The Freeze (Barren Trilogy, Book 3) Read online

  But the food…

  And the hunger…

  Teddy vanished around the corner and returned exactly thirty seconds later. Counting wasn’t even calming me down anymore. Time was a knife and it could cut you any way it wanted.

  “The basement door is locked,” he said. “I saw someone peeking at me from the next level. There are people here.”

  I had forgotten about the guests. I hoped that they hid, that the people who had heard the gunshots were smart enough to escape through the sky walk or a back door.

  “Leave them,” Tawna said. “We don’t have time. There must be keys behind the counter.”

  I walked behind the counter, pretending that I was trying to look away from the fake murder on the floor. Sheri still leaned against it in a position that must be very uncomfortable, with her head almost touching her shoulder. Her neck would be stuck for days. I walked back while Tawna watched. The guns. They were still there, tucked under the seat. My foot hit one but Teddy and Tawna didn’t notice. I didn’t know what to do about them. I couldn’t let them see this or they’d figure out the deception. Sheri wouldn’t have left a rifle behind her desk to confront intruders.

  So I left the guns and rummaged through drawers. Teddy leaned over the counter and shined the flashlight down for me, which cast a shadow under the desk and on the guns. At last, I found a key ring with one key labeled maintenance. Sheri would have kept the key for her food stash close. I pulled it out. “I think this might be it,” I said.

  Outside, two black vans pulled up to the old green one. Doors opened, including the back ones. The Stardust people had this raid planned out.

  Men and women in plain clothes burst into the building. All wore pistols. No one stopped to look at the bodies. This must be the standard thing to do. I stood there holding the keys out to Teddy while a tall, dark man pushed past him.

  “Promoted people,” Teddy said in a low voice. “The gatherers. They just have to load the food. Their families will be moved to base housing soon. They'll grab the food and we'll stand guard.”

  I counted ten, no, fifteen men and women who waited at the other end of the lobby for Teddy to toss the dark man the key ring. The guy caught it and without another word, led the others down the hall. They worked in silence.

  “Did they kill enough people to get that lucky?” Jerome asked, leaning against the desk. Sheri was trapped between Jerome’s legs and Teddy’s. Tawna paced around the room, stopping to nudge Sal with her boot.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe not. We don’t know how or why people get promoted. We’re only in week three of this operation.” She took out a cigarette, a lighter, and puffed away while she stood in front of Sal. The poor guy was trying to stay as still as he could.

  “Week three?” I asked. If I could get Tawna to leak enough about the Operation, I might be able to tell Sheri and the others where to break in. “Week three already?” It had been that long since the pulse.

  “Yes,” Tawna said. “That’s what they’ve told me. I don’t care. As long as my baby stays alive and gets out of that prison, I don’t care if it rains purple elephants from the sky.”

  I thought of Alana and my father lying there, with no idea of what was going on. Maybe they were being groomed, too, for lives as servants who couldn’t say no. “Do you think they’re going to dispose of us when they’re done?” I asked.

  “I’ve thought about that,” Jerome said. “We’re like those people they hired in concentration camps to bully the other prisoners. I think we’re all going to be victims sooner or later. Just the important people want to make it. They studied how we work so they could find ways to pull our strings.”

  “He knows about psychology,” I said. “I’d listen to him.”

  Tawna crushed the cigarette on the counter, right on top of one of Sheri’s puzzle books. I felt a pang for her, even though I knew she was alive and in pain less than two feet away. Jerome stayed close as if he were guarding her.

  Two women walked past, hauling a large box of cans between them. I watched them walk out into the storm, nearly slip, and load it into the back of the van without complaint. These people worked in silence. They were like zombies with their personalities ripped out. Stardust had done this to them and it was working at us now.

  That could be me and Jerome in a couple of weeks if we were still alive.

  “Won’t people see us hauling all this food out?” Jerome asked. “Someone might follow us.”

  He spoke loud enough for Sheri and the two men on the ground to hear. If I looked close enough, I thought I could see the lumberjack breathing. They couldn’t completely stop that.

  “The storm is thickening,” Tawna said. “They might not see. There’s a secret entrance to the store room for vehicles. I’ve been told there's a tunnel entrance under a bridge that goes over the Hudson. We drive through a drainage ditch to get to the entrance, and then down an abandoned tunnel. Then we get to an underground gate that leads back to the complex. We’ll get to see it. I haven’t yet. I’d like to.”

  I didn’t say anything. The idea must already be planted in Sheri’s mind. I hoped that she and the two men had a way to follow us. Footsteps echoed off a distant stairwell as the food gatherers went in and out, tracking in meltwater and letting in the cold. I shivered. Cold was so unpleasant. This was a different kind of cold than you got in the deserts at night. This cold was damp and cut right through you.

  “I think the drainage ditch is next to the river and we'll be driving north,” Tawna continued, watching two men haul another box piled high with cans. “The surf is high right now but we should be able to get through before the surge comes in. I wouldn’t go back out that way, though, so there might not be any more missions for a while. It’s no wonder they were so eager to send us on this one. As if we don’t have enough packed away for the rich people.”

  I could hear the hatred in her voice. Tawna loved Stardust as much as me and Jerome did. I had the feeling Teddy wasn’t a huge fan of them, either. But there was something strange about the way she was speaking. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  The gatherers moved fast. Tawna explained that we were here to guard the entrance in case other looters caught on.

  But at last, after I estimated ten minutes had passed, the flow of gatherers stopped. Doors shut in vans and the dark man, who had to be the leader of the gatherers, waved us out of the building.

  I had to stop myself from saying goodbye to Sheri and the two men lying on the floor in their own blood.

  “It looks like they filled our van,” Teddy said, squinting at the green piece of crap sitting by the awning. “We’re going for an interesting ride after all.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jerome and I had to cram in beside food and cans and even a bunch of twelve-packs of soda. I wedged up against the window and the cold from outside soaked in through my jeans, threatening to spread through me. I was already numb and frozen, unable to feel anything. I was becoming used to blood and gore and everything that came with it.

  Soon I would be an empty shell that even the storms couldn’t touch. I’d be what they wanted and maybe even what I wanted. Strong. Numb.

  Dead inside.

  Tawna drove this time, following the two black vans. I craned my neck to watch where we were going. We were headed towards the river. Sheri and the men would be getting up now after making sure that no one would come back and kill them. They would follow us if they wanted to figure out where the secret stash was. It wasn’t like Sheri had a choice. She had people to take care of and I knew how that worked.

  I wondered who she had lost and who she was trying to atone for.

  I didn’t dare look behind me. Sheri might take a cab to work every day or she might have her own car. The two men might have a vehicle. If they didn’t, then their attack would stop there.

  But we had to crawl on these roads. Tawna cursed like a sailor as she made a turn and the van fish-tailed, sending me bending forward into the c
ans. I swore, too, and straightened back up again.

  “Laney. Are you okay?” Jerome reached across the cans and took my arms. It meant so much more than those words.

  The look on his face was pure fear and worry. He was terrified for me the same way Dad had been terrified for Mom so long ago as the world was shattering.

  I had to break out of this. I had to become alive again but I hadn’t, really, in over a year. I'd felt tiny slivers of life but nothing more.

  “I guess,” I said.

  He sighed and looked down at his shoes, or at where they were buried under all the boxes. “I’m worried about you, Laney. It’s like you’re shutting down now. You were doing well before.”

  He hadn’t known me for very long. I wished I had met him when I was still a real person.

  “Please,” he said. “Hang in there. I want to have more time with you, even if things aren’t perfect.”

  I felt strange. I looked Jerome in the eyes. He was being sincere. There was no sign of a laugh on his face anywhere.

  “I really, really like you, Laney.”

  I opened my mouth to speak. I really, really liked Jerome, too, but that part of me was caged in bars of fear and ice. It was getting stronger the more I saw and the longer I traveled. I wondered if it would ever break.

  So I said nothing and I hated it. Jerome leaned against the other side of the van and watched Tawna drive down the treacherous street. A car slid and nearly ran into us.

  “Don’t stop,” Teddy told her. “Keep going. If we get in an accident we’re doomed.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “Trust me, I know.” She made a left and we were headed towards the river again. I think. The storm hadn’t cleared at all and there were at least six inches of the white stuff on the roads here. How could anyone drive in this?

  “Down that alley,” Teddy instructed, pointing after one of the black vans. It appeared gray in the storm it was coming down so hard.

  We followed the two black vans down an alley where nothing good promised to happen. There was a sign for some tool shop and nothing else. The rest was grungy brick getting buried under a blizzard. The black vans turned down another, narrower alley and we followed, barely missing trash cans and a homeless man standing in between two of them. He watched with sad eyes as we passed. I wondered if he could see inside to the food that was leaving his city and going underground to feed the wealthy.

  And then we emerged onto a beach, driving between garbage pails and Dumpsters and who knew what else. Our van lurched over a curb and I jumped, banging my knee on all the cans and swearing again. “I’m okay,” I promised Jerome.

  He said nothing. Now he was the one who seemed lost.

  “Is this the drainage ditch?” Tawna asked.

  “It sure is,” Teddy said. “I think that hole in it was left on purpose for us.”

  “Well, there's nowhere to slide,” she said, following the two vans.

  We were driving in a low area between a chain link fence and a concrete wall that must have the beach on the other side. I couldn’t see the water, but I could almost smell it. If the surge came now, it would wash over that wall and trap us down here until we drowned. The van was very small and cramped all of a sudden, more like a coffin. But the surge wasn’t supposed to come for hours. I took a breath and counted to five, over and over. This time, it worked and my pulse slowed.

  Jerome continued to look outside.

  I still didn’t dare look behind me. I hoped that if Sheri decided to follow, she would have remembered that there was a camera trained on the front of her building. She was a smart woman. I even kind of liked her.

  I actually hoped that she didn’t die, but that caused too much worry, so I shoved that thought out of my mind. I just had to focus on here and now. Whatever Sheri chose to do was up to her.

  We drove for what felt like an hour when it was really just several minutes. Tawna had to take the van through a crawl even though there was nowhere to slide to. Every time she tried to speed up, we’d spin tires and start to get stuck.

  But at last, after we crossed under five bridges, we stopped under the sixth.

  The other two black vans were already parked here. I felt vulnerable. The dark man was getting out of the first van, which was so loaded down with stolen food that it was sagging and threatening to pop the tires. There was a very big drain under the bridge, one that had a metal cage over it that was rusted and looked like it had spent a lot of time collecting soda bottles and other garbage in front of it. There was gang graffiti and symbols all over the concrete cave entrance and the whole place just spelled doom. The thought of going in there chilled my blood.

  The dark man felt around the entrance to the sewer and finally reached inside, sticking his hand through one of the holes between the bars. He must have pressed something, because a faint grinding noise started and he withdrew his hand just in time to avoid having it crushed against the concrete. The cage slid into a narrow crack I hadn’t seen before, opening slowly to leave the sewer entrance open.

  “These places are under cities?” Jerome asked.

  “Apparently, yes,” Teddy said. He sounded happy to speak about something other than killing. “Stardust must have built them a long time ago in case something happened. Maybe it’s for government officials. Either way, it looks like we’re going in.”

  “Great,” I said. I still didn’t care look back. I knew what would happen. That gate would close behind us, leaving Sheri and the others no way to get through unless they had some major bolt cutters.

  The dark man got back in the van and he drove in first, headlights first illuminating some dingy, mold-covered concrete of the round tunnel and then vanishing inside. The second black van followed and then Tawna took us forward. I held my breath as we turned into the tunnel.

  And then I dared to look back.

  The gate remained open for a few seconds, then started to slide shut. I couldn’t hear the creaking over the crunch of gravel and maybe garbage as we rolled further into the tunnel. Even the night looked bright compared to this.

  The tunnel was horrible. There was standing water on the bottom of it and the van’s tires lost contact with the ground a few times. We seemed to be headed downwards and we passed nothing but an occasional ladder, hole in the wall, and later, roots. We were so far underground that roots were scraping the top of the van.

  “Are we under Central Park?” Teddy asked.

  “Maybe,” Tawna said. “I don’t care. It’s going to be buried soon anyway.”

  It was all eerie silence. I’d expected us to hear subway cars going in through other caverns but there was nothing. None of them were running. We passed a few dark holes that must lead even further into the underground and I took a breath. We weren’t really trapped. We were just going back to the food store which was also underground. That place hadn’t freaked me out like this. I could do this.

  And Jerome still wasn’t talking to me. I wondered if he was giving up.

  Maybe that was better until we got out of here. If we got out of here.

  We drove for what felt like a couple of miles through curves and bends and slopes. We went up and downhill. The tunnel moved like a hollow snake through the earth and I felt like the pressure from above was coming down on my chest, leaving me unable to breathe. We passed more, smaller tunnels that branched off from this one but I saw no one inside of them. This was a secret area, a place even the homeless might not have found yet.

  But at last, we came to another gate in the tunnel that looked just like an ordinary metal cage and the vans in front of us stopped. The headlights illuminated them and the leader guy got out, touched something on the side of the tunnel again, and slid the gate open to let us through.

  This next drive was shorter, through a cleaner tunnel that sloped upward instead of down this time. And there were lights ahead, orange ones that were embedded in the ceiling. We were close to the base and to the loading area. These were the same type of lights I had seen wh
en I’d first been shown the store rooms. Here we’d unload. Here we’d get to see our people again.

  “I’m glad we’re back,” Tawna breathed. “I need a cigarette after driving through that. And my daughter.”

  “I hope you get to see her,” I said.

  “I do, too,” Tawna said, turning towards me as we stopped in front of some metal doors. “And by the way, I know those people in the hotel weren’t dead.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I felt the world drop out from under me.

  “What?” I asked. “Of course those people were dead.”

  Tawna didn't take her gaze off me. “Oh, I know what dead people really look like,” she said. “I know what real bullet holes look and bleed like. Those people were just cut. If you'd shot that woman in the heart, there would have been a lot more blood than that.”

  “But we did,” Jerome said. “Maybe we missed?”

  Tawna glared at him for a second, and then the smiled. “You know, I'm glad you kids found a way out of this without having to kill,” she said. “I wished I had thought of that. Now get out and help the others haul the goods into the store room.”

  I wasn't sure what to make of this. Tawna wasn't letting on what she was thinking or planning, for that matter. But there was nothing we could do about it now. If she was going to tell the others what we'd done, she'd wait until we were out of earshot or the Stardust people took us back to our cells. It was a waiting game all over again.

  I began to realize that we weren't about to be destroyed or worse, be forced to watch as our families and friends got destroyed right in front of us. Jerome and I got out of the van and waited.

  Teddy said nothing and started to take off his seat belt, but Tawna pulled him close and whispered something in his ear. He nodded and got out of the van.

  “Okay, everybody,” the leader guy said in a low, booming voice. He sounded like a motivational speaker. “The mission is over until the storm has passed, so we'll have time to relax and enjoy the goods we've brought back. Now we get to do the easy part. Through the left door, please.”