Beyond the Gates

by Jason D. Morrow

  Approaching it, I started to get an uneasy feeling about what we would find there. When we were about thirty feet away, I stopped in the middle of the brown field and held out my arm to stop Skylar.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  My eyes squinted as I tried to sharpen my focus on the gate, more importantly, the mound of objects resting in front of the gate. There was the bulletproof computer terminal. Cameras. A large gun barrel set on a track connected to a massive scaffolding. From here I couldn’t quite tell, but it looked like there were more guns mounted along the canyon walls, probably meant as backup guns in case the gate was breached.

  But I wanted to see what rested in front of the gate. I took a couple of steps forward, holding out my hand to keep Skylar where she stood. Then it hit me. The objects on the ground were bodies. People who for some reason or another had tried to get through. And they had been gunned down.

  They had been there for months, it seemed. They weren’t even so much bodies as they were piles of clothes and bones spread out by scavenger birds and hungry animals.

  I swallowed and turned to Sky. “It’s time to go. You’ve seen what you came to see.”

  “We can’t get closer?”

  I shook my head.

  “Is it what I think it is? In front of the gate?”

  I wasn’t sure what she might have thought she saw, but Sky was a bright girl. I was sure she understood.

  I nodded.

  The fact that she returned my nod and willingly turned away from the gate gave me some peace. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be curious about the gate anymore, and she could start thinking about something else, though I didn't expect she would.

  We walked toward Fairview for our supply run, always keeping a vigilant eye for greyskins, particularly when there were more trees and forests. It took us six more hours to reach the village. The entire way was mostly silent as the two of us were lost in our thoughts. I wasn’t sure if Sky had gotten a glimpse of the bones, but she had seen worse. Didn’t mean it was something a child needed to see, though. I looked at it as a good deterrent for her to stay away.

  Junk piles encircled Fairview. Metal scraps and large tractor tires surrounded the place—a weak defense if I had ever seen one. The people here were ready for herds, but there was only so much a small village could do if the herd was big and hungry enough.

  The guards posted outside the front gate knew our faces, but they didn’t let us in as quickly as they usually did. We showed them what we’d brought for trade and they didn’t seem optimistic. Still, out of a couple of thousand people, surely someone needed knives or kitchen utensils.

  “It’s not what you’ve got that concerns us,” the guard on the right said. “There’s been some trouble here the past few days. It’s Gerard. He’s giving a lot of the villages trouble. Saying everyone within the Containment Zone will be safe if we declare allegiance to Screven.”

  The guard on the left shook his head and spat on the ground. “I say we shoot him. Him and all his soldiers.”

  The guards didn’t seem interested in actually holding a conversation as much as they just wanted to say what was on their minds. Still, a word of warning from the guard on the right made me reconsider going inside at all.

  “It’s not a good time to be here,” he said. “Might want to get what you need and get out. Gerard’s on the warpath.”

  I had no love for the Screven soldier in charge of our district, but he had never seemed the type to be on the warpath. Of course, I hadn’t seen him since the night Sarah died. A lot can change in a year.

  The first place we headed for was a large house at the edge of the village. The owner was my friend Cory. He lived there with his wife, Michelle, and their daughter, Bonnie. Cory and Michelle welcomed us warmly but not without a look of worry in their eyes. Skylar was eager to talk to Bonnie about what we’d seen at the gate, so I let her go off and play while I sat at the kitchen table.

  “The guard outside said Gerard is on the warpath,” I said. “What is he talking about?”

  “You haven’t heard?” Michelle asked.

  Cory set a steaming cup of tea in front of me. “Things have gotten bad, Liam. The Screven soldiers are going from village to village wanting people to declare their loyalty to Screven.”

  I shrug and sip the tea slowly. “Why not? What’s the difference whether you do or whether you don’t?”

  “We don’t even know who we would be swearing allegiance to,” Michelle said. “We’ve heard the name Jeremiah tossed around, but that doesn’t mean anything to us.”

  “You’re lucky you’re out in the district,” Cory said. “They don’t care about one house here or another house there. The benefits of a settlement are quickly starting to fade. I don’t like all the attention.”

  “What’s the tradeoff?” I asked.

  “Rumor has it they’re using us as test subjects,” Michelle said. “Would we be willing to give up large percentages of our goods in exchange for protection?”

  “Why wouldn’t you do that?”

  “We barely have enough goods to keep us alive,” Cory said. “And who’s to say they would keep up their end of the bargain? We can protect ourselves from the herds.”

  “Can you, though? If it were big enough, you’d be wiped out,” I said.

  Cory looked around as if someone else might be listening in on our conversation. “I’m not convinced the Screven soldiers aren’t the ones making the herds attack places. I think they make them somewhere. Think about it. How long has it been since the outbreak? And what’s the lifespan of a rotting greyskin? Five years if it’s healthy? It’s been forty years and there are more than ever.”

  Probability was behind Cory’s argument. Though there had never been any real evidence to support this, the rumor had been around for several years. Only now was it starting to seem not only plausible but likely.

  “I’m afraid you and Skylar came at a bad time,” Michelle said. “You might consider leaving tonight. Gerard was here yesterday. Told us to declare our support. We took a vote. It didn’t pass.”

  “Not by a long shot,” Cory added. “I’ve never seen Gerard so angry. He said we would regret it and not to be surprised if Fairview didn’t exist soon.”

  “We can’t just go home tonight,” I said. “It will be dark in a couple of hours. It would be far too dangerous.”

  Cory nodded and sighed. “You and Skylar are always welcome here. We will always be your friends. But I don’t know how long any of us are going to be alive.”

  Skylar and Bonnie were asleep in Bonnie’s room and Michelle had retired for the night. Cory and I sat on the flat roof of his house where he had rolled some papers stuffed with tobacco and offered me one.

  “Being a trading hub sure has its advantages,” I said, taking the cigarette. “What did you trade for the tobacco?”

  “A violin with no strings,” Cory said, laughing. He flicked a lighter and lit my cigarette, then his. “I’d traded the strings for this lighter a week before.”

  I inhaled the smoke and closed my eyes. “I wouldn’t begin to know what a fair trade for stringless violin would be.”

  “It’s easy. You just have to figure out what it's worth to you. Then, you just have to make it seem worth it to someone else.”

  “Only you could sell a violin with no strings,” I said. “I don’t suppose there’s a music shop in some neighboring village?”

  “Not that I’m aware,” he said.

  I slumped in my chair, my thoughts wandering to and fro, thinking about Gerard and what he must have looked like angry. Thinking about the gate and the bones there. I thought about telling Cory about the bones, but decided against it. He knew what the gate did to people when they tried to leave without proper authority.

  I finished the cigarette and stamped it out just as we heard the first scream. Cory and I looked at each other for a brief moment then lunged for the edge of the roof, trying to see where the cry had come from. It had been down
in the street but some distance away. There was another scream. Then another. Then a loud burst from a rifle.

  “We have to get the girls,” he said. “Bring them up here.”

  They were already awake when we got downstairs. Michelle barred the doors and gathered Skylar and Bonnie. Cory handed me a rifle and the five of us hurried back up to the roof.

  “This is no coincidence,” Cory said as we looked over the roof’s edge. “This is exactly what I was telling you about. You see that?” He pointed to the wall toward the east. “A herd. Why would there be a herd the day after we refused Gerard?”

  But Gerard had made it no secret that he was behind this attack. Just as Cory had spoken the words, a flurry of bullets from beyond the village sprayed into the side of the wall. The bullets were followed by an explosion that tore a hole the size of a small house into the side. Then the greyskins poured in. We let off shot after shot, aiming for the greyskins’ heads as best we could in the darkness and chaos.

  Michelle proved to be a better shot than any of us, snapping back the heads of three greyskins, but it wasn’t enough. Guns fired from every home in the village, but the worst of it was that whoever had blown a hole into the side of the village wall was now targeting people who were trying to defend themselves.

  Once bullets began flying in our direction, I dropped the rifle and flung myself on top of Skylar. “You have to stay down!” I yelled.

  Cory continued to fire his gun as Michelle held tight to Bonnie. I didn’t know what to do. There were too many greyskins clawing into the village. Screven soldiers also picked people off one-by-one.

  There was a thundering crash into the side of the house, and I knew we’d been hit by one of Screven’s explosives. The smoke rose and the fire grew large. We either had to take our chances with the greyskins below or roast.

  The next few minutes were a blur. Cory fastened a rope to a pole on the roof and started climbing down the side of the house as Michelle shot greyskin after greyskin that came near. It was my job to get the girls down. First, Bonnie climbed down the rope, then Skylar. I offered to take Michelle’s job shooting as she climbed down, and as she started to hand me the gun, another explosive slammed into the side of the house.

  First, I saw Michelle disappear into a cloud of smoke, then I felt myself falling to the floor below us.

  My leg was pulsing with a sharp pain, my sight completely gone as the dust and rubble added to the darkness of the night. My ears still worked and I almost wished they didn’t. Screams of horror mixed with hissing greyskins, chomping teeth, and booming gunshots were enough to make me want to resign from this world of death.

  I couldn’t quit. Skylar was still out there. I was glad she made it off the roof, but wasn’t it more dangerous away from the house?

  As the dust settled, I could see dimly that Michelle hadn’t been as lucky as I. A large chunk of the roof lay on top of her, and I knew what I would find when I checked her pulse. She was dead, her neck and back no doubt shattered into pieces.

  Pain cut through my leg but somehow I still walked. I looked down and found a long piece of wood sticking through my thigh. The sharp tip stuck out the front, and a longer blunt end stuck out the back. I wasn't sure I would be able to go very far, but as I looked at the wound, the pain started to fade. It must have been the adrenaline.

  I had to get out of the shambles of the house and find Skylar.

  I crawled out of the rubble through an opening on the other side of the pile of rocks and wood. There were gun blasts all around me and greyskins running in every direction. Some of the shots rang out from beyond the wall, no doubt Gerard’s men unloading on the village. More than likely they would later claim it was a group of raiders. If anyone survived they would come back, telling them they needed protection. Look at what the greyskins and raiders did, they would say.

  My gun had fallen from my belt in the explosion, but I still had my hatchet. I pulled it out, ready for anything to jump out at me as I walked through the streets.

  “Skylar!” I yelled out over and over. “Skylar, can you hear me?”

  A greyskin at the other end of the road was drawn to my voice and charged after me. I posed, ready with the hatchet in my right hand. Mindless, the greyskin didn’t try to maneuver and I brought the hatchet down on its skull. It dropped to the ground instantly. Another came after me from the right, then another.

  This was the danger. One-on-one, I would have no trouble against any greyskin. But that’s what made the herds so dangerous. I would dispatch one and another would be almost on top of me. I swung the hatchet down and was about to swing at another, but the hatchet was lodged into the greyskin’s head. I tried pulling it out, but it wouldn’t budge. The fourth greyskin got ahold of me and bit down on my shoulder.

  There was a flash of pain, but only for a moment. I kicked the greyskin away and a chunk of my flesh went with it. I bent down, yanked harder on the hatchet, and it came free. With a wide swing I clipped the greyskin in the jaw, brought up the hatchet again and swung down, its head caving in with the blow.

  I stood in the middle of the street with rotting bodies all around me. There was a wooden stake through my thigh and a deep bite in my shoulder, but I didn’t feel either wound.

  “Skylar!”

  “Papa!” I heard from a distance.

  I ran toward the voice and found Skylar sitting alone next to the wall which had gaping holes throughout. I didn’t see Bonnie or Cory anywhere.

  “Are you all right?”

  She was breathing heavily and pointed to her left. A greyskin lay on the ground, the knife I had given Sky was lodged into its skull. She then pointed to her leg where a chunk was missing. She’d been bitten.

  “What are we going to do Papa?”

  “We’re going back to our house.”

  “You’re bleeding. Your leg!”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Let’s go!”

  I scooped her up in my arms and started running toward the main village entrance. There was no time to look for Cory or Bonnie who were both probably dead. There was nothing left to do but get out of the village and get home. I couldn’t imagine the pain Sky must have been feeling.

  I felt nothing.

  “I need a car. A truck. Something!” I said this to several people, but none of them acknowledged my presence. Shock spread across their faces. Fear. Distress. I found a truck, but there were no keys. None of the vehicles had keys.

  I swore, knowing I was going to have to go back home on foot. It would take the rest of the night, and my adrenaline was going to wear off soon. The stake in my leg would become debilitating. On top of that, the virus was spreading through my body. If and when we could make it home, we would both be so weak. Would I have the strength and mental capacity to administer the injection? The proper dosage? Did I even know how much to try and inject? Would it work or would I have to sit in the house and watch my daughter die as I died right along next to her?

  I held Skylar close to my chest and kept my stare straight ahead. We were in danger of losing everything.

  But I had a cure. I could save us both. I just had to carry her through the night.

  I took a deep breath and didn’t stop until we made it home. The screams of terror rising out of Fairview became nothing more than echoes. Memories that would ring through my head for the rest of my life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Skylar

  THE CELL BLOCK is quiet these days. Now and then I hear whispers or crying, but there’s never laughter. Just the reminder of pain.

  I feel like Waverly owes me an explanation, but she hasn’t offered one. I sit on the floor next to the cell bars, and she’s lying on her bed, though her eyes are open.

  I have learned so much about myself and my father and the world around me, yet I still feel hopeless. Even though Waverly says all the things she says about having powers and that we will one day get out of here, it’s hard for me to believe her. The proof she’s given doesn’t seem to matt
er to me right now.

  “Nine…er, Waverly,” I whisper.

  She turns her head toward me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you talked to Warden Black about my father? You’ve known who he was all along. What did you talk about?”

  She inhales deeply through her nose and lets the air out slowly. “We may live in a world of disorder and chaos, but that doesn’t mean some things don’t happen for a reason.”

  “Like what?”

  Her body still hasn’t moved, and she rests her hands on her belly, her fingers interlaced. “I tell Warden Black things about the future. It’s how I’ve avoided the blood tests from Holbrook. It’s how I’m still alive. And it’s also how we’re going to escape.”

  She unlaces her fingers and slowly, stiffly, sits up on the bed.

  “A couple of years ago, I told Warden black about your father. I told him that after he kills one of the twins, it would be in Black’s best interest to make Liam a janitor and a rat.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Well, I told him it was because your father would help him foil escape attempts,” she says. “I have seen multiple futures, Skylar, and the one where we escape is the one where I have to intervene. Your father walking in on that meeting was no accident. Your greyskin bite was no accident. I am the only one who can manipulate the future because I’m the only one who knows it.”

  I didn’t know my father had killed someone. It was crazy to think that he has horrible things happening to him, as I do, yet neither of us has any idea what the other is going through.

  “Things are going to get worse before they get better,” she says. “You have to be ready for that.”

  “How can I be ready?”