by Kevin George
“You should’ve forgotten about me,” she said.
“You never forgot me when I needed help,” he said.
“Your father insisted I help,” she said. “I was only doing my job.”
Her words stung, but Olly didn’t completely believe her. Paige sat on the tunnel floor and crossed her legs. She looked comfortable as she turned to the approaching lava, her face bathed in orange. She didn’t show an ounce of fear even as the heat intensified. Olly wanted to yell at her to get up, plead for her to keep trying, drag Paige to her feet and sling her over his shoulder. If they were going to die, he wanted to die trying to live. But Paige wasn’t going to do something she didn’t want to do, and he couldn’t leave her to sit there and die alone.
Oliver sat beside her. Though he sensed her looking at him—and heard her subsequent sigh—he stared toward the lava, wondering if it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if it overtook him. He thought of Maxine Peters, of Robert Peters; it seemed fitting that the same fate should befall him. Paige had other ideas. With another sigh—this one deeper and full of frustration—she leapt to her feet. Olly tried to hide his smile as she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up. Without a word, she held tightly to his arm and started running toward the vehicles disappearing into the distance.
“We’re never going to catch them,” she said, breathless.
Behind them, the lava glowed brighter and the collapsing tunnel began to catch up to them, concrete debris crashing less than twenty feet away. Now that Paige showed a desire to live, Olly felt the same surge to save not only himself but also the only person who ever seemed to care about him. As the tunnel widened the farther they ran, Olly’s eyes turned from side to side rather than in front of them.
“The last time I was in the tunnels, I found lots of connecting routes leading above,” Olly called to Paige. “Hopefully there are more around here.”
But as they searched one side wall and then the other, they found nothing. Running became more strenuous as the ground shook harder. Their adrenaline waned, replaced by aches and pains from fighting in the Main Tunnel and then falling off the truck. Paige slowed first, her gait turning into a hobble. Debris rained around them, small pebbles pelting their heads, larger chunks of concrete missing them by mere feet. Lava glowed brighter behind them and the tunnel grew hotter. Olly couldn’t help but look back in fear, his hand instinctively going to the burned side of his face.
“Go,” Paige said breathlessly. “Save yourself, if you can.”
“I won’t leave you,” Olly said. “I’m not giving up and neither are you. I won’t die by lava. Anything but that.”
Paige frowned and reached for his face as well. He grabbed her hand before she could touch him and continued to drag her down the tunnel. Paige pushed herself to keep going long after she didn’t think she could run another step. When they spotted a dim orange glow in the tunnel ahead, both stopped and looked at each other. Neither had to wonder aloud if the lava had somehow invaded the other end of the tunnel, too. But as the glow grew brighter, it was clear that lava wasn’t filling the width of the tunnel. The lava-fueled truck slowly backed up, stopping fifty feet away.
Olly took Paige’s hand as they hurried toward the open back door. The driver stuck his head out the window.
“You’re lucky your mother is who she is,” the driver called back. “And you’re lucky she radioed back to me when she did.”
Olly glared at the driver. He wanted to point out that dozens of passengers could’ve been saved if the truck had stopped sooner, but there was no point arguing now. Olly insisted Paige climb aboard first, giving her a boost onto the small step at the back. He no sooner dragged himself up than the truck started forward with a lurch. He looked up at the other passengers, most of whom avoided eye contact, a few others glaring at him, undoubtedly upset that their lives were put at risk to save his.
My life and Paige’s, he thought, reminding himself that neither of them would’ve avoided a fiery end without his mother’s help. It was difficult to continue hating her when he looked at Paige, safe and sound for the time being. Paige hobbled down the tight aisle and sat beside Mia and the baby. Mia leaned her head against Paige’s shoulder and cried silently. Olly sat on the other side of the girl, who looked up and smiled at him through tear-filled eyes.
“I thought you—”
“I know,” he said, interrupting her. “But I wasn’t going to let anything separate us, and neither was Paige.”
Mia turned to Paige, who nodded despite staring into nothingness again. If the little girl couldn’t convince Paige there was a reason to live, Olly wasn’t sure anything would. But now that they were safe as the truck sped ahead of the crumbling tunnel and the surging lava, he turned eyes toward the small window between them and the truck’s cab.
The truck’s front window was splintered in some spots and caked with dirt in other spots. Still, he watched the truck speed through the tunnel and catch up to the line of vehicles. The tunnel widened even more, allowing enough room for the vehicles to drive side by side if their drivers wanted. With the glow of lava a pinprick behind them, tension eased in the truck. Olly finally felt like he could breathe.
And then the shaking started anew. It was barely noticeable at first, no more than a shudder, but it exploded in intensity within seconds. The vehicles swerved in front of them, some bumping into the surrounding walls, others bumping into each other. The tunnel started collapsing again, giant sections crumbling in their path. The truck’s driver jerked the wheel to one side, barely avoiding a chunk of falling concrete. In the back, Olly and the other passengers slid along their benches, bumping into each other one moment, being tossed out of their seats the next.
Olly wrapped his arms around Mia—who, in turn, wrapped her arms tighter around Baby Ryo—but he couldn’t prevent them from being thrown around. Once the passengers were crammed atop the thin strip of flooring between the truck’s two benches, they no longer shifted so much. Olly maneuvered next to Mia, draping his body over hers to shield her and the baby. People bumped into him every few seconds, but he pushed them away before they could fall atop the little girl and baby.
The truck’s engine whined as they sped up. The glow from racing lava in the fuel tubes glowed so brightly that the tunnel around the truck was bathed in orange. Crashes of falling debris continued to fill the truck, each loud bang leading to cries or gasps from the passengers. Olly didn’t know if it was good or bad that he couldn’t see outside to know what was happening. The truck’s roof pinged over and over, some debris larger than others, but nothing so bad that—
The truck swerved violently, knocking over the most balanced of passengers. A huge chunk of rock slammed into the back of the truck, ripping off the entire back section, including the door. Several passengers were crushed beneath the rock. Nearly a dozen others were pulled out of the truck. Olly glanced up and saw them disappear, but he ducked his head over Mia and the baby before seeing exactly what happened to them in the tunnel. He assumed it wasn’t good.
“We’re not going to make it!” cried a passenger near the gaping hole at the back of the truck. “We’re all going to—”
She didn’t have a chance to finish. Another chunk of debris crashed atop her head, knocking her off the back. More passengers screamed. Once the driver regained control and their bumpy ride smoothed, everyone scrambled to their seats. Olly looked through the front window and saw the next vehicle in line veering sharply to the side, scraping against the tunnel wall.
“Something’s wrong with their driver,” Olly whispered to himself, though he soon saw that wasn’t the case at all. Another vehicle sat parked in the middle of the tunnel, crushed by fallen debris and split directly down the middle. Olly didn’t have time to scan the crash site for bodies before his own driver jerked the truck to the side. “Everyone, hold on!”
Their truck smashed into the wall a split second later. Olly managed to pull Paige, Mia and the baby back to the floor, but
others weren’t so lucky. Sparks flew. The side of the vehicle—at least the part not ripped off moments earlier—peeled away as the truck ground against the tunnel wall. Plenty of passengers followed Olly’s lead and dove to the floor; others weren’t so quick. One man started to lean forward when his skull was crushed by a rocky protrusion sticking out of the tunnel wall. His clothing snagged on part of the wall, and he was ripped out of his seat before a single passenger had a moment to gasp.
When the truck veered back into the center of the tunnel, Olly heard the screams of not just the passengers around him, but also those that had survived in the destroyed vehicle behind them. He only caught a glimpse of the smashed vehicle but thought he spotted several broken and bloodied limbs sticking out of the debris, not to mention others crawling away, waving their arms in a feeble attempt to convince others to stop. Olly felt sickened at the sight of them.
“Shield them,” he ordered Paige. Her eyes blinked hard, but she nodded and draped herself over the children. Olly scurried to the window between the cab and the back, a window that had cracked since the last time he’d looked through it. “We have to stop! There are people alive back there!”
For the first time, he was certain the driver heard him. But it was the passenger in the cab that looked back and shook his head.
“None of those people are related to our leader,” the man yelled, “so we aren’t stopping for them or anyone else. And I don’t care what orders we receive from now on: we’re not stopping for you next time, either.”
Olly pounded the window with the bottom of his fist, startling the driver and passenger both, causing the cracked glass to splinter further. But another explosion ahead brought an end to further arguments. This time, the explosion was less of a crashing noise or twisting metal and more of a high-pitched hissing. Olly stared through the front window as a blast of steam erupted from the side of the tunnel. Several vehicles couldn’t avoid the steam and were pushed against the opposite tunnel wall. When survivors tried to get out and run toward Olly’s vehicle, he was certain the driver would slow down. But the steamy eruptions followed one after another, some blasting out one side of the tunnel, some blasting out the other side, some bursting up through the floor or down through the ceiling.
Each steamy explosion brought a wave of heat into the back of the truck, which was no longer protected by intact walls. Choked gasps and frightened cries echoed as loudly as the hissing. Olly wanted to yell at the driver and tell him what to do, but he didn’t have a clue what that was. Instead, he stood in silent shock and watched the driver speed up, narrowly avoiding one steam explosion after another. A trio of survivors emerged from a crash site and ran toward them, waving their arms. Steam suddenly slammed into the trio, shooting them across the tunnel and against the far wall. The impact alone would’ve been enough to kill them, but Olly couldn’t resist looking at the bodies as they drove past… if they could still be considered bodies with half of their flesh melted away.
The shaking continued but steam bursts decreased in frequency, most of them happening behind them. Olly’s eyes darted from one side of the tunnel to the other, waiting for the worst. A glance around showed other passengers doing the same. By now, Olly knew not to feel relief when the shaking subsided. Therefore, he wasn’t surprised when another blast of steam erupted ahead, striking the cab section of the truck directly in front of them. A pair of mangled bodies were blown through the driver’s side door and smashed against the far wall. Without its drivers, the truck slowed and swerved to the side, scraping the tunnel wall. Olly pounded on the glass to tell his own driver to stop and help but wasn’t surprised to be ignored, especially when another steam burst narrowly missed them.
Olly couldn’t watch any longer. He turned and looked out the hole in the back of the truck. Behind them, steam continued to burst, walls continued to crumble, and survivors continued to be killed by one calamity or another. He couldn’t stand by and do nothing any longer. His eyes found Paige. She stared back at him, her eyes sparking with recognition. She knew what he was about to do. Olly expected her to shake her head or plead for him to stay, but she frowned and nodded. Without another thought, Olly rushed down the aisle, stepping over and around and on top of other passengers as he went, ignoring their curses and warnings and glares.
The truck was driving faster than the last time he leapt from the back, but he didn’t hesitate to throw himself off. He hit down hard but remembered to tuck his chin and curl into a ball. He rolled across the tunnel floor, painfully striking debris along the way. By the time he stopped, he felt stabbing pain in so many places that he didn’t know where to check first. Instead, he struggled to his feet and looked back, trying to focus on the crashed vehicle and not the mangled bodies. He hobbled down the tunnel, smelling the stench of sulfur and burnt flesh, feeling the increasing heat of leftover steam and distant lava. As he neared the truck, he heard screams of those inside the back.
“Stay where you are!” Olly yelled as he approached. “I’ll drive us out of here!”
Twenty feet before reaching the truck, Olly was stopped by a high-pitched whistling that sounded far away yet just off to the side. He turned and looked at the tunnel wall nearby, the concrete shaking as the hissing grew louder and closer. Olly dropped without thinking, his face smashing against the tunnel floor, his mouth filling with blood. But he barely felt a thing before the wall exploded, a burst of steam blowing inches above his body, his back pelted with debris and heat.
In less than a second, the steam dissipated. Olly wanted nothing more than to stay flattened on the floor and lick his many wounds, but the heat of approaching lava warmed his cheeks, reminding him there was no time for recovery. As if to prove that, he looked down the other end of the tunnel and saw his truck heading farther into the distance. He stood slowly and hobbled to the crashed vehicle, the doors to the cab blown away. He climbed in and found the seats and instruments melted and smoking, the steering wheel warped. But the engine continued to run and several passengers in the back pounded on the glass separating them from the cab.
The steering wheel continued to sizzle, so Olly pulled his hands into his sleeves before touching it. He’d only driven hovercraft before and wasn’t familiar with anything in front of him. After a quick search for some sort of button to make the truck move, he spotted several pedals on the floor and pushed the one on the left. Nothing happened until he pushed the one on the right, which jerked the truck forward. The engine whined and the side of the truck scraped along the tunnel wall until Olly yanked the wheel to the side, mimicking what he’d seen the other driver do.
He quickly discovered that pressing the pedal harder made the truck drive faster. He pushed it as far as it would go down, ignoring the smoke seeping from the vehicle’s engine. The steering wheel shook so severely that Olly’s entire body vibrated, but he held on with all his strength and yanked the wheel from side to side, barely missing debris and other crashed vehicles. One of the front tires finally popped, making the truck harder to control, but he didn’t slow down, no matter how bumpy the ride became.
Oliver couldn’t tell if the ground was still shaking or if it was just his truck, but several more steam explosions and tunnel collapses proved they weren’t out of danger yet. His body hurt in more ways than one, but adrenaline surged and kept him focused on the path in front of him. It didn’t take long before he got the hang of driving and caught up to the line of vehicles, where Paige stood near the back of the truck, staring out until spotting him. Olly waved, but she headed back to her seat without waving back.
CHAPTER FIVE
Henry grew weaker as the storm intensified. Julietta clutched him tightly, their combined weight the only thing preventing them from being knocked over by whipping winds. Julietta knew their lives depended on her strength—depended on her refusal to give up and accept certain snowy death—but the ground became increasingly uneven and willpower alone wasn’t enough to keep them going.
“You have to keep pushin
g.”
It was the same message she’d told Henry over and over, but her words became less forceful each time. Henry no longer responded. They carefully traveled between lava-filled fissures, the two massive cracks separating farther from each other, the strip of land wider and safer than before. Still, they were no closer to finding shelter or safety from the elements. As if their situation wasn’t dire enough, shrill winds were suddenly joined by another sound, one that Julietta tried to ignore, hoping it was a figment of her imagination. When Henry tensed in her arms, Julietta knew the growling was real and that the beasts must be close.
“They’re coming for me… for the way my people treated them… for how we enslaved them,” Henry whimpered, his head turning limply to look behind them. The growling and grunting grew louder, nearer. Henry tried to wiggle free from Julietta’s grip. She held on tighter.
“I was the only Herder for months,” Julietta said. “If it’s revenge they want, I’m in just as much trouble as you are.”
“We both know that’s not true,” Henry said.
Henry finally found the burst of strength to pull away from her, the effort causing him to collapse into the snow. Julietta rushed to help him up, but he waved her away and stood on his own. Together, they stared into the storm, searching for any sign of movement beyond the falling snows. They saw nothing except a snowy mound larger than anything they’d spotted yet among the White Nothingness. Julietta nearly suggested they hide behind the snowy mound but doubted that would provide enough cover to avoid any approaching beasts. Instead, she grabbed Henry’s hand and pulled.
“We have to run!” she hissed.
Henry resisted, so she pulled harder. They both stumbled a few steps before losing their footing on an unseen snowbank. They slid nearly ten feet into a crevasse among the snow. Julietta worried about plunging into a pool of lava but they soon skidded to a stop. When she stood, she spotted a dark opening within the snow.