Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(119)

“You’re sure you were not followed?” Hase asks Lena again.

“Nein, nein,” Lena insists.

All is quiet. The dogs have stopped.

“Gehen,” Hase says to the woman and her daughter.

The woman kisses her daughter’s cheek. “Geh, mein Schatz. Mama wird folgen.” Go, darling. Mama will follow.

Jenny’s heart jackhammers in her chest as she watches the grave-like gloom swallow first the daughter and then her mother on their crawl toward freedom.

“Now it is your turn,” Hase says to Jenny and Lena.

Lena shakes her head. “I can’t go without him.”

“It’s now or never.”

“One more minute, please!” Lena begs.

The buzzer blasts again. Hase holds up a finger for quiet. He exits the tiny coal room and puts the cut-out door back in place. Jenny hears the bookshelf being pushed across the opening, hears Hase’s footsteps receding. She thinks of her parents back in the apartment, who have no idea that she is here. She wonders if she will ever see them again. She starts to hyperventilate.

The bookshelf slides back. The cutout is removed. Andreas ducks through, followed by Hase. Lena throws her arms around her brother.

“Okay. No time for reunion. You go,” Hase says.

The barking of dogs comes again, louder this time, much closer. It’s followed by a steady banging at the basement door.

“Die Stasi!” Hase says, pulling Lena toward the tunnel.

Lena begins to shake and cry. “Ich kann es nicht machen!” I can’t do it.

Jenny remembers Lena’s story about being smuggled across the border in the trunk and her claustrophobia because of it.

Hase growls, “Du musst jetzt gehen!” You have to go now!

“Ich kann es nicht machen!” Lena sobs.

“Lena, you helped build this tunnel, right?” Jenny reminds her. “So you can do it.”

“Nein. My job was to get supplies, dispose of the rubble, not go inside.”

The banging comes again. Insistent. Muffled voices shout orders. Something snaps to attention inside of Jenny. Like she is a violin bow taut and ready to play for her life. She holds Lena’s terrified face between her hands.

“Lena, listen to me: You can do this. I’ll be in front. Andreas behind. Ten minutes and we’ll be home.”

“I can’t. I can’t!”

“You can.” Jenny rips the scarf from her head. “Here.” She ties it around Lena’s eyes like a blindfold. “You can do this. Okay?”

“Ja. Ja,” Lena says. “Okay.”

Jenny crouches down and gets a good look at the escape tunnel.

“Gehen!” Hase hisses.

She takes in what feels like her last deep breath and crawls inside.

The walls are close. She can hear the others scuttling ahead in the dark like rats. Are there rats? She hadn’t thought of that before, and now she needs to lock that image away or she will not be able to keep going. Her head is buzzy and light from the shallow breathing. She forces herself to inhale on three, exhale on three. But then, she leaves the comfort of the first work light and is plunged into a darkness so complete she cannot see her own hands as they reach out in front of her toward escape.

Behind her, beyond the rapid breathing of Lena and Andreas, there is shouting reaching toward them from the basement. Orders being given. Questions asked. Hase’s voice, a mix of fear and feigned innocence. An anguished cry of the sort that accompanies sudden violence. They are beating him, Jenny knows, and she forces herself onward. Faster. Into the dark unknown.

The muffled punch of gunshots reaches her. Jenny freezes.

“Lena?” she calls back.

“Go!” Lena’s voice. Raw. Desperate.

How long have they been crawling—two minutes? Five? Eight? How close are they to the other side? Are they far enough to escape a bullet if the Stasi decide to fire into the tunnel? Up ahead, she sees one of the work lights sticking out from the tunnel’s earthen side like a jaundiced eye. She crawls toward the hazy amber halo of it, wincing as small rocks bite into her bare knees. The metal tang of blood thickens in her nostrils. There’s no time. She keeps moving.

Jenny flinches as a drop of water lands on her cheek followed by a second on her head. She puts out a hand and touches the wall. It’s damp. Up ahead in the dark, the mother is now screaming: “Sie überfluten den Tunnel!”

Andreas and Lena are talking to each other, Andreas sounding urgent, Lena, panicked.

“What’s happening?” Jenny calls back to them. “What’s going on?”

In answer, a section of tunnel gives way behind them and the water pours in from above.

“They are flooding the tunnel!” Lena screams.

It takes Jenny a moment to comprehend what she’s saying: Above them in no-man’s-land, the guards have turned on the hoses, sending gallons of pressurized water into the tunnel. Freezing water pools under Jenny’s hands and knees. She cannot move.

“Gehen, gehen!” Andreas shouts.

She cannot think what gehen means. Fear has her brain in a vise. Up ahead in the outer edge of the light’s anemic glow, she sees a clump of wet dirt fall to the tunnel floor. And another. The mother is screaming to her little girl and trying to soothe her forward at the same time. I will not die in the waiting room of the future, Jenny thinks. She scrambles forward, through water and mud and rocks. Her breath is loud in her ears. Her heart kick-drums like a three-minute punk song. She is plunged into darkness again. The water is rising. It covers her knees, reaches mid-thigh, slowing her down. Another shot rings out. The narrow, earthen walls around Jenny shake. Dirt sprays her hair and face. The guards in the death strip must be shooting down into the tunnel, which means it must be far shallower here than Jenny had imagined. Between the water and the bullet holes, it’s only a matter of time before the tunnel caves in or the bullets find them or both.