Sky Jumpers Book 2: The Forbidden Flats

by Peggy Eddleman

  When we got to the river, we rode along the narrow shore until we reached a spot where the wall of dirt leading up to where we usually rode was higher than our heads, and we scooted in as close to it as we could.

  We all pulled jackets out of our saddlebags and buttoned them to the top as the lightning storm got closer and closer. I shielded my eyes against the few raindrops that found their way to the ground, and watched. In White Rock, there wasn’t so much sky to see, so we usually only saw one bolt of lightning at a time. Out here, though, lightning struck all around us, the sharp bolts spreading into a wide swath of light when they hit the air of the Bomb’s Breath, then forming back into their normal sharpness as they exited the Breath and struck the ground. More than once, so many lightning bolts went through the Bomb’s Breath at the same time that the lightning lit it up almost completely across the entire sky. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

  Most of the horses seemed to handle the storm just fine. I think Ruben even enjoyed it. I rubbed his neck anyway, to make sure he stayed calm. The thought of Luke getting his family kicked out of the ruins came again, so fast and hard that it hurt. I forced it from my mind and stared up at the sky.

  A giant lightning bolt cracked across the clouds, as though it was splitting them open, followed less than a second later by the loudest clap of thunder I had ever heard. The hairs on my arms stood up straight, and the air felt charged, like it could explode at any second.

  Then the tap-tap-tap of the rain against the packed hard ground came faster and faster, until it pounded down with a roar that made it almost impossible to hear anything else. We huddled our horses closer together, but still my clothes were soaked through and I was shivering violently within seconds.

  “Luke!” Mr. Williams yelled, his voice barely louder than the sound of the pelting rain. “How long will this last?”

  Luke shielded his eyes with his hands and looked up. “I don’t know!” he yelled back. “This one looks bad.”

  I looked up, too. The dark gray clouds churned in the sky, moving and mixing and roiling. I couldn’t see an end to them in any direction.

  I ducked my head and leaned into Ruben’s neck, trying to protect my body from the downpour. Then something hit me in the shoulder. Hard. I whipped my head up to see what it was as something hit me in the leg.

  “Hailstorm!” Aaren’s dad called out.

  The pounding of the rain changed to a pinging from the hail. Another one hit me in the leg hard enough I knew it’d leave a bruise.

  “We’re going to have to take our chances with the lightning!” Luke yelled over the sounds of the storm. “We need to get to shelter—hail this large is too dangerous!”

  As the hail beat down on us, we rode the horses back to the incline. The ground had been packed so hard, the rain couldn’t soak in. It gathered into rivers everywhere. Water cascaded down the place we needed to climb back up, making the horses’ hooves slip with every step. The adults got off their horses and tried to help us, their own feet sliding in the muddy river coming down the path.

  Aaren’s dad, Mr. Williams, Luke, Cass, and Cole pushed against Aaren’s horse, Buck, trying to help his legs stay steady enough to make it up through the mud and rushing water. Mr. Williams stopped pushing for a moment, and ducked under the strap of the bag holding the Ameiphus and handed it to me.

  Over the noise of the hail, he called, “Hope, keep this out of the rain.”

  I took off my jacket, put the strap across my body and over one shoulder, and put my jacket back on, buttoning it to the top. Mr. Williams threw his weight into Buck’s haunches, and the horse eventually made it up the incline. Brock, Aaren, and I scrambled up the muddy slope and tried to calm Buck. The others helped Ruben and then Arabelle up the pathway. I took hold of their reins and brushed streams of rainwater off Arabelle’s coat.

  “Maybe you should get on Buck, Aaren,” Brock said. “He looks like he’s about to bolt.”

  Aaren’s horse was sidestepping and pawing his hooves into the river of rainwater running along the ground. Aaren climbed up into his saddle and tried to keep him steady. The hail was pelting into us so hard, I could barely keep Arabelle from bolting, too. Before long, they got Luke’s horse up the incline; then they pushed and grunted to get Cole’s horse up.

  I heard shouts and turned. Cole’s horse slid on the slope as the water flooded down it, and fell to the side, pinning Cass against the edge of the ravine. I watched helplessly as the others tugged and pulled and we all screamed, but Cass didn’t. I wasn’t sure she could even take a breath with that much weight squeezed against her.

  “Push together!” Mr. Williams yelled. “One, two, three!”

  As the horse’s legs fumbled, they all heaved against his haunches. Then his legs caught, and his weight shifted away from Cass. Everyone pushed with their faces scrunched and their eyes determined, and Cole’s horse finally made it up the incline and away from Cass.

  Cass collapsed into her dad’s arms, her breathing shallow, her face pained. He bent over her, trying to protect her from the hail that beat down on everything. “Cass, look at me. Can you tell if anything is broken?”

  “My shoulder.”

  Mr. Williams carefully shifted her to see her shoulder, and his eyes widened, then flew to the side of the ravine where she had been pinned. Several rocks jutted out, one of them sharp, right where her shoulder had been.

  “There’s a doctor at the ruins,” Luke said.

  Cole scooped Cass into his arms. “I’m taking her there now. Help me!”

  Mr. Williams braced Cole, keeping him from slipping, as he carried Cass up the slope. Mr. Williams scrambled up behind him, and held Cass until he could hand her up to Cole on his horse. “We’ll get the last of the horses up and be right behind you.” Then he whispered to Cass, “It’ll be okay.”

  Aaren yanked a shirt out of his saddlebag and handed it to his brother. “Press this against the wound so it’ll stop bleeding.”

  Cole took the shirt, and galloped off in the direction we had been headed, his horse’s hooves splashing in the water as he rode. Mr. Williams slid back down the slope and he, along with Luke and Aaren’s dad, worked to push the remaining horses up. I watched as Cole and Cass disappeared into the storm and the trees.

  The hail intensified, stinging my body as it hit. Arabelle’s eyes were wild, and her reins were so wet I could barely hold on to them. I climbed into her saddle so I could calm her better.

  “I can’t keep him still!” Aaren yelled. His horse circled wildly, his head flicking to the side as Aaren pulled on his reins.

  My shoulders, my legs, and my arms were numb from the hail, and it was only getting worse. Brock climbed in Ruben’s saddle, still holding the reins to Luke’s horse as Luke, Aaren’s dad, and Mr. Williams helped two more horses up.

  Lightning crashed through the Bomb’s Breath, lighting up the sky and hitting a tree not far from where we waited. The thundering crack came almost instantly and was so loud, we all jumped. Aaren’s horse took off running. As soon as he did, Arabelle took off, too.

  I peered over my shoulder as Mr. Williams yelled “Go!” to Luke and slid down the slope to help Aaren’s dad push the last horse up. They were almost done.

  Brock and Luke galloped right alongside me, their horses’ heads lowered, their hooves pounding through the water, hail bouncing off their backs. Lightning flashed twice in quick succession, lighting up a portion of the Bomb’s Breath a blinding whitish-blue.

  I watched the ground, keeping the trees that lined the narrow road in my peripheral vision. The splash each hoof made as it hit the water-covered earth made me think about how Cole’s horse fell on the muddy incline. Please don’t slip, please don’t slip, I mumbled over and over to Arabelle as we galloped forward.

  I had no idea how long we rode, soaking wet, pummeled by hail, under a sky that alternated between violent dark gray clouds and blinding bluish-white lightning, but eventually we caught up to Cole.

/>   Luke yelled something, but his voice was carried away by the wind.

  Crack!

  Lightning struck one of the trees directly in front of us. The light was so bright and the sound so loud, I couldn’t hear anything for a few moments after. My body tingled and it felt as though the air itself was made of lightning, and I was so disoriented by the flash I couldn’t tell where I was going.

  When the first large shapes with sharp corners that I thought might be buildings came into view, I called out to Luke, “Are they going to let us in?”

  He looked at Cass. “They have to.”

  I counted the rows of windows on the closest building—eight. It was eight layers high before the bombs. It looked as if the entire thing had been made of clay, though, and someone bent it right over. The first and eighth layers both touched the ground, the middle layers making a towering arch. I figured it was the way in. I steered Arabelle to ride underneath the arch and into the city, but Luke reached out and caught hold of my arm.

  “It’s just as likely to fall on you as not. Or get struck by lightning.”

  I shivered and rode as far from it as possible.

  He directed us into the city, while the hail pounded with a fury on the buildings, echoing all around us. A few buildings lay completely on their sides, and some were in various states of standing up, leaning against another building, or somewhat bent and arched similar to the first. The sides of a few remained attached, so they still resembled buildings. Others had their sides blown off by the bombs and looked more like building skeletons.

  The farther we went, the closer the buildings got to each other, and the paler Cass’s face grew. We steered our horses single file through the narrow alleys, grateful that the tall walls blocked some of the hail. After several turns, we came to a more open space where a building lay flat on its side, its top pressed against another building that was shorter and actually standing straight up. Luke slid off his horse, walked up to a metal panel on the side of the building, and banged hard on it five times.

  I didn’t know enough about metals to know what kind it was, but it must’ve been different from the others, because the door didn’t dent in and the building didn’t fall. Maybe that was why this building was standing—it was different.

  We helped Cass down, and Cole sat against the building, holding her. Aaren knelt next to them, pressing the soaking-wet shirt against her wound, while Brock and I stood over her as much as we could to keep the hail from hitting her.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Cole said as he brushed some of the hail out of her drenched hair. “We’ll get you to the doctor.”

  “Where are Mr. Williams and Aaren’s dad?” I kept watching the alley we’d ridden through, but they weren’t there. “Did you see them behind us?”

  Cole looked up at Aaren in alarm. “I didn’t. Did you?”

  “I’m not sure.” Aaren bit his lip. “I thought they were behind us, but I don’t know if I looked.”

  Luke beat on the panel again. And then we waited, watching the building for the people, and watching the alley for Mr. Williams and Aaren’s dad.

  “Maybe the people aren’t here,” Brock said.

  I looked around. Similar buildings surrounded us on three sides. Maybe this wasn’t the right one.

  “They’re here.” He banged again. “This is Luke Strickland! I have an injured person with me! We need help!”

  Still no one came.

  Luke banged and banged on the door as the hail pinged off the metal of the buildings and splashed in the water streaming across the ground. I left Cass’s side so I could gather the reins for as many horses as possible. With the storm this bad and the alley so narrow, I was afraid they’d run off. I turned to reach for Ruben’s reins, and noticed that a man stood in an open window twenty feet up, in the building we huddled next to, and I flinched.

  Then I noticed that a girl a couple of years older than me stood in the window of another building, across the alley, not quite as high up as the first. She held a bow with an arrow nocked. A half dozen archers stood at all different heights in the buildings surrounding me.

  I couldn’t get any words to come out. I just pointed, and everyone spun around to look.

  A man about my dad’s age, who stood on a chunk of broken concrete a few feet off the ground, jumped down, water spraying as he landed. The man walked up to Luke and slapped him on the shoulder twice. “Good to see you, old friend. It’s been a long time.”

  “Good to see you, too, Jack. I wasn’t sure you heard me knock.”

  “I think everyone from here to Glacier heard you knock.”

  Luke smiled. “You got room for a bunch of soaked-to-the-bone travelers, including one injured?”

  The man motioned to a small group of people standing in the alley behind him. I hadn’t heard them coming, or seen where they came from. A guy with big muscles broke away from the group and walked over to us.

  He bent down to pick up Cass, and Cole stopped him. “I’ll carry her.”

  The man looked at Cole for a moment, his eyebrow raised. Then, in a deep voice, he said, “I’ve got her.”

  Cole tried to protest, but the man was huge and Cole looked exhausted, so he just stayed next to Cass, pressing the shirt into her wound as they walked toward the building.

  The girl with the bow and arrow who had been standing on a ledge had found her way back down, the hail that had gathered on her hat bouncing to the ground with each step. She took the horse reins from my hand. “I’ll get your horses out of the storm and fed. You go with your friends.”

  As much as I hated leaving the horses before I knew they were cared for, I hated leaving everyone else even more. Jack knocked on the metal, and someone from the inside slid it to the right, making an opening. We all went into the building, Brock and Aaren at my side. The sound of the hail immediately quieted, and so did my hammering heart. A boy a couple of years older than me, who I had seen up on a ledge, walked in behind me.

  There were no inside walls in this building—only a large open space. I could tell where each of the upper floors used to be, but there wasn’t much left of them except a few pieces sticking out from the walls here and there. The floor under our feet looked as though it was made of large thin rocks about three feet square and impossibly flat, and all exactly the same shape and size, the sides and corners of each square fitting perfectly with the sides and corners of the next one, making the floor completely smooth. There were no townspeople, no beds, no places to cook meals—nothing.

  I turned to the boy behind us. “Where is everyone?”

  He had a look of disbelief on his face. “Did you think we’d live right here, where anyone could walk in and find us?”

  “I—” I began, but then realized that my answer was yes. Where would they live if not here?

  Luke started walking across the room, and I grabbed his arm. “What about Mr. Williams and Aaren’s dad?”

  He glanced back at the door.

  “They’ll never know where we are or how to find their way in here,” Aaren said, panic filling his voice.

  Luke motioned toward a catwalk that bordered the second row of windows up, with a ladder leading to it. “You can see everything from there. You go with the others—I’ll stay and watch for them. Maybe they rode back to where we left the trailer, so they could get more supplies.”

  I wasn’t ready to be around Luke since he said his family was kicked out of here, so I was glad for his suggestion.

  “Take them to the infirmary,” Jack said to the man carrying Cass. “I’ll stay with Luke.”

  The boy eyed us like he didn’t trust us and wasn’t too happy that we were inside one of their buildings. Eventually, though, he flipped his light brown hair out of his eyes and said, “I’m Thomas. This way.”

  Thomas directed us to a space near the left wall. He pushed a dusty rug to the side with his foot, then bent down and found a place on the flat stone that had a chunk missing. When he lifted up the thin stone, it e
xposed a three-foot-wide square hole below it. The hole went down about eight feet, with a ladder against one of the walls.

  The muscled man climbed down, and Cole and another man lowered Cass to him. She groaned at all the jostling. Then the rest of us climbed down, too. When we got to the bottom, Thomas led us down a narrow tunnel with dirt walls, a dirt floor, and a dirt ceiling. I kept an eye on the support beams that were set in the walls every few feet.

  Thomas glanced up, too. “Don’t worry. We haven’t had a cave-in for a long time. A month or two, at least.” My eyes darted to Thomas’s, and he smirked, as if he was happy he alarmed me. Maybe coming here was a mistake.

  At Cass’s groan, the man carrying her said, “It’s safe.”

  The tunnel was cool and our clothes were soaked, and none of us could stop shivering. Small lanterns attached to support beams lit the way enough for us to see where the walls were, but made it almost impossible to tell how far we’d been walking.

  Eventually, we came to a spot where we had to turn left or right. Instead of turning, though, Thomas scooted past everyone and put his hands on the dirt wall right in front of us, pushing it sideways. It slid as easily as the metal wall had above. “The door’s not dirt,” Thomas said, as though he was angry he had to give up their secrets. “It just looks like it, so if anyone finds a way into the tunnels, they won’t find us.”

  We walked through the opening and into an area bigger than the first building we’d gone into, but not as tall. This one was filled with people. Some sat on chairs sewing, some worked with wood and saws and hammers, some chopped food at big tables, and a few little kids raced through, playing chase.

  Then I noticed the walls and floor—they were all made of concrete. I’d seen concrete floors plenty of times, but never walls.

  “What is this place?” Aaren asked.

  Thomas brushed the hair out of his eyes and frowned at us, as if he was realizing that we weren’t going to disappear and that it might be easier to answer our questions. “It was the foundation of one of the biggest buildings here. The building fell over not long after the bombs, leaving this giant hole. A couple of years later, that building,” Thomas said as he pointed up, “fell on top of it, making the ceiling. Back then, the people living here dug tunnels to it, filled in some holes, and made chimneys for the cookstoves and fireplaces, then they all moved in. Before I was born, they expanded to a couple of other smaller buildings with good foundations, and moved the sleeping quarters there.”