Alive (17 page)

I should tell my people what I saw, so they can be on guard. I should…but still I do not. If I tell them what happened to Bello, will they panic at every flickering shadow? If I stop to explain, will we have enough light to make it to Gaston’s archway?

So many decisions to make, coming so fast, and there are no easy answers.

The hallway rushes by. Carvings move like real life as torch shadows dance across them. I see archway doors in the walls—some open, some closed—but we don’t have time to look inside. I keep us moving forward and hope for the best.

The fear I felt in the woods creeps back into my chest. Am I running to keep everyone safe, or because I am terrified of those creatures, because my wrist still feels cold where the scarred one grabbed me?

I try to push those thoughts away: I made my decision and I will see it through.

The hall reeks of fear: we are animals fleeing for our lives, no different than the wounded pig. I don’t have to tell people to keep up, because they are all sprinting as fast as they can. Our collective footsteps thunder through the hall.

Before long, the hectic pace starts to take its toll. My body begs me to rest, to
breathe
. The monsters could be right behind me, coal-black wrinkles and red eyes and no mouths, ready to grab me and drag me into the darkness.

El-Saffani stops. Gaston’s archway door. The stone halves are two giant fists smashed together to block our way. Our torches are all starting to flutter: we made it just in time.

Spingate slides the scepter out of her makeshift holster and goes to work.

I cup a hand to my mouth and shout to the rear of the group.

“Bishop, see anything?”

“Nothing,” he calls back through the flames and frightened faces. “I think we’re all right.”

The stone doors grind open. Beyond it, a white hallway with a glowing ceiling.

I lean in near Spingate. “Close it after everyone is through, then come back up front with me.”

I turn to face the others. So much
fear
.

In that moment, I finally understand why I am the leader. I know why these people voted for me. We have had all we can take, yet we keep fighting. Everything could crumble to bits at any second, but that won’t happen because I refuse to let it happen. These people, they are
my
people, and I will help them survive.

“If you’re scared, if you’re tired, look to me! We will not stop. I will lead you to safety. Follow me a little farther. Let’s move!”

A new mood sweeps over them. I see their faces harden, I see them prepare themselves to do what must be done. Someone has to be the example, and right now that someone is me.

El-Saffani darts out ahead. I run, my feet kicking up fresh dust. Our people follow.

We need a room that is easily guarded. I’m tired but I can’t show it. Keep going, legs—
keep going.
Get these people somewhere safe, rest for a bit, then go back for Bello. She is alone and the monsters have her.

A little bit more…a little bit…

My muscles scream, my lungs burn. I’m ready to collapse when Spingate and Gaston catch up to me.

She points ahead. Archways on both the left and the right. Some are open. We’ll be able to defend those.

We’ve done it.

As we close in, El-Saffani stops. I catch up to them, breathing so hard my mouth hangs open.

The boy points to the ground.

“Footprints in the dust, Em—”

“—and dead people, lots of them.”

Piles of dusty bones. The Grownups’ war happened here, too, just as it did where we first woke up.

I see the footprints. Are those from the wrinkled monsters? Or are there more kids like us down here somewhere?

I stop and put my hand against the wall to keep from collapsing. I can’t move another step.

“O’Malley,” I say between gasps, “count us. Are we all here?”

He’s barely even breathing hard. How can he run so fast and so far yet not be exhausted? He stands tall, looks back, his finger bobbing in time to the numbers in his head.

Bishop comes up from the rear, gently pushing past everyone so he can stand next to me. His bloody, bare-skinned chest heaves. He’s still holding the spear. Even as tired and afraid as I am, I look at it. He looks at it, too—a little longingly, perhaps—then he offers it to me.

With a shaking hand, I take it. The blade remains covered in red-gray smears.

Bishop nods. I am still the leader…at least for now.

People are worn out. Some are sniffling, a few are crying. They are terrified and they don’t even know the whole of it yet.

O’Malley finishes his count.

“Twenty-two,” he says. “Everyone except for Bello. Em, what happened to her?”

I start to talk, but my throat stings too much to speak. I draw in a couple of breaths, try to steady myself.

“They took her,” I say.

“
Who
took her?”

I look at the group. Aramovsky is close by, breathing as hard as I am. He looks at me with that arrogant face of his—I’m convinced he knows what I am about to say before I say it.

Maybe he deserves to be arrogant: because he was right.

“Monsters,” I say. “In the trees…monsters attacked us.”

Aramovsky’s eyes widen at the sound of that word. He nods, slowly and solemnly, as if he always knew this moment would come.

All down the hall, faces stare at me in shock.
Monsters
…their leader just told them that monsters are real.

O’Malley shakes his head. “That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing.”

Bishop shoves O’Malley’s shoulder, almost knocking him down.

“Shut
up,
” Bishop says. “You don’t know, O’Malley, you didn’t see them. I did. I saved Savage.”

O’Malley’s fingers flex on the knife handle. He snarls at the bigger boy, starts to step forward, but I put myself between them.

“It’s true,” I say. “There
were
monsters. Bishop killed one, I saw it. Another one of them took Bello.”

O’Malley looks at me in disbelief. “Wait…the monsters
took
Bello? You mean she isn’t dead?”

The way he says that, the astonishment in his voice, it makes things hit home—I left Bello alone. I abandoned her.

“I…I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe she is.”

The moment those words leave my lips, shame hammers home. A piece of me—a nasty, small, horrible piece—actually
wants
Bello to be dead, because if she is, we don’t have to go back for her, we don’t have to return to the Garden and face the monsters.

O’Malley is shocked. He looks from me to Bishop, back again. “They took Bello, and you told us to
run
? We
left
her?”

The words sting. I want to argue with him, but I can’t because that’s exactly what we did.

Bishop’s hand slams into O’Malley’s chest: this time O’Malley hits the wall and falls to the floor. Bishop steps forward, points a finger down at O’Malley’s face.

“You weren’t
there,
” Bishop says. “You didn’t
see,
so you shut your mouth. We all know you heard Em’s scream for help—everyone did—but you stayed where you were because you were afraid!”

O’Malley springs to his feet far faster than I expected. Faster than Bishop expected, too, because before he can react, the tip of O’Malley’s knife is pressed against the base of Bishop’s throat.

I feel my hands move the spear, move it as if they aren’t a part of me, as if they act on their own. I see the bloody blade hovering a finger’s width from O’Malley’s belly.

“Put the knife away,” I say. “Right now.”

He stares at me, astonished, maybe even a little betrayed. I know how this looks—like I am willing to hurt him to protect Bishop.

O’Malley lowers the knife. He stomps off to the rear, shoving people out of his way.

I hear Spingate’s voice: “No…no, it’s not possible.”

She is farther forward, standing by the bones and the footprints. Tears stream down her face. Her lower lip quivers.

“Not possible,” she says again.

I rush to her side. “It
is
possible, Spin. They were monsters, I saw them.”

She looks at me with those big, watery green eyes. She shakes her head.

“I’m not talking about monsters.”

She points down at the dusty bones.

“It’s impossible for
those
to be here, Em. Don’t you see? These can’t be here because
we walked in a straight line
.”

One of the bones is mostly free of dust, as if it was picked up, brushed off, and set back down. It is a skull with a jagged, triangular hole smashed through the top.

Six sets of footprints lead away from the bones, down the long, white hallway. The footprints seem to begin at an archway on my left.

An
open
archway.

I know what that door leads to. Inside are coffins. Six empty, six with little corpses inside. And one of those empty coffins is where I first woke up, screaming in agony, trapped in the dark.

We are right back where we started.

T
his doesn’t make any sense.

I walk to the coffin room. I know exactly what I’m going to see, but I must be missing something. I have this wrong, somehow, and so does Spingate.

I enter—two rows of six coffins, a well-trampled aisle of dust between them. At the end of the right-hand row, I see the broken lid of my coffin, sticking straight up into the air.

This is impossible….We worked so hard….

I walk to Brewer’s coffin. The little corpse dressed in big clothes is still inside, the dried flesh flaked away from the skull right where Spingate touched it.

A boy at my side: O’Malley.

“We walked in a straight line,” he says. He doesn’t sound mad anymore. He sounds stunned, like it’s hit him as hard as it’s hit me. “We walked straight so we wouldn’t get lost.”

Doing so was my decision. Mine. I don’t understand what happened.

The hope we felt in the Garden, it’s gone. I feel numb again.

“I did something wrong,” I say. “I…I don’t know what happened. I tried to get us out.”

I tried
. And all I did was bring us back to the same spot. Yong is dead. So is Latu. I lost Bello. No, I
left
Bello. I ran away so we could wind up right back where we started?

We’re never going to get out of this place.

We will all die here.

O’Malley puts his hand on my shoulder. I know he’s trying to be nice, but it feels awkward. He senses it, too, takes his hand away.

“Em, Bello wasn’t your fault.”

I look at him. Those blue eyes, the shape of his face…how did he know I was thinking about Bello? I wish O’Malley and I were somewhere else, together, the two of us, some place without the fear and the confusion.

“Not your fault,” he says again. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I wasn’t in the woods, I didn’t see what you saw. If you say we had to run, I know you had a good reason.”

The
good reason
? I was afraid, that was the
good reason.

O’Malley is sincere, but his sincerity doesn’t change anything. Reality is what it is. I was voted the leader. Everyone did what I told them to do, and we wound up here. O’Malley is wrong—this
is
my fault.

I don’t want this stupid spear. I rest the butt in the dust. The blade—the blood on it tacky and half-dried—points to the carved ceiling. I could let go of it, just let it fall. Someone else should carry it for a while.

Gentle fingertips caress my temple. It stings, but not because of O’Malley’s touch.

“You’re hurt,” he says.

I reach up and feel the spot. A lump, from when the monster slammed me against the tree. It’s sticky there, and also down my cheek, my neck. I crane my head to look at my shoulder—spots of blood dot the white fabric.

I am clean no longer.

O’Malley touches my arm. The contact makes my skin break out in goose bumps.

“Your arm is hurt, too,” he says. “Did the monster grab you?”

Four parallel red lines mark the skin there—obviously the shape of fingers gripping far too hard.

“Yes,” I lie. “The monster grabbed me.”

It was Bishop, his crushing strength, but he didn’t do it on purpose. I don’t want to give O’Malley a reason to hate Bishop even more than he already does.

O’Malley’s fingertips reach out again, trace a warm line down my cheek. This time, his touch doesn’t seem awkward. It seems
right
. Everything fades away, everything but O’Malley’s eyes, the feel of his skin on mine.

“We’ll figure out what’s going on,” he says softly. “You can’t know everything. What’s happening here is crazy, I know, but you’re the best leader for us. The people follow you, Em.”

I answer him in a whisper. “But
why
? Why do they follow me? I have no idea what I’m doing.”

He shrugs. “Because there’s something about you. And no matter what’s happened so far, it’s better to have you as the leader than Bishop. You saw how he knocked me down? You saw Gaston’s eye, Latu’s cheek?”

I nod. I’m glad I didn’t say it was Bishop who bruised my arm. O’Malley is right, though—Bishop has a history of hurting people.

But then I remember what Bishop said in the hallway: when I yelled for help, he plunged headfirst toward unknown danger. O’Malley did not. O’Malley stayed with the others, he didn’t come after me.

My opinion of the two boys seems to waver based on which one I’m talking to. That’s not how things should work.

“Maybe you’re wrong,” I say. “Maybe Bishop could be a good leader.”

O’Malley huffs. “He’s a bully. He throws his weight around, he intimidates. If he winds up in charge, it’s dangerous for all of us. You’re a good leader, Em. Bishop
acts
. You
think
.”

I gesture to the room. “I’m a good leader because I
think
? Look around, O’Malley. Look where my thinking got us.”

I want to trust in what O’Malley says. He’s helped me make hard decisions. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have won the vote. But the fact that we are back where we started makes it clear: when it comes to his confidence in my leadership, O’Malley is plain wrong.

Another boy pops into my thoughts. Yong this time—the look on his face when I stabbed him, and what he said right before he attacked me.

You tried, Em, but you failed.

Maybe he was right.

I open my hand and let the spear fall away. It drops like a cut tree, slowly at first, then picking up speed before smacking into the aisle and kicking up a long puff of dust.

“I had my turn,” I say. “Let someone else have theirs.”

O’Malley shakes his head. “You can’t quit now. We need you. I’ll help. When you’re in doubt about something, anything, you pull me aside and we’ll figure it out together.”

He should hate me right now. I’m sure the others do. I somehow led us in a circle, yet he says that’s not my fault. Maybe there is a good reason he didn’t come to help me in the woods. Maybe he thought someone had to stay with the group, keep them together, keep them safe. The things he’s saying right now, the intensity of his quiet voice…O’Malley
believes
in me.

Maybe he’s the only one who does.

He’s so close I can smell him. I shut my eyes, feel heat pouring off his body.

I have never felt like this before. I can’t remember much, but I know that I have never been kissed.

I want O’Malley to kiss me.

Someone rushes into the coffin room. It’s Spingate. I quickly lean away from O’Malley, like I’ve been caught doing something wrong.

“Em, I know what happened!” Tears still gleam on her cheeks, yet she is wild-eyed with excitement. “I know how we wound up back here! Raise the spear, Em. Bring everyone in and I’ll explain.”

She finds an area with undisturbed dust, kneels and starts drawing lines with her finger.

What is she doing? What is she going to say to everyone?

I look at O’Malley.

He picks up the spear. He brushes dust off of it, then offers the spear to me.

“We don’t just need a
leader,
Em,” he says. “We need
you
.”

I have no faith in myself, but for now, maybe I can rely on his faith in me.

My fingers curl around the spear. I lift it slightly. It feels heavier than it did before.

I walk into the hall. All heads turn my way. Some people glare with open anger. Some look at me with hope, with expectation…they still think I can guide them out of this place.

I raise the spear.

“Come into the coffin room,” I say. “We’ll figure out what to do next. El-Saffani, stay out in the hall, yell if anyone comes.”

El-Saffani nods. People filter into the room, but Bishop lags behind. He walks to a skeleton. He reaches down and picks up a thick thighbone. He grips it in both hands, gives it an experimental swing.

Then he raises it above his head and he whips it down. It smashes against the skull with the triangular hole, shattering it, sending shards of bone skittering across the hall.

A piece of what used to be a person is now a weapon.

Bishop shows the thighbone to El-Saffani, gives a single, firm nod. The twins nod in return. They grab thighbones of their own. Without a word, they take up positions on either side of our coffin-room door.

Bishop has changed. Killing the monster affected him. He looks so solemn, so serious. That little-boy smile is nowhere to be seen.

And on his face, for the first time, I see a faint hint of stubble.

Bishop isn’t a kid anymore.

I enter the coffin room.