Neverwake

by Amy Plum

  We don’t walk far. We happened to land five minutes from their camp. I count four hundred twenty-eight steps, but I tripped a few times, so I estimate one quarter mile. Approximately. It worries me that I’m not one hundred percent sure, so I tap five times and try to do what my mom always suggests: let it go.

  The camp is so well camouflaged that we’re practically on top of it before I make out the cabins. I scan the rows . . . five by seven, so forty wooden huts and a dozen other buildings dotted around the huge rectangular clearing. The whole thing is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, trucks and jeeps parked around the perimeter.

  Two armed guards stand at the gate. Judging from their expressions, they’re as surprised by their comrades’ catch as our captors were when they stumbled upon us.

  They hustle us in through the gates and, with some shouted discussion, herd us toward a hut near the center of the enclosure. We are shoved inside, and the door slams behind us. There’s enough of a gap between the door and its frame to see that one man has been left behind to guard us. He stands with his back to the door, gun in hand.

  I turn. The cabin is one empty room . . . I hold out my hand to provide scale and multiply—seven by seven: forty-nine square feet. No windows. The roof is made of bamboo stalks lashed together with vines, and the sun streams through the cracks between them, striping the floor with bright white lines. It smells like my grandpa’s boat fuel. I rub my nose and sneeze.

  The others crowd around Sinclair, who sinks to the ground, his back against the wall.

  “Should I have a look at it?” Fergus asks.

  “What, are you a doctor or something?” Sinclair grumbles.

  “Um. No. It’s just that Cata said she didn’t see anything. Maybe now that the bleeding has slowed, we can see if the bullet is in there or not.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say.

  Everyone shuts up and stares at me. I’m getting used to that reaction.

  “That’s kind of hard-hearted,” says Fergus slowly.

  My stomach drops. I don’t like it when he looks at me like that . . . suspiciously. “I’m not hard-hearted,” I rush to explain. “It’s just that we only have thirty-six minutes before the next Wall. If the bullet hit a major artery, Sinclair would already be dead. If it hit an organ, he wouldn’t have long. But it’s the arm, and the bleeding has been contained. In normal circumstances, if we kept the tourniquet on much longer, an amputation might be necessary. But by then we’ll be in the Void.”

  Remi raises his eyebrows and nods once. “Respect,” he mutters.

  “What if we can’t get to the Wall?” Sinclair asks.

  “Have you noticed?” Cata says. “It’s always nearby. At least . . . near enough that it’s possible to make it through.”

  “I wonder if it always appears within a certain distance,” Remi says.

  I close my eyes and think. The cave. Remi’s village. The graveyard. The circus. The asylum. “The Wall was the farthest from us outside Remi’s village and in the graveyard. And those times I’d say it was less than a quarter mile away.”

  “Okay,” says Remi. “If we only have a half hour, the immediate goal is to get outside this hut. If the Wall shows up inside the encampment, we just have to reach it without getting shot. If it appears outside the fence, we’ll need to find a way out.”

  “I wonder if other people can see the Wall,” Fergus says.

  That makes everyone hesitate.

  “The only dream where there have been other people was in Remi’s village,” I say. “The men in the jeep were chasing us. But who knows if they actually saw the Wall, or if they just saw us disappearing?”

  “Even if they do see it, they won’t know what it is,” Cata suggests, “and they won’t know they need to keep us from it. If one of them gets sucked through, I doubt he’ll show up in the Void.”

  “Depends on how much of this is real,” Fergus replies.

  “The bullets are real enough, I can say that much,” says Sinclair. “And so would BethAnn, if she could talk.”

  Cata squishes her nose. Sinclair’s joke is in bad taste.

  Just then, there’s a noise outside the door. Our guard is talking to someone else in a clipped, submissive tone. The door swings open, and a tall, thin man walks through, ducking so as not to bash his head on the lintel.

  Remi’s eyes grow wider, and beads of sweat pop up on his forehead. He clearly recognizes this stranger.

  The man’s voice is menacingly low as he addresses Remi. Remi answers back, gesturing to the rest of us as he speaks. The man’s eyes shift from person to person, as he weighs Remi’s explanation. When they land on me, I feel a chill like I’ve never felt before. Usually, it’s a chore to try to figure out what emotion is behind an expression. But here, it is clear there is nothing behind the eyes: they’re as empty and cold as an ice cave.

  The man says something to Remi, who sets his jaw, nods, and turns to explain to us. “He says I have to come with . . .” The man cuts him off with a sharp word, and turns to stride out of the hut, the guard holding the door open for Remi and him. Once they’re outside, he slams it shut.

  “How much longer?” Fergus asks me.

  I take my pulse and calculate. “Thirty-one minutes.”

  “Well, Remi’s the one who’s always thinking about strategy,” Sinclair says hopefully. “Maybe he’ll come up with some story that will get us out of here.”

  Fergus shakes his head. “Nope, he’s abandoned us. That’s the last we’ll see of him.”

  “What?” Cata asks. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t any of the rest of you speak French?”

  “Spanish,” Cata responds.

  “Me too,” I say.

  “Foreign languages aren’t my thing.” Sinclair frowns.

  “Well, our captors in the jungle spoke to Remi in some language I didn’t understand. But this man here was speaking French. And from what I could make out, he was asking Remi who the white people were.”

  “I’m not white,” says Cata.

  Fergus rolls his eyes. “Me neither. He meant foreigners.”

  “What did Remi say?” asks Sinclair, his eyes narrowing.

  “He said we had captured him and forced him to bring us to the camp,” Fergus says quietly. “He betrayed us.”

  “It’s like you said in the Void,” Cata says with amazement.

  “What did you say in the Void?” Sinclair asks.

  Fergus runs a hand over his head and frowns. “When I woke up in the lab, I was told there was a psychopath in our group. To be careful.” He hesitates and looks toward the door. “Now we know who it is.”

  Chapter 8

  Cata

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY PSYCHOPATH?” ANT ASKS with a curious expression. “That’s exactly what the person said?”

  “Word for word,” Fergus says, holding up his hand like a Boy Scout pledging.

  “Why, Ant?” I ask.

  “It’s just that not all psychopaths are dangerous. In fact, their lack of empathy and delusions of grandeur are valuable traits in some professions. If a surgeon is a psychopath, their lack of empathy prevents them from experiencing any distracting emotions when they cut into a patient, and they are so sure of their capability that their scalpel doesn’t waver.”

  Ant looks at us. “What?” she asks defensively. “I studied it!”

  “Why?” asks Sinclair. “Because you were diagnosed with it along with chronic insomnia?”

  “No.” She pulls her hat lower over her ears. “Because it interested me.”

  Sinclair raises an eyebrow.

  “Cut it out, Sinclair,” I say.

  He shrugs, then says to Fergus, “It is interesting how Remi voted to leave you behind in the last nightmare. That’s pretty cold. And he’s so single-minded about this survival thing that it makes me wonder if his story is true.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Well, his whole family was slaughtered and he was the onl
y one who escaped. Maybe he pulled something like this in order to save himself.”

  “Are you saying that Remi betrayed his own family?” I ask. “That he handed them over to the militia so that he could escape?” I feel a shot of rage course through my veins and am not sure whether it’s directed at Sinclair for suggesting such a horrible thing, or at myself for halfway believing him.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised in the least,” says Sinclair.

  “No. He wouldn’t do that,” I rebut. “I was there with him under the floorboards of his house. He acted too traumatized to have done something like that.”

  “Aren’t psychopaths supposed to be master liars?” Fergus replies, seemingly buying Sinclair’s theory more easily than I do.

  “His own survival has always meant more to him than anything else,” Sinclair says.

  “Well, you’re the one who jumped out the window to save yourself in the last dream,” Ant rebuts.

  “Like I said, I was clearing the way for YOU all!” yells Sinclair, losing his temper. He cradles his wound for support.

  “None of that matters,” Fergus says, holding his hands out as if to put the matter to rest. “We’re on our own now. Remi’s the only one who had a chance of talking us out of it.”

  “Okay, let’s plan, then,” I suggest. I feel shaken, unwilling to believe that Remi would betray his own family, but unable to refute his coldheartedness.

  I try to focus my thoughts. “Ant, are you sure you can’t create something out of nothing here in the nightmares?”

  Ant shakes her head. “I’ve tried before.”

  “Try again,” urges Fergus.

  “What should I try to make?”

  “A machine gun would probably come in handy right about now,” suggests Sinclair.

  Ant looks at Fergus, then at me. We nod our agreement.

  “I understand your hesitation before,” I say. “I don’t like guns either. But in this case, I think they’re justified.”

  She tilts her head, considering, then sits down on the earthen floor, near where Sinclair is slumped. Fergus and I join them.

  Crossing her legs and setting her gloved hands lightly on her knees, Ant closes her eyes and meditates. It’s stifling hot inside the hut; her face is flushed red with heat. I see a rivulet of sweat roll out from under her knit hat. Without opening her eyes, she wipes it off with the back of her hand, and then after a second, rips off the gloves and hat and poses her hands back on her knees.

  Once again, I’m shocked by the short strawberry blond hair pulled back with barrettes. She looks so tiny and defenseless without the ubiquitous hat and gloves that I feel sorry for her. She needs so much armor to feel safe, and without George she must feel more defenseless than ever.

  For a second, something seems to be taking form in the air in front of her. A glimmer of metal, although it could be a freak ray of sunlight coming through the bamboo roof. And then it’s gone. Ant opens her eyes. Frustrated, she shakes her head.

  The door to the hut flies open, and our guard stands in the doorway, signaling with his rifle that we’re to stand. He gestures us out one by one. A pair of soldiers greet us outside the door. One grabs us roughly by the shoulders and forces our arms behind our backs, while the other binds our wrists together with a zip tie. Sinclair gestures toward his wounded arm, but the guy’s lips spread into an evil smile, and, treating him rougher than necessary, he jerks Sinclair’s arms back to bind them as Sinclair roars in pain.

  With their guns in our backs, they march us over to a corner of the enclosure where Remi and the leader stand talking next to a watchtower elevated high off the ground on stilts. It is bordered by thin slabs of wood and topped with branches and leaves, camouflaging it to blend in with the surrounding jungle. Two men armed with machine guns stand perched up in it, surveying the surrounding area for danger. Beneath it, a uniformed man sits at a table, pen and papers set inexplicably in front of him.

  Remi and the thin man look up as we arrive. Our guards gesture for us to stop in front of them. The man addresses us in heavily accented English.

  “This boy,” he hesitates, then places a hand on Remi’s shoulder. “This man,” he corrects himself, “has exposed you for what you are: spies sent by foreign governments. Our enemies are wily, sending young people who look like students. But we always discover the truth.”

  He waves one of our guards forward. The man bows his head submissively, and the leader grabs the man’s beret and places it carefully on Remi’s head. “He will be rewarded for his assistance. And you”—the man runs his eyes across our group—“will be shot.”

  My stomach drops. I’m glad I haven’t eaten anything lately, because, judging by the way my bowels unclench all at once, I would be in big trouble. “Wait! We’re not spies!” My voice comes out in a croak.

  The man ignores us and, turning, leads us to the table. “You will write out your confession so that we can notify the media of your acts of hostility, and the international community will accept why we took your lives.” One of our guards grabs Ant and forces her into the chair to face the man with the papers.

  She glances up at the leader, narrowing her eyes and jutting her jaw forward. Ant left her fear back in the hut with her hat and gloves, it seems, because she spits out her words with an uncharacteristic fury that would suit George to a T. “How am I supposed to write if my hands are tied behind my back?”

  The thin man glares at her guard, who shrugs and, unsheathing a huge knife, slices cleanly through the plastic band.

  “That’s better,” she says, rubbing the circulation back into her wrists. “Next question. Why should I confess if you’re just going to shoot me anyway?” Ant has the bland, bored look she gets when she’s calculating something. I wonder if it’s a strategy she’s learned to deal with fear. Or maybe it’s not a strategy at all—maybe the situation’s lack of logic has triggered her need for things to make sense.

  Whatever, it’s pushing the leader’s button. His lip twitches as he says, “Because I choose who shoots you. It can be him”—he tips his head at Ant’s guard, holding his knife expertly like it’s a natural appendage—“or Thomas there.” He nods at a little boy struggling with a bucket of water. “Thomas has never held a gun. I’m assuming it will take him a few shots before he gets his aim right.”

  The man sitting behind the table picks up the pen and shoves it into Ant’s hand. “Sign,” he grunts.

  “I thought I was supposed to write my confession,” Ant says, looking confused.

  “We will write it for you,” the leader growls. “Just sign at the bottom to make it official.”

  Frowning, Ant signs the paper, then stands and makes room for Fergus.

  The leader turns and walks away, yelling orders to a group of men who are huddled around watching us. One of them grabs Ant and forces her up against the fence, his gun in her face. She yelps as her back brushes the barbed wire, but she shows no emotion, training her eyes on Remi, who has sidled over to where Sinclair and I wait our turn to sign the papers.

  “How could you?” I hiss at him. My guard looks cautious for a second. Then, once he cops on to what’s happening, he laughs.

  “You don’t care about anyone but yourself!” I continue.

  “Don’t tell me you’re as gullible as the leader,” Remi says in a low voice, but it’s obvious the guard doesn’t understand English.

  “You saved your own skin by handing us over,” Sinclair says. And then he spits at Remi. The guards both start laughing now.

  Remi reaches up to wipe off his cheek and lowers his voice. “You seriously think I’m handing you over?” Either there’s pain in his eyes or he’s a champion bluffer. Having witnessed his grief in his first dream, I’m tempted to believe him.

  But the others obviously don’t. With a cold look at Remi, Fergus stands and allows himself to be herded over to the gate and positioned next to Ant. He looks like he’s going to throw up. I hope he doesn’t faint again.

  “Cata,�
�� Remi pleads. “What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time?” He sees my hesitation and continues. “Like I already said, I’m sorry for suggesting that we leave Fergus behind.”

  He watches as Sinclair sits down and takes the pen before turning back to me and looking me straight in the eyes. “Yes. I do care about my own survival,” he whispers. “But my whole family died, and I’m the only one who’s still alive. How much guilt do you think I feel? Every day. Waking up in my nice cozy room in America. And knowing my family lies under the ground in that place. In this place. Slaughtered for a meaningless rebellion. And I can’t do anything about it.”

  “Then why are you doing this?” I ask.

  “Don’t you get it? I’m buying us time. The Wall should be here in just a few minutes. I got you all out of that hut and into the open. If they hear the booming when it starts, there will be chaos. We might have a chance to escape.”

  I stare at him. There’s something in his expression that isn’t quite right. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

  Sinclair is led off toward the fence. My guard grabs me and, slicing off my wrist cuff, pushes me roughly into the chair. Remi comes to stand beside me as I sign my name and slam the pen back down. “If you’re lying, I’ll never forgive you,” I say, looking up at him, but he’s not listening. He’s looking at Ant, who’s staring back at him. She holds two fingers toward the ground and, as I look, pulls one in to leave only her index finger. Remi nods at her as my guard yanks me to my feet and shoves me toward the fence.

  “If I’m lying, you’re dead,” Remi says from beside me. “Listen, Cata, I failed my family, but I won’t fail you. I’m not going to be the sole survivor again.” My eyes are on Ant as she pulls up the finger pointing one—no fingers left—and the air is shattered by a sonic boom.

  There is a split second where the camp stands motionless, like a giant pause button has been pressed. Then all hell breaks loose. Men are running in all directions. Those who had guns sprint toward the entrance or jump in the vehicles, and those who were milling about scramble to get their weapons. No one pays any attention to us.

  I make a break for it and duck behind a hut positioned near the fence. Remi joins me, and I wave the others over from where they stand, deserted by their guards. We hunker down in the space between the hut and the fence.