Robison Wells - Variant

Her voice sounded timid and nervous. I actually missed the confidence of the tour guide.

“I don’t know,” I said. “College. Do you think our credits will transfer from here?” I grinned at her and she smiled back.

“I think I might write a book about this place,” she said.

“I didn’t know you were a writer.”

“I’m not really. Just my journal. I brought it, you know. So we can tell people what happened here.”

“Well, maybe we’ll all go on Oprah,” I said.

She laughed softly, and rolled her eyes. “That’s always been my dream.”

Oakland and Mouse were leading the group. I wasn’t sure why they chose the direction they did, but I supposed it was mostly guesswork anyway. After a lot of arguing we’d decided not to go to the culvert or the front gate—both of those seemed too obvious for escape, and we needed all the luck we could get.

We weren’t moving directly opposite of the place with campfires, but we certainly weren’t close.

“You were outside the wall a lot more recently than I was,” Mason said, moving up next to me. He was using the mattock as a walking stick. “How far is it between that and the fence?”

“I don’t know. Maybe half a mile? It’s just more forest in between.”

“That’s where I’d be if I were them,” he said. “Wait for us to get over the wall and then come after us. We’ll be trapped.”

“There’s still room to run,” I said, trying to be optimistic.

Becky held the shears at her side, but she looked uncomfortable with them. Not like Mason who had the heavy pipe wrench tight in his grip and his paintball gun slung over his shoulder. He was eager for a fight.

We were deep into the woods now, passing the first paintball field I’d played on, back when Havoc had ambushed me. It felt weird to be following Oakland’s lead.

I looked back at Curtis, who was still hobbling along. He was at the back of the group, but seemed to be keeping up fairly well.

Becky’s hand gently gripped my arm.

“Look,” she whispered.

I turned and gazed out into the forest where she was pointing. The deer was there, walking alongside us, about thirty yards away.

“It’s been following us for a few minutes now,” she said. “It’s awfully tame.”

I bent down and picked up a stone, and then threw it at the deer. It bounced off a tree only inches from the animal, but there was no reaction.

“What’d you do that for?” Mason asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t think that deer is real.”

Becky frowned and then picked up and threw a stone of her own. I lost sight of it in the dark, though it clattered loudly on something hard.

The deer didn’t change its course at all.

Becky’s eyes met mine. “I don’t like that.”

“We made it!” someone shouted up ahead.

They’d reached the wall, a wide black line cutting through the dim gray forest. As far as I could see, there weren’t any security cameras nearby. Unless that’s what the deer was. I’d seen plenty of animals in the woods.

Oakland called Mason up to the front, and they unloaded all of the extension cords from his pack. There were three big ones—fifty-foot heavy orange cords from the maintenance room—and half a dozen twelve-foot cords we’d taken from various lamps around the building.

Hector climbed up into a tall skinny pine, carrying one of the heavy cords over his shoulder. The tree looked sickly, its needles rust colored and dry. When he got about thirty feet up, he tied the cords off and then scrambled back to the ground.

“Okay,” Oakland barked. “Let’s get this first one down.” He pointed to several of the older, stronger students, including me, and we all grabbed the cord dangling out of the first tree. I wasn’t going to be much help—after breaking into the steel door early that morning, the pain in my injured arm was strong and sharp. Even so, I took my place on the cord.

“Let’s rock it back and forth,” he said. “When it starts to break, get out of the way.”

On Oakland’s count, we tugged, the tree swaying a little bit toward us. We let it swing back the other way.

“Pull,” he shouted, as the tree naturally swung back in our direction. We yanked harder this time, pulling it farther and building more momentum. Then we let it swing toward the forest, away from the wall.

As we repeated this, over and over, I couldn’t help but think of that first day in the school when I’d tried the same thing, except stupidly doing it from up in the tree. Three members of the Society had been there that night. Two of them were now dead. Well, one was dead and one was turned off and plugged into the wall. The third, a kid I still didn’t really know, was now standing behind me on the cord, pulling with us.

The tree was swaying wildly now, back and forth, back and forth. With each bend toward the wall we pulled harder, until finally it roared with a thunderous crack. We scattered and the old tree collapsed, smashing into the wall.

As the dust settled, we could see the trunk leaning over the wall, a decent, if wobbly, bridge for climbing up to the top of the twelve feet of brick. We’d knock down another tree next to it and lash the two together.

“Hey,” Mason said, moving toward the fallen tree. “The wall’s leaning.”

Sure enough, we could see that the white lines of mortar were no longer straight, but curved and bowed around the impact of the pine.

I noticed another weird thing about the wall—a fat raccoon, perched up on it, fifty feet away. If that had been a real raccoon, it would have run the instant the wall shook.

Oakland’s voice shook me back to our task. “Let’s get the next one,” he shouted.

I nodded, staring at the raccoon for another few seconds. I’d seen the raccoon before, too.

Becky was also looking at the animal. Her eyes met mine. Tingles of panic were forming in my stomach, but I forced myself to turn back to the trees. There was too much to do.

We repeated the process, rocking a second tree—this one slightly thicker and with more branches—until it popped and fell. Unfortunately, our excitement at knocking the wall down was short-lived. The trunk hit the brick, continuing to bend the wall back, but it didn’t collapse.

“We could take down a third one,” someone suggested.

I looked at my watch. We’d already been working on the trees for almost half an hour. It was completely dark now, the only light coming from the glow of the low cold clouds.

Oakland gazed back at the other possible trees, including a big one that would easily crush the wall—if our cords could actually get it down without snapping. It was healthier than the two we’d felled.

“No,” he finally said. “Let’s get ’em stable and start going over.”

We rolled the second tree along the wall toward the first. We only had to move it about eight feet, but it was almost impossible, and I was no use at all with my bad arm. Pushing with my palms hurt far worse than pulling on the cords. It took at least ten minutes to roll it into position, and by the time we’d tied the two trunks together it seemed to have dropped another fifteen degrees.

Hector climbed to the top of the wall, carrying the third extension cord with him. He paused at the top and then turned back, worry on his face.

“There are animals over here,” he said, confused and nervous.

Oakland asked what he meant, but I immediately climbed up the logs to see for myself. Hector and I stood shoulder to shoulder on the top of the wall. Below us were a dozen animals—more raccoons and deer, and a hodgepodge of others: foxes, marmots, jackrabbits, and a porcupine. They waited around the wall, silent and still.

Beyond them was more forest.