by Ryan Casey
Riley rubbed his fingers through his hair. “I don’t even know how to begin explaining.”
“You can make a start,” she said. “What’s happened, Riley? What’s bothering you?”
Riley sat down, and Anna joined him. Outside, he could hear the laughter of the people, the commotion of everyday life, and it reminded him of two things. The world before, and the living zone. And he couldn’t shake that knowledge that both of those worlds had fallen. Both of those existences had collapsed. Just the thought of the same thing happening to this place… well, it filled him with dread. Filled him with fear.
“They weren’t interested in my application for the paper,” he said.
“Oh. That’s… well, that’s on them,” Anna said. “They’re missing out on a fucking Grade A writer if you ask me—”
“They told me they want me to apply to be a scout.”
Riley saw the way Anna’s face turned. He could see that unmistakable look of fear in her eyes. No matter how much she might try to deny it, it was there. Unwavering. Unforgettable.
“A scout?” she said, finally regaining her composure.
Riley nodded. “They say I’ve shown ‘leadership qualities’ in the old world. That they want me to go back out there and lead a mission, I dunno.”
“And what did you say?”
Riley frowned. “You really think that’s a question worth asking?”
He saw the relief in Anna’s eyes. And he realised then that she’d been concerned. Just for a moment, she’d been concerned that he might’ve said yes. That he might’ve decided to go.
He reached over and grabbed her hands. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “And especially not… not back there.”
Anna nodded. She leaned over, went in to kiss Riley. “Good,” she whispered. “You… you were right to turn it down. But you can’t outrun your demons, Riley. None of us can outrun where we’ve come from.”
She went to kiss Riley, but Riley backed away. “What?”
“What’s wrong?” Anna said.
“What you just said. About demons. What do you mean by that?”
Anna sighed. She backed away from Riley, leaned against the sofa arm. “I’m just saying. I know it’s hard to look in the eye where we’ve come from. To even… acknowledge that was a life we once lived, yeah, that’s hard too. But we can’t outrun it. We have to embrace it. We have to let it form who we are going forward so we know damn well we’re never going to slip back to how the world was again.”
Riley felt uneasy about what Anna was saying. Because although she was saying he was right to have turned down the scouting role, she was implying that they had to be ready. Ready for something.
“But anyway,” she said, starting to remove her towel from her waist, propping herself up atop Riley. “Where were we?”
Riley felt himself start to get hard as Anna rocked on top of him, started undoing his shirt, stroking her soft fingers against his chest, then unbuckling his belt.
He started to feel at ease as he slid inside her, as the pair of them moved faster, faster, both understanding each other’s rhythm, both so in sync with each other’s desires.
And as he flipped Anna over, propped her legs wide open, grabbed her hair, he started to forget about his day. He started to forget about the old world and everything in it. Because he didn’t need to think about that. Not now. Not at this moment.
He was close—they were both close—when they heard it.
And when they heard it, they stopped completely.
Because outside, there was a blast.
An unmistakable blast.
A gunshot.
Chapter Six
Harry Bordington sprinted as fast as he could out of the labs and into the fresh air.
But he knew they’d be close behind him.
The sun blared down. The weather was hot. He could smell a mixture of candy floss and hot dogs, and all of it combined and came together to remind him of when he was younger; when he used to go to the fair with his mum and dad. Only his memories of the fair weren’t like other people’s. His memories of the fair were bad memories. He never liked the fair. Always afraid of the rollercoasters, of the rides.
And as much as he tried to enjoy them, to psyche himself up before he got to the fair, as terrified as he was, he’d always get there, and he’d just break down. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go on those rides. He couldn’t put himself through that.
But that made him even more scared. Because when he refused to go on the rides, it made Dad angry. And when Dad got angry, Dad got out the belt when they got home. Ten lashes. Ten strong, hard lashes, each of them hitting harder and sharper than the last.
And the horror when that tenth lash hit was always worse because although there was a momentary happiness, a momentary relief, a momentary respite… Harry knew he’d be going to the fair again in another few months. He knew what going to the fair meant.
And he knew from the look in his dad’s eyes that he knew that too.
And he looked like he was looking forward to it, in a way.
He raced through the streets of Island 47. Mostly because of what he knew. It was a different kind of fear to the one he used to feel about the fair; a more prominent, acute one. Because he knew this wasn’t just about a few lashings with a belt. This was something different entirely.
This was life and death.
And he had to make sure that even if he didn’t end up on the “life” side of the equation, that everyone else did.
And that might just depend on what he knew.
On the truth getting out.
He heard the footsteps then. Heard them racing behind him. And he knew they were coming for him. They knew what he had. What he was capable of stopping. If he could just tell the rest of the people in this place the truth—if he could just get them to listen…
He tripped. Felt himself tumble towards the ground.
He hit it with a whack that knocked a tooth free. He tasted blood. Dizziness spiralled in his head. The smells and the sounds brought back that fairground, that fear, that total terror of impending inevitability.
But no.
He wasn’t losing out this time.
Not this time.
He stood up. Looked around. He had to tell people. Tell as many people as possible so they listened to him, so they believed him.
He ran over to the first man he saw. Put his hands on his shoulders, shouted at him what he knew, the secrets he knew.
But he saw the look on the man’s face. He saw the doubt.
“The hell are you talking about?”
He realised he was going to be no good. So he ran to a woman who was pushing two prams. There were a few other kids beside her, all of them looking terrified, scared.
And Harry realised it was him they were scared of.
Because what must he look like?
A cleaner. A cleaner who didn’t exactly have the most spotless reputation as it was, racing through the streets shouting these claims like some kind of madman.
Yeah. Harry knew how it looked.
But someone had to hear him.
Someone had to believe him.
He looked around, scanned his surroundings. He needed higher ground. Because on higher ground, he could get people’s attention as a mass. He could make them listen.
And when they listened, he could give them proof.
He saw the ice cream van, and he knew this was it.
He pushed past a couple kids, knocking one of them to the ground. The dad turned, shouted at him, told him to get back here.
But Harry kept going.
He reached the ice cream van. The sounds of the fairground fully embracing his mind now.
And as he stood beside it, he knew this was time.
He knew this was his opportunity.
He clambered his way up the side of the ice cream van.
When he was on top of it, he stood there and looked around at everyone. He’d expected everyone
to have noticed him already. For everyone to be looking at him, an audience ready to hear the truth.
But they weren’t.
Just a few people were.
Just a few people.
But shit. He had to work with what he had.
“This place isn’t safe!” he shouted.
A few more heads turned. A few glances at him like he was mad.
“It’s not safe,” he said, tears running down his cheeks.
And that’s when he saw them.
The men in black moving in.
Guns raised.
Pointing in his direction.
And that fear of the belt hitting him grew.
That fear of its immediacy.
But at this time, when it was done, it was done.
There were no more visits to the fairground to dread.
There were no more whips of that belt to follow.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath.
“At the hospital. They’re keeping—”
A blast.
A thumping pain, right in between his eyes.
Momentary awareness of screaming. Of gasping.
And then, as he fell back off the ice-cream van, the sounds and smells of the fairground still spiralling his mind… Harry felt nothing.
Chapter Seven
Riley looked out of the window and tried to understand what he’d just witnessed.
The sun was even more beaming than it had been when he was outside earlier. It was hotter, warmer than he had been before, even though he was in the coolness of his flat. Anna was by his side, saying things to him, but he couldn’t process what she was saying. He couldn’t process what he was hearing.
All he could think about was what he’d just witnessed right in front of him.
Right outside the window.
And how much it took him back to the old world, to the way things used to be.
He replayed it in his mind as the shouts and cries of the people outside began to fill the momentary gap in sound he’d heard just before. The momentary silence that had arrived just earlier.
And when he heard the pandemonium begin to kick up, he was even more absorbed in the way things used to be.
When he saw the bloody mess, in such contrast to the ice cream van, the smells of candy floss, all of it, it took him right back again to the way things used to be.
“What the hell just happened?”
He heard Anna now, as the chaos continued to spiral outside. And when he heard her, his eyes were immediately drawn to the scene of the crime. It took a bit of searching, a bit of looking, but then eventually he found it; his eyes settled on it. The cause of the chaos.
The men dressed in their black, police-style gear.
There were three of them. Just three of them. And they were rushing through the crowd, over towards the fallen man, who at this stage Riley didn’t recognise.
But as they passed through the crowd like a knife through butter, the first thing they did was rush over to that fallen man—the man they’d clearly shot—and reach down for him.
They picked him up. Stretchered him like he was nothing more than an injury.
But it was clear to see this was worse than an injury.
Far, far worse.
Because there was barely anything left of this man’s head.
As he watched the man get dragged away—for whatever reason—Riley felt caught between two opposing forces telling him two different things. One was telling him to stay put. That whatever happened, that guy had been shot for a reason. That there must’ve been motive behind it. Legitimate reason. He must’ve been a threat or something. Law and order existed in this place, make no mistake about that. He just hadn’t witnessed the full extent of the law until now.
So he should stay put. He shouldn’t act on this. He should just allow whatever happens to happen, no matter what.
But then there was another opposing force. Another voice. And this one was telling him something different. This voice came from the place that he thought he’d left behind in the old world; the place that he hadn’t seen for a while—that he hadn’t wanted to see for a while.
But this voice was telling him something was wrong.
That there was a reason why this man had been shot.
That he’d wanted to share something.
And for whatever reason… he’d been silenced.
He thought about the secrecy around this place. The secrecy of the government and everything. What did he really know about them? What did anyone really know about them?
But then… what right did he have to know a thing about them at all? The old government in the old world, he hadn’t expected to know all the details about them. Why should this be any different?
Besides, sometimes secrecy was a good thing. Sometimes, it was there for a reason—to protect people.
Sometimes, what you didn’t know was important. It maintained order.
He had to give the people who ran this place the benefit of the doubt, mostly because they’d let him in here in the first place. And it wasn’t like the Living Zones in that it was on the doorstep of the infected world. This was different—it was a government-led haven.
He had to give it the benefit of the doubt.
And yet still…
Still, that voice in his head made him want to go out there.
Still, that voice in his head made him want to see where they were taking that man’s body, and what they were doing with it.
He took a deep breath and stepped away from the window.
“Riley?” Anna said. “What’re you doing?”
But he kept on going. Kept on going towards the door. Then out of the door, towards the corridor, down the stairs and out of the door onto the street outside.
And all the time the voices in his head were screaming at him to stay put, to turn away because this wasn’t his business, this wasn’t his problem to follow.
He couldn’t see them. Not yet. He looked around; looked for the trail of those people, wherever they’d gone.
He was about to give up when he saw them.
They were running back down the Main Street. Then they took a right, disappeared down an alley.
Riley tensed his fists. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to follow. He wanted to keep on living the same sheltered existence he’d been living for so long already.
But still, he kept on going.
He saw the alleyway in the distance. Saw the entrance to it. And all sorts of thoughts filled his mind. All kinds of theories.
He just had to keep on going.
He just had to take a look…
He held his breath as he stepped around the alleyway entrance.
And then he saw them.
There was a man in black standing right there.
Gun raised.
Blocking the alleyway.
He looked at this man, and the man looked back at him.
“You aren’t coming down here,” he said.
Riley opened his mouth. That urge inside him. That desire to resist; to know why this man was so cagey, what he was hiding.
But then he closed his mouth.
He stepped away.
Because as much as he wanted to keep on going down that alleyway, he knew it wasn’t a fight he could involve himself in right now.
It wasn’t a fight he could win.
He took a deep breath, kept his eyes on this guard, as the rest of his people continued to carry the body off down the alleyway, off into who knew where.
And then he turned away and walked back towards the flat.
But one thing was for sure.
That voice in his head was right.
Something was wrong here.
And this wasn’t going to mark the end of his suspicion.
It was only the beginning.
Chapter Eight
“And you’re saying they just like, full on stopped you? Like they didn’t want you following?”
Riley
sat in Ricky and Melissa’s lounge area. It was afternoon, and the sun had gone behind the clouds a little, making the heat of the summer more bearable. He’d gone around to Ricky and Melissa’s place simply because he wanted to get what’d happened off his chest. But also ’cause, in a way, he wanted a soundboard. A soundboard that could help him figure out whether it was just him who’d had that weird urge to follow; that undeniable longing for an understanding of just what secrets were being hidden in this place.
Melissa looked at Ricky, and she sighed. Their romance had been something that’d grown naturally over the last year. There’d always been something between them, ever since they first met. Melissa had a lot of demons, and Ricky seemed like he understood them. And the opposite was true too. It was good to see. A nice bit of positivity in a world where negativity had prevailed for so long.
But as they looked at one another now—like a family duo, not like the old warriors they used to do. Like a couplesy-couple… Riley doubted whether they’d see his way of thinking at all, or whether they’d convince him to just brush it under the carpet.
He kind of wanted that. He wanted to believe that it’d just been a moment of curiosity. That he could just go back to his normal life that he’d built for himself here without worrying about adapting to some new reality; some new secrets.
But then the pair of them looked back at him, and Melissa said the words he was both anticipating and dreading.
“There’s always going to be things going on behind the curtain. And, y’know what? It does make you curious.”
Riley’s stomach both sank and somersaulted simultaneously if that’s even possible. He leaned forward on the edge of his leather chair. “Right,” he said. “There has to be a reason why they’d shoot someone dead in the street. And in the middle of a bunch of kids, for fuck’s sake. What were they trying to cover up? What were they trying to protect?”
Melissa opened her mouth. But it was Ricky who cut in ahead of her. “We don’t know what they were trying to protect. But with the life we have here? With how good we have it? I dunno. I just think we kind of have to believe that whatever it is, it’s for the best.”
Riley looked at the ground, then. In a way, he’d been hoping Ricky would say something like that when he’d first come in here. But his viewpoint, his stance, it’d changed a little. He’d wanted an excuse for his curiosity. “So we should just leave it? We should just accept that a man was put down in the middle of a busy street without even the slightest reasonable attempt of explaining why?”
