Pandemonium

Page 26

Julian must notice it at the same time I do, because he mutters, “Shit. Shit.”
“All right, let’s think about this,” I whisper back, trying to sound calm. But my mind has turned to snow: the same idea coming down like a blizzard, freezing my blood. I’m screwed. I’ll be trapped here, and when I’m found, I’ll have a bruised and bound guard to atone for. They won’t be so careless anymore either. No more flap doors for me.
“What do we do?” Julian asks.
“We?” I shoot him a look over my shoulder. The crown of his head is encircled with dried blood, and I look away so I don’t start feeling sorry for him. “We’re in this together now?”
“We have to be,” he says. “We’ll need to help each other if we’re going to escape.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and moves me gently but firmly out of the way. The touch surprises me. He must really mean what he said about setting our differences aside for now. And if he can do it, so can I.
“You won’t be able to pick it,” I say. “We need a code.”
Julian runs his fingers over the keypad. Then he takes a step back and squints up at the door, runs his hands along the doorjamb as though testing its sturdiness. “We have a keypad like this on the gate at home,” he says. He’s still running his fingers along the doorjamb, tracing cracks in the plaster. “I can never remember the code. Dad’s changed it too many times—too many workers in and out. So we had to develop a system, a series of clues. A code within a code—little signs embedded in and around the gate so whenever the code is changed, I’ll know it.”
Suddenly it clicks: the point of his story, and the way out.
“The clock,” I say, and I point to the clock hanging above the door. It’s frozen: The small hand hovers slightly above the nine, and the big hand is stuck on the three. “Nine and three.” But even as I say it, I’m uncertain. “But that’s only two numbers. Most keypads take four numbers, right?”
Julian punches in 9393, then tries the door. Nothing. 3939 doesn’t work, either. Neither does 3399 or 9933, and we’re running out of time.
“Shit.” Julian pounds the keypad once with his fist in frustration.
“Okay, okay.” I take a deep breath. I was never good at codes and puzzles; math was always one of my worst subjects. “Let’s think about this.”
At that second, the voices down the hall resurge. A door opens a few inches.
Albino is saying, “I’m still not convinced. I say if they don’t pay, we don’t play…”
My throat seizes with sudden terror. Albino is coming into the hall. He’ll see us at any second.
“Shit,” Julian breathes again, a bare exhale. He’s jogging a little on his feet, back and forth, as though he’s cold, but I know he must be as scared as I am. Then, suddenly, he freezes.
“Nine fifteen,” he says, as the door opens another couple of inches, and the voices spill into the hall.
“What?” I grip the knife tightly, whipping my head back and forth between Julian and the door: opening, opening.
“Not nine-three. Nine fifteen. Zero-nine-one-five.” He has already bent over the keypad again, punching the numbers in hard. There’s a quiet buzz, and a click. Julian leans into the door and it opens, as the voices grow clearer and edged with sharpness, and we slip into the next room just as the door behind us swings open, and the Scavengers take their first steps into the hall.
We’re in yet another room, this one large, high-ceilinged, and well lit. The walls are lined with shelves, and the shelves are crammed so tightly with things that in places the wood has begun to sag and warp under the weight of it all: packages of food, and large jugs of water, and blankets; but also knives, and silverware, and nests of tangled jewelry; leather shoes and jackets; handguns and wooden police batons and cans of pepper spray. Then there are things that have no purpose whatsoever: scattered radio bits lying across the floor, an old wooden wardrobe, leather-topped stools, and a trunk filled with broken plastic toys. At the opposite end of the room is another concrete door, this one painted cherry red.
“Come on.” Julian grabs my elbow roughly, pulling me toward it.
“No.” I wrench away from him. We don’t know where we are; we have no idea how long it will be before we escape.
“There’s food here. Weapons. We need to stock up.”
Julian opens his mouth to respond when from the hallway comes the stuttered cadence of shouting, and the pounding of feet. The guard must have given the alarm somehow.
“We’ve got to hide.” Julian pulls me toward the wardrobe. Inside it smells like mouse droppings and mold.
I swing the wardrobe doors closed behind me. The space inside is so small, Julian and I practically have to sit on top of each other. I ease my backpack onto my lap. My back is pressed up against his chest, and I can feel its rise and fall. Despite everything, I’m glad he’s with me. I’m not sure I would have made it even this far on my own.
The keypad gives another buzz; the door of the stockroom bursts open, slamming against the wall. I flinch involuntarily, and Julian’s hands find my shoulders. He squeezes once, a quick pulse of reassurance.
“Goddammit!” That’s Albino; the raspy voice, the anger running through his words, like a live wire. “How the hell did this happen? How did they—”
“They can’t have gone very far. They don’t have the code.”
“Well, then, where the hell are they? Two goddamn kids, for shit’s sake.”
“They might be hiding in one of the rooms,” the other one, the not-Albino, says.
Another voice—female, this time, probably Piercing—chimes in. “Briggs is checking on it. The girl jumped Matt, tied him up. She has a knife.”
“Damn it.”
“They’re in the tunnels by now,” the girl says. “Have to be. Matt must have given up the code.”
“Does he say he did?”
“Well, he wouldn’t say it, would he?”
“All right, look.” Albino again; he’s obviously the one in charge. “Ring, you search the containment rooms with Briggs. We’ll clear out to the tunnels. Nick, take east; I’ll get west with Don. Tell Kurt and Forest they’re on north, and I’ll find someone to cover south.”
I’m tabulating names, numbers: So, we’re dealing with at least seven Scavengers. More than I expected.
Albino is saying: “I want those pieces of shit back here in the next hour. No way I’m losing payday over this, okay? Not because of some eleventh-hour screwup.”
Payday. An idea squirms at the edges of my consciousness; but when I try to fixate on it, it blurs into fog. If it’s not about ransom, what kind of pay can the Scavengers be expecting? Maybe they’re assuming Julian will roll, give up the security info they’ll need to get into his house. But it’s an elaborate—and dangerous—procedure for a run-of-the-mill break-in, and it’s not standard Scavenger operating procedure, either. They don’t plan. They burn, and terrorize, and take.
And I still don’t see how I fit in.
Now there’s the sound of shuffling, of guns being loaded and straps being snapped into place. That’s when the fear comes gunning back: On the other side of a one-inch plywood door are three Scavengers with an army-style arsenal. For a second I think I might faint. It’s so hot and close. My shirt is soaked with sweat. We’ll never make it out of here alive. There’s no way. It’s not possible.
I close my eyes and think of Alex, of pressing close to him on the motorcycle and having the same certainty.
Albino says, “We’ll meet back here in an hour. Now go find those little shits and skewer them for me.” Footsteps move toward the opposite corner. So—the red door must lead to the tunnels. The door opens and closes. Then there’s quiet.
Julian and I stay frozen. At one point I start to move, and he draws me back. “Wait,” he whispers. “Just to be sure.”
Now that there are no voices and no distractions, I’m uncomfortably aware of the heat from his skin, and the tickle of his breath on the back of my neck.
Finally I can’t take it anymore. “It’s fine,” I say. “Let’s go.”
We push out of the wardrobe, still moving cautiously, just in case there are any other Scavengers sniffing around.
“What now?” Julian asks me, keeping his voice low. “They’re looking for us in the tunnels.”
“We have to risk it,” I say. “It’s the only way out of here.” Julian looks away, relenting.
“Let’s load up,” I say.
Julian moves to one of the shelves and starts pawing through a heap of clothing. He tosses a T-shirt back to me. “Here,” he says. “Looks like it should fit.”
I find a pair of clean jeans, too, a sports bra, and white socks, stripping down quickly behind the wardrobe. Even though I’m still dirty and sweaty, it feels amazing to put on clean clothes. Julian finds a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. They’re a little too big, so he holds them up with an electrical wire he uses as a belt. We stuff my backpack with granola bars and water, two flashlights, some packages of nuts, and jerky. I come across a shelf filled with medical supplies, and pack my bag with ointment and bandages and antibacterial wipes. Julian watches me wordlessly. When our eyes meet, I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
Underneath the medical supplies is a shelf empty but for a single wooden box. Curious, I squat down and swing open its lid. My breath catches in my throat.
ID cards. The box is filled with hundreds and hundreds of ID cards, rubber-banded together. There is a pile of DFA badges too, gleaming brightly under the lights.
“Julian,” I say. “Look at this.”
He stands next to me, staring wordlessly as I sift past all the laminated cards, a blur of faces, facts, identities.
“Come on,” he says, after a minute. “We have to hurry.”
I select a half-dozen ID cards quickly, trying to pick girls who look roughly my age, and rubber-band them together, slipping them into a pocket. I take a DFA badge too. It might be useful later.
Finally it’s time for the weapons. There are crates of them: old rifles heaped together like a tangle of thick thorns, gathering dust; well-palmed and well-oiled handguns; heavy clubs and boxes of ammunition. I pass Julian a handgun after checking to see that it’s loaded. I dump a box of bullets in my backpack.
“I’ve never shot one before,” Julian says, handling it gingerly, as though he’s worried it will explode on its own. “Have you?”
“A few times,” I say. He sucks his lower lip into his mouth. “You take it,” he says. I slip the handgun into my backpack, even though I don’t like the idea of being weighed down.
Knives, on the other hand, are useful, and not just for hurting people. I find a switchblade and stick it under the strap of the sports bra. Julian takes another switchblade, which he also pockets.
“Ready to go?” he asks me, after I’ve shouldered my backpack.