The Beneath (14 page)

CHAPTER 13

I peered cautiously out of the archway and into the narrow corridor beyond. It was made of stone, rubbed smooth with years of wear. A wire was tacked along the centre of the rounded ceiling connecting a string of light bulbs that were giving off a gentle glow.

The corridor was completely empty except for Will, who was being dragged along by Foggy. If anyone were to come out of any of the many other archways I could see we would be spotted in an instant. It was also eerily silent – the canteen noises we had heard earlier had stopped. All I could hear were Will and Foggy’s footsteps.

“Will!” I hissed. “You can’t just go marching off! You need to be able to hide.” I glanced into a room that we were passing. “This is empty; get in here for a moment.”

“Look, I know you’re worried about getting caught,” he
said as he followed me into the gloomy, cave-like space, which was little more than an alcove in the corridor, “but honestly, we don’t have a lot of choice, do we?”

I was about to object when he put his hand on my shoulder.

“I’ll keep you as safe as I can, Lily, I promise you, but if we want to save Aria we have to get on with it.”

Swallowing hard I looked up and wished for a second that we were somewhere – anywhere – else. And then I heard a distant bell. It sounded like an old-style handbell, and it was being rung really slowly as if by someone who was really bored by the task. Will leapt towards Foggy, clamping his jaws together and cutting off the bark that was about to erupt from him.

“Shhh, Foggy. Here, have a biscuit.”

The dog instantly changed from an animal that was alert and ready to fight to one begging enthusiastically. Will whipped out the little pouch in his pocket and dug around inside it. He produced a tiny ball of dried food.

“Is that really going to do it?” I whispered, still listening to the bell, which was definitely getting louder.

“Every time. He’s easily pleased, aren’t you, boy?”

Foggy sat there, tongue lolling, as Will patted his head. I held my breath, waiting to be discovered, straining for any change in the noise.

After a few long minutes I heard Will exhale noisily. “I think the bell is getting further away now,” he said. “I wonder what all that was about?”

As he spoke the lights in the corridor silently blinked out, leaving us in total darkness.

I come round as the nap bell rings and the room is suddenly plunged into darkness. I will have an hour’s peace before he starts on me again. So many questions! I keep telling him it was all a mistake, but I can tell he thinks that I’m lying, and I know that his patience is wearing thin.

What would the Farmer say if he actually knew about our plan? Would he be surprised that some of us had had the courage to try and mount our own revolution to depose him? Some of the Elders must know that the Farmer’s ideas are madness, that there is no way he can attack. Some of them may even think like us, but I’ll never know. Right now I’m safer saying nothing. I know that he wants to send me to the Crop – that was clear as soon as he started to question me, but he is desperate to find out how I got past it and up Above.

I would really like to see Carita again before … I can’t even think the words. I wish I’d gone to see her before I went Above and started this mess. Maybe she would have talked me out of it. Maybe I’d have accepted my Assignment and would now be snoozing gently in my bed instead of lying on this cold floor, waiting.

An image of Dane flashes through my mind and I feel a stab of real pain in my chest. I know that I failed in the mission, that I should never have gone beyond
the tunnels – and stayed Above – that he must feel I betrayed him. If it had only been him on the street the other day and not Neville, if I hadn’t felt so bad about staying, if only he had spoken with me, maybe things would be different. And worst of all, I can’t believe that he told Lily he loved me. Not now it’s all too late.

I saw him briefly when I was brought back down – he was part of the group of Listeners who escorted me through the Community to the cells. I tried not to look at him too much, but I was able to stand close to him as they led me through a small doorway. I didn’t dare say much, but I did mumble “I’m sorry” to him as I pretended to bump into him. He wouldn’t even glance in my direction.

He must be terrified that I’m going to reveal his part in our plan, because that would earn him a place next to me with the Crop.

When I think about the Crop, I find it hard to breathe and I start to shake. I curl up in a small ball and try to shut out the nightmares by telling myself one of the stories that Lily read to me, but my thoughts quickly turn to the wonders I have seen Above. I can’t – and I won’t – forget. At least I won’t die having spent my entire life below ground; I won’t die never having seen anything important or never having tasted the air. Proper, fresh air. But I will still die. Nothing can change that now.

“Maybe it was a bell for lights-out. Aria mentioned something the other day about having a nap.”

There was a chuckle in the darkness. “Of course! They’ve all gone to bed.”

“I didn’t realise that they all do it at once though,” I said. “This will make it much, much easier to investigate the place. They’ll all be tucked up in bed!”

“Even if it does make finding Aria much, much harder,” agreed Will with a smile in his voice. “OK, torches at the ready.”

We slipped back out of the door, and, keeping our torches low so that they would attract less attention, started making our way down the corridor. The yellow pools of light lit up the dusty floor, which looked like polished rock.

“I think this must be a service tunnel,” whispered Will as we went past a series of dark openings, which seemed to be rough doorways without actual doors. “Look in there.”

He pointed with his torch. The doorway opened on to a chamber that was packed full of crates. We couldn’t resist seeing what was in the top one.

“Tins of corned beef,” he said, putting one back in the crate. “Yuk. All the labels are damaged, as if they’ve been under water. This one’s rusty. Even Foggy won’t eat that. It’s a wonder they’ve not all died of food poisoning.”

“So if this is a service tunnel connecting the lift and the supplies with the canteen, there must be some sort of main street, I guess.”

I was trying to imagine a map of the tunnels.

“That was probably where the person with the bell was walking,” said Will. “It wasn’t too far away from here.”

His logic seemed sensible.

“OK, let’s keep on this one for now, if we can. I guess it will all depend on where Foggy leads us.”

The dog looked up at the mention of his name, and Will gave him the top to sniff again.

“Right then, Foggy, find her!”

Foggy jumped up and started off out of the little room without hesitation. I flicked my torch left and right – luckily the corridor was clear in both directions so the two of us jogged along behind him. All the time I was watching over my shoulder for light or movement, trying not to think about what might happen if someone turned into the corridor and saw us. But no one appeared.

As we ran we kept the torches on. The darkness without them was so utterly black we would have run straight into the first bend in the wall, but even with the comforting little puddles of light I hoped that Foggy wasn’t going to suddenly nip to the side and cause a pile-up.

He led us unerringly through what must have been a maze of tunnels, with turn after turn. I tried to keep a picture of where we were going in my head, but it was impossible. With the limited light we had there was no way of spotting any landmarks, and I tried not to think about how we would get back out again if we didn’t find Aria. There was no way we could instruct the dog to retrace our steps. At one point we crossed a very much
wider corridor. I could feel a breeze of warm air on the side of my face, and the floor was so polished and worn it was no longer flat. Countless feet had worn grooves in the rock, and when I lifted the torch the thin beam of light disappeared into the distance. Still Foggy carried on, taking us further and further from any escape route. As we rounded one corner I stumbled on a ridge in the ancient floor, putting out a hand to steady myself in the dark. Will grasped it to stop me falling but didn’t let go.

“Are you OK?” he whispered.

Will was holding my hand.

“I think so,” I mumbled, distracted.

We negotiated another bend in the corridor and I was suddenly conscious of a change in the air. There was an unexpected feeling of space and distance all around us. I stopped dead, and I felt Will freeze too. We both clicked off our torches. Some strange sense told me that we were no longer alone.

Gripping tightly on Will’s fingers, I tried to pull him back to the tunnel. There was an unmistakable noise of people – lots and lots of them moving, breathing and snoring – and I knew we were in trouble.

“Hey, you, what are you doing out of bed?” hissed a man’s voice. “It’s nap time.”

We froze.

Will was the first to gain his voice.

“Toilet. Not well,” he hissed back as I quickly groped for Foggy. If the dog growled, we were finished. I clamped
my hands round his muzzle and we backed carefully into the tunnel without anyone raising the alarm. Feeling my way along the wall I led Will back round the corners we had turned before he risked flicking on his torch for a moment, shielding most of the light with his hand.

“That was close,” he whispered. “What are we going to do now?”

“It was too close. They might follow us at any minute. We need somewhere to hide, and quickly.”

Will turned the torch on the walls, but there were no doorways into rooms where we could hide.

“Quick, back down here. I think we passed some doorways down this one,” Will said, catching my hand again to pull me along.

“Here, look down here,” I gasped as we passed a small corridor with lots of archways off it. “Another service route.”

“Good call,” agreed Will, turning to following my torch beam.

We moved silently down the corridor and stopped by the first doorway. Will flicked his torch around it briefly. It looked pretty empty, so we slipped inside, safe again in the dark. I felt my way along the rough wall and then stopped, leaning my back against it. I could hear my heart thumping in my chest.

“That was too close,” I said to Will as I felt his warmth close beside me. “What on earth are we going to do now?”

“I don’t know. Give me Foggy’s lead, will you? I’ll give him a treat.”

“I don’t have it – I thought you did.”

“What! Where’s he gone then?”

We heard a brief scraping noise. Will snapped on his torch, lighting up the face of a young woman who was hunched in the corner of the room. She let out an ear-splitting shriek that echoed around the empty corridors.

“Run!” I cried, grabbing Will’s hand again and dragging him back out of the room.

“Strangers!” screamed the woman’s voice behind us. “Strangers among us! Get them!”

As we ran the noise increased, more and more voices taking up the call. We ran almost blindly, torch beams waving madly around as we turned corner after corner, trying to get away. I thought we were pulling away, that the voices were getting fainter when yet again I was aware of a much bigger space around us. The torch couldn’t find the wall so I shut it off quickly.

“Will,” I hissed, stopping abruptly. “This isn’t right. We must have gone in a circle.”

“I know.” His voice was wary. “Stay close to me.”

Back to back we peered into the dark, only too aware of the commotion approaching from behind us. There was no way back that way.

“Have you got your torch ready?” he whispered over his shoulder to me.

“Yes.”

“On the count of three, let’s see what we’ve got here.”

I felt my mouth go dry and could feel my heart pounding in my chest.

“One,” he started, his voice wavering a little.

“Two…” I joined in, holding my finger ready over the switch.

We never got to three. The room was suddenly starkly bright as all the lights came on. Blinking, I squinted around, pressing myself closer into Will’s back. We were in a huge chamber, and all around the edges men were sitting up in low, uncomfortable-looking beds. As each one saw us they gasped, and the noise ran round the room like a wave. Then slowly – and almost as if they were being pulled by the same string – they got up and started advancing towards us.

Will’s hand found mine and squeezed tightly. “Not exactly part of the plan then,” he said, obviously trying to sound calmer then he felt. “Can you see Foggy anywhere?”

“N … no,” I stammered as the crowd began to tighten in a ring around us.

This was all my fault – I had to try to do something about it. For a second I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself so that I wouldn’t squeak.

“I’m sorry that we disturbed you,” I said as clearly as possible, trying to catch the eye of any of the men who were now circling us. “I’m afraid we got lost. We’re—”