by Tom Isbell
Finding a partner wasn’t so easy. Flush wanted no part of it, and I couldn’t really blame him. Four Fingers and Twitch weren’t possibilities. The three Sisters were willing, but given that it was a camp for boys, that didn’t seem the best idea.
That left Cat.
“You’ll do it?” I asked.
“Do I have a choice?” His tone was surly and not the least bit cooperative.
Of the four entrances into camp, the gate on the western edge appeared the most promising. It opened onto a series of sheds and seemed unwatched.
As we crawled through sand and tufts of matted grass, I realized we weren’t all that far from where we’d first found Cat that sunny spring morning—dying of dehydration at the edge of the No Water. How everything had changed since then.
The entrance was double gated, with a thick chain and padlock holding the two frames together. There was no way to undo the lock, of course, but by tugging the one door forward and pushing the other back, we managed to create an opening maybe six inches wide. Just enough space for a couple of emaciated Less Thans like ourselves.
“Where to?” Cat asked after we slipped through.
“The barracks.” We needed to recruit those LTs.
We clung to shadows as we tiptoed forward. It felt strange to be there. We’d gone to such lengths to get away, and now here we were again—by our own choice, no less. It was impossible not to feel the grip of panic.
We edged around the buildings. Although faint lights glowed from the camp’s eastern edge—the Soldiers’ Quarters—this section of Liberty was lit only by the moon.
The Quonset hut stood big and hulking, its high curved roof cutting into the star-spattered sky. But when I gave the front door a tug, it didn’t budge. A closer inspection revealed it was locked.
We circled around to the back, hearing the snores of LTs reverberating through the walls. I couldn’t wait to see their reactions when they caught sight of us. We’d have to quiet their celebrations so we wouldn’t be discovered.
The back doors were locked as well. Strange.
“Guess Dekker wised up,” Cat offered.
I grunted a response. It was painful just thinking of Sergeant Dekker: his oily hair, his noxious smile. Slice Slice, he’d called me, in honor of my failed attempt at suicide. I could well imagine his glee at locking up the LTs.
“I guess that’s that,” Cat said. He made to return the way we’d come.
“Not so fast,” I said, grabbing the back of his shirt.
I led him around to the side of the building, to the lavatory window. It was where we’d jumped free the night of our escape. Surely they couldn’t dead-bolt a window. The window was covered up with a large piece of plywood, nailed firmly to the frame. But when I ran my fingers around the edge, I found a small gap between the wood and the building. I jammed my knifepoint in and managed to separate board from window. I lowered the plywood to the ground and slid the window upward.
“Be my guest,” Cat said, motioning for me to go first.
I hoisted myself in, landing with a quiet thud on the tiled floor. I remembered this floor—remembered this room. It was where we’d conducted more than one secret meeting . . . and where, two years earlier, I’d tried to end my life.
My body went clammy at the thought of it. Dripping blood. Darkness closing in. My vision narrowing to a pinprick.
I shook the thought from my head and helped Cat haul himself through the window.
We tiptoed to the door and pulled it open, easing into the bunkhouse itself.
Even before my eyes adjusted to the dark, my nose was assaulted by a strong, offensive odor. The ammonia smell of urine and the foul odor of feces . . . coming not from the lavatory but from the bunks themselves. How was that possible?
We slid forward in the black, stopping when we reached the far edge of beds. By now my eyes could make out the general shapes and forms of boys.
No, not so much boys as bodies—scores of them—crammed onto the wooden bunks. Alive, yes, but just barely so. More like skeletons than living, breathing human beings. So thin they lacked the strength to sit up. So weak they’d soiled themselves in their own bunks.
That’s when it hit me: this was my dream—my nightmare. For weeks I’d been seeing this very sight, picturing the tethered Less Thans beneath the tennis courts, but it was worse than that. They were right here—in the barracks themselves. Carcasses wasting away to nothing. The Republic hoped to starve them to death, then toss their emaciated corpses into the pit and cover them with dirt.
Something else occurred to me, too. These LTs were far too weak to be the army we’d envisioned. Too weak to even register our presence. A far cry from what I’d expected.
I gave a glance to Cat. He was in shock like me, his jaw working back and forth.
“This ain’t right,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
I nodded my agreement—what more was there to say? Even as I looked around and spied LTs who had bullied me in younger days, I felt no sense of victory. On the contrary, I would gladly have gone back to that time in a second.
“Book,” a voice said, strangled and raspy. “Cat.”
Our feet shuffled forward, pulled by the sound of our names.
“Over here,” the voice said, and Cat and I shifted one aisle over.
We finally located the body, and even though my eyes traveled up and down the thin skeleton, for the longest time I couldn’t figure out who it was. Only when I saw the enormous red splotch on one side of his face did I realize.
It was Red. We were reunited once again.
“You made it,” he said. His voice was weak and strained, but it was still the same old Red. I hadn’t laid eyes on him since the night I’d jumped from the train.
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
“They’ve locked us up.”
I couldn’t help but stare at his emaciated body. His neck was no thicker than the trunk of a sapling. He weighed maybe half as much as when I’d seen him last.
“Do they feed you?” I asked.
He tried to laugh—it sounded like he was being strangled. “A piece of moldy bread a day. A cup of water. Once a week some soup. Makes me miss those grasshoppers.” He noticed Cat’s missing arm. “That from the ambush?”
Cat nodded grimly.
“Sorry. At least you’re alive.”
Cat didn’t respond. His eyes were flinty and hard.
“How’d you get here?” I asked.
“Beat you, didn’t I?” Red swallowed. His Adam’s apple seemed huge set against his scrawny neck. “They shipped us here.”
“They?”
“Brown Shirts.”
“How’d they find—?” Red’s eyes flicked away, and I didn’t bother to finish the question. I didn’t need to.
A thin sheen of moisture covered his eyes. “After we saw the bulldozers, I snuck back and told the Brown Shirts where we were. Thought it was for the best. They promised they wouldn’t sell any more Less Thans to the Hunters. Then I saw how they ambushed us, and well . . .” He trailed off.
I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. Red had sold us out. Red.
“Not Dozer?” I asked.
“Nah. He joined up with them later on—once he saw there was no way out. I’m the traitor.”
Poor Red. I reached out and took his hand. It was bony and cold to the touch. “It’s okay,” I said. “You didn’t know.”
He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t believe me.
Cat and I looked around at the living skeletons. Their mouths were stuck open in grimaces of horror. Yellow pus oozed from their eyes.
What kind of hell is this, I wanted to know, where people starve others to death just because they’re somehow different? Just because they consider them Less Thans?
My knees went wobbly. It was all I could do to remain standing.
“Why’re you here?” Red asked.
“Like we said back at the Heartland: we came to free the L
ess Thans.”
“Good luck with that.”
I understood his sarcasm. As we looked around at the skeletal bodies that lay on the bunks like so many corpses in a morgue, it was impossible to imagine how we were going to lead them to safety.
“I don’t mean to discourage you,” he said, “but it seems kinda, um, impossible.”
I had no good response to that. Fact was, I was beginning to feel the same way.
“One good thing,” he said. “It’s just us. There’s no nursery anymore.”
“What’d they do with the kids?”
“Shipped ’em out one night. I don’t think we want to know where.” Then he added, “Sorry about siding with Dozer. Don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I could see his decisions ate at him. I understood the feeling. I still struggled with some of the choices I’d made. Just part of life, I guess. Regrets and all.
“Hey, there’s someone else here, too,” Red said. “He might even have some brilliant ideas.”
“Who’s that?”
“Over there.” Red pointed one aisle over and one row up. “You’ll see.”
We left Red’s bunk and approached a sleeping body. The breaths were jagged and uneven, like the rusty teeth of a saw. We stood over the LT, not recognizing who it was. As his chest strained to rise and fall, my gaze settled on the skull-like face. When I saw the scar that traveled from eyebrow to chin, I had a shiver of recognition.
It was Major Karsten. Cat’s father.
48.
THE OTHERS HAVE DRIFTED off to sleep, but Hope remains by the fire, mind racing. She wonders what Maddox and Gallingham are up to. Remembers her family. And most of all: thinks about Book. Was it just plain idiotic to think she could turn off her feelings for him?
But then she remembers Miranda—can’t shake from her mind the sight of her head resting on Book’s shoulder.
It’s better this way, she thinks. If I allow myself to love, I’ll only get hurt.
As her eyes gaze into the wavering flames, she absently strokes the locket around her neck. Like the Sisters and Less Thans themselves, this little charm has been through hell and back: flood and fire, blood and bullets. It’s nicked and tarnished and scorched and singed, but that doesn’t diminish what it means to her. She can still imagine her parents’ faces through the thin metal.
And now she’s discovered the note, it’s not just their faraway gaze, but words of encouragement and love. It’s almost like her dad is sending a message from the grave—willing her to carry on.
Hope’s fingers stop and clutch the locket. What if it’s more than that? What if it’s more than mere words of reassurance? What if her dad was actually trying to tell her something?
With fumbling fingers, she removes the locket from around her neck and places it in her palm. She snaps it open. Her thumb and index finger pinch the picture of her father and the tiny slip of paper behind his photo. She unfolds the paper. Even though the words are seared into her brain, her eyes pore over the short paragraph.
To Faith and Hope
Dear girls. Either you get this or you won’t, but if you do. Know that I love you. Know that I believe in you. Either way, your mom and I have been so proud to raise two such amazing daughters who don’t give up. Remember your mother and do what’s best.
Dad
Is it possible there’s something there she didn’t see before? Some hidden message? Some clue her father is giving her from the grave?
Hope reads the paragraph once more and a thought occurs to her: she doesn’t understand the punctuation. Why are the first and second sentences separated? Or, more to the point, why is there a period after the first sentence? Why is there a period after the greeting? It makes no sense. Unless . . .
Her hands are shaking as she examines the tiny scrap of paper once again. Maybe he was doing something with the first letters. Maybe that’s why he made two sentences out of one.
So Dear would be D.
Either would be E.
Know is K.
And so on, until she arrives at six letters. D-E-K-K-E-R.
Dekker.
A person, if she’s not mistaken. She’s heard the name before, but can’t recall why or when. She thinks Book mentioned him once.
She scrambles over to Flush and gives him a hard nudge. He’s sleeping on his side with Argos tucked against his chest. They both look up.
“Is it morning already?” Flush’s words are slurred with sleep.
“Shh. I have a question. Dekker. Who is he?”
Flush tries to focus. “Sergeant Dekker? A real prick. Used to give Book shit for some reason.”
Hope suddenly remembers. The cruel sergeant who pulled his pistol on Frank when she was hiding in the attic.
“Thanks,” she says, patting Flush on the shoulder. “Go back to sleep.”
She returns to her spot by the fire and studies the note again, her eyes landing on that final sentence. Remember your mother and do what’s best.
What was her father telling her? That Dekker was somehow involved with her mother’s death? Is that what he was getting at?
If so, Hope wonders how he knew. He returned to the house only once, to give his wife a proper burial, but he never spoke about the experience, and Faith and Hope never asked. All Hope remembers is that he came back with a hard glint in his eye.
Maybe he’d discovered more than just his wife’s skeletal remains; maybe he’d discovered clues.
If so, then Hope needs to add another name to the list.
Thorason, Maddox, Gallingham . . . and Dekker.
49.
ONCE THE MAJOR SENSED us standing there, his eyes slid open. I hadn’t seen him since the summer, the night at Camp Freedom when he told me Cat was alive. He’d lost maybe a hundred pounds since then, and his bones pressed against his skin.
Cat fell to his knees by his father’s side. “What happened?” he asked.
Karsten took a long moment to swallow before he spoke. “Westbrook,” he finally croaked. “Aims to kill us all.”
Cat shook his head in disbelief. “But why you? You’re not a Less Than.”
Karsten tried to force a smile. His teeth and gums had turned black. “Found out . . . about my son.”
He turned away and coughed—a deep, gagging sound that reached the depths of his lungs. Was it my imagination or were there drops of blood on his pillow?
Cat began flexing his hand, balling it into a tight fist before straightening it out again. Karsten’s eyes landed on me, his face more skull than flesh and blood.
“Remember Final Solution?” he managed.
“Of course.”
He gave a sober nod.
Cat and I shared a look. Those mass graves were for real. Chancellor Maddox intended to kill everyone off, then bury them and hide the evidence. Cat’s face went rigid, his eyes blazing. He reached out and took his father’s hand.
“We want to free you all. Take down the Brown Shirts in the process.”
“Won’t . . . be easy.”
“We’ve faced big odds before.”
It was true. But never odds like this.
“All warfare . . . is based on deception,” Karsten murmured.
“The Art of War,” I said, remembering the book from Camp Liberty. Back when I was a prisoner, someone used to leave books for me in my trunk; I never did know who.
Karsten managed the weakest of smiles. “So you got it?”
I could only imagine the shocked expression on my face. “That was you,” I heard myself say.
He nodded and said, “Promised . . . I’d look out for you.”
“Promised who?”
“Who else?” he asked. “Your grandmother.”
My head was suddenly swimming. He knew my grandmother?
“How? When?”
Before he had a chance to answer, a coughing attack folded him in half, bending him like a pocketknife.
“Come on,” Cat sa
id. “Let’s get out of here and let him sleep.”
Even though I was impatient to find out more, I agreed.
We grabbed some spare coats and blankets and made our way down the long aisle. Many of the LTs were now awake. As we passed, some managed to prop themselves up on an elbow. Most remained lying on their sides, their hollow eyes wide with pleading. I wondered if they thought we were the stuff of dreams. Once-familiar ghosts come to taunt them in their sleep.
Help us get out of here, their expressions read. Help us live.
If only we knew how.
We returned to camp. Cat didn’t utter a word. Whenever I glanced over at him, his jaw was clenched, his stare a million miles off.
After I told the others what we’d seen, looks of shock and disgust passed across their faces. Even Argos buried his snout in my side and gave a soft whimper.
“How many are left?” Hope asked.
“Seventy-five or so,” I answered. “Maybe less.”
“Anyone beneath the tennis courts?”
“Didn’t get a chance to check. If so, they’ll be in even worse shape.”
“So who can help us out?” Flush asked. “Red?”
“Unlikely.”
“Major Karsten?”
I shook my head. He was more skeleton than person.
“So who?”
“Maybe a dozen of ’em,” I said matter-of-factly. “But that’s it.”
The sobering reality of the situation settled on us like the hovering smoke from the campfire. A log popped in the fire, and orange embers exploded skyward. No one said a word. Finally, Cat got up and strode angrily away. The rest of us stumbled to bed.
I woke a few short hours later when a boot nudged my chest. My eyelids fluttered open . . . and there was Cat looking down at me.
“Get up,” he said sharply.
Fuzzy with sleep, I tried to make sense of the situation. Although the eastern rim of mountains glowed pale and golden, the sun had yet to rise.
“Can it wait?”
“No,” he said, and walked away. I sighed and threw the blankets off.