Domino Falls

by Steven Barnes

  Another memory, blooming with shocking clarity: Mom had always joked that the friendship between her father and Dad’s aunt was “unwholesome.” They had met at their wedding and kept in touch over the years, back before her aunt Stella was single. Her aunt wasn’t just family in name; Stella was part of Kendra’s obliterated past.

  “He didn’t make it, Aunt Stella,” Kendra said, remembering to be gentle. “But he saved my life. He told me to call you.”

  “Your guardian angel,” Aunt Stella said. “That dear man.”

  Since Freak Day, people avoided curiosity about how people had died. No one asked for details. The best thing to tell someone was “The freaks didn’t get him,” or “It was quick.” But neither case was true about Grandpa Joe or her parents, so Kendra said nothing. Grief sat on her, new and dazzling in its scope.

  But Kendra’s sudden mistiness went away when she glanced through the window and saw Gloria making her way toward the office. Terry was right. There was no time for family reunions.

  Quickly, Kendra went on. “The last thing Grandpa Joe said to me was to find Aunt Stella. It’s like he’s still watching over me right now. But I’m not alone—and if I bring my friends, I want to make sure they can get in too.”

  A pause. “How many friends, child?”

  Kendra counted everyone in her head. The Blue Beauty group was only seven people, including her, but what about Myles and the others? “There are ten of us.” Maybe eleven, but she couldn’t make herself admit it.

  Aunt Stella gasped. Then she sounded sad. “Oh, Kendra … Ten?”

  “Maybe less. But that’s the only way we’ve stayed alive—power in numbers,” she said. “My friends can bring me there, but … I can’t leave them outside.”

  Another pause, and a crackle of static. “Ten’s a whole lot of folks, Kendra. I was thinking you could stay with me, but …” She sighed. “I just don’t know …”

  “Nobody’s hurt,” she said. “We’re all fit to work. We know how to shoot.”

  She almost told her a mechanic would be with them, but decided against mentioning Myles. Six strides from the front door, Gloria was stopped outside by a man pleading his case, trying to persuade her to examine something inside a box he held. “We’ll do anything to live there. I want to be with you. I promised Grandpa Joe.”

  Terry gave her a thumbs-up sign, smiling. Nice touch.

  “Well, Kendra, my friend here’s shrugging his shoulders more than he’s shaking his head, so maybe there’s a chance. I can’t promise for everyone, honey, but I can get you in, probably a few more. Maybe all of you—if they have skills …” She sounded near tears. Kendra hoped she wouldn’t be bringing trouble to Aunt Stella’s door.

  Kendra glanced at Gloria again to make sure she was out of earshot. “We can leave tomorrow morning,” she said.

  “Tomorrow?” Aunt Stella said, brightening. “Yes, sooner’s better. They’re expecting a big group from Atascadero by New Year’s. First come, first served. Think you could make it down to Long Beach Airport on … Christmas Day? I think I could bend their arms if we did it then. Everybody wants a miracle on Christmas Day.”

  Today was December 23. Two days.

  Kendra looked at Terry, and he nodded enthusiastically. He’d been researching the trip since the meeting with Myles, checking his maps. Nearly four hundred miles was a long drive, only two hundred miles fewer than the drive from Portland, but Terry looked confident. Myles had promised him the bus would run much better.

  “Yes!” Kendra said. “We can be there in two days.”

  “Well, you be at that airport—make it noon. Don’t be late. Let me tell you, pumpkin. If I get these folks to send out a plane, but you don’t make it on time …” She didn’t have to say the rest. Aunt Stella would be pulling every favor she was owed to send a plane to her, and she could do it only once.

  “Don’t worry, Aunt Stella,” Kendra said. “We’ll be there.”

  By the time Gloria came inside, bell tinkling, Kendra had already signed off.

  Twenty-three

  Where’d you get this map?” Terry said.

  The neatly folded map they had been studying on Myles’s coffee table was colorful and detailed: Your Threadrunning Adventure. It looked like promotional material from an amusement park, but it had been thoroughly marked up with a dark pen. The map identified rooms like the library and screening room with quote balloons from a cartoon Wales: “This is where I watch all of my movies! The Ranch Theater seats 20!” But to Kendra, the handwriting was much more intriguing.

  “Never mind where I got it,” Myles said. “Point is, I have it. Got to be some way it can help us see Rianne.”

  “Great,” Piranha said. “All we have to do is find the room marked Top Secret Dungeon, and we’re rolling.”

  “We might,” Kendra said. She leaned over the table, eyes arrested by the hurried handwriting: Storage Room. Rear Entry. Staff Kitchen. An insider had added information to the basic map, places that weren’t on the public tour.

  Kendra and Terry were both reading the map so intently that they nearly bumped heads. Kendra ventured a guess that Jackie had given Myles the map, since her brother was a Gold Shirt. Jackie didn’t want it to show, but she was helping them.

  Terry had convinced Myles that it made sense for them to come to his house because the bus was still parked there, although the Blue Beauty had been marked with a bright blue tag that said it was public property. Myles said the mayor had asked him to tag the bus until the probation period was over, since Domino Falls would claim rights to half of their belongings if they stayed. Someone had reported seeing them take home supplies from the bus on their last visit, Myles had confided.

  They decided that Myles’s house was no more suspicious than meeting in a barn, so they were in the family’s living room instead, behind the shuttered windows, every lamp on to make the room bright. While they looked at the map, Deirdre served them from a white wicker tray, a memory of a different world. “You want some lemonade, sweetheart?” Deirdre said, touching Ursalina’s shoulder.

  Ursalina flinched. “No, thanks,” she said, and muttered to herself: “More like Kool-Aid.”

  Kendra ignored Ursalina’s jibe, hoping Deirdre hadn’t heard. They had Darius and Dean, so they didn’t need Ursalina. But if Ursalina wasn’t on board for a rescue, why had she come with them instead of going to dinner?

  “Mom?” Kendra said, finally able to use Deirdre’s nickname. “I’d like some, please.” Deirdre smiled at her, grateful, and gave her a glass. Lemonade meant citrus. Vitamins. Health. Lemonade was a luxury she might miss one day, and she sure as hell missed her mother.

  Everyone crowded around the map, their puzzle for the past three hours. Slowly, a plan was coming to life.

  “Myles,” Terry said. “You’re sure we can trust whoever gave you this map?”

  Myles nodded, grim. “If we can’t, we’ve got bigger problems than this map.”

  “It’s Jackie, isn’t it?” Kendra said. Although Myles denied it, she saw the truth from the flare of surprise in his eyes because she’d guessed. She didn’t have to glance at Deirdre or Jason to know.

  “We can trust the map,” Kendra said, satisfied. She trusted Jackie, anyway.

  Kendra remembered the walk from the foyer to the library at the ranch, and the map showed a doorway nearest to where she’d had her strangest experience, feeling a presence on the other side. Maybe the person she’d felt was Rianne! Maybe it was the aura or intuition Sharon Lampher had talked about on the beach.

  No room at the spot was marked on the official map, but someone had scrawled Special Collections with letters nearly too small to see.

  Sonia paced. “If we’re getting all dressed up to visit Wales, we better get ready.”

  It was almost eight o’clock, according to the old-fashioned grandfather clock by the front door. Soon they would lose the electricity, back to battery lamps and candles. “No way,” Ursalina said. “If the plan’s no good, do
n’t go. The plan comes first. This is where you find out if you’re setting yourselves up—the plan.” Ursalina didn’t sound like she meant to come with them, Kendra realized. But at least she was helping.

  “She’s right,” Terry said. “None of this happens if the plan doesn’t feel right.”

  “I don’t like you going after Wales like that,” Piranha said to Sonia. “If you’re alone with him, we can’t protect you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Sonia said. “I can protect myself.”

  The plan called for Sonia to distract Wales, hopefully getting him alone. Beyond that, Kendra hated to think about it. The idea of being alone with Wales the way she’d been with Terry made her feel sick. But that was Sonia’s job now.

  Kendra’s assignment was to ask to study the Special Collections in the library to learn more about Threadism and wait for an opportunity to get through the door where she’d felt the strange presence.

  If she found Rianne there, she would try to convince the girl to come with her. But then what? They couldn’t expect to be allowed to walk back through the front door.

  “Biggest problem?” Dean said. “No exit strategy.”

  They were all thinking the same thing. They stared at the map, waiting for the answer to present itself. Kendra nearly bumped Terry’s head again.

  “What about the tunnel?” Jason said suddenly. He’d left the room for a while, wandering into the kitchen, but he stuck his head back in.

  “What tunnel?” Ursalina said.

  Jason walked to stand over the map, and they cleared space at the table for him to join them. He leaned close, tracing the exterior wall with his finger.

  “It’s not on the map,” Jason said, “but there’s a tunnel behind the ranch. It goes under the fence and right to a door.”

  Myles and Deirdre looked shocked. “How do you know?” they said in unison.

  Jason bit his lip. “I didn’t want to get in trouble, but … it started with the RPGs.”

  Ursalina’s eyes bulged. “Rocket-propelled grenades? Where? Wales has them?”

  Jason laughed. “No, role-playing games,” he said.

  “What are you talking about, Jason?” Myles said sternly. “You were out there?”

  “Not just me,” Jason said quickly. “On school field trips, remember? But it wasn’t just inside the ranch—he played games with us.”

  Deirdre suddenly sat on the sofa as if her legs had given way, her eyes hanging on her son, expecting terrible news. “Who?” Deirdre said. “What kind of games?”

  “Mr. Wales,” Jason said. “Sometimes him, sometimes his Threadie Irregulars. They were pretending it was the end of the world already. Called each other by weird code names. It was fun! They’d let us run around outside like aliens or zombies were chasing us, and they had all these plans to escape. Once I was hiding, and … I wasn’t supposed to, but I went into a tunnel. It was way out in back of the ranch, near … like, a mine or something. There used to be mines around here, silver or gold. The door was open, so I went in.”

  Myles and Deirdre stared empty-eyed at Jason, beyond emotion.

  “Yes!” Sonia said. “I saw a rise and a door behind the ranch that could have been something like that. Chris and I were standing on the bluff, looking down.”

  “Show me on the map where you think the tunnel was,” Terry said to Jason.

  Jason paused, uncertain. Then he tapped his finger on a spot just beyond the ranch’s rear fence, roughly centered on the map. “That looks right.”

  Sonia checked his spot and nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And the tunnel goes into the ranch?” Terry asked Jason. “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, ’cuz a door from the house opened and I almost got caught. The light inside was so bright, like a huge storeroom or something.”

  Kendra’s heart raced as she ran her finger along the blueprint. Sure enough, a large room against the rear wall was marked Basement. “Here!” she said. “Maybe this is where the door opened. But why isn’t there a tunnel on the map?”

  “Maybe whoever gave Myles the map didn’t know about the tunnel,” Terry said.

  “Kid,” Ursalina told Jason, “we need to know everything you know about the tunnel. Anything you can remember.”

  “Want me to draw a map?” Jason said, grinning. What kid didn’t like to draw?

  Jason’s sketch of the tunnel was fascinating. With an X marking the entrance beyond Wales’s back gate, the tunnel must have been at least seventy-five yards long, if he truly made it to Wales’s basement door. Jason was a nervy kid.

  But one thing confused Kendra as she stared at the drawing: on either side of the tunnel, he’d created mirroring rows of small enclaves, almost like rows of teeth. Eight of them, recessed. “What’s this?” Kendra said, pointing to one of the enclaves.

  Jason hesitated. “You know they were playing games, right? Inside the tunnel, there’s like …” He paused, biting his lip.

  “What, darling?” Deirdre said.

  “I just remembered,” Jason said, blinking. “They’re cells. Jail cells or storage rooms. I thought it was for the games, but …”

  “Cells?” Myles said, alarmed. “Was anyone in the cells?”

  “No, they were empty,” Jason said. “They weren’t even locked. Some of them didn’t have bars. It was just … for the game, I thought. To make it more real—”

  Myles’s face turned hard with anger. He grabbed Jason by both shoulders and swung him around to stare him in the eye. “Are you telling me you knew Wales had cells down in that tunnel and you never said anything? Why?” He roared the last word.

  Jason’s eyes filled with frightened tears. Maybe he had never seen his father lose his temper. “Dad, I was a kid. I thought … it was just for the game.”

  Myles didn’t soften his eyes or his grip. “Well, you’re not a kid now, Jason! How long have we been talking about Rianne? Why didn’t you tell us she could be locked up in a tunnel?”

  Jason shook his head, mortified. “I … don’t know, Dad. I didn’t think of it.”

  Deirdre gently squeezed Myles’s elbow, and Myles let his son go. Jason was sobbing by then, but Kendra barely had the spare energy to notice. At least he had his mother to comfort him.

  “One of us has to get to that tunnel,” Kendra said. “If we don’t see Rianne when we get inside, we check there. If we can’t leave through the front, we’ll leave through the back. Even if we can’t get her out of the cell, at least we’ll know.”

  They all fell away to their thoughts, and silence came to their war room.

  “We need to scout that tunnel exit,” Darius said. “Beyond the gate. Make sure it’s still a way out.”

  “I can take the gate lock,” Piranha said, certain, “as long as there’re no guards.”

  “I didn’t see any guards from the bluff,” Sonia said. “But there are probably cameras. And you’d have to be careful—the best vantage point is close to a Threadie camp up there by a big house. Someone might see you.”

  “That’s what camo and ghillie suits are for,” Darius said. “Nobody will see us.”

  Terry nodded, his face bright for the first time in hours. “That tunnel might also be a way in, not just a way out.”

  “No,” Kendra said. “We know our way around way better from the front. Too many surprises the other way to start there.”

  Sonia agreed. “Only if we have to.”

  Ursalina was nodding. “We’ve got a long way to go,” she said, glancing at the ticking clock. “But this is beginning to sound like a plan.”

  The bedroom reminded Kendra of her own, down to the Barack Obama poster on the wall, although Kendra’s pictured Michelle and the girls too: the perfect family. She wondered if the people living in her house now had left her poster up or taken it down.

  Deirdre opened the sliding closet door and began pulling out clothes.

  “Imani is a fashion plate,” Deirdre said, carefully avoiding saying was. “So there’s plenty to choose
from. You two are close enough to her size.”

  Kendra had never been interested in fashion but was excited to find a pair of black jeans that looked like new. Between new jeans and any of the frilly blouses decorating the closet, she would look much better than she had during her first visit.

  Not that Wales would care. Kendra still couldn’t figure it out, but she was certain Wales had wanted something from her that had nothing to do with her clothes. When it came to seduction, Sonia had the edge; she knew Thread culture, and she’d already coupled sex to survival. Even she assumed she’d be the one, and something told Kendra she relished the role.

  Sonia was excited as she held clothes to her chest, posing in the mirror while Deirdre watched. She looked at a black minidress for a long time.

  “Cute but comfortable,” Kendra told Sonia. “No heels. You might need to run.”

  “Oh, we’ll need to run, all right,” Sonia said matter-of-factly.

  The guys and Ursalina were still in the living room, debating scenarios and strategies, their voices rising with disagreements. Everyone was getting nervous, having second thoughts. But it was already nine-thirty, and they needed to go to the ranch.

  Deirdre closed the door, shutting out some of the noise.

  “Girls,” Deirdre said, troubled. “I know we’re the ones who came to you, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t say you don’t have to do this. We all love Rianne, but there’s so many more of you now. If it goes bad …”

  “Oh, it’ll go bad,” Sonia said in that same eerie, matter-of-fact tone. “Even if we make it out of here and back to the road, the bad stuff’s waiting.”

  She sounded like Ursalina. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Kendra said.

  Sonia shrugged. “Things always go bad. That’s when you find out who you are.”

  “Then don’t do it,” Deirdre said. “What you’re planning with Wales …”

  “Conscience kicking in, Mom?” Sonia said, and Deirdre’s face froze. Sonia wrapped her hair in a scrunchie she found on the desk. Sonia could vanish into a mirror in a way Kendra never had. To Kendra, it was like watching Sonia transform into a character on a stage: the sassy, sarcastic, invulnerable Convention Goddess.