Forsada: Volume II in the New Eden series (19 page)

“Come on,” yells Steven, and he grabs my arm and yanks me toward the cavern, pushing Ginger before him.

A few seconds later another roar, this one deafening, blasts us with a wind so hot I’m afraid my clothes will catch fire. We all sprint the last hundred yards into the cavern to find everyone there standing and staring at us with wide eyes.

“What the hell was that?” asks Garrett as we careen into the cavern.

Another roar echoes off all the walls, and this time the rumble is so heavy we can feel the floor shake under our feet. Garrett grabs my arm, and I hold him. The rumble lasts a few seconds, then dies away.

Shem gives me a rough look before puffing himself up full. “Like I told you,” he says so everyone can hear. “Whole valley’s in flames.”

I look hard at him, waiting for the explanation.

He doesn’t make me wait long. “What you just heard—what we all just felt—was that old building collapsing.”

He looks at each of us in turn, and I look at Tom. Tom’s head is down so I can’t see his face.

“You!” he barks at Tom. “I hope to hell,” Shem says, “there’s another way out of here.”

CHAPTER 16

I’ve walked that cavern enough. “There are two other tunnels,” I say. “One goes that way, northwest I think.”

“North,” Tom says, and he stands up straight. “That’s the one we want. The other…” He shakes his head and looks me in the eye. The daze he had moments ago is gone, but his cold eyes tell me the other tunnel leads straight to Fobrasse and his demon dogs.

That seems good enough for Garrett, who steps between Shem and Tom. “Where’s it let out? The north one.” He thinks a moment. “That would take us straight to Upper.”

If he says so. I was proud I didn’t say west. Outdoors I can tell my way around, but in here I have no idea what’s where.

“That’s right,” Tom says. “We should go now. Or, as soon as everyone gets a little rest.” He sits down and slumps back against the rough stone wall, drops his chin to his chest.

The rumbles and crashes have stopped. I’m antsy, agitated—I feel like I’m trapped in a building with its roof on fire, and I have to stop myself from glancing up at the ceiling every few seconds.

“Why now?” Garrett towers over Tom, who looks up at him.

“Outside,” he starts to say, but he trails off as he shakes his head.

“Outside what?”

Freda, kneeling just at the edge of the firelight, says, “Outside was hell.”

Ginger is stroking Freda’s hair. I feel sorry for her, a little. She never asked for any of this any more than I did. Still, her family and home are just fine. Quiet and peaceful, a hundred miles away in Southshaw. The beekeeper lady out tending her bees. Her father stitching up clothes. No one burning their houses, killing their children, making them slaves. So yeah, I feel a little sorry for her. But not that much.

Garrett touches my elbow. He has a knack for knowing when I’m about to mouth off with something I shouldn’t say, like
you don’t know what hell is.
I could tell Freda about being dragged ten miles through mud and horse shit on a half-broken ankle. I could tell her how it feels to hear people scream as a burning building collapses around them. I could tell her about watching my father throw up his arms to stop a hatchet from splitting his head open. Hell? Hell is the memory of watching Shack die.

Shem breaks the silence that’s been building around us.

“Hell. Yeah,” he growls. “Frickin’ Southshawans all over the hills like maggots on a rotting pig. Hundreds. Hell, thousands maybe. Whole hill’s on fire. Them running around like crazy demons.” He frowns and shakes he head. “Let ‘em all burn in that inferno.”

The description seems enough to bring Tom’s voice back.

“Lupay,” he says, ignoring Garrett standing before him. “They blocked the road. We had to go through the woods, but they were everywhere. We ran right through a line of them once. It was the only way.”

He looks at Shem, who is watching him closely with hands knotted into tight fists. Shem’s jaw works like he’s chewing gristle, and the wildness is creeping back into the corners of his eyes. Garrett stares hard at his father, and I put my hand on his elbow and squeeze.
Don’t hate your father, not now. I need your strength to keep me going. If you lose it, so will I.

Tom looks up to me but keeps some of his attention on Shem. Only a fool would trust that drunkard.

“As we snuck around,” Tom says, the dull edges of his words now sharp again, “we saw that leader guy from earlier today. Remember him? The one you talked to by the prisoners.”

“I remember.” I won’t ever forget his face, or the strange look in his eyes. I still don’t know what it meant. Respect? Fear? Not hatred. Not like the apes with him.

“Out there tonight, he wasn’t in charge. He was trying to stop the burning. Trying to get them to leave.”

“So?”

“At one point we had to hide in some bushes, and he was only a few feet from me. I heard him talking. He said that if this worked, if they destroyed us—if they destroyed
you
—then Darius would attack Upper in three days.”

Three days.

“Lupay…”

He looks unsure, but it’s so hard to understand his stony expressions. “What is it, Tom?”

“I think he knew we were hiding there, behind him.”

Before I can even think about that, Susannah steps from the shadows into the torchlight. “Three days! We have to warn Upper.”

Tom nods, seemingly happy to change the subject. But I’ll make sure to ask him about it later. “That north corridor will take us within a few hundred yards of the town.”

That’s good enough for Garrett. “Okay, then. Rest time is over. Let’s go.” He starts, then pauses. “How far?”

“Not far,” Tom says. “Eight, ten miles maybe? But that tunnel was never production quality.”

Garrett throws up his hands. “What does that mean?”

“It means they dug it but never brought it up to code.” He sees that means nothing to us. “Subterran safety standards. The supports are weak. The walls are rough. It’s narrow. I used it a few times, but that was ten years ago.” His glance flicks to Shem, who’s rocking back and forth heel-to-toe, his body so rigid he might snap right in half.

Tom stands, shakes his head, and looks down. “Can’t even say for sure if it still goes all the way through.”

“Well,” I declare, “only one way to find out.”

As I start to go, Garrett lurches forward and shakes my hand off his arm. Shem has stopped rocking and leapt at Tom, who reels backwards. Garrett thrusts one hand out and stops Shem cold with a hard palm on his ribs. Shem whoofs as he stumbles back.

“Not now,” Garrett says with a deep threat in his sharp voice.

Shem steadies himself, his jaw quivering and his eyes darting around the dim hall, maybe seeing us or maybe not. His hands flex over and over, and I can see him working himself down from his hysteria. Slowly. With great effort. It takes half a minute. Finally, he takes one big breath and waves his hands at us. “All right,” he growls.

“Not ever,” Garrett suggests, but Shem doesn’t seem to hear as he turns and faces the darkness.

Garrett and I have done our best to keep Shem away from Tom all day. Maybe he recognizes Tom, and maybe he doesn’t. But it’s clear he’s connected Tom to that night. And he doesn’t like it.

As we retreat to the cavern and collect ourselves, I watch him. He keeps to himself, mumbling and squeezing himself in strange hugs as he paces in tight circles. Every few steps, his whole body shudders. I don’t know how long it’s been since he’s had a drink. Maybe the memories of that night haunt him so deeply that drinking is the only way he can handle it. And now those memories are alive right in front of him.

We all have our own hells, I guess. I wonder if it’s worse when you created it for yourself like he did.

I look at Freda, who watches us all with red, puffy eyes. There’s curiosity there. Pain. Sympathy.

Susannah sits beside her, with Honey and Daisy between them. Honey clings to her mother with a terrified grimace on her grimy, scratched-up, six year old face. Susannah looks tired to the depths of her soul.

Ginger strokes Freda’s hair, watching me with a startling intensity.

After a while, Ginger rises slowly and dusts herself off. She wipes at each eye once with a sooty, dirty hand. Then she steps to the middle of the group and faces me.

“If it’s time to go, then we should go,” she says.

Why she’s looking at me and not Tom, I’m not sure. But her young voice seems to bring everyone back to us, even calming Shem.

Within two minutes we’re walking in a line, Tom in the lead and me right behind, then Steven and Ginger. Garrett takes the rear so he can keep Shem right in front of him. Back in the cavern, Susannah and Freda tend to the families we “rescued.” No sense walking them straight into another war if that’s what’s going to happen.

We have no food and only a little water with us, and after a half hour the narrow cave constricts my mind and squeezes my thoughts. I struggle to keep up with Tom even though he doesn’t seem to be rushing. I’m used to walking in the hills, seeing mountain peaks to judge my distance. I’m used to the sun or stars to point me north.

Ginger holds a torch right behind me, throwing wicked shadows ahead that stretch and merge into the darkness. Their frantic dancing makes my head hurt. I let my hand drag along the rock at my side as we go, just to keep my mind from thinking.

Every now and then my fingers catch in a softer patch that isn’t rock, sending dirt and pebbles skittering to the floor. Tom wasn’t kidding; this tunnel isn’t like the Subterra corridors.

After a long while, I finally call out to Tom for a rest. He slows and stops, but immediately I know we won’t rest long. The air is so still and dead that the torch smoke settles on us, sucking up the good air. Still, I need to stop moving for just a moment.

Outside on a trail, we’d be able to gather in a group, face each other. But in this narrow tunnel, the best we can do is turn sideways. Maybe Ginger and I could squeeze past each other, but the tips of our noses would scrape on the way by. It’s tight.

Our heavy breathing echoes off the close walls. Garrett passes his flask forward, each of us taking a sip to moisten the dust that thickens the inside of our mouths.

Tom turns sideways and leans on the wall, and I do the same, opposite, so we can at least sort of look at each other. Ginger and the others do the same, until we look like we’re lined up for some kind of folk dance.

Tom gives half a grin, but I can see his chest rising and falling with difficult breath. “The air is better than I expected,” he says, and he finishes with several seconds of coughing.

“How far have we come?” I ask him.

Ginger pops in before he can answer. “A mile, I think,” she says.

Tom looks impressed. “Good. You noticed the markers?”

With a shy grin, Ginger nods.

“Markers?” I didn’t see any markers.

“They’re kind of hard to notice,” Ginger says, with a little too much sympathy in her voice.

Tom points to a spot next to me on the wall. I wrench myself around and struggle to see that part of the wall. My own shadow darkens it, and I have to wriggle out of the way of Ginger’s torch light. She holds the torch to the side so it won’t catch me on fire.

There’s some sort of squarish rock poking out from the wall, at waist height. It protrudes only an inch or so, two inches on each side. I can tell right away that it’s been put there deliberately. There’s one groove across the end of it.

Tom doesn’t wait for my question. “In unfinished corridors, we put one every quarter mile. At the first quarter mile, we carve a mark in the top. Second quarter mile on the next face clockwise. Third quarter mile on the bottom, and so on. At each mile we carve a groove across the front. You see this one has a single groove. One mile.”

I slip my fingers across it and wonder if I’m the first to touch it in a decade. Probably.

“Hey, Tom” I say, thinking back to a moment right before we left the cavern. “What was it you whispered to Freda, back there?”

Tom’s expression stays tired but goes dark. “I didn’t think you saw that. I told her how to find the way into Subterra. If we don’t return within a couple of days.”

Of course. Me, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. So many things could happen once we reach Upper. But it’s only ten miles, so we should be back with food and clothing within a day, and then we can bring them out. But what if we can’t come back?

“Time to move,” Tom says.

As I push myself off wall and fall into step behind him, I knock away loose dirt from my backside.

After another mile—I notice the markers now, and they’re reassuring but still feel much too far apart—I realize we’re going uphill. The air is a little less heavy but still thick. And now, about every hundred feet, a brace of thick timbers holds up the ceiling.

The farther we go, the walls become less granite and more dirt. At four miles we stop for a long drink and a real rest, dousing one of the torches to reduce the smoke. At seven miles, my clothing sticks to my dust-crusted skin. My mind is so empty, the only thing I know is the rhythm of Tom’s feet in front of me and the hypnotic dancing of shadows on the walls.