Embedded Files
WAY AFTER MIDNIGHT, we reach the road to Suddence.
It’s so unimpressive that we drove right past it before rounding back. Aaron said he thought it was a maintenance side road. I can’t blame him. It really does look like one, the gate low and old and covered in rust and some kind of moss. It doesn’t help that the yellow sign on it says Authorized Access Only.
“You sure this is it?” Aaron asks, like he’s hoping we’ll say no.
Zahira consults the map. “That’s what it says.”
I stare up the road. We’ve been rumbling down a country road for the last thirty minutes. It’s so rural that there aren’t any streetlamps, and the big evergreen trees and the cracked asphalt only made the journey even creepier.
The road leading up to Suddence doesn’t ease up on the creep. It’s much narrower than the country road, and grass is growing through the pavement, and the trees are bending over it like they want to swallow it alive.
Zahira turns to me. “You’re sure Suddence is up there?”
I don’t know. It has to be.
I nod.
“Okay, then,” Aaron says, and swings the car up towards the gate. I spark the lock and push it open. The car tires grind through the gravel as we begin our climb.
I keep my eyes fixed on the road ahead, lit by our headlights. We go uphill, then downhill, then uphill again, twisting up a mountain path, twining back down. The car rocks over the uneven road, and I clutch the front seats for balance as I lean forward.
Eventually, the trees start to sparse out, replaced by a prairie of long grass. The moon is out from behind the winter clouds, and the field sparkles with rainwater.
“What’s that?” I say.
Aaron slows the car. On the side of the road is a sign.
It’s flat on the ground, half-covered in weeds and grass, rusty and old like the gate. Still, I release a breath. We’re on the right track after all.
I can feel relief from Zahira and Aaron, too, but by the time I turn to look at them, worry is back on Zahira’s face.
“Why is it just on the ground like that?” she says.
“Maybe they don’t have the time to fix it,” Aaron says uncertainly.
They glance at me like I might have answers, but I don’t.
We drive on.
It doesn’t take long to reach another gate, this one huge and bright red with two doors, both with big white signs fixed to them. Aaron slows to a stop on the gravelly road. The words are too small for me to read, but the images are perfectly clear.
Red circle with a white bar. Do not enter.
Yellow triangle with a bold black exclamation mark. Caution.
The third one, though.
The third one is a dark human shape with a star erupting from its chest.
“What does that say?” Zahira says, squinting. She taps Aaron with the back of her hand. “Get closer.”
The car ekes forward like Aaron is afraid of accidentally hitting a landmine. I look out the side window. The wiry fence stretches on and on, bending into the distance.
“Dany?” Zahira sounds far away, and I have to pull my mind back into the car. “Are you sure they’re here?”
They’re both looking at me with concern in their eyes. I know what they were expecting. A town, alive. Asleep at this time but still alive. We haven’t even seen the town yet, but already everything is wrong. The old gates. The untended roads. The warning signs.
Something terrible happened.
I nod. I think I nod. I wasn’t expecting all of this, either, but it changes nothing.
I pick up my backpack and reach for the door.
“No,” Zahira and Aaron blurt at the same time. They glance at each other, like they’re appalled to be thinking the same thing. Zahira says, “Stay in the car. It’s safer. We’ll drive in and let you off when we see them.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say. “I’ll just walk. It’s not that far.”
Zahira scowls. “Did you not read the sign?”
Nervously, Aaron mutters, “It says trespassers will be arrested.”
“You’re worried about trespassing?” I say flatly.
“No, he’s right,” says Zahira, and I can’t help but notice this is the second time she’s agreeing with him. “If the security guards show up, you can’t outrun them.”
“And you think we can out-drive them?”
“We’d have a better chance,” Aaron says defensively, and I want to shoot back with I didn’t ask for your opinion. I guess my death stare gets enough of it across though because he draws back a little, scowling.
Zahira points at the sign, at the erupting star. “You know that that means? Health hazard. There’s something dangerous here, and whatever it is, we’ll be safer in the car instead of running around unprotected.”
I can tell there’s more to it. She’s afraid nobody is here to pick me up, and she doesn’t want to leave me here, all alone in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night.
But I really, really, really don’t care. I don’t need her or Aaron anymore. The town is right there. I just need to get out of the car, and Zahira and Aaron can go away and watch musicals with JJ all day.
But I also know if I jump out of the car, they’d just barge in right after me, anyway.
“Fine.” I cross my arms and lean back. With a glare, the lock on the gate snaps off.
Aaron drives forward, pushing through to the gravel road on the other side. The ground slopes upwards, and the car rocks and bumps over the lumpy hill.
Almost there. I clutch the key through my hoodie. Almost there.
We reach the top of the hill, and a chill pours over my skin.
In the moonlit distance, I can see the town. But my eyes only snag on it for a second before dropping down to the massive maw of a hole between us.
It’s so big that my brain almost can’t comprehend it. I’ve never seen a hole so wide or so deep. I’m not even sure I can call it a hole. It’s a crater, a black hole, ringed on the sides, spiralling way, way, way down.
The car is silent, and I can tell Zahira and Aaron are trying to wrap their heads around it, too.
“It’s a mine,” Aaron says. Quiet, like he doesn’t want to wake the beast.
“Huh?” Zahira says weakly.
“Mine,” Aaron says again. “Rock mine. I never knew they were so…”
Big is the word he’s looking for, but big seems like the wrong word for it, too. I think if I fell down the side, I would never stop falling. I try to see what’s at the bottom, like that might comfort me, but my head hits the top of the car before I can see halfway down. I shiver. The deepness is so dizzying it makes me a little queasy.
“I’ve never heard about this,” Zahira says, trying to get a good look down the mine, too. “What do you think they were mining?”
“I don’t know,” says Aaron.
I don’t know, either. All I know is that we should stay far, far away from it.
We drive towards the town. We’re a good distance away from the side of the mine, but I can’t help shuddering as I imagine the ground slipping away, spilling all of us into the abyss. Some kind of panicked laugh bubbles up my throat, but I swallow it. It would be really funny if I came all this way just to fall down a pit a minute away from Suddence. Funny in a way that makes me want to shrivel up into a pulp.
I blink hard and put my focus on the town. It grows closer at the rate of a glacier. I lean forward, clutching the front seats, anticipation making my heart lurch and sputter.
This is it.
I’m here.
A wooden sign says in a flowery white font, Welcome to Suddence! The painting around the words shows the scenery, the prairie and the mine, all chipping and flaking away. There’s no explanation of what the purpose of the mine is. No explanation for what they were looking for.
Maybe I’ll never find out.
We pass the sign, and we’re in the town.
The town square comes first, and I watch the buildings as we creep through. I search for signs of what might have happened here, but everything looks normal. Too normal. A grocery store. A flower shop. A clinic. A dentist. A barber. All dark, all empty, brick buildings overgrowing with vines and moss and grass. I keep expecting to see people in the windows, but there’s just us and our car in the dusty reflections.
“Dany,” Zahira says, hushed as she takes in the ghost town. “Are you sure somebody’s here?”
“Yes,” I say, my eyes still on the passing buildings.
“I don’t see anyone—”
“They’re here.”
She goes quiet.
The shop street ends in a small courtyard. On the other side, I see the start of a neighbourhood, small houses and their little yards. My fingers find the key through my clothes again. I’ve studied it enough times to memorize the number on it, but I rub my thumb over the key cover like the number might have changed.
#109.
I watch the houses as we wind through the neighbourhood. It feels like a real neighbourhood, a normal neighbourhood, with street names and sidewalks and cul-de-sacs, and I find myself trying to see people in the windows again. Some houses still have cars parked in the driveway. One yard has a trampoline. One has plastic toddler toys sinking into the wild lawn.
I glance at the house numbers.
#9.
#11.
#13.
It might be a while before we reach #109. But that means nothing if I can’t come up with a reason for Zahira and Aaron to let me out of the car by myself. I just know they’d rather stay here with me and wait, and I don’t know what I would do if I can’t convince them to go away.
We’re almost past #51 when Aaron says, “Is that—?”
My head snaps forward. In the distance, at the top of the hill where we came from, is a prickle of light. A car, speeding our way.
Zahira sits straighter and glances at me. “Is that them?”
Another pair of headlights round over the hill. My pulse skitters.
“It’s not them,” I say. “We have to go. Let’s go.”
“What?” Aaron says. “How do you know?”
“It’s not them!” I shout.
Zahira’s eyes are wide. “Is it…is it…?”
I know she means Them, but it isn’t. They can’t possibly know I’m here. I yell, “Just drive!”
Aaron punches it. He manages a U-turn, heading back the way we came. We get to the little courtyard the same time the first car appears at the far end of the town, where the square begins. A truck, with yellow lights flashing on the roof.
And then there’s a voice, amplified through a megaphone: “Stop the car! Turn off the engine and step out with your hands up! You are trespassing!”
“Security guards,” Aaron says. “Shit!”
He yanks the car to the side, lurching over the curb, and aims for an alley that leads out into the field.
“Aaron!” Zahira cries, pointing. “Trash bin! Trash bin!”
“I know!” he roars, but doesn’t slow down.
I cling to my seatbelt and cram my eyes shut as the car shoots between the trash bin and the alley wall. I hear something screech, and the thunk! of something hitting the side of the car, but when I open my eyes, the car is still in one piece, and we’re racing through the field.
“Oh, god,” Zahira says, and I look over to see the mirror on her side is gone, lost somewhere in the alley.
I turn in my seat, watching the town draw away through the back window. Somewhere out there, house #109 is getting farther away, and my heart aches at the thought, but panic is quick to fill me up again when Aaron cusses, and I turn back to see the second security vehicle skirting around the outside of the town square, sirens wailing, coming right towards us.
Aaron veers left, taking us farther into the field. The grass is so long we can barely see what’s ahead of us.
“Go back to the gate!” Zahira shouts. “We have to get out of here!”
The grass whips past the windows. I look out the back window again and can’t help cursing when I see we’re leaving a path of trampled grass behind us. The security vehicle is having no trouble tracing us, their glaring headlights menacing in the night.
“Stop the car!” The voice sounds frantic. “Stop!”
The grasses suddenly vanish. Zahira screams, and Aaron slams on the brakes.
The mine looms before us, wide and unending. The car skids in the gravel, still terribly fast.
We’re going to fall in.
We’re going to die.
Gritting my teeth, I throw out my hands. Sparks crack against the front of the car, and the force punches us back.
The car rocks to a violent stop, the engine hood bent and buckled. A sprinkle of rocks scatter over the side of the mine.
I clutch the seatbelt burning across my chest, my head spinning. Aaron and Zahira groan and gasp, pushing at the airbags that erupted in the crash. Zahira has a bloody nose. Aaron is holding his eye.
“Step out of the car!” the security guard shouts, his voice and the sirens growing closer. “Step out of the vehicle with your hands on your head!”
Our engine is silent, dead from the shock of the sparks. Aaron twists the key, trying to reignite it, but it only sputters and sputters. The inside of our car grows brighter as the security vehicle closes in, its sirens so deafening my hands fly over my ears.
“Aaron,” Zahira pleads.
“I’m trying!” he says.
I look out the back window again. The security vehicle is almost here. Our engine still isn’t starting.
We’re going to get caught.
No, a voice in my head snarls. No, you’re not.
Not when you’re so close.
I grab my backpack and slam open the door.
“Dany!” Zahira cries. “Dany, wait!”
I bolt. I don’t care how much Zahira is screaming behind me, or how much my side shrieks along. I just press a hand to my wound and run, and when I hear the security vehicle change its direction towards me, I throw a blind volley of sparks towards its wheels and hear the sharp pop of rubber, the horrible scrape of the car grinding to a stop.
Just run, Dany. Just run.
I push my way back into the grass, back in the direction of the town. My feet stumble over the uneven ground. Something warm blooms on my side, over my hand. I’m tearing open my wound.
Go, Dany. You’re almost there.
House #109. I just have to get there, and I just have to have enough time, and I don’t care if the guards catch me afterwards—
My foot catches over a sharp drop in the dirt, and pain spears through my ankle, all the way up to my brain. I fall, crying out, and try to clamber back up, but putting weight on my twisted ankle makes me crumple again. The pain in my side isn’t just warm anymore. It’s a horrible heat, white-hot and blinding, and every time I try to push onto my knees, my eyes blur with boiling tears and my throat aches with wrenching sobs.
Come on, Dany. Get up. You’re almost there. You’re almost there.
I don’t hear the guard coming until he’s right beside me. “Found the runner,” he says into his walkie-talkie, out of breath, and then he gasps, cussing to himself. “It’s a kid. Oh my god, it’s a kid.”
And then he’s talking to me, asking if I’m okay, if I need help. I try to push him aside, but he ends up holding me so I don’t fall over. His eyes go down to my waist, to my bloody hand, and his cusses again. He pinches the side of his walkie-talkie and says, “Call an ambulance. We have an injury.”
No, I want to say, but when I open my mouth, all I can do is sob. No. Don’t take me away.
But the guard is gathering me into his arms and bringing me back to the clearing, and I’m shivering too much from the pain to fight him. Dany! somebody calls, through all the cotton in my ears, and I manage to look over.
Zahira. Aaron. They’re out of the car, hands behind their heads. Aaron’s eye is swollen shut. Zahira’s pink jacket is smattered with blood. They look at me with eyes round with fear, burning with the need to run over and see what happened to me, but the other security guards have arrived, and they’re flicking out their handcuffs.
No, I try to say again, and I reach out for them. My hand is filthy, smudged with dirt, scratched from the fall. Aaron. Zahira. I watch the cuffs snap over their wrists. Stop. It’s not their fault. It’s mine. It’s mine.
But I’m faint from the pain, and I can’t keep my hand outstretched, and slowly, slowly, the world bleeds away.
-END OF PART 3-
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