"GET UP!"
"Hey…!" Will spluttered. "Who…?"
He blinked groggily. Elliott and Cal were standing over him.
"Get up!" Elliott ordered harshly, then kicked him.
Will tried, but then collapsed back. He was shaky and confused, finding it impossible to order his floundering thoughts. He saw her face. Although it was black with filth, he could see she wasn't the remotest bit pleased to see him again. And here he'd thought that she and Drake would be congratulating him for keeping on, for making it against all odds!
Perhaps he'd totally misjudged how they would react, and they were furious with him for becoming separated from the group. Perhaps he'd broken another of their inscrutable rules. Rubbing the salt crystals from his red-rimmed eyes, he studied Elliott's face again. It was set in the grimmest of expressions.
"I… I didn't… how long have…?" he slurred, noting that Cal's expression was similarly grim, and that both he and Elliott were dripping wet and smelled of chemicals.
Chester had begun gathering the food containers together into his backpack, fumbling in his haste.
"They got him," Cal said, his chest heaving as he lashed his stick demonstratively through the air. "The Limiters got Drake!"
Chester stopped what he was doing. Will shook his head disbelievingly, and then looked to Elliott for confirmation. He didn't need to see the grazes on the side of her face, or the blood welling from a deep gouge on her temple, to know that his brother was telling the truth. The sight of her narrowed, angry eyes was enough.
"But… how…? Will gasped.
She merely turned and marched off in the direction of the subterranean sea Will had spent so long beside.
Part Four
The Island
35
The boys had the greatest difficulty keeping up with Elliott, she was moving so swiftly. As if she didn't care whether they kept up or not.
Of the three of them, Cal was struggling the most. He shuffled along and even fell several times as they trekked across the sandy bank. But he always managed to drag himself to his feet and carry on. He was saying something to himself — prayers, perhaps, though Will couldn't be certain and wasn't about to waste his breath to inquire. He had a splitting headache that he couldn't shake, and he was weak from lack of sleep and food. His thirst remained unquenchable — without stopping, he would take gulps from his canteen, but it did little to assuage it.
None of the boys spoke. Questions were burning in their minds. With Drake gone, would Elliott simply abandon them and go off by herself? Or would she continue with the plans that Drake had discussed and keep them together as a team?
Will was pondering this as he noticed a barely perceptible change in the terrain. The punishing, shifting sand had firmed up, becoming a little easier to traverse. He wondered why.
The sea was still to his right. He could hear the odd lugubrious slap of a wave, but he knew that the cavern wall — to his left and invisible in the darkness — must be quite some distance away by now. They were going deeper and deeper into an area that Will had only touched upon in his hours of blind wandering.
Then, under the dim light shed by his lantern, he saw the pale sandiness had transformed into darker ground. He stumbled over something solid and immovable, his boot striking hard against it. He stooped to explore what it was: It felt exactly like a small stump from a felled tree. Will tried to contain his curiosity, but it got the better of him and he clicked up the lever behind the lens of his lantern.
Immediately Elliott swooped back. She stood threateningly in front of him.
"What do you think you're doing?" she growled. "Turn that down!"
"I'm just having a look," he answered, refusing to engage her flashing eyes as he surveyed the area around his feet. It had changed. There were several stumps of varying heights, between which were strange-looking plants — succulents, Will guessed — covering the ground so thickly that little of the sand showed through. They were black, or at least a darkish gray, and their leaves, sticking out from stubby central stems, were round and bloated and covered with a waxy cuticle.
"Salt-loving," he proposed, nudging one of the succulents with his boot.
"Turn that light down," Elliott ordered, scowling. She was barely out of breath, while Will and the two other boys gasped heavily, grateful for this small rest stop.
Will looked up at her. "I want to know where you're taking us," he demanded, holding her stare. "You're going so fast, and we're all totally knackered."
She didn't answer.
"At least tell us what the plan is," he persisted.
She spat, barely missing Will's knee. "The light!" she hissed through her teeth as she brought the butt of her rifle up threateningly. Having zero desire to get into a fight, he dutifully clicked his lantern back to the lowest setting. She flicked her head away from him and strode off, passing Cal, then Chester, to take the lead again. It reminded Will of the way Rebecca had treated him back in Highfield. He pondered whether all teenage girls had a similar streak of vindictiveness, and wondered again if he would ever fully understand the opposite sex. In the hours that followed, despite his pleas for her to slow down, it seemed to Will as though Elliott had stepped up a gear and was forging ahead even faster now, purely to spite him.
The succulents grew taller as they moved farther into this new region. When they trod on the leaves, they made squishing noises, as if they were walking over thick mud. Every so often one of the leaves would burst with a loud popping sound, like a punctured balloon, filling the air with the most intense smell of sulfur.
They began to encounter basic-looking plants in wiry tangles, like overgrown banks of brambles. Will thought they resembled the common horsetail, a plant he knew from its rampant growth in Highfield Cemetery. But these had dirty-white stems, some reaching an inch in diameter, around which were collars of black, needle-thin, prickly spikes. The farther the boys traveled, the denser the banks became, until the plants were almost up to their waists and they had a heck of a job wading through them.
Added to this, increasing numbers of thick trees blocked their way. Will could see that their trunks were covered in rough scales and guessed they were huge ferns. The abundance of them made it increasingly difficult to see the person in front. The air had also become intensely humid, and the boys were soon drenched in sweat.
Will was right behind Cal as he labored along, trying to ensure his brother didn't drop behind, when he noticed a change in course. They were going down a slight incline, which would eventually bring them to the beach. He could hear thrashing up ahead as Elliott beat their way through the thick foliage, and he caught a fleeting glimpse of Chester. He and Cal were still on track. But where was Elliott taking them?
They stumbled down the last of the slope and broke from the undergrowth to find themselves on the shore. It was the first time any of the boys had actually seen the sea. Cal and Chester stared at it in silent amazement, a light breeze cooling their sweaty faces. But Will's attention was absorbed by the spectacle of the huge forest from which they'd just emerged. In the penumbra of his lantern, it appeared so dark and impenetrable.
Giant fernlike trees towered high above him.
"Cycads!" Will exclaimed. "These have to be gymnosperms. The dinosaurs ate plants like this!"
At the apex of their gently curving trunks, which had dark rings around them at regular intervals as if they had been built by slotting together a series of increasingly smaller cylinders, grew massive crowns of fronds. Some were fully open, while others were still curled up on themselves. Unlike the green leaves of cycads found on the earth's surface, the fronds of these huge plants were gray.
In between these primordial trees, copses of the bloated succulents and the trailing brambles, so tightly interwoven, gave the impression of the thickest jungle in the dead of night. And Will could see small white fluttering insects dithering between the high branches of the trees. Those nearest to him were clearly the same species of snowy mo
th he had first seen in the Colony. And Will heard an infrequent, familiar sound — one that evoked the Topsoil countryside so strongly he smiled. The chirping of crickets!
It was several moments before he wrenched his gaze away from the whole scene.
Cal and Chester, both still trying to get their breath back, were throwing worried glances at the stretch of water before them. Will looked past the two boys to where Elliott was kneeling as she surveyed the shoreline through her rifle scope.
Will went to her side, curious as to what was churning up the water so violently, and found himself standing at the precise spot where a fluxing white line broke its surface. It arced away into the gloom, a mass of shifting white striations of froth and spume on one side.
"This is the causeway," Elliott said in an offhand manner, anticipating his question.
She got to her feet and the boys straggled around her.
"We're going to cross here. If you slip, you'll be washed away. So don't." Her voice sounded flat, telling them nothing about what she was thinking.
"There's some sort of rock outcrop under here, isn't there?" Will pondered aloud, taking a few steps forward to thrust his hand into the bubbling froth. "Yes… here it is."
"I wouldn't," Elliott warned.
Will snatched his hand back quickly.
"There are things in there that'll take your fingers off," she continued, and as she did so she turned up her lantern and shone it over the water so they could see the expanse of nothingness, the huge black sheets extending across both sides of the causeway. Each of the boys shuddered despite the warmth of their surroundings.
"Please tell us where you're taking us," Will begged her. "Is there any reason why you're keeping us in the dark?"
His words hung in the air for several seconds before she answered.
"All right," she said, letting out a breath. "We don't have much time, so I want you to listen carefully. OK?"
Each of the boys muttered a yes in response.
"I've never, ever seen so many Limiters down here in the Deeps before, and I don't like it. It's crystal clear that they've got something massive going on, and maybe that's why they're tying up loose ends."
"What do you mean, loose ends?" Chester asked.
"Renegades… us," Elliott answered. Then she tipped her light at Will. "And him." She looked down at the frothing water. "We're going somewhere safe so I can figure out what we should do next. Now, just follow me."
She'd allowed them to turn their lights up several clicks, but the immensely powerful current pushed hard against their boots and threw up a steamy mist around them. The ledge on which they had to walk was uneven and coated with slippery weed. Every so often, it dipped well below the water's surface. Will could hear Chester grunting as he negotiated another of these most treacherous, invisible stretches, muttering with gratitude as he managed to get to where the ledge was more obvious again. Cal babbled up ahead, his voice often rising to a high pitch as if he was pleading for the terrifying crossing to end. There was nothing Will could do to help him — each boy had his own watery tightrope to walk, just trying to take the next step without sliding from the ridge into the roiling nightmare expanse.
They hadn't traveled very far when they heard — they felt — a huge splash.
"Crikey! What was that?" Chester yelped, teetering to a stop on the ledge.
Will could have sworn he caught a flash of a broad, pale-colored tail fin no more than fifteen feet away. They all peered apprehensively at the spot as the choppy water becalmed again.
"Move!" Elliott urged.
"But… " Chester said, pointing a quivering hand toward the water.
"MOVE!" she repeated in a growl, glancing anxiously back at the beach. "We're like ducks in a shooting gallery out here."
It took them about half an hour to reach dry land again. They collapsed onto the sandy foreshore, taking in another wall of thick jungle before them. But Elliott didn't allow a moment's respite, immediately herding them onward through coppices of the succulent plants and tangled clumps of the trailing stems with black prickles, every bit as dense as the bush at the other end of the causeway.
They came to a small clearing, where Elliott told them to wait, and left to scout out the rest to the area. With the jungle on all sides it was impossible to tell where they were, and none of them gave it a second thought. They were all drained, and their clothes wrung through with sweat. As the odd insect fluttered past, Will and Chester shared a canteen of water.
Cal had chosen a spot in the clearing as far away from Will and Chester as he could possibly manage. Sitting cross-legged and staring into space, he began to rock back and forth, muttering monotonously under his breath.
"What's up with him?" Chester said quietly, wiping the perspiration from his brow.
"Dunno," Will replied, taking a large swig from the canteen.
Just then, Cal's voice became louder and they could hear snatches of his ranting: "... and the hidden shall not be hidden in the eyes of the..."
"Do you think he's all right?" Chester asked Will, who had settled back against the rucksack and closed his eyes with a long exhalation.
"...and it is we who shall be saved... saved... saved..." Cal was babbling.
Will opened one eye and called crankily to his brother.
"What'd ya say, Cal? Can't hear you, bro."
"Didn't say anything," Cal replied defensively, sitting bolt upright with a startled expression.
"Cal, what happened?" Chester asked the boy hesitantly. "What happened to Drake?"
Cal crawled toward them and launched into a rambling account, backtracking as he recalled another detail and every so often stopping completely, in mid-sentence, to draw a quick breath before he went on. Then he told them about the white room with the sealed cells that he and Elliott had stumbled upon in the Bunker.
"But this renegade — the one who was alive — what was wrong with him?" Will asked.
"His eyes were all puffy and his face was covered in boils," Cal said. "He had some sort of disease."
Will looked thoughtful. "So is that it?" he said.
"What do you mean?" Chester butted in.
"Drake knew the Styx were testing out something down here. Maybe it's a disease."
With a small shrug, Cal continued, recounting how he and Elliott had escaped to the lava tubes. His voice broke.
"Drake could have run, but he didn't, so that Elliott and I had a chance... It was like... like when Uncle Tam made a stand..."
"He may not be dead." Elliott's voice came, silencing Cal. It was suffused with a mixture of anger and sorrow.
Stunned by her pronouncement, they all looked at her, standing at the edge of the clearing.
"We were careless and they had us, but the Limiters were shooting to maim, not to kill. If they'd wanted us dead, we would be." She spun around to face Will, her recriminatory glare burning into him. "But why would they want to take us alive? Enlighten me, Will."
All eyes were on him as he shook his head.
"Come on, why would that be?" she insisted in a low growl.
"Rebecca," Will answered quietly.
"Not her again!" Chester exclaimed.
Cal started to gibber another monotonous diatribe, wringing his hands together. They could all hear what he was saying now. "And the Lord shall be the savior to those—"
"Stop that!" Elliott turned on him. "What are you doing? Praying?" She reached out and slapped him hard across the face.
"I... uh... no..." he babbled, his arms up around his head as he cowered, thinking she was going to strike him again.
"Do that and I'll finish you right here. It's all a load of hogwash. I should know, I had years of the Book of Catastrophes rammed down my throat in the Colony." She grabbed him by his hair and shook his head mercilessly. "Get a grip, kid, because this is all you've got."
"I..." Cal began with a half sob.
"No, listen to me, wake up, will you? You've been brainwashed," she said in a lo
w voice, yanking his hair and jerking his head from side to side. "Do you remember a time before you were born?"
"Huh?" Cal sobbed.
"Do you?"
"No," he stuttered uncomprehendingly.
"No! Why is that? Because we are no different from any animal, any insect or germule."
"Elliott, if he wants to believe—" Chester began, unable to remain silent.
"Keep out of it, Chester!" she snapped, not even looking at him. "We are not special, Cal. You, me, we all came from nothing, and that's exactly where we're all going one day, maybe soon, whether we like it or not." She snorted contemptuously and shoved him over onto his side. "Can't you see it's a cult? Your Book of Catastrophes is for the birds!"
In the blink of an eye she was in front of Will. He girded himself, thinking he was next in line for the abuse. But she stood silently before him, her arms crossed belligerently over her long rifle. Rebecca had stood before him in this very way so many times back in Highfield, telling him off for tramping mud onto the carpet or some similar petty misdemeanor.
"You're coming with me," Elliott barked.
"What? Where?"
"You got us into this, so you can help get us out," she snapped.
"Help how?"
"We're going back to the base."
Frowning at her, Will couldn't take in what she was saying.
"You and I are going back to the base," she said again, enunciating each word clearly. "Understand? To get equipment and supplies."
"But I can't go all the way back there! I just can't," he pleaded. "I'm wrecked... I need some rest... some food..."
"Tough."
"Why don't we just go on to the next base? Drake told me..."
She shook her head. "Too far."
"I—"
"Get up." She thrust the spare riflescope at him and he slowly rose to his feet. With a helpless glance at Chester, he left the clearing and followed her through the dense foliage back to the causeway.
It was as though he were in the throes of some awful nightmare in reverse, repeating the near-death journey he'd just completed. At least he knew what to expect this time.
Tunnels 02 - Deeper Page 34