by Maguire, Ily
I put my hands up on his shoulder and he leans down.
I kiss his cheek.
“Please be safe,” I say and he clutches both of my hands. I feel something like pressure radiate through my shoulder. The shoulder attached to the bionic arm.
Christophe closes the door behind me, plunging me into total darkness. It’s unnerving how much space there is at the beginning of the tunnel and I think I would do better if I could feel the walls around me. Delia grabs my hand and pulls me forward. I move as fast as I can behind her without tripping.
“You back there, Roz?” Leland calls. His is the only light up ahead.
“I’m here!” The walls are closing in. I’m getting claustrophobic. “How much farther?” The ceiling has gotten lower and I’m now bent over, my back grazing the ceiling.
“It caved in just up ahead,” Leland’s voice is only a few feet ahead. He’s out of breath again. I can see Delia, she is almost illuminating.
I blink to get some water to my eyes. They’re drying out with all this dirt.
Then all of the sudden it goes quiet and gets dark. I can’t see at all. “Leland? Leland!” I call. He doesn’t answer. From somewhere around me I hear crying. Sobbing. The air is stuffy and hot. Sweat beads on my forehead. I take a deep breath in, but I can’t catch it. I want to cough, but my throat is sore. My lungs are raw.
I drop down onto all fours. Something touches my face, my back, my legs.
I heave and throw up. I cover it over with dirt. Roots course through the walls around me, moving and winding in tangles above, moving closer and closer to me. Why is this happening again? What am I seeing? Is it even real?
My heart pulses blood, throbbing through my vessels. It flows in my ears and I can hear its beat.
“Roz, are you okay?” Leland’s hand on my head shakes me out of my hallucination. The roots recede back into the walls and I look up. Delia stands behind him.
“I-I don’t know—” I answer as best I can.
“Take a deep breath in. Slowly. Make sure it gets all the way down,” he tells me. I do as he says and I’m able to catch it. The cool air swirls around my rib cage. I get up with Leland’s help. He holds my hand as we move forward. “You okay now?”
“I am.” Holding his hand, I let him lead me.
“Why have we stopped? What’s wrong? Delia?” He calls up ahead. His light streams on ahead, but he blocks my view so I can’t see anything.
“Archer and Alex are digging,” Delia answers. “It gets a bit tight up ahead as they push dirt out of the way.”
The air is still heavy, but I no longer feel closed in. I don’t hear the sobbing anymore, either. Leland hands me over to Delia. She holds my wrist as Leland squeezes past her to the front of the line. I put my other hand on top of Delia’s.
“We’re. Almost. There.” Leland puffs.
Within seconds, the walls of dirt fall away and we are flooded with light. I squint. Without climbing anywhere, we are outside, almost above ground. I take in the deepest breath I can, gasping for air, exhaling all the toxins from The Hollow. This air is clean and fresh, filling up my lungs. Crisp.
“Who’s gonna go first?” Leland’s voice is ecstatic. Birds chip and the sound of wind blowing the leaves around is loud. Almost too loud.
“I don’t know about this, Leland,” Delia’s voice is tremulous. “Something doesn’t feel right. It all seems a little too easy.”
We’re all huddled in a line at the mouth of this underground den. It’s much wider outside and I’m anxious to stand.
“Of course it’s right. We made it. We’re out. We’re freeee!” He laughs and then turning, grabs her face, kissing it. It is hard not to feel his enthusiasm. I turn back to Christophe and remember he stayed behind. Has he found Jenny? Is she okay?
Even in the excitement, no one moves.
“I guess I’ll go first then,” Leland straightens his body. Hands on his hips he struts up and out of the hole in the ground into a clearing at the edge of the woods. Birds chirp and there is the rustling sound of animals foraging through leaves in the underbrush. There are shrubs around the tree trunks and fiddleheads and ferns surrounding them. I can see trees! Red-orange Sugar Maples, light green White Pines, and dark green Hemlocks not far in the distance. We are at the top of the canopy and there is nothing but trees and sky above us.
And then I notice the shadow cast upon this open area, before the tree line. The Hollow. Without turning and looking up, I know it is behind us.
Leland makes a circle, his arms still open wide. “See, I told you. Everything is fine. We are all going to be–”
Suddenly, Leland’s body seizes in convulsion, he jumps up and falls down, landing on the ground with a thud. His body continues to spasm.
Delia and I scream, and she moves forward, but I grasp her shirt and pull her back into the hole with my bionic arm.
“What’s out there, Delia?” I ask. I can’t see with her in front of me.
“I don’t know,” she responds. “Archer! Alex!”
Archer and Alex turn and hurry back through the tunnel.
I crawl up to the edge of the entrance, but Delia darts from our shelter into the clearing, throwing herself over Leland’s motionless body. Her body starts to tremble as she absorbs the electricity. Their eyes are closed and Leland’s mouth droops open, a small stream of saliva drips off his cheek and onto the ground.
“Who are you? What do you want from us?” I call. I hear Delia’s sobs muffled. Her face is down on Leland’s chest. “Don’t hurt them! I’ll come out if you promise not to hurt them!”
No answer.
I wait and nothing happens. I creep toward the opening and glance out. Delia is still protecting Leland, though her body is more slack. More drooped. The wind has picked up and the blue sky is turning gray. The wind shifts and the humid, hot air from the tunnel dissipates, a contrast to this cold, biting breeze.
I see movement in the distance. Out near the trees. A person steps into the clearing. I recognize her.
“Hara? Is that you?”
“Rosamund!” She answers back. I step up and out. I’m no longer afraid. For someone I barely wanted to know, I couldn’t be happier to see her.
“Who else is with you?” I ask as we approach each other. I look around, fearful that we will be seen by someone inside The Hollow. She moves past me to Leland. “Who are you with, Hara? You didn’t do this.” I look down at her attending to Leland and Delia still lying on the ground.
“No.” A voice steps out from some bushes on my right side. I startle. He’s holding a Taser.
“Ezekiel!” I can’t believe I’m happy to see him, too, despite him hurting Delia and Leland.
A gurgle comes from behind me. I run over to Leland. Delia is lying beside him on the ground. She tries to sit up, but her arms keep buckling. Hara lifts and leans Leland onto his side. His chest heaves. He’s breathing. I put my hand on Delia’s head and smooth back her hair. I take her arm and help her to a seated position.
Behind us is a massive, perfectly symmetrical brick edifice, four stories high and laid out with three attached segments in both directions like extended bat wings. Gothic spires and turrets, towers that reflect the light of broken stained glass windows interrupt the skyline. It is atop a hill, above the tree line.
I look back down at Leland and then to Hara.
“Can’t you do something?” I ask. She puts her face near Leland’s mouth, then his chest. “He’s definitely alive and his heart beat is strong. He will be okay.”
“No thanks to you,” Delia turns, her finger points at Ezekiel’s chest. You can see a slight shake to her hand.
“It wasn’t him. It was me.”
From the trees, Pike steps out. My heart leaps into my chest. He’s holding a small black Taser, too.
I run up to him. I throw myself into his arms, my face buried in his chest. He smells the same as I remember. Like the earth and sweat. Warm. Sweet.
“Rose! We thought you had been—” he
leans back, looks at my artificial arm and stops.
“Pike!” Delia shrieks.
Pike steps away from me like some magnetic force is pulling him toward Delia. Still sitting on the ground, her cheeks are soaked with tears. She tries to get up, but can’t. He rushes to her side and helps her stand.
She moves her shaking hands up, around his neck and stares at Pike. She hugs him close until her arms falls to her side and she almost crumples to the ground. Pike catches her and envelops her in his arms. And then picking her up, he spins her around.
“Oh Pike!” she cries, unable to stop sobbing.
“Shh. It’s alright. I’m here. I’m fine.” His voice is soft, caring. Loving. “Please stop crying, Mom. I’m okay.”
14
“Mom?” I look from Pike to Delia to Ezekiel to Hara.
Pike holds her at arms-length. “It doesn’t look like you. You were always beautiful. What did they do to you?” He touches her flawless skin and holds a lock of her hair, examining it.
“In the hospital,” Delia begins. She looks into her son’s eyes. “After the miscarriage, they took the fetus. And I had the regenerative gene. During recovery, they came back for me and brought me here.” Not taking her eyes off Pike’s face, she indicates The Hollow behind her.
“We went back and you were gone. We were never told anything other than that you had passed with the baby.” Pike kicks the ground with his boot. “Dad left right after, though I didn’t believe it. I went back to the Imperial Hospital and searched, but that was eight years ago.”
It must be how he knew the hospital so well. They’re all designed the same.
“I’m sorry – I’m so, so sorry.” Delia’s hands are on his cheeks. They’re both crying. “I’ve thought about you every day.”
“When you got out,” Pike begins. “You would’ve come find me, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course!” Delia cries, throwing her arms back around his neck. He hugs her back.
“I hate to break up this family reunion,” Leland weakly begins. With Hara’s help he is able to sit upright, his arms supporting him. Hara puts a syringe back into her cargo pants. “Thank you, Darling.” He nods at her, though I know they’ve never met.
“He just needed a bit of a jump start. A recharge,” she says.
Ezekiel helps him up and throws Leland’s arm over his shoulder.
“What was that?” I ask Hara who has moved beside me. She greets me with a smile and rubs my real arm. It feels comforting, even from her.
“Just a serum,” she answers.
“Mine?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer. “It works to re-animate natural organs. Luckily he still has his or that could’ve gone way worse.”
“What are you three doing here?” I see Pike looking at my arm and I tuck it behind my back. Ezekiel is standing, moving in a direction away from The Hollow. Ready to move out.
“Aegis has been destroyed.” Hara states though her voice is timid. “Everyone was either captured or killed.”
“Everyone? JJ? Patience?” I ask.
She looks to the ground. “The building was demolished, the animals slaughtered. All of the food was burned. There’s nothing left.”
“What about Patience and JJ?” I repeat. “And why are you three even out here?”
Hara shakes her head. She doesn’t answer my second question.
“Serves them right,” Pike states. By the way he is looking around, I can tell he doesn’t like that we’re so out in the open. We’re not entirely exposed, but we aren’t concealed, either.
“Let’s go,” Ezekiel says.
“Dr. Flint said they were friends of The Hollow. What did she mean by that?”
“JJ was coordinating with The Hollow to sell his work. Someone snitched on him to the Imperial Bead. It was only a matter of time before we all would have been found out. He would’ve sold you, Rose, to the highest bidder had you not been captured the way you were. He was the reason why you ran away in the first place.” Pike is stern with me. “Don’t you forget that.”
“How do you know that?” I feel a bit betrayed.
“I saw it all. I was there,” Ezekiel says.
“And you didn’t stop it? Stop me from leaving? You must have known something would happen to me.” I’m hurt.
“You looked completely capable of taking care of yourself,” Ezekiel answers.
I had kicked JJ in the groin.
Ezekiel continues, “I had no idea you were going to run out, though. I tried to catch up—”
“Guys,” Leland interrupts. He is regaining his strength from the serum and in the daylight, he’s greener than he was inside. “We should really get somewhere more hidden. You know, a little less exposure. Unless they’re preoccupied with other things, they’ll be after us if they aren’t already and we won’t know until it’s too late.” He still leans on Ezekiel.
“Until we’re captured again.” Delia states.
“Or shot,” I add.
“We need to get out of here,” Leland looks around. “Where’re Archer and Alex?”
“They went back inside,” I say.
“Then we don’t have the headstart we think we do.” Leland states. The living sounds around us have stopped. There is nothing.
Ezekiel types something into the implant on his arm. “They’ve already blocked all signals.” Ezekiel looks up.
“Where do we go? Pike?” Delia asks. She has deep worry lines on her face that I didn’t notice in the dark of The Hollow. I wonder if they have appeared in the moments since re-uniting with her son.
“Where are we?” I ask, not knowing a thing about The Hollow or its specific location. We’ve all moved past the tree line and into the forest, among the trees. We have moved beyond a grouping of bushes and thorny brambles, one of many that dot a dried up, barren field leading to the top of the hill where The Hollow is. The only way we’re getting out of here is if we go down. But which way?
“We are nowhere. We are near nothing,” Pike answers. I want to be closer to him, but he’s ahead with Delia. His mother.
“That’s not true,” Ezekiel counters.
“How did you get here then? Can we go back that way?” The air has become humid and heavy and The Hollow seems closer than it did minutes ago. I look back at the hulking building so far, but so close. Faces flash in the windows. Attendants. The disappeared. And then they’re all gone. I look away. “How did you know to come here?”
“We have a car at the bottom of the hill and off the road in a culvert. We just have to hike down, but I’m not sure your friend here is going to make it. He looks sick.” Ezekiel turns to Leland, who now holds himself up. The faint green pallor of his skin is getting brighter every second we stand out in the daylight.
“I’ll make it, I can get there. But if I can’t I know two strong men who would be ever so gracious to help.” The wind whips around and the sky is dark.
Ezekiel turns, shaking his head. Delia nudges Pike and he smiles despite himself. Ezekiel takes the lead followed by Hara and Leland. Delia lets go of Pike’s arm and he hangs back a few paces with me.
“I didn’t think I would see you again,” I tell Pike. The wind and the dark are behind us. He looks around, on edge. As we travel downhill, the trees are not as thick, but the understory is becoming denser. The route we’re taking has us winding down and around.
“We heard a rumor about The Hollow, and how Tithonus might be held inside.”
“He is! I was with him!” We pick up speed as we step over branches and around rocks. The slope is relatively gradual and safe.
“Did he tell you anything? Foretell you anything?” Pike asks.
“No. I can’t remember. But something happened and, and—” I stop. I can’t remember.
“And what, Rose?” Pike stops us. We’re about halfway down the hill. The base is much closer and I can see the dark black of the car below.
“And I don’t know what happened.” I admit. I look down. He tak
es my hand anyway. The new one. I can tell he hesitates for a moment, before taking hold completely. A small burst of energy travels down my shoulder through the rest of my body. I’ll take it. I’ve missed that.
“Please try, Rose. If you think of anything—”
“I will tell you.” I promise. He lets go of my arm. The current is gone and my shoulder is once again heavy. We catch up to Leland leaning on Ezekiel and Delia standing beside the car. Hara is opens the back door. I look up and behind me. The Hollow towers above the trees and shrubs that we are hidden among.
“We aren’t all going to fit in that,” I say. I don’t even know what to call it. All I’ve ever used was our private rail car. We never used anything that ran on fossil fuels.
“We won’t,” Ezekiel agrees as he lowers Leland into the backseat. “It’s one of those old Hybrid machines.” The car is small and camouflage to blend in with the trees, but high off the ground with large tires.
“So we’re going to have to split up and go in different directions,” Pike says. He let’s go of my hand. “Zeke, hold up.”
I watch him a mere fifteen feet away from me and I never thought I’d see him again. He walks back to me and my heart skips a thousand beats.
“They’re going to go to the safe house. It’s in the city. It will bide us some time to figure things out,” Pike says.
“Where’re you going?” I ask.
“I’m going with you.” He states.
“With me? Where am I going then?” I watch Hara get in the backseat with Leland and look to Delia. She looks worried, like she’s getting prepared to lose her son again.
“You are I are going back into The Hollow–” Pike’s words surprise us all.
Everyone stops to pay attention. Ezekiel slams the trunk shut and tosses a pair of boots at my feet. There is a two-inch layer of dirt on my feet. I hadn’t realized they were bare all this time. I rub them on the leaves of some skunk cabbage. As some of the dirt falls away, I realize I can’t feel a thing.
“To get Tithonus,” he says. I knew it. It’s why they came here. Not for me. Not for Delia, but for Tithonus.
“Pike, please, rethink this.” Hara has gotten out of the car and is as close to Pike as ever. “We have Rose and your mother, who we had no idea was even inside! Maybe we should take this as a sign.”