by Lukens, Mark
Ray watched Josh, waiting for his assessment.
Josh sighed. “Well, we’ve got some good news and some bad news.”
“What is it?”
“Good news is that they’re big enough to crawl through, but not for all of us. Definitely not you, Ray. Probably not me or Gerald, either.” Josh got down from the bed. “Maybe Emma could do it . . .” He let his words trail off.
“I’ll do it,” Emma said. “I can get to the nearest locked room.”
“You won’t be able to get down from the duct,” Josh said, shaking his head, dismissing the idea already. “You could fall and break your neck.”
“I’ll do it,” Mike said.
“No,” Ray said immediately before he’d even thought about it.
“I can do it, Dad.”
Ray sighed again. He looked at Gerald. “You’re sure they blew the stairway exit?”
Gerald shrugged. “Seems only logical to me. It’s our only way out besides the elevator. Now that the power is out, we can’t use the elevator either.”
“There isn’t some kind of backup generator here?” Josh asked.
“Ran out of diesel fuel a week ago,” Gerald said. “And it was too loud anyway. It was probably how the Dark Angels found us in the first place.”
“So . . . what? Some kind of solar power?” Josh asked.
Gerald nodded. “One of the technicians, Bradley, he showed me how it worked. Showed me the schematics on the computer. My guess is that the Dark Angels up there cut the cords or disconnected them to the solar panels on the roof of the building and the other ones near the satellite dish.”
“But they might be able to be repaired,” Josh said.
Gerald shrugged.
“I’m sure of it,” Ray said. “The Dragon, he wants this place. Who would turn down a bunker, and all the supplies, food, and equipment here?” He looked at Josh. “You got some kind of idea about getting the solar power working again?”
“Maybe,” Josh said. “But we need to get out of these bedrooms, get somewhere safe first.”
As if to punctuate Josh’s point, the banging noises from the rippers were louder now—they were getting closer.
“Dad,” Mike said. “Let me do it. Let me help.”
Ray didn’t want to send Mike up there, but he found himself nodding before he realized what he was doing. “Okay.”
CHAPTER 53
Mike
As soon as Mike crawled up into the vent, he had regretted volunteering himself. But he couldn’t back out now, and once he was inside the ductwork, it would probably be very difficult to literally back out at all.
Before Mike climbed up into the vent, his dad formed a plan with Gerald. Gerald said the nearest locked room would be the lab—it was almost right on the other side of the sleeping quarters wall, so at least it wouldn’t be too far of a crawl through the ductwork.
“He’ll be making some noise when he’s in the ducts,” Josh said.
“Yeah, but we’ll be the ones in danger,” his dad said. “Mike will probably be into the other room by then.”
Mike didn’t like thinking about leaving his dad and the others behind as he crawled through the metal ductwork; it made him think about the dreams he’d been having lately, where he was the only survivor in the future, where no one else he knew was still alive. He wondered if those dreams had been some kind of vision of the future. He wondered if this was how he was going to be left alone, if this was how his dad and the others were going to die with him stuck in an air duct, alone in the dark.
The thought of it summoned a panic attack that nearly overwhelmed him. It didn’t help that he was already inside the duct, the metal walls so close around him. All he could do was crawl along, pushing his flashlight ahead of him a little every time he crawled, the light barely lighting his way. He had shoved his gun down into the back of his pants and left his backpack with his dad who promised to bring it along with him when they came to the door.
Mike didn’t like that part of the plan, that he would open the door for his dad and the others after they ran down the hall—but it was the only way they could get there, and he would be the only one who could open the door for them. They were going to wait ten minutes and then leave, hoping that would be enough time for him to get to the door and be waiting by it, waiting to hear his dad’s special knock.
But what if he didn’t make it? What if he got lost up here in this maze of ductwork? What if he fell through into the wrong room, down into the wide hallway?
He couldn’t think of that. He just needed to keep pressing forward. Gerald and Josh had come up with a route they were sure would get him to the lab. He would have to make a right-hand turn (probably the only way he would be able to go, Josh guessed), and then possibly a left-hand turn to get him into the lab. When he got to the next vent, which would be either in the wall of the ductwork or in the floor of the ductwork looking down into the lab (again, Josh thought it was more likely the air duct would be in the floor), then he could remove the duct with the tools Josh had given him, the ones he had stuffed down into the pockets of his pants.
The panic tried to rise up into him again as he crawled along, the flashlight barely knifing ahead into the seemingly impenetrable darkness. The metal he crawled along seemed thin, popping and crinkling as he moved along. It didn’t feel all that sturdy and he braced himself for a sudden fall, a sudden crash down through a ceiling. He tried to be quiet, but couldn’t help grunting with effort as he dragged himself along.
To quell the sudden panic, he thought of himself in his dreams—the older person he would become one day, the taller and stronger person, the warrior who knew no fear, the seasoned fighter of rippers and gangs, the man who was going after someone he knew in that ruined city in his latest dream, saving someone. And he was helping to save his dad, Josh, and Emma right now.
He had to do this. There was no choice.
He came to the right hand turn that Josh had predicted. Turning in the duct was much more difficult that he had expected. Crawling along the straight passages was hard enough, but trying to turn his body was almost impossible. He got his arms and head around, trying to twist onto his side so he could fold his body together to make the turn.
And then he got stuck.
For a moment he couldn’t move. He couldn’t go forward and he couldn’t go backwards. He had seen a preview before for a movie where a man had gotten stuck in some kind of cave system, stuck between two massive rocks, unable to move. He swore to himself that he would never watch that movie, and here he was suddenly living it.
Mike wanted to scream, to lash out, to fight and kick. His breathing was out of control, his heartbeat racing and thudding in his chest.
The flashlight was in front of him, pointing at the wall. He could hear noises in the duct, the noises of the rippers. They were banging on walls and doors, screeching and yelling, maybe even fighting with each other. It sounded like they were right beneath him, like they could hear him in the ceiling and they were following along, waiting for him to fall, or figuring out where he was stuck so they could tear the false ceiling panels away to get to the duct he was trapped in.
Suddenly he could move. He wasn’t sure how he had done it, but a moment later he was around the corner, his arms pumping along, forearms on the floor of the ductwork, elbows pulling him along, dragging his legs behind him.
He picked up speed down the straightaway, hoping like hell he was going in the right direction.
God, don’t let me get stuck up here. Don’t let me die up here.
He came to the next turn, and this time he took the left hand turn, following Josh’s guesses, hoping and praying that Josh was right. This time making the turn took less time; he seemed to have learned how to fold his body around the tight corner a little better. And this one was a T, so there was a little more room.
Once he was fully in the straight section of the ductwork again, he moved along faster, pushing his flashlight ahead of him, being ca
reful with it, afraid it might hit the wall too hard and break the lens. Being stuck in this ductwork in the dark scared him more than just about anything, and he didn’t want to think about it.
It felt like he was climbing up an incline, the effort of pulling himself along harder than before. Maybe the ceiling in the lab was higher than the other rooms. He was beginning to sweat with the effort of crawling along, the panic squeezing him tighter and tighter.
Where was the vent? He should have come to one by now. Everything else Josh had said had been right, so where was the vent? Had he made a wrong turn? There would be no way to go back, to turn around.
He pushed his flashlight ahead and it made a strange sound, almost a musical sound as it slid over the metal vent screen. He reached out and felt the vent. He’d found it. It took him a moment to turn the screws with the pliers that Josh had given him, but at least the screws came out easily enough.
When the vent was all the way loose it swung down and open, swinging back and forth on the hinges silently. He had to push some kind of thick filter out of the way. It fell down to the floor without much of a sound. He shined his light down at the floor. There were lab desks, counters, sinks, equipment, computers. Almost right below him was a desk. It wasn’t too far down, not that far of a drop.
Mike tried his best to crawl past the vent and lower his legs down. His legs dangled out of the vent opening. He was about to lower himself a little more, trying to grab a hold of the sides, but then he was out of the vent before he even knew what was happening, crashing down to the top of the desk.
The noise of his fall had been so loud. He was on the floor without remembering rolling off the desk. He popped up quickly, making sure he was okay, making sure he hadn’t broken any bones. It was so dark in the room, everything swallowed up in darkness except for the one beam of light shining out from his flashlight on the floor. In his fall, the flashlight had slipped from his hand and rolled away on the floor, but at least it still worked.
Thank God.
He hurried to his flashlight and picked it up, shining the light beam up at the ceiling. Part of the ceiling panels had torn away in his fall, the opening of the vent much larger now, pieces of what looked to him like some kind of Styrofoam all over the floor.
“I’m okay,” he whispered. “I’m okay.” He couldn’t help smiling. He wanted to shout with joy at his victory, at surviving, but he didn’t.
Instead, he hurried across the vast room to the metal door, waiting by it, waiting to hear his dad’s special knock. He hoped he hadn’t taken too long crawling through the vents. He had no idea how long he’d been up there.
“They’ll make it,” he whispered after shutting off his flashlight and plunging himself into instant and total darkness. He didn’t want to be alone in the dark—he was scared of it—but he also didn’t want the rippers to see the light under the metal lab door.
“They’ll be here soon,” he repeated. “I know it.”
CHAPTER 54
Ray
It was time to go. They had waited long enough, giving Mike more than enough time to get through the ducts and down into the lab.
If he made it.
Of course he made it, Ray scolded himself. He couldn’t allow himself to think like that.
Ray had his gun ready. Josh had his M-16 ready, another magazine stuffed in his jacket pocket. Gerald had the same rifle he had aimed at them earlier when they’d first met him.
“You know how to use that gun?” Ray asked Gerald as they got ready to leave.
“Yeah,” he answered.
Ray wasn’t sure Gerald was telling the truth. “You didn’t know this was coming? You didn’t know the Dark Angels were going to send rippers down here?”
“No. I swear I didn’t.”
Ray still wasn’t sure what to believe with Gerald, but he couldn’t worry about that right now. They needed to get out into the main hallway and then down to the next door. It wasn’t that far, but in the pitch-black darkness with rippers roaming around, it seemed like miles away.
Mike was waiting for them.
Ray would go first, shining the way with his flashlight. Then Josh and Emma, and Gerald at the back of the line. Josh gave Gerald his flashlight to use so he could shine the light behind them, and Ray would shine the light ahead of them so Josh could see to shoot.
“You shoot behind us only,” Ray told Gerald. “Not forward. I don’t want you accidentally hitting one of us.”
Gerald nodded like he understood, but his eyes seemed glazed over, like he wasn’t completely present. Ray had seen that glazed look many times before—recently in Josh, and before in his brother Freddy. He wondered if Gerald had taken something to help himself “deal” with what was going on.
The plan was set: Just be as quiet as possible, no turning on the flashlights unless they had to, and most importantly, just keep moving. The travel would be slow, but maybe they could get down the hallways without the rippers even knowing. It was pretty quiet out there now; maybe the rippers had moved on, exploring other areas of Avalon—maybe they’d even found the food in the kitchen; that would keep them occupied for a while. Even Emma said she hadn’t heard any rippers in the hallways in the last ten minutes.
“Everyone ready?” Ray asked.
Josh and Emma nodded. Gerald gave a reluctant shrug.
“Ray,” Emma whispered. “Let me go first.”
“What?” Josh hissed, still trying to keep his voice low. “No.”
“We’re going to be traveling in the dark,” Emma said. “You said we could try to make it there as far as we could without the flashlights. As soon as you turn those lights on the rippers will see them if they’re anywhere nearby. I can lead us along in the dark, get us as far as we can get, and then you can turn on the lights and shoot only if you need to.”
It made sense. Ray looked at Josh.
“I vote no,” Josh said.
Emma laid a gentle hand on Josh’s arm. “You two need your hands free for your flashlights and guns. I need to do something to help. You’re in my world now, a world I’ve known for most of my life. I can do this, guide us there, maybe without using the guns or the lights.”
Josh was hesitant, looking back and forth from Ray to Emma. Finally he nodded.
Ray restructured the order of their line. “Emma, you’ll go first. Josh will be right behind you. I’ll be right behind Josh with the flashlight and my gun. Gerald, you’ll be behind me. Remember, only turn on your flashlight if you really have to. We walk. We don’t talk. We don’t make a sound.” He looked right at Emma. “We’re going out this door. To the right, to the door at the end of the hall. Taking a right out that door, then down the hall to the next door on the right.”
Emma nodded quickly. “I remember.”
Ray felt a small pang of embarrassment. He was sure Emma could navigate this place far better than they could in the dark. “What about your cane? It will make noise.”
“I can use it silently, just above the ground, waving it back and forth to make sure there’s nothing in front of me that I’m going to walk into. I’m going to move along the wall, staying close to the wall, using it as my guide. Everybody keep one hand on the wall.”
Ray nodded. “Okay. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s line up by the door,” Ray said. “Emma first. Then I’m going to turn off the light.”
Emma went to the door and wrapped her hand around the knob, ready to open it.
Ray shut off his flashlight, plunging them into the cloying darkness. A bright ghostly light seemed to float just ahead in his field of vision—the memory of the flashlight. For just a second Ray thought he could still see in the darkness.
Emma opened the door without a sound, quiet as a cat burglar. Josh was right behind her, holding loosely onto her shirt. Ray was right behind Josh, reaching out and touching his back every few seconds and then feeling along the metal wall. Gerald was a few feet behind Ray—he would have the route mapp
ed out in his mind as much as Ray would.
It’s only a short distance. We can make it.
They were in the narrower hall between the doors of the sleeping quarters. It was silent and chilly, the air already getting a little colder since the electricity had gone out. They walked along slowly and as quietly as they could, but it still sounded so loud to Ray’s ears. The banging noises continued somewhere deeper in Avalon, rippers banging on metal walls and doors, maybe trying to get into the locked doors.
Moments later they were at the door that led out to the main hallway. Emma eased the door open, taking almost a minute to get out the door and for their line to get moving again. Josh gripped his M-16 tighter, making small rattling sounds, his hiking boot scuffing the floor just slightly. Ray’s thumb was on the flashlight button, ready to click it on in a nanosecond. Gerald was a step behind Ray; he could hear the man’s heavy breathing. He wanted to tell Gerald to breathe more quietly, but they couldn’t talk right now.
They were all in the main hallway now. Ray could smell the acrid smell of their earlier gunfire and the smell of blood and gore. He remembered the dead bodies down the hall and wondered if they were before or after the door to the lab: he wasn’t sure.
A noise sounded from somewhere behind them. Ray couldn’t exactly pinpoint the noise, couldn’t tell exactly how far away it was, but he knew it was from somewhere behind them. It had sounded like someone moving in the darkness, someone hurrying toward them.
It’s just your imagination. That’s all—the darkness is getting to you.
Ray’s hand gripped tighter on his gun. He was shaking from an overdose of adrenaline, his body wanting to move, to bolt, but his mind reining it in, trying to control it like a wild horse.
They moved along, little by little, getting down the hall, Emma not making a sound.