by Carrie Ryan
I can’t breathe. I’m choking. She’s too close. I can’t wait. I tighten my arm and slice the knife through the air with the force of my terror and panic.
My body twists. The blade slips easily through nothingness and I realize I’ve swung too early just as she crashes into me. If I’d waited a moment more I could have stopped her. Her arms tangle in mine, her head crashing against my chin as I tumble backward, my skull smacking the cracked concrete.
I hear the thud before I feel it. I see the movement before I understand it. Mellie’s mouth, the one that earlier tonight spoke of dreams and the Dark City, lowers to me.
And then she’s gone. The pressure of her body on my chest explodes. I roll to the side and see it:
Catcher. He tumbles across the ground, Mellie’s teeth gnashing, her arms wrapped around him. She tears at him like a cat fighting drowning. I watch as her nails drag along his arm, drawing thin lines of blood. If anything, this drives her into a deeper frenzy.
I try to push myself to my feet but I stumble. I reach for my blade but I can barely tighten my fist around it. I pull my arm back, ready to swing again, but I can’t tell where one body begins and the other ends. It’s flesh and blood and teeth, grunts and moans.
Then there’s a crunch. The sound of an old man cracking all his fingers at once. And there’s nothing left but Catcher kneeling and panting. His hands still grip Mellie’s head, her neck broken and body finally motionless.
He looks up at me, his arms slipping from her hair and dangling by his sides. Blood pools down his forearm and drips from his fingers. But that’s not what I’m staring at. I’m staring at the crescent-shaped wound along the edge of his shoulder.
I’m staring at where he was bitten.
I swallow. A puddle of blood forms in the dirt where it falls from Catcher’s fingers. Around me all the screams fade to nothing—as if they’ve never existed.
“You …”
“Go home, Gabry,” he tells me.
Behind us I hear the bells start to ring in the town, the signal for the highest alert. They must have heard our screaming back at the guardhouse next to the gate or someone must have run and told them. Now they know there’s trouble out here and it won’t be long until the Militia arrives to investigate.
“But …” But what about you? I want to say. What about the bite? What about the infection? I want to ask what will happen but I already know. Even though the bite’s not severe, he’s infected. The infection will eventually kill him. Icy ribbons of shock twine through me.
Infection means death. It always means death.
“Go home,” he says again. His voice is breathy, as if he hears my thoughts. I can tell from his face that he knows as much as I do. He knows what will happen to him.
“The Militia’ll be here soon. Don’t let them find you,” he adds. “You’ll get into too much trouble.”
I take a step toward him. What’s left of our group huddles at the base of the roller coaster across the expanse of concrete. One boy holds a shirt to another girl’s leg, tears streaming down both their faces. The twins are slowly climbing down the lattice of the coaster, Cira and Blane are hacking at the body of what was once a friend while another boy clutches his stomach and vomits.
The entire night is blood and sobs and infection and the glare of the moon on flashing blades. I retch at the squelching sound they make as they stab again and again and again. Hysteria tickles at the base of my skull. Everything’s out of control. I want to cry, to collapse and close my eyes and cover my ears and pretend none of it’s happening.
I need to get as far from here as possible.
But no one else has run away.
“I can’t leave you,” I tell him. Even though I want to escape. I want to forget what’s happened and climb the stairs to my room and huddle under the covers, where it’s safe. Where it’s always been safe. But I can’t leave everyone. “They know I was here, they’ll—”
He shakes his head, cutting me off.
From deep inside I can feel the scream, I can feel it nudging out everything that was me before this moment. I can’t stop staring at his shoulder. Can’t stop imagining the echo of the Breaker teeth snapping.
“What’ll happen to you?”
“Go home” is all he says. As if his lips never brushed mine. As if I were nothing and no one to him.
I want to drop to my knees and press my mouth to the wound. I want to take the infection into myself, to fill the void that seems to be taking over everything.
But I don’t. I just stare at the bite and think about how I swung too early. If I’d just waited. If I hadn’t been so afraid. I’d known to wait and I couldn’t. It’s my fault he’s infected.
“What about Cira?” I ask. “I can’t leave her.” I feel around my neck for the necklace she’d given me. It was supposed to protect us and it didn’t.
He shakes his head but desperation bubbles inside me. I call out to my friend, “Cira!” She looks at me and even from here I can see the splash of blood across her face. She stands over the mutilated body of the dead boy, a long knife clutched in her hand so tight that her knuckles glow white under the moon.
I wave for her to come. But it’s as if she doesn’t see me. “Cira!” I shout again. “Cira, over here!”
She screams and brings the blade down into the boy’s body again and again. As if she can punish him for having been infected. For having turned Breaker.
My throat convulses and I press my hands to my mouth, my fingers digging into my cheeks as my eyes water. I whimper.
Catcher pulls my attention back. “Please, Gabry” is all he says. His voice is filled with such anguish that it slices into my heart. I glance at everyone else, their heads in their hands, their faces streaked with tears, their mouths open, wailing.
“For me,” Catcher adds.
It’s as though he’s giving me permission to do the one thing I’m desperate for. So I turn and run, leaving everyone else behind. Back through the ruins, crossing in and out of shadows and hiding from the Militia until I hit the Barrier and pound at it with my fists. My knuckles rub raw and still I hammer at the old worn wood that’s so thick it swallows up every sound.
As if it’s the Barrier’s fault for everything that happened. And maybe it is, I think, sinking down to the ground, my eyes shut tight. We never should have crossed it.
I keep seeing Catcher; I keep seeing the blood. Tears crowd my eyelids but they can’t blur the memories that ache inside me with such a sharp fierceness.
I almost turn around. I almost go back. By leaving I’m abandoning them and it’s not fair. In the distance I hear the Militiamen as they shout and run toward the amusement park. The bells in the town still ring their slow steady rhythm. My heart beats in time with each hit of the hammer to metal and I press my forehead to the Barrier, the dry wood smelling faintly of rot.
There could be other Mudo out here. I know I should climb back over the wall and run home. Even though I want nothing more than to hide in the night shadows here. To be absorbed into this nightmare and disappear.
The world’s shrunk too fast. What was only hours before a new horizon of possibility opening in front of me has collapsed in on itself. I was right to fear the other side of the Barrier. I was stupid to allow myself to be lulled into believing it could be any better outside Vista. That there could be any place for me away from my mother and the lighthouse and the safety of town.
I climb the thick wall and don’t pause at the top before dropping to the other side. Shadows move through the town, the dull moonlight swimming around them. I melt into the chaos of it all, keeping my head down to stay invisible to the panicking people scattering about.
Men flow from the houses with their weapons, shouting to one another. Women barricade windows and doors. But their sense of urgency doesn’t touch me. I’m hollow and numb—nothing but a ghost.
A few times I stop and stand in the street, the town streaming past. I wonder if I should go back. I wonder
how I was able to just leave Catcher like that. Leave Cira and the rest of them to face the wrath of the Militia and the Council. How I could think only of myself and abandon them.
But I don’t go back. I just keep wandering, weaving through the houses in the narrow streets, my fingers loose around my weapon. Tears still burning my eyes.
Nothing tonight makes sense. The kiss after so much longing. My first time past the Barrier and the sense of freedom and desire.
But most of all the Breaker. Her speed. Her ferocity. They taught us about them by comparing them to certain animals, which can sense the gender balance of their environment: If the population in any given area has too many females, most of the next ones born will be males. It’s the only way to ensure they survive.
Same with Mudo: If there aren’t enough Mudo in the area, anyone infected will turn into a Breaker. Otherwise it would be too easy to kill them off. Mudo are only difficult to kill in large populations because one on one they’re too slow. The Breakers, on the other hand, don’t last as long but are much harder to kill in small numbers and can spread the infection rapidly.
Seeing it in person is different from hearing stories about it in school. Seeing someone you know die. Seeing her Return. Seeing her sprint and knowing you’ll never outrun her.
I press my fingers against my eyes, wanting to push hard enough to erase the sight forever.
No one notices me in the chaos and I follow the path past the edge of town and through the trees to the lighthouse, my home with my mother. It sits on the edge of Vista, perched on the tip of the peninsula, away from the other houses and shops of the town. Its bowed wall is flush with the fence that follows the curve of the ocean. I stand and stare at the sweep of its light as it traces through the night, glinting in rhythm with my heartbeat.
Years ago—generations—Vista used to be a more important city, a port for trading. After the Return, as the roads became too dangerous for travel because of the Mudo, more and more people turned to boats and ships. With the lighthouse and small harbor, Vista was connected to the rest of the world. It was a center for news, goods, everything. It was a prize of the Protectorate. Until the pirates began raiding the ships. Until even the ocean became too dangerous.
And now we’re nothing but a light on the shore, spinning for no one.
The windows are dark and hollow and I can feel the emptiness of the house from here. My mother must still be at the weekly Council meeting. I know I should go inside and close myself up in my room. She’d be worried thinking I’m outside while the alarm bells ring but there’s no danger here. It’s in the ruins, in the amusement park that feels so far away.
I skirt around the house and through the fence down to the ocean, not ready yet to go inside. The tide is creeping in, a dangerous time to be around the waves that may wash Mudo against the beach. But still I stand there and stare out into the blackness. I sense more than see the shudder of the light sweep high above me, illuminating nothingness.
Growing up, I used to stand here with my mother. She would stare at the horizon as if it were an impossible forever. As if it called to her, always needing her. But she would never go. She had a little sailboat she would tempt the waves with every now and again. I’d overheard whispers in the town about my mother—how they thought she was crazy for bothering to leave the shore.
Their words would cause my cheeks to burn. I was fiercely proud of her when I was a child, how she would do things no one else dared. Regardless of what people said, she’d bob out past the waves in her little boat, me on the bow and her at the rudder. There were times when I wondered if she would unfurl the sail and just keep going past the horizon. But she always turned back.
And as I got older and learned the risks she was taking, my face would heat with embarrassment that my mother was so different. That she didn’t fit into the town. They didn’t understand why she acted so recklessly. I refused to go with her anymore—it was stupid to tempt danger and leave the protection of shore.
Eventually she stopped sailing. She seemed to forget about the old boat on its shelf by the lighthouse, where it still sits. And just like everything else in our world, it’s slowly and inevitably fallen apart: its sail tattered, its hull slightly warped. I wonder if I have the strength to drag it to the water. To hoist the mast, hold the sail and whip out into the night. Let the void swallow me.
Instead I let my feet sink into the sand, the waves tugging around my ankles. I think about the crescent wound on Catcher’s shoulder and wonder at how everything can change so fast.
I imagine that’s what it must have been like to ride the roller coaster back in the before time. One moment teetering at the top, the world laid out before you and the rush of life filling your lungs … and then the plummet. The lack of control. That’s what I’ve started to learn about this world. It might give, but it always takes away.
That night I lie in bed so aware of the sheets against my body. It’s the first time I’ve thought about the feel of Catcher’s skin skimming my own. The air is hot, close, heavy. It pushes me into the bed until I can’t breathe and suddenly I panic. I throw off the covers, pressing my hand to my chest and gulping air. I can’t believe I left them. I can’t believe I ran away.
I stumble from my room and run up the stairs to the gallery, shoving my hips against the railing and waiting for the light to roll across the darkness and hit the curves of the coaster in the distance.
My body still vibrates. I’m safe, I remind myself. I’m safe. But it doesn’t help. Because I don’t know if anyone else is.
And I’m terrified that it won’t last.
In the distance I see flickers of light where there should be none—the Militia at the amusement park. I wonder if Cira or one of the others is telling them about how I was there. About how I ran away. I’m just as guilty as any of them, only I ran before they found me. I stretch up on my toes and look down at the path that snakes from Vista to the lighthouse, waiting to see the light of torches. Waiting for them to come and take me away.
But they don’t. Wind and light gather on the horizon and the lights in the amusement park fade to nothing and still I stand waiting.
I feel traitorous for being safe when my friends aren’t. For being alive when they could be infected.
But most of all I feel traitorous because, even as I hate myself for it, I want more than anything to remember the feel of Catcher’s lips against my own. Feel his fingers on my wrist. Just one memory from the night that isn’t pain and fear and regret.
But I can’t. I can only see the blood.
And I realize that I’ll never see him again. I’ll never feel him again. All the possibility and freedom I’d felt is gone forever.
The early-morning sun seeps around the edges of the window blind and highlights the creases in my mother’s face as she sits on the side of my bed and pushes tangles of hair from my cheeks, even her lightest touch pulling me from the depth of my dreams.
Something tugs at my body, a memory that I’m supposed to be sad and upset, and it takes me too long to remember. Catcher’s infected. The Breaker. Mellie and the others and me running away. Leaving Cira behind.
The emotions of the night before hit me, overwhelm me. I want to crumble in on myself but instead I hold my breath, swallowing back the sting of tears. I press the ridges of my nails into my palms, the sharp pain a focus.
“Mom,” I whisper, letting her believe it’s the weight of sleep that dulls my voice.
She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. For most of my life this has been our morning ritual. Her coming into my room, sitting on my bed, gently waking me up to face the day. Sometimes she sings a soft song; sometimes she tells me news of the village. Sometimes we just exist in silence.
More and more this summer I’ve shrugged her off, feeling acutely how very different she is from the others in Vista. I want to be more like the other teenagers, even like Catcher and Cira, who don’t have any parents.
But this morning I let her twis
t my hair. I close my eyes and let her comfort me.
“I have to go meet with the Council, Gabrielle,” she says before pausing. “Something happened last night. Something you need to know about.”
I try to keep my breathing even, not wanting her to realize that I know what she’s going to say. Even so I feel it catch, feel my chest tightening with the panic from the night before. I shouldn’t have run. I should confess what happened.
But I don’t.
I mumble a “What?” hoping she thinks my throat is tight from sleep rather than pain.
“Some of your friends were caught outside the Barrier,” she says.
I feel the bed shift. “The Militia were notified. They found them in the amusement park by the ruins.” I hear her swallow. “Apparently there were Unconsecrated nearby.” I cringe as she uses the word Unconsecrated, a throwback to her old life and the way she was raised. Her refusal to call them Mudo like everyone else is just another reminder of how different she is.
“Some of them were infected and Returned,” she says with a tight voice. She pauses again. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, clutching my hand.
I turn my head into the pillow, squeeze my eyes as tight as I can to keep the agony inside.
“They’re voting on a punishment this morning,” she continues, “and then they’re having a full town gathering to announce it.”
I should ask her who was hurt. She would expect me to. I should ask her if Cira and Catcher were there, if they’re okay, but I already know the answer and can’t bring myself to pretend otherwise. She waits for me to say something and when I don’t she walks to the window and opens the shutters so that she can stare out at the ocean.
The light’s bright and harsh and I wince against it. I can only see the outline of her body as she turns back to face me but her shadow looks older than I’ve noticed before.