Eve of Destruction (13 page)

I had wondered, as Amy talked, where Rainsford was. By now he would have passed by the entryway camera and found his way to the blue zone door. If only he didn't have that key card! I could have stopped worrying about how far he'd gone. He'd have found the door locked and given up.

But watching the S2 camera, I knew that was not to be. It was sad, really, to think of them holding down those buttons while this beast of a human being got closer and closer. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

“I'll see you soon, everything will be better then,” Amy said. “You'll see.”

Amy must have been upset that I was ignoring her and acting like a jerk, because she cut the feed from the bomb shelter a second later after a wistful smile that faded into an empty view of the entry to the missile silo.

I cycled on the S4 station—nothing—then held the green key card in hand, knowing that if ever there was a time to use it, the moment was now.

Five minutes were up. Marisa and Kate would be coming out of the silo room, moving up onto the catwalk, and heading for the door on the far end of the O zone.

I stepped to the broken card reader, hanging like a killed animal against the wall, and held it in my right hand.

One shot. Please, just open the door.

I slid the green card against the circuit board, along the line of pale light that would either activate the door lock or blow the fuse.

There was a crack like lightning, an electrical charge up my forearm, and a flickering of the lights. I was blown back onto the floor, the charred green key card no longer in my hand.

When I looked up, the card reader was hissing smoke. And there was something else, something far more important.

The door to the observation room was open.

It should have felt good, even a little bit exciting. I'd been trapped in the observation room all alone for hours, and now the door stood open. I could get up off the floor and leave without anyone stopping me. The fact that I wanted to stay made me wonder what sort of person I'd become.

What's wrong with you, bro? This is the part where you run out the door and save the day!

I'm not good at that kind of thing, Keith. You should know that by now.

You're just feeling sorry for yourself. Get up off your ass and show Rainsford what you're made of.

But it wasn't that I felt sorry for myself. My little brother didn't understand me in death any better than he had when he was alive. Or maybe I'm just complicated. There were reasons I stayed on the floor, and none of them had anything to do with feeling sorry for myself. Exiting the observation room meant leaving the comfort of the monitors. I'd lose my ability to observe what was going on. It had been my keen advantage all along and it was risky giving it up, even for a few minutes. Plus Mrs. Goring could show up while I was away. Finding me not there, I had to assume, would not make her happy. It would complicate her motives even more and possibly increase the chances of her leaving us underground forever. But most of all, I was afraid of Rainsford. There, I said it. Sure I hated the guy and knew he deserved to die ten times over. But he was angry, indestructible, and bigger than me. How was I
supposed
to feel?

I stayed on my back until a larger, more important thought cast a black shadow over everything. I couldn't let Rainsford anywhere near Marisa. I'd go down fighting to save her even if she never knew I'd done it.

I got up on my feet and took one last look at all the monitors, catching sight of two or three shadowy figures on S4. They were in the tunnel and then they weren't, and I knew Avery had gotten at least one person out of the room. They vanished from the screen, heading for the door marked
X
and the secret places that lay beyond.

I stepped out into the hall and pulled the door to the observation room most of the way shut and ran toward the red zone. The lights crackled and fizzed over my head as drops of water fell from the rusted metal ceiling. Feeling the water made me realize how thirsty I was as I came to the corner and turned right. I was in a dead sprint for the door when it swung open unexpectedly.

Ben Dugan, who had hobbled all the way back through the red zone, jumped back at the sight of me.

“Will? You got out!”

“Get in here! Quick, I gotta move,” I demanded, pulling Ben through the opening without thinking of his injuries. He flinched with pain.

“Take it easy. My back's killing me.”

“But you're fine, right? You're okay?”

“Yeah, like you said before—banged up is all. I'll live. I'm better than Avery, that's for sure. She looks like the walking dead. Scared me half to death when she opened the door and let us out.”

Ben wouldn't shut up. He kept going on and on about her hair and her skin and how the room was cold and full of all sorts of junk. I tuned him out, picked up the metal pipe Rainsford had used to block the opening, and slammed the red zone door shut.

“Listen to me Ben, this is important. Get to the green room, where I was.
Do not
shut the door behind you, keep it barely open so it looks like it's shut.”

I was already walking rapidly away, leaving him behind as he tried to talk and I kept on giving instructions.

“When you get in there lie down under the long control panel—you'll see it—and no matter what, don't talk to anyone but me. If you hear other voices, don't respond. You got it?”

“Yeah, I got it. Where are you going?”

“Just go, Ben! As fast as you can get there. And wait for me. It won't be too long.”

I didn't look back as Ben kept talking and talking. He was in a chatty mood at the worst possible time, and I wished he'd shut up so I could concentrate on what I was doing. The metal pipe was about three feet long and solid. I felt stronger and safer carrying it with me, like I might have a fighting chance. I passed through the entryway with the hole that led up and out of the underground, hoping Mrs. Goring hadn't been watching. The blue door was next, and as I'd suspected, Rainsford had left it wide open so he could return if he wanted to. How many minutes did he have on me? Five? Ten? I couldn't be sure as I came to the first of two sections of flooring that had broken away. They were bigger openings than I'd expected and they threatened to slow me down, but I took the first one at a run and leaped across, a crazy idea because it was about seven feet to the other side. I hadn't long-jumped, but Keith had done it in middle school and gone over fourteen feet. I was sure I could make half that far.

And I did. Only the tile I landed on didn't hold. It fell free into the mucky water below as my forward momentum carried me onto my knees. I was racked with an electrical charge from the splash of water. My teeth locked down against the fat part of my tongue and I tasted warm blood in my mouth. Pain shot through my knees as they crashed into the hard tile floor, and I slid uncontrollably forward. When the electricity floated cleanly out of my body, I was staring at the second hole, where Kate and Marisa had helped each other across. I'd let go of the metal pipe and it was rolling away. I leapt forward, banging my elbows on the hard floor, lying flat out against the tiles, my fingers grasping the only weapon I had just as it was about to fall into the second hole. My fingers curled around the pipe and I stood up.

Time's running out
, I thought. Rainsford was probably on the catwalk by then, a catwalk that Kate and Marisa were also going to use. I felt my tongue swelling inside my mouth and the lingering feeling that I'd just been filled with an electric charge. A few inches shorter on that jump and I'd have been finished.

The second hole was longer, and staring at it I knew it would be impossible for me to clear if I tried to jump. I took the side Kate had taken, slowly making my way along the rounded edge of the tunnel as I listened for any sign of life up ahead. It took valuable time I didn't have, but finally I cleared the second electrified pool of water and ran for the O zone. That door stood open, too, and staring inside I was momentarily stunned by the brightness of the orange floor. It was menacing, disturbing, beautiful. Like a perfect sea of warm sand on a cool day, it begged to be walked on. So still, so treacherous. I could feel its deadly power waiting to be unleashed.

I pulled the O zone door shut behind me, stepping on the ladder to my left as I did so, and I heard the sucking sound of the room being sealed off from the rest of the world. This was not a door that would lock from the observation room, that much I'd already figured out on my own. And the O zone door on the far end of the room? It, too, was not a door I knew how to lock.

Rising quickly on the rungs, I moved with as much stealth as I could while holding a three-foot metal pipe in one hand, until I stood on the flimsy catwalk. It was harrowing to look at, and I found myself feeling utterly amazed that Kate and Marisa had willingly made their way across. I could see, down the way, where the catwalk had fallen through and hung in sheets of metal. One false move and the section could fall into the glowing orange floor. It would send a plume of radioactive dust high into the air. It would eviscerate every living thing in the room.

But none of those unbelievably hazardous elements had my attention. Not the faulty catwalk or the hanging sections of metal grating or the orange floor of death. They all fell away in comparison to the girl in the distance and the man who stood between us.

“Will Besting, you never cease to amaze me,” said Rainsford. He smiled at me and a leftover tremor of electricity ran down my spine and into my guts. I hated him, feared him, loathed him.

“Marisa!” I yelled. Kate was standing behind her, farther away. “Get down the ladder on that side! There's a door. You can make it!”

“Yes, by all means!” Rainsford agreed. He stood sideways, glancing back and forth between Marisa and Kate and me. “It's Will you need to worry about, not me. I can get you the vials. All he's going to do is get you into more trouble.”

“Leave him alone!” yelled Marisa. Kate was unusually quiet, like she was having trouble deciding what to do and talking would only confuse her more.

“Wait for me on the other side and I'll make sure you find those vials,” said Rainsford. “Let Will and me do some catching up.”

I had been slowly walking toward Rainsford while he spoke and arrived within a few paces of where he stood. The railing at the side of the wide catwalk was loose and unsteady. Every step I took fell on another wobbly section of grating. The whole thing felt like a house of cards that could collapse at any moment. It was for that reason that I screamed when Rainsford crouched down and began deliberately forcing the catwalk into a wave of movement beneath my feet. Kate and Marisa screamed, too, but Rainsford laughed.

“Oh come on, isn't it thrilling the way it moves? It's like the fun house at the fair!”

Kate decided she'd had enough and started down the ladder on the far side, coaxing Marisa to go with her. I wished Marisa could bring herself to leave me behind, but she couldn't. In fact she started walking toward me with determination, the last thing I wanted her to do.

“Marisa, no!”

But it turned out to be exactly what I needed. Rainsford was so captivated by the idea that Marisa would come for me—that she would willingly choose death in order to try and save me—he turned fully in her direction and stared in awe.

When he did, I took two fast steps toward him and swung the metal pipe. It caught Rainsford on the side of the head and he reeled back, waving his arms drunkenly. He stood straight up again, shook his head four or five times, and seemed to recover. I swung again, this time toward his midsection, and connected with a deadly thud that buckled him over. Sliding the pipe out, I raised it over my head, aiming for what I hoped would be a final blow against his back.

Time slowed down, nearly stopped. I saw Marisa's wide eyes fill with the horror of watching me kill a man. I saw the door on the other side of the room swing open, watched Kate start through and turn back, waiting for us. I felt the catwalk begin to buckle in ways that felt more troubling than before. And then I went into a sort of stupor as Rainsford stood bolt upright so very fast. I tried to swing down with the pipe but he caught its middle in one hand, ripping it free in one clean motion. He smiled wickedly at me as blood flowed down the side of his head and neck.

“You'll have to do better then that, Will Besting.”

Rainsford started to move toward me, a surprising steadiness in his steps. He dropped the pipe, presumably because he didn't think he'd need it to finish off such a little guy like me, and the pipe rolled dangerously close to the edge of the catwalk.

He didn't see Marisa behind him, sucking in a huge breath and holding it. I did the same just as she pushed Rainsford with all her might, grabbed my hand, and began to run. I reached down, grabbing the metal pipe before it could fall into the sea of orange below, and kept running.

I couldn't help looking back, even though it wasn't very smart. I could have tripped and fallen so easily. But Marisa's hand was firmly wrapped around mine, where it belonged, and I just had to see.

He had broken through the railing; free falling, back to the floor, staring up at me. His eyes told me that even he wondered if his immortality could withstand an attack like the one he was about to encounter. But more than that, his confidence carried him. He'd lived in the world too long for his imagination to include a killing machine with the power to take him out. I could read his mind in those eyes of his.

This will be interesting. But make no mistake, it won't undo me. You watch.

We were ten long strides from the ladder on the far side of the open room when Rainsford hit. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. I had expected to see a burst of orange dust fill the room, dust that if it caught me would surely kill me on contact. But a hundred seventy-five pounds of humanity hitting a fifty-year-old pile of radioactive waste turned out to be more like hitting a rolling floor of toxic Jell-O. The whole floor moved like a slow, soft ocean. It was boiling up in waves, releasing pockets of gas and dust in a million different places at once. Rainsford's weight seemed to push the floor in at the point of impact, like a bubble being forced to the breaking point, sloshing and pumping every part of a living creature. By the time we reached the ladder I knew we were in trouble.

The bubble finally burst. Rainsford's weight ripped a hole in the orange mass, and from that hole came the violent burst of radiant ash as if a volcano had just erupted from the floor of the vast room. Marisa literally dove through the air in the direction of the door, landing in Kate's arms as the two of them tumbled in a pile beyond where I could see them. I felt the hot wind of death coming my way and saw the explosion of dust sweeping toward me. If I didn't reach the door, get through it, and shut it in time, I wouldn't be the only one who would suffer the force of what we'd unleashed. Everyone underground would come to an end. We'd all die.

All but one.

I knew this beyond a shadow of a doubt for one simple reason. As I leapt through the opening and grabbed the door by its thick iron handle, I heard a final noise. Right before the slamming of the door and the vacuum seal sound of sucking.

The last thing I heard coming from inside the room was the sound of Rainsford laughing.