Follow Me Through Darkness

by Danielle Ellison

  “That there is Pete,” Delilah says. “He knows all about El Paso.” She steps away from me with her plate, and I follow. She puts a hand up to stop me. “Let me go first.”

  I watch her skip over to the table, all charm and smiles. The people around Pete separate for her and one even gives her his seat. She talks to him silently before every set of eyes at the table drifts toward me. My stomach feels sick when she waves me over. Thorne walks up behind me, his breath on my neck.

  “Want me to take that?”

  “I can do it,” I say back.

  He looks at me and then follows my gaze to Delilah. “You two having fun?”

  “I’m teaching her to spell,” I say. Thorne nods. He knows how much I love teaching. “How was Doc?”

  “I’m good as new,” he smiles.

  Delilah calls my name and waves me over again. I look at Thorne. “Coming?”

  “For what?”

  “Some answers,” I say. Thorne and I move over to the table across the room.

  “You must be Neely. Little Lilah said you was nice,” Pete says. He waves and someone moves for us. I lower myself into the newly emptied chair next to Thorne, still warm from the previous man. “You teachin’ her how to read and write, so I reckon I’m supposed to tell ya ‘bout how we work.”

  “That was the deal,” I say. It comes out a little snappier than I mean it to.

  Pete raises an eyebrow. “Whatcha wanna know?” I move the food on my plate around with my fork, bite my lip. He laughs at me, a loud guffawing laugh. “Don’t even know the questions!”

  A few awkward moments pass us by in silence. What do I want to know? Where do I start? I want to know everything. How they died. What the Old World and the Preservation were really like.

  “How do you survive out here?” I ask. Pete shifts in his chair and says a quick word in the Remnant language. Delilah stares at the man until he sighs dramatically. He shoves a bite into his mouth. Some of it drips into his big, bushy beard.

  “We survive ‘cuz they didn’t. We know how it works. We use whatever leftover resources we can find from before and build things new. That’s how it works if others go ‘bove at all.”

  “How many camps are there?” Thorne asks. I look at him but don’t speak. This can be a way for Thorne to learn some of what I know and for both of us to understand some more.

  “More than I know I reckon. See, them Elders tried to destroy everythin’, but they can’t do that. People’s always going to survive and adapt. That’s all we’ve done-adapted. ‘Course, I reckon it’s different everywhere. Who’s to say new camps aren’t set up every single day? I just know the people we workin’ with, and I’m sure it ain’t everyone.” Pete rips a corner of some bread off with his teeth.

  Beside me, Delilah swings her legs in her chair while she eats her food. She looks from me to Pete and back again. I pick at the peas on my plate, and then stuff a few into my mouth. They taste like nothing.

  “San Francisco is the only place where they live above and below. The Mavericks took it way back durin’ the Preservation after the Elders abandoned it ‘cuz of the earthshakes. It’s some kind of headquarters, a place they run things from, I reckon. None of us goes there.”

  I shake my head and dip my bread into what’s left of my food. I chew it quickly so I don’t have to taste it. “Why do the Elders tell us everything is dead? It’s not dead.”

  Pete gawks at me, his eyes shifting between amused and frustrated. He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again. “There’s a war between us and ‘em. You think the war ended with the Preservation? The Elders want all the land, and they want all of us off it. We’re nothing to them. So the Cleaners come out ev’ry few months and suck the people out. Right after they toss somethin’ over them. A bomb, a poison, somethin’. Sometimes it’s stuff that’s been out in the Old World forever, but the Elders are waitin’ for the right time to use it up. Best way to get rid of vermin is to keep sprayin’ for bugs.”

  The fire. That’s how they started it. They’d already had it in the Burrows, and they activated it to kill me. Those people really did all die because of me. I lower my fork, no longer hungry. So many people are dead. Someone walks by and speaks to Pete. He stops talking to me and answers the other woman in the Remnant language.

  “Where was I?” Pete asks, clearing his throat and taking a long swig of water. “The network keeps us informed. We share everythin’ with most of the other camps because it’s all we got. Goods, food, news, deaths. Got some real smart people in other places, too, done rigged up some of that technology that destroyed the Old World. We got it now ourselves somehow, and we use it.”

  “Like the cars and guns?” Thorne asks.

  He nods. “We got to be careful. That’s why we call ourselves El Paso, even though it’s right over yonder. If they think that’s where we is, that’s where they gonna go. It’s safety. We move around. This is just one of our places in this area.”

  “Tell her more ‘bout San Francisco,” one of the guys with us says.

  Pete eyes us both suspiciously and pushes his plate toward the center of the table. “The Elders lived there ‘fore the ravens, ‘fore the States fell. They were three rich men who wanted the States to be a good place again, who wanted to flourish ‘emselves. They’d been looking for a way to live forever when Raven’s Flesh happened.”

  “No one can live forever,” Thorne says. His tone is completely even, but I can tell that he’s struggling. No one can live forever, but maybe they have succeeded.

  “So you think,” Pete says. “The Three had lots of scientists, and after the cure, one scientist realized them others was lyin’. He tried to make it better. That’s what you have to do when you realize somethin’ isn’t what you think it is.”

  I feel off-balance as Thorne listens, his face twisted in confusion. He looks at me and sees my lack of surprise, which makes him more confused.

  “What did the one scientist do?” I ask Pete.

  “He had two sons and a daughter in a Compound. Story goes that he saved one of them, and they started the Mavericks. The other son stayed in the Compound, and we never heard what happened to him. The girl was a spy, relayin’ information to her father.” Pete stops just long enough to eat his food. That must be Xenith’s family. He told me that they started the Mavericks. This whole time he’s been connected to the outside in some way.

  “In the Old World, everyone thought San Francisco would break apart-all them earthshakes they had at the end-but it’s there still.” Pete looks between us. “The Mavericks are there. They’re good people. Saved a lot of lives. Gotta know how to find ‘em though, ‘cause they’re on the move a lot.”

  “Is that how the Elders haven’t found them?”

  Pete pauses, and a smile spreads across his face. “The Elders are always lookin’ but they don’t build on this side of the map anymore. They send the Cleaners sometimes, but we’re all careful. They believe all of it’s dead, but really, all of it’s full of Remnants trying to rebuild.”

  I don’t think that’s what the Elders believe at all. I think they are waiting.

  6 MONTHS BEFORE ESCAPE

  I WAIT AS LONG AS I CAN before I have to go visit my father at headquarters. This isn’t a pleasure trip. I need his signature so I can keep teaching lessons to the younger kids. At this point, everyone my age is doing the thing they will do forever. I don’t want to do anything forever, especially not what they’ve assigned for me.

  Director.

  I’ve known all year, all my life, what my fate would be when I turned eighteen-Assistant Director Cornelia Ambrose. It’s the one thing I don’t want, but I’ll never be able to avoid it, not entirely. This is a delay tactic. We haven’t been on the best of terms, but it’s all I have. I’m still his daughter, and that has to count for something.

  The hallways here always put me on edge. I don’t like being able to see myself in the floor, to hear my shoes as I walk. The walls are so white and the lights too
bright. I feel like I’m out of place, and everyone is watching me contaminate the space. Plus, I know what’s underneath the shiny layers of tile and laminate-the dead awaiting the ceremony we have four times a year.

  Father’s office is in the far eastern corner of headquarters, so I have to pass by the Healer unit and the Troopers station before I make it to his quarters. I try to block out what lies beneath me and beside me.

  “Cornelia,” Mary Jenks says. She’s my father’s assistant, though I’m not sure what she assists him with. She’s a short woman with blonde hair cut to her shoulders, and she’s always wearing black dresses and shiny shoes.

  “I’m here for my father.”

  Mary flips the papers on her clipboard, her brow furrowing. “You’re not on his schedule.”

  I put on my best innocent, doting daughter face. “He’s so busy, I know, but it should only be a minute.”

  She smiles at me, eyes darting around before landing on me. “He should be back soon. You can sit in his office if you’d like.”

  I thank her and go inside. My father’s office is dark. The walls are brown here, unlike the rest of headquarters. A bookshelf covers the back wall of the room, filled with the history of the Compound in ledgers from previous directors. There’s a couch the color of the tide and two chairs that are near his massive, disheveled desk. If not for the floors that still shine under my feet, I wouldn’t recognize the place.

  I take a seat in my father’s chair behind the desk. When I was a little girl, it made him look so big and powerful. Now, sitting here makes me anxious. I don’t want this life. This job. It’s changing him, and I don’t want that either. I look down to his desk and see a ledger open on the surface. I shouldn’t-I know I shouldn’t-but I look at it.

  The script is tiny, hard to read. I have to squint to make out the small letters. The top is dated 2336. My great-grandfather was the director then, in our two hundred and twentieth year of Preservation.

  5th day of March, 2336

  Another survivor found his way to the barriers today. Where are they coming from? This is the third one in a month. The Elders have declared a new way to prevent them. They will scour the Old World for more and stop them before they get to us, clean the world of what remains. This world needs more perfection, so they tell me. We need to keep the Raven’s Flesh at bay.

  Ever since Nicholas Taylor, the Elders have been on edge, more determined to stop any malicious activity. I must agree that the timing is too suspicious, as it was only a month ago I wrote of his confrontation with me. The Elders wanted to remove his family, but in the end they didn’t. I can’t blame them for wanting to remove Nicholas. The Taylor line has always questioned too many things. It is the cause of their deaths far too often, and it all started with the scientist in the Preservation.

  Perhaps I should have been more cautious with him, but he was a good friend to me, someone I trusted. He claimed to have proof—proof!—that the Elders were up to something perverse. That they could not be trusted. As a friend, I heard him out, but it all seemed to be the ramblings of a madman, and as a servant of the Elders, I did as they commanded.

  I was told to end the threat. I did so with remorse at the loss of another founding family. I discovered the proof he spoke of, and I hope it is safely kept away. The Taylors have always been and will always be a threat to our life as long as they continue to exist within our walls.

  If anyone in the Compound learns of the world that exists out there, centuries of work will be lost, and we will be no better than those who were destroyed. We were saved for a purpose. No one must ever know the truth. Neither the truth beyond the barrier nor the truth within.

  During our meeting after his death, the Elders used the words “experimental ultimate compliance.”

  I’m not certain exactly what that means, but they say I will be the first. It’s a new technique to save those, like the late Nicholas Taylor, who question things they should not. I explained that I believed our people to be satisfied with our way of life, completely, but they disagree.

  Apparently, I am special. The Elders tried to get me to understand, but I’m not completely clear on their meaning. Whatever they are looking for among the survivors, I have it. I am honored to set my family apart. Unlike Nicholas Taylor, I trust in them completely.

  My mind is reeling, and I jump when I hear my father’s voice just outside. I dive toward the chair on the other side of his desk and stare up at him when he steps in the door. My heart pounds inside my chest. Can he hear it?

  “Cornelia, this is a surprise,” he says. “Your face looks pale.”

  I shake my head as he walks toward his desk. “I need you to sign this,” I say quickly. The words tumble over each other, and I thrust the paper at him. There is life outside.

  He raises an eyebrow in my direction and takes it from my hand. He pauses as he lowers himself into his chair and glances from the open book to me. He closes it, then reads the paper. The walls suddenly feel smaller, like they’re pushing in on me.

  “I wanted to speak with you about this. It’s my wish that you should start training for your future,” he says. “It’s time to move on from this.”

  Survivors. Outsiders. Barriers. Old World. The truth. What does it all mean? Are there people outside? Life?

  There’s more than just the Compound. There is life outside.

  “Cornelia,” he says. I look up at him. I can’t believe they’ve lied to us.

  “Actually, I’m not feeling well,” I say. I move from the chair and toward the door.

  My father lays the paper on top of the book. I stare at it, at the red siding and the words inside. Outside.

  “You should go to the Healers on your way out,” he says.

  I nod and say nothing else.

  There is life outside.

  My feet hammer against the floor as I run down the hall and past the Healers. Past the Troopers. Out the door.

  DEADLINE: 19D, 9H, 2M

  REMNANT CAMP: EL PASO, TEXAS

  THORNE WATCHES FROM THE DOOR while Delilah and I go over the rest of the alphabet. She’s mastered all the way to “N,” just like she said she would. I feel Thorne’s eyes on me, and then irritation seeps through our connection. Not at me, but at the things we learned earlier.

  “We need to talk,” he says when I meet his gaze.

  I look at Delilah, who smiles up at me while copying my “P.” “You keep practicing. We’ll be back,” I say to her.

  Thorne jumps to his feet and is standing by the door before I finish the sentence. He leads me through the door and takes my hand. The storm of our connection heightens. We move down the underground corridors under the pale light of lamps and torches, drifting through hushed conversations under the dim lights. A few people stop talking and look at us like the intruders we are. The tension Thorne’s feeling flows into me and makes my own muscles tighten.

  We finally stop in a small, circular room.

  “What is this?”

  Thorne pulls a torch off the wall, lighting up the room. “Joe brought me here this morning. We were talking through some ideas to get Remnants actively involved in safety patrols and productivity.” He pauses. “He showed me this.”

  He shines the light on the floor, and below my feet is the symbol of the twin branding, the same one we have on our necks. Dozens of them. Painted in the same colors that Delilah’s been using on her letters. Under them are names. Emma - Laura: bodies. Jonathon - Samuel: moving. Hannah - David: thoughts. I glance over as many as I can see in the low light, and finally I see, Cecily - Deanna: dreams.

  I kneel and touch the writing on the ground. “What is this?”

  “Joe said the Mavericks had operations here decades ago, and the scientist’s family was spying for them. These were the twins born that decade.”

  Why would they write the names here? What’s that other word mean? I read them again, and the pieces start to form in my head.

  “The Elders were looking for clues with
the twins, something special like Cecily and Deanna,” I say. A connection. Dreams. Cecily and Deanna shared dreams. This is a map of the twins the Mavericks were aware of and what they could do.

  Thorne moves across the room, taking the light of the torch with him. I follow him over to a desk, and he points to a paper with writing I don’t know. It must be from the Remnants. “Joe said the spy informed them of the twins’ births and of any abilities or reactions. I guess the Mavericks thought everything would be obvious.”

  Whatever the Elders are after, they are willing to go through a lot to find it. “If the Elders were really trying to obtain immortality, why would they need a special trait? How would they get that from twins?”

  “I don’t know,” Thorne says, running a hand through his hair. “All of this is a little overwhelming. I don’t want to believe it, but I can’t not believe it. If what Pete said is true, all of that, then this is way bigger than our Compound. It’s bigger than us.”

  “And what are they really after?”

  Silence falls between us. I look around the small room. The walls are made of dirt and stone, with more of the markings in the familiar berry ink. I wish I could read it, figure out what it meant.

  “It’s Xenith’s family, isn’t it?” Thorne asks suddenly. “They’re the spies. You said his family started the Mavericks, but really, they helped start everything.”

  I nod. “And we’re going to help end it.”

  Thorne is quiet again. Then, “I’ve been thinking. The Benny kid was right. The Elders know we’re here, and every second we stay we put them all in more danger.”

  “I know,” I say. I’ve thought it, too. “We have to find whatever they’re looking for and keep the Elders from getting it.”

  “It’s all connected. This proves you were right all along.” Thorne meets my eyes, and I know he wishes he didn’t have to say that. That he wishes I was wrong because that would mean none of these dangers exist. That our family is safe and the possibility of our relationship being manufactured didn’t exist. We can wish all we want, but I know neither of us will be content with the lies. Not now.