Beyond These Walls | Book 8 | Between Fury & Fear

by Robertson, Michael

“I want to thank you for getting Gracie back to me.”

  Despite his words, his expression remained unchanged. Stoic.

  After nodding several times, seeing none of his friends would talk for him, William said, “It’s fine.”

  “This is Gracie’s brother, Austin.”

  Unlike his father, Austin didn’t offer William or any of the others his hand.

  “We owe you a great debt and would like to extend our hospitality to you for as long as you’d like it.”

  William looked at Austin. Maybe he imagined the slight raising of his lip. The faintest snarl. “Thank you?” He said. More a question than a show of gratitude.

  “Dad, Austin.” Gracie came into the room, her voice echoing in the otherwise silent hall. Every person in there seemed to hold their breath. “I thought you were going to wait for me?”

  The slightest softening of her dad, he said, “We couldn’t find you, sweetheart.”

  Gracie made her way through the tables to the group. “Sorry, I was hoping to introduce you formally. And to tell you to ignore Austin. He always looks miserable.”

  Clearly her older brother, Austin’s expression remained unchanged.

  “He’s a sweetheart when you get to know him.”

  Hawk raised an eyebrow. “I’ll take your word for that.”

  Olga snorted a laugh.

  “Anyway.” Jan clapped his hands, the connection whipping around the room like a thunder crack. “Please treat this place like your own for as long as you see fit. I’ll look forward to getting to know you all better.”

  As Gracie’s brother and dad left the hall, Gracie sat down at the table.

  “I know he just welcomed us,” Artan said, “but nothing else about your dad or brother looked pleased to see us here.”

  Gracie batted the air with her hand. “He lightens up when you get to know him better.”

  “And Austin?” Olga said.

  “He doesn’t. He’s always serious. Always angry.”

  Olga raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like a sweetheart.”

  “He’s loyal,” Gracie said. “He’ll have your back whenever you need it.”

  “Our back, or your back?” Olga said.

  William cut in. “Should we be moving on, Gracie?”

  She shook her head. “No. Not at all. Dad meant what he said. You’re welcome here and you’re our guests. Please stay as long as you’d like. We want you here.”

  “But we’re closer to the wall. We’ve had a rest. I think we should move on.” Even as William said it, the aches in his body throbbed as if in protest.

  “Look, just stay a while,” Gracie said. “Until you’re properly rested at least. Dad has an enormous responsibility in this place. The lives of over two hundred people rely on him. He takes that seriously. We have food here. Shelter. Warmth. At least get fully fit and rested. Also, I can take you to the wall. Show you what it’s all about.”

  William gulped. “We’re that close?”

  Gracie smiled. “We are.”

  William looked at the others around the table. Dianna nodded straight away. Artan next. Hawk shrugged, and Matilda nodded. Max said, “I could do with a few days off.”

  “Olga?” William said.

  “I reckon we should stay.”

  Gracie clapped her hands and bounced where she sat. “Amazing. Now come with me. I have something to show you.”

  Many of the corridors looked the same, but with a bit of time, William would probably learn his way around the place. Where most entrances to the rooms were single doors, Gracie stopped in front of a set of double doors. A wide grin, she said, “We call this room the pleasure dome.” She pressed the button, and the doors opened, a bright blue glow spilling from the room.

  William gasped when he walked in. A domed ceiling at least twenty feet tall at its highest spot. Covered in moving pictures, there were trees around them and clouds above in an azure sky. “What is this?”

  “They’re screens,” Gracie said.

  A yellow, red, and green bird with a long thick beak flew overhead. It landed on the branch of a vibrant tree. Moisture hung in the warm air.

  “We spend a lot of time underground,” Gracie said. “This room is where we come to lift our spirits. It has different settings. This is a rain forest.”

  “And it’s real?” Max said.

  “It was once. You’re watching recorded footage.”

  “So someone has been here?”

  “Yeah, when it existed,” Gracie said.

  Max’s shoulders slumped. “It doesn’t exist anymore?”

  “Who knows?” Gracie shrugged. “This place is on the other side of the planet.”

  Matilda turned on the spot, her jaw hanging loose. “It’s beautiful.” She reached out and held William’s hand. The door closed, the back of it a screen that slotted into the others. It fully immersed them in the experience. Matilda pressed a soft kiss against William’s right cheek. Her warm breath tickled the back of his neck when she whispered in his ear, “I think we’ve made the right choice. I think we can call this place home for now. I love you.”

  No wonder they called it the pleasure dome. Every one of their group smiled. Max and Olga held hands. Hawk’s stoicism had softened, and he’d moved closer to Dianna. Artan grinned. Maybe they could stay here for a while. William kissed Matilda again. “I love you too.”

  End of book eight.

  Thank you for reading Between Fury and Fear: Book Eight of Beyond These Walls.

  Have you checked out Fury: Book one in Tales from beyond These Walls? It’s a standalone story set in the city of Fury at the same time as this book. I debated calling it book nine in the series because now is the best time to read it, but I decided against it because it doesn’t continue the story for the main characters.

  If you’re yet to read it, click HERE to check out Fury: Book one in Tales from Beyond These Walls.

  Book nine of Beyond These Walls is being worked on and will be available soon. To be notified when it becomes available, and for all my future updates, you can sign up to my spam-free mailing list HERE.

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  Fury: Book one of Tales From Beyond These Walls - Chapter One

  “I’m trying to treat today like any other, Mum,” Reuben said. “I’m really trying.” He laid the bread flat and buttered it. When he’d finished, he layered on the thin slices of cheese. “I’m going for a run to see Malcolm. Then I need to get a few things from the shop.” Butterflies danced in his stomach, flitting between anxiety and excitement. He took a steadying breath. “Yep, it’s just like any other day.” But it wasn’t just like any other day. He didn’t need his mum to tell him that.

  Reuben shook with adrenaline. He tried to fill Malcolm’s bottle with water and ended up with as much on his hands as in the bottle. “Eighteen today!” He screwed on the lid. “It always seemed so far away. I’ve been training hard like you said. Working at this my whole life. Dad will be so proud. That is, if they think I’m ready. I am ready, aren’t I?”

  Very little room to move in his bedsit, breadcrumbs covered the end of Reuben’s bed from where he’d made the sandwich. He swiped them away, grabbed his shoes, and sat on the end. His mattress’ old springs creaked. He tied the laces tight. “Yep, I’ll just keep training. It’s like any other day. I’ll go out for a run and keep busy. I’m gaining nothing waiting here.”

  While packing his
backpack, the cheese sandwich wrapped in brown cloth, he repeated, “I’ll see Malcolm on my run and then go to the shop to get a few bits. It’s just like any other day.”

  Reuben opened his front door, letting in the fresh spring morning. The sun shone on the city. The slightest chill gave the wind teeth. He called over his shoulder as he stepped outside, “Bye, Mum. See you later.” Slamming the door behind him, he took off at a jog down the main road.

  By foot or on a bicycle were the best ways to travel around Fury. The city was too small for any larger modes of transport, and the streets were too tight to accommodate them. Not that they had any other vehicles. Other than their dogs, they had no tech in Fury. None of the neighbouring communities were willing to trade anything else.

  The river Rend ran through the city. A two-hundred-foot bridge stretched across it. Malcolm lived beneath the bridge. He’d always said he liked it there. That he liked the cold winters and damp springs. No point in challenging the lie. What could Reuben do? Offer to let him stay in his tiny house? And what would his mum think? She called his greatest strength his biggest weakness. He was too soft. He gave people too much.

  Despite the enormous steel wall surrounding the city, the wind always blew hard along the river, entering through the grates beneath their fortified boundary. It dropped the temperature by a few degrees.

  Out of breath from the run, Reuben picked his way down the steep riverbank with cautious steps. He unslung his backpack and removed the sandwich and drink. Malcolm always slept beneath a red blanket and always refused the offer of anything warmer. He took his daily sandwich and water, but insisted he needed nothing else.

  “If sir would like to look at the menu,” Reuben said to the red blanket, “I think he might be pleasantly surprised. Today, for the one thousandth, three hundredth, and eighty-seventh day in a row, I present sir with”—he held the wrapped sandwich out on the palm of his hand—“a cheese sandwich and Fury’s finest bottled water.”

  Reuben’s chest tightened when his friend didn’t move. “Malcolm?”

  Reuben pulled the blanket away to reveal a log.

  A deep and booming laugh, it resonated in the tight space beneath the bridge as Malcolm appeared from the other side. His hair a six-inch halo of white, he had a wide grin filled with wonky teeth. Mirth shone in his brilliant blue eyes. The man walked with a stoop from so many years of sleeping rough. It masked his six-foot-plus stature. He pointed at Reuben and laughed again. “Got ya!”

  While holding his hammering heart, Reuben rolled his eyes.

  “I don’t know whether to laugh about catching you out,” Malcom said, “or to cry because no matter how many times I pull this trick, you fall for it. Do you really think you’re going to find me dead beneath this bridge every morning?”

  His face hot with his shame, Reuben shrugged. “You’ve told me not to worry about you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t. Is that such a crime?” He threw the cheese sandwich at his friend. After Malcolm caught it, he threw the bottle of water.

  “Come here!” Malcolm hugged Reuben before stepping back and holding him by the tops of his shoulders. “Thank you. As always.”

  Reuben shrugged, avoiding eye contact, his face on fire.

  “Wait a minute.” Malcom gripped tighter, and Reuben did his best to hide his wince. An old man, older than his years because of his lifestyle, but he still had the strength to crush rocks in his gnarled hands. “Today’s the day, right?”

  It pulled Reuben’s attention back to his friend. “I hope so.”

  “Nothing’s arrived yet?”

  “It’s early. There’s a lot of the day still ahead of us.” Always looking out for other people. His greatest weakness. Trying to make Malcolm feel better about his disappointment.

  “That there is. So how do you plan to spend your last day of freedom?”

  “Boredom more like. And we don’t know if it is the last day.”

  “Someone’s fucked up big time if it isn’t.” Malcom sat down on the riverbank, his long legs folding into triangles, his knobbly knees pointing at the underside of the bridge.

  Reuben sat next to him. “Are you sure there’s nothing more I can do for you? Nothing else you need?”

  Malcolm’s right cheek bulged with his food. He spoke through a clamped jaw, his beard covered in breadcrumbs. “You do enough.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “You do more than anyone else.”

  “That’s hardly a yardstick.”

  “Honestly.” Malcolm took another large bite, which he didn’t stow in his cheek this time. His voice muffled, he said, “I appreciate everything you do for me. I don’t need or want anything else.”

  The wind hummed beneath the wide bridge. The river churned with its fast current. It filled the silence. Gave them permission to just be.

  After a few minutes, Reuben said, “Do you really think it will come today?”

  “They’d be mad to not want you,” Malcolm said.

  And what did Reuben expect? Malcom didn’t have the answers. He’d say what Reuben needed to hear.

  The bell over the shop door tinkled. Reuben had spent the past few hours with Malcolm. Better he killed time with his friend than waiting at home bothering his mum. After he’d filled his basket, Patricia took his items and placed them into his bag. Bread, cheese … “You still feeding Malcolm?”

  “If I don’t …” But Reuben left the thought hanging. “Yes.”

  Careful not to crush them, Patricia placed the bunch of tulips in last, leaving them poking from the top of his bag. “For your mum?”

  Reuben shrugged.

  “You’re a good boy.” She smiled, dimples in her round cheeks. Because she ran the shop, she got more food than most.

  He lifted his chest. “Eighteen today.”

  “Oh, shit!” Patricia clapped a hand to her mouth. Her green eyes widened, her hand muffling her words. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually swear. But … oh my! Today’s the day, right?”

  Reuben shifted his stance. He shrugged. “I hope so.” What would he tell all these people if it didn’t happen? How could he come back here tomorrow and make her feel better about his disappointment?

  “Waste of time if you ask me.” Ken, although ever present in the shop, rarely spoke. He sat in a chair in the corner, wearing the frown of someone deep in thought, but with nothing in front of him to warrant his posturing, and very little spewing from his mouth to justify it.

  “No one asked you, Ken,” Patricia shot back at him.

  “Well, they should. I think people are afraid because I tell it how it is.”

  “You tell it how you see it,” Patricia said. She rolled her eyes at Reuben. “There’s a big difference.”

  “To you maybe!”

  “Anyway, there’s enough misery in this world without you adding to it.” Patricia winked. “I swear, if they made murder legal in this city, I’d seriously consider it.”

  “Not if I got you first,” Ken said.

  Patricia moved across in front of him, blocking him from Reuben’s line of sight. “Don’t listen to him. You get home now. I bet you it’s already arrived.”

  Just past noon by the time Reuben got home. A warm spring day, his clothes clung to his sweating skin. He paused before going in. No sign of the delivery. His shoulders slumped. His heart heavy. It wouldn’t do any good to wait outside all day. Better to face it.

  Reuben unlocked his door, the hinges creaking as he entered. “Don’t suppose the delivery person has been yet, Mum?” Although why he wasted his time asking … If there had been a delivery, it would have been waiting for him. “Do you think they’ve forgotten about me? Or have they rejected me? I didn’t even consider that.” He’d considered it. He’d considered it every damn day for the past few years, but his mum didn’t need to hear his self-doubt.

  His mum’s favourite vase, a clay pot Reuben had made for her at school years ago. He filled it with water and arranged the white tulips. The lump in his
throat tightened his words. “Maybe it’s a good thing. It will be nice to thank the person for delivering it when they turn up.”

  Reuben had spent the afternoon watching the door like a dog waiting for their owner to come home. By the time he sat down for dinner, it had gotten dark outside. No one went out after dark in Fury. Scrambled eggs and toast, he pushed it around his plate, the knot in his stomach banishing his hunger. He tried a mouthful of the rubbery egg, the salty butter, the crunchy toast. His favourite meal, but it tasted like shit today.

  He shoved the plate away and blinked at the window by the door. His eyes were sore from trying to see through the darkness. “They’re not coming, are they, Mum?”

  The tulips remained in the vase on the kitchen worktop. He moved them so his mum could see them better. While arranging the flowers, he said, “I’ve done everything required of me. I’m fit. I’m healthy. I’m keen …”

  His mother’s eyes sparkled. He’d drawn a thousand sketches of her over the years. His current favourite sat in the frame he’d made. Never a perfect drawing, but what would be? Perfect would be her still here now. He’d arranged trinkets and ornaments in front of the picture. A small stone heart. He’d spent the night of her funeral whittling it despite being blinded by his tears. It sat next to a wooden stick wrapped in red, blue, and yellow fabric. Acorns and fir cones, the acorns wrinkled. They’d been there since autumn. She’d died seven years previously. It still stung like it had happened yesterday. Neighbours and friends had plied him with all the usual clichés like time’s a great healer, and it’ll get easier. If that was the case, seven years was nowhere near long enough.

  The eyes he’d drawn had taken on a life of their own. Right now they said what he didn’t want to hear. But he had to accept it. “You’re right.” Reuben bit his quivering bottom lip. His view blurred. His voice wavered. “I’m not getting a delivery today. And it’s not like they’ll ever tell me why. Nothing. Ghosted. Application rejected. Now get on with your sad and lonely life. Dig holes somewhere. Work in manufacturing or agriculture.” He sighed. “I wanted to make you and Dad proud of me.”