by Eric Walters
There was even talk about how my mother and brother and I had come here to live but our plan all along had been to go to the airport. The word “mole” was used. We had “burrowed” in here, pretending to be their friends, when really all the time we’d been working for the airport community. Of course, giving the airport compound all of the food we’d secretly grown on our little island hadn’t endeared us to those people.
As the talks stalled, my mother and I talked about simply leaving. Sam was part of that discussion. He said that not only would he understand if we left, but if it weren’t for his grandmother he would come with us. We decided then that we wouldn’t go anywhere alone. It wasn’t just that these people would collapse without my mother—our only chance of ultimately convincing them would have to come from within. The point was that we needed to bring the communities together for their mutual benefit. Ultimately, if the Ward’s community tried to stand alone, they would sooner or later be overpowered, but the decision would be fatal to the airport community, too, as they slowly starved. We had a choice: a fast death or a slow one.
“Hey, Emma,” Willow said.
I looked up as he sat down beside me. I tried not to notice his leg brushing against mine.
“Seems appropriate,” he said, pointing at my book.
It was The Hunger Games. “It’s one of my favorites. Strange how reading helps me escape from this world by taking me to one that’s even more messed up.”
“I figure you just identify with the bow and arrow part. You are the closest thing we have to Katniss.”
“That’s not the first time I’ve heard that. So, does that make you Peeta or Gale?”
“Probably Peeta. He’s always hiding behind Katniss the way I hide behind you.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself. Beside, you have to admit that Peeta is cute.”
“You think I’m cute?” he asked.
“Yeah…sort of like a floppy-eared puppy dog.”
“I’ll take that.”
“I’m just glad you, at least, are still talking to me.”
“Emma, don’t let their stupidity get to you. It’s not your fault that you had an idea.”
“That’s not how some people are seeing it. They think my mother and I are traitors to the community.”
“You’ve kept us alive. Hey, you don’t have your crossbow with you?” Willow said.
“It’s inside.”
“But you always have it with you. Right beside you. Is this because of, well, because of…?”
“Because I killed that man?”
He nodded. Willow looked uneasy, as though he wasn’t sure what he should say next, or whether he should even have said that much. “I guess I’m just worried about how you’re taking all this.”
“I’m okay.”
But I wasn’t, not really. I was all right if somebody was around, or I was lost in a good book, or when I finally got to sleep. It was getting to sleep that was hard. I could still see his lifeless face in my mind. Open eyes, open mouth, and then the bolt sticking out of his chest. I’d killed that man. A few months ago my biggest problem was that we’d changed cities. Now the entire world had changed, and I had killed a man.
“You know what makes me angry, though? Some people are saying that what I did to protect Ethan is proof that my mother and I are bad people. It really bugs me that anyone here would still mistrust me or my mother or our motives.”
“We all have a pretty good idea where we’d be without you.” He paused. “Look, you’re not planning on leaving and going to live at the airport, are you?”
“We’re not doing that.”
“That’s what I figured. You couldn’t leave me behind…I have that effect on girls.”
I chuckled. “You really are a bit delusional, you know that, right?”
“I live in a world where people I don’t know are trying to kill me and everybody I do know. Don’t you think a little delusion might be a good thing? Maybe I should start LARPing with my parents again.”
“A little delusion doesn’t hurt. Besides,” I took a deep breath before continuing, “I would miss you…a lot.”
“Then I have good news. If you did leave, you wouldn’t have to leave me behind.”
“You’d come with us?”
“Me and my family,” he said. He leaned in closer and whispered, “My parents and I have talked about it.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
What I wanted to tell him—what I couldn’t tell him—was that my mother and I had talked about what would happen if things fell apart here. She’d had confidential discussions with Colonel Wayne and he’d said he would gladly welcome us and any other people we recommended. Willow and his family were on that short list of people we wanted to come along with us. It was just that nobody could know about it.
“And believe me,” Willow said, “we’re not the only ones.”
“Who else?”
“Lots of people think it’s the right thing to do.”
“Then why don’t any of them speak up louder?” I asked.
“They don’t want to ruffle feathers.”
“So they’d rather die than risk getting people ruffled?”
“Pretty much. Sometimes people just want peace,” he said.
“That’s the problem with a lot of people here. Peace comes at a price, and sometimes that price is being willing to fight!”
“Hey, you’re talking to the wrong person.”
“Then you have to tell people. You and your parents and anybody else who believes that we should go.”
“I’ll talk to my parents about telling other people.”
“That would help. People really respect them.”
And then we heard the church bell clang. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on edge.
“Do you think we’re under attack?” Willow asked.
“It’s probably nothing at all. How many times have they raised the alarm this week?”
“Four, no, five times.”
“And each time it was nothing. It’s going to be nothing this time, too. Still, we’d better get to our stations.”
—
A fifth and then a sixth boat joined the ones already stationed off our shore. The first one had shown up almost two hours ago, then one by one the others had appeared. That was when the alarm was sounded. They were coming nearer and then zigzagging back out, staying close enough to present a threat but far enough away that firing on them would have been useless. Even the catapult couldn’t chuck a projectile that far.
“What are they doing?” Willow asked.
“Making us really nervous, if nothing else.”
“What does your mother think?” he asked.
“Good question. I’ll ask her.” I took a couple of steps and Willow followed. I stopped. “I think there’s a better chance of her talking more openly if it’s just me.”
“Oh, sure, I understand.”
“I’ll tell you whatever she tells me. I promise.”
He smiled—I liked that smile. He was cute.
I went toward the part of the wall where I knew my mother had gone. I came up quietly and listened in as she was speaking to a group of people. I knew she was trying to calm them down. Everybody was on edge. She finished up and turned to face me.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“Good. Can we talk?”
“We can talk while we walk,” she said.
I fell in beside her. “Most people aren’t doing that fine, are they?”
“Not good. I think part of it is my fault,” she said.
“Your fault?”
“When I said that I thought we should move and that I had doubts, it planted doubts in their minds as well.”
“What do you think those boats are doing out there?” I asked.
“They’re getting ready to attack.”
“But they’ve been out there for over two hours. What are they waiting for?”
“Probabl
y for more boats and men to arrive. Or maybe they’re waiting until it gets dark. They might be checking out our defenses, or simply trying to make us anxious.”
“Shouldn’t we at least fire the catapults at them, you know, let them know that we’ll fight back?” I asked.
“That would only tell them that we don’t have anything more effective to fire. I’m hoping the rumors are still out there that we have mortars.”
“I wish we did. Or more guns, or something. Wait, should we send word to Colonel Wayne about what’s happening?”
“I already sent Sam.”
“Do you think the colonel will send some people?”
“He’s offered us support before, so I’m sure he will.” She looked at her watch. “It’s time for me to go to the back gate and check on the guards there.”
My mother had been rotating through all our defensive positions: from here along the wall, over to the place where the ostrich races had taken place, and continuing on to the bridge and the channel. Despite the fact that this was obviously where the danger was, there was no point in assuming it couldn’t come from another direction as well.
“Here, take these,” she said as she pulled her binoculars from around her neck and handed them to me. “If you see anything that makes you suspicious, send somebody to find me.”
She took a few steps and then spun around and came right back to my side.
“You know what to do if…”
“I know.”
She nodded and was gone.
The “if” was if we were overrun. Our old plan still held: our original group would gather at our house and then move on from there. The big difference was that now we’d be fleeing to the airport instead of our little island.
Soon, Willow and his family and those few others would be approached and asked to join in with us. It felt so good knowing that soon we’d be able to include them in our plans. Not telling them was the same as lying to them—a lie that could cost them their lives. I cared about Willow—I cared about all of them.
Then I had a terrible thought: What if “soon” was too late? What if today was the day it all fell apart? I couldn’t allow that thought to enter my head.
I rejoined Willow on the wall.
“So, what’s happening?” he asked.
For a split second I thought he was asking about the plans to escape instead of what was happening here. I put my head back into the right conversation.
“They might be waiting until dark before they attack.”
“But we have lights,” he said.
“They may not know that.”
“Of course they would. We used them during the last big attack, and a couple of times when the alarm was sounded.”
Willow was right. “They might just be gathering more people then, or maybe they’re just trying to scare us.”
“I don’t know. People are pretty scared already.”
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” I said.
“Do you think they might just go away?”
“They didn’t come out here to do nothing.”
“They’re probably watching us the way we’re watching them, and they’ll see the walls and the guns and maybe even the uniforms and decide that it’s too risky to attack us,” Willow added.
“All we can do is wait and watch and hope.”
With that said, I pulled the binoculars up to my eyes.
28
I stretched and yawned as I slowly got to my feet. The darkness was starting to lift. I was cold, and my clothing was damp from the dew that had settled in overnight. All night we’d stayed at our posts, taking turns drifting off into uneasy sleep, waiting. Periodically my mother would materialize out of the darkness, say a few words, and continue on her rounds. If most of us had had little sleep, I was sure that she’d had no sleep.
I looked out to the water. All I could see aside from the dark was a thick fog that hung over the lake. It gave it an even eerier feeling. Those boats were still out there, beyond my view, which made them even more frightening, more powerful, and more dangerous. Before the darkness had set in there had been a total of eight boats. Had another two or four or ten joined them overnight? The unseen, enhanced by my imagination, was an even bigger monster than before.
“Can you see anything?”
I looked over. It was Joshua, the actor, dressed as a Marine captain. He’d recently added that insignia to his uniform and given himself a fake promotion to go with his fake rifle.
“There might not be anything to see,” I offered encouragingly.
“From your lips to God’s ear.”
I went back to scanning the water. With each passing second the darkness was lifting and I felt as though I could “not see” more clearly. The fog over the lake was thicker than I had originally thought. I started to wonder if even the full light of dawn would allow me to see through it far enough to where the boats had been stationed.
Then I had another thought. Maybe the fog had driven them away, or at least kept them at bay. In the dark, in the thick fog, it was probably too dangerous to try to come to shore. Maybe the fog was our friend, and I had to hope it didn’t get burned off by the morning sun.
As it got lighter there was more activity and noise along the wall as people came back to life. I had to assume that everybody was as damp and tired and hungry as I was, but somehow the voices seemed positive, and there were little bursts of laughter. Were people feeling more optimistic in the morning light?
Eyes glued to the binoculars, I was starting to see through the fog and farther out onto the lake. What I wasn’t seeing was reassuring—there were no boats. If they were out there they were still far away from shore. Out there—if they were even out there—they could scare us but they couldn’t harm us.
I thought I caught a glimpse of something but it was just swirling mist. Was my imagination getting the better of my eyes? I tried to look harder, to see through the fog, and then the bow of a boat appeared and disappeared. My whole body got hot, and that burned away my hope more powerfully than the morning sun burned off the fog. We were not alone. They were still out there—at least one of them. Maybe the rest had gone? I stopped myself. That was nothing more than a dangerous false hope. It wouldn’t be just one boat. If one was there, then they would all be there.
Little by little my suspicions were confirmed. A second and third boat were briefly revealed before vanishing again into the fog and the distance. I wanted to convince myself that I was just seeing the same boat again and again, but the location was wrong. It had to be more than one. Then three boats appeared at once. I heard someone else on the wall react: so it wasn’t just me.
I lowered the binoculars. I didn’t need to see far as much as I needed to see broadly. There were, along the length of the wall, five…no, six boats visible. Still far out, but still there. My assumption was that the other two were out there as well, because there was no reason for only some of them to have stayed.
The sun continued to rise. The light felt both welcoming and threatening. It meant we’d lasted the night, but now it was revealing a truth that nobody wanted. Out of the fading darkness, the growing light revealed even worse news. There weren’t six boats, or eight, but many, many more. I did a quick count. There were seventeen boats, at least. And there were still patches of fog that could be hiding more.
Then I noticed something else. The entire wall had fallen silent. All the voices, laughter, even coughing had stopped. We were all stunned and scared into silence. I could almost feel the level of fear rise. I looked at the people closest to me, and then to those farther along the wall. There were some who had actually taken a step or two back from the wall, as if they were being pushed away by their fears.
I turned to Willow. “Go and get my mother. She’s probably at the bridge.”
He jumped to his feet, looking as terrified as I felt. I reached up and grabbed him by the hand and pulled him down slightly so I could speak quietly and privately.
> “Willow, I need you to get her fast, but I need you to walk to get her calmly. Do you understand?”
He nodded but his eyes were wide. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
“Tell her about the ships and that we need her here quickly, soon, but you need to leave here looking almost casual, no panic.”
Willow walked away. He glanced over his shoulder at me and I gave him a reassuring smile and nod of the head, and he returned both.
“We’re going to be okay,” I said.
I realized I’d wanted to think that, not say it, but the words had come out. I looked around to see who had heard me. Those on both sides of me nodded in agreement. It seemed to reassure them.
I got to my feet. “We’re all going to be okay,” I said again, but this time more loudly and more deliberately, trying to sound confident and calm. Again those who heard seemed to respond well. That was both reassuring and disturbing. Why would my words have an impact on them? It made me realize how much they needed something, and until my mother arrived I was all they had. These people were as fragile and as much an illusion as their fake guns and uniforms.
I walked along the wall, offering a few words to everybody. I realized I was using the same calm, quiet tone that my mother used. That was always her tone, not just here but in her life as an ER nurse, as a Marine, and as a mother.
As I walked I kept scanning the water. The boats hadn’t got any closer but a few more had emerged from the fog. I counted twenty-one now. Three were larger but most were fairly small and couldn’t have held more than a dozen people. How many people were there out there?
I stopped and rested the binoculars against one of the arrow loops and tried to focus on the nearest boat. Finding a bobbing boat through the lenses always proved difficult for me. I lowered the binoculars, traced a line out, and then retrained the binoculars along that line until the boat came into view. I adjusted the lenses to focus.
Up on the flying bridge of the boat I could see the person at the wheel. With these powerful binoculars I could practically make out his expression. I thought about how if I’d been looking through the scope of a sniper rifle instead of binoculars I could have easily picked him off. Well, not me, but a trained sniper.