The Dead Room Trilogy

by Stephanie Erickson

  “But they can grip them when they land on the ones that are offshore?”

  He put his paddle back in the water in response, still frowning at the bare cliffs. Ashley followed his lead silently.

  They paddled for a little while longer, silence hanging heavily between them. Ashley listened to the sounds of the water crashing on the cliffs and slapping against their canoe, to the birds and seals screeching at each other. It was almost relaxing, until she glanced once again at the barren, treacherous shoreline.

  Their arms moved automatically as they continued with their journey. It seemed as though the rocks would continue endlessly. Until they didn’t.

  It was almost like an oasis—not the tropical kind, but the kind that offers relief and sanctuary. There, between two cliffs, a sandy beach stood ready for them. The water around them was choppy, but manageable. They could probably even swim to it if it came to that.

  “Try to aim the bow toward the swells, so we don’t tip over,” he suggested. “You’ve got the front of the boat, so aim it true, okay?”

  Ashley nodded, and they started paddling hard together. After several hours of paddling in the open water, they were getting quite in sync with each other. They aimed straight for the shore, trying to ride the breakers in and let them do some of the work. It actually worked at first, but then a wave started pushing them sideways, and Ashley panicked, not knowing what to do or where to put her paddle.

  “Left!” Mason shouted, trying to help her.

  She plunged her paddle into the water on the left side, paddling hard to keep them from going over. The ocean water splashed them both as it tried to suck them down into the depths.

  All at once, they were washed ashore and their ordeal was over. They sat in the canoe for a moment, winded and a bit overwhelmed.

  “What should we do now?” Ashley asked. Nothing but the first stars of the evening sky could be seen beyond the strange gray dunes that lined the small beach.

  “There’s more to do?” Mason said from behind her.

  She turned around and swatted him. “Seriously,” he said as he leaned forward and put a hand on her shoulder. “Can’t we just stay here for a minute? I’m tired, and you must be too. Why not just stay here and rest for the night? It’s already getting dark.”

  “I suppose we could. But don’t you want to know what’s out there?”

  “If there is something out there, it’ll still be there in the morning when we’re rested.” He sighed heavily, shutting his eyes and tilting his head back as if he were trying to absorb what little warmth was coming from the shrouded sun. “What if there’s nothing alive out here, Ashley? What if all we find is death?”

  She listened to the waves crashing on shore. They sounded just like the ones at home. “What makes you think this place is so different from the island?”

  “Um, lack of animals touching the mainland for one thing.”

  She shook her head. “There’s life here. I know it. We just have to find it.” Ashley wasn’t sure where her energy came from. She hadn’t slept much on the tiny island, and the last twelve hours had required more physical exertion than she had ever used in her life. But as much as she wanted to lie down, her curiosity wouldn’t allow it. She had to keep exploring.

  Mason pulled their canoe farther onshore, out of reach of the lapping waves, while Ashley grabbed the pack and tarp.

  Mason fought the urge to lie down on the strange, gray sand. He was desperate for some rest; he feared he would need strength for the moments ahead.

  Ashley threw the tarp at him. “Here. Make yourself useful.”

  He sighed. “Ashley, seriously. How far do you think we can walk without some kind of rest?”

  “It took us half the day to find this beach. Don’t you want to try to look for somewhere to make camp for the night? Maybe we can find a group of survivors with food and shelter.” Her complete and unabashed hope was almost contagious. Almost.

  He stood on the beach, tarp in his hands, caught between his urge to take a break, and her urge to keep moving.

  “Listen, if you want to stay here, I’ll go on ahead a little bit. You can catch up when you’re ready. I’ll walk east, okay?”

  “Wait a minute, slave driver. I’m coming.” Mumbling and groaning, he shuffled in her direction and threw the tarp at her. “Give me the pack.”

  “Whatever you want, big guy.”

  As he hoisted the pack over his shoulder, he wondered how much longer her enthusiasm would outweigh her exhaustion. He hoped it wasn’t too long.

  After cresting the first dune, they stopped dead in their tracks. A barren wasteland spread before them. There was nothing as far as the eye could see. No trees. No buildings. No roads. Nothing but the strange, gray dirt as far as the eye could see. Mason knelt down and scooped some of it into his hand, letting it sift between his fingers. It was heavier than ash, but smaller than gravel or ground rocks. Unlike dirt or sand, it didn’t stick to his hand, but rather ran off it, almost like water without the wetness. Out of habit, he wiped his hand on his pants when he stood up.

  Ashley, on the other hand, showed no interest in studying the gray dirt. She stuck out her chin, held the tarp close to her chest, and took the first step into the nothingness. Her shoes sank down slightly into the gray dirt, leaving detailed footprints behind.

  Mason could do nothing but follow in her footprints.

  11.

  To break the silence, and to try and cheer Ashley up, Mason hummed an old folk song they sang on the island. Soon Ashley was singing along.

  A bird dives into the sea,

  To see what it is he can see.

  A fish is his wish,

  Can it be? What a dish!

  For a bird to dive into the sea.

  “This is kind of a foolish song,” Ashley interjected.

  Mason smiled and kept humming, so she kept singing, her voice ringing out high and clear over the dead hills.

  A fish swims deep in the sea.

  To see what it is he can see.

  My word, it’s a bird!

  Poor fish, how absurd.

  For a fish who swam deep in the sea.

  She was giggling by the end, as usual. “Ah, the circle of life.”

  Though the song seemed to soothe Ashley’s mood, it left a bad taste in Mason’s mouth. Ever since Wesley’s death, he’d felt like a giant bird was waiting to pluck him from his ocean. Frankly, if he hadn’t come on this excursion, he would already be dead. But looking around at the miles and miles of nothingness made him wonder if they’d simply delayed the inevitable. It didn’t seem possible to him that anything at all could survive on the mainland, let alone the two of them.

  Getting up from his plush leather chair—a world away from the struggles of Ashley and Mason—Burton decided to clear his mind with a walk in the woods. Following the path that led down to the water’s edge, he pondered his predicament. Mattli was getting old, but he wasn’t stupid. He didn’t like being left alone with Burton, which made circumstances… complicated.

  The sun shone down on him brightly, the last bit of summer trying to hang on before the clouds settled in for the long winter. Despite the sunshine, the air was cold and he folded his arms together inside his robe. A bush along the edge of the path caught his eye as he continued to walk along. It appeared to be nothing more than a wild bunch of ferns, but he bent, inspected the leaves, and then pulled up one of the roots. It looked a lot like a wild carrot, which would have been a delicacy with fall fast approaching.

  He smiled as he pulled a few more hemlock roots from the ground and smoothed the earth over the hole. Leave no trace, he thought.

  Although he’d never seen the poison in action, he’d read about it in one of the old books in Alkoff’s library. Truth be told, he thought he was the only person on the island to have read it, except for maybe Alkoff.

  As he tucked the hemlock into his robe, he felt certain that the little plant would do his dirty work more reliably than Branneth
or Mueller could. But he’d still need someone to deliver it… someone who would never be suspected.

  He smiled to himself as Mattli’s downfall came to him in one perfect plan.

  The hours felt like days as Ashley and Mason continued to walk to the east across the dead world, which seemingly stretched on forever.

  Mason was looking out at the horizon when Ashley fell facedown in the gray dirt.

  “You could’ve just said you were ready to stop for the night,” he teased.

  She pushed herself up but, remarkably, she wasn’t covered in the dirt. It fell away from her like water off a duck’s back.

  “I think I tripped on something,” she said, knowing how odd it sounded. There wasn’t anything to trip on—just that same drab soot in all directions. “Maybe I am a little tired.” She leaned back on her heels and looked around, just to be sure.

  Near her right foot, something stuck out of the dirt. Her heart started to race. Maybe it was a sign of people, of civilization. “Hand me the flashlight, quick!”

  They hadn’t needed it in the bright moonlight, but she wanted to get a good look at whatever she’d unearthed.

  Mason dug around in the pack while Ashley scooted toward the relic and started to brush dirt away from it, revealing a dark rectangle. He finally located the flashlight and shined a beam of light on the shape, but it revealed nothing that couldn’t already be seen by the light of the moon. Ashley hesitated to touch it, not knowing what it was, but something pulled her toward it, compelling her to reach out for the black shape. It felt like more than just simple curiosity, almost like she shared a connection with the object.

  It was a box of some kind, made of an extremely lightweight, dark-colored metal that didn’t give when Ashley pushed on it with her fingers. It was like nothing she’d ever seen up close, but it had an air of familiarity she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  “It’s light but strong,” she said, trying to puzzle out what it could be made of.

  She handed the box to Mason, who’d come over to examine it for himself. The exterior showed no visible point of entry. No hinges, no seams, no latch, no lock, nothing. He handed the flashlight to Ashley, squinting at the box in the dim light.

  “What do you think’s inside?” Ashley asked, but Mason didn’t respond. He was too busy examining what she had found.

  Questions whirled in Ashley’s mind. How could a small box possibly have survived when everything else had been turned to gray dust? But if it wasn’t from the time before, who’d left it? Were there others, somewhere? Was it the key to finding them? And why did she have this sinking feeling of familiarity with the box?

  It put her over the edge, and she lay back in the gray dirt. “I’m toast. I think this is as good a place as any to bed down.”

  He grunted at her, still turning the box over in his hands.

  Although there were none of the attributes inherent in any good campsite—no sheltering trees or undergrowth for a fire, just miles of gray dirt, Ashley wasn’t wrong. It was as good a place as any to be seen on the mainland.

  They laid down the tarp and Ashley sat down, digging into her pack. After handing Mason some dried fruit and a skin of water, she wordlessly chewed her own rations. She was so tired. Though she’d thought finding the mainland would answer all her questions, it had only given her more.

  They both stared at the black box, lying on the edge of the tarp, tightly holding on to its secrets.

  Mason sensed her agitation, but he had concerns of his own. He was certain they couldn’t stay on the mainland. It wasn’t habitable, and for all they knew, the gray dirt might even be toxic. But would Ashley see reason? And now they had a black box of mystery to decode.

  His frustration started to boil over. They should be at home right now, not staring out at this bizarre wasteland that stretched out in all directions. It looked like they’d stepped onto another planet, not some golden land that would be their saving grace.

  Unable to find words for his frustrations, he simply screamed at the mainland. His anger echoed back to him as the moon bathed the barren landscape in an eerie light.

  Ashley jumped at his outburst. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Everything. This isn’t how it was supposed to be.” He gestured around.

  “And how was it supposed to be, Mason?”

  “Livable! So that we could stay here for the rest of our lives.”

  She looked out at the sky, watching the stars twinkle. “What will you do if you go back?”

  He hesitated. “I’m not sure what you mean by that.” He didn’t want to consider going back alone. No way was he leaving her by herself on the mainland or on that tiny island, if they even managed to find it again.

  She exhaled sharply. “Mason, you have a life on the island. All you have to do is go back to it.” She looked out at the nothingness that was the mainland. “I’m just an anchor for you.”

  “If you are an anchor, then I’m a ship adrift without you. We’re family, remember? I’m not going back unless you come with me.”

  Ashley smiled sadly at him, fluffed her pack up, and laid it on the ground for a pillow. She rested on top of it, shifting around until she got as comfortable as she could. Her leg just barely touched the box, reminding her it was there.

  “What do you think happened?” she asked quietly as she stared up at the night sky, counting the same stars she’d always counted from the island.

  That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? “I don’t know, Ashley.”

  “It doesn’t seem like anything natural. If it were, something would be left, you know? The destruction wouldn’t be so extreme if it had been a tsunami or an earthquake or something.”

  “What about a meteor?” It was all he could think of that would leave so much gray dirt behind.

  “Sure, maybe. But why would the destruction stop at the shores of the mainland? Granted, my science classes were long ago, but it seems like the shock wave from a meteor would have wiped out the island along with everything else.”

  “Maybe, but so would something nuclear or man-made like that. Plus, Ashby wouldn’t have had time to send people to the island in the event of an attack like that.”

  “And an attack would assume the attackers are still alive somewhere. According to the books in Alkoff’s library, there were many large countries in the time before. Could it be like this all over the world?”

  He folded his hands behind his head and lay down beside her. “Maybe we’ll never know. The only method of travel we have are those canoes.”

  She frowned. “That’s not acceptable to me. The answers are out there.”

  He laughed. “I can’t just produce the truth out of thin air, Ashley.”

  She frowned and closed her eyes.

  Neither of them saw the shimmer on the horizon.

  As the afternoon wore on, Burton felt increasingly gleeful. He sat in the kitchen reading over the notes from the last elder’s meeting, but he wasn’t absorbing the words. His thoughts remained focused on Mattli’s approaching demise.

  His match came into the kitchen and kissed him on the cheek. Rosie wasn’t a pretty woman—too short and fat, with stringy, blonde hair that she kept cropped too short for her round face—but she was loyal and never asked impertinent questions. They’d fulfilled their duty to the island and produced a child, who now worked in the mill. The boy wasn’t eligible to be an elder, as the rules said no two family members could be elders at the same time—a measure intended to maintain balance among the elders.

  Burton had never much cared for the boy, whom he found to be a bit soft. But that was his match’s doing. She doted on their son like he was some kind of gift. Normally, that kind of focused attention would have irritated Burton. He considered it a weakness for someone to care about another person that way. But it kept his match happy, occupied, and silent. So, he had let her behavior slide without comment.

  “What are you reading?” Rosie asked.

&nbs
p; “Just the notes from our last meeting.” The hemlock in his inside pocket pressed against his chest.

  “Listen, Elder Mattli is a little under the weather. Do you think you might make some of your delicious chicken soup for him? I collected some wild carrots for you to use.” He pulled them out and laid them on the table. “Even the stems might add some good flavor to the broth, if you cut them up finely.”

  She picked up the hemlock. “The stems? You just leave the cooking to me.” She chuckled to herself. “The stems,” she mumbled, as if he’d told a particularly foolish joke.

  Burton frowned, hoping just the root would be enough. He watched as Rosie maneuvered around the kitchen, lighting the stovetop and gathering supplies for Mattli’s soup.

  “Want me to cut the vegetables?” he offered.

  “Sure.”

  They worked side by side in silence for a few moments. “So, what happened at the execution ceremony was a surprise.”

  “Mmm. I wasn’t for the decision, to be sure,” he said as he cut an onion. He stole a glance at the hemlock, last in the pile.

  Rosie rummaged in the icebox. “I don’t know if we even have any chicken left.”

  “Just use whatever you have,” he said, trying not to breathe in the fumes from the onion.

  She rummaged around a little more. “I just don’t think the islanders are likely to accept a known killer back into their mix if he returns.”

  “That’s what I said.” He dumped the diced onions into the pot on the stove and moved on to the celery.

  “Oh, you know what? I think I have some dried meat in the pantry.” She walked over to their deep pantry. “I sure hope Mattli feels better soon.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Here we are. This will be perfect.” She pulled out a package of dried meat of some kind. Burton couldn’t tell what it had once been—probably a deer or something. He hated to waste his best meat on the likes of Mattli, but there was nothing for it.