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“YOU’RE STUPID, AND you’re wrong.”
“How am I stupid, and how am I wrong?” Thirty-Nine had told Forty they’d be better off trying to get out via the shaft. “Gang are being blown to bits day after day. There must be a layer of bombs between the rock. Or methane, it could be methane. As soon as the flame from the lighter hits it, it’s kaboom and goodnight. But think about it. There can’t be methane or bombs in the shaft, because the drones they lower subs on have flames coming out on all sides, and there are no explosions when they come down.”
Forty eyed him, his stare somewhere between pity and calculating cunning. It made him uneasy. “You know what it sounds like to me? It sounds like you’re questioning Leader’s judgment, breaking the rules. You know what happens to men who break the rules.”
“I’m not. I swear I’m not. I’m just saying there must be an easier way to get to the surface without digging through two miles of shit and getting blown to bits.”
“And I’m just saying you’re stupid, and you’re wrong. Leader knows best. The drones don’t touch the sides when they bring men down. That’s because of the charges poking out. You ain’t blind, you must’ve seen ‘em on your way in? Might not be any methane, but there’s plenty of bombs, that’s for sure.” He kicked out at a rat that had strayed too close, and it scuttled off into the darkness ahead. “Just as much chance of getting blown to bits there. And anyway, no one can get to the shaft, because the Cotton Cave is off limits, remember? You send men in there, they’re gonna get infected. Then what? Whatever’s killing the Regulars won’t have any problem killing us, too.”
“But Leader has guards in the Cotton Cave. I don’t know why they stay there, knowing they’ll get sick.”
Forty stopped in his tracks. He held the lighter up to his face and touched the cross burned into his forehead.
“This is why they stay, but you’re right, those poor bastards are as good as dead. That’s a plague in there. I think I’d rather get blown up than end up like those poor bastards.”
“I don’t know, man. I mean, every time we go back to tell Leader how many more we’ve buried, nothing’s ever said about the guards in the Cotton Cave. But here’s the thing: I haven’t heard of any Diggers being called back to guard Leader, so the guards in the Cotton Cave must be okay. He wouldn’t leave that door unguarded.”
“He might.”
“No way. He’s too paranoid.”
Forty’s head whipped around. “Paranoid?”
“It’s a good thing. I mean he’s too aware of his surroundings to leave that entrance unguarded. He knows it would be a mistake. I just can’t figure out why the guards don’t get sick, being in there with all those diseased Regulars.”
They began to walk again, the flame of the lighter in Forty’s hands not showing them much of what was ahead, mainly because what was ahead was more of what was behind: blackness.
“I guess we’re lucky, except I don’t feel lucky.” Thirty-Nine chose his words carefully, mindful of Forty’s sharp glance when he’d said Leader was paranoid. Talking about Leader was breaking the rules, but everybody did it. It was when people spoke of him negatively that they were putting themselves at risk. The prize for turning in someone who didn’t keep his promise to obey the rules was extra rice, and everybody down here wanted that. Forty was no different. Whether they’d been partnered five years or one minute, hunger was hunger, and food was food.
Forty switched the lighter from his left hand to his right. “What are you talking about? We’re lucky just to get the chance to serve him. Without him, we wouldn’t survive.”
“I know.” Thirty-Nine scratched at his crudely-shorn hair. Damn rats and their fleas.
“And it ain’t luck that got us this job.” Forty tipped a wink, that black space where his front teeth had once been as dark as the tunnel ahead. He’d knocked them out when, chasing a rat, he’d gone head first into a wall that didn’t want to move out of his way.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he’s got us marked out as special. He sent everyone ‘cept the guards on the doors of his compound, and you and me, to dig. He thinks we’re a cut above the others. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t saying the others aren’t worthy. They’re our brothers, but when this is over, he’s gonna need people close to him, and that’ll be us. Just think, man, what it’ll be like when we get out. We’ll change the world. And Leader’s old. He’s gonna need someone to take over from him when he can’t rule no more, and that person could be me.”
Thirty-Nine didn’t answer. He fixed his gaze on the darkness ahead, feeling claustrophobic in the narrow tunnel. When this is over, Forty had said. It would be over only when one of two things happened. Either the sickness that had already claimed the lives of dozens of Regulars in the Cotton Cave would spread through Gang too, or the whole place would fall in and bury them.
Having eighty men digging toward explosives, or methane, or whatever it was, was a disaster in the making. They would never find a way to the surface. No one was getting out. If Leader couldn’t see that, then he was mad.
He turned his head quickly, just to be certain he’d only talked about Leader internally. Sometimes, being down here played tricks on you. You said things you ought to keep to yourself, and you didn’t say things you thought you had. It was all part of the pressure of the environment. Part of losing your mind, he supposed. He was relieved to see that Forty wasn’t looking at him. He hadn’t spoken aloud, but even thinking something like that was asking for trouble. It was breaking the rules. He would have to be careful, even about what he thought, because thinking bad things about Leader was wrong. Leader was everyone, everything.
“The hell’s that?” Forty indicated with a nod at a pile of rock blocking their way.
“Looks like there’s been a cave-in. There’s not enough there for it to be a dig site. Nothing major.”
“Major enough that we’ll have to go back to find a way around it. Shit.” Forty kicked a small rock, ignoring the fact he had bare feet, then hopped on one leg, trying to grab his stubbed toe and complaining.
They turned and trudged back down the tunnel, splashing through an inch of warm, dirty water. As they went, Thirty-Nine scolded himself silently. He was lucky, despite what he’d had to be part of to earn the cross on his forehead. Gang was a family, a band of brothers, serving the greater good, and that greater good was decided by a great man. He’d do well to bear that in mind. As bad as the SUIC was, being another few feet down would be even worse, and once you were dead, you were dead a long time.
“This way’s no good, either,” Forty said. “It’s too narrow for a fat fuck like you.”
He looked down at his ribcage. Yeah, obese. A year had passed since they’d been told they had to let the Regulars have half the rice that was lowered into the SUIC. Had to let them live in peace. They didn’t send enough rice down to feed Gang, never mind the Regulars too. Yet Leader had told them to leave the Regulars, and the Cotton Cave, alone. Thirty-Nine didn’t know why Leader didn’t just have all the Regulars killed. That way, they’d have a lot more food to go around, but Leader knew better. Leader always knew better. Trouble was, now that no one was allowed into the Cotton Cave, they couldn’t collect the rice, meaning the Regulars were getting the whole lot. The ones that weren’t dead, anyway.
Perhaps he thought sending Gang into the Cotton Cave to kill them was the quickest way of getting everyone down here infected. Or maybe he’d decided to stand back and let the plague kill them. It was the only logical reason Thirty-Nine could think of why Leader had suddenly decided they were off-limits.
Whatever, it meant they were rationed half the rice they were given before Leader’s tenth rule had been introduced, and he hated rats. There wasn’t a chance in hell of him eating them, not if he could still get a little rice. So, yeah, fat fuck.
Did Leader think they had to escape the SUIC to get away from the plague? Was that why he’d sent almost all his men to dig? He wondered why they couldn’t just wait it out, wait for the Regulars to die. If they kept away from the Cotton Cave, they’d be okay. Once the plague got rid of the Regulars, there would be enough rice to really make him a fat fuck. He’d like that, having some meat on his bones.
They doubled back a third time, finally finding a clear tunnel. Their lucky position? They were the men sent to check on Diggers who didn’t report in with a progress update. The reason they didn’t report was usually because a bomb had disassembled them. A couple had gone rogue in the early days, but they’d quickly been found, and dealt with. Since then, Gang had been blowing themselves up at increasingly-regular intervals, blindly following Leader’s orders without questioning them. Everyone knew what had happened to the men who’d gone rogue and been tracked down to the Cotton Cave.
Their job was to collect what was left after the bombs exploded, trek all the way to the Cemetery at the far end of the SUIC, bury it, then trek all the way back to Leader’s compound to let him know more of his men were dead (and, if they were lucky, get a few mouthfuls of rice for their arduous work). It wasn’t glamorous, but it kept them far enough away from the Cotton Cave that they didn’t need to worry about the plague. It also meant they weren’t digging, and that meant they weren’t going to get blown up.
In the first of his chambers, the only one they’d ever been inside, Leader had drawn an outline of the SUIC in the dust. He’d split it into six sections and divided his eighty or so men between those sections, to dig up in twos. Each time Thirty-Nine and Forty returned with news of two more burials, Leader drew a cross through their number in the dirt with the sharp-edged rockknife he used to hack off their hair when it got longer than two inches.
He’d crossed out about half the numbers so far, and Thirty-Nine was beginning to wonder if they might be told to start digging soon. The farthest section, the one they were headed to now, had only two men left. Nothing had been heard from them in nine days. It didn’t take a genius to realize they were dead.
An empty zone would need someone to dig it, and that someone might end up being him. He didn’t want to get blown to bits down here. He planned to live a long life, even if he had to do it away from his wife and under the ground, and he wasn’t even past his thirty-fifth birthday. He was too young to be down here, but there was nothing he could do about that.
He was also too young to die, but he guessed that wasn’t up to him, either.
Leader knew best.
****
“STAY CLOSE, BODGE.”
“I am.” Bodge’s voice came from a distance, and Gabe stopped, waiting for him to catch up, listening to a steady ploink ploink echoing from somewhere ahead.
Without warning, Bodge clattered into him from behind, almost knocking him off his feet.
“Jesus, what are you doing?”
“I thought you were gonna leave me. I couldn’t hear you no more. I got scared. I don’t like it in the dark.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times, I’m not going to leave you.”
They’d been walking for over two hours, ever since fleeing their refuge. The lighter had been lost in their haste to outrun the flood and the collapse. He’d shoved it into a pocket as the polluted water flooded the tunnel, but it had somehow washed out of his pocket and away.
It was slow going in the dark. That suited Gabe; he wanted to be alert for the sound of Gang. True, Gang would have a light source that would immediately give their presence away, but they had to be careful. Being paranoid might just save their lives if there were Gang this far back.
“I won’t dawdle no more, I promise.”
“Good, but don’t go rushing off, either. Stick close, and keep your ears open for Crossmen.”
“Okay.”
As Gabe took a couple of steps forward, he felt one of Bodge’s big hands grip his shoulder. It was like a vise, his large fingers curled into a talon-like grip that was sure to leave deep indentations. They walked hesitantly on, Gabe with his hands outstretched, feeling along the hot, jagged wall to his right. The tunnels sometimes grew so narrow they were forced to retrace their steps and find another way to make progress. Many before them had tried to dig their own tunnels, and they found several that tapered off at various depths. They had no tools to dig with, so they were forced to rely on what was already there, already available to them.
After another fruitless hour feeling their way up and down passageways that led nowhere, they stopped.
“Did we get lost?” Bodge asked.
“We were never found.”
“Annie always said I was lost. She said my brain weren’t good for nothing, because my daddy shook me when I was a baby, and the World Alliance Police took him. They sent him to a SUIC too, but I don’t think it was this one. Where are we looking for?” The vise remained on his shoulder.
He sighed. “I don’t know, Bodge. Just a place you can call home. With water you can drink, somewhere you can catch rats, where you won’t be bothered by Gang.”
“Like grandma said?”
“Yes.”
“When we find my place, you’ll stay, right?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
These were the back roads of the SUIC, dug by men condemned to life under the ground. The World Alliance had stopped digging when they got to the Gypsum Chamber, thinking it a natural barrier that would stop prisoners trying to dig their way out the other side. To spend any amount of time inside the Gypsum Chamber would be madness: the heat would boil a man alive in less than thirty minutes. But the men of the SUIC had found a way to dig around it, and had come upon two large chambers that the people above ground didn’t know about. The chamber farthest from the SUICs entrance, almost ten miles from the entrance shaft, had a ceiling so high it was known as the Cathedral. It was too far in, too far from the air holes that blew warm air directly from the surface into the tunnels of the SUIC, for anyone to live there. There were crevasses and voids that, when you threw a rock into them, didn’t echo the sound of it hitting the bottom. There was also a lack of decent air. It wasn’t a place where a man, or a subhuman, could live comfortably.
The other was the Cemetery, a place where some four hundred subhumans had been buried in unmarked, shallow graves. The idea of the place made most men down here, no matter how tough they were outwardly, shiver inside.
He should have gone into the Gypsum Chamber, died among the giant crystals that crisscrossed the place like massive ice swords. He hadn’t, because he’d still had hope. Hope he could find a way out.
“Listen, Bodge. We’ll have to go out in the open, to get through the Cathedral.”
“What about the Crossmen?”
“I’m as scared of them as you are, believe me, but we won’t survive this deep. It’ll be easier to breathe once we make it to the Cemetery.”
He thought, after all the false progress, after taking two steps back for every three forward, that they were probably less than a mile from where they’d begun. He didn’t tell Bodge that; he could tell the boy was terrified by the ever-tightening grip on his shoulder. The mention of the Cemetery had evidently spooked him.
They walked cautiously on, Gabe with both arms outstretched, sweat running into his eyes, every breath a struggle, hardly daring to lift a foot off the ground and instead sliding his feet forward, expecting the ground to drop away at any moment. A while later, he sensed open space. The Cathedral was just ahead. He’d crawled through it weeks earlier, lacking the strength to stand. Then, he’d made his way through without thinking of the crevasses. It was a miracle he’d come out the other side. Now, the thought of falling into one terrified him. Bodge was dumber than a rock, but he liked the kid, and he’d promised to look after him. If he fell into one, it would be lights out. Nobody knew how far they went. Nobody who was alive, anyway.
“Stop,” he whispered.
Bodge froze. “Do you hear Crossmen?”
“No. Listen to me. We’re coming to the Cathedral. We have to go real slow.”
“Even slower than before?”
“Yes, Bodge. Even slower than before. There could be Gang here, or Regulars who are trying to stay safe. They might mistake us for Gang.”
“What’s a cathedrud?”
“Shhh.”
Any open space in the SUIC was dangerous. Not just because of the risk of falling into deep holes or down steep ridges, but because people gravitated toward open spaces. To have a sense of space was as close as a man could get to having a sense of freedom down here. The air felt thinner, cooler. Your voice traveled more than a few feet without echoing back at you. It made you feel less claustrophobic, less panicked, less powerless.
Sure, it didn’t have light like the Cotton Cave did, and there was a distinct possibility of meeting someone who was trying to live back here. Someone desperate enough to attack them with a rock and beat their skulls in without stopping to ask questions. This was, after all, a place for subhumans.
“Stick to the edge, keep the wall at your side. Don’t step away from it unless I tell you to, okay?”
“Yeah,” Bodge whispered, and when Gabe turned and began to inch forward, Bodge placed a hand on each shoulder and gripped.
“Ow, Bodge. Relax a little.”
The grip didn’t change, but at least he wasn’t doing this alone. He didn’t think he could do this alone. The pain of Bodge’s grip distracted him from his fear, and he listened hard as he edged forward, focusing on the sound of a steady trickle of water in the distance. A water source was a good base. From there, they could explore their surroundings. Make sure it was safe, find a hollow to form a protective barrier around them, and survive. They wouldn’t need food right away, not as long as they had water. A thought popped into his head, and he stopped.
“Bodge, if you have both hands on my shoulders, where’s the bottle?”
“Netween ny neeth,” came the muffled response, and they began to inch forward once more, Gabe blocking out the pain of Bodge’s grip by concentrating on the sound of the trickling water. He listened hard and, as they closed the gap between themselves and the water, he grew more alert than ever, listening for Gang, listening for Crossmen.
****
THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE was the temperature. When they were in the tunnels, the air was hot and close. In more open surroundings it was marginally cooler. Gabe could almost imagine a breeze against his face. It was still hot, but not so close, not like it was eating away at him, trying to get into him to boil him from the inside. If it wasn’t so dangerous to be out in the open like this, he could call this home.
But it was dangerous. They would have to move through the cavernous space and get to the other side. The more quickly they did it, the better. A source of running water was to be prized. People fought over a lot less down here.
If they found their way to it and it was clean, they could seek shelter nearby, get hydrated, then see if it was possible to catch rats for food. In time, their bodies would acclimatize to the lower oxygen levels. Their other senses would make up for the deficit of sight. They would have a home away from the danger that was present in and around the Cotton Cave.
“Gabe?” Bodge’s voice echoed back from across the space.
“Shh, keep your voice down. You hear the water?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s see if we can get to it, huh?”
“I’m thirsty.”
“I’m thirsty too, but we need to be careful. We have to watch where we step, okay?”
“Mm-hm.”
“If you hear anything that isn’t you or me, or the water, squeeze my shoulder and stand still. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Gabe placed a hand against the wall and tapped with his foot in a semi-circle off to his left. Halfway through his arc, his foot reached out over open air. The sound of the water came from ahead and to their left, on the other side of the drop. He hoped the ledge they were on would take them all the way around it – it could be ten feet or one hundred – and to the far side of this dangerous place.
“Put your hand on the wall, and don’t take it off.” He felt Bodge remove his hand from his left shoulder. “No, Bodge, your other hand.”
Bodge swapped hands, and they inched their way along the ledge, keeping their right hands against the hot, uneven rock. Every so often, Gabe paused and tested the space to their left with his foot. It didn’t taper off, and they were able to make their way around it until eventually, after twenty long, nervous minutes, they reached the trickle of water.
“Let’s fill the bottle and keep moving. We can see if it’s clean once we have cover. Something feels off about this place.”
The sour scent of Bodge’s sweat wafted over him as he raised the bottle toward the water that dripped from a ledge above their heads.
“Be careful, don’t scrape it against the wall.”
“I’m careful, Gabe, I am.”
“You men better turn around, go deeper.”
The voice came from beyond the sound of the water. At the same instant, light flared less than ten feet away.
Gabe registered the cross branded into the head of the man behind the light. Bodge stepped back, dropped the bottle, and tripped over his own feet. He fell into darkness before Gabe could reach out to steady him. After a series of muffled grunts, there was silence.
Gabe clenched his fists and turned his gaze onto the man in front of him, wondering how far Bodge had fallen, wondering if he’d even survived. His reason for carrying on might be gone. He’d promised to protect him, and he hadn’t even been able to get him through the Cathedral.
“Help me, Gabe.”
Bodge was alive. There was pain in his voice though, he hadn’t escaped injury. He heard him suck air through gritted teeth. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, but he didn’t blink. If he blinked, he’d give the subhuman in front of him time to charge him and send him tumbling after Bodge.
“It’s okay, I’ll get you out of there.”
“Not without my help, you won’t,” the Crossman hissed.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Fifty-Eight. I’ll help you get your friend out of that hole, but if you want to live, you must turn around, go back.” His tone was less aggressive now; Gabe even heard a hint of a plea in it.
“There’s nothing for us back there. We just want to find water and shelter. We’re not looking for trouble.” He hated how powerless he felt, how weak he sounded, but he didn’t want to fight this man. He was around the same age, height, and build as him, but he was a member of Leader’s ranks. He would fight tough, he would fight dirty, and he would fight to the death. Having the cross burned into their skin seemed to give them a small piece of Leader’s brutality. He couldn’t, wouldn’t think the pleading tone of the man in front of him reflected any kind of weakness.
“Gabe, help me,” Bodge yelled.
“Tell your friend to close his hole,” the Crossman spat, his head whipping from left to right, listening.
“It’s okay, Bodge. Just hang on.” What was he listening for? Why was he worried about Bodge making noise? He saw that there was a cave behind Fifty-Eight. Why was he here, so far back, surviving in a cave, when he could be near the White Wall, eating rice and lording it over Regulars?
“If you go on, you’ll die.”
“Why?”
The man shook his head and turned away.
“You’re alone?”
“Does it matter?” Fifty-Eight stepped toward him. He held his ground, his heartbeat throbbing in his ears. There could be others, hiding in the cave behind Fifty-Eight, ready to attack them. This could be an ambush. It didn’t matter that he had nothing. Where Gang was concerned, the thrill of the kill was usually enough. And they did have something: the water bottle. A prize to be proud of down here. Maybe he was working out how to get to Bodge to retrieve the bottle that had gone over the edge with him.
Fifty-Eight turned and stepped into the cave. A few seconds later, he reappeared, carrying a coil of rope made from the cotton clothing all subs wore to enter the SUIC. He held on to one end and threw the rest over the side, and Gabe heard an ow as it hit Bodge.
“Tie it around your waist,” Fifty-Eight called, shielding his mouth with his hand to direct his call directly down to Bodge. “Help me pull him up, and let’s be quick about it.” He backed into the cave, extinguishing the lighter so he could grip the makeshift rope with both hands.
Gabe followed him. He was wary, but he didn’t get the sense there were other Gang nearby, and he thought if Fifty-Eight was pulling Bodge up to take the bottle from him, he was either playing a dangerous game, or he was confident he could beat someone with more muscle in one arm than he had in his entire body. What he couldn’t figure out, was why Fifty-Eight was alone. Gang usually traveled in pairs, sometimes, on rare occasions, groups. It was unheard of for Leader to send his men out alone, especially to the farthest reaches of the SUIC.
He sat down in front of Fifty-Eight, and between them they hoisted Bodge up and over the ledge. The lighter revealed no serious injury. Just a swelling right eye, and various scrapes. He trudged dejectedly to stand on the other side of Gabe, away from the Crossman.
Gabe detected a slump in Fifty-Eight’s shoulders, an air of dejection.
“You’re hiding, aren’t you?”
Fifty-Eight stared at him for a few long seconds, then nodded.
“Why?”
He fixed Gabe with an angry glare and spoke in a haunted whisper. “He’ll kill everyone. I’m trying to tell you, but you don’t want to listen. Leader is going to kill everyone with his plan.”
“What plan? What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know?”
“I’m scared,” Bodge said. “I want to go.”
Gabe ignored Bodge, but Fifty-Eight nodded at him. “You should be scared. He wants to go up, but it’s too dangerous.”
“Up?” Gabe asked.
“He has Gang digging up. But they put in bombs, the World Alliance, to stop people going up. Leader thinks they can go around the bombs, but they can’t. He’s just killing Gang, to show he’s in charge. He’ll bring the whole place down and kill every one of us.” His sentence ended with a strangled sob, the kind of sob a man makes when he’s trying desperately to hold it in, and Gabe waited a moment, allowing him to regain his composure, before speaking.
“He doesn’t know you’re back here?”
Gabe had thought the rumbling earth and the dull thuds were being caused by the humans above, not the subhumans below. That maybe his son was up there, alone, in the middle of another war. He’d put the thought to the back of his mind. What happened above ground could be of no consequence to him down here, but this news sent adrenaline coursing through him.
Fifty-Eight shook his head.
“What’s your real name?” Bodge asked innocently.
“My name is Fifty-Eight,” he said, meeting Bodge’s eyes, daring him to challenge his Gang credentials. Bodge immediately looked down at the hole he’d fallen into minutes earlier.
Gabe wondered: could a man who was hiding from Leader really call himself a member of Gang? He decided the worst thing he could do was ask, so he asked something different.
“What happened to Fifty-Seven?”
“I killed him.”
As Bodge took a step back, Gabe took a step forward. “You were afraid he’d report you for disobeying Leader?”
Fifty-Eight nodded. “At first, it was okay. No one died in the first two months. The bombs started about thirty feet above the tunnels, and most people dug at the same pace. During the third month, twenty men died. They were the strongest men, the best Diggers. Now, more are dying every day. Every time there’s a boom, every time the earth shakes, two more are gone. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He knows digging up is never going to work, and he knows everyone in Gang knows it too. He’s testing our loyalty, to make sure his position is safe. He knows we’ll never question him, and he knows we’ll never dig up and out. Even if we did, they’d have soldiers waiting to kill us. He’s playing a power game, and it will end in disaster. He’s going to kill everyone, including the Regulars, just to prove he controls things down here.”
Gabe took another step toward him as he fixed his gaze on his earth-blackened feet.
“Does he have Regulars digging, too?”
“No, you don’t understand. Regulars aren’t digging, but it doesn’t matter, they’ll still die if the whole place falls in on them.”
“What happened to Fifty-Seven’s light?”
Fifty-Eight stuck a hand in his pocket, brought out a second lighter, and flicked it to life without saying a word. Gabe didn’t give himself time to doubt his instincts. He darted forward and tore the lighter from Fifty-Eight’s grip. He staggered back and stumbled into Bodge.
“Bodge, jump,” he yelled, and the two men leapt from the ledge, Bodge trailing the cotton rope behind him as they fell into the darkness below.
****
IT HAD BEEN ONE HELL of a gamble.
Fifty-Eight could have grabbed his wrist and beaten him to death with his own hand, and Bodge would likely have stood and watched, frozen in fear, or turned and fled the confrontation.
But Gabe took a chance, hoping he’d fall no farther than Bodge had when he’d stepped off the ledge in panic. He tumbled head over heels before finally coming to rest on his side, winded, gasping for air.
He sucked air past aching ribs, hoping none were fractured. The pain gradually subsided as he lay still, listening for any sound that might indicate Fifty-Eight coming after them. He ran his tongue over his teeth, looking for gaps or any that were loose. He found none, and he heard nothing to make him fear retribution from Fifty-Eight. The man’s spirit was broken. He wouldn’t want to make a racket scrabbling down the loosely-packed rock to go after them, for fear of revealing his position to Gang sent to look for him. If they found him, Leader would set him to digging again, or worse. Gang was brutal, but Leader was a totally different proposition. Gabe wasn’t sure how many of Leader’s rules Fifty-Eight had broken, but even breaking one could be fatal, and Gabe thought he’d probably broken several – by disobeying Leader’s orders, by hiding from the rest of Gang, and by killing Fifty-Seven – if what he said was true.
Bodge hadn’t hesitated when Gabe told him to jump, launching himself from the ledge, and now he could hear nothing to tell him he’d survived the fall.
“Bodge, are you okay?”
A low groan came from nearby, followed by a groggy assessment of his condition. “Hurts.”
“What hurts, Bodge?”
“I broke everything.”
He was so used to being encircled by darkness that it took him twenty seconds to remember the lighter – his prize for taking a risk so great – and flick it to life. Bodge was ten feet away, his right arm folded under him, his entire body weight on it. A one-inch gash on the left side of his forehead oozed blood down his cheek. It glistened against his dark skin.
“Did you get knocked out?”
“Don’t know.” Bodge sat up, holding his right arm awkwardly against his body. He dabbed at the blood on his cheek, looked at it with wide, fearful eyes, and wiped it on his pants like it was acid burning into his fingers.
“What hurts?”
“My arm, and my ankle. I busted ‘em.”
This was bad news. Seriously bad news. He needed Bodge in one piece. If he’d broken his leg, he wouldn’t be able to climb, or even walk, and he certainly wouldn’t be able to flee if they were confronted by Gang.
“Stay right there. I’m going to help you.”
He got slowly to his feet, flexed his arms and legs, checked his own head for blood. All clear, apart from bruised ribs.
He made his way carefully across the gravelly, sloping ground to Bodge. Holding the lighter close to the hand that had been pinned under his body, he saw that the wrist was already beginning to swell.
“Can you bend it?”
Bodge pulled his hand away as Gabe gingerly flexed his wrist. “Ow, Gabe. Why’d you do that?”
“Sorry, I’m just trying to help.”
“I don’t mean my hand.” Bodge’s brow furrowed as Gabe untied the knotted rope from around his waist.
“What do you mean, then?” He tore a square of cotton from the rope and dabbed at the cut on Bodge’s forehead, relieved to see it wasn’t deep.
“Why did you steal the light? I mean why did you steal the light.”
“Because we needed a light, and now we have one. You don’t like the dark.”
“But he’s a Crossman, he’ll come after us and hurt us.”
“He’s not Gang, Bodge, not anymore.”
“He had the cross right on his head. I saw it.” A matching pair of tears made tracks down Bodge’s cheeks.
“He had the cross, but he’s not Gang, and he’s not coming after us. He’s just like us, trying to find somewhere safe.”
“But what if other Crossmen come after us?”
“Bodge, I told you. They’re not coming after us. Christ, listen to me, would you?”
“Sorry.” Bodge’s head dropped, his chin on his chest, his eyes wet with tears as he cradled his broken wrist.
“It’s not your fault. You’re scared, I get it, but we’re okay.”
“You promise?” He looked at Gabe, his eyes puddles.
“Yes. Right now, I promise.”
“And you won’t leave me?”
“I won’t leave you, Bodge.”
“But why did you steal the light?”
Gabe tipped his head back, exhaled slowly, and counted to ten. “You heard what he said. Leader is trying to dig up and out.”
“That don’t have nothing to do with us though, do it? We’re just finding a place to live, where it’s safe.”
Gabe looked up into the gloom. “You think you can climb?”
Bodge didn’t answer.
“What’s wrong, Bodge?”
“I lost the bottle.”
Gabe looked around and spotted it on the edge of a wide, dark hole. He eased his way to it, being careful not to slip on the loose rock, fearful of knocking it over the ledge and out of reach. He managed to retrieve it and made his way back.
“Can you climb out of here, or do I have to pull you out?”
“My arm hurts.”
“I guess that means I’ll have to pull you out, huh?”
Bodge nodded and wiped a dirty hand across his eyes, smearing his tears with dust.
****
GABE SCRABBLED UP THE precarious scree, small rocks coming loose under his hands and feet and tumbling down past him. Once he was out, he held up the lighter to satisfy himself that Fifty-Eight had left, then threw one end of the rope down to Bodge.
“Tie it around your waist and wait for me to tell you what happens next.”
“Hurry, Gabe. I’m scared.”
Even before Bodge had finished his sentence, a rumble came through the ground. It felt like a tremor, a minor earthquake, but now Gabe knew it for what it really was – a sign that Fifty-Eight could be right, that Leader’s plan would at least put an end to many, if not all, the members of his gang. Since Gabe had emerged from his catatonic state and found Bodge nursing him back to health, he’d heard several of those explosions. Some were distant, others sounded like they came from nearby. Their refuge had crumbled as a direct result of a bomb detonating, he was sure of it, and now he looked up into the spiraling blackness of the Cathedral above him, hoping an avalanche of rock wasn’t about to crash this party.
He knew he couldn’t stand around for long. He had to get Bodge out of the hole and get them moving, in case the noise they’d made brought Gang to check what was going on back here. He found two large, relatively smooth rocks and looped the rope around them in a figure of eight, before calling out a warning to Bodge and beginning to heave, keeping his eyes on the makeshift rope and pulley system, praying the friction didn’t wear through the cotton or loop over either of the rocks. With a lot of grunting and perspiration, he managed to haul Bodge out of the hole.
For a time, they sat motionless, Gabe letting the burning sensation in his palms subside, Bodge whispering about how his ankle and wrist hurt real bad. Between them, the small glow of the lighter felt like a connector, binding them to one another.
When eventually they rose and made their way out of the Cathedral and back into narrow, humid tunnels, they did so in darkness, despite Bodge pleading for light. Gabe explained that they had to preserve the lighter fuel. They couldn’t even burn pieces of the rope for light, because they had to make sure they had enough to get out if either of them fell into another hole.
They walked slowly through the darkness, Gabe in front, Bodge behind, his uninjured left hand on Gabe’s shoulder. Every so often, Gabe stopped, listened to make sure he couldn’t hear Gang close by, and lit their surroundings for five or ten seconds. It was one of those times that Bodge managed to snag them a meal, when the lighter surprised a rat that was close enough to grab, and Bodge removed his hand from Gabe’s shoulder for the first time since they’d left the Cathedral, stooping with lightning speed to grab it, forgetting all about the pain in his busted ankle for the time it took them to divide and swallow the gristly meat.
After several more twists and turns, they found themselves in a steeply-ascending tunnel. They heard no sounds above that might indicate digging, so Gabe hurried up the incline. When they came to the end of the tunnel, the ground leveled out and they stopped.
“You okay?” Gabe asked.
“I don’t want to walk no more. Why can’t we just find a place to stay? I’m tired, and my arm hurts, and my leg hurts. I think I have blisters, too.”
“You can stay here if you like.” Gabe spat the words into the darkness, and immediately regretted saying them. Bodge was afraid, and in pain, but he’d saved Gabe’s life, he’d jumped into the hole when told without questioning it, and he’d followed him blindly through these tunnels, with at least one broken bone. He reminded himself that, as big as his companion was, he was still just a kid, a vulnerable kid, who needed looking after.
That was why he was here: to look after Bodge, to help him find somewhere he felt safe, somewhere he could make a life for himself. But things had changed. Leader had his men digging up, setting off explosions. What if, on the other side of those explosions, there were no more bombs? What if, once the bombs had been detonated, the way was clear? Could they dig all the way to the surface, through two miles of earth? And, if so, could he find a way to be there when they made it through? Did he have a shot at getting out of this place? Of freedom? Of seeing the sun and feeling its warmth on his skin? Of seeing his son?
“You promised you wouldn’t leave me. I don’t want to be on my own.”
“I’m not going to leave you. You think maybe you could move a little faster, and we’ll find somewhere to rest?”
“I’ll try.”
“Okay, buddy. I’m sorry I yelled.”
“I was tired, that’s all, and my foot hurts.”
The relief in Bodge’s tone made him feel human. Being labeled subhuman and cast into this hot, dark misery took away a person’s humanity, but taking care of Bodge, helping Bodge, brought a measure of humanity back that he thought he’d lost during his years of surviving down here.
He walked slowly, at a pace the injured Bodge could match. Around an hour later, when they emerged into another echoing space and lit their surroundings, he found that they’d reached the Cemetery.
****
“I DON’T LIKE IT HERE. Can we find somewhere else?”
He had to admit: the Cemetery was an eerie place. When he’d retreated deeper into the SUIC, looking for a way to escape, and eventually for somewhere to give up and die, he’d been only vaguely aware of passing through this place. Then, he’d had no light to show him the rows of unmarked graves. Now, holding the lighter above his head, he made out the nearest patches of sunken earth, no more than two feet between each. Hundreds of men were buried here. Men who’d been killed by Gang, or who’d starved, or taken their own lives. Even Gang themselves, and he was reminded starkly of the peril they were in.
“You’ve been saying you want to stop for an hour. Now you want to keep moving?” He flipped the lighter shut, plunging them into darkness once more. It was double relief: he no longer had to see Bodge’s pained expression, or the shallow graves.
“I’m afraid of the ghosts. Please, Gabe, turn on the light.”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“I seen one,” Bodge whispered. Even whispering, his tone was shrill. The poor kid was terrified, but Gabe didn’t take the bait. The last thing they needed was to scare themselves with ghost stories. What they needed was rest. Bodge’s sprained ankle might improve if he took the weight off it for a couple of hours.
“Just forget we’re here. We’ll try to get a little sleep, then we’ll get going again. How does that sound?”
“You’ll protect me from the ghosts?”
“You bet,” Gabe said wearily. He flicked the lighter on long enough to lead Bodge to the edge of the Cemetery, where they sat down under a slight overhang and tried not to lean against the scorching wall.
If there were ghosts in this underground hell, this was surely where they’d be. Tortured souls of men condemned to such a terrible fate as theirs were not likely to find passage to whatever came next easily. It could be Heaven; Gabe was sure innocent men had perished without a chance to clear their names down here. For the guilty? Well, they were already in Hell. Was it so hard to believe a man’s essence, his soul, could get trapped in the SUIC Cemetery?
He tried to picture his son, tried to block out his surroundings, but it was hard to be this close to hundreds of dead men. He would be happy once they left this place behind, and even happier if he never came back here again, alive or dead.
“Gabe?”
“Yeah.”
“My head hurts.”
“That’s because we have no water. We’ll find some when we get moving again.”
“Can we make a fire? I’m scared to sleep in the dark.”
“Why are you so afraid?”
Bodge didn’t answer, and after almost a minute of silence, he heard a low sob.
“Hey buddy, it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”
“I do have to tell you, because you looked after me all this time.” He sniffed loudly. “Bad things happen in the dark.”
His tone sent chills through Gabe. “Bad things?”
“Yeah, dark gets inside people and makes them do bad things. I already know I’m bad, because Annie told me so. But I’m scared that being in the dark will make me badder.”
“You said Annie was your mother?”
“Yeah. She liked to drink all day long until she was falling over, and I had to be quiet and keep out of her way, but I couldn’t always do it, because I kept growing bigger.”
When Gabe finally ignited the lighter, its orange glow lit on Bodge, and he saw tears dripping onto the dusty ground. He sat, shoulders hunched, hugging his knees, resting his forehead on them.
“Sometimes, when I was sleeping, she came in my room and beat me with her cane. She told me I was bad because my brain don’t work right.”
Gabe shuffled closer and threw his arm halfway around Bodge’s broad shoulders. “Your brain works just fine.”
“No, it don’t. Not since my daddy shook me so hard and got sent away. After he was gone we didn’t have nothing. He used to do a job, and bring money, but he got sent away because of me, and Annie had to get money other ways. She had lots of boyfriends. Sometimes she would get them to come into my room and show me how bad I was, but they didn’t beat me, they hurt me other ways, and I didn’t like it. The dark got into them and made them bad.”
“Jesus,” Gabe muttered under his breath. This gentle, scared soul had been subjected to horrors he didn’t even want to begin to imagine. “Did Annie ever get in trouble for hurting you, or for letting her boyfriends hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“Did she get sent away too?”
Bodge shook his head, and one of his tears landed on Gabe’s cheek. It mixed with his own tears, and he let it be. If he wiped it away, more would only take its place.
It took Bodge a minute to answer his question. A minute of silence, apart from the occasional sniffle.
“One day she got mad and told me to stay in my room. Said if she saw my big stupid ugly face she’d stick a knife in my belly. I stayed in there so long I thought I was gonna pee my pants, and so I came out to go to the bathroom and she was sleeping on the floor. I saw her bottle, and I drank it. It wasn’t a nice taste, but it made my head dizzy and it made me so I wasn’t afraid for a little while. She got mad when she saw what I did, because not having it made her sick, and she chased me with a knife from the kitchen. I don’t ‘member what happened after that.”
“Did she hurt herself?”
“They said I stabbed her, forty-two times, but I don’t ‘member, and I don’t know how many forty-two is. I just know she was dead, and there was lots of blood.”
“Is that why they sent you here?”
He nodded. “I did a bad thing, and I ain’t safe to be up there no more. It’s okay though, because you’re gonna look after me now.”
Through red, teary eyes, he found a smile that Gabe thought was beautiful in its simplicity. After all the trauma, after all the bad things that had happened to him, he still wanted to trust.
He shouldn’t be down here, Gabe thought. If you back an animal into a corner and scare it enough, terrorize it enough, it will attack to save itself, to get away. When all was said and done, Gabe and Bodge, and all the people above and below ground, were just animals. Bodge had saved his own life, and they’d judged him subhuman for it. After failing to protect him for his whole life. So, who was really the sub? Bodge, or the people whose job it was to protect kids like him? He was sure of one thing: Bodge’s mother and father were subhuman. His mother’s boyfriends too. But it was Bodge who was underground, paying for their crimes.
“I’ll look after you, and you’ll look after me, too. We’ll be partners in crime. How does that sound?”
“I don’t wanna do no crimes, Gabe.”
He laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t get you in any trouble.”
They sat, shoulders touching, both sweating profusely.
“Tear me a small piece of rope, and I’ll make a little fire, so we don’t have to sleep in the dark.”
“Really?” The light in Bodge’s voice was worth sacrificing the rope. It was only twelve-foot-long anyway, not likely to be much use, apart from being something they could burn to preserve the life of the lighter.
“Yeah, but just a small piece, we have to save it for emergencies. Hopefully it’ll stay lit long enough for you to get to sleep.”
He listened to the sound of tearing cloth, then Bodge thrust a square of what had once been the sleeve of a shirt into his hand. He shuffled away, making a gap between them, and put a flame to the cloth. It went up with a whoosh, then quickly died down, and he watched Bodge’s eyes gradually begin to drift shut. By the time another ten minutes had passed, his own eyelids were drooping. He felt himself on sleep’s precipice, his eyelids heavy as he drifted into another place. Just as he began to submit, he heard a voice in the distance.
“You really think he’s gonna stick to it?”
He scrabbled into an upright position and slapped the embers of the small fire.
“What’s going...”
“Shhhh, Bodge,” he whispered, clamping a hand over Bodge’s mouth. When Bodge nodded, he removed his hand, and they listened in silence.
“You hear something?”
“Probably a damn rat.”
The voice was gruff, hard. It echoed in the darkness on the far side of the Cemetery.
“What if it’s him? He could be alive.”
“There’s no way he survived that blast. Even if he did, he won’t have made it more than a mile.”
“How can you be so sure, Forty? We haven’t found his body.”
“He probably fell into a hole. Listen, we’re carrying pieces of Fifty-Seven here. Not Fifty-Seven, but the bits of him that weren’t liquidized in the explosion. Fifty-Eight had to have been right behind him when that tunnel went up, so he must have suffered serious damage too. Once we bury what’s left of Fifty-Seven, we’ll go look for him. Leader said we gotta bring back the lights, and they weren’t with what’s left of this poor sucker. So yeah, okay, Fifty-Eight must have made it out alive, but if he was injured bad enough that he didn’t make his way back to Leader, then I’d say he’s dead by now. There’s no way he passed us, we would’ve seen him, so chances are he’s down a hole somewhere. Man, I know these are our brothers, but I’m sick of having guts all over me.”
“Now who’s the one doubting Leader?”
“Shut up and dig, numb nuts.”
Gabe listened to the sound of the two men digging a grave for the remains of Fifty-Seven. He’d been killed by a bomb. Fifty-Eight had said he’d killed the man. Maybe he had. Maybe he’d seen a charge poking out of the rock and backed out of the tunnel they were digging, told Fifty-Seven to head in and dig while he rested.
For the next ten minutes, the only sound was digging, and an occasional grunt. Bodge, normally so restless, sat perfectly still. These men had weapons: the sharp rocks they were using to dig. If they stumbled across them, they would likely kill them as soon as they saw they were Regulars.
Gabe spied the dim glow of a lighter when they put down their rocks and got to work pushing the remains of Fifty-Seven into the hole using their bare feet, before they extinguished it so they could use their hands to shift the dirt more quickly.
When they were done, he heard the earlier question repeated.
“So, you think he’s gonna stick to his plan?”
A heavy, impatient sigh.
“Why would he go back on his word, Thirty-Nine? You ever known him to change his mind once he made a decision?”
“No. It’s just that he’ll have no men left, the way things are going.”
“Are you doubting your loyalty? Is that it? Because if you are, you can always get out.”
“Get out?”
“Yeah, of Gang. Like Six did. He got out of Gang. In fact, he got out of his skin.”
“Leader had his skin peeled.”
“Well, now you’re splitting hairs, which, incidentally, is what Leader had the guards do to Six.” The gruff-voiced man laughed loud, congratulating himself on his joke. “If you’re doubting him, and you want to get out, then you can, that’s all I’m saying. I’d have to tell him, of course, but I’m sure you’d be fine, really.”
“I don’t want to get out of Gang, and I’m not doubting Leader.”
Gabe heard a note of exasperation in the man’s voice that was completely different from the confident sneer of the other man. He thought he was wise to deny the accusation put to him. Even if he was doubting his loyalty to Leader, to admit it would likely end up with another grave being dug next to the one they’d just filled in, this time by just one of them. Leader’s torture of men who doubted him was brutal and merciless, but Leader wasn’t here. Forty might take care of Thirty-Nine right now if he admitted to having doubts about Leader’s plan. He listened as Thirty-Nine continued hesitantly.
“It’s just that, if everyone’s digging up, and the bombs keep exploding, the whole place might fall in. Even Leader might be killed.”
“If you wanna tell him that, you go right ahead and tell him. Maybe you got a death wish, but I don’t. It’s like I told you: we just do what he tells us, and when this is over we get to be his right-hand men. If you wanna doubt him and get yourself killed, well, there’s nothing I can do about that. I’m happy to be his only right-hand man if you want to check out.”
“I’m not doubting him, and I’m not checking out. If he tells me to dig, I’ll dig as hard as anyone. Harder.”
“Oh yeah? You won’t dig harder than me. I’m not gonna let him down. Come on, let’s go find what’s left of Fifty-Eight. Place gives me the creeps. Almost feels like we got company, and I got no clue how to kill fucking zombies.”
Gabe felt Bodge flinch when Forty cussed. He held his breath as they argued about which way to go. Thirty-Nine thought they ought to cross the Cemetery and look for Fifty-Eight on the other side. If they did that, Gabe and Bodge would be discovered, so he was thankful Forty was the more dominant of the two, and as relieved as he’d been in a long time, when they left the Cemetery the way they’d entered.
****
“DID YOU HEAR WHAT HE said, Bodge? Leader does have all his men digging up.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is that your opinion, uh-huh?”
“I don’t know what it mean. I thought they were ghosts.”
Gabe identified with the note of terror in Bodge’s voice, he’d felt the same when he heard the voices echo across the boneyard. Now, the thoughts whirling around his mind were consuming him, pushing aside the fear. Just how far had they managed to dig?
“You ready to move? Does your ankle feel better?”
“We should wait, in case they come back.”
“Okay, yes, you’re right. If we go after them right away we might catch up to them. We’ll stay here for a little while. Get some sleep. If they come back, I’ll wake you.”
“Don’t leave me, Gabe.”
“I won’t.”
As though looking for insurance, Bodge hooked one of his big arms around Gabe’s leg. Listening in the darkness, he heard Bodge’s breathing slow as he drifted into slumber. He’d been too scared to ask for another fire to be lit, but he was too exhausted to avoid sleep.
He thought about the parts of the conversation he’d heard. Forty had been certain of his commitment to Leader’s plan, but the other guy, Thirty-Nine, hadn’t sounded so sure, despite his insistence that he had no doubts about his loyalty to Leader. Were there others in the Gang ranks who had doubts about digging up and out of the SUIC, and if there were, what would that mean for life underground?
From a gang of maybe a hundred men, there had to be some who didn’t like the idea of following Leader’s instructions face-first into a bomb. Fifty-Eight had proved that, and if there were more men like Thirty-Nine and Fifty-Eight, then it wasn’t totally unthinkable that Leader might end up with a revolt on his hands.
That could lead to a full-scale underground war between Gang, if the doubters were brave enough to communicate their doubt. A leader of their ranks would soon come to the fore, and then the digging wouldn’t be Leader’s primary focus. Putting down a revolution would. He wondered if that was Leader’s goal in all of this: a test of loyalty, a means to the end of weeding out those who were not totally committed to his cause.
But what if it wasn’t? What if he really did think they could dig around the traps set to stop the subhuman prisoners of the SUIC escaping? The man wasn’t stupid, he couldn’t rule over so many for so long if he was.
He wanted to believe there was a way to escape. If he were giving the orders, he’d have men returning to where bombs had been detonated, looking for a way to dig past the places they knew there were no bombs left. The World Alliance might have put several layers in, concentric rings to ward off this type of escape plan. Plus, there was the risk of the whole thing coming down on them. Would Leader want to risk all his men in one place?
If he did, and they didn’t make it past the bombs, the SUIC could suffer a partial collapse, burying Gabe and Bodge behind a wall of debris that would cut them off from the rest of the SUIC. Just a few days ago, he would have considered this a good thing, a blessing, but not now.
Then, he’d been ready to die. Now, he was ready to live.
If those who doubted and were afraid to dig started a war, the end result was almost guaranteed: there would likely be no Gang when all was said and done. And what was a leader without his followers?
The only place they were guaranteed enough air was the shaft down which they’d been lowered into this purgatory, Gabe five years ago, Bodge a matter of weeks or days earlier. That would be the last place they’d dig, because they all knew, even Leader, that that would be a suicide mission.
Above that shaft was an army of men carrying automatic laser weapons, patrolling the wide-open space around the entrance to the SUIC. At least, there had been five years before, and he expected that army had only been strengthened during the time he’d been down here.
They were probably ready to drop bombs into the shaft if they ever saw men coming out of it.
He didn’t think Leader would order his men to dig there.
He thought back to his first couple of days underground. Never mind what they said he did, the subhuman crime he’d been convicted of. Never mind what any of the men down here had done, no one should be forced to live this way. That had been his first thought, ten minutes into his new life, as Gang had surrounded him and taken his light, taken his water bottle.
In his mind, he could still hear the buzzing whirr of the rotor blades on the drone that had lowered him, like a swarm of angry bees defending their queen, the light of its flaming engines fading as it moved slowly away, back up the rusting steel shaft.
He’d given up what he had to Gang, he wasn’t a fighter. He’d been convinced they would take his life right there and then anyway, standing in that washed-out circle of light that came from above, surrounded by six or seven Gang. Hardly able to breathe, such was his fear.
Then the buzzing sound had gotten louder, and they’d all looked up to see another of the oval drones descending, and Gabe had scurried out of the light and into the shadows, from where he’d watched what happened next.
The newcomer had been defiant. When Gang surrounded him and demanded his possessions, he’d been ready to fight for what he had. In the ten minutes that followed, he’d been beaten to death by the bloodthirsty Gang, while Gabe watched on, helpless to do anything about it, sickened by their whoops of delight as they crushed the man’s bones and spilled his blood.
He’d eventually turned and fled down a long, wide slope, where he’d found the Cotton Cave.
The Cotton Cave was half a mile away from the shaft. Still close enough that your eyes could find motes of light to enable you to make out your surroundings.
There were around two hundred men living in the Cotton Cave when he’d been there. If you could call it living. The wall had been excavated, leaving an overhang on one side of the chamber that provided a sense of shelter to the men living there. The rock itself was boiling hot, so living under it was torturous. Many of the men used the clothing they’d been lowered in to mark their own bit of land, hanging it between their small amount of space and that of the men living either side of them.
That was how the Cotton Cave had gotten its name.
Some of the men living at the far end walked around naked in an effort to regulate their body temperature. Some defecated where they lived and didn’t care enough to bury it. Others starved, too frozen by fear of the place to hunt. For those who could hunt, there was food. Rats. Lots of rats. And insects. Worms and spiders and cockroaches.
Food was sent down every month – a way of ensuring they lived long enough to suffer – but Gang took that. It was just rice, but those in the Cotton Cave never saw any of it.
Gabe had been there three years. Three long years, during which time he’d made few friends. He’d eked out each day, surviving, waiting for those above to realize he was innocent and free him. He’d grown used to spending half his day standing in line to get a drink of water from the trickling pipe that stood at the end of the cave nearest the shaft, a line that never shortened. Acclimatizing to the hostile conditions, figuring out how to catch rats, growing used to the taste of them.
He’d gotten good at hunting. He’d been on the end of the Cotton Cave farthest from the shaft, at the mouth of a tunnel that had terrified him in the early days. He’d been scared that, if he went down that tunnel, he would never come out alive, but the narrow mouth of the tunnel had been a good place to hunt. He’d grown adept at setting traps with his cotton shirt, even catching them with his bare hands sometimes.
Still, it wasn’t living, eating insects and rats, breathing the heavy odor of others’ waste. He’d expected to contract some fatal disease, but he never had. He’d thought of the rats as vermin at first, but as the months passed his opinion changed. They weren’t vermin, the same as the men in the Cotton Cave were not base. The base vermin were Gang, the strong victimizing the weak, ruling over the Cotton Cave through violence and fear. Taking what they wanted, raping and murdering, forcing the living to bury the dead.
He’d headed in deeper to search for escape, his connection to the outside world fading with every step further into the darkness of the SUIC. He’d survived but, somewhere along the way, he’d begun to lose his identity as a human, to feel like the subhuman they’d labeled him.
But now he had hope. Hope of getting out, of ending his nightmare.
****
HE’D JUST STARTED TO fall into sleep when an almighty racket broke out.
He jumped to his feet, stumbling and cracking the top of his head against the rock behind him even as it registered that the noise wasn’t Gang or some great disaster befalling their little corner of the underground.
It was Bodge, whimpering and grunting and groaning and screaming as he was consumed by the nightmare he was having.
Instinctively, Gabe swung a foot and caught Bodge on the shin. Bodge jolted awake and sat up quickly.
“Gabe, is that you?”
“Of course it’s me,” Gabe hissed through clenched teeth. “Shut up, will you? You’ll get us killed.”
He listened. Sound carried throughout the SUICs chambers and tunnels. Thirty-Nine and Forty were looking for Fifty-Eight. If they heard Bodge’s din, they’d come running back, thinking Fifty-Eight was making the racket.
“They were hurting me. I was asking them to stop, but they didn’t wanna listen. My daddy was shaking me so hard my head was gonna fall off, and Annie’s friends were doing things to me.”
“You’re fine, Bodge, but we can’t stay here. Come on, stand up.”
“My ankle hurts.”
“I don’t care, Bodge. Stand up.”
Bodge got to his feet, a shadow in the darkness. He began to whimper again, and Gabe reached out and grabbed him by his wrist in an effort to quiet him. It had the opposite effect: he’d grabbed him by his broken wrist, and he screamed even louder than before.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Gabe flicked the lighter on. He heard voices in the distance, likely Thirty-Nine and Forty racing toward the sound expecting to find the traitorous Fifty-Eight.
“Listen.” Gabe reached up and placed both hands around Bodge’s jaw. “We gotta move, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Give me your good hand.”
Bodge did as Gabe asked, and he led him across the graves, the lighter sputtering and going out as they stepped over the sunken patches of earth. When they reached the wall on the far side they stopped, just in time to hear the arrival of Thirty-Nine and Forty.
“Hey, Fifty-Eight, you in here?”
“He ain’t here. Come on, let’s go.”
“I’m telling you, it was him. I’d know that lily-livered scream anywhere. He’s trying to hide from us.”
“Maybe one of the giant rats got him. Or the zombies.”
The voices decreased as they walked in the direction Gabe and Bodge had been moments earlier. Gabe waited a couple of minutes, until he was certain they were gone. Then he flicked the lighter on and found a tunnel for them to disappear into.
****
“HOW’S YOUR ANKLE FEEL?”
“Like somebody squeezing it.”
“That’s because it’s swollen. We gotta keep moving though, okay?”
“Yeah.”
Bodge sounded close to tears. They moved in darkness, Gabe keeping the conversation to a minimum. He still didn’t feel safe. They’d made their way through a maze of tunnels, putting as much distance between the Cemetery and themselves as possible, but he still feared running into Thirty-Nine and Forty. Or other Gang. In the past, Leader had forbidden his men from venturing too deep, but now he had them digging all over the SUIC.
His mind-mapping technique had long since failed him. There was too much whirling around inside his head, a myriad of thoughts that covered the whole spectrum, from being discovered by Gang, to getting out of this place and seeing his son.
Between those thoughts was only fear.
If they were caught by Gang and discovered to be in possession of the lighter, they would be killed. Their theft of the lighter would be seen as a challenge to Gang’s dominance. They could ditch it, but he didn’t see the point in doing that. They’d only be worse off.
There was an atmosphere permeating the SUIC. He’d felt it when in the presence of Fifty-Eight and heard it in the exchanges between Thirty-Nine and Forty. Fear was bubbling, either because of Leader’s decision to have everyone dig up, the numerous deaths this decision had led to, or the threat of the whole place falling in. Maybe some of the condemned men even feared escaping this place.
“You still got the rope, Bodge?”
“It’s tied around my belly.”
Bodge sounded proud to be useful, and Gabe told himself to spur him on more, instead of losing his temper, or demanding he do this or that.
“You’re doing a great job.”
“You think so?”
“When we find somewhere to rest, we’ll see about making a bandage for your wrist. How does that sound?”
“Will it make it better?”
“It won’t make it better, but it might help with the pain a little.”
“How about here? Could we stop here?”
Gabe had walked right past the hole in the wall. Bodge, who had his good hand trailing along it despite the heat permeating through the rock, had felt the hollow open up under his fingertips.
Gabe reached up and felt it for himself, noting its upward thirty-degree angle.
“Wow.”
“Whatsamatter, Gabe?”
“Shush, wait a minute.” He listened for a time and, when he was satisfied no one was up inside the hole, he held the lighter above his head, flicked it to life, and confirmed his suspicions. “This must be where Fifty-Eight was digging. Kneel down.”
“Huh?”
“Kneel down. I want to step on your back.”
“Why?”
“To climb inside.”
Bodge knelt, and Gabe clambered up into the hole, scraping an inch of skin from his back as he did so.
“What’s up there?” Bodge whispered.
The tunnel curved away from him, heading steadily upward. “You think you can climb up? We should be safe up here.”
“Maybe, if you help me.”
“I’ll help you, buddy, you bet.” He took another look at what lay ahead, quickly assessing whether it was wide and strong enough to accommodate Bodge. He thought it was.
He reached down and took Bodge’s hand, trying to pull him up. “You’re too heavy. You think you could climb?”
“No, my arm hurts.”
He thought for a moment. “Okay, I’ll jump down, and you can stand on my back and crawl inside.”
Bodge giggled as Gabe lowered himself. “I’m too big to stand on you.”
“Oh yeah? Well, we’ll see, won’t we?”
Gabe tensed every muscle in his body as Bodge stepped on him and, despite feeling like his eyes were about to pop out of his head for a few seconds, like his spine was about to fall into scrambled jigsaw pieces, Bodge’s weight soon shifted off him as he wedged himself inside the manmade cavity.
“Now use your good hand to pull me up.”
This was much less of a challenge, and they were soon side by side in the narrow tunnel.
Moments later, they heard the voices of Thirty-Nine and Forty below.
“Should we go back up, make sure he’s not still up there?”
“Are you stupid? You saw with your own eyes that he wasn’t.”
“Maybe he dug a tunnel in the other direction.”
“He didn’t. There was only one tunnel, we both saw the end of it. He didn’t stick around. Probably scared more bombs might go off.”
“Where the hell is he?”
“Already told you, down a fuckin’ hole.”
Bodge clapped his hands over his ears at the curse word, and Gabe tensed, hoping they hadn’t heard Bodge’s large hands clapping the side of his head.
“We must be the only people alive this deep. If we stick around much longer, we won’t be.”
“We already stayed way too long. We need to get back and tell Leader about the lights. He won’t be happy. Especially if he has to stop men digging to have them come search for us.”
The voices receded. Gabe waited a few minutes to make sure they were gone, then lit the lighter, before gently prying one of Bodge’s hands away from his head. “I guess it’s our lucky day, huh? They almost found us.”
Bodge nodded, his face flushed from holding his breath.
He climbed over Bodge, telling him to rest while he explored farther on.
“Will you be okay?” Bodge’s voice was filled with uncertainty. “Will I be okay? They won’t come back?”
“I don’t think so. Forty said they had to make it back before Leader sends people out looking for them, so we should be safe here. I want to see how far this tunnel goes. Rest up, I’ll be back soon.”
“Okay.”
Gabe headed away into the tunnel, before turning and heading back. “We forgot to wrap up your wrist.”
“Oh yeah,” Bodge said. “Will it hurt?”
“Maybe a little. Here, hold this.” He passed the lighter to Bodge, who watched its dancing flame with reverence.
Gabe examined the rope. One end appeared to be either a sleeve or a leg. He untied it, ripped down the seam, and used one half to wrap Bodge’s swollen wrist.
Bodge tolerated it without complaint, despite his wrist being almost the size of Gabe’s neck. When it was wrapped tightly, Gabe tucked the end through the final loop and pulled it tight. This action elicited a groan.
“Don’t worry, it’ll feel better now it’s wrapped up.” Gabe didn’t wait for a response, turning and shuffling away up the tunnel, blinking away the sweat that ran into his eyes.
After banking to the left, the tunnel ended. He looked up and saw a hole above him, hoisted himself up into it, followed it steadily upward for twenty feet, and was amazed when it opened into a space almost large enough for him to stand.
As he crouched and shuffled along, it grew wider and taller: it was definitely the place Fifty-Eight had been digging. Dirt was piled against the tunnel’s sides, forming gentle slopes.
Ahead, it curved up and to the right. He was unprepared for what came next. As he rounded the corner, he tripped on something. He looked down and saw it was a foot, ripped from the body it had once been attached to. He fought the urge to retch, inching forward until the tunnel ended in a mess of stony shrapnel near the site of the explosion. Most of its force had gone either upward, or into Fifty-Seven’s body, meaning the ground under him was stable. He held the lighter up, and saw wire disappearing into the rock. It could mean only one thing: more bombs.
If there were bombs like this ringing the place, and in multiple layers, then digging up and out was a bad plan. A really bad plan. What if one exploded and set off a chain reaction with the others? One bomb detonating might not be enough to bring the whole place crashing in, but if five or six or seven exploded simultaneously? It could cause a domino effect. The entire SUIC could be destroyed, along with everyone inside.
From the assorted shards of rock, he found a couple that tapered into sharp, pointed edges, like knives fashioned by ancient cavemen. Then he turned back and headed for Bodge. There was no way they could dig here, not with the threat of unexploded bombs above, but at least now they had weapons to defend themselves if they ran into Crossmen.
He was surprised to find that Bodge had fallen asleep, and he made a decision. He left one of the rockknives by his side and carefully climbed over him, managing not to wake him as he freed the bottle from his hand. Then he dropped out of the hole and began his next mission: find food and water for them both.
****
IT WASN’T GOING WELL. He’d explored the narrow tunnels surrounding the one Bodge was holed up in, keeping the light off, listening carefully as he splashed through half an inch of water, worrying with each minute that passed that he’d been away too long, that Bodge might panic if he woke to find himself alone. Thankfully, he’d heard no explosions, but that wasn’t what he was listening for.
Primarily, he was listening for Gang, despite the proclamation from either Thirty-Nine or Forty that there was nobody else alive this deep into the SUIC. They could be anywhere. He presumed Leader would have them spread out to all corners of the SUIC to dig, in hopes they might get lucky and find a place that hadn’t been rigged with bombs. He didn’t want to run into any of them, especially with a lighter in his left hand, and a water bottle tucked down his waistband.
He carried nothing in his right hand, as that was the one he planned to use to catch and kill rats. That was another sound he was listening out for: the pitter patter of tiny feet. He wasn’t hearing many, and the few he did hear seemed wise to his game. His reward for slapping his hand down in the dirt and the sludge was a stinging palm and nothing more.
He grew more and more frustrated each time he heard one scurrying along in his vicinity and missed it, wishing he’d brought the other half of the sleeve he’d used to fashion a bandage for Bodge’s wrist. He could have used it to set a trap to chase the rats into. He’d left it behind, so it was down to his wits and his reflexes, and he was very out of practice. It wasn’t looking good for them getting something to eat. If Bodge woke to find himself alone, he might go looking for him, and succeed only in finding Gang.
The final thing on his auditory checklist was the sound of trickling water. So far, in the ninety minutes he’d been mind-mapping the tunnels as he explored them, he’d heard nothing to indicate running water nearby.
This had him worried. The fear of not being able to find water underground was stark and terrifying. Their situation was nowhere near critical, but it could easily become so. The longer they had no water, the more dehydrated they’d become. That would lead to confusion, mistakes, and one form of death or another. Either they’d blunder into Gang, or walk in circles until they eventually just sat down and never got up again.
A low patter of feet, accompanied by a tiny squeak, caught his attention. He flicked the lighter to life. Taking a risk, but he was desperate now. He wasn’t just responsible for himself anymore, he had Bodge to take care of. He risked scaring the rat into flight, but he needed to pinpoint its location to give himself a chance of catching it.
It hugged the wall of the tunnel, a little over twenty feet away. It froze in the sudden light, staring back in his direction. He was close enough to see the light reflecting in its beady little eyes, and he took a couple of slow, forward steps. Ten feet past where the rat stood rooted to the spot, a tunnel dissected the one they shared. If the rat reached that tunnel, it would quickly vanish into the darkness. But it seemed entranced by the light, not fleeing when he took another few forward steps, its tiny nose twitching, its front paws held together like it was praying to be spared.
All you gotta do is turn and run, he thought as he kept inching forward, now within ten feet of dinner. Then he cursed himself for jinxing his chances. As if the rat god had heard his worshipper’s prayer, the lighter sputtered and went out.
He cursed again, this time aloud, re-lit the lighter, and saw the rat hurrying away from him. He rushed after it and the lighter went out again, just as it reached the adjoining tunnel. He arrived two seconds later, fumbled to ignite the flame, and saw only a tunnel fading into darkness. The rat was gone, its trance broken when the lighter failed, and he sat down disconsolately on the wet ground. He’d blown his chance.
Then something infinitely worse happened. He heard laughter coming from behind him. He turned quickly to see a face he’d seen many years before. It was much older now, the skin drooping slightly and more lined, the silvery beard longer than it had been, but it was unmistakably the face of Bill Soames, the notorious serial killer whose face been displayed on the giant Subboard in the city so far above, when he’d become SUIC inmate number one, some thirty years ago.