Time Zero

by Carolyn Cohagan

  “What happened?” Rose says.

  Juda stands, catching his breath, pushing wet hair from his eyes. His tunic is sticking to his body, and I’m disconcerted by how glorious he looks. “The floor ends about ten feet from here,” he says. “Drops six feet.” He looks at Dekker. “Thanks for figuring that out.”

  Dekker glares at him, hacking up the last bit of water from his lungs.

  Juda looks over at the tunnel. “Judging from where the drop is, the train tracks were on a lower level than the platform where you waited.”

  I focus on his words. “So that means . . .”

  “Rafts from here on out,” Juda says.

  “But how,” Dekker says, recovered, “are we going to—”

  “What’s that?” Rose says, alert.

  “What?” Dekker says, jerking his head left, then right, like a frightened canary.

  “I hear something,” she says. “Don’t you?”

  I hear the steady dripping of water and our own breathing gently echoing across the water, and then, straining, I hear a thumping sound.

  “It’s coming from the entrance,” Grace says. I look up the stairwell and see a shadow moving above.

  “Let’s go!” I say.

  Splashing toward the tunnel, Dekker rips the plastic door from Grace’s hands, slapping it on the water. I assume he’s trying to leave us behind, when he says, “Grab on!” to Grace, who leans in awkwardly and grasps the edge.

  I look to Juda, the swimmer, for instructions on what to do with my door. He says, “Hold on with both hands. You too, Ma.” Rose and I get as close to the spot where Dekker sank as we dare. We grab opposite sides of the door, and Juda positions himself at the end, as if at the head of a table. “Kick, Dekker!” he says. “You have to kick to get moving, like this!” He tells Rose and me, “Time to lift your legs, ladies.” He propels us forward, legs chopping the surface, his feet sending water cartwheeling through the air.

  But Dekker and Grace don’t move. Dekker thrashes and flails, pulling his end of the door underwater, and I fear he might pull Grace down with it.

  I look back, seeing that someone has almost reached the bottom of the stairs.

  It’s Damon.

  Face scarlet and smoldering, dripping with sweat, putting all his weight on one leg, he looks like he’s broken out of Hell to find us. “Stop!” he screeches. “You’ll never get away!”

  Without turning around, Juda says, “We should have let him bleed to death.”

  What have I done? I’m the one who insisted Juda help him. It’s my fault we’re going to be caught.

  “I’m coming for you, Mina!” Damon shouts, rabid as a dog, seemingly oblivious to the pain of his wound. His eyes are manic, searching, desperate for retribution.

  “Don’t you have guns?” I ask everyone, regretting that I let Rose take mine.

  “They’re waterlogged,” Juda says. “If we fire, they could explode.”

  “Maybe you could’ve mentioned that before we all dove in,” Dekker says.

  Damon peers down at something in his hand and then looks frantically in our direction. Can he even see us in the blackness of the station? “Dekker, turn off your light,” I say.

  Dekker does as I say. A first.

  “If you escape, I’ll hang your families!” Damon shouts.

  I can’t see Rose’s face, but I can imagine what she’s thinking. She has brothers, Mal and Jiol. I think of Father with a sinking heart. Does Dekker care about him? Or Mother? I’ve lost all sense of what matters to him.

  “The children, the old people, everyone!” Damon says, louder still. “Anyone who’s breathed the same air as you will suffer!”

  I block out images of Sekena, my aunties, the Laurel Society, and Nana, staying focused on Damon. He’s not getting into the water, hasn’t even waded down to the bottom step. Perhaps his wound is too painful. But if he’s suffering so much, how did he walk here? He must have pretended his injury was worse than it was so that we would take pity on him. Or maybe pure rage and hatred are acting as anesthesia.

  His mouth twitches into a snarl. All he wants is to seize and throttle us, and yet he recoils from the water like a rabbit faced with a boiling pot.

  I allow myself a small smile as I realize he doesn’t know how to swim. He must have assumed Juda would always be there to take care of any water-type situation.

  “Come and get us, you spoiled brat!” I holler.

  “Mina, what are you doing?” Grace asks, distress in her voice.

  Ignoring her, I yell, “Where’s your backup, Damon? Doesn’t anyone like you enough to help you?”

  He takes a step into the water. “Captain Memon is on his way!”

  “Don’t count on it,” I shout, even more loudly. “Your father did him favors. And your father is dead!”

  “Mina!” Rose says, shocked. I give her a look begging her patience but then realize she can’t see me in the dark.

  “Shut up, you stupid Saitch!” Damon says, fury pulling him forward. He roars as his wound hits the murky water.

  Juda must have caught on to my plan, because he yells, “You’ll never be the man my father was!”

  “I’m going to hack out your heart and choke you with it,” Damon shouts. He wades in farther, growing confident as he realizes the water is only waist deep. Pulling a shotgun from a hidden holster on his back, he fires at us through the darkness. The sound of the shot explodes around us like a cannon.

  “Get down!” Juda yells.

  Where? I’m grasping the door for dear life. If I loosen my grip, drop into the water any farther, I’ll drown.

  The gun has ruined my plan. I’ve made things considerably worse.

  “I thought you got rid of his gun,” Dekker whispers with anger.

  “I did,” says Grace. “He must’ve found the gate guard’s.”

  “We saved your life! What’s wrong with you?” I shout, amazed at his coldness.

  “You DESTROYED my life. You MURDERED my father!”

  What?

  Now I understand. If he eliminates us all, there will be no witnesses to say that he shot his father. He can blame it on whomever he chooses.

  Damon fires again. A deafening blast.

  Grace screams.

  “Are you hit?” I say, heart stopping.

  “No,” she says, terrified.

  “Don’t scare me like that,” I whisper.

  “Shhh,” Juda says.

  He’s right. We’re giving away our location. In the darkness, Juda reaches out, grabbing Dekker and Grace’s door. He whispers to Dekker, “Kick under the water. At an angle. Stay quiet.”

  We move very slowly away from Damon, whom I can barely see now. He’s up to his chest in water.

  To my surprise, Rose yells, “Your father thought you were a pea-brained ass!” She must’ve figured out my plan, too.

  Juda shifts us to the left as another gunshot fills the shadows. The bullet is so close I can smell the gunpowder.

  The slur from his father’s mistress too much to bear, Damon splashes forward. “I’m going to kill you last, you stupid slut, after you’ve watched me kill your son. And after I’ve killed you, I’m going to slice—”

  But we never learn what he’s going to do; we hear a gasp and a slosh as he drops off the ledge and into deeper water, just as Dekker did. Except this time, Juda is not going to save anybody.

  I listen for another splash or ripple. But there’s nothing.

  We’re alone.

  Dekker flips his light back on, saying to Rose, “Did you do that on purpose?”

  “What do you think?” Rose says dryly.

  “Nice job,” says Grace.

  “Pretty cool,” Dekker says.

  “You okay?” Juda asks me, knowing I set the trap in motion.

  I nod but have no idea whether I am. “It had to be done,” I say. No one else speaks.

  I tried to save Damon once, to give him a second chance. Never underestimate the value of kindness—that�
��s what Nana said. Damon not only underestimated it but took advantage and tried to punish us for it. And look where it got him. I think of him struggling to breathe under the water, and it makes me feel sick.

  We may end up with Damon in Hell after all.

  “We need to know how he found us,” Juda says, looking at his mother.

  “How would I know?” she says, clinging to the raft precariously.

  “We ran through the street with outhouse doors!” says Dekker. “It wasn’t subtle.”

  “Mr. Asher said he was tracking you for days, Ma,” Juda says. “We need to know how. There’s no point in moving forward if a thousand Twitchers are going to follow us.”

  Rose looks angry, and I understand why. How can it be her fault that the Ashers followed her? But then she seems to have a realization and her expression turns guilty. She reaches underneath her sodden cloak and produces her necklace—the chain with the gold heart. “I’m sorry, Udi. I’ve had it for so long, it never occurred to me in a million years that it could be a collar. Max was so sweet when he gave it to me. . . .”

  Juda, not wanting to hear any more, takes the necklace and tosses it into the water, close to where Damon disappeared. “It probably stopped working when it got wet. But if it didn’t, maybe someone will find the body.”

  Rose says a prayer, so I do the same, although, to be honest, I’m not sure I want Damon to be found. His presence here will notify everyone of our escape route.

  Juda begins showing Dekker how to kick again. “Above the water,” he says. “Your legs should feel light.”

  “What about Captain Memon?” Grace says. “He’s coming!”

  “No way,” says Dekker, moving his legs spasmodically. “Damon wanted to shoot us all and let us disappear like waste down his sewer. He didn’t want any witnesses.”

  I agree, but it doesn’t make me kick my legs any more slowly.

  DEKKER AND GRACE MOVE FORWARD AT A stop-start pace. I try to kick under the water in a way that’s helpful to Juda. We’ve lost sight of the subway station. I know that Damon probably didn’t contact Captain Memon, but I still fear that at any moment we’ll be caught in the bright beams of Twitcher flashlights and assaulted by gunfire.

  But the deeper into the tunnel we go, the quieter and darker it gets and the more I can believe no one is following us. The only light comes from Dekker’s headlamp, which creates a feeble triangle of visibility ahead of us. Steel pillars line the walls, while a vast barrel-vault ceiling looms above. Behind us, the blackness is thick but alive, an undulating darkness that warns against falling behind.

  After around thirty minutes, Rose asks, “How far to the other side?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It’s two subway stops. More than seven avenues?” And under the East River. Water above. Water below.

  She nods, looking prepared.

  “You okay, Grace?” I ask, noticing she looks anxious.

  Using an affected voice, she says, “I have a hunch from reading about old passageways that there may be one or more rooms off this tunnel.”

  “Oh, honey,” Rose says. “I don’t think we’re going to be seeing any rooms.”

  Dekker adds, “But if we do, we’ll drop you off for tea.”

  “It was, uh, a joke,” Grace says. “That was from The Hidden Staircase. Nancy Drew?” I can’t see Grace’s face in the shadows, but I bet it’s bright pink.

  “Who?” Dekker says.

  “I thought you read at the Lyceum,” Grace says.

  “Not lady writers.”

  “Nancy Drew is the hero. Carolyn Keene is the writer.”

  “Still a broad.”

  “Maybe we should conserve our energy and not talk,” Rose says.

  “Great idea,” Juda says.

  I settle back in, concentrating on the rhythmic sound of Juda’s and Dekker’s feet. I watch Dekker’s triangle of light bounce as his head moves.

  The water seemed warm when we entered, but the tunnel becomes cooler the deeper we go, and the more my hands ache from holding on to the door. Passing pillars, I see strange markings, symbols written quickly in spray paint. They must be words, but they’re nothing I can translate. How old are they? Are they warnings?

  After about forty minutes, the tunnel widens and, once again, white tiles cover the walls. Grace says, “It must be the next station.”

  I’m opening my mouth to say I’d like to stop and rest, when Juda whispers, “Turn off the light, Dekker.” Before Dekker flips off the headlamp, I get a glimpse of Juda’s face, alert and tense. I realize he’s worried that if Twitchers are looking for us, they might be waiting for us here.

  The others must fear the same thing, because no one makes a sound. I wonder if they’re holding their breath, like I am. The slow swish the rafts make through the water now seems louder than a taxi honking at rush hour.

  The blackness is terrifying. I can handle the water, the fear of not knowing what’s below me, but only while I know what’s above me, in front of me. Now a hand could reach out to grab me and the others wouldn’t see it, couldn’t warn me. My teeth start to chatter, and Rose has to whisper for me to hush.

  My back bumps against something, and I nearly cry out. I’ve hit the tunnel wall. Poor Juda can’t steer without light. I push off the wall with my hand, hoping Juda will be able to right himself.

  We paddle in the darkness longer than must be necessary. How big can a station be? But no one wants to be the one to break the silence, to reveal our location. Finally, after another ten minutes of bumping into walls, unable to stand the blackness one more second, I whisper, “I think we’re clear.”

  Dekker clicks the light back on. We’re deep in the tunnel, the station not in sight. To my left, Rose sighs in relief. The tunnel that was gloomy and ominous an hour ago now seems bright and welcoming. “Next stop: Queens,” Grace says, and no one responds.

  More time passes.

  I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to hold on to the door. Rose looks like she’s going to pass out.

  “Juda?” I say. Shaking himself out of a trance, he looks at me. I gesture at his mother.

  “Ma?” he says, startling her.

  “Yes, Udi?”

  He holds her gaze for a moment, seems to decide she’s in adequate condition, and says, “Nothing.”

  She looks crushed. How long is he going to be mad at her?

  Juda looks at me. “What did your nana say about the people on the other side of the Wall?”

  “They’re not as bad as we think.” I’m exaggerating. What Nana really said was that they couldn’t be any worse than the people we already know.

  If my childhood stories are true, heathens live on the other side. They don’t believe in God or the Prophet, and they’ll try to convert us to their heathen ways as soon as we arrive. And if we don’t convert, they’ll tie us to stakes and burn us alive.

  “I once heard that there aren’t any people left at all,” Dekker says. “It’s only robots out there, and they have laser guns ready to kill all humans.”

  “I think it’s the opposite,” Grace says. “No robots. No computers. No nothing. Just a bunch of dirt and grass and dogs and cats that have returned to the wild.”

  Dekker laughs, a low bellow that rumbles up the tunnel. “So you think the Apostates are a bunch of kittens?”

  “No,” she says, defensive. “I think the Apostates are long gone. They didn’t have order, or the Prophet, like we did. And so their people fell, like the Romans.”

  “Like the who?” asks Dekker.

  “Goodness, Dekker,” Grace says. “What are they teaching you at the Lyceum?”

  “That’s Brother Clark to you,” he says with irritation.

  “I think we should brace ourselves for anything,” Rose says.

  “Nothing else can shock me today,” Juda says.

  “Are the guns ruined forever?” I ask.

  “Nah,” says Juda. “We’ll dry them out, oil them up, and they’ll be good as—”
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  Grace screams. “Something touched my leg!” she says. A second later, she shrieks, “There it is again!”

  I say, “What do you think . . .” and then I feel it, too—something scratching my thigh.

  “I felt it!” Juda says, his voice full of alarm. “Dekker, shine your light straight down into the water!”

  We all look around, desperately trying to see into the black, dingy river.

  Dekker says, “Over there—eyes! It’s a rat!”

  The second he says it, Juda lets go of the raft and starts slapping at the water. “Where?! Where is it?!”

  Without his weight, the raft flips up, sending our end plunging into the water. The world goes silent as I lose my grip and my head submerges. I reach out but grasp nothing and keep sinking. Rats swim in the water inches from my nose, and I open my mouth to scream, causing water to flood my lungs. My chest burns like I’m on fire again. Kick your legs, I think. Just kick. But when I do, my legs are heavier than lead, convincing me that I didn’t remove the Twitcher boots and now they’re going to suck me down, as if the Twitcher they once belonged to is in the depths below, pulling me under out of spite. I keep sinking.

  A hand grabs the neck of my jacket, pulling me to the surface. I try to help, but my body is an anchor. My lungs want to explode. My head finally reaches the surface, and I take giant gulps of air.

  Juda is holding me. He pulls me in close, wrapping an arm around me as he treads water. “Easy. Take easy breaths.”

  I cough, and once I start, I can’t seem to stop.

  “Is she okay?!” Grace asks.

  I nod. Rose says, “She’ll be fine,” helping me back onto our raft.

  “I’m sorry!” Juda says. “I didn’t mean to let go. It was the rats—”

  “He hates them,” Rose says. “Always has.”

  “She knows!” says Juda, glaring at her, as if Rose threw me off the raft.

  “Enough,” I say, my coughing fit over.

  “I know,” he says. “I have to get over the rat thi—”

  “STOP . . . being so rotten to your mother!” I say, sick of it all.

  “What do you know—”

  “You have years to punish her for lying to you,” I say, catching my breath. “But . . . right now . . . we’d all like to survive the next few hours . . . so please get over yourself . . . and start acting like a human being.”