by Carrie Ryan
I see the way they look at me. As if I’m the betrayer.
“I saw the bite marks,” I whisper.
“But maybe that’s not what it was,” she counters. “It could have been a scratch. He can’t be infected. He can’t!” She notices that people are watching us now and she lowers her voice. “You have to find him. There’s something wrong. You have to go find him.”
I step away, shocked. “You want me to go back there?” I ask, my eyes wide.
She nods, her mouth a tight white line in her face.
The thought of returning to the Barrier, of climbing over it again, makes my heart seize with panic. “But I can’t,” I tell her. “Not after …” I let my voice trail off. “What could I even do for him if I found him?” I protest.
“You can make sure he’s okay,” Cira hisses. “You can be there with him and help him if he’s hurt. You can—”
I’m shaking my head, my hands trembling, and Blane steps forward and grabs my wrist through the bars, cutting Cira off.
“What?” Blane says. “You’re willing to climb the fence for a good time but not for a friend?” The others grumble assent behind her. “Useless,” she adds, throwing up a hand in my face, “we should’ve told them about you when we had the chance.” She pauses, raising one eyebrow as the corner of her mouth tilts up. “I guess we still could,” she adds.
I glance at Cira and see the hesitation on her face. As if she believes Blane. I start to feel sick. This can’t be my only option. I grab at her hands. “I can’t do it, Cira,” I whisper. “I can’t.” Even to my own ears the desperation in my voice is clear, pitched high and cracking.
I feel the crushing press of panic again and I don’t know what to do. I can barely breathe with it. Spots of color explode in front of my eyes.
Blane reaches through the bars and grabs my wrist again, her nails digging into the tender white flesh as she pulls my grip from Cira. I focus on her, the edges of her hair blurring like a halo.
“You find her brother,” she says through her teeth. “You find Catcher or else you’re useless out there and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be in here with the rest of us.”
I think about them telling my mother I went beyond the Barrier. Telling the Chairman. For lying, for putting everyone around me at risk, my punishment would be worse than just being sent to the Recruiters for a couple of years.
My mother would know that I lied. She would never trust me again. I close my eyes, not wanting to imagine the repercussions and disappointments. I realize that I have no choice. I either go find Catcher or they’ll turn me in.
“I’ll go look for him,” I whisper, ashamed that it takes such a threat to get me to take action.
Cira’s shoulders relax a little and Blane drops my wrist. “You better find him,” she growls.
I wait for Cira to defend me. For her to smile, even if just a little. For it to be like before, even though I know it never can be again. But instead the others in the cage pull her away from me, coddle her as one of their own. Leaving me standing alone, outside. I glance over my shoulder at the other cage, at the condemned. Overnight everything’s changed. Twisted into complicated patterns that I can’t unravel.
I open my mouth to say more but Blane turns Cira away from me. I stand there staring for a moment, wishing things could be like they were before. But they aren’t and may never be. I shuffle down the platform, skirt the stragglers in the square and wander through the narrow streets until I reach the wide empty buffer zone between the town and the Barrier.
I stare at the wall, at the dark wood towering above the Militiamen, whose patrols have tripled. I think back to last night, how I promised myself to never tempt fate again, to stay safe within the confines of Vista. And yet here I am, trying to find a way outside once more. Only now it’s hopeless to think that I’ll be able to cross the Barrier with the Militia keeping out such a sharp eye. That I’ll even be able to find Catcher if I could.
He was with the others when I ran away, and his bite didn’t look severe enough to kill him so soon. There’s still a chance he’s alive and hasn’t changed. And if the Militia didn’t find him, it means he doesn’t want to be found. It means he left just like I did but he didn’t come back inside the Barrier. It means that something is wrong.
I press my fingers against my temples. It’s stupid of me to think about climbing the Barrier. The Chairman made it clear what the punishment will be. Plus, what would happen if Catcher has already turned? Then I’m as good as dead if I find him.
I close my eyes against the sun, trying to block out the sounds of the town around me. But in the darkness of my mind I can’t stop remembering last night. In my head everything happens slow and fast at once.
The Breaker, the panic, Catcher running, fighting her. Killing Mellie.
Seeing the Breaker’s speed—facing it—I understand how it is that our world has never recovered from the Return. How even when we beat the Mudo back, infection can spark and rage again. All the stories we were taught about cities being cleared of Mudo only to discover one trapped in a closet or dredged from the ocean or lake during a storm make sense now after seeing it happen last night.
A hand falls on my shoulder and I jump, a scream catching in my throat. I open my eyes to find one of the Militiamen standing in front of me. I recognize him from school—his name is Daniel and he’s older than I am. Most of his friends joined the Recruiters in the past few years but he was left behind because he was born with a crooked leg that causes him to walk with a long slow limp.
“Sorry, Gabrielle,” he says. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I blink at him, surprised to hear him say my name, as we’ve rarely talked in the past. “No, I was … daydreaming. I should have been paying attention.”
He smiles, shy. “A runner came from the Protectorate in the Dark City today and he had supplies for your mother. I saw you standing here and thought maybe you’d want to take them to her rather than have her wait for them to get sorted with the rest.”
He holds out a small box, its lid already torn half open. He says nothing and to fill the silence I look through the assortment of gears and cogs, replacement and repair parts for the lighthouse. Daniel leans his head close to mine to see what’s inside and for a moment I think of Catcher, of the way he would lean in to me while we spoke.
My hands begin to shake, rattling the box, and I take a step back to put distance between the memories.
I notice Daniel’s face fall a little and I instantly regret it. He was always teased in school and I can see it in the way he holds his shoulders, as if he’s steeling himself for blows.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I just can’t stop thinking about my friends.” I keep my eyes on the gears, on their sharp little teeth.
“Oh,” he says. He hesitates. “The ones from last night were your friends?”
I nod. “Sort of, I guess.”
“You were smart not to cross the Barrier with them.”
I feel the heat spreading up my neck again. I can feel the way it sears my skin. The fear and anguish and shame rolling off me like a stink.
“Though if you ask me,” he continues, “being sent to the Recruiters is more of an honor than a punishment.”
“It’s death,” I tell him before I can stop myself. “It’s stupid.” My cheeks flush, startled at how vehement I sound.
Now he’s the one to step back, a scowl darkening his face. “We’re a city of the Protectorate. It’s our duty. Besides, the chance at full citizenship and the ability to live in the Protected Zones are worth it.”
“Vista is protected enough,” I snap, tired of always keeping quiet. I grind my teeth and add, “I just don’t see why you’d want to go anywhere else.” I want to add that it’s useless to fight the Mudo, to wage the never-ending war, but I know he’ll never understand. Trying to change his mind is just as hopeless as trying to eradicate the Mudo.
He opens his mouth to respond, his skin reddening a
little with anger. I might have pushed him too far.
I cut him off. “I’m sorry,” I say, not having the strength to argue. I’ve uttered those words more today than I have in my entire life. “Thank you for bringing me this.” I hold up the box. “It was very nice of you to go out of your way like that.”
If I’ve learned anything from Cira in the last few months it’s how to placate young men with compliments, and it works on Daniel. His shoulders relax and he smiles and tilts his head before slowly making his way back to the gate, finally leaving me alone.
I spend most of the day wandering along the Barrier, watching the Militia pace and patrol. When I finally get back to the lighthouse my mother isn’t there, though I know she’ll be home soon, in time for the high tide. I lay the box on the table and then I pace around the small rooms. I want to run but I don’t know where. I want to do something, anything, but I don’t know what.
So I climb to the gallery and stare out around me, trying to figure out how I’m supposed to cross the Barrier and find Catcher. Trying to find the courage.
But there just aren’t that many ways out of Vista. The town crouches on a peninsula, three sides protected by water and the fourth by a high thick wall that extends as a stone jetty out into the ocean.
There are old photographs in the Council House that show what Vista used to look like before the Return. A rambling sprawl along the coast of gleaming buildings and hotels and shops clinging to the ocean. A place where no one lived and everyone visited. A place for relaxation—as if in their world they could afford such time away from the duties and responsibilities that kept everyone alive.
Most of the stories about what Vista was like before the Return have been lost now. No one cares about the people who came before us. We’re a dead end. We exist far from the core of the Protectorate, like a forgotten afterthought. Traders rarely come and visitors arrive because they are desperate or mistaken. Only the Recruiters are constant, returning every season to take their due: taxes for the Protectorate, soldiers to fight in the never-ending war against the Mudo and to ensure we’re doing our duty to keep the lighthouse running.
The lighthouse perches on the very tip of the peninsula buffered from the rest of town by a span of woods. It’s a relief to live on the outskirts, to be removed from the crush and bustle of the day-to-day life. Most people never even bother to walk the path through the trees and past the fence to the beach; they’re too afraid of the ocean, where the dead can rise from the waves.
I once asked my mother if she was afraid to live out here along the boundary of the fence. She said that someone had to keep the lighthouse going and monitor the beaches to dispose of the Mudo that washed ashore during high tides.
We were standing on the gallery, the sun setting fire over the tops of the pre-Return buildings in Vista. She tented her hands over her eyes and looked past the town, past the river and into the Forest stretching out toward the mountains hulking in the barely visible distance.
“It’s not always those out on the water who need an anchor,” she said. “Sometimes there are others who need to know there’s a world out here.”
I didn’t understand what she was saying then. But now, when I look past the Barrier and toward the ruins to the edge of the amusement park, I wonder about Catcher. I imagine being lost out there, seeing the stripe of light in the night and using it to find my way home.
Even though I know it’s impossible, sometimes I like to imagine they can see our lighthouse in the Dark City way up the coast. I like to think that somewhere out there is a girl like me who stands in the night and wonders what else exists in the world but who is too terrified to find out. I wonder what her life is like, if she knows more about the world than I do.
From my perch I watch the Militia skitter along the Barrier like sand fleas on the dunes. There’s no way I can climb the wall undetected, which leaves only one other way around: through the ocean.
When I think about leaving I can barely breathe. The panic that set in last night whispers around me. I press my fist to my chest, feeling each beat of my heart. Feeling the force of blood through every artery. I don’t want to let Cira down—not more than I already have. And I don’t want to let myself down either.
I realize that I’m terrified of going back to the ruins not just because I’m afraid of being caught, but because I’m terrified of finding Catcher. I don’t want to see him infected. I don’t want to see him turned and have to kill him. I don’t want any of it. I just want to go back to the way life was before. I want to take back that night and pull it from the span of days.
But then I’d never have felt his lips against mine. And I’m not sure I’m willing to give that memory up.
From inside I can hear the dwindling echo of a bell ringing, the alarm that chimes every 745 minutes—when the tide is nearing its peak.
For as long as I can remember, my mother’s life has revolved around the sound of that bell.
Mudo can’t drown; they’re already dead, and so the waves are often tossing them ashore. Most of the time they’re downed in a quasi-hibernation from being in the water so long, but as soon as they sense people they rise and start after them. This means every day, every twelve hours and twenty-five minutes, my mother patrols the beach, ready to decapitate any Mudo that wash in on the high tide.
Many days nothing happens and my mother just stands there staring out at the horizon. Some days the tide will bring a few Mudo. And rarely, a storm will rage at sea, dredging up the dead to walk the shores.
When I was growing up my mother never allowed me on the beach during the highest tides. Whether to keep me safe or to shelter me from reality I’ve never figured out. I think she always liked the idea that somehow she could keep it all from me. That if I never saw the Mudo, if I never looked in their eyes, I wouldn’t have to face the truth of them. I wouldn’t have to face the truth of the world.
She once told me it was the only thing she could hope to give me—a life without the Mudo constantly pulsing in the background.
Now as I stand on the gallery and watch my mother walk onto the beach, the way she strolls back and forth just past the line of waves, tendrils of water reaching toward her, I realize that after last night there’s nothing she needs to shelter me from anymore.
I know the reality of the world. I’ve seen the Mudo tear at human flesh. I’ve seen infection and I’ve seen them turn.
A hand tumbles in the waves, fingers skimming the white froth. My mother’s back stiffens and she tightens her grip around the handle of the shovel.
The body is pushed to the shore and then pulled back again like a teasing dance.
The ocean finally deposits the Mudo on the sand and my mother walks over to it. I lean forward, watching.
It’s a woman, wet tangled black hair spread across her face like a spider’s web. Her skin, what I can see of it, is pale, gray and pocked. She’s wearing what looks like a black skirt that’s bunched up around her knees from the water. A dark shirt lies drenched against her body.
She rolls ever so slightly in the water and I hold my breath, waiting for my mother to deliver the final blow, to slice the blade through her neck, severing her head.
But it doesn’t come. I stare down at my mother. She’s just standing there, shovel held high above her head.
I watch as the Mudo starts to twitch. Her mouth opens and closes and she turns her head, sensing my mother.
Soon she’ll push herself up, and my mother is doing nothing to stop her. She’s just standing there staring and it doesn’t make sense.
I lean my body over the railing. “Mother!” I scream. But the wind is off the ocean. She doesn’t hear me. I scream again, but still nothing.
For a moment I want to jump. I think about tightening my fingers around the railing and tossing myself over, landing by her side. And then I turn and run. My body bangs against the walls as I fling myself down the stairs.
As I run, I imagine all the worst possibilities. That I’ll
hit the beach just as I see the Mudo stand. That my mother will still be stuck there, as if touched by something that has taken her out of time and pinned her in place.
That I’ll see the Mudo bite my mother.
My body goes cold and I sprint for the door as hard and fast as I can. I force myself to remember that my mother can defend herself. That she’ll have killed the Mudo before I even get outside and how we’ll both laugh at my panic.
“Mother!” I scream as I grab my blade from the entry and kick open the door. The salty wet heat slams into me and on the air I can hear a slip of a moan from the Mudo on the beach.
I turn the corner to the gate, my fingers fumbling. The Mudo is on her knees, pushing herself to her feet. She reaches one hand out to my mother and then another.
“Kill her!” I scream, rage and terror fueling my every breath. I don’t understand what’s going on, don’t understand why my mother won’t move, won’t act. Flashes of last night explode in my mind: Me standing there in the face of the Breaker. Me failing and Catcher getting bitten.
The heavy sand pulls at my feet and makes it impossible to sprint. Stumbling across the stretch of beach, I’ve never felt so useless. Needing to be faster, needing to get there but my legs disobeying.
The Mudo’s on her feet and lunges for my mother, who pulls the handle of the shovel from her shoulder and knocks the woman back. The Mudo stumbles a few feet, her wet black skirt wrapping around her legs and tripping her.
“What are you doing?” I scream. “Kill her!”
The Mudo reaches again for my mother and again she pushes her back. Like a cat toying with a mouse, she keeps pushing the woman away from her and the Mudo keeps lunging.
Finally I’m within striking distance. I’m about to pull the blade behind my head, to make right what I did wrong last night, when my mother grabs the handle. She wrenches it from my hand and tosses it onto the sand. With the back of her arm she pushes me away from the Mudo.
