Book Three of the Travelers (13 page)

Suddenly Patrick felt his heart beating and his palms sweating. This was bad. This was really bad.

“Are you okay, Patrick?” one of the students, Casey, said.

“I'm fine,” he said. “I just need Em and Jay to get back here. My comm connected to the satellite for a minute. I know where we are now.”

“I'll run up and get them,” Casey said, smiling.

“Don't go too far,” Patrick said.

Casey nodded and ran up the hill.

As he watched her disappear into the trees, something struck him. What if Shana had staged the whole blowup about the rain? What if she was heading for the cave on the shorter trail? Was it possible
she
was the book thief?

She certainly had the rebellious attitude. The question was, did she have the kind of mind that would dream up a crime like this? And if she did, could she have executed it? She was clever. But she just didn't seem the type. Whoever had staged the crime was trying to make a point. About what, Patrick hadn't yet figured out. But this was more than just random vandalism.

Or was it? Maybe this was just a case of an angry teenager taking out her anger by destroying something valuable.

While he was thinking, Casey came running back down the hill breathlessly. “Em fell!” she called. “Em fell!”

“What do you mean, she fell?” Patrick said, snapping out of his thoughts.

“She did something to her ankle. Maybe even broke it!”

“Okay, everybody,” Patrick called. “We're all going up the hill.”

“I haven't finished my lunch yet,” Roger protested.

“Eat while you hike,” Patrick said. He clapped his hands. “Let's go!”

 

Em was lying in a bare gray outcropping of rock at the top of the small ridge. Her face was twisted with pain. Her pants were red with blood. Jay sat next to her, holding her hand.

As soon as he saw Patrick, he looked up accusingly. “Where
were
you? I called and called!”

Patrick shook his head. “I'm sorry! We couldn't hear you.” He ran over and knelt next to Em. “What happened?”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I went up on that rock. To see what was around us. Otherwise the view is blocked. By the trees.”

“She slipped and cut her leg,” Jay said. “She may have even broken her ankle.”

Patrick looked around at the somber group of students. “Is anybody's comm working? We need to call for an air ambulance.”

Everyone pulled out their silver communicators, stared at the screens. Then everyone shook their heads.

“Okay,” Patrick said. For a moment he felt panic welling up inside. But then, to his surprise, his mind went calm, and he began thinking clearly. “Okay, we're going to have to make a device they used a long time ago. It's called a ‘stretcher.' Roger, Casey, go get some sticks. Four centimeters thick, two and a half meters long. Jay, Ken, I'll need your coats.”

Within ten minutes they were heading down the hill, one student supporting each corner of the makeshift stretcher formed by threading pine poles through several coats.

“I'm sorry, Em,” Patrick said.

Em gave him an odd look. “Well, I can't say this won't be a memorable trip, anyway,” she said. She laughed briefly, then winced.

The group headed back down the trail. It didn't seem
to take them very long before they were back on the correct trail again. A small sign pointed in the direction of the shelter.

Patrick headed in the other direction.

“The shelter's this way,” Jay said.

“I know,” Patrick said. “But we're not going that way.”

Everyone's eyes widened. “But we have to get medical attention for her.”

“Well,” Patrick said, “we've got another problem….”

“What?” Jay said angrily.

In the distance a high, eerie howl cut through the silence of the forest. Patrick felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

“Wolves,” Patrick said.

O
nce Patrick had explained about Shana going into the area where the wolves were, Jay said, “Why don't we split up? Four of us can take Em back to the shelter and—”

“Wolves can smell blood from more than three kilometers away. If the smell of Em's injury attracts them, I want us to have the largest possible group to fend them off.”

“Yeah, but—”

Patrick shook his head. “We're not separating again. That's final.”

He wasn't at all sure this was the right decision. At the speed they were moving carrying Em, he was not completely sure they'd be able to get to Shana and then get back to the shelter by nightfall. Part of him wasn't sure at all that he was making a good decision. Em's leg was still bleeding, and she needed medical attention. But he also knew that the worst thing he could do at this moment was to show uncertainty. He was the leader. The kids needed to feel confidence in him. If he wavered, they'd see it. And that would lead to more problems.

“Follow me,” Patrick said. He began heading up the path. According to the map on his comm, which had been working again briefly, the trail he was on would meet up with the trail Shana was apparently following. And by happy coincidence, that would happen only half a kilometer from the cave that was his real destination on this trip.

For a moment no one moved.

“Follow me,” Patrick said again. Then he turned his back on the students.

What if they don't follow me?
he thought. There was really nothing he could do to force them. For a moment he felt as if he couldn't breathe. He had no choice but to go after Shana. If the kids didn't follow him, he'd have to do it alone.

Patrick was dying to look back. But he knew he'd look weak if he did. Sweat broke out on his skin.
Please follow me,
he thought.
Please!

Then, just when he thought he'd lost them, Em's soft voice spoke. “He's right, guys. Splitting up's a bad idea. Let's go.”

For a moment, nothing. Patrick felt his blood pounding in his ears.

Then, as if they were all of one mind, he heard the rustling of feet. They were following him.

Whew! That was close.

 

The group walked in silence after that. Occasionally they stopped and switched stretcher bearers. Everyone's hands were getting chafed raw. But nobody complained.

The sun had come out and small puffy clouds floated
in a bright blue sky. A gentle wind blew through the trees, cooling everyone just enough so that they didn't get overheated. It had turned into a perfect day.

Still, Patrick couldn't help feeling like a fool. All this over a book.

Every now and then he would cup his hands and call, “Shana! Hey, Shana! We're coming for you!”

Occasionally the wolves would howl. Each time they seemed closer.

The group's progress was painfully slow. Patrick looked up at the sun now and then. Underground it didn't matter what time it was. The lights were on all the time. But aboveground the world still moved to the ancient rhythms. Sunrise, sunset. Rain, wind, flood, drought, winter, spring, summer, fall. Once these things had been matters of life and death to people. Now they were just figures of speech.

Except…not up here.

The sun had been high in the sky when they had found Em lying on the rocky ridge. But now it was getting lower, obscured by trees. The world hadn't exactly gotten dark yet. But Patrick could sense the light subtly changing. The bright, optimistic light of midday was becoming paler, bleaker.

Getting out of the park by nightfall was starting to seem unlikely. They had no tents, no extra food or water, no shelter, no fire.

They reached the junction between the short trail and the long trail at four o'clock.

“Which way?” Jay said.

Patrick looked around. The short trail led toward
the wolves. The long trail went back they way they had come. But there was a third trail—the one that led to the cave.

Patrick pulled his comm off his belt and stared at it for about the fiftieth time. There was still no satellite signal. He took a deep breath. What was the right move? With no knowledge of where Shana was, there was no knowing which direction he ought to go. If he took the short trail, there was at least a distant chance that they could make it back to the shelter in time to catch the shuttle back to Manhattan. But if Shana had taken the spur that led off toward the cave, she'd be stuck out here all night. Alone. Unprotected.

Think! Think!

“Mr. Mac?” Alana said.

“Mr. Mac?” Roger said. “What are we going to do?”

“Mr. Mac, Mr. Mac, Mr. Mac—”

Suddenly everyone was talking. Patrick felt as if his head were in a vise.

“We need to go back, Mr. Mac,” Roger said.

“Shana could be out that way!” Jay said, pointing down the trail leading toward the cave. “We can't leave her here.”

“Maybe we should split up,” a third boy said.

“Yeah,” Jay said. “Me and you and Roger could go to the cave and—”

“
I'm
not staying out here!” Roger said.

“My mom and dad will
panic
if we don't get back tonight,” another voice said.

Everyone began arguing. Patrick felt powerless to stop them. There was simply no good decision here.
I'm
not some ancient frontier adventurer!
Patrick thought hopelessly.
I'm a librarian. What do I know about this?
He knew he needed to make a decision, needed to show some confidence so the kids didn't lose hope. But he felt frozen.

And then something hit him. The cave. Jay had just said that they should go to the cave. But Patrick had never even mentioned the cave. So how did—

“Quiet, everybody!” Patrick said. The voices died out. Patrick cocked his head at Jay. “I never mentioned the cave.”

Jay blinked. “Huh?”

“The cave. I never told any of you that we were going to the cave. How did you know about it?”

Jay looked confused. He shrugged. “I don't know. I guess it was on the map. I just thought—” He broke off and swallowed. “What? What are you looking at me like that for?”

Patrick felt an odd sense of triumph. It was Jay. It had to be. Just as he'd suspected from the very beginning.

The feeling of triumph quickly faded. At this moment it really didn't matter one bit who the thief was. Patrick looked off into the trees. The sun was getting lower, and the shadows on the ground seemed darker.

“Mr. Mac?” Roger said. “What are we going to do?”

Patrick didn't have an answer. He looked around at the young faces, staring eagerly at him, waiting for him to give them an answer that would make them feel safe, that would make them believe everything was okay.

“I'm sorry,” he said softly. “I didn't—when I planned this—I didn't think…” His voice drifted off.

“Mr. Mac?” Jay said.

“I'm sorry.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence.

“All of you. Em. Everybody. I'm sorry.”

Em sat up on her stretcher and looked at him. Then, improbably, she smiled. “It's okay, Mr. Mac,” she said. “You know what to do.”

And just like that, he did. He knew exactly what they had to do.

“Um, Mr. Mac?” It was Jay talking.

“Okay.” Patrick clapped his hands together decisively. “Here's what we're going to do.”

“Mr. Mac?”

“Let me finish.”

“Mr. Mac?” Jay was pointing at something.

“
What,
Jay?”

Jay didn't speak. He just kept pointing.

To the left of the trail was a long, rolling meadow full of pink and red flowers. At the top of the meadow was a small rise. Standing at the top of the little hill, silhouetted against the blue sky, was an animal. It stared intently at Patrick with unblinking yellow eyes.

A wolf.

“We're going to the cave,” Patrick said. “All of us.”

O
ne wolf. Then two. Then five. Then more.

“This way,” Patrick said firmly. “Girls, get the stretcher. Everybody else surrounds it. Jay, Roger, you're the biggest. I want you in the rear.”

Four girls immediately hoisted Em and began walking briskly down the trail. At the far side of the meadow, the wolves began to move. The lead wolf was snow white. It crept toward them, head down, teeth slightly bared, sniffing the air.

“Eric,” Patrick said sharply, “look for tree limbs on the ground. Two meters, no more than three centimeters thick. And they can't be rotten.”

Patrick reached into his pack and pulled his camping knife out of its sheath. All potential weapons—even tools like chef's knives and camping knives—had been outlawed centuries ago. Strictly speaking, the knife was illegal. But every serious camper Patrick knew owned one.

Eyes widened at the sight of the gleaming knife.

“Sticks!” Patrick said, snapping his fingers urgently. “Now.”

“What are the sticks for?” Eric said.

“Spears,” Patrick said. “We're making spears.”

At the rear of the group, Jay's face split into a broad grin. “Yeah!” he said. “Mr.
Mac
, coming through!”

Eric handed a small tree limb to Patrick. Patrick whacked it on a nearby tree. It cracked in half. “You've got to do better, Eric.”

Eric nodded, darted into the trees. Patrick looked behind them. The wolves were in no hurry. They were trotting after the students, steadily closing the distance.
Maybe two hundred meters?
Patrick thought.

“Hurry, Eric!”

Moments later Eric burst out of the trees with several sticks. These were much better. Patrick quickly sharpened a point on the end of the first one, tossed it to Jay. A few quick strokes of his sharp blade and he had a second spear. He threw it to Roger.

“What do we do?” Roger said.

“If they get close, you kill them,” Patrick said. He made a stabbing motion with the remaining stick. Then he turned to Eric. “More sticks.”

Eric ran into the woods again.

Seeing that one of the group had separated, the wolves began picking up the pace, loping into the woods in the direction Eric had gone.

“Hurry, Eric!” Em called. “They're coming for you.”

Eric didn't answer. Patrick could hear him tromping around in the brush. But he couldn't see him. There was thick foliage on the left side of the trail, blocking his view.

The white wolf was now only about seventy-five meters away.

“Eric,” Patrick called. “Let's go. Time's running out.”

Just as the white wolf burst into a run, Eric ran out of the trees, four more sticks in his hands. He was laughing and his eyes were wide.

He reached the group only seconds before the white wolf. As he did so, the wolf peeled off, circling back around to join the larger group.

The wolves now slowed, matching their pace to the students'. They weren't howling or growling, weren't making any noise at all. They simply shadowed Patrick and the students, heads lowered, eyes fixed on the humans.

Patrick furiously worked on the sticks, sharpening their points with his knife.

“Do you think Shana's all right?” one of the girls carrying Em said.

“If they're hunting us,” he said, “they're hungry. If they're hungry, then they never…” He searched for the right word. Attacked? Ambushed? Ate? “If they're hungry, they never…uh…found Shana.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” the girl said, looking relieved.

Patrick hoped he was right.

“How much farther?” Jay said nervously. The wolves had formed a loose half circle around the students.

Now that he had finished making the spears, Patrick moved to the rear of the group. “Not far,” he muttered.

The white wolf darted forward, lunging toward Patrick. Its hair bristled and its teeth were bared. Patrick jabbed furiously at the wolf. It darted this way and that, and he kept stabbing at it. He felt the spear
bite. The wolf let out a shrill whimper and retreated.

“Yeah! Mr. Mac!” Roger shouted.

The wolves backed off a few meters. Patrick had a chance to count them now. There were seven adults and three smaller pups.

“Next one to get close,” Patrick said, “the three of us need to jump out and really go after it. We need to show them who's boss. Otherwise they'll just keep nipping at us until one of us gets in trouble.”

“They wouldn't
really
hurt us, would they?” Eric said.

Patrick had a long answer forming in his mind. He wanted to say that when you lived underground in Manhattan, you never felt unsafe for even a minute. There was no war, no crime, no danger of any sort. And if you did happen to stumble and bang your head, medical care was only minutes away. He wanted to say that only days ago, he too had felt that he lived in a world with no dark places, no threats, no danger, nothing at all to worry about. He wanted to say that his mind was beginning to change, that he was beginning to think that underneath the happy world they lived in, something dark was brewing.

But instead of giving Eric the long answer, Patrick just said, “Give them a chance, they'll take you by the throat, drag you down, and start eating you before you're even dead.”

“Huh,” Eric said, frowning. “Interesting.” He scooped up a fist-size rock and hurled it at the wolves. The rock whacked a large gray male on the shoulder. It yelped in pain. “How you like that, wolfie, wolfie? Huh? You want to eat some more of that?”

A nervous burst of laughter rose from the group.

“Nice, Eric!” Patrick said. “Everybody grab some rocks and start thowing. That'll keep them back.”

 

It was a standoff. For more than an hour the kids continued to hurl rocks as the wolves circled and probed, probed and circled. The wolves were wary of both the rocks and the spears. But they seemed to be adapting their tactics now, spreading out, probing in pairs and threes, so that Patrick and his students couldn't concentrate their fire on any single member of the pack.

The sun was getting lower and lower in the trees and the light started fading. Patrick felt sure they'd be safe in the cave. But if they got stuck out here in the open, in the dark, without fire…Well, it would be a long, long night.

And to make things worse, everyone was getting tired. They'd had to stop several times so the stretcher bearers could rest. And each time the wolves had gotten closer and more confident.

Suddenly a cry went up from one of the girls in the front of the group. “Mr. Mac!”

Patrick whirled.

“There!” the girl called. “See it?”

Not more than thirty meters away was a large black crevice in the rock. The cave! They'd made it.

As though sensing that their prey was about to escape, the wolves began to growl and dart closer. They seemed as if they were summoning their nerve for an all-out charge.

“Hurry!” Patrick shouted. The group surged toward the cavern's entrance.

As they were about to enter the cave, a figure rose up out of the darkness. The group pulled up short. For a moment the same thought ran through the entire group: a wolf.

But then Patrick realized it was a human figure. A girl, waving her arms furiously.

“Hey!” the girl yelled. There was a broad smile on her face, smudges of dirt on her cheeks. But she looked to be in fine spirits. “You guys found me!”

Patrick felt overwhelmed with relief. “Shana!”

“I got bored sitting around that stupid shelter. So I tried to come back and find you. Did I take the wrong trail?” Shana grinned brightly. “Anyway, Mr. Mac, I'm sorry if I got all weird on you this morning. I was in a bad mood, and I took it out on you.”

“No problem,” Patrick said.

Shana pointed over his shoulder. “Hey, look!” Her eyes were shining. “Wolves!”

“We kinda noticed,” Jay said dryly.

“Ohhhhh,” she said in a high voice, clapping her hands in excitement. “They're so cuuuuuuute!”