Joshua and the Lightning Road Read online

  “There’s no way out, boy.” My gray-cloaked kidnapper towered above me from the platform where he had thrown me. The angry-red side of his scarred face was partially hidden by his flopping hat, and under it, that one green eye burned into me just as it had in my nightmares when he’d tried to kill me with a lightning bolt. He tapped his thumbs on his fat stomach that spread under a dingy, white shirt, and his stubby legs were squeezed into black pants that clung to every bulge and rolled over the tops of his brown boots like a brim of blubber. He scratched his bumpy half-nose, snaking his eyebrow in concentration, then stuck a sausage finger up the good side of it and rooted around to pull out a green glob and flick it at me. It landed at my feet with a wet slap.

  “That’s the only food you’ll get today, Reeker!” He laughed a deep, horrible laugh and then spit. A brown chunk plopped on my sneaker. “And there’s your dessert. Now they’ll put you to work with the rest of these Reekers.”

  “Not before I find my friend you stole.” It burst out of me, sparked by a surge of courage.

  The man jabbed the air at me with a crooked stick he pulled from under his cloak. My bite marks cut across his filthy hand. Good. His one eyebrow crinkled into a long, hairy snake as he scowled at me. The kids around me shrunk back, their sour sweat blowing over me as they moved, and beneath the smell of their fear lay the smell of rain and mud.

  “Think you’re here for a play date, boy? I could have been a soldier if it weren’t for the likes of you Reekers. Now it’s payback time.” He tugged on the scraggly beard that flowed down his cloak, then spread out his hands. “Listen up, Reekers. You’re going off to work soon and good riddance. And you’ll work hard or you’ll lead a much more miserable life than need be.”

  With that, he turned and swung his hefty, ugly self away from the platform, his gray cloak billowing behind him like a storm cloud. I heard a horse whinny and then the thundering of hooves. Probably the very horse on which he’d carted me from wherever we landed. There was no waking up from the nightmare this time. As soon as he left, the whispers began.

  “I want to go home.” “How long do we have to stay here?” “Do you think they’ll let us go?” “What’s gonna happen to us?” “I don’t want to die.”

  Their words churned around me when a boy leaned down in to my face. “Allo, where’d you come from?” He had dark skin and a strange accent and smelled like the mothballs Bo Chez packed in our winter clothes. I shook the spit off my shoe and straightened, reaching into my pockets. My mother’s photo and the crystal were still there. I gripped them tight, staring at the tall, skinny kid whose black hair sat plastered to his head. He tugged on the hem of his torn T-shirt to stretch it down, but it barely reached his waist, and his giant sneakers poked out from jeans that were way too short to be cool.

  “New York.” My dry throat made it hurt to talk.

  “I’m from France. We’re from all over.” The other kids nodded, many with dirt-smudged faces streaked with tears. Small groups huddled here and there, but a few stood alone and just stared at the sky as if it could magically whisk them away. There were about fifty of them and most were my age, but where was Finn—or a way out?

  Two men on the platform held giant spears with tips that waved like flags blowing in the wind. A trick of light in the fog? No—hissing snakeheads with yawning mouths revealed shiny fangs. The heads darted back and forth as forked tongues flickered in and out, searching for something to strike. One head focused on me, its jaws stretched open wide as if it could swallow me whole. It leaned forward on the spear that held it in place, and venomous foam dripped from its mouth. Its glittery eyes told me just how eager it was to sink those fangs into my neck.

  I shivered in my T-shirt and looked away at the outline of trees stretching beyond the fence into the unknown darkness. A burnt electric smell charged the air as static burst from the hanging lights like bugs being zapped. The eerie sound made the cold and damp even worse. Fear of not finding Finn—and of dying—crawled through me like a diseased worm.

  The sounds of so many kids crying made my own despair worse, and I turned back to the tall boy hunched over. “Where are we? And who’s that guy in the cloak?” My voice must have gotten louder because he put his fingers to his lips.

  “Shh. Don’t want those guards over here.”

  I whispered this time, tapping my foot to calm my nerves. “Is this another country?”

  He chewed on the skin around his fingernails and shook his head. “The Lost Realm of Nostos.”

  “Where?”

  “Another world connected to … ah … la foudre.”

  Another world echoed inside me as I stumbled from my jittery tapping and twisted my foot. Pain shot through me, and the knowledge this wasn’t Earth. He grabbed my arm to steady me. I pulled on my bangs, a safer alternative to foot tapping.

  “La what?”

  He took his finger out of his mouth and waved it as he struggled for words. “The guard called it the lightning … lightning road.”

  “What we came down?”

  “Oui. A road of fire.”

  “It didn’t burn.”

  His eyes scrunched up and the finger went back in his mouth. “I thought I’d died and was going to hell surfing those flames.”

  The wind whipped around my head like the fierce wind of the fire road. “Yeah, a scary space roller coaster. What happens if you fall off it?”

  “I guess you die. You can’t breathe in space.” But we could breathe here, even with this foul, tart air coating my tongue. The boy scrunched further down. “Besides, where would you end up?”

  “Somewhere better than here, and away from the gross man that took us. Who is he?”

  The boy switched from finger chewing to knuckle chewing and leaned in closer. His bony arms and legs stuck out at angles, and he frowned his pointy face. “The Child Collector. Or one of them. He steals kids to sell them off here in the auction pit.”

  “He called me ‘Reeker.’”

  “Oui, they call us Reekers because they think we stink—odeur infecte. Ha!”

  It would be great to infect that Child Collector with some nasty disease.

  “I’ve dreamed about that guy.”

  “Have you been here before?”

  “How could I?”

  The boy shrugged, as puzzled as me, and the guards yelled at us to shut up. The low buzz in the pit quieted down.

  I lowered my voice. “I’ve got to find my friend. Did you see him? He’s got black hair with freckles.”

  “They just sold off some kids to the power mill before you came. Maybe he was one.”

  What kind of place sells kids?

  Focusing on the tall kid took my mind off the awful mess I’d gotten myself into. He picked at his ripped black T-shirt with a faded skull on it and shuffled his worn sneakers. One had a big hole on the side.

  “Why are you still here?” I said.

  “Ahh, not sure.” The kid banged on his skinny chest. “Too tall? I’m Charlie.”

  “Joshua.”

  I stuck my hands in my pockets to find my chocolate stash and split it with him, careful to hide it from the other kids. He nodded, grateful, and stuck it in his mouth. “Sweet chocolat.” His big eyes widened then closed with happiness. Mine tasted like a piece of home. It melted, sweet on my tongue. Too soon it was gone.

  “What do they want from us?” I said.

  “They steal kids from Earth for their workhouses. Something about being slaves to the heirs of the gods.”

  “What gods?”

  “No idea.”

  And to think I’d laughed at Bo Chez’s adventure stories. If only he were here to tell me how to save Finn like the heroes in his stories. I was no hero.

  Suddenly, the other kids crowded in closer and shoved Charlie up against me, their heat swelling across me in waves. And then I saw why.

  Four black foxes had joined the guards on the platform and trotted around them
in loops—except they were unlike any foxes that had run through our backyard. Their heads were even with the shoulders of the men and their legs were as big as a horse’s. Fur covered them in slicked back, shiny spikes. They sniffed the platform and panted, thick tongues pulsing out of their mouths, and saliva dripped down in big gobs. Muscles rippled up and down their bodies like quivering arrows as their bushy tails swished back and forth. I flinched with each swish, my feet desperate to run, but they were frozen in place. The foxes jerked their heads up in unison, and it felt like spiders skittered up my spine. Red eyes glowed bright like lava and burned fiercely into mine, hungry for what I feared was me.

  “Cadmean beasts,” Charlie whispered to me. The kids pushed us back, moving away from the monsters on the platform. I tripped, heading in the same direction, just as a big gust of wind almost knocked me over. Charlie grabbed my shoulder to keep me on my feet.

  One of the guards stepped out from the tented canopy, lifted the top on a wooden chest, and hauled out a bloody slab of meat almost as big as the chest. He dumped it on the platform near us with a splat, and the foxes leapt at it, snarling and howling. Each pulled off a piece. They could just as easily lunge down into our pit and tear us apart, limb by limb. One of the beasts looked up from its feast and stared at me, coals of fire burning bright. Its ears twitched and juice dripped down its giant jaws.

  And then it grinned at me.

  My bones petrified right then and there, melding my body into one big, unmoving log. The beast went back to eating, savagely shaking its head back and forth as it ripped and shredded its dinner.

  My toes curled under, wanting to hide.

  And I knew: I was in over my head. Way over my head.

  Chapter Four

  I looked away from the monstrous foxes and strained to see beyond the fog, when a girl with bright orange hair tugged my shirt. She looked like a leprechaun with big green eyes and freckles like Finn’s, so I decided to call her Red.

  “You don’t want to go to the power mill.” Her accent was thicker than Charlie’s, but different. She felt my arm up and down, and I pulled away from her. “Nice muscles though. You’d work out good there.”

  “What happens at the power mill?”

  “That’s where they send the boys. They need you to make light and energy,” Red said. “They use us girls for different things on Nostos, and in other lands.” She shook her hair angrily, and water drops sprayed us.

  “Other lands? Like this one?”

  Red nodded. “Some with deserts and oceans and volcanoes. At least, that’s what I’ve put together listening to the guards since I’ve been here.” She glanced around, then spoke quieter, her eyes growing bigger. “They say there are worse places than this. We could be digging in the coal mines on the Fire Realm. They traded a bunch of big boys yesterday to go work there for some fire god.”

  That awful reality hit hard, and I shared a scared glance with Charlie who gnawed at his knuckles again, now marked red across both hands. I didn’t know if making energy sounded any better than digging coal mines. My throat burned with the thought, and I squeezed my elbows into my sides and changed the subject. “Doesn’t the sun ever come out here?”

  “Not a sun like ours,” Red said, pointing at the pale blue sun hanging over us that faded in and out between the mist in the treetops. “And all it does here is mizzle. Like back home in Devon.”

  “Mizzle?” Charlie screwed up his face. “That’s not a word.”

  “Is so,” Red said.

  “Is not,” I said.

  “Misty drizzle.”

  “So made up,” Charlie said.

  “So not. We’re being mizzled on right now,” Red said with a serious face.

  “Better than being whizzled on.” I swallowed a laugh that boiled in my throat, tasting the acrid air.

  “Not funny. It’s a true word from the English moors I come from. You saying my people are liars?” She looked like she would cry like so many others here, and I didn’t think I could take that.

  “No, no, mon amie,” Charlie whispered for us both, and all joking disappeared. We were quiet as a guard paced the platform and cracked the air with his snake spear, threatening to zap us just for fun, then he retreated back under the canopy.

  I pointed at Red. “How long you been here?”

  “A week,” Red said.

  “In this pit?”

  “No, they cart us off at night to a big bunkhouse where we sleep, then bring us back here.” A tear squeezed out of her eye and rolled down her cheek.

  “Has anyone escaped back home … or to other lands?” I said, after she wiped her face.

  Charlie and Red looked at one another and back at me. I pushed my fingers against my forehead, waiting to hear good news as the crying kids, the laughing guards, and the crackling lights all throbbed inside me. I stared at the ground and kicked the dirt with my sneaker, pushing it away.

  “One kid tried today,” Red finally said and grabbed my arm, leaning in with sour breath. This time I didn’t pull away; her fingers were like ice cubes pressing into me.

  Charlie nodded.

  They stood in silence until I couldn’t take it anymore. “What happened?”

  “He climbed the fence—” Charlie said.

  “—took off running—”

  More silence.

  “The foxes held him down—”

  “—while the vapes struck him,” Red finished.

  “Vapes?” I said.

  “Vaporizers. The snake spears the guards carry,” Red said. “They blasted him good.”

  “And just like that, he disappeared.” Charlie nodded, chewing his bottom lip. “Désastre.”

  Disaster and death.

  “Oh, man,” I said, holding my breath, not wanting to suck in the air filled with dead kid dust.

  A bell rang and the guards stood up straighter.

  “What’s happening?” I looked over at Charlie. He stood up straight for the first time, his height giving him a clear view.

  “The Auctioneer is back.” He hunched down again.

  A tall, thin man in a black gown with a hooked nose stepped up to the platform and the kids stopped whispering. Mist drops ran down my face and neck, and the breeze turned into icy prickles on my skin. Panic churned in my gut and exploded up my throat.

  A small boy carrying a clipboard stepped up beside the Auctioneer. He was thin and pale with huge black eyes, white hair, and wore a gray shirt with black pants. The boy smiled at me. I smiled back, daring to believe someone here could help me.

  The Auctioneer shuffled his papers and, muttering to himself, stepped under the canopy to scramble about a desk, searching for something. He yelled at the guards to help him look. The boy stood on the platform, waiting with his hands folded together and stared at his feet.

  “Charlie,” I whispered. “I’ve got to find my friend and get home.”

  He stared down at me, his eyes as blue as the sky back home on a sunny day.

  “Just this morning I was reading to my little brother who was home sick,” Charlie said. “My dad’s always traveling and my mom had to go to work, so I stayed with him, but now he’s all alone.”

  He sucked in shaky breaths. Don’t cry. I would, if he did. I remembered a kid at my old school whose younger brother went missing. They never did find him. The family was all messed up about it. And then all those missing kid reports on TV ran through my head. Were they here? Doom filled every part of me.

  “You’re lucky,” I said. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters. Just a grandfather. Kids at school made fun of me for that.”

  He nodded and blew out a big breath of faint chocolate that smelled like the promise of home. “Well, I don’t miss my dad. He’s always yelling at me. Told me I’d never make any money wanting to be an artist.”

  “Hey, I want to be an artist too,” I said, hoping to make him feel better.

  “That’s cool. Are you goo
d?”

  “Sometimes. Are you?”

  “My brother thought so.”

  He poked his thumb into his cheek and looked like he would cry again.

  “You’ll get home,” I said, wanting to believe it too.

  But Charlie just shook his head and lowered his voice. “We’re Reekers now. I’m not saying you won’t find your friend. You might. But we’ll never get home again.”

  To an only child who moved as much as we had, “home” had no great meaning. But now the word held everything lost—Bo Chez.

  The Auctioneer huffed and, grabbing what he found, made his way back to us. I rubbed the crystal in my pocket, its smooth surface comforting me with the hope of power.

  “Time for you Reekers to get to work. This auction is open for business!” The Auctioneer frowned down at us and banged his stick on the platform, then rang a bell with his long, misshapen fingers. It clanged across the auction pit as he grinned with jagged brown-spotted teeth.

  Nothing about his smile made me think I would ever get home again.

  Chapter Five

  A fat, scowling chef bought plenty of girls for the bakehouse, and a skinny woman with gnarled fingers and black nails took a bunch of boys and girls to the greenhouse. Many went willingly, but a few struggled, crying and dragging their feet. The threat of being vaporized kept them moving. One soldier needed servants for the king and passed a bag of gold to the Auctioneer to buy several big boys.