by Ward, Tamryn
I sit on the floor, hug my knees to my chest, and lean against the wall. It would be so easy to fall asleep like this. So easy.
But then I hear a sound outside. Voices. Are they more recruits?
The door opens.
One, two, three, four, five more recruits drag in. No Mattie.
No Mattie?
Crap.
I watch the five newcomers stagger and limp across the room, accepting welcomes and water from their friends. That totals twelve. Twelve who made it and six who didn’t. Mattie is one of those six. She’s gone. My only friend. I let my head fall, resting my forehead on my knees. My eyelids won’t stay up anymore. I’ve never been so tired.
I hear a noise outside. I guess it’s Claire, checking the area before closing off the outside trap door. Footsteps descend the staircase. Thump, thump, thump. I lift my head, even though I don’t expect to see Mattie.
It’s her.
I smile. “You made it.”
She drops next to me. Her face is red. She’s breathing heavy. “I made it.” She sighs hard. “I can’t believe it. I made it.”
I fall asleep next to my friend.
* * * * *
Coffee. I love that smell. Mother made us coffee this morning? Is it a special day? My birthday? I stretch. My bed is so hard.
Hard?
What?
My eyes snap open, and for a few seconds I’m completely disorientated. Then I remember where I am. I’m not at home, safe and cozy in my bed. I’m in an underground safe house. I’m on the floor.
I sit up and wince. I’m stiff from sleeping on the cold concrete. As I move, my aching muscles scream. Last night’s run has strained my body. If we have to run again today…ugh, I don’t want to even think about it.
I slowly push to my feet, using the floor and wall as support. My body feels heavy, like I have fifty pound bags of flour strapped on my legs and arms. They couldn’t expect us to run again today. That would be unreasonable. No, that would be cruel.
The table in the center of the room is loaded with food. My stomach rumbles as I shuffle over to it. Bread. Fruit. Some kind of dried meat. And coffee. I go for the coffee first, hoping it’ll spark some life in my half-dead body. If that doesn’t work, nothing will. I sip. Someone groans. The other recruits are stirring, but I’m the first to wake.
After downing half my coffee I go to the bathroom. I feel dirty. A long, hot bath would be so nice. But I know that won’t happen. I settle for some lukewarm water and soap to wash up. I find bandages and wrap my mangled feet.
Feeling a little more human, I return to the main space. Jay comes into the room. I feel his presence before I see him. Every cell in my body vibrates. With Claire at his side, he stands at one end of the room, clapping his hands and yelling, “Wake up you bunch of lazy-asses!” He sees me but doesn’t acknowledge me. By now I’m thinking that smile yesterday was just for show, to rub it in the other recruits’ noses. I go to the table and grab some food for me and Mattie. She’s sitting where we slept, blinking and looking dazed, her copper hair hanging over half her face.
When I sit next to her, she groans. “I hurt everywhere,” she whispers as she ties her hair into a knot on the top of her head.
“Yeah, me too. Especially my feet. These shoes weren’t made for running. Here.” I hand her a piece of bread. “Maybe you’ll feel better if you eat. And if you need, there are bandages in the bathroom.”
She blinks a lot as she accepts the bread. “Thanks.” Her eyes are red but she isn’t crying…yet. She’s just about to. I can tell. “I think I made a mistake.”
“This is only the beginning. You can’t give up.”
Mattie stares at the bread, flipping it over in her hands. “I had no idea it would be so physical. I thought we would be working with computer drones. Writing code. Programming robots. Not this. Not running.”
I take a bite of my bread. It’s stale and bland. Nothing like the bread Mother baked. A pang of homesickness twists my stomach. “Maybe knowing computer code will be important later. Like I said, this is only the beginning. When we get to that stuff I’m going to need you. We can help each other through this. It may be the only way both of us can make it.”
Mattie’s lips curl into a smile. It isn’t a big smile. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes. But it’s better than the watery frown she was wearing. “Yes, together. We’ll get through this together.”
Jay clears his throat. “Good morning, recruits. Today is a big day. Your first day of training. We will be training you hard, preparing you for every possible danger you may face out there. I think by now you realize it won’t be easy. We can’t make it easy, or every single one of you would die your first day on the job.” He looks at Mattie. “There are now thirteen of you. Five trainees failed the first test last night. It’s time for your second test.”
Another test? Already?
Mattie and I exchange worried looks. Although the bandages seem to be helping, I’m too sore to run, or walk, or even blink my eyes. If the test has anything to do with computers or electronics, I’m in big trouble too.
“Follow me.” Holding a gas lantern, he leads us through a door and down a long, dark staircase. The air is stale and cold. The corridor at the bottom is narrow, with red brick walls and a low ceiling. Water oozes from cracks between the bricks. The sound of something scratching up ahead makes my nape tingle.
Mattie grabs my hand. “This is freaking me out,” she whispers. But her words bounce around the hollow space, amplifying them. Someone behind us snickers.
“Is someone scared of the dark?” a voice taunts.
I squeeze Mattie’s hand and give her an ignore-them look. She nods and squeezes back.
At the end of the tunnel we climb another set of stairs. This one is longer, several flights long. We go up, hit a landing, turn and continue up another flight. Higher, higher. We are inside a tall building. Ugly graffiti covers almost every inch of the walls. The floors are numbered. One, two, three. Jay opens the door on the fifth floor and motions us through. We gather in the hallway and wait for him. The sound of the door slamming behind us makes me jerk. I’m jumpy. So is Mattie. Wind blusters through the space, brisk and sharp, even though we’re inside the building. We stand close together and try to look brave as we wait for our instructor to tell us what to do.
He pushes to the front of our group and gives me and Mattie a strange look. “Follow me,” he says.
We follow, although I don’t want to.
He stops at another door and opens it. A gust of wind blasts us, making my eyes water. I see, as we step up to the door, where the wind is coming from. The floor and walls in front of us is collapsed, and so are the floors below it. A huge piece of the outer wall is gone. We’re five stories up. Solid ground is a long way down.
Mattie’s grip on my hand tightens.
“You will scale down to the ground,” Jay tells us. Then he grabs a pipe sticking out of what was once the floor and starts down.
I step closer to the fractured edge of the floor. Mattie remains back, her fingers locked around my hand. I watch Jay swing and stretch and leap as he descends the rubble. He makes it look easy. I know better. I’m shorter than him. My arms and legs won’t reach as far. And I’m guessing I’m not as strong, either.
My gaze searches the broken pieces of the building, looking for handholds and footholds. Several trees are grown into the rubble a few stories down, limbs reaching into the building like arms. I’ve climbed my share of trees. Those, I know I can climb. If I can reach those tree limbs I’ll be okay.
If.
Chapter 7
Claire is next. Wearing a large backpack, she lays on her stomach, letting her legs dangle over the edge. Once she gets started, she scales down almost as quickly as Jay.
A boy with long arms and legs pushes past me, almost knocking me over the edge. “Move aside, little girl,” he says. He grips the pipe Jay swung from and follows the same course he took. Alice follows him. And the
n several others follow her. One girl who is about my size almost falls. Her foot slips off a jutting piece of concrete and she hangs from a pipe for a few heart-racing moments. Then she swings her legs and finds solid footing. She makes it the rest of the way without any problems.
Before I know it there are only three of us left. Mattie, me, and another boy whose face is as white as bleached wheat flour. I take a deep breath and gently pry my hand out of Mattie’s grip. “We can’t put this off any longer,” I tell her. “I’m going.”
“Be careful,” she mutters.
I smile, hoping that the expression will calm her. “See you at the bottom.” After sliding off my shoes and tossing them down, I grab the pipe and flip over onto my stomach so I can dangle my legs over the edge like Claire did. I swing to find that first foothold. When my left foot touches it, I breathe a sigh of relief. I look to the right for the next one, too focused to worry about how far up I am. My right leg stretches. It’s a long reach. My fingers curl, my grip on the pipe tightening. I tell myself I can make it, but the strained muscles in my leg tell me otherwise. Every muscle is stretched to its fullest length; still my toe doesn’t reach it. I have to let go of the pipe. My fingers unfurl and for a brief instant I feel like I might fall backward instead of dropping straight down. My toe touches the floor edge below and my fingers find a hanging piece of cable. I hold onto it and inhale. My head spins.
I look down. The tree is still at least ten feet below me. I search for my next foothold, a jutting pipe on the left. I stretch until my arms are fully extended. Success. I don’t have to let go this time. The next two movements are easy and then I’m at home in the trees. I have never been so grateful for the burn of rough bark against my skin. When I reach the ground I look up. Mattie is staring down at me, terrified.
I read in a book once that half the challenge of overcoming any fear is believing you can succeed. I cup my hands around my mouth and yell, “You can do this. It’s easy.” It wasn’t easy. But I’m hoping if she believes my fib, it might help. “Just go slow.”
“Okay.” Her voice cracks. She follows my lead, flipping onto her stomach to find the first foothold. Reaching the second one is easier for her. Her legs are longer. So is the third. It isn’t long before she is standing at the bottom, next to me, grinning. “You were right. That wasn’t so bad.”
We both look up. The last boy is standing at the top, staring down at us. He sits on the edge like Jay did, grabs the pipe and swings. His foot misses the foothold and he pendulums back the other way. Legs thrash. He panics. I want to shout up at him, to tell him to calm down. There’s a pipe right there, next to his legs. But when I open my mouth no words come out. I’m so scared for him I can’t speak. His legs kick harder, and I cup my hand over my mouth. He’s going to fall. I can’t watch him fall. I can’t.
I squeeze my eyes shut just as his body starts flying toward us. Someone screams. I shudder as the sounds of cracking tree limbs fill my ears. Mattie’s arms clamp around my shoulders.
A dull thump travels from the ground up my legs. I feel the vibration in every cell in my body.
Someone shouts, “No!”
A girl’s wailing slices through me like razor blades.
Holy shit! This is real. Horrifically real.
We aren’t playing games. There are no safety lines or nets to catch us if we fall. We will be doing dangerous, life-threatening things. And some of us will fail. Some of us…will die. Just like Jay said.
We are down from eighteen to twelve. Will three more die before this is over? Will more than three die?
My insides twist into knots.
What have I gotten myself into?
* * * * *
My heart is bruised. I’m sure of it. It’s beating so hard against my breastbone it hurts. We have been running for hours. My legs are so wobbly I feel like they’ll give out after every step. My lungs burn. I need air. I need to stop. But I can’t. Mattie whimpers behind me. I’ve held back tonight, keeping her in sight so she won’t be the seventh to fail. She struggles so much with the running. She’s threatened to give up more than once in the past hour. It’s been hard to keep her going. But I refuse to let her give up.
I hear a noise and stop, my breath is sawing in and out of my chest so hard it feels like my lungs are being shredded. Mattie has stopped again. We’re on a twisty wooded path. We will lose the others if we don’t keep going. We won’t know how to find the safe house either.
“Mattie,” I whisper.
She’s on hands and knees, vomiting.
I rest a hand on her shoulder to let her know I’m here to help.
When she stops, she straightens up. Sobbing, she says, “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can,” I tell her. It’s kind of a half-lie. In truth I’m not sure she can do this. At least, not the running part.
She sniffles, her face wet, her eyes watering. “No, I really can’t. I can’t take another step.”
“It isn’t much farther. You can make it one more step, right?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Sure you can.” I take her hand and pull her onto her feet. One foot drags in front of the other, literally scraping the ground. “See?”
She laughs. Then she cries. “I fucking hate you.”
“I hate you too.” I tug on her hand, coaxing her to take another step.
She sniffles and sobs and chuckles. “You aren’t going to let me quit, are you?”
“No.” I pull her harder, forcing her to take several steps in succession.
She curls her free arm around her middle. “You should go ahead, stay with the rest. So you don’t get lost.”
“I can’t do that.” I change tactics, standing next to her, my arm helping support her weight. “So, shut up and keep moving.”
“Even if it means we both get lost?” Her feet scuffle across the ground.
“I am not going to leave you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m your friend. That’s what friends do. They stay by your side, no matter what.”
She sniffles. “You’ve only known me for two days.”
“So?” This is hell, but I can’t stop. I have to be strong for both of us now. I bite down on my lip and force myself to move faster. We can’t get too far behind the others. I look up. I can see the last few stragglers, but they’re way ahead of us. If they take a sharp turn I’ll lose sight of them.
“So, how good of friends could we be in just two days, Eva?”
“The best of friends. Lifelong friends.”
“Well, the way things are going, maybe that is true. Maybe lifelong won’t be so long.”
My insides twist. I feel sick now too. “Mattie, don’t say that.”
“Sorry.” She stops, bends at the waist.
“Come on. Take one step. Only one,” I plead.
“That’s what you said last time.” Her eyes are watery and red. She drags the back of her hand across her face, smearing the wetness.
“And I’ll keep saying it. I’ll say anything to keep you going.”
“You are such a fucking liar.” She blinks at me. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” We take another step. And another. And another five. Another ten. Another twenty. I stop counting after that. We push on, driven to keep going by raw determination and fear. The terrifying fact, what neither of us will admit, is we can’t let ourselves get lost out here. Because then we will be alone. In a world that is completely foreign to us.
As we round a bend, we hear a sound up ahead. Voices. Have we caught up to the others? Pulling on Mattie’s hand, I urge her faster.
“This way. I think they’ve stopped,” I tell her.
“Oh thank God!”
A twig snaps and leaves crackle under our feet. I push a tangle of shrub branches out of my way with my free hand. Up ahead I see them, standing in a huddle.
“The bridge is out,” someone says as we approach. Most of the recruits are sitting under a massive
tree, its branches nearly spanning the narrow but very deep crevasse we need to cross. At the edge of the cleft Claire stands, arms folded over her chest.
I approach her. “Is there another bridge?”
“No. Not without going hours out of our way. That kind of delay would be dangerous. We won’t make the safe house before sunrise.”
I glance over my shoulder. Jay is leaning against the gnarled roots of a tree behind us. My eye travels up the thick trunk and along one of the lowest branches. “What do you have in that backpack? If we had some rope, we could tie it up there.” I point up. “Then maybe we could swing across, one at a time.”
“Brilliant idea. I have rope.” She slides her backpack off her shoulders. It drops on the ground, the impact sending a puff of dirt into the air. She unzips it, pulls out a thin rope and heads for the tree, still bare of foliage. Agile as a monkey, she swings up into the branches. I, along with the other recruits, watch her from below. She moves with ease in the tree, walking along a branch as if she strolls along tree limbs every day. But as she approaches the far end of the branch, I hear a sound that sends a shudder through me. A cracking sound.
I know what that means.
I open my mouth to warn her the branch is about to break, but it’s too late. The limb gives way and she falls, arms flailing. She lands with a heavy thump and cries out.
I rush to her.
So does Jay.
“My ankle,” she says, hand cupped around it. “It twisted when I landed.” She looks at Jay first, then me. “Someone else has to tie the rope and help everyone get across.”
“I can do it,” I say before Jay has a chance to speak. I run to the rope, now strewn over the ground, loop it over my shoulder and swing into the tree. Not wanting to fall, or tie the rope to a branch that will break, I test each limb as I climb. The lower branches are brittle and weak. I climb higher to find stronger ones and knot the rope around it the way my father taught me when we tied my tire swing to the tree in our backyard. Then I climb down and test the rope and knot, tugging as hard as I can.