by Peter Telep
And maybe it is.
But I’m not stopping now.
In fact, I don’t realize I’m sprinting until I barrel around a corner. I’m soaking wet and have little traction with my bare feet. I collide with the wall, and then pad up behind her. “Julie!”
She slows as the corridor ends at a pair of sliding doors. No handles, latches, locks, or access pad. She reaches them, stops, and then hunkers over, hands on her knees.
As I jog up, she raises her brows and thrusts out a palm, warding me off. “You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say, gasping for breath.
“You don’t look that bad.”
“And you look thin. I mean in a good way, sort of... and you’re pale, but... you know Keane?”
“Do I really look that bad?”
I wince. “You look great. So you talked to Keane?”
“He said you were being difficult. I told him that’s how you normally are.”
“Right.”
“Look at us. We need exercise. We need to get stronger. We need to run.”
I glance around. “What did they do to us? Where are we?”
“I have no idea. I look anorexic, but I feel like a whale. I hate it.”
“Me too. It’s hard to move.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “Really. Are you okay?”
She removes my hand. “I’m freaking out, but we can’t let them know.”
“Oh, they know... So what do you think? What is this place?” I face blank walls stretching off into nothingness.
“Right now, it’s a prison.”
“So what happened to you?”
Julie tells me her story. It’s the same as mine, just search and replace the names.
“They think we’re from the outside,” she says. “I told them we’re from Florida, and they asked why I was saying it like that. It’s pronounced ‘Flora.’”
“It’s all a lie. And I’m telling you, this all has to do with my dad’s research. This whole place is their mind game.”
She crosses to the doors and puts her back against them. With a sigh, she takes a seat and tucks her knees into her chest. A tear slides down her cheek.
“Hey, we’ll be okay.”
“And you know that because...”
“Because I’m a total badass. I’ll protect you.”
She buries her face in her hands. “We’re totally screwed.”
“Just chill.”
“I want to go home.”
“Me too. I want pizza. I want my dad back.” I face the corridor and cup hands around my mouth. “Hey, what do you want with us? Where’s my father? He knows people in the government. You’re all going down for this!”
No answer.
Julie lifts her head. “Speaking of real badasses, have you seen Tommy?”
“No. Maybe he got away.”
“For a while I thought you were both gone, as in gone forever.”
“You were really worried about me?”
“Oh, don’t turn it into something creepy.”
“Hey, I’m not.” I sit beside her. “Seriously, I was worried about you too.” My voice cracks.
She realizes I’m sincere. She grabs my hand and squeezes. “Hopefully, we can stick together now.”
“But are we ready?”
She makes a lopsided grin. “I know, right? What does that mean? They’re getting us ready for what?”
“Ready to kick their asses.”
“You know, when you called me today... or whatever day that was, I almost didn’t answer because I was driving, but then I thought, why is he calling me now, and I figured something might be wrong.”
“Well, I’m glad you answered.”
Her expression darkens. “Oh, me too. This is great.”
I glance at the ceiling, searching for cameras. “Aren’t we supposed to be exercising? Not talking?”
“They want our cooperation. Stage one is to get us back together again.”
“What’s stage two?”
“Something not good.”
I glance away to hide my reaction. “So what’s the last thing you remember?”
She hesitates. “Tommy’s yelling something. Here comes a van. The gas. And then I’m in the room.”
“Same here, except for one thing. Between being knocked out and waking up in the room, I heard something.”
“Like what?”
“Like ‘get them to the engine.’”
“The engine? What’s that?”
“I don’t know, but that’s what I heard.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear anything.”
“No, I heard it. And has anything else happened since coming here? You see anything strange?”
Her eyes widen. “Yeah. Like a globe.”
“Did it look like your face?”
“Yeah.”
“And did you feel warm in your chest?”
“Warm and like the beating of my heart... but different.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“But Doc, you know what’s weird? I feel like I’ve seen this thing before, like when I was little. And then again when I was fifteen. I thought I saw myself standing in a doorway. I mean like a ghost. I told my mother about it, but she said it was just a dream.”
I begin another question—
But then the floor rumbles and the doors behind us slide open so quickly that we nearly fall onto our backs.
We struggle to our feet.
Turn around.
And shield our eyes against a blinding light.
CHAPTER FIVE
Someone shoves us forward. Before I can see who it is—
BOOM! The doors slam shut behind us.
I grab Julie’s hand. She’s trembling.
I’m scared too. Wouldn’t you be? I’m thinking some kind of interrogation. They strap us to chairs, scream in our faces, and then do all kinds of nasty things to us that I can’t even imagine.
Our eyes slowly adjust... and then...
“What the hell?” I gasp.
We’re in a dense forest beneath a towering ceiling of glass. Hills roll off into the distance. It’s incredible… like we’ve stepped through the wardrobe leading to Narnia.
Everything looks freshly planted and brand new, with sprinklers watering trees that have bark like fish scales. Shrubs with long leaves clutter the forest floor, their edges tinged purple. I realize they’re actually green and it’s the light filtering down that’s coloring them, perhaps bent by the glass. The dirt is a mixture of brown and reddish clay, with a well-beaten trail winding off into the shadows.
For some reason, the place makes me feel half my age and wanting to run off and explore it. Also, my body’s feeling reenergized, like those shakes are really kicking in, and I feel much lighter and stronger than just a few hours ago.
“This is incredible,” Julie says.
I nod. “This is not Florida.”
“I wonder why they...” Julie cannot finish her sentence—
Because she’s spotted something and hustles off.
I charge after her and spot them:
Two high-tech bicycles with black, solid disk wheels and tires made of a spongy gray rubber that appears metallic. The fork contains shocks like a mountain bike, and the chains, if there are any, are hidden behind compartments. At least the pedals and handlebars look normal.
“I get it,” she says, almost smiling. “They’re having us do a triathlon. Running, swimming, and biking. But this place is amazing. How come we don’t know about it?”
“Maybe we’re not home. This is like some place in Europe. Maybe the whole facility is called Flora.”
“Either way, it’s amazing.”
“Either way, I’m not riding.”
“So we just stand here? I mean, look at us. Don’t you feel better? I do. And this will help even more.”
The seat posts have levers for adjusting the height. Julie lowers her seat and gestures that I set mine.
Great, let’s go for a little bike rid
e while they’ve got my father and Tommy. Makes perfect sense.
Ironically, it wasn’t Dad or Mom who taught me how to ride a bike. It was Julie.
She was always just a few doors away, and she’d watch me struggle after Mom removed my training wheels. I would get twenty feet down the sidewalk. Glance back at her. Smile. And crash into the grass.
With eternal patience, Julie would hold me up for a while and then send me off to crash again. I asked how she learned to ride a bike. She said it just happened. No training wheels. Man, I’m never that lucky.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask.
Julie shrugs. “Those workout freaks told me that once I’m ready, I’ll get answers. So let’s do this. They want us to ride, we ride. What’s the big deal?”
She takes the lead, pedaling down the trail. Apparently, the conversation is over. I fall in behind her but begin to drift back...
I’m slower because I’m barefooted and still in my bathing suit (my excuse for now). The bikes are smooth and efficient. My muscles tense as we reach our first hill, ducking beneath leaves the size of surfboards. You can smell the damp earth, not a bad smell, kind of sweet, really, and a light fog drifts between the branches ahead. It is pretty cool, like Fast and Furious on bikes.
“I was wrong. We’re not prisoners,” Julie says. “Because this is definitely not a prison.”
I hate to admit it, but I’m smiling as we pick up the pace, coming around a steep bank and blasting down the trail, gliding over ruts and smooth stones—
Until my front wheel locks. I’m over the bars, acting like one of Julie’s cosplay buddies, only I’ve forgotten my cape. My lame superman impression lasts a few seconds until I smash into the dirt and roll down the hill.
My bike lands a few feet away, and I’m lying there, staring up through the trees. Status report: my arms and legs still work. Dirt grinds between my teeth.
“Really? You still can’t ride?” Julie hovers above me, and then offers a hand. I take it, and she helps me to my feet.
“I was attacked by something.”
“You mean that rock back there?”
“Yeah.”
She snorts. “Be careful.”
I brush dirt from my shoulders and wipe my face.
Then, as we’re standing there, a croaking, barking, roaring noise—definitely an animal, definitely ferocious—comes from behind the nearest trees. Never heard anything like it. Never want to hear it again.
“Uh, let’s go,” she says.
I rush to my bike and hop on as the barking continues.
We’re back on the trail, the strange sounds growing faint as we take on a few smaller hills, pedaling fast to climb, and then gliding down to the next.
I’m near breathless by the time the path levels out and we reach a small creak spanned by a wooden bridge with no rails. The bridge is thirty-feet long and only a foot wide. No room for error.
“Don’t fall off,” Julie says, sounding as though I already have.
I put some steel in my voice. “Hey, I got this.”
No, I don’t, but at least I’m wearing a bathing suit.
“Both of you, hold up!”
Two bikes come swooshing up the trail. They skid to a halt, blasting dirt into my face. It’s Meeka and Steffanie.
“Here we go,” I groan.
Meeka climbs off her bike, letting it fall behind her. She marches toward me and levels a finger in my face. She looks, in a word, deranged. “Congratulations! You had us fooled.”
“Yeah, but we know who you really are,” Steffanie adds.
Before I can voice my confusion, hell, before I can take another breath, I’m ripped off my bike and slammed into the mud.
CHAPTER SIX
Let’s review, shall we?
We’re in a strange place. We look like skeletons.
And we’ve been “chosen to be saved,” only to be targeted for execution by our coaches. Still with me?
Honestly, I don’t have time to think about this myself—
Because now I’m involved in some “busy work” trying to stay alive.
It’s hardly a fair fight: two muscleheads against a couple of homesick skeletons. But what we lack in physical strength we’ll make up for in tactics—so I grab a handful of mud and shove it in Meeka’s face. I roll over and burst to my feet.
Meanwhile, Steffanie straddles Julie and tries to get her hands around Julie’s throat.
I approach the neon-colored beast, wrapping my arm beneath her chin. With my chokehold secure, I yank her off of Julie and begin dragging her away.
I’m two seconds into celebrating when Meeka punches me in the cheek. The pain is dull at first, and then it comes like a dozen bee stings focused in one spot.
I drop to my knees, and the world turns on its axis. Light flashes. I lose my grip on Steffanie.
But then Meeka hits the ground beside me, screaming and clutching her face. A heartbeat later, Steffanie’s head snaps back as a sneaker connects with her face.
And then a hand is dragging me to my feet.
“Come on!” Julie screams.
We seize the moment, get on our bikes, and pedal across the bridge.
“Did you go to Karate school?” I shout.
“No, Tommy showed me a few moves.”
I’m pissed. “He never taught me.”
“Shut up and focus!”
My arms lock up as I steer across the planks, weaving left and right like some fool texting while driving. I’m tempted to look back because Meeka and Steffanie sound like they’re possessed. They scream that they’ll torture us, and then kill us. Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.
The bridge creaks behind me. Oh, no, the girls are back on their bikes and narrowing the gap.
My front wheel slips again, only this time I seize control, missing the edge by mere inches. I pedal a little harder, focusing on Julie’s rear wheel.
While my father forbid Tommy from teaching me to fight, I was able to learn a thing or two about bicycles that I passed on to Julie. Tommy’s a dedicated cyclist. He watches the Tour de France and spends thousands on bikes. He used to race on a Marine Corps team.
Anyway, he explained how riders save energy by drafting behind each other. So, as we clear the bridge and bounce onto the trail, I get closer to Julie, hoping the ride gets easier, and it does.
After a few pedal strokes, I can’t stand the suspense any more. I have to look back.
The steroid sisters are even closer, their faces dirty and red, their legs totally shredded.
My bike sputters...
...just as the trail drops so fast that I almost fly off.
We’re talking major embankment. Forty-five degrees. I’m not even pedaling. My hands shake. My teeth rattle.
And Julie makes it look easy as we careen down the hill.
Me? I’m losing control. My right hand flies off the bars, but I slap it back down. Even my eyeballs are coming loose. I’m a major bike wreck waiting to happen. I imagine my mangled body lying in the dirt with bones jutting through the skin.
All right, I’m done with this. Time to bail out. Here we go. Three, two, wait!
The path swoops down and levels out. Dead ahead lies a cave with vines draped above the entrance.
Julie waves and leads us inside. The shadows lengthen, the ceiling lowers, and the jagged walls nearly brush my shoulders.
Dim light turns pitch-black.
My front wheel hits something. Vibration. Squealing. Stench of something burning. It’s Julie’s rear wheel.
Amazed I haven’t gone down, I jerk the handlebars and free myself, even as the shadows return—
And we burst from the other side, squinting against the sun. Our tires cut deep lines into a fresh bed of clay.
As we near the next hill, more sprinklers blast into our faces. I struggle to keep up, but with a few solid pushes I’m back on Julie’s wheel.
Great. Now rooster tails of mud jet into my eyes. I come out of the saddle and
really get on the pedals, charging up beside her and out of the mud bath.
The trail widens and forks left and right.
“Which way?” she hollers.
“Left!” I answer.
“Left?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, right,” she says, pulling away.
“Wait!”
We’ve split up.
Behind us, Meeka screams something about us paying the price, and Steffanie launches into some bizarre speech about us lying to them.
And then nothing. I turn my head.
Damn, they’ve both gone after Julie. I hit the brakes and spin out, pulling a sharp one-eighty.
Muttering the same curse three times in a row, I’m off, my legs burning as I backhand mud from my eyes.
I return to the fork, following the tire tracks and listening for their bikes.
No contact. Just my tires thudding across the dirt.
With my heart slamming against my ribs, I pedal faster. Where are they? I knife between two trees, my handlebars nicking one as I pass.
At the next hill, I grit my teeth and reach the summit without losing speed. I’m in panic mode. Reaching out with all of my senses.
I envision them knocking Julie to the ground. Steffanie pins her while Meeka digs her nails into Julie’s throat.
Julie looks at me. Eyes pleading. But I can’t help her—the way she’s always helped me.
Two weeks ago, bullies had me pinned against my locker. One of them, who I nicknamed McFartknocker, said I was eyeing his girlfriend. Yeah, I checked out her cleavage—but for just a second!
So there I was, anticipating the pain, when Julie walked up like Black Widow from The Avengers and promised to get them all expelled. She saved me. And I was humiliated. I told her I didn’t need her help, and it was none of her business. But secretly, it felt great knowing she cared.
I shudder with violence. I won’t let them hurt her. This time I’ll remember my Karate. And they won’t forget it.
Who am I kidding?
I took four Karate lessons and then dropped out.
The path snakes through the trees, with stones the size of footballs protruding here and there. I bunny hop over two large ones, and then settle down, back into my attack position, elbows bent, head lifted, eyes probing.
My scrawny arms and chest are on fire, but I don’t care. I’ll find Julie.