by Ike Hamill
“Focus on your job,” Ryan said.
Caleb nodded.
# # # # #
“It’s fine,” Caleb said. “I can do it.”
He had the light end of the load, but it still felt like his fingers were being torn from his hand.
“I wish you’d let me put one more wrap on that hand,” Brook said. “It’s time for another treatment.”
“You’ve already spent two year’s worth of health rations on it,” Caleb said. “The body can heal on its own you know.”
“Not if you keep injuring it,” Amelia said.
“Can we go?” Niren asked. He looked as uncomfortable as Caleb felt.
It took all four of them to lift the platform, and they had to carry it all the way to the street on their own. They had an hour to move everything nearly four kilometers without being seen. Their hearts were racing from more than the exertion.
They had to take shuffling steps as they hefted the load. They had to squat down to get the thing through doorways, and maintain it as level as possible as they climbed the stairs. By the time they set the platform down on the trailer, they were all sweating. Brook and Niren took the harnesses to begin pulling. Amelia pushed from behind. Caleb added very little with his one good hand. He held his other hand away from himself as he endured the pain and regretted not taking the treatment.
“What if someone sees us?” Niren asked.
“They won’t know what they’re looking at,” Brook said.
“Our whole route is supposed to be clear for the hour,” Caleb said. “I trust that Ryan has taken care of it.”
“I hope so,” Amelia said. “We’ve been sequestered for weeks. I’d hate to have all that careful effort wasted by someone looking through their window.”
“Well, maybe if we shut up, they won’t look,” Brook said.
They all stayed quiet after that.
The streets were normally quiet during the night. People stayed indoors from the three horns in the evening until the morning klaxon. The town had a self-imposed curfew for anyone who didn’t want to draw the attention of the Hunters. During the day, the monsters seemed content to orbit the bonfires. As soon as the sun went down, the Hunters tended to roam.
They had all heard stories of a person caught out after dark. They might mistake the first click for a twig snapped by a nocturnal animal. Before they knew it, the person would be running for their lives. The only thing left by the morning would be hair and fingernails. The Hunters took everything else. They dismantled a person, cell by cell. All of their flesh would be taken apart and dispersed to the wind. Aside from the hair and fingernails, not a single drop of blood would be left as evidence unless the person cut themselves trying to run away.
Caleb ran ahead to make sure they had a clear path. When he came back, he directed them to push the trailer off the road and onto a dirt trail that cut across an overgrown lawn.
“There are steps that way. It will be easier if we go this way,” he whispered.
They were outside of their normal territory. Even though they were in the area designated as safe, Brook couldn’t help but glance suspiciously at their unfamiliar surroundings.
“Building Three,” Caleb said. “I think our entrance is around back.”
“Think?” Brook asked.
“I couldn’t exactly scout it out,” he said. “There were people around.”
He had to join in the pushing as they maneuvered the trailer up a slight hill. As long as they kept the tongue up, the trailer kept decent momentum. The hill took a lot of extra effort. They crested it and then had to brace themselves from being overrun by the load as they worked downhill.
Under the thick blanket, the thing clicked.
Niren stopped and was almost knocked over by his harness. He got his feet moving again and caught himself before he fell.
“I thought it was supposed to be in stasis,” he said.
“It is, unless one of the devices got jostled out of place,” Caleb said.
“Or maybe we tipped it beyond the safe angle,” Brook said.
It clicked again.
“It’s okay,” Amelia said. “Right? We’re on the edge of the safe harbor. Even if it calls, nothing will answer it in here.”
They heard another click from off to the west.
Caleb stopped and stared in that direction. He tried to remember how far the zone extended from where they were standing. The area wasn’t large, but he was pretty sure that Amelia was right—they were safe.
Under the blanket, the thing answered with its own click.
“Come on. We have to go faster,” Niren said. He strained against his harness. Brook did the same and Amelia put her shoulder against the back of the thing. They got it rolling fast towards the rear entrance.
The trailer dragged to a stop at the wall of the building.
The thing under the blanket clicked again. The four didn’t pause. They hurried to untie the straps.
“Get the doors,” Caleb said.
Niren went to them and then stopped. “We can’t go in there. There’s a Q-battery breach seal on there. We won’t last twenty minutes.”
“It’s fake. Trust me,” Caleb said.
Niren ran his hands over the seal. From the time they were kids, the importance of a Q-battery breach had been imparted to them. He would sooner drink poison than go into a room with a breach.
Caleb reached past him and tugged open the door. The seal pulled away with the door. It stayed perfectly intact as it separated easily from the frame. Caleb swung it all the way and then propped it open with a rock.
“Quickly,” Caleb said.
They moved to their positions. It seemed even heavier now, like it had gained mass during the trip. The thing under the blanket clicked one more time as they shuffled through the door. Brook cocked her head but didn’t hear any response. Just inside the door, they set the platform down on the floor in the rectangle of starlight that leaked through.
Caleb pointed to Niren and Brook, “You guys ditch the trailer. We’ll get things set up here. When you come back, don’t come to the door until you’re sure that nobody is looking. Our hour is almost up.”
Brook nodded. She tugged at Niren’s sleeve as he stood looking at the contraption they had hauled across town. Niren nodded and the two of them left.
The door groaned as it closed. The light was squeezed down to nothing as the door snicked shut. Around them, dim lights flickered to life a second later. Amelia blinked at Caleb. He moved to the wall and felt for a switch. He gave her a quick smile when the overhead lights came on and they could see again.
“What was this place?” she asked. They were in a small concrete room with a stair case. The flight leading up was blocked off with plywood and scraps of metal. She moved to the doorway that led to the rest of their area. Caleb reached past her and found that light switch. The walls were damp concrete, but it looked reasonably clean. Overhead, a few strings of hanging lights lit up every corner of the space.
Caleb found a pallet jack and maneuvered it one handed to their platform.
“Can you lift that corner so I can get this underneath?” he asked.
She did. Amelia didn’t bother to ask her question again.
The load jostled as Caleb lifted it. Both of them had to tug on the handle to get the thing moving. They wheeled it to the center of the room.
“Are you sure it will be safe down here?” she asked.
“Nobody is going to come past that seal unless they see us do it. We’ll have to find a better way to get in and out of the place. As long as we do that, we’ll be fine.”
Amelia nodded. It made sense. When she had grown up, nothing was more frightening than a Q-bat breach seal. Nobody in their right mind would consider breaking one.
She spun around when the door opened again. Brook and Niren came through quickly and slowed down as they assessed the room.
“There’s another door to the side, but it’s locked. If we can get it open, we
can sneak from the woods to that door pretty easily,” Brook said.
“Where’s the trailer?” Caleb asked.
“We put it down the road in one of the driveways,” Niren said.
Caleb nodded. “We’ll have to move it somewhere farther away, but I guess that’s good enough for now. Let’s get this thing set up and stabilized.”
Chapter 18
{Interruption}
ELIJAH’S EYES MOVED AROUND the empty room.
“I don’t get it,” Jacob said. “This is definitely where they were working.” He pushed one of the chairs to the side and bent to pick up a piece of paper. It had an old advertisement on one side and some scribbled equation on the other.
“Looks like they moved on,” Elijah said. He moved to the marker board and rotated it. The thing was about a meter high and two meters wide. The surface had been wiped clean. Elijah moved his face closer to the board and exhaled through his mouth. He backed away quickly and they both saw a ghost-image of the writing there. Tangled pen strokes showed them overlapping equations that had been scrawled and erased overtop each other.
“Lots of math going on here,” Elijah said. “What were they working on?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Jacob said. “They were awful secretive about it. They interviewed me all about what we did back in Oslo. Seemed like they were trying to come up with a way to communicate synchronously through the ether.”
“Impossible,” Elijah said. He laughed. “So why not take your images to Caleb’s boss. Doesn’t he work for that Ryan guy?”
Jacob nodded. “I guess. I don’t know though. I trust Caleb and Brook. I don’t know that I would trust Ryan.”
Elijah nodded. “Then let’s track them down.”
“Yeah. Okay. You know someone who would know where they went?” Jacob asked.
Elijah smiled. “No, I mean literally. Track them down. The problem with working in dirty old buildings is the dirt.”
Elijah moved to the doorway and knelt near the entrance to the room. He looked down the hall one way and then the other. He hunched over and studied the floor as he walked. Jacob followed close behind him, but couldn’t tell exactly what Elijah was looking at. Every now and then Elijah would point to a spot on the floor, or a scuff on the wall. The marks didn’t mean anything to Jacob, but Elijah studied them like he was reading a book. He stopped in front of one of the other doorways and then pushed open a creaky old door.
The light from the hall barely penetrated the corners.
“Someone did a lot of work in here. See all the marks on the floor from the chairs? See all the scuffs on those tables? They moved their equipment.”
Jacob followed Elijah again as they moved to the stairway. In the basement of the old building, Elijah had to pull out a flashlight to continue his investigation.
“They ran cables down the stairs to this room—heavy ones. There’s not going to be anything down here either though.”
“Why do you say that?” Jacob asked.
Elijah pointed to more marks on the floor. “See these prints? These weird, shuffling, sideways prints? They carried something awkward and heavy out of here. I’m guessing this is the last place they worked before they took off.”
Even with that declaration, Elijah examined the basement room to be sure. He nodded as he pointed out even more clues to Jacob. He took them through the room and then went back to the hall to follow the shuffling steps. Their prey had used the other stairs to leave with the load. Even Jacob could spot the signs in the dust.
Out on the street, Elijah considered the evidence in the grass. Their trail ended at the pavement.
“If they stuck to the road, we’re not going to be able to follow them,” Jacob said. “We don’t even know what direction they went.”
Elijah shrugged. “Why did they go to the road?”
Jacob considered the question for a minute. “I suppose because it’s easier to travel.”
“Easier, but more obvious. You said they were very secretive. They could have been working over in the elementary school with the rest of the engineers—more equipment to share and more people to bounce ideas off of—but they were working out here in isolation. It stands to reason that they didn’t want anyone to spot them when they moved their experiment, so why take the road when they could have gone out the back and moved through the brush?”
“They would have left a trail in the brush,” Jacob said. “But then again, they don’t seem like they really paid attention to hiding their tracks. They could have run a broom through those halls and you would have never been able to figure out as much as you did.”
Elijah nodded.
Jacob snapped his fingers.
“They must have had a vehicle or at least a cart,” Jacob said. “They needed the pavement.”
“Which way?” Elijah asked.
Jacob looked up and down the road. “Probably north, away from most of the population, right?”
“That would be my guess,” Elijah agreed.
# # # # #
“Elijah!” Jacob called. He was standing over at the side of the cracked pavement.
Elijah trotted over to see. Jacob pointed.
“Good catch,” Elijah said.
The gravel had been perturbed in two parallel lines. They were wide enough to be tire tracks.
“A vehicle,” Jacob said.
“More likely a cart. See the scuffs in the middle? Looks like someone was pulling.”
Jacob nodded.
“Hi there!” a voice called.
The two men looked up and saw a man approaching from the west.
“Ryan,” Elijah whispered to Jacob. He called to the other man. “Hello.”
“I’ve been looking for you two,” Ryan said. “My name is Ryan. I work for Cleo, organizing some of the safe harbor construction.”
Elijah nearly laughed that the man was introducing himself.
“Hi, Ryan. I’m Elijah and this is Jacob. You’ve been looking for us?”
“Yes. Well, looking for your famous friend, I should say.”
Elijah raised his eyebrows. Jacob looked back and forth between the two men.
“Who’s that?”
“Madelyn Clarke? The woman of video diary fame?” Ryan asked. “My wife and I were hooked on her autobiography when she was posting that. You probably hear that a dozen times a week, I’m sure.”
“Actually, people have stopped talking about it,” Jacob said.
“Not at my house,” Ryan said with a smile. “I heard that she didn’t come back from harvesting yesterday. I wanted to see if you were forming a search party. We’re waiting on some materials at the moment and I think I could find a couple of people to spare if you need help.”
“That’s very generous, but fortunately it’s unnecessary.”
“Oh?” Ryan asked.
“She got back last night,” Jacob said. “Logan too.”
Ryan put his hand to his chest. “That’s great news. Any chance you could take me to see her?”
Jacob and Elijah looked at each other.
Elijah smiled. “Of course. Absolutely. She was asleep when we left, but I’m sure she’s up by now.” Elijah began to walk by Ryan. He put his hand on the man’s shoulder and turned him south, in the direction of his neighborhood. “We were just heading back that way. Do you know where the Rock Garden Estates starts?”
“Yes, I think so,” Ryan said. He allowed Elijah to point him in that direction and fell in beside him. “I hope I’m not interrupting what you were doing.”
“Not at all,” Elijah said. He glanced at Jacob and the young man seemed to get the message. “Like I said, we were just heading that way to check on her ourselves. She had a rough night out in the woods. When she came back, she was exhausted. I wouldn’t be surprised if she sleeps extra for a week. You know, she wasn’t even supposed to go out on that harvest. She was going to switch to gardening, but at the last minute they asked her to fill in.”
“She’s a
brave woman to even take that on,” Ryan said. “Most of the harvesters are half her age.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Elijah said. “She’ll take it as a dare and be right back out there.”
They all laughed.
Chapter 19
{Discussion}
HARPER LOOKED UP FROM her book when Madelyn emerged from the bedroom.
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be building a bonfire somewhere?” Madelyn asked.
“I have the day off,” Harper said. “We’re between piles. Not much to do until the changeover.”
“You’re here to keep watch over me. That’s sweet, but unnecessary. As long as there are no more killer dolls in the house, I’ll be fine. Where are the boys?”
“They went out to share those images we pulled from Malty’s memory. When we showed Elijah that machine from Malty’s recording, he was just as intrigued as we were.”
Madelyn sat on the edge of a chair.
“It screws into the floor,” Madelyn said. “The base of the thing. I figured it out when I was drifting off to sleep. I saw the holes in the floor of that apartment.”
Harper looked up and thought about that. “Like a mount for a sniper rifle?”
Madelyn nodded.
They sat in silence for a second.
Madelyn leaned forward, like she wanted to share a secret. “I know you were debriefed or whatever, but you and I never really talked about what you saw up there on the mountain—on the east side of Coffin Lake.”
Harper lowered her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “That was a dark time. I don’t really like to think about it.”
Madelyn let that sit for a second.
“I saw ghosts,” Madelyn said. “A lot of them. The loudest ones were the ones who wanted to accuse me of doing them wrong. My father and my old boyfriend, David, had quite a bit to say.”
