Beyond These Walls (Book 6): Three Days

by Robertson, Michael

  Cyrus screamed.

  Artan yelled.

  William covered his head with his hands.

  Chapter 9

  Olga dropped to one knee on the hard steel. The shock of the contact sent a spasm up the front of her thigh that culminated in a tight clench in her groin. While biting down hard, she turned around and grabbed Carl’s wayward knife, feeling for it with her hands. On her first attempt, she batted the handle, sending the long blade spinning. It nicked her finger with a sharp sting, but it halted the blade’s rotation.

  The two men continued fighting. Peter mounted Carl. He might have been the smaller of the two, but the slippery rat moved as if oiled up. He punched down, slamming his fist into Carl’s fat nose. His cat’s eyes glazed with rage as he fixed on Olga before he punched down again. She’d be next.

  Olga found the long blade’s handle and pulled it into her bound grip. Her legs shook with the effort of standing without the use of her hands.

  Any plans Peter had of following them got derailed when Carl swung for him. His large fist connected with Peter’s left ear, knocking him from his perch, slamming him into the hard steel. Carl rolled with him, clambered on top, and pinned him.

  “You ready?” Olga said, holding the knife behind her like a tail. The slightest flicker of doubt shimmered across Matilda’s face. Give her too much time to think and she’d stay. Olga took off. They wouldn’t get a better chance than this.

  Olga moved like a flightless bird, the uneven surface threatening to trip her every step. If she went down, she’d end up chewing the hard steel and probably lose her teeth in the process. She shook the thought away. They had to get free from Carl and Peter.

  Matilda yelled. Olga halted and turned as her friend lived out her fear. She tripped, twisted in mid-air, and hit the hard steel shoulder first. She skidded, heading straight for—

  “Oh, shit!” A trigger like the one that set off the trap with the girl in. A square in the ground, the thin line almost impossible to see. Somehow Olga had missed it. Matilda headed straight for it.

  While turning the blade so the tip pointed to the back of her head, Olga charged at her friend, running up the steep side of the funnel on her right. She aimed for Matilda with a two-footed slide, and hit her in the back, changing both of their courses so they missed the button, halting as they collided with the other steep side of the funnel.

  Gasping for breath, her face puce, Matilda kicked Olga away from her. “What the hell?”

  Having managed to remain on her side the entire time, Olga rolled over onto her front so she didn’t stab herself with the knife. She lifted her bottom in the air and brought her knees into her chest before she stood up, teetering on the edge of her balance.

  On her feet too, Matilda said, “Well?”

  “See that there?” Olga flicked her head in the direction of the button.

  Matilda’s red face lost its colour, her tanned skin turning sheet white. “Another trap?”

  Olga shrugged.

  “T-thank you.”

  “You fall, I fall. We’re in this together, okay?”

  Matilda nodded.

  The men continued fighting where they’d left them. “Now let’s get moving,” Olga said. Aching more than before, she led them away again, her hip now bruised and stinging with the graze she’d torn into it.

  The funnel took them on a steep incline, which set fire to Olga’s leg muscles. She halted at the top, the wind so strong it threatened to throw her back down again. The air left her lungs in a gasp. “Wow!” She shook her head as Matilda joined her.

  “What is this place?” Matilda said.

  “South of the wall,” Olga said.

  Matilda fought for breath. “South of a wall.”

  Similar meadows to those in the north stretched away from them. The landscape barren like many spots they’d seen before. But on this side, giant rocks of steel were scattered through the grass. Failed projects, or maybe excess material used for building the wall. Like the ruins in the north, nature took a slow and inevitable possession of the scenery, moss and rust growing on the large chunks. They were much more resilient than the buildings in the north.

  The sun found a gap in the clouds, lighting up the path before them. The funnel showed the way off this wall, the path dropping to the ground at a hazardous gradient.

  “I’m inclined to turn back to see if we can find the boys.”

  “Me too,” Olga said. “But—”

  “Carl and Peter.”

  “Right. We need to lose them first. Here, let me cut you—” A roar from behind. Peter had broken free and had reached the bottom of the incline. He stared up at the two girls. Olga froze.

  Carl appeared a second later, tackling Peter to the ground, slamming down on top of him.

  “Follow me.” Olga took off down the slope towards the meadow, her heart in her throat, her legs moving faster than she could control.

  The slam of Matilda’s feet behind her, she panted for breath. “We need to find somewhere to hide.”

  Olga gripped the knife at her back, the buzz of rope burns wrapping her wrists. Unable to control her speed, she watched her steps, a millisecond to pick each one before she committed.

  Matilda tripped again, hit the ground with an, “Ooomph,” slid along the steel, and cleaned out Olga’s legs.

  Olga spun in mid-air to keep the knife away from her friend. She landed on her front, her chest taking the impact of her fall. A nauseating clench gripped her stomach. As she yelled, she lost her grip on Carl’s knife, the weapon sliding with the two girls, all three of them racing down the rough chute.

  The knife flew farther than Olga, embedding in the ground tip first. The soft meadow cushioned her fall, but Matilda clattered into her for a second time.

  A shrill cry snapped Olga rigid and drove the pain from her body. The ground damp beneath her turned her trousers sodden when she got up onto one knee to stand. She turned to retrieve the knife. For what good it would do. Not much use if she couldn’t get her hands free.

  Men and women, six of them. They lacked the atrophied limbs and rotting wounds they’d become accustomed to when encountering the diseased in the wild.

  “They look like the ones from Edin,” Matilda said.

  Olga’s pulse rocked her body. “Like they’ve only just turned. But they haven’t seen us yet.”

  “Yet.” Matilda bounced on the spot, widened her stance and bent her knees.

  “We can’t fight them with our hands tied,” Olga said. “Turn around.”

  The creatures no more than twenty feet away, Olga spoke from the side of her mouth, keeping her voice low. “Turn around now.” She spun the blade in her grip and pointed the knife out behind her. “Cut your ropes on this.”

  “But—”

  One of the diseased halted. The canted silhouette stood to attention. They’d seen them. “Do it now!” Olga said.

  The knife wobbled in Olga’s hands as Matilda rubbed her ropes on the blade.

  The diseased charged.

  Olga gripped the wooden handle tighter.

  Ten feet away. Wild limbs. Bleeding eyes. Snapping jaws.

  Matilda broke free, took the knife, and spun on the charging diseased. She kicked out first, sending the front runner backwards. She slammed the long blade into the face of the next woman, stumbling back a step from the creature’s momentum.

  Olga kicked out at the next man and nearly lost her balance. Like a matador avoiding a bull, she jumped aside when he charged her for a second time. Matilda drove the knife into the back of the diseased man’s head. The blade burst through his right eye, spraying rancid blood away from his face.

  Matilda dropped down and swiped the legs of another woman. Olga ran to the woman, her jaw clenched as she stamped on the back of her head. The snarling, hissing bitch snapped and threw her arms in the air. She looked like an angry octopus, but she couldn’t get up because of Olga’s repeated attacks.

  The diseased’s head mashed into a b
loody pulp, but the fight hadn’t left her. Matilda stabbed her in the side of her head. She’d already taken out all the others. She cut Olga free.

  Another scream. The chorus louder than before. “Shall we stay and fight?” Olga said.

  Matilda panted and shook her head. “Why risk it? We don’t have enough weapons.”

  “There.” Olga pointed at a hole in the side of the sheer wall they’d just left. A cave ten feet from the ground. “Let’s go in there.”

  “And what if Peter and Carl come?”

  “We’re armed and our hands are free.” Close to twenty diseased came into view from behind a large steel rock. “I’d rather take my chances with two old men than that lot.”

  When they reached the wall, the diseased closing in, Olga boosted Matilda so she could grab the ledge.

  Matilda disappeared into the hole, turned around and reached down.

  A two-step run-up, Olga kicked off the brushed steel and caught her friend’s hands. Matilda dragged her into the safety of their little cave.

  The small space no more than ten feet square and dark, it threw the girls’ pants back at them as if mocking their exhaustion.

  “I’m sorry I made a break for it without consulting you,” Olga said.

  Matilda swallowed. Olga’s throat ached with dehydration too. “It’s okay. It was the correct choice. They gave me such a beating the last time, it made me too cautious. Too scared. Thank you for taking the initiative.”

  “I won’t let them beat you like that again. It was my fault you took a kicking.”

  “You were just trying to save us.”

  “Still. I’m sorry.” While twirling the knife in her hands, Olga said, “the second I see Peter or Carl, I’m going to cut them open.”

  Matilda smiled and closed her eyes as she leaned her head back against the wall. “I’d like to see that.”

  Chapter 10

  But the cage didn’t tilt and the glass didn’t fall. William remained cowering in the shadow of the bucket of sharp death about to rain down on them. He finally said, “It’s stuck.”

  The others all unfurled, Cyrus’ panting on the verge of a panic attack.

  “My god,” Artan said, “I thought we were done for there.”

  The brackets along the base of the large basket groaned. Cyrus’ scream bounced off the close walls of the cramped pit. “W-w-we might be if we don’t get out of here soon.”

  Max’s mood, although dark since they’d left Umbriel, had lightened a little when they were crossing the wall. Wrinkles now dominated his dirt-streaked brow as he turned on Cyrus. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t triggered the trap.”

  Artan moved across in front of Cyrus, easing Max back a step. Matilda’s brother might have been the youngest, but his wide frame and cardio would be a match for any of them. “That’s not going to help. We should focus on what’s going to get us out of here.”

  Another groan of rusted metal hinges and the basket shifted again. It lurched forward, a large shard about four feet long snapping in half, the top of it spinning as it fell.

  Cyrus stood directly in its path. He screamed again and froze. William crashed into the boy, driving the wind from his body as he slammed both of them against the steel wall. The shard dragged a line of wind down his back from where it narrowly missed, splashing as it hit the metal ground.

  Max remained fixed on Cyrus, shaking his head and rubbing his shins. His hands came back with blood on them from where the shattering glass had cut him. “That thing isn’t going to hold indefinitely. We need a way out. And fast.”

  But the walls of the pit were as sheer as any William had seen. “The closest exit is that chute.” A thin metal bar hung down across the chute’s exit, which stood about twenty feet above them. “That bar must have been what triggered the basket to tilt. Maybe we didn’t hit it hard enough.”

  “We hit the wall hard enough,” Artan said. “Trust me. And then you lot hit me hard enough.”

  “I can climb back up the chute,” Cyrus said.

  Max looked the quivering boy up and down. “When you’ve finished shitting yourself, you mean?”

  “I can do it.”

  “But how will you get up there?” Artan said.

  “If we can stand on each other’s shoulders, the biggest at the bottom—”

  “Thanks,” William said.

  “We can make a ladder for me to climb.”

  “Convenient that it’s you climbing up and the rest of us staying down here.” Max threw his arms up in a shrug. “What if you trigger the trap?”

  The tight walls of their pit amplified Cyrus’ whining tone. “I can’t hold any of you up. Believe me, I wish I were stronger.”

  William said, “It could work. So what will you do when you get up there?”

  “I’ll get above the basket and empty it. When I’ve done that, we can tie all our shirts and trousers together and attach them to the cage so you have a way to climb out.”

  Artan scratched his head. “I can’t think of a better plan. And any of us could have triggered that trap.”

  “But we didn’t, did we?”

  “Get over it, Max.”

  While shaking his head, Max took off his shirt and handed it to Cyrus. A moment’s pause, he then removed his trousers.

  The other boys did the same. They tied their clothes together before wrapping them around Cyrus.

  The steel radiated cold, which pressed against William’s now semi-naked form. His jaw ached as he clenched it in a futile attempt to control his shivers. As the tallest, William took the lead, widening his stance and pressing his hands against the frigid steel. He dropped his head to allow Artan to climb up his back.

  His legs shaking from the weight of Matilda’s brother standing on his shoulders, William grunted when Max climbed up him too. The grit on their boot soles and the small particles of glass from the pit’s floor cut into his skin.

  By the time Max got into place, sweat stood out on William’s brow and ran into his eyes. His teeth in a tight clench, he said, “Hurry it up, Cyrus.”

  Cyrus stepped on William’s calf first. It drove a rod of fire through his standing leg. His voice echoed in the pit. “What the hell?” But Cyrus had already climbed him and moved on to Artan.

  William let out a hard sigh when Max finally jumped down. Artan hopped off next, and William stood up, stretching the aches from his back and sides.

  While wiping the glass dust from his shoulders with light brushes so he didn’t tear his hands in the process, William said, “At least he was quick. The only person I know who can climb that fast is …” The word caught on a lump in his throat.

  Artan patted William’s shoulder. “We will find her, I promise.” And then to the frowning Max, “And Olga. We’ll find Olga too.”

  “It’s a long way to fall.” Cyrus peered down on them from above the cage. Before anyone could tell him to hurry up—William, Max, and Artan standing in their underwear—he got to work. He pinched the next largest shard of glass—a piece about three feet long—and tossed it away from him with the shattering splash of the breaking pane.

  The boy moved fast, removing shard after shard, the loud crashes a signal to anyone nearby. And William nearly told him to keep it down. But what did it matter? They needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.

  “Yargh!” Cyrus yelled, reaching for the cage, but grabbing air from where it had shifted.

  William’s stomach turned a backflip. Still half-filled with glass, the large metal basket leaned towards them, the shards shifting inside.

  But Cyrus caught it on his second attempt, the momentum of the cage dragging him forwards. He stopped on the edge of his balance. His face locked in a grimace, his eyes wide, he stood on his tiptoes and clung on with his fingertips. He slowly pulled the cage back, the rusted hinges groaning in protest. The cage came farther than before, slamming home with a splash!

  Max spoke from the side of his mouth. “He could have pulled it t
owards him in the first place.”

  “He’s doing his best,” Artan said.

  “I never said he wasn’t. That’s the problem.”

  The rest of the large cage now emptied, Cyrus gave the boys a thumbs up. “I’m going to send the rope down.”

  “Thanks for the commentary,” Max said.

  The bundle of clothes now in the basket, Cyrus tied one end to the edge before shouting, “Timber!” He pushed the bucket, the large brackets creaking with the movement before the container tipped, slamming down against the sheer steel wall with a sharp crash!

  A spinning ball of fabric, the clothes unfurled, rolling out as the rope they were intended to be.

  “It’s too short,” Max said, jumping up and missing it by several feet.

  “Get on my shoulders.” William leaned against the wall for a second time, Max climbing up his back until he stood on him like a ladder. His weight lifted when he caught the bottom of the rope.

  “You next,” William said to Artan.

  “What about you?”

  “Let’s get you out first. I’ll find a way. Or you can find a way for me.”

  Three of the four of them had made it out and stood around the hole, dressed in only their boxer shorts, socks, and boots. They peered down on William.

  “What about that pole?” William said. The pole designed to trigger the trap might have only covered a third of the chute’s exit, but most of it had been attached to the wall above. “Can you tie it to the clothes to give us an extra five or six feet?”

  Artan reached down for the large metal rod. He grunted as he wiggled it, but it didn’t budge. Another tug and he got a small amount of play on it. When he pulled it one last time, the bar made a deep creak and came away from the wall, twanging as it shook from the release. While holding Max’s hand to anchor himself, Artan leaned out and pulled the large metal basket back towards him, slamming it home with a loud crash!

  The clothes rope, now weighted with metal, fell hard, the pole hurtling down. Fortunately they’d had the good sense to tie the pole in the middle of the rope so it didn’t hit William. The bottom of the final pair of trousers—Artan’s trousers—hung just one foot above him. William retrieved Ranger’s sword, Jezebel, and Artan’s war hammer. He tied the three weapons together, his voice echoing in the tight space. “Take these up first. We can’t leave them here.”