Tearing Down the Wall (Survival Series #3)

by Tracey Ward

  Funny thing about manholes—I don’t go down them. It’s dumb. Tight quarters, no idea who or what is in there with you, perpetual darkness. It’s a black hole to nothing. The descent inside could be five feet or five thousand years—there’s no way of knowing. I’m no wimp, I’m not afraid of the dark, but I’m also not a fan of it, either, and this thing is all darkness. All endless depths of black midnight with all manner of nightmare waiting for me at the bottom.

  “Are we seriously doing this?” I mumble to Ryan as the first of the cannibals is swallowed up by the Great Nothing.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Sure.”

  “Promise not to tell?”

  “Course.”

  I take a quick breath as the leader watches us, waiting. It’s our turn.

  “I’m scared,” I whisper to Ryan.

  When he looks down at me I wish I could see his face better, but I’m also glad it’s too dark. This admission is huge for me. I’m not even sure why I told him. Not like he can do anything about it—but it helps somehow, having him know.

  “Me too,” he replies.

  “Me three,” Trent agrees.

  Ryan I believe, but Trent not so much. Still, I appreciate the solidarity.

  “I’ll go first,” I say quickly.

  I step away from them before Ryan can stop me, because I know he’ll try. I’m not surprised when his hand shoots out to grab hold of me. I saw it coming. I dodge it easily, slipping away toward the cracked can of no-friggin’-thank-you yawning in front of me. I don’t give myself time to think about it. I don’t let myself go full terrified toddler, imagining all of the things that could be in this hole waiting to grab my ankle and yank me down to Hell. I dive right in, swinging my legs inside and slowly climbing down, being careful as I feel the slippery, slimy coating on each step.

  I slip down farther and farther until the meager light from above starts to fade away and I have that claustrophobic feeling you get in an unseen, wide open space. The area around me could be boundless or it could be tiny. There could be walls everywhere just waiting for me to walk straight into them and bash my nose on their cold, wet surfaces. All I know for sure is the circle of light above me, the ladder under me, and the endless black around me.

  “One more step,” a voice warns softly, scaring the crap out of me.

  I pause for a second, letting my nerves calm and my senses take over.

  They’re to my left. It’s a woman. Her voice didn’t echo much at all so I’m assuming the space down here can’t be too big. I let go of the ladder and instantly feel dizzy. My eyes are adjusting to the dark, picking up on what small light is coming in from up top, but it’s not going to be enough. I can’t get my bearings on anything. As I slowly take a step toward the voice, I wonder how much she can see. Is her eyesight that good in the dark or does she have all of these caverns and tunnels memorized?

  “Stand over here.”

  “Where is ‘here’?” I ask irritably.

  “To your left three paces.”

  I put my hands out and shuffle-step three paces to the left. My fingers brush a rough wall, cold and damp. It feels like algae is growing on every surface down here and the air tastes wet and weird. How do they live like this without getting sick all the time?

  The light coming in from above is blocked for a second by another body making its way down. It’s moving too quickly to be one of the guys. They’re staggering us: sending in one of their own, one of us, one of their own. It’s smart. Annoyingly so. It also reminds me of the Colonies and my anxiety/anger ratchets up a notch.

  Trent comes down next, another of theirs, then Ryan. No one says a word once we’re all assembled. I can hear breathing and shuffling bouncing off the walls, making it feel like people are everywhere. But how many could there really be? Outside this hole I saw at most ten of them. But inside, trapped in an enclosed space with all of their lips and teeth, it feels like there are a million. And they’re all hungry.

  I jump when there’s a loud crack followed by a scraping sound. Someone has sparked flint, lighting a torch off to my right. I watch the firelight play off the sheen on the walls, dancing like diamonds faceted in every surface, when what I’m really looking at is slime. The ground has an obsidian, oily coating on it that glistens with rainbows in the light. I worry that it actually is oil. One dropped spark from that torch could send this entire place up in flames in an instant.

  “This way,” the guy with the fire says, his voice surprisingly gentle. Almost welcoming.

  There’s an otherworldly feel to this place. As though when I came down that manhole what I really did was slip down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. I’m not so sure I prefer it to Neverland. I knew the rules there. Down here with these people… well, it feels like anything goes.

  We walk for half an hour before I see light glowing at the end of the tunnel. It’s yellow and clean. Warm. The temperature has been rising, the moisture disappearing from the air. This is where they live. Where they sleep.

  Where they eat.

  We walk into the light through a blown out section of wall. It looks like they demolished it to break from these tunnels into another section. The area here is wide open, like a large basement, which makes me wonder where exactly we’ve walked to. Without any landmarks from up top to guide me, I’m completely lost. The walls are exposed brick and broken plaster, but as we move through this open space, the eyes of more cannibals watching us curiously from unlit corners, I see wood support beams. We come into a narrower passage, almost like a hallway, and I pass a window frame looking through into another large room.

  “Where are we?” I whisper despite myself.

  “It looks like an underground city,” Ryan mumbles behind me.

  “Since when is there an underground city in Seattle?”

  “Since 1889,” the man ahead of me answers without turning.

  We pass by a pristine brick archway leading into a small, well-lit room with a burning fireplace and three beds pressed against the walls.

  “That used to be part of a bank in the 1800s. This was all ground level back then.”

  “How did it end up underground?” Trent asks curiously.

  I glance back to find his eyes scouring the walls, taking in every detail. His hand brushes along a wall to feel the wood of a door frame, the brick of a pillar. It’s a new, strange mystery and my robot is deeply, passionately in love.

  “There was a fire. Thirty-one blocks of this area were destroyed. When they started to rebuild they decided to re-grade the streets in this area, since they were built on tidelands and were constantly flooded. The roads were raised twelve feet. In some places they went up thirty. What was street level in a building became basement or underground, where we are now. There were skylights like these,” he points to a metal mesh of squares in the ceiling, some of them still housing small, cracked cubes, “up to the ground level to let in natural light. The entire underground was shut down in 1907 when people panicked over the bubonic plague. Most of it was condemned or absorbed into building basements and shut off. This is the last of what’s left.”

  “And this is where you live? All of you?” Ryan asks.

  The guy half turns his head to look back at us, his face pure shadow. “Tour’s over,” he says, his voice losing its friendly tone. “We’re almost there.”

  They take us down a long, narrow alley—with more broken down storefronts that lead into bedrooms lining the left side, and high crumbling walls lining the right—before turning sharply into one of the rooms. Inside is another wood-burning fireplace carved into the wall, venting somewhere above ground in the cold night air. There’s a round wooden table, a couple of mismatched chairs around it, and three men standing in a corner talking heatedly. They pause when we enter, all eyes falling immediately on me, Ryan, and Trent.

  A guy just barely my height steps forward, making me want to step back. There’s a shine to his eyes. It’s
unnatural and strange. Foreign in the wild.

  It’s hope.

  “Is this them?” he asks, his tone hushed.

  “We think it might be,” our tour guide answers noncommittally.

  “Where’s Andy?”

  “I’m here.”

  There’s shuffling in the hall as a man pushes through the people guarding us. He’s tall, his complexion darker than most of the pale, white skin I’ve seen down here so far. He strides into the room, scanning everyone inside and taking inventory. The move reminds me of Trent.

  “Well?” the short man asks him anxiously.

  His eyes meet mine, staying there for longer than I like. But as I look at him I start to wonder if I don’t recognize him. It’s too dark in here to be sure, but I swear I’ve seen him before.

  “It’s them,” he says, his voice deep and firm.

  Well, all right, he apparently knows us.

  “Wonderful,” Shorty says happily.

  The guy walks farther into the room to stand beside Shorty. His eyes stay with me the entire time. His stare is starting to make me uncomfortable but I don’t dare look away. I’m an animal from the jungle. I can play the staring game all day long.

  “This is perfect,” the short man says to himself, clasping his hands together and smiling. “I’m so glad to finally meet you all.”

  “Do we know you?” Ryan asks, his voice uncharacteristically cold.

  “Not yet, but we have so much to talk about. We’ll know each other very well soon enough.”

  My lips curl back in disgust. “We have nothing to talk about with you.”

  The short guy flinches. His teeth flash, and it may be a trick of the light but they look shadowed and sharp.

  He steps toward me. The room shifts with him. Shadows build, growing too tall beside him, an army of darkness waiting to answer his call. A cavalry of devils.

  “Oh, my dear girl,” he says, his voice going hushed, taking the entire room with it. Everything is pinpointed down to this small man with the quiet voice and the dangerous gleam in his eyes. “I believe you’re wrong. We share the same dream.”

  “I really doubt that.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “What dream could we ever have in common?”

  He grins darkly. “Revolution.”

  Chapter Three

  I’m sitting down to dinner with a table full of cannibals.

  It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke—one that ends with something about passing the salt and then everybody laughs, only I’m not laughing. I’m also not eating, definitely not anything of the meaty, protein-packing variety. I wouldn’t even trust a glass of milk, and I. Love. Milk. Love it. The Colonists almost had me selling my soul to them for it. But with the Colonists, believe it or not, I trusted the source more than I do here.

  These people will eat your toes while you watch, so it doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility that the milk on this table came from a person, and while that’s fine for babies, there’s something very sickening about the thought of it now.

  “Please, dig in,” Shorty says from his seat at the head of the long rectangular dining table.

  Shorty’s name is Elijah. I should probably start thinking of him as that, but I feel like names humanize these lunatics and I don’t want to soften my image of them. They’re polite, more hospitable than my mom on Thanksgiving, but I don’t like it. It’s creepy. Creepier than if they came at me covered in living human blood with bits of warm tissue dribbling from their lips. This right here, this is like Halloween in reverse. This is monsters and ghouls dressed up as preachers and soccer moms.

  We’ve been joined by a couple of new people, but I can tell by the seating that the important ones are Andy and Elijah. Andy seems to have almost a celebrity status with the rest of the group. People smile at him, clap him on the shoulder; the few women I’ve seen look at him a little too long. He’s a decent enough looking guy from what I can tell in this light, but good looks and a charming smile can’t account for the reaction people have to him. It doesn’t explain why Elijah has him sitting directly to his right at the table.

  Elijah smiles patiently at us. “You’re not eating.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I tell him dryly.

  “You’re not hungry or you’re not hungry for what we have to offer?”

  “Does it matter?” Ryan asks from across the table.

  “Quite a bit.”

  I push my plate away slowly. “I’ve never been hungry enough for what you call food.”

  Elijah’s smile changes. He holds it steady but the tightness around his eyes makes it different. It makes it angry.

  “Waste not, want not,” he sings softly.

  I shiver down to my toes.

  “What did you mean by us sharing a dream?” Trent asks, his curiosity knowing no disturbing crimes-against-nature bounds.

  “We want what you want: freedom from the Colonies.”

  “How are the Colonies even a concern for you?” I ask.

  “They’re a concern for everyone.”

  “But they’re afraid of you.”

  “We’re afraid of the daylight,” he replies bitingly. “Imagine being a child and never playing in the sun. We’ve made monsters of ourselves, monsters trapped in the dark. It was our only defense. Our numbers have always been too small to fight with and we knew early on that the Colonies would be a problem. They were corrupt from the start.”

  “So we’ve heard,” I mumble, thinking of the Vashons.

  Elijah nods in understanding. “We aren’t the only ones who saw it coming. Some ran and hid, some found the numbers to defend themselves, and some made a deal with the devil.”

  “What deal did you make with him?”

  “Not us. The Hive.”

  It shouldn’t surprise me, but it does anyway. Marlow obviously hates the Colonies just like he hates the Vashons, and I think I get why: they’re bigger than he is. He thinks of himself as a king and it’s a huge blow to his bloated ego that there are people out there stronger than he is. He’ll never control the kind of numbers the Vashons and Colonies are working with, and it eats away at him. He hates them for it.

  I suddenly wonder if he hates them enough to pit them against each other.

  “Did Marlow tell the Colonists we were talking to the Vashons?”

  “Yes,” Andy answers. “He sent word to them immediately after Ryan won the Blind.”

  This is the first time Andy has spoken since he IDed us. As his voice cuts through the room, I notice how familiar it is.

  I narrow my eyes at him, trying to get a better look. “I know you, don’t I?”

  He smirks. “Ryan knows me better.”

  “He’s a guard in The Hive,” Ryan confirms with a small nod. “He’s one of Marlow’s closest men.”

  My eyes go wide with shock. “You’re the one who brought us in to see Marlow. The one who didn’t search us. I was carrying an ASP and a knife in that room.”

  “I figured,” Andy says easily. “I was hoping you’d use them.”

  “You want Marlow dead?”

  “I wouldn’t cry over it.”

  “So wait. Are you Hive or are you…” I trail off, not sure what to call them. I don’t know if ‘cannibal’ is an offensive term.

  “I’m a member of this tribe.”

  “Then you’re what? A spy? For how long?” I ask incredulously.

  “Seven years.”

  “Do you have spies in the Colonies?”

  “No.”

  “Would you tell me if you did?”

  “No.”

  “So you’re probably lying?”

  “Anything is possible.”

  Ryan sits forward, catching Andy’s eye. “What deal did The Hive make with the Colonists?”

  Andy glances silently at Elijah, an unspoken question passing between them. Elijah nods.

  “The Colonies have always been obsessed with two things,” Elijah explains. “Cleansing the world of
the plague and recruiting more people into their flock. At first they talked about the plague as divine retribution. They said everyone infected and dying outside the walls they hid inside were getting what they deserved. They felt they’d been chosen to survive. But then not everyone agreed with them and their numbers started to shrink. That’s when they miraculously got word from God Himself that they were meant to save as many people as they could. When willing members dried up, they started the roundups. They used to be one meager group hiding inside a shopping mall, but they kept expanding—and as they did hey needed more bodies. More laborers. The Hive made a deal with them that they would give them people in exchange for goods. I don’t know what Marlow gets in every payment, but I would bet it’s mostly crops. They’re a group of gamblers, pimps, and thieves. They’re not known for their farming skills.”

  “Where is The Hive getting people? You can’t just make them out of thin air,” I complain.

  Trent snickers behind me. I turn to glare at him.

  “What?”

  “You’ve lived alone for too long.”

  “What are you laughing at?”

  He leans back in his seat, looking entirely too comfortable considering where we are. “Ryan, you want to field this one?”

  “Joss, think about it,” Ryan says patiently. “How would The Hive be creating people to sell?”

  I blush as it dawns on me. “The stables.”

  “Exactly.”

  “They’re selling babies?!”

  “Yes,” Elijah answers bitterly, the disgust I feel written on his face. “There’s no contraception anymore. Pregnancies are a real risk, and with the women in the stables… working as often as they do, babies are going to happen. A lot.”

  “Are these women giving their children up willingly?”

  “Not all of them,” Andy tells me tightly. “I’ve seen them stripped from their arms just moments after they’re born. The women fall apart, the babies are screaming. It’s not easy to watch.”

  I glare at him. “But you still do it.”

  “I can’t stop it. I might be able to save one but then my cover is blown and years of work are lost. Wasted.”