Joshua and the Lightning Road Read online

  Between patches of mist the purple sky rolled from lavender into violet, and the dim sun deepened its blue as time beat on. An orange moon slipped over the woods and rose in the sky. It seemed like I’d spend another day with Charlie in the corral, but at the last moment, a tall woman in a green-hooded robe walked closer to the edge of the platform. In one swift movement she pulled her hood off to fling back curly, black hair that streamed down to her waist. Her skin glowed pearly white and her blood-red lips stood out like ribbons on snow. I feared her beauty more than the Child Collector’s hideous face. Beautiful people had more power than ugly ones.

  “Come along, then,” the Auctioneer prodded the woman. “Got some good strong ones here for power mill work. See any you like?”

  Finn could be at the power mill! Having faced my fear of lightning to find my friend, something drove me on. I came here to rescue Finn, and there was no turning back. In trusting Charlie’s words that Finn could be at the power mill, there was only one thing to do.

  I shot up my hand. “I’ll go.”

  The kids took in one giant breath and widened their circle around me as the Auctioneer raised both eyebrows and shook his stick at me. “A volunteer? Now that’s a first. You Reekers really are dumb.” The guards joined him in laughter and the cadmean beasts threw their snouts in the air, no doubt having fun at my stupidity too.

  But the woman remained silent, staring at me with her head cocked and black eyes piercing mine.

  “What are you doing?” Charlie tugged on my shirt, but I shook him off.

  “I’m not staying here. I came to get my friend.”

  He let go of my shirt. “It’s safer in the pit.”

  “Maybe, but there’s no way out. There could be a way out somewhere else.”

  He didn’t respond, and then his hand crept up too. I shook my head at him, but he only raised his hand higher. We were partners now.

  The woman’s stare bounced back and forth from me to Charlie.

  She flicked a long finger at both of us, claiming us as her power mill slaves, along with fifteen other boys, and then she disappeared like a ghost through the haze. Was she the energy god?

  We were ordered to climb the steps, and in doing so found ourselves surrounded by guards on the platform. My new world grew bigger as I stood high above the comforting pit I’d chosen to leave. A dirt road wound away from us into the woods, taking with it the thrumming of horse hooves galloping away. The wind’s fingers pushed and pulled at me as the kids below watched and waited.

  Trees loomed around us, their splotchy birch bark glowing against the purple sky. Some twisted branches spiked upward while others sloped toward the ground and buried themselves in the earth as if hiding. I clenched my knees together to keep standing and watched the remaining sea of faces in the auction pit to focus on anything but where I might be going. There stood Red. She nodded at me, her face pinched, rapping her knuckles together. Back to the bunkhouse for her. Was she the lucky one, or us?

  “Listen up, Reekers,” the Auctioneer rasped out. “If you don’t work hard, your new boss will send you back and I’ll lose money—the Child Collector loses money.” He dragged himself forward, his stick clack-clacking on the wood floor. “And we never lose money. And if you do get sent back, you’ll be cleaning out the castle sewers with the rats. And these aren’t like Earth rats.” He picked his teeth with a ragged nail, pulled out a mushy lump, and peered at it, as if considering its worth, then chomped on it in delight. “These rats are as big as cows with tails to whip you and teeth to gnaw your tender noses and fingers.”

  He laughed with a snort but had a coughing fit and had to stop, and then waved to the boy with the clipboard. “They’re all yours.” Standing close to him, the boy now looked older than me, maybe thirteen. He smiled at me again, but this time I had no smile to return.

  The giant foxes snapped at us, rounding us into a tight circle. One of them brushed its thick tail against my leg, its enormous jaws level with my head. Razor-sharp teeth threatened to bite me in two, along with a mouth that could swallow me in one greedy gulp. The stink of raw meat blowing around me in the breeze made me choke on the throw up that rose in my throat. It burned going back down, and I pulled in my stomach, trying to make myself look less appetizing.

  The Auctioneer and the clipboard boy took a step back. The kid mouthed something to me. What did he say? He mouthed it again. It will be okay. It sure didn’t feel okay.

  “Here they come,” Charlie whispered in my ear.

  A dark swarm swelled in the sky. Dozens of wings fluttered and a cool wind swept toward me in waves. I rubbed the crystal in my pocket crazily, wishing hard to make the birds disappear. It didn’t work.

  “The korax,” Charlie said in a cracked voice. “Hold on tight. I saw a kid fall just before you got here.” He smiled to reassure me, although he nervously bounced a curled thumb to his mouth. “But he squirmed a lot. Screamed too. Broke his leg. They took him off to the bunkhouse doctor.”

  Charlie certainly had guts for wanting to come with me.

  As the swarm drew closer, they appeared as monstrous black ravens with a giant wingspan that filled the sky’s empty spaces. Their massive beaks opened and closed with gurgling croaks, but it was their eyes that terrified me. They burned a bright green, shooting us with a mean glare as they torpedoed down. Chanting words echoed across the dark land: light bringers, light bringers. Imagined words? The whirring of wing beats throbbed in my head as they grew closer, matching the beat of my own thudding heart.

  The cackling screech of these mutant birds slammed through my ears as their beaks opened on giant hinges, and tongues like fat worms squirmed about in cavernous mouths. Screaming kids pushed up against me on all sides as a rancid wind roared over us. The words light bringers stabbed me over and over, and I cupped my hands to my ears. The other boys stampeded around me, shoving, yelling, but the guards pushed us back, vapes hissing. We had nowhere to go, not with monsters and men on all sides.

  “Wh-what do I do?” I grabbed Charlie’s arm.

  He gripped my arm back−just as scared as me. “Well, don’t squirm, that’s for sure.”

  I nodded, terrified.

  “And don’t scream.”

  One of the korax swooped in. Giant talons clamped down hard on Charlie, and then he was gone. His long legs swayed up and away. Something nabbed my collar and pulled me off my feet. A scream stuck in my throat as I rose into the air. All around me screaming kids dangled from talons as long as my arm.

  With every move of its wings, a stench, like something half-eaten, crawling with maggots and buzzing with flies, wafted over me. The puke in my throat threatened to come up again, but out of my side vision birds flew below me with their captives, and I sure didn’t want to puke on anyone. We left the auction pit lights behind and flew into the dim nothing. Everywhere in front of me legs swung below feathered black blades that cut through the air in the misty gray.

  We skimmed the tops of trees that stabbed upward as if to shred me with their fingers. Pointing my feet up away from them was the one movement I dared to make. If I startled this flying beast, it might drop me to be shish-kebabbed on giant toothpicks. I remained frozen, hoping this flight of terror took me to Finn. Old dreams of flying came to me, of floating out of my bedroom window and soaring over the woods back home. But not here. Not now. Not in this evil place that took my world away.

  After a few minutes, a light glowed ahead. It grew larger and larger until it spread across an area as big as a football field. Power lines ran back and forth around a humongous brown building and fed into a big box on the roof. A fat, misshapen chimney hiccupped smoke that hovered in a thick cloud, and soft light gleamed from the building’s windows. A faint chooga-chooga noise grew louder until it became almost deafening, a steady pounding over and over.

  Chooga-chooga Chooga-chooga.

  The swarm dove down into this sound.

  We had arrived at the power mill
.

  Chapter Six

  My bird chauffeur dropped me to the ground, gave me a hard peck on my head in farewell, and jetted off. I was grateful to be back on land—and alive. The other kids fell around me, and we crammed together for warmth. Another tall fence, like the auction pit one, contained us, and we faced massive double doors that stood twice as tall as me. The entrance to the power mill.

  My new prison stretched like an abandoned warehouse, never-ending in the dark. Fogged-up, broken windowpanes were scattered across the building like old mouths with missing teeth, eager to consume me. Bars clutched at the glass, twisted and bent, holding back whatever wanted to get out. The mill’s wooden walls were singed, and a bottom floor had caved in, leaving burnt, blackened beams hanging lopsided, waiting to fall. The top of the building sagged like the mall rooftop back home that had been crushed under a Christmas snow. And over the doors were etched the words: Bring light of life upon this land, for death awaits you in the resting. Toil on!

  Very soon I would know what that meant.

  Chooga-chooga. Chooga-chooga.

  Every chooga engulfed me with the loss of my world, my friend—and Bo Chez.

  Charlie’s black hair poked up above the group of miserable kids. I pushed my way through to him, choking on the dust dozens of anxious feet stirred up, and tapped him on the shoulder. He jerked around, but before he could say anything a new sound pierced the air. The double doors opened slowly with the painful cracking of old wood.

  Yellow light flowed out and revealed the tall woman in the green robe who had bought us. She stood on a walkway overlooking us, more witch than god. Fog spun around her as the building sucked it inside. Her robe fell to just above the floor, an emerald quilt threaded with gold flecks that glinted in the light and shimmered like liquid. She strode toward us down the walkway as if floating and then stopped. All that shiny green swirled around her and fell still. Pointy black shoes with gold jewels peeked out from her robe and tapped the floor in an impatient rhythm. What crazy mess did I get Charlie and myself into?

  Guards ran through the doors and surrounded us with vapes. The sound of kids screaming jolted me back a step, my own fear bursting inside me. The doors opened wider and revealed the chooga-chooga noise. What appeared like dozens of giant hamster wheels lined the floor behind the woman, and the floor above her, and the floor above that, all in an open warehouse. The wheels were made of curved wooden slats with spaces between them like big unfinished barrels, and all boys powered them.

  “Joshua, how do they keep up?” Charlie whispered to me. “I can’t do this.”

  “If they can, we can.” It sounded braver than my insides felt, as guilt for leading Charlie here lurched through me.

  “For how long?” He poked his tongue in his cheek over and over, nibbling on a thumb.

  “As long as it takes to get out of here.”

  Finn wasn’t the only kid in need of saving.

  The woman smiled. Blue teeth filled her mouth like she’d just eaten blue candy, and she stretched out her arms, motioning for us to enter. “Come, my lovely new Reekers.” Her voice rose over the noise. “You’re miles from that cold auction pit. Don’t be afraid of hard work, for it will warm you and power our land.”

  The guards forced us inside, and we had no choice but to move forward. The fence stood too high to scale, and beyond it spread a darkness that could hold creatures scarier than the ones we’d already seen, happy to peck out our eyeballs or gobble us up for dinner. The doors creaked shut, and with a final boom we were trapped.

  Before me, hundreds of kids moved their legs back and forth as flexible metal tubes connected to gloves on their hands threaded through the slat spaces in their hamster wheels and floor grates. The tubes spun upward, coiling together in one enormous braid, and from top to bottom they fell from floor to floor like streams of silver raining down.

  Sad faces haunted me—faces that mothers and fathers missed, that grandfathers missed. Their faces had no emotion, no need to escape, as if they were already dead. I wanted to pull each and every kid off and yell, “Come on, let’s go!” We’d take down the guards and use the vapes on them. Zap. Zap. But most likely we would be the ones to die.

  Steam filled the room, mixed with the smell of sweat and moldy wood. A steady hum came from their work, and the chooga-chooga sound drummed inside me. The kids pushed into me from behind, and moving forward I could now see where the tubes from the workers’ hands gathered near the ceiling and fed into an enormous yellow balloon that floated over us like a giant cracked sun. It hung ragged with brown patches on it as if it had been repaired many times. The balloon swelled and deflated, filling up with every beat of the monotonous chooga-chooga sound. Were the tubes feeding the kids something through their hands, like an IV, to make them work harder? The whole factory was a freaky, breathing thing.

  A rectangular sign caught my eye. It had hooks, and each hook contained a red card with a number. A guard kept changing the cards, and the number grew bigger and bigger. At the corner of each floor, a guard paced alongside the kids, shouting insults and shoving vapes in their faces to make sure every single kid worked his hardest.

  The boy with the clipboard stepped out from behind the woman. He wasn’t smiling now.

  A whistle rang through the air and a bell gonged. The thunderous noise of the power mill came to a sudden halt, and in its absence came the soft panting of hundreds of red-faced boys. Each hiss of a vape in the sudden quiet jolted into me like an electric current. The balloon deflated, and the number on the ticker now read one hundred. I scanned the kids from floor to floor, searching for Finn—and a way out—but saw neither, and stuck close to Charlie who was so hunched over now, his head bent down to his waist.

  The woman clapped her hands, and the sound cut across the silence. “Bravo, my wee workers. Maximum output has been generated for the moment. Take a break. Get a drink and a bong bong to eat while I show our new friends to their places.”

  The kids limped off their machines on each floor and formed a line to a water and bathroom station. The guards prodded them with the blunt end of their snake spears, growling at them to keep moving. Another guard handed out biscuits from a bag to each kid as they passed him, and they crammed the snack in like they hadn’t eaten in days. My stomach bubbled at the thought of food.

  The woman clapped her hands again and addressed our group. “Form two lines here so Sam can record your entry and ready you for your machine.”

  We did as she said and shuffled toward Sam. Charlie stood in front of me. My stomach gurgled louder, and I pressed my hand against it to shut it up. The woman stared down her tilted-up nose at us, raised her arms, and spoke.

  “My name is Hekate, and I own you.” She towered over us, black eyes ablaze with power. “And you now work for King Apollo. You will produce the energy our land needs to survive. This is your only worth, and you will be branded as slaves of the Lost Realm.” She laughed at this while visions filled me of a flaming red iron brand being shoved into my skin. “You will work in eight-hour shifts and must make your energy quota for the day or there will be consequences.”

  She paused and looked at us one by one.

  “You do not want to face those consequences, my adorable Reekers.” Hekate folded her arms across her chest and paced up and down between our lines. Her emerald robe flowed behind her, and her shiny hair bounced as she glided back and forth. She took a step toward me, sniffed twice, and then tipped her head as if figuring out what she smelled. She finally shook her head and moved along. “When your shift is done you will be directed to the bunkhouse. There, you will eat and rest and be awakened to begin another eight-hour shift. Darlings”—she lifted her arms in a theatrical swish—“welcome to your new life.”

  The Child Collector strode in, and I gripped my stomach harder. His jumbo belly pointed the way, and his cloak swayed behind him. Goosebumps rippled across my skin, remembering him gripping me tight under his cloak up again
st that gross body.

  “Checking on my investments, Kat.” His melted flesh stretched gruesomely across his face, and his one eye settled on me. He poked a beefy finger my way, and I wanted to claw the remaining eye right out of his socket. “Make sure this one works extra hard. He bites.”

  “No worries there, brother. He’ll work harder than he’s ever worked in his whole miserable Earth life, or else … ” She smiled at me, leaving me to wonder what that or else could be. The Child Collector leaned into me. He needed no words—his smell was threat enough as his stink washed over me. My left foot skittered back and forth on the floor, and my stomach erupted a horrible wail.

  “Silence!” Hekate slashed her long finger at my face, and I considered extending my hobby as a biter. It would probably be the last bite I ever took. “Animals don’t speak. They don’t get fed, either, unless they behave.”

  She and the Child Collector moved away from me. “I smell something here I haven’t smelled in a long while.” I strained to hear Hekate speak to him, their heads bent together.

  “It’s not likely, Kat.”

  “Still … I can’t be sure of it beyond your stench, my dear.”

  “Ah, but that isn’t me.” He laughed. “That’s the glorious smell of bacon beer.”

  She shook her head, black curls tumbling. “We must keep watchful. We can’t have everything ruined. Zeus can’t get wind of it.”

  “These Reekers are traded all over Nostos. If a special one existed it could be anywhere—or nowhere.”

  “Yes, but I’ve been stopped too many times by another. I’m old and worn out.”

  “You don’t look it.” He tugged on one of her curls. She gave him a soft laugh and waved him away with a hand while flouncing her robe. He cleared his throat and his voice grew deeper. “But this body of mine is worn out. Let me have a new one.”

  She darted her eyes to us and I stared straight ahead, holding my breath. “After our big day, Cronag, when I have time and can locate the rare plants I need to work such complex magic. You know it’s been years since I’ve found them.” He gripped her wrist and she didn’t resist, but moved in closer to him and spoke so softly I had to strain to hear. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not how you desire to look, but you’re my handsome brother no matter the flesh you take on.”