Silo

Chapter 33

I don't know how long Meredith and I sat there. She stayed quiet for the most part, listening as I processed through my darkest fears. At the end, we came to the same conclusion-we had two choices and neither was good. 

We found Keith and Evan in the common room, huddled over the ground. They both stood up when they saw us come in, Meredith's hand locked in mine. Keith smiled, nodding in her direction. I knew right then and there that he'd sent her to me after I told him to leave me alone. 

"You good?" Evan asked, hoping I'd walk through the door he'd just opened, all the while knowing I'd stay quiet. 

"Yup, but we got a kid tied up down there who's itching for blood, six others who are going are going to start wondering where he is, and a bag of bloody weapons in the supply room that I took off Tyler. But other than that, I'm good." 

Evan's gaze flicked to the hallway behind me. "What are you thinking?" 

"There is no way I'm gonna let him loose. I don't know about you, but I'm not living my life waiting for him to show back up." Evan and Keith nodded, and I continued. "The way I see it, we got two options. We either leave or we kill him." 

I looked at Keith as I voiced plan B. Out of all of us, he'd be the only one willing to do it. Probably the only one capable doing it. Regardless of the satisfaction I knew he'd gain from spilling Tyler's blood, I doubted it'd come without a price...a price that may very well send Keith tumbling into the same dark abyss as Tyler.  

I thought back to our first months in the silo after the storm hit, how we'd stayed underground with what few supplies we'd managed to take from the stores on the outskirts of town. What lie above ground was mayhem. Widespread panic.  

Going topside back then meant risking your life. People didn't think twice about taking you down for a pair of shoes or bag or rice. Keith had learned that lesson the hard way. He got cooped up our first month underground and went above ground to get some air. He stumbled back down four hours later without a stitch of clothing on, bloodied and bruised. He still claims he landed a few blows before all was said and done, but who knows. 

We stayed locked in out Silo after that until our need for food and water sent us venturing out four months later. Things had quieted down by then, the town nothing more than a looted pile of ash. We talked about trying to find our way home back, but with winter barreling down on us, it made better sense just to stay put. Eventually we stopped talking about home, our plans giving way to the simple fact that none of us wanted visual confirmation of what we feared...what we knew had become of our families. It was safer, easier just to stay here and surround ourselves with haunted hope.  

But if we left Tyler alive, then the tenuous grip we had on our safety would be gone forever.  

The way I figured it, we didn't have a choice at all. "I say we leave, maybe try to figure out how to get home. Problem is, we've been here since the damn storm and still we have no clue where we are."  

"That's not exactly true." Evan backed up, giving me full view of the map they were sketching out on the silo floor. "We were just about to come get Meredith and see if she could fill in some blanks for us."  

My eyes swept over the lines, impressed with the little bit of detail they'd managed to get down. The town we'd crashed by was marked, as well as some of the neighboring areas we'd passed through on the bus.  

Meredith stooped down and traced her fingers across the lines they'd scratched into the cement. "This is pretty good actually." She dropped her index finger to a larger circle, tapping the spot. "What's this though...the spot way down here?" 

I knew what the circle was, could smell my mom's coffee, almost hear my sister's voice. It was Redwood. It was home. Keith and Evan had drawn it to the South, nearly off the map. I had no clue how or why they believed it was there, but just seeing it-even if it was completely misplaced-gave me a sense of peace.  

Evan nodded. "Yeah, based on the map you were drawing for me, we figured our hometown might be a few hundred miles from her. I think the road we were on when the bus overturned was a straight shot south." 

Meredith smiled, a full-on, genuine grin that I hadn't seen in...well, ever. "You're right that it's to the South, but it's no more than a hundred miles tops." She watched as Evan pulled his glasses from his face and rubbed his eyes hard before refocusing on the map. "I thought you guys knew how close you were. I just assumed it was too dangerous to try to make it."  

I stared at Meredith, barely able to process what she was saying. I'd fallen asleep the minute I stepped foot on that bus, hoping to sleep away the nine hour ride ahead of us. I woke up to the bus rolling over and power lines snapping around us. I figured we'd only been on the road for a few hours, never once imagining we were that close to home. One hundred miles? One hundred miles! That was like a four-day hike. Max!  

"How do you know that?" I asked, wondering how certain she was about this information. I'd learned to be skeptical out here, not to let my mind wander too far into optimism or I'd go crazy.  

"I'm positive. My soccer team used to play Redwood." 

I took a minute to wrap my brain around the stupidly insignificant fact of who her soccer team played. For the first time since I'd found Meredith, I'd been forced to remember her age. . . the fact that she was just another high school kid like me. She had a family, friends...hell, she was even on a soccer team before all of this happened to her. I'd spent so much time thinking about how to make her trust me, how to erase the horrors she'd seen, and yet I had no clue what her life was like to begin with. 

"Is there anything of yours in the other silo? Anything of yours you need before we all head out?" I asked 

"You're taking me with you?" She sounded suprised, and I stared at her for a minute, wondering where the hell she came up with the idea that I wouldn't.  

Not thinking, I leaned in and kissed her cheek, the salt from her tears clinging to my chapped lips. "Yeah, I'm taking you with me."  

I pulled back and nodded to Keith and Evan, gesturing for them to follow me into the hallway. Lowering my voice, I told them my plan. "I think we need to go soon. I'll get some supplies packed up. Evan, do you think you can draw that map from memory?"  

"Shouldn't be a problem. But if it's all the same to you, I think we should wait until morning to head out." 

I fanned out my hands for him to continue, not opposed to spending a few more hours down here, just curious as to why he thought it was necessary 

"The way I see it," Evan started, his feet shuffling nervously as he looked over at Meredith. "That hike is going to take us at least four days and we got six guys who are going to be pissed when they realize what we've done to Tyler. We aren't going to get far in the dark, so I say we wait for daylight, get a good thirty miles between us and them before we have to stop and rest."  

I nodded-a few more hours isn't going to make a difference-then turned towards Keith. "Can you deal with Tyler?"  

"And by deal with Tyler, you mean you're gonna let me string him up?" Keith asked, a sinister grin playing on his face as he played with his knife.  

I tried for a smile, knowing Keith was only half-joking. "No. If we start killing people now, and we're no better than him. I say we keep him tied up and toss him back into the shithole he crawled out of."  

Evan looked at me, his expression a mixture of shock and panic. "So you're saying we take him home and drop him off? Hope he doesn't get loose, kill those six other boys, and then come after us?" 

"That's exactly what I'm saying. If we plan this right, then we'll have a good day's start on him."