The Dark Water

by Seth Fishman

  “You do realize those are gunshots, right?” she asks, joining him at the door.

  “Yeah,” he replies unhappily.

  She stands on her tiptoes and kisses him lightly, with his dry lips, bad breath, and all. He’s so surprised he forgets to kiss back. It’s over in a second, broken by another gunshot, but it happened.

  “What was that for?” Jimmy asks, distracted in the best of ways.

  She shrugs. “I like that you care about them.” She frowns. “What are we gonna do?”

  “I have no idea,” he replies, and opens the door.

  The hallways are empty, just like earlier, but this time it reminds Jimmy of an abandoned spaceship, one Kirk might run through before self-destructing the Enterprise. Jimmy doesn’t remember where anything is; that was always Mia or Brayden’s job. And he’s not about to look to Odessa for help—she’s awful with directions.

  There’s a short but sustained push of gunfire, but the sound echoes from either direction and doesn’t help guide them at all. So he just runs, pausing near corners, checking open doors, seriously considering calling out for help but not wanting to draw the wrong kind of attention.

  They turn a corner and see a T junction up ahead. Maybe fifty yards away. And then someone in scrubs like theirs runs by, from the left to the right, disappearing as fast as they materialized.

  Odessa yelps, as much from surprise as fear, and Jimmy doesn’t blame her. He almost did the same.

  “Who was that?”

  “I didn’t see,” he confesses, but he pulls Odessa along after the fleeing figure. That someone was in scrubs, so she or he wasn’t one of Sutton’s men. Good enough for Jimmy.

  They hit the intersection and turn, but after another twenty yards or so there’s already another junction. A maze. Jimmy stops and listens.

  He hears footsteps, clomping fast, up and to the left. But he hears something else too. Very faint, coming from the walls, the floors, everywhere. Creeping into his skin.

  Miaaaaaa. Miaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

  “What the fuck?” Odessa says, squeezing his hand.

  “Come on!”

  They keep running, and Jimmy catches a glimpse of someone up ahead, but then whoever it is takes a turn and is gone. No more footsteps, nothing. There are doors on either side, just like in most of the hallways. He assumes they’re locked. Maybe from the inside.

  “Hey,” he ventures, risking a semiloud voice. “It’s Jimmy and Odessa. We need your help!”

  Nothing.

  “Please—we don’t know where we are.”

  A door on the right pops open, and a woman pokes her head out, looking both ways. Her dark hair is in a frayed bun and her pale skin is somehow paler, like she’s just got out of a frigid lake. It’s Veronica, one of the Westbrook alumni who run the Cave. She always seemed to be Mr. Kish’s number two. She helped Odessa, fed her some of the last of their special life-water. She was poised and calm and sure of herself. But now there’s nothing in her twitchy, red-rimmed eyes that inspires the least bit of confidence.

  “I thought you were them,” she says, and she hops back into the hallway and takes off running. Jimmy and Odessa hurry after her, sprinting through the gray halls. He hears the thunking of footsteps somewhere far away. Jimmy hates not knowing what’s going on.

  And then Veronica stops so quickly that she slides past the door she wants. She enters a code into a keypad and motions them in.

  It’s a control room. Monitors everywhere. On one of them there’s a tank, an actual real-life cannon-wielding tank, aiming at the Cave doors. It’s not firing, though. And there are some soldiers in hazmat suits, but they’re facing the other way, toward the road, where Jimmy can see three sheriff cars have pulled up, men standing behind their doors, talking, waving. The deputy who gave him a ticket for riding his bike on the sidewalk. Prick. Guess the secret’s out. Fenton knows about the quarantine by now. Jimmy’s veins freeze. Maybe it’s spread farther. Maybe his parents are sick.

  “What’s going on?” Jimmy asks. Veronica has tossed herself into a seat and is flipping through channels like his roomie on a rainy day.

  “I’m not sure,” she says. “But it isn’t good.”

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t know anything.”

  She stops at a still image of an open vault, the map shining bright in the center of its domed room. Chuck, the other Westbrook alum, lying on the floor. Veronica curses, but keeps going. “Where are you where are you where are you?”

  Then she pauses again, at a feed from the greenhouses, where Jimmy and the others had snuck in. The back entrance to the Cave. The door’s open. How’d that happen? The greenhouses filled with hybrid creations are a tattered mess of broken glass and steam. Odessa—the botanist—lets out a moan. She, more than he, understands exactly what’s being lost. Veronica keeps flipping, slower now, almost resigned, like she knows what’s coming.

  Maybe she does.

  There’s Sutton and a group of heavily armed men, crouch-running with their rifles up. They must’ve entered the Cave through the back door, even though Mia blew up the Aqueduct to try to stop them. Jimmy tries to imagine a bucket brigade of soldiers in hazmat suits passing rocks down the hill until they’ve cleared enough space to enter the tunnels. On the monitor, they’ve hit the elevator doors to the well. Veronica patches in another monitor, simultaneously showing the cavern where the well is. There’s Mia, Rob, Jo. They’re standing on the catwalk, yelling at one another, their mouths moving even if their voices don’t come through.

  “Run! He’s almost there!” Jimmy shouts at the screen.

  “They can’t hear you,” Veronica says.

  “But can’t you speak to them through the loudspeakers or something? Like you did to us back at the greenhouses?” Odessa asks.

  Veronica flips a switch, but before she gets a chance to speak, Mia jumps. It’s as if the switch was for Mia, as if Veronica just made her do it. Mia dives into the well. Rob and Jo look at each other and then do it too, one after the other, disappearing below the surface. It’s only when the water settles that Jimmy realizes there’s actually water in the well, while before, it was empty, and that whole story Mia’s dad had told them about the water coming every seventeen years was really real. The virus is real, the water is real. Jimmy’s an adult now. Everything’s real.

  “She can’t do that. That’s impossible,” Veronica says, shaking her head at the screen.

  “What just happened?” Odessa murmurs.

  Veronica flips the switch again, turning off the intercom. Just in time, because there’s a flash, blinding the screen, and soon after, Sutton’s there, at the water, with his guys. He makes a motion and they fan out, running to search all the nooks and crannies in the Cave—fat luck there. A number of other soldiers hurry to activate the pumps and suck water into the fifty-five-gallon blue plastic barrels Mr. Kish had set up for storing the water. Sutton bends over and takes a mouthful of the water. Jimmy can see him relax as he sits down and drinks more. He motions to someone. Odessa grabs Jimmy’s arm and squeezes, like they’re watching a thriller, like she can’t bear to see what’s coming next.

  Brayden steps forward. There’s no one else in the room, the other soldiers are out of the frame, searching the small tunnels nearby. Brayden, the new kid Jimmy finally got around to liking. He’s shaking his head, he’s saying no to something.

  “Turn on the sound,” Jimmy says.

  Veronica looks at him, then back at the screen. “Okay, but no talking. They’ll hear us.”

  She flips the switch.

  . . . no way.

  That’s the deal we made.

  It’s so strange hearing their voices in surround sound.

  You want me to jump into the well? Are you insane?

  Sutton draws his gun and holds it out to his side, the threat clear.


  Fine, say I don’t drown. Then what? What am I even looking for?

  Greg always called it the source, so it’s probably a stream or brook or whatever—I don’t know. But I bet you my life your friends are already there. I bet you Greg told them where to go. Find them, they’ll lead you to it.

  But why do you even care? What could be more “special” than this? Brayden kicks the water with his foot.

  Jimmy wonders the same. Why not just be happy with the water? It heals people. What more is Sutton looking for?

  You think I wanted all this death, you think I wanted to create the virus? Not at all. I saw a way to take the water to the next level, to make it do more than just heal an injury or the flu. I wanted it to keep on healing, to make the body immune to everything.

  You mean make you immortal?

  Of course, immortal. The virus is just the other side of the coin. It is death, and I want to find life. If the crap that Greg’s been babbling about for years turns out to be true and there really is something down there, something I can use to make the water make me. . . Just find Kish’s daughter and tag along with them. Got it?

  Watching, Jimmy feels a rage building inside him that’s hard to fathom. He’s felt something like this at football games, before storming the field or after taking a big hit. He’s felt it the one time he got in a fight, when he almost killed Trent Bishop for calling him a townie. He feels it building from his gut and pushing through his skin, making his gum up and his ears burn. And when Brayden speaks next, it’s just too much for him.

  Okay, whatever. Just . . . just this is it. After this, I’m done.

  “Brayden!” Jimmy screams, his voice a roar, something unfamiliar and animal, his aged vocal cords tearing up his throat. On the screen, the two figures freeze, then look around. Sutton picks up his gun and aims it at the elevator.

  “Brayden, you fucking traitor. I’m going to rip your face off. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?” He’s screaming so hard he’s spitting. Veronica slams down the switch and pushes Jimmy back against the wall. For an instant, she’s about to get punched. But then Odessa’s there, calming him down, taking his arm. He breathes, big gulps of air, so angry he’s blind. So angry he hurts.

  “You idiot!” Veronica says. No need to explain why. On the screen, Brayden disappears into the water. And Sutton’s men return. He points at the camera, right at them, and then his men rush offscreen.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Jimmy says.

  “Yeah,” Veronica replies. “We heard.”

  “Hey, it’s not his fault,” Odessa chimes in. She looks at Jimmy, her forehead wrinkled in concern. “That guy was our friend.”

  “No one’s your friend,” Veronica says. She takes a deep breath. “Okay, the front is guarded by a tank, but the back looks clear for now. You need to get out of here. Get to safety.”

  Jimmy shakes his head. “I’m not leaving them.”

  Veronica points at the screen. “Do you see that guy? He created a virus. You think he’d suffer any compunction about shooting you in the head?”

  “Jimmy,” Odessa says quietly, “maybe she’s right. If we can get out of here, we can help people. We can save our families. My little sister. She doesn’t know anything about anything. We can’t let her die.”

  Jimmy thinks about it. “But if we don’t stop Sutton from taking over this place, then we’re no good to anyone. Not our family, not our friends.” He turns to Veronica. “You don’t have any guns, do you?”

  She shakes her head. “Just lots of syringes.”

  “Do you have anything? Anything that can stop them?”

  “You really should go. With these cameras, I can guide you safely out of here. Listen to Odessa.”

  Jimmy’s face is set in stone. “I did. I’m sorry, Dess, but this comes first. We need the water to help people, which means we need to stop Sutton.” He turns back to Veronica. “Now, again, think, what can we use? What do you have?”

  Veronica takes a deep breath and seems to steel herself. Suddenly she looks more like the woman they saw yesterday, the one who could handle herself. Handle anything.

  She takes a walkie-talkie off a wall charger and hands it to Jimmy. “Okay, you two—go. Sutton knows this place, he heard you, so he’ll come here first. That should take another two or three minutes. Enough time to get moving.”

  “But where are we going? What’s the plan?” Odessa says.

  “You asked what we have if not guns,” Veronica says, opening the door for them and motioning them out. Odessa moves reluctantly, not sure she’s ready to leave the relative safety of the room. “You asked me to think?”

  “Yeah . . .” Jimmy replies, wary.

  “I’ll tell you what we have. We have monkeys.”

  4

  THE GATES ARE SO LARGE THAT IT TAKES A GOOD TEN minutes of walking to get past their wide arms. The trees behind us have faded away into a soft glow, but there’s another light coming up ahead, down a slope. The moss has given way to a road, paved in flat smooth stones, black and white at regular intervals, like a flowing chessboard.

  Below us, spread out in stunning beauty, a city opens like a sunrise. Tall buildings, towers and spheres and geometrically pleasing triangles jut high into view, filling the air with spires. I can make out balconies, large windows, rooftop terraces with gardens and trees. Big and small birds fly across the streets, their wings shimmering softly. It seems as if every inch of space has been accounted for, jammed together. The city’s bursting at the seams. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

  “This is incredible,” I say, unable to help myself.

  “This is Capian, my home. Your cities are like this, yes?” Straoc asks.

  “New York, maybe,” Rob says. “But not really. Nothing like this.”

  “Not many of us venture to the gates, as they are usually closed,” Straoc says, taking it all in. “Not many of us ever see how beautiful it is from this same perspective, how perfect.” He pauses, takes a breath. “But soon that will change.”

  I think of the lake behind us, the portal back to the Cave. It sounds to me like Straoc’s planning on bringing up some friends soon. Not sure that’s a good thing.

  “How many people live here?” Jo asks, rubbing at her wrists. The rope’s burning my skin too.

  “Several tens of thousands,” Straoc replies, pride in his voice.

  “What’s that?” Rob says, pointing with his bound hands beyond the city. Capian sits in more of a bowl than a valley, a crater almost, with the massive wall snug against the surrounding hill, like a crown. It’s divided in half by a wide boulevard, the only open space in the entire city. At the far end of the boulevard, above the city, is a mountain, lit brightly by the shine of the buildings below. It shoots straight up, as steep as one of the towers, but is jagged and glistening, shimmering in the light.

  Straoc grunts. “That is the source, young Rob. You will not be going there. Only the Three can enter.” He tugs the rope, and we start to descend toward the city, down stairs built into the rock. I’m buzzing off of what he just said, about a source. There is somewhere special here, somewhere the water originates. Dad will have figured that out before he came. I’m sure that’s why he’s here. He wants whatever the source is.

  I’m so distracted I almost trip, taking the others with me. We move slowly, and far below us I can make out the shapes of the Keepers who captured us, just arriving into the city streets.

  “But who are the Three and why do they get to go?” Rob presses.

  “The Three are the oldest of us, our forefathers. Who were granted the source and who guide us. They are the true Keepers.”

  Suddenly this place makes more sense to me. These people are guardians of the water. Maybe that’s why we’re tied up; we were breaking and entering. Considering that Dad is probably here to steal some of whatever the source is, th
ey’re not exactly out of order.

  “So where did they take Mr. Kish?” Rob asks.

  “Mr. Kish?”

  “My dad,” I clarify.

  “Your father, he was taken to the Lock. We do not have many problems here, nor many places to put those problems. The Lock is where they go.”

  “Why aren’t we going with him?” I say, helplessness beginning to overwhelm me. “Why can’t I see my dad?”

  “You will, I am sure,” Straoc assures us. “But Keeper Randt asks to see you first. He asked to see your father first too, but I did not get to him in time. Keeper Arcos and Keeper Randt have been at odds for some time now; it is deliberate that they rushed to find him. You will see him later.”

  “Wait, how did you know we were here?” Jo asks.

  “Keeper Randt could see you, the water showed him.” Straoc replies, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “What do you mean?” I say. Suddenly I’m hyperaware of my wet hair. How can the water spy on us? What’s going on?

  “You are not of the Three, so you cannot fully understand. But those granted the source can see through the water. They can do many things.” Straoc makes an impatient noise. “It matters none for now. Randt will explain and we must hurry to him.”

  “So we’re following you while Dad’s stuck in a holding cell?” I ask. The stairs are starting to tire me out. They’re steep enough to give me vertigo if I look straight down, so I stare at the city. It’s distracting enough, anyway. Like walking into a dream. Or falling down the rabbit hole.

  “Why should we follow you? Why should we do anything?” Jo asks, pausing on the stairs, looking defiant. Her mouth is set in a thin line and my heart leaps in pride just seeing that. Ever since her dad died of rapid aging caused by the virus, I’ve felt like Jo’s needed me to prop her up. She’s shown flashes, but rarely her real self, and it’s almost like this place is dragging her back, forcing her to deal with reality. To be the alpha chick I’ve always looked up to. “You stared down those other guys. Why not just let us go, then? If you want to help us so much, take us back home.”