The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [68]
“Miss Beverly?” me and Barbie both said as Dr. Mills threw open a door next to her own room. Sure enough, the long-necked Miss Beverly was sitting up in bed looking confused.
Jed called, “I’m on top of it, doc,” and flashed me and Barbie a crooked grin as he held his hand out to Ma. “Come with us, Ma.”
“Hey, shouldn’t someone rescue the Dogstars, too?” I asked, feeling pretty proud of myself for figuring it out. “They must be somewhere behind a curtain back here. Right?”
“Huh?” said Jed. “Who?”
“The hippies at Zensyl—”
“Hurry!” cried Dr. Mills.
At that, our family skating skills came in handy as we raced Pa’s roller bed up the long hallway, dodging the people who were popping out of doorways and archways. Everyone ran as if their lives depended on it. It was dizzy-making chaos, the scariest two minutes of my life. Which was saying a lot, considering the minutes I’d been having lately. I had to hold on hard to my corner of the bed and run along with the tide of people mostly in pajamas as the buzzers and lights blared and the loudspeaker kept repeating the same message over and over, Security Protocol Aegis Shield, Security Protocol Aegis Shield. That meant to evacuate immediately, Jed shouted when Ma asked. It felt like one of those movies where everyone has to jettison out in the pods before the spaceship self-destructs.
The elevators and the door to the parking ramp were bottlenecked with people waiting to get out with suitcases on wheels, files on hand trucks, and carts loaded with equipment. Someone had jammed a nutty candy bar under the door to keep it propped open, and the security alarm was going crazy. My stomach growled. I eyed the candy bar and started to bend over for it, but Jed yanked me back to attention.
As soon as we squeezed through, Jed called, “To Pa’s truck!”
We pushed the bed up the ramp, veering around cars and trucks squealing out of their spots. It seemed that the compound went on for acres, maybe even a mile, underneath the ground. The place was like an iceberg, and the Onion top was only the tip of it.
After an eternity we got to the truck and loaded Pa into the back, leaving the hospital bed in the next empty space. Nobody even made any jokes about how ridiculous he looked in his hospital johnny, like we would have if we weren’t all in a terrified panic. Ma climbed in back with me and Pa while Barbie jumped into the front with Jed. He fished the keys out of his pocket, honked the horn, and butted out into the line of traffic. He kept honking and scooting around other cars that were backing out, forcing the truck’s way up and out of the Onion.
At the exit a security goon waved traffic along toward town, but instead Jed veered toward our side of the gore. “This isn’t the way to the stadium!” Ma cried. “The doctor told us to meet her at Zone Q! What does your brother think he’s doing?”
“Saving Pa’s life,” I said, holding on tight to the side of the truck. We were bumping along Odum’s Gash like bobsled racers. Jed leaned intently over the steering wheel. Driving couldn’t have been easy for him with his stiff leg braces. Every few seconds he checked the rearview mirror. I kept looking all around, watching for goons, but nobody was following us.
“Seb, it’s time you told me what’s been going on,” Ma said sternly. And so I told her. Just about everything. Well, maybe not everything. But enough to satisfy her, while not getting me grounded in the next life. Until the truck bounced to a stop at the Hole in the Wall.
The oasis looked different now. So much for the bright, moonlit sky. Clouds had covered our world again. The dark outlines of living trees stuck out of the mudslide. No longer did the trees dangle upside down from the cliff above. They had slid down to the ground and been buried, mostly, with a few roots sticking out here and there like creepy zombie hands in a cemetery.
Jed left the headlights shining into the cave and hopped out to open the tailgate. “We have to hurry. If the adrium containment shield