Mason heard them coming and thought it was Ashley. “Listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
Burton held up his pudgy hand, barely visible to Mason in the darkness. “The time for apologies has passed. We have a proposition for you.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed. Nothing from the elders came without a price. People were known to disappear while repaying their debts to them. Burton often kept his prices particularly high.
It was whispered that Burton was often the last one to be seen with an islander before he or she disappeared without question, usually for asking too many questions—not that it happened very often, but when it did, it made an impact. In fact, Burton had been the one to take Mason into custody in the first place.
He’d given Mason a strange smile as he locked him into the enclosure that morning.
“Perhaps you will be the key to their undoing, hmm?” he’d said just before walking away and leaving Mason alone in his prison.
Mason had never trusted the man, but that cryptic comment made him feel even more revulsion for Burton. What had he meant? And did the fact that he’d returned mean his ill-begotten plan was working?
Thankfully, Mattli spoke next. “We’re offering you amnesty.”
“If…” Mason was skeptical. Nothing was free on the island, and he imagined his life would be quite expensive.
“If you follow our very specific instructions.” Mattli hesitated, seeming somehow nervous. It didn’t give Mason a lot of comfort.
“There’s been a complication with Ashley Wortham. The two of you are friends, correct?” He clearly meant it as a formality. Mattli knew full well that Mason and Ashley were close, as did everyone else. For Ashby’s sake, he’d only been involved in Wesley’s murder because of her.
Mason nodded.
“Yes, well,” Mattli said, frowning. “She has been given permission to leave the island. We need you to go after her.”
Stupefied, Mason scrambled to ask the right questions. “Wait, what? She left? How?”
“Perhaps that isn’t the most important issue for you to focus on right now. What we need you to do is make sure she doesn’t come back,” Burton said, a sick smile on his face.
“I…” He felt like he’d been sucker punched. Taking the rap for killing Ashley’s husband, facing execution, it was all nothing compared to this. They wanted him to kill her?
Rage bubbled to the surface. “No.” His voice was low and menacing. “I am not an assassin, and whichever elder decided I was is sadly mistaken. I’m not about to trade my life for an innocent. More than that, you’re a bunch of fools if you think I’d ever do anything to hurt her. My whole life, and now my death, has revolved around her.”
The elders eyed each other. Burton shrugged. “It’s no matter to me whether you die tomorrow morning or not.”
But Mattli couldn’t let it go. “Mason, please.” He approached the bars, holding them with both hands. “Ashley will perish one way or another. If not at your hands, then from a slow, agonizing death due to dehydration or exposure. Is that what you want for her?”
It gave Mason pause. When they were kids, a classmate of theirs had drowned in front of them. Mason and Ashley had been fishing at the time. They could’ve saved him if they’d realized what was happening, but he seemed fine. He wasn’t thrashing around or anything, just floating with his face barely visible. They both figured he was just messing around. The next time they looked, he wasn’t there, and it took days for him to wash ashore. By then, he didn’t even look like the kid they knew. The sea had had her way with him.
Mason pictured Ashley out there on the water, hallucinating from dehydration, thrashing around in the throes of death until she finally capsized her vessel and fed the sea life for the next few months. The image made him shudder.
“I didn’t think you did,” Mattli said. “We’ve instructed her to leave before daybreak, and she’s gone home to gather some supplies.” He opened the door to Mason’s enclosure. “Will you go after her?”
“How do you know I won’t take off myself? Or help her get away? And how exactly am I supposed to go after her, anyway? I’m not what you’d call a champion swimmer.”
“Mason, we don’t believe there’s anywhere to escape to. On the off chance that there is, we need to know. That’s where you come in.”
Mason recoiled upon hearing that. “No. You just got done telling me there’s nothing out there. I won’t be your pawn in some twisted game. You’re playing with people’s lives.”
Mattli entered the enclosure and knelt in front of him. “Yes. Well, the longer you sit here and despair about it, the longer she’s bound to suffer.” He hoped this was the right approach. The words sounded harsh and overdramatic to his own ears as he said them.
Mason neither moved nor acknowledged Mattli’s words.
Burton rolled his eyes, clearly disgusted with the display. “Come on, Mattli. He’s not game. We’ll find another way,” he said.
“You go on, Burton. I’ll keep talking to him for a little while longer.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Mattli pondered his options as he watched Burton disappear into the darkness. He couldn’t imply that there was dissention among the elders. If, Ashby willing, Mason and Ashley did return, Mattli knew he and the head elder would be faced with an inevitable argument about what to do with the brave explorers. It would be better for them to save their energy for that potential battle than to risk Burton or one of the others finding out about their agenda this early. No, it was vital to stick to the plan.
I’m getting too old for this, he thought as he watched Mason peel the bark off a stick. How could he convince Mason to go and at least try to fulfill his task while letting him know he would ultimately be forgiven, and even welcomed back by the head elder, if he failed?
Perhaps he couldn’t. It boiled down to where his loyalties lay—with Ashley or with the island. To Mattli, they were one and the same, so he couldn’t understand how one choice could hurt the other so badly.
He needed more time to sort it out, but Mason made it clear he wasn’t going to get it.
“Mattli? Do you remember the day I moved out of my parents’ house?” He stared off into the darkness, so the question came out with a wistful air.
He nodded, caught off guard by the question.
“You helped me get that place. Someone else was in line for it, weren’t they? You pulled some strings and got me in there so I could escape my parents. I bet that took some doing. I know you’ve done similar things for Ashley over the years.” He looked directly into Mattli’s eyes. “For what? Why stick your neck out if you’re just going to kill us off in the end? Is this some kind of God-like game for you?”
Elder Mattli felt like he’d been slapped. But it was better this way. Better for Mason to hate him than know the truth of the matter. He hated himself for what he was about to say, but Mason had to follow Ashley, one way or another. He couldn’t see any other way around it. If he didn’t go, the other elders might recant on their agreement—they might insist that she be killed immediately. Then Mason would die in the morning, and they’d both be gone.
“Mason, I was one of the elders to examine Wesley’s body. The wound in his belly was jagged and hurried, almost tentative. Not that of a deliberate killer. Curious, don’t you think?”
Mason looked at him with sharp eyes.
Mattli stood and walked to the edge of the enclosure, keeping his back to Mason. “I’ll tell you what I think happened. We both know Wesley was… difficult. I imagine she was just defending herself.” He paused, letting that tidbit sink in. From the look on Mason’s face, he knew he had him on the hook. All Mason needed was a little more of a taste to bite down.
Mattli stared out into the night, silently asking forgiveness for what he was doing. “Wouldn’t it be a shame if it was discovered after your death that Ashley had in fact dealt the fatal blow?” He shook his head. “I would hate for that to happen.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“But you weren’t even there the whole time, were you? Tell me the truth, Mason.”
“Anyway, what difference does it really make if her reputation gets tarnished after I’m dead? She’s going to die out there anyway, or so you say. I don’t think she’ll much care about what people have to say then.”
Mattli sighed heavily, feeling defeated. “Mason, there’s a lot at stake here. Please just go after her. I need you to do this for me.” His eyes pleaded with Mason, willing him to understand the unspoken message without actually hearing the words.
Mason’s resolve was starting to crumble. A thought had occurred to him while Mattli was speaking—at first whispering its message quietly, and then practically shouting it in his head. Hope. HOPE. He only had to tell Mattli he would kill her. He didn’t actually have to do it. Maybe they could work out a plan when he caught up to her. Based on what they’d said, both he and Ashley were dead if he refused. If he didn’t, maybe they’d have a chance.
His mind was working fast, but he didn’t want to let Mattli know he had a small spark of hope that he was actively fanning into a flame. He kept his tone skeptical when he spoke next. “Explain to me how I’m supposed to accomplish what you’re asking me to do.”
“Ashley is taking a canoe in hopes of finding the mainland. You will take this—” he held a 9mm out to Mason, “—and the other canoe, and you will go after her.” He paused, giving Mason time to digest the fact that there was more than one canoe. Why would they have multiple canoes if nothing was out there? Hope burned through him like a wildfire.
“The rest is up to you.” Mason wasn’t sure what Mattli meant by that, but he noticed the emphasis on those first two words. He looked at him skeptically. Was he hinting that he had options once he was off the island?
Mason looked down at the gun like it was an alien object. Guns had always been forbidden to average islanders. Only those high in the pecking order were allowed to learn to use them, and only the elders were allowed to have their own. Islanders were always told guns were more of a precaution. Any small deer that still lived on the island were an annual treat that could easily be brought down with more traditional methods like a bow and arrow. Guns were a protective measure only to be used as a last resort. Protection against what, Mason wasn’t sure, and he had never asked. Questions were more Ashley’s department. Mason preferred a go-along-to-get-along attitude. As long as he was taken care of, why invite trouble?
Mattli held the gun out to Mason, trying to get him to take it. “You do know how to use one, don’t you?”
Knowledge and application were two very different things. But he’d watched from the sidelines of enough of the training exercises for the young elders to think he knew how to kill an unarmed person, so he nodded.
“And once I’ve done what you ask? What am I supposed to do? Kill myself? Come back and somehow rejoin society on the island as a convicted murderer?”
“If you do return, and I think the majority of the elders are hoping you do, if for no other reason than to retrieve the canoes and report what you find, you will be reintegrated into our society.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the details will be worked out later, based on how events unfold.”
It didn’t give Mason a good feeling. What was to stop them from killing him if he did return? Of course, he couldn’t return without Ashley. But he refused to be some poetic player in a Romeo and Juliet style game staged by the elders. He wouldn’t allow Ashley or himself to become their sacrificial lamb. Once he caught up with her, they would find a way out of this together.
“You know,” he said, rubbing his chin, “all Ashley ever did was ask questions. Challenge you. If you were better men, you would’ve risen to the challenge instead of hiding behind your secrets.”
Mattli was quiet for a moment, and then said, “Will you rise to the challenge, Mason?”
“I will go after her, if that’s what you mean.” Mason could deliver his own half-truths just as well as any elder.
“Good.” Mattli stepped out of Mason’s enclosure, locking it behind him.
“But I thought you wanted—”
“You’ll be released after Ashley leaves in her canoe. She’ll be given a head start. She doesn’t know you will be following her, let alone what your orders are.” He reached through the bars, holding the gun out.
Mason only nodded in response, finally taking the gun from Mattli’s outstretched hand. It felt heavier than it looked. He’d never held a gun before. He couldn’t help but feel a thrill as he turned the weapon over in his hands, not thinking about its true purpose for a moment.
Mattli breathed a sigh of relief as he walked to the canoes to wait for Ashley. He’d managed to save her from Branneth while keeping relative peace on the island. It was all he could hope for. So why did he feel like he’d just sent the lamb off to slaughter?
5.
Ashley rushed back to the house she’d shared with Wesley to pack some supplies. She’d never thought of it as her home. Wesley had made sure she always felt like an outsider, an unwanted guest.
But Wesley wasn’t the only one who’d made her feel like an outsider. All the homes and buildings on the island had been there before their ancestors had come to live there. That was one reason why Bennett Ashby had selected the island as a settlement. It was ready to receive refugees. When Ashby started squirreling people to the island to escape the apocalypse, they called it the migration. According to legend, he was only able to save about five hundred people from the mainland—although the legends said nothing about why so few were saved, or what criteria he used to select those five hundred souls—but when they were added to the original residents, it became a very crowded settlement. Disease, fighting, and borderline squalid conditions weeded out the weak, until the number of residents was sustainable for the island. And under the elders’ strict guidance, that was the way it had stayed.
Looking around the walls of her home, she thought of how many times they’d needed to be patched. She wondered if there was anything still original in the centuries-old home, except for the foundation. It felt tired inside. Worn out. And ultimately, it felt like someone else’s home. All the houses on the island did.
Ashley felt sad when she thought about it. Before the apocalypse, it had been a beautiful home, equipped with the latest technology, as well as several features that had been considered “upgrades” at the time. It had stainless-steel appliances that had been scavenged for metal, granite countertops, hardwood floors, and even a beautiful, stainless-steel faucet with a removable sprayer that Ashley never used because running water had died out several lifetimes before she was born, along with electricity. The home must have been lovely then. But the centuries had been hard on it, as they were on everything that had survived.
For the millionth time, she wondered who the original owners had been and what they’d aspired to do with their home.
All she wanted to do was escape it.
Heading for her bedroom, she tried to decide what to bring. She had no idea how long she’d be gone, or even if she would ever come back. Jamming a change of clothes into the bag, she hoped it would be enough, and went to the dresser. Despite the fact that her wardrobe was small, she didn’t have room for all of it.
Removing everything from the top drawer, she found the panel in the bottom and lifted it. Hidden there was a pendant Mason had made for her before she was matched. It was an oval engraved with a terribly intricate design of swirls, loops, and tiny leaves—constructed from whatever scrap metal he’d managed to scrounge. She knew it must have taken him months to complete. He’d found a simple, silver chain from God knows where—Ashley didn’t ask, deciding it was one question she didn’t want answered—to complete the look.
Ashley had never been able to openly wear the pendant, for fear of what people would think, and of what Wesley would do. She’d hidden it away from her match the day she mov
ed into his home and hadn’t taken it out since, knowing a beating wouldn’t be the worst thing that would happen if he ever found it. He would have taken it from her, and that was a punishment beyond bearing. She held it close to her chest, happy to be reunited with it.
Feeling brazen, she hung the locket around her neck. Who would care now? Her match was dead, and the locket’s maker was hours from his own death. She was leaving the island anyway. Besides, it felt good against her skin. Comforting. Though she could not bring Mason with her on this journey, she could at least carry part of him.
Having retrieved her most sentimental possession, she carried her bag into the kitchen, filled a few skins with water, and gathered some ration bars, leftover dried fruit from the summer stores, crackers, and the last of her granola. It was enough food to get her through about two days, if she ate light. But only enough water for about a day. She put another large water skin into her bag, making it a bit heavy, but not unbearably so. She wouldn’t be carrying it very far anyway.
Out in the garage, she grabbed a kinetically powered flashlight, some rope, a tarp—it wouldn’t fit into her pack, but she tucked it under her arm anyway, knowing she would want to be out of the rain—and a few other items she thought might be valuable in a survival scenario.
By the time she headed toward the canoe, her pack was overflowing, and her time was growing short. Despite the added weight on her back, she picked up her pace to a light jog, her pendant bouncing against her chest as she went. It reminded her of how she’d parted ways with its maker. So, halfway to the canoes, she changed course. She didn’t have much time, but she couldn’t leave things like this between them.
She approached Mason’s enclosure quietly. He was lying on the ground with his back to her. Disappointed, she looked around, knowing she only had four—maybe five—hours left to learn how to paddle a canoe and get herself out of sight before daybreak.
The Dead Room Trilogy Page 5