The Capture

by Tom Isbell

  And he was right. There was nothing I could do. I kicked and jerked my foot, but he wouldn’t let go. He had me and both of us knew it. He gave a hard tug, and my foot came flying free. I was now holding on by two hands and one toehold. These were my final moments.

  Nellitch laughed uproariously. “Didn’t know you could do the split, did you, boy?”

  Something brushed my face, and I blinked. I wanted to wipe it away, but I didn’t have a free hand. Below me, the demonic sound of Goodman Nellitch’s crazed laughter bounced off the canyon walls. I couldn’t hold on much longer.

  My face was hit a second time and I looked up. It was the rope of tied-together shirts, snaking over the edge of the cliff. My friends had made it to the top and were throwing down a lifeline.

  But there was no way to grab it. Once I released a hand, the two of us would go spiraling through air until we smacked into the river. Death would be instantaneous.

  The rope was there. The Less Thans were counting on me. Nellitch was getting ready to pry my other foot from the cliff. I’d get no second chance.

  This is the night

  That either makes me or fordoes me quite.

  Lines of Shakespeare, tugging at my thoughts. Now or never. Do or die.

  My right hand slipped from the rock, and for the long forever of that moment I felt my body falling backward, felt it leave its vertical and bend toward horizontal. Felt my stomach rush upward to my throat as terror gripped my chest.

  I thrust out my right hand, slapping air, waving at nothing, until—finally—it collided with the dangling shirt. I clutched it hard and my left hand joined it. Even as I was falling backward, I snapped the rope around my wrist in a hasty knot. The rope jerked to its full length, nearly yanking my shoulder from its socket.

  Nellitch was pulled away from the cliff, hanging on to my ankle with his hands. I was supporting the two of us, dangling hundreds of feet above the river. Laughing maniacally, he swung drunkenly from one side to the next, pushing off against the rock like an insane rappeller, the shaft of the arrow jutting from his chest.

  The rope was weak to begin with—it was just a bunch of shirts knotted together, after all—and the rain had loosened it further. I could feel it stretch even as we hung there. Somewhere up above a knot was slipping.

  “No point fightin’ it, Less Than,” Nellitch called out. “Time for us to meet our maker.” He guffawed loudly.

  He was right: I couldn’t fight it. The weight was too much. My arm muscles were giving out.

  In this final moment of living, I was consumed with a sudden urgency—there was something I needed to know.

  “Why’d you do it?” I shouted, my voice fighting the rain.

  “Do what?”

  “Sell out the Skull People?”

  He laughed a barking laugh. “Don’t you know nothin’, boy? After the Conclave happens, I want to be on the winning side.”

  I realized I never would find out what he was talking about. I could hold on a little longer, but what was the point? Why bother to extend my life an extra thirty seconds if this was what it came down to?

  Then I thought of those Less Thans back at camp—the ones who’d be stuffed in a bunker on their seventeenth birthdays and sold off to the Hunters and hunted down like prey—and I did the only thing I could possibly do. Using my one free leg, I brought my boot down on Nellitch’s hands and squeezed my feet together, pinching his fingers. He just laughed.

  “No gettin’ rid of me that easy, boy!” he shouted, having the time of his life.

  The rope jerked downward. The knots were slipping, the fabric tearing.

  It was at that moment that Hope’s face appeared before me: black hair framing tea-colored skin, her brown eyes wide and mysterious. I remembered all we’d gone through: How I’d held her after the cave-in. How we’d kissed after the fire. How we’d caught the train and made the jump to freedom.

  I was suddenly consumed with a new feeling. Not a fear of dying or even a desperation to live, but anger. Pure, raw anger, building inside me like floodwaters straining against a dam. How dare this crazed human being deprive me of my life? Deprive me of Hope?

  I began kicking at his hands, at his thick, grasping fingers, one blow after another, my boot jerking and digging at his fingers. Even as he strained to hold on, I found some reserve of energy I didn’t know I had, pummeling, kicking, jabbing with the toe of my boot until, finally, one of his hands slipped free.

  When it was obvious he couldn’t hold on, he looked at me and hissed, “You Less Than. You’re not even a normal human being.”

  Then his other hand let go. He hovered in midair an insanely long time as though some invisible god—or devil—was holding him in place, and then he plunged through night and rain, disappearing from sight.

  Was it my imagination or could I hear the splash as he collided with the water?

  “That’s right,” I answered to the dark. “I am a Less Than. And don’t you ever forget it.”

  44.

  THEY CREATE A LINE and pull Book up six inches at a time. Hope is the anchor, the final one in the row, and when the rope strains and slips, she coils it tighter around her wrist. It cuts into her skin—grows soggy with rain and crimson with blood.

  Still, she will not let go.

  When Book’s hands finally edge the top of the cliff, Scylla and Flush grab him by the armpits and pull him up the rest of the way. He lies there motionless like a caught fish, pummeled by rain. The others bend over, hands on knees, struggling to catch their breath.

  Hope watches as Book pushes himself to his feet and slowly looks around. He stumbles through the driving storm, eyes darting left and right as though in search of something lost. Something he desperately needs.

  He locates Hope. Their eyes meet, stopping her heart. Her arms hang limp and lifeless by her side. Her chest heaves.

  Book crosses to her.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, and before she can respond, he puts his arms around her and pulls her into a hug, his hands pressing against her back. Hope’s first reaction is one of shock; she doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know what she wants to do.

  Only gradually do her arms return the embrace, tentatively at first, as though Book is made of fragile glass. But soon her grip grows tight, holding him like she never wants to let him go—as if they’re two colors on a painter’s palette melding into one. His heart thumps in answer to her own.

  They stand there, serenaded by rain. When Book releases the embrace, he presses his forehead against hers. Hope can feel the heat from his face, their mingling breaths. She begins to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, the words barely manageable through choking tears.

  Book shakes off her apology. “You just saved my life.”

  “That was all of us.”

  “I’m not talking about that.”

  He slides his hands to either side of her face, pulls her toward him, and kisses her. His lips are soft, moist with rain and the salt of her tears, and in that kiss is hunger, yearning, need. When at last he pulls away, Hope can barely catch her breath.

  Book turns to the others. “Thank you,” he says, going to each of them in turn to give them a hug and express his gratitude.

  When he reaches Flush, Flush rolls his eyes and says, “Can’t we all just agree we’re awesome and get on with it?”

  Argos barks, and everyone laughs.

  “Come on,” Book says. “Let’s get out of here before the Crazies figure out where we are.”

  He bends down to undo a knot in the makeshift rope, letting his arm brush against Hope’s. Neither attempts to move away.

  They follow the river upstream. When the sun breaks through the morning clouds, it shines down on endless prairie. No trees, no cultivated fields, no signs of civilization. Once more they’re back in vast wilderness. Sun-drenched grassland.

  Every so often, a large thwump shakes the ground. A peek behind shows fingers of smoke rising from the cornfield.

 
; “What’s that?” Flush asks.

  “They’re blowing up the caves,” Hope says.

  More muffled blasts follow.

  She feels an enormous pang of guilt for leaving those women behind. Although the Skull People were their captors, no one deserves to die at the hands of the Crazies.

  Despite the blazing heat, there is pleasure in being on the move. They’ve been cooped up far too long, and the beating rays of sun invigorate them. Conversations pop up, up and down the line.

  Hope is silent. Her mind dwells on past events: the loss of Faith, the Crazy who assaulted her, Book and Miranda. Her feelings are a confusing mass of contradictions. On the one hand, she still doesn’t know whether she can trust him. And yet he keeps coming to her rescue; he keeps protecting her.

  Then there was the kiss. The mere thought of it sends shivers down her spine.

  As her feet carry her across the prairie, she dares a glance at the back of the line. Book is as silent as she is. She wonders what’s going on inside his head. She wonders if she’ll ever know.

  A memory of Faith flashes through her mind. Although she tries to think of happy times, it’s the other recollections that intrude. Faith’s look of hurt before they separated. Faith’s slow deterioration in camp. Faith’s shivering body in the tank of ice water. Hope is filled with a terrible sadness.

  And that’s when she decides: no matter how drawn she is to Book, no matter how much she longs for the touch of his embrace and the press of his lips, she dares not allow herself such feelings. The potential hurt is just too great. Bad enough to see Miranda lean her head adoringly on his shoulder; any hurt worse than that would kill her.

  No, she thinks, I won’t let myself fall for him any more.

  As Hope marches along in the hot sun, silent tears spill from her eyes. The back of her hand swipes angrily at the offending moisture. Still, she knows it’s better to feel this minor pain today than endure a major one tomorrow.

  PART THREE

  RETURN

  Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

  —ALBERT EINSTEIN

  45.

  WE MARCHED UNDER CLOUDLESS skies. When the landscape sloped downward and brought us to the river’s edge, we were suddenly afforded an unending supply of water and food: fish and crawdads, frogs and turtles. A welcome change from our diet of grasshoppers and squirrels.

  As we slogged along, following the twisting, bending river, one question echoed in my mind: Why would the Hunters want to arm the Crazies? I wondered if it was somehow related to Goodman Nellitch’s words before he fell to his death. After the Conclave happens, I want to be on the winning side. Of course, I had no idea what Conclave he was talking about, and wondered if I ever would.

  Hope insisted on leading the march each day, as though trying to put as much distance between her and me as possible. I couldn’t understand it. Ever since our kiss atop the cliff, she’d barely spoken to me. Couldn’t even look me in the eye. It was as though I’d ceased to exist.

  I assumed it had something to do with Miranda, and frankly, I didn’t know what to think about her. When we had last seen her in the Compound, she’d promised to distract the Crazies so we could escape. And yet they’d found us anyway. Had she done the best she could, or just the opposite—told the Crazies exactly where we were?

  Days passed. The nights grew cold. The air smelled of autumn. The first morning we woke to frost, our clothes were as stiff as boards, crinkling when we first got up. We picked up our pace. We had to get to Camp Liberty before the snow flew and winter froze us in our tracks.

  The river forked and we followed the smaller tributary north, just as Miranda had instructed. At night, we made bowstrings from yucca leaves and knapped flint into arrow points. Each morning, we practiced, firing arrows until our fingers bled.

  Still, it was impossible to imagine just how we were going to defeat a camp of Brown Shirts, even with a canvas knapsack full of explosives.

  One night, after the others drifted off to bed, Cat remained sitting at the fire’s edge, his gaze lost in the flames. I threw something at his feet.

  “What’s that?” he asked, not bothering to pick it up.

  “Your new arm.”

  His eyes squinted as if I was spoiling for a fight. “I left that back at the Compound,” he snapped.

  “I know. I picked it up.” I had stuffed it in the knapsack with the explosives.

  He spat on the sand and turned away.

  “I’m serious,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, why don’t you just mind your own business?”

  “Let me show you how it works.” I bent down and tried to attach it to his arm. He flung my hands away.

  “I said skip it, all right?”

  I met his stare and didn’t flinch. “You don’t want to just try it?”

  “Why should I?”

  “You’ll be able to fire an arrow again.”

  He scoffed. “I’ll never fire an arrow like before.”

  “You’re right. You won’t fire like before. But maybe this new way will be even better.”

  He looked at me like I was from another planet. “You don’t get it, man. I’m not who I was before. I got this now.” He raised his stump of an arm. “I can’t do the shit I used to do. I’m a . . .”

  “What? A Less Than?”

  He gave his head a long, slow shake and turned away.

  “You’re right,” I said. “You’re different now. And yeah, you’ll have to make some adjustments, but you’ll figure it out. You’re Cat—you’re still the best athlete any of us have seen.”

  The flames glimmered in his blue eyes, and his piercing gaze tore through me. “What if I don’t want to make those changes?”

  “You mean what if you just want to drink yourself to death?”

  His jaw clenched.

  “I don’t know why you crawled back under the fence and came with us,” I said. “If you want to feel sorry for yourself, go ahead. But you’re alive. That’s more than June Bug can say. Or Frank. So I’m going to Camp Liberty to free those Less Thans, and if you want to be a coward and stay behind, be my guest. Just don’t expect me to think much of you.”

  I stalked off to bed, not waiting for a response.

  46.

  THE MEASLY TRICKLE OF the river leads them to the far edge of Camp Liberty. To the north rests Skeleton Ridge, already shrouded in snow. When stars begin to pop in the sky and a full moon rises orange and bulbous in the east, the group comes out of hiding and tiptoes forward.

  What they see shocks them. The camp is surrounded by a fence. It is old, rusty chain-link, obviously stripped from some other site and set up here. It is topped with a coil of razor wire, the jagged edges catching moonglow. While Hope and the Sisters are used to fences, it comes as an obvious surprise to the Less Thans.

  “Why would they do that?” Flush asks.

  “Maybe because of us,” Book says.

  A new reality sinks in. It was going to be difficult enough to rescue a hundred LTs; now it just got harder.

  They circle north, reaching the firs and ponderosa pines that separate Camp Liberty from the stables. The Brown Shirts haven’t bothered to stretch the fence this far, but what surprises the Less Thans is that the stables are no more. The barns and corrals have been razed to the ground. In their place are bulldozers and the beginnings of an enormous hole.

  “What’s all this?” Hope asks, but Book doesn’t have an answer.

  They inch their way to the pit, their breath frosting in the night.

  “I don’t get it,” Flush says. “Why put up a building on the outside of camp?”

  “Maybe they’re not going to put a building there at all,” Twitch says, “but something else.” There is something about his tone that stops everyone cold.

  “Like what?”

  “Bodies.”

  Flush scoffs at the idea. “You wouldn’t put bodies in a big hole.”

  “You would if it’s a mass grave.”


  They hike an hour up the mountain, stopping to make camp only when the snow gets too deep. When they clear away the snow and get a small fire going, they resume the conversation.

  “For burying people?” Flush asks.

  “And hiding them,” Twitch adds.

  “So what’re you saying? The Brown Shirts no longer use the cemetery?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Because it’s full?”

  “No, because they intend to hide the evidence.”

  “What evidence?”

  “The fact that we’ve been prey for all these years.”

  Hope knows Twitch is right. She remembers the letter, the one from Chancellor Maddox. The Final Solution. This is what the Brown Shirts are up to.

  Suddenly, the bulldozers they first witnessed in the middle of nowhere make sense. The Western Federation Territory is trying to cover up what it’s been doing all these years. Leave no trace.

  Wind shooshes through pine needles, and Hope knows they’re all thinking the same thing: they’re the last hope for saving the Sisters, the Less Thans, the Skull People. If they don’t do something, the Republic will be a nation of Brown Shirts.

  Flush’s hands dig at his face as though trying to rub away a bad dream. “So if we don’t free those Less Thans, they’ll be slaughtered and buried.”

  “That’s right.”

  The problem is, how do they break into an armed camp and sneak out a couple of hundred Less Thans? Plus, the seasons are changing fast. The aspens are golden and shimmery in the afternoon sun, but the nights are icy cold. A thick blanket of snow already covers the mountains. If they’re going to free the Less Thans, they have to do it soon.

  “We need those Less Thans to help us,” Hope says. “They need to be our army.”

  “Okay,” Flush says, “but how do we convince them of that?”

  For the first time since their kiss, Hope’s eyes fall on Book. “Someone needs to break in there and tell them.”

  47.

  IT WAS DECIDED THAT two of us would slip inside. I volunteered—in part because Hope had basically challenged me to, but also because this was my idea in the first place. I was the one who’d convinced the others to come back to Camp Liberty.