by Platt, Sean
And yet it was the only explanation that made sense. Someone had discovered him helping “the enemy,” and rather than expose him as a traitor and admit that one of their best and most trusted had been compromised, they set him up for murder.
And if The City could do that, what else were they capable of? What lengths would they go to in order to preserve their power?
Now his wife was dead. His daughter, and likely his son as well, hated him.
If they could get Ana, of course they could get to Adam too.
But now Ana was in The Games. Had she discovered their deception, he wondered? Perhaps the false memories weren’t permanent, and now they had to clean up their mess before it got ugly.
They couldn’t reveal him as a traitor to The State. It might embolden their enemies, or worse, it might cause other Watchers to question their allegiance. If a kind, trusted man such as Jonah Lovecraft had turned his back on The State, perhaps there was a good reason.
But to set Ana up as a traitor was easy. She was young, and young people were easily implicated because the older people feared them, feared change. Plus, she had legitimate reason to be angry with The State. It had, after all, locked up her father, even if he was supposedly guilty of murdering her mother. It seemed plausible that she’d be angry with those who put him behind bars.
So they set her up, sent her off to die. No more witnesses to their lie.
Except they hadn’t killed him.
And Ana wasn’t dead…yet.
He had to find his daughter and reveal the lies the government had crafted. As he began to drift off, he wondered how long his children had pledged allegiance to a lie.
Did she now know he was innocent?
Is that why she was put into The Games?
And if so, was Adam also in danger?
**
In Jonah’s dream, Molly was walking toward him. Her footsteps echoed in the halls of his memory, each one triggering a new flash of their past, which came and went in a flash as memories are wont to do in dreams.
Then the footsteps crossed into reality, and he woke to find he wasn’t alone.
He looked up, the light blurring his eyes and hurting his head. It took him a minute before both were working well enough to focus on the girl, Calla, standing three feet away, waiting to feed him.
Jonah’s lids had barely lifted before Calla was roughly shoving bread between his lips, then pouring water down his throat, her smile just shy of laughter as he tried not to choke. Liquid dribbled down his chin.
“Doncha like?” she said in her odd accent.
Jonah tried to shed his guilt, forcing himself to stare into her angry eyes.
He was responsible for the loss of her mother.
For Egan’s wife.
He was no better than the monster Keller. And no less responsible than Keller was for Molly’s death.
“Thank you,” he said, chewing the bread. “It’s quite good. Did you bake it?”
“I helped, yes,” she said, her eyes softening a bit.
Jonah said, “I know you hate me.”
Calla stared, less angry looking than curious. His voice fell an octave, moving from pleasant to compassionate, hoping she could hear the honesty in his words and maybe understand that he never meant her or her family harm.
He was one of the good guys, even if it had taken him too long to get there.
“You have every right to hate me. Your father too. What I did was wrong. But I only did it because my boss told me your father was bad, and I was stupid enough to believe it.” He dropped his eyes along with his head. “They lied to me so I would hurt your family, but I never would’ve done it if — ”
The door burst open, and Egan stormed into the room, yelling at Calla. “Don’t listen to this liar!”
Calla turned to Egan, startled, her eyes wide and watery with a million things at once. Calla squealed, making noise with no words, like a tiny wounded animal. Jonah’s food and drink fell from her hand and crashed on the floor. Calla took off running from the room.
Egan stared after Calla, then turned and glared at Jonah for several seconds before curling his fingers around the metal bar at the top of an ancient crimson chair. He dragged it over to Jonah and sat.
“What kind of lies are you telling my little girl?”
“I was apologizing.” Jonah explained. “So she wouldn’t keep trying to kill me.”
Jonah figured it was better to portray the girl as being mean to him rather than kind; otherwise Egan might send someone else to feed him.
Egan looked down at the food and water on the front of his coveralls, then laughed.
Jonah asked, “What happened? Why is Ana in The Games?”
Egan smiled. “Tell you what, Watchman, how about you answer my questions first?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“Sure,” Jonah said. “I’ve nothing to hide. Like I said, I’m on your side. But please, just tell me, is Ana alive?”
The words burned from his throat.
“You talk,” Egan said. “Then maybe I answer.” Egan paused, drew a flask from his coat and put it to his lips, then started. “Tell me why you don’t take responsibility for your crimes.”
“That’s not true,” Jonah said, fighting his anger. “I do take responsibility. I know things I did as a Watchman were wrong, horrible, unconscionable, unforgivable. But I never did anything I thought was wrong, and once I knew I was being lied to, I stopped and did all I could to make amends. I didn’t know you were innocent, Egan.” Jonah shook his head. “I had no idea who the good guys were.”
Egan stared.
“You’re part of the reason I joined the Underground.” Jonah’s admission was relieving but awful on his tongue, betrayal and honor sharing space in his mouth. “It was only years later when I finally saw the State’s lies for what they were. But once I knew the truth, I started helping from the inside and never stopped until I was sent outside The Wall.”
“You?” Egan laughed. “Underground? Yeah, right!”
“I was,” Jonah said, holding his stare. “I trafficked intel so the Underground knew when armory and food shipments were arriving from City 1. I also helped citizens flee the City through the tunnels.”
“You got them past The Wall?”
“No,” Jonah said. “Not directly. But I made sure they knew when sectors were thin, and I had the right guards posted, with orbs rerouted along the tunnels for two years straight.”
Egan slapped his leg, cackling loud enough to turn his laugh into a scream. “Well, fuck me, Lovecraft. That’s some real irony. You and your fellow fuckers at City Watch set me up for being Underground, even though I wasn’t, and now here you are, City Watch and Underground scum!”
Jonah was suddenly, and rather stupidly, terrified that Egan was about to announce he was in fact a City Watch spy, that Jonah’s confession had been recorded, and that now he was really in trouble — though Jonah couldn’t imagine deeper shit than what he, or Ana, were already in.
“Please,” he begged. “Please let me go. I have to find my daughter. She’s not cut out for The Darwins.”
Egan sneered at his prisoner. “Are you hoping for my sympathy? Did you want me to feel sorry for you because you finally saw the light and did a few good things after ruining so many lives? How THE FUCK does that bring my wife back? My son? TELL ME!”
Egan raged, screaming loud, his spittle spraying across Jonah’s shrinking face. Egan’s fists hovered, clenched at his side, shaking for nearly a minute before Egan finally lost it, lashing out and launching a right hook hard into Jonah’s jaw, just under his eye. The first shot sent splintering pain through his cheekbone. The next, and every one after, unleashed a fury to Jonah’s chest and head, leaving Jonah bloodied and battered and barely able to breathe.
“Fuck you, Lovecraft. You don’t get a second chance! You’re going on trial, and unlike the Cities, we don’t banish you. We put you to death and bake a f
ucking cake when we’re done.”
CHAPTER 19 — Adam Lovecraft
Adam stared at the monitors in Chimney Rock’s TV hall from the same spot he’d sat in since he and his friends had robbed the kitchen. While The Games were holding everyone else’s attention, all Adam could think about was the looming threat of being caught.
“Stop worrying so much!” Morgan punched Adam on the shoulder. “We’re safe.”
“What if they find the pillowcases?” he said, still staring at the screen.
Morgan shrugged. “What’re they gonna do, lift every sheet in the storage room? They won’t find ’em. Even if they do, so what? Not like they’re gonna know we did it.”
A collective “ewww!” rolled through the room. Adam’s eyes went to the monitor and saw the aftermath of some guy getting torn to pieces by zombies. It wasn’t Liam, and Ana wasn’t part of the action, so Adam returned his attention to the hallway behind the TV hall’s large open room, waiting for someone to come and point an accusing finger at them.
“Would you relax?” Tommy said with a laugh. “Nothing’s gonna happen. Shit, kid, you’d think we killed someone the way you’re acting. It’s just some stupid food that nobody’s gonna miss.”
The feast on the monitors grew louder, as did the cheering. Adam’s friends were glued to every inch of the main monitor. Zombie strikes were bloody, sudden, and hypnotic. Adam turned his attention back to the TV so his friends wouldn’t think he was being too scared.
The gore on screen made his stomach churn. All he could think about was his sister being attacked by the disgusting monsters. He was so engrossed in thought that he was caught off guard when Miss Abby, one of the only three grown-ups who were ever nice to him, though only barely, grabbed him roughly by the collar, then yanked him from his seat and onto the floor without a word.
Jayla and her friends were in their own corner of the TV hall, watching. Morgan, Tommy and Daniel all leaped back from Adam in shock.
“You’re coming with me.” Miss Abby’s snarl barely sounded like her.
“Where are you taking me?” Adam whined. “I didn’t do anything!”
Miss Abby dragged him away by the collar, drawing the attention of every kid in the hall and the laughter of about half of them. Adam stumbled and nearly tripped trying to keep pace and to prevent himself from falling flat on his face, which would really make everyone laugh.
They reached the end of the hallway, then stopped at the elevators. Miss Abby smashed her thumb on the bottom elevator button, still angry, then turned to Adam, glaring, and pulled the boy to his feet.
“Where are we going?” Adam asked again.
“To Schoolmaster Barnum’s. You’re in big trouble. She shook her head and said, “I didn’t expect this from you, Lovecraft.”
The elevator dinged, the doors parted, and Miss Abby pulled him roughly into the box and pressed the button for the ground floor — the schoolmaster’s floor. They rode in a terrifying silence as the elevator creaked and shook its way down, Adam terrified and wondering what he was in trouble for. Sure, he knew what he had done, but how could they? And if they did, why hadn’t they grabbed up any of his cohorts?
The elevator was taking forever, making his first trip to the schoolmaster’s office all the more horrifying as the minutes stretched, teasing him with a dozen different scenarios, each of them worse than the prior.
The elevator doors opened and Miss Abby dragged him forward, past several closed classroom doors to a large red wooden door at the end of the hall that read, “Schoolmaster Barnum.”
Miss Abby opened the door and pointed to an empty wooden chair sitting by itself in front of an impossibly large desk — black as midnight and twice as scary. Beside the large desk, two bookcases stretched across the walls, stuffed with books.
Adam marveled at the sheer number of real books, more than he’d ever seen in his life, all from before the Walling. But he didn’t want Miss Abby to think he was enjoying his visit, so he hid his excitement.
“Sit there,” Miss Abby said. “The schoolmaster will be with you shortly.” A faint note of compassion crept into her voice as she added, “Good luck, Lovecraft,” then quietly closed the door behind her.
Adam wasn’t sure if she had left him in the room all alone so he would feel especially guilty when the schoolmaster arrived, but that was definitely how he was feeling.
Adam’s heart pounded as he waited. He whispered to himself, “It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK,” over and over, just how Michael had taught him.
Adam had heard more scary stories than he could count since arriving at Chimney Rock, and many of the worst were set inside this very room. He had no idea which were true and which were false. Tales of torture ran from simple spankings with wooden paddles, like the neat dozen hanging in a long row over a short black cabinet in the rear of the room, to beatings and assorted abuses administered in a small cell on the other side of the red door at the back of the schoolmaster’s office.
While Adam had never given the stories much weight beyond the kinds of things that kids said to scare one another, the stories suddenly felt all too real.
He stared at the freshly painted red door, remembering one of the worst stories and wondering if it was true. Behind the red door, so said the story, was a black one. Behind the black one was a narrow closet’s worth of space, about the size of a coffin. Guilty kids were forced to stand upright for anywhere from one to three days, depending on their infraction. Some had even died of fright inside, so legend went.
The longer Adam stared at the red door, the deeper he fell into full-blown panic. As he was about to lose his composure, the schoolmaster’s office door flew open, and someone who wasn’t Barnum stepped inside.
It was City Watch Chief Keller.
Adam had expected a scowling Schoolmaster Barnum, ready to beat him to within an inch of his life, or maybe take it from him, starting with three days inside the standing coffin. He certainly hadn’t expected his father’s old boss — smiling as if he had found a cure for the zombie virus and was mere weeks from tearing down The Wall.
“Hello, Adam, I’m Chief Keller. You remember me, right?” the chief said, holding out his hand for Adam to shake.
Adam did so, nodding shyly. “Yes, Mr. Chief Keller.”
“Just call me Keller,” he said, smiling broadly. “Wow, you’ve grown so much. I remember when you were three and your dad brought you to the office. Wow, time sure does fly.”
Adam nodded, feeling a bit of relief that Keller mentioned his father, but also feeling a bit sad.
“Are you OK?” Keller asked, taking a seat behind the giant desk, his voice softer than Adam had thought it would be, and kinder than anything he’d heard from any grown-up at Chimney Rock, including Miss Abby on her best day.
Adam nodded.
“That’s excellent,” Keller said. “You’ve had a rough few months.” His smile was thin, but his words at least sounded sincere. “My heart bleeds for you, Adam. Now, before we get started, is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?”
Adam shook his head, confused, but not wanting to admit his confusion.
Keller waited a moment, parted his lips, and sucked in his breath as though his next words were as painful for him as they would be for Adam. “I know about the rations.”
Adam said nothing, but he wasn’t sure if his face had hid the lie.
“Your friends,” he shrugged. “They ratted you out.”
Adam wondered which of his friends Keller meant. Morgan, Tommy, and Daniel were all with him when Miss Abby came to take him, and had been since stashing the pillowcases. It had to be one of the girls. He hoped it wasn’t Jayla.
“I propose we settle this,” Keller paused for a second, dropping his voice like his words were secret, then said, “without any of the difficulties that normally accompany such unfortunate situations.” He sighed. “There are too many problems in this place already, no need to add anything else to your difficult life.”
Keller smiled an apology, then fell into a speech, with few pauses and not one interruption, detailing Chimney Rock’s long and horrible history as a place where everyone was a victim of unfortunate reality, and life’s odds are stacked so high against its residents, it takes but one mistake for everything to crumble. According to Keller, the majority of orphans wound up in the Dark Quarters.
“Do you know what happens in the Dark Quarters, Adam?”
Adam swallowed, moving his head in an awkward circle that turned in no particular direction. He’d heard hundreds of stories, going back as early as he could remember, some true, most probably not, and not a single one he would say out loud, especially to an elder.
“Sort of.”
“I know how you feel,” Keller smiled, his face filled with understanding. “Most of the stuff that happens in the Dark Quarters is too horrible for words — the stuff of nightmares, right?”
Adam nodded.
Keller tapped one of the schoolmaster’s pens against the top of his desk, then leaned back in the chair. “Well, I don’t want to burden you with bad dreams, but I would like to tell you a little story. Is that OK?”
Adam nodded again, knowing that Keller wasn’t really asking for permission.
Keller smiled. “This story’s about a kid named Alex. It’s an older story, since Alex has been gone from us for a few years now. But our tale starts when he was a boy about your age, give or take a year. Alex was moved to the orphanage after his parents were killed, getting involved in some things they shouldn't have been doing. You know how that goes. Eventually, Alex came of age and had to leave Chimney Rock. Without a proper foundation, his situation went from bad to worse. He fell into the Dark Quarters, then sure enough found himself in trouble with City Watch. He wound up getting to play The Darwin Games for a chance at freedom in City 7, but of course, he screwed that up, too, and wound up as a meal for a horde of starving zombies. The real horror of the story, Adam, is that not a single thing that happened to Alex was his fault. He was a good kid, fell in with some bad seeds, and got screwed by life’s circumstances — a lot like you.”