The Reaping by Annie Oldham Page A

to do this?—when a movement catches my eye. It’s the faint waver of a truck leaving the train station. I sit up and motion to Jack.
    “No.” He turns back and yanks on his leg and manages to jerk it free just another inch. “They’ll be able to see us soon.”
    I crawl to his other side and pull on the gate in the direction it opens. Maybe, just maybe I can move it another inch. I brace my feet on the stationary side and wrap my fingers through the chain link of the side that moves, and then I stretch out as hard as I can. The chain link digs into my fingers and I groan, but I push even more. The fence gives the smallest fraction.
    “I’m out!” Jack scrambles toward the building twenty feet away. Jack stands and cups his hands to his eyes as he looks into a window on one of the outbuildings. “It’s a storage shed,” he says, putting a hand to the door handle.
    I grab his arm and shake my head.
    “And it’s empty,” he says. He pulls open the door and steps inside. I follow him.
    With my trembling muscles, I manage to stumble to my knees. Jack takes a few limping steps, and we huddle on the ground as the gate begins to creak open again and the truck rumbles over the road next to us. Dust swirls up outside the window above us.
    After a few minutes we dare to move.
    The walls of the shed are lined with shelves. Bags of fertilizer and potting soil, spades, clay pots in stacks, and gardening gloves surround me. Dust motes drift through the sunlight filtering in through the windows. This is the kind of place Nell would love. I have to remind myself, though, that it’s for them and someone like me or Nell would have no place here.
    Jack rummages through the supplies and comes up with a couple of dirty water bottles. I snatch one out of his hand before he even has time to offer it to me. I pour the water down my throat and it crackles on the way down, burning for a moment before settling in and filling me up. I close my eyes and savor it.
    “Water never tasted so good. Much better than your drink of choice off the tunnel walls.”
    I can finally smile again.
    Jack digs through a box and pulls up a pair of coveralls. “Think we could use these?”
    I shake my head. I don’t think a gardener would walk right into the hospital. Too out of place , I write on his hand. He carefully puts the clothes back the way he found them. I turn back to the shelves I was examining, when a gleam in the back corner catches my eye.
    In the corner is a metal grate. It is clean—almost too much so for such an earthy place—and two words are raised on the surface: Tunnel Access. I beckon Jack over. He scratches his cheek.
    “I wonder if all these buildings and the hospital are connected. They’re like ants burrowing around down there.”
    Only one way to find out. I brace myself to pull hard at the grate, but it swings open without even a squeak. I fall back and Jack catches me. He smiles.
    “I expected it to give you a bit more of a fight, too.”
    I walk to the edge of the square opening and peer down. Concrete steps lead down to a narrow hallway. Bulbs set inside protective covers line the hall as far as I can see. Just bricks and dim light. Nothing more, just like the tunnel we came from.
    Should we?
    Jack nods. “It’s our best bet. It will be easier than scurrying across the open like mice. And it will be easy to hear people coming.”
    Which means they’ll hear us too.
    “True.” Jack pulls me close and buries his face in my hair. “But I know you’ll plunge down there anyway, so I’m not going to think about whether or not anyone can hear us.”
    I hold him close, suddenly aware what he just realized—we’re going into the lion’s den. What do we do?
    Jack holds my face in his hands, his eyes searching mine for fear. He’ll find it in spades, but that doesn’t matter now. Nell and Red are right in front of us, and we have to save them.
    “You mean once we’re inside?”
    I nod.
    Jack turns to look down the