Alive (16 page)

I
pull up my underwear and grab my spear. I run toward her, screaming as I go.

“Bishop!
Help!”

Broken sticks and sharp twigs drive into my feet, but I ignore the pain. I reach the spot: Bello was here seconds ago. I stare at the thick underbrush, unable to see through it. Part of me says,
Stop, wait for help,
but Bello is in there—something
took
her.

I have to save my friend.

I charge straight into the tangled plants. Branches snag my clothes, scratch my skin. The pain is distant, a faraway thing. I crash through a thick bush. I see glimpses of Bello’s white shirt as she’s pulled deeper and deeper into the wooded darkness alongside the thicket wall. I rush after her. My foot catches on a vine-covered log and I tumble forward. As I go down, I see her face clearly, see what is covering her mouth:

A hand, long and bone-thin and gnarled, wrinkled pitch-black skin. A black arm is wrapped around her waist.

I land face-first, kicking up a cloud of dead leaves. I scramble to my feet. I see another flash of her shirt as she again vanishes behind dense branches. I snatch up my spear and I’m moving. Something has my friend…not some
one,
some
thing
.

(Kill your enemy, and you are forever free.)

I yell for Bishop again, then I point the spear tip forward and I charge in. That thing that is hurting my friend: I will cut it to pieces.

I will
kill
it.

From the left, something slams into me, sends me stumbling—I bounce off a tree trunk and tumble down in a flurry of sticks and dried leaves. The world spins. I taste blood in my mouth.

“Don’t damage her!”

A new voice, a voice that promises murder, a voice I’ve never heard before and have also heard a hundred thousand times. The voice of a woman, of a
Grownup
. Something about that voice whips hard against the brain-mud suffocating my past—for a moment I can almost remember, then that moment is gone.

Where is my spear? I don’t see it. My hands whip across the leafy ground once, twice, but I don’t feel it.

Weaponless, I jump to my feet, turn to face this new threat.

I see a nightmare.

Two
nightmares, a few short steps away. They are people but
not
people. Deeply wrinkled, coal-black skin covers spindly arms and legs. They have big red eyes, round and shiny, but no mouth—leathery flesh-folds dangle where a mouth should be. One is almost my height. The other is taller than me, with a jagged, dark-blue scar zigzagging down its chest.

There is something wrong about them, something that makes me want to turn and run, that makes me want to tear out my own eyes so I don’t have to look at them, jab sticks in my ears so I don’t have to hear them.

Bello isn’t here…more of these
things
must have dragged her away.

The smaller one points at me. “Take her,” she says in that voice I know but do not know. “Quickly,
take her!
”

The scarred one reaches for me. My hands ball into fists. I am afraid, yes,
so
afraid, but also enraged. It has to be them, the ones that put us down here, the ones that murdered those little children, the ones that let Yong and Latu die.

It grabs my left wrist and pulls me toward the thicket wall. I stumble, then plant my feet and yank back hard, jerking the monster around suddenly as if it didn’t expect me to resist at all. I kick at its shin: where my foot hits, I feel something break.

The monster lets go of my arm, hops on one leg to keep its balance. The other leg is bent in at a funny angle below the knee.

“You
bitch,
” it says. A man’s voice, growling and hateful. “You always were a bitch, Savage.”

If it has lips, those lips are hidden by the disgusting folds of skin hanging where a mouth should be.

It raises a trembling arm. There is something metallic ringing its forearm below the elbow, like a thick bracelet, and jutting from that bracelet is a metal rod that ends behind its bone-thin hand. Spindly fingers clench into a fist: the rod’s metal tip is pointed right at my face. On the bracelet, a white jewel begins to glow.

The smaller monster grabs the scarred one’s wrist, shoves the arm down.

“Don’t shoot her,” she says. “Just
take
her!”

Shoot her?
That bracelet is a weapon?

Something heavy rips through the underbrush to my right, and suddenly Bishop is there, standing between me and the wrinkled monsters. Fresh scratches crisscross his bare arms and shoulders. A snarl twists his face into a mask that frightens me even more than these disgusting creatures.

He’s holding my spear.

Bishop roars and lunges forward: the blade drives deep into the scarred monster’s chest.

Everything stops.

Bishop’s rage-face melts away, replaced by that confused look I saw when we first met. He’s still holding the spear shaft in both hands.

Part of me sees the smaller monster scurrying off, vanishing into the trees, but I can’t look away from what Bishop has done.

The scarred monster stares at the metal buried dead-center in its chest.

“No,” it says. “No…I gave up everything.”

Bishop makes a noise that is more a whimper of fear than a battle cry. He realizes what he’s done, and it horrifies him. He yanks back, pulling the blade free. Thick, grayish-red liquid covers the metal. Bishop shakes his head slightly, automatically, as if he doesn’t want to believe this is happening.

The creature drops to its knees. It sags to its right side. It doesn’t move.

Bishop grabs my upper arm.

“Come on, Em! There could be more of those things!”

I try to wrench free, but Bishop is too powerful. All my strength barely moves him.

“They took Bello,” I say. “We can’t leave, we have to find her!”

He looks around quickly. I see what he sees—forest growth so thick that one of those black things could be five feet away and we wouldn’t know it. We could be surrounded.

Bishop is overwhelmed, doesn’t know what to do. His hand squeezes harder; it
hurts
. I don’t think he knows how strong he is.

“Bishop, let go of me!”

He does, then shakes his head. “We can’t go after Bello yet—we have to warn the others.”

The others…are there more monsters in this sprawling room, closing in on Spingate and Gaston, O’Malley and Aramovsky?

I hear heavy things plowing through underbrush: more monsters coming to take us away. My chest turns to liquid and I cannot move.

Bishop spins to face the oncoming noise, blood-slick spear pointed out in front of him.

Farrar and Visca erupt from the tangled branches. Farrar sees us, moves to us, his eyes wide and his fists clenched tight.

“Bishop, what happened?”

Visca sees the fallen monster, takes a step away from it as if it were a spider about to strike.

A choked breath finally forces itself into my chest. I did it again—fear consumed me, and I
froze
.

Visca rushes to my side, his eyes flashing in all directions, searching for threats. “Em, I saw Bello come in here with you—where is she? And what is that thing on the ground?”

That thing is a monster, and Bishop is right: there could be more of them. Hundreds more, hiding in the shadows around us, slinking through the trees.

Visca and Farrar look to Bishop, waiting to see what he does, but Bishop is a mess. His hands flutter on the spear shaft. He can’t stop glancing at the horrid corpse, at the red-gray fluid oozing onto the brown leaves and rotted fruit.

When Bishop doesn’t answer them, Visca and Farrar turn to me.

They are waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

We either run blindly through the shadows and underbrush, hoping to find Bello, or we return to the others, warn them, maybe get more circle-stars and come back here with better numbers.

I have to make a decision, and I have to make it now.

“Come with me,” I say, then I turn and run, away from the shadows and toward the clearing’s light. I hear the circle-stars following close behind.

The trees thin. Leaf-strewn ground gives way to vines and creepers, then knee-high grass.

At the end of the overgrown pond, close to our thicket tunnel, I see people clustered together, terrified by the screams. O’Malley stands in front, knife in hand, flanked by Bawden and Coyotl on one side, El-Saffani on the other. O’Malley is clearly afraid, but ready to protect D’souza, Smith, Beckett, Borjigin and the others, people who cower behind this line of defenders.

I sprint along the pond’s grassy edge, reeds whipping by on my left. As I run, I look to the woods lining either side of the Garden—so many trees, so many places for the monsters to hide, to sneak in, to grab more of us.

I can fight, so can the circle-stars, but what about everyone else? What if they can be taken as easily as Bello was? I need fighters by my side, not more victims to rescue. I need to get the weak ones out of here, get them out of the way.

After I found Latu’s body, I swore I would never leave anyone alone again. When I reach O’Malley and the others, I know I am about to go back on that promise. I already hate myself for it, but I’ve made my decision.

“Everyone, to the thicket tunnel. Right now!”

They don’t know what’s happening, but they move just the same. As we run to the thicket, I call out more orders.

“Farrar, El-Saffani, go through and make sure nothing is waiting to surprise us in that room. We’ll all gather there before we go into the hallway.”

The three circle-stars instantly sprint ahead. Farrar throws himself to the ground first and starts in. By the time the rest of us reach the thicket mouth, the twins are already well on their way.

Do we have torches? I almost call out and ask Bello, but she’s gone.

“Okereke, how many torches are left?”

“Seven,” the boy shouts back.

That will have to do.

“Gaston, Spingate, you go in next,” I say. “You’ll be out front in the hallway, with me.”

Spingate shakes her head.

“Seven torches isn’t enough to get us back to the broken door,” she says. “We’ll be stuck in the dark.”

“We’re not going back. We’re going to the archway you and Gaston found.”

“But we don’t know what’s there,” she says. “We told you, we didn’t go past the door.”

“
Light
is there, and that’s enough for now.”

I can’t help but give Gaston a look that tells him he did well—his decision to explore might wind up saving lives. He sees the nod, understands it, gives me a firm one in return. Just as his respect is important to me, mine is important to him.

He crawls into the thicket tunnel. Spingate follows.

I point to the last four circle-stars in turn. “Bishop, Visca, Bawden, Coyotl, watch our backs. Make sure nothing comes after us. Everyone else, into the thicket tunnel and stay in the room until I get there.
Move!
”

O’Malley waves them in one at a time, making sure they don’t jostle each other trying to get through.

I turn and stand next to Bishop, both of us looking out at woods that seem to surround us on all sides. The monsters caught Bello by surprise, but now we know they are here—and we know they can die.

Bishop glances at me. “Do we go after her?”

I want to, and I also don’t. I’m afraid to go back into those woods, which is what we have to do to find her, if she can even be found at all. I could take Bishop, Bawden and Coyotl, we could go back in…but if I do that, I’m leaving the others with fewer people who can fight.

“We’re getting everyone to a safe place first,” I say. “A room with one way in, where a couple of circle-stars can protect them. Then we’ll come for Bello.”

He nods. He doesn’t want to go back into the woods, either, but I know that he’ll do it.

O’Malley’s hand on my shoulder.

“Everyone is in. What’s going on? What happened to Bello?”

Do I tell him? Do I tell anyone who doesn’t already know? The truth might make them panic. Right now people are afraid, but they are listening to me. All that matters is getting the weak somewhere we can better protect them.

“Trust me, O’Malley. I need everyone to move fast and stay together. Help me do that.”

His blue eyes stare at me, blaze with a desperate need to know, but he pushes that need away. He crawls into the thicket tunnel.

“Visca, Coyotl, you’re next,” I say. “Then Bishop. I’ll go last.”

The words are barely out of my mouth before Bishop grabs my shoulders, turns me, and gently shoves me to the tunnel mouth.

“Go now, Em. We’ll be right behind you.”

He’ll be the last one in. He’s not going to discuss it.

I crawl into the thicket tunnel. I force myself not to rush, not to come out with new scratches. If I want everyone else to stay calm, I need to be calm myself.

The small room is lit by seven burning torches. I should have given orders not to light them until we were in the hallway. We’ve lost precious minutes and I hope we’re at Gaston’s archway before that matters. People are packed in tight. The air smells of burned cloth.

I wait for the last of our circle-stars to join us, then send Farrar and Visca through the hole in the door to make sure the hallway is clear.

It is.

One at a time, we crawl through the hole. Gaston and Spingate are up front with me. Even if it’s a straight shot, I want them at my side because they’ve been this way before.

I look back for Bishop, but can’t see him through the flames and the frightened faces. He will bring up the rear, protect us if the monsters try to chase us down.

Each second we wait is a second of torchlight wasted.

“Everyone,
stay together,
” I shout, loud enough to be heard even back at the end of the group. “We’re going to move fast, so don’t lose track of the person in front of you. El-Saffani, lead the way.”

The twins jog ahead a few steps. They are ready to take on any danger.

“All right,” I say, “let’s
move
.”

We run uphill.

Doubts grab at me almost immediately. What if the monsters aren’t only in the Garden? What if they’re in this hallway as well? What if they are hiding in the rooms we might pass, waiting to grab us? Our torches dent the darkness, they don’t chase it away—we might not see the monsters coming.