The Wounded (The Woodlands Series)

by Taylor, Lauren Nicolle

  “Shhh! Someone will hear you,” he said mockingly.

  I grabbed both his hands and threw them off. “Right. No more. I’m going for a walk.” He started to stand. “Oh no. You stay right here. And clean up that mess,” I said with a wink.

  He smiled at me. At least for now. His mind was on lighter things. “Don’t be long,” he called out to me.

  I stuck my head back through the entrance and said, “I’ll be as long as I want.” He chuckled as he turned back towards the broken ceramics, kittens with their faces slashed in half.

  *****

  I stayed on the upper level, walking past several lit entries. The occupants tipped their heads but didn’t offer any other greeting. The line of dwellings ended, and several tunnels presented themselves. I picked one. Two steps in, I walked passed a monkey sitting like an old man, leaning against the slime-covered pillars that rose to the ceiling of the tunnel in dark, tarry arches. It shrieked at me. My foot shot out to the side, and I kicked it before I could stop myself. The kick made a hollow sound against its ribcage that echoed down the piled stone arch. The monkey gave me this chilling, knowing look and smiled at me, its white fangs just begging to sink into my calf. It leaned back on its haunches, readying to attack, when it heard, “Teck, teck, teck.” It looked up, and I swear it grumbled before it scampered away.

  I sighed in relief.

  “That is no way to treat your hosts,” a carefully accented voice uttered behind me. I jumped.

  “Well, shrieking at me and crapping near where I sleep is not the nicest way to treat a guest either,” I replied as I turned to face Salim.

  He nodded but didn’t respond. We’d been here for months now, and this was the first time I’d crossed paths with him. I’d seen him talking to Gus, walking gracefully past the others like a surveyor, a conqueror. It was so dark in this corner that all I could really see was his white coat and his teeth when he opened his mouth. Right now, he was smiling at me.

  “May I see something?” he asked as he came towards me, coasting over the stones like he was barely touching them.

  I squinted as his form moved closer. He was so All Kind apart from that voice. That voice was like fabric tearing and glasses clinking together. It was altogether foreign and totally fascinating. “I guess,” I said as he snatched up my wrist, running a rough thumb over my pulse line. I wanted to pull back, but something told me not to.

  A shaft of light ran over my skin from his torch. “Hmm, interesting.” I tugged back, but he gripped me tightly. “You’re a Coder.”

  “A what?” I snapped as I withdrew my hand sharply.

  “Come with me,” he said excitedly, ignoring my question.

  I shrugged and followed his disappearing form down another tunnel as five monkeys fell into line behind him, padding noiselessly like trained soldiers.

  *****

  I put my hand to the wall, and it came back green and slimy. I shuddered. I really shouldn’t have been following this strange man down a dark tunnel, but something told me he wasn’t a threat.

  “Excuse me, but what did you mean by Coder?” I shouted at him.

  He was shuffling through the shady cavern, shoulders hunched and focused. My voice seemed to frighten him, and he turned to me, startled.

  “Hush. We’re nearly there. Come, come,” he beckoned.

  We came to a door, which he opened quickly and without ceremony, ushering me to go in first.

  I stepped in and he followed, snapping the door closed, lighting candles and turning on solar lanterns as he went. Each section of wall in this small, grey room was plastered with pictures, scraps of paper, and barcodes. My eyes rolled over each crazed depiction, and I took a step backwards. One of the monkeys hissed at me, and I glared back.

  “What is this?” I asked, although I could tell. This was an obsession.

  “This is my life’s work,” Salim said absently, patting one of the monkey’s heads a little too hard. I forced myself not to shake my head in pity. This room was the inside of an insane man’s mind. “I’ve been studying the codes. I’m close, so close now.”

  I sat down on a metal table and took a deep breath. “Close to what?”

  He looked confused for a second, and then he swept his arm around the whole room. I followed his movements, noticing the label of a creamed corn can stuck on the wall next to a bunch of numbers. “The answer,” Salim said exultantly.

  I put my hands on either side of the table and gripped the undersides. This man was crazy. Being stuck underground for this long had driven him nuts.

  But he was harmless, and I spent the afternoon listening to his theories about the Coders, the links and meanings between the numbers on the different codes. He viewed the Superiors as Gods and believed that when he cracked the ‘code,’ he and his people would be let back into the Woodlands.

  “Wait. What do you mean, let back in?” My heart was beating fast. A new truth opened up another paper-cutting file in my head. “Salim, what’s your full name?” I asked, my voice trembling.

  “Salim Sekimbo,” he said proudly, with his arm across his chest in salute. His coat slipped down a little and the faded lines of a barcode blared at me like a warning.

  “You’re a Superior,” I said as a statement and a question, because I really wanted to be wrong.

  He nodded. “Abel is my brother,” he muttered with a sour expression on his face and turned back to a stack of papers, shuffling through them, looking for something.

  I stayed a while longer listening to his crazed ranting. My mind wasn’t really taking it in, because it was stuck on the why and how. He was Superior Sekimbo’s brother. How could this be?

  I walked back to the main area, keeping my hands close to my sides. My shirt was already slick with green stains. I shook my head and thought of my mother, her disapproval. It was a tough recollection. I hoped she would be nicer to my sister.

  The monkeys ran ahead of me and separated as I entered the vast central space. My eyes scanned the area. Joseph was sitting by a fire with Orry, talking with some of the locals who were squatting low but not sitting, stirring some steaming concoction in a pot on the coals.

  Gus stood shirtless, by the canal, dunking his clothes in and out of the water. I stomped down towards him, peoples’ sooty eyes on me.

  *****

  I screeched to a halt meters from the bank and took a deep breath. Joseph had seen me. He was unhurriedly picking his way towards me but he was slow, stopping to talk to people, saying excuse me, doing things I seldom bothered to do.

  His back was to me. I frowned at the muscled torso I was confronted with. “Gus!” I said sharply. He turned, beads of water clinging to his beard, water trickling down his chest, which was sprinkled with grey hairs. I felt suddenly embarrassed. I averted my eyes while he grabbed a towel. He seemed unperturbed. But he would always rustle me, clothed or not. He had Cal’s face, scrunched a little with age, but those eyes would always make me want to run.

  “What is it?” he grunted.

  My voice was shaky. “Did you know that Salim is a Superior?”

  The corners of Gus’s dark lips lifted under his wire-brush moustache. “Oh,” he said as he dried his hair, “that.”

  “Yes, that,” I said angrily.

  “Yes, we know. He’s an almighty Superior banished for being… oh, how did he put it?” Gus scratched his beard. “Oh yes, banished for being original. Which is a nice way of saying crazy.” He laughed.

  I was flabbergasted. “Are the rest of these people from the Woodlands?” I asked

  “No, no. They’re Survivors like us. He was on his own out here until he found them. I wouldn’t worry, Rosa. He’s not a bad man.” I knew that. I felt it.

  Gus returned to slapping his shirt on a rock over the water.

  Joseph’s hand cupped my shoulder. “What was that all about?”

  I shrugged, still trying to process what Gus had just said. “Salim was a Superior,” I said.

  Joseph raised his
eyebrows. I filled him in on the way back to our living quarters. When we reached them, I slid back the dirty blanket curtain made and closed it after we entered. Joseph put Orry down and moved towards me. We kissed hurriedly. There was no privacy; you could hear everything down here. I pulled back.

  He was smiling.

  “Why are you smiling?” I barked.

  “Why do you think?” he said, sitting down with a thump on the old mattress so hard that I thought a spring might snag him. He laid his arms casually over his knees and looked up at me, grinning. “If Salim’s a Superior, he can help us. He can help us get Deshi back.”

  I sat down next to him and dared to think about it. This former Superior might be crazy, but Joseph was right. He might have information that could help us rescue our friend.

  Joseph and I spent as much time as possible with Salim, quizzing him about the Superiors’ compound. In return, we let him take notes on our barcodes and the others. Careen and Alexei had obliged. Apella couldn’t come, but Salim came to her. Pelo was just as animated as Salim. He asked him questions about the connections between the codes until it became apparent there were none, and that Salim was two threads away from snapping what was left inside that brain of his. But we humored him to get the information we needed.

  Rash seemed uncharacteristically unsettled by Salim. He’d only allowed him to take a quick photo of his barcode before he yanked his hand back and excused himself.

  The door closed, and we moved down the tunnel towards the large living area. “I don’t want to go in there ever again,” Rash said, pulling his shirt down over his wrist, rubbing it like Salim’s touch had scorched his skin. “That guy is super creepy and most definitely nuts.”

  I nodded. I didn’t disagree.

  Joseph sighed heavily and slapped Rash on the back, hard. Rash stumbled forward and caught himself on the wall. “Get over it, man. It wasn’t that bad.” I smiled at the gesture. It sent Rash flying, but it meant something. It meant Joseph was accepting him.

  Rash shuddered and hunched his shoulders. “Whatever. I’ve done my bit now, right?”

  I slung my arm over his shoulder. “Yes, thank you.”

  Rash muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets, “I thought I was done with crazy.” His mother…

  *****

  During one of our many conversations with Salim, he began talking about his brother. “Yes, we had a, err, disagreement. My brother was always a hot head. Impulsive…” Salim said, narrowing his eyes. “I was banished. But at least I have my friends.” He smiled affectionately at one of the hyped-up furballs.

  As if it knew he was talking about it, the monkey wrapped its arms around Salim’s neck and licked his ear. I fought for control over my repulsion.

  I leaned in and caught Salim’s distracted, rolling eyes. “So tell me about the compound…”

  He straightened excitedly and started to paint the picture that would turn into our map. Joseph scribbled things down, and I let myself be carried away on his words. I let them waft in front of me like a tantalizing smell, following them through the tunnels and up onto the icy earth. I padded after him through the forest, soaring through a wind tunnel to the Superiors’ dwellings.

  High walls hung in front of me but, within them low, stone walls with black iron bars set inside them dominated this one part of the compound. I could see Salim, cane in hand, striking the bars and stirring up the animals housed within them. Monkeys gripped the dark iron and shook themselves crazily while they screeched.

  He tipped the food into little hatches, handing out sliced apples and bananas to his favorites. I imagined it smelled worse than it did down here. I could see myself behind those bars, begging for food and screaming at my captors.

  “The zoo is directly in the center of the compound,” Salim said, sweeping his arms in an arc. “It is a perfect circle, and each Superior’s dwelling starts from one side of the circle and radiates out, getting wider and wider like the wedge of a pie. Though I wonder what state the zoo is in now. I was the only one who cared for the animals, researched them…” His eyes darkened, his speech becoming volatile and spitting. “It was mine. And they took it from me, from us…” He patted the back of one of his monkeys, its hollow ribs thudding like a skin drum. Apparently, when they kicked him out, they had let him take the monkeys he’d trained with him.

  *****

  Soon we had a map of the Superiors’ compound sketched out over several pieces of paper taped together. Or at least, what it might have looked like ten years ago. It did look like a pie, with a hole in its center. I snorted at the sight. The Superiors sure liked symmetry. What Salim couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell us was what lay within the four wedges. When asked, he’d just shrugged and said, “It changes.” But it was enough to go on.

  We took it to Gus with an argument as to why we should go there and rescue Deshi. Orry was on my hip, smiling and reaching for Gus’s beard.

  Gus held out his hand and let Orry grab his fingers.

  Then Gus did the most unnatural thing I’d seen in a while—he smiled.

  “So, what do you think?” Joseph asked, standing well over Gus, the map rolled up in one hand. He was intense and jittery, hopeful.

  Gus continued to gaze at Orry, his dry lips turned up, his eyes bright when they looked at my son.

  Then he said the most natural thing for Gus. “No.”

  How did I miss it? I wasn’t busy. But it was dark. I didn’t see. I will die before I let this happen. I will die if this does happen.

  I couldn’t believe it. Somehow we’d survived nearly six months in this dank dungeon of a place, and now Orry was about to turn one. One whole year I’d been a mother.

  It was always dark, but the midnight sucked any patch of light out into the sky. At least during the day, tunnels hinted and hummed with a faint glow of what was outside. Although, the light was starker now as winter was on top of us. Streaks of black ran down the walls, mixed with slimy green, like an oil painting I wouldn’t understand. It was so cold that I felt as if I had been dunked in the shiny, dark water in the center of the underground town.

  Hands rattled me gently. I shoved them away.

  “Addy, no. Too early.” Or late.

  “Ahem.” A man’s cough forced my eyes open, but my brain was taking a while to catch up. I closed them again, wishing for those crackled hands, that gravelly voice. Don’t laugh at me, Addy. I heard her laughter and felt the bruise from missing her wrapping around my ribs like a band.

  Joseph sat up behind me, pulling the blankets with him. Instinctively, I covered my chest with my arms. I was awake now.

  Pelo looked down at me with kind eyes. I wanted to mask them. “What are you doing here?” I scowled.

  Joseph chuckled. “You’re such a delight in the morning.”

  “Midnight doesn’t qualify as morning,” I grumbled, sounding like I had a mouthful of bread.

  Pelo was hopping from one foot to another excitedly. “Where’s my boy?” he asked. “It’s time.”

  I groaned and forced myself inch by inch to the edge of the mattress, griping and cursing as I got dressed and put my shoes on.

  Pelo stood on the other side of the curtain, humming. “You really shouldn’t curse like that in front of the child, Rosa.”

  “He can’t understand me,” I snapped.

  I brought the handheld to my face, squinting. Pelo was right. It was time.

  *****

  I’d expected this, but it didn’t make me any less grumpy. The Survivors didn’t have many traditions, but the celebration of birthdays was one of them. Two months ago, they did this for Hessa. Now it was Orry’s turn.

  Joseph held Orry in his clasped hands, so the child was sitting up like he was on a throne. He yawned long and loud, grunting a little and rubbing his eyes. I reached up and stroked his hair, which matched his fathers, a shock of golden curls wrapped around his forehead like a crown. “I know how you feel,” I complained, rolling my eyes. I kicked a stone from the le
dge, watching as it bounced jauntily down the giant tiers of this grimy amphitheater.

  Pelo walked jerkily in front of me. “Fascinating culture. I heard that our people used to celebrate the date of one’s birth and such before the war. Isn’t it thrilling to be part of such a tradition now?”

  Joseph grinned at me and directed his comments to Pelo. “The most you’re gonna get out of Rosa at this time in the morning is vague irritation. I think a lot less than thrilled might be about right.”

  I bumped Joseph’s shoulder lightly and poked my tongue out at him. I was kind of thrilled, well as thrilled as I was going to be at midnight. But Orry wasn’t born until late afternoon, so technically it wasn’t his birthday yet. I had plans for later in the day. But this was the Survivors’ thing, and I was pleased to be part of it.

  With Hessa, it had been the same. Nearly three thousand people crammed around the canal, plus the five or six hundred from the Monkey City. We wandered down to the edge, people parting for us, shuffling back with their heads bowed but big smiles on their faces. Matthew stood at the edge with Careen, Rash, Pietre, and Odval. Even Pietre’s face looked calm. I wouldn’t say he was smiling but he seemed peaceful, standing gingerly on his new, carved leg. He had his hands behind his back and stepped forward, producing a crudely carved ship. He held it in front of Orry, whose eyes danced as he grabbed at it. I nodded in thanks.

  “I can’t believe he’s one year old,” a tinkle of a voice said from behind Careen.

  My heart jumped. Apella had made it. Careen moved aside, and I stumbled over to her. “You came?” I asked, a bit dazed by all the staring eyes.

  She coughed lightly into her fist and nodded.

  Matthew clapped to get everyone’s attention. I joined Joseph, leaning my head towards Orry and letting him knock me on the head with the ship.

  “We are here to mark the first birthday of Orlando, er…” Matthew leaned towards us and whispered, “Does Orry have a surname?”