Tower Climber

Jakob Tanner

Contents

Newsletter

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

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Author’s Note

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Dedication

Dedicated:

To my mom and dad, who have encouraged and supported me in everything that I’ve done.

Special Thanks to:

Angela Marshall for assistance in so many things.

Markus Liik for legal advice.

Rein Naylor for medical insights.

Andrew Smith for sage wisdom.

Thanks to my beta readers and their amazing feedback:

Ben Graff

Jo Hoffacker

Valentine Obasuyi

Carol Sherman

Erik Tanner

This book wouldn’t be what it is today without you guys!

1

Max watched the clock as the hour hand struck three. The school bell rang and students pushed their seats out from their desks. Idle chatter surrounded him, but he ignored it all. It was time to leave and he didn’t have a second to waste.

He lifted his wrists off the armrests of his wheelchair and slowly moved himself out from his desk. Even the simple gesture of rolling his wheels to move backwards was enough to make him wince with pain.

The other students in the classroom paid no attention to him. Some were gossiping in the corner, while others were enquiring about extra credit assignments with the teacher.

Max was grateful for their lack of concern. As a person with a disability, people generally only interacted with him in one of two ways: he was either willfully ignored or pitied. He’d take being invisible over pitied any day of the week.

Max exited into the hall. He looked cautiously up and down the corridor. It was flooded with students, gathering their stuff and hanging out by the lockers. He saw no sign of Seth and his pals.

Maybe today’s my lucky day, he thought.

Max’s own locker was only around the corner, but he knew to take the long way round.

He pushed himself forward, rolling the wheels of his chair. He winced with every push. The bruises on his arm ached every time he moved them.

He turned the corner into a near empty hall, when a voice snarled behind him.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Max shuddered.

It was Seth.

“Where you going Maxie-pad? Your locker is the other way.”

The other students in the hall quickly gathered their stuff. They knew just as much as Max did: Seth was trouble.

He had been suspended more times than anyone else in the history of the school and the only reason he wasn’t expelled was because his dad worked for the mayor’s office.

Even still, some of the nearby students hesitated. They didn’t want to pick a fight with Seth, but it was clear on their faces that they thought bullying a kid in a wheelchair was perhaps a step too far.

“Don’t worry about me,” said Max, mustering a smile for the nearby students. “You can leave. It’s all fine here.”

They weren’t going to be able to help him, Max figured, so he’d rather them walk away scot-free than let them get a target on their back like he had.

The students nodded and hurried away.

Max still hadn’t even turned around to face Seth.

Maybe if I ignore him, he’ll leave me alone, Max thought.

He pushed himself forward down the hall.

Two shadows emerged. Two of Seth’s goons stepped into the hall at the other end.

“What? You thought you could just ignore me, Max? Run away? Oh that’s right—you can’t, can you?”

Seth’s goons snickered at the dumb joke.

Max looked around the hall. There wasn’t a teacher in sight. Even if there was—they’d be no help to him. They’d ignore them, not wanting to get in trouble with a powerful man like Seth’s father.

Max took a second to assess the situation. He knew the best form of self-defense for a wheelchair user was to get the heck out of there. To not fight at all.

Escape was no longer an option though.

He’d try negotiation.

Max spun around on his wheelchair to face Seth.

The tall boy stood with his arms crossed and a patronizing smirk stretched across his face.

“What do you want?” said Max, keeping his voice calm.

“What do I want?” snickered Seth, taking a step towards him. “What—are you some kind of hostage negotiator now, Max?”

The boy took another step towards him, the clap of his shoes echoing across the hall.

“You know exactly what I want,” snarled the boy. “I want to see you cry and whimper on the ground like the little bitch that you are.”

“Tell him, Seth,” said the goons behind Max.

He could tell by their voices that they were coming towards him now as well.

Negotiation was out the window then.

With all his strength, he angled and swerved his wheelchair to maneuver around Seth, but the boy just jumped in front of him.

“There’s no getting away from your daily treatment,” snickered Seth. “Maybe it will help you walk again.”

The boy grabbed Max by his shaggy red hair and yanked him off of his wheelchair and threw his body to the ground.

They kicked him and stomped on him as he lay there helplessly on the ground.

“Take your treatment,” they laughed.

Max closed his tear-strewn eyes and let the beating take over.

They wouldn’t stop until they thought he couldn’t take any more. The best thing he could do now was let them have their sick sadistic fun and hopefully it would all be over a little bit sooner.

Then something different happened.

The kicks stopped.

A hand caressed his leg, slipping inside the right pocket of his jeans.

They’d never done this before. What were they doing?

The hand pulled out Max’s wallet.

“We’ll be taking this as a souvenir,” said Seth.

Max’s shoulders straightened at those words. He was no longer passively taking the beating, but very much alert.

They can’t take my wallet, he thought.

Elle’s note is in there.

The bullies walked away, leaving Max on the floor with his aching bruised body and tears.

“Should we go shoot some pool?” said one of the goons.

“Maybe the arcade?”

Their malicious beating of Max from mere seconds ago was already a far away memory to them.

“Agh—what the—”

Max clutched onto Seth’s leg and dug his nails into his calf.

“Give...me...my...wallet...back...” said Max.

Max had dragged his pained body across the hall to catch up with Seth and his gang. He wouldn’t let go until he got his wallet back. Until he made sure his letter from Elle was safe and secure.

“Ugh,” said Seth, repulsed, trying to shake Max off his leg. “What are you doing? Get off me you psycho cripple!”

Max didn’t let go.

“GIVE ME MY WALLET BACK!”

Seth looked down at the boy with drool and blood leaking out of his mouth. He pulled the wallet out of his own pocket, drained it of the few measly bucks that were in there, and then tossed it down the hall.

“There you go, psycho cripple,” said Seth. “It’s all yours.”

Max let go of Seth’s leg, only for the boy to give him another walloping kick to the gut. Pain coursed through his whole body.

“Next time,” said Seth. “Stay down.”

The bullies walked away.

Max slowly dragged himself across the empty school hallway.

He pulled himself towards his black leather wallet on the ground and clasped it with relief.

The late afternoon sun shone through a nearby window. The city and its skyscrapers stood stoic and apathetic to the life that swirled around them. So too did the tower at the center of the city, shooting out beyond the clouds and as far as the eye could see.

The tower.

How was it possible that something so wondrous existed within a world full of such cruelty?

Max opened up his wallet and pulled out a piece of worn parchment paper.

He looked over the words. The penmanship. The flourish of each letter.

This note—which he had mysteriously received a year ago—was the only thing in his life that gave him hope.

He read the words once more.

Max,

Don’t forget your promise. Find me in the tower.

Elle

2

Max had already gotten back on his wheelchair and was wiping the blood off his face, when Sarah rushed into the hallway.

The girl had black hair that she kept in a long braided ponytail and large rimless glasses.

“Max!” she cried. “What happened? I was waiting at our meeting spot?”

Sarah and Max lived together at the same group home for orphans and so walked home together every day after school.

The girl was fourteen, two years younger than Max. She would have been his sister’s age if she was still around.

Max appreciated Sarah’s kindness towards him, but he knew that her association with him was causing her trouble within the social circles of her year. For someone kind like Sarah to suffer because of him was the last thing he wanted. So he devised the meeting spot: a corner a few blocks from the school where they’d meet after school, away from the prying eyes of the rest of the student body.

“I got held up,” said Max.

Sarah’s eyes watered. “Seth again?”

“It’s no big deal,” he said.

He lifted his arms to roll himself forward. A sharp pain ached across his whole body. Max grimaced from the hurting bruises all over his body.

“Here let me get that,” said Sarah, going around him and taking the handles behind Max’s wheelchair to push him forward. “And before you protest, all the other students have gone home now. So you can’t worry about me.”

She beamed a smile down towards him and Max craned his neck back with a groan.

“Fine,” said Max. “You win today, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to make this a regular thing.”

“You realize your wheelchair has these handles for a reason, right?”

“A design flaw, if you ask me,” Max joked as they left the school.

It was a sunny day, so they took the long way home along the canal.

The city of Zestiris lay before them: the tall skyscrapers, the giant wall that separated the outer-rim and the tower-zone, and, of course, the always looming mysterious tower at the center of it all.

“I just don’t understand why you chased after them,” said Sarah after Max had relayed the whole story of the incident with Seth. “Like, you didn’t have that much money on you. You don’t have a credit card or something hard to replace. Would it have been so bad to lose your wallet, save yourself from that final blow to the stomach?”

Sarah had a point. It had been stupid to fight back, but then he thought of Elle’s note. It was the only thing that connected the two of them. The only proof of her existence.

Until that note had randomly appeared in his locker twelve months earlier, Max had assumed his sister had died in the same car crash from ten years ago that had killed his parents and left him with two immobile legs.

“I couldn’t leave Elle’s note behind,” said Max.

“Oh,” said Sarah.

Sarah’s realization hung between them, anchoring the conversation into silence.

She was the only one Max had ever told about the note. The only person he remotely trusted out of everyone he knew. Even still, he could tell Sarah struggled to believe him. She wanted to believe him, but she struggled to.

“I know you don’t want to hear this,” she said. “But how do you know that note wasn’t a prank?”

“I don’t,” said Max, staring at the looming tower beyond the wall. “But here are the facts. Our lockers don’t have any slits in them. So the only way someone could sneak a note into one of them was if they had my lock combination—which, as far as I know, nobody does—or they snuck it in when I had it opened, but surely I would’ve noticed in that case?”

“So how did it end up there then?” asked Sarah. “Magic?”

“Why is it so hard to believe a note magically appeared in my locker,” said Max. “When every day we’re confronted by a freaking tower that appeared out of nowhere?”

This was the curious and frustrating question that every citizen of Zestiris who lived in the outer-rim had to confront day after day. How did one go about their daily life—full of all of its mundane activities—while unexplainable magic loomed over them and stared them right in the face in the form of a tower that had appeared out of thin air?

The tower had first appeared forty years ago in 2045. It emerged in the middle of nowhere on the northeastern coast of the United States, between Concord, New Hampshire and Boston, Massachusetts.

A decade later, a city with walls and rules had been erected around the tower, and that city came to be known as Zestiris.

The reasons for the tower’s appearance remained a mystery to this day.

“Yeah, that’s a good point,” said Sarah, pushing him along. “But how are you going to find your sister in the tower? Even people in the outer-rim can’t enter the tower-zone?”

“You mean most people,” said Max. “Some people can enter. The mayor. Politicians. Scholars. Archaeologists. People do get access to the tower. So that’s my goal. Study as hard as I can so I can get a job like that and get my way one step closer to the tower.”

“But what about all the monsters that exist in the tower-zone and the tower itself?” said Sarah. “Only climbers who can wield magic can survive in such a dangerous area. That’s why they have the walls in the first place.”

Two walls surrounded the city of Zestiris. There was the wall that surrounded the tower-zone and its inhabitants and then a greater second wall that encompassed both the tower-zone and the outer-rim.

“I’m not afraid of any of that,” said Max. “If Elle needs my help. I’ll go wherever I have to.”

Sarah went quiet behind him.

“That’s amazing, Max, really,” she said. “I wish I had a goal like that. A dream to pursue. All I think about is growing up and getting out of our orphanage. Away from Mr. Grimes.”

“Is he still looking at you weirdly?” said Max.

Sarah shuddered behind him. “He never stops.”

Their conversation soon moved onto lighter topics such as homework and random gossip from the students in Sarah’s year. Fifteen minutes later, they arrived back at the orphanage.

Sarah sighed. “Home sweet home.”

They were back in the foyer of the orphanage for less than thirty seconds when a horrible voice emerged.

“Look who’s come home? Useless,” said the voice.

That was Mr. Grime’s nickname for Max. Useless.

The group home manager appeared in the hallway. He was a slimy man with nostrils full of prickly nose hairs.

Mr. Grimes resented Max because his disability meant more paperwork and regulations to follow for the running of the group home.

The man came over and grabbed Max by the arm. He squeezed down right on Max’s bruises. The boy winced in pain.

“I received a phone call from your school today. You were bringing up the tower in class!? Talking about outer-rim citizens entering the tower-zone!?”

Max shrugged. He had asked a question during history class. He hadn’t thought it was a big deal.

“Are you crazy? If you weren’t in high school, the government would arrest you for that kind of talk.”

“I guess I’m lucky that I’m in high school then,” said Max. “Why aren’t we allowed to talk about the tower? It’s right in front of all of us. It’s crazy that we don’t talk about it.”

“Useless, Useless, Useless,” said Mr. Grimes, wiping his sweaty forehead with an already damp handkerchief. “I can’t talk to you any more. There’s work for you in the kitchen. Go.”

Max turned to wave goodbye to Sarah and made his way to the kitchen. When he got there, he found loads of dirty pots and pans to wash.

Mr. Grimes always gave Max work to do. “You have to work for your privilege to live here,” he always said.

There was no arguing with him. Mr. Grimes had power over his whole life. He could send him back to one of the larger orphanages, which were even more horrible. Or make a false claim of assault and have him sent to a juvenile center, which was no worse than a jail for teenagers.

So Max had to do Mr. Grimes’ bidding, unless he wanted to trade his crappy life for an even crappier one.

Max sighed and got to work on the dishes.

Two hours later when he finished all the chores, he could hear stomping sounds in another part of the group home.

“Sarah...” slurred a voice.

Uh oh.

It was Mr. Grimes. He was drunk and stumbling around the group home.

All the residents knew to avoid Mr. Grimes when he got intoxicated like this, and Max probably would have done the same, if it weren’t for the fact that the man was slurring the name of his only friend.

Max made his way to the end of one hall to get a better idea of what Mr. Grimes was up to.

The older sweaty man was leaning against a door, knocking against it.

It was the door to Sarah’s room.

“Sarah...” slurred Mr. Grimes. “I need to speak with you...”

Max did not like what he was seeing.

He accepted the blackmail Mr. Grimes lorded over him and the horrible tasks he made him do. A pile of dirty dishes was not something worth fighting over, but what if the group home manager made a similar threat to Sarah? But instead of dishes, he forced her to do something far worse...

Max had to stop this before it went even further.

“Hey!” he said, rolling into the hallway. “Leave Sarah alone!”

Mr. Grimes’ tilted his head slowly towards Max. His eyes were bloodshot. His whole face was slimy with sweat.

“Are you speaking to me, Useless?” slurred Mr. Grimes.

This was it. Max was distracting him. He needed to lure him away from Sarah’s door.

“That’s right,” said Max.

Mr. Grimes snickered and then did something Max wasn’t expecting.

The man simply ignored him.

He returned to the door, knocking on it.

“Come out, Sarah...”

So the man was just going to ignore him. He’d have to distract him further.

Max made his way so that he was right beside the man. He lifted his arms and grabbed Mr. Grimes’ wrist.

“Leave her alone,” said Max.

“What’s this...” said Mr. Grimes, continuing to slur his words. “Assault? I guess I’ll just have to send you to juvenile hall.”

Max gulped. If protecting Sarah meant going to a juvenile center, so be it.

“You’ll have a record though, Useless,” said Mr. Grimes. “And you know what that means? No way in hell would you ever get documents to enter the tower-zone.”

He laughed, spit flying into Max’s face.

If he couldn’t enter the tower-zone, he’d never be able to find his sister. He’d never be able to fulfill the promise he made to her.

“Now remove your hand from my wrist, Useless,” spat Mr. Grimes.

Max ignored him. He just kept thinking about never seeing his sister again. Failing at his promise.

“Let go of me,” shouted Mr. Grimes. “Can you not hear me? Are you an idiot and a cripple?”

Max wasn’t hearing the man. He saw his sister in his mind. They were much younger, playing in a field.

“As your big brother,” he had said. “I promise to always protect you.”

SMACK!

Mr. Grimes slapped Max across the face.

The pain scorched across his cheek.

“If you send me to a juvenile center,” said Max. “I’ll tell everyone about you. All the evil things you’ve done. You’ll be finished. And guess what—you won’t be able to do anything about it. Make me do the dishes? Clean the showers? You won’t be able to make me do anything because I’ll be far away.”

The man perked up at that.

“Don’t you threaten me, Useless,” said Mr. Grimes. “I’ll take you at your word.”

“Leave me and my friend alone and you got a deal,” said Max.

“Nope,” smiled Mr. Grimes. “You’re a loose end now and do you know what I do to loose ends? I snip them away.”

Mr. Grimes reached out and grabbed Max by the hair and slammed his head against the wall.

Max blacked out.

* * *

Max woke up in darkness.

He lifted up his hand and felt a metal surface above him.

Where am I?

He heard the thrum of a car engine. The crackle of a wheel rolling over a stone.

Was he in the trunk of a car?

The car came to a stop and the engine cut out.

He heard a murmur of voices.

What the heck was going on?

The last thing Max remembered was yelling at Mr. Grimes before the man hit him. Had he blacked out after that? So it seemed logical that the only place he could be was in the back of Mr. Grimes’ car.

But what was he planning on doing with him?

Max pushed himself so his ear was against the metal surface. He could make out the voices outside.

“Remember that favor you owe me,” said Mr. Grimes.

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

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