Children of Ash: A Meridian Six Novella by Jaye Wells

Author:Jaye Wells [Wells, Jaye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780989268479
Publisher: Jaye Wells
Published: 2016-01-26T23:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Bravo

The train arrived at sunrise two days later.

I’d just started getting used to the reverse sleeping schedule, so when Matri shook me awake just after dawn, I had trouble reaching full consciousness.

“Rise and shine,” she whispered. “We have to take some of the children and go unload the train.”

The train meant meat, clean uniforms, and other rations. It was daytime, so our work unloading the cars would be overseen by some of the human guards, who I’d discovered were more sadistic than the vampires.

Since my talk with Matri, we’d been busy studying ways that we could make an escape possible. This involved stockpiling some supplies under the floorboards of the barracks and informing the other prisoners that they needed to be on the lookout for signs a breakout was imminent. The only problem was I had no idea what form those signs would come in—or when.

Beyond that, I’d spent most of the previous two days keeping an eye on Mica. Matri had made sure he hadn’t been drained of too much blood for his first bleeding, and also got him extra rations to restore his strength quickly. Granted, those extra rations were just extra potatoes, but it was better than what most of the prisoners had.

The human guard Matri called Judas stood outside the barracks with two other guards to lead us to the warehouse next to the train track. It wasn’t a long walk to the depot, but the guards took us through a part of camp I’d yet to see. The entrance to the mines was located in the northernmost quadrant. We passed nearby, and for the first time I saw the yawning black hole that swallowed most of the camp’s workers every night and day. Even though most of the activity in the camp happened at night, the miners dug and scraped and hauled twenty-four hours a day.

As we passed, a train that looked vaguely like a centipede was chugging toward the hole. Workers, their skin perpetually blackened from coal dust, packed the seats and stared grimly into the mine, which gaped like an empty eye socket.

The previous shift emerged from the hole in a single-file line. Their hair, their skin, and their uniforms—all black. Only their eyes, painfully white, gave any relief to the all-black canvas.

My steps faltered as I gawped, but I quickly received the stab of a gun muzzle to my back as a reminder to keep moving. Honestly, I was relieved to leave them behind. Those artificially bright orbs set in pitch-black faces would haunt my dreams. Even if they got free from the camp, there’s no way they’d live long enough to enjoy their freedom. They were the walking dead.

Soon enough, we reached the warehouse that was set on a raised platform next to the train tracks. The last time I’d been there was the day we arrived at the camp in cattle cars. This train wasn’t here to deliver people, but supplies, so they were all solid metal shipping cars.

A handful

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