by Harley Vex
Yes. He made everyone believe things would be fine. He had kept the peace. His wits were his weapon. And if we opened the door now, we’d look like the bad guys. We would disrupt whatever paper pattern was outside the door, and then David could point at us and accuse us of sneaking around. Worse yet, if we got out, we couldn’t go anywhere.
We looked at each other, and then at the narrow window near the top of the room. Jerome frowned. “We’re going to have to block that, and then things will really get awkward when one of us has to use the toilet.”
I echoed his frown. Jerome wasn’t the worst person to be stuck in a room with, by far, but the bathroom thing was going to be an issue. A minor one compared to the others, though. “I think we need to figure out how to escape while no one is in here. We could steal a tractor.” It was a selfish thought, but the rules had changed in this world.
A narrow ray of rusty sun struck the opposite bathroom wall. And as I watched, it slowly grew downward.
Jerome nodded. “I’m going to take off my shirt, and I apologize if—”
“That keeps us from burning alive from UV radiation?” I asked. My heart pounded at the thought. I knew how bad the sun could be. How it could kill, not at first, but later. With the ozone layer depleted, I might never even make it to New York. And if we did, what would we find there?
Would my father even be alive?
There would be panic. Rioting. Food would run low, and people would lose it. Didn’t someone say once that everyone was three meals away from chaos?
And we had David.
He didn’t intend for the two of us to hog the supplies he wanted to keep for those who worshipped him.
Jerome frowned as he pulled his shirt off. “I can fit this in the lip up there, if I stand on the toilet. I’m a tall guy.”
I had to admit, Jerome’s bronze chest looked like that of an athlete, not a nerd. Then again, the two weren’t mutually exclusive. Nerds didn’t have to fit into a mold. But that fact that it wasn’t bad to look at didn’t take away from my terror. The sun. We had to block it. “There might be something on me, too, that we could use.”
The awkward level would rise if I took off my pants, but survival came first. Jerome got in the window, squinting, and he shoved his shirt halfway across the window. I went for my pants, but Jerome looked at me and shook his head.
“Laney, you don’t have to do that,” he said, redness creeping into his cheeks. “The chip bags should block out most of the rest. Grab those.”
Jerome, at least, was a gentleman. I tossed him the bags, and he stuffed them into the window next. Together with his shirt, they blocked off three-quarters of the death ray.
“At least they have a use,” I say. “I doubt the toilet paper roll would—”
“Good idea,” he said, opening the big plastic toilet paper container. The industrial roll inside was half-used, but its reduced size fit well into the window.
Darkness fell on the bathroom.
Jerome jumped down from the toilet. “Close one.”
I heaved out a sigh of relief. I listened to the Visitor Center outside and heard nothing when I pressed my ear to the door. “We need to get out of here, and away from David.” Now that we’d blocked the sun and solved one problem, another crashed down on me.
David didn’t want us to make it to Colton.
He wanted to turn us into dead weight. And it had to look like an accident.
My mind spun. I could yell at the others that David was trying to kill us when they came back to get us, but what would that do? Tony might fight David, but the girls wouldn’t. Violence might break out, and that would happen only if the others believed us enough to take action. And I knew how uncomfortable it was to take action. When Mr. Connors pulled his crap, just the thought of trying to stand up to it put my stomach in knots.
And here I was, pissing off a calculated, unstable monster.
Ugh, was I really that tired of the Programming Teachers of the world?
Or was I just sick of having everything taken from me?
I sat against the wall, careful not to crush my phone. And then I remembered. “We might have a bargaining chip for getting out of here.”
Jerome came over and sat next to me, and though now wasn’t the time for it, his bare chest was distracting, and not in a bad way. “Do not give up your phone, Laney. Especially to David. Your father might still be alive, if he’s in New York like Alana told me he was.”
“But what’s going on there?” Yes, Alana talked to him, all right. She probably did it to bring him into Team Hope.
And hope scared me.
It lifted you up, but it also gave you a bigger distance to fall.
“We don’t know,” Jerome said.
“But what if every cell phone tower is toast?” I asked.
“We don’t know that, either. Laney, you have something to hold on to, and I don’t think that the rest of us do.” As Jerome spoke, his tone sank into the tile.
I swallowed. Jerome was realistic, then.
Like me. And that made me feel better about my father’s chances of survival.
I reached out and placed my hand on his arm, expecting him to flinch, but he stayed in place. His skin was warm under my palm, and I kept my hand there. It was neutral contact. For comfort and nothing else.
A slight tremor raced through his muscles.
He was holding his emotions back, trying to be a man. No. He was a man, more than David would ever hope to be.
“Breathe in. Breathe out. Count,” I told him. “We’ll find a way out of this bathroom. There’s got to be another way out of this complex. If Dr. Marson disappeared, and we didn’t see him leave, then there has to be another way.”
Jerome looked at me and smiled. “Totally agree. Maybe there’s another exit from the mine. Dr. Shetlin didn’t show us the whole thing. But, the first order of business is to get out of this bathroom, and to do it before David decides it’s time to leave. That gives us a few hours. Also, I might have stashed a bit of extra food in the mine, because David gave me some bad vibes as soon as this whole thing started.”
And then I let my guard down for a moment and let the hope flood in.
Jerome was a genius.
And that was why David hated him so much. He was a threat.
So was I, or I wouldn’t be here.
“Okay, so getting out of the bathroom comes first. But we have another problem,” I said. “The keys. David has them, including the ones that unlock the door to the ladder.”
Jerome cursed. “You’re right.”
I thought. “But maybe someone could help us get them? Someone who’s trying to lie low around David?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The bad part about our plan was that we had to wait, because no one’s phone actually worked except for mine, and it wasn’t as if I had reception, anyway. And we had to trust in Alana’s plan to make David forget all about her.
And then we’d have to put her in danger.
The Visitor Center remained quiet for another hour. What time would David want to leave? And if Jerome and I didn’t eat the chips by then, he’d know that we were onto him. And that wouldn’t be good. The two of us might end up in an unfortunate accident via the tractors. I didn’t put that past David at this point.
“Alana has to know we’re in trouble,” I said, pacing the small bathroom. There wasn’t much room to move, unfortunately. But would she be able to do anything? The faint hope I had died again, and I got angrier the longer I paced. Of course things didn’t work out. They never did.
And I was very aware of Jerome watching.
“Laney, I’m sure she’s working on it. It probably takes some time for David to not look, and for her to get the keys. Or whatever.”
“Maybe I should have sacrificed the phone.”
And then footsteps approached. I didn’t hear them clearly enough for them to be real to me at first, but they entered the building and quietly approached the door.
; “So, do you need to use the bathroom?” Jerome asked whoever was on the other side. “Laney and I were just making out, so you might have to wait a second.”
My cheeks flushed, but Alana laughed.
She was here. And she laughed.
“Sorry. I should be quiet,” she said. “I knew something wasn’t right when David suggested we nap in the other building. He did this long speech about how we needed to be away from the spot where everyone died. And those bodies...they’re mummifying, I think.” She choked at the end of her words.
Mummifying. It might have been because of the sun’s intense rays. Yikes. “You risked the sun to get back out here.”
“Yes. And you know what? David was dead tired and fell asleep. I ran as fast as I could out of that garage without waking people,” Alana said. “I don’t think I’m burned too badly. Now, I don’t trust this.”
“Neither do we,” Jerome said. “David slipped us food out of the vending machine when no one was looking. He wants us to get sick and have to be left behind. He doesn’t want it to look like our blood is on his hands. And did I mention the bathroom window everyone forgot about?”
“I didn’t forget about it,” she said.
“It’s blocked now,” I told her.
“I’ll help you get out. Tony made an octagon pattern on the floor with these paper bits. But what we need is to cut back through the mine and find how Dr. Marson got out of here.”
“Don’t risk yourself,” I told her as Jerome lifted an eyebrow at me.
“But David has the keys,” Alana said. “I’ll try to get them while he’s out. Bethany and I have been watching him all day, trying to be quiet and do as we’re told. We think the blue key goes to the ladder, and there are a bunch of keys to the underground facility on his ring, too. If we get that, we can find another way out.”
“That’s what we were going to have to ask,” Jerome said. “We hate to throw this on you, but we have the sense that David doesn’t want us to make this journey back.”
“I think a lot of us do, and everyone’s scared to stand up to him. Hell, I am, too,” Alana said, not daring to raise her voice too high. “I’ll try to bring you the right keys, and you two can escape through the basement. You can lock the ladder door behind you, and David won’t be able to follow.”
“Great plan,” I said, allowing relief to spread through me. “I hope David isn’t lying on the keys.”
“See? It’s good to have someone on the inside to work for you.”
I smiled, even though Alana couldn’t see through the closed door. “You have a great plan. And you have a knack for predicting the future.” Or did she? Alana hadn’t grasped what we’d face in Colton yet.
And I didn’t plan to stay there for long.
There was no point, except to loot that old mine owned by the Connors family. To get enough supplies.
And then to plan how to get to the alive zone.
Jerome frowned at me, and I struggled to get what he meant. Running on just one candy bar was not doing my mind any favors. And then it hit me.
“Alana?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“You’re going to have to go with us.” I drew close to the door. “Once keys go missing, David will find a scapegoat. You can’t stay here. It’s not safe.”
She said nothing for a moment. “I think you’re right. We should go together. I wouldn’t want it any other way, though I don’t want to leave Bethany.”
Bethany. She was tougher than me, and smarter, too. She laid low the moment David’s red flags waved. He was not Mr. Connors, who would just dismiss us from the Programming Club. “She should be fine,” I said at last.
“I don’t know her, but David didn’t even pay attention to her after Laney and her brought the tractor back. She’s not the scapegoat,” Jerome added. “Hopefully, she can break away.”
I saw his point. We couldn’t try to get everyone away from David. His ego wouldn’t take it and then we’d all pay. “Alana. Thanks.”
* * * * *
Alana left to go get the keys off David.
All of the keys.
But while we waited, we just had our thoughts for company. Time didn’t matter all that much anymore. Clocks probably didn’t even work on this side of the world, and besides, there were no more schedules to keep, no more classes to attend, and no more sports games. There were no more Math Club meetings. It was over, and all because of some mindless cosmic event light years away.
The thought of the universe being so mindless and uncaring made a ball of fury rise in my chest. And worse, it had nowhere to go. I’d been here before. I paced some more, and Jerome had to intervene and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Laney. We’re going to get out.”
“Thanks.” I needed someone to ground me. I was too angry at the world right now.
“Alana’s smart. Hell, we’re all smart, or they wouldn’t have brought us on this field trip. Our teachers saved us for a reason.”
Mrs. Taney and Mr. Ellis were a tiny, compassionate part of the universe. But they hadn’t made it. Why us, when half the class died in agony? It was just luck.
But I didn’t have to dwell on the pointlessness for much longer, because quiet footsteps once again approached.
“Who’s there?” I asked, tensing. It could be David here to shoot us or bash us over the heads with a hammer for all I knew, all while everyone else slept.
“Me,” Alana said. “It wasn’t easy, and I had to wait for David to roll over in order to get to them, but the keys were sticking halfway out of his pocket. I grabbed the ring, twisted off the keys we needed, and came back. I left the ones to the tractors and stuff, because I don’t want to screw over everyone else.”
“But how do we get out of the mine once we’re down?” I asked, heart thumping.
The bathroom door opened. Paper bits flew everywhere behind Alana, but after this, there was no point in putting them back together.
I never thought I’d be so glad to see the inside of the Visitor Center, but I was, because Alana was standing there in the dim space, clutching four or five keys. I didn’t know what they went to, but I noticed for the first time that each one had a neon sticker on it that must signify where they went. I’d seen those stickers before, but I wasn’t sure where.
“Wow,” Jerome said, as if he knew something I didn’t. “Good work, Alana.”
She smiled. “Dr. Marson got out of here somehow, probably on foot. And he was wearing that plastic suit. I think there have to be more of them down there, and if we can find them, then we can get out of here on foot and at least get to that gas station that’s a few miles away. And from there, we might find a vehicle that still works.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was finally time to leave this bathroom. I stepped out, tensing, just waiting for David to come back through the door. But he didn’t, and the Visitor Center remained quiet.
“Thanks, Alana. Those were not good accommodations,” Jerome said. “Now, we get down that ladder and figure out another way out of here. The others can get out on their own and watch David beat his chest all they want.”
I had that attitude, too. “We need to stall them if they come back here. Close the bathroom door and redo the paper pattern, so no one thinks we escaped at first.”
Alana did, moving quickly and quietly. But then Jerome frowned and looked at his bare chest. “My shirt.”
“Yeah. You’ll need that out there,” I said, heart pounding. We were wasting time.
He went back in and pulled his shirt back over, and Alana frowned at me as she did the paper pattern another time. I gulped. “I’m not looking forward to going out there.”
Alana softened. “I know. We’ll get through it. Protect ourselves. And we’ll get back to Colton.”
I hoped so, and I also hoped not. “The ladder. Great. We don’t have that big flashlight, do we?”
Jerome rushed to the receptionist’s desk and looked behind it. And his expressi
on told me that David had taken it. He wanted control of this entire operation, hands down. “Nope.”
I thought of what we’d do once down there in the dark. “Well, I hope those red lights down there are still on, running on emergency power. Or that there are other lights down there.” I had a solution, but it would involve using my phone. And I didn’t want to run the battery down. Sure, I wouldn’t reach anyone, but phones were useful for other things, too.
“They might be. We’ll think of something. The door to the ladder might lock after we’re in, and if we take the keys, no one can follow us down to the basement. But, we have to move before David figures out we’re gone. He’s got a map of the entire facility. That means he might know how to block us from getting to the surface. Or he could lie in wait for us to emerge.”
My heart jumped in panic. “Then we need to move.”
Alana paled. So she agreed. We couldn’t wait anymore.
Already, my claustrophobia was kicking in. But I opened the door to the ladder, and though it was just as dark as it was before, I knew I could descend it.
But, as I got on, my sore muscles yelled in protest.
They would just have to deal with the descent.
“I’ll lock the door from the inside, since I’m taller,” Jerome said. “That means ladies first. Sorry.”
I got it, though. I descended the ladder first, and then Alana came down after me. It was dark. Very dark, so much that my sense of balance vanished, and I gripped the rungs as hard as I could. But the faster we got down, the quicker we could get out of here.
I heard Jerome get on the ladder and the lock clicked. “There. No one can follow us that way. Now hurry.”
The descent down the ladder went more quickly than I remembered, but panic propelled me. It overtook the fear of falling. Maybe even the fear of the sun’s deadly rays. Finally, I reached the bottom, and I cried out in shock as my feet hit the stone floor.
