‘YOU PUT DOWN.’
Hearing the ringing in my ears. In my eyes and in my nose and in my mouth. And I can’t spit the sound out, ’cause I’m screaming so loud that I’ve forgotten how to breathe and how to swallow and all I’m thinking about is how this happened before.
And then seeing Zeb on the floor. Seeing his red escape down that drain.
I don’t feel Him get up from behind me and stumble over to the door. I don’t notice the sun bars turn back to black. I don’t hear the Others quiet their hollering. I don’t even know where I am until my throat is empty of screams. And even then I don’t know, ’cause it looks mighty like I’m caught up in the middle of a pile of Others and I know that can’t be right. I don’t do that no more.
But it quietens me some. And I guess that’s enough for me to finally get around to passing out.
Nine
There’s that lady again – the one with the red-lipped smile.
She’s got me close to her, but I ain’t afraid, ’cause I can smell Zeb behind me. And I can see his hand reaching over my shoulder and fiddling with something gold round the lady’s neck.
We’re lying down on something spiky. Something green. Zeb’s fingers wind the gold round them. I can feel his breathing in my ear, slow and steady.
Then the lady’s hands close round Zeb’s. And I frown, ’cause I don’t remember Zeb’s hands ever being that small. She brings his fingers to her mouth and she kisses the top of each of them, one by one. Her lips leave little red marks on his nails.
Red.
I hurl myself awake.
I blink a few times and see that it’s dark – about as dark as it gets. I raise my head up and find a leg in my way. I don’t think too much about that. I just nudge it to the side and look over to the door.
Light’s back on red.
‘Ele?’
I close my eyes and sleep again.
Ten
Everything is happening quickly, like blinking.
Wake up. Cow in my face, arm in my back. Bodies.
‘Ele? I’m hungry.’
Closing my eyes again.
Wake up. Water all over me, making me gasp out cold.
A flash of eyes, all shining red.
‘Goddamn!’
My voice, I think.
Then – nothing.
Wake up. Feeling heavy. Hot.
Hearing a ringing in my ears.
Making myself go right back to sleep.
Wake up. No bodies. Cold. Dark.
I sit myself up this time, feeling as bad as I’ve ever felt. I blink a few times, waiting for the shadows to clear. They don’t.
‘This is one long night.’
My voice is quiet, like it’s broken. I rest my head on my knees and let my blood settle into being upright.
I hear a shuffling noise and one of the Others comes to sit beside me.
‘It ain’t just one night, Ele.’
Bee.
I squeeze my eyes up. My belly rumbles something awful, like it’s chewing itself inside out.
‘How long?’ I say.
I can hear Bee biting the side of her mouth. ‘Two, three days maybe?’
Takes an awful lot not to just go back to sleeping again.
‘No food?’
‘Nothing.’
‘He been back?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that’s something.’
I let my head fall back and find the wall behind me.
‘Why?’ Her voice is like a whisper, too.
I shrug, my shoulders as heavy as if I was carrying Cow. ‘Maybe He’s trying to kill us. Maybe He’s gone and died Himself.’
I can’t help but smile at that, even when it means what it does. He dies, we die. That’s always been clear enough. He brings us the light, makes the feed come down, makes the rain happen. Without Him, there’s darkness.
‘What do we do, Ele?’
I think about it some. Think about the dark and our bellies and the red light above that door. I even think about going back to sleep and letting it all happen.
‘Drink,’ I say.
And we do. We drink until our bellies hurt. Sucking water right from the tap. At some point, the rain comes down and scares Cow just about to death. Rain feels mighty strange in the dark, like tiny nails dragging at our skin.
Cow ain’t doing well without food. I want to say something to him to make it better, but my voice still ain’t working properly and I don’t know what I should be saying anyway.
I knock to Jack.
Are the sun bars on at yours?
Yes, he says. They’re on.
And feed – is it coming down?
Yeah.
OK.
I’m sorry.
Ain’t your fault.
He knocks me when the sun bars go off, and I tell the Others to sleep. He knocks when they come on again, and I go round waking them up. ’Cept Cow, that is. Poor boy is better off sleeping, the pain he’s in from not eating and all.
On what we reckon is the fourth or fifth day, Queenie shuffles over. She don’t say nothing at first. We just sit in silence staring at the red above the door.
‘Did He get you?’ she says finally.
I swallow the ringing in my ears down. ‘Nah,’ I say. ‘He missed.’
She don’t say nothing again, and I wonder if she’s still mad at me for practising my Outside-People talking the other day. But then I think of all those bodies around me when I woke up, and I count three in my memory.
I want to say I’m sorry, but it don’t sound right, even in the dark.
‘Why din you go?’
I’m falling asleep when I hear her, so I wonder if I just dreamt it at first. But then I feel Queenie still near me, sitting quiet as can be.
I close my eyes, not that it makes no difference. I think again about that green light. About that clear path I had to it. And about that hand that wiggled away from mine.
‘’Cause you din come.’
She goes to shuffle back over, but stops for a second before she does.
‘You’re more stupid than I thought.’
I frown, watching the light shine off the top of her head as she makes her way back over to the other side of the Tower.
Eleven
I wake up feeling breathing on my shoulder.
I don’t move none at first, thinking it’s Bee or Cow come to lie with me again. But this breathing don’t feel right.
It’s cold.
I’ve gone and fallen asleep all twisted up in my corner, kind of sitting up, but with my arms hugged round me. My shoulder hurts like it’s been pulled real tight. And I groan a bit when I stretch myself out, touching my toes then trying to reach the black sun bars. All the bones in my back start cracking like they’re falling apart.
I’ve not been doing my running since the sun bars stopped lighting up. My body is missing all the moving.
It’s still mighty dark, but my eyes are getting better at seeing. I can see clear as day that the Others are sleeping all piled up near the door.
I rub my eyes and turn back to face the wall behind me, running my hand along all the cricks and cracks I know like the back of my hand.
Then I hear a patter. Like when feed drops out of the bowl and on to the floor. For a second, my belly starts rumbling like it thinks it’s gonna get a meal, but I tell it that feed ain’t never fallen from the sun bars before.
I keep one hand on the wall while the other one is searching the floor, and I guess I come on them both at about the same time, ’cause I put them together in my head right away.
On the floor is a piece of wall. And on the wall is a hole.
There’s a hole in the wall.
I pull both my hands away quick and tuck them under my arms. My heart is beating faster than it has in five or six long nights, and for a moment I can’t even think of anything past all the rushing around in my head.
Shaking something terrible, I take my hands out from under my arms and I find the pie
ce of wall on the floor. It’s about as thick as a finger, but not as long, and pointy at the end, like a tooth. I wish I could see it properly, but I can imagine it well enough. I know my walls.
I shuffle up to the wall again and move my hands around it until I find the hole, air blowing through like a breath. I sit myself up, press my ear to it and about near scream out loud when it whispers in my ear.
My heart is going thumpthumpthump. I sit back and look as hard as I can at the wall … and you can’t even see nothing unless you’re looking for it really hard, but there it is. Light. Tiny, tiny. But light nonetheless.
I reach across to Jack’s wall and feel for the mark I’ve made from knocking. I feel for breathing. Nothing.
This one ain’t on Jack’s wall. It’s on the wall away from the door – a wall I ain’t paid any real attention to before, as it don’t knock nor have a door.
But it has this.
I get real close to it again.
‘Hello?’
The whispering is all on one breath.
Some kind of Witch. It’s not taking no breath in.
I pick up the bit of wall and push it back in, trying to shut it up. It don’t seem to fit quite right, though, as other bits of wall start coming away in dust, and I can’t help but scream out loud at that.
‘What’s going on?’
Queenie hisses it from across the room, trying not to wake the Others.
I jump back from the wall, leaving the bit plugged in.
‘Ain’t nothing!’ I sit on my hands, all my insides swishing about my ears. The Tower is filled with my mad beating heart and it’s so loud that Queenie is bound to hear it. She’ll hear it and then she’ll be all teeth.
I squint at the pile of sleeping bodies in the darkness. I can see her squeezing out from under Cow to come see. See what I’ve done. See what I’ve found.
I hold my breath.
Then suddenly the whole Tower flashes with white pain that just about splits my head. The Others holler out something terrible.
But I clamp my eyes closed, jump up and start running, like it’s just another day.
Even over all the noise, I still hear Jack’s knocks.
Sun bars are on.
Twelve
When that feed comes down, we clamber over ourselves to get it into our mouths.
Soon as it hits my lips, my stomach wants to throw it all back out again. I keep most of it down, though, and Cow goes around eating all of what we don’t.
It feels mighty good to be back in the light. It takes a bit for our eyes to feel the same way, though, and we stumble around for a good while with our eyes closed.
The Others nuzzle into me as I shuffle by, and they come over to inspect me for themselves, making sure my head is all in one piece. Ain’t one drop of blood on me. Even my knuckles have healed up nice.
I don’t say nothing about the hole in the wall. Try not to even think about it.
I spend time looking at the books instead. It feels good to see trees again. Bee reads some out to me. I lie with my head in her lap, thinking about how nice her voice sounds, even though she’s reading it in Other. It’s still much nicer than mine, which is all cusses and edge. Hers is silky smooth. She’ll fit right in on the Outside.
When the sun bars go off again, it takes a while for everyone to settle back down to sleep. But, with full bellies, they get off soon enough.
I keep myself twisted up, feeling for the breathing on my shoulder.
When I know for sure that they’re all sleeping, I sit myself up and I unplug the bit of wall. More of it falls out, feeling all strange in my hand, like feed that’s been crushed up real small. I poke my finger in and wiggle it about until the wall stops falling out.
I keep my finger in it, feeling the cold breath on the tip.
I want to take it out.
I don’t never want to take it out.
I sit there dilly-dallying, the feed in my belly feeling mighty unsettled. Then I lean myself over and stretch out my hand to Jack’s wall.
Jack, you awake?
He takes a bit to answer. So long that I have to prop my hand up with the other when it starts feeling tired.
Yeah.
I let out my breath and lick my lips like I’m about to say something.
He gets there first.
Your feed come down?
Yeah.
That’s great, Ele. Really great. I was beginning to think –
Jack?
Yeah?
You think a gun could explode a wall?
He takes his time to think about it.
Yeah, I guess it could.
My heart is thumping in my ears.
That’s what I thought.
He don’t say nothing, like he’s waiting for me to get around to telling him. And I want to say it. I do – I want to. But, also, saying it is awful hard for some reason, and the words, they get caught up before they come out.
Jack?
Nothing. He’s waiting.
Let me tell you how Zeb died.
Thirteen
Zeb knew the truth before I did.
Not at first, though. First, he was just like me. The Inside was our world, and we filled it with games.
We’d see how far we could jump from one side of the Tower to the other. We’d blow bubbles in the water, play at spinning and lie together laughing like Little Pigs over nothing.
But then something changed, around the time the door started opening and He started coming through.
Zeb stopped laughing.
‘I don’t like it,’ Zeb said to me every time that whistling was due to come strolling up to our door. ‘He’s hurting you real bad.’
‘Naw, it ain’t too bad, Zeb. It’s just His way, is all. Thinks Himself all big and strong, pushing a little ’un like me around. Don’t take long and we can get back to doing our things after.’
And when He came I made sure I din go screaming out.
We stopped playing our games, though. All Zeb wanted to talk about was escaping to the Outside. He’d sit listing all the proofs he knew: the books, the door, Him, us. And he became obsessed with finding the next proofs – the ones that would make it real.
He’d be pounding on the door with his fists one day, then not barely moving the next, like he’d disappeared through it already.
On his door-pounding days, he made me exercise with him. As soon as those sun bars came on, we was up and running.
‘We’ll need to move fast when we escape,’ he’d say, holding my legs as I practised my handstands.
I din want to do no exercise. I wanted to go back to playing games again, to when we was happy.
Like a stupid Other, living in lies.
Then, one night, Zeb came over to me in the dark. I felt his breath on my cheek, and at first I thought it was one of the Others. Around this time, we’d always be sleeping in a pile together, but Zeb preferred to sleep by himself.
He was breathing fast, like he’d been up and running before me. I just lie there, listening to his breath.
‘We’re gonna get Outside tomorrow. I’ve got a plan.’
He whispered it, like it was a secret. And I should’ve told him then that I weren’t ready to leave. That I din reckon I was brave enough. That we hadn’t even found the next proofs. But I was so happy to have him next to me that I din want to spoil it, so I shut up and said nothing.
He slept next to me that night, tucked into me and swinging with me through trees in our dreams. In the morning, he tested out my running skills, looking pleased when I showed him how long I could go without stopping.
Then the whistling started, and I realized that this was it. Everything was gonna change.
I din want it to.
As the Others shuffled into their corner, I grabbed on to Zeb’s leg.
‘We ain’t got enough proofs, Zeb. Let’s leave it a while. Let’s wait ’til we know what we got to do.’
‘We got all the proofs we need,’ he said, tryin
g to stop my hands clinging on to him.
I was panicking. Bee’s eyes were wide and I was scrabbling about, trying to talk him into stopping, trying to talk him out of what I knew he was gonna do.
‘It’s too … I can’t,’ I said.
When the whistling was so close that we could hear His breaths on the other side of the door, Zeb reached over and hugged me to him.
‘I believe in you, Ele,’ he whispered into my hair.
And, when he looked at me, there weren’t no sadness no more. It had been clean swept away with excitement.
I let go of him.
And, when that whistling finally came in through the door, He din see no different. Just me, waiting on Him to bring me presents and pretending nothing else was going on.
I played the game. Even though my heart was beating so loud I was sure it was gonna give me away. He told me about His ‘shit of a day’. I stroked His silver hair. And I din say nothing when I saw Zeb slowly get up to his feet behind Him. I din even make a sound as Zeb tiptoed over, face all white and shining with something hopeful, then bent over silently and reached out for the magic key.
I held my breath, though.
He keeps the key in a secret hole in His extra-skins, but He’d already taken them off. It weren’t no bother for Zeb to reach in with his long fingers and slide the key out.
And I was watching Zeb look to the door and back at me. But he din move towards it. He wiped his hands down his sides – the key still in one – and then reached out to get me.
And his eyes said it all. That it was time. That it was time for me to be brave.
But I wasn’t. And something about the way I seized up must’ve made Him stop talking and sit up.
I knew that was my chance. That, if I ran real fast like I knew I could, there was a chance I could make it to the door with Zeb. That he could use the magic key to open it. That we could escape together.
But I din know that for sure. And not knowing meant I weren’t moving. I looked into Zeb’s wide, sad eyes, and I did nothing.
Nothing.
He turned and saw Zeb standing over His behind. He cussed and lashed out, standing up real fast. He fumbled for His gun on the side of His belt and brought it down so hard on Zeb’s head that the light in his eyes went out. Click. Just like that. And, all that time, Zeb din do nothing but look at me, eyes like big buckets of sky, right up until the point when they went out.
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