Alive (7 page)

I
want to run, but I stop myself because it won’t do any good. There are no doors, there is no end to this hallway, nowhere to hide. As soon as the marchers turn the corner, they will see us.

The sound draws closer.

(If you run, your enemy will hunt you….)

That phrase again, rolling through my thoughts. Whose voice is it? One more thing I can’t remember.

And yet I know the voice speaks the truth. As exhausted as we are, as thirsty and as hungry, I don’t think we could run very far or very fast. Whoever is coming can either see our backs and know we’re afraid, or see the knife and know we are dangerous.

I press close to the right-side wall, knife out in front of me. O’Malley stands a step behind me, at my left shoulder, holding the scepter like a club. I instantly understand he is not behind me because he is afraid, but rather because he is following my lead, staying close to the wall so we are a little less obvious. If danger comes, I know he will try to step out front and face it first, because he is so much bigger than I am.

Maybe he isn’t any good at fighting, but that doesn’t stop him from standing with me. He’s so close I can sense him, feel his body heat. He is sweaty and stinky. His scent, it’s new, something different from the way boys smelled back in my limited memories of school. It’s distracting—almost as if I like it, but he doesn’t smell good. I feel my heart in my throat, pounding all the way into my stomach. Is that because of the danger, or also because of him?

I clench my teeth and readjust the knife in my hand. We’re in trouble, I need to focus.

Bello pulls at my left arm.

“Em, let’s
go
! What if it’s the Grownups?”

I yank my arm away. I don’t have time to explain to her that a voice in my head—a memory—is guiding me, and I know its words are true.

“We don’t run,” I say. “Whoever is coming, we face them.”

Bello starts to cry. Of course she does. She moves behind O’Malley to stand with Aramovsky and Spingate.

The marching footsteps sound so close, like the steady beat of a big drum.

A thought grips me: what if Aramovsky is right, what if there
are
monsters? Spingate doesn’t know for sure that monsters don’t exist. No one does. Visions of claws and fangs and wild eyes flash before me, a horde of beasts flowing down the hall, searching for helpless children to carry away and devour.

But I’m not a child anymore.

And I’m not helpless.

The marchers come out of the hall and turn to their right, away from us.

Not monsters…
people.

Two columns of beautiful people dressed like us, led by the biggest person I’ve ever seen. They all turn to their right, away from us, so focused on matching their steps that they don’t even look our way.

The sense of relief is so overwhelming I almost laugh at myself for believing in Aramovsky’s nonsense.

The leader carries a long stick and marches with precise, loud steps. His skin has only a little more color than pale Bello’s. Gleaming blond curls cling to his head so tightly they don’t move when he walks.

I count nineteen people: two lines of nine, with the big blond in front.

We stay very still. Maybe the marchers won’t see us at all.

I almost have time to turn and tell everyone to be quiet, but before I do Spingate shouts out.

“Hey! Over here!”

My heart sinks.

The marching lines stop. They are not so ordered now: Spingate startled them. They shift out of their lines, afraid, some suddenly holding each other.

“Spingate, you idiot,” I hear Aramovsky hiss from behind me. “Why did you do that?”

“They’re the same as us,” she answers. “We can all work together.”

The blond boy runs to the back of his lines, puts himself between us and his fellow marchers. He points the stick at us, and I see it ends in a wicked blade; it’s not a stick, it’s a spear.

He has a circle-star on his forehead.

He raises the spear high.

“Everyone,
follow me!
” he screams, then sprints toward us. Two of the marchers are right behind him, a boy and a girl, both with short, glossy black hair and caramel-colored skin. The rest of them don’t move; they stand in the hall, unsure of what to do.

My feet feel stuck to the floor. O’Malley tugs at my arm, urging me to run away, but I can’t move. The blond boy charges: he’s going to shove that spearpoint into my belly and I will wind up like Yong, on the floor, dead and cold and alone, crumbling away into dust.

I’m going to die and I haven’t even learned my first name.

The spear-wielding boy slows, stops a few steps from us. He’s looking at me, but
down
—I realize I’m holding the knife out, point first.

Even through my fear, I notice the shape of his face. He is beautiful in a way that is different from O’Malley; this boy is bigger, stronger, his shoulders and neck are thicker. There is a bruised bump on the right side of his heavy jaw.

All our clothes are too small for us, but the blond boy’s shirt is buttoned only at the waist; his broad chest stretches the fabric into a wide V. The sleeves are so tight I think his big arms might rip them apart at any moment. With even his smallest motion, I see muscles flutter beneath smooth skin.

He stands there. He had one strategy:
charge
. That didn’t work, and now he doesn’t know what to do.

Maybe I won’t die after all.

“Hello,” I say.

He blinks. “Uh…hello.”

I lower my knife to my side.

“I’m Savage,” I say. This time, that seems like the right name to use.

The boy sets the butt of the spear on the floor and angles the shaft back until the blade points straight to the ceiling. He looks at me like he doesn’t know what to make of me. He’s not angry, not suspicious…he’s more
confused
than anything else.

“You didn’t run,” he says.

I shake my head. “No, I didn’t. What’s your name?”

He pauses a moment, maybe waiting for me to change my mind, to suddenly turn and sprint away from him. When I don’t, he shrugs.

“I think my name is Bishop,” he says.

He
thinks
that’s his name? He doesn’t know any more than we do.

“R. Bishop,” he says. “That’s what was written on my cradle.”

“Cradle?”

The word makes me think of babies, even smaller than the little ones we saw in the other room.

He nods. “We were lying in them when we woke up.”

“Oh,” I say. “You mean the coffins.”

He stares at me, then smiles. “
Coffins?
That’s not very happy, now is it?”

I realize that he’s the only one in the hallway not wearing a red tie.

His eyes are a strange color: yellow, a bit darker than the curly blond hair matted to his head. His eyes catch the light, almost seem to glow.

That symbol on his forehead…he’s a circle-star, like Yong was. The two hard-eyed people behind him, the boy and the girl, are also circle-stars. Will they try to take over like Yong did? Will they hit people to get what they want?

Bishop looks past me, taking in the others. “Are there more of you?”

I almost say,
There were six of us,
then Yong’s dying face is all I can see.

“Just five,” I say, forcing the vision away. “There’s nineteen of you?”

He looks back down the hall, realizes that only two of his marchers came with him. He shakes his head in disgust.

“Depends on how you count,” he says. He leans close to me, speaks quietly. “Most of them aren’t worth much of anything, except for El-Saffani here.” He gestures to the boy and the girl.

They talk, the girl first, then the boy. “We are strong—”

“—stronger than the others—”

“—except for Bishop.”

Their eyes look exactly alike, dark-lined with heavy eyebrows and deep-brown irises. They are lean and firm, built for speed rather than pure strength. The boy is slightly taller than the girl. They both still seem ready to fight even though their leader is relaxed and smiling.

Two people, but he only said one name.

“Which one is El-Saffani?” I ask.

“They both are,” Bishop says. “That’s what was on their cradles,
T. El-Saffani
and
T. El-Saffani
.”

They’re twins.

Bishop’s eyes take in my clothes, twitch over to Spingate’s shirt, Bello’s lip, O’Malley’s cut.

“How did you all get so bloody? Was there a fight?”

The rest of the marchers are slowly coming closer. There is no blood on their shirts. None on Bishop or El-Saffani, either. This group has had an easier time than mine, it seems.

“An accident,” I say, and glance back at the others—especially Spingate—silently telling them to stay quiet. The new people don’t need to know about Yong, at least not right now.

Bishop shrugs. He smiles wide, a smile that would be more at home on the face of a little boy than on the face of a grown man. His chest puffs up, straining the last button of his too-small shirt.

He raises the spear high until the point almost touches the glowing ceiling.

“Savage, I like you. You and your friends can join my tribe.”

Tribe:
a word of power.

He charged us, screaming, furious, weapon in hand—ready to attack, I’m sure of it—and now he acts like this is recess and we’re all pals?

“Why are you raising the spear?” I ask.

My question confuses him for a moment.

“That’s how we make announcements,” he says, as if that is completely obvious. “When you raise the spear, everyone has to listen. Those are the rules.”

O’Malley takes a step forward, stands shoulder to shoulder with me. He seemed so big when I first met him. But compared to Bishop, O’Malley doesn’t look that big at all.

“Join
your
tribe?” O’Malley says. His blue eyes narrow. “Maybe you should join
our
tribe.”

Bishop stares at O’Malley like those words make no sense.

“But I’ve got the spear. That means I’m the leader.” He holds it up, not threatening, but rather showing it to us as if we had somehow missed seeing it altogether.

O’Malley gestures to me.

“So?” he says. “Savage has the knife.”

Something about all of this makes my stomach churn.
Spears and knives. Tribes
. The beginnings of an argument…an argument about who should lead. That’s how it started with Yong. Things are heading in a bad direction. I have to do something to prevent that.

“No one needs to join anyone else’s tribe,” I say.

My words confuse Bishop even more. He’s getting mad.

“Someone has to be in charge,” he says. “There have to be rules. That’s how things work.”

His fingers flex on the spear handle. I know, somehow, that if R. Bishop gets angry enough, my friends could get hurt.

A girl gently pushes through the marchers. Her skin is pale, but without Spingate’s pinkish hue. The tone is hard to define, a brown-tan that borders on white, but is clearly not. She is my height—does my skirt look as short as hers? Her long muscles flutter with even the slightest move, especially on her powerful legs. Her hair is unlike anyone else’s: long, kinky curls that puff out wider and wider before they end at her smooth, toned shoulders. She’s not smiling now, but when she does, I know it will be stunning.

She has a circle-star on her forehead.

There is no blood on her shirt, but there is a big, bluish bruise on her right cheekbone. Other than that, she appears to be fine—except for her lips, which are dry and chapped just like ours.

I realize that all the new kids have dry lips, even Bishop.

“Do you have any water?” the girl asks.

Bishop scowls at her.

“Shut up, Latu. I do the talking.”

She glares back at him, defiant. “Maybe you should do less talking and more leading, Bishop. We’re thirsty.”

He sighs. “Do you want what happened last time to happen again?”

“I don’t know,” Latu says. “Do you?”

She is solid and could probably beat me to a pulp, but Bishop is nearly twice her size. Anger pours off her: so does fear. Has she already fought him and lost?

“I’m a good leader,” Bishop says. “You don’t see blood all over
our
shirts, do you?”

Bishop is trying to act like Latu doesn’t bother him, but he’s not a convincing faker. He’s getting angrier by the second. El-Saffani watches him, as if the twins are waiting to see what he does. They are wound up tight. They look ready to attack, just like Yong was. Are all the circle-stars like that?

I need to get Bishop thinking about something other than O’Malley and Latu.

“Bishop, where did your group come from?”

He points behind him, to the new hallway. “From there.”

Obviously they came from there. That’s not the information I was hoping for.

“We keep turning,” says boy El-Saffani.

“Bishop said it’s good to turn,” says girl El-Saffani.

Another boy laughs, a cutting sound that makes me feel stupid even though I have nothing to do with their group.

Bishop turns, stabs a finger toward the source.

“Shut up, Gaston. I told you not to laugh at me.”

A boy slides through the marchers packed in behind Bishop and Latu. He’s small, even smaller than I am. His white shirt fits perfectly. All the buttons are buttoned, his sleeves are the right length, and his red tie is nice and neat. His left eye is puffy and bruised.

His symbol is the same as Spingate’s: a jagged circle.

“I’m not laughing at you, Bishop,” Gaston says. “I remembered a joke, that’s all. It’s really funny. It goes like this. Once upon a time there was this really big, really
stupid
kid that liked to hit people. He kept making all of these turns without knowing where he was going, and—”

Bishop takes a step toward Gaston. Gaston moves fast, melts away behind the bigger kids in his group and is instantly out of sight.

“That’s what I thought,” Bishop says.

He glances back to the intersection. When he and his friends were marching, he was so self-assured, like he was carved from confidence. A little bit of teasing, and now he seems full of doubt.