by Kirby Howell
That was it. The hallways inside the Big Apple looked like the streets of the once proud city, down to cobblestone streets. I was about to urge Snicket on, when a muffled noise echoed down the hall. Sam was here, on her horse, in the Big Apple. I strained to listen. The clip clops grew quieter. She was heading away from me, but it didn’t sound like she was moving fast.
I nudged Snicket forward, wishing I could find a strip of carpet to muffle her steps, but I guess carpet didn’t line the streets of New York, so I wouldn’t find it here. I focused on listening for Sam, so I wouldn’t envision what was causing the stench. I tried not to breathe through my nose.
I periodically paused, listening for the other set of clip-clopping hooves, and adjusted my bearing to follow the noise. I turned down what looked like a narrow alley and came out into what I immediately recognized as Times Square. Two hallways crossed, creating the “X” intersection, complete with stacked advertisements at both ends. There were a few emergency lights still working in here, and I could plainly see the horrific scene that lay before me.
Bodies surrounded me. They draped limply on benches lining the storefronts and restaurants, laying forward on tables in front of them, or simply stretched out in rows in the middle of the street, in various states of decomposition. The smell was overpowering. Worse than the compost bin at the gardens. My eyes watered. The air was thick, and I wasn’t sure which was worse, breathing in the smell or opening my mouth to it.
Snicket was nervous, stamping her feet and pricking her ears. I absentmindedly brushed her neck with my fingers to calm her as my eyes fell from one scene to another around the indoor square.
A man clenched a woman to his chest, both arms still wrapped around her. Two girls sat side by side against a hot dog cart, their heads bent together, leaning on each other. Three little girls lay huddled around the feet of an elderly couple still perched on chairs at a table. Each child had a string in her hand leading to deflated balloons next to them. A young couple lay nearby wearing matching t-shirts. One said, “Just,” the other, “Married.” The man’s hand still lightly touched the short veil in the girl’s hair.
I couldn’t look away. All these people died here together. They had nowhere else to go. There hadn’t been time. How many other hotels along this street, in this city alone, held scenes just like this? How many were now tombs?
A sound made me glance up from the newlyweds. Sam was barely visible in the darkness across the square, also taking in the scene. My mind tore through options. Did I call out to her, hoping she was distressed enough by the scene in front of us to not run? Did I try to sneak back into the darkness and come around another hallway to surprise her from behind? Did I charge across the square, letting Snicket jump and dodge around the bodies strewn across the ground between us?
Just then, she looked up at me. We stared at each other for a moment without moving. I wondered if she was thinking about her sister. Or was she thinking about Karl?
“Sam,” I said quietly, suddenly feeling as if the girl across the square wasn’t the only one listening. I steadied my voice, “We don’t have to be against each other. You don’t have to fight anymore.” I couldn’t understand how she could even think about continuing to do Karl’s bidding after experiencing what life could be like away from him.
Sam jutted her chin out and said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. None of you do!”
“Then tell me. What am I missing?” I asked.
Sam was quiet. It was difficult to see her in the darkness, but she seemed to be hesitating.
I tried again. “Sam, you can talk to me. Did Karl make you do this?” She didn’t respond. “If you want out, if you want to fully escape from him, we can help you. We’ll protect you. You’ll never have to go back to him.”
“I want to go back to him,” she said sternly.
I started to feel lightheaded from the thick air and knew I needed to get out of here as soon as possible.
“You think you’re safe?” Sam spoke so quietly, it was hard to hear her. “You think Hoover is safe? Nowhere is safe when Karl knows where you are.”
Her words chilled me. Why had she enunciated “you”? Why was I more important to him? Was it because I defied him? But the rest of us in the Underground had done that, too. Why would he just be after me? Before I could decide how to question her further, a creaking sound split the silence in the square. Movement where there shouldn’t have been made me jump, scaring Snicket so that her whinny echoed loudly around the room.
The elderly woman at the table slowly shifted sideways, her chair creaking, and she fell forward like a rag doll. Her limp body spilled from the chair, weak arms trailing after her, and she landed with a thump on the ground, half covering one of the still children who had been huddled at her feet.
Screw this, I thought, and yanked Snicket’s head around. Sam or no Sam, I was getting the hell out of here. Snicket and I tore back down the street the way we came, my heart pounding like a battering ram against my chest. Snicket’s hooves slipped and slid as she clattered down the fake cobblestone streets of New York.
Now that my eyes were adjusted to the dark, I began to see everything I missed on my way in. Bodies gathered inside restaurants, laid out inside stores and down the small alleys leading to restrooms and elevators. Bodies draped across park benches, leaned against the base of lampposts and doorways. A slight movement above me caught my eye. A body dangled from the track of the roller coaster that zoomed through the building before shooting back outside. The body rotated slowly, the rope around its neck creaking softly.
I tore my eyes away from it and urged Snicket faster and faster, until I saw a flood of white light ahead of me. The door. It barely opened in time for us to leap through into the blinding sunlight. I gasped for fresh air as Snicket continued to tear down Las Vegas Boulevard, not caring where she was headed. I couldn’t have been more grateful to be out of that hotel.
A small rider on a horse appeared suddenly on the street ahead of me. It was Sam. She must have exited the Big Apple from the back and taken a side street. I bumped Snicket’s sides, encouraging her to go faster, and she did. I never had a reason to ride her so hard before, and she rose to the occasion. It made me wonder what she was used for before The Plague. Maybe she’d been a racehorse.
We were gaining on Sam. The pools of the Plantation House were half drained, exposing the pipes that created the stunning water shows. The sun flickered off the Eiffel Tower at the Champs-Élysées Hotel across the street as we passed, but I didn’t take my eyes off Sam. She turned around once in her saddle to see me coming up behind her and swerved to the right, her horse neatly jumping the curb of the median, sailing across the small mound of what used to be grass between two dead palm trees, and landing on the opposite side of the street.
She continued away from me while I raced along a line of palm trees too tight to jump through. I watched breathlessly for an opening as she disappeared down the driveway to The Paradise. There was a pile-up of cars at the intersection, which blocked me from following her. Snicket veered around the cars and ignored my signals to turn around and follow Sam.
“Whoa!” I screeched and tried to haul back on her mane, but it was no use. Snicket was in charge. She continued thundering along the street. As the Paradise’s driveway curved back toward Las Vegas Boulevard, I caught a glimpse of Sam, coming our way, her horse stretched out with its tail flying high behind it. I was going to crash right into her if Snicket kept galloping at this pace. Did Sam see us? I yelled and tried to slow Snicket again. Sam flew past us in a whoosh of dry wind and sand, not two feet in front of Snicket’s nose.
We followed Sam’s path as she cut straight across Las Vegas Boulevard and up to the grand entrance to the Ponte di Rialto Casino. A large moving sidewalk was in place, rather than a staircase, and Snicket’s hooves made hollow, padded thumping noises as she pounded up the slight incline after Sam. Not another uncleared hotel, I thought.
We burst throug
h a doorway missing its doors and into a large hallway well lit with skylights. Everything was blue – the walls, the ceiling, the water. Just as the Big Apple emulated its own city inside its hallways, the Ponte di Rialto did the same. A canal wound down the center of the walkway, and stores, restaurants and bars lined the walls like a real street in Venice, Italy.
Our horses were nose to rump now, and if I leaned forward I would be able to touch Sam’s horse’s tail. I didn’t dare let go of Snicket’s mane. The floor was made of another fake cobblestone, and I felt her hooves slipping as we pounded beside the edge of the canal directly to our right.
I managed to edge up beside Sam, and I reached out, trying to grab her reins. I must have startled her, because she suddenly looked at me, yelled in surprise and jerked to the left. Her horse let out a terrified screech as it stumbled and fell into the canal with an enormous splash, carrying Sam with it. A great wave crested the opposite bank and splashed across the cobblestones, all the way to the edge of a restaurant. Sam floundered in the chest-deep water, searching to put her feet on the ground.
I pulled Snicket to a stop and jumped off, pulling a rope from where it was strung across a doorway with a sign hung on it. Without pausing, I jumped into the canal next to Sam, found my footing quickly, and grabbed her. I pulled her arms behind her and bound them tightly together, sign and all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The walk back to the Egyptian seemed to take a very long time. I’d only walked the length of the Strip twice before, when Ben, Shad and I walked to the Mesosphere and back, but I was already sick of it. I was more than ready to leave Las Vegas and get back to regular life in Hoover.
I wasn’t about to let Sam ride Snicket with me, so she trudged ahead while I rode, her wrists tied tightly with a rope I held. I led Sam’s stolen horse behind me.
“The ropes are too tight,” Sam whined. “Can’t you loosen them a little?”
“No. And I guarantee your wrists don’t hurt nearly as much as those people who got trampled by the stampede you caused.”
That seemed to shut her up for the moment. I stared at the black plume of smoke billowing up in the distance. The acrid stench of gasoline and burning rubber filled my nostrils. I was so angry with her that I thought about kicking Snicket into a canter to see how fast she could run.
Instead, I jerked on the rope that held her. “Why would you do something like this?” I exploded. “Hasn’t enough happened to these people? The sandstorms. The helicopter. Not to mention The Plague that kicked off all this misery a year ago. Why would you blow up their gasoline stores? And how could you set the horses loose on everyone like that? Only a monster could do something so horrible.”
“I didn’t mean to, okay?!” Sam snapped back at me. “Yes, I opened the corral, but I didn’t know the horses would stampede, and I didn’t know they’d run into all those people. I just thought they’d wander off and slow down the dig.”
“People are dead because of you. Do you understand that? Do you even care?”
“Of course, I care! I didn’t mean for them to die.”
“Oh, I get it. You just meant to cause problems in general, is that it?”
“Well. Yeah.”
I nudged Snicket into a trot, passing Sam, and yanked hard on the rope tied to her wrists.
“Slow down, I can’t keep up! You’re going to make me fall!” Her voice clawed at my ears, and I reluctantly pulled Snicket back into a plodding walk and twisted around to face Sam.
“Shut up! Just shut up!” I yelled. “I knew I couldn’t trust you! You lied to all of us. And you totally played Ben. I wish you’d never come from Los Angeles. I wish you’d stayed back in LA, and I’d never laid eyes on you again! Why couldn’t you have just left us alone?!”
“Let me go. I’ll go back. You’ll never see me again, I promise.”
“Like hell. You’re going to pay for everything you’ve done. The stampede, the medical supplies, blowing up the gas stores, the water main. Everything.”
“Water main?”
Sam seemed genuinely confused. I remembered Sam was here in Vegas with us when the water main was sabotaged.
“Knock it off. I know you know what Karl’s been doing to us, here in Vegas and back in Hoover.”
“I don’t. I mean it. I really don’t! Karl makes sure we act independently.”
“We? How many Frontmen are in Hoover?”
Sam didn’t speak. I stopped Snicket and yanked hard on Sam’s rope.
“How many are there?!”
She stood there, wordless, chewing on her lip. I wanted to slap her.
“How long has Karl been sending people up here to spy and make trouble? What’s he up to?” I demanded.
She began to cry, thin shoulders shaking and her pale face pinched.
I sighed and slumped forward again, then nudged Snicket to walk. Sam plodded along behind me, her sniffling and shaky breaths continuing for several more blocks. I finally turned around again and said, “You know I don’t care if you’re crying, right? I have no sympathy left for you.”
“But he made me!” she cried out suddenly.
“Karl made you?” I repeated in disgust.
Sam nodded, her eyes wide and the tip of her nose bright red from crying. I faced forward again. “No one can make you do anything. You always have a choice.”
“If he asked you to do something... you’d do it,” Sam said. “I know you would.”
Her inflection on the word “he” made me realize she was talking about Grey, not Karl.
“You love him!” she pressed. “Wouldn’t you do anything for him? No matter what? Wouldn’t you walk the world if he asked you to?”
I remained silent and stared straight ahead. I felt Sam’s eyes boring into the back of my head, waiting for my answer.
“I love him,” she wept. “I know you understand!”
“No, I don’t. I do love Grey. But the difference between him and Karl is he would never... never ask me to hurt someone for him.”
She fell to her knees, sobbing. I couldn’t stop Snicket in time, and she was yanked to the ground, face down in the dirt. I slid down from Snicket and pulled her up. Her tears cut tracks down her splotchy, dust-covered cheeks, and she looked at me in earnest. “You would do it if he told you he needed you to go somewhere you didn’t want to go. If he told you he needed you to do things for him and get close to people for him... even though you didn’t want to leave his side. You’d do it, because he counted on you, because he loved you and believed in you! I know you would!”
I stared into her pathetic face, my gaze as hard as stone. “If Grey asked me to do those things, I’d know he didn’t love me. I’d know he was using me. Karl played you. You’re his pawn. And you hurt a lot of people for nothing.”
Sam’s face slowly crumpled again, and her face broke into a silent wail. I didn’t have any patience left for members of The Front. Or anyone who stood against the rebuilding of some semblance of a normal society. Would there always be fighting? I wondered. Would there never be peace again?
Dark plumes of smoke poured from behind the Egyptian, and the smell of burning fuel got stronger. As we got closer, I realized the flames had spread from the parking garage to the Egyptian. The entire back of the pyramid was on fire, and my heart jumped into my throat when I thought of all the people inside. Then I remembered the front entrance was clear and people could easily evacuate that way. I hoped no more people had perished at Sam’s hands.
I jerked at her rope. “I bet you didn’t mean for that to happen either?” I asked sarcastically, but Sam didn’t answer. She stared at the fire as we approached slowly, dread clearly painted on her face.
As we passed into the cool shadow of Camelot, I saw a crowd of people gathered outside the Egyptian. They stared at the blazing inferno, empty buckets at their sides. No one even tried to stop the fire. It was too big to control. The only thing to do was get out of the way and let it burn.
I spotted Ben at the back o
f the crowd with Shad and Rissi. He turned around, as if he were expecting me, and we instantly locked eyes.
He ran over, looking relieved to see me, but when he got closer and saw Sam’s dirty face and the rope tied around her hands, he stopped and looked confused.
“Autumn, what the hell are you doing? Let her go.” Ben started toward her and reached to untie her hands.
“Ask her who caused the explosion, Ben.”
Ben looked at me, dumbfounded. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“Ask her who stole the medical supplies, broke the radio, and who started the stampede.” Ben’s jaw dropped, and he took a step back from Sam in disbelief.
“Sam?” His voice cracked slightly as he said her name. Sam began sobbing again, and Ben’s expression went from disbelief to anger.
“How... how could you? All that time we spent together... People died.” Ben’s face was red, and his eyes glistened with moisture. The betrayal he felt echoed in his gaze. He sniffed quickly and reached for the rope in my hands.
“I’ll take it from here,” he said. His eyes were dead. Expressionless. As if all the pain melted away, leaving stone behind. I handed him the rope, feeling responsible.
“No, Ben. Wait! I’m sorry,” she wailed, her last two words drowning in tears.
Ben pushed Sam along in front of him. When she dropped to her knees, weeping and refusing to face the others, he lifted her by the elbow and steered her through the crowd toward Franklin.
“What’s going on?” Shad asked.
“Can you stay with Rissi for a little while?” I asked Shad. He agreed, and I dismounted Snicket, tied her to a nearby fence and moved past them without another word. I followed Ben, as he carved a path through the rest of the tired, grief-stricken people, until he faced Franklin.
Grey and Daniel were next to him, both weary and soot-stained. I couldn’t hear Ben’s words when he began to speak to Franklin, but the expression on Franklin’s face told me enough. His cheeks went red under his cowboy hat, and his lips twisted into a terrifying grimace. Then he slapped Sam so hard she spun around and, unable to catch herself with her hands tied, fell into the dirt.