Read Alive for Free Online Page A

mistaken for a thin scratch. I don’t see any handles, any way to open them.
    “Promising,” Aramovsky says. “Your leadership is off to a wonderful start.”
    I ignore him.
    Spingate steps forward and wipes dust from the archway’s right side, revealing sparkling gemstones set into the flaking metal.
    Her lips move. I wait while she thinks.
    “It’s similar to the coffins,” she says finally. “I push these three red jewels—”
    She presses them, one, two, three, each jewel moving down a tiny bit until it clicks.
    Below the jewels, a small panel pops open. Inside are two holes, same as we saw in the coffins.
    Spingate claps and jumps up and down, delighted with her discovery.
    I look at her, amazed. “How do you know how to do that?”
    She bites her lower lip. Her eyebrows go up, then she shakes her head and shrugs.
    “I don’t know. It seems…kind of obvious, somehow.” She points to a row of three red jewels on the tool’s shaft. “Press those—one, two, three—then use it to open the door.”
    I pause a moment before doing so. If this doesn’t work, if the doors won’t open, I have no idea what we do next. Some leader I am.
    I press the red jewels: one, two, three. I slide the tool’s prongs into the holes, feel a small vibration as something locks tight. The tool has become a handle. I lift it, feel an initial, wiggling resistance. I gradually increase the pressure until something hidden and frozen seems to break free, then the tool rises smoothly and clanks to a stop.
    The floor shudders, the walls groan. A light shower of dust rains down from the ceiling.
    A loud clang echoes through the air. The door-halves slide open a grinding fraction of an inch, making the entire room vibrate.
    Outside our coffin room, the light is brighter.
    The vibrations stop. The doors slowly open.



EIGHT
    A wave of warm air caresses us.
    Outside our open door is a hallway. The walls are white and smooth, but scratched and cracked in places. The ceiling seems to be made from some kind of pale, rough crystal that glows brightly. Like the coffin room, the floor is a field of soft gray.
    Bello and Aramovsky hold each other, her head barely reaching his shoulder. Spingate takes a step behind O’Malley, who is watching me, waiting for me to act. Yong lurks in the background, still pretending to be bored as far as I know.
    Someone has to go first.
    I take a deep breath. I’m the leader, right? That means I have to lead. I pull the tool free.
    When I step into the hallway, I am surprised that Yong steps out with me.
    That smirk again. “Can’t let you have all the glory, can I?”
    He pretended to be bored with us, but couldn’t let me be the first one out. Yong is strange. Or maybe he’s normal. I have no way of knowing.
    The hall runs to the left and right, straight and true as far as I can see in either direction. And on both sides, more to the right than the left, bumpy things, all across the floor, just as coated in dust as the floor itself.
    Those things are…
    I think of Brewer, shriveled-up little Brewer.
    Those things are…
    I squeeze my eyes shut. My brain doesn’t seem to work. My thoughts feel clogged, my head feels…
muddy
is the word that seems right. I can’t put the pieces together. I don’t
want
to put them together.
    As a group, the others step out around me. No one says a word.
    Yong turns right, walks to the first pile of bumpy things. He reaches down and picks something up. Dust tumbles from it, tiny waterfalls of curling motes that hang in the air.
    He’s holding a bone.
    Long, white, with bits of dark material clinging to it—scraps of dried
meat
. It looks like he is holding a nightmarish club.
    “It’s a femur,” Spingate says, her words a shocked sigh. “A human femur.”
    Yong drops it. He looks down, slowly turns in place. He is surrounded by skeletons, by bones—piles and piles of them.
    This hallway is full of dead people.
    Hands on my arm: Bello, clinging to me.
    “Em, this