Dwindle

  Chapter Nineteen: Secrets and Dreams

  They talked as if I was going to leave with them, which would be for naught as I would not go. I wouldn’t want to leave Chess. The Outlanders talked about me, about all of us, as if we were products or property. I wasn’t either. I was a human being. I was alive. The things at the Gallery were property. The mat I slept on was property. Even the dust within my house was property. But I, though I was sure my uncle would contradict me, was no one’s property.

  I thought of the Gallery then and next, the attack… They had planned it. It wasn’t a blind assault. It was an attack. It was thought out, organized, to a degree, and could be considered an intelligible and effective plan to harass me. They were trying to kill me. Ollie, though a bonus, was insignificant. They were thinking. They were planning. They had secrets.

  “They had dreams,” I said aloud.

  Ollie jumped when he heard me. His presence repulsed me as I realized that I had saved his life, not once, but three times and he still thought of me poorly. My pride was affected, and I felt ashamed for tricking myself otherwise. He wanted to kill me. He had planned to kill me. It made me hurt. I sat up. Ollie put a hand on my shoulder, but a pain kept me down anyway. I shook my head. I couldn’t conceive of it. They were dreaming…

  “Sit back,” he said gently.

  “Don’t touch me!” I snapped.

  I threw his hand away from my shoulder viciously.

  “What’s –?”

  “Don’t touch me, Mr. Dark.”

  He let go in immediate obedience to my demand and surprise at my wrath.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asked, hurt.

  Ollie reached to put a hand to me again, but I scowled and grabbed his wrist. I remembered when he had done it when I first met him, twisted me around like he had wanted to hurt me. He gave way to my wrist now, afraid of what I would do or say, and it was I on the mat, injured and broken.

  How the tables had turned…

  “Don’t – touch – me,” I ordered.

  “What is the matter with you?”

  “Shut up,” I snapped spitefully. “We have bigger problems. What happened after the attack?”

  “Um, I don’t know, they…”

  I made an impatient sort of noise.

  “What time is it?”

  “Seven,” Ollie said.

  “What the hell do you mean ‘seven?’” I asked aggressively.

  “Half noon? Dusk? I don’t know!”

  I had to stand. He tried to help me again, but I hated his touch if he couldn’t have mine. I waved my hands at him with a painful cringe. He backed away and folded his hands to resist not touching me. It was clear that he wanted to.

  He cleared his throat.

  “It’s just gotten dark,” he said.

  I looked up in terror to the opening in my door allowing me view of the outside.

  “Oh no…”

  I hobbled to the opening in the wall. My ankle, I found, was terribly disobedient and made me wince every time pressure was thrust upon it. Ollie tried to help me again.

  “Don’t touch me,” I said again.

  I moved myself out to the front of my house.

  “CHESS!” I yelled in desperation.

  I knew I had to find him for the fate of the entirety of Hand was on his shoulders – because I was on his shoulders.

  Foot came over to me.

  “I haven’t talked to you in ages!”

  “Help me,” I demanded.

  I grabbed his arm and walked with him to the frame that doubled as our watch tower. As was expected of Chess for the past few weeks, he was the watchman. Foot held me close to him, closer than I could have expected, but I didn’t have time to deal with it. I needed Chess. He was the only one who knew how to close the gate, and he had to do it early or we’d all perish.

  “CHESS!” I shrieked.

  “Myth?” Chess asked, popping his head through the hole from above. “You’re awake! You were covered in blood! What the hell are you doing out of bed?”

  He jumped down from his perch and made to give me a hug, but I hissed before he could do anything. He backed up, alarmed, and waited for me to begin.

  “I have to tell you something.” I frowned. “I told you all. You didn’t believe me. We’re all in great danger!”

  Chess looked behind me to Ollie.

  “What’s she talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” Ollie said. “She had an epiphany or something and woke –”

  “Listen.”

  I let go of Foot and took hold of Chess’s arms. He held me nicely there.

  “I told you! The Undead!”

  I looked to Foot to Chess and back to Ollie.

  “I’ve always said –”

  Foot suddenly knew the topic of my ramblings.

  “The Undead cannot think!”

  “I KNOW WHAT I SAW!” I said, pointing to the ground.

  “What happened now?” Foot asked exasperatedly.

  I couldn’t believe his gall.

  “Fine!” I said, pushing him back. “Leave.”

  I turned back to Chess with passionate fear. The darkness all around me was only intensifying. I swayed a bit and Chess took my shoulders to steady me.

  “I don’t understand! This doesn’t make any –”

  “Myth!”

  He gently took my wrists.

  “Myth!”

  He forced me to look in his eyes.

  “It’s going to be fine,” he whispered, hugging me. “You’re going to be fine.”

  I shook my head and pulled away.

  “You…we need to get inside.” I turned to Ollie. “Did they follow you home?”

  He didn’t respond, nervous and at a loss for words.

  “DID THEY?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know – I guess – I was running, and it got dark…”

  “We have to go inside.”

  I shook my head. Chess just looked at me.

  “They ambushed me at the Gallery. Chess, get into my place – go in our room – you’ll be safe there when they come.”

  “Underground?” Chess asked slowly.

  I hadn’t told him all about my ventures in and around the camp as of late. How close they had been gathering – how hard I was working to keep them all safe – to keep him safe. He was the most important to me.

  “I know – it sounds insane. But…you have to listen.”

  I wanted to scream at him for not knowing what I was thinking. It hurt to breathe. The knot in my chest grew bigger with the necessity of my breath.

  “They’re going to come!”

  “The Undead?” Chess asked.

  His calmness in my hysteria seemed to drive me over the edge. I needed a gun. I felt fear that was inconsolable.

  “They ambushed me at the Gallery!” I was breathless when I asked, “Do you know what that means?”

  He began to think on my words, finally.

  “The Gallery! Underground? They opened the door; they climbed through the windows; they hid in the dark; they –”

  “—were dreaming,” Chess muttered.

  He shook his head, stunned. Realization dawned on his face as he took a step back in horror. He suddenly looked all around him as if they would jump out from every door – every corner. He ran up to the tower.

  Ollie leaned forward, feeling out of the loop, surely.

  “But what does that even mean?”

  “GET IN YOUR HOUSES!” Chess called. “Get to your house! Lock the door! Let no one in until morning!”

  I felt anger towards Ollie again, but it was dimmed by my intense urgency. I fell back into him and he pushed me to a standing position. It hurt. I took a deep breath. He held me so gently considering I was just business. I felt a need to get his hands off of my body, almost a panic. They scared me. What they would do to me if they were provoked correctly. I didn’t know that I was so close to getting killed, so literal
ly close. I wouldn’t have provoked him so, had I known that was to be my fate.

  “You need to get inside…” he whispered softly. “You’re hurt, kid, come on…”

  “No.”

  I shook my head. If I was going to do one thing right in my life, it was going to be in saving Hand.

  “I have to stay here for them,” I said quietly.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked urgently.

  There was slight concern in his voice, and I knew he was beginning to believe me.

  “I thought you hated them – these people…”

  “No one deserves that kind of death…”

  I stared deeply at the ground then up at him into his eyes.

  “They go for your neck and your head, and they try to eat you alive. People who were your loved ones. Your friends. Nobody deserves that…nobody.”

  I rolled my eyes then. I was still trying to explain emotions he couldn’t possibly begin to understand. It made me exasperated. I was wasting so much time worrying about Ollie, I forgot to remember me.

  “And I don’t need Hand’s bullet riddled corpse on my conscience – so let’s go!”

  I walked forward a little with him, moving back to my place for my gun.

  “What’s happening then?” he asked.

  “The Undead are animals, but they can’t think – or they couldn’t.”

  I hissed and leaned a bit.

  “They took us at the Gallery, which means not only would they have learned to open doors, but also have they learned to plan and think. That was an ambush like I’ve never seen so close to Hand or anywhere…”

  “But why?”

  I laughed bitterly and moved even faster.

  “Because they want to kill us all.”

  “What is this hell?” Rhyme asked, shoving us both as he passed.

  I collapsed breathlessly, for the pain I felt then was absolute. My arms shook as I pushed my body off the ground, but nothing other than that could be achieved. Ollie lifted me gently, gentler than I could have guessed of him again, and I shook out of his arms as soon as possible with a small, reluctant utterance of thanks. I swallowed my guilt and stared up at Rhyme.

  Chess was addressing him.

  “The Undead are going to come and ambush –”

  “That’s ludicrous, Chess.”

  Rhyme was unstable; it was apparent from his eyes.

  “Return to your post.”

  I expected Chess to back down but his indignation was a pleasant surprise.

  “No, sir. They’re coming. Now if you’ll just listen…”

  “Don’t talk such rot!”

  “Sir, I think it would serve us all if –”

  “Serve who? You? Her?”

  He gestured angrily to me.

  “We’ll be fine!”

  “The Undead are likely to be behind the two of them,” Chess said. “Myth and the Outlander. We must be cautious.”

  An inhuman gleam entered Rhyme’s eyes as he looked at me for the first time since his return home.

  “The Undead follow her?”

  Chess strayed a little closer to me, between me and him.

  “Yes, sir, it would be wise to retreat.”

  “Retreat is for cowards and Outsiders!”

  “But, sir –”

  “Come!” Rhyme bellowed. “Celebrate! Be merry! I implore you, nay I command you! Be safe and merry! Tonight, we feast!”

  And so, like small pups being rounded by their mother, the people reemerged, first uncertain, then mildly irritated. They began to shoot me cross looks as they brought drinks and food to the courtyard to celebrate.

  Only hatred stayed my tongue. At first, I tried to stop them, but they were not to be dissuaded. Rhyme was too frightening, too influential, too strong. They would go with him ten times before even one of them decided to come out to me. In despair, I settled for protection. If I could not isolate them, I would fight for them with everything I had.

  The dark was sinister. I blinked with pure terror as chills came between me and my soul. The wind blew through the air on sticky humidity that sickened me to the depths of my heart. If I stepped out into it I could be walking off a horrible height. I could be swallowed. The darkness was so terrible that I could hardly see the path beyond. Had I not known the terrain past Hand better than I knew my own hands, I would know nothing of anything beyond the gate in ten feet.

  The hours passed with relative mirth. Rhyme was cheerier than usual and what the people had treated at first with distrust learned to appreciate with splendor. Rhyme called a feast that brought even the oldest, weakest members of our society into the open.

  Ollie tried to talk to me with civility in the hours passing as well.

  And, again and again, as hours passed, I turned away.