by Scott Sigler
I walk out in front, alone.
THIRTEEN
We walk uphill.
We are covered in blood.
Bello’s lower lip is swollen and split.
O’Malley’s nose has stopped bleeding, but a few drops still ooze from the cut over his eye.
The hallway goes on and on. The dust is endless.
There has to be a way out of this place. There has to be.
My mouth is dry and pasty. I’m so thirsty. I’m not hungry anymore, but I think that’s not a good thing. My head hurts.
The others are in the same shape. They shuffle more than walk. They look beyond tired, with dry lips and sunken eyes. Maybe we were all perfect when we woke up, but not anymore.
If we don’t find water soon, will we be able to keep walking?
And we need to sleep. If we find any coffin rooms farther up, maybe we’ll rest for a while.
Every few steps, I see Yong’s wide eyes, the look of disbelief on his face.
It was an accident. Everyone thinks so. There was nothing I could have done. He ran into the knife. He did. He was going to hit me. Was I supposed to let him?
I look at my hand, the right one, the one that holds the knife. His blood—dry now—is in the folds of my knuckles, mixed in with the dust and tacky sweat that covers me head to toe.
I’ve never been this dirty. I’ve never been this sweaty and disgusting. I’ve never been this afraid, this thirsty, this alone.
I haven’t been a good leader, but four people are counting on me to take them to safety. I don’t know if I’m twelve or if I’m twenty and I don’t think age matters anymore. We are the only ones here.
There is a way out. I will find a way out.
Behind me, I hear sniffling. I turn, expecting to see Bello crying yet again, but it’s not her—it’s Spingate.
I stop. So do the others.
“You did everything you could for him,” I tell her. “At least you did something. The rest of us were useless.”
She shakes her head.
“It’s not that. It’s just…maybe they’re all dead.”
Aramovsky puts his arm around her shoulders. “All who is dead?”
“All the Grownups,” Spingate says. “I’m so tired. I don’t want to do this anymore. But if they’re gone, then there’s no one left to rescue us.”
“We’ll be all right,” Aramovsky says, then glares at me like I’m the one who made Spingate cry. “Em is our leader. She says she knows what she’s doing.”
I’ve said no such thing. Is he trying to make a point? I’m starting to think that Aramovsky says one thing but means another.
Bello’s hands come together again, clutching and turning in constant motion.
“What if Spingate is right?” she says. “If there are no Grownups, what are we going to do?”
Aramovsky nods. “Yes, Savage, what then? Who is going to take care of us?”
We all saw each other’s coffins; everyone knows my last name, but Aramovsky is the first to speak it. Even I haven’t said it out loud. I don’t like that name and I don’t know why. Hearing it makes me uncomfortable. I think he knew that it would…so why did he do it?
Because he wants to make me look bad in front of the others.
Anger flames in my chest.
He’s challenging my leadership, that’s what he’s doing. He thinks he should be in charge.
My fingers flex on the knife handle.
Cold fury sweeps over me, an urge to teach Aramovsky a lesson—then I recognize that feeling, and when I do it vanishes, replaced by a shudder of realization.
It was exactly how I felt when Yong came at me.
In the shameful calmness that follows, I understand that Aramovsky wasn’t challenging me. He was just talking. There is no harm in that. And even if he was challenging my leadership, that’s okay as long as he’s not hitting anyone. If I’m not the right leader, then someone else is. I don’t care who is in charge. I want to get out of this place.
“Maybe there aren’t any Grownups,” I say. “If that’s true, then we will survive without them.”
They stare at me like my words are as unknown as their first names. Even Aramovsky’s glare dissolves into astonishment. Is it really so impossible to think that we can make it on our own?
I point behind them, back the way we came.
“You want someone to take care of us? Were the people who died back there supposed to do that? You saw what they did to each other. They murdered little kids in their coffins. If the Grownups are all gone…”
I hesitate, knowing I am about to say something none of them want to hear. Saying it might make this real. Maybe I can’t remember anything, but I know that reality is what it is whether we like it or not.
“If the Grownups are really gone, well, then good,” I say. “We don’t need them. We don’t need someone else to rescue us…we can rescue ourselves.”
I feel my face flush, so I turn and start walking again. Rescue ourselves? I suddenly feel like an idiot. We don’t know where we are, don’t know who we are. We’re kids—we’re not supposed to be on our own.
After what I just said, will the others still follow?
Four sets of feet shuffling along behind me answer my question.
Aramovsky falls in on my left.
“Maybe the Grownups didn’t do it to themselves,” he says quietly. Then, louder: “Maybe…maybe it was a monster.”
The word hits us hard. A word made of shapeless forms, woven from fear. Monster is all the things we don’t understand, and right now, we don’t understand anything.
“Spare us,” Spingate says. “There’s no such thing as monsters.”
Aramovsky looks over his shoulder at her. “Really? And how do you know there aren’t monsters?”
“There just aren’t,” Spingate says. “Monsters are something only babies believe in.”
Aramovsky and Spingate start to argue, but I don’t hear their words: far up ahead, I see something, a break in the floor-meets-ceiling illusion.
This time, I know what it is.
“There’s another corridor up ahead,” I say.
Their argument stops instantly.
Suddenly I’m not quite as tired. I pick up the pace, walking so fast I’m almost jogging. I don’t care if this new hallway is like the last one—dim, maybe even dark—but we’re going that way because I am desperate to see something different.
For the first time since Yong died, I find O’Malley at my right side.
“Em, maybe we should take it this time.”
“We’ll see,” I say.
I don’t know why I said that, because I’ve already made up my mind to do exactly what he wants.
The sound of our footsteps fills the hall with a soft thudding. We close in, kicking up a trail of dust that hangs behind us.
Then, over the sound of our running, I hear something else.
I slow quickly, plant my feet and slide to a stop, my arms out to the sides to keep anyone from running past me.
“Em, watch out,” O’Malley says as he stutter-steps to avoid the knife blade that almost touches his belly.
I start to apologize, but Aramovsky runs into me from behind. He grabs my shoulders, keeps me from falling forward.
“Sorry,” he says. “You stopped so fast.”
Bello is on my left, hands wringing. “Em, what’s going on?”
I glare at them all, hold a finger to my lips.
They fall quiet.
We stand still. No steps, no words, not even breathing.
In the silence, I hear the noise again. Faint at first, but quickly growing louder. It’s coming from the intersection of the new hallway.
It is the heavy sound of footsteps marching in time.
FOURTEEN
I want to run, but I stop myself because it won’t do any good. There are no doors, there is no end to this hallway, nowhere to hide. As soon as the marchers turn the corner, they will see us.
; The sound draws closer.
(If you run, your enemy will hunt you….)
That phrase again, rolling through my thoughts. Whose voice is it? One more thing I can’t remember.
And yet I know the voice speaks the truth. As exhausted as we are, as thirsty and as hungry, I don’t think we could run very far or very fast. Whoever is coming can either see our backs and know we’re afraid, or see the knife and know we are dangerous.
I press close to the right-side wall, knife out in front of me. O’Malley stands a step behind me, at my left shoulder, holding the scepter like a club. I instantly understand he is not behind me because he is afraid, but rather because he is following my lead, staying close to the wall so we are a little less obvious. If danger comes, I know he will try to step out front and face it first, because he is so much bigger than I am.
Maybe he isn’t any good at fighting, but that doesn’t stop him from standing with me. He’s so close I can sense him, feel his body heat. He is sweaty and stinky. His scent, it’s new, something different from the way boys smelled back in my limited memories of school. It’s distracting—almost as if I like it, but he doesn’t smell good. I feel my heart in my throat, pounding all the way into my stomach. Is that because of the danger, or also because of him?
I clench my teeth and readjust the knife in my hand. We’re in trouble, I need to focus.
Bello pulls at my left arm.
“Em, let’s go! What if it’s the Grownups?”
I yank my arm away. I don’t have time to explain to her that a voice in my head—a memory—is guiding me, and I know its words are true.
“We don’t run,” I say. “Whoever is coming, we face them.”
Bello starts to cry. Of course she does. She moves behind O’Malley to stand with Aramovsky and Spingate.
The marching footsteps sound so close, like the steady beat of a big drum.
A thought grips me: what if Aramovsky is right, what if there are monsters? Spingate doesn’t know for sure that monsters don’t exist. No one does. Visions of claws and fangs and wild eyes flash before me, a horde of beasts flowing down the hall, searching for helpless children to carry away and devour.
But I’m not a child anymore.
And I’m not helpless.
The marchers come out of the hall and turn to their right, away from us.
Not monsters…people.
Two columns of beautiful people dressed like us, led by the biggest person I’ve ever seen. They all turn to their right, away from us, so focused on matching their steps that they don’t even look our way.
The sense of relief is so overwhelming I almost laugh at myself for believing in Aramovsky’s nonsense.
The leader carries a long stick and marches with precise, loud steps. His skin has only a little more color than pale Bello’s. Gleaming blond curls cling to his head so tightly they don’t move when he walks.
I count nineteen people: two lines of nine, with the big blond in front.
We stay very still. Maybe the marchers won’t see us at all.
I almost have time to turn and tell everyone to be quiet, but before I do Spingate shouts out.
“Hey! Over here!”
My heart sinks.
The marching lines stop. They are not so ordered now: Spingate startled them. They shift out of their lines, afraid, some suddenly holding each other.
“Spingate, you idiot,” I hear Aramovsky hiss from behind me. “Why did you do that?”
“They’re the same as us,” she answers. “We can all work together.”
The blond boy runs to the back of his lines, puts himself between us and his fellow marchers. He points the stick at us, and I see it ends in a wicked blade; it’s not a stick, it’s a spear.
He has a circle-star on his forehead.
He raises the spear high.
“Everyone, follow me!” he screams, then sprints toward us. Two of the marchers are right behind him, a boy and a girl, both with short, glossy black hair and caramel-colored skin. The rest of them don’t move; they stand in the hall, unsure of what to do.
My feet feel stuck to the floor. O’Malley tugs at my arm, urging me to run away, but I can’t move. The blond boy charges: he’s going to shove that spearpoint into my belly and I will wind up like Yong, on the floor, dead and cold and alone, crumbling away into dust.
I’m going to die and I haven’t even learned my first name.
The spear-wielding boy slows, stops a few steps from us. He’s looking at me, but down—I realize I’m holding the knife out, point first.
Even through my fear, I notice the shape of his face. He is beautiful in a way that is different from O’Malley; this boy is bigger, stronger, his shoulders and neck are thicker. There is a bruised bump on the right side of his heavy jaw.
All our clothes are too small for us, but the blond boy’s shirt is buttoned only at the waist; his broad chest stretches the fabric into a wide V. The sleeves are so tight I think his big arms might rip them apart at any moment. With even his smallest motion, I see muscles flutter beneath smooth skin.
He stands there. He had one strategy: charge. That didn’t work, and now he doesn’t know what to do.
Maybe I won’t die after all.
“Hello,” I say.
He blinks. “Uh…hello.”
I lower my knife to my side.
“I’m Savage,” I say. This time, that seems like the right name to use.
The boy sets the butt of the spear on the floor and angles the shaft back until the blade points straight to the ceiling. He looks at me like he doesn’t know what to make of me. He’s not angry, not suspicious…he’s more confused than anything else.
“You didn’t run,” he says.
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t. What’s your name?”
He pauses a moment, maybe waiting for me to change my mind, to suddenly turn and sprint away from him. When I don’t, he shrugs.
“I think my name is Bishop,” he says.
He thinks that’s his name? He doesn’t know any more than we do.
“R. Bishop,” he says. “That’s what was written on my cradle.”
“Cradle?”
The word makes me think of babies, even smaller than the little ones we saw in the other room.
He nods. “We were lying in them when we woke up.”
“Oh,” I say. “You mean the coffins.”
He stares at me, then smiles. “Coffins? That’s not very happy, now is it?”
I realize that he’s the only one in the hallway not wearing a red tie.
His eyes are a strange color: yellow, a bit darker than the curly blond hair matted to his head. His eyes catch the light, almost seem to glow.
That symbol on his forehead…he’s a circle-star, like Yong was. The two hard-eyed people behind him, the boy and the girl, are also circle-stars. Will they try to take over like Yong did? Will they hit people to get what they want?
Bishop looks past me, taking in the others. “Are there more of you?”
I almost say, There were six of us, then Yong’s dying face is all I can see.
“Just five,” I say, forcing the vision away. “There’s nineteen of you?”
He looks back down the hall, realizes that only two of his marchers came with him. He shakes his head in disgust.
“Depends on how you count,” he says. He leans close to me, speaks quietly. “Most of them aren’t worth much of anything, except for El-Saffani here.” He gestures to the boy and the girl.
They talk, the girl first, then the boy. “We are strong—”
“—stronger than the others—”
“—except for Bishop.”
Their eyes look exactly alike, dark-lined with heavy eyebrows and deep-brown irises. They are lean and firm, built for speed rather than pure strength. The boy is slightly taller than the girl. They both still seem ready to fight even though their leader is relaxed and smiling.
Two people, but he only said one name.
&nb
sp; “Which one is El-Saffani?” I ask.
“They both are,” Bishop says. “That’s what was on their cradles, T. El-Saffani and T. El-Saffani.”
They’re twins.
Bishop’s eyes take in my clothes, twitch over to Spingate’s shirt, Bello’s lip, O’Malley’s cut.
“How did you all get so bloody? Was there a fight?”
The rest of the marchers are slowly coming closer. There is no blood on their shirts. None on Bishop or El-Saffani, either. This group has had an easier time than mine, it seems.
“An accident,” I say, and glance back at the others—especially Spingate—silently telling them to stay quiet. The new people don’t need to know about Yong, at least not right now.
Bishop shrugs. He smiles wide, a smile that would be more at home on the face of a little boy than on the face of a grown man. His chest puffs up, straining the last button of his too-small shirt.
He raises the spear high until the point almost touches the glowing ceiling.
“Savage, I like you. You and your friends can join my tribe.”
Tribe: a word of power.
He charged us, screaming, furious, weapon in hand—ready to attack, I’m sure of it—and now he acts like this is recess and we’re all pals?
“Why are you raising the spear?” I ask.
My question confuses him for a moment.
“That’s how we make announcements,” he says, as if that is completely obvious. “When you raise the spear, everyone has to listen. Those are the rules.”
O’Malley takes a step forward, stands shoulder to shoulder with me. He seemed so big when I first met him. But compared to Bishop, O’Malley doesn’t look that big at all.
“Join your tribe?” O’Malley says. His blue eyes narrow. “Maybe you should join our tribe.”
Bishop stares at O’Malley like those words make no sense.
“But I’ve got the spear. That means I’m the leader.” He holds it up, not threatening, but rather showing it to us as if we had somehow missed seeing it altogether.
O’Malley gestures to me.
“So?” he says. “Savage has the knife.”
Something about all of this makes my stomach churn. Spears and knives. Tribes. The beginnings of an argument…an argument about who should lead. That’s how it started with Yong. Things are heading in a bad direction. I have to do something to prevent that.