21 – Voodoo Magic

I wake to the sound of muffled voices arguing, their words echoing strangely off the curved tunnel walls. The acoustics down here make everything sound wrong – distant voices seem close, nearby sounds feel far away. I open my eyes and see particles of dust floating through small beams of sunlight that penetrate the ceiling above, creating ghostly columns in the stale air.

Amari and Papa are by my side, watching over me, unaware I am regaining consciousness. Their shadows stretch long and distorted across the chamber walls, making them look like towering giants in the dim light.

“The only reason you are still alive is because of Amari,” Braam’s gruff voice bounces off the walls. “If she were not here, I would have already broken your backs.”

I sit up and look around, curious as to who Braam is arguing with. We’re in what appears to be some kind of ancient maintenance chamber, roughly circular with a domed ceiling about fifteen feet high. The walls are lined with rusted pipes and corroded control panels, their functions long forgotten. Strange symbols and numbers are stenciled on the walls in faded yellow paint, their meanings lost to time. The chamber feels wrong somehow, as if the curved walls are slowly closing in around us.

A dilapidated and broken door sits askew on the left wall, thin rays of light breaking through the cracks around its frame like probing fingers. The metal floor is covered in decades of dust, except for strange circular patterns that look unsettlingly like massive footprints.

“Neeka! How are you feeling?” Papa asks, his eyes are wide, and his smile seems to stretch the entire width of his face. The relief in his voice is palpable.

I wipe my eyes to clear the haze and notice two men sitting on the ground across the room. I blink. It’s the Fat Man and his guard, Cyrus. The Fat Man’s face is slick with sweat despite the cool underground air, and his eyes dart nervously around the chamber. Every few seconds, he jerks his head toward the dark tunnel we came through, as if expecting something to emerge from the shadows.

“What are they doing here?” I ask. “And why are they still breathing?”

“Because Amari has a soft spot for the Fat Man,” says Isaiah, his voice echoing oddly in the chamber.

The Fat Man flinches at a distant metallic groan from somewhere in the tunnel system. “We need to leave,” he mutters, more to himself than anyone else. “The tunnels… they’re not right. Not right at all.” He wipes his brow with a trembling hand. “I’ve heard stories about these old maintenance tunnels. Workers disappeared down here, even before the Shift. Something about the curves, the way sound travels… it does things to your mind.”

I want to argue about keeping them alive. I want to jump across the room and boot their heads clean off. But I don’t want to upset Amari. Besides, I doubt these two will survive the Dread Wastes anyway. The Fat Man seems to be unraveling already, his usual arrogant demeanor replaced by barely contained panic.

I look up at Amari and smile. “How long have I been out?”

“About four hours,” she says with a soft voice. Her words seem to hang in the air longer than they should. “You took a bullet in the back and it lodged against the inside of one of your ribs. I was able to remove it and seal the wound.”

Another groan echoes through the tunnels, closer this time. The Fat Man whimpers and presses himself against the wall. Even Cyrus looks uncomfortable, his hand tightening on his weapon.

“Does it hurt?” Papa asks, offering me a hand as I shift my position. Behind him, one of the dust columns seems to twist unnaturally, as if disturbed by movement no one can see.

I twist my torso and rotate my arms to test out my pain level. “Not much,” I say. “Surprising for a bullet wound. I thought it would be more painful.”

“I think your healer friend here works some kind of voodoo magic,” says Isaiah as he points to Amari. His voice drops to a whisper, as if afraid of being overheard by whatever might be lurking in the darkness beyond our chamber.

“What’s voodoo?” I ask.

“It’s from the old world,” explains Isaiah. “It’s a dark art and always comes with a price. So, you better be careful.” His words seem to make the shadows in the corners of the chamber deeper, more threatening.

The Fat Man speaks up to defend Amari, his voice cracking with strain. “It’s not voodoo. It’s a gift. And I imagine none of us would be alive now without her. She’s healed all of us here at some point, except for Jeremiah.” He glances nervously at the tunnel again. “We need to go. Now. These tunnels… they remember things. Bad things. The curves aren’t natural. They were built this way on purpose, to trap-” He cuts himself off, shuddering.

“He’s right about Amari,” says Papa, ignoring the Fat Man’s ramblings. “So maybe you can cut her some slack.”

Isaiah walks over and kneels next to us, looking Amari in her eye. The dust motes swirl around them in an almost deliberate pattern. “I don’t mean to sound ill toward you girl. Voodoo or gift…it doesn’t matter to me. I am grateful all the same.”

Amari smiles and nods at him.

Isaiah slaps his hands to his knees and says, “Now let’s see if we can get out of here.” No one disagrees. Even those who scoffed at the Fat Man’s fears earlier are starting to feel the oppressive weight of the tunnels.

He walks over to the door and tugs at it, but it barely moves. Braam reaches over, grabs a good handhold on the door and helps him. With the combined pulling force of the two men, the old door cracks and begins to splinter before breaking loose from the wall and falling to the ground. A cloud of dust billows up, obscuring the view outside. For a moment, the dust seems to form into shapes – faces, perhaps, or reaching hands – before dissolving into nothing.

After a few seconds, the dust settles and we all make our way through the splintered opening of this dark tomb, making ourselves vulnerable to whatever may lie beyond the darkness that has been our safety for the past few hours. The Fat Man practically runs through the opening, desperate to escape the tunnels’ embrace.

I hold my hand up to shield my eyes from the blinding sunlight as fresh air fills my lungs. The air is a much-needed respite from the choking atmosphere of the tunnel. I slowly turn my head while taking everything in. I need to get my bearings, but I also need to know how safe we are from whatever chaos lies before us. As I focus my eyes southward, I can see pillars of smoke snaking skyward above the ruins of Arcmire.

The Fat Man falls to his knees and cries out. “Oh, my beautiful home. What have they done?”

“There was nothing beautiful about it,” I say, grateful to be in the open air where sounds behave as they should.

“Arcmire was filled with death and despair and you made it that way,” Papa raged. “It deserved to be destroyed. Although, all those people…their deaths…such a shame.”

Isaiah puts his hand on my shoulder, and we stare at the distant plumes for a few seconds before he pulls me away. Behind us, the broken door seems to groan on its own, as if the tunnels are lamenting our departure.

“We have to go,” he says. “We should be able to make it to Graven Pointe with light to spare if we leave now.”

“What about these two?” Braam asks as he shoves Cyrus into the Fat Man. They both tumble to the ground, stirring up a heap of sand.

“They go any direction they choose as long as it’s not the same as us,” says Isaiah.

I look at them, wishing I could cause them to drop dead from my stare, but it doesn’t work. “If either of you follow us,” I say. “I will run you down and drive my boot knife through your eye.”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Braam adds with a smirk on his face. “She’s fast.”

I can still hear the Fat Man sobbing as we walk away, following Isaiah in the direction of Graven Pointe. Hopefully, the city is as wonderful as Isaiah has made it out to be. Although almost anywhere would be better than where we’ve been. As we leave, I resist the urge to look back at the tunnel entrance. Something about those curved walls and strange acoustics makes me think the Fat Man wasn’t entirely wrong – there are some places that hold onto the darkness of the past, and those maintenance tunnels seem determined never to let it go.