The Annihilation of Foreverland (29 page)

“Goddamnit.” Mr. Smith put his hands on his hips, huffing. He looked around the cell, deciding how to make it work. “Let’s push him against the cell door and then we can hold him from the outside.”

Mr. Jones helped pick up Reed. It was difficult. He flopped against the bars, knees buckling. They maneuvered around him. Mr. Jones went to the
aisle
first, holding Reed under the armpits. Mr. Smith quickly jumped out next, catching Reed as he slid down. They were able to hold him up and close the door.

“Go on.” Mr. Smith pushed Mr. Jones out of the way, harnessing Reed by wedging his arms beneath the armpits and grabbing the bars. “I’ll hold him until the round starts.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, yes! Now go, I’ll be out in a moment.”

The boys in the other cells
watched the spectacle silently,
fully dressed and waiting.
Mr. Smith
looked at the empty cells next to his. There were two of them.

Danny Boy and Zin are gone. The Director made the right decision, those boys would be a distraction. They’d be trying to keep Reed from the lucid gear. This has gone on too long.

Mr. Smith met with the Director the day before. The slob stood over his damn telescope sipping whiskey while Mr. Smith – for the thousandth time – made suggestions.

“It’s now or never,” the Director said. “Let’s make it happen now.”

Mr. Smith, if he was honest, was shocked. The Director agreed to everything Mr. Smith asked to do. He’d leave Reed in that cell until he either took the lucid gear or died.

And that was fine with Mr. Smith. He had grown weary.

Sweat ran on both sides of his face. When Mr. Jones closed the door, the skylights went dark and the lucid gear dropped. The boys quietly pulled their gear to the floor and slid it over their heads. In moments, the only sound was Mr. Smith’s labored breathing.

Then the cell walls began to click.

The back wall continued moving until it pressed against Reed’s back. Mr. Smith heaved him up one more time before removing his arms to avoid being pinned. The wall pressed him tighter. Tighter. And tighter.

Reed let out a groan. His eyes opened.

Something popped in his chest before the pressure eased.

“Last chance, Reed.”

The floor wasn’t stable.

It was like walking on a platform that was balanced on the end of a pole. No matter which way Reed leaned, it was too far. He tried to compensate but couldn’t find the tipping point.

When the old men got him to his cell, he crashed.

He tasted blood and the acrid tang of green leaves. His chin was numb.

“He’s a pig. He wants you to die.”

She was in the next cell. Her hair was
long
. Red. He couldn’t make out the features, his eyes too swollen, but he recognized Lucinda’s voice.

She squatted so she was eye-level. Grabbed the bars.

“Disgusting pigs.”

Hands grabbed him, again. Heaved him against the cold bars. His knees refused to lock. His arms, noodles. Old breath was in his ear.

Door slammed.

Lights out.

And then the clicking of the cell. And the squeezing. The pressure.

The pain.

It cut through the leaf-induced fog.

A rib popped.

He couldn’t breathe. His breath burned in his chest. And the cell squeezed. It would crush him.

And then it relaxed.

Reed sucked in air that sliced inside his broken chest. He tried to stop, but he had to breathe. And each one hurt so bad.

The cage remained tight enough to hold him up.

Mr. Smith, his old spotted face, was inches away. His eyes relaxed, limp and uncaring. He told Reed
last chance
. This was his last chance. Reed knew what that meant. He knew he would die in the Haystack this time.

Grateful it would finally end.

“Don’t let them win.” Lucinda was behind Mr. Smith. “They want to keep us apart. If you die, they win. This old, rotten bastard… wins.”

Reed tried to speak, but there was only enough space inside his chest for a ragged breath before he needed another.

“Don’t fight it,” Mr. Smith said. “There is peace inside Foreverland, Reed. There is no need to suffer.”

A breath.

Pop.

“I…” Reed ran out of wind.

Mr. Smith was unsympathetic. Unmoved. Eyes of grey, uncaring.

“I hate you.” Reed whined with the next breath that cut deeply into his rib cage. His eyes streamed tears. Not sadness.
Hatred
.

“I want…”

“Stop, son. I didn’t do this to you. You have steadfastly refused to help yourself. You have no one else to blame. You can put a stop to it right now. Let’s end it, my boy.”

Mr. Smith put his hand on Reed’s cheek. Meant to comfort, it was stiff and cold.

Reed quivered. Head convulsing. He kept his breath shallow and braced for the pain.

He spit in Mr. Smith’s face.

“Get… out.” He squeaked. “Get out.”

Mr. Smith stepped back. He wiped the pink saliva off his face, unable to control the stern anger that pinched his brows and hid his eyes in shadows. Stiffly, he marched away, pulling his dead leg along.

Lucinda remained in the
aisle
. Smiling.

Reed closed his eyes. A sob escaped. He tried to control it. It only hurt inside. But when she reached out, when she touched his face, it was warm and loving and kind.

His tears grew hotter.

The Director was not surprised to see that the sky had been consumed by the Nowhere. He felt it getting smaller. Foreverland was disappearing into chaos. It wouldn’t be long, but he wasn’t too late.

He assumed a body that, for all intents and purposes, looked like the one lying on the chair at the top floor of the Chimney. Minus the belly and wrinkles, he looked like the Director in the flesh. Perhaps a little more youthful and glowing. A body worthy of an immortal.

He walked across Foreverland’s Yard. It had not changed much since the first day he had visualized it. In the very beginning, he decided that his alternate reality environment would look like the island. It didn’t really matter what it looked like. When he invited the boys into it, they didn’t seem to care since they could do anything and be anything.

After this trip, he would escape the confines of Foreverland and burst into the universe like the Big Bang. He would be much bigger than his own little mind. He reached the edge of the Yard and leaned against a tree. Then melted into it. He became the tree. He waited patiently for the boys to arrive. And one at a time, they did. Until they were all there. Just about all of them.

The Director had a change of heart.

After much thought, he decided Danny was, indeed, too dangerous to let free inside Foreverland. He had progressed much too quickly. It was too much of a risk that he would control everything this time. And if he got control of Foreverland, he would control the Director. There was a chance he might even crossover into the Director’s body and abandon him in the Nowhere, lost in his own mind.

All would be lost.

The Director formed a thought-command. He learned that from watching Danny. He willed all the boys in the Yard to disperse. He willed them into the Nowhere. He felt their identities loosen, watched them scatter like molecules set free. They drifted like vapor into the gray fog where their identities would unravel never to be what they were before that. Their bodies would remain vacant in the Haystack. Some might call it murder.

When the Yard was clear, he waited.

And when the time was right, he willed himself into another body, this one in the likeness of a redheaded boy with freckled cheeks. And, next to the sundial, he appeared as if Danny Boy had returned. The Director walked around and looked surprised.

The girl fell from the sky like the Goddess of the Nowhere.

She meant to snag Danny and pull him into the Nowhere. Instead, Danny grabbed her.

She had taken the bait.

Danny turned into a bearded man. He smiled at her.

“At last, we meet.”

She squirmed but it did no good. The Director wrapped his mind around her and squeezed.

The first of many screams rattled in her throat.

Danny and Zin took the steps three at a time and threw the door open.

The library was quiet and empty. Lights hung from the vaulted ceiling, softly illuminating the rows of bookshelves.

The main desk was to the right. Mr. Campbell – one of the oldest looking and slowest moving men on the island – was straightening a pile of papers. He looked up with a stiff neck.

“Hello, boys,” his voice rasped. “I’m closing the library. It’ll be open tonight sometime.”

“Mr. Campbell.” Zin took a second to catch his breath. “We just need to get a book for a… for a report that’s due… soon.”

“Well, you’ll have to come back tonight when we open.”

“Please, sir. We’ve fallen behind on our studies and just want to make sure we do things right this time. We’re serious about our studies, sir. We’d like to better ourselves, our minds and bodies. We’d—”

Danny elbowed him. “Just five minutes, Mr. Campbell. And then we’re out of here.”

Mr. Campbell carried the papers to the shelves behind him. It took so long they thought he might have forgotten they were there.

“Five minutes, boys.”

Danny and Zin took off.

“And no running,” Mr. Campbell said, forcefully. “This is still a library.”

“Laying it on a little thick back there, don’t you think?” Danny said. “We just want to check out a book, not rewrite the Constitution.”

They turned down an
aisle
, the shelves towering over their heads.

“You know these geezers, they love it when we do our best.”

They turned right at the end of the
aisle
, moving along the wall with the classrooms along it. Danny stopped at the one in the corner. He could see the cabinet in the corner of the classroom.

“That’s the one. Do your dirty work.”

Zin took a knee, pulled wires from his pocket and inserted them into the lock. Danny walked away, looking down the
aisle
s. He could hear Mr. Campbell sorting books at the front desk. The wires were clicking in the doorknob.

“What’s taking so long?” Danny whispered.

“I can’t get it.”

“I thought you were an expert.”

“I never said that.”

Zin dropped the wires and went to the nearest
aisle
, looking quickly through the books.

“What are you doing?” Danny ran back to the door. “We don’t have time…”

Zin reached to the top shelf and pulled a thin, spiral-bound book down. He slowly ripped the plastic cover off the front and pushed Danny out of his way. The cover was flimsy but stiff. Zin inserted the corner between the door and doorjamb. He moved it up and turned the knob.

It clicked open.

“I take that back.” Zin stepped out of the way. “I am an expert.”

Danny quietly closed the door. Zin stood outside. He moved through the room, plowing into one of the desks up front. He stopped, moved more slowly this time.

The box of tablets was on the bottom shelf.

He grabbed one and moved to the wall next to the door so no one could see him. He turned it on.

His hands were shaking.

This is it.

If he screwed this up, they were all dead. He had to hack the Chimney’s security system, find the power grid to shut down the island and the trackers to knock everyone out. He had two minutes.

Maybe three.

Mr. Jones waited patiently outside the Haystack.

He heard groaning inside.

It was the sound of a tortured young man.

When Mr. Smith opened the door, he was followed by hoarse cursing. Mr. Smith was told that he could go to hell and burn forever. He closed the door behind him. His eyes were dead.

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Jones said. “Is this really necessary?”

“It is his end. He has a choice.”

Mr. Jones did not reply. He did not care to think too deeply on the subject. He had agreed to come to the island. He knew what they did and he agreed to be part of it. He could not judge.

Not now.

“Mr. Williams is prepping Sid to crossover,” Mr. Smith said. “We should go witness. Perhaps we will be next.”

“Your method may destroy your investment, Mr. Smith.” Mr. Jones couldn’t stop himself.
“What good will he be to you then?”

“Bones can heal, Mr. Jones.” He looked away. “Much quicker than mine.”