Last Wild Boy (5 page)

Nora panicked. She grasped at the boulder in front of her, trying to secure herself against it. But as she did so, her left foot slipped from its toehold and she slid down, dropping the burnt-out lamp as she groped wildly at the rubble in front of her for a hold. She heard the lamp smash on the ground beneath her just as her hand grabbed on to a metal support wire sticking out from a boulder. She gripped it with all of her might and managed to steady herself. She let out a sigh as she found a boulder just beneath her outstretched legs that was large enough to stand on.

Nora dropped down onto the boulder and caught her breath. She wanted to scream, but she was afraid that she would wake Adam, even from this distance. She thought of him lying alone in the room up ahead and gritted her teeth. “I'm okay,” she said to herself quietly. “I'm okay.”

Nora's jeans had ripped as she'd fallen, and she could feel blood dripping down her leg. She touched her wound with her finger, but she couldn't tell how deep the cut was. She patted at it with the sleeve of her shirt to dry it off as best as possible, then carefully reached down with her foot, searching for something she could step down onto.

A few feet down and a little ways to her left, she could just touch the edge of a steel girder. Nora crouched down and swung her legs over the side of the boulder, then slowly lowered herself down until her feet were balanced on the girder. With her hands still gripping the edge of the boulder above her for support, Nora stretched her right leg out below her, and was surprised to feel solid ground only a few inches beneath the girder. She felt around the floor, careful to make sure that there was no glass from the shattered lamp where she was about to step, then let go of the boulder and shifted her weight down onto the floor. Relief washed through her as she brought her left foot down onto solid ground to meet the right.

Bit by bit, Nora shuffled her way away from the debris pile, kicking glass shards out of her way as she went. When she got far enough away from the pile that she'd be safe from stepping on glass, she picked up her pace slightly, using the wall beside her as a guide as she headed back toward the main room and Adam. As she started nearing the spot where the skeleton was sitting, she slowed down again and stayed as far to the opposite side of the corridor as she could. Even so, she still managed to accidentally kick something that she guessed was its outstretched foot. She swallowed a scream and kept going, shuffling her feet carefully now in anticipation of the large hole that Minn had dug.

A few moments later, Nora reached the pile of dirt that ringed the sides of Minn's hole. She hugged as closely to the wall as she could and navigated around it carefully. When she had passed it, she reached her arms out to feel for the doorway that led to the next corridor. It took longer than she expected to find it, and the cramps in her stomach taunted her that somehow she had taken a wrong turn. But reason assured her that no other branches to the service corridor existed.

Her hands finally found the doorway, and she passed through it thankfully. There was a faint light escaping from under the door up ahead at the end of the hallway, and she raced toward it and flung the door open.

C
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It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the dim light in the room, but as soon as they did she looked down at Adam. He was still sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware of the ordeal Nora had just been through.

Nora lay down on the bed beside him, glad to feel the warmth of his body beside hers, drinking in the security of finally being back in the safety of the lamp-lit room. She lay there for a long while, smelling Adam's citrus scent. She realized then that the slight mustiness she'd smelled on him before was the same odour as the stale air in the room.

When her breathing had evened out and her heartbeat had slowed to its normal pace, Nora sat up and examined the wounds on her leg. Her knee was scraped up a little, but it was already starting to scab over. She poked through the rip in her jeans to see how deep the cut on her leg was. There was dried blood all down her leg, but luckily, the cut didn't seem very serious. Just a surface wound, really. She cleaned her leg off as best she could with saliva and a strip of cloth, then tied the cloth around her leg to stop it from bleeding more.

When she was finished, she pulled the skeleton's yellowed note pad from her waistband. The paper had turned acid brown and brittle along its borders and edges, so much so that it crumbled even under Nora's careful fingers. The first page was disappointing — the writing was so faint that it was impossible to read. She turned to the next page and found that she could make out many of the words.

…all over now, it seems. I was one of the few to survive the last battles and I came here and fou everyone dead. Then the army of the women arrived with their prisoners. I tried at fir to insist that some of us were different… oo late, though. The laws make it impossible to continue. Military all gone…refused to go to the homelands…so many dead and dying. I hoped to ride out the craziness. The rangers found me on the outside, murderous traitors that they are…hurt bad…scaped back inside here through nnel …cave-in blocked the way back out… I miss you, Cheryl, and our children. I miss the old world with all its flaws.

Nora turned the page, but there was nothing more. The rest of the book was empty. She closed it and placed it carefully on the table next to the bed, then looked down again at the sleeping Adam. His breathing was starting to sound rough and irregular, like his lungs were congested. His nose was running. She picked him up and kissed his forehead. The air in here must be bad, she thought to herself. I'd better get him out of here. But still she didn't move.

Nora knew she should have left Adam hours ago, placed him in some safe spot and said her goodbyes like she'd promised Alice.
Alice.
She'd be absolutely beside herself with worry by now. Maybe she'd even be out searching for her.

But even though Nora knew all of these things, knew that she couldn't stay here in this place with Adam, she still couldn't bring herself to leave. Or to leave him.

As she gazed down into Adam's peaceful face, willing herself to do what she knew she had to — put him down, head back to the summer house, and call in an anonymous tip revealing his whereabouts — she thought she saw something move near the small opening that she'd entered through. It's probably just some dirt falling down from where I packed it in the hole, she thought to herself.

But then she heard the sound of muffled voices. Insider voices.

“Sacred Mother!” she whispered. She jumped to her feet and backed away from the opening, holding Adam close.

“Looks like there could be something down here,” said one of the voices, getting closer.

“It's probably just some animal burrow,” said another. “A fox den or something.”

“I suppose we should still check it out, though. Orders were to leave no stone unturned.”

“I'm not digging down there if there's a chance there's something alive in there.”

“Fine. We'll just gas it out for now. Come back to check on it later if we have time before the shift ends.”

As Nora's frightened eyes focused on the opening, she saw a heavy leather military boot jut down through the packed dirt. It quickly disappeared back up through the hole it had made. Nora heard some rustling from above ground, and a thin metal nozzle was thrust inside the opening. A cloud of gas burst out from it, spreading fast.

Nora didn't hesitate. She grabbed a woollen blanket off the cot and turned and blew out the lamp, first noting the location of the door. Then she raced into the hallway and closed the door tightly behind her. She dropped the blanket to the ground and shoved it into the narrow gap under the door, trying to keep the gas from spreading. She'd heard of this gas before; the guards used it to prevent animals and vermin from entering Aahimsa. It was extremely toxic to humans, as well, especially in a small space like this.

Nora's heart was on the point of bursting. She held Adam's
face close against her chest, trying to keep him from breath
ing the toxic air, as she made her way away from the door. She hoped he couldn't sense her terror. When she reached the end of the hallway, out of danger from the gas fumes, she sat down and cradled Adam in her lap. While she sat she could think of nothing other than getting out of that basement and getting Adam away from danger.

She knew now what she'd been suspecting all along, though she hadn't been able to admit it to herself. She couldn't leave Adam, couldn't let them terminate him —
murder
him. No matter what the cost. But she couldn't hide him in Aahimsa, either. And the basement was no longer safe. There was nowhere left to go.

As she sat in the pitch-dark hallway, listening to Adam's raspy breathing and trying to figure out what to do, a cool breeze caressed her face. She remembered the breeze coming from the tunnel beyond the cave-in. The note in the skeleton's pad had mentioned that he'd escaped from the outside through a tunnel on the other side of the cave-in.

Nora had made it that far earlier, but could she do it with Adam? And would it matter? It was likely that both Minn and the skeleton man had tried getting over the pile of debris before, and neither of them had made it. But she didn't have any other choice. She would have to try. But not until she could get back inside the room to get the lamp and some supplies.

Nora sat there for a very long time, not knowing what time it was, wondering if the guards would come back. Sometime later she awoke in blind darkness. Adam was lying in a clump between her outstretched legs. It was so damp and cold. She wanted to look at him but couldn't. Then she remembered the small, electric torch she had taken from the summer house and left on the table in the other room.

“I wonder if it's safe to go back inside,” she said to Adam, just to hear the sound of her voice. “I'm going to set you down and have a look. Wish me luck.” Adam gurgled.

Nora walked to the end of the hallway and carefully removed the blanket. She waited a few more minutes, then by slow degrees she opened the door. The room seemed still and safe. She couldn't smell anything, but she supposed the poison might not have a detectable odour. She stepped inside.

The damp, stale air of the basement had got to her and now she was rasping and sniffing, much like Adam. She lit the lamp on the table and then brought a tube of nutrifier to Adam, who she carried back into the room. He drank about half the tube, but would have no more. Nora burped him, then set him on the cot while she changed his diaper.

When she was done, she gathered a few essentials: some woollen blankets, the tubes of nutrifier for Adam, a few bottles of water, some canned food and an opener, a small pot, a container filled with kerosene, the box of wooden matches, the few items of clothing left there by Minn, and some squares of cloth for diapers. Nora put as much as she could into two canvas bags she found under the cot. She picked up the bags, slung them across her shoulders, and then placed Adam back in his basket.

“We'd better hurry up and get out of here,” she told him. “The guards could be back any minute.”

Nora took a deep breath of the stagnant air and immediately succumbed to a fit of coughing. After her lungs settled down, she switched on the flashlight. She surveyed the long corridor, up past the rooms, and then turned it off. She didn't want to use up the batteries when she knew she might need the light more later.

She remembered there were three doors to her left before arriving at the end of this corridor. She shifted Adam's basket to her right arm so her left was free to feel along the wall and count the doors as she came to them.

The only sound in the cold, dark corridor was the distant, faint hum of moving air. Nora counted steps aloud as she walked, “one, two, three, four,” then the first door, “one.” Adam's breathing was really loud and Nora could tell he needed his nose cleaned, but she couldn't do it now. She had to keep going. She passed door two without counting. The concrete block walls were rough and the peeling paint and aging concrete felt abrasive and dry to her cold hands. “Three,” she said as she came to the last door.

She groped around and found the end door, then carried Adam through, careful not to bump the basket against the jamb. Already the air was cooler and cleaner. When she was through she turned the flashlight back on. She didn't want to risk tripping and falling into Minn's hole while she was carrying Adam.

More quickly than she expected, she and Adam passed the hole and arrived at the bones. The journey had seemed so much longer the last time, when she'd been stumbling through the pitch dark. She continued down the corridor to the cave-in, set Adam's basket down far away from any danger of falling debris or glass, and planned her climb up the unstable pile of concrete, plaster, and steel. When she'd found what she thought was the safest path to the top of it, she put the flashlight in her mouth and started climbing up the debris, careful not to scrape her knees this time. When she reached the top, she cautiously made her way from one wall to the other, looking for ways over the rubble or holes she could squeeze through. There were none. The concrete boulders and steel girders blocked off the whole corridor, from floor to ceiling.

Nora tried pushing some of the smaller boulders out of the way, but aside from a few bits of plaster that cascaded down the pile here and there, nothing would budge. “No wonder your mother gave up and tried going over the wall,” Nora called down to Adam. “This is hopeless.” She made her way back down the pile and sat down beside Adam.

“Now I understand how your mom must have felt,” Nora said, picking the baby up and sitting him between her crossed legs. “We're trapped here, just like she was, and just like the skeleton man was. It's not safe for you up in Aahimsa, just like it wasn't for him. And if I don't find us a way out of this basement, you'll probably die down here, just like he did.” A picture of a tiny baby skeleton lying on the bare corridor floor flashed into Nora's mind, and she had to stifle her scream. Tears gushed out of her eyes and she started sobbing uncontrollably.

When her sobs finally subsided into weak shudders, Nora wiped her eyes and looked down at Adam. He was still sitting between her legs facing her, and he had managed to grasp onto the shiny silver button on the front of her jeans.

Nora laughed despite herself. “I'm sitting here, bawling my eyes out because I can't save you, and all you're worried about is a shiny button?”

Adam smiled and grasped the button even tighter.

“Wait a second…” Nora said, a huge smile brightening across her face. “I think you might just be on to something, Adam!” She carefully unclasped Adam's fingers from around her button, then stood up. “Wait here!” she said as she placed him back down in the basket. “I'll be right back!”

Nora raced down the corridor, past the skeleton and around Minn's hole, her flashlight leading the way ahead of her. When she reached the doorway into the other hallway, she turned into it and then kept running until she reached the room with the coat rack in it. She grabbed the little boy's blazer from the rack, then continued on to the room with the gardening tools. She bounded over to the barrel where the shovels, hoes, and rakes were stored and selected the largest shovel. Its edges were heavily blunted, as if they'd been repeatedly bashed against a hard surface, and Nora briefly wondered if this had been the same one Minn had used to dig her hole. Probably.

Nora ran back through the corridors to where Adam was lying in his basket and checked to make sure he was okay. He gurgled happily when she shone the light on him. She picked the basket up and set it down a little farther away from the pile, just in case, then headed over to the cave-in with the shovel and blazer in tow. She draped the blazer around her neck, then carefully started climbing up the pile, the flashlight in her mouth and the shovel still in her hand. It was tougher to climb with the shovel, and it took her a long time to make it to the top of the pile.

When she finally reached the ceiling, she planted her feet onto two pieces of concrete and grabbed onto a metal girder with her left hand for balance, then manoeuvred the shovel under a boulder with her right hand. She put all the weight she could onto the shovel, trying to lever the boulder up, but it wouldn't move even an inch. She tried again, but the boulder still wouldn't budge.