Escape: The Ashwood Lies (Prequel)

by RJ Infantino

  The footsteps kept coming. Ten feet. Five. I let whoever it was pass me before I dared look out.

  “Maya?”

  The shadow spun around at my whisper and threw a punch out at my head. The fact that she was as short as Rosie was the only thing that saved me from a black eye.

  “Maya, stop.” I grabbed her next punch out of the air. “Maya, it’s me. Chase.”

  “Chase?” She hissed, still not relaxing her arm. All those hours of lacrosse practice gave her a mean right hook. Her dark brown eyes glared at me out from underneath the hood of her sweatshirt. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I could say the same thing to you. Do you usually go around punching people?”

  “Only the people that jump out at me in the dark.” She was still frowning at me, which really wasn’t that unusual, actually. Even though she was Rosie’s roommate, the two of them couldn’t have been more different. Rosie was so bubbly she was practically carbonated. Maya was intensely quiet. Even after all these years of being best friends with her roommate, I really didn’t know her well at all.

  “To be fair, you were the one sneaking up on me.”

  “Sneaking up on you? I didn’t have any idea you were there. Besides, even if I was sneaking, I wasn’t doing a very good job of it. How’d you hear me?”

  “My brothers drag me out hunting every time we’re all home. After a couple trips, I started to pick up stuff almost by accident.” I slid my back down the base of the tree and unzipped my backpack. Finding Maya had sapped all my momentum, and my legs suddenly realized just how tired they were. “Why are you looking for Ian?”

  “Who says I’m looking for Ian?”

  “Well, I know you weren’t out here looking for me.”

  She shook me off when I offered a water bottle. “My mom knows his mom. We only live a couple miles apart. She’d kill me if she found out Ian got expelled.”

  “Be careful, Maya. Keep doing things like this, people might start thinking that you care.”

  “Like I said. I’m doing it for my mom.”

  The truth was probably more complicated. Everyone knew that Maya’s older brother disappeared from Ashwood a couple years ago. They said he went into the woods and never came back. She never talked about it, but I had a feeling that this situation with Ian hit a little bit too close to home. I pushed myself up off the ground and stretched my legs. “Alright, break’s over. We should split up. Double our chances.”

  “Ok.”

  “Be careful. This place is crawling with professors.”

  “Obviously.”

  I laughed under my breath, just loud enough so she could hear me. “Alright, Maya. See you at breakfast.”

  I started back down the path, but after a few feet, it was clear that Maya was following me again.

  “So, no splitting up?”

  She shook her head. “This place is creepy in the dark.”

  Truthfully, I didn’t mind the company. It was good motivation and would make sure I wouldn’t end up asleep under a log somewhere. We crept along in the darkness, jumping from one path to the next, crisscrossing a few brooks, the fire pits, and the secret make-out shed.

  It was boring work, until suddenly it wasn’t. I took a risk and led us back toward the main path, thinking maybe Ian didn’t know the secret trails. Of course, with my luck, we almost came out right on top of Professor Steckler. The professors were getting smarter. Steckler wasn’t using a flashlight, and I was already halfway out of the brush before I saw her. I practically tackled Maya when I dove back into the trees. She was about to start cursing when I cover her mouth with my hand. Steckler flared her flashlight at the noise, sweeping it back and forth just over our heads. A couple inches lower and we’d be dead. I could feel Maya’s labored breathing against my chest, and I slowly, very slowly, brought my hand away. Our faces were inches apart. I tried to read those eyes of hers, but they were as mysterious as they’d ever been. Eventually, Steckler cut her flashlight, but we stayed down there a good five minutes more just to make sure it wasn’t a trap.

  After a while, I helped Maya to her feet and got ready for an anger that never came. She knew what we were doing out here. She knew what was at stake. We kept moving.

  I don’t know how long we were out there or when the dark started to wane, but it felt like we’d combed through every inch of the forest, and my legs were screaming at me to give up. Maya sighed and landed on the nearest fallen tree trunk.

  We were both so tired that she didn’t even object when I landed next to her. All I could do was shake my head. It was always going to be a long shot, but for some reason I thought we were really going to find him.

  The brush in front of us rustled, and before I even had a chance to think, Professor Lowe came rushing out the leaves. His flash of disappointment quickly bloomed into a perverse little smile. If he wasn’t going to nab Ian, we were the next best thing. He sneered. “Look what I found.”

  I did the only logical thing I could think of: I grabbed Maya’s hand and laced my fingers through hers.

  “Hey, Professor,” I said casually, as Maya not so subtly tried to yank her fingers from mine. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

  “Beautiful is one word for it. What kind of excuse are you going to come up with this time?”

  I put on my best confused face. “Excuse? Why do I need an excuse to go hiking with my girlfriend?”

  Maya dug her fingernails into my skin, and I choked down a scream. I gave her a hard glance and she finally got it.

  “You two?” Lowe asked in disbelief. I mean, I knew I was lying, but that wasn’t exactly the reaction I was expecting. Maya shrugged as if to say she couldn’t believe it either. And then Lowe said the single most inappropriate thing I’d ever heard a teacher say. “I thought you were a lesbian.”

  “Woah,” I said. “You can’t say that. Way over the line. Come on, dude.”

  Underneath my protests, Maya muttered, “Bisexual, not that it’s any of your business.” If I wasn’t so pissed, I would have laughed.

  Lowe rolled his eyes. “Whatever, either way, sneaking out here? After hours? I think this is the last strike, Chase. This time I’m going to make sure you’re expelled.”

  Maya squeezed my hand, but I just smiled. “We’re not expelled. We’re not even in trouble.” I showed him my watch. “Sun’s up. It’s morning.”

  “You expect me to believe that? Sun’s been up for less than fifteen minutes. You would have had to run straight here to make it this far.”

  “I don’t really care what you believe. But yeah, we pretty much did run straight here. We don’t have much time this morning since somebody gave me detention.”

  Lowe’s face screwed up like he could smell the BS.

  I just smiled. “You can tell the Dean, but you’d be wasting all of our time. Besides, you’ll probably get in more trouble than we will for asking who Maya has sex with.”

  He was backed into a corner, but that’s exactly when guys like him wanted to fight back. “What’s in the bag?” He asked, flailing about for something to pin on us.

  I gave Maya’s hand a little squeeze and then let go. Unzipping my backpack just slowly enough to infuriate him, I revealed two water bottles, a couple protein bars, a bag of chips, trail mix, and chocolate. It wasn’t exactly the most nutritious breakfast, but there was a reason why I took the time to pack it. Sneaking through the woods raised questions. But picnics were innocent.

  “Don’t be rude,” Maya said. “Ask him if he wants some.”

  Lowe snapped his jaw and glared at me. There was literally nothing he could do. We were safe for now, but I could be sure that he was going to make detention and every day after as miserable for me as he possibly could until he found another chance to get his payback.

  “8:00,” he growled at me. “Just see what happens if you’re late.”

  I smiled at his back until he disappeared between the trees.

  Maya waited all of twenty seconds before sh
e punched me, hard.

  “You’re welcome,” I muttered, rubbing the bruise out of my shoulder.

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “Come here, I want to show you something.”

  Since we weren’t hiding from the professors anymore, I cut a fast pace down the most direct paths until the ground started to slope ever so slightly upward. And then not so slightly. Maya just leaned forward and kept pace. Even after we hit the rocks, she was breathing easier than I was as we wound up the switchback trail.

  About fifteen minutes and three hundred feet of elevation later, I hopped off the path and squeezed through a bramble of thorns.

  “You’re not going to push me off the cliff, are you?”

  “Come on,” I said, unable to keep the smile out of my voice. As she pushed through after me, I added, “Worth it?”

  “Oh my God.”

  We were standing on the rock face, just at the edge of the cliff, staring at the campus stretching out below us in the early morning light. We could see out for a hundred miles of untamed wilderness. There was the big old brick Main Building, the Gym, the Industrial Hall, and the river cutting it all off from the rest of civilization. It felt like standing on top of the world.

  “How did you find this place?”

  I dropped my bag and then eased my way down until my butt was seated on the ledge and my feet were dangling over. “By not looking. I think that’s the best way to find anything, really.”

  “Well then Ian was screwed tonight,” Maya said, as she eased her way down next to me. “Let me see what you’ve got in that bag.”

  We sat there like that for a long time, passing the snacks back and forth in silence. It was one those accidental moments when you share something with someone, and even though you can’t describe it, you know that things won’t ever be the same.

  But eventually, it was time to go. I had to hurry if I was going to make it back for detention.

  I pushed myself up, but Maya’s voice stopped me.

  “Chase?”

  “What’s up?”

  “Don’t tell anyone about this.”

  I didn’t know whether she was talking about last night or this morning. The chase, the hand-holding, or the cliff. But I understood. “Are you kidding? If I told people I held your hand, no one would believe me anyway.”

  She laughed, and I laughed, and then I left back down the mountain and raced across campus.

  Detention was exactly as miserable as I expected, but in between falling asleep every other minute, I did come out of it with a pretty good essay on Lord of the Flies. I thought Lowe was half right. People would do anything they could to survive, but what he missed, what I believed, is that they’d do it together. That’s what they did in the book. And yeah, that got pretty warped, and I can’t promise that we’d have any better luck if we were in that situation, but we’d try. We’d hike all night in the woods just to try.

  I didn’t know what would happen if I got stranded on island with my friends. It’d get messy. It’d be ugly. We’d fight, and I couldn’t promise 100 percent that we’d avoid the fate of the boys on the island. But the one thing I was sure of, absolutely sure of, is that we’d survive. It’s all we knew how to do.

  Maybe my essay was overly optimistic, but I was feeling pretty good that morning. Of course, that was before I knew that they were never going to find Ian, that he would become another Ashwood legend, that the Professors were lying to us, and that Ashwood Prep wasn’t really what it seemed. In less than two months, we would drop straight into a hell that even the schoolboys from Lord of the Flies never could have imagined. But that morning? I still had no idea. I was so tired I couldn’t think of anything else except for Ian, Taylor, Maya, and all the other things that seemed so much more important. So, when detention was over, I climbed the stairs back up to my room and fell asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

  * * *

  The end . . .

  For now. I hope you enjoyed The Ashwood Lies prequel! As an extra special thank you, I’ve added the first two chapters of Collapse: The Ashwood Lies (Book 1) here starting on the next page. Collapse was selected for publication through the Kindle Scout program, and will be published by Kindle Press on December 27, 2016. If you have any questions about the Escape, Collapse, or anything else, just shoot me an email at rj@rjinfantino.com. I love talking with readers. And if you want to find me elsewhere on the internet, I make YouTube videos about reading and writing on my channel: The Secret Stacks, and you can also get in touch on my website rjinfantino.com. Happy reading!

  Collapse: Prologue

  I don’t have much time.

  Maybe a week. Maybe a month. But sooner or later, we’re going to die.

  That’s a hard thing to realize when you’re only seventeen years old, even harder when you know your friends are going to die too. But that doesn’t make it any less true.

  I’ve been sitting here in my dorm room staring at this blank page for hours, trying to get my hand to stop shaking. I have to hurry. My candle’s burning down, and it’s the last one I’ve got. Thick clouds of ash have blocked out the moon. It’s been thirty-two days since the lights went out, only thirty-two days since we dropped straight into hell.

  Honestly, writing this all down is the last thing I want to do. The pain’s still raw, and I’m not sure I’m ready to face it all again. The first time was already too much. The blood on my hands took a long time to wash off, and in these shadows I sometimes think it’s still there.

  But I don’t have a choice anymore. I need to warn you. We’re not going to be able to hold out for much longer, and I can’t let the truth die with us.

  Sitting at my old school desk makes me think about how things used to be, back before the end of the world. It’s amazing how quickly things change. Ashwood Prep doesn’t look much like a boarding school anymore. These days, it feels more like a tomb.

  So many things that used to be important are useless these days. My laptop. My cell phone. They’re all just trash now. Same with our textbooks, but we’ve already burned most of those. This notebook is the last of my school supplies left. I have to make these pages count. It was the notebook I used for my college essays, or my failed attempts anyway. I didn’t think twice before ripping them out.

  College applications. They were one of those things that seemed so awful until I learned what awful really was. It’s funny. I don’t even know if there are any colleges left standing anymore, but there was a time when I thought college was the most important thing in the world. No one thinks about their future much these days. There’s no time while we’re fighting for our lives.

  A month ago, college essays terrified me. A month ago, I was an idiot.

  Why were they so scary? Those essays didn’t want to know what I was or what I did. They wanted to get at a much more inconvenient question. Who was I?

  Back then, I didn’t have any idea. But there’s nothing like a crisis to make that clear. In the aftermath, in the rubble, that’s where I found my story. It’s really too bad the world doesn’t have any use for college apps anymore. This story is so terrible that it’s actually pretty good.

  What kind of story is it? You could say it’s got monsters and heroes if you want them, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. There’s drama, fun, love, and loss. There’s an army of great people. But really, it’s just a story about the end of our world and the beginnings of a new one.

  I imagine this is going to sound insane, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Not if I’m going to tell it like it really happened. I’m hoping that by saying this, you won’t think I’m crazy too. For some reason, that’s important to me. But believe me or don’t believe me—that’s really up to you. Either way, I’ve got to try to make you understand.

  Why? Well, we’ll get to that.

  I guess I should tell you that my name is Chase. That’s not important except for the fact that I’m the one writing this all down, and I can’t tell the story wit
hout me in it. But I think you’ll find that this story could be written a hundred different ways by a hundred different voices. We aren’t the only ones trapped in this conspiracy. We know that now.

  We’re not going to survive, not forever, but we can’t let what we know die with us. What we’ve learned is too important. The mistakes we’ve made must not be repeated. Take our story and learn from it. It’s the only way you’ll stay alive. It’s the only way you’ll see tomorrow. Our story’s been written, but yours doesn’t have to be.

  To tell it from the beginning wouldn’t make much sense. To truly understand what happened, and what’s about to, I have to go back before the world started to crumble.

  How far? Well, I guess you could say that humankind’s been hurtling toward this moment for hundreds of years, ever since our ambition started to exceed our grasp. From the moment we decided that we wanted more, we’ve been stacking each and every one of our mistakes, one on top of the other. It was only a matter of time before the whole thing toppled over.

  But as far as my involvement, you could say the end of the world began on a Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving. It started with a history exam.

  Collapse: Chapter one

  I looked up from my desk at the clock on the wall. Plenty of time left. It was that same cheap style of clock they always have in classrooms, plastic and taunting, just loud enough so you could hear the time ticking down.

  I’d finished the exam twenty minutes earlier but was stuck on the extra credit. It was a classic Ashwood Prep test question, just absurd enough to almost make sense. Of course when you go to a school that would name a history class something like International Leadership in the Age of Global Conflict, I guess absurd is exactly what you should expect.

  I twirled my pencil around my finger and looked down at the blank page. There was an answer somewhere in my brain. It was probably a good one, too, but my legs had been crammed under that wobbly wooden desk for an hour and half, and I was ready to write just about anything down so I could escape into Thanksgiving break. At that point, I was more interested in reading the initials carved into the wood than my grade.