ARC: Essence (20 page)

I wanted to brush her off, but I couldn’t. Her words reminded me of
my
words – of those fervent nights at the very beginning when I was so terrified I was going to lose myself that I couldn’t think about anything else.

Had I really changed that much? Was I now the person
someone else
scolded for being too elevated?

I wanted to chase after her and demand an apology, but more than that, I wanted Ryder to reassure me that she was mistaken. I hadn’t really lost myself in all this, had I?

I brushed the dirt off my pants and strode into Camp Four to find him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The metal door that led through the wall reminded me of a bomb shelter. It was thick and industrial, so heavy I had trouble moving it. As I stepped through, I surveyed it skeptically.

Why in the world does it need to be reinforced so much? I knew Rex and Daniel kept supplies in here – and I knew people sometimes got desperate after earthquakes – but without Ryder’s key, it would have taken an army to get inside.

Past the doorway, Camp Four opened as a scattering of low buildings in the moonlight. They were ringed by the wall and arranged in a concentric circle, and each was as dark and nondescript as the next.

Except one. Just before the oil tank – the one that glinted charcoal-black in the distance – a wider, more open building gleamed with electric light. It was two stories tall and at least ten windows wide. Solar panels were slanted at an angle on its roof, and window shades obscured all but residual light from inside.

I glanced around for Ryder, but I couldn’t see anyone in the blackness. I could barely even see my hand through the shadows of the pine canopy overhead, so I took a tentative step toward the light.

I would like to say I was searching for Ryder, but I don’t think I was. I was just so overcome by the building – its light and size and presence – that I felt compelled to get a closer look. Like a moth to a flame, as they say.

I tiptoed across the grass and extended my hand toward the closed metal door.

And then I heard it.

A scream. A high-pitched wail from inside – so broken and full of anguish that it stopped me in my tracks. I felt the hairs on my arm prickling, and it took everything in me not to turn and run that very instant.

But that sounded like a human scream. And I didn’t know much, but I knew humans weren’t supposed to be screaming in here. So I couldn’t help but finish climbing the front steps, and I couldn’t help but reach for the doorknob.

But then the leaves crunched behind me, and Ryder said, “Red, what are you doing in here?”

“I heard a scream.” I whirled in the darkness.

He stood behind me, flanked by Trey and Adrian, and he held a large, red gas can in his hand. “A scream?”

“Yeah. Inside.” I jiggled the locked doorknob. “Ryder, what’s in this building?”

He tried the door himself. “It’s where my old man stores bio-meds and research equipment. Those lights – those are grow lights. But… There’s no one in there, Red. Are you sure it wasn’t an owl?”

“Or a mountain lion?” Adrian offered. “They scream sometimes; always scares the shit out of me.”

I shook my head. “No, it came from inside. I’m sure of it.”

Ryder shrugged. “Maybe it was an echo. From the walls? Noise does funny things in here; you can never tell exactly where sounds are coming from.” He extended his hand. “Come on, Red, let’s get out of here. If we don’t get on the road soon, we’ll miss our window.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t shake the memory of that scream. It was so haunted and piercing that it seemed stuck inside my ears. As I sat crammed in the backseat of a Jeep with Ryder at the wheel, it played on a loop the entire way to the Wawona Tunnel.

Trees clustered over our heads, and the moonlight that filtered through the branches left the road bathed in spooky blue light. Trey produced a flask of moonshine at some point, and we passed it around as we drove, relying on its burn to ward off the chill of the wind. Because that was the thing about Yosemite. No matter how hot the sun shone during the day, an icy chill pervaded the second it dipped below the horizon.

It took almost an hour to make it from the Valley to the Wawona Tunnel. When we finally reached the cliffside overlook, the remains of what must have once been a parking lot were evident. Cracks now laced across the concrete.

A deteriorated rock wall lined the edge of the clearing, and this is where Ryder parked the Jeep. “Wish you could see the view from here, Red and Ria,” he said. “Best vantage spot in this entire place.”

I followed his line of sight, but I could barely make out anything past the shrubs that dotted the hillside in front of us. “What are we looking at?”

“Entrance to the Valley.” He popped to a standing position and rested his elbows on the Jeep’s windshield. “Just like you saw the first day you got here. Only now we’re farther away, and we can see the cliffs all the way to the top. Can even catch a glimpse of Half Dome behind them. Our world, from a distance.”

He shook his head and jumped from the Jeep. “But it’s black as shit out, so I guess we should get going.”

Jett crawled from Cody’s lap in the front seat, while Trey, Adrian, Maria and I took a minute to squeeze out of the backseat. The movement sent the moonshine swimming in my head, but I shook it off and followed the group away from the viewpoint.

Ryder led us up the hill to the yawning mouth of a wide, black tunnel. It was huge, and he said it had once held two lanes of traffic. “Lots of fender benders here,” he explained, taking a step into the darkness. “People emerged from the tunnel to be hit with that view, and they slammed on their brakes and became a hazard to everyone behind them. If these walls could talk, you know?”

Maria cleared her throat. “So, what’s the deal?” she asked. “There’s a zipline on the other side?”

“Yeah, we’re at the low side now, so we’ll have to hike through and then slide back down to this point. Kind of a pain, but at least you get the work out of the way before the payoff.”

He fished a flashlight from his pocket. Shining it toward the roof of the tunnel, he pointed to the rope suspended from the ceiling. “Here’s our line, boys,” he said. “Think it made it through the winter all right.”

The rope was secured by a pulley system attached to a large, metal pipe and a tangled mess of harnessing, and a handlebar of some sort dangled from one end of the rope. Adrian reached for a thinner guide rope and gave the harness a good tug. The handlebar bounced and dropped to our eye level.

“Think everything’s still here,” Ryder said, reaching for the straps. “Pretty good condition, too. Wanna give it another tug to make sure it’s still secure?”

Adrian pulled on the thinner rope again, and the entire contraption bounced and wobbled.

“Looks good to me,” Cody said, reaching for another flashlight. “Wanna start the walk-through?”

The boys lit their torches, and the seven of us started into the tunnel. “Almost a mile’s walk,” Ryder warned, kicking aside a branch and motioning for us to follow. “So if you’re scared of the dark, you better stay close.”

I felt so distracted by my conversation with Jett, the scream and the moonshine swimming in my brain that it took me a minute to start walking. During that pause, Jett grabbed my arm and said, “Are you mad at me?”

“Yes.” My answer was automatic. “I am. Kinda.”

She frowned. “Why? Did I honestly say anything you weren’t already thinking yourself?”

“I didn’t realize you were so anti-Rex and -Ryder. Or so anti-me.”

“Autumn.” Her face fell. “I’m not anti-Rex and -Ryder. And I’m certainly not anti-you. You just asked me how I felt, so I told you.”

“I know.” I rushed into an answer I didn’t even mean: “I guess I probably shouldn’t have asked you, then.”

The hurt that flashed in her eyes was quickly hidden behind a wall of irritation. “Yeah, guess you shouldn’t have,” she said, jutting her chin forward. “Lesson learned, huh?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The tunnel was eerily still – except for the creak of the harness as Adrian dragged it by the guide rope along the ceiling. Everything echoed, so even this small noise seemed magnified. It bounced off the walls and mixed with the shuffling of rocks and pebbles beneath our feet, and it lent me to reimagining that scream.

Had it really only been an owl or a mountain lion? I had never heard either scream before, so I didn’t know if I’d really recognize the difference. And Ryder was right; the sounds in Camp Four echoed nearly as much as the sounds in this tunnel. My thoughts began to loosen around the idea that I’d actually heard a person, and soon I became preoccupied with the fact that I was inside a tunnel right now.

It is difficult to describe the crushing, claustrophobic weight I began to feel closing in around me. Where the blackness began, just on the edge of my skin, I began to sense the creep of a presence, like someone was standing right beside me, leering at me.

Only the presence didn’t stop at my sides. It began to stretch over my head and around my back. I felt like I was being held in the giant hand of a monster, like I could be crushed or smothered at any moment.

I also began to feel eyes on me – like a thousand scaly creatures waited at the edge of our pathway. Was that really breathing on the back of my neck? Were they slowly surrounding us, waiting to close in when they thought we weren’t looking?

I clung like a drowning man to the wavering light of the flashlights in front of me. Their reassuring beams shattered the darkness and reminded me that this tunnel had once been wide enough to hold two lanes of traffic.

It was a big tunnel, really. Huge. With a wide, curved ceiling and smooth, creature-free walls. But maybe the monsters were just sensitive to the light. Maybe they evaporated or scurried away when the beams came blasting toward them.

I initially walked in the back of the line, but I quickly made my way past Cody and Jett. There, in the middle of the group, the fear of the unknown wasn’t quite as strong. Even if a monster showed up, I was sure it would go for Cody and Jett before it went for me.

A weird tension now simmered in the air between us. This made me feel a little better about my racing inner monologue – which told me I’d surely have enough time to run for the tunnel’s exit if they were attacked first.

I could pull Maria down as I passed, and that would buy me some time, too. And if a monster really did appear, I was pretty sure Ryder would stop to wait for me. Maybe he’d even pull me with him. His legs were definitely stronger than mine, and he knew this place better than anyone.

Trey and Adrian knew it, too, so I made a concerted effort to make sure I was within arm’s distance of both of them. They may not be quite as excited to pull me to freedom, but they couldn’t say much if I was already attached to them.

As for the claustrophobia… I tried not to think about my shortness of breath, about what might happen if the ceiling collapsed in on us. If I were trapped beneath a pile of rocks, with a broken leg or maybe my shoulder pinned to the ground beneath me… Would I have enough strength to pull myself free? Or would I be able to cut my own arm off, like some of those crazy survivalists I’d heard about in Centrist classes?

They had all died early, I had been told. All those people who had cheated disaster. Brushes with death were enough to expend an entire lifetime’s worth of Essence at once, so it wasn’t uncommon for those people to drop dead a few weeks or months after wresting themselves free of tragedy.

But that was a Centrist story. And Centrist stories were mostly bullshit, so I wondered if maybe I’d survive if it happened to me. The only thing I couldn’t survive would be the slow crush of oxygen as the rocks expelled the air from my lungs.

But I was thinking crazy things now. And I was wavering a little, waving my arms at my sides to make sure I still could. But then the night sky appeared – as a little blue dot on the far side of the tunnel – and it grew bigger and bigger the closer we walked.

I felt spellbound again, and I couldn’t take my eyes off that glowing midnight orb as we trudged through the rocks and boulders. It was just in front of us, so big it nearly filled the tunnel, and then it surrounded us. We were free.

I inhaled enough night air to fill up my entire body. I would have collapsed to the pavement in relief, but Maria was beside me. She was catching her breath and talking about how she’d always wanted to go cave diving.

“Can you imagine?” she was saying. “A tunnel like that, but underwater? I once read about cave divers in a book… Can you imagine how incredible that must feel?”

I wanted to punch her, and I suddenly didn’t feel bad about my secret plan to feed her to the tunnel’s monsters. If I were forced to, I certainly would. Maybe I would even if I weren’t forced to.

After a moment, the hammering in my heart settled. I was nearly free of my fear, and no one would ever have to know how heavily I’d felt it.

“Hey, Red, you got my lighter?”

The voice was Ryder’s. He was watching me pointedly, and an unlit cigarette dangled from his lips.

“No,” I stammered. A better answer: when have I
ever
had your lighter?

But he was insistent: “You
just
had it. Didn’t drop it in the tunnel, did you?”

Before I could respond, he finished. “Well, you better come back and help me look for it. You’re not getting off that easy.” To Trey and Adrian: “Wanna get that rig set up? We’ll be back in a flash.”

It was only after he’d escorted me into the blackness that I realized he’d separated me from the group purposefully. I waited for him to turn on his flashlight, to tell me to be nice to Maria or ask what was wrong with Jett, but he didn’t.

Instead, he reached for my hands. “You OK? Looked a little freaked out back there.”

“I’m fine.” My answer came out strained. “I wasn’t freaked out.”

“Red, you don’t have to do this. I know you don’t like tight spaces.”

“Why can’t we tell Maria we’re dating? She wouldn’t tattle to Rex.”

My question startled him, and it took a moment for him to respond. “Where is this coming from?”

“I’m sick of fighting with her, Ryder, just like I’m sick of sneaking around and talking in tunnels because of her. It’s not healthy, and I can’t understand why–”

“Red, this thing with my old man… I don’t think you understand how serious this is. If he found out we went behind his back…” He shook his head. “He has big plans for me. Wants me to lead his whole uprising. He’ll understand where we’re coming from once we’ve proved ourselves, but if he finds out before then…” He paused. “Let me ask you something, Red. Do you trust Maria?”

“No.” My voice was firm. “I don’t trust her, and I don’t like her, either.”

He snorted. “I know you don’t. So listen to me. The last thing we need is Maria letting things slip to my old man. You can last a few more weeks, can’t you? I know it sucks, but the end is in sight. You trust me, don’t you?”

I sighed. “I do.”

“Good.” He began kissing my jawbone, and the goose bumps that prickled their way down my neck made it difficult to concentrate. “Less than a month,” he said, “and then my old man won’t have anything to say to anyone.”

I nodded. He kissed my forehead, and then he added, “And you know what I was thinking we could do?”

“What?”

“Tomorrow. After we’re done here. We should blow off chores and head up to Taft Point. Do some practicing with safety ropes. Think you’re ready for it?”

I imagined myself dangling three thousand feet above the Valley floor, and a cold sweat began rising on my arms. But Ryder was right. We only had a few weeks left, so it was about time I got used to the feeling.

“Think you’re ready for it?” he asked again, and this time I nodded.

“I do. And I’m in. Let’s show Taft Point what we’re made of.”

Despite Ryder’s protests, I purposefully let myself look a little disheveled when we reemerged from the tunnel. Although Jett’s disappointed frown hurt me more than I wanted to admit, Maria’s look of outrage almost made up for it.

She was standing by the harness, handlebar in hand, and she quickly turned to Trey. “Let’s do this,” she said. “I’m ready to go first.”

Trey shook his head and took the bar from her hands. “No way, sweetheart. Wouldn’t risk your safety.” He made eye contact with Ryder and added, “Looks good from this end. Only one way to find out.”

Ryder nodded. “Hit it.”

Without further ado, Trey strapped himself into the harness. Gripping the handlebar with both hands, he rocked backward and then rushed forward into the darkness. He picked his feet up as his body disappeared in the tunnel, and we heard his exhilarated cries long after he’d faded from sight.

After a few minutes – breathless, tentative stretches of waiting for something bad to happen – the line rocked and became slack. Two tugs signaled a safe arrival, and then Adrian pulled the harness back. He worked hand over hand and laughed in anticipation when the empty harness finally reappeared.

“Who’s next?” he started, but Maria was already at his side. She took the harness without smiling, and then she was off, glancing over her shoulder and smirking as the handlebars carried her down the line.

Her cheers seemed forced – too high, maybe, and strained – but I quickly lost the energy to judge her, as each pulley return brought me one step closer to my own taste of blackness. Jett was next, and then Cody, and then I insisted Ryder take his turn so I could secretly build my courage in his absence. He seemed skeptical, but he finally harnessed up and promised he’d be waiting for me on the other side.

Finally, it was my turn. As Adrian held the handlebar steady, I fumbled with the security straps on my harness. My palms were sweaty, and my hands must have been shaking, because he finally nudged me and said, “You’ll have a blast, Red. Just pick up your legs and remember not to let go.”

“Let go?”

“Of the handlebars. The harness will hold you in place, but you’ll flip sideways or upside down if you don’t hold onto the handlebars.” He smiled. “Don’t worry; no one’s ever dropped ’em before. Just remember that. In case you get scared.”

“I won’t get scared.”

“I know you won’t. But if you do, just remember not to let go. Trey and Ryder’ll be waiting for you on the other side.”

The second I entered the tunnel, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. There was no way I had tightened those straps nearly as snugly as I should have, and my hands were so slippery, I had trouble staying clamped to the handlebar.

I couldn’t even really formulate these thoughts, because I was whooshing so blindly that it was hard to make sense of anything at all – anything except the frantic beating of my heart and the roar of the wind as it streamed past my ears.

The sound was deafening, and the air was freezing – so cold it cut like a knife through my clothes. I wanted to crumple in on myself and surrender, but I couldn’t. I was too busy holding on for dear life.

Why did I ever think ziplining was something I could handle? I could barely make it through the Parkay Squeeze without panicking. Now here I was, racing through a half-collapsed passage with nothing to protect me but a ratty old rope hanging from the ceiling.

And the walls were closing in on me. I could feel them. I could sense the slow advance of rock and concrete as it splintered and constricted under the weight of the mountain. I could feel the rope pulling the ceiling down around me.

Monsters were everywhere – reaching out, slicing their claws through the air, screaming. They were
screaming
– just like someone had been screaming in Camp Four. Were they owls or mountain lions or monsters or people? Did it matter? What was the difference, anyway?

My breath was coming in gasps now, pushed from my lungs by the crush of the wind against my chest. And the ceiling was so low – so black and dark and unstable – that I could feel the ground advancing toward my feet. I tried to pick them up – to hold them high in the air like beacons – but my arms were already shaking from the pressure, and my legs were wobbly against the beating whip of the wind.

Tears streamed from my eyes, and panic knotted such a heavy weight in my chest that I couldn’t decide if I was crying now or just hyperventilating. Either way, the slippery wetness of my palms wasn’t relenting, and I was sure my legs were going to be ground like hamburgers into the pavement at any moment.

The tunnel walls were pinching against my sides, and I had the strange feeling I was falling into a hole. A hole that led to the center of the Earth, or maybe the North Pole – where snow and ice and hail would stone and freeze me to death. Leave me dead in a snowbank, with ground-up legs and no breath left in my lungs.

I tried to pull myself into a ball again. The smaller I was, the better chance I had to get out of here without being crushed by the mountain.

So I twisted. And kicked. And somehow, my left hand slipped from the handlebar.

The last thing I remember is the glowing, midnight orb of the exit as it appeared in the distance. The color was blue and soft, and it promised an end to the careening, uncontrollable blackness.

But then the rock connected with my forehead. And everything faded to black.