Half Lives

by Sara Grant

  ‘Tate,’ Chaske said. Tate’s eyes fluttered open.

  ‘Hi,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t be mad.’

  ‘We’re not mad, Tate,’ I promised. But I was. Tate’s discovery had robbed me of my safety and sanity.

  Chaske brushed the dark glass off Tate and picked him up. Shards of glass clattered to the ground. Chaske carried Tate and laid him right outside the door to the secret room.

  ‘Tate, listen to me,’ Chaske said. ‘We need you to wake up and stand up when you’re ready.’ Chaske turned to me. ‘Icie, shut the door and I’ll be right back.’ His expression said that our situation had just gone from firecracker to supernova bad.

  Chaske climbed out and took off up the tunnel. I reached for the bottom edge of the garage-like door. It was heavy and I’d grown weak and tired trapped underground. My head swam with the effort. I yanked the door down and staggered backwards, feeling a little drunk with all the horrible thoughts rushing through my consciousness.

  Tate slowly rolled over onto his stomach and groaned as he rose to all fours. It took some time, but he stood like a scarecrow, arms out at his sides. I could see hundreds of tiny red cuts all over his body. Tate’s eyes begged me to say something.

  ‘It’s going to be OK,’ I said. Neither of us believed me.

  I’d rescued this rich kid from the desert only to douse him with radioactive waste.

  ‘Icie?’ He asked a million questions with my name. ‘Is that . . .’

  I nodded. ‘How did you . . .’

  ‘At first I wanted to see what was hidden behind those stones.’ He pointed. ‘I removed a few stones every night and then I discovered this hidden room.’ He shut his eyes. ‘You get so bored and you think maybe there’s something in there. And it becomes like pirate treasure and a portal to the real world all at once.’

  ‘It’s going to be OK,’ I said again.

  ‘The door only had a padlock so I decided to crack its combination,’ Tate explained. ‘At night when I was sure you were asleep and this place gets deathly quiet, I’d turn that dial and listen. When that’s all you have to do night after night, it isn’t so hard. Maybe I’ll be a thief instead of a rock star.’ Tate tried to laugh. I fixed my gaze on the opening in the pile of rocks and begged Chaske to hurry.

  Chaske returned and fed armloads of stuff to me. ‘Maybe we should come out there too,’ I said, poking my head out.

  ‘Stay still,’ he said to both of us, and then dashed off again. I stacked everything Chaske had given me: rubber gloves, Marissa’s jeans, my hand sanitizer, two face masks, and Tate’s Swiss Army knife. Chaske appeared again and dumped two jugs of water at my feet and then disappeared. We were going to scrub Tate down.

  Maybe Chaske didn’t understand that washing Tate down with soap and water wasn’t going to make much difference. If Tate really had been covered in that stuff. If he’d really been spending night after night near that gunk, separated by a garage door, what good would soap and water do? But we had to do something.

  I knew from my dad that radiation was like any chemical poison. It depended on the dose and the exposure time. He said it was like alcohol. If you downed a whole bottle of whisky, then you’d feel sick and it might be life-threatening. If you drank two bottles quickly, it might kill you. But if you drank a small amount once a day it might have no effect on your health. Radiation was like that; in the short term you could be fine, but it would increase your risk of cancer in the long run. I didn’t know how much poison Tate had been exposed to.

  ‘Tate, take off your clothes and put them in a pile in that far corner,’ I called.

  He tugged his shirt over his head. I used the knife to rip Marissa’s jeans into rags. I put the mask over my mouth and nose and pulled on the rubber gloves. I felt guilty shielding myself from him, but I wanted the protection. I wanted more protection than the gloves and masks were going to afford, but I couldn’t turn my back on Tate.

  Chaske continued to bring jugs of water. ‘You get started.’ He looked apologetically at Tate and handed me a half-empty bottle of green shampoo. ‘Rinse him and then scrub him down good with the shampoo. Rinse him and do it again. I’m going to get two more jugs and some clean clothes for him.’

  ‘Chaske . . .’ I grabbed his arm, but I couldn’t feel him beneath the slip of latex.

  ‘Icie, we’ll do our best,’ he assured me, and raced off.

  I lugged a bottle of water over to Tate. ‘Shut your eyes,’ I told him, and slowly dumped the water over his head. It gushed down his face and twisted down his body. His skin looked red and irritated already.

  ‘Sorry, Tate,’ I said, and I meant sorry about everything. I handed him a rag and dumped green shampoo on it, being careful not to waste a drop. I did the same to mine. ‘You do your face, and . . .’ I indicated his private parts. ‘I’ll start on your back.’

  I worked my way down scrubbing, and nearly pushing him over. He widened his stance and flexed his muscles. He’d grown taller in captivity. He wasn’t a little boy any more. Alarm bells were blaring in my head, but Tate didn’t have to know how serious this was. And maybe I was wrong. Maybe this stuff wasn’t deadly. My dad in one of the pop lectures he was always giving me said that radioactivity wasn’t deadly forever and it depended on the type of radioactive waste it was. But it could be hazardous from ten thousand to one hundred thousand-plus years. He also said that activists were always blowing the whole nuclear waste thingy out of proportion. You could recover from contamination, a lot of people had. Yeah, except that one Russian spy guy in London. He was contaminated with some radioactive something and he . . . you know.

  ‘I always thought my first shower with a girl would be different,’ Tate said. His teeth chattered as I dumped another jug of water over his head. ‘Can we stop now?’ he begged.

  Chaske’s face peeked through the opening. ‘What, and miss a threesome with me?’ He was carrying three water jugs. He quickly donned a pair of rubber gloves. He picked a rag and loaded it with shampoo. ‘I pictured you as a sing-in-the-shower type, Tate.’

  Tate’s skin was red and raw. His lips were blue. Tears streamed down his face, but he started to sing ‘Tonight’ by Fame Sake. Tate sang the main lyrics and Chaske and I provided the back up. We shouted it at the top of our lungs.

  Tonight’s got promise.

  (Promise)

  Tonight’s got faith.

  (Faith)

  Tonight’s all we got.

  (Fo’ sure)

  (Fo’ sure)

  Tonight I got you.

  (And you got me)

  Tonight’s all I need.

  Chapter Thirty

  GRETA

  Vega is burning. Now she will have nothing again. Worse than that, she knows her secrets have sparked this war. All she wanted was a few stolen moments with a boy. But that boy is gone. He never was just a boy. Beckett lied to her. They both lied. She was selfish and stupid to try to carve out something special for herself. Seeing her home turned to ash shifts something inside Greta. She can’t cling to Beckett and Vega. She has to choose. She knows what she must do. She has to help her family.

  Beckett is exploring a hole in the mountain, but he believes it is some mythical place. She doesn’t understand this side of him. Great iams. Signs. Hearts. How can he believe in a higher power that lets the world come to an end? How can he put his faith in something that allows people to destroy one another? How can he abdicate choice to this unseen, unknown force? She can’t believe in anything beyond the power of her own two fists. It makes it easier to do what she has to do.

  She sees her chance when Harper’s back is turned. Maybe Harper is giving her an opportunity to escape. She has made her hatred abundantly clear. She wants Greta off the mountain and out of their lives. Since Beckett disappeared into the tomb, Harper hasn’t really been paying attention to her. She keeps looking in that dark hole and pacing. She loves him. That’s obvious now.

  Greta sneaks a rock from the pile that once sealed the opening of thi
s tomb and slams it into Harper’s temple. Harper flops to the ground. Her head bounces on the hard soil. Her limbs flail at odd angles. The tattered strips tied around her body slip and gap, exposing patches of white skin.

  She can hear Da’s voice in her head. It’s telling her to kill them both. Forreal has destroyed Vega. Beckett and Harper may have saved her once but their people destroyed her home. An eye for an eye. It’s something Da says.

  Greta has never killed before. But maybe she should. Maybe this sacrifice will absolve her of bringing the wrath of these mountain monsters on Vega. She finds a bigger rock, one with a sharp point. She raises it high above her head. She should bash Harper’s head into the ground. It wouldn’t be difficult. It might be more compassionate than letting her continue her small, sheltered, unfulfilled life.

  Greta is continually amazed by how easily a life can end. She’s buried her grandparents, mom and a sister. Their journey to Vega was littered with sickness and snake bites and human attacks. She doesn’t doubt that if the situation were reversed, Harper would deal the death blow.

  Lucky saunters over to Harper and sniffs at the red puddle under her temple. She snuggles up in the space under Harper’s chin. They look so helpless.

  Greta cocks her arm back. It would be so easy. All she has to do is let the rock fall. She feels sorry for this girl, but not because she’s slumped on the ground. She feels a kinship with Harper. They are both girls who don’t belong anywhere, and they both love the same man. If Greta kills Harper, Beckett will never forgive her so she and Harper will both be girls in love with someone who doesn’t love them back.

  She slowly lowers her arm, and the rock falls at her feet with a clack. She can’t do it.

  She peeks inside the tomb. Beckett appears to have vanished. Part of her hoped to see something awe-inspiring. In a strange way, she’s jealous. What a comfort to believe that everything happens for a reason and that everything will be OK. She wishes she could pray and someone would tell her what to do. But she’s got no one to blame, no one to rely on, but herself.

  Lucky watches as Greta drags Harper to a nearby tree. Greta tears a wide strip of material from the hem of her shirt, erasing half of the peace symbol she drew there. She ties Harper’s hands behind her back and secures her to the base of the tree. Lucky curls next to Harper again. They almost look peaceful, except for the blood dripping down Harper’s face and the uncomfortable angles of her body.

  Greta replaces the rocks that Beckett removed and seals him in the tomb. It won’t keep him forever, but it will give her time to escape. She wishes this could end differently. She wedges a few more rocks into the pile so the wall is more secure, more solid. She tests to see if she could roll the stone across the entrance, but it’s far too heavy and she’s far too weak. She must go and see what’s left of her home.

  She bolts to the Other Side of the Mountain. Through the thinning smoke, she sees that the landscape has changed. There’s now a barrier between Vega and the mountain, as if a massive line has been drawn in the dirt. She squints through the gloom. This line is a human barricade. Maybe her family has survived Forreal’s attack. Vega is lined up in neat rows facing the mountain. She can’t tell numbers but they advance in a slow march. Vega is attacking. An eye for an eye.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  ‘Something is better than nothing.’

  – Just Saying 3

  BECKETT

  Beckett stands in the dark. One moment he’d made the most astonishing discovery of his life, and then this nothingness . . .

  Beckett had slipped through the metal door. The locking mechanism was still in place but the rock had shifted, leaving a gap to one side of the door. He has felt the Mountain’s tremors from time to time. Had the Great I AM shaken this free for him? His head ached with constant questions and the search for understanding. He felt a ticking like the second hand of the Timekeeper’s watch. Time was running out.

  Beckett knew he had to go deeper into the Heart. The future of Forreal and Vega depended on it. He had summoned his strength and held his torch high. He had squinted through the darkness, expecting something. A blinding light. A voice. A swirling torrent of demons. The heat of a thousand flames. The electricity of a lightning bolt. He’d always believed the Heart was the source of the Mountain’s power. Maybe in opening the space he had unleashed some unseen force.

  The torch kept the darkness at bay. The black felt solid and endless beyond his protective bubble of light. He waved his torch to better gauge the size of the space. He was shocked to see hundreds of smiling faces looking back at him. The walls were filled with Facebook drawings.

  Beckett spotted a tattered bag in the centre of the space. All those smiling faces appeared to be staring at the backpack. He saw a shiny badge that winked in the torchlight. Beckett read the words on the badge: Save the Planet, Rock the World. His breath caught in his throat. So many messages. He could feel the Great I AM’s presence.

  As he carefully picked up the backpack, the zipper burst and its contents spilled out. Beckett tried to catch the items before they hit the ground. His fingers caught a thick silver ring with a purple sparkling I, A and M. Everything else seemed to flutter in slow motion down, down, down. He dropped to his knees. He was touching something that belonged to the Great I AM. He closed it in his fist and felt the connection between him and the Great I AM increase by a bazillion.

  Among the items scattered on the ground, he noticed a small booklet with a yellowing cover and plain black text. The pages crumbled at his touch, but he could read three words clearly: waiting, for and Beckett.

  He felt a rush of what he could only describe as joy ripple through his body, mind and soul. The Great I AM had been waiting for him to find the Heart.

  He studied each item lovingly: a plastic card with a barely visible picture, two halves of a tiny glass pot, thin strands of tarnished silver loops that swirled and connected at a hook, and a silver C-shaped hoop. These must have belonged to the Great I AM. He stroked each item as if they might transfer some magical property. He returned them to the backpack to keep them safe.

  He was overwhelmed with the knowledge that the Great I AM had been here. Stood where he stood. Smiled at these faces. Collected these treasures. Beckett hugged the backpack to his chest. He felt the weight of something more inside. He dipped his hand in and pulled out a plastic bag that had been wedged at the bottom. His hands shook, rattling the plastic. Through the clouded, wrinkled bag he saw smiley faces scribbled all over the cover of a thin book. The original Facebook. He imagined walking back to Forreal with original Just Sayings from the Great I AM. Forreal would have to listen to him now.

  The blackness beyond seemed to beckon. There was more to discover. But the strangest thing had happened. The flame on his torch shrank and then fizzled out. His eyes adjusted to the tiniest glow from the outside. But that light seemed to be fading too. Then darkness descended around him.

  Now he stands perfectly still, waiting for another message from the Great I AM. The space is quiet except for a far-off drip, like rain plinking in a puddle. The sound seems to echo like a whisper in the vast space.

  ‘Whatever,’ he says to the Great I AM, and tries to relax, but the darkness feels as if it’s consuming him.

  Beckett takes a deep breath and orients himself. He visualizes the space before his light was extinguished. Beckett slips the backpack’s straps over his shoulders and inches along the cave wall towards the entrance. He’s got to get out of here. He fumbles forwards. His fingers find ragged rock. This must be the door. As he squeezes through, he thinks he sees twinkling stars up ahead. But that doesn’t make sense.

  Someone has walled up the entrance. What he thought were stars are only the tiny spaces where moonlight has found a path through the pile of rocks. He edges along the rocky wall, trying to avoid the skeletons beneath his feet. He claws at the rocks until he creates a hole and climbs out. He gulps in fresh air.

  The first thing he sees is Harper slumped o
n the ground with Lucky standing guard. He rushes to her side. A gash has opened up at her temple and blood is oozing down her face. He wipes away as much as he can.

  ‘Harper,’ he says, untying her and taking her in his arms. Her body is limp and cold. ‘Harper, please be OK.’

  He can’t do this without her. All this time, he thought he’d saved her, but looking at her lifeless body, he realizes it was she who saved him. Without her, he is a man with a birthmark. She’s always made him a hero. She’s always made him feel more than a man. She was propping him up, always right there behind him. ‘Not this,’ Beckett shouts at the top of his lungs. ‘This cannot be the sacrifice. Not whatever!’

  Harper’s eyes open a crack. ‘Thank the Great I AM,’ Beckett cries, and hugs her close.

  She grimaces and presses her fist to her bleeding temple. ‘What . . .’

  ‘Did Greta do this to you?’ Beckett asks. Harper nods and then her head flops to one side. He can’t believe it. He thought Greta was different. Maybe it’s in her nature to fight. Maybe he pushed her too far. He will forgive her as the Great I AM says, but not right now. ‘Harper, stay with me. Wake up.’ She needs to open her eyes again, to talk to him. ‘Harper,’ he says, and kisses her on her forehead. ‘Please, Harper.’

  Harper stirs ever so slightly. ‘Give me some air, would you, Beckett?’ she whispers, and tries to sit up. She moans in pain and sinks back down.