Among the Enemy Read online

  He lay back down on his own cot, but sleep was impossible now.

  What can I do, God? he prayed desperately. How can I help Alia? How can I save Percy?

  He got up and took the lantern around the room, searching more thoroughly than he’d searched the night before. The cupboards and shelves over the sink contained an amazing quantity of food: bread and potatoes, apples, even a hunk of cheese. But that was all there was.

  “Why did they even have this room?” he muttered to himself. It must have been hard work digging out this huge space. Why hadn’t the cabin’s owners just built a larger cabin?

  Because they had something to hide. . . .

  Matthias walked slowly around the room, stopping every few paces to tap his foot on the dirt floor. Then he felt carefully along the walls.

  He found what he was looking for behind one of the cabinets over the sink. The wood wall swung away, revealing a safe with a combination lock.

  Percy was the smart one, and Alia was the one with a sixth sense for picking locks. But neither of them could help Matthias now. At least he had determination on his side. He turned the numbered lock slowly, listening for clicks. A hope had begun to grow inside him. Maybe the seventeen “rebels” in the cabin had been smuggling medical supplies. Sometimes people did that. Once, Matthias remembered, a man had come and asked Samuel if they could use his tunnel to store some stolen medicine.

  “You’d be helping people, old man,” the smuggler had said. “The people who are going to get this medicine would die without it. The Government certainly isn’t doing anything for them.”

  Samuel had asked the man for a few days to think it over. Matthias remembered watching Samuel sit and pray and think. Finally he told the smuggler no.

  “What about the people the medicine was intended for?” Samuel had asked. “What happens to them when you steal their medicine? What if they die? It’s not my place to decide who lives and who dies, whose life has the greater value.”

  “But—those people are Barons. They’re rich. They have everything they need!” the smuggler had argued.

  “Maybe not,” Samuel had said. “Not if they’re unwilling to share with the poor. They need love, and they need compassion, and they need to know God. Stealing from them won’t give them any of those things.”

  The smuggler had left shaking his head at Samuel’s foolishness. Matthias thought maybe the smuggler had offered Samuel money too—money to feed himself and Percy and Alia. Matthias hadn’t really understood. If this safe contains medicine, he told himself, still turning the lock, I’m giving it to Percy and Alia. I don’t care who else was supposed to have it.

  The lock clicked one final time, and Matthias jerked on the safe door. It actually opened an inch or so.

  Medicine, medicine, medicine . . . , Matthias chanted to himself as he swung the safe door farther out.

  Flat white plastic cards fell out on the ground.

  Fake I.D.’s.

  Matthias picked up one in disgust and threw it against the wall.

  “I could make these myself, if I needed to,” he muttered, and started to slam the door of the safe. Then he reconsidered. If someone found them hiding here in this secret room, they’d be in even bigger trouble if they didn’t have identity cards. The identity cards could be “proof” that they weren’t the three kids who had slipped away from the Population Police truck.

  Matthias forced himself to slow down and search through the stack, until he found cards with pictures that bore some resemblance to himself and Percy and Alia. Most of the cards were for adults, so it took quite a while. By the time Matthias held three suitable I.D.’s in his hand, Percy was moaning.

  “Over here, I think there’s a cabin ahead. Oh no! Bullet! Shot! Climb hill! Hide!” he said, his voice crescendoing to a shriek. In his dreams, he seemed to be reliving the attack of the night before. He thrashed around on his bed so violently that Matthias feared he’d hurt himself even worse. Matthias put his hand on his friend’s forehead, to calm him down and smooth the hair out of his face. But Percy’s forehead was fiery hot; Matthias jerked his hand back as though Percy’s skin could burn him.

  “You’ve got a fever,” Matthias said. “That’s all. Just a little fever. I—” His voice shook. “I’m going upstairs to look for medicine there.”

  His legs trembled as he climbed the stairs and pushed up on the trapdoor. He was surprised by the bright sunlight that greeted him. It was still very early morning, but the woods outside the splintered door and broken windows seemed to sparkle. Percy’s prediction had been right: It had snowed overnight.

  Matthias refused to let himself be dazzled by the scene. He gingerly shut the trapdoor and focused his eyes on the ruined cabin.

  It had probably not looked like much to begin with, but now it was a nightmarish place of overturned chairs and dark stains everywhere.

  Bloodstains. Bloodstains from where seventeen rebels had fought and died.

  Why didn’t they just stay hidden in the secret underground room? Matthias wondered. But he thought he knew the answer. If they hadn’t fought back, the Population Police would have come in and searched the place; they would have found the secret room anyway—and probably the safe with all the fake I.D.’s. The rebels had protected that room and that safe with their lives.

  Was it worth it? Matthias wanted to know.

  He went out and looked at the pile of bodies the Population Police had made. With the dusting of snow on their clothes and faces, the bodies didn’t look like real people anymore. They looked like statues or sculptures, somebody’s twisted idea of art. The sign saying ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE flapped in the breeze on a post beside the bodies.

  Matthias had seen dead people before. He’d seen plenty of awful scenes when he’d lived in the city: children beaten by their parents, starving people screaming for food. But he’d had Samuel to protect him then—Samuel to protect him, and Percy and Alia to cuddle with at night. His life had been cozy in the midst of death and horror.

  Now all that had been ripped away. The dead bodies seemed to stare at him, their tortured expressions seemed to whisper, Percy will be joining us soon. Alia will be joining us soon. . . .

  “No!” Matthias screamed.

  He whirled around and ran back into the cabin. He tore through it, ceiling to floor. He even searched between the cracks in the floor, in case some stray pills had fallen there. But the cabin contained no medicine. He had no way to help Percy and Alia. Not here.

  “We’ll leave, then,” he muttered, lying on his stomach on the floor after searching the last crack. “We’ll go somewhere else for help.”

  But he couldn’t carry both of his friends at once. He’d barely managed to drag the two of them down the hill the night before.

  He let his head fall, defeated, against the wood floor. His cheek rested against a bloodstain. Some people prayed this way, he remembered, their bodies absolutely flat on the ground. But Matthias wasn’t praying. He was coming to terms with an awful truth.

  I have to go away to get help for Percy and Alia, he thought. I have to.

  But I have to leave them behind.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Matthias fed his friends before he left. He changed the makeshift bandages over their wounds—Percy’s was soaked with blood, Alia’s with yellowish pus. He tried to shake each of them awake, in turn, so he could explain what he was doing.

  “It’s too cold out there for the two of you,” he choked out, trying to sound matter-of-fact. Trying to sound cheerful. “You get to stay in this nice, warm room and sleep all you want. Isn’t that nice? I cut up some food and left it right here beside your beds. So you won’t have to get up when you’re hungry. And I’ll leave the lantern burning. There’s plenty of oil. Don’t worry about anything—I’ll be back soon. Very soon. With help.”

  Alia winced as if the sound of his voice pained her. Percy stared up glassy-eyed, then let his eyelids slip slowly down. Matthias couldn’t be sure that either of them understo
od what he’d told them, but he didn’t have time to wait around and try to explain some more. He didn’t have the voice for it either. A huge lump seemed to have grown in his throat. He could barely breathe, let alone speak.

  He ripped off a square section of a sheet, wrapped some of the remaining food in it, tied the corners together, and slung it over his shoulder. He climbed the ladder on unsteady legs. He carefully latched the trapdoor behind him, pausing only to admire the way the planks of the trapdoor fit perfectly into the rest of the floor. Invisibly.

  Nobody could know the room is down there, he told himself. It was just luck that I found it. Nobody will find Percy and Alia.

  He meant to run as soon as he got out of the door of the cabin, but he couldn’t make himself hurry past the pile of dead bodies. The rattle of the ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE sign against its post was too hypnotic and sad.

  “You weren’t enemies of the people, were you?” he whispered. The dead bodies stared back at him.

  After a few seconds, Matthias jerked the sign down. He turned it over and went back into the cabin to get a pen. On the back of the sign, he wrote in big letters, THE POPULATION POLICE DID THIS.

  He propped the sign up against the pile of dead bodies and slipped into the shadowy woods.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Once, back at Niedler School, Matthias’s history teacher had told a story about a soldier who ran twenty-five miles to tell his king about a victorious battle. The soldier covered all that distance at top speed, delivered his news, and immediately dropped over dead.

  If this run is going to kill me, Matthias thought as he raced through the woods, let me be like that soldier. Let me deliver my news first.

  Within a few minutes of leaving the cabin, Matthias got a stitch in his side. His feet got wet when he failed to see a stream until he was already in it. He could get his breath only in ragged gasps. But none of that worried him as much as the danger of being caught. He forced himself to slow down, look around, strive for silence.

  Under different circumstances—if Percy and Alia were healthy and by his side, if he weren’t worried about the Population Police chasing him—Matthias knew he could have appreciated his constantly changing view of the snowy woods. Samuel had taught the three kids to soak up beauty wherever they found it. But on this day, even the most beautiful trees were only obstacles and potential hiding places for enemies. The snow was only a threat: It melted into a wet, slippery mess as the day wore on, then turned to dangerous ice as evening approached. Matthias lost track of the number of times he slipped and fell. But he always forced himself back up onto his numb feet, forced himself to keep plodding onward.

  By the time Matthias finally came in sight of Mr. Hendricks’s cottage, it was night again and he was navigating by moonlight, straining his eyes just to see the road before him. Mr. Hendricks’s windows let out a dim glow through drawn curtains, and Matthias stumbled toward that glow. He misjudged the size of the doorstep and careened directly into the side of the house.

  “Who’s there?” a voice called from inside, sharp and cautious. The glow in the windows immediately went dark. “Identify yourself.”

  “Ma—hias,” Matthias mumbled. His tongue felt so swollen, he could barely say his own name. Odd—he couldn’t remember stopping to take a drink of water even once the entire day. Maybe that was why he was having such trouble talking. Had he forgotten to eat, too? Maybe that was why he found himself sprawled on the ground, as if his spine and legs had given out at the same time.

  A porch light clicked on.

  “Matthias? Matthias, is that you?”

  Someone opened the door and drew Matthias into the warmth. Someone shone a flashlight out into the darkness, searching.

  “Matthias, what happened? Are you alone? Where are Percy and Alia?”

  “Sick . . . hurt . . . go help them,” Matthias managed to say. It was so tempting to give way to his exhaustion, even though he wasn’t sure whether he’d fall asleep or die if he did. Maybe he would be like the marathon runner after all. But he hadn’t delivered enough of his message yet. He hadn’t told where Percy and Alia were.

  “Cabin, big road,” he mumbled.

  “Matthias, for God’s sake, just rest for a minute. You, John, go get him something to eat and drink—some broth, maybe?”

  And probably Matthias did pass out then, because the next thing he knew he was lying in a huge bed. Mr. Hendricks was right beside his bed, spooning broth into his mouth. Mr. Hendricks’s friend Mr. Talbot was there too, along with a red-haired woman and two young boys.

  “He’s not as bad as he looks. Most of the blood on his face and sweater isn’t his. He’s mostly just got scratches,” the woman was saying. “Maybe a touch of frostbite on his feet too, but it’s not bad.”

  “I’m fine. It’s Percy and Alia—,” Matthias struggled to say. The broth must have been helping because his tongue seemed to have returned to its usual size now. He found he could put words together in complete sentences again. “They’re the ones to worry about.”

  “Hush,” Mr. Hendricks said soothingly. “You don’t have to tell us anything yet.”

  “Yes, I do!” Matthias sat up, even though Mr. Hendricks’s hand was on his shoulder, trying to keep him still. Some of the broth spilled on the bed’s comforter. “You’ve got to help Percy and Alia, not me!”

  Matthias saw the grown-ups exchange troubled glances.

  “Tell us, then,” Mr. Hendricks said.

  The whole story spilled out. At first the grown-ups interrupted with questions and comments. “The Population Police took away our students too, but they did that weeks ago,” Mr. Hendricks said.

  “Niedler is quite a bit farther out,” Mr. Talbot said. “Do you suppose there are places they haven’t reached yet?”

  By the time Matthias began describing the massacre of the seventeen rebels, everyone was listening in silence.

  “And after the Population Police left, I took Percy and Alia down into the cabin. There was a secret underground room, so I thought it was safe leaving them while I went for help. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t carry them both. So, please, give me some medicine and tell me how to cure them and I’ll go back right now and—”

  “You’re in no shape to go anywhere right now, young man,” Mr. Hendricks said.

  “But I’ve got to—”

  “It doesn’t have to be you who helps them,” the red-haired woman said. She frowned. “I’ll go.”

  “Theodora, no,” Mr. Talbot said quickly. “You, alone, at night? That’d be like asking for—”

  “I’m the only doctor here,” the woman said sharply.

  A doctor? Matthias felt better already.

  “Let’s discuss this elsewhere,” Mr. Hendricks said, signaling with his eyes. “Let the boy rest while we figure out what to do. Joel, John, watch out for him. Keep feeding him.”

  Mr. Hendricks used a wheelchair, and there were times when that made him seem more powerful, more in control. This was one of those times. As Mr. Hendricks rolled out of the room on his bright silver wheels, it didn’t seem like the grown-ups had any choice but to follow him; it didn’t seem like the two boys half hiding at the foot of the bed had any choice but to shuffle up toward the head of the bed, to pick up the bowl and spoon Mr. Hendricks had left there.

  But Matthias knew he had choices. As soon as the grown-ups shut the door behind them, he slipped out of bed, almost knocking over the other boys with their bowl of broth.

  “What are you doing?” the one boy said. Matthias didn’t know if it was Joel or John. He didn’t care, either.

  “Shh,” he said.

  He wobbled on his rubbery legs, but he made it to the door. He pressed his ear against the cool wood and listened for murmurings.

  As he’d suspected, the grown-ups hadn’t gone far for their discussion. They were right out in the hall.

  “What are the chances that either of those children are still alive, even now?” Mr. Talbot was saying i
n a hushed voice.

  “It sounds like the girl has a concussion and an infected wound,” the woman’s voice answered. “She should be okay, as long as the infection hasn’t progressed too far. The boy—Percy?—I don’t know. It depends on how the bullet went in, how much blood he’s lost, how well Matthias managed to dress the wound. . . .”

  “You think you have to go help them,” Mr. Talbot said. It was a question without being a question.

  “Well, of course, but—”

  “You can’t!” Mr. Talbot said. “The whole countryside’s unstable, it’d be like walking through a minefield—I don’t know how Matthias got here without being killed. If the mobs don’t get you, the Population Police will.”

  “I’ll drive,” the woman said.

  “Oh, that’s a great idea. Why not just send out flares: ‘I’m a Baron; I used to be richer than sin; I’m the very person you hate most!’ ”

  “George, what if it were Jen, lying there in that cabin, on the verge of death? What if it were her and everyone refused to help?”

  Mr. Talbot fell silent. Even Matthias knew who Jen was: She was Mr. Talbot’s daughter, an illegal third child who’d been raised in luxury but who had died seeking her freedom.

  She and Samuel had died together.

  Through the door, Matthias heard Mr. Talbot take a ragged breath.

  “Theodora, I just—I don’t want to lose you, too.”

  “I know,” the woman said softly. “But I have to go.”

  Matthias reached down and turned the doorknob. He jerked the door open.

  “I’m going too,” he said. “You’re not leaving me behind.”

  The three grown-ups all startled at the sound of the door opening. Then Mr. Hendricks shook his head wryly.

  “Theodora,” he said, “I think you’ve got an assistant whether you like it or not.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  To Matthias’s way of thinking, the preparations for leaving took forever. Mrs. Talbot—for it turned out that’s who Theodora was, Mr. Talbot’s wife—had to pack bags of food and medicines and clothes. “In case we have to be there several days,” she explained. “In case your friends can’t be moved.”