Catcher goes in front of me, testing the strength of branches to hold on to, pointing out roots where I can wedge my feet. Even so I slip more than climb, the dirt loose and rocks constantly shifting whenever I think I have solid footing.
Every time I try to glance up behind me I fall, my elbows scraping against the ground, brambles tangling around my legs. Soon both Catcher and I are panting with the effort and even though the sun hasn’t fully risen we’re both coated with sweat.
“You can do it, Gabry,” he keeps telling me every time I stumble. And I don’t respond, just stay focused on grabbing anything to keep me from falling.
Where the slope’s steepest he slides down first, catching me when I tumble after him. We make it to a thin ledge and I glance up at the cliff edge about sixty feet above, seeing my mother standing there with her hands on her hips. Her face is tight with worry and she looks over her shoulder every few heartbeats. I wonder how close the Recruiters are. If we’ll be able to get enough of a head start to escape them.
There’s enough light now that the leaves on the trees glisten and shimmer, the sun’s rays streaking through the sky above. Not too far below us the path resumes, the fences intact, twisting through trees and curving to the right down the mountain and eventually running into what looks like the remnants of a road.
But between us and the path the mountain flattens out for a short distance into a thin strip of land with Mudo scattered over it, all of them reaching for me.
My heart races as I clench my hand around a thin tree trunk, using it to keep me steady. Catcher stares down, the tips of the Mudo’s fingers just barely brushing along the ledge beneath us. I kick their hands away from me but Catcher jumps down into the midst of them. I have to press my face into my arm to stifle my scream, still not used to how easy it is for him to walk among the dead.
Bodies tumble where he lands and then he’s on his feet, arms swinging. He grabs the Mudo wherever he can and shoves them down the mountain. They don’t even notice him, their focus so intent on me, their hands reaching for me.
Catcher grunts as he knocks the Mudo aside, their bodies flung off into the valley like broken dolls. Legs tangle around arms, torsos shuddering where they strike tree trunks, the moans weaving through it all. He doesn’t stop, just keeps pulling and throwing and pushing until there aren’t any Mudo left between me and the fences.
When he’s done he stands there, shoulders heaving, hands half clenched, staring up at me. In that brief moment I see that there’s nothing left of him that I used to know. There’s nothing of the boy I grew up with.
Chapter 47
I stand on my ledge and look at him, the ferocity of his expression, the pain written across his body. The sun keeps seeping down the mountain, its rays illuminating him, making his hair glow like pure light. And then he holds out a hand and I catch a glimpse of the old Catcher, the one still buried inside. The one that will never fully be him again.
“You could get away, you know,” I tell him. “Just slide the rest of the way down the mountain and walk into the Mudo. They’d never find you.”
“No” is all he says. I stare at him a long moment but he doesn’t add anything else and so I take his offered hand, his skin slick with sweat, and let him help me down.
We keep scrambling, our barely controlled fall caught by the fences twisted over the opening to the path. We’re just climbing into the safety of the other side when I hear shouting above. I look over my shoulder and see my mother on the edge of the cliff waving her arms in the air, her mouth moving. Just then a Recruiter runs up behind her and grabs her arms. My body goes tight seeing them struggle so close to the edge. He’s trying to pull her back but she’s still shouting to me. She frees one hand and points down into the valley as if trying to tell us something but before I can understand the Recruiter grabs her again.
Like slow motion I see a blur of black roar from her side: Odys. He tangles in the Recruiter’s legs, tripping him, and then before I even realize what’s happening the man falls over the edge. His body tumbles right at us, his arms reaching out to stop himself, smacking against a tree as he falls past.
My mother freezes, staring, and then her eyes meet mine across the distance.
“Run,” Catcher says, tugging on my arm. “We have to run!” Already more Recruiters are beginning to slide down the mountain after us and Catcher’s dragging me away until I can no longer see them or my mother. We race down the steep path, more like falling than running. Branches slap at my arms and face and roots trip me and I struggle to follow Catcher as he tears through the woods.
It’s still the dusk of early morning here underneath the tree canopy and it’s hard to judge distance. My toe catches a rock and I hit the ground rolling. Catcher doubles back just as I’m pushing myself to my feet, a long scratch snaking down the back of my arm, blood dripping warm on my fingertips.
He’s just holding out a hand to help me up when he hesitates. He cocks his head to the side as if listening for something in the distance. I glance over my shoulder, wondering if he hears the Recruiters behind me. But then the sound of something else tickles my ears.
Like a river. Or a waterfall.
Catcher walks down the path slowly, each step hesitant. I follow him.
We eventually run into a dead end against a tall wall made with dusty red bricks. It reaches into the distance to either side of us, bordering the winding arc of the road I glimpsed earlier on the other side.
We have no option but to climb it if we want to keep pressing forward.
I hold my breath as I slip my fingers along the bricks, searching for the weak spots and handholds. It’s difficult to find places to wedge my toes but eventually I struggle to the top, throwing a leg over so that I’m straddling the wall.
The sound of water’s stronger up here, the rush and roar of it. Catcher finally climbs next to me, both our hands gripping the edge of the wall just like the first night we crossed the Barrier.
The wide road running along the other side of the wall is nothing like the old stories I’d heard growing up of gloriously long highways with bright shiny cars. Instead, scattered along this road are rusted heaps of old twisted metal that seem like extinct creatures dozing in the sun. Only now most of them are beginning to shake with Mudo inside beating against the glass, trying to escape and get to me.
The road curves languorously to a wide bridge that stretches over a valley, joining up with another road bordered by an identical high brick wall on the other side. The bridge is huge, at least six cars wide, and lists sharply to the left, the other end of it appearing to crumble into only a narrow strip of concrete. Bordering either side runs a chain-link fence that’s curved at the top as if to keep people from jumping, except now it serves to keep a swarm of Mudo trapped on the bridge.
They start shambling toward us, sensing me, and I’m acutely aware of the cut on my arm. Of the blood trailing along my wrist. Crumbled against the edge of the bridge rests an old overturned yellow bus. Other cars tangle around it, creating a barrier of twisted metal that for now keeps the Mudo from escaping the bridge and reaching us.
But they’re piling up behind it like water trapped by a dam. They push and shove and start to crawl over one another, building a pulsing mound of bodies. Soon they’ll crest over the top and flood the road, trapping us even more.“You can go back,” Catcher says to me as we both stare openmouthed at the obstacles we face. “We can try to overpower the Recruiters. Or I can just hand myself over. Tell them they don’t need to take any of the rest of you.” His voice is even, emotionless and I ease my hand between us until I’m gripping his fingers.
He looks over at me. His face appears drawn and tight, dark circles under his eyes. “I don’t know how we can make it, Gabry,” he says, so softly it’s like breathing.
Behind us I hear shouting. I hear the crash of the Recruiters through the trees. It won’t be long until they catch up. Mudo pry themselves from broken cars, shuffle and shift on the road, finding their way through the crushed and twisted mess.
I start to walk along the top of the wall toward the bridge. To my left the mountain drops sharply down into the valley; to my right is the road and then nothingness on the other side. Our only hope is to keep pushing forward. I stare at the fence along the bridge. On the side closest to us it stops halfway across, broken where it’s fallen away. But on the far side it looks as though it stretches across the entire valley.
“Gabry,” Catcher says, my name like a warning. I turn and look at him crouching on the wall, his knuckles white where he grips it. His face glistens with sweat.
“We can make it,” I tell him. My heart flutters in my chest, making it hard for me to catch my breath.
He shakes his head. “There are too many Mudo,” he says.
“There’s a ledge,” I tell him. “Along the side of the bridge where the fence attaches. I can walk along it.”
“There are Mudo on the bridge, Gabry—there’s no way to keep them off you.”
Sweat trickles down my back, making my shirt stick to me. “Not if I climb on the other side of the fence,” I tell him. “Put it between us. It will keep them from me.”
Catcher scoots a little closer, still clutching the sides of the wall. He looks where I’m pointing and his face blanches. “That ledge isn’t even a foot wide,” he says. “It’s a hundred-foot drop!”
“I’ll hold on to the fence,” I argue.
“If you put your fingers through those links the Mudo will bite you.”
I squat so that I’m face to face with him. “That’s why you have to walk along the bridge on the other side and press against the fence where I hold it. You have to keep them from me.” I try to hide the terror in my voice. I try to sound confident and convincing but inside I’m petrified.
He drops his head between his shoulders. “I can’t, Gabry. I can’t watch you do that. The height.”
I think about the last time we were face to face on top of a tall wall, remembering what he told me. How scared he was and how he did everything to comfort me. “I know you’re scared,” I say. “But we have to do this. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to get away. We can do this.”
And then before he can talk me out of it I take a deep breath and jump down from the wall, landing on the road with a soft thud. Energy swirls with the fear thrumming through me. The feeling that I can do this. That I have to do this.
I pull the knife from my hip, the grip and weight of it familiar. I try not to think of Elias, of the night he handed it to me. The way he looked at me as if he knew me. As if he expected me to know him.
The Mudo start to stumble toward me, the sound of them filling my ears. Some of them pull themselves from under cars; others claw around the twisted metal. All of them moaning, all of them reaching for me.
And then I feel the familiar compression of air as Catcher lands next to me, his weapon drawn.
Behind us the Recruiters approach the wall. Their shouts echo through the trees. That’s when I start running.
As we get closer to the bridge it becomes harder and harder to move quickly. I slip between two cars and hear a shuffle, a creak. A hand wraps around my arm. I scream and jump back but another hand tangles in my hair. I can feel their moans along my skin, smell their death. I’m afraid I won’t be able to escape and I fight as hard as I can, trying to yank away, but I can’t get free. They’re trapped inside the cars, reaching through windows and doors for me.
I let my legs buckle and the weight of my body pulls free of the Mudo. I roll back from them. And then Catcher’s there, shoving them away. He tries to throw them off the side of the road and down into the valley but more begin to stir in the old vehicles, their hibernation ended by the scent of human flesh. We keep running, dodging cars where we can, crawling over them where we can’t. With each step I dread the feeling of teeth sinking into my skin.
Finally we close on the bus blocking the entrance to the bridge and I scramble toward it. My hands are slick with sweat as I try to grasp the sun-warmed metal and manage to hook my fingers over the edge of a broken window, tiny pebbles of glass sinking into my flesh and drawing hot blood. I don’t care about the pain, only about escaping.
Just as I pull myself up I feel a whisper of a touch on my knuckles and I yank my hand back, slipping but still able to keep my purchase against the rust-pocked metal.
They huddle on the seats inside, standing on the window frames. Children, no more than five or six years old, all wearing identical blue sweaters. The boys wear brown pants, the girls matching skirts with socks pulled to their knees. One girl has two pigtails springing from the sides of her head. Another boy still wears his glasses.
They stare at me, their tiny fingers clutching at the air, wanting something—needing it—and knowing that I’m the one who can provide it. And when they moan it sounds like whining, like a toddler crying.
I can’t breathe. I’ve seen Mudo children before but they were bloated bodies on the beach. They were rare and they never looked like this. They never looked real and almost normal. Almost alive.
And then blood drips from the cuts on my hand. It falls through the air and lands on a boy’s cheek, right at the edge of his mouth. A streak of red against his pale white skin.
I see his nostrils flare the instant his senses ignite. And then his eyes go wide and his mouth opens, lips pulled back from his teeth. His moans are harsh and demanding as he claws at the air.
Chapter 48
Just then Catcher clambers up the bus after me. On the ground to either side of us the Mudo are writhing, pushing, piling up on each other, moments away from washing over us. One crests above the others, just making it onto the back of the bus, when an arrow strikes its head.