“Zephyr?” Meadow touches my shoulder. “Did you hear me?”
I blink, still staring at the green car. The memory fades away. But it was real, I know it was. I can sense the difference between the ones I actually had and the ones the Leeches implanted into me. It’s like tasting salt water compared to the fresh kind.
Big difference.
“I’m fine,” I say, blinking. “Really, I’m fine.”
Meadow frowns, the lines of her Catalogue Number straightening out. “I didn’t ask you if you were.” She watches me for a second, concern darkening her eyes. “Is it the system?”
“No,” I say. “No, it’s nothing.”
Ray shuffles forward, explains what the cars are. “They’re smaller vehicles, better than trains. But you need gas to work ’em. And we’re fresh out of the stuff. Let’s move. We don’t want to be out when darkness hits.”
“Finally, something we can agree on,” Sketch says. “Come on, Woodson.”
Meadow gives me a final look before following after her.
We walk toward the city, snaking around cars. I let my fingertips touch their hot metal sides. My boots crunch over wasted glass.
The entire time, I feel like I’m stuck in a dream.
CHAPTER 47
MEADOW
When I was younger, I used to think the Shallows was massive.
The buildings towered taller than I could ever be, and standing beside them made me feel impossibly small.
But the Shallows was nothing compared to this city.
There are triple the amount of buildings here, stretching high into the sky like a man-made forest. Some of them are missing their tops, and others have crumbling sides.
The sounds of life rise like the whispers of ghosts, growing louder, and clearer, the closer we get. We stop at the entrance just as darkness hits.
The colors of the city are muted at night, blacks and whites and grays, and I feel for a moment, the surge of anger that comes before every Dark Time.
But there is no Night Siren. This is not home.
We enter the city.
At first I think the people are corpses lying about. But then they move, they stand, they speak, and I am staring into the eyes of the living dead.
They are all skin hanging on bones.
They are sunken eyes and protruding hips and shoulders that are poking through filthy skin.
They are starving to death. I thought, in the Shallows, that we were hungry. But we had rations. We had jobs, where we could work for just enough food to survive. Here, there is no Rations Hall. There are no jobs, no payment. There is only the hope that you can find something to survive on.
This is like nothing I have ever seen.
So many people scattered about, far more than the Shallows. It seems the city streets have been made into homes. Shelters are all over every square inch of space, up against buildings, in Dumpsters, pouring out onto the fire escapes, even tarps that flap in the wind on the roofs. The smell is like the Graveyard, only this is fresh, a constant flow. In this packed city, with the buildings so tightly wound together, the wind cannot make its way clearly inside to ease the stench.
Fires burn all around. I hear infants, crying, and wonder why anyone would bring them into this world.
I think of the Shallows, with its overflowing numbers. But there, sometimes, you could find space to breathe. Here you could never do that.
We follow Ray through a pathway of sorts. Hands stretch toward him. Some voices call out to him, while others shy away. But one thing is constant.
They know him.
And they let us pass.
We reach the end of one street, turn right into another.
There’s more people here, more shelters. It all melts into a blur.
I think of my mother. She did this to them, gave them a curse of life without death. And these people look like they want to die.
“Almost there,” Ray says over his shoulder.
He stops before a building that has a big open mouth beneath it, disappearing into darkness underground. A thick metal gate covers the entrance, and three armed guards stand behind it.
When they notice Ray, the guards pull on a heavy chain. The gate groans, and it begins to slide up into the ceiling.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I say to Zephyr as we wait.
“It’s a parking garage,” Ray says, turning back to us. “It goes underground a few flights, and it’s . . . Aah, well, you’ll see,” he says, as we all stare back at him like he is crazy, or speaking an entirely different language. “You three, I swear. It’s like you ain’t lived a life before. I forget all you’ve known is that damn walled city. Come on, then. Let’s go.”
We follow Ray into darkness. The ground slopes down, down, and then it turns a sharp left.
Down, down, again. Walls surround us on all sides. The ceiling is low, made of concrete. I feel incredibly small, like the weight over our heads could crush us at any moment. But it is cooler down here.
Torches flicker up ahead, and there’s another gate, made from scraps of metal, probably not originally a part of this place. More armed guards. Ray calls out to them, and they raise the gate, let us pass.
I see a symbol painted on the wall. A powerful bird, lit by flickering torches. An eagle. It was the symbol of our country, before the Fall. Now the bird is a thing of the past. Or it used to be, until now.
The lower we go, and the more turns we take, the more signs are painted on the walls. More eagles. A logo that reads NEW US MILITIA.
Ray touches the logo with his fingertips, mutters something under his breath.
We come to a third makeshift gate, and more guards that nod to Ray as we arrive.
The gate rises, slowly.
“Welcome to the Outpost,” Ray says.
I hear voices. Commotion, the hum of a generator. I see a flickering light.
I only get a glimpse of what’s inside. A table, with men gathered around it, deep in conversation. Computer screens, a giant map spread across one wall. Rooms, sectioned off by sheets. A stockpile of weapons, and food. Cots lining the walls. Lanterns glowing like watching eyes.
I’m about to ask what the Outpost is, what we’re doing here, when suddenly I feel something hot and thick drip from my nose.
I touch it, pull my fingertips away. They are soaked in blood.
“I’m . . . bleeding,” I say.
Everyone turns to look at me. The blood drips like a waterfall. My head feels fuzzy and light, and suddenly the world begins to flicker in and out of focus. My mother’s whispered words sing to my soul, and I finally know that they are true.
I fall. My Regulator slams against the floor.
The last thing I see before darkness takes over, is a man dressed in white.
He stares down at me with cold, calculating eyes.
CHAPTER 48
ZEPHYR
“Stop screaming, Sketch,” I groan. “You’re going to wake Meadow up.”
“This ChumHead thinks she can comb my dreads away!” Sketch growls. She’s sitting beside me on an old cracked leather couch. Martha, Ray’s wife, has been trying to rake through Sketch’s dreads for the past hour.
“If you would sit still, I might be able to fix things,” Martha says. She is old and gray, wrinkled as all hell, but her eyes are kind. She fed us food from metal cans. Something sweet and savory, called peaches. She let us bathe ourselves in a washbasin and gave us clean clothing to wear. New boots, probably from dead Militia members, but they fit my feet well enough.