Alight

by Scott Sigler

  He’s right. It’s an animal—an animal that attacked us.

  “The spider is inside the city walls, where the rest of our people are,” I say. “We need to get back to the shuttle as fast as possible. And besides, it’s almost dark. There could be more spiders in the jungle.”

  Bishop considers this, bites at his lower lip. He used to just act. Now, he thinks first. It’s definitely an improvement.

  “The fire means someone lives out there,” he says. “Doesn’t that mean they must have food that isn’t poisoned by the mold?”

  From behind me, Spingate lets out a cough of surprise.

  “He’s right,” she says. “I mean, they could be immune to the toxin somehow, but however they beat it, we need to know.”

  Bishop has a good point. And looking for food was the whole purpose of this trip.

  “All right,” I say. “We’ll check it out.”

  He smiles, starts to rise.

  “I said we, Bishop. You’re not going alone.”

  He wasn’t expecting that. “Then I’ll take Farrar.”

  I touch the back of his hand. “No, all of us, together. We shouldn’t have split up before.”

  He pauses, then pulls his hand away, his eyes cast down.

  Together, he and I made the choice to abandon Bello, and did we learn from our mistake? No. At the waterfall, we let Spingate, Farrar and Coyotl go off by themselves so we could be alone together. The spider could have hurt them, and that’s our fault.

  Bishop turns his head, speaks just loud enough for everyone to hear him.

  “Farrar, stay on my right. Coyotl, on my left. Em and Spingate, stay close behind, but far enough back so you can run if something attacks.”

  We are new to this planet, to this city, but it seems we have neighbors. In a moment, we will find out if they are friend…or foe.

  Bishop silently leads us into the jungle ruins.

  We find the fire. Whoever made it is gone.

  Glowing coals cast tendrils of smoke into the darkening night. Someone built a fire pit in the middle of this six-sided ruin. With no roof and one wall collapsed, the fire-builders had protection from five sides. Maybe they cooked bread—I faintly smell burned toast.

  The sun finally slides behind the city wall. The sky burns a molten-sunset red. Jungle shadows thicken. Strange, new noises rise—animal screeches, echoing hoots, beastly bellows, all completely alien to anything hiding in Matilda’s memories.

  Bishop, Farrar and Coyotl move silently through the ruin, weapons at the ready. Bishop kneels by the fire pit. He pokes at the mostly black coals, careful not to touch those that still shimmer with soft waves of orange. From the pit’s edge, he pulls out a fist-sized chunk of half-burned wood. He tosses it to Coyotl, throws another to Farrar, then pulls out a third for himself.

  The boys set down their weapons. They rub the charcoal on arms, legs, faces. Farrar uses his shovel to cut free several long vines, which the boys wrap around themselves, coiling them over shoulders, across chests, around waists, tying them off here and there. Finally, the circle-stars scoop up mud and grind it into their hair.

  Just like that, they are transformed. For a few hours, they were boys again—clean and beautiful. Now they are the jungle.

  Coyotl moves to the inside walls, checking them carefully, his thighbone held in front of him. Farrar takes the outside.

  Bishop remains at the fire pit, fingers drumming an absent pattern on the head of his axe.

  I kneel next to him. “Could they have heard us coming?”

  “No, we were very quiet. Even you and Spingate.”

  He sounds surprised by that. I take it as a compliment.

  I am both afraid and excited. We couldn’t have missed the fire-makers by much. They could be close. They might come back.

  Spingate joins us. She pokes at the ground next to the pit, pinches her fingers around something small and black—it’s a bone.

  “There’s a little bit of flesh on here,” she says. “This animal was cooked.”

  She waves her bracelet over the tiny bone. I wait for the jewels to give off the orange warning color, but they do not. Instead, they flash with a mixture of blues, greens, purples.

  Spingate smiles.

  “Edible,” she says. “No sign of the red mold’s toxin.”

  That food in the warehouse—if all we need to do is cook it, we’ll be fine.

  “Did the fire burn it off?”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” she says. “Fire kills the mold, but won’t neutralize the toxin secreted by the mold.”

  Dammit.

  Spingate turns the bone, looks at it from a different angle.

  “Maybe the mold can’t grow on live animals,” she says. “Or maybe this particular animal is resistant to it. We need to catch one to find out.”

  She doesn’t have answers, but at least there’s hope. We have to find the people who built this fire, befriend them if we can, learn their secrets.

  “Em, Bishop,” Farrar calls out softly. “Come see.”

  We join him at the collapsed wall. He taps the tip of his shovel against the rubble.

  “The broken edges are clean,” he says. “No moss or dirt on them. Something knocked this wall in, and very recently.”

  In the fading light, a spot on the ground just past the collapsed wall catches my eye. A patch of blackness. I walk to it, careful not to trip on the loose rubble. The spot is a neat hole, from something long and pointed punching into the dirt.

  Long and pointed…like the feet of the creature that chased us out of the city.

  “I think a spider knocked down this wall,” I say. “Maybe to get at the people who were inside.”

  Is that why the fire was abandoned? Whoever the fire-makers are, I hope they got away.

  We are all suddenly aware that danger could be close by. Our eyes flick to every growing shadow, to every dark spot in this tangled mass of yellow, green and brown.

  Those colors…the spider’s shell matches them. Exactly.

  I glance at Bishop, Farrar, Coyotl. Their charcoal and vines and mud…camouflage that lets them blend in to the jungle.

  “We have to get out of here,” I say.

  Bishop nods, his mud-smeared face turning this way, then that, white eyes wide and darting.

  “Back to the city wall,” he says. “And move quietly.”

  —

  Darkness falls. For only the second time in my short life, I see stars.

  We walk along the city wall, quiet as can be. We don’t use the flashlights for fear they might draw attention from the animals screaming in the night, or from the dreaded spider.

  Bishop leads us; Farrar and Coyotl stay a few paces behind. I can’t help but look up through the thick jungle canopy. Countless pinpricks of bright light, like sparkling jewels, impossibly distant and immensely beautiful. There are two big circles up there as well: one bluish, the other maroon. Spingate says the circles are moons—small planets that orbit Omeyocan. That sounds impossible to me, but if Spingate says it, I believe her.

  City wall on our right, dark jungle ruins on our left. The spider could be anywhere. At night it would be almost invisible in the trees, even if it was only a few steps away. But there was that whine—if it comes, hopefully we’ll hear it before it sees us. If so, maybe we can hide.

  Spingate says the spider isn’t alone, that there have to be enough of them to support a “breeding population.” Sometimes I wish she wasn’t so smart. It might be better not to know some things.

  Bishop raises a fist. We stop instantly. He’s staring down at his feet. No, at the wall near his feet. He waves us forward.

  He kneels, points to the base of the wall and looks up at me. Moonlight shines off his wide eyes.

  I look, but once again, I don’t see anything.

  He reaches down and pulls the vines aside.

  There is a hole in the wall.

  I drop to my knees and look in. It’s rough and uneven. The city walls ar
e thick, as thick as two Bishops lying head-to-toe, but past the far end I see the moonlit base of a ziggurat.

  This hole goes all the way through.

  Someone spent a long time making this, chipping away bit by bit. It’s narrow—I could crawl in easily, but I’m much smaller than the others.

  A scent…burned toast again. There one second, then gone.

  I look up at Bishop. “Are you sure you can fit through?”

  He shrugs. “I know you can.”

  I don’t like the sound of that. Does he think I would leave without him?

  “Even if we get inside, we’re probably way past the edge of the map Gaston showed us,” I say. “We’ll still be lost.”

  Spingate kneels next to us. She taps the black jewel nestled in her ear.

  “I can get us back with this,” she says. “It’s out of range now, but if we get inside the wall and keep heading west, I think I’ll be able to reach Gaston soon enough. Then he can guide us back.”

  Bishop tilts his head toward the hole.

  “Coyotl, go through, make sure it’s safe.”

  Coyotl is muscular, yes, but his muscles are long and lean. Compared to Farrar and Bishop, he’s skinny. He crawls into the hole, pushing his thighbone and black bag before him.

  Bishop looks at me. “You next, then Spingate, then Farrar.”

  “Then you?”

  He looks at the hole. He shrugs again. He doesn’t think he’ll fit.

  “Then we keep looking for another way in,” I say. “There has to be another gate farther up.”

  Bishop shakes his head. “We don’t know that. Even if there is one, it could be closed, locked. You have to get back to the shuttle. Our people need you.”

  The tunnel makes Coyotl’s voice sound strange: “Nothing on this side. Come on through.”

  Spingate crawls in, not waiting for permission.

  “Bishop, you have to try,” I say. “We can’t be separated, remember?”

  “Farrar, go,” is his only response.

  Farrar throws his bag and shovel into the tunnel. He isn’t quite as big as Bishop, but he’s thicker than Coyotl—he crawls in carefully, pushing the shovel before him. His grime-coated skin scrapes against the craggy surface, leaving little dirt smudges behind. If it’s hard for Farrar, it’s going to be very difficult for Bishop.

  Bishop points to the hole. “Your turn, Em.”

  “And you’ll follow me?”

  His nostrils widen. He blinks rapidly. “Yes, I’ll follow you in.”

  He’s lying. This is the first time he’s done that to me. He’s terrible at it.

  “You first,” I say.

  Bishop looks out to the jungle, scanning for threats. “Don’t play games. Get back to the shuttle.”

  Out in the solid darkness of trees, I hear something rustle. Something big.

  Bishop grabs my shoulder. “Em, get into that tunnel, now.”

  I stand firm. “You first.”

  A loud crack, the whoosh of leaves and branches. I see a young tree fall, moonlight playing off spinning leaves. Before it even hits the ground, a shadowy something scrambles over it.

  The spider, coming fast—it will reach us in a minute, maybe less.

  Bishop shakes me so hard my head rattles. “Get into the godsdamned tunnel!”

  He’s hurting me again. He doesn’t know his own strength, but I know mine.

  I slap him so hard my palm stings.

  Bishop stares at me, shocked.

  “I am the leader,” I say. “I’m ordering you into that tunnel!”

  He blinks, glances to the jungle. The spider is closing in, a moving shadow-blur scuttling over rubble and fallen walls, down the far side of craters and up the near, knocking over any thin trees in its way.

  Bishop throws his axe into the tunnel so hard I bet it sails all the way through. He dives for the hole and gets stuck almost immediately, thick shoulders wedging against the rough surface.

  I look back at the rushing monster. It’s too dark to see much, but Spingate was right—five spindly legs. A Matilda memory pops into my head: five legs, like a starfish.

  My body goes cold. Fear vanishes. If I’m going to die, that is the way of things, but with my last breath I will make sure Bishop survives.

  I kneel.

  “Bishop, slow down. Breathe. Put your right arm in first, stretch as far as you can.”

  He’s still thrashing. His big frame holds so much power, but right now his size hurts him.

  I place a hand on the small of his back. At my touch, his body stills.

  “Listen to me,” I say. “Right arm first.”

  His left shoulder scoots back toward me as he reaches his right hand far in front. I feel his muscles flex, see his knees bend, his toes dig: his shoulders slide through.

  “That’s it. Keep your shoulders angled, use your toes to push.”

  He goes in farther. Now only his feet and ankles are visible.

  I look up, and that icy feeling explodes into hot fear—the spider is only ten steps away, a crawling nightmare barely visible in the darkness, coming to rip me apart.

  Quickly but carefully, I slide my spear past Bishop, then dive in after him so fast I bang my head on the tunnel’s edge. Brain ringing, I wriggle forward until my face presses against Bishop’s filthy feet.

  He’s blocking the way—my legs are still exposed.

  My chest is on the damp ground, and through it I feel the vibrations of the spider’s pounding feet. It should be on me already…

  “Bishop, move move move!”

  Pain explodes through my calf.

  My body acts on its own, curling me into a ball, pulling my feet and legs away from the opening. I grab my spear—it’s too long to turn around and use point-first, so I jam the butt backward, feel it smash into something solid.

  Bishop crawls forward, slow but steady.

  My leg is on fire.

  What if the spider comes in after me?

  I turn slightly, just enough to look back down the tunnel. A patch of blackness blocks the opening—the creature is too big to fit inside.

  My leg screams. Is the spider’s poison already spreading through me?

  A strange thought: Why didn’t I hear that whine?

  I face forward and crawl. Someone pulls my spear out first, then strong hands grab my wrists and drag me free.

  The others pack in around me. Bishop’s face is a mask of fear and concern.

  “Are you hurt?”

  I look at my leg. The moonlight plays off the glistening wetness coursing down my calf.

  “It bit me,” I say. “Why are things always biting me?”

  My calf seems to blur. The moonlight fades.

  Blackness drags me down.

  My brain buzzes. Am I sliding into a dream or coming out of one? Strong arms carry me. My head rests against a warm chest. For once, I actually feel safe.

  My eyes open. Blackness and bright stars high above. Bishop is carrying me.

  “She’s awake.” Spingate’s voice. “Em, can you stand?”

  “I’m not sure. Let me try.”

  Bishop sets me down. The moment I put weight on my right foot, my calf sparks with agony. He bends to pick me up again.

  “No, I can make it on my own.”

  He looks doubtful, concerned, but he takes a step back.

  Farrar hands me my spear. I lean on it, take a few painful steps. Not the best solution, but it will do for now.

  Towering ziggurats rise up all around us. Shadow drapes everything, resistant to light from the double moons. Up ahead, there is a glow coming from behind a thick, curving wall of vines. We’re back at the shuttle.

  My leg hurts. My calf is wrapped in a purple bandage that must have come from Spingate’s medical kit. Spots of blood look black.

  “Did the spider poison me?”

  Spingate shakes her head. “It doesn’t look like a bite or a puncture wound. I think you tore it on a sharp rock.”

  I not
only banged my head against the tunnel entrance, I hurt my leg on it as well? I thought the spider was right on top of me…in my desperation to escape, I must have flailed about too much, caught my calf on a jagged edge.

  The fear of that moment comes rushing back. My body starts to shiver. Spingate holds me tight.

  “You made it through,” she says, gently stroking my hair. “That’s all that matters.” She lets me go, rubs my back as she guides me down the street. “We’re almost there. Smith is waiting to look at you and Bishop both.”

  Bishop has purple bandages wrapped around one shoulder. The other shoulder is tied with strips of blood-streaked white cloth.

  I realize that most of Spingate’s shirt is gone, shredded into strips. The fabric that remains barely covers her breasts.

  “We ran out of bandages,” she says. “Bishop insisted I use what I had on you first. I improvised for his wounds.”

  We climb up the wall of vines. Coyotl stays close to me, helping me when I stumble. I feel weak. Weak and dizzy.

  At the top, I pause, look out at our shuttle. Lights on the tail, the wing tips, the top, all gleaming in welcome.

  We made it.

  Coyotl helps me descend the ring of vines. I’m almost to the bottom when I freeze, that now all-too-familiar blast of paralyzing fear driving straight through me—two Grownups, sprinting toward us.

  “It’s all right,” Coyotl says. “That’s Visca and Bawden.”

  As soon as he says that, I see it. Visca and Bawden, yes, but dressed all in black. The coveralls in the storeroom. My pulse is racing. I can barely see straight. I need to lie down.

  The two circle-stars sprint to the top of the vine ring, scouting for danger in case we were followed here. The rest of us shuffle to the shuttle.

  Farrar, Spingate and Coyotl start up the ramp. Bishop stops at the base. So do I.

  Spingate turns. She’s beyond exhausted.

  “Em, come on—you need to see Smith.”

  “In a minute,” I say. “Just go.”

  She doesn’t need to be told twice. She drags herself through the door.

  Bawden and Visca return. I send them into the shuttle, leaving Bishop and me alone once again.