Nothing Happens in Sommerville (Part Sixteen)

(Happy New Year everyone! I'll begin regularly posting again next week, but for now enjoy a new chapter of Sommerville!)

Skritch, skritch, skritch.

Mallory frowned at the faint noise slowly waking her up. Her groggy mind took a moment to recognize the sound as claws against wood. She fell into a memory, long ago in the Before times, when squirrels had infested the attic in her parents’ house. All summer, the little rodents had driven everyone crazy as they crawled inside the walls and ceiling.

The insistent scratching grew louder. Irritated, and slightly disgusted at the thought of Sommerville having a rat problem, Mallory opened her eyes, then jolted upright.

Any lingering fatigue vanished as she looked around the dimly lit room she was in. The ceiling seemed to stretch up into oblivion, yet the rough texture of the walls and floor indicated she was deep underground. Large metal containers lined the cavernous space in neat rows, almost all with a bright red X spray painted on them.

Where am I? Mallory struggled to her feet, fighting a brief wave of vertigo at the movement. She took a sharp breath, and winced at the unexpected pain in her throat. That wasn't normal. She hoped she could find someone who could explain what had happened to her.

Once the nausea passed, and she felt confident about her footing, she decided her best bet was to find the exit. Mallory took a step forward. . .

. . .And jumped at the loud jangle of metal and sudden resistance around her leg. Alarms buzzed in her mind as she spied the metal band around her ankle, connected by a thick chain to the wall. 

It all came rushing back.

She’d gone up on the Wall and seen the truth for herself. The real state of the world outside, the crumbling decay of Sommerville and its resources, the secrets upon secrets that Tye had kept hidden from everyone.

Her horror turned to outrage as she remembered what Tye had done to her. Nearly strangling her to death and promising to turn Bennet against her. And now? Chaining her in an abandoned storage unit like some kind of animal?

“He’s not getting away with this,” Mallory vowed darkly.

She followed the chain back to a large ring embedded in the wall. Thin cracks spiderwebbed over the stone surface, extending from the manmade hole. Perhaps, with enough force, she’d be able to free herself. Taking a deep breath, Mallory lifted up the chain and yanked. 

Nothing.

“Come on,” she commanded herself, “You have to get free. You have to tell everyone the truth!”

After a few more desperate tugs, she dropped the chain with a frustrated sigh. She hadn’t made any progress. Not a single new crack had formed from all her efforts. 

Mallory placed her hands on her hips and tried to think. Accepting defeat was not an option; not while Tye was still in charge. She had to get out, if not for herself, then for her child and her friends. And Bennet.

A sickening thought wormed into her mind as she pulled her wedding ring off her finger and studied the gold band.

Bennet had known the truth. Not just about the world or Sommerville’s imminent failure, but about Tye. He’d known what kind of man their leader was. Known that all those people “visiting” other compounds were never coming back. And he’d said nothing. 

If Bennet had lied to her about something as important as Tye and Sommerville, how could she believe anything else he’d said? Was any of it real?

Had he ever actually loved her? 

As if sensing her distress, Mallory felt the baby kick. She pressed a hand over her stomach and forced herself to breathe.

“You’re right. No use in thinking about it,” she said, ignoring the slight blur in her vision. All that mattered now was freeing herself and stopping Tye.

She pushed all thoughts of Bennet aside and slipped the ring into her pocket. With renewed vigor, she pulled against her restraint. The chain jingled at each sharp jerk, but showed no signs of weakening. Finally, drenched in sweat and with aching palms, Mallory flung the chain down.

“Damn it!” Her enraged shout echoed around the chamber. “Are you kidding me, Tye?! You can’t just leave me down here to rot! People will notice!”

Of course, that didn’t mean anything. Not when Mallory now knew Tye had been making people disappear for years. Noticed or not, no one would dare say anything against Sommerville’s leader. 

“Stupid.” She paced back and forth, trying and failing to remain in control of her panic. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. What was I thinking? Going up on the Wall—”

SCRATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH.

Mallory’s mouth snapped shut. Between her racing thoughts and escape efforts, she’d completely tuned out the obnoxious scratching sound, nor noticed when it had abruptly fallen silent.

Now it was back. And it was far louder than before.

Unease crept over her. She took a slow step back, causing the chain to drag against the floor with a low rattle.

The scratching sound grew more frantic and was followed by an unnatural angry screech that made Mallory’s heart stop.

I know that sound.

She stared in horror at the wall as the scratching was joined with slaps and thuds, as if a multitude of people were pounding on the rocks in an effort to get in. The chain rattled and clanged where it was attached to the wall, ringing like a dinner bell and driving the creatures outside into a frenzy.

“They can’t get me,” she whispered to herself. “There’s no way they can get me. The Wall’s supposed to keep them out.”

And while the thick structure seemed to hold, that didn’t stop Mallory from backing away as far as her chain would allow and remaining completely still. 

She didn’t know how much time had passed before the frantic scraping and shrieking began to die down. The creatures must have realized it would be impossible for them to break in. Mallory hoped they’d given up for good. As relieved as she was that they’d gone away, she couldn’t stop herself from worrying over their boldness and proximity to Sommerville.

They only get this close when they know a compound’s about to fall. They’ll try climbing the Wall next, and that’s when the bloodbath starts.

“Stop it,” Mallory argued with herself. “That was just a nightmare. These. . . things showing up doesn’t mean anything.”

But as she knelt down to try to force the shackle off, there was a heavy foreboding over her. One born out of death and destruction that she’d lived through before. 

The silence ticked by as Mallory pried and clawed at the thick metal encircling her ankle. She’d hoped taking her boot and sock off would help, but no such luck. She never got far before the pain of the iron digging into her skin forced her to stop. Short of gnawing her own foot off, she wouldn’t be escaping the chain anytime soon. With an angry groan, Mallory sprawled out on the rocky floor and glared up at the dark ceiling.

“This is it, then. I’m going to die down here.” She rubbed her stomach with a scowl. “Tye’s going to keep me around long enough to have you, but then whck!” She dragged her finger across her throat. “Lights out for mommy.”

Her mind unhelpfully dug up a memory of Bennet teasing her about her propensity for drama. It only made Mallory’s mood darken.

“That lying scumbag,” she muttered. “How could he be friends with a psychopath like Tye? Unless he’s just as bad, in which case. . .” Mallory shook her head. “No, no. He can’t be. He can’t. Besides, what was all that ‘killing for me’ b.s. about? Was that just a lie, too?”

Her baby didn’t react, as if refusing to comment. 

“Hmmpf. Doesn’t matter anyway since I’m going to die here.” She turned her head and frowned at the countless steel vats around her. “Wherever here is.”

As Mallory’s eyes ran over the container closest to her, she noticed a small square of text embedded into the metal. Curious, she pushed herself off the floor and drew as near to the structure as she could. The chain kept her a short few feet away, but close enough for her to decipher the words as: “Item: 132 Qty: 3000 lbs Expct: 2 yrs.”

Humming in thought, Mallory approached the next closest container and learned it was item #146 with a much smaller quantity, but with an indefinite expectancy. She moved on to the next one and the next, until she’d read all the labels on the containers within her field of vision. All of them displayed similar information, each with its own identification number, quantity amount and life expectancy.

I’m in the food storage room, she concluded. There was nothing else in Sommerville that would need a space this large, yet the cavern looked to be abandoned. Mallory had a sinking suspicion that if she were to open any of the containers, she’d find nothing there. The red Xs painted onto the sides seemed to take on a bloodier hue.

A hollow chasm opened inside Mallory’s chest as she stared at the visible markers of Sommerville’s failure. Why had Tye even bothered locking her up? Everything would end in a few weeks, regardless of if she had exposed him or not.

Why had she wanted to tell everyone the truth anyway? There was nothing outside of Sommerville, nothing except darkness and bloodthirsty monsters and suffocating poison. She remembered choking on the toxic air outside, the sensation of her insides burning overpowered by the far greater rush of adrenaline as she fled through the woods on an acid-infected leg toward Sommerville.

No, that’s not right, she corrected herself. I was driving from my compound to Sommerville, that’s how I lost my leg.

Yet Mallory had never been able to remember any part of her wreck. But that nightmare—the one that had been plaguing her since Sommerville’s first sign of weakness—was something she could picture perfectly. The human teeth sinking into her thigh was as vivid in her memory as it was when she’d first dreamed it; so was the poison spreading through her veins. How could a nightmare seem more real than her own past?

All the air rushed out of her lungs. Mallory stumbled to the wall and leaned against its rocky surface. Her pulse roared in her ears as visions of her nightmare flashed through her mind’s eye. The faces of people she’d been tricked into forgetting, her home shattering under a hungry mass of living darkness, her family—

Tye and Bennet had lied about everything.

Fury and betrayal wrenched her heart in half. She closed her eyes, allowing the few escaped tears to run down her cheeks, and leaned her head back. The cold of the rocky wall seeped into her bones, chasing away the disorganized flames of outrage with hateful clarity.

She wouldn’t die down here.

Mallory sat on the ground and removed her boot again. Then she removed her wooden leg and weighed it in her hands. The prosthetic wasn’t hollow, and had fallen onto Bennet’s toes enough times to indicate it was heavy—and hurt like hell. She only hoped its sturdiness didn’t betray her now.

She traced her finger around the iron manacle on her ankle with a bitter smile. Tye must have assumed she would be too afraid to damage her good leg to risk such an extreme escape. In spite of everything, he still underestimated her.

Mallory raised the wooden limb overhead and decided she would make him pay for that mistake.