The End Games (34 page)

Cure.

Dimly, Michael understood that he should have been blowing kisses, tap-dancing, singing
“Yankee Doodle Dandy.” But the shock wouldn’t let him.

I didn’t see this coming,
he thought.
Idiot. Stupid. Why didn’t I see this coming?

“And we can go to The End after we get it. Really, right? It can make the Bellows
go away, right?” Patrick asked Jopek anxiously.

Michael tried to calm himself.
If a cure is in there,
he told himself,
I get to CONTINUE.
For the first time, that felt so stupid, imagining his life through the lens of a
game.

“Wait. I get to
use
the cure, right?”

Jopek signaled for everyone to follow him. Just like old times.

“Have to think about it, you being the Betrayer,” Jopek replied, nodding reasonably.
“But y’all know, I’m a generous man.”

“Will it even . . . work on me, though?”

He realized that the question was really for Holly.

Holly’s mouth set, like a doctor about to give bad news. Her gaze flicked to Jopek,
and she said, “Yeah. Of course it will.” Michael understood, from her uneven tone,
that she did not know if that was true. He wondered fleetingly whether Holly was trying
to deceive Jopek (by making him think that Michael was safer than he really was),
or deceive himself (by encouraging Michael with the false hope of a cure). Then he
realized that it didn’t affect the facts of the cure, anyway.
And also,
he thought,
I’m pretty damn tired of trying to figure out Holly’s lies.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Michael walked into the jetliner with the point of Jopek’s AK-47 pressed into his
back, Patrick and Holly somewhere behind.

He had always wanted to go on a plane—there had been class trips; he couldn’t afford
them—but he didn’t want to be on this one, because it reminded him of those pictures
of the
Titanic
at the bottom of the ocean. It was a dead place. Oxygen masks in the darkness dangled
like nerves; snow hissed through the crimson-stained seats on a breeze that stank
of smoke and flesh. It was easy to imagine Cady pouncing from the floor . . . or the
ceiling.

“So it’s scary.
Be
scared.
Use
it,”
Michael tried to pep-talk himself. His breath fogged the front of his space-suit
faceplate. He tried to wipe the fog away; couldn’t; it was on the inside. Claustrophobia
enwrapped his chest.

“Say somethin’?” asked Jopek.

Michael shook his head. He hadn’t tried to
yes-yes
himself outside the jet; he did not know if it would help. But now, as he walked
through this dark, Michael understood that he was either going to grasp
yes-yes
or fall totally into despair. He was either going to believe that there was some
truth to the Game Master’s promises that such a thing as salvation existed.
This is the last chance I’ve got to save Patrick
.

Yeah, keep tellin’ yourself that story, Mikey. But if any of that yes-yes crap worked,
you’d be out of here by now.

Michael pinched his leg through his space suit, hard, forcing himself into the moment.

The captain’s gun light found the door to the airplane cockpit. He prodded Michael
with the barrel of the assault rifle. Michael opened the door. Wire and copper tubing
sprang from the ceiling of the cockpit like Medusa hair. The nose of the plane had
been chewed off in the crash.

The pilot seats were situated not in front of instruments, but in front of nothing.
Where the controls should have been, there was a new world.

The enormous lobby of a great bank.

High ceiling.

Marble floors.

Framed posters showing smiling people.

Brick walls soaring with stained-glass windows, through which daylight streamed.

As his eyes adjusted, something else became clear: the bank had been divided into
two sections by the airplane’s unplanned touchdown. The collision had brought down
a section of wall, maybe fifty feet from the airplane, so that the ceiling of the
higher floors had collapsed inward.

Rubble rose, floor to ceiling. The ruins were stacked so tall and tight that they
had effectively sealed off the rest of the bank from the entrance area.

“So you see why this was last on the list,” said Jopek, his voice hushed. “But there’s
a tunnel to the other side, sorta.”

Emphasis on “sorta,”
Michael thought. He saw the entrance: a small mouth in the rubble at floor level,
dark and jagged with debris. Just big enough for him, the tunnel shot way through
the ruins to absolute blackness.

Just
big enough for him, Michael thought. By “
chance
.”

But he suddenly had a dreadful feeling. It was that
clockwork-syncing
feeling again, yes, that sense of the world aligning for him. But this time, it felt
like a dark clockwork, a wicked clockwork, conspiring against him. It was irrational
but Michael thought:
Cady’s in there.

No. No, there was a whole city of other places for Cady to be.

Michael felt his breath and tried to look back at Patrick, but Jopek pushed the gun
into Michael’s cheek and forced his gaze front again.

“Time’s a-wastin’,” the captain said.

Michael nodded, and said, “Yeah. Okay. Here I g—” But then he realized that Jopek
had not been speaking to
him,
because Patrick replied, “Yes, sir,” took a little flashlight from Jopek, crouched
down at the tunnel, and said, “Clear.” Jopek stared blankly at him, then replied,
“Oh. Five points.” Then Patrick brushed his nose with his sleeve, and began to crawl
into the tunnel.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“What are you
doing
!” Michael cried. He lunged for Patrick.

Jopek’s hand seized Michael’s shoulder. “You watch yourself, boy. Don’t you get called
for interference, now. Bub, you let us know what you find.”

“Bub, do not go in there!”

Patrick gazed down the tunnel another moment, then turned around. He had never looked
smaller: his mouth so tiny and pink, his nose so slender. He got those features from
Mom, but right now Michael saw something on Patrick’s face that he had never seen
on their mother’s: a stubborn determination.

He’s trying to be brave. He wants The End. And he’s not going to stop until he gets
it.

“You said
you
would go in with
Michael
, Captain!” Holly shouted.

And that broke the pause: Patrick wriggled forward, the snow-stamped bottoms of his
sneakers slipping away.

“Why did you do that, Jopek?” Michael said. “Why the hell did you do that?”

“He volunteered,” Jopek replied in a “who me?” voice. “He’s used to getting through
tight places, he said. Kinda got the impression he didn’t trust you to do it.”

The feeling drained from Michael’s face.

“You didn’t say Patrick would go by himself,” Holly breathed.

She was so smart. She had once seemed so good. So how could she still be surprised?

Michael spun from Jopek’s grip. He got two steps toward the tunnel before Jopek shoved
him and knocked him sprawling, rubble-pebbles poking through the chest of his suit.
“Pay-trick!”
Michael called desperately in his Game Master voice.
“Ten points for comin’ back right now! Ten p—”

Jopek, towering over him, a boot on each side of his chest, cocked the AK. “You play
nice, Mikey. Now, your brother’s safe in there. There ain’t no monsters in there,
just calm down—you hear anything talkin’ back to us?”

“What did you even freaking bring me for?” Michael spat.

Jopek bent, offering Michael a hand up. Three drops of sweat glided down his brow
and fell on the barrier over Michael’s mouth.

“’Cause I need a backup in case the retard gets killed.”

Michael roared, his fist flying to hit Jopek’s belly. Jopek slapped away, no problem,
grinning like a man at a carnival game.

Patrick’s voice, flattened through the tunnel: “
Maaaade
it!” he said. “You’re right! There’s something in h—”

Then, a shriek.

The shriek of Cady Gibson.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Michael waited to hear a cry of pain. He waited for the snap of his brother’s bones.
And he waited to hear Patrick shouting that it was Michael’s fault.

There was a second shriek, sounding like it had the night before: a knife tearing
into this world from another.

Rocks clattered in the tunnel.

Patrick screamed.

Running footsteps. And an enormous, metallic shutting-slamming sound.

Then Patrick’s scream stopped. Echoed. Stopped echoing. And Michael suddenly was on
his feet and running.

A boot flew out and sent him spilling. He flipped onto his back, ready to punch through
Jopek. But it was Holly who had tripped him.
What are you doing, Holly?

Michael got to his feet. “No, wait wait, that Thing is in there!” Holly said, grabbing
him, rough-handed.

“
Patrick
is in there!”

Tears of relief shimmered in Holly’s eyes. “I think he hid, though. Didn’t you hear
that slamming sound?
I think Patrick got into the vault.”

Michael knelt, peering in the tunnel. He could see flickering, fluorescent light.
No child-sized lumps of clothing. No tossed-off shoe. No blood. And no movement. As
if the Thing—
the Shriek—
had left . . . or hidden.

Jopek pushed Michael aside and threw a lit flare down the throat of the tunnel. “Patrick!
It’s the Game Master, bud! C’mon back!”

Silence.

“Yeah. The vault. Sounds like it,” Jopek agreed. He sighed in relief, almost moaned,
and Michael knew it was not a relief that Patrick was alive. It was relief that his
mission had not just been screwed up.

Patrick was in the vault. Locked away.
He found a Safe Zone,
Michael thought, and felt a clutch of love.

Michael tried crawling toward the tunnel again, but Jopek grabbed him.

“Let go!”

“You’re going nowhere till we’re sure that Thing’s gone.”

“Because you need a backup?” Michael spat.

“Yeah,” Jopek said simply.

“How long, exactly, do you plan on waiting, sir?” Holly spat with mock respect.

Jopek glared. “A while.”

There were choices.

Patrick. Patrick.

“Then I’m going outside,” Michael said.

Jopek scoffed, “Bulls—”

“I’m going to start a fire in the road. To keep Bellows away. You said there are some
Bellows left; we’ve made enough freaking noise to bring all of them here. Look, do
you really want to waste your ammo on them before we have to? Do you really think
I’m going to try to run away and leave my brother?”

Jopek actually had to consider the last question.

“Have a ton of fun,” Jopek said.

Holly tried to ask if she could come, too, but Michael was already heading for the
fuselage, his mind stretching, trying for a plan, desperately, oh God, don’t let this
be The End—

He was ducking through the fracture in the fuselage when Jopek barked: “Faris!”

He turned, prepared to see Jopek raising the gun.

An unlit flare batoned through the air.

Michael caught it against his chest, and let his heartbeat devour the airplane.

The Game ends with stopping a Betrayer, right? I knew that,
Michael thought.
Jopek and the Rapture are each other’s Betrayers. Let’s see what happens if they try
to stop each other.

I don’t like what you’re planning, Michael. The Rapture tried to kill you, too, remember?

Yeah—but I’m thinking they want Jopek even more than me, after he killed all those
people yesterday.

They’re still the bad guys!

But that doesn’t mean I can’t make them change teams for a while.

“Michael?” Holly called from behind him as he marched out into the street.

She emerged from the plane, her face all confusion, scrunched against the wind.

Michael grabbed at the back of his space suit, found a zipper, unhooded himself. He
got a cinder block that had smashed into a candy store window, a swirly lollipop stuck
on the bottom. “What are you . . . ?” said Holly. Tears glittered in her eyes.

You want to cry
now
?

Michael hurled the block over a chain-link fence into a nearby alley, where it tipped
end over end, drunkenly strolling toward the cluster of mines.

Boom.
One land mine lit, exploded, sending up a mini-rocket of fire and sound.

“The Bellows are coming. Down the road. Be careful. Michael? Hey?” Holly’s hand touched
his shoulder, lightly.

“I don’t care,” Michael said, spinning on her. “I don’t
care
what you have to say, Holly. I don’t need your help—I don’t
want
it!”

She cringed.

Michael threw a stray boot and he got two mines in the chain-linked-off alley; double
kaboom; the explosive fire leapt up and the sound ran past him, traveling across the
city. It was his signal to the other people in town. But where were the ears to hear
it?

Michael checked the horizons.

Look at me,
he thought.
Calling in backup.
Please
look at me, Rulon!

“I know I . . . don’t deserve you talking to me right now. I know that,” Holly said,
wiping her tears clumsily.

Look!
he begged.
LOOK AT M—

“I was wrong to trust him, Michael. I should have left with you last night. I was
just so goddamn wrong—”

“Yeah, I was pretty wrong, too. I thought you cared about Patrick and me,” Michael
spat.

Holly shook her head. “I—I do! I care a lot. I was trying to help you guys. I just
thought that Jopek . . . I thought we all had a better chance with him. I screwed
up, but I didn’t see any other way, okay?