The Lost Brother Read online

  After that there was a lot of walking. And more walking. And then even more.

  I stopped trying to think. It took all my focus just to walk. To put one foot in front of the other and follow the little girl through the twisting, turning tunnels. What was that little girl’s name again?

  “Alice,” I blurted out with relief after expending some effort in retrieving the answer.

  She glanced back. “What?” she asked. “Hurry. Are you coming?”

  “Coming,” I mumbled. The little girl was Alice. She was one of the Misty Falls Lost. Only she wasn’t lost anymore. Was she?

  Things went on like that for a while. One minute I wouldn’t be sure who or where I was. Then everything would come back to me in a rush. Then it would be gone again.

  It was the weirdest feeling I’d ever had in my life.

  More time passed. How much? I had no idea. Maybe hours. All I knew was that I was exhausted. I could barely keep up with the little girl.

  But Alice never seemed to run out of energy. She led the way, stopping at every fork in the tunnel. Every intersection. She would peer at the walls, then start walking again.

  I looked at the walls too. There were marks on some of them. Odd little jumbles of blobs and circles and lines. They made no sense to me at all.

  Walking, walking, walking. The tunnels were full of muffled sounds. Echoes and clangs. A few times I thought I heard footsteps behind us.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked one of those times, stopping short.

  Alice glanced back. “Hurry!” she called. “I think we’re almost there.”

  She rushed on ahead, and I followed. Mostly because I couldn’t figure out anything else to do.

  Finally we reached a dead end. Solid stone walls rose all around us.

  “Now what?” I asked, struggling to remember what we were trying to do.

  Oh, yeah. Escape.

  Alice was shining her little flashlight all around, looking frantic. “There should be a way out!” she cried, sounding ready to burst into tears. “There has to be a way out! I know this is the right way, Justin taught me the marks!”

  She scurried off back down the tunnel. I saw her little light pause near the last intersection a dozen yards back.

  Meanwhile I looked around. Some of my ATAC senses were drifting back at last. This was supposed to be an escape route. The way Justin had gotten out. So where was the door?

  I tapped on the walls. Solid stone. And there were no marks here.

  Hang on. How could I see that? Alice and her flashlight were too far away.

  I looked up. The ceiling was low here, just a foot above my head. Dim light showed up there, a thin line of it, forming a big square.

  A hatch!

  My mind cleared a little more. This was it! It had to be. The escape route. A hatch rimmed by moonlight.

  I reached up and felt wood. Taking a deep breath, I gave it a shove.

  CLICK!

  Cool, fresh air rushed in as the hatch cracked open above me.

  Burning Questions

  The flames danced around me, higher and higher. Every tree in the forest seemed to be on fire. I spun around, coughing as smoke surrounded me. There was no way out!

  Then I spotted it. A tiny opening in the wall of flames. Maybe an animal trail that had beaten down the grasses. Or a rocky streambed. Whatever. I didn’t wait to ponder it. I just dove forward, closing my eyes and holding up my arms to protect my face.

  Searing heat. Deafening crackling all around me.

  Then—cooler air. A breeze on my hot face. I was out the other side!

  I dropped and rolled, quickly smothering the tiny fingers of flame that had tagged along and were licking at my clothes. Then I stood up, gulping in the relatively fresh air.

  But the fire was still spreading. I had to get away before it caught up to me again.

  I ran down a rocky hillside, coughing on the smoke that seemed to be drifting everywhere. It was hard to see or hear much.

  But then I heard it. A welcome gurgling sound.

  I followed it, fighting my way through the smoke. There it was—a broad, shallow, tumbling stream!

  Splashing in, I hardly felt the cold as the water soaked me to the skin through my singed shoes and pants. I waded downstream a few yards before making my way to the opposite shore.

  When I climbed out, I looked back. The fire was still hungrily devouring everything in its path. But I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be able to jump the stream.

  Whew!

  Then I realized I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Literally. I was still lost in the wilderness. Wet, hungry, and cold. In the middle of the night. With no idea where I was or how to get back.

  At least there was a moon. Noticing a mountain rising out of the scrubby trees up ahead, I took a step toward it. Maybe if I climbed up there I’d be able to see something when morning came. . . .

  “Ow!” I yelped as I felt my toe catch on something.

  Looking down, I saw that I’d stumbled over a large rock. No, a pile of rocks.

  I blinked at it.

  “Hey!” I blurted out in surprise.

  Then I fished out my flashlight. Luckily, ATAC makes sure our gear is all waterproof. And I guess heatproof, too. The flashlight had only melted a little bit around the edges, and it still worked when I hit the switch.

  I aimed it at the rock pile. Yep—just as I’d thought. It wasn’t something that could have happened naturally. Not unless the local bears and rabbits were into decorating.

  In fact, this looked like one of those little cairns I’d noticed in the woods near our campsite. A lot like it!

  For a second I was excited, thinking that maybe I was close to our campsite after all. Then I shook my head, realizing that was stupid. I’d traveled on that bike for more than half an hour. And I have a decent sense of direction. I was pretty sure we hadn’t doubled back.

  Okay, call me crazy. I knew I should be focused on my own survival and nothing else. But I was curious about the stone piles. What did they mean? Could they have anything to do with the mission?

  Besides that, Bailey had thought the piles might be trail markers. If she was right, could this little stack of stones lead me out of here?

  I shone my flashlight around as I thought about it. The beam landed on something else.

  A footprint.

  It had been left in the mud at the stream’s edge. By a boot several sizes larger than my own. The print was about two feet from the little pile of stones. Pointing away from it.

  I glanced from the print to the stone pile and back again. Something finally clicked in my mind.

  “That’s it!” I blurted out. “It is a directional marker!”

  The stones seemed like a random pile. But when you looked closer, the smaller ones were all clustered on one side of the larger base stone.

  As if pointing off in that direction!

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. Then again, I’d always left that kind of thing to Frank. He was the one who liked those sorts of puzzles and brain teasers. Maybe his nerdiness had rubbed off on me more than I’d thought.

  The fire was still raging away on the far side of the stream. I glanced back at it, feeling a twinge of guilt. Wondering if my campfire had started it. It seemed almost impossible. For one thing, I’d taken all the usual precautions. Plus, my fire had been almost out when I woke up.

  Then another thought occurred to me. Could that footprint have something to do with the fire? It looked pretty fresh. . . . Either way, I figured I’d have to worry about it later.

  Right now I wanted to see where the cryptic trail marker was pointing. Maybe it really would show me the way back to civilization.

  “Worth a shot,” I murmured to myself. “It’s not like I have any better plan right now.”

  So I walked in the direction the marker was pointing. The way the footstep was going.

  Who did that footstep belong to? I turned over the possibilities as I trudged alon
g, my wet shoes sloshing with each step.

  Best-case scenario, it could have been left by a park ranger. Maybe a hiker. Someone heading back to the park entrance.

  Then again, what if our mystery kidnapper had left it? What if he’d set that fire to try to take me out? I could be walking straight into danger.

  Or straight to wherever they were holding Frank.

  In any case, I figured it didn’t hurt to be careful. So I clicked off my flashlight and made my way along by the light of the moon.

  Ten minutes later I wondered if that had been a mistake. I’d walked a long way with no other markers or other signs I was on the right trail. What if I’d missed something?

  I was debating whether to turn back when I saw it. Another marker!“Yes!” I whispered.

  This marker pointed off to the left. I headed that way. The trail led through some thick woods, so I had to use my light again.

  When I emerged from beneath the trees, I saw another marker. It sent me angling off in another direction.

  After that, it was just a matter of keeping my eyes peeled. The markers appeared whenever I was supposed to shift direction. By now I was at the foot of that small mountain I’d seen earlier. The going was pretty rough, and I was relieved when I found a marker pointing me across a broad, grassy meadow.

  I started across it. The going was a lot easier here.

  But there was nowhere to hide, a realization that hit me hard when I heard a weird, metallic clanging sound somewhere very close by.

  I hit the ground, hoping the tall meadow grasses would hide me. Then I looked toward the sound.

  My heart pounded. I carefully reached for my flashlight. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was all I had.

  If I was about to meet the Misty Falls kidnapper, I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  “Ugh!” someone grunted.

  I lifted my head carefully, trying to get a look. Just in time to see something rise out of the ground. It looked like a wooden door or hatch.

  Huh? What was a hatch doing out here in the middle of nowhere?

  I was still trying to figure that out when someone hoisted himself out of the hatch, collapsing onto the ground outside. Then he used the open hatch door to climb to his feet. That’s when I finally got a good look at him.

  “Frank!” I shouted.

  Yeah, I know. I hardly believed it myself. But that was my brother who’d just climbed out of a hole in the ground right in front of me!

  Leaping to my feet, I raced over to him. He let out a cry of surprise and jumped back.

  SLAM!

  The hatch door fell shut.

  “Dude!” I cried as I reached him. “I can’t believe it’s really you! Where were you?”

  Frank hardly seemed to notice I was there. He fell to his knees and scrabbled at the hatch.

  “Oh no!” he exclaimed, his voice sounding hoarse and kind of wobbly. “Alice? Alice!”

  I wasn’t sure what was going on. But I could tell he wanted to get that hatch open again. So I crouched down and tried to help.

  The hatch wouldn’t budge.

  “It must’ve latched from the inside when it fell shut,” I said.

  Frank bent over the hatch. “Alice!” he yelled. “You have to unlatch it!”

  “They’re coming!”

  My eyes widened. A tiny, scared voice had just cried out from beneath that hatch!

  “Who’s that?” I asked. Frank looked frantic. “Reach up as far as you can!” he shouted. “Reach up and undo the latch, Alice! Hurry!”

  The next thing we heard from below was a muffled scream. Then some shuffling and thumping, like the sounds of a brief struggle.

  Then silence.

  “Oh no!” Frank cried out. “They were following us after all. They caught up to us and captured her!”

  “Huh? Who?” I was still majorly confused. “Where were you? What’s down there? What’s going on?”

  Frank turned to stare at me. “I have no idea.”

  Found

  “I finally got a signal.” Joe shimmied down the trunk of a massive pine. “Rich is sending out a rescue party right now. Good thing ATAC embeds a GPS tracker on our cell phones, huh? Otherwise who knows how long it’d take them to find us.”

  I nodded. Joe had climbed the tree, figuring getting up high might help his phone pick up some reception. Luckily, it had worked.

  “At least now we’ll be able to get some answers,” I said, glancing over at the hatch. “The cops should be able to break through into the tunnels. Then all they have to do is find their way back to the compound.”

  Joe shook his head. “I still can’t believe all those missing kids are down there somewhere.”

  I was having a little trouble believing it all myself. My head still felt as if it was stuffed with cotton candy, which didn’t help.

  But in a way, that helped me realize just how true it was. The compound. The weird memory-fogging drugs. The missing kids, alive and seemingly well.

  Alice.

  “I hope they don’t punish her too much before we get there,” I said, wincing as I remembered that final, muffled scream. “She just wanted to find her brother.”

  “I just hope they don’t all scatter before we get there,” Joe said. “You know. Pack up everything and disappear to some other location.”

  “It would be tough to pack it all up,” I said, thinking of everything I’d seen down there. “Even if the people are gone, I’m sure there will be plenty of evidence to help us track them down.”

  “Hope so. It’s about time we got this mission wrapped up.” Joe put away his phone and sat down with his back against the tree trunk. “At least it sounds like we’ll have a happy ending this time, right? You said you saw most of the missing kids down there.”

  “Well, a few of them, anyway.” I paused, letting my sluggish mind run through the events of the past two days. Thanks to Joe, I now knew that was how long I’d been down there. “There was Alice, of course. And Kerry, the second kid who disappeared. She’s almost all grown up now. I’m pretty sure I saw Kyle, and I think Luke was down there too. I saw a few others who probably fill out the list.”

  “And Justin, of course.” Joe sighed. “I still don’t get it. What are they doing with those kids down there?”

  “You got me. They don’t seem to be mistreated.”

  “Other than being snatched away from their parents and forced to live in some underground bunker, you mean?”

  “Yeah.” I grimaced. “Other than that.”

  Joe stood up and started pacing. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” he said. “All we need is to get into that place, and we’ll figure it out.”

  I yawned. “Agreed. Look, it’s been a long night. Can you keep watch and wake me when the cops get here?”

  Joe shook me awake. “Posse’s here, bro,” he said.

  I sat up, blinking. Judging by the position of the moon, I’d slept for at least an hour. Maybe longer. I was still tired, and I had a raging headache. But my mind felt a lot clearer than it had before.

  Lights and voices came from farther down the slope, along with the roar of motors. The rescue party had come in on ATVs.

  “Up here!” Joe shouted, waving his arms.

  I joined in. The rescuers heard us and roared toward us. Rich Cole was in the lead, his trademark cowboy hat perched on his head. I’d never been so happy to see a cowboy hat in my life. Five or six other cops were right behind him.

  There were a few minutes of confusion. Basically, Rich and the others just kept staring at me and saying, “I can’t believe it!” over and over again.

  I knew how they felt.

  Anyway, eventually Joe and I got our stories told. When he heard about the hatch, Rich strode over to take a look.

  “Door’s made of wood,” he said. “Somebody grab an ax and let’s see if we can get to the bottom of things.”

  An officer I didn’t know hurried back to the ATVs. A minute later he returned, hoisti
ng an ax. He started attacking the hatch door with it.

  The rest of us moved back to avoid the flying chunks of wood. “Hard to believe,” Rich said. “All those kids—still alive and well after all this time.”

  “Guess the bears weren’t to blame after all,” another cop commented.

  “Yeah,” Joe agreed. “And I’m really looking forward to finding out who is to blame.”

  “Me too.” Rich glanced at me. “You say you didn’t get a look at this boss fellow?”

  “Not really.” I thought back to that scene with the screaming little boy. Kyle. The memory was dim and faded around the edges, like a barely remembered dream. But I was pretty sure the man everyone called the Boss had been there. “It was a man, I saw that much. Average height, dark hair. That’s all I got.”

  “Hmm,” Rich said. “Well, I guess we—”

  KA-BOOOOOOOM!

  The hatch exploded in a burst of noise and flame. The cop with the ax was tossed aside like a rag doll. The rest of us jumped back, raising our hands to shield our faces from the rocks and dirt shooting toward us like missiles.

  “What was that?” Rich shouted. “Nate! You okay?”

  There was an ominous rumble, and the ground started to shift and roll beneath us. Half the valley seemed to be collapsing under our feet!

  “Run!” someone shouted. I think it was Joe. But I didn’t stop to check. I was too busy running.

  When the dust cleared, everyone was okay. Well, the cop with the ax was looking a little dazed, and one of his arms was bent in a whole new direction. One of the other guys had twisted an ankle. Aside from some cuts and scrapes, that was all.

  But even with my mind still not quite back to full capacity, I knew what this meant.

  The tunnel was gone. Caved in by that explosion. One look at the new landscape of the valley was enough to tell me that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  We had no way of finding our way back to that compound.

  “Never mind, bro,” Joe said. “We’ll find it. How far away could it be?”

  “Far,” I replied bleakly. “I’m not sure exactly how long Alice and I walked. But I’m guessing that place has to be miles from here. I don’t even know what direction we were going.”