by Kevin George
“You promise they won’t hurt me?”
Love nodded. “I won’t leave your side.”
CHAPTER NINE
The ride was bumpy, the metallic bench vibrating beneath Isaac. Still, it was the most comfortable thing he’d ever sat upon. He only wished there was enough empty room to lay down. His body and mind both exhausted, his head hung low, only glancing up once or twice at the dozens of eyes staring in his direction. The back of the truck was packed with shivering passengers, though Isaac thought it felt like a tropical paradise.
“Who are you?” one of the passengers had asked soon after he’d boarded the truck, which had found him near the edge of the lava-filled crater.
“Which section are you from?” another had asked.
Isaac had learned that all passengers were Tunnelers and citizens of The Fourth, and that nobody else had been found from other parts of the City Below. Curiosity stirred plenty of questions in his mind, but with Julietta nowhere to be found—and probably swallowed by lava long ago—he quashed any other thoughts about what had happened underground during his months away. His answers to their questions were terse, a few words at most, until he finally responded with non-committal shrugs.
“How did you reach the surface?”
“What was the rest of the city like?”
“Did you see anyone else out there?”
Isaac didn’t want to answer their questions, not now, possibly not ever. Once the others realized he wasn’t talking, they started to tell their own tales, whether he asked to hear them or not. He ignored most of them but couldn’t ignore snippets about the war between sections in the Main Tunnel, about the volcanic eruption, about them opening up The Fourth’s blast door to save King Edmond’s son and the young woman with him. That opened the tiniest crack in Isaac’s heart, allowing a flood of hope—albeit misguided hope—to fill every fiber of his being.
“Was her name. . . Julietta?” he asked.
The passenger sitting next to him shrugged, as did the next few people he turned to. After largely ignoring their inquiries, Isaac wasn’t pleased they were doing the same to him. He stood from the bench and was tossed atop a few nearby passengers when the truck hit another bump. They pushed him off, each passenger shaking his or her head as he asked them individually if they knew of Julietta’s whereabouts. Before Isaac had a chance to snap, somebody pointed to the back of the truck and said the rescued girl was there.
Isaac peered into the dark corner, pushing his way past passenger after passenger until he neared the back. A tiny, dark-skinned girl looked up at him with fear, her arms cradling a bundle tightly; she didn’t look like she belonged with the others, nor did the young woman that suddenly stood up next to the girl.
“My name is Paige,” she said. “Not Julietta.”
Though the logical part of Isaac expected this outcome, he didn’t feel less crushed by it. He wanted to hate the woman standing up because she wasn’t Julietta, but once disappointment eased and he had a chance to focus on her, he realized there was something familiar about her. He didn’t know the name Paige, and he’d never seen her in The Third, but another memory—one he’d relived in his mind countless times during months stuck in the underground supply bunker—contained this young woman, not that she’d been the focus of that memory.
“You were with her,” he said.
“Paige?” the little girl asked.
Paige sat next to the little girl, putting an arm around her shoulders, holding her tightly. Isaac didn’t know the connection between the two and frankly didn’t care. There was something strange about the young woman, who seemed to stare blankly at the floor. Isaac pushed his way forward until looming over Paige. Other passengers misinterpreted his panic as rage and tried to pull him back; Isaac didn’t do himself any favors as he yanked his arm away from them, striking several others in the process.
“Please,” Isaac said. “I know her. . . I know about Paige—”
Two passengers tackled him from behind, knocking him down in the small aisle between the two benches. Isaac had little room to maneuver with a pair of men atop him, not to mention the feet of nearby passengers kicking at him. He struggled at first—claustrophobia and desperation spurring him on—but was no closer to getting to his feet or having his questions answered. He finally calmed, not fighting as a forearm pushed against the back of his head or when he was unceremoniously yanked back to his feet. His captors threatened him to stay quiet or risk being tossed out of the back, but Isaac couldn’t help himself, especially when Paige turned to him, her eyes widening as she snapped out of whatever trance she’d been in.
“Julietta?” he asked her.
Paige stood and hurried toward him. She demanded the passengers let Isaac go, which they did after looking at one another and shrugging. The bumpy ride continued, but the chaos in the vehicle calmed enough for Isaac and Paige to come together.
“It was you with her in the Dome. . . the two of you were almost attacked by the beast until. . . the Sky Person,” Isaac said.
Paige winced, as if the very memory of that moment caused her physical pain. She couldn’t muster anything more than a nod.
“How do you know Julietta?” she asked meekly.
Isaac started to respond, but his throat tightened. He had to swallow hard before getting out any words.
“I was going to marry her. . . at least I planned on asking her,” he said. “We were together for a long time Below before being banished Above. I thought I’d lost her. . . but I didn’t, and I’ve spent every waking moment since then trying to get her back. Did she escape the city with you?” He peered through the window connecting the back of the truck to the cab. Through the heavy snows ahead, he spotted the silhouette of another vehicle. “Is she in that truck?”
Paige’s forehead creased in confusion. She shook her head. “I haven’t seen Julietta since she saved me in the Dome and I returned Below.”
Isaac’s jaw clenched; his fists did the same. He stared hard into Paige’s eyes, searching for any sign of dishonesty. He saw none, which only made him angrier.
“You’re lying,” he said, though he didn’t believe that. “I saw you in the Dome. . . the two of you. . . I saw the Sky Person save you from the beast. . . he saved both of you from the beast and flew you to safety. The two of you disappeared into the tunnel leading to the elevator Below.”
Isaac’s voice grew louder with each word, more perturbed. Nearby passengers overheard and began to mutter in fear about ‘beasts’ and ‘Sky People.’ Isaac sensed many heads turning toward the window at the front.
“When we got to the elevator, she refused to get on board and return Below,” Paige said. “She said she needed to stay Above. . . that she couldn’t leave.”
She couldn’t leave me, Isaac knew with utter certainty. But I left her in the Dome, alone, with those psychotic teens. Exhaustion flooded his body, weakening his legs so badly that he collapsed to his knees. He didn’t care that he bumped into other passengers; he ignored them as they pushed him away and complained. She’d stayed in the Dome, and now the Dome and the enclosures and the barracks had been swallowed into the crater of lava. And Julietta right along with them, he thought, his insides numb with hopelessness. Now I’ve left her again. . .
He hobbled to his feet and pushed his way toward the back, tripping several times but not caring. His body did not have an ounce of strength, frustratingly weak since his mind was so firm on what he needed to do.
“Let me out,” he whispered to no one in particular. “I need to get out.”
The passengers ignored him at first, some snapping at him to ‘sit down’ or ‘watch where you’re going.’ But Isaac repeated his message over and over as he neared the back door, finally screaming it once he looked out the back window and saw no sign of the lava crater behind them. He didn’t know how long they’d been driving, but the truck was moving faster than he’d realized. It suddenly dawned on him that he might not survive the walk back to the crater,
his chances decreasing with each second they drove away. That realization gave him a burst of strength to scream.
“Let me out!”
The same two passengers that subdued him earlier stood and cut him off. Isaac tried to writhe out of their grasps but escaping would’ve been difficult when he was at his strongest.
“You were half-dead when we found you,” one of the Tunnelers said. “And you ain’t no stronger now. If you go out there now, you’ll die.”
“I don’t care,” Isaac said, each wriggle becoming weaker. “I need to find her.”
“There’s nobody to find,” the other Tunneler said. “We circled the entire area and you were the only survivor. Did you see anyone else out there?”
Isaac went limp, his body sagging, unable to find the strength to shake his head.
“I only saw beasts, and they were heading in the opposite direction,” he said.
The Tunnelers deposited Isaac on the nearest empty spot of bench. He sat back down, his head hanging low, once again ignoring those around him. It wasn’t until a passenger approached from the back and stopped in front of Isaac that he looked up. Paige crossed her arms and took a step back when their eyes met; she was clearly hesitant being so close to him.
“You saw beasts out there?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Beasts that escaped their cages outside the Dome?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Probably,” he answered with a sigh. “That seemed to be the direction they were coming from.”
“Then they survived the eruption,” Paige said. “I wonder if anything—or anyone—else might’ve done the same?”
Isaac’s chest swelled, though he fought the urge to let hope back into his heart.
“I saw nothing else out there,” he said. “Nobody else.”
Paige shrugged. “It’s a large Nothingness out there. Maybe you missed something,” she said before returning to her seat.
Isaac closed his eyes and nodded off. He never reached full unconsciousness but still couldn’t tell how much time passed once his eyes snapped open. The truck’s passenger section had fallen into a lull of whispered conversations and stretches of silence, only interrupted by the occasional howl of wind or a bump among the Nothingness. Isaac looked around for a few seconds—receiving sympathetic glances—before he leaned his head back and allowed his heavy eyelids to droop.
Julietta. . . he thought, her face never far from his mind, though any memory was difficult to grasp as he slipped deeper into the darkened depths of slumber.
Before his mind could drift away, his ears caught the sound of one exhilarated voice followed by another. Soon, everyone spoke excitedly. Isaac found it impossible to summon any feeling, but the growing noise was enough to prevent him from falling back asleep. He forced his eyes open, finding passengers shuffling toward the opposite end of the passenger section, trying to see through the window connecting to the cab and the cab’s window to the outside world.
“. . . finally found them. . .”
“. . . was afraid we’d be lost out here. . .”
“. . . all of that potential danger to save one person that didn’t want to be saved. . .”
The tension palpable from the moment Isaac boarded suddenly eased. He wanted to go back to sleep—he wanted not to care about anything else—but he didn’t close his eyes longer than a few seconds before opening them, sighing and shuffling toward the rest of the group. Several dozen passengers now stood between him and the windows, but a momentary shift among them gave Isaac a brief view of the outside world. Their truck slowed as they approached a caravan of vehicles parked ahead. Their driver waved to the truck directly in front of them and the entire line began to move.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“We caught up to the others. Our rescue operation is over,” someone said with a snort, turning her head toward Isaac but not all the way. “Now we can get on with the rest of our lives, wherever that might take us.”
“Who decides that?” Isaac asked.
“Our leaders,” another passenger said. “I don’t see their vehicles, so they’ve probably gone ahead. There were stories of another place Above that used to be connected to the City Below.”
“The Dome is gone, you already saw that,” Isaac said. His response was met by several insolent snickers.
“I see One Corp.’s history didn’t survive outside The Fourth,” the passenger said. “The place we’re heading used to be common knowledge until our books were destroyed.”
Isaac never received an answer before spotting something familiar outside: the snowy mound near the entrance to the beast cave. He opened his mouth to say something but realized he didn’t care. Instead, he plopped down on an empty spot on the bench. The word ‘Mountain’ was uttered by several passengers, but Isaac didn’t ask what it meant. The excitement of finding the caravan soon died down and everyone began returning to their seats. Isaac was about to close his eyes again when he sensed he was being watched. He turned to the little girl looking in his direction. She forced a smile, a frightened one, and the sight made him feel guiltier.
Before the rest of the passengers made it back to their seats, the truck slid to a stop, knocking several people atop one another. Passengers rushed to the window again; this time, a few knocked and called out to the driver.
“What’s happening?”
Isaac couldn’t see, but a passenger near the window explained. “The driver is pointing ahead. It looks like everyone stopped.”
A few minutes passed, chaotic at first but calming before those nearest the window spoke with renewed excitement.
“Passengers from other vehicles have gotten out,” someone called out. “It looks like they’re gathering together. . . wait, they’re forming a circle. . .”
“Around what?” someone else asked. “Any of the vehicles damaged?”
Isaac was one of the few people that remained seated. He didn’t want to care what was going on but couldn’t stop from turning an eye toward the crowd.
“Not around a vehicle. They’re around. . . I can’t tell,” the passenger said. “It’s. . . something. . .”
“Well that’s helpful,” another passenger said, eliciting a few chuckles.
“. . . something just out of sight, off to the side,” the passenger said. “Wait. . . those aren’t just regular people out there. They’re our healers.”
Isaac leapt from his seat, knowing what this might mean. If he had any doubt, it was answered when Paige turned to him with the same look of hope on her face that he felt.
“If anyone could’ve survived, it was her,” Paige said.
Without another word—and before others could stop him—Isaac rushed down the aisle. He reached the back door and threw it open, ignoring complaints about cold air swirling in. Isaac stumbled forward, his legs sinking several feet into the snow. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, giving him the strength to free himself and rush into the storm, passing a half-dozen vehicles along the way. He reached several dozen Tunnelers huddled together fifty feet to the side. The healers last to arrive stayed back and called to each other over the wind. Isaac only caught snippets of their conversation as he approached.
“. . . actually alive. . .”
“. . . can’t believe it. . .”
Isaac pushed his way through the circle without saying a word. Several voices snapped at him, but he ignored them until reaching the center, where a single person lay on the snowy ground. The survivor was half buried and covered by a pelt, but Isaac saw right away that it wasn’t who he wanted to see. He may have collapsed in despair had he not stepped forward for a closer view and recognized who it was.
“You!” Isaac yelled.
A few healers surrounding Henry Jonas glanced at Isaac with confusion.
“He’s in bad shape,” a healer called out to the others. “We have to get him out of the cold right away.”
Henry’s head lolled to the side, his eyes fixing on Isaac. Isaac wan
ted to see recognition in those eyes, but Henry’s gaze appeared as blank as the rest of the Nothingness around them. Still, steam flowed out of Henry’s nose with each breath and his lips never stopped moving. Isaac forced his way closer, but Henry’s words still fell victim to the wind.
“What’s he saying?” Isaac snapped at the healer closest to Henry. He was finally grabbed from behind by two healers that weren’t needed.
“Who knows? Probably muttering nonsense,” one of the healers said. “The cold can make a person delusional.”
Isaac shook his head, continuing to yell toward Henry as healers lifted his shivering body and carried him toward the nearest vehicle.
“Why do you care what he’s saying?” one of those healers called back. “Who are you?”
“He’s the other survivor, the one we found near the big hole,” another healer said.
“Do you know who this is?” the healer asked Isaac.
But Isaac wanted to be the one asking questions, not answering them.
“Where is she?” he screamed toward Henry. “Where’s Julietta?”
Henry’s eyes fluttered and he eventually stopped trying to talk. Or at least that’s what he wants them to believe, Isaac thought, doubting if Henry was in as bad shape as he acted. He couldn’t forget how the leader of the teens tried to kill him the last time he was at the Dome; he also couldn’t ignore that Julietta’s path must’ve crossed with Henry’s after she left Paige to enter the elevator. Every fiber of Isaac’s being told him to fight his way to Henry and beat a confession out of him, but he took a deep breath and held his hands up.
“His name is Henry, and he might know where to find the love of my life,” he said.