The Treemakers (A YA Dystopian Scifi Romance Adventure) (5 page)

Right. Rule number two: Leave all of the bad stuff upstairs. This is our time together to be free, and that means free from all of the darkness in
our minds.

“Sorry,”
I whisper.

Shuffling from somewhere in a dark corner snaps both of our heads in that direction. Jax waves the light stick, illuminating the shelves and crates scattered here and there. Too many places for them to hide. I glance up, and right as I do, I lock eyes with a gigantic rat—fat and white, barely able to fit on the support beam. It hisses, displaying four blood-stained, razor-sharp teeth. Jax grips the spear in the ready position—slightly under and behind the beast. If it knows he’s there, it doesn’t let on. It seems to have dinner plans
for me.

I ease back and step on something both squishy and crackly. I glance down, and scream at the bloody, half-eaten carcass of a smaller rat lying there, freshly enjoyed. When I turn back, the jumper lunges. I scream again, and Jax impales the creature straight through its middle. It screeches and thuds to the floor with a clank from the spear. Another twitch, and its eyes close, its body
goes limp.

“Dinner?”
Jax jokes.

“
Not funny.”

“I know, I know. Sorry.” He yanks the spear free from the jumper’s belly, using his foot to hold its body to the ground. My stomach threatens to turn inside out,
as well.

I shiver. “Let’s get out
of here.”

Visions of being gnawed to the bone while still alive has been the source of many-a-nightmare.

“Here.” He hands me the spear. “I need to grab some supplies.
Cover me.”

We make our way to the side room door Jax busted the lock on when we first started coming down here. To our amazement and delight, it’s filled with supplies: clothes, blankets, tools, light sticks, books, and some things we have no name for. But unfortunately, no food or medicine. Those, we still have to rely on the Superiors for. Unless, of course, we find it while scouring the living quarters five floors below, where our families once lived. But we’ve already torn
that apart.

Jax starts stuffing his backpack: a handful of light sticks, a couple blankets for the new boys to share, and some clothes I’ll have to hem to make them fit anyone. Most of the clothing we find are adult sizes. Jax whistles and holds up a slinky black thing that couldn’t possibly be an article
of clothing.

“What exactly
is that?”

“Oh, come on. You’re the girl. It’s obviously a dress.” He tosses it to me. “And it would look great
on you.”

“Oh, no.” I hold it at arm’s length. “Not on
your life.”

“Just take it. Here, I’ll put it in the bag. Maybe you’ll change your mind
about it.”

“No”—I toss it back to him—“I won’t.”

He shrugs, but tucks it into his bag anyway, then digs through a crate full of books. “You ready to try this one yet?” He holds up a book written by somebody named Stephen King. The cover alone would steal the children’s sleep
for weeks.

I shake my head. “I don’t think so. Probably way too advanced for me, anyway.”

He tosses it back in the box and holds up a larger book with bent corners and animal pictures on the cover. One of
their favorites.

“That’
s better.”

He takes out two books from his backpack and returns them to the box, replacing them with the animal book, then tightens the drawstring and flings the bag over his shoulder. “Let’s go down to B to check out the freight elevator first. Then we’ll head back over here to A and check sub-level six for liquor. Hopefully, we’ll find some this time. Hey—maybe we’ll find more loose floor tiles. Remember when we found the Blue Notes someone hid?” He cracks a light stick, shaking it until the whitish-blue glow brings more life to
the room.

“Yeah,
I remember.”

Last time, we had to make a concoction for Humphrey from the bottles of liquids we found around the living quarters. Who knew what they were, or how long they’d been fermenting. Could have been medicines. Or rat poison. We’re guessing the latter now, though at the time, we figured they’d be something good because they had long names I couldn’t read. We mixed them together, hoped it wouldn’t explode, then gave the brew to Humphrey, praying it would do the trick. And it did
. . .
too well. Humphrey couldn’t work for
two days.

We head from the smaller room into a bigger one, kicking aside dusty debris as we walk. Rats must rearrange things when they scurry around down here; every time we come, things have moved. Unless the Superiors raid the bunkers. We’re positive they wouldn’t bother, though. The aboveground bunkers, maybe. But there’s nothing down here they’d want—that we know of, anyway. We hurry through the short tunnel connecting Bunker A to Bunker B, arriving at the door we busted the lock on a year ago, then we begin our decent into the stuffy,
dusty stairwell.

“Evenin’.” Jax greets the blackened corpse of Old Jonesy, slumped against the wall, still clothed in overalls and
working boots.

“Hey, Jonesy,” I mumble, stepping over him. “You need new boots yet?” I
ask Jax.

“No, I think I’ll let him hang onto those a
while longer.”

We wind around the dark corridors of Bunker B, sub-level six, where I took my mother to the clinic to get her “medications,” which were no more than shriveled roots and stale herbs that only gave her headaches. Seconds later, we stand in front of the freight elevator, our light sticks reflecting in its semi-
glossy surface.

Jax knocks on the door. “Hello?” he yells, and jabs the down-arrow button a jillion times. “
Anybody home?”

I glare
at him.

“What? You never know
. . . .
”

“How’s it supposed to work without electricity, Jax?”

He shrugs. “Magic?”

“Yeah. Not gonna happen. Not in
this place.”

We stand for another few seconds, before he heads left. “Come on. We haven’t checked a couple of corridors
down here.”

“Okay, but you know we’ll find what we always find—nothing.”

“Aren’t you usually the
optimistic one?”

“I have my moments,” I say. “I’
m allowed.”

“That’s significantly bordering on breaking rule
number four.”

“Sorry. I’ll be
more careful.”

As we start down the corridor, an unfamiliar sound behind us makes my heart jump in my chest—a
ding
, and a squeaky whistle. We whip around, Jax aiming the spear toward the noise, and I’m frozen,
heart pounding.

A dim light flickers over a breathtaking and impossible anomaly: the elevator door
is open.

We jump back, and Jax drops the spear, which clatters to the ground, sound ricocheting off the long
corridor walls.

“Whoa, what the—?” He hurries to retrieve the weapon, while my heart beats against the inside of my chest. A
whoosh
of citrus-scented air swirls
around us.

“Jax, how
. . .
how did
it open?”

“You got me.” He breathes in and out heavily, and we stare at the rectangular yellow light that soon goes dark. The door begins to close. In a flash, Jax jumps in front of it, and the light turns on again. The door pushes back into its crevice. “
Come on.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“You scared?” He winks, and offers me
his hand.

I hesitate before placing mine in his. “Terrified.”

Jax tugs me onto the elevator and into his arms, wrapping me up tight. “I’ve got you. Don’t
be scared.”

Then, the
door closes.

“Enter destination,” an electronic female voice says through a tiny speaker, scaring the piss out
of me.

Jax points to the four rows of buttons along the wall, all with numbers beside them. “Nineteen more floors down.” His excitement meets mine, but it also meets the fear of not knowing what
to expect.

“Where do we go?” I say, voice shaking. “And why does it smell
like citrus?”

“All the way down. And I have
no clue.”

Slowly, he moves his finger to the last button, and I slap it away. “What if we get stuck down there, Jax,
then what?”

“What if we find the
way out?”

After a silent, heated stand-off, Jax, pausing to take a breath, presses the last button. It
lights up.

“Sub-level floor twenty-five,” the
voice says.

The elevator shimmies and begins to descend—quickly. My ears fill with pressure, and my stomach flutters. “Are we supposed to be going
this fast?”

“Guess we’ll find out in a few seconds.” He holds me tighter, and my ears pop. Sounds change from muffled
to screeching.

“Again with the not-funny
. . . .
”

I watch each button light up, then grow dark as the elevator moves farther and farther beneath the Tree Factory. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen
. . . .
I hold my breath the way I do before we open the factory’s main room door to go sub-level. Except this time—like the very first time in the factory—I have no idea what to expect. Could be anything
down here.

Immediately, my overactive imagination starts replaying every monster story I ever heard when I was younger, until the number twenty-three lights up
. . .
and stays lit. The elevator slows to a stop, and the number twenty-five
goes dark.

“What the—?” Jax punches
the button.

The door opens like the birth of a demon—chilling and unnerving—and makes us retreat against the back wall. Smells waft in like a titanzium brick—years of rot and filth, left to multiply in the dark, mixed with citrus. Charming combination. Right outside the elevator, a dusty yellow bulb flickers, draped with a delicate cobweb that sways gently. The dim light beckons us out. My voice of reason says otherwise, but intrigue wins out when I notice the sporadic green lights along the ceiling—Bygonne’s universal symbol for
clean air.

“Um, Jax?”

“I
have speculations.”

“Are they
any good?”

“Nope.”

He walks us forward, still gripping me snugly around my middle, but I push against him, planting my feet at the threshold. “Uh-uh.”

“Come on,” he says, “this is awesome. Most excitement we’ve had in like, what—ever?”

I give in, and he guides me out. As soon as we clear the threshold, the door closes with another
ding
. An oxygauge on the wall next to us is covered with an inch of dust. Jax blows it clean, and we lean in to inspect it. The dial ticks steadily and hovers at safer levels than the Tree Factory has
ever had.

“How is that even possible?”
I mumble.

“I don’t know,” Jax says, “but
. . .
” He whips the breather off, takes a deep breath. “It’s not lying.” Then, he makes a face. “Other than that nasty citrus-and-death smell that’s much stronger now, the air’
s good.”

I strap my breather to my own head and inhale deeply the impossibility of such fresh, though stinky, air in the most unlikely of places. Ahead, the corridor stretches out bare, with only a couple of metal doors, but nothing else. Not turned upside down, like the upper bunker floors we’ve been raiding for the last year. The corridor’s so long, farther down, the lines, shapes, and lights blend together into a
blurry mystery.

“Apparently, no one’s cleared out this floor,”
Jax says.

To our right is another corridor,
completely dark.

“Any idea why this corridor is lit, but that one isn’t?”
I ask.

“
I have—”

“Speculations. Right.”

We interlace our fingers, and start down the hallway. The minute squeak in Jax’s left boot pierces the silence with every step. He grips the spear in a spring-loaded fist. Lights surge brighter for a second before snapping off into utter darkness for one terrifying moment, then return to their
still brightness.

“Okay,” I say, “we
should go.”

“Wow, for a tough girl who’s not afraid of anything, you’re sure being
a softy.”

“I never said I wasn’t scared of anything. You’re putting words in
my mouth.”

“Oh yeah?” He stops us in front of a closed door, considering this. “Okay,” he says, “jumpers. But other than those, name
one thing.”

“Well, what’s behind that door, for starters. The rot smell has to be coming
from
something
.”

“Yeah
. . . .
” He winks and presses the dark, square button beside the door. “Time to find
out what.”

Nothing happens. A jostle of the handle doesn’t do it, either.

We move farther down the hall, past two more locked doors with dark buttons,
then stop.

“Well,” says Jax. “
That sucks.”

I tap his arm and point down the corridor—“What’s that?”—toward a tiny green light set lower on the wall than the
oxygen lights.

“Let’s check
it out.”

We continue on cautiously, and the walls ahead start to change from plain, gray stone to magnificent colors. My heart thumps as we
come closer.

“Wow
. . . .
” we both whisper at the most brilliant paintings either of us have ever laid eyes on. Women, twirling in elegant dresses; hundreds of butterflies of all shapes and sizes; children laughing and frolicking in green, rolling pastures; valleys kissing a floral-laden mountainside. As we stroll down in small steps to soak in every last bit, the scenery shifts. From sunny and jubilant, to a delightful murky gloom, with purples and blues and a black sky dotted with gray stars. What appears to be one of our trees is surrounded by a horrific, nightmarish land with jagged lightning shattering an angry sky
. . . .

Black paint glistens in the light of a flickering bulb. I touch the wall with my finger, and a lump forms in my throat. Panic spreads on Jax’
s face.

“It’s still wet,” I whisper. “How—?”

“Someone’s down here.” Jax grips the spear tight. To our left, a door similar to the rest stands next to a button that glows green. Farther on, lights in the
corridor end.

“Is it just me,” I say, “or does it seem like we were led to
this door?”

“It’s not just you.” And before I object, he presses the green button. The door slides open. An overpowering citrus smell rushes out with a light fog or smoke that obscures
the area.

Jax chuckles nervously. “It keeps getting weirder and weirder
. . . .
The fog’s a nice touch!” he yells into
the room.

I glare
at him.

“What? I mean, obviously someone led us here, right? Come on out!” he yells in again. The fog soon clears, and inside, tiny blue and green lights sparkle in the darkness, lining the walls and the ceiling. I take a step toward the door, but Jax grabs my arm to
stop me.

“What?” I say. “Now you’
re scared?”

He shrugs, then holds his hand out in an “after you” motion.

I step into the room, and as soon as we both clear the doorway, the door slides closed. Seconds later, a hissing echoes around us as more citrus smoke fills the room. The lights brighten—I shield my eyes—until a thin horizontal line of light fans the length of our bodies, and back
up again.

“Scan complete,” says the same voice from
the elevator.

The light explodes in a flash, and we huddle together on the floor, startled. Then, I’m spinning, shooting like a comet through space. Momentum tugs at my insides, while streamers of light-and-black whirl past. I feel for Jax’s hand, but it’s not there; I reach for him, but he’
s gone.

“Jax!” I try to scream into the dizzying void around me, though my voice only comes out in
a whisper.

Then, everything stops, and I’m hugging my knees. Gradually, my eyes adjust, and I find I’m sitting on smooth, pale wood with thin grooves. In a panic, I glance around for Jax who’s a few feet away in the same strange room, staring back at me, his panic
matching mine.

“Where the hell are we?” he asks. “What
just happened?”

We stand and turn, surveying the small, simple room made of wood. We stop when we finally face a window in the corner, where light pours in to bathe the floor a creamy golden-brown. We clasp hands and ease toward it. To the right of the window stands a red wooden door with a fancy handle. A long rectangular bench on the other side appears to have hand-carved etchings around its edges. Behind us in the far corner lies a mattress with a woven blanket and two pillows. Other than that, the room is bare. The ceiling peaks to a gradual point in the center, where wooden posts meet and hold it all together, and the roof above reminds me of the kitchen broom at the
Tree Factory.

When we reach the windowsill, my body goes numb. I must be dreaming. Trembling, I grip Jax’s hand tighter. On the other side is a ground covered in green, crawling up a hillside dotted with a rainbow of fluttering flowers. The sky—which I’ve only ever seen through purple-tinted windows—is an aching, quaking, brilliant blue, that drenches me with bewildering elation. And if that weren’t enough
. . .
to our right, off in the far distance, is a forever-rippling cobalt—the ocean—sparkling across the horizon
. . . .
And all of this, beneath a
blazing sun.

“Are we dreaming?” I whisper. Jax doesn’t answer but pulls me to the door and opens it. A gust of air blows the hair from my eyes and brings with it the fragrance of an unknown world. Together, we descend three rocky steps onto green ground interspersed with patches of white sand. I squint right into the sun, amazed that I’m not burning to death
right now.

“It doesn’t make sense
. . . .
” Jax, releasing my hand, spins in a slow circle. “It’s not real,” he says. “None of it. It’
s impossible.”

I scoop up a handful of sand, like the stuff we use at the Tree Factory for smoothing out metal. I let it sift through my fingers and blow away into the wind. “But, Jax—”

“It isn’t possible!” he insists. “We were hundreds of feet below the ground! We walk into a room, it fills with smoke, and then—
poof
—we’re suddenly in a perfect, picturesque world with clean air and life? No.” He shakes his head, chest heaving
with unease.

“Relax, we’ll figure it out.” I brace myself against the side of the hut. Maybe I’m telling myself this more
than anything.

For a long, silent moment, we absorb the
unimaginable splendor.

“Who cares if it’s not real?” I shrug. “Let’s enjoy it anyway. I mean, look at it
. . . .
”

He reads my face for a minute, then soaks in the splendor around us. He nods. “Okay. Let’s check
it out.”

With a wide smile, I take his hand and try to search for possible explanations for this, but I come up empty. We start down the gradual hill, wisps of tall green—grass—brushing our pant legs. A few more yards, and mighty trees come into view, swaying in
the breeze.

“Jax!”

“I
see them!”

We sprint toward them, past fluttering creatures with brightly-colored wings that dip and dive around us in the blue. Something huge and brown and alive appears ahead of us and steals my breath away. I stop and grab Jax, yanking
him back.

“What?” he asks, panting.

I point, having trouble catching my breath. I’m not used to running free. My heart beats like it never has before, as the creature lifts its great head topped with long, winding,
pointy things.

“Deer,” I say. “I think that’s what it’s called” It spots us and scampers off through the trees. “If this isn’t real,” I add, “then how come it saw us and
ran away?”

“You
got me.”

“
No speculations?”

“Uh, nope. You?”

“Well
. . .
yeah.”

“Okay? What?”

“Maybe it’s a portal,”
I say.

“Huh?”

“Like a
. . .
a wormhole or something, to the
Other Side.”

“You’ve been reading too many sci-
fi books.”