The Freeze (Barren Trilogy, Book 3)

by Holly Hook

  Van doors slid open and people, most of them younger adults older than us, grabbed box after box and paper bag after bag. Again, no one spoke. The leader man unlocked the door to the store room with a set of keys and people filed inside.

  Teddy leaned close to me. “After a run, we get to hang out in the rec room for a few hours. Then we get to see our people for a few minutes.”

  My heart did a little happy dance. I tried to smile at Jerome, but he was already turned away, wrapping his arms around a large grocery bag full of Twinkies. “Hey,” I said, but he followed the others into the doorway. I wasn't sure if he heard me or not.

  What little relief and happiness I had when the leader announced our run was over blew away like it was in the blizzard up on the surface. I grabbed a bag of cans and waddled over through the door and into the large store room, which was stacked even higher with food and supplies than before. Bottled water, boxes of cereal complete with cartoon characters, and other boxed goods rose on either side of me as I walked through the giant store room, trying to find a place to set this stuff down. Tawna remained in the tunnel, almost like she was waiting for something.

  “Anywhere,” the leader shouted from the left. He was standing next to a mountain of twelve packs. “The sorters will be through here later.”

  “Sorters?” I asked Teddy, who was walking next to me.

  “They're even higher up than the gatherers,” he said. “The higher up you are, the easier your job.”

  I thought of how great it would be to only have to worry about organizing this stuff and not having to think about where it came from or how it got there. “What do you have to do to be a sorter?” I asked.

  “I don't know,” Teddy said. “Be related to someone important? I haven't seen anyone get promoted to that yet.”

  Assassin was on the bottom of the pile. That was great.

  “This is the biggest underground facility Stardust has,” Teddy said. “They distribute to the bases and bunkers all over the country from here.”

  I couldn't help but glance at the door that was still open to the tunnel. Tawna stood by the ugly green van like she was waiting to park it. She wasn't having a smoke. Tawna really hadn't done much, but she knew my secret. Jerome's, too. He was over in the next aisle, shoving another box of cans onto the second shelf.

  I couldn't stand it anymore the way he was ignoring me. “Jerome,” I said.

  He turned. I couldn't read his expression but his eyes looked like he had died inside. He was becoming like me the way Alana had entered my world for a while.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I wasn't trying to, you know, pull away.” That was a lie, because I had been.

  I could tell he wanted to shake his head but he stopped himself. “It's fine,” he said. “Really. Let's get this done so you can see your father.”

  I couldn't tell what to make of that. Teddy brushed past me and headed back out to where the vans were parked. Tawna was climbing into the green one and turning around in the tunnel. She vanished, the squeaky motor getting fainter and fainter.

  And once again, Jerome walked away.

  * * * * *

  The leader of the gatherers led us through the little hallway and past the prison block. I couldn't think of a better name for it than that.

  I eyed the numerical pad which only people like Chalmers were allowed to use. Behind that door was Alana and my father. Around me, people shuffled forward like a herd of cows. No one was chatting. No one was even whispering. I felt like these people had done this time and time again. Outside, Sheri was recovering from her wounds and Tawna might be going to tell the others that I hadn't really succeeded. She would want to free her daughter and I might have become a bargaining chip. If that was so, there wasn't anything I could do about it now. I was stuck in the herd and unable to turn back. Despair threatened to drag me down into the floor.

  Jerome walked in front of me as we approached the rec room. He didn’t even want to look at me anymore. I was frozen and he knew there was no way to get me to thaw, at least right now, so he’d given up. It might be a wise choice.

  The leader man opened the rec room door and held it so we could all file in. It was bright inside, much brighter than the store room had been, and it was filled with pool tables and arcade games and even a bar on the side of the room complete with a guy wearing a fancy bow. There were no televisions. No clocks to tell me how late it was into the night. The room was big and warm inside, too inviting. Already people filed out and made a beeline to the bar. I spotted Pac-Man chomping around on a screen and even that old game where the ship spun around trying to shoot asteroids. These were all retro games. No one was going to play them. It was all sustenance right now.

  “That tells you when this place was built,” Jerome said, leaning close to me and pointing to a game nearby. On the screen were tiny mushrooms and a shooter at the bottom that was trying to pummel a centipede that was descending towards it. “It’s been here for decades just waiting to get used.”

  “We can’t stay here,” I said. “They want us to get comfortable doing what we’re doing. We can’t let that happen.” Jerome was talking to me, at least. We had stepped back into a friendship only. At least, it felt that way to me. “I need to see Alana and my father. Tawna's not here. She knows our secret.”

  “Laney, we don’t know how to get into the cell block,” Jerome whispered, leaning close to me. “There’s a combo lock on the door. At least, this one has a combo lock.”

  “It might be the same combination Chalmers used on the front door,” I said. I kept my voice low, forcing myself to smile. There could be cameras in here and they could be trained on us right now. I imagined Chalmers sitting in a private office, twirling a pencil and leaning close to try to read our lips. I spoke louder. “You think these machines still take quarters?”

  Jerome did his best to follow along. “I don’t know. They might be worth a try.”

  “I want to see them,” I said. The smell of chicken wings floated over from the bar and my stomach roared. I wondered if drinking laws were still a thing down here. The bartender wasn’t asking for anyone’s ID as he poured water and booze. I scanned the room, pretending to look for signs, but found no evidence of cameras anywhere.

  I knew they were there. They couldn’t not be.

  But I had done what they wanted or made them think I had and I deserved to see Dad and Alana. They couldn’t deny me that now. The others were all gathering around the bar, ready for the calories they had earned. These people were quiet, not really talking to each other except for an excuse me here and there as they scrambled for their spot. They had learned that it wasn’t a good idea to make friends. These people had become a herd, living for the next meal and chance to sleep. No. They weren’t living. They were just alive. There was a difference.

  It was a creepy scene and one that made something break inside of me. Maybe it was a bit of ice—just a bit.

  A woman reached out, took a glass of water, and sucked it down. The look in her eyes was vacant and dead.

  This was my future if I didn’t do something. A herd animal that chewed and slept while others profited off my inner death.

  “Jerome,” I said, grabbing his hand. He flinched, but then he squeezed back. “We can’t stay here.”

  “I know we can’t,” he whispered.

  The world was scary out there, but we had to try to get back out into it. “We’re grabbing Alana and my father and we’re going to leave through that tunnel before the storm surge gets here.” The journey would be scary and we might not make it, but if the combination on the prison area was the same as the one Chalmers had used on the front door we might be able to grab Alana and my father and run.

  And Tawna was still missing. She wasn’t with the others, waiting for her feed. She had vanished and not come back. Something was really, really off here.

  The bartender turned away and asked a woman what she wanted. She muttered something as I yanked Jerome back through the rec ro
om door, which had closed behind us. We left the bright lights and the wooden walls and the retro arcade games behind us. What we were doing might get us killed, but it would be a better death than what waited for us in here. None of the herd tried to stop us as Jerome and I slipped through the door and back out into the hallway. No one was waiting for us. The Stardust people were either confident in our training or they had locked everything up while we were inside, thinking we were being rewarded.

  The prison door, the door to the monitoring room and the one to the store room were the only ones in the hall. No one was waiting for us. The tiles above us were full of small holes where cameras could be hiding but I ran under them anyway. I stopped at the keypad to the prison area.

  Five. Three. Six. I punched the numbers in and the buttons lit in a faint yellow as I did. I had a one in ten chance of getting the next one right. I hit four.

  All of the numbers turned red and went dark. Wrong one. This might be a bad idea but I wasn’t going to try nothing. The Stardust people wouldn’t want to feed prisoners forever, especially when food got tight. I knew how things went and how people like them worked.

  “Try seven,” Jerome said. “Lucky number.”

  I did. Again, the numbers all turned yellow, and then red, and then shut off. We were wasting time. The Stardust people could be coming to rip us away from the door right now. This was the dumbest thing I had ever done, but I wasn't going to wait any more. I had to save us from a fate worse than death.

  I punched number after number, changing the last one up about five times until I tried nine.

  Nine. All four numbers turned green on the pad and the lock clicked.

  I rammed the door open onto the hallway filled with closed prison cells. There was no one here, no guards and not a single agent. Where were they? We should be getting swarmed and shot by now, but I wasn't going to complain.

  “Start opening doors,” I told Jerome. There had to be a camera in here. “Tell everyone to run for the tunnel.” I turned the handle to the first door and yanked it open. A young woman was lying there on the cot. She jerked and looked up as she stared at me. “Who are you?” she asked. I could see insanity in her eyes. “Are you real?”

  “Real. Get out.” Jerome opened a door behind me. “Run through the store room across from here and out the back. The combo is five three six nine.”

  “You're real?” she repeated, getting off the cot and walking closer to me.

  “Go!” I shouted, pointing behind me.

  It had been about ten seconds. No one had come to stop us yet. Something was off.

  Jerome waved a young kid he had just freed—a boy of about ten—out past the woman and we moved down the rows, opening doors while the woman babbled and punched in the code behind us. The door cracked open and she ran through.

  A gunshot rang out somewhere in the distance. I froze and Jerome and I stared at each other.

  It sounded like it was coming from the tunnel.

  “I think that's Sheri and her people,” Jerome said. “They followed. They got in!”

  The storage room door remained open and another shot fired. Yes. It sounded like it was coming from the tunnel. This was why the Stardust people hadn't stopped us. They already had a problem on their hands.

  “Go,” I told Jerome, undoing the next cell door. No one lied inside but the next one had to be mine. Yes. The blankets were ruffled on the bed where I had left them. I could still smell Chalmers's cologne in here. That meant the next one was my dad.

  My heart raced and I dreaded what I'd see. I twisted the door open and found my father sitting on the bed where he'd been before, staring at the plain white floor. He looked up and his mouth fell open as he took me in, blinking like he wasn't sure I was there.

  “Dad. Out,” I said. “We're making a jailbreak.”

  “Laney?” he asked, rising and blinking again.

  “This is real,” I told him. “Get out. People are attacking the Stardust agents for the food in the store room so this is the only chance we've got!” I had no time to explain more. Dad grabbed my arms but I wrenched myself out of them, even though I wanted to do nothing more than hug him and never let go. More and more ice was shattering inside of me, exposing things that I hadn't felt in over a year.

  I was becoming alive.

  “Alana!” Jerome yelled. “Get out. We're running for it.” Jerome ran past me and back around the corner to where the others were in the rec room. The door creaked open and he shouted something at them. We needed help. They needed their people, too.

  Dad and I had to press ourselves to the side. More gunshots followed from the tunnel and echoed through the shelves and shelves of food that was now more valuable than gold. Someone screamed. The boy. I hoped he was going to make it out of here without seeing too much death. And they were closer now. Someone—it might have been Chalmers—shouted at someone else to freeze or he'd use deadly action. The terror in his voice was obvious. He was the one having to kill now. It wasn't something he'd planned.

  “Stay back, Laney,” Dad instructed. He sounded more fierce than I'd ever heard him. “Hide. Then you need to sneak out once things calm down.”

  I backed away and got behind him. Dad took a step towards the storage room and another shot rang out. Someone shouted from within the shelves and fired back.

  “Dad!” I yelled just as more people from the rec room rounded the corner. Teddy bolted past me and down the prison hallway, bolting around the corner for the next one. “Come on!” he yelled. “Free your people and run! The intruders won't shoot you.”

  I hoped he was right. Sheri might not care who was who if she valued the food enough. I had to hold out hope that she had the compassion she seemed to.

  “Laney,” Dad said, grabbing my arms again. “Run when you get the opportunity. If someone comes after you, I'll stop them however I can.”

  “You're coming with us,” I demanded. I knew what he was saying and the horror blossomed all through my chest.

  Jerome reappeared and stood next to Dad and Alana was with him, blinking slumber out of her eyes. She must have slept through our whole ordeal and she looked like a zombie. Teddy ran past us again, a skinny woman right behind him, and vanished into the store room. Doors flung open everywhere as the gatherers freed their loved ones. People were screaming everywhere. The whole place was chaos. Not everyone would make it out alive. Teddy separated from his sister and opened another door, diving into the cell and carrying a small girl out. She was crying. He was trying to shush her. She had the same blond hair as Tawna. Her daughter.

  “We need to go,” Jerome said. “Sheri might want to kill everyone.”

  I hoped that wasn't the case. I was hoping again. I had Dad. I took his hand and pulled him towards the storage room door, then stopped. People were shooting. Smoke filled the air and I couldn't tell where the shooters were. Sparks flew between shelves of food. It was more than just Chalmers in there, guarding the sorters. It might be the sorters themselves.

  “Freeze!” Chalmers shouted. Then he shouted an order. “Keep firing. Don't let them in!”

  One of the sorters backed into view. He was wearing a blue uniform with the word McElroy on the back.

  It was David. They had brought him here to give him the easy job of sorting the food. Even he had to be useful.

  I swore and pulled Dad back towards the rec room as a fresh round of shooting started. I heard Sheri shout something. That was her voice. Then she was followed by Sal's war cry.

  “Back them into a corner!” Tawna yelled. “Give me a weapon!”

  “Mommy!” the girl shouted.

  Another shot fired and a woman screamed. I hoped it wasn't Tawna, that this little girl wouldn't carry this memory for the rest of her life.

  “The computer room,” I said. “We can't go out through there.” David would shoot at me. He'd shoot at us all. He must not know we were here, but if he found out...we wouldn't make it back out to the tunnel.

  “Run!” Sher
i yelled at someone. “Hurry!” People screamed and cut past us, bolting into the store room with their freed loved ones and out into the long tunnel. I hoped they could get up the ladders. If they had to run out to the beach with the storm bearing down they might not make it.

  “David's there,” I said to Alana and Jerome.

  We didn't have time to talk about it. A man from the gatherers ran out and went down with a gunshot as soon as he did. Blood bubbled out of his leg. The sorters were shooting at the people trying to escape and the stampede had stopped. We were the last people standing here and if we tried to go out there, we'd just add to a pile of bodies. Dad looked at me and nodded to the other door, the one that led to the monitoring room.

  It was our only option.

  “What is this?” the bartender asked from behind us. Then he swore and pulled a phone out of his pocket. He was one of the privileged ones. He was calling for backup.

  We moved. There was no more time. I pulled the door open to the monitoring room. We could run through there and reach the hallway, then the door that led outside. I knew the combo now. Behind us, the shot man screamed and groaned. This must be what a war zone sounded like.

  No one was at the monitoring stations. All the screens had a yellow warning box with a red border. I didn't have to read the message to knew what it meant.

  And bursting through the opposite door, the one that came from the street, were commandos. They piled into the room with guns ready, plastic masks over their faces and black vests covering their chests.

  I slammed the door shut. “Run. Go for it.”

  Every detail popped. The smoke smelled stronger than ever. I bolted for the door but Dad seized my arm and made me stop. “You run on the far side of me,” he ordered. “Don't look behind you. Just run, Laney. Don't stop.”

  My mind didn't even want to grasp what might happen. I was about to face my most horrible fears all over again but I felt more alive than ever.