Морин Макхью - Wastelands - The New Apocalypse

Instead I think about Sky. I pretend she’s only a few feet away and all I have to do is get there.

The corridor is dimly lit, but I see the rectangular metal container at the end. It looks like a rusted shipping container from a factory. The box.

When I get closer, I see the slats along the sides of the metal. The stench of sweat is everywhere, and it fills me with hope. If the kids were dead, the odor would be different. But it could also be the lingering scent of children who are no longer inside…

I slip the thin piece of metal in the lock and move it around.

Nothing happens.

I try again. This time I hear the pop, and I pull the door open, anticipating the worst.

Nothing could’ve prepared me for what I find inside.

Eight or ten children huddle together in the corner. Most of them look about Sky’s age, but some are older. They’re filthy, dressed in torn hospital gowns. But I know if I make it out of this place alive, it’s the look in their eyes that will haunt me forever—complete and utter terror.

There’s nothing else left.

I run toward them, trying to find my sister in the huddle. “Sky?”

A soft sound pushes its way forward from the back of the group. “Phoenix?”

I try to move the other children out of the way so I can find her. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I promise them.

I see a stripe of blond hair.

Sky looks up at me, her face as tormented as the others. Her eyes look less blue somehow. I gather her into my arms. “I’m going to get you out of here. All of you.”

Flashes of hope pass across their faces, though some of them seem too weak to react.

“That’s a big promise for a girl who’s in way over her head.”

My neck snaps back to the door.

A huge man stands in the doorway. His face is noticeably lighter than his hands. He’s probably used the skin of some helpless child to repair his own. But there are other thin scars—most likely made by knives—running down his neck. His brown outercoat is crusted in dry blood, and he’s holding a Protectorate-issue firearm.

I pull Sky to her feet and shove her behind me. “I—I came for my sister.”

The man stares over my shoulder at Sky. “She’s not going anywhere. We’ll get a lot for her skin. Those blue eyes too.” I shudder, and he looks me over. “Yours not so much. But if your legs are clean, you’ll be worth skinning.”

He steps into the small container, so close I can almost reach out and touch him. Another man steps inside behind him, holding an identical weapon. He moves to the corner, covering me from a different angle.

“I’ll stay. Just let my sister go.”

Both men laugh, and I want to kill them.

“I say you let them all go,” a familiar voice calls from the corridor. His expression is fierce, the patch covering his missing eye. He’s pointing his gun at the man doing the talking.

“Ransom. I was wondering when you’d come back,” the man in the bloodstained outercoat says. “Looking for work?”

“I had no idea what you were doing down here, Erik,” Ransom, the man who refused to tell me his name, responds.

Erik laughs. “The lies we tell ourselves.”

“You said we were doing experiments to help burn victims.”

The corner of Erik’s mouth lifts. “Technically, it was true.”

Ransom’s expression hardens even more. “Today it’s going to get you killed if you don’t let these kids go.”

Erik raises an eyebrow and points his weapon at Ransom. “You shouldn’t have come back. I warned you, didn’t I? And look what it cost you last time.”

Last time .

“I should’ve killed you then.” Ransom winces and his jaw tightens.

“Except you couldn’t.” Erik glances at the guy in the other corner of the container. “The odds have never been in your favor.”

Ransom’s grip on the gun tightens. “I’ll say it one more time. Let them go.”

“No one’s going anywhere. Think you can point that relic at me and I’ll hand over the kids?” Erik’s eyes narrow. “I’m gonna burn the skin off your bones. Then I’ll take your other eye and sell it to the lowest bidder.”

The man in the corner laughs. “Maybe we should give it away.”

Ransom examines the outdated gun in his hand. “This thing is my good luck charm. But I did bring some other relics with me.”

Ransom opens his outercoat, revealing a black vest covered in bricks of plastic that look like putty. He raises his free hand, holding some kind of switch attached to the vest. “Remember C-4, Erik? It’s old, but you used it to blow up plenty of tunnels down here.”

I remember when Ransom disappeared behind the screen in his shack. He must have put the vest on then.

The kids start crying.

“Why now, Ransom?” Erik taunts. “You could’ve come back here a million times. Is your mind finally that far gone?”

Ransom glances in my direction, but he’s not looking at me.

He’s staring at the wisp of tangled blond hair peeking out from behind me. Just like the blond boy’s hair in the photo on his wall.

“I’m doing this for my son. For Alex. You’re not taking him again.”

I realize he’s referring to Sky, and I’m not sure if it’s the delusions talking or if he means it symbolically.

Erik’s expression changes. He realizes he’s not going to be able to scare Ransom. Right now, Ransom is the most terrifying person in the room. And—judging by whatever he has strapped to his chest—the most dangerous.

“You have ten seconds to let them go before I start counting. If you do, I might let you live. But I’m blowing this place either way.”

Ransom’s lying. He’s going to kill them. I can tell by the way he looks almost happy.

Erik nods at the other man. “Turn them loose.”

I grab Sky’s hand and help up some of the children. They look dazed, as if they aren’t really sure what’s happening. The ones with bandages on their arms lean against the stronger children as we inch our way between the men locked in a standoff.

I stop in the doorway and look at Ransom—the man who saved my sister and all the other children stumbling down the corridor now.

The man who’s half crazy and all hero.

“Thank you.”

He nods. “Thanks for reminding me there’s always a way to right a wrong. Now get out of here.”

We run through the passage and the sadistic surgical room, into the mouth of the tunnel that led me here. We’re only a few yards away when the deafening sound of the explosion hits.

The concrete around us rumbles, and I can see the fire consuming the building in the distance.

For a moment, I can’t move. I stare at the flames that keep us locked in the shadow of a life only some people remember. Fire has always represented pain and sorrow for me. A sad sort of imprisonment none of us can escape.

Today, it represents something else.

Freedom.

A tiny girl with knotted curls is sobbing. “I don’t know how to find my way home.”

A boy with dark-brown eyes glances around. “Me either.”

Sky squeezes my hand and looks up at me, her eyes the shade of blue I remember. “My sister knows the way.”

I study their tear-streaked faces and I think about my father. The way he led so many down here to safety; the way I’m about to lead only a few back up now. I think about the price he paid for it, and what he said to me the last time I saw him.

Be brave, Phoenix .

Today I was braver than I ever believed I could be.

Today I changed things.

Sky is still staring up at me. “You know the way, don’t you, Phoenix?”

For the first time, I know I do.

Dale Baileyis the author of eight books, including The End of the End of Everything, The Subterranean Season , and his latest, In the Night Wood (John Joseph Adams Books). His story “Death and Suffrage” was adapted for Showtime’s Masters of Horror television series. His short fiction has won the Shirley Jackson Award and the International Horror Guild Award, has been nominated for the Nebula and Bram Stoker awards, and has been reprinted frequently in best-of-the-year anthologies, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy . He lives in North Carolina with his family.