by Jamie Canosa
“How long does the supply run usually take?”
“They’ll be back here in three days.”
“All right.” Not so bad. “Connor,” I’m not sure what I want to say to him. It feels so strange to be saying goodbye after everything we’ve been through together. “I . . . thank you . . . for everything. I . . .”
“Oh, no you don’t,” he interrupts with an abrupt shake of his head. “You don’t think you’re getting rid of me that easy, do you?”
“What?”
“If you think for one second that you’re getting on that train to have all the fun by yourself, then you’ve got another thing coming, Girlie.”
“Connor, don’t be an idiot. You’re here, you’re safe . . . you’re out. You know what I’m planning on doing. It’s idiotic, you said so yourself.”
“Why is it that you can be an idiot, but I can’t?”
“Because . . . Because Peter is my friend. Because I owe him this. You don’t owe either of us anything.”
“Girlie, I worked in those mines every single day for over a year. Never once did I imagine getting out of there, not until you came along. I owe you more than you know.”
“No, Connor . . .”
“It doesn’t matter who owes who what. The point is, I’m getting on that train, and I’d like to see you try and stop me. Now, if you don’t want to miss it, we’d better get moving.”
“He’s right.” I’d almost forgotten Sal was there. “The train will be here any minute, and then the inspectors will be here to inventory the crates. If they see you two . . .”
“All right, fine,” I snap at Connor. “Good luck getting on board. I don’t think they make crates in your size.”
“Actually,” he grins, “they do.” I follow his outstretched finger towards a tall crate leaning up against a railing. How the hell did I end up with the jack-in-the-box sized crate?
I growl at Connor’s amused grin as I climb inside my pint-sized container. I was right. It is a tight squeeze—a very tight squeeze. I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. Both shoulders are touching the sides of the crate, as well as my back behind me and my legs in front. When Sal lifts the lid I realize I’m going to have to duck my head between my knees for it to fit on. I’ve never been claustrophobic before, but this is quickly changing my mind.
“You all right in there, Kaleigh?”
“Fine,” I gasp, and then take a deep breath as he slides the lid into place with an audible snap.
Almost immediately, my neck, back and legs are sore and, of course, since I can’t move a muscle, I start itching everywhere. I wonder how long I’ll have to stay in here. Come to think of it, how am I supposed to get out? My arms are trapped. There’s no way I’ll be able to reach the lid from this position.
“Sal?” I whisper. No answer. “Sal?” I risk a little louder, but still no answer. Great, just great.
Squirming only sends sharp pains down my neck and back, and I’m breathing too fast. I need to calm down. There are cracks in the crate that let in oxygen, but the last thing I need is to hyperventilate in here. I take a deep breath and hold it for a minute, willing my pulse to slow. I just need to wait until I’m on the train, then I can worry about how to get out of this thing. Just as my heart rate is beginning to settle, I hear voices that kick it back into high gear again.
“Morning, Sal.” The inspectors have arrived.
“Good morning.”
“How many this week?”
Sal spouts off a long list of supplies and quantities that I pay little attention to. I’m too busy worrying if they got Connor into his crate in time. No one has raised the alarm, so I assume either way, the inspectors haven’t spotted him. That’s the most important thing. So what if he gets left behind? I had planned to do this on my own in the first place. I never wanted to drag Connor into this with me, but then why am I so afraid he’s not coming now? I’m paying no attention to what’s happening outside my tight confines until the crate I’m in begins to jostle.
“Connor has more room to work with in his crate.” I can barely hear Sal’s voice over the mechanical lift he’s using to load me onto the train. “He shouldn’t have any trouble getting out once the train is moving, and then he can get you out. Are you okay?”
“I’m good,” I lie, my shoulders bouncing off of the sides of the crate as it’s pushed across the floor of the train car.
“Sorry,” Sal whispers when I slam into what I can only imagine is a wall or another crate. “Take care of yourself, Kaleigh.” Then I hear footsteps, and he’s gone.
I have no idea how long it takes to load the train, but by the time it starts moving, my arms, legs and neck are so tight and sore that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to unfold my body again. My fingers and feet have fallen asleep, and the tingling is almost painful. Any day now, Connor.
“Girlie? Where are you?”
About time. “Over here.”
I hear a few scrapes as crates are moved out of the way. The lid whines a little as he applies pressure to it, and then it pops open. Lifting my neck proves painful, and then the rest of my body just as much as Connor helps me out of the crate. I’m pretty sure I hear my knees click. Are knees supposed to click? Glancing around, I can see why Connor had trouble finding me. The car is packed with dozens of crates.
“You all right?”
“Fine.” I carefully stretch out my entire body, and listen for any other strange noises it shouldn’t be making.
“So, how long ‘til we get there?” Connor asks, shifting a few more crates around.
“Sal said the train will be back at D in three days, so let’s say it takes a day to load all the supplies . . . it can’t take more than a day to get there.”
“Good thing your friend left these, then.” Connor grunts, yanking off the lid to yet another crate. Inside is a bag filled with several pastries and a couple water bottles. Oh yeah, sure, he can find that crate, no problem.
“So how exactly are we supposed to get off this thing when we get there? They may be a little suspicious when they pop the lids off their crates and find them occupied.” Connor pulls out a couple of muffins, and tosses me one.
Ha, now there’s something he probably should have asked before he got on board. I make my way over to the large metal door, fighting to keep my feet steady beneath me, and just as I figured, there’s no lock.
“You want to open that thing, don’t you?” Connor sighs. “Why?”
“How else are we supposed to jump off?”
“You want to jump? From a moving train? Of course you do.” He doesn’t even sound surprised, and I deflate a little.
“They’ll slow down when they get close to the camp. We can just open that door and jump.”
“That easy, huh? What are they going to think when they pull into the station, and one of their doors are open?”
“That they’re lucky they didn’t lose any cargo probably. Honestly, what’s more likely, that the door jostled its way open during the ride, or that two workers who managed to escape one work camp decided to stowaway on a supply train just to sneak back into another one?”
“True. I can’t believe it and I’m doing it,” Connor muses.
“Don’t like my plan? Then you shouldn’t have come.”
“All right, all right . . . relax.” Connor’s laughing, and I have to fight the urge to punch him. What is he doing here? He really is crazier than I am.
We settle on a couple of crates, and Connor passes me a water bottle. I stretch my arms above my head, and this time my shoulder pops. That’s probably not good either.
“So, tell me about this Peter guy were doing all of this for.”
“I told you, he’s my friend.”
“Right, and you think his being in the work camp is your fault?”
“I know it is.”
“How exactly does that happen?”
I try to figure out a way to explain it without sounding like a moron, but
there really isn’t one. “Peter’s smarter than I am. He’s been telling me to be careful about what I say for years, warning me that my big mouth was only going to bring me trouble. Obviously I didn’t listen. Then, when the train came to take me away, he tried to tell me something was wrong. He tried to stop me from going, but again, I didn’t listen to him. Whatever he did after that to get himself in trouble, he did because of me. I made him suspicious, and then gave him a reason to start asking questions and demanding answers. He’s my only friend, and I set him up for trouble, Connor.”
“Why him?”
“What?”
“Why is he your only friend?”
“I guess most people find me abrasive. Peter put up with me.” I shrug, not really understanding why myself.
“I put up with you,” Connor smirks, “does that make me your friend?”
“Of course we’re friends.” I’m slightly put out that he had to ask.
“Then Peter isn’t your only friend anymore . . . but I guess we’d still better go and get him out of there,” he adds reluctantly.
“Since we’re friends and all, I should probably know more about you.”
Connor rolls his head on his shoulder to look down at me with darkening eyes.
“What? I told you stuff about me. Your turn. How did you end up in this mess?” Now I’m genuinely intrigued.
“You mean besides having a crazy person for a friend?”
“Yes, besides that.”
I feel him take a deep breath beside me. His brow furrows, and his lips turn down. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.
“My mom was assigned a position in security. She was a small woman, and not particularly strong. It was an unfair assignment. My dad used to worry about her all the time. One night, there was a fight in a bar. She was dispatched along with a few other security personnel. I don’t really know what happened, exactly. They were drunk. Somehow, she ended up in the middle of the fight. She was no match for those guys. She never made it home.” I can’t suppress the gasp that escapes my lips, but Connor doesn’t seem to notice. “My dad was a mess after that. He really loved her, ya know? I mean they were paired with each other, but they really loved each other, too. I guess he couldn’t live without her because a week later, he killed himself. I kinda went off the rails after that, started makin’ trouble, and shoutin’ at the top of my lungs about everything that’s wrong with our world. Guess they didn’t really appreciate that. Two months later, my mate file showed up on my birthday, and the next day, I was on a train to the camps.”
“Connor, . . .” What do you say to something like that?
He only shrugs and turns away from me, but I can still see his throat convulsing as he swallows repetitively.
“Well, we’re out now.” When he looks at me again, there’s a forced smile plastered on his face.
“Yeah . . . and headed back in.”
His smile grows until it finally reaches his eyes, and he releases a genuine laugh.
***
The next twenty-four hours pass slowly and too quickly all at once. Before I’m ready, I feel the train beginning to slow, and that can only mean one thing . . . it’s time to go. Connor pries the door open, and it takes both of us to push it all the way up. Trees are still flying past us at an alarming rate as we stand in the doorway. If we jump at the wrong time, we could slam right into one and splat like a bug. Maybe I haven’t thought this completely through.
“There.” Connor has to shout to be heard above the wind roaring in my ears.
He’s pointing ahead of us, further along the track. It’s hard to make out through the tears that the wind is causing to pool in my eyes, but it looks like the forest opens into a field not far ahead. We can jump there without worrying about hitting a tree. It’s just the ground that’s going to hurt. Within seconds, the forest breaks. It is now or never.
I jump first, and the ground slams into me—or I slam into the ground—with so much force that it knocks the air right out of me. Connor collides with the grassy dirt not far from me while I’m still struggling to get my lungs to pull in oxygen.
“You all right?”
“I’m fine. How about you?”
“Fine, but we have to move. We’re a little obvious standing here in an open field.” I head for the tree line a few yards away, and Connor hobbles along beside me. “Your leg.”
“Just a twisted ankle. Don’t worry about me.”
We slip into the cool shade of the forest with my shirt already sticking to my back. I hadn’t noticed it inside the train car, but it’s much warmer here than it was back home. Connor lowers himself carefully to the ground and starts poking at his sore ankle.
“You want me to wrap that?” I ask, dropping down beside him. “I could use my undershirt to sorta . . .”
I shrug, not really knowing what I’m talking about, and Connor laughs. “Nah, thanks, Girlie, but it’s not that bad. I’ll just rest it for a bit, and it’ll be fine.”
It doesn’t look swollen, and he honestly doesn’t appear to be in much pain, so I decide to let it go. Not that my medical expertise is so impressive that I’d have the slightest idea what to do about it anyway. Besides, my time is probably better spent getting a look at the camp. It’s close enough that I can make out the perimeter fence and . . . guard towers, oh goodie. Inside, it’s enormous. There are fields and fields of grain growing up all over the place, and people absolutely everywhere, planting it, tending it, cutting it. This may be harder than I thought.
Chapter 14
The sounds of the camp fade as darkness approaches. From our position, hunkered down just across the tracks, we watch as the fields empty. The workers and guards are gone for the night. That just leaves the towers. Oh, and the twenty foot fence with barbed wire on top, but one problem at a time.
The towers are spaced evenly along the perimeter of the camp, every hundred feet or so. And, from what I can tell, it looks like each one is manned by a single guard, all of them with their backs to us. Guess it makes sense that they would be monitoring the inside of the fence. Who in their right mind would be breaking into the camp?
Connor motions for me to follow him, so I straighten out of my crouch and hurry along behind him, across the tracks and into the shadow of the fence. We pace along the perimeter silently for several minutes, and I honestly haven’t the slightest idea what he’s thinking. There’s not a chance in hell we’re going to be able to climb it without being seen, or heard . . . or flayed, but he’s not looking up anyway. His eyes are trained on the ground.
He comes to such an abrupt stop that I almost walk right into him, and points toward the bottom of the fence. I search the area he’s indicating, but I have no idea what it is I’m supposed to be seeing. With a frustrated sigh, he tugs me closer, so we’re both squatting right beside where the chain links disappear into the ground. Not all of them, though. A few have come loose. It’s not much to work with, maybe a half dozen links at best, but it’s a starting point.
Using our hands, we dig loose another dozen links. Then Connor uses all of the brute strength he possesses to lift it away from the ground. He gives it one good yank, and the entire section of fence jangles. We both freeze. I don’t think either one of us breaths for a full minute, but nothing happens. No guards, no alarms, no bullets flying in our general direction. Connor slowly exhales, and then lifts the fence again, with slightly less force this time. He manages to bend it up about a foot off the ground. I have to lie on my stomach and squirm, snake style, underneath, but I do it without much trouble. I’m in. I take a second to acknowledge the pure stupidity of this moment before turning back to Connor.
It is significantly more difficult for me to lift the fence. Even using every last ounce of upper body strength that I possess, I can still barely get it as high as Connor did, and he’s a bit larger than me. Even lying flat in the dirt, I’m having a hard time believing he’s going to fit through such a small space. To my surprise, he actually manages to wiggle abo
ut half his torso through the gap before his shirt catches on a link. I try to free him, but with only one hand on the fence, it’s too heavy for me and threatens to fall on him, only making things worse. I can hear Connor swearing quietly as he squirms around on the ground trying to break free. After an eternity, which was probably more like a minute in reality, his shirt tears, and he’s able to slip the rest of the way in.
Connor replaces the fence and pats some dirt around the bottom, while I do my best to memorize our location in the dark. This may be our best chance of getting back out again once we find Peter.
I park myself in the shadows along the base of the fence, and Connor follows my lead, sitting right beside me and leaning in to whisper in my ear. “We’re in. Now what?”
“We’ll wait here until morning. Once the fields fill up with workers, hopefully we’ll be able to move around without anyone noticing us. Then, we can split up and start looking for Peter. We’ll cover more ground that way. He’s a little shorter than you with brown hair and blue eyes.”
“Like that won’t describe half the guys in here.”
“Just ask around then. Peter Cahill from colony D.”
“I’m not sure splitting up is such a good idea, Girlie.” His lips are so close to my ear that I can feel his breath on my neck with every word he says.
“We came here to find Peter. Are you going to help me do that or not?”
“Okay, fine. Just don’t go getting yourself into trouble when I’m not around.”
“When do I . . .” I drop the argument, appreciating its futility.
The next three hours pass cold and silent except for my heart, which refuses to stop pounding in my ears. I wait for the sun to rise knowing our last chance to turn around is slipping away. Connor wraps his arm around my shoulders, and I’m once again grateful for his warmth.
Second—and third—thoughts about the sanity of my actions chase one another through my mind, until finally sounds arise from across the camp. People are starting to pour from the small structures lining the far side of the fields just as morning breaks through the comforting darkness, its bright rays make me feel utterly exposed.