Half Way Home

by Hugh Howey

  Higher up the spiral, someone started yelling, telling us to stop the vinnies. In the dim light filtering through the open side of the tunnel, I could see the next vinnie close on the heels of the other, the entire train moving in reverse. When the break in the chain reached us, I pulled Tarsi to my side, getting her away from the open air. The second animal passed, someone on its back yelling at it and us. Behind me, I could feel the tree shivering, the coarse wood vibrating against my spine.

  “We have to wait it out,” I told Tarsi, yelling over all the other people’s shouts.

  Another vinnie passed with someone hurrying along beside it, hugging the inner wall. The form bumped into me before I could move out of the way or warn them.

  “Porter?” A face leaned in close to mine.

  “Karl? What the hell, man? How do we stop them?”

  “Screw it,” he said. He grabbed my arm as the tree continued to vibrate. “We’re almost there. Plenty more where those—”

  A rumble cut him off, a sound like grinding, splintering wood. It wasn’t the noise of the tremors, and it completely drowned out the whistling of the bombfruit. We all froze, except for the vinnies, which seemed to double their speed. They brushed past us, carrying a rider or two along with them as the noise grew louder, drawing near.

  • 21 • Falling Star

  The last vinnie squeezed past my shins and a cluster of my friends followed, pushing, shoving, and falling down. A few tried crawling over the back of the last vinnie, which was moving in reverse and at a brisk pace. I heard one of the guys yelling for us to run, but there was no place to run to and no sign of danger. I peered up where the dark gray of dusk faded to black in the tunnel’s depths. The curvature of the massive tree was so slight, we normally could see a good distance ahead. Now we just saw a hollow void made indiscernible and frightening by the shaking of the tree and the roar of something destructive.

  Beside me, Karl cursed and grabbed my arm. That’s when I saw it as well: a wall of blackness drawing near—something coming for us, its bulk filling the entire width of the tunnel.

  The three of us ran after the others, tripping over people as we went. I tried to keep in touch with Tarsi, but I had no idea who I was holding. As the tree moved beneath our feet, we took turns falling, helping each other up, and fighting the urge to look over our shoulders.

  I didn’t need to. I could hear it drawing near, the sound of splitting wood accompanying its approach.

  “Over the side!” one of the girls shrieked, and at first I thought she meant someone had fallen or had been shoved out through one of the regular openings in the tunnel. Then I felt the person next to me stop scrambling and move up the outer curve and out into the night air. There were less of us running and crawling, and the thing kept getting closer, the splintering noise so loud I could barely hear everyone else yelling and screaming.

  I groped for Tarsi and felt someone move out through the next opening. As soon as I realized what they were doing, I knew it was our only choice.

  “Hold the edge!” I yelled to the person beside me. We stumbled past the next cog together, moving from pitch blackness to the thick gray of one of the openings. We both crawled over the edge. My feet scratched at the rough bark as I lowered myself, allowing my armpits to catch on the sharp lip of the tunnel where its curve rose up and met the air. With my head still in the cylinder, I looked over and saw the loud darkness upon us—a wall of moving black and shivering power. I popped my elbows free of the edge and fell a foot before the tunnel’s sharp lip bit into my fingers. I dangled there, my legs kicking above two thousand feet of nothingness.

  Something rough brushed across my knuckles, nearly knocking my hands loose. Then the body went past, the large bristles poking out of the tunnel as a vinnie the size of the hole—or bigger, judging by the sound of crushed wood—tore past. Up and down my chest, I could feel the tree quaking. With the vibrations and the pressure on my fingers, maintaining my grip felt impossible. It was too much to ask of my body.

  Still, I managed to yell encouragement to my neighbor. “Hold on!” I told them, hoping my urgency would provide strength, even if my words held no advice beyond the obvious.

  A deep voice shouted something back, the voice of a male.

  My heart sank and my stomach lurched, the two organs colliding within me as my guts reacted to the confusion in my head. I wanted Tarsi to be out there with me—was glad she wasn’t—but wondered if she was someplace worse. I ground my teeth together and rested my head against the rough bark, feeling it scratch my forehead as it continued to shake.

  After a seeming mile of quivering beast passed by, I flexed my arms to scramble up, then heard another coming. I relaxed, allowing my weight to dangle from my joints rather than my muscles, and thought about what the fall would be like. I pictured the tumbling descent, my body bouncing between the walls of the juts and hitting the moss far below. I thought about my existence winking out and being no more, ever again.

  Bristles pushed against my hand and a bombfruit whistled nearby. The guy beside me kept cursing loudly, but I had no encouragement within me to loan him. Then, the shaking of the tree stopped, leaving just the rumble of the large vinnie. I felt the numbness in my joints go away and realized much of it had been from the vibrations. If that was the last of the beasts, I could make it up. We could survive this.

  As the final bristles passed, I tried pulling myself up, preferring that I be swallowed or crushed by the next vinnie rather than fall to my death. Pressing my feet against the bark—one foot on the outcropping to my side—I made it up to my armpits, where I took a break, my hands clasped together and my elbows spread wide. The guy beside me did the same, our legs brushing together as we both fought for purchase.

  In the downward distance, the rumbles from the large vinnies receded and no new ones grew to take their place. I felt a nervous laughter creep up inside, the exhaustion and mania of near-death popping in my brain like tiny bubbles. The person beside me started before I could, wheezing and laughing—

  Then someone screamed.

  A high voice. A girl’s voice. It pierced the growing quiet like a sharp dagger through a healing wound. It was a shriek as loud as any I’d ever heard, but then it sickeningly—horribly—began receding into the distance. Growing silent.

  Falling away.

  • 22 • The Darkness

  I kicked at the surface of the tree and pushed myself up to my waist. I leaned over, half my body inside the hole. With another shove, I rolled all the way in. The guy beside me came hurrying after. I moved down the tunnel, groping at the next opening, and felt someone move inside the tunnel and help their neighbor up.

  “Tarsi!” I yelled. I patted my way down the line, wondering if the sound had come from the other direction, when I bumped into more bodies. I felt lost, alone, confused.

  “Who was that?” someone yelled.

  “What the fuck?” screamed another. I tripped over someone lying across the tunnel, patted them, then screamed Tarsi’s name again, selfishly unconcerned about everyone else.

  Others did likewise, yelling individual names out as they tried to make contact with each other in the darkness.

  “Porter!” someone shouted nearby—a gruff shout. I felt strong hands clasp my arm, pulling my face close enough to see.

  Kelvin.

  “Where’s Tarsi?” I asked.

  He shook his head, and I read it to mean that she didn’t make it, not that he didn’t know. Someone screamed for help further down the tunnel. I pushed away from Kelvin and moved to the next opening; I dropped to my knees and patted along the lip with my hands.

  I felt knuckles and reached down for the wrists, my fear of losing another person rising up like a film of metal in my throat. Kelvin landed beside me and fumbled for the other arm. Together, we pulled. I willed my tired and numb fingers to close like two sets of vises, fully prepared to never use them again if it meant dragging that person to safety.

  Whoever it was kick
ed with their feet to help. The fearful energy of all three of us propelled the person over the lip and inside, sending us all flying back toward the core of the tree. We crashed in a heap of quivering, tearful humanity.

  Hands groped, discerning identity. A palm on my cheek, a face brought near.

  Tarsi.

  I closed my eyes and wept, sobbing like a terrified child. Her lips fell to my cheek and stayed there, quivering against me, panting and gasping. Both of our bodies shook with grief, with exhaustion, and with guilt-ridden relief.

  • 23 • A Lonely Patch of Sky

  Our group coalesced in the darkness like beads of water. We bumped, hugged, wept and merged. We called out our own names and those of our neighbors, working through the list in our heads. Now and then, a name was spoken and someone else cried out, crawling over the rest of us to be reunited.

  It seemed we heard each name twice before someone realized who was missing.

  “Britny,” someone whispered, her name said in a manner unlike the rest. It was an answer, rather than a question.

  Several girls wailed. I heard Vincent shouting obscenities beside me and reached out for him, knowing the two of them had been close.

  Our entire group formed into a ball of consoling hands, patting and squeezing. The scene was so eerily like our birthday, but the fear and grief was so much stronger having spent waking hours together.

  “We need to get out of here,” one of the guys said.

  “We just lost someone!” one of the girls shrieked.

  “He’s right,” a soft voice said, as sobs turned into sniffles. “It isn’t safe in here. If another comes, I can’t do it again.”

  “Up or down?” someone asked.

  Beside me, Vincent roared. I heard flesh slapping against flesh and I moved to break it up—I felt him striking his own face.

  “Stop it!” I told him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. “We survive to mourn her properly.”

  His hands went to the back of my head, pulling our cheeks together. I felt his chest moving in and out with quiet sobs and felt someone else’s hands reach around us both.

  “Up,” someone said. “It’s closer, and it’s away from the ones that just passed.”

  “Maybe they reverse direction when the tremors stop.”

  “The tremors stopped a while ago.”

  In the silence that followed, we gathered our courage and our wills and trudged upward.

  We staggered forward as a tight group, hands against the inner wall and on each other. I made Tarsi walk inside of me, not able to stand the thought of her anywhere near the edge.

  Kelvin walked ahead of us. I rested a hand on his shoulder, needing to maintain contact for more than just finding my way. We moved in complete silence, save for the occasional whistle of a bombfruit outside and the unexplained, unprompted curse from various members of the group.

  I tried not to shuffle my feet, lest I pick up splinters from the newly exposed wood. I felt exhausted and depressed, a sensation that seemed to come after working so hard to stay alive. It was as if my body had exhausted all its energy—its desire to preserve itself. Now that it had succeeded in doing so, extending my life for however much longer, there was no more of that juice within me to maintain my will to live.

  Consciously, I was happy to be breathing and for my two dearest friends to be alive. But physically, I felt hollow. If another danger posed itself, I would lack the energy to respond. I was walking—but until that mysterious animus of self-preservation renewed itself, I was a staggering husk, half-dead inside.

  We moved like that for several hours, the silence stretching out so long it began to sustain itself, the quietude forming into something fragile and precious that none of us seemed willing or able to shatter. Even when the tunnel diverted, heading off at an angle that seemed so foreign after the miles of gradual curving, those of us that had not made the prior ascent went along without question, accepting whatever the world threw at us.

  Scrambling up a steepening slope, we fell to our hands and knees as it became too precarious to stand. The tunnel had become solid, the walls on all sides oddly comforting, despite the darkness it created. Another odd twist and the way became even steeper, and then there was the sound of rustling up ahead. Something like waxy paper brushed across my face. The cave of wood ended, as did the silence.

  “Careful,” one of the guys whispered, still handling the quiet thing we’d crafted with care.

  Hands guided hands through the new tangle of limbs and dried leaves around us. Something about grasping the boughs with my palms and the upward climbing felt completely natural. Primal. I pushed Tarsi up behind Kelvin and followed so near to her that my hands clutched holds above her feet, my head brushing against the backs of her legs. We seemed to be climbing up a hole in the tight weave of limbs, a continuation of the cave that bore through the canopy. It almost went vertical, and I could feel people climbing up behind me, all of us spreading out and fighting to reach the end. We were powered along by some intense, internal desire to be safe. To rest.

  I felt as if we would soon break free, but the tunnel through the tangled wood began to level out. Then it descended slightly, and I felt a moment of panic, wondering if we yet had a long way to go. The branches underfoot became damp as the ground dipped down, then gradually rose back up. More rustling ahead, someone above us crying out. A thick flap of leaves somewhere above was pushed aside, and a crisp light filtered down through the darkness. I felt the energy around me—within me—grow. The sense of finality swelled, the end so tantalizingly near.

  Tarsi and I reached the lip, and Kelvin pulled us out. The three of us collapsed with the others on top of a flat spread of foliage where we laid on our backs in a new silence of hushed awe. Above us hung a sight we were vaguely familiar with from years of dreaming but had never before seen with our own eyes: a wide tapestry of blackness specked with pinpricks of brilliant light.

  Stars. Countless stars. Bright and shimmering. Chaotic yet somehow ordered. The same, yet different. Some seemed so much closer than others, and some were clumped together in tight packets of camaraderie. One third of the sky was especially dense, a wide band of white dots so intermingled they seemed fuzzy as they stretched from horizon to horizon.

  “Holy shit,” one of the guys whispered, a reminder to the girls and me that they hadn’t seen this either. The rain clouds had been yet another canopy overhead the night they’d explored the roof of our strange home.

  I tore my eyes away from the view and surveyed our group, thankful for the collected illumination from all those distant suns. I wondered if we were lucky for so many to have survived, or unlucky to have been so close to the top before it happened. One of the girls moved over and embraced Vincent, whispering her condolences. Tarsi squeezed my hand, and I reached for Kelvin with the other. My chest hurt with the thought of losing either of them.

  In the distance, I saw shapes moving, a train of vinnies sliding across the pale green carpet. Looking around, I noticed many more of them and saw the leaves rustling here and there as the large beasts burrowed down or reappeared. It was an alien landscape, even as I reminded myself that it was my only home. Nothing in the training modules had prepared us for this. And when I thought about the presence of so much air beneath me—separating us from the hard earth below—I felt faint. Like we were floating on a cloud and willing its firmness to hold.

  Without a word—just a soft chorus of sobs—our little group tightened, our bodies pressing together like our first night outside the fence. Hands interlocked with other hands, no care for whose they were. They were all ours. All squeezing. All loving and all fearful. I rested my head on someone’s arm and gazed up at the stars, watching them twinkle through my tears, as mesmerized by the complete blackness between them as I was by their light. I soon found one patch that was startlingly devoid of anything, a lonely little patch, and I lost myself in it, drifting off to nothing.

  • 24 • The Blue

  I s
lept better that night than I had reason to and woke to a sight far happier than I figured any of us deserved: open sky—the sun washing out the black and most of the stars. It replaced them with a dull gray that started on one horizon and faded to a bright blue on the other. Sunrise. I could feel myself reading something mystical into it, like an apologetic gesture from the heavens for having to take one of our number away. As that sensation stirred within me, I found myself thinking of Oliver. I began to understand him, if only a little—mainly his seemingly irrational grope for joy in times of hardship.

  Our sleeping tangle had loosened overnight as some of us tossed and turned and tried to get comfortable. I brushed Tarsi’s hair off her forehead and kissed her softly above the brow, so thankful nothing had happened to her. She stirred, her lips parting slightly, but didn’t wake. I worked my arm free and pushed away from the group, the ache in my joints demanding movement; or perhaps it was something in my jittery thoughts that made me feel compelled to force myself into motion.

  I was the only one up. Not even the vinnies stirred as they had the night before. Turning to look for them, I felt overwhelmed with the vast sameness stretching out before me, the undulating carpet of several varieties of overlapping green leaves. Some of them were larger than a man with his limbs spread wide; some were small as my hand, dark green, and just as thick. When I spun halfway around and saw the mountains behind me lit up by the rising sun, my breath caught in my throat.

  I knew what mountains looked like, just as I knew of earth-quakes and guns and kisses. But once more, reality shattered concept. Majestic, towering pyramids of earth rose up beyond the canopy, their tops slathered in snow and tinged pink by the morning sun. The peaks were arranged in countless layers, each fading through various hues of blue until the furthest receded into purple. They seemed to stretch off into a forever that made the green carpet in the opposite direction pale by comparison. They even dwarfed the majestic trees, which had already upset my innate sense of scale.