingly)Oh, indeed there are Others, my dear. But I want to talk about you. How did you come to be on this island of ours?
Elliott begins to rat-a-tat-tat out the story to Ben in her usual hundred-words-a-second way. We don't stay with her and Ben, though; instead we follow Tom as he winds his way (still shaking his head) through the underground corridors of this particular Dharma institute base, until he comes to another door to another cell. This one opens to reveal-
JD: Please! Please, for the love of God, no more! I can't take it!
He's blindfolded and tied to a chair also. Looming over him is a tall shape, holding two electrically charged prods.
MR. FRIENDLY: I don't remember Ben ordering this.
The tall shape turns.
JANITOR: Who's Ben?
MR. FRIENDLY: Who are you?
JANITOR: Me? Former prisoner. Escaped. Just leaving. One sec - let me get my torture stuff.
He starts picking things off the floor. Tom watches in disbelief at the collection of objects he's assembling. A dartboard. A sandwich maker. A parasol. He notices something at his feet and bends down for a closer look. He takes it in amazement.
MR. FRIENDLY: What the hell is this?
JANITOR: That? Yancy. Stuffed squirrel. This? Sudden ambush.
With one smooth movement, the parasol comes up and out, catching Mr. Friendly square on the back of the head and knocking him to the floor cold.
JD: We did it! We did it!
JANITOR: We?
JD: You! You! Now untie me.
The Janitor looks longingly at the electric prods in his hands and at the prostrate JD before him. He sighs with fond regret, before squatting down and freeing JD from his bonds and his blindfold. JD leaps to his feet, all nervous energy.
JANITOR: That was some good acting. Kudos.
JD: Acting! You were shocking me for fifteen minutes before he showed up!
JANITOR: That's called method acting. Look it up.
JD: (mutters) Sure. Let's get the hell out of here.
They get to the doorway and peer into the dark corridors leading off in both directions.
JD: How did you escape anyway?
JANITOR: (mysteriously)Who says I did?
JD: You are so odd. Which way?
JANITOR: What am I, a St. Bernard? How do I know?
JD: Well we can't just hang around here waiting for him to wake up!
JANITOR: We could always...eat him.
JD: What is it with everyone and cannibalism recently? Did I miss a memo?
JANITOR: Sssh!
JD: I hear it too. Something's coming.
JANITOR: Really? I just wanted you to shut up.
It's audible to us now as well; a faint 'squeak' 'squeak', getting slightly louder with each repetition. The Janitor hefts his parasol with as much menace as he can muster given the object he's holding, but JD's hand pushes it down. Wonder spreads across the young doctor's face.
JD: It can't be...
And then it emerges from the darkness; a squat, hairy thing, glassy-eyed and unmoving, and yet bearing down upon them with a fixed, undead stare.
JD: ROWDY!
For JD's beloved, stuffed pooch mounted on wheels it is. As they watch, it turns on its wheels and squeaks off into the darkness ahead.
JD: Rowdy's here to show us the way out! We have to follow!
JANITOR: You are so odd.
They begin to move off after Rowdy. Something faint carries to them, and the Janitor stops in his tracks. JD notices this after a few steps.
JD: Come on!
JANITOR: I heard something. From behind us.
JD: Exactly! They're coming! We have to move!
JANITOR: It sounded like Blonde Doctor.
JD: Elliott? Here? (he snorts derisively) You know I knew you had a crush on her, but this...you got it bad, my friend.
JANITOR: You go.
JD: Don't be a fool! You can't seriously be abandoning our zombie dog spirit guide because you thought you heard Elliott's voice in a secret underground base on an uncharted island!
JANITOR: It's Blonde Doctor. I have to check.
JD: (voice-over) Maybe it was the way he said that. Maybe it was remembering how he'd let himself be dragged to what seemed like certain death to save me. Maybe it was the sudden thought that stuffed animals didn't usually reanimate themselves, and when they did, generally speaking it wasn't to serve the powers of good. But I knew I had to go with him.
JD: OK. Let's go.
We go back to Elliott and Ben Linus.
ELLIOTT: ...and that's, you know, pretty much the whole story.
BEN: (slightly dazed looking)An understatement of staggering proportions.
ELLIOTT: So who are you people? What's with this whole Spanish-Inquisition-meets-The-Prisoner vibe you guys are going for?
BEN: We own this island.
To Elliott's horror, he produces a gun and cocks it.
BEN: And you – you, and the rest of your friends from Sacred Heart...you don't belong here.
ELLIOTT: (weakly) The rest of my friends from...?
BEN: Yes. But not for much longer than you, I'm afraid.
He aims the gun at her.
ELLIOTT: Oh, frick-
-and with a satisfying cruch, a sandwich toaster sails in perfect slow-motion through the air and impacts with the side of his head, sending his bullet wide of its target and sending Ben Linus crashing against the nearby wall, unconscious before he hits the ground.
JD: OK, you can say it.
JANITOR: He's toast.
JD: He insisted.
Without further ado he rushes forward and embraces Elliott fiercely. The Janitor holds his stuffed squirrel up to the side of his head like a glove puppet and regards the prone body of Ben Linus.
JANITOR: See that, Yancy? That's the perils of evil for you.
ELLIOTT: (as JD unties her, looking at the Janitor) Is he concussed?
JD: You're kidding, right?
A squeaking noise comes from the door. It's Rowdy. JD holds up an apologetic hand.
JD: We're coming.
ELLIOTT: Ignoring the moving stuffed dog for a moment, where exactly are we going?
JD: Back to the beach with the other survivors. And along the way we will be discussing how you managed to get here, of all places.
JANITOR: Ready?
They look up at him. He's carrying Ben Linus slung over his back with no apparent effort.
JANITOR: Yancy's idea. Thinks we might be able to interrogate him.
JD: I like the way he thinks.
They take off down the corridor, swallowed up by the darkness.