“Blasted radio,” he says, slapping his palm against the box. “This is the Elder, can you hear me? Are you in danger?”
“Yes,” a voice says clearly. “My name is Rafe. Are you really the Elder?”
I know him. He’s one of the twins. He’s alive. The news reports are true. That means there are others. It means my father must still be alive or they would have reported his death. The State has an agenda, for sure, but the details must be correct or they will lose the trust of the people.
“I am,” says the one who calls himself the Elder. I don’t think he’s lying.
“How can I know for sure?” Rafe asks, his voice muffled by white noise and someone barking orders in the background. “I heard you were in prison, maybe dead.”
“Good,” the Elder tells him. “That’s what I had hoped was said of me throughout the State. Nevertheless, I am alive, and I am with…come over here, son. This is how you know I am telling the truth. Speak.”
“Rafe,” I say, bending my knee down to the ground to speak into the microphone. “It’s Niko. Are you okay? Are there others with you? There should be six of us who made it out of the arena.”
Silence.
“Rafe?” I ask again.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, leaving his radio on. I can’t tell if he’s laughing or crying on the other end. “We’re all here. The other five of us are here. We’re all alive.”
“Where are you?” the Elder asks, taking the microphone back out of my hand, my task of confirming his identity having been completed.
“We’re in Salem,” he says. “At the safe house Niko’s father built. There’s food here, and bandages, blankets, everything we need for weeks. Enough to heal from everything they did to us in Justice Hall. Where are you?”
The Elder sighs. He stares at the screen that’s now inches from his face. He sees the names of the captives and sinks his head into his free hand.
“We’re in Evansville,” the Elder reluctantly confesses. “We’ll be headed your way this evening, just the two of us. We have run out of rations and need to move. You’re not safe in Salem either, but you have supplies that we’ll need before we proceed. Don’t let anyone else in there unless they know the passcode.”
“Passcode?” Rafe asks.
“Do you see a green bookshelf from where you are in the house?” the Elder asks, his voice steady, though his eyes are on fire.
“No,” Rafe replies. He is silent for a moment, then cuts back in to say, “Wait…what’s that over…yes, there it is, hidden in the corridor.”
“Precisely,” the Elder confirms. “You’ll find a red book on the third shelf. It’s the only one of its kind and looks like it doesn’t belong. Inside you’ll find a loose paper with instructions on how to greet us upon our arrival. Stay on guard. Stay off the radio. We’ll reach you before dawn. Farewell.”
The Elder turns off the radio, rips the microphone out of the wall, then makes his way to another room. Before I can ask him what he is doing, he returns with a strong wooden rod, which he feels against the palm of his hand before taking it to the radio, smashing it into small fragments that splash across the room. He takes one last look at the television screen and repeats in haste to destroy our only other method of hearing from the outside world.
When he completes his task, he looks at me like a lion, fierce and ready to move. “It’s time to go,” the Elder tells me. It’s not a question.
“It’s still light out,” I remind him cautiously. “I thought we were waiting until dark.”
“There’s no time for that,” the Elder says, offering me his hand. I take it and work my way back up to my feet, still sore from yesterday’s journey. He storms over to a closet, where he pulls out a black long sleeve shirt with a hood on the back, which he promptly shoves into my chest. “Put this on. It’s not much, but we don’t have much of anything these days. You can’t go running around like…that.”
The Elder opens the trap door where I first entered the safe house. I follow his lead after he scales down the ladder with a small flashlight in hand. I see markings on the wall that I couldn’t see last night, drawings depicting the secrets to avoiding traps along the way, hidden codes that only those in the know could interpret, only the Faithful would understand the symbols. I should have been more careful. I should have listened to my father.
“You didn’t cover up the entryway?” he yells when we reach the other end. “How could you be so foolish? You’re just like him, reckless.”
“I was disoriented,” I tell him.” I was dehydrated. I was hungry.”
“You were careless,” the Elder growls. “It’s a good thing we’re leaving. Someone would have spotted this within days. Helicopters have been swirling since the quake. You could have gotten us killed. No wonder you were captured so easily. Broad daylight indeed.”
I don’t answer him. He’s furious and overbearing, but he’s right. Carelessness is what got us captured in the first place. If it weren’t for the earthquake, I wouldn’t have made it to today, so who am I to argue with him? He is, after all, the Elder is he not? My father always respected his wisdom. But one thing is bothering me as we hop up and climb over the back fence, my ribs screaming with every twist of my torso. We’re forced to hike down a narrow path along a steep and rocky hillside that only the desperate would take to venture out of town.
The Elder said I was “just like him.” He said I was reckless, most likely, as he considers my father to be reckless. The Elder was always spoken of so fondly by my father, yet this man does not appear to return the same affection. I want to understand the connection, but now is not the time to dig for more information on the matter, not out in the open where our lives are in danger.
The sun will not fall away from us for a couple of hours, but he said we have no time to waste. After discovering my blunder of leaving the secret door to the safe house open, we may have had even less time than he thought. But the back trail will only leave us vulnerable to the path itself, rather than armed officials, as we climb down this rocky hill before facing the task of hiking up the grassy ascent to Salem.
Every step I take is accompanied by my desire to find something to eat, or at least a running trail of water, but my hopes are consistently suppressed by dry dirt and rock exposed to the light of day. I need something to distract my mind from hunger and thirst.
“How do you know my father?” I ask after slowing down to maintain some distance in case my question is received with wrath. But he doesn’t answer, nor does he stop or slow his pace, preferring to ignore me altogether. I resume walking and repeat my question. I will not let him deter me from knowing. I can’t trust him if I don’t know him or why he is so callous toward my father’s actions.
This time he stops, takes a deep breath, then says, “It’s a long story, son. One that I am sure will be addressed at the proper time. But now is not that time. We must continue our path and reach our destination as prescribed. We cannot risk the chance of someone spotting us in the light of day in Salem. We must come upon the town in the darkest hour and flee the following night. You and your father may have found a haven here over the years, but times have changed quickly since your capture. If only he had listened to me when he had the chance. If only he had…”
The Elder doesn’t say another word for a long time. He doesn’t stop to look at the sky, nor does he let his gaze wander around for food. This serves to tell me that he’s been this way before, and there will be nothing pleasant along the way. I could have gotten us to Salem quicker if we could have taken the streets, but I understand that the wilderness is the safest place to be.
I follow the Elder without another word for a great length of time, staying ten paces behind him as a matter of caution, watching his feet to see where he steps, unwilling to risk injury from a lack of vigilance. My body has suffered enough damage. The sun creeps behind the hillside, leaving us a hint of light for a time before it is extinguished for the night. What little warmth we received
from the sun disappears along with it and a cool breeze soon chills my neck as we reach a small lake.
“Water,” I say, falling to my knees, dipping my hands in the cool lake before I’m jerked back by a tug on my shirt.
“Fool,” he tells me as I pick myself up off the ground. “Do you see that water running anywhere? You’re going to get yourself killed acting like that. You can’t drink pond water. It’s nothing but mud and animal remnants in there. No wonder you were caught so easily.”
The Elder wipes his forehead and begins the ascent toward Salem. The path winds around a corner, and there’s no way to see the end of the trail, but I am sure the hike is still much longer than we have traveled so far. We return to our mutual silence as we continue, yet all I can think about is how much he claims to know about me and my father. I don’t understand his anger toward our captivity, as if it were our own doing, especially when I consider that he too was once a prisoner, according to my father.
The path leading to Salem is wet and steep, my legs shake with every step through the grass and mud. My feet dare the ground to catch them awkwardly and snag me down to the muck, but I dare not lose step with the Elder. He is surly and agitated, but I wouldn’t be able to make this trip without him. I’ve never gone on such a mission alone.
I’ve always walked side-by-side with my father on these trips, often with others in our company, consistently treated with care along the way. This man may care for my safety, but he does not suffer my negligence. If I’m ever going to receive answers from him, I’m going to have to offer him more than a sad story or a pitiful eye. He needs to know I can be of some use to him if he is ever going to trust me.
Without a street light in sight, the man I only know as the Elder stops in his tracks. It’s so dark out here that I would have walked right into him if I hadn’t been tracing his steps along the way. But his vision must be stronger than mine because he sees something that makes his muscles tense and his hands form back into fists. It takes me a moment as I scour into the distance with only a hint of moonlight escaping the cloudy skyline, but when I see it I remember why I never liked these back roads.
“Don’t move,” he whispers. “That’s a…full grown…”
“I know what it is,” I tell him, looking at our surroundings before making any further judgments. “I think it’s alone.”
I take a step forward.
“I said don’t move,” he whispers harshly.
I ignore him. I stare into the steely black eyes of the jaguar and make myself look as large as possible with my hands shaped into claws. The jaguar stays down low in its creeping position. I take another step forward.
“You fool,” he rebukes me.
I hop forward and make the loudest, nastiest growl I can imagine. The cat remains unmoved. I stare him down and wait for him to indicate if he wants to attack me. I sneer, hiss, and stand my ground.
“You are going to get us killed,” the Elder insists, but his mouth is shut when the jaguar makes his move. One paw moves forward. His tail flaps in the blustery air. He turns his head and jaunts up the hillside. “Well, I’ll…”
“Apologize?” I say. “No need. But you might want to admit that you don’t know everything about these hills. And you might want to tell me just what it is that makes you think me to be a fool or why you hate my father.”
“You think I hate him?” he scoffs. “Your understanding is limited and your assumptions are hindered by lack of knowledge and wisdom. That was a clever trick to tame that beast, but you have much to learn about this world. We have to keep moving, lest he returns with a few of his friends.”
The Elder brushes my shoulder and continues the climb toward Salem. His answers are vague and confusing, but we have little choice but to trust each other at this point, at least until we find a better place to lay our heads at night. For some reason, despite his apparent age and moniker, his endurance dwarfs mine as he pushes his legs up the winding road with ease and grace while I lumber behind him, winded and out of recourse to convince him to slow down. After all, he wants to beat the sun to Salem. I pray we find the safe house to be a place to eat and sleep.
Whenever I think I can’t take another step, images of my father’s mug shot on the television screen enter my mind, and I know I have to continue, if not for my sake, then for his. As long as he has oxygen in his lungs, I’ll believe there’s hope for his rescue. God provided a way out for some of us, perhaps the rest may yet have another chance.
My eyes are glazing over, but if they do not deceive me, I believe I see the faint sparkle of town lights in the distance. Salem, though great in number, behaves like a smaller village, and therefore retains little respect from Ariel City beyond the attention needed to police them, yet those who have wandered into its gates understand their power.
When we reach the town, I see they have blocked off all nearby side entrances. I look at the Elder, and though he must be as disappointed as I am, he seems eager to walk toward the main gate of this walled-in village. Perhaps he is tired of running and wouldn’t mind if we were caught. Maybe he knows the gatekeeper and how to bribe his way through security. Or, as I find out long before we reach the entryway, he knows of more clever ways to reach our destination.
“Why are we going this way?” I ask in a hushed voice, though my speech travels further than I would have liked. “I know how to get to the safe house and this isn’t the way.”
“Not the way you know, you mean. No more talk until we reach the safe house,” he says. “You don’t know how to whisper. Follow my lead and we’ll be there momentarily.”
Without further reproof, the Elder unearths a key from a bush that has grown up against the brick walls. He then leads me fifty paces beyond the bush, presses it into the ground, and has the cover removed in the blink of an eye. He hands me his flashlight and points me down into a dark chamber. He waits until I reach the bottom, looks around for guards, then follows my lead, not failing to replace the grass-laden cover behind him.
I wait for him to reach the ground before I flick the light around the room, but I see no such markings as the ones back in Evansville. This is something different. This is something only he knew about. He’s been here recently. The Elder snatches the flashlight back out of my hand and proceeds down the damp hallway. He couldn’t have made such a maze by himself, so he must have discovered it, and he must understand he wouldn’t be found if he used these tunnels.
“It isn’t much further,” he says, flashing his light up and down, looking for our opening while maintaining sure footing. “Ah, there it is. Stay quiet when you exit. We are by no means in the clear.”
I follow him up the ladder and through the cover to see that day is now breaking. We are out of time. We must locate the safe house, and I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not, but we’re in the heart of the village. Someone might have seen us climb up through the manhole on Main Street, but we won’t give them time to find out why we’re here.
Salem is populous for a village, but not large in area, which I think is what has been keeping it from ever gaining recognition as a true city. People are packed in tight with buildings that often rise four to five stories, including the one we are looking to find ourselves. I’ve been here many times, but it’s been a long while, and the streets are too similar to easily differentiate one from the other. But I’m certain the Elder has been here recently too, and leads the way, darting in and out of alleyways to the only place in the town where we might find peace.
He knocks twice on the door. No one answers. Good. If anyone had begun to unlock the front door, we would have known to run. The most obvious entryway is never the answer. We walk around to the back of the house and he knocks three more times. We wait. He knocks three more times. We hear a faint knock from the other side. He knocks once more and a hatch opens to our side. We climb through and walk up the stairs to meet our hosts.
“Finally,” a young woman says from her perch in the corner. “We don’t have much
time. Help us with the rations so we can go on our way.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
No Other Choice
“HOW LONG DO we have?” I ask, rubbing my eyes.
“Ten, maybe twelve hours, Niko,” the Elder tells me as he offers me his hand. “Now get up. Tonight’s journey won’t be any easier than the last.”
Two hours was all they gave me. I could have slept for twenty-four. I stretch out my back, wiggle the soreness from my body, and roll over to push myself up from the tiled floor. When I make it to my feet, I see a blurry image of a young man whose voice I recognize before my eyes see him distinctly.
“Follow me. I have to show you something,” says Wiley, Rafe’s twin brother. “Come on, it’s in the lab.”
“Lab?” I ask, but he ignores me, leading me through the narrow hallway to one of the back rooms. When I arrive, I see bunks converted into desks, laptop computers turned into a sophisticated network of machines depicting an array of maps, with a radio running quietly in the corner. “What is all this?”
“Isn’t it great?” Rafe asks. He’s sitting down in a disheveled black swivel chair as he manipulates the screens to show me the hub’s capabilities. “Whoever was here last, knew what they were doing. They left everything I needed to set this all up. I’ve laid out our best course of action on the center screen. The trip to The Port won’t be short, but it will be safer if we take the byways through the hills.”
“Wait, The Port?” I ask. “Who decided we’re going to The Port? You’re just asking to be arrested. We need to go to Akiva.”
“No,” Rafe says, shaking his head to the point where his whole body wobbles. “Not Akiva, we have to go to The Port. Akiva is a death sentence. Look at this map I unearthed from the State’s computer network. The red dots represent the State’s armed guards from town to town. The larger the dot, the more presence they have in a certain village. Look for yourself, Akiva has more guards than any other town per capita. We might as well hand ourselves in. We’re going to The Port.”
The Treasure Map Page 9