SWAB (A Young Adult Dystopian Novel) (9 page)

The tunnel filled with water, and soon no more scarb came out of it. Scarb bodies floated in the muddy water pooling around us.
Ray!
What if he’s in there!
“What about the two other tunnels?” I shouted to Officer Reynolds as our truck pulled up beside Nathan’s to get closer to the main entrance.

He didn’t have an answer for me. I started to get up, and though my legs were wobbly, I was determined to use them. “You can’t save him,” Officer Reynolds said sharply, as if he knew that’s what I was thinking. I kept walking. “You have to stay here and complete this mission.”

“The mission?” I yelled back into his lined face. “The mission is a failure. We may have flooded this tunnel, but the scarb will get out the other two and be all over us again! I’m going to look for Ray while I still have a chance.”

Officer Reynolds didn’t blink. “I order you to stay.”

I took a moment. “I don’t take orders from anyone,” I said and climbed off the truck. Just as I reached the muddy ground, it happened just as I said it would. Scarb poured over the hills from the east and west entrances. Hundreds of them. Many were already crawling on their hands, their feet kicking in the air. They only did that when they were especially pissed off.

“Davin, you take the right,” Officer Reynolds called. “We’ll take the left.

“Wanna swim you filthy beasts?” I heard Nathan taunt the approaching scarb.

Gray joined him. Gray was short compared to Nate, with buzzed brown hair and hazel eyes. He and Nate had been friends since we joined Rimerock. “I heard you like fire-hose first thing in the morning!” he laughed. It wasn’t funny to me. Ray could be drowning in the water that saved us.

Run, Cat, run!
My mind shrieked for my body to move, but there was nowhere to go.
Find Ray, find him. Get inside the colony.
My boots sloshed, my clothes clung coldly to my skin. Every way was blocked by water or scarb. The fire engines kept us in a protective circle of water, if I left it, death was certain.

“They can’t get to us! Hah!” Gray boasted from above. But I knew things weren’t looking good.
How long can we hold them off? How long until they discover our water hoses and destroy them?
We couldn’t hold them off forever.

Suddenly, a horrible buzzing sound filled the air.

“What on earth?” Officer Reynolds yelled, his eyes to the skies. Several dozen fliers came out of the upper entrances of the mountain. They zoomed toward us.

“Fliers?” Mrs. Weatherstone shrieked. Strangely, all the scarb on the ground stopped their attack. Those closest held their ground.

“Fliers!” Officer Reynolds echoed. “Aim your hoses at the sky!”

But the water streams were slow as they arched upwards, and the fliers easily maneuvered out of the way. Among them, I saw a blur of red hair.
It’s her. The one that took Ray. She’s here.

I pulled out my sword, ready to get revenge. Within seconds she was right above our engine with her two massive bodyguards and several others. They dropped altitude until they were just inches out of
my reach. I prepared to cut them off at their ankles and anything else I could with my blade. Before I knew what was happening, the fliers dropped a thick rope net over my head. I heard my brother and several of the others scream. Through the rough cords, I saw that they too had been netted.
Captured? Just like Ray. How can I be captured?
I slashed at the ropes with my sword. Then the ground underneath me gave way. I was lifted several inches into the air. I started hacking at the net, but scaly hands grabbed my wrists and took the weapon from me.

“No!”I struggled to get to the blades on my ankles when a large fist hit my head. My body went slack and everything went dark.

Chapter Nine

I Can Still Fight

A fat lime-green leaf.

That was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. Soft fuzz covered the leaf’s edges. Yellow light came through it, exposing its neon veins.
Beautiful.
The air was warm and humid, like a rainforest.
Am I dead?

Some part in the back of my mind remembered flashes of a battle: fire engines blasting,

waterfalls of drowning death, Nathan spearing a scarb through the gut, clear liquid hissing on my skin, thin wings and gorgeous long red hair.

Where am I?
I was lying flat on my back. Soft dirt cushioned me, a tree over my head.
But it doesn’t feel like the mountain forest.
The air was too moist and fragrant with magnolia blossoms, like the kind of perfume my mother used to wear. I rubbed a clump of dirt between my middle finger and thumb. It was soft, like it had recently been wet. I tried to get up, but I didn’t seem to have enough strength to do more than move my fingers.

Next, I heard voices, low and faint like they were some distance from me. Their words were all garbled.
At least I’m not alone. I think that’s a good thing.

“Carla,” a voice said close to the crown of my head. “She’s awake.”

For a moment, I panicked. I didn’t know who was with me in this humid place, and the fact that I couldn’t move scared me. But then,
Mrs. Weatherstone came into view, her long gray hair hanging loose around her gentle face.

“Oh, good,” she said softly, patting my face with what felt like a cool towel. I instantly felt at ease in her presence. If she was so calm here, then everything must be alright. “Bring me some of that honey nectar,” she turned and told someone behind her who I couldn’t see. Her hazel eyes looked back to me. “How are you feeling? Can you talk?”

I took a breath and managed to answer in a gravelly voice, “Um, I feel okay.”
Wow, I sound like I haven’t spoken for days.
Again, I lifted my head to try to get up.

“Don’t try that just yet,” she cautioned and put her hand underneath my head until I rested it again. “They brought you to us only this morning. It always takes a while for the effects to wear off.”

Her words didn’t make sense. I must’ve hit my head hard or something. “Brought me? Who brought me?”I coughed. “What effects? Where’s Nathan?” Suddenly nothing else mattered. I started to speak really fast. “Is he all right?”

“He’s fine dear, he’ll be back in a moment.”

“The last thing I remember was the flying scarb. They got us in these… nets?”
Was that right?
It all kind of felt like a strange dream now.

She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, dear. Here I am troubling you with more than you’re ready for. Just rest now. We’ll explain everything to you as soon as you have some strength. Now, where is that boy with the nectar?”

Nathan’s face came into view, and he smiled at me. “Good to see you awake, sis.” He passed a large curved leaf to Mrs. Weatherstone. “This stuff tastes disgusting, but it will help you feel better, trust me.”

Mrs. Weatherstone opened the cap and put the end of the leaf to my lips, pouring a thick liquid into my mouth. Nathan was right. It
was nasty—thick, too-sweet and slightly fermented—but I trusted his word and swallowed it.

“Uck,” I spat.

“Ha, ha,” Nathan laughed. “Told you it was fun.”

The liquid hit my stomach and made it lurch. I thought I might vomit and have to taste the horrid stuff all over again, but warmth seemed to spread out of my stomach to the rest of my body. It made my head feel light and funny.

“What is that?” I asked. Mrs. Weatherstone was again running a cool towel over my forehead.

“We call it honey nectar,” she explained, “though the insect that makes it is really more like a beetle than a bee. We’ve never seen anything like it before.”

With the strength of the honey nectar in me, I lifted my head to take another look around me. Past the lime leaves above, I could see light coming through some kind of web-like net high above. It wasn’t a natural looking sky. Thick foliage surrounded us on all sides: bushes with leaves as large as the fire trucks’ tires and massive white-and-yellow flowers with orange centers. The ground buzzed with the sound of insects. A gurgle of water came from somewhere to the right. A firefly the size of a dinner plate zoomed over my head.

“What is this place?” I asked, trying to take it all in.

Office Reynolds answered, and I was surprised to hear his voice. “We’re not entirely sure,” he said crisply. He stepped into the clearing where I lay, still dressed in his military uniform, his badge pinned to his chest. He was always to be officer of the U.S. Army, no matter how decrepit that army became. “We believe it is a holding dome in the epicenter of the scarb colony.”

Inside the scarb colony? Did I hear him right?
My eyes grew wide, and my breath quickened.

Mrs. Weatherstone tried to still me. “So much for not getting her too excited,” she muttered under her breath.

Apparently Officer Reynolds heard her, because he said, “Tell her. She needs to know.”

“Yeah, please tell me how we got here, inside the colony. I remember nets. Are we being held prisoner?” Then hope shot through me. “Is Ray here?”

Nathan put a hand on my leg and looked up to Officer Reynolds. “I’d like to tell her if I can”

He nodded, and I turned to Nathan. “Ray isn’t here. I thought I’d answer that one first, since you won’t listen to anything else I say until you know. We looked for him, but this place isn’t really that big. It’s like a giant fish bowl. We can’t get in or out. Only the scarb can. It’s like they have this web around us that responds only to their DNA or something. But I’m getting off-subject. Anyway, most of us woke up here nine days ago. I was with the first group, so I know. We looked for Ray and all the rest of you, but it was just us—”

“How many were with you?” I interrupted.

“Derrick,” Nathan answered. A sigh of relief escaped my lips. I needed my ally. Nathan continued. “And two other guys: Travis, the mechanic, and a little guy named Jorge. The next day two more showed up, Mrs. Weatherstone and Gray. Then, it was three days before they brought Officer Reynolds in. I thought I wouldn’t see you again, but then I remembered how torn up from the battle Officer Reynolds had been; several broken ribs and half his hamstring was torn out. It was weird, but when they brought him, he didn’t have a scratch on him. Same thing was true for us. All our wounds were healed.”

For the first time, I realized it had happened to me, too. My body had been mutilated by the scarb. Chunks of my shoulder had been bitten off, and my thumb was half-gone. But now, it was as though
nothing had happened. I touched my shoulder to feel where the flesh should’ve been missing, but it was smooth. There was no pain. The injuries I’d sustained should’ve taken weeks to heal, but here I was, totally normal.

“You’re saying
they
healed us? The scarb?” I asked him, truly baffled.

He rolled up his sleeve. I remembered the deep gash that had been on his bicep, but now there wasn’t even a scar. “It sure seems that way. We think that after they caught us in the nets, they must’ve taken us somewhere to be healed. When we were well, they brought us here. So, when I saw that they practically brought Officer Reynolds back from the dead, I had hope for you. But for five days, no one came, until today, when they finally brought you.” His green eyes creased as he smiled, and he gave my leg a squeeze.

It made me feel good to see that he was happy, but the whole thing felt strange to me. “So, they just dropped me off in here?”

“Yeah,” Nathan confirmed. “The guards come in and out only when they bring another human in. They just set us here on the ground, then they leave. And you know scarb aren’t much for conversation. They wouldn’t answer any of my questions. Guess I need to learn to speak scarb. We don’t see them any other time. But there’s food here: fruit and nuts. Mrs. Weatherstone discovered that the honey nectar helps with the effects after they bring us here. It sucked for me,” he laughed, “you had it way easier. I was like a zombie for two whole days.” I was glad it was funny to him, but I couldn’t laugh.

My temples throbbed. It didn’t make sense. “Why would they heal us at all? They were killing us? Don’t they want us dead?”

Officer Reynolds answered that one. “That’s what we thought all along. But now, it seems this queen has another agenda.”

The queen?
“Has anyone seen her?”It felt like a legitimate question. Heck, I wouldn’t blink if I saw E.T., but Nathan laughed.

“No, we haven’t seen her. We may be the only humans to have ever gone inside a scarb colony and lived to tell, but we haven’t seen anything more than this room and a few of the guards.”

“And we can’t get out?” I repeated just to make sure.

Officer Reynolds reported, “The walls here are thick as steel and sticky.”

“We’re flies in a freakin’ spider web,” Nathan added.

“Whatever the colony wants with us,” Officer Reynolds continued, “we have no way of finding out or preparing ourselves. They took all our weapons.”

“I can still fight,” I resolved. No one was going to turn me into a puppet—or a meal, for that matter. Maybe they were fattening us up to feed us to their pet monster or something.

Nathan raised his eyebrows. “What are you going to do? Throw a coconut at them?”

“There’s always something,” I said flatly.

“We’re thinking of a plan right now,” Officer Reynolds assured me, but it didn’t seem like they’d come up with much. Without blades, we weren’t a match for the scarb.

“We do have food, though,” Mrs. Weatherstone added, always looking for the positive. “And clean water. Everyone is in good physical condition. I’m practically going crazy without even a drippy nose to treat.”

I set my head back down and stared up at the green canopy. “So no weapons. And no Ray.”