It wasn’t till I heard the zipper, felt the plastic closing over me that I realized with horror that they were putting us into body bags to take to the morgue. My heart started beating fast and I wanted to claw my way out, but then I realized that a morgue was still better than a dungeon.
The hazmat guys grabbed the handles on our bags and dumped us on a small flat cart. I was dying to know what Nate was thinking or planning. We had made a decent team, and not being able to talk to him was hard.
They wheeled us down a long hallway. Inside my plastic bag, I was trying not to breathe too fast or too loudly. As soon as they left us in the morgue, I was going to tear out of here and then Nate and I would try to rendezvous with the Loner again, find out what the hell was going on.
Our cart stopped. I heard a heavy metal grate being lifted, heard the grunts of effort from the hazmat guys. They grabbed the handles at the head and foot of my bag and picked me up off the cart. I braced myself, sure that I was about to be thrown into some vehicle, or maybe onto the ground.
Instead, the hands swung me, then let go. I was falling and falling and falling.… Just as I started to scream, I hit ice-cold water. I clawed at the zipper over my face, but of course the tab was only on the outside. Still, I should be able to—
A heavy weight landed on me, knocking the breath from my lungs, pushing me deeper underwater. I heard Nate’s muffled shouts but couldn’t understand him. He was, no doubt, coming to the same horrible realization that I was:
The sewers were the morgue at the President’s palace.
115
CASSIE
AS THE COLD WATER SWIRLED around us, I barely had time to grab one of the tunnel supports. It was an I-beam set in concrete, and I hoisted myself up, trying to keep my gun dry. Tim clung to a vertical beam a couple of yards away, and kids were clambering like rats up anything they could grab on to.
Some weren’t so lucky, unable to grab anything, too small or light to withstand the onslaught of water. I watched helplessly as some of my unknown soldier comrades were simply washed away by the rising tide. As one kid rushed past like flotsam, I stuck my leg out. She grabbed it and worked her way over to the support to hold on next to me. She was tall but skinny and already shivering from the cold.
“It will stop soon!” Ms. Strepp yelled, but the water flooded on, giving no sign of letting up.
“This is sewer water!” Tim yelled.
Bags of garbage, some busted open, spun around us before pouring down the tunnel. An old chair crashed into my ankle and I swore, unheard, as the water roared in. The frigid water was up to my knees now, making my feet numb. I held on as tight as I could, praying I didn’t slip off the thin rim of concrete.
A kid screamed close by—hundreds, thousands of rats lived in the tunnels, too, of course, and they were being washed around us like the rest of the trash. They were swimming desperately and grabbing on to anything they could find. Such as soldier kids clinging to I-beams.
“Oh, no, no, no!” I cried as they reached me. Their tiny claws plucked my pant legs and they immediately ran up my body. As a farm kid, I’d seen a lot of rats in my life, mostly dead after Pa or a barn cat had killed them. These were large, gray, and greasy, and when they reached my hair I shrieked. Most of them ran right on over me and up the tunnel beam, but some stayed to enjoy the warmth of my body. I looked at the two kids holding on to the same beam and saw that the tall one was crying silently as rats swarmed up and over her.
“It’s okay!” I told them loudly over the rush of the water. “It’s okay!” Total lie.
Numbness was creeping up my legs and I felt like the cold and the shaking would never end. I was doing this for Becca—and Nate. Were they still alive? It seemed like years since I’d seen them.
My teeth chattered painfully. My hands spasmed into claws. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on.
116
BECCA
STAY CALM, I ORDERED MYSELF, but I’d already started freaking out long ago. I still scrabbled at the zipper of my body bag even as icy water seeped in. Next to me, Nate was struggling; I knew because he kept bumping heavily into me.
Don’t panic. Strepp’s words knifed into my brain. Panic means mistakes. Panic means death. Keep your cool and work the problem.
Okay. I tried to breathe more slowly. I didn’t have long before water filled up the body bag an
d dragged me under.
I wedged my fingertip into the top of the zipper seam. It budged! I worked another finger in beside it and started to push down. Water gushed in over my face and I had to force myself to keep pushing. Finally I got my entire hand outside! I grabbed the effing zipper tab and pulled that sucker down, immediately surrounding myself with cold water. I kicked the bag free. My lungs were about to burst from lack of air. The water was freezing and dark, but I could make out Nate’s form swimming toward me! He looked as panicked as I was trying not to be and he seemed to be pointing at something.
I had nothing left to give. My lungs were about to explode and my consciousness was threadbare. I had to get air. With my very last shred of strength I kicked upward—and slammed my head into something hard, metal, and solid. My awareness slipped away, and I dreamily noticed all the bubbles escaping from my aching mouth and the cool water rushing in.
117
CASSIE
I COULDN’T HOLD ON MUCH longer. I accepted this calmly even though my whole body was shaking from the cold. At first I’d been numb; now I was so cold that it was a burning feeling working its way up my body. Four kids clung to this beam; we were all in one another’s way but it couldn’t be helped. There had been a fifth, but she’d let go and was whooshed away.