by Kelli Kimble
“Don’t lie, Fiona,” said Adam. He leaned forward, and I could smell the drink on his breath. He twirled a piece of my hair around his finger. “A moment ago, you were saying you would deny me. Which is it? Are you going to cooperate or are you going to be difficult?” He gave one firm tug on my hair and let it go.
“We’ll do as you ask,” I said. I didn’t dare look at Port. I could feel the waves of animosity flowing from him. “What do you want? Hurting us isn’t going to accomplish anything.”
“Fiona, what we want is pretty obvious. We want to come out of the mountain. And we want your village.”
“There’s plenty of room for all of us—” I said.
He cut me off. “No. We want things our way. We don’t want to compromise or negotiate. We want your village. The houses. The farmland. The animals.” He ticked his list off on his fingers. “The food, water, furniture, pets. Everything. We want it all. Except for you—the people.”
“But—”
“Shh. This is simple. We take. You give. And then, you disappear. That’s it.”
“Fiona?” someone said behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Willow. She was standing with a tray, about to sit at one of the many empty tables.
“Hello,” I said.
“Ah, that’s right,” said Adam. “You know our undertaker. When you took her off to the village the other day, she left a lot of unfinished work.” His lips twisted into a partial smile. “Are you all caught up yet, my dear? I’m afraid there have been some fresh deaths today.”
“Yes, I am nearly caught up,” she replied, then said to me, “Enjoy your meal.”
“What we talked about before,” I said to her back. “You might get what you wanted without the villagers in your way.”
“That’s enough!” shouted Adam. He flipped his hand above his shoulder and backhanded me, landing a blow to my cheekbone. The force snapped my head back, and I lost my balance. I fell sideways towards Eve.
“Get off me,” she said, pushing me away.
I put my hands on the table to steady myself. I wanted to cradle my face, where I could feel the smart of his abuse. A faint feeling of something fresh opened a path down the side of my face. Red droplets fell to the table, and I realized he’d cut me. I looked at his hand. He was wearing Leo’s ring—the green one I’d admired so many years ago. Forgetting my pain, I pointed to it. “That isn’t yours,” I said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Adam said.
“That ring. I know it belonged to Leo. You can’t just take it because he died. His family should have it.”
Adam smirked. “Actually, I can just take it. He’s dead, and he doesn’t care. And nobody cares about him. His family is all dead. He was just a useless old man with stupid ideas that nobody wanted to see through. You know all about that, don’t you? You made sure everyone knew you jilted him so that you didn’t have to help him.”
“That isn’t why I left,” I said.
A cloth came to my cheek, and I looked up to see Willow bending over me. “You’ve hurt her, Adam,” she said.
“Get used to it,” he said. “It won’t be the last time.” He pushed back his chair and strode from the table, leaving his dishes and debris behind for someone else to see to.
“What are you doing here, Fiona?” asked Willow. She handed me the cloth.
“No more talking,” said Eve. “Time for them to get back to their room.” Eve pushed Willow back and took a handful of my shirt, then pulled me out of my chair and into a standing position.
I jerked out of her grip.
“Careful, or I’ll give you a matching cut on the other side,” she said.
Willow stood aside and let Eve and the other tankers direct us back to the room we’d been locked in earlier.
When the lock finally clicked into place, I fell onto the cot and cried.
◆◆◆
I woke with a pounding headache. I rolled to my side, and a wave of nausea rolled around my stomach. As I moved, my face peeled away from the pillow, and a quick slice of pain reminded me of the cut. I put my hand to it. It was bleeding again. I was still clutching the cloth Willow had given me in my other hand. I opened it and folded it to a clean spot. Something fell out of it.
It was a piece of paper, folded into a small square. I unfolded it and smoothed it out. One side had a crude drawing of a map. On the other side was a note.
“Port, wake up,” I said.
Port groaned and turned away from me.
I went to him and shook his shoulder. “Willow gave me a note,” I whispered. “You have to wake up.”
“I’m awake. Just read it to me. I can’t open my eyes.”
“Fine.” I flattened the note out again and read:
“Fiona –
Not everyone wants what the Tankers want. At lunch, your food will have a key for your door hidden in it. Use it one hour before dinner and follow the map on the back, no sooner. I’m sorry it has gone this far. Don’t drink the spiro.
Yours,
W.”
Port rolled over and rose onto his elbows. “Seems like whatever we drank at dinner is more dangerous than the spiro,” he said.
“I know. My head hurts, too. I wish I hadn’t finished it.”
“Can we trust Willow?”
“Do we have a choice? Our only other offer is certain death.”
He noticed my cut. “Your cut is bleeding again.” He used the tail of his shirt to wipe the blood from my face. “It probably needs a stitch or two,” he said.
I winced. “I’m sure I don’t want Adam—or any of his friends—to do that for me.”
“We should memorize the map and destroy this. We can’t let them discover it.”
I turned the map over and looked at it. I tried to reconcile it with my previous memories of the mountain but couldn’t pinpoint where it would take us. The map showed two floors. We’d go from our room, down the hall to the left, and take the second right. Then, we were to go up a flight of stairs. From the stairs, we would go straight to the end of the hall, turn left, and go to the fourth door on the left.
We quizzed each other to be sure we’d both memorized it. Then, Port tore it in half. He ate half, and I ate the other. It wasn’t the best-tasting breakfast, but it felt good to eat a secret that would improve our situation.
True to her word, a fob was buried in the food on Port’s plate. He slid it into his pocket without a word. I saw his secret smile and knew he’d found it. The tanker waiting for our food trays was too concerned with his tablet to notice what we were doing.
The afternoon slid by, achingly slow. An hour before dinner, we were standing at the door, afraid to unlock it and find someone on the other side, but even more afraid to do nothing.
Port unlocked the door and poked his head into the hall. “There’s nobody around,” he said. “Let’s go.”
We followed the directions and came to the door. There was a brief moment of panic when the door didn’t budge. Port held the fob to it, and it clicked open. The lights flicked on. The room was empty except for cots, just like the room we’d been in before. I sat down on the closest cot, trying to calm my rattled nerves. There was a slight crinkle of paper under my weight. I pulled back the blanket and found another note from Willow:
Fiona—
Wait here. Someone will come for you tomorrow evening. Don’t worry; I’ll make sure you both get home to the village safely.
Yours,
W.
“So, what? We just wait here?” asked Port.
“Do you have another idea? We don’t know our way out of here. We’ll need someone to help us.”
Port blew out a long breath. “I’m not comfortable with this,” he finally said.
“We don’t have the luxury of comfort. We have to get home to the village and figure out what to do before Adam comes out to take it.”
“Fine.” He slumped onto the other cot and stared at me.
“I’m sorry this
happened,” I said. “I just wanted to deliver the message and leave.”
“I know.”
We sat on our cots with nothing to do but wait. Once, I heard the door jiggle, but it didn’t open. It got my adrenaline going, and I paced back and forth, until Port demanded that I sit.
Eventually, the lights turned off. I heard Port’s movement—possibly towards the door—I couldn’t tell in the sudden darkness. The door eased open a crack.
A man’s voice whispered, “Fiona?”
“Yes?” I responded.
The door swung in further, and Port pounced. He got his arm around the man who’d entered and locked his neck into the crook of his elbow. With his foot Port, shut the door, which eliminated the light from the hallway. “Who are you?” Port said.
“Willow sent me,” he said, between gasps for air. “I’m a friend. I know Fiona.”
I groped my way to the doorframe and turned the lights back on, so I could study the intruder. “Ray?” I said.
Relief crossed his face. “You remember me?” he said.
“How could I forget the person who brought me into the mountain?”
Port tightened his hold, and Ray’s eyes widened. “I helped you escape. Remember that?” asked Ray.
Port released his hold and backed away. “Sorry about that. Just trying to stay safe.”
Ray rubbed his neck and nodded. What was left of his hair was grey, and he had a round, protruding stomach.
“I didn’t forget,” I said.
“I’m here to take you outside. They spent all night searching for you inside, and they think you’ve already escaped. We should be able to get you to the doors undetected.”
“If they’re looking for us outside, then we’ll be outside,” said Port.
“You’re from outside,” said Ray. “You’ll be at an advantage.”
Port closed his eyes, then opened them deliberately. “You have all kinds of weapons and technology for tracking. I know they can find us if they want to.”
“Can we talk to Willow?” I asked. “She must have had some idea.”
“They’re watching Willow. They think you’re friends.”
“We are.”
“Well, there you go.” He hitched up his pants underneath his gut. “Look, I can take you to the doors, or I can leave you here in this room. It’s up to you.”
“Take me to Swen.”
“Swen? That meek little nerd isn’t going to help you. He only cares about Leo and himself.”
“I think he cares about more than that,” I said, and glanced at Port.
He shrugged.
“Take us to him,” I said.
“All right. That isn’t what Willow wanted me to do. I won’t be held responsible for what befalls you when Swen sells you out.”
“He won’t do that. Let’s go.”
Chapter 7
Ray peeked into Adam’s outer office before we followed him inside. Swen was sitting at his desk, reading something from his tablet. He looked up as we entered. “What—what is she doing here? Are you crazy?” he hissed.
“Wasn’t my idea,” said Ray. He jerked his head towards me. “She asked me to bring her here.”
Swen swiveled his head around, checking for the presence of others—though he must have known the room was empty. “If Adam catches them here, all four of us are dead.”
I held up my hands. “Just calm down for a second, Swen. I know Adam is out looking for us. All of the tankers are, aren’t they?”
Swen nodded.
“Then, it’s okay. Nobody knows we’re here but Willow, you, and Ray. And I need your help.”
“Why would I help you?” asked Swen.
“Do you really want to live under Adam’s thumb?” I asked.
He wrinkled his nose. “God, no. I wish that brute would just go away.”
“I’m not saying we can make him go away. But wouldn’t you like to have the secret pleasure of doing something against his wishes?”
Swen sat still for a moment. “Yes, I suppose I would.”
“We need to get back to the village. And we need to do it without Adam knowing.”
“I think I have just the thing,” said Swen with a half-smile.
◆◆◆
Swen opened a hatch in the wall that looked more like a laundry chute than a tunnel. “All you have to do is crawl through this. At the end, there’s a door with a handle that cranks it open. You’ll be on the opposite side of the mountain, away from our main entrance. He won’t be looking for you there.”
“How do we get back to the village? They’ll be able to find us with some gizmo, won’t they?”
“They have tools they can use to search for you. They can detect human DNA from up to 1,000 feet away. You’ll need to use this.” Swen handed Port a tablet with a map on the screen. “This shows the heat signatures of anything meeting the specified heat profile. I’ve programmed it to look for a range of 96-102 degrees Fahrenheit. With this, you’ll be able to see them long before they can see you. Up to a mile away.”
“Why wouldn’t they be using this tool?” I asked.
“I checked, and it’s not activated on any of their tablets, which I assume is because Adam considers it to be an inferior tool. He prefers the DNA scanner, which has a short range on a tablet. Regardless, I remotely reprogrammed theirs to look for anything outside the range I set on yours. They won’t be able to see humans with it.”
“With this program, we’ll be able to circle around any human we come across. Is that right?” I asked.
“Right. It’s easy to use.” He pulled at the screen with his fingertips, and the map zoomed in. “This blue dot right here in the center is the tablet. These red dots all indicate a person.” The map was a dense set of red blobs and dots, showing all the people in the mountain on a two-dimensional surface.
“If you press this right here, it will show you the topography. It generates a pretty bright glow. I wouldn’t recommend using it unless you have to.” He passed his finger over a button on the screen. The tablet’s display jumped outwards in a three-dimensional figure, hovering above the tablet.
“Wow,” said Port. “That’s pretty impressive.”
Swen collapsed the view and gave me the tablet. “You’ll also need these inside the tunnel.” He produced two plastic sticks threaded onto a string. The other end of the stick had a button, which he pushed to demonstrate that it was a light source. He hung one around my neck and handed the other to Port. “Good luck,” he said.
Port and I exchanged looks. This was the moment when we would decide whether we could trust Swen or not. I didn’t see any other option, and we had to get moving if we were going to get to the village before they gave up looking for us.
I shook Swen’s hand and thanked him. I stepped on the box Swen had put under the chute and climbed inside it. It wasn’t high enough to sit up in, so we would have to crawl. I moved forward to make room for Port, and he made his way into the chute, as well. I looked back at Swen and called a “thank you” to him. He was already closing the hatch and didn’t respond.
I was glad for the light-stick that hung from my neck. It was bright, though my body blocked it from illuminating anything except the floor of the chute a short distance in front of me.
Behind me, Port’s light came on and produced weird shadows. “Let’s get moving,” Port said.
We began crawling. At some points, the chute got smaller, but it never got any bigger than it was at its mouth. The floor was dusty and gritty, and sometimes, I could feel things that could have once been living things under my hands. The longer we crawled, the more the density of the mountain seemed to increase. Twice, I had to stop and get my panic under control.
After what seemed like hours, we stopped to rest and eat. I pulled the tablet from my bag and checked the topography map. It looked as though we’d barely moved.
“There’s a reason people learned to walk upright,” said Port. “My knees are killing me.”
&nbs
p; My palms were scratched. “I think we have a long way to go.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said.
We finished a snack and drank in silence. Then, we moved on. The tunnel was getting stuffy and close. My palms and knees were beginning to feel bruised, and my back ached from crawling. We stopped and rested three times, before finally coming to the escape door.
I almost banged my head against the crank. It was round, and a handle protruded from it, perpendicular to the circular crank. I grasped the handle and tried to turn it—first one way and then the other—it wouldn’t budge. Sweat dripped from my hair, and I swiped it away.
Behind me, Port grew impatient. “Let me try,” he said.
With effort, we traded places. I turned away, feeling like watching him work would force an unpleasant result. I stared into the darkness. I had the feeling that something was farther back in the tunnel.
Port strained at the handle. After several tries, he released a pent-up breath and sat down. “It’s probably been years since anybody turned this,” he said. He mopped at his forehead with the hem of his shirt. “This isn’t going to be easy.” He turned around in the tunnel, put his foot up to the handle, and pushed at it.
“Are you turning it the right way?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Fiona. Swen didn’t tell us which way to turn it.” In the dark, his sharp response felt cutting. He rearranged again and tried to push the handle in the other direction with his foot. He took off his boots and tried again. Without his boots, he could get both feet against the handle. There was a creak of metal. Port’s legs vibrated with the effort, and his legs shot forward against the wall. There was a loud clang, and a pinging as the handle hit the wall and fell to the floor.
“Are you all right?” I leaned over him.
His teeth were clenched, and I knew he must have been in terrible pain. He wouldn’t admit it. “I’m just peachy,” he said.
I turned my attention to the crank. The handle hadn’t just come loose; it had broken off. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. It wasn’t his fault it was broken. He’d only been trying to get it loose.