Alive

by Scott Sigler

  “But we don’t know what’s there,” she says. “We told you, we didn’t go past the door.”

  “Light is there, and that’s enough for now.”

  I can’t help but give Gaston a look that tells him he did well—his decision to explore might wind up saving lives. He sees the nod, understands it, gives me a firm one in return. Just as his respect is important to me, mine is important to him.

  He crawls into the thicket tunnel. Spingate follows.

  I point to the last four circle-stars in turn. “Bishop, Visca, Bawden, Coyotl, watch our backs. Make sure nothing comes after us. Everyone else, into the thicket tunnel and stay in the room until I get there. Move!”

  O’Malley waves them in one at a time, making sure they don’t jostle each other trying to get through.

  I turn and stand next to Bishop, both of us looking out at woods that seem to surround us on all sides. The monsters caught Bello by surprise, but now we know they are here—and we know they can die.

  Bishop glances at me. “Do we go after her?”

  I want to, and I also don’t. I’m afraid to go back into those woods, which is what we have to do to find her, if she can even be found at all. I could take Bishop, Bawden and Coyotl, we could go back in…but if I do that, I’m leaving the others with fewer people who can fight.

  “We’re getting everyone to a safe place first,” I say. “A room with one way in, where a couple of circle-stars can protect them. Then we’ll come for Bello.”

  He nods. He doesn’t want to go back into the woods, either, but I know that he’ll do it.

  O’Malley’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Everyone is in. What’s going on? What happened to Bello?”

  Do I tell him? Do I tell anyone who doesn’t already know? The truth might make them panic. Right now people are afraid, but they are listening to me. All that matters is getting the weak somewhere we can better protect them.

  “Trust me, O’Malley. I need everyone to move fast and stay together. Help me do that.”

  His blue eyes stare at me, blaze with a desperate need to know, but he pushes that need away. He crawls into the thicket tunnel.

  “Visca, Coyotl, you’re next,” I say. “Then Bishop. I’ll go last.”

  The words are barely out of my mouth before Bishop grabs my shoulders, turns me, and gently shoves me to the tunnel mouth.

  “Go now, Em. We’ll be right behind you.”

  He’ll be the last one in. He’s not going to discuss it.

  I crawl into the thicket tunnel. I force myself not to rush, not to come out with new scratches. If I want everyone else to stay calm, I need to be calm myself.

  The small room is lit by seven burning torches. I should have given orders not to light them until we were in the hallway. We’ve lost precious minutes and I hope we’re at Gaston’s archway before that matters. People are packed in tight. The air smells of burned cloth.

  I wait for the last of our circle-stars to join us, then send Farrar and Visca through the hole in the door to make sure the hallway is clear.

  It is.

  One at a time, we crawl through the hole. Gaston and Spingate are up front with me. Even if it’s a straight shot, I want them at my side because they’ve been this way before.

  I look back for Bishop, but can’t see him through the flames and the frightened faces. He will bring up the rear, protect us if the monsters try to chase us down.

  Each second we wait is a second of torchlight wasted.

  “Everyone, stay together,” I shout, loud enough to be heard even back at the end of the group. “We’re going to move fast, so don’t lose track of the person in front of you. El-Saffani, lead the way.”

  The twins jog ahead a few steps. They are ready to take on any danger.

  “All right,” I say, “let’s move.”

  We run uphill.

  Doubts grab at me almost immediately. What if the monsters aren’t only in the Garden? What if they’re in this hallway as well? What if they are hiding in the rooms we might pass, waiting to grab us? Our torches dent the darkness, they don’t chase it away—we might not see the monsters coming.

  I should tell my people what I saw, so they can be on guard. I should…but still I do not. If I tell them what happened to Bello, will they panic at every flickering shadow? If I stop to explain, will we have enough light to make it to Gaston’s archway?

  So many decisions to make, coming so fast, and there are no easy answers.

  The hallway rushes by. Carvings move like real life as torch shadows dance across them. I see archway doors in the walls—some open, some closed—but we don’t have time to look inside. I keep us moving forward and hope for the best.

  The fear I felt in the woods creeps back into my chest. Am I running to keep everyone safe, or because I am terrified of those creatures, because my wrist still feels cold where the scarred one grabbed me?

  I try to push those thoughts away: I made my decision and I will see it through.

  The hall reeks of fear: we are animals fleeing for our lives, no different than the wounded pig. I don’t have to tell people to keep up, because they are all sprinting as fast as they can. Our collective footsteps thunder through the hall.

  Before long, the hectic pace starts to take its toll. My body begs me to rest, to breathe. The monsters could be right behind me, coal-black wrinkles and red eyes and no mouths, ready to grab me and drag me into the darkness.

  El-Saffani stops. Gaston’s archway door. The stone halves are two giant fists smashed together to block our way. Our torches are all starting to flutter: we made it just in time.

  Spingate slides the scepter out of her makeshift holster and goes to work.

  I cup a hand to my mouth and shout to the rear of the group.

  “Bishop, see anything?”

  “Nothing,” he calls back through the flames and frightened faces. “I think we’re all right.”

  The stone doors grind open. Beyond it, a white hallway with a glowing ceiling.

  I lean in near Spingate. “Close it after everyone is through, then come back up front with me.”

  I turn to face the others. So much fear.

  In that moment, I finally understand why I am the leader. I know why these people voted for me. We have had all we can take, yet we keep fighting. Everything could crumble to bits at any second, but that won’t happen because I refuse to let it happen. These people, they are my people, and I will help them survive.

  “If you’re scared, if you’re tired, look to me! We will not stop. I will lead you to safety. Follow me a little farther. Let’s move!”

  A new mood sweeps over them. I see their faces harden, I see them prepare themselves to do what must be done. Someone has to be the example, and right now that someone is me.

  El-Saffani darts out ahead. I run, my feet kicking up fresh dust. Our people follow.

  We need a room that is easily guarded. I’m tired but I can’t show it. Keep going, legs—keep going. Get these people somewhere safe, rest for a bit, then go back for Bello. She is alone and the monsters have her.

  A little bit more…a little bit…

  My muscles scream, my lungs burn. I’m ready to collapse when Spingate and Gaston catch up to me.

  She points ahead. Archways on both the left and the right. Some are open. We’ll be able to defend those.

  We’ve done it.

  As we close in, El-Saffani stops. I catch up to them, breathing so hard my mouth hangs open.

  The boy points to the ground.

  “Footprints in the dust, Em—”

  “—and dead people, lots of them.”

  Piles of dusty bones. The Grownups’ war happened here, too, just as it did where we first woke up.

  I see the footprints. Are those from the wrinkled monsters? Or are there more kids like us down here somewhere?

  I stop and put my hand against the wall to keep from collapsing. I can’t move another step.

  “O’Malley,” I say be
tween gasps, “count us. Are we all here?”

  He’s barely even breathing hard. How can he run so fast and so far yet not be exhausted? He stands tall, looks back, his finger bobbing in time to the numbers in his head.

  Bishop comes up from the rear, gently pushing past everyone so he can stand next to me. His bloody, bare-skinned chest heaves. He’s still holding the spear. Even as tired and afraid as I am, I look at it. He looks at it, too—a little longingly, perhaps—then he offers it to me.

  With a shaking hand, I take it. The blade remains covered in red-gray smears.

  Bishop nods. I am still the leader…at least for now.

  People are worn out. Some are sniffling, a few are crying. They are terrified and they don’t even know the whole of it yet.

  O’Malley finishes his count.

  “Twenty-two,” he says. “Everyone except for Bello. Em, what happened to her?”

  I start to talk, but my throat stings too much to speak. I draw in a couple of breaths, try to steady myself.

  “They took her,” I say.

  “Who took her?”

  I look at the group. Aramovsky is close by, breathing as hard as I am. He looks at me with that arrogant face of his—I’m convinced he knows what I am about to say before I say it.

  Maybe he deserves to be arrogant: because he was right.

  “Monsters,” I say. “In the trees…monsters attacked us.”

  Aramovsky’s eyes widen at the sound of that word. He nods, slowly and solemnly, as if he always knew this moment would come.

  All down the hall, faces stare at me in shock. Monsters…their leader just told them that monsters are real.

  O’Malley shakes his head. “That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing.”

  Bishop shoves O’Malley’s shoulder, almost knocking him down.

  “Shut up,” Bishop says. “You don’t know, O’Malley, you didn’t see them. I did. I saved Savage.”

  O’Malley’s fingers flex on the knife handle. He snarls at the bigger boy, starts to step forward, but I put myself between them.

  “It’s true,” I say. “There were monsters. Bishop killed one, I saw it. Another one of them took Bello.”

  O’Malley looks at me in disbelief. “Wait…the monsters took Bello? You mean she isn’t dead?”

  The way he says that, the astonishment in his voice, it makes things hit home—I left Bello alone. I abandoned her.

  “I…I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe she is.”

  The moment those words leave my lips, shame hammers home. A piece of me—a nasty, small, horrible piece—actually wants Bello to be dead, because if she is, we don’t have to go back for her, we don’t have to return to the Garden and face the monsters.

  O’Malley is shocked. He looks from me to Bishop, back again. “They took Bello, and you told us to run? We left her?”

  The words sting. I want to argue with him, but I can’t because that’s exactly what we did.

  Bishop’s hand slams into O’Malley’s chest: this time O’Malley hits the wall and falls to the floor. Bishop steps forward, points a finger down at O’Malley’s face.

  “You weren’t there,” Bishop says. “You didn’t see, so you shut your mouth. We all know you heard Em’s scream for help—everyone did—but you stayed where you were because you were afraid!”

  O’Malley springs to his feet far faster than I expected. Faster than Bishop expected, too, because before he can react, the tip of O’Malley’s knife is pressed against the base of Bishop’s throat.

  I feel my hands move the spear, move it as if they aren’t a part of me, as if they act on their own. I see the bloody blade hovering a finger’s width from O’Malley’s belly.

  “Put the knife away,” I say. “Right now.”

  He stares at me, astonished, maybe even a little betrayed. I know how this looks—like I am willing to hurt him to protect Bishop.

  O’Malley lowers the knife. He stomps off to the rear, shoving people out of his way.

  I hear Spingate’s voice: “No…no, it’s not possible.”

  She is farther forward, standing by the bones and the footprints. Tears stream down her face. Her lower lip quivers.

  “Not possible,” she says again.

  I rush to her side. “It is possible, Spin. They were monsters, I saw them.”

  She looks at me with those big, watery green eyes. She shakes her head.

  “I’m not talking about monsters.”

  She points down at the dusty bones.

  “It’s impossible for those to be here, Em. Don’t you see? These can’t be here because we walked in a straight line.”

  One of the bones is mostly free of dust, as if it was picked up, brushed off, and set back down. It is a skull with a jagged, triangular hole smashed through the top.

  Six sets of footprints lead away from the bones, down the long, white hallway. The footprints seem to begin at an archway on my left.

  An open archway.

  I know what that door leads to. Inside are coffins. Six empty, six with little corpses inside. And one of those empty coffins is where I first woke up, screaming in agony, trapped in the dark.

  We are right back where we started.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  This doesn’t make any sense.

  I walk to the coffin room. I know exactly what I’m going to see, but I must be missing something. I have this wrong, somehow, and so does Spingate.

  I enter—two rows of six coffins, a well-trampled aisle of dust between them. At the end of the right-hand row, I see the broken lid of my coffin, sticking straight up into the air.

  This is impossible….We worked so hard….

  I walk to Brewer’s coffin. The little corpse dressed in big clothes is still inside, the dried flesh flaked away from the skull right where Spingate touched it.

  A boy at my side: O’Malley.

  “We walked in a straight line,” he says. He doesn’t sound mad anymore. He sounds stunned, like it’s hit him as hard as it’s hit me. “We walked straight so we wouldn’t get lost.”

  Doing so was my decision. Mine. I don’t understand what happened.

  The hope we felt in the Garden, it’s gone. I feel numb again.

  “I did something wrong,” I say. “I…I don’t know what happened. I tried to get us out.”

  I tried. And all I did was bring us back to the same spot. Yong is dead. So is Latu. I lost Bello. No, I left Bello. I ran away so we could wind up right back where we started?

  We’re never going to get out of this place.

  We will all die here.

  O’Malley puts his hand on my shoulder. I know he’s trying to be nice, but it feels awkward. He senses it, too, takes his hand away.

  “Em, Bello wasn’t your fault.”

  I look at him. Those blue eyes, the shape of his face…how did he know I was thinking about Bello? I wish O’Malley and I were somewhere else, together, the two of us, some place without the fear and the confusion.

  “Not your fault,” he says again. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I wasn’t in the woods, I didn’t see what you saw. If you say we had to run, I know you had a good reason.”

  The good reason? I was afraid, that was the good reason.

  O’Malley is sincere, but his sincerity doesn’t change anything. Reality is what it is. I was voted the leader. Everyone did what I told them to do, and we wound up here. O’Malley is wrong—this is my fault.

  I don’t want this stupid spear. I rest the butt in the dust. The blade—the blood on it tacky and half-dried—points to the carved ceiling. I could let go of it, just let it fall. Someone else should carry it for a while.

  Gentle fingertips caress my temple. It stings, but not because of O’Malley’s touch.

  “You’re hurt,” he says.

  I reach up and feel the spot. A lump, from when the monster slammed me against the tree. It’s sticky there, and also down my cheek, my neck. I crane my head to look at my shoulder—spots of blood dot the white fab
ric.

  I am clean no longer.

  O’Malley touches my arm. The contact makes my skin break out in goose bumps.

  “Your arm is hurt, too,” he says. “Did the monster grab you?”

  Four parallel red lines mark the skin there—obviously the shape of fingers gripping far too hard.

  “Yes,” I lie. “The monster grabbed me.”

  It was Bishop, his crushing strength, but he didn’t do it on purpose. I don’t want to give O’Malley a reason to hate Bishop even more than he already does.

  O’Malley’s fingertips reach out again, trace a warm line down my cheek. This time, his touch doesn’t seem awkward. It seems right. Everything fades away, everything but O’Malley’s eyes, the feel of his skin on mine.

  “We’ll figure out what’s going on,” he says softly. “You can’t know everything. What’s happening here is crazy, I know, but you’re the best leader for us. The people follow you, Em.”

  I answer him in a whisper. “But why? Why do they follow me? I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  He shrugs. “Because there’s something about you. And no matter what’s happened so far, it’s better to have you as the leader than Bishop. You saw how he knocked me down? You saw Gaston’s eye, Latu’s cheek?”

  I nod. I’m glad I didn’t say it was Bishop who bruised my arm. O’Malley is right, though—Bishop has a history of hurting people.

  But then I remember what Bishop said in the hallway: when I yelled for help, he plunged headfirst toward unknown danger. O’Malley did not. O’Malley stayed with the others, he didn’t come after me.

  My opinion of the two boys seems to waver based on which one I’m talking to. That’s not how things should work.

  “Maybe you’re wrong,” I say. “Maybe Bishop could be a good leader.”

  O’Malley huffs. “He’s a bully. He throws his weight around, he intimidates. If he winds up in charge, it’s dangerous for all of us. You’re a good leader, Em. Bishop acts. You think.”

  I gesture to the room. “I’m a good leader because I think? Look around, O’Malley. Look where my thinking got us.”

  I want to trust in what O’Malley says. He’s helped me make hard decisions. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have won the vote. But the fact that we are back where we started makes it clear: when it comes to his confidence in my leadership, O’Malley is plain wrong.