224.10.20 | 3:14 a.m.
The stranger pointed at the chalkboard and nodded solemnly, his lips quivering as if he might cry. He brought the board back down to rest in his arm again.
Thomas was just about to speak when the man turned around and began to walk. Thomas didn’t know what else to do but follow—the only other choice was to go deeper into the Crank pits again. To each side, the Cranks wailed and screamed and gnashed their teeth, arms reaching, reaching. They’d almost become background noise to Thomas, his focus was so riveted on the stranger in front of him.
Thomas followed the man, passing through the gated tunnel, until he realized the awful sounds of the infected had faded. Finally the man reached the gate leading back into the main tunnel, opened it, and stepped through. He waited for Thomas and the others to do the same, then closed it. The guards, still where they’d left them, watched the whole sequence of events transpire; then one of them stepped forward, picked up the chain, and locked it back up. The sounds of the Cranks were now distant echoes that could have been almost anything.
Thomas and his friends stood packed closely together, an instinctive circle of protection. Alby and Minho were quieter than they’d ever been, and Teresa looked as shaken as Thomas felt. He couldn’t take his eyes off the man with the weird sign. WICKED is good.
As Thomas pondered it, the man walked closer to his little group until he stood only a couple of feet from them. He took a second to gaze into the eyes of each of them in turn; then he spoke for the first time.
“You’re probably wondering who I am,” he said. His voice was unsettling. Too…cheerful to fit the circumstances. “As well you should. You’ve seen the burden that I must bear, the weight that I must carry around with me. Three words, my friends. Only three words. But I hope tonight has taught you that they are the most important three words in the world.”
“Who are you?” Alby asked, the question they were all thinking—certainly Thomas was. “Do you…work here?”
The man nodded. “My name is John Michael. I…” He paused to cough, pressing his hand to his chest. “I was so…essential to this organization. Once. Once upon a time. It was me. It was…I…who gathered the survivors. The leaders. Gathered them here. I had the idea, my friends. I…had the…idea!” The last word came out in a shout, spit flying from his mouth.
Thomas took a step backward, the others moving right with him.
“But then, you see,” John Michael continued, his eyes a little wilder, his demeanor a little more ruffled, “then I caught the Flare. The…damned…Flare. I fought so hard to help our fellow humans.” His head drooped and tears trickled down his cheeks. “It’s not fair that I should be the one to catch it. Soon I’ll be living with…” His gaze found its way past them, through them, and focused on the cages on the other side of the tunnel. The pits.
“But then…No,” he said. “No, we won’t allow such an undignified ending for me. Not for me. Not for the man who started the Post-Flares Coalition, fought for its survival, preached its importance. Would you throw someone like that into those pits? I ask you, now. Would you?”
The man was becoming hysterical, staring straight at Thomas. “Would…you?”
Thomas shook his head adamantly, finding himself more afraid now than he had been all day.
John Michael moved a half step closer to the group, a shuffle that was slightly off balance. His whole face glistened with tears.
“I’m not here to ask you any favors,” he said. “I’m here to tell you there’s no choice in the matter. It’s your…obligation to help people like me. Help future people like me. Do you understand?” He emphasized the last sentence with a heart-wrenching sadness.
The guards nearby did nothing, just stood like they’d been carved from wax. The shadows made it impossible to see their eyes.
“We…understand,” Teresa said in a far steadier voice than Thomas would have been able to muster. “We’re sorry you’re infected. Most of our parents got sick also, so we know what it’s like.”
The man’s face suddenly transformed into a hideous trembling red mask. His eyes bulged as he erupted into rage and began to spew a tirade of anger.
“You have no idea what it’s like!” he screamed, his voice cracking. “How could you be trying to escape, running away from our chance to cure!”
The man was barely holding it together. Thomas didn’t know how much more he could take of the meltdown. Minho stepped past Thomas and put himself directly in front of John Michael. Shockingly, the guards did nothing to interfere.
“We weren’t going anywhere,” Minho said, trying poorly to steady his voice. “And it doesn’t seem right to treat us like this.”
“Who do you think you—” In midsentence the man sprang forward with arms outstretched, reaching for Minho’s throat. He caught him before Minho could move, both hands clasping the boy’s neck as they fell to the ground. John Michael quickly scrambled on top of him, then put all his weight on Minho’s throat, pressing him down.
Minho kicked, arched his back, tore at the man’s hands. All the while making a strangled choking sound. Thomas had started moving to help even though he had no idea what to do, but Alby knocked him out of the way and dove, crashing shoulder-first into John Michael, knocking him off Minho, who sat up, heaving for breath.
Thomas watched as Alby and John Michael rolled over a couple of times, each struggling to be on top. Then the man was straddling Alby just as he had Minho. Thomas was unable to move before Minho was on his feet, running to rescue his friend. Minho toppled John Michael, his momentum slamming the man to the ground.
The guards broke out of their stupor and moved in to stop the sudden violence.
“All right,” the female guard said, her voice calm. “That’s enough. He’s obviously not well.”
Neither Minho nor Alby made one move that suggested they’d heard a word she said.
The guard cocked her gun, then yelled in a much louder voice, “Stop! Everyone!”
Thomas and Teresa managed to grab their friends around the chest and drag them away from the fallen man. Soon they were all standing there, working to catch their breath, looking down at the grown man who now lay on the ground weak and childlike, bleeding from the nose with a swollen lip. Then, shocking everyone once again—even the guards, by the looks of it—he pushed himself onto his knees and clasped his hands together, held them out in front of his chest, fingers intertwined so tightly they shone white.
“Please,” he said in a trembling voice. “Please don’t judge me. Please save me. If not me, those who come after. Please, I’m begging you. Please, please, please.” His every word was a whimper now, tears streaming from his face as if a faucet flowed behind his eyes. His shoulders shook, his arms and hands shook, his chest lurched with heavy sobs.
“Please, please save us. Please find us a cure.” Almost a whisper now. His eyes slowly closed; he slumped back to sit on his haunches. “Please, please, please, please.” Each word came out between sobs, tremors quaking his body.
Then, out of the darkness, Randall appeared, as if he’d been watching the whole thing from deep in the shadows. He walked forward, not saying a word until he stood directly over John Michael.
“This is what the world has come to,” Randall said. “Unless you’re immune, of course, and until we have a cure. Otherwise, there are two choices. Become one of those…things you saw in the cages, or end it all before you reach the Gone, end your life. Which this good man has asked me to do when the time seems right. I hope you can appreciate the effort it must have taken him to put together a few coherent sentences tonight.” He jerked his head at the guards. “Take them back in. I think our old friend has reached his end date.”
Randall pulled a gun out of his waistband and cocked it.
“What’re you going to do?” Thomas asked.
Randall didn’t reply, which was answer enough.
