Read The Annihilation of Foreverland for Free Online Page B

tongue, it’ll boost your immunity. I don’t want you catching cold while you’re in there, it just makes things harder.”
    Danny didn’t move.
    Mr. Jones had to pull the sheet down and put it on his lips. His fingers smelled like old leather. Danny let the pill fall into his mouth just so he’d get his hand away. It dissolved like candy.
    Mr. Jones sighed again, looked at the ceiling. His eyes looked a little wet. It was times like this Danny thought he might be regretting something. He squeezed Danny’s knee. “You’re a hero, son. A real hero.”
    And then he got up, after two attempts, and went to the door looking more hunched over than usual. He put his hand on the knob and, without turning, said, “You go on and get dressed now, you hear? I’ll be back up in an hour to escort you over to the building. No one goes into the Haystack alone, my boy.”
    The door clicked behind him. Danny stayed in bed with the sheet pulled up. He remained there for a while and only got dressed because he didn’t want Mr. Jones in the room when he did.
    A ll modesty was about to disappear from Danny’s life.
     
    Danny walked the Yard with Mr. Jones. This time he had no problem with his slow and steady gait. The others were walking with their Investors, too. They were all spread out, heading in the same direction: the multi-eyed round roof peeking above the distant trees. Their paths converged the closer they got.
    They got in line as they entered a narrow path. There was little talking. But the silence was more than that; it was the sort of intense concentration that spontaneously happened before a big game, before surgery or some other life-altering event. Even Sid, walking a few bodies ahead of Danny, was quiet.
    Suddenly, the path ended in an opening. The Haystack was at the far side. Its concrete wall was painted dark brown, stained with algae and sucker-cups that remained from vines stripped away. A man stood at the entrance with a clipboard in his folded arms. He was old, but kind of young among the old men. He had gentle gray eyes inside folds of skin. He began checking off items on his clipboard as they entered.
    A bell rang three times.
    Danny didn’t look around but once. Zin was to his left. He lifted his eyebrows in mild celebration. Just past Zin was Parker as glassy-eyed and slack as ever. He wasn’t looking around. He didn’t even look like he knew anyone else was there.
    “Welcome, young men,” the man at the door suddenly said. “My name is Mr. Clark. I’ll be supervising this round. Most of you know the drill. I know some of you are nervous, as would be expected, but I assure you that your experience will be just as exciting as the previous ones have been. For the newcomers, you will follow your Investor inside and he will orient you on what to do. But there’s nothing to worry about, things are very simple inside.”
    Mr. Clark looked at his clipboard.
    “Before we enter, are there any questions?” He looked around with the same welcoming smile. “Very well, then. Let’s begin, shall we?”
    He pushed the door open and stood to the side. Mr. Jones’s hand fell on Danny’s shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. Danny immediately tensed, but noticed every Investor was doing the same move with the hand on the shoulder, guiding their kid into the Haystack in some sort of ritual. Danny got in line. When they stepped inside, it was cold and dim.
    It was the last time he would see the sun for quite some time.
     
    Danny clenched up, a full-body seizure.
    His knees locked and he pushed his weight against Mr. Jones’s hand. It wasn’t the dim light coming through the skylights or the giant steel fan that waited to chop them up or the smell of urine or the dank-dungeon cells that lined both sides of the aisle that made Danny step back. It was a sense of panic, of fear, that saturated the atmosphere like an electrical current, tingling in his bowels. The boys ahead of him didn’t seize up, but they