Alive

  I point the knife out in front of me. O’Malley holds the bottom of the scepter with both hands, the prongs up near his ear.

  Like our room, there are twelve dusty coffins arranged in two end-to-end rows of six. All the coffins are open. The lid-halves aren’t folded neatly to the sides—they stick up at different angles, broken; did the occupants fight their way out like I did?

  I walk up to the first coffin. O’Malley is right next to me. I brush off the nameplate before looking inside.

  Orange stones surround the name L. Morgan.

  Inside the coffin, dust-covered clothes—a little white shirt, a short red tie, little black pants—covering a tiny, withered corpse.

  A corpse far smaller than Brewer.

  A corpse so small I could cradle it in both arms.

  The skull, the tiny skull, is smashed to bits at the center of the forehead. I can’t tell what symbol is in that dried, cracked skin, if there was any symbol at all.

  O’Malley’s shaking hand slowly reaches toward L. Morgan’s head. His fingertip gently touches the ridge of bone below the little skull’s right eye.

  “A child,” O’Malley says. “Barely more than a baby. How could anyone do this?”

  A baby. Even if L. Morgan had been awake when the attack came, he couldn’t have defended himself. The grownup bodies in the hallway…maybe those people died in a battle, but that’s not what happened here.

  O’Malley walks to another coffin. One lid-half remains closed, the other has been torn away, tossed to the floor long ago to become a landing place for dust.

  “Same thing here, Em,” he says. His voice is ragged, more breath than words. “They ripped the lid off, then they caved in this little girl’s face.”

  I see a pile of bumps in the dusty aisle between the coffin rows. Then another, and another. It wasn’t just children that died in here.

  There are ten more coffins in this room. They are all open. I don’t have to look inside them to know what lies within.

  All these little kids, slaughtered where they lay…I can’t bear this for one second more. I have to get out of here.

  “O’Malley, come on.”

  “But don’t you want to—”

  “Come on!”

  I hurry back to the stone doors. I squeeze through the crack and into the hallway. Spingate, Bello, Yong and Aramovsky are waiting, their eyes wide, their faces carrying an expression I now recognize—the look of someone desperately hoping for good news.

  “Well?” Spingate says. “Are there more of us?”

  “They were…younger,” I say. “And they’re all dead.”

  “Younger,” Spingate says. “Like Brewer?”

  I shake my head. I hold my free hand at my hip, palm parallel to the floor, showing them how tall L. Morgan would have been.

  Everyone looks down, as if they expect a child to suddenly appear at my side, my hand on his head.

  They are shocked. Even Yong. Despair pulls at his features, makes me forget his constant smirk.

  Behind me, O’Malley slides out of the narrow opening. His chest barely fits through the gap; the stone door’s edges rip off another button, drag a long, white scratch across his smooth skin.

  Bello stares at him hopefully, like she wants him to tell a story different from mine.

  “Is it true?” she asks. “Little kids?”

  O’Malley nods. “Little kids. Dressed like us. They were murdered.”

  Murdered.

  The word enrages me. We could have died the same way, murdered while we slept. I want to know who bashed in those tiny skulls. I want to find the people who did it, and I want to make them pay.

  “It was the Grownups,” I say. I hear the hate in my voice. “It had to be. They want to kill us”—I spread out my arms, gesturing to the bones in the hall—“just like they killed each other.”

  I don’t want to look in any of the other rooms. We need to get away from all this death. I stare up the right side of the hall, then the left.

  To the left is our coffin room, and where we found the knife.

  The right seems to have fewer bones, so that’s where we’ll go.

  “This way,” I say, and I start walking.

  O’Malley falls in on my right side. The other four follow.

  We leave the skeletons behind.

  TEN

  We are walking uphill.

  The angle is so slight I didn’t notice it at first, but the hallway slopes gently upward.

  We’ve been walking for hours. At least we think it’s hours; we have no way of tracking time. The endless incline is subtle, but it exhausts us, leeches away what little strength we have.

  I hold the knife. O’Malley carries the scepter. I tried carrying both for a little while, but the scepter was too heavy.

  If we had walked in the other direction, we’d have been going down. Spingate said there’s no limit on how far down we could go, how deep into the ground, but up can’t go on forever.

  Can it?

  Our coffin room must be far below the surface. This hallway doesn’t seem to have an end. The softly glowing ceiling gently curves upward in parallel with the floor. Far ahead of us, the floor and ceiling seem to meet, but no matter how much we walk, that connection always appears to be exactly the same distance away.

  No one speaks. The memory of the bone pile and the dead kids stays with us¸ silences us. We’ve left that behind, though, for which we’re grateful.

  Bones aren’t the only thing we’ve left behind: we haven’t seen a door in maybe an hour, near as we can tell. We walk through an empty, blank, untouched corridor of dust.

  My stomach hurts. It pinches. It grumbles, loudly. I hear similar noises coming from the others. We need to eat.

  Hungry, tired, confused, afraid—it’s wearing on us. Our feet drag across the hard floor, leaving long footprints in the dust.

  O’Malley finally breaks the silence.

  “There have to be people who are still alive,” he says. “We can contact someone, get rescued.”

  Rescue. Another word of power. Someone to save us. I hope my parents are alive, hope their bones weren’t among those hidden beneath the gray powder. I don’t remember my mother’s face, or her name, but I know I love her. And my father…if he loves me, why hasn’t he come for me? I feel like he was brave, like he was strong, but I don’t know if that’s true or if I’m being a little girl, hoping her daddy was the best daddy there could be.

  Bello scoots out in front of us, turns to face us and walks backward. For the first time, she seems excited.

  “Maybe the people who rescue us will have food,” she says.

  I remember smelling something…my dad cooking dinner. Some kind of meat, maybe? My mouth waters and my stomach rumbles louder.

  “Bread,” Bello says, her eyes all dreamy. “Hot bread, with butter and cinnamon. All crunchy on the outside and soft inside.”

  “A sandwich,” O’Malley says. “With mustard and pickles and big, fat, salty slices of cold chicken.”

  Pork chops…that’s what my dad was roasting. How can I know that and not know his face?

  “Cupcakes,” Aramovsky says. “Chocolate, with chocolate icing as high as the cupcake itself. And lots of sprinkles.”

  My mouth waters so badly I almost drool.

  “Pasta,” Yong says. “With tomato sauce, and so much cheese on top you have to take like three bites before you can even find the pasta beneath.”

  “I don’t care what they bring,” Spingate says. “As long as it’s hot. And more of it than I can even eat. But for dessert, I’m definitely going for one of Aramovsky’s cupcakes.”

  “Me too,” O’Malley says.

  Bello shakes her head. She’s still walking backward. Her eyes sparkle, she stands straight and tall—as tall as she can be, anyway. She’s happy: she looks like a completely different person from the sniffling girl I met back in the coffin room.

  “You’re all wrong,” she says. She taps her temple. “You??
?re obviously not a thinker like me. Aramovsky’s right about chocolate with chocolate icing, but it needs to be a birthday cake. With twelve candles!”

  Aramovsky laughs. “You’re right, Bello, but are there still sprinkles? There better be sprinkles.”

  Bello rolls her eyes in mock annoyance. “Of course there are. It’s your birthday, so you get sprinkles. We all get sprinkles.”

  Everyone agrees that this is a splendid way to finish our rescue meal.

  Smiles, nods, yummy noises…it’s an almost perfect moment. For a brief instant, we’re not in our grownup bodies with too-small clothes and no shoes, we’re not surrounded by dust that used to be people, and we’re not lost and alone—we’re six friends walking together, on our way to a birthday party. There will be cake, there will be games, there will be presents. There will be parents who love us and protect us.

  Still moving down the hall, Bello spins in slow circles, letting momentum swing her arms wide.

  “I bet our parents are coming to get us,” she says. “They have to be looking for us, right?”

  “Mine are,” Yong says instantly.

  Bello nods. “So are mine. But…I can’t remember them. Yong, do you remember your parents? What they look like?”

  He makes that pfft noise again. “Of course I remember them.”

  We all know he’s lying. He knows it, too, but no one challenges him, because it’s a nice lie, one we’d all like to believe.

  Bello’s spin slows. The excitement drains from her face—fear owns her.

  She stops. So do the rest of us.

  There are tears in her eyes. Crying again? Bello is really starting to bother me.

  “Our parents,” she says. “What if our parents are the ones who put us in the coffins?”

  I wondered the same thing. I’m ashamed I considered it, even for a second. I see the others looking down, looking away—we’ve all had that thought, but Bello is the first to voice it out loud.

  No one answers her. She seems to shrink, hunching over a bit, elbows pulling tight to her ribs, hands wringing left over right, right over left. Bello stands still, lets the group pass her by, then she falls in at the rear.

  We return to walking in silence. We hear only the sounds of our breathing and our shuffling feet.

  And our growling stomachs.

  Maybe another hour passes. Maybe two. We keep going because we don’t have a choice.

  Then, far up ahead, that ever-present meeting of ceiling and floor changes: another hallway, crossing ours. It’s something different, which is enough to make us pick up the pace despite our exhaustion.

  We reach the intersection. The new hallway leads off to our right for a long ways, but the light from the ceiling is dim. Farther in, it looks like there is no light at all. Maybe a hundred steps away, I see a single archway door in the dimness. It’s wide open. Maybe there are more beyond it, but it’s too dark to tell.

  To our left, the hallway goes a few feet before it stops at a wall, a wall that looks like black liquid frozen in mid-splash—as if it melted, then cooled. Maybe it used to be a door, very different from the other doors we’ve seen so far.

  Spingate steps a few feet into the hallway on the right. She stares down it, tilting her head slightly as if that might let her see a bit farther.

  “We’ve been in the same hall for a long time,” she says. “We haven’t found anything. So far, I mean. Should we try this new one?”

  No one else speaks. Are they waiting for me to decide?

  Yong walks to stand next to Spingate. He stares down the new hall just as she did, even tilts his head the same. Then he looks back at me.

  “We’ll go this way,” he says. “That makes sense.”

  I’m not sure that it does. The hallway to the right is different: it looks flat. I don’t see the floor-meeting-ceiling illusion I’ve been looking at for the last few hours, but then again, that could be because there isn’t enough light to see that far.

  The hallway we’re in now seems endless, but it has to lead somewhere; I can’t say that for sure about the new direction.

  “We’re not going to walk down a dark hall,” I say. “Besides, we need to keep going straight.”

  Aramovsky points down the hall to the right. “But that way is flat. Maybe you didn’t notice. We’ve been walking uphill for…well, for a long time. My legs are tired.”

  So are mine. I’d like to give my legs a break as much as he would, but I know I’m making the right decision.

  “We go straight,” I say again. “If we start making turns, we might not know what direction is what. If we keep going straight, at least we know how to get back to where we came from if we get into trouble. I know it’s tiring, but walking uphill is a good thing—every step we take is a step closer to getting out.”

  I see shoulders droop, I hear heavy sighs. They don’t want to agree with me; they want to go the easier way.

  “Em’s in charge,” O’Malley says. He sounds tired. “We follow her lead.”

  Spingate sighs and shrugs. Bello nods reluctantly. Aramovsky keeps looking down the new hallway as if it’s paved with the cupcake of his dreams. None of them want to go my way, but they seem resigned to my decision.

  All save for Yong.

  “I don’t want to follow Em’s lead anymore,” he says. He crosses his arms. “I think it’s my turn to be in charge.”

  “We don’t take turns,” O’Malley says. “This isn’t a game.”

  Yong points at me. There’s something petulant in the gesture, something mean, and for a moment I see a twelve-year-old bully wearing an adult’s body.

  “She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Yong says. He looks at me, holds out his palm. “You tried, Em, but you failed. It’s my turn now, so give me the knife.”

  And just like that, the twelve-year-old is gone. I’m looking at a grown man, a lean, strong man who isn’t going to take no for an answer.

  He wiggles his fingers inward.

  “Give it to me,” Yong says. “If you don’t, I’ll take it from you. You won’t like that.”

  Spingate puts her hands on her hips.

  “Quit being a jerk, Yong. Em’s in charge, you—”

  Yong’s hands are so fast I barely see him move: he shoves Spingate, hard. She crashes against the wall and falls to her butt. She looks at him in wide-eyed surprise.

  She doesn’t try to get up.

  Bello and Aramovsky press lightly against each other and back away, watching the sudden conflict.

  I should say something, I know it, but my mouth doesn’t move.

  O’Malley’s does.

  “That’s enough,” he says.

  Yong isn’t the only grown man here. O’Malley holds the scepter in his right hand. He seems uncomfortable with the jeweled metal, like he doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do with it in this situation.

  He takes a step toward Yong.

  “Hitting people is bad,” O’Malley says. “Tell Spingate you’re sorry.”

  Yong makes his pfft sound. “Or what? You going to make me apologize?”

  O’Malley’s fingers flex on the scepter. His shirt hangs open: the last button must have popped free.

  “I’m not going to make you do anything,” he says. “I just…we don’t hit each other. Em’s in charge, okay?”

  Yong rushes at O’Malley, cocking his right fist as he does and slamming it into the bigger boy’s nose. O’Malley’s head rocks back. He drops awkwardly, sitting on his left foot, his right leg sticking out. Yong twists his shoulders, throws a left fist that hammers O’Malley’s right eye.

  O’Malley drops to his side. The scepter slides from his grip. He doesn’t move.

  Yong looks at me.

  “I’m in charge now, Em.” He again holds out his palm. “Give me the knife.”

  I see him, see the star on his forehead, the sneer on his lips. He thinks he can do anything he wants. He thinks he can push people around.

  He thinks he owns
people.

  In that instant, I hate him. I want him to hurt.

  He raises his eyebrows in mock surprise. “No? Don’t think your turn is over? You led us nowhere, Em. I’m hungry and we’re going to do it my way. Give me the knife, you stupid circle girl, or else.”

  Hate him. Hate him hate him.

  I go cold inside. Cold and calm.

  Yong shrugs. “Have it your way.”

  He strides toward me, confident and dangerous. Spingate is still sitting, staring. Aramovsky and Bello do nothing. Yong cocks back his fist, he sneers in fury and arrogance, he leans forward to punch at me…

  He stops, fist still hovering in the air.

  His eyes are wide, his mouth hangs open.

  He looks down.

  So do I.

  The knife…the handle is in my hand, but the blade…

  The blade is buried in his belly.

  ELEVEN

  Blazing red spreads across his white shirt, flowing down, mostly, but also rising up, wetness winding through the fabric.

  I didn’t even feel the blade go in. I didn’t. It was just there, already inside him, like it had always been there.

  The circle-in-a-circle disc on the knife hilt gleams under the ceiling’s light, gems flickering the same color as Yong’s blood.

  The hallway is still. There is no noise at all. I can’t move.

  Yong looks up, looks at me. There are tears in his eyes. A grown man’s face wearing a little boy’s expression of fear and confusion.

  “But…my turn,” he says, then his legs stop working. He falls away from me. The knife, still in my hand, slides out of him. He lands on his shoulder, tucks up into a ball like he did when he fell out of his coffin.

  I see a spot of blood spreading across his lower back, staining the white shirt wet-red.

  The blade went all the way through.

  That impossible stillness, that time turned to unforgiving stone, it lasts forever. Then it is gone.

  Bello screams, hands covering her face.

  Aramovsky takes a half-step behind Bello.

  Spingate rushes to Yong, kneels next to him, her knees almost touching his. She leans over him, looks at his back.