‘Give what up?’ said Luke.
‘All of it,’ said Reeve. ‘All of this sneaking around. Do you know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t bailed you back in after being outside the wall?’
‘We would’ve been dead,’ I said as we reached the outcropping. ‘Yeah, you told us already.’
‘Right, and that was before you were targeted as security risks,’ said Reeve. ‘Something like that happens again and you’re not going to walk away from it.’
‘Then we’re just gonna have to try really hard not to get caught,’ said Jordan.
‘Jordan, no,’ Reeve pleaded, a pained look flashing across his face. ‘Trust me, whatever you’re trying to achieve here, it’s not worth getting on the wrong side of Mr Shackleton. I’m not going to help you put your lives in danger.’
‘It’s not our lives you should be worried about,’ said Jordan.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Reeve.
Jordan dragged her hands through her hair, pushing the glistening braids back out of her face. She turned to Luke and said, ‘Show him.’
Luke pulled out his phone. It wasn’t good for much in this place, but it could still play audio files. Before school this morning, we’d loaded it up with the recording Crazy Bill had given us.
Luke hit play and handed the phone to Reeve.
Static crackled out from the speaker, barely audible over the downpour. Reeve’s brow crinkled, like he thought we were having him on. But then he heard Shackleton’s voice and his eyes went wide.
For the next few minutes, we watched Reeve’s expression shift from shock to disbelief to a sort of shaky despair as he listened to Shackleton and Calvin talk about using Tabitha to ‘cleanse the outside world of the human plague’.
We’d listened to the recording a thousand times before. But, for some reason, seeing Reeve hear it for the first time made the whole thing seem brand-new again.
‘A hundred days, Bruce,’ said Shackleton in his too-polite voice as we reached the end of the recording. ‘That’s all. A hundred more days and then this will all be over.’
The recording sputtered and died.
Reeve reached for the side of the rock to steady himself. He stared up at the dark grey sky. I could see his mind ticking over, scrambling for some other explanation, some reason to believe that none of it was real.
Trying to do exactly what I’d done.
‘Where did you get that?’ he asked eventually, handing the phone back to Luke.
‘Does it matter?’ asked Jordan.
Reeve didn’t answer.
‘Like we said,’ Jordan went on when it was clear that Reeve wasn’t going to say anything, ‘we found out what those security doors are guarding. There’s a network of tunnels under the town, leading up to a secret part of the Shackleton Building.’
Reeve just nodded. I’d expected him to be at least a little bit surprised by this news, but I guess he’d already reached his maximum shock level for the day.
‘There’s some kind of communications centre up there,’ Jordan continued. ‘We need to get inside and call for help. But first we need your help to get us past security.’
Still no answer from Reeve. He looked completely dazed, and I wondered if what Jordan had said had gone in, or whether he was still reeling from the recording.
Reeve let go of the rock and stepped out into the rain. He paced a bit, like he was considering just walking away from the conversation.
Then he stopped. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
‘It’ll have to be tomorrow,’ he said.
Luke’s face broke into a grin.
‘Whoa – what?’ I said. ‘Tomorrow?’
Reeve opened his eyes again. ‘There are two separate security grids in Phoenix,’ he explained. ‘Grid One covers the mall, the Shackleton Building, and the security centre. You can access it from any computer in Phoenix, so long as you’ve got the right security clearance. Then there’s Grid Two, which – well, we’ve never really known what it was protecting. But I guess this is it, isn’t it? These tunnels of yours. And probably the hidden bit of the Shackleton Building, too.’
‘Can you shut it down?’ asked Luke.
‘Should be able to,’ said Reeve, sounding not nearly as confident as I would’ve liked. ‘But, like I said, tomorrow night’s our only shot. You can’t access Grid Two remotely like you can Grid One. The only way to get at it is by going down into the security centre basement and shutting it off manually.’
‘And you can only do that tomorrow?’ said Jordan, shivering in the cold.
‘That’s when I’m on night shift at the security centre,’ said Reeve. ‘It’s not usually my job, but Lazarro’s still out of action and I’ve been rostered on to cover one of his shifts.’
Lazarro. The security guy Crazy Bill had hospitalised out at the airport.
‘But the main reason,’ Reeve continued, ‘is that the chief isn’t around tomorrow night. He’s off overseeing some special project of Shackleton’s.’
‘Perfect,’ said Jordan, like we were arranging to go see a movie. ‘Tomorrow, then. What time can you have the security disabled?’
Reeve took a breath, eyes turned up to the clouds again like he couldn’t believe he’d let himself get dragged into this.
‘Probably best to leave it as late as possible,’ he said. ‘Wait until everything dies down in town.’
‘So, what? Midnight?’ said Luke.
‘All right,’ said Reeve heavily. ‘Yeah. All right. Tomorrow, midnight.’ Then, like he was having second thoughts, he said, ‘Guys, are you sure you want to do this?’
‘You kidding?’ I said, as thunder cracked the sky again. ‘A moonlit stroll into the secret hide-out of a pack of mass-murderers? Who wouldn’t want in on that? ’
We gave Reeve a ten-minute head start towards town, then got back on the bike trail, taking the long way home in case anyone was watching.
The path carved a wide arc through the bush, circling around to emerge at the north end of town, just over from Jordan’s house. By now the endless rain had turned the whole trail into a winding mud puddle.
I was still jumpy. Still half-expecting gunfire to start ringing out from among the trees.
Tomorrow.
Were we seriously going through with this?
It was too soon. There was no time to plan. No time to figure out –
‘Crap!’
A giant tree root had just appeared out of nowhere. I slammed straight into it and suddenly I was airborne.
I wrenched at the brakes, scanning desperately for a place to land.
The bike touched down again, tyres squelching into the mud at the edge of the trail.
But I wasn’t sitting on it anymore.
I soared over the handlebars and tumbled into the bush, somersaulting across the mud and leaves until I smacked into the base of an old eucalyptus tree.
‘Peter!’
I sat up, eyes refocusing just in time to see Jordan and Luke sliding towards me.
‘I’m all right,’ I said, moving to get to my feet.
But then my hand came down on something cold and smooth. Something metal. I wrapped my fingers around it, pulling it up out of the mud.
‘What’s that?’ asked Jordan, stretching out a hand.
I grabbed on and stood up, not taking my eyes off the container in my other hand. It was square and grey and rusty, with a silver keyhole on the front. An old cashbox or something.
I wiped a hand across the top of the container, clearing away some of the mud, and instantly regretted it.
Because now there was something else gleaming up at me.
A silver word, scratched into the lid of the box.
TABITHA.
Chapter 23
TUESDAY, JUNE 2
72 DAYS
I threw the box to the ground and backed away.
‘Hey, careful!’ said Luke, bending down to pick it up again.
‘Me?’ I said, s
uddenly short of breath. ‘You sure you want to be touching that thing?’
‘You sure you want to be chucking it around like that?’ Luke shot back.
Despite everything, Jordan laughed.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘you think Shackleton has the actual Tabitha sitting out here in a rusty old box?’ She tapped the name on the lid. ‘Look at the writing. It’s from Bill.’
‘Oh, awesome,’ I said, ‘totally safe, then.’
Then something clicked, and I was reaching for my wallet, reaching for Crazy Bill’s key.
Luke put a hand out to take it from me. I snatched the cashbox from his hand and stuck the key in myself. Perfect fit. I gave it a twist and felt the lock click open.
I almost dropped the box again.
He knew.
It wasn’t an accident that I’d found this thing.
Somehow, Crazy Bill had known that I’d come here. That I’d crash into the bush. That my hand would come down on this exact place in the mud.
He’d left the cashbox here on purpose, knowing I’d find it. And he’d hidden the key in my room so I’d be the only one who could open it.
‘How?’ I said out loud. ‘How did he know?’
Another image dropped into my head. Jordan, sitting at Flameburger, knowing Reeve was going to be there.
Don’t be stupid, I told myself. That was just a coincidence.
And so was this. Had to be.
I glanced up from the cashbox and caught Jordan and Luke frowning at each other.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ said Jordan, looking away from him. ‘Hurry up and open it.’
The lid creaked a bit as I eased it open. I held my breath, hoping we were dealing with Helpful Bill and not Random Violence Bill today.
The rain was finally starting to thin out a bit now, enough that we could hear each other without raising our voices. I stared down into the open cashbox. Inside, floating on a puddle of murky water, was a DVD in a soggy paper slipcase.
Tabitha Trial – Final.
Before I’d even fully registered what I was seeing, Jordan had whipped her laptop out of her bag and flipped it open, while Luke snatched up the DVD and peeled away the paper.
‘Wait,’ I said, flinging the cashbox into the mud again. ‘Do we … I mean, if this is … do we really want to see this?’
A gruesome slideshow clicked through my mind – caged animals reduced to piles of splattered meat.
‘Are you kidding?’ said Jordan, stooping over her laptop to shield it from the rain. ‘Bill left this here for us to find. He wanted us to know what we’re dealing with.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘Because last time we talked, he seemed a lot more interested saving his own arse than helping us deal with Tabitha.’
‘Well, either way,’ said Jordan, ‘we still need to know, right?’
She took the disk from Luke and slotted it into the side of her laptop. There was a tiny whir, then the screen blacked out and a video started to play.
We were looking down on a tiny, empty, windowless room, kind of like the interrogation rooms in the security centre. The video looked like it had been taken from a surveillance camera on the ceiling.
The door to the room opened. A man and a woman stumbled in. I recognised them right away.
‘Hey,’ said Luke, ‘aren’t they the two people from that stupid “Welcome to Phoenix” video?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘They were actually part of the construction team that built this place. They left a couple of weeks after I –’
I broke off, hit with the sickening realisation that, of course, they hadn’t left at all.
The man – Craig, I think his name was – started talking to someone outside the door. No audio on the clip, though, so there was no way to tell what he was saying.
A moment later, another man appeared in the doorway.
It was Calvin. Pre-Crazy-Bill Calvin. Uninjured, and at the top of his game.
He was smiling. Never a good sign.
A woman stepped up behind him, tall and thin, with long, dead-straight brown hair.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Jordan.
‘That’s Dr Galton,’ I said. ‘The one who runs the Shackleton Building.’
Dr Galton leant past Calvin to speak to the couple in the room. Her face was blank, expressionless.
She backed away again, and Calvin pulled the door shut, sealing the two of them inside.
The woman – Laura or Lara or something – ran across to the door, but there was no handle on it. She hammered at it few times, and then kicked it.
Craig came over and looked straight up at the camera. He shouted up at us, enraged and scared.
And then suddenly, they dropped to the floor.
Jordan let out a little gasp as they started writhing around, like some invisible force was causing them excruciating pain.
Laura curled up into the foetal position, shuddering, clawing at herself like she was trying to pull off her own skin. Craig crawled over to her, dragging himself across the floor.
The screen jolted as Jordan’s hands started to shake. I forced myself to keep watching, grateful that there was no sound.
Craig and Laura clung to each other, eyes closed, twisting in agony. Their mouths were torn apart in silent, gut-wrenching screams.
Then suddenly, there was a flash of red and the two of them were gone.
Disappeared.
Nothing left but a pile of tattered clothes.
‘Where did they go?’ said Luke shakily.
Almost instantly, the camera shifted. It zoomed in closer and started replaying Craig and Laura’s last moments in slow motion.
The whole thing was a thousand times worse at this speed. Every twitch and spasm was intensified and dragged out.
I watched, almost gagging, as their skin began splitting apart, peeling away, bubbling up underneath, like their whole bodies were dissolving. They were boiling alive, disintegrating, bodies eating themselves from the inside out.
Jordan snapped the laptop shut. She gave a shuddering gasp, tears streaming down her face.
I leant forward, arms wrapped around my stomach, breathing unsteady.
There was a retching sound behind me. Luke was hunched over, throwing up in the mud.
I slumped down against the nearest tree, sliding to the ground with my head in my hands. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything but watch that video replaying itself over and over in my head.
The retching stopped. Jordan had the closed laptop under one arm and was steadying Luke with the other. Touching him again. And I was too far gone to even care.
The rain spattered around us. I watched the droplets drumming onto the cashbox at my feet, streaming down over the barely legible Tabitha scraped into the lid.
Luke coughed a couple of times, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and said, ‘I don’t – What could do that to a person?’
I leant forward, gathering the strength to get up. ‘It’s – It’s got to be some kind of … I don’t know. Like a virus or something, right?’ I said. ‘Some kind of biological weapon.’
‘Whatever it is, that’s what’s going to happen to everyone on the outside unless we can do something to stop Shackleton,’ said Jordan.
She watched me getting to my feet, a searching look in her eyes. Are you with us?
I straightened up and moved to stand next to her again.
‘Yeah,’ I said slowly. ‘You’re right. So we’ll do something. Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Jordan repeated, eyes still red with tears.
Luke let go of her. He rubbed his face and took a deep breath, like he was psyching himself up for something. Then he pulled the laptop out from under Jordan’s arm.
‘We should watch the rest of it,’ he said.
My stomach lurched. But he was right. As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. If there was anything else here that could help us, we needed to see it.
Jordan looked as miserable
as I felt, but she didn’t look away when Luke opened the laptop again.
The image on the screen skipped a few times, then started playing again.
And we watched in silence as the bloodied bodies of those two innocent construction workers writhed and squirmed and chewed themselves into nothingness.
And in the middle of all of that horror, even though there was nothing we could do to change any of it, at least now somebody knew the truth about what had happened to them.
Somehow that felt like it meant something.
The shredded remains of Craig’s and Laura’s clothes hit the concrete in slow motion.
And then it was over.
The clip faded to black and the DVD whirred to a stop.
And the three of us just stood there silently for a bit.
Silently enough for me to hear the sound of ragged breathing behind us.
Breathing I recognised.
Cat.
She was right behind us, backing off slowly, trying to get away without being seen. Her mouth opened and closed, failing to form words.
How long had she been standing there?
Long enough.
She turned and ran.
I sprinted after her, bashing through the undergrowth, between the trees, sliding in the mud, snatching at the air behind her back.
A shout and a crash rang through the bush behind me. Luke taking a dive. I kept running.
Cat hit the top of a little rise and vaulted over an enormous fallen tree. I leapt after her, glancing back, expecting to find Jordan right there with me. But either we’d got separated or she’d gone back for Luke.
It was just the two of us now.
Cat took a sharp right. Too sharp. Her right foot lost traction on the wet ground and she went slipping backwards.
I reached out and grabbed her with both hands, pulling her to her feet.
She jerked around, dragging herself free. ‘Y-you … you g-get away from me, you … y-you …’ she stammered, her whole body shuddering.
‘Cat, no!’ I said. ‘You don’t – that had nothing to do with us!’
But she was beyond hearing it. ‘Get back!’ she screamed. ‘Don’t – don’t you dare –’
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