Hatch by Kenneth Oppel

Author:Kenneth Oppel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

BURSTING THROUGH THE DOORS, Seth was dazed by the vast twilight sky, the warm, pine-scented breeze. It was suddenly summer. Metal masts and satellite dishes towered around him. Behind him, the other kids poured out into the antenna farm.

Hungrily, he filled his lungs. His legs trembled from the long climb up the shaft. He felt hollow and tired to his core. But he remembered their plan and hurried to the fence. With his feathers he began cutting a vertical gash. After making slashes across the top and bottom, he peeled the chain link back like a door.

“Go!” he shouted, holding it open.

Charles was the first to duck through, followed by a stream of others.

“Where now?” Charles asked from the other side of the fence.

Seth had no answer for him. Had they ever really imagined they’d make it so far?

Anaya, he knew, wanted to find her parents and Dr. Weber; Esta had said they should hide out and avoid all cities and grown-ups, because there was nobody they could trust. He felt torn between their two positions.

Beyond the fence the ground was strewn with dead stalks of black grass. And in the surrounding forest he saw cracked yellow vines among the branches. The whole area must have been sprayed with herbicide. He remembered what the new kids had said about Spray Zones. The bunker was definitely in one of them, though it hadn’t stopped black vines and pit plants from invading. Or the worms.

The antenna farm was at the top of a hill, and the land sloped down to a parking lot and a helipad and what must be the main entrance to the bunker itself: a corrugated metal shed built into the side of the hill.

—We need to get away from here, Esta said at his side.

—I know.

There were still lots of kids waiting to go through the fence. And he didn’t want to do anything before he talked to Petra and Anaya. Darren went through the gap, and Seth looked around anxiously. There was Petra, but where was Anaya? With relief, he saw her emerge, panting, from the elevator room. Last one out.

When finally everyone was outside the fence, Seth said, “We need a plan.”

“No kidding,” snapped Paolo.

“There’s cars in the parking lot,” Adam said.

“You know how to steal a car?” asked a swimmer called Seema.

“The roads aren’t safe anyway!” Letitia said.

Everyone was talking at once now.

“Where even are we?”

“We need a map.”

“We need a phone.”

“We should call the cops on these guys.”

“Are you crazy? The cops are all in on it!”

“I want to call my parents,” said Siena.

There was a small pause, as if everyone had the exact same yearning thought.

Seth locked eyes with Esta.

—We have no parents to call, she said. It’s just us.

He knew there was no plan that would make everyone happy. The kids’ nervous energy crackled from them like electricity. They wanted to go. Any second, they were going to split apart like unstable atoms.

A helicopter tore out of the darkening sky and skidded through the air overhead.

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