Beyond These Walls (Book 6): Three Days
Page 19
The woman screamed and the cupboard creaked before collapsing, dropping her into the creatures’ waiting grasp. Maybe the cupboards weren’t as resilient as they looked.
A long and thin window along the top of each wall. It had been out of their reach, which hadn’t been a problem until now. But maybe it would be the only way out of there.
“Max,” Cyrus called, “help me.”
Max shoved and barged his way over to the cupboard Cyrus lay on, attacking the diseased closest to it, stemming the flow as they tried to tear down the wooden shelves. “Pull back as much as you can.”
Cyrus tucked into a ball, and the diseased stopped attacking.
“That’s it,” Max said. “They can’t see you now.”
His own cupboard shaking and rocking, the metal clip attaching it to the wall squeaking as if it could be persuaded to come loose, William did the same. But the top of his cupboard was too narrow for him to hide. The creatures continued doing their best to bring it crashing down.
The room filled, more diseased shoving their way in all the time. They were packed in so tight it limited their movement and made it harder for them to tear down the cupboards. For now. But if they waited too long, there would only be one winner.
“We need a better plan, Max.”
Max knocked down some of the diseased around Artan’s cupboard before he headed over to William’s.
“When you think of it—” Max grunted from the effort of crossing the room “—let me know. There’s only so long I can keep this up for.”
Chapter 43
The girl with the broken ankle and Heidi remained in their cages in Grandfather Jacks’ bedroom. They remained trapped, the cage doors locked. The corpse of Grandfather Jacks remained in the cage next to them. The spear remained protruding from his face. If only Olga had had longer with him. She would have skinned him alive.
But any rage she had for the man gave way to her grief for the girls. Heidi especially. It had taken her a while before she noticed Olga, Matilda, and Max at the window, but now she did, she fixed them with her crimson glare. She bit at the air between them, headbutting the cage as she lurched forward with each snapping bite. Blood coated her right arm, the deep red belching from the bite marks running all the way down it.
The other girl in the same diseased state, her ankle bent beneath her, her foot floppy. Olga shook her head, her weak voice cracking when she said, “We should have saved them.”
“We didn’t have time.” Matilda pulled Olga away from the window and back out onto the roof. “Come on, all the diseased are downstairs. There must be something attracting their attention.”
Matilda’s limp did little to impair her ability to plot a route along the roof. They’d tracked the movement of the diseased from the outside, and when they came to one of the long windows, the pane covered in dirt, Olga rubbed a patch clear, her heart lifting. “There they are.”
The dining room packed so tightly with diseased, Olga might have been able to run across the tops of their heads and not get bitten. Several tall cupboards along the other side of the room, the boys lay on top of them.
“How’s he not turned?” Hawk said.
Max moved from one cupboard to the next, fighting back the diseased who threatened the stability of the tall pieces of furniture with his friends on. A lump swelled in Olga’s throat. “He’s immune.”
“What?”
“It’s a long, long story, and the reason he pushed me away from him in Umbriel. He’s carrying the disease.”
“Is that safe?” Hawk said.
“We don’t know, which is why he’s afraid of physical contact.” Olga led them this time, climbing up over the roof to the window on the opposite side. A guardrail around the edge like every other roof on the palace, she shook it, rocking it back and forth, the steel creaking until the entire rail came off in her hands. After she shook the smaller bars free that had held it in place, she ended up with a two-inch-thick, ten-foot-long pole.
“What are you going to do with that?” Matilda said.
Leaning out over the edge of the wall, Olga slammed the pole into it the window with a loud splash, the cries of thousands of diseased bursting out of the room like a flock of spooked birds.
Hawk held Olga’s hand, anchoring her so she could lean out farther to run the metal pole around the window frame to clear the jagged shards of glass. Unable to see him from her current position, but Olga knew where William lay. She shoved the pole in his general direction. “Here, take this.”
“Olga?”
“And Matilda,” Olga said. Best not tell them about Hawk just yet.
“William, remember how Max helped you get to us in the church when we got separated running away from Magma’s community?”
“Yeah.”
“Use this pole in the same way.”
William took the pole, Olga and the others heading to the other window to watch him. He stretched it across to Artan, bridging the gap between their two cupboards. But instead of crossing, Artan took the pole and stretched it across to Cyrus.
Seconds seemed to last hours as Cyrus pulled away from the pole and shook his head. But Artan shoved it at him again. If he didn’t take it and try to cross, he’d die.
Artan held the pole at one end while Max climbed the shelves and held it at the other. High enough to be clear of the diseased’s reach, Max shoved Cyrus, who edged out onto the pole, swinging around so he hung down from it much like William had in the ruined city.
For a second, Cyrus clung on and froze. But after further encouragement from Max, he shimmied along the pole an inch or two at a time. The diseased tracked him from below, slashing at the air above them but unable to reach.
When Cyrus climbed onto Artan’s cupboard, Max dropped down into the mob again.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be comfortable with seeing that,” Hawk said.
Olga shook her head. “Me either.”
Max climbed onto Artan’s cupboard to help them stretch the pole across to William’s. Cyrus led the way, climbing up onto William’s cupboard before Artan followed.
Finally, the boys reached the pole across to the broken window. Olga and the others ran back over to the other side of the dining room. When Cyrus reached her, she took his hand and pulled him out, Matilda hugging the trembling boy.
Artan next, he climbed out of his own accord. He nodded at Olga, threw a sideways glance at Hawk, and then hugged his sister.
When William climbed out of the window, Olga said, “Good job you had a couple of women to come and rescue your arses, eh?”
William laughed, gripped either side of Olga’s face in his rough hands, and kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”
He approached Matilda and pulled something from his pocket. Tears stood in her eyes. They broke and ran down her face when he handed her the hummingbird clip. “I knew you were alive,” William said. “I just knew it.” They kissed.
Olga’s heart pounded as she kneeled down on the roof and watched Max leave the dining room via the door. She stood up again and hugged the other boys one after the other.
Despite everything they’d been through, Max finding his way onto the roof seemed to take the longest time. Cleaner than he should have been and in a new set of clothes he’d clearly picked up on his way out, his face glowed red and he avoided Olga’s eye. “I had to get out of those stinking clothes.”
Olga wrapped a hug around Max’s middle. He locked his arms around her as he pulled her in tight. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry for how I behaved in Umbriel.”
“So am I. I should have talked to you,” Max said.
When she pulled away from him, her world blurred. But she still saw the tears also streaking his cheeks. She laughed and nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, you should have!”
Chapter 44
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” William said, his arm around Matilda as they watched the full moon.
Matilda nestled into his chest,
her warmth enough to counter the bite in the air. The blankets Max had retrieved from inside the palace also helped.
Every muscle in William’s body ached, but he couldn’t sleep. Not yet. “We need to get your leg sorted out.” He pulled the blanket away. The bandage glistened in the moonlight with fresh blood.
Her voice sleepy, Matilda said, “In the morning.”
Hawk had chosen to sit farther away from the rest of the group, keeping watch for anyone else climbing onto the roof. Artan watched the other way, Cyrus at his side. The diseased had torn through the palace too fast for most, but they had to keep their wits. There were a lot of people in the palace; surely someone survived?
“We also need to find Dianna in the morning,” Matilda said.
Olga and Max sat with one another, the full moon dusting them with a silver highlight.
The asylum cut an imposing silhouette. A reminder of the insanity waiting in the darkness inside. William kissed the top of Matilda’s head. She’d closed her eyes, her breaths deep from where sleep dragged her under. He whispered, “In the morning.” Although Max hadn’t yet agreed to that course of action. And William couldn’t blame him. He wouldn’t want to enter the place on his own. Especially in the dark. Whatever happened, they’d find a way. But for now, they all needed to rest.
End of book six.
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Like most children born in the seventies, Michael grew up with Star Wars in his life, along with other great stories like Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, and as he grew older, the Alien franchise. An obsessive watcher of movies and consumer of stories, he found his mind wandering to stories of his own.
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