After the Fire

by Will Hill

  …I drift…

  I’m sat on a dark red sofa and my legs won’t stop shaking and my hand really hurts and I’m trying not to be scared but I can’t help it because I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.

  I don’t even know where I am.

  The room I’m sitting in is bigger than my room at The Base but it’s still pretty small. The walls are pale grey and the floor is dark grey carpet and it contains the dark red sofa and a wide table with two chairs tucked under the far side, facing towards me. Everything is smooth and clean and there’s a machine sitting on the table and a camera above the door. The woman in the white uniform with the kind face – Nurse Harrow, whispers the voice in the back of my head, she told you her name was Nurse Harrow – brought me in here five minutes ago and I saw the words Interview Room 1 printed on the door as she pushed it open.

  She asked me if I wanted anything before she left. I didn’t have any idea how to answer her.

  I hear a lock turn and I hold my breath as the door opens and a man walks into the room. He’s small, with a thick beard and thinning hair and deep lines either side of a pair of friendly eyes. He’s wearing a white shirt and a tie and he has a leather bag over his shoulder. He pulls out one of the chairs and sits down, then takes a stack of notebooks and pens out of his bag and arranges them carefully on the table in front of him. When everything is laid out how he wants it he presses a button on the machine, waits until a small green light appears, then smiles at me.

  “Hello,” he says.

  I don’t say anything.

  I know I asked the man in the suit a question, before, when I was lying on the bed with my mind drifting. But I’m thinking more clearly now and some things are so deeply rooted in the fabric of who I am that I can’t remember a time they weren’t there, and it’s hard to reason my way around them, even after everything that happened.

  You never talk to Outsiders. Never.

  “My name is Doctor Robert Hernandez,” he continues. “I’m the Director of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Children’s Hospital in Austin. Do you know what that means?”

  I don’t respond.

  “It means I specialize in the well-being of children,” he says. “Particularly children who have experienced traumatic events. I listen to them, and I try to help them.”

  In my head, Father John screams that Outsiders only want to hurt me, want to torture me and kill me.

  “I understand this must be an extremely frightening situation,” says Doctor Hernandez. “You’ve been through a terrible ordeal, and I know you’re in a lot of pain. But I’m not your enemy, no matter what you may have been told, and I promise you that I mean you no harm. I want to help you. But for that to happen, you’re going to have to trust me. Just a little bit, to start with. Do you think you can do that?”

  I stare at him. It’s clear from the expectant look in his eyes that he doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s asking.

  “How about we start with something simple?” he says. “Why don’t you tell me your name?”

  I don’t respond. My eyes stay locked on his.

  “That’s okay,” he says. “That’s absolutely fine. How about this? I’ll ask you a question and you just nod or shake your head. You don’t have to say a word.”

  I don’t move a muscle. I try not to even blink.

  Doctor Hernandez’s smile fades, ever so slightly. “No?” he says. “You don’t want to give that a try?”

  I blink, because my eyes are starting to hurt, but that’s all.

  He nods, and scribbles something in one of his notebooks. I watch the pen scratch across the paper and I want to know what he’s writing about me but I can’t ask.

  “Okay,” he says, as he sets the pen down. “The last thing I want to do is make you feel under pressure in any way. I can only imagine how overwhelming this must be, so I think the best thing at this point is for you to go back to your room and we’ll try this again tomorrow. You don’t have to talk to me, and I guarantee that nobody, least of all me, is going to force you to. But if I didn’t honestly believe it would be helpful for you to do so, I wouldn’t be here.”

  I resist the urge to nod as Father John screams in my head, calling me a Heretic and telling me that he always knew I was False.

  Doctor Hernandez nods again, gives me a big smile, and starts putting the notebooks and pens back into the leather bag. “All right then,” he says. “Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Nurse Harrow escorts me back to my room. I don’t say anything as we walk along the grey corridors, but she still gives me a smile as she closes my door and locks it.

  I take a look around the room that I assume is now my home. It’s far from big, but it isn’t tiny either; there were lots of smaller rooms at The Base, and this one has a sink and a toilet and a desk and a chair.

  The door locks from the outside, so I guess that’s the same.

  I found a pile of clothes on the desk after Nurse Harrow brought me in here last night, next to a thick pile of paper and boxes of pencils, pens and crayons. Grey pants, underwear and socks, T-shirts and jumpers, sneakers. Most of them still wrapped in plastic, all of them still with their price tags on. I’m wearing some of them now.

  I’m pretty sure they’re the first new clothes I’ve ever worn.

  There’s a digital clock on the wall above the door; the glowing numbers read 10.17. Nurse Harrow told me she would bring me breakfast every day at 9 and lunch at 12.30, but I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with the time in between.

  I lie down on my bed and stare at the ceiling for a while, then get up and walk back and forth until the muscles in my legs start to ache and my hand starts to burn beneath the bandages, and I sit down at the desk.

  Apart from the Bible, there were no books allowed inside The Base after The Purge, and almost no paper or pencils, but I had a plain sketch pad that Father Patrick gave me when I was a little girl. Even though the Centurions must have known about it, because I didn’t hide it, they never took it away. I had drawn on every page dozens of times, until the paper was deeply grooved by pencil lines that had been erased again and again. It was in my room when the fire started, so I guess it burned.

  I take a sheet of paper from the stack and run my fingers over its surface. It’s smooth, because it’s never been used. It’s brand new.

  It has no history.

  I stare at the white wall in front of me until my mind empties, then take a pencil out of the plastic jar and start to draw.

  For a long time now, what appears on the page has been seemingly beyond my control. I could mean to draw a dog, or a spaceship, or a desert island, but it always turns into the same thing in the end. It’s as though the pencil comes alive in my fingers, like it knows my true intentions better than I do. I sort of understand what a psychiatrist is from back when we were still allowed to watch TV and read books, even though I didn’t tell Doctor Hernandez so when he asked, and he would likely say that the drawings are my subconscious asserting itself. He would probably be right, but I’m never going to show them to him so it doesn’t really matter.

  I sketch the first lines and – almost instantly – the familiar image starts to work its way out of my head and onto the page. I trade pencils for coloured pens and let myself drift into the monotony of repetition, my hands working on autopilot while jumbled, fractured memories float through my head…

  …my dad, even though I know it’s not really him, it’s a version of him that my brain has animated from an old photo. He’s smiling at me, and I wonder if he really looked like that when he smiled; people look different when they’re moving rather than frozen inside a frame…

  …fire exploding through the windows of the Chapel and racing across the desert floor like a wild animal pursuing its prey, crackling with savage delight…

  …Honey’s face as she said no to Father John, as she looked him in the eye and knowingly spoke Heresy…

  …my mom, the last time I saw he
r. Sitting in the back of the red pickup, her eyes locked on mine as she clutched her possessions in a single plastic bag…

  …Nate looming over me in the darkness, his eyes wide, his voice full of worry, his hands full of forbidden things…

  …the locked door in the basement of the Big House…

  …Father John, after his prophecies had finally come true and the Servants Of The Serpent were at our gates. I search the memory of his face for the certainty that sustained the Legion, that convinced my Brothers and Sisters – convinced me, for the longest time – that The Lord would keep them safe and bring them glorious victory, and find nothing…

  …Alice, her insides spilling out…

  …the tank as it rolled forward…

  …blood…

  …empty bullet casings…

  …so much blood…

  …my entire world, in the final moments before it ended…

  I shiver as a chill runs up my spine, then look down at the piece of paper and see the same picture as always.

  Water fills most of the page, pale blue flecked with white. I don’t know exactly what it is – a lake, an ocean, a river, or something else – because the largest body of water I’ve ever seen with my own eyes is the fountain in Layfield town square. Whatever this is, I’m not drawing it from memory.

  Jagged brown cliffs rise from the water’s edge to a flat headland of lush green grass, so different to the baked orange dust of the desert. Set back from the edge of the cliff is a small house, with pale blue walls and a white roof and a chimney and a delicate plume of grey smoke spiralling up into a sky that is almost the same colour as the water.

  Standing next to the house are two tiny figures. They’re barely more than stick people, but I know exactly who they are.

  One is me.

  The other is my mom.

  I wake up in sheets soaked with sweat, a scream rising in my throat.

  Bad dreams. The fire, and Luke, and Father John.

  I look at the clock above the door.

  8.57.

  I haven’t slept this late in as long as I can remember. Probably the only times I ever have are when I’ve been ill. There are just three minutes until Nurse Harrow will arrive with my breakfast, if what she told me yesterday was the truth.

  Of course it wasn’t! bellows Father John, his vast, booming voice echoing through my head. She’s an Outsider! They lie! They only ever lie!

  Gooseflesh breaks out along my arms. The power in The Prophet’s voice still terrifies me, even after everything: the absolute certainty, the blazing authority that tolerated no argument of any kind. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and I concentrate really hard on the water and the cliffs and the blue house, and eventually the voice fades away, although I know I’ll never truly be rid of it.

  I open my eyes and sit up on the edge of my bed. My hand hurts worse than ever. Horizon used to tell me that things are most painful when they’re getting better and I really hope he was right because it feels like someone is pressing a flame against my fingers and when I scratch them through the thick layers of bandages it feels like the end of the world.

  I don’t know what time I eventually fell asleep yesterday. After I finished drawing I cried for a while until Nurse Harrow brought me a plastic tray with a plate of hot dogs and hash browns on it, and she had that kind look on her face so I cried a bit more when she left, the tears rolling down my cheeks as I ate my lunch.

  I don’t know when exactly, but at some point after I finished eating I lay down and closed my eyes. I do the math in my head and realize I must have slept, on and off, for something like eighteen hours. I don’t feel rested though. I feel worn out and used up, like I’ve been stretched too thin and there isn’t enough of what’s left to go around.

  I feel empty.

  A key turns in the lock, and there’s a knock before the door swings open. It seems a little pointless, because I’m pretty sure I couldn’t stop whoever it is from coming in if I wanted to, but I guess it’s polite.

  Nurse Harrow appears with another tray in her hands. This one contains a steaming plate of scrambled eggs and bacon and fried potatoes and a fruit cup and a plastic beaker of orange juice. My first thought – so quick to rise into my mind, so very quick – is that there’s no way I can eat it, because even though the fruit is in a little bowl it’s clearly part of the same meal as the potatoes, and fruit and vegetables in the same meal are absolutely not allowed. The rules of the Legion, delivered via Father John directly from the mouth of The Lord, are carved into my brain like scalpel wounds.

  I try not to squirm as my stomach rumbles and I even manage a tiny smile as Nurse Harrow puts the tray down on the desk. She glances at the drawing I did yesterday after I got back from meeting Doctor Hernandez and my heart accelerates in my chest because I don’t want her to look. It feels like she’s seeing me naked.

  “This is very good,” she says, her smile widening. “Where is this house?”

  “Don’t touch it,” I say. It’s the first thing I’ve said since I was brought here, wherever here is, and my voice is barely a croak. In my head, Father John tells me I’m stupid and useless and weak. “Please don’t.”

  Nurse Harrow nods, and steps back from the desk. “I won’t,” she says. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. I want to change your bandages before you go to Doctor Hernandez. Is that all right with you?”

  I nod. She gives me another smile, then disappears through the door and locks it behind her. I wait until I’m sure she’s really gone then I grab the drawing and fold it in half and clutch it tightly against my chest as I look around the room for somewhere to hide it.

  There isn’t anywhere.

  Of course there isn’t. Rooms with heavy doors that lock and windows you can’t reach don’t have hiding places. I think about the loose board under my bed at The Base, about the dark space beneath it, but the floor I’m standing on now is made of smooth plastic tiles and the walls around me are flat and featureless.

  The easiest thing would be to just destroy the sheet of paper – after all, it’s not like I can’t draw the house and the cliffs and the water again – but I don’t want to. I just don’t. It’s the only thing in this room that is really mine.

  Instead, I untuck my pillowcase and shove the folded drawing inside and turn the pillow over so the obvious rectangular shape is pressed against my mattress. It’s pretty much the worst hiding place ever, and even though I don’t think there are any cameras in my room – I can’t see any, at least – it will take Nurse Harrow or anybody else about five seconds to find the drawing if they decide to start looking.

  But it’s the best I can do.

  “I’m going to suggest something,” says Doctor Hernandez. “If that’s okay with you?”

  I’m sitting on the sofa in Interview Room 1 again. The psychiatrist is behind the desk, his notebooks and pens neatly arranged in front of him, the green light glowing on the machine beside him. He asked how I’m feeling this morning as soon as he walked through the door. I didn’t answer the question, even though I actually do feel a little better – physically, at least – after Nurse Harrow changed my dressing and smeared greasy white cream all over the burned skin of my hand.

  I don’t answer this one either.

  “I’m going to take that as a yes,” he says. “My suggestion is that we trade. You ask a question and I answer it. Then I ask, and you answer. How does that sound?”

  In my head, Father John warns me not to fall for such an obvious trick, to not be stupid and gullible and False. I do my best to ignore his voice, but it’s really hard – it booms and growls and roars, and for years and years it was the only voice that mattered, the only source of truth in a world full of lies. Still, I try, because even though I’m scared to talk to Doctor Hernandez – or anybody else for that matter – and I really don’t want to answer any questions, there are two things I need to know. Two things I don’t think I can go much longer without knowing.

 
; Be brave, whispers the voice in the back of my head. This one isn’t Father John’s; it sounds a lot like me, except it says things I would never dare to.

  “Okay,” I say. Doctor Hernandez smiles. I wonder if he had started to think I was never going to speak again. “But only if I can go first.”

  “Of course,” he says. “Ask away. Anything you like.”

  I take a deep breath. “Where’s my mom?”

  His smile fades at the edges and I see pity on his face and I hate that he feels sorry for me, but I can’t tell him that because his expression has made me so scared about what he’s going to say that my chest has seized tight, trapping my breath inside me.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m afraid I don’t have any information on your mother.”

  My chest relaxes. His answer – or non-answer, to be accurate – is pretty much what I was expecting, even though it still hurts to hear the words out loud.

  It could be worse, whispers the voice in the back of my head. He could have told you she’s dead.

  It’s true, that would have been worse. But I’m not sure by how much, because not knowing is awful, even after all this time.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

  “She isn’t here?” My voice is still a croak, low and small.

  “No,” he says. “She isn’t here.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I stare at him. “You don’t know?”

  “I’m afraid not,” he says. “I wish I could give you the answer you want, or tell you a lie that would make you feel better, but I truly believe honesty is the most important element of this process. In time, when you’re ready, there are other people who would like to talk to you, and it’s possible they may have more information on the subject than I do.”