987 (Complex Series, #3)

Chapter Eighteen

There, not ten paces away from us, is an animal.

Everyone has noticed by now. We freeze with indecision. The hologram said that most animals were harmless, but we should watch out for certain ones. All the names and descriptions of the dangerous ones disappear from my mind.

Piper whispers, “Does anyone know what that is?”

Brinn responds in a voice just as soft, “D-Deer?”

Its soft brown eyes stare curiously at us. We stare, terrified, back.

Canton asks, “What…do we do?”

Nobody responds. Nobody knows what to do.

The deer indifferently reaches down to the grass below it. It rips off some grass in its teeth, chews it tamely. It slowly begins to move away, stopping every once in a while to eat.

We don’t relax until it’s disappeared between the all the trees.

Bridget nervously asks, “How many of those do you think are in here?”

 What else is in these woods? What was the silhouette that I saw fly across the sky last night? How many things are hidden between the trees and within the grass that can kill us easily? How close is the nearest deadly creature?  Fifty paces? Twenty? Ten?

Canton doesn’t answer Bridget’s question, “I think we should keep moving. We really need to find the river.”

We spread out and continue slipping between trees and pushing our way through the grass as the sun climbs higher in the sky. My mouth begins to dry. I want water. I need water, but we have none. We were probably meant to find the river by now, so that we could have something to drink.

I try to ignore my own difficulty to swallow and continue searching around me.

Piper calls out from our far left, “Uh…I think I found something. It’s not a river, but…”

We follow the sound of her voice. I reach her first.

I don’t know what I’m seeing.

The ground drops down directly after where Piper is standing. If I were standing on the ground below us, my head would just reach the top of the ditch. The ground has barely any grass or other types of plants growing on it. It’s just sand scattered with rocks of different sizes.

Everyone stands on the edge, staring at the ditch.

Bridget says, “What could have done that? Why aren’t there any trees growing? And what made it drop so deeply?”

Piper asks, “Could it have been some type of animal?”

I crane my neck to see how far it reaches. The ditch curves to the right, the trees blocking it from my view.

I ask, “How far does it  go? Does it end?”

Canton speaks slowly, as if he’s still putting the idea together in his head, “Remember…when we were watching the hologram about rivers. Didn’t it say…that they carved away rocks and dirt and made a channel? What if…”

Brinn picks up where he left off, “What if this is the river? Maybe the water…ran out or got stopped or something farther away? All that’s left is the channel it carved away…”

It has to be the river. What else could explain it? All we have to do is follow it until we reach the village. 

Piper laughs, “We found the river. We actually did it. We’ve not only escaped the Unknown, but the Complex. We’ve escaped the Heads.”

I grin, “We beat Ellen.”

Brinn reminds, “Don’t forget Derek.”

Everyone else laughs and cheers, but the smile slips off my face. I’m not sure how I feel about Derek anymore. What if he’s spoken nothing but the truth?

We could still die within three days, if the Disease isn’t extinct.

Canton asks, “Should we go down there? It would be easier to walk, without all the trees in the way.”

I add, “We’d also be able to see any animals before they get to close to us.”

Brinn frowns, “Is it, I don’t know, safe?”

Canton shrugs, “It can’t be any less safe than we are up here.”

I suggest, “Maybe, we could walk there for a little bit. If it seems safer, we can stay there. If not, we can come back up here.”

 Piper shrugs, “Good enough for me. May as well give it a try.”

Canton goes first. He simply jumps off the edge and lands on the bottom. His feet hit hard, but he doesn’t react at all.

I figure that since I’m the second one to support the idea, I probably should go second. I’m not brave enough to throw myself off the edge and trust my feet to catch me.

Instead, I carefully jam my feet into the small ridges in the walls of the ditch. The dirt slides under my weight, but I make it to the bottom.

I crane my neck up to see Brinn, Piper, and Bridget above me. Their feet are a couple inches above my head.

Piper presses her lips together. She jumps off the small cliff, just like Canton. She lands gracefully next to me.

I roll my eyes and laugh, “Now you’re making me look bad.”

Piper just laughs and shouts, “Come on. We’re waiting.”

Bridget follows, scrambling down the dirt wall about half way, before jumping off.

Brinn stands there, worriedly biting her lip.

Brinn takes a deep breath. She begins shuffling her feet down the side of the channel. She moves each foot painfully slowly. She slides her foot on to a big rock, about half way down the cliff. When she puts all her weight on the rock, it gives way. Her arms windmill as she tries to recover. Her bag slides halfway off her back, shifting her sense of balance. Brinn tumbles down the side of the channel, the rock rolling after her. She hits the ground, landing hard on one foot.

Her ankle bends and she cries out.  Tears well up in her eyes and immediately slide down her face. 

Brinn whimpers, “I’m okay, I’m okay. I can’t even do that, wow. I’m okay, though.”

She pushes herself up and begins to limp towards us. The second she puts weight on the one ankle, she collapses to her knees.

Brinn clutches her ankle and moans, “My ankle…I think…I think it’s broken.”