Among the Enemy

Chapter Twelve

To Matthias's way of thinking, the preparations for leaving took forever. Mrs. Talbot — for it turned out that's who Theodora was, Mr. Talbot's wife — had to pack bags of food and medicines and clothes. "In case we have to be there several days," she explained. "In case your friends can't be moved."

"Theodora doesn't travel light," Mr. Talbot said, attempting a chuckle that somehow turned into a stifled sob. He trailed his wife around the house as if he didn't want to let her out of his sight any sooner than he had to. "Maybe I should come too and—"

"George, you're a wanted man," Mrs. Talbot said sharply. "If they stop us and see you, that's it, we're all dead."

"Don't come," Matthias said.

He didn't understand how Mr. Talbot could be a wanted man, but it didn't matter. All Matthias cared about was getting back to his friends.

'And now we beat up the car," Mrs. Talbot said. "Want to help?"

"What?" Matthias asked, startled.

She led him to a shed behind Mr. Hendricks's house and flipped a switch. A long, elegant black car gleamed in the sudden light.

"If the mobs stop us, we want them to think we stole this car," Mrs. Talbot said. "If the Population Police detain us, we want it to look like we've fallen on hard times. Either way, this car is too… perfect."

She grabbed a sledgehammer that was leaning against the wall and aimed it at the center of the hood.

"I can't watch," Mr. Talbot said.

Matthias decided he couldn't either. But ten minutes later, when Mrs. Talbot backed the car out of the shed, it looked more like a crumbled heap of scrap metal than a drivable vehicle.

"Don't worry, dear," Mrs. Talbot told her husband, leaning out the window. "It's only cosmetic damage. If I make it back here, you can spend the whole winter fixing it up."

"Don't say that," Mr. Talbot said. "Don't you know how hard this is for me already?"

"Now you know how I felt all those years, watching you head off into danger," Mrs. Talbot said.

Matthias climbed into the passenger side of the car. Mr. and Mrs. Talbot were kissing each other good-bye now, and he had no desire to watch that.

Mr. Hendricks rolled out toward them, and Joel and John walked behind him.

"Be careful," Mr. Hendricks said.

"Of course," Mrs. Talbot said. She rolled up her window and put her foot on the accelerator, and they zipped past the others. "I hate good-byes," she said.

Mrs. Talbot barely slowed down as they approached the end of the driveway.

"Which way?" she asked impatiently.

"Turn right," Matthias said. 'And then left at the next intersection. The cabin's on the main road into those woods, about halfway in, I think, right after the stream."

He wished they could get there as quickly as he could give directions. Mrs. Talbot seemed to feel the same way. She sped around the corner, then pressed the accelerator to the floor. They went faster and faster; everything outside the window blurred before Matthias's eyes.

"We need to get our stories straight, in case anyone stops us," Mrs. Talbot said grimly, keeping her gaze straight ahead. She clutched the steering wheel with both hands. "I'm your mother, and I'm taking you to Population Police headquarters so you can join up."

"Join the Population Police? Why would I do that?" Matthias asked, recoiling from her words.

Mrs. Talbot sighed and glanced his way quickly before staring back at the road before them.

"I guess you didn't hear all the news lately, out at Niedler," she said. "The Population Police issued an edict that nobody but them is allowed to sell food. And nobody can buy food unless at least one member of the family is part of the Population Police."

"Oh," Matthias said. All of that seemed horribly remote to him. The car was warm — even his seat seemed to be breathing heat around him. It made him sleepy. He forced himself to stay alert. He remembered something. "When the Population Police came to Niedler, they said that the Government had a new leader and that was why we had to go to the work camp."

Mrs. Talbot sighed again, even more heavily this time.

"Yes," she said. "The leader of the Population Police took over the whole country. Aldous Krakenaur. The Population Police are in control of everything now."

"That doesn't matter," Matthias said.

"What?" Mrs. Talbot asked. She seemed so stunned that she almost drove off the road. She had to jerk violently on the steering wheel to get the car back on course.

Matthias shrugged.

"What's the difference?" he asked. "Samuel — the man who raised us — he said that governments will rise and governments will fall, and man will do evil to man, and all we can do is turn our hearts to good."

"Well, that's certainly a broad view of things," Mrs. Talbot muttered.

"Samuel didn't believe in getting involved in politics," Matthias said. He frowned in the darkness, remembering the one time Samuel had seemed to go against his own principles. "But when there was that rally for the rights of third children back in April. . Samuel went to that. I've never understood why. That's where he died."

Mrs. Talbot was silent for a moment, and Matthias was afraid he'd upset her by talking about the rally where her own daughter had died. Trees flashed by in the darkness.

"I know who your Samuel was, then," Mrs. Talbot finally said. "George got. . tapes of the rally. Because of Jen. Samuel was the old man with the long beard who went right up to the Population Police while they were shooting and told them, 'These are innocent children. What you're doing is a sin and an abomination.'"

Matthias hadn't known that. He hadn't really known how Samuel had died.

"But did it do any good?" Matthias asked. 'They still killed all the children. And Samuel." Matthias barely knew Mrs. Talbot. But somehow, in the dark, it seemed safe to confide in her. "Samuel always said everything happens for a reason. But what could have been the reason for him to die?"

"I don't know," Mrs. Talbot said. "But you shouldn't think that he died in vain. After he was shot, some of the Population Police turned their guns on one another. There was… almost a mutiny in the ranks. I didn't know about it for weeks afterward. But for a long time, that was the only thing that gave me enough hope to go on living."

Matthias closed his eyes. This was too much to absorb, too much to think about when he was so tired and so worried about Percy and Alia.

"I know what it's like to live without hope," Mrs. Talbot said. "When we lost Jen. . When I thought George was doomed as well. . These are uncertain times we live in. But your Samuel was wrong if he thought it doesn't matter who's in charge of the Government. There is reason to hope for an end to all this evil. I believe it's your generation that will win the cause…"

She started telling him a long story about how a group of other kids had joined the Population Police just to sabotage it, to fight the organization's evil from inside. Her story was interesting, but her voice was so lulling and the car was so warm and the sound of the wheels on the road so soothing that Matthias slipped straight into sleep.

When he woke up, the car was stopped.

"You have impeccable timing," Mrs. Talbot told him. "Incredibly enough, we made it here safely."

The headlights of the car shone on the side of the cabin.

"How'd you know this was the right place?" Matthias asked.

"That," Mrs. Talbot said grimly, pointing at the pile of dead bodies off to the right. She shut off the headlights, turned off the car, and picked up her bag of medicines. "Maybe I should go in first, just to see."

Matthias suspected she was trying to protect him, in case Percy and Alia hadn't survived the hours he'd been away.

"No," he said quickly, picking up a flashlight. "You'll need me to show you how to open the trapdoor."

Mrs. Talbot didn't object. They both got out of the car, and the chilly night air was all Matthias needed to come fully awake.

"Don't look at the bloodstains," he told Mrs. Talbot as they stepped through the shattered doorway into the cabin.

"I've seen blood before," Mrs. Talbot said.

The circle of the flashlight's glow was eerie against the plank floor because of the blood and the shadows of all the cracks. Matthias was eager to get down to the secret room and the lantern's cozy light. He found the latch quickly and lifted the trapdoor.

"Percy? Alia?" he called softly. "I got help, just like I promised."

The lantern had gone out, but that didn't faze him. He climbed down the ladder and pointed his flashlight upward so Mrs. Talbot could see to climb down as well. Then he turned the light toward the cots. The glow was so feeble that it didn't penetrate very far into the darkness. He couldn't see…. He stepped closer. He could make out the frames of the cots, the blankets piled on top of them— the empty cots, the folded blankets.

Percy and Alia were gone.