by Andrew Smith
It was no trick. The kid was giving up. It was not a good place to lie down and quit.
“Can you get up?” I said.
“Leave me alone, Billy.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
I shined the light farther ahead.
Nothing.
Quinn said, “Okay, Billy. I know there’s a river down that way. And it’s good water. We … I used to have to come down here to get drinking water. Before I made the still.”
I stood over him. I shined the light onto the kid’s face. His orange hair was dark with filth, plastered down to his scalp with the mud of dust and sweat and blood.
“Is it a way out?”
“That’s all I know,” he said. “I ain’t never been no further than the river. And I stopped coming down here once I was left on my own.”
“Left?” I said. “You knew that other boy. The one up on the hook.”
Quinn said nothing.
I nudged him with my foot. “Well? You did that to the kid, didn’t you, Quinn? Hung his head on that hook?”
“Fair enough, Billy. Fair enough,” Quinn said. “I’ll tell the truth. I stuck that little faggot with my knife. Yep, Billy, you were right all along. That is my knife you picked up at the dead man’s house. The same one I used on that little kid up there.”
Okay, I thought, so everything I ever guessed about this fucker turned out to be true. So how come it still felt like he’d just kicked me in the balls?
I swallowed. “I appreciate you finally being straight with me.”
And Quinn got a mean, hard look on his face that seemed to age him right before my eyes. “The river ain’t too far, Billy. Good luck gettin’ out.”
It was going to be like this now. No more games between me and Quinn. The first time I ever saw the kid, as I flailed around, drowning in the rainwater, when I took off my clothes and pulled those fucking black worms away from my nutsack, Quinn looked so clean and innocent, like he was maybe thirteen years old and belonged in the soprano section of an all-boys church choir.
Now I realized I was wrong about so many things.
“Get up,” I said. “You’re coming, too.”
“Leave me here.”
“If I leave you here, Quinn, it’s only going to be after I stick this knife down your fucking throat. Get up. I’m tired of your bullshit.”
We walked.
Quinn whimpered with every step, but we said nothing as we kept a steady pace farther into the belly of Marbury’s Under.
In the quiet now, no running, no panting breaths, I could hear the low roar of rushing water.
At first, I jumped when the flashlight’s beam ricocheted off the surface of the river. It almost looked like a glistening snake out there, sliding toward us. I stopped and watched, hoping Quinn would say something, maybe tell me what to expect, but the kid stayed quiet and waited beside me.
“Please tell me there aren’t any monsters in that water.”
“If there are, I don’t know about ’em, Billy.”
“No worms?”
Quinn shook his head and pointed a finger above us, into the darkness. “They only live up there.”
It was a hundred feet wide, deep and fast.
The river cut across the main channel of the Under, roiling in frothy, churning currents through an enormous grated opening to my right, and spilling down the opposite side in a torrent of falls over the concrete spillway lip to a gaping and lightless abyss.
It had to flow out somewhere, I thought, maybe into the Endless, but there was no way of following it down the impossible cascade.
I could smell the water, feel the dampness rising in warm humid billows through the fetid air of the Under. And I realized how parched I was, how desperately I wanted to tear myself out of my pants and boots and plunge my filthy body into it.
But I was afraid.
I flashed the light on Quinn’s chest. “You say it’s okay to drink?”
“It’s good, Billy. Trust me.”
Yeah. Right.
“Get in.”
Quinn’s white skin drained to an even paler hue. He shook his head. “I’ll drink it, Billy. But I ain’t getting in it. I can’t swim.”
“Strip down and get in the water. Or I’ll fucking throw you in.”
Quinn closed his mouth, straight, tight. The muscles in his jaw clenched, and he stared at me for several unblinking seconds. Then he reached down and slipped off his one boot and unbuckled his pants.
“Don’t look at me,” he said.
“What?”
“Don’t look at me, Billy. I don’t like it. It’s embarrassing.”
I rolled my eyes. Like Quinn would ever be embarrassed about anything.
Quinn slipped his bony legs out of his pants and tiptoed to the edge of the river. Of course I watched him do it. I’d never trust that kid, and he had to know it.
His naked body glowed luminescent white in the darkness of the Under. He gave me a dirty look, limping bad while keeping his hands fanned in front of his dick and what few pubic hairs he had.
“Don’t look.” Quinn had a rare edge of agitation in his voice.
The grown-up, self-conscious, angry Quinn Cahill.
“Fuck you, Quinn. Just get in the water.”
He turned away from me and awkwardly dropped into the river.
The edge plunged straight down. The river flowed through a square-walled concrete channel, so there was no telling how deep it was. But it was obvious that the volume and weight of the rushing water were massive.
Quinn’s head vanished beneath the churning river, and when his pale, ghostly hands thrashed above the surface, the current had already pulled him fifteen feet down the bank, toward the falls. He grasped the edge and held tight, spitting and wheezing.
“There. You happy now, Billy?”
I nodded. “I guess I am.”
I dropped the flashlight and backpack. As quickly as I could, I stripped out of my boots and pants, and holding on to my knife, I jumped into the river after him. For a moment, I didn’t care what kind of horrid monsters might be swimming around below the surface, because I believed that I’d never felt anything as good in my entire life as that rushing, powerful flow against my exhausted body.
I drank, I swam, scrubbed the flakes of filth and blood from everywhere on me, out of my hair; and I was finally clean, reborn. But the current was so strong that it was a struggle for me to swim back to the safety of the edge. I understood how someone like Quinn, unable to swim, would be so fearful of the river. But the water was incredible. It was as warm as a heated swimming pool, and as much as I’d try, I couldn’t get myself anywhere near to feeling anything at all on the bottom.
And with my eyes just above the surface of the river, I could see the dimmest trace of a gray line—light—far away, down the tunnel on the opposite side.
There was a way out.
“Quinn!”
No answer.
I called him again. “Quinn! I see a way out of here!”
Nothing.
I realized that I’d drifted far from the spot where I left my flashlight and clothes lying at the edge of the river. I’d intended to wash out my piss-soaked pants and scrub the black mold from those filthy boots.
Out in the darkness, a good fifty yards from the fading glow of our dying flashlight, I pulled myself from the river and started back to where I’d discarded my things.
That’s when I saw it.
A red slash floating in the blackness of the cave.
I rubbed my eyes. The red glow—I recognized it instantly—meant only one thing. Hunters. But it hovered above the exact spot where I’d dropped my clothes, a hooked slash of fire like a shepherd’s crook, a thin, beckoning finger in the dark that dipped and jerked nervously.
I froze, waited.
It was on Quinn Cahill.
No wonder he didn’t want me to see him naked, tried to cover his body in front of me. He wasn’t embarrassed; he was sick.
&nb
sp; He had the bug.
And he was turning into one of them.
That’s how it happens—how it starts. With the little mark.
And he had no idea I’d been standing there watching him in the dark while he panicked and pulled his pants on so quickly to cover himself; fumbling past the injury on his foot while he thought I was bathing.
I closed my eyes as tight as I could, and opened them again.
The little red mark was gone.
Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe it was from the water, or from the black salt I’d crawled through. Maybe it was just a stain on my eye from having looked away from the flashlight.
I was being paranoid.
Most of me didn’t believe it. The kid didn’t seem sick.
I stayed there, hidden, dripping onto the dirt, thinking.
When Quinn picked up the flashlight and began shaking it, looking around, I called out to him again.
“Hey! I’m over here! I found a way out!”
The light hit me, and I raised my hand to shield my eyes. I didn’t want him to see my face. I was sure he’d be able to tell from my expression that something was up; that I had something new to be afraid of.
There’s always something new to be afraid of.
I lowered the knife, so he wouldn’t see it.
I thought about things. It disgusted me. I thought about where I should stab Quinn Cahill in order to kill him quickly. I remembered Ben telling me how hard it was to kill a kid who didn’t want to die.
“That river swept me down pretty far.”
I pretended to rake the water from my hair with my fingers, not looking at Quinn. “But I saw some light on the other side. There’s a way out.”
“Yep.” Quinn sounded like he knew it all along. And he kept the light fixed on me as I came nearer to where he was standing.
“We can use the rope. We’ll get you across the river,” I said.
“I’m not scared, Billy.”
I bent over, began gathering up my things.
“I’m going to wash out my clothes.”
“That’s a good idea, Billy.”
Quinn pointed the light at me the whole time, so I couldn’t really see anything other than his silhouette.
“You should wash your pants and boots, too, Quinn. Get that blood and shit out of them.”
“No way I’m getting back in there,” he said. “But now you believe me?”
I had to think about that.
“About the water?” I said. “Yes. No more games.”
“No more games, Billy.”
Sure as shit, Quinn.
I tied the laces on the boots together through the belt hoops on my jeans, so I wouldn’t lose anything in the water. I was so careful. The knife was always ready. Quinn knew it. There was nothing he could do.
Quinn watched me. I thought about giving him shit for staring at me, but I was unsure about talking to him, trying to sound normal—whatever the fuck that meant here, of all places—like he might figure out that I was hiding something from him.
This is just how Quinn Cahill used to play with his friends down here.
I was going to kill this kid, and there was nothing he could do about it.
And I thought, It’s bullshit. He’s the one hiding stuff. He’s sick. It’s been nothing but lies since the first time Quinn Cahill opened his goddamned mouth after the storm. He’s going down. White eye. Black eye. He’s a fucking goner. Then what are you going to do, Jack? What are you going to do when he tries going after one of the boys?
He will try to kill the youngest kid first. Then he will eat him. It’s what they do to Odds.
I shook my head, tried to clear my brain.
The Rangers used to take the sick Odds out and shoot them in the fucking street.
Leave them for the harvesters.
What was I going to do?
I rolled my pants and boots into a ball and tucked them under my arm. I stood up and shrugged. “You done eyeballing me yet, Quinn?”
“Heh-heh, Billy. See how you like it?”
“I don’t really care.” I stood and watched him.
It was a stare-down, and neither one of us was budging.
This was Jack’s game.
I was the King of Marbury.
I turned around, got right up to the edge of the river. “Your clothes stink, Quinn. You should seriously wash that shit out of your pants.”
My turn to fuck with the kid.
“I’m okay, Billy.”
“Sure you are.”
I jumped into the water.
Staying close to the edge, I scraped the uppers of my boots and washboarded my jeans against the concrete wall of the river, but all the time as I worked at cleaning my stuff, keeping afloat, pulling myself back toward the shadows cast by the flashlight Quinn held on me, watching him watching me, I thought about what had been done, and what still needed doing.
I was going to kill this kid, and there was nothing he could do about it.
And it hit me, how the black worms never once got after Quinn—they stayed away from Hunters, or Odds who were already infected—and why he tried to jump from the roof of the firehouse after he forced open my hand so he could show Ben and Griffin the thing. The mark. The hole in the sky. The doorway into and out of every not-place in the fucked-up universe. How fucked up Jack was. Just like the Hunters at the market, it scared him bad enough that he wanted to kill himself; and even Quinn couldn’t understand what had happened.
Because he was one of them.
And now I was going to kill this kid.
I put my head under the water and screamed.
* * *
I sloshed my wet things over the edge and onto the dirt at the bank.
I suddenly felt so worn, like I didn’t have nearly the strength to pull myself out from the water. I twisted the hilt of the knife around in my grip. I was nervous and excited, trying to force myself to just get it over with, but I didn’t want to watch myself do it.
Quinn stood there on the bank, beaming the light and his stupid expression down at me.
Watching.
Fuck you, Quinn.
“Need some help, Billy?”
He offered his open hand for me, stooping at the edge of the river.
I stayed there for a moment, considering what might happen if I yanked him out into the water, let the current take the kid down, over the falls. That would solve a small problem.
I had to do it.
And I thought, Maybe I should try to find Seth again, to beg him to do something for this kid who I didn’t particularly like, and certainly didn’t trust.
If I could find Seth.
But I wanted to ignore things, to convince myself that it wasn’t Quinn whose diseased body I saw; that the kid wasn’t sick, and he wasn’t going to do what all Hunters end up doing once things went the only way they could go.
“Thanks, Quinn.”
I grabbed his wrist.
He pulled me from the water.
* * *
I spent a few minutes squatting by the river, wringing and rewringing out my pants until they were reasonably damp enough to put on. All the while, I kept the knife pinned beneath my bare foot.
Quinn knew. He watched.
Quinn always watched.
Boys who survived in Marbury always watched.
I had no idea how long we’d been down in the Under.
It seemed like forever.
Click.
Click. Click. Click.
The sound startled me, and I jumped.
It was only Quinn, charging up the flashlight again.
He noticed, smiled. “Sorry, Billy.”
I was too nervous, preoccupied in wondering how to deal with Quinn, what I would say to him if I had the guts to bring up the subject of having the disease, the bug.
It had to be something that happened to him recently, too, otherwise Quinn would already be coughing and getting nosebleeds. Once that started, there would be no skir
ting around the issue.
But I couldn’t will myself to kill the kid. I thought about the horrifying sound of a knife plunging into Quinn’s soft flesh. Would he scream? Would he cry?
What would it sound like?
How hard would he fight back, and how long would it take for him to die?
Zip.
Quinn was fucking with my pack.
“What’s this thing you got in here, Billy?”
Fuck.
The lenses.
I whirled back to see what he’d done, but it was too late. Quinn held my wadded-up sock in his damp white hand while he awkwardly pried into the opening, trying to steady the flashlight he pinned under his armpit.
I grabbed for his hands. “Leave that alone!”
Quinn turned away. “Looky here!”
And speaking to no one in particular, like he was making a judgment call for this lightless and fucked-up universe, Quinn said, “We agreed no more games, Billy. I ain’t hiding nothing from you.”
“You’re a fucking liar, Quinn.”
I slashed at him with the knife.
Quinn ducked away from the blade.
As my arm swiped past him, Quinn closed in and grabbed my wrist.
The fucker bit my arm, and I heard the chink of the broken lens when it hit the ground in front of Quinn’s feet.
The next thing I knew, the entire cavern lit up with a fierce blue light.
Quinn had somehow flipped the smaller lens down on the glasses.
He spun around and around, waving the glasses out through the dark, where we could both clearly see them.
Part Four
THE PASSENGER
twenty
Welcome to another not-world, Jack.
I hear Quinn screaming, but that is all. I can’t see him, can’t see anything here.
Open your eyes.
Open your eyes, Jack.
Just screams.
And dark.
I fall.
* * *
The water is cold and salty. It stings my eyes and I am held under by white pillows of foam. I hit the bottom, feel my fingers digging into the familiar grit of sand, coil my legs, and push up toward the light.
When my head breaks the surface, I have one thought: blue.
The sky is blue.
This is it.
* * *
My surfboard’s leash had come unfastened.