“There’s something you should know,” Lorena said as they walked from the truck toward the construction site. “It’s just a small thing, and I’m sorry I didn’t mention it before.”
Anand and Beaners moved closer.
“When I bumped into you, I wasn’t on my regular route. My supervisor called me and said to take the truck out there and wait for instructions.” Lorena shook her head. She had wrinkles on her forehead, as if she spent a lot of time with her eyebrows raised in surprise, or confusion. “The thing is, there’s nothing out that way. It’s off the main road.”
“You think they wanted us to find you?” Celia asked.
“I don’t know. Even at the time it seemed strange; my supervisor never calls to change my route. Since we’re going to be traveling together, I wanted to be honest with you.”
Celia didn’t know what to think about that. She glanced at Anand, who also seemed to be mulling over what it meant.
When they reached the construction site, there was no one around. The workers were in their trailers, and the trailers were set up a distance from the site, just as Sander had said. Since he was in the temporary sleep quarters business, he would know. What a waste, for an actor of his talent not to be acting.
The construction site was clearly visible under a full moon. It was going to be another town, but Celia wasn’t sure what the town’s theme would be. They hadn’t started on the wall yet; the familiar sand-colored sections were stacked in piles nearby. What they’d built so far looked like part of a huge, claustrophobic indoor playland. There were slides, ladders, tubes snaking all over, trampolines, and tons of nooks and crannies. It looked as if the entire town was going to be one continuous enclosed maze.
The town was being built into the side of a stone cliff. Pointing a flashlight, Sander led them straight to the base of the cliff.
“Here we go. Now we’re talking.” He approached a stack of latched yellow cases with Roytex Blastex printed in black across the sides, and Danger: Explosives stenciled in red below. Sander stuck the flashlight in his back pocket and lifted the top case, grunting at its weight. “This way.”
They followed him across a concrete expanse the size of a dozen stadiums that looked like it would become part of the maze looming to their right. He stopped at a steel hatch built into the concrete foundation. It was identical to the one they’d used to enter Luckytown.
Sander set the case down, flipped it open, and retrieved his flashlight. Inside were about twenty yellow plastic tubes, and a black rectangle that resembled a phone.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Anand asked, eyeing the tubes.
“I’ve seen it done about a hundred times,” Sander said. “I’ve never actually detonated one myself, but everyone who’s ever done this had a first time.” He touched the thing that looked like a phone. “That’s the detonator. You type in the code printed on the explosive you’re using, then press the green button.” He looked over his shoulder, doing the little flick to get the hair out of his eye. “Why don’t the rest of you back up? I’ll set the charge, then join you for the show.”
They retreated to the edge of the maze, a few hundred yards from the hatch.
“As soon as the tunnel is open, we need to move,” Anand said. “By the time the workers get here, we have to be well on our way.”
“If the explosion collapses the tunnel, and we can’t get in, we’ll have to run for the truck,” Celia said.
In the distance, Sander lifted a tube from the case, wedged it between the foundation and the hatch. Then he took out the detonator and typed in the code. He stood and turned toward them, grinning.
There was a bright flash. Sander vanished into a tornado of smoke and debris that burst into the air as the ground trembled. Celia felt the sound of the explosion more than she heard it, until it was slowly replaced by Lorena’s high-pitched scream. Lorena was running toward the spot where Sander had been, as the cloud of dust and concrete reached a crescendo, forming a mushroom shape, and debris began to rain down.
Celia covered her head instinctively, although they were too far away for the debris to reach them.
Lorena dropped to her knees, scooped something to her chest, rose and continued running, the larger chunks of concrete miraculously missing her.
“Lorena!” Celia staggered to her feet and went after her as a cloud of smoke billowed overhead. Anand was beside her. They converged on Lorena, who was kneeling at the edge of a jagged crater in the foundation. Inside the blast hole, a section of the tunnel sat exposed. It was completely intact.
Lorena was staring into the hole, clearly looking for Sander, his severed foot clutched to her chest.
Tentatively, Celia pressed a hand to Lorena’s back. “Lorena, he’s gone. I’m so sorry. He’s gone.”
“We have to go,” Anand said.
Celia grasped her shoulder and gently prodded her to her feet. “That’s right.”
As they got her walking, Anand reached in, slid Sander’s foot out of her grasp without her seeming to notice, held it by his side for a moment, then casually dropped it to the concrete.
Shouts rose from the direction of the workers’ trailers. “Quick.” Anand and Celia broke into a run, prodding Lorena along between them. They didn’t stop running until they’d cleared a rise and were out of sight of the half-built maze.
“What happened?” Lorena was crying. “I don’t understand.”
“Maybe Sander got the procedure mixed up,” Anand said. “Maybe the explosive was faulty.”
“He’s such an idiot. Damn it, Sander.” Lorena broke into sobs. Celia put a hand on her back, trying to comfort her.
“Can you mourn and drive at the same time?” Beaners asked. “Or are we back to walking?”
“Beaners—” Celia began, but Lorena cut her off.
“I can drive. Where?”
“Just away from here.” Celia was still too shocked to think about what to do now.
They drove in heavy silence, everyone lost in their own thoughts. They needed a new plan, but Celia couldn’t form any coherent ideas; she kept seeing Sander, standing there one moment, and gone the next.
They hadn’t gone five miles when Celia spotted seven or eight pairs of headlights ahead, coming their way. “Turn around, turn around.”
Lorena stabbed at the console, turned a wheel. The truck turned in a surprisingly tight radius, then accelerated rapidly.
The headlights didn’t recede. If anything, they inched closer.
“They’ll radio for help,” Lorena said. “Pretty soon we’ll have more coming from the other direction to cut us off.” She pounded the console. “Damn it, we should have known. Nobody gets away from this place.”
It would have been a good time for someone to say something encouraging, like They haven’t caught us yet, or, Don’t worry, we’ll get out of this, but Celia didn’t have it in her. Sander’s death was too fresh.
“What will they do to us?” Celia asked.
“If they know we were trying to get off the island...” Lorena grabbed Celia’s wrist. “You promised you’d say you took us hostage.”
Celia nodded absently, trying to think.
“If we can reach a town, we could sneak inside and hide,” Anand suggested. “If we luck out and find a tunnel, we make a run for it.”
Celia went on nodding. It was a plan, at least. They couldn’t go on driving forever.
A gunshot rang out; the side window shattered. Everyone dropped to the floor, including Lorena. The truck barreled on without her.
Celia heard the crack of another shot, then another. “Can they shoot out the tires?”
“Not these tires.”
Celia’s phone rang, jolting her like a defibrillator to the heart. She pulled the phone from her pocket and checked the number.
It was Max.
She took a deep breath, tried to calm her pounding heart. “Hi Dad, how are you?”
“What the hell are you doing out here, Rock?” He so
unded like his old self—gruff, in charge. “How did you get out of Record Village?”
Celia laughed. “Seriously? You think I’m going to tell you? I’m guessing that information is the only thing keeping me alive right now.”
Max said nothing. He didn’t even try to lie.
“Janine is sick. She’s dying. Did you know that?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice thick. “I did.”
Celia didn’t know why that surprised her, since she had no idea what was going on. “Do you know how she is right now?”
It took Max a moment to answer. “She’s hanging in there. You know Janine. Tough as steel.” He choked up, went silent for a moment. “But I’m not going to lie to you—she’s going fast. If you want to see her, you need to head back right now. She’s been asking for you, Rock. The best thing you can do for her is—”
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” The realization struck Celia suddenly, violently. They controlled the phones; they were blocking Molly from reaching her.
“No. She’s still alive.” Max swallowed audibly. “But the sepsis is bad. She only has a few days.” He sounded rattled, like he’d been caught off-guard by her question and was trying to cover the pain it had stirred up.
“My God. She’s dead.” Celia’s shoulders hitched. She didn’t want to cry, not when Max could hear her. But she couldn’t stop herself.
“This is our life.” Max was crying as well. “It’s hard, but we’re strong—stronger than the people who made us, because that’s the way they made us.”
Celia was crying too hard to say anything. She wanted to curse Max for doing nothing to save Janine, but no words could make it past the sobs.
“I don’t want to lose you, too, Rock,” Max said. “Please, pull over. Give yourself up.”
Celia squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to hold it together. “Open the tunnel and let us go our way. When we’re clear I’ll call and tell you how we got out.”
“There’s nothing out there for you, Rock. How about this? I’ll see if I can get you a position in Dominion. Just stop the truck and come on out. No one will get hurt.”
“Someone already got hurt,” she screamed into the phone.
Max’s voice was just above a whisper. “You shouldn’t have left the village, Celia. It’s about the worst thing you could have done.”
“Incoming. Three o’clock.” Beaners was peering out the corner of the side window.
More headlights, angling in from their left, cutting them off. Celia motioned to Lorena. “Get up here.”
Lorena tapped the screen and turned the wheel. The truck veered forty-five degrees, away from the new arrivals. Lorena checked a GPS readout. “Oh, jeez. They’re forcing us toward the water.”
“How far is it?” Anand asked.
Lorena consulted the GPS. “Two point two miles.”
The jeeps pressed close on both sides of the massive truck, like a police escort in the movies. From the height of the cab, Celia could make out the flat line of the ocean horizon. She’d dreamed of seeing the ocean, but in those dreams the moment was magical. Right now that line looked like just another wall.
“What’s the plan, Lollipop?” Beaners asked.
“Shut up.” She didn’t want to think about this now. She wanted five minutes to grieve. Five lousy minutes to absorb this blow before she had to think about the jeeps.
Anand leaned close to Celia, closer than he’d ever allowed himself to venture, and whispered, “I’m sorry.” Then he stepped away, raised his voice. “We could try sideswiping the jeeps and forcing our way out.”
“This truck is seriously top-heavy,” Lorena said. “We’ll end up on our side.”
All the swimming, the hunger, the walking, only to be stopped here.
“Celia, you need to start being very cooperative, or they’re going to hurt you like you wouldn’t believe,” Max said. Celia hadn’t realized she was still holding the phone to her ear.
“You mean you’re going to hurt me.”
“I’m trying to help you!” Max shouted into the phone.
They hit sand dunes. The waves were huge—white-capped, twenty, twenty-five feet high. Under different circumstances they would have been breathtaking. Lorena began to slow.
“Time to give up, Rock.” Max made it sound like fatherly advice, but he knew what he was doing. Celia’s life was all about not giving up. By framing it that way, he was rubbing it in her face.
Celia put a hand on Lorena’s shoulder. “Don’t slow down.”
Anand bent close to her. “What do you have in mind?”
Beaners’ multicolored face poked in beneath theirs.
“It’s stupid. Not really a plan at all.” She closed her eyes, tried to calm herself. “We swim for it.”
“What?” Anand and Beaners cried simultaneously.
“We can’t do that,” Lorena said. “There’s an invisible fence out there. When birds fly too close to the shore, they drop right into the water. We’d end up just as dead if we tried to swim through it.”
“It kills animals that touch it, not trucks.” Celia tried to sound more confident in that logic than she felt. But surely ships came to and from the island. Surely they didn’t transport elephants by train.
Beaners groaned and slapped his forehead. “I. Can’t. Swim.”
“You float like a damned beach ball. Lie on your back, avoid panicking, and I’ll tow you.”
“Okay.” Anand nodded. “We swim.”
Lorena accelerated.
Beaners threw his hands in the air. “We can’t swim across an ocean. How far can someone swim in the ocean? A mile? Two?” He gestured violently out the windshield, at the fast-approaching water. “If we were two miles from land, we’d see it from here.”
“There’s nowhere to run, Celia,” Max said on the phone.
The truck hit the water’s edge and kept going. A wave hit them, sent white water crashing into the air. Another, bigger one broke over their windshield, jolting the truck, and for a moment the outside world shimmered behind swirling water. When the windshield cleared, they were in water deep enough that the tires were completely submerged. The truck was slowing.
A third wave rolled past; they were out beyond the point where it would break, so it only slowed their progress.
A moment later, they stopped.
“That’s it. That’s all she’s got,” Lorena said.
Celia checked the rear camera. The jeeps had pulled to a stop at the water’s edge. She could see Max organizing people to swim out after them. “We need to hurry, or they’re going to be on us before we can get away.”
Beaners eyed the blue expanse. “I’m not sure what I’m more afraid of: the law, or the water.”
Lorena’s eyes widened. She covered her mouth. “I think I know how to slow them down.” She began tapping away on the console. The back of the truck let out a low, rumbling groan. The floor of the cab began to vibrate.
“What are you doing?” Anand asked.
Before Lorena could answer, a deafening racket started up outside. The rear camera told the story: the elephant trunk on the back of the truck was swaying back and forth, spitting trash. It was emptying the truck into the water.
Lorena smiled. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”
The trash was piling up quickly, forming a wall between them and the jeeps.
“Let’s go, while they can’t see us,” Anand said.
Celia looked around the cab. “Is there anything here we can float on?”
“Inner tube.” Anand turned to Lorena. “Is there a spare tire?”
Lorena shook her head. “It’s under the truck.”
“What about this?” Beaners held up a rolled-up plastic fire hose he’d pulled from a utility closet.
Would a hose work? Celia wasn’t sure, but they didn’t have time to look around for the perfect floatation device. “Great. Let’s go.”
As Beaners headed down the ladder, the hose in one hand, Celia kicked of
f her boots and stepped through the door to the platform outside the truck.
“Good luck out there, Sweetie,” Lorena said. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
Lorena shook her head. “Not without my Sander. I’ll go with the kidnapping angle.”
Celia wanted to take the time to say a proper goodbye, but there was no time. “Thank you for everything.” She jumped.
The water was ice cold. Celia came up gasping, immediately swam for Beaners, who was waiting on the ladder, knee-deep in water.
“Lie on your back.” Beaners allowed Celia to peel him off the ladder and set him on his back. “Inhale deep and hold it as long as you can. Stay inflated.” Celia grabbed his ankle, and took in the mountain of trash behind the truck as she did. Metal glinted in the sun. One entire section wasn’t trash at all—it was bodies. Knights and maids and shining armor. A few bobbed in the surf near the edge of the pile.
She pulled Beaners toward the horizon, already shivering. Beaners was stiff as a board, his eyes shiny with terror. Anand was fifty feet away, treading water, waiting. She kicked toward him.
“If they have boats, we’re in trouble,” Anand said as they approached.
“Whoever runs this place really doesn’t want people to leave,” Celia said. “Hopefully that means there aren’t many boats lying around.” If that was the case, unless Max and his merry band planned to swim out after them—and it didn’t look as if they did—Celia and her friends were free. Free to drown.
What would it be like to be out in this water at night, if they even made it that long? What if there were sharks? Suddenly her feet felt horribly exposed; she imagined a shark swimming just beneath them, twisting back and forth, deciding whose leg to bite first...
“Give me the hose.” She took it from Beaners, released the clip that was keeping it coiled, and let it unroll across the steel blue water. The swells were incredible, lifting them up, then dropping them into a trough. They were twenty feet high, easily.
Kicking to keep herself above water, Celia cupped her hands around the silver metal mouth of the red hose and blew into it. The first four inches of the hose fluttered and expanded maybe a quarter of an inch. Blowing up the hose was going to kill them.
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