Within These Walls: Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  “Thanks.”

  And just like that, my Lost Boys are gone again.

  ***

  “Line up,” our commander whispers harshly.

  Eight other people and I in Team Three are in position on the outside of the baseball stadium. We line up quickly with our backs against the wall. Then we wait.

  I shift the fake gun they gave me around in my hands, unsure how to hold it. It’s carved from wood and stained black, an illusion that will hopefully fool people in the dark chaos we’re about to create inside this Pod. I got a quick rundown on handguns from a Vashon named Todd before we left the forest. Basically I was told I wasn’t trusted to have a real one and I do not blame them one bit. I wouldn’t know what to do with the thing.

  As Todd showed me how to use it as a melee weapon, he explained that since their island was founded by a group that was mostly military, the Vashons still have guns and a decent supply of ammo. In fact, he was military once, back before the big collapse and the cure that kicked it off. He was stationed just outside the gates of Ali’s old home, Warm Springs.

  Apparently when they helped the farmers of the original Vashon Island clear it of zombies, they mostly used brute force or through ‘strategic strikes,’ whatever that means. I think it boils down to cracking skulls. Bullets, they decided, were better saved for humans. And they were right. With the near extinction of guns these days, the sight of one is pretty horrifying—like seeing a dragon or Bigfoot.

  An explosion rips through the night. It flares up, black smoke billowing around it as a sound like thunder cracks through the still air. As quickly as it appeared, it’s gone, leaving my eyes momentarily stunned. Another explosion follows that one, then another. There’s shouting from inside the stadium. I hear cries of terror, some sounding like children. The foreign sound of a baby crying wafts over the walls and blends with the cracks and bangs of Crenshaw’s magic.

  Men and women shout muffled commands. We hear them in the momentary return to silence as Crenshaw and his crew wait. They’re drawing the Colonists to them, then they’ll give the sig—

  Boom!

  There it is. Our commander doesn’t say a word. With the sound of the second round of explosions, he and another member of our team climb like monkeys up the tall fence. We hand up a heavy roll of the thickest fabric I’ve ever seen, which they toss across the layers of razor wire at the top of the fence. The heavy material weighs the metal coils down to make it easier for us to clear them while also keeping us relatively safe from the sharp edges just dying to slice us open.

  More explosions are going off in the distance at the other gates, at the other stadium. We’re attacking all at once in a mad rush to confuse and panic them. From the sounds of it, it’s working.

  I wait my turn anxiously, then climb over the fence. As I swing my legs over, I get one stuck on a stray piece of metal and take a slice down my leg. I hiss in surprise but quickly pull my leg free and scurry down the other side to the ground. Our commander is waiting there, a man from Vashon Island who I’ve seen only once before in the large tent with Alvarez. He doesn’t ask me if I’m okay. He doesn’t offer me a helping hand because I’m a girl. As I hit the ground he shoves me forward to catch up with the others and get out of the way of the next climber. I was pretty neutral to him before, but I think I’m in love with him now.

  I run quickly behind the others as we sprint across the neglected, dusty ground between the outer chain-link fence and the interior concrete walls. According to the plan, these inner walls have doors in them—ones that will lead us into tunnels inside the stadium under the open-air seating. I hope the plan is right, because when I glance up at the dark gray mass beside me, I’m thinking there’s no way of climbing that thing. Without an entrance, we’d have to fly to get in—and I’m all out of fairy dust.

  The line I’m following comes to a sudden halt. Our commander goes rushing past me to the front and disappears into the shadows at the base of the wall. I wait anxiously, uncomfortable with the bodies pressed so close at my front and back, not to mention the sound of explosions still going off and shouts echoing from nearby.

  Finally the line moves again and we’re racing forward. I follow blindly until I’m passing through a thick doorway into a dark tunnel that makes me cringe. It’s dry in here. There are really low wattage lights spaced out across the ceiling, but it has that boxed-in feeling of the tunnels—the ones where Vin and I fought for our lives and took one in return. The one where I was sure I’d lost Ryan forever.

  I take a breath, shake it off, and suck it up. If there’s one thing in this world I can count on, it’s the fact that it’s haunted. Everything has a memory. Everything will remind me of something horrible if I let it.

  The tunnel is curving and rising, taking us up and around. We follow them until we see light pouring in from the center of their world: the heart of the Colony.

  My first impression when we exit the tunnel and I can see it clearly?

  Place is a shit-hole.

  I’m stunned by it. It’s nothing like the Pod in the north. Nothing. What used to be a sports field covered in unnaturally green grass is all brown earth farmed to within an inch of its life. There are pens filled nearly to bursting with animals of all different kinds, all mixed in together. Tents and badly constructed, tiny buildings are built into the stairs and seats. Hundreds of them. Small fires burn at regular intervals around the base of the seating, just outside the reach of the overused fields. They have power but it looks like none of it is being used on the inside. All of it is being spent on the huge, barely working spotlights that were meant to light night games but have now been redirected to watch the perimeter. If a large portion of their guard wasn’t up north fighting the cannibals, we never would have made it as far as we have tonight—they would have seen us coming a mile away—but as I look around I wonder what they would have done about it. The Vashons had trebuchets and God knows what else to defend themselves. As far as I can tell, these people have chickens. Mangy ones.

  “Fan out!” our commander shouts. “Weapons up! Form a line around the field!”

  Other teams have shown up through the tunnel entrances around the field. They start to spread out just like we do until we all link together, forming a circle around the field. Every weapon, even fake ones like mine, are drawn and pointed up at the seating where the Colonists are scurrying to hide inside their shacks. Not a single one is putting up a fight. They’re all too terrified.

  Somewhere down in the street, Alvarez and a few other teams will take the Colony guards down. If they’re anything like these people here on the inside, they won’t fight them too hard.

  This all feels too easy. Almost unfair. I want to lower my ‘gun’ because I’m starting to feel guilty lying to them with it.

  “Hold steady!” Todd, my gun coach, shouts.

  So that’s what we do: we point our mix of real and fake weapons at the cowering, hiding Colonists and we wait.

  Somewhere from the utter silence behind me, a cow moos mournfully.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “What do you mean you’re staying here?!”

  Vin pretends to wince at my shouting. “Kitten, please. My ears. You’re shrieking.”

  “You’re being a coward!”

  “I’m being an opportunist.”

  “Selfish.”

  “A little, yeah.”

  I collapse in a chair across from him inside the large tent.

  We’re early to our next strategy meeting with the Vashons. I don’t know why we’re meeting again so soon—everyone knows what we’re going to do: move on to the next Colony, the one in the south against the water. The people we’ve taken in so far have been eager to talk. Once Alvarez showed up in the middle of that field and announced what his intentions were, the people began to slowly come out of their hiding places. Turns out not all of them live in the tents and shacks out in the open. A big portion of the Pod lives inside the structure where there are offices turned int
o dorm rooms, kitchens, showers, bathrooms, even nurseries and play areas. It’s not at as bad down there as it is up top, but they’re so overcrowded they’ve spilled out to live with the animals and crops. Word from the other teams is that the football stadium is just as bad. It’s no wonder the Colonists rushed up north to save the MOHAI from the Hive—they can’t afford to lose all that space.

  Now Vin is telling me he isn’t leaving. His flock isn’t leaving, either, and I’m thinking the crowded Colonies are about to get worse before we can make them better.

  “Where will you put your people? There’s no room in the stadiums,” I protest.

  “We’re not staying in the stadiums.”

  “Then where?”

  “The MOHAI.”

  I sigh in annoyance. “In case you forgot, The Hive has the MOHAI.”

  “In case you forgot, the Colonists went up there to take it back. Whoever won that fight has the MOHAI—and no matter who the winner is, they don’t have a leader at the moment. The Colonists have lost their home and The Hive has lost their boss.” He spreads his hands with a smile. “Easy pickings for a man with an army.”

  “What army?”

  “The small army of Vashons that Alvarez is giving me to squash whoever is in power.”

  I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “He’s giving you an army to take over the MOHAI for yourself?”

  “He’s giving me what I need to take the MOHAI back.”

  “For all of us. For the greater good and all that crap.”

  He shrugs. “That was never specified.”

  “Don’t do this, Vin,” I tell him seriously. “Don’t double-cross this guy. It’s not smart. He’s too powerful.”

  “I’m not double-crossing anyone.”

  “It’s shady at best.”

  He leans forward, catching my eye. “You afraid for me, Kitten?”

  “Always. I’m always afraid you’re going to get yourself killed, and probably me along with you.”

  “Have I gotten you killed yet?”

  “So close, so many times.”

  He sits back. “Take it easy. Alvarez is going to have all the problems he can handle with the two stadiums and all those people on his hands, not to mention whatever you all find down south. Once I show I can be trusted with his people to take over the MOHAI, he’ll gladly hand it back over to me. I’ll even agree to take on more people. Make his life a little easier. He’ll be thrilled.”

  “No double-cross?” I ask warily, afraid of the fact that I actually kind of see his point. Either I’ve been around him too long and he’s rubbing off on me, or Vin is turning into a vaguely decent human being—something that seems as likely ice cream.

  He draws an X over his heart, grinning. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Careful what you wish for,” I mutter.

  The tent door flips open. People begin to pour in, one by one taking their seats around the room. I wait patiently.

  When Trent and Ryan step in, I smile.

  “Ten fingers?” I ask Ryan.

  He grins. “And ten toes.”

  “Yes!”

  I raise my hand for him to give me five of his fingers. Trent goes to step past me to sit down, but I raise my leg to block him.

  “You too, buddy,” I tell him. “Ten fingers? Ten toes? Six eyes? Seven brains?”

  “I’ll add anatomy to the list of classes you’ll be taking from me.”

  I drop my leg with a thud. “Sit down,” I grumble.

  He does, but not before he covertly gives me his knuckles to bump. I don’t look at him when I do it, but I know he’s smiling. It’s then that I realize his smile doesn’t creep me out like it used to. I’ve seen it enough to make it normal, and the fact that anything about Trent seems ‘normal’ to me is a very disturbing fact.

  “Is everyone here?” Alvarez asks, taking his position behind the central table. He glances around the room, looking annoyed. “Where are Bishop and Haskins?”

  “Who’s Haskins?” Ryan whispers.

  I shrug.

  “Ali is…” a woman begins before faltering.

  We all stare at her expectantly. My gut is clenching with nerves. Was she hurt? There wasn’t any real fighting and she didn’t even go to the Colony.

  “She’s…” the woman tries again, glancing around at each of us nervously.

  Alvarez nods curtly. “Got it. We’ll move forward without them.”

  “Is Haskins Sam?” I whisper to Ryan.

  He nods, his brow creased. “I think so, yeah.”

  “The operation went well. Better than expected,” Alvarez says, but he doesn’t sound happy. “Conditions inside were worse than we thought and a depressed population is an easy one to overtake. They’re passive. Any change in their government seems like a ray of hope. The southern Pod won’t be as easy.”

  “Do they live differently?” my commander asks. I think his name is Roberts, and I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t have known his name before following him into a fight. I’m getting complacent. Comfortable.

  It makes my skin itch.

  “The living situation in the south is vastly different from the one we’ve just seen. I sent scouts to eyeball it before we made camp here. They’ve come back with reports of electricity, lots of it, and more than one building. They’ve taken over a park on a peninsula in Lake Washington as their main hub of operation. They’ve built a small warehouse along with a few other buildings, but most of the people are living in homes farther out on the peninsula, surrounded by the water.”

  “Homes as in shacks?”

  “Homes as in homes. Mobile homes and manufactured homes.”

  Someone chuckles. “They took a page from our book.”

  “They’ve taken a lot of things from us,” Alvarez agrees darkly. “There are fields there, but not many. Hardly any farming, very few animals. A lot of it is green open spaces. The standard of living in the south is light years beyond what’s going on in the stadiums, and that’s a problem for us.”

  “They’re comfortable,” Trent agrees quietly. “And they’re happy.”

  “Dead on. We can’t surround them and take them peacefully like we did here. They’ll fight back because they have somewhere to hide and they have something worth defending. Crenshaw,” he says, catching the old man’s eye, “we’ll need more than just a light show this time around.”

  Cren nods slowly. “I shall summon the whole of my powers. They are at your disposal.”

  I’m surprised when Alvarez bows slightly. “Thank you.” He stands to face the rest of us as like nothing weird just happened. “They have boats that regularly cross the channel, but we aren’t sure exactly where they’re going yet. My guess is that this Pod is acting as a hub in the supply chain coming from the stadiums and the MOHAI. It’s taking a cut and sending the rest to another location across the water. We haven’t been to see it yet, but we’re assuming it’s on Mercer Island. We think Westbrook has built himself a mini-Vashon.”

  “One he’s not sharing,” someone says bitterly.

  “No.”

  “He really is following in your footsteps, then, isn’t he?”

  Everyone turns to the open tent door. What we find there shocks only a few of us, but that’s only because the others don’t know enough yet. They will. And when they do, they will not be happy.

  Andy stands next to Elijah, both of them looking completely unhappy. When I glance at Alvarez, he looks the same.

  “Uh oh,” I mumble.

  “Everyone,” Alvarez says tightly, “this is Elijah and Andy. They’re going to be joining us on our next operation.”

  “Twist!” Trent whispers to me.

  I scowl at him. “What?”

  “This just got interesting. Shhh.”

  “Don’t start that again.”

  “Shhh.”

  “I will cut you.”

  Trent reaches for his belt. “Here’s my knife. Shhh.”

  “Who are they?” Todd asks
.

  I’m impressed when Alvarez answers without hesitation. “Cannibals.”

  Cue chaos.

  People are so angry. It’s ugly. They don’t riot or throw chairs—they have too much respect for their leader for that—but they do shout out protests that leave my ears ringing for a minute.

  I’m impressed again when Alvarez calls for silence and they almost immediately give it. It reminds me of Vin and his Colony, and when I look over at him I’m not surprised to see him staring blankly at Andy.

  Vin shooting you daggers—that’s a slip in his calm. It’s a rare moment of mistake that he’ll quickly correct.

  Vin watching you with silent calm—that’s deadly death danger. That’s a lion biding its time and planning its attack. Get your affairs in order, ‘cause you’re already dead.

  “If we go in by boat, they’ll see us coming,” Alvarez says sternly. “If we go in on land, they’ll see us coming. We’ll never break through their narrow gate out onto the peninsula. Elijah and his people have offered to help us with a different strategy.”

  “More tunnels,” I groan.

  “That peninsula used to be a city park,” Elijah tells the room. “There are water lines. Sewer lines. Drainage lines. There are ways into their compound that they won’t see coming.”

  “What’s the price?” Vin asks.

  Elijah looks at him with tired eyes. “The price?”

  “Yeah. There’s always a price. What do you want in return for this guided tour of the underworld?”

  “They want the MOHAI once it’s retaken,” Alvarez says.

  Vin’s nostrils flare slightly, but he holds perfectly still. “Is that all?” he asks, his voice low. Deep. Dangerous. “And we’re giving it to them?”

  “That’s the plan, yes.”

  “I have a better one. Kill them.”

  “That doesn’t exactly help us.”

  “All right, then just kill this one,” he says, nodding toward Andy. “He’s a traitor. He’s Hive.”

  Andy snorts. “As much as you are, brother.”

  “Do you have him fooled?” Vin asks coolly, pointing to Elijah. “Does this guy trust you the way Marlow did? Until the bloody end?”