Wall: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (The Traveler Book 3) (30 page)

The driver disappeared down the hole. One by one, they skipped over the pot and positioned themselves on the ladder.

Ana let everyone go ahead of her. She switched Penny onto her back. It was her turn to make the descent. She took sips of air to avoid inhaling the abhorrence of the outhouse and found her footing. Penny put her tiny hands on Ana’s ears, gently tugging on the lobes, as Ana stepped lower and lower into the abyss.

The worn grip of the vented, flat iron ladder rungs caught in the soles of her shoes with every downward step. She held the rails tightly with both hands and slowly loosened them when she slid lower.

With the child on her back, Ana moved deliberately. With each extension of her legs, she could feel the temperature dropping. It was dank and cold. The spring of goose bumps populating on her arms and legs sent a shudder throughout her body.

Ana looked up toward the shrinking sliver of light leaking through the gap between the access panel and the false wall. She guessed she had to be twenty feet below ground.

***

The dirt floor at the bottom of the ladder was soft, almost spongy in texture. It gave underneath Battle’s weight with each step.

The sneak-through was a more sophisticated tunnel than he’d imagined. The driver explained it was a relic from the days of the Los Zetas and Gulf Cartel. They’d ruled most of the eastern Mexican drug routes along the Gulf and the northern paths into Texas.

When the United States started building the wall to contain the Cartel, the generals employed former Zetas to construct tunnels for them. The generals hadn’t minded the wall. It kept the United States out of its business and prevented the vast majority of people under their rule from leaving.

They still needed smuggling routes beyond their territory. The tunnels were an easy way to make it happen.

The driver told them the tunnel would lead them past the wall and shy of the Red River. If they were lucky, there wouldn’t be a patrol in the area when they emerged.

The corridor was dark, but Ana had a hand-cranked flashlight, which illuminated enough of a path for the group to see where they were going. She walked next to the driver. The baby bounced on her back in the dark, her little feet kicking and flexing as her mother lit their way.

They walked maybe fifty yards when they reached the end of the tunnel. There was another ladder.

“Let Baadal open the trapdoor up top and make sure it’s all clear. Then the women and children go first,” said the driver to Battle. “You and me go last.”

Once Baadal had given them the okay, Battle helped the others, one by one, climb to the surface and disappear into a window of bright light some twenty-five feet above them.

Then the window disappeared. The tunnel went dark. Battle opened his mouth to ask the driver what had happened when he felt a thick punch to the back of his head.

***

Ana pulled herself from the tunnel and into the blinding light of the late afternoon. She closed her eyes and slowly reopened them as they adjusted. Before she could see, she heard the rush of water and a call for help. It was coming from the river. Ana recognized the voice.

As she neared the rain-swollen Red River, she saw the woman from the front seat. She was clinging to a large tree branch and fighting against the raging current.

For years, the river had run dry, a wide red clay berth on either side of its paltry trickle. In the years since the Scourge, it had found its moxie. Even a light rain would fill its banks. The repeated storms of the past week had turned it angry and vengeful.

Ana stepped to the southern bank and stopped. The woman was caught, only her neck and head were above the water.

The teenagers ran up behind Ana when they saw their sister struggling to survive. “You left us!” cried the girl. “You left us!”

The boy looked at the Dweller. “How did she even get there?”

The Dweller named Baadal joined Ana on the bank. “There are many sneak-throughs. She must have found one. You can’t save her,” he said, “and we can’t stay here. We need to move along the bank until we find a natural dam of rocks to cross. If we stay here, the patrol will find us.”

The red-haired woman was next to Ana. “I can go in after her,” she said. “I’m not a strong swimmer, but I could hold onto the branch.”

“Mom, no,” said Sawyer. “You’ll drown.”

“Help me!” the woman gurgled. She was losing her grip on the branch. “I can’t hold on much longer. Help me, please.”

Ana began removing her pack. “Take Penny,” she said to Lola. “Hold her for a minute. I can swim.”

After a moment of protest, Lola slid the pack over her shoulders and held Penny against her chest.

The teenage boy grabbed Ana’s arm. “She left us,” he said. “You don’t have to do this. She deserves whatever happens.”

Ana took the boy’s hand and gently moved it from her arm. “Nobody deserves any of this,” she said. “Nobody.” She took off her shoes, set them neatly on the bank, and stepped into the frigid, roiling water. She leaned on the branch with one hand and stepped deeper into the river. The icy rush took her breath away. It made her chest hurt the farther she moved from the bank. A few feet from land, the riverbed dropped sharply. Ana lost her footing and slipped under for a moment.

She found her balance against the rush of water and pushed herself to the surface. Shivering, she inched her way along the branch, careful not to put too much reliance on her footing.

“I’m almost there,” she said to the woman. “You’re going to be fine.”

The woman wasn’t speaking. The water was at her chin. Her lips were puckered, her eyes bugged with fear. She held the branch with one hand while the other one flailed and splashed wildly against the water.

Ana moved to within reach of the woman and offered her hand. “Let go and grab.”

The woman shook her head. She was too afraid, too panicked. She dipped lower into the water until only her nose and eyes were visible. She was thoroughly entangled in the branch and had clearly lost her footing on the riverbed.

Ana inched closer. Still the woman wouldn’t reach for her. Ana, losing sensation in her limbs and unable to stop her teeth from chattering, lost her patience. She let go of her branch and let the current carry her next to the drowning woman. As Ana tried to reestablish her grip, the woman lunged at her and climbed onto her back, forcing Ana under the surface. She struggled to free herself from the woman’s grip, but she was facedown and couldn’t grab hold of anything but the silty bottom of the Red River. She tried flipping over, but couldn’t. Water rushed into her nose, choking her. She grasped at her back and neck, only managing to grasp water that rushed through her fingers.

Her lungs were empty and burned from lack of oxygen. Her eyes were losing focus. She fought the urge to take a breath.

The fire in her lungs radiated outward until suddenly it stopped. Her blurry vision faded into blackness. The weight atop her lifted. Her panic waned and became an overwhelming sense of calm.

Ana’s last thought was of Penny. Instead of fear for the future, however, Ana died knowing her child was safe in the arms of another mother who also sought a better life.

***

Lola stood ankle deep in the Red River, calling out to Ana. She screamed at the woman to get off her, to let her free.

She cried out for the mother she’d just met, whose baby she held at her chest. For minutes, she stood in that rushing water, holding her balance as her feet sank deeper into the muck underneath the surface.

The woman didn’t listen. Maybe she couldn’t hear or comprehend what Lola was asking of her. Instead, she held Ana underwater long enough that Lola knew she couldn’t hold her breath.

Despite her using Ana to try to save herself, the drowning woman lost her fight against the water too. She slipped beneath the surface, only then freeing Ana’s lifeless body. It popped to the surface and then raced away with the current. Ana was gone.

Lola buried her hands in her face. She didn’t know Ana. She didn’t need to know her to mourn her loss. Ana, a young mother with a baby who couldn’t be more than nine or ten months old, had risked her life for a woman who’d abandoned her family. She stood on the bank silently until Sawyer yelled for her from the sneak-through’s exit.

“Mom,” he called, “something’s wrong. Where’s Marcus?”

Lola didn’t see him. She saw the teens and the pair of twenty-somethings. No Marcus.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Didn’t he come up?”

She started moving to Sawyer before he could answer. Halfway there, Baadal stopped her.

“He’s not coming with you,” said the Dweller.

Lola looked at him sideways. “What are you talking about?”

“Paagal doesn’t trust him,” he said. “She likes you. You and Sawyer can continue on your way, or you can come back and live with us in the canyon. Actually, she said you could live wherever you want. Battle can’t come, though. I’m doing what I’m told.”

When Lola tried pushing her way past Baadal, he grabbed her arms and stopped her. He squeezed. His face turned sour and he bared his teeth.

“He’s not coming,” Baadal said. “And if you—”

With the baby strapped to her chest, Lola turned her body and drove her knee upward between his legs. Baadal’s knees buckled and he let go of her arms to grab himself. Before he could, she kneed him again.

As he dropped to the dirt, the baby started crying. Lola planted one foot and then swung the other as if kicking a ball. The front edge of her foot met Baadal’s face, snapping back his head, and he fell unconscious to the ground, blood pouring from his nose and mouth.

Penny’s cries grew shrill and loud. Lola tried soothing her by blowing gently onto the back of her neck as she reached the sneak-through trapdoor. Sawyer was already there tugging on it.

He looked up at his mom as he struggled with the handle. “I can’t open it,” he said.

It was locked.

***

Battle was dazed and disoriented. He didn’t remember losing consciousness, or regaining it for that matter. He was sitting on the floor of the tunnel, his back against the ladder, strapped to it. His legs and hands were bound. He smelled lighter fluid and realized he was sopping wet.

“This is courtesy of Paagal,” said the driver. “She wants you dead.” He aimed Ana’s flashlight in Battle’s face.

Battle squeezed his eyes shut and struggled against the bungee tightly wrapped around his wrists.

“She doesn’t trust you. She thinks you’re an instigator.”

Battle chuckled. He sniffed and felt the burn of the lighter fluid in his nostrils. Behind him, on the ladder, was a sharp edge where the lowest rung had separated from the side rail. He started picking at it with the bungee.

The driver cupped his hand over his ears. “You hear that?” he asked. “That’s a baby crying up there.”

Battle looked straight up toward the trapdoor. The baby’s cry was piercing. She was upset. It wasn’t a hungry or sleepy baby cry. Something had happened up there.

Battle spat the fluid from his lips and glared at the driver. “What about Lola?” The bungee was tearing. He could feel it. “What about Sawyer? The others?”

“They’ll be fine,” he said. “Maybe. I don’t know why that baby is crying like that. I had kids before the Scourge. That’s an angry cry.”

Battle felt part of the bungee snap. He kept working it against the rung’s sharp, knifelike edge. “Why does Paagal want me dead? I’m leaving. I’ve already crossed the wall.”

The driver turned off the flashlight and pulled a brass cigarette lighter from his pocket. He popped it open, flicked the file wheel, and lit an orange flame. In his other hand he gripped Battle’s HK rifle.

“She doesn’t think you’ll stay here,” said the driver. “She’s afraid you’ll come back. Better to elimin—”

Battle snapped the bungee and freed his hands. Before the driver could toss the lighter, Battle had rolled from the ladder into the dark. He pushed himself to his feet and, with his feet bound together, leapt onto the driver, tackling him to the ground and knocking the lighter from his hand.

The driver caught Battle in the gut with his knee and twisted partly out from under Battle’s weight. It wasn’t enough.

Battle caught the driver’s head between his legs as the man tried to free himself. With his legs bound, Battle had him trapped.

He squeezed against the driver’s neck and rolled with him, fending off punches to his side and back. Battle drew his body into a ball and used his hands to grab the driver at the front and back of his head. He gripped handfuls of hair and then wrenched his hands counterclockwise until he heard a rippling crackle announce the end of the driver’s fight.

Battle released his grip and collapsed. He lay on his back, the driver’s twisted neck and head still between his knees, trying to catch his breath.

Every inhalation was laced with the burn of the lighter fluid. He took shallower and shallower breaths until he could breathe through his nose.

He looked up at the light seeping through the trapdoor. The baby was still crying.

Battle sat up, pushed himself away from the driver, and untied the bungee at his calves and ankles.

Slowly, he climbed the ladder toward the top. Each step was painful. He was cramping in his side. Each breath stung. His eyes burned from the mixture of fluid and sweat that dripped into them during his brief fight.

He reached the top and flipped the latch. He opened it to find Sawyer, Lola, and the young mother’s baby waiting for him. She had stopped crying and was sucking on a pacifier.

Lola helped him climb from the hole onto the dirt. Battle looked behind him and saw the wall mere feet away. It appeared so much larger than it had from a distance.

“Where is everybody?” he asked. “Where are the others?”

Tears streaming down her cheeks, Lola thumbed over her shoulder. “Baadal’s over there. I don’t think I killed him. I’m not sure.”

“The others?” he asked. “From the hearse?”

“Ana is dead.” Lola’s voice cracked. Her eyes drifted to the river. “She drowned.”