The Reaping (9 page)

“Tell me about it. It should be snowing.”

“Don’t know why they don’t bring some water.”

“Lemonade would be better.”

Laughter. “And when was the last time you had lemonade?”

“True. Sometimes I wish I were an agent.”

A drop of sweat traces its way from my hairline, down my forehead, and over my eyelid. I blink as it drops through my lashes. Where are these people with their inane conversation?

After another minute Jack’s arm twitches and he looks at me. He reaches for my hand.

Don’t think they’re coming.

Where are they?

He shakes his head and steps out of the doorway, looks up and down the corridor, and then looks up. There’s an opening in the ceiling about a foot square covered with a grate.

“It’s probably a ventilation shaft,” he whispers. “I noticed one after we left the crawl space.”

The conversation above me stops. When the voices resume, they’re hushed.

“Did you hear that?”

“It’s nothing. Probably another patrol. You know how the acoustics are so warped down here.”

“Sure.”

I grab Jack’s hand.
If we hear them, they can hear us.

He nods and we start down the corridor again, this time hurrying along as quietly as possible. The tunnel grows warmer and warmer, and my head starts to spin. My mouth is pasty. I’d do anything for a sip of water right now, but I’m surrounded by baked bricks and swirling dust. There are pipes that run along the ceiling, and even those look like they haven’t seen water for months. I hold out a hand to steady myself.

“Easy, Terra.” Jack takes my arm.

We’ve only been without water for twenty-four hours. I can do this.

We’ve gone another hundred feet and passed two doors—but nothing that promises water—when the most heavenly sound I’ve ever heard reaches my ears.

Drip, drip, drip.

I turn frantically, trying to pinpoint where the sound comes from. Please don’t let it be from a ventilation shaft. Please let it be somewhere within reach.

Out the corner of my eye, I catch a sparkle on one of the walls. One of the pipes runs right up against the wall and at a seam, a slow drip of water trickles down the wall. I touch the wet on the bricks and it’s warm, but who cares. I sniff it. Nothing but brick and dust. That’s promising. Now to taste it.

“What are you doing, Terra?”

Just going to taste the wall. I just shrug and turn back to the bricks.

“Are you sure? Who knows what goes through those pipes.”

Better idea?

Jack takes a deep breath, eyes the wall, and licks his lips. “None at all. Go for it.”

I carefully touch just the tip of my bottom lip and let a drop flow in.

Tasteless.

Jack puts his hand against the bricks and rubs his fingertips together. “Oh, who cares. It looks and feels and tastes like water, and I’m too thirsty to worry about it. Drink up.”

I try to laugh, but it gets caught in my dry throat. I put my lips on the wall and want to cry. There’s so little water that actually makes it into my mouth, but the few precious drops that do make it to my throat make me feel like I could walk another hundred feet. That’s something, anyway.

“Oh this is killing me.”

I know.

But we stay there for another ten minutes, trying to slake our thirst. When I’ve finally slurped in what might amount to a cup, I pull myself away and Jack follows.

Up ahead, the tunnel ends in a metal grate. There are no tunnels branching off to either side. When we reach the grate I notice a sign so dusty I took it to be part of the grate. I pull down my sleeve and wipe it off. Words finally appear.

Hospital Access Restricted.

I peer through the holes of the grate and see the tunnel continue on away from us. We’re finally here, and here we stop? I bang a fist against the grate and growl.

Jack puts a hand on my shoulder and points up. A faint circle of daylight traces the edges of a round metal door. The door is set into a round access hole, and a rusty ladder hangs down several feet above Jack’s head.

Safe?

“That’s a moot point by now.”

True. I point to the ladder.

“I’ll boost you up. I think you can reach it.”

Jack laces his fingers together and I step into his hands. My fingers grip the first rung and I heave myself up. Jack keeps his hands braced under my foot, and I use his strength to pull myself up the ladder. I reach for the door and it’s almost hot to the touch. It must be in direct sunlight. I look around, but there’s no sign telling me where this leads. I cling to the ladder with one hand and push against the door with the other, but it doesn’t budge.

“Do you need both hands?”

I nod.

“Okay, just a second.” Jack centers himself under the access hole. “Stand on my shoulders.”

Jack guides my foot to his shoulder, and I stand on him, my arms reaching the diameter of the access hole to brace myself.

“Steady?”

I nod again.

“Okay, I’m ready.” He holds my ankles and plants his legs.

My shoes dig into Jack’s shoulders, and I put all my strength against the round metal cover. It lifts a mere few inches, but enough so the dust spills in and I can peer out. The sun dazzles my eyes, and I blink, trying to force my eyes open against the brightness. Tears stream out of my eyes, washing out the grit. Finally my eyes adjust, and a chain-link fence comes into focus. The fence is twenty feet high, and it’s topped with a snarl of barbed wire. Beyond the fence are small squatty buildings and then the huge white block of the hospital. We’re almost there, but that barbed-wire fence makes me nervous. If there’s a fence like that, there’s bound to be additional security out there. I squint and make out guard towers in the corners of the compound. As I turn to look behind me, I realize the metal cover is in the middle of a swathe of concrete. A road. I look behind me and make out the sprawling train station. Then a shape wavers into focus through the heat haze, and I watch it for a moment as it rumbles toward me. I gasp and drop the metal cover as a truck rumbles overhead. When the rumble stops, I brace my shoulder against the cover and heave it open one last time. About twenty feet on the other side of the fence is another round cover. I crouch down and slip off Jack’s soldiers.

“What was that?”

Truck
.

“Are we by a road?”

Right under.

“Close to the hospital?”

I nod.

“How does it look?”

Barbed wire. Chain link. Guard towers.

Jack wipes the sweat off his forehead and licks his lips. They’re chapped and cracking. If we don’t get more water soon, we won’t last much longer. “The fence won’t work, not if there’s trucks driving by.”

I nod.
Another hole.

“Like this one?”

Building close by.

“Look up again. Are there any more trucks?”

Jack grunts as I step onto his shoulders and heft the cover open. I look back toward the train station. The dust from the previous truck is settling into eddies on the concrete, and nothing else is headed this way. I look toward the hospital. The chain link fence is rattling closed over the road. I totally missed the fact that the fence over the road is an enormous gate. The truck bounces in the distance, and there’s still ten feet of gate open. If we hurry, we can make it through before it closes. I have a split second to decide.

I follow the perimeter of the fence with my eyes to the far guard tower maybe two hundred feet away. I can’t see anything in it. I turn the other way. Nothing there, either. That doesn’t mean there aren’t soldiers slouched down, ready to pounce, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take. I slide the cover onto the concrete and then go down a few rungs and offer my hand to Jack.

“What are you doing?”

There’s no time for any kind of explanations, not when I can hear the gate slowly closing off our immediate chance to get closer to Nell and Red.

I thrust my hand to him again, his eyes meet mine with an intensity that burns me, and then he jumps and grips me. He almost wrenches my arm out of its socket, as he dangles and reaches for the bottom rung. I clench my jaw and my biceps are burning as I try to pull him up a fraction of an inch. Jack grunts and then wraps his fingers around the rung.

“Got it,” he says through clenched teeth. “Go.”

I scurry up as he pulls his feet up to the rungs and then I’m sprawled on my belly on the hot concrete as I leave the hole and head for the gate. Only five feet open. I cry out as the concrete burns my palms and my arms, and I hurry across it like a lizard with as little contact as possible. The dust coats my eyelashes and makes my eyes gritty. I cough and keep crawling, hoping that Jack is right behind me, because there’s only three more feet open.

I slip through and collapse on the other side. Jack’s hands are there beside me, and then his shoulders, and the gate keeps creaking closed, falls silent, and then he gasps.

“My ankle!”

I look back and his ankle is caught in the few inches of space where the gate doesn’t quite meet the fence. His ankle is twisted and he pulls on it gingerly. I put out a hand to him.

“No, it’s fine; it’s just stuck.” He pulls and the chain link rattles, but his foot doesn’t budge.

I give his leg a small tug, and Jack can’t hide his wince.

“Okay, that might start to hurt.”

I twist his ankle the other direction and give it another tug.

“No good.”

I sit down and put a hand to my forehead and study his leg and foot—how in the world am I going to do this?—when a movement catches my eye. It’s the faint waver of a truck leaving the train station. I sit up and motion to Jack.

“No.” He turns back and yanks on his leg and manages to jerk it free just another inch. “They’ll be able to see us soon.”

I crawl to his other side and pull on the gate in the direction it opens. Maybe, just maybe I can move it another inch. I brace my feet on the stationary side and wrap my fingers through the chain link of the side that moves, and then I stretch out as hard as I can. The chain link digs into my fingers and I groan, but I push even more. The fence gives the smallest fraction.

“I’m out!” Jack scrambles toward the building twenty feet away. Jack stands and cups his hands to his eyes as he looks into a window on one of the outbuildings. “It’s a storage shed,” he says, putting a hand to the door handle.

I grab his arm and shake my head.

“And it’s empty,” he says. He pulls open the door and steps inside. I follow him.

With my trembling muscles, I manage to stumble to my knees. Jack takes a few limping steps, and we huddle on the ground as the gate begins to creak open again and the truck rumbles over the road next to us. Dust swirls up outside the window above us.

After a few minutes we dare to move.

The walls of the shed are lined with shelves. Bags of fertilizer and potting soil, spades, clay pots in stacks, and gardening gloves surround me. Dust motes drift through the sunlight filtering in through the windows. This is the kind of place Nell would love. I have to remind myself, though, that it’s for
them
and someone like me or Nell would have no place here.

Jack rummages through the supplies and comes up with a couple of dirty water bottles. I snatch one out of his hand before he even has time to offer it to me. I pour the water down my throat and it crackles on the way down, burning for a moment before settling in and filling me up. I close my eyes and savor it.

“Water never tasted so good. Much better than your drink of choice off the tunnel walls.”

I can finally smile again.

Jack digs through a box and pulls up a pair of coveralls. “Think we could use these?”

I shake my head. I don’t think a gardener would walk right into the hospital.
Too out of place
, I write on his hand. He carefully puts the clothes back the way he found them. I turn back to the shelves I was examining, when a gleam in the back corner catches my eye.

In the corner is a metal grate. It is clean—almost too much so for such an earthy place—and two words are raised on the surface: Tunnel Access. I beckon Jack over. He scratches his cheek.

“I wonder if all these buildings and the hospital are connected. They’re like ants burrowing around down there.”

Only one way to find out. I brace myself to pull hard at the grate, but it swings open without even a squeak. I fall back and Jack catches me. He smiles.

“I expected it to give you a bit more of a fight, too.”

I walk to the edge of the square opening and peer down. Concrete steps lead down to a narrow hallway. Bulbs set inside protective covers line the hall as far as I can see. Just bricks and dim light. Nothing more, just like the tunnel we came from.