Numbness coursed through me. I kept my eyes on Rose’s back as she stepped forward with the crowd, her name not among those pardoned from their fate. The crowd moved in utter silence. Not one looked back. Line after line stepped forward, disappearing into the darkness, never to be seen again.
Chapter 2
If Tristian and his father had not been there, I don’t know if we would have made it home. Gathering my sisters and me to them, they led us through the subdued crowd. When we reached our home, it was Tina who stepped forward and let us in, and without stopping, Tristian led me like a child to my room, helping me into my bed. Through the haze of my grief, I do not know how long he stayed with me before the sweet lull of oblivion claimed me. It was dark when I opened my eyes, but it was always dark. The temptation to remain where I was until death took me was great; only the knowledge that my sisters would be left alone forced me from my bed.
With heavy limbs, I made my way to the kitchen. The smell of meat cooking, which was so rare, barely roused my appetite. I must have been in bed for more than a day if there was meat. The Contributors received meat once a year, two days after the lottery. Heavily armed trucks pulled into each square, allowing all families a portion. Their reward for the families’ sacrifices. Sitting down at the table as the twins cooked, I was glad they did no more than smile their hello to me. I don’t think I could have spoken at the moment, Rose’s death still to raw within me. Quietly, they moved around the kitchen, bringing me water for my parched throat as they set the table for our feast. This was yet another way that the government controlled us. While people cried out for their family members that had been sacrificed, their bellies silenced them at the thought of not knowing hunger for a few moments. It was beyond cruel. While the ones to be sacrificed in the lottery dreaded the moment, their families secretly welcomed it because they knew that it brought meat. The guilt that those left behind had from delight forced them to not think of those that they lost, unable to bear the guilt.
These thoughts swirled in my head as Josie set my plate in front of me, causing what should be a delicious smell to turn rancid. Forcing myself to reach for the fork, I methodically brought the food to my lips. Again and again I repeated this, until nothing was left, all the while holding on to the hope that Rose had left me––the map. I would need my strength to save us. These thoughts were the only thing that let me keep what I had just eaten in my stomach. Rising from the table, I placed my dish into the sink before going to Tina and Josie. Embracing them both, I murmured, “Thank you, I’m going to lay down for a bit.”
Softly closing the door to my room behind me, I slid the lock in place before prying up the loose board in the floor that hid my secrets. I took out the gifts that Rose had left while putting back the pieces of my family that I had kept to remember them. Memories of the past were too close to the surface to even look at the keepsakes, so I quickly turned my back to them while taking the map and vid display to my bed. Spreading the fragile paper map carefully across the bed, I let the enormity of what I was seeing sink in. The system of caverns were huge. Rose had said that our people were in them. How could this be? They never would have let so many of us live, we could easily overpower them and take control. I could understand her warning about them killing in order to keep it a secret. If this was common knowledge, if they were being forced to live as we live, serving them, it would cause a rebellion. Unfortunately that wasn’t the only thing that didn’t make sense. There was barely enough food, electricity, and supplies for us to survive on. How could there be enough to support all of this? Carefully searching the map, it took me a moment to find our cave, deep in the system, far back from the entrances originally used to enter the system those untold years ago. Most Contributors do not know how many generations have passed with us living below. The government does not teach this in the schools, keeping it a carefully guarded secret. I believe the Elders know, but when I asked Crowley he changed the subject.
Pushing these thoughts aside, I searched the map, trying to find other ways out. It showed smaller caves leading toward the surface that were marked unstable, caved in, or abandoned. None of these could be accessed through our cavern. To find a way out, I would need to get us into the other caverns. Caverns where people like us were forbidden to enter on penalty of death. Not just our own deaths, but the deaths of our whole family line. The only time Contributors left this cavern was when we went to the Cavern of Death. Other than during that time, we were born here, lived here, and worked here, never to see anything else beyond this cavern unless you were a Secretary and then you were watched at all times until you were returned. A knock at my door startled me from my thoughts. Grabbing the bed cover, I threw it over the map and vid display before going to the door. Taking a deep breath while I turned the lock, I cracked the door open and was startled to see Tristian.
“I came to check on you,” he said, a small smile playing on his lips that didn’t reach his eyes.
Staring at him, I made a decision that I hoped was right. Opening my door, I stepped back and waited for him to enter. After a small hesitation, he stepped over the threshold, moving into the room. Closing the door, I could see my sisters peeking around the corner. Shaking my head, I asked, “They went and got you, didn’t they?”
Not bothering to pretend that he didn’t know what I was talking about, he said, “They’re worried,” the look on his face telling me he was, too.
I nodded my head that I understood, because I did. If they were acting like this, I would be dragging them from the house, forcing them to get on with their lives. Moving past him, I folded my arms around myself as I tried to find the words to begin with. Turning to face him, I looked––I mean really looked––at him. Now that Rose was gone, he was my best friend. We had played together since we were children. I had loved knowledge and soaked it up like a sponge and his father was the keeper of knowledge, happy to give me what I sought. His friendship with my father made it impossible to deny me. After my parents’ deaths, he watched out for my family, making sure that we never went hungry, that we never begged for death to escape the cold. Yes, Tristian would keep my secret, and more importantly, his father Crowley would do anything he could to help us, to ensure that he did not lose his son to the Cavern of Death. Between what Rose left behind and the knowledge of the Elders, I would have a real chance to save my family.
“I need your word, Tristian, on the life of your father, that what I’m about to show you, tell you, you will never tell another,” I said, the seriousness of my words echoed in my tone. From the look on his face I could see I had insulted him, but that could not stop me––this was for the safety of my sisters.
His dark eyes flashed with his anger before he nodded his head. “You have my word, on the life of my father,” he pushed out in a clipped tone.
Taking a deep breath, I nodded my head back and made my way to the bed, quickly pulling back the cover before I could change my mind. Turning my head to look at him, I watched as confusion turned to amazement. Not sparing me a glance, he walked up to the bed and carefully turned the map to face him. I could tell the exact moment he realized what he was looking at––his eyes grew round and his breath gasped before he shut all emotion behind a mask that even I couldn’t penetrate.
“How did you get this?” he demanded, ripping his gaze from the map to bore into mine. If I had not seen that moment of fear flash in them before he masked it, I might have been afraid.
Climbing onto the bed, I motioned for him to join me. “Rose gave this to me. She stole it from a forgotten room in the government center.” Reaching forward and taking his hand, keeping my eyes to his, I said, “She stole this so we can escape. I refuse to give my sisters to the Cavern of Death.” I announced this, waiting for his reaction.
He sharply nodded his head and tightened his hand in mine, releasing it before saying the words I hoped to hear: “So, how do we get out of here?”
I was so relieved when he said those words I had to close my
eyes to hold back the tears. I wasn’t alone, he was going to go with me. When I opened my eyes, my feelings must have been there to read. With a crooked smile that had charmed more than half the girls in the caverns, he asked, “You didn’t really think I’d let you go alone, did you?”
Gasping out a breath, I threw myself forward, wrapping my arms around him, my relief so great that my body trembled from it. Gaining some control, I pulled back and looked at him with a smile I couldn’t contain. What I saw in his face wasn’t an answering smile but a brooding look that he gazed at me with when he wasn’t aware that I could see him. Ignoring it as I always did, I pulled out of his arms and sat back on my side of the bed. Reaching for the map between us, I turned it to face him, wanting to draw his thoughts back to our escape. “Tristian, look at the map and tell me what you see,” I demanded, tapping my finger to the paper in front of us. After what seemed like forever, I felt his eyes leave me to gaze down at the map. Careful to hide my relief, I waited for him to see what Rose and I had saw. Taking a quick glance up to his face, I saw the wrinkle appear between his eyes as it did whenever he was in deep thought. Looking back to the map I waited.
I watched as his hand reached out and grazed out over the map. “That’s not possible,” he whispered, even as the truth of what he saw crowded his mind. “How could they have hidden this?” he asked, not expecting an answer, just speaking his thoughts out loud. After a few more minutes, he got up from the bed angrily, pacing the small confines of my room before turning on his heels to come and stand before me. Reaching out, he gripped my shoulders with bruising hands, pulling me from the bed to stand before him. “Do you understand what you have found?” he hissed, shaking me in his anger. Pushing me back onto the bed he turned his back to me, walking to the door. Jumping up, I lunged for him, wrapping my hand around his arm, forcing him to turn and face me. I needed him. I couldn’t let him leave.
What showed in my face was something I couldn’t control. It was something that I couldn’t hide, fear. “Please don’t leave, let’s talk about this. I understand your anger, I feel it, too, but there is more that you need to know,” I said desperately, hoping to stop him. It took a few moments of pleading before I could see a change in his face that told me he wasn’t going to leave. “Rose told me more, not much, but I think you should know.” Keeping him in my sight, I went back to the bed, waiting until he joined me. Locking my eyes with his, I said, “These caverns, they aren’t empty,” waiting to judge his reaction.
When he still hadn’t said anything, I started to get worried, until he rolled his eyes. “So what, are the filled with Loyalists, military?” he asked, annoyed.
Shaking my head, I whispered, “No, they’re filled with Contributors,” afraid that in the silence of the room my voice would carry.
Ripping his eyes from mine, he glued his gaze to the map. I knew that he was doing the math. If each cavern held even a portion of our own population, then for the first time in centuries we outnumbered the takers. “Rose couldn’t tell me much, but she said that some of the answers were on the vid disc that she smuggled out,” I said, pointing to the small vid display on the bed. “I haven’t looked at it yet,” I told him, before he could ask.
Moving the map to the side, he sat on my bed and reached for the vid display. After a moment it came on. I took a seat next to him, turning my attention to the screen, wishing I had never looked.
A dark-haired man dressed in a white coat came on the screen. “This is Professor Clark Head of the relocation and mapping division of Trek Corp. As the Board is aware, the war is not going as we anticipated and at the request of the government we have been looking at alternative locations for population survival. In this search we have discovered a large cavern system project name Mammoth. As you can see by this digital display of the system, it is so large we have yet to map it completely; the density of the rocks will not allowing for sonic scans so we have had to manually view each location. So far we have discovered four hundred and sixty-two caves large enough to house one hundred thousand survivors each, not including smaller caves that can take anywhere from five thousand to twenty thousand each. There are four ways to enter this system large enough for mass entrance. The distance under the ground will allow protection from the atomic weapons fallout that is predicted to occur should we not be able to subdue the insurrection led by the rebel Contributors. It is our belief that this is the best chance we have of saving a portion of the population from extinction. Preparations have already began for animals, plants, and supplies to be moved into these caverns here and here, to test long-range growth suitability. Theses caverns being so large, we have turned them into multi-floor units that will allow for continued growth of our supplies. A full report is being sent along with recommendations on when to start the evacuation of the surface prior to the government’s last stand contingent known as Revelation.”
The screen went blue before it started again, the date appearing at the bottom was two years later. A man with a large scar down his cheek and a marbled eye in a military uniform appeared. “The Rebel Terrorists have taken control of most of the states. They currently have the capitol surrounded, unaware that the president and government officials have already been moved to the Mammoth Project. It is our belief that we cannot hold them back from success and Revelation should be deployed. Loyalists and their families have already been moved to the safety of the caves. It is my recommendation that Revelation is launched in these Sections first,” he said, pointing to a map behind him. “The other Sections here and here hold the Rebels’ woman and children in large numbers and should be saved until we can extract enough for the required workforce and breeding programs. The distance from the blasts should assure that the stock is not contaminated by radiation or damaged in any other significant way before they can be moved underground. Also the strongest of the men are currently surrounding the capitol––these are the stock we will wish to take. As discussed, once they are informed of the coming death of the surface of this planet, they will negotiate to save their women and children and will agree to the government demands. If my instructions have changed, contact me immediately or we shall proceed with operation Revelation.”
Again the screen went blue before coming back on. When it started this time, twenty years had passed. A dark-haired woman in a lab coat now stood in front of us. “The disease that has swept the livestock was not controlled in time and has spread to the other livestock areas and all animals are now infected, they are either dying or dead. The meat is unusable; the test subjects that we had ingest it were dead within forty-eight hours. The disease seems to only affect humans through digestion and is not a worry for widespread epidemic. Cloning of the animal DNA has not been successful. They do not reach majority before the virus, which we can only assume is airborne, infects them. We have tried without success to inoculate against the virus. We can only assume that the caves’ core temperature and environment are a perfect host for this disease. This avenue as a food source has been lost to us. Stocks of inventory have been checked and it has been determined that there is a one-year supply of protein remaining before it is exhausted. Alternatives must be reviewed, please advise.”
Two years later, the same doctor appeared on the screen. “We have been informed by our liaison that the rioting in the rebel caves have reached dangerous proportions. The lack of food from overpopulation and limited supplies is causing a mass rebellion that we are afraid will cause them to discover the other rebel caves and unite them against us. We believe we have found a solution. Though we keep the Rebels for their ability to do the work and to maintain the maintenance of our infrastructure and daily life, we have found that it is the Elders of their group that are causing the outbreaks of rebellion. The Elders also do not have the strength or stamina to work the fourteen-hour days without damages occurring within their bodies. While we can mend the damages, we believe that this is a waste of our resources and after a certain age they are no longer even good for work and become
a nonproducing drain on our resources. After careful discussion we believe that we have come up with a solution to ensure a manageable population, a young, strong workforce and a limitless food supply. Detailed in my report are our recommendations, we await your reply.”
Two months later, the same doctor appeared. “We are glad to hear that the rebellion has been put down and that our recommendations were followed and placed in the new treaty. In preparation of your agreement with our plan, a new prototype processing plant is already under construction and will be operational before the first harvest. Details on what will be needed at each cavern so that they have their own processing plant are being drawn up. We believe that the first harvest will yield enough meat to give us a five-year surplus. All information on minimum rebel population maintenance is being sent to you including Loyalist growth figures for the next ten years. We shall continue to monitor the food supply and give recommendations for any vaccines or nutrients we believe are needed.”
I stared at the blue screen with vacant eyes as the words of that long-dead monster faded in the silent room. I don’t know how long we sat there before the knock on the door startled me from my thoughts. Moving like in a dream, I took the vid display from Tristian’s limp fingers and placed it on the bed with the map, pulling the covers over it. Standing up, I walked to the door and opened it to a worried Josie. Blinking at me like an owl, she opened her mouth a few times before the words finally escaped. “I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s been hours and I just wanted to make sure you were alright,” she said, worry clear in her tone. Unable to answer her, I just stared until she nervously started to fidget. “I can see that you guys are busy, I just wanted to let you know that there’s meat still on the stove if ...”
In The Shadows of the Cavern of Death (Shadows of Death Book 1) Page 2