The Other Side of the Island

  They dared not leave the forest when they reached the valley, but through the trees they could see the black paved service road and the barren ground on either side. There were no flowers or plants in this place. There was only asphalt and hard-packed reddish dirt. Everything was neat and clean and bare. If they looked down the service road, they could see one corner of the Barracks with its tall watchtower.

  Darkness came. The night was hot. Termites rose up from the ground and from the trees, and millions of them filled the air with tiny flimsy wings. Honor brushed them away from her sweating face. Her heart was pounding now; it was agony to stand and wait.

  “Soon,” whispered her father.

  In just minutes the stadium lights would switch on, illuminating the Barracks. The Pratts moved far to the left. Honor and her father moved to the right. They stood in two pairs at the edge of the forest. Honor held her bow and knocked back an arrow. Honor’s father took a box of matches from his pocket. It was a box of kitchen matches. His hands trembled as he shook out a single match. They were all waiting for Mr. Pratt’s signal.

  Honor tried to calm her breathing, but her whole body was trembling. She could scarcely hold her arrow against the bowstring, but she forced herself to keep still. She forced herself to think about what she had to do.

  The moment Mr. Pratt raised his arm, Honor’s father struck the match. The tiny flame jumped in the darkness, and Will touched it to the alcohol-soaked, gauze-wrapped tip of Honor’s arrow. He whispered just one word to Honor: “Run.”

  Honor sprinted forward onto the service road. She held her bow with the lit arrow and ran as fast as she could toward the nearest watchtower. Close as she dared, she stopped and aimed. She sent her flaming arrow right toward the wooden structure, but she was so nervous that her arrow didn’t hit. The tip grazed the edge of the tower’s ladder, where the flame caught and climbed. The fire alarm sounded, pulsing, ear-splitting.

  Then Honor saw them—a squad of orderlies dragging a fire hose. The stadium lights switched on, and the road and the Barracks and even the flaming watchtower were flooded with white light. The Watcher inside was standing, screaming, as flames licked up the sides of the tower. Was the Watcher going to jump? The drop was too far. Honor hesitated for a moment, horrified. The white stadium lights were so strong and the flames so sudden that the orderlies stopped in their tracks, confused about which light to seek. Then the Watcher jumped. He dove into the orderlies’ outstretched arms. Honor slung her bow and quiver across her back and ran.

  She rushed to the door of the closest building and lifted the heavy metal bar securing it. There was no lock. The building was dark except for dim Energy Saver bulbs in the doorway. At first she could scarcely see into the triple bunks stacked against each wall. The beds were empty. She ran on. She knew her father was checking another quarter of buildings and Mr. Pratt was checking his quarter and Mrs. Pratt was checking her quarter. If she’d bought enough time with the fire, they could cover all the buildings.

  Three Watchers were shooting their tasers, but the orderlies were busy fighting the fire on the fourth watchtower. A second group rushed out to help the first with the heavy fire hose. Honor dashed to the next building and got there even with the tasers lighting up the air around her.

  She ran to the next building and the next. Each was empty. The orderlies in these must have boarded buses for the night shift in the City. The fourth building she tried was full of orderlies sleeping on their backs, arms outstretched on top of their thin bedcovers. They were not wearing their long-sleeved jumpsuits, but short-sleeved nightshirts. There was no way to tell the orderlies apart and no clue anywhere in the Barracks. No numbers on the bunks. Nothing. A new siren was sounding, a wailing alarm. Honor heard the running steps of more orderlies outside.

  How could she find her mother among all these inert bodies? She’d need to climb the ladder on each bunk to look at the orderlies in the highest beds, and she had no time. No time at all. She ran through the building into an anteroom stocked with sheets and hats and jumpsuits. The orderlies’ footsteps were coming closer. Hundreds and hundreds of them were running in the open space between the Barracks. She crept to the doorway and peeked out. This squadron had no fire hose. They were running together in a thick pack from one building to the next in mute patrol. They were looking for interlopers, coming to find her. But what could they see? Honor pulled a white jumpsuit off a stack of freshly laundered uniforms. She struggled with the stiff material, trying to pull the suit over her clothes. There were no buttons and there was no zipper. The suit hooked in the front and hung too big on her. The orderlies were bursting through the door.

  They charged for her. They saw that she did not belong. How could they tell? She almost screamed at the mass swarming her; she was surrounded by those pale, blank faces. Frantically she reached behind her and grabbed a white worker’s hat. She covered her head with it. The orderlies shrank back again. The uniform was now complete, and they recognized her as one of them.

  The new wail of the siren keened above the pulsing fire alarm. She forgot which building she should enter next. She followed the orderlies out of the room and ran with them across the quad. She tried to match the orderlies’ steps. Desperately she tried to look like one of the pack, but her camouflage did not work. Far above, the Watchers could see that she was smaller and quicker than the others. They singled her out and shot at her again and again. A flash stunned an orderly at Honor’s side. He fell, writhing in pain on the ground. For a moment Honor stopped in shock, but the other orderlies kept running, tripping over the fallen one. Another orderly fell over the first and, in a flash, the Watchers shot him as well. Two stunned orderlies on the ground. There was no blood; their wounds were invisible, but the orderlies were dying, both of them. They had the crazed look of the rat Honor had seen the Watcher shoot in her old neighborhood. Their eyes bulged and their limbs stiffened, even as they crawled away to the Barracks’ huge compost bin and, one after the other, climbed inside.

  Honor stumbled forward, trying to keep up with the squad. A stench of smoke and sweat filled the air. Her eyes smarted, and when she ran into the next building, she couldn’t see at first after the bright lights outside.

  These orderlies were sleeping, even in all this commotion. Their upturned faces were pale as death, and only the slight roll of a head or the gentle rise and fall of their chests showed that they were breathing. Honor raced down the aisles between the identical bunks. She was panting, tripping over herself; her legs could not move fast enough; her mind raced ahead of her body. Through the high, barred windows of the building the blue lights of the Watchers’ tasers flashed. Dogs were barking outside now. That meant Safety Officers had arrived. All the while, the orderlies slept their deathly sleep. Were the Thompsons there among them? Were they sleeping near her mother?

  Honor could not possibly examine them all. She had no time, and even if she’d had hours, she could not tell one sleeping face from another. She pressed on anyway. She ran down the last aisle toward the door. Should she make a break for it? Or wait? If she ran, the Watchers could shoot her. If she stayed, the dogs would track her. She could hear the animals barking and baying. She felt faint. The world dissolved for a second. She grabbed the frame of a bunk and steadied herself. Outside, the dogs were coming closer. New alarms were sounding, pulsing, screaming. Pierced by the sound, the orderlies did not awaken, but rolled and groaned, as if they were having nightmares.

  A sleeping orderly’s white arm jerked ever so slightly above the covers, and Honor saw something dark and shadowy. A bruise, she thought, but she looked more closely and found a number. The number TH239 was tattooed on the orderly’s forearm. She whipped around to the next bunk and turned over that orderly’s arm. GB240. There were no numbers on the buildings or the bunks, but the orderlies themselves were numbered, and they were sleeping in order. That was how they were organized.

  Honor closed her eyes. She tried to shut out the sirens and smoke and her own fear. Sh
e had to think where the one hundreds might be if the two hundreds were here.

  She dashed outside, and the smoke was so thick now that she could scarcely see. Clouds and billows of black smoke masked the stadium lights. The fire from the watchtower had spread to a Barracks building and licked the walls. Were the orderlies still inside? Was her mother burning there? Instinctively she rushed toward the burning building and almost fell over the mass of orderlies crawling out. Hundreds were creeping on their bellies into the quad. This was the standard procedure to escape from smoky buildings, but the sight was terrible, the mass of bodies writhing and wriggling forward. Hairless heads and bony limbs were coated with ash and dust so that the orderlies looked like figures formed of clay, or half-dead, half-born creatures emerging from the earth.

  “Get back; get back!” Will shouted. Honor couldn’t see her father. She could only hear his voice. She tried to get back or turn or run, but the creeping orderlies spread around her in every direction. Every move she made, she stepped on some head or back. She was mired in bodies, but even in the smoke, the Watchers would find her if she stopped. The dogs would hunt her down. She forced herself to step over and on top of the orderlies. She climbed over arms and legs and buttocks.

  When at last she reached the edge of the crawling mass, she was disoriented and did not know which building she was entering or even if she had already looked inside. She checked the arms of the first sleeping orderlies she saw. Three hundreds. Outside again, she sprinted in the other direction. A black cloud of ash hung over the Barracks and another foul cloud thickened the air as well. Orderlies were spraying a new substance from their fire hoses: a yellowish gas that smelled like rotten eggs. Was that gas poison? Was it death to breathe? She ran from the thick part of the cloud and saw Mr. Pratt wrestling with a dog. Ears back, teeth bared, the dog was lunging, but Mr. Pratt had the animal by the throat.

  “Check their arms. Their arms!” Honor screamed, but Mr. Pratt could not hear. They were all deafened by the sirens and half blind with smoke. And now another dog and then another raced around the corner and ran for Honor. She turned and sprinted for the nearest building with their hot breath on her heels. Just as she reached the door, the first dog lunged and grazed her leg. She was so frightened and she moved so fast that she felt the blood before she felt the pain. She ran inside and slammed the door. A long metal bar fell into place, securing the door against the animals.

  She lifted the arm of the first orderly she found: SK430. She was in the four hundreds, and the dogs were scrabbling against the metal door outside.

  Honor rushed down the long aisle toward the door at the other end of the building. Rolling carts of food were lined up here for the orderlies’ meal. The carts were like the kitchen carts at school, with trays stacked one above the other, but there were no dishes. The food was white mush poured straight onto the trays. Honor pushed a heavy cart in front of her as she burst out the back door of the Barracks into the open. The blue light of tasers flashed, and sparks flew off the cart’s metal frame as she pushed the cart like a battering ram before her and broke through the swarms of orderlies running, marching, crawling. Safety Officers were shouting through megaphones now, but the orderlies did not seem to understand. They could not learn new orders all at once. Those that marched kept marching; those that crawled kept crawling, until they piled up on the other side of the quad. And those in buildings as yet untouched by fire remained asleep.

  Honor’s ears were ringing, her face streaked with dirt and sweat. She crashed the food cart against the wall of the next building and left it there.

  Was this building the right one? Was this one possible? She felt as though she were running in a dream, and, as in a dream, she lifted the arm of the nearest sleeping orderly. TJ106. At last. The hundreds. She looked into the next bunk. SK103. The numbers were going down. She ran to the other side. IS109. She climbed the ladder to check the bed just above. Trembling, trying to balance, she touched the orderly’s slender arm. PG111. PG for Pamela Greenspoon. One hundred eleven.

  She bent over her mother’s sleeping face. “It’s me. It’s Honor. I found you.”

  But there was no answer.

  “Wake up,” she pleaded, but her mother did not wake up.

  She shook her mother by the shoulders and tried to raise her head. Pamela’s head was heavy and hard to lift. But as soon as Honor raised her head off the pillow, Pamela’s eyes opened. They opened wide, the way a doll’s shut eyes flick open when it is raised upright. Now Pamela’s blue eyes gazed at Honor. Her eyes were big and blank.

  “Come with me,” Honor said. “We have to run. We don’t have time.”

  Her mother did not move. Her heavy head rested in Honor’s hands.

  “Come out,” Honor said. “Now!” she told the orderly that was Pamela.

  But it was no use. Honor was going to have to drag her. She took her mother’s arms and, half lifting her, half falling under her, she pulled her down from the bunk. Sinking under her mother’s weight, she struggled to carry her down the aisle between the rows of bunks. The door was far, and Honor strained under the body draped across her shoulders. Come on, come on, Honor thought. Her eyes devoured the distance to the door as she pushed forward, straining.

  The building’s security alarm sounded, piercing, screaming directly into Honor’s ears. A red light above the door was pulsing. The orderlies lying on their bunks sat bolt upright. Their eyes opened and they jumped down from their beds. One hundred orderlies jumped down and filed to the door, blocking Honor and Pamela. They surrounded Honor and her mother and gazed at the two of them with glassy eyes. Pamela started up as well. She jumped off Honor’s back and joined the others.

  “Don’t go!” Honor pleaded, and stretched her arms out to her mother. But the alarm was too loud and drowned out Honor’s voice. Her mother was disappearing into the crowd. The alarm was blaring and the red light pulsing, tinting every surface red, and Honor’s mother stood with the other orderlies, blocking the exit. “Stay with me,” Honor pleaded as she looked into her mother’s eyes. She was afraid to look away. If she did, she’d lose her forever.

  Remember me, she told her mother wordlessly. Look at me. Remember me. Then she unslung her bow and took the last remaining arrow from her quiver. The orderlies stared at Honor’s weapon. They did not run away or even flinch, but stood inert before her. There was a kind of patience about them, as if they were waiting for her to decide which one of them to shoot. She measured her distance, knocked back her arrow, pulled the bowstring, and let fly.

  Crashing glass. She’d shot out the alarm above the door. Glass tinkled from the red light and the building was dim again. The pulsing siren sighed into nothing. All the orderlies turned and marched back to their bunks. Like sleepwalkers in their white nightshirts, they glided serenely back to bed, and Honor, who had been the intruder, was invisible to them. Even when they bumped her as they passed, the orderlies took no notice.

  But Honor was watching them, looking into their faces. As her mother passed, she lunged and seized Pamela by the shoulders, spun her around, and dragged her out the door—into the arms of the Pratts, who were waiting there.

  “Are you sure she’s the one?” asked Mr. Pratt.

  “Where is my father?” Honor asked.

  But they had no time. The valley had filled with smoke. More orderlies were massing to fight the fire that had spread from the watchtower. Fresh Safety Officers had arrived in trucks. Their dogs were already barking and straining at their leashes as Honor and the Pratts raced away with Pamela.

  SIX

  THEY RAN INTO THE FOREST, AND THEY DID NOT NEED TO carry Pamela. Once they set her in the right direction, she ran fearlessly, without even noticing the rocks or branches in her path. She seemed to feel no pain but kept rushing forward, even when branches snapped in her face or cut her arms. When they began to climb the mountain, she climbed capably, looking straight ahead. Honor was amazed at how agile her mother was and how strong.

  Hono
r could hear dogs barking and Safety Officers crashing through the trees. She tried to climb faster, but she could hear the dogs panting louder. She could hear them panting, practically at her heels. She remembered the dog’s teeth cutting her leg. She remembered the yellow eyes of the dogs that had come to search her house. It was too dark to see, and they were climbing blind, with only the dim glow of Mr. Pratt’s flashlight to guide them. Honor was sweating and filthy, and her hands were numb from fighting vines and thorns. Her leg oozed and stung. Her body ached from pressing forward over the steep and slippery ground; she gasped for air, and when she slipped, she scrambled up again and climbed on, but the dogs were coming closer.

  She stumbled. She reached for something, anything, to hold. Her mother and the Pratts were climbing ahead of her and didn’t see. She wanted to call to them to wait, but she had no breath left. She was afraid the dogs would catch her and tear her apart. Her body screamed with exhaustion. She wanted to climb; she wanted to escape, but she couldn’t run farther. She fell to the ground.

  Even as she fell, she heard the dogs sink back. There was a confusion of barking, and then, like a tide drawn back, the animals yelped in pain and ran the other way.

  The Pratts heard the change and turned back as well. Mrs. Pratt held Pamela by the hand to make her wait, and Mr. Pratt came to help Honor up again. The barking of the dogs was fading; the animals were racing down the mountain now. Honor was confused and dizzy.

  “Don’t stop,” Mr. Pratt told her. “We’re almost there. Take my hand.” He pulled her into the pillbox, where they were safe.

  “Pamela,” Mr. Pratt said to Honor’s mother, “can you hear me?”

  Pamela was too confused to listen. She did not turn in the direction of his voice. Her face and bald head were covered with sweat, her nightshirt soaked through.

  “Drink this,” said Mrs. Pratt, and offered Pamela freshwater.