Hugh Howey - Half Way Home

Beside me, Karl cursed and grabbed my arm. That’s when I saw it as well: a wall of blackness drawing near—something coming for us, its bulk filling the entire width of the tunnel.

The three of us ran after the others, tripping over people as we went. I tried to keep in touch with Tarsi, but I had no idea who I was holding. As the tree moved beneath our feet, we took turns falling, helping each other up, and fighting the urge to look over our shoulders.

I didn’t need to. I could hear it drawing near, the sound of splitting wood accompanying its approach.

“Over the side!” one of the girls shrieked, and at first I thought she meant someone had fallen or had been shoved out through one of the regular openings in the tunnel. Then I felt the person next to me stop scrambling and move up the outer curve and out into the night air. There were less of us running and crawling, and the thing kept getting closer, the splintering noise so loud I could barely hear everyone else yelling and screaming.

I groped for Tarsi and felt someone move out through the next opening. As soon as I realized what they were doing, I knew it was our only choice.

“Hold the edge!” I yelled to the person beside me. We stumbled past the next cog together, moving from pitch blackness to the thick gray of one of the openings. We both crawled over the edge. My feet scratched at the rough bark as I lowered myself, allowing my armpits to catch on the sharp lip of the tunnel where its curve rose up and met the air. With my head still in the cylinder, I looked over and saw the loud darkness upon us—a wall of moving black and shivering power. I popped my elbows free of the edge and fell a foot before the tunnel’s sharp lip bit into my fingers. I dangled there, my legs kicking above two thousand feet of nothingness.

Something rough brushed across my knuckles, nearly knocking my hands loose. Then the body went past, the large bristles poking out of the tunnel as a vinnie the size of the hole—or bigger, judging by the sound of crushed wood—tore past. Up and down my chest, I could feel the tree quaking. With the vibrations and the pressure on my fingers, maintaining my grip felt impossible. It was too much to ask of my body.

Still, I managed to yell encouragement to my neighbor. “Hold on!” I told them, hoping my urgency would provide strength, even if my words held no advice beyond the obvious.

A deep voice shouted something back, the voice of a male.

My heart sank and my stomach lurched, the two organs colliding within me as my guts reacted to the confusion in my head. I wanted Tarsi to be out there with me—was glad she wasn’t—but wondered if she was someplace worse. I ground my teeth together and rested my head against the rough bark, feeling it scratch my forehead as it continued to shake.

After a seeming mile of quivering beast passed by, I flexed my arms to scramble up, then heard another coming. I relaxed, allowing my weight to dangle from my joints rather than my muscles, and thought about what the fall would be like. I pictured the tumbling descent, my body bouncing between the walls of the juts and hitting the moss far below. I thought about my existence winking out and being no more, ever again.

Bristles pushed against my hand and a bombfruit whistled nearby. The guy beside me kept cursing loudly, but I had no encouragement within me to loan him. Then, the shaking of the tree stopped, leaving just the rumble of the large vinnie. I felt the numbness in my joints go away and realized much of it had been from the vibrations. If that was the last of the beasts, I could make it up. We could survive this.

As the final bristles passed, I tried pulling myself up, preferring that I be swallowed or crushed by the next vinnie rather than fall to my death. Pressing my feet against the bark—one foot on the outcropping to my side—I made it up to my armpits, where I took a break, my hands clasped together and my elbows spread wide. The guy beside me did the same, our legs brushing together as we both fought for purchase.

In the downward distance, the rumbles from the large vinnies receded and no new ones grew to take their place. I felt a nervous laughter creep up inside, the exhaustion and mania of near-death popping in my brain like tiny bubbles. The person beside me started before I could, wheezing and laughing—

Then someone screamed.

A high voice. A girl’s voice. It pierced the growing quiet like a sharp dagger through a healing wound. It was a shriek as loud as any I’d ever heard, but then it sickeningly—horribly—began receding into the distance. Growing silent.

Falling away.

I kicked at the surface of the tree and pushed myself up to my waist. I leaned over, half my body inside the hole. With another shove, I rolled all the way in. The guy beside me came hurrying after. I moved down the tunnel, groping at the next opening, and felt someone move inside the tunnel and help their neighbor up.

“Tarsi!” I yelled. I patted my way down the line, wondering if the sound had come from the other direction, when I bumped into more bodies. I felt lost, alone, confused.

“Who was that?” someone yelled.

“What the fuck?” screamed another. I tripped over someone lying across the tunnel, patted them, then screamed Tarsi’s name again, selfishly unconcerned about everyone else.

Others did likewise, yelling individual names out as they tried to make contact with each other in the darkness.

“Porter!” someone shouted nearby—a gruff shout. I felt strong hands clasp my arm, pulling my face close enough to see.

Kelvin.

“Where’s Tarsi?” I asked.

He shook his head, and I read it to mean that she didn’t make it, not that he didn’t know. Someone screamed for help further down the tunnel. I pushed away from Kelvin and moved to the next opening; I dropped to my knees and patted along the lip with my hands.

I felt knuckles and reached down for the wrists, my fear of losing another person rising up like a film of metal in my throat. Kelvin landed beside me and fumbled for the other arm. Together, we pulled. I willed my tired and numb fingers to close like two sets of vises, fully prepared to never use them again if it meant dragging that person to safety.

Whoever it was kicked with their feet to help. The fearful energy of all three of us propelled the person over the lip and inside, sending us all flying back toward the core of the tree. We crashed in a heap of quivering, tearful humanity.

Hands groped, discerning identity. A palm on my cheek, a face brought near.

Tarsi.

I closed my eyes and wept, sobbing like a terrified child. Her lips fell to my cheek and stayed there, quivering against me, panting and gasping. Both of our bodies shook with grief, with exhaustion, and with guilt-ridden relief.

Our group coalesced in the darkness like beads of water. We bumped, hugged, wept and merged. We called out our own names and those of our neighbors, working through the list in our heads. Now and then, a name was spoken and someone else cried out, crawling over the rest of us to be reunited.

It seemed we heard each name twice before someone realized who was missing.

“Britny,” someone whispered, her name said in a manner unlike the rest. It was an answer, rather than a question.

Several girls wailed. I heard Vincent shouting obscenities beside me and reached out for him, knowing the two of them had been close.

Our entire group formed into a ball of consoling hands, patting and squeezing. The scene was so eerily like our birthday, but the fear and grief was so much stronger having spent waking hours together.

“We need to get out of here,” one of the guys said.