Steven Santos - The Culling

For a few seconds, the only sounds are the steady crackling of the flames growing closer and the purr of the returning Squawkers, which soon becomes a steady growl.

“You’ve convinced me.” Cypress breaks our silence at last.

Gideon nods.

I back against the wall. “Ophelia, since you don’t trust me, you get to stand directly on my shoulders. Then Gideon, so he can lend Cypress a hand because of her injury. Cypress, you’re next, so you and Digory can help each other.”

Another burst of flame billows our way, narrowing the gap between us and the smooth stone.

Bracing myself against the wall, I hold out my hands to form a cup. “C’mon. Let’s move.”

Ophelia rushes over, slides her foot in between my hands, and hauls herself onto my shoulders. Gideon’s next, teetering slightly before settling on Ophelia’s shoulders. Then comes Cypress, who, despite her blood-soaked bandage, darts up me and Ophelia to perch on Gideon’s shoulders as easily as a mouse scurrying up a pipe.

I grip Ophelia’s ankles, trying to hold her steady against the tremors racking my body. It’s already too hazy to see more than a foot ahead of me. Heat bakes my skin. Every inch of me’s dripping. My mouth fills with the taste of acrid smoke already clogging my straining lungs.

Digory pauses in front of me and touches my cheek. Unable to pull away, I can only stare at him, quenching my thirst in the blue waters of his eyes.

“See you on the other side,” he whispers. Then he steps into my hand and pushes up.

My knees buckle from the added weight, but I force my muscles to lock down despite the agony coursing through me.

The fire’s devouring everything in its path, eating away the field we came through, getting closer and closer until the searing heat ripples my vision as if I’m looking through a burning waterfall.

“Hurry,” Ophelia groans.

Every bone in my body creaks from trying to hold steady against the constant wobbling of Ophelia’s feet on my shoulders. I hear Digory reach the top and grip the end of the rope. Our teetering ladder lurches-

But Digory scrambles up and pulls himself on top of the wall. Free of his weight, our human chain holds steady.

“ Here! ” He tosses the ladder down.

Cypress grabs it and scampers up toward Digory, followed closely by Gideon and Ophelia. One after the other, Digory hauls them onto the ledge. I snake up the wooden planks until I’m standing at the top alongside them.

Below us, the fire’s reached the base of the wall, burning through the lower part of the ladder.

Above us, the Squawkers swoop in for the kill.

“Hurry!” I shout. “We have to get down the other side now !”

I grab the remainder of the rope and start to reel it back up the parapet. Then it’s burning through the flesh of my fingers and palms. I glance behind me at Digory and Gideon, their arms pistoning like the gears of a steam engine as they pull along with me until the ladder’s frayed ends reach the top. Cypress slams a foot down on the ladder, trapping it in place before it can skitter off the edge and over the other side.

“It’s not long enough anymore. It won’t reach the bottom.” The incoming craft nearly drown her words in a surge of roaring engines.

I peer down over the other side of the wall. A strong feeling of vertigo nearly overtakes me. My body teeters from the wave of dizziness and I have to grip Digory’s arm to steady myself. The distance seems much greater from this vantage point than it did from the ground looking up. Far below, a moat of dark sludge oozes against the wall’s base. At least it’s not a solid surface, though I shudder to think what could be lurking underneath.

Digory yanks the ladder free from under Cypress’s foot. “We only have to drop about ten feet or so. That muck down there should be able to break our fall.”

Explosions rock the terrain nearby. The wounded ground shudders as if in pain. There’s no more time.

“ Out of my way .” Ophelia grabs the ladder and swings off the other side without looking back.

Digory flinches as the ropes go taut and tear into his skin, streaking it with glistening darkness. He stumbles and slides halfway over the edge before I grab his leg and drag him back to safety.

Below, Ophelia’s half swimming, half crawling through the mire toward solid ground, with a clear, unobstructed path to the finish line.

Adrenaline gushes through my muscles. I grab the slackness of the ladder. “Cypress! Gideon! Let’s go!”

First Cypress, then Gideon grab hold of the ladder and leap off the edge, leaving just Digory and me.

KABOOM!

Another Squawker missile strike.

CRACK!

A chink erupts in the stone underneath Digory and me. A tremor ripples through the wall as the chink turns into a ragged gash that rips down the wall between us. Our eyes meet. The sections we’re perched on begin to slide away from each other …

Digory grabs me and pulls me over the breach, tight against his chest, just as my side of the wall crumbles away. “You’re not getting away that easy!”

Even though I catch a glimpse of a smile, I can hear the thunder of his heart raging against me. I grip him tighter. Still tangled in each other, we both grasp the ladder and tumble off the side after the others, just as the loudest explosion of all rips through the air.

The Squawkers have breached the wall at last.

A blast of heat pushes us forward. If not for the ropes of ladder searing through my fingers, I’d swear we were free falling.

I can’t look down as we plunge. Then we’ve literally reached the end of our rope and are free falling.

A few seconds later, our bodies slam into marsh. We’re rolling through the muck, our arms locked around each other. A foul stench not unlike that of the sewers overpowers my nostrils, suffocating me with noxious ooze. I open my mouth to breathe, but only succeed in gulping a mouthful of pungent sludge. I spit it out and gag.

We’ve finally stopped spinning.

Digory pulls away to get a better look at me. “Still in one piece?”

I nod, not trusting my mouth to open again.

A terrible rumble fills my ears, and we both look up-

Just in time to see the wall collapsing toward us in a hailstorm of stone.

Digory springs to his feet and yanks me to mine. “Run!”

We slog through the fetid bog as fast as we can, dodging slabs of rock that crash everywhere around us, drenching us with putrid waves.

“ This way.” Digory jerks me to the left just as a stone chunk slams into the ground that I occupied a mere second ago.

“ Watch out! ” I return the favor by pushing him out of the way of another block twice his size.

Ahead of us, Cypress and Gideon are scrambling out of the quagmire, with Ophelia just ahead of them.

I grab Digory’s hand and tug him faster, too afraid to risk a glimpse at the destruction behind us that continues to pound the earth.

We clear the marshland at last and let go of hands, sprinting like the wind. Although I have the crushing urge to look into Digory’s eyes, I pull away and will myself to go faster and faster, despite the ache of my starving lungs and the wild hammer of my heavy heart.

I look up just in time to see Ophelia cross the finish line. She throws up her hands in triumph and drops to her knees.

My veins are an adrenaline refinery, charging the engine of my heart, which pistons my legs like a well-oiled machine.

Cypress crosses the finish line next. Unlike Ophelia, she collapses onto her back and just lies there … her ordeal over …

Scrounging the last of my energy reserves, I narrow the gap until I’m almost even with Gideon. I glance over and our eyes meet.