by Tracey Ward
“So,” he says quietly, turning back to Ryan with a stern eye, “who are you and what are you doing here?”
“We washed up on the shore here and weren’t prepared to travel at night,” Ryan says, his voice surprisingly deep and strong. “Not through this territory.”
“Not through our territory.”
“No. Colonists’ either.”
“And how do you know we’re not Colonists?”
“You knocked,” he answers wryly.
The man grins. It’s not as horrifying as I thought it would be. Not like when Trent does it. It seems more natural. Easier. Like he does it all the time. I remind myself that the truly horrifying thing about the cannibals is that they look just like everyone else—right up until they’re pan-frying someone’s calf muscle over an open flame. Then you can feel it in your bones, smell it in the air that they are wrong.
“You were on the ships then? You’re Colonists.”
“No,” I blurt out. I snap my mouth shut the second I say it, but it’s already done. All eyes are on me now.
“Really?” the man asks, stepping toward me.
I see Ryan tense beside him, but then another man steps inside the door to block his path. The first man looks at me intently. I don’t feel as terrified as I thought I would meeting his stare. His eyes are strange, too large and too dark, but they’re not crazy. Not as insane and empty as I expected.
“Yes, really,” I say, worried my tone is too sharp, but I’m not great at censoring myself. I clear my throat. “We’re not with the Colonists, and before you ask, we’re not with The Hive either.”
“Are you sure? That was a Hive boat you sailed out on.”
I swallow, glancing quickly at Ryan. How do they know about the boat?
“Did it sink?” the man asks. “We lost sight of it in the chaos.”
“Capsized,” Trent says as a matter of fact.
“And you left it like that? Uh oh,” he tuts, feigning concern. “Marlow won’t like that. You’ll be indebted to him now. That’s never a good place to be.”
“You know Marlow?” I ask.
“I know of him. Never had the pleasure of making his acquaintance.”
“You’re not missing much.”
He grins again. “So I hear. Clear something up for me, would you? You sailed to Vashon Island on a Hive boat, but you’re not with The Hive. You clearly aren’t with the Vashons because here you sit, on the opposite side of the Sound. You say you’re not with the Colonies and I’m inclined to believe that. So if you’re not with The Hive, the Vashons, or the Colonies, who are you exactly?”
“No one,” Ryan says, his voice dead.
I’m surprised by his answer but then I remember that it’s true—that I did that to him. He’s no longer a Hyperion because he betrayed them for me and that’s going to eat him up inside. That was his family—a piece of his life with his brother—and I’ve taken that, giving nothing in return. But he’s not no one. Even standing in an empty room without a weapon or cent to his name, he’s so much more someone than I’ll ever be.
“Well, whoever you are, you need to come with us.”
“And if we don’t?” Ryan asks.
“You will.”
It’s not a threat exactly, it’s more like a truth. One I feel in my gut. He’s right, we’ll go with them because we don’t want to die and it doesn’t even have to be said that that’s what will happen if we resist. We all know it. I can feel it and they can probably taste it and there’s no sense in denying it.
I stand slowly. Trent does the same in my peripheral but I keep my eyes on Ryan. He’s watching me rise and I’m worried that I can’t read his face. He’s gone into Arena mode: he’s a fighter now, dead and calm inside. I envy him that. I recognize that trick as one I used to be able to perform, but my skills have slipped or fallen entirely away and I’ll never be able to do it again. Even now as I look at him I can feel emotions swirling inside of me. I feel scared, anxious, protective, angry. And it’s all for him.
We’re led outside into the dark and the cold. We leave our fire burning inside and I have the fleeting, ridiculous thought that we should put it out before it burns the building down or draws someone to it. But it’s not my home and the moths are already here. The damage has already been done.
I fall in line behind Ryan as we head out the door. I’m startled by the sudden silence, the cease of raps and taps on the outside of the building. It’s so perfectly synched that the lack of sound unnerves me as much as it did when it started. I’m beginning to think these people share a brain.
“Weapons,” someone ahead of Ryan says curtly.
I unhook my knife and toss it to the ground toward the shadowed voice that demanded it. Then I slowly pull my ASP free, running my fingers over it lovingly as I ache inside. I just got her back. How many times can we be separated before it’s the last?
I glare at the man in front of us, holding up my ASP for him to see. “I want this back.”
“Toss it with the others,” is his cold reply.
“Do you understand me? I want it back.”
“When?”
“When we leave.”
“Who said you will?”
I suppress a shiver along with the urge to whip the weapon out to full length and crack it against the guy’s face. He’s taking shape as my eyes adjust to the darkness. He’s not that big. He’s actually almost my height, not that much meatier. I’m not used to fighting the living but I’m suddenly curious how I’d do. The more I can see of him, the more convinced I am that I can take him. But I can’t fight all of them and neither can Ryan or Trent, so I slowly lower the baton to the ground where I let it fall with an echoing clatter.
“I’ll leave,” I tell the guy as I stand up straight, “and when I do, you’re giving that back to me.”
I can’t be sure, but I think he grins.
“This way,” the lead guy says, taking off without looking back.
As the cannibals fall into formation around us I realize I’ve misjudged their numbers: there are more than I thought. They seem to materialize out of the darkness as we move and I’m glad I stowed the urge to fight. Even if we were twice as many, we’d never have fought our way out.
I keep my eyes on Ryan’s back, his broad shoulders leading me forward and blocking out the world ahead of us. It makes me nervous. I’d rather be the lead, see where I’m going. Know what I’m walking into. I’m going on a lot of faith following blindly behind him like this, especially with Trent and all his height pacing so close behind me. I start to feel caged and crazy. I’m surrounded on every side and I can’t see and I want to run or fight or scream, but I keep it locked inside. I keep my eyes on Ryan and I remember sleeping beside him. I remember him between me and walls, me and doors, me and danger. I remind myself what it feels like to press my back against his and trust that whatever is coming behind me is irrelevant. It’s already dead because he’s there.
I remind myself to trust him the way he trusts me. All the way.
Chapter Two
We walk through the streets silently without any light. I’ve done this before—it’s not that big of a deal in a neighborhood you know, but I don’t know this one. Not at all. Not even a little. I don’t come south of the stadiums. To move through this area is to be close to the Colonies, and while I can see their lights blazing closer than I feel comfortable with, I know the real trouble is what you don’t see. Not until the van rolls up on you silently and people snatch you off the streets. But the way the cannibals walk us brazenly through the dark, I wonder how much of a threat the Colonists are to them. Maybe the Colonists give them as much space as the rest of us. Maybe no one likes the idea of being eaten for dinner, least of all by someone living.
Without a word, Ryan stops. I slam into the back of him, and as his hand reaches back to help stabilize me, I wait for the impact of Trent to sandwich me between them. It never comes. I feel clumsy, blind, and a little helpless. The helpless is what pisse
s me off the most.
“Why did we stop?” I ask, brushing Ryan’s hand away.
Before he can answer there’s a sharp screech of metal on metal. When I break formation to look around Ryan, my gut clenches.
One of the cannibals is using a horrifying hook weapon as a giant crowbar to pull a manhole cover up out of the street.
Funny thing about manholes—I don’t go down them. It’s dumb. Tight quarters, no idea who or what is in there with you, perpetual darkness. It’s a black hole to nothing. The descent inside could be five feet or five thousand years—there’s no way of knowing. I’m no wimp, I’m not afraid of the dark, but I’m also not a fan of it, either, and this thing is all darkness. All endless depths of black midnight with all manner of nightmare waiting for me at the bottom.
“Are we seriously doing this?” I mumble to Ryan as the first of the cannibals is swallowed up by the Great Nothing.
“Looks like it.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Sure.”
“Promise not to tell?”
“Course.”
I take a quick breath as the leader watches us, waiting. It’s our turn.
“I’m scared,” I whisper to Ryan.
When he looks down at me I wish I could see his face better, but I’m also glad it’s too dark. This admission is huge for me. I’m not even sure why I told him. Not like he can do anything about it—but it helps somehow, having him know.
“Me too,” he replies.
“Me three,” Trent agrees.
Ryan I believe, but Trent not so much. Still, I appreciate the solidarity.
“I’ll go first,” I say quickly.
I step away from them before Ryan can stop me, because I know he’ll try. I’m not surprised when his hand shoots out to grab hold of me. I saw it coming. I dodge it easily, slipping away toward the cracked can of no-friggin’-thank-you yawning in front of me. I don’t give myself time to think about it. I don’t let myself go full terrified toddler, imagining all of the things that could be in this hole waiting to grab my ankle and yank me down to Hell. I dive right in, swinging my legs inside and slowly climbing down, being careful as I feel the slippery, slimy coating on each step.
I slip down farther and farther until the meager light from above starts to fade away and I have that claustrophobic feeling you get in an unseen, wide open space. The area around me could be boundless or it could be tiny. There could be walls everywhere just waiting for me to walk straight into them and bash my nose on their cold, wet surfaces. All I know for sure is the circle of light above me, the ladder under me, and the endless black around me.
“One more step,” a voice warns softly, scaring the crap out of me.
I pause for a second, letting my nerves calm and my senses take over.
They’re to my left. It’s a woman. Her voice didn’t echo much at all so I’m assuming the space down here can’t be too big. I let go of the ladder and instantly feel dizzy. My eyes are adjusting to the dark, picking up on what small light is coming in from up top, but it’s not going to be enough. I can’t get my bearings on anything. As I slowly take a step toward the voice, I wonder how much she can see. Is her eyesight that good in the dark or does she have all of these caverns and tunnels memorized?
“Stand over here.”
“Where is ‘here’?” I ask irritably.
“To your left three paces.”
I put my hands out and shuffle-step three paces to the left. My fingers brush a rough wall, cold and damp. It feels like algae is growing on every surface down here and the air tastes wet and weird. How do they live like this without getting sick all the time?
The light coming in from above is blocked for a second by another body making its way down. It’s moving too quickly to be one of the guys. They’re staggering us: sending in one of their own, one of us, one of their own. It’s smart. Annoyingly so. It also reminds me of the Colonies and my anxiety/anger ratchets up a notch.
Trent comes down next, another of theirs, then Ryan. No one says a word once we’re all assembled. I can hear breathing and shuffling bouncing off the walls, making it feel like people are everywhere. But how many could there really be? Outside this hole I saw at most ten of them. But inside, trapped in an enclosed space with all of their lips and teeth, it feels like there are a million. And they’re all hungry.
I jump when there’s a loud crack followed by a scraping sound. Someone has sparked flint, lighting a torch off to my right. I watch the firelight play off the sheen on the walls, dancing like diamonds faceted in every surface, when what I’m really looking at is slime. The ground has an obsidian, oily coating on it that glistens with rainbows in the light. I worry that it actually is oil. One dropped spark from that torch could send this entire place up in flames in an instant.
“This way,” the guy with the fire says, his voice surprisingly gentle. Almost welcoming.
There’s an otherworldly feel to this place. As though when I came down that manhole what I really did was slip down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. I’m not so sure I prefer it to Neverland. I knew the rules there. Down here with these people… well, it feels like anything goes.
We walk for half an hour before I see light glowing at the end of the tunnel. It’s yellow and clean. Warm. The temperature has been rising, the moisture disappearing from the air. This is where they live. Where they sleep.
Where they eat.
We walk into the light through a blown out section of wall. It looks like they demolished it to break from these tunnels into another section. The area here is wide open, like a large basement, which makes me wonder where exactly we’ve walked to. Without any landmarks from up top to guide me, I’m completely lost. The walls are exposed brick and broken plaster, but as we move through this open space, the eyes of more cannibals watching us curiously from unlit corners, I see wood support beams. We come into a narrower passage, almost like a hallway, and I pass a window frame looking through into another large room.
“Where are we?” I whisper despite myself.
“It looks like an underground city,” Ryan mumbles behind me.
“Since when is there an underground city in Seattle?”
“Since 1889,” the man ahead of me answers without turning.
We pass by a pristine brick archway leading into a small, well-lit room with a burning fireplace and three beds pressed against the walls.
“That used to be part of a bank in the 1800s. This was all ground level back then.”
“How did it end up underground?” Trent asks curiously.
I glance back to find his eyes scouring the walls, taking in every detail. His hand brushes along a wall to feel the wood of a door frame, the brick of a pillar. It’s a new, strange mystery and my robot is deeply, passionately in love.
“There was a fire. Thirty-one blocks of this area were destroyed. When they started to rebuild they decided to re-grade the streets in this area, since they were built on tidelands and were constantly flooded. The roads were raised twelve feet. In some places they went up thirty. What was street level in a building became basement or underground, where we are now. There were skylights like these,” he points to a metal mesh of squares in the ceiling, some of them still housing small, cracked cubes, “up to the ground level to let in natural light. The entire underground was shut down in 1907 when people panicked over the bubonic plague. Most of it was condemned or absorbed into building basements and shut off. This is the last of what’s left.”
“And this is where you live? All of you?” Ryan asks.
The guy half turns his head to look back at us, his face pure shadow. “Tour’s over,” he says, his voice losing its friendly tone. “We’re almost there.”
They take us down a long, narrow alley—with more broken down storefronts that lead into bedrooms lining the left side, and high crumbling walls lining the right—before turning sharply into one of the rooms. Inside is another wood-burning fireplace carved into the wall, ventin
g somewhere above ground in the cold night air. There’s a round wooden table, a couple of mismatched chairs around it, and three men standing in a corner talking heatedly. They pause when we enter, all eyes falling immediately on me, Ryan, and Trent.
A guy just barely my height steps forward, making me want to step back. There’s a shine to his eyes. It’s unnatural and strange. Foreign in the wild.
It’s hope.
“Is this them?” he asks, his tone hushed.
“We think it might be,” our tour guide answers noncommittally.
“Where’s Andy?”
“I’m here.”
There’s shuffling in the hall as a man pushes through the people guarding us. He’s tall, his complexion darker than most of the pale, white skin I’ve seen down here so far. He strides into the room, scanning everyone inside and taking inventory. The move reminds me of Trent.
“Well?” the short man asks him anxiously.
His eyes meet mine, staying there for longer than I like. But as I look at him I start to wonder if I don’t recognize him. It’s too dark in here to be sure, but I swear I’ve seen him before.
“It’s them,” he says, his voice deep and firm.
Well, all right, he apparently knows us.
“Wonderful,” Shorty says happily.
The guy walks farther into the room to stand beside Shorty. His eyes stay with me the entire time. His stare is starting to make me uncomfortable but I don’t dare look away. I’m an animal from the jungle. I can play the staring game all day long.
“This is perfect,” the short man says to himself, clasping his hands together and smiling. “I’m so glad to finally meet you all.”
“Do we know you?” Ryan asks, his voice uncharacteristically cold.
“Not yet, but we have so much to talk about. We’ll know each other very well soon enough.”