Steven Santos - The Culling

I recognize that name. It’s one of the medicines we learned about during our med training. Some kind of miracle drug. It occurs to me that it might slow down the infection ravaging me long enough to provide Cole with the one miracle he so desperately needs.

I reach out a shaking hand, but the medicine shrinks away from me.

It feels like I’m falling backward and I tense. It’s not the fever or my imagination-the wall’s shifting, as is the entire corridor, reconfiguring into an entirely new pattern.

Damn it!

I should have grabbed the medicine while I had the chance. Now it’s gone, and once again I face darkness. That’s why I haven’t seen any of the others. They must be keeping us separated on purpose, shifting this labyrinth every time we get too close, just in case we decide to work together. But besides Digory and me, who else would really go out of their way for each other at this point? Ophelia and Gideon? I can’t see it, especially given her anger at him for letting me beat him in that last trial. The Establishment must have another reason for wanting to keep us isolated from each other. And as unsettling as that thought is, I don’t have time to ponder it. The next time I come across supplies, I can’t hesitate for an instant.

If there is a next time.

I check the chronometer again.

00:11:33

Bracing myself against the walls, I push farther along this new corridor, twisting and turning through passage after passage. Even if Digory succeeds in finding enough supplies for both of us, the one thing I need to find right now is a source of illumination, or else I’m never going to get out of here.

Along the way, I stumble across a few stray packs of ration bars. I shove them into my pockets, along with a canteen filled with cold water and a switchblade. I flick the switchblade open, and without thinking I run my fingers over the serrated edge, drawing blood. I wince.

Snapping the blade shut, I tuck it in my belt.

Faster and faster I move, my fingers leaving a trail of blood and cold sweat along the passageways. The farther I go, the more I have to rely on supporting myself against the walls to remain upright. If I’d only taken that medicine.

I stagger around another corner and come to a dead end.

There’s a chest propped against the wall. I lurch toward it and fumble with the metal latch, but it’s locked. Then the floor vibrates, and once again the walls shift, but not before I grab the chest and drag it to me.

The dead end’s gone, replaced by yawning blackness.

That sound. Something’s shuffling out of the darkness, headed my way.

I check the watch.

00:09:47

I tug at the latch a couple of times, but it won’t budge, and it slips through my already slick fingers.

The pocket knife.

I rip it free, but it my haste it clatters to the floor. I fall to all fours, my hands sweeping over the cold tiles …

The sound comes again.

I whip my head around, my eyes trying in vain to penetrate the murk.

Something’s sliding along the tiles. It’s like something heavy being dragged across the floor … drag and stop … drag and stop …

It’s the fever. I’m delirious … there’s nothing there … nothing …

A new sound weaves in and out … wheezing … as if something’s struggling, out of the depths, for air …

My heart’s a battering ram trying to breach the walls of my chest. One of my fingertips brushes against icy steel. I grab the knife and plunge it toward the trunk. It misses the lock, instead digging into the lid. I wrench it free.

The sounds oozing out of the gloom are louder now, and I can’t keep denying they’re real.

“Lucky … ” The sound of my name carried on a labored rasp causes every hair on my body to petrify. Whatever’s in here is coming for me .

I have to get the lock open before whatever it is reaches me …

I plunge the switchblade into the lock.

Snap!

The lock breaks away and hits the floor with a loud clank .

Tucking the knife back into my belt, I dig my fingernails into the thick groove between the lid and trunk, prying it apart and yanking the cover open. I can just make out about half a dozen shiny flashlights.

Stuffing one into my pocket, I whirl, brandishing the other one ahead of me like a weapon. My sweaty finger finds the power button and I press down.

Nothing happens.

“ Lucky … why …?”

The voice sounds like it’s just a few feet away …

I bang the flashlight against my leg to rattle the batteries, realizing an instant too late that it’s my wounded side. Pain sears through me. I nearly double over. A blast like the sun itself blinds me with hot light, momentarily making me forget about the pain.

“ Why, Lucky? Why …?”

The wail’s so close, ringing through my ears as if its source’s lips are about to touch my earlobes …

My body bolts fully erect. I shine the light ahead of me …

And gasp.

It’s Mrs. Bledsoe.

It can’t be-I saw her ashes.

Unless … unless Cassius lied to me. That has to be it, because she’s standing right here looking at me, her eyes muddy puddles of sadness and accusation. Maybe it’s just my distorted senses, wracked by fever, but her skin, though pale as snow, radiates a light of its own, shimmering against the darkness beyond her.

My veins pump joy into my sagging heart, causing it to swell. “You’re alive.” I move toward her, arms opened wide.

She opens her mouth and coughs. A torrent of blood gushes from it, soaking the dirty smock she’s wearing, spilling down her arms, her legs, dripping off her fingers.

I freeze. No one who’s lost that much blood can still be standing.

It must be a trick. Some kind of illusion engineered by Cassius to torment me.

But it looks so real.

Maybe she is dead. And I’ve finally lost my mind.

The scarlet stream pouring out her cracked lips thins and dissipates. “How could you do this to me, Lucky,” she croaks. “How could you let them kill me after everything I’ve done for you?” Her voice sounds disjointed, as if she’s pulling the words from her mind at random and assembling them like a puzzle.

I back away. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Bledsoe. I never meant for you to get hurt. I love you.” A tide of pain crashes through me, the worst kind, because no bandage, no antibiotic, no medicine ever invented can ever heal it.

Another chill sweeps my body. I feel like I’m burning up. I squeeze my eyes against the throbbing in my head.

When I open them again, Mrs. Bledsoe seems to flicker like a breeze blowing through a candle, and then she’s steady again. Her eyes bore right through me as if I don’t exist. “You’re a murderer , Lucky.” Her mouth twists into a sneer that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen on her face since I’ve known her. “And you need to be punished.”

“Mrs. Bledsoe, please … ” I almost trip over the chest of flashlights as I continue to retreat from her. My chest heaves with shallow, rapid-fire breaths.

Mrs. Bledsoe shambles toward me.

Drag. Squish. Drag. Squish …

She opens her arms wide and smiles, her teeth caked with goops of bloody phlegm. I cringe, expecting to feel the heat of her rotting breath sear my nostrils. But all I can sniff is a cold, cloying antiseptic stench that’s suffocating me.

“Don’t be afraid, Lucky,” she caws through a mouthful of bile. “ Your pain won’t last as long as mine.”

She reaches for me-

I stumble backward. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. It’s not my fault. Please … ”