by Marks, C. C.
“Oh, and the rectangular pizza with the little red pepperoni cubes.”
There he went again thinking about food and “roni’s.” I rolled my eyes, but nodded.
“My friend Tabitha and I went to the mall on the weekends and spent hours walking around the shops, sipping cokes in the food court, and flirting.”
“You? You had a girlfriend?”
I stared open-mouthed for a moment. Of course, he would think that, and I nearly slipped again. I was my own worst enemy, and I had to be more careful.
“Yep, first love and all.”
He paused in the middle of pulling a weed and stared at me for a moment. I could feel my cheeks heat, and I prayed I didn’t look as hopeless as I felt.
“You are kind of a pretty-boy with those blue eyes. I guess girls were into you, huh?”
I busied myself over a particularly stubborn weed and shrugged my shoulders. What could I say? The girls were into me for make-up tips, shopping, and sleepovers. That’s what I remembered most, but that was so long ago it felt like another lifetime.
I could hear the smile in his voice as he thankfully changed the subject back to himself and said, “Well, there was this one girl I was into. All the guys thought she was hot though, so I didn’t have a chance. I was too skinny and short. I hadn’t developed the guns yet.” He laughed and flexed his right arm.
I laughed with him and not for the first time, felt a warm rush in my abdomen as his gaze met mine. His eyes shined a deep brown and laugh lines crinkled around them. I loved Zeke’s eyes. They never looked at me as if I were a creepy bug crawling on the back of his hand or like I was the stupidest person allowed to live. Thomas’s dark, condemning eyes stared at me in my mind’s eye, and I shook my head to clear it. Zeke was nothing like serious, diehard Thomas.
Zeke was funny and carefree, and he made me feel everything would be okay. At times, he was rude, a little full of himself, even gross, but the longer I lived among men, the more I realized they constantly battled for power. Boys proved they were the strongest, biggest, smartest, smelliest or in some other way, the best. As a natural leader, Zeke was more the rule than exception to this, and often he was showing off with a race or some other physical feat. Back in school, I’d bet he was the star athlete and let his cocky-flag fly on a regular basis. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit.
I didn’t mind though, and put up with his brainless behavior. He was my best friend here and other than Star, of course, the closest thing to family. I could almost consider sharing my deepest secret with him, but my mother’s warning held me back. No one could know the truth if I was going to keep Star safe.
“You might want to pull a few more weeds there, Slim. Then your muscles will become as big as mine.”
I laughed again. “Are those muscles under there? I just thought you were wearing bigger hand-me-downs.”
“That might be true, but it’s because whenever I flexed, my arms busted right through the sleeves of my old clothes.”
I was cracking up, holding my stomach when Peter Bannon strode toward us. “Weeding too easy for you? Do you need something harder?”
Zeke and I stilled. Peter topped my list of people I avoided. He was a class A jerk, but I’d be better off keeping that to myself because his father was Jonas, the head councilman.
“Shut-up, Peter. You might be fun-impaired, but doesn’t mean you have to bring everyone else down.”
Apparently Zeke didn’t feel the same intimidation. Of course, his uncle Noah was also on the Council, so it probably never crossed his mind that he could be shown the final exit at the dead of night. I wasn’t quite so confident. With a restraining hand on Zeke’s arm, I tried to calm him.
I pulled a few more weeds. “We were just getting back to work.”
“You better, outsider. Never know when you might end up on the wrong side of the wall.”
Zeke took a threatening step forward. “Don’t talk to him like that. He’s one of us now.”
Peter’s face twisted into an ugly sneer, although it wasn’t much prettier when he smiled. “Oh, I didn’t mean to insult your boyfriend.”
Zeke lunged toward Peter and grabbed his head in the crook of his arm. Peter released a high-pitch scream and struggled earnestly to get out of Zeke’s tight grip. I swallowed the shriek that welled in my own throat and searched the area desperately for any boys willing to break them up. Hope that someone would come and stop this madness was my best plan, but only a few people stopped and stared. No one seemed able to shake the shock, or maybe two members of the community brawling like wild animals wasn’t that unusual.
In a frantic attempt to stop them myself, I reached my hands in and tried to separate them, but I might as well try to lift a tree out by its roots. I clasped Zeke’s arm between my fists and yanked with a grunt like my life depended on it. Maybe it did because Zeke had been my only advocate from the beginning. Without him, the Council probably would’ve expelled me from the community from the start, but Zeke went to his uncle and convinced him to let me stay. Of course part of the reason the Council said yes was because they thought me another able-bodied male for the laborious tasks that kept the community going.
“Stop it!” My voice sounded puny among the growls and screams of the two boys. Someone was going to get hurt. “Stop!”
I continued to pull at Zeke, but he whipped Peter around like one of the floppy dolls I’d had as a little girl, and Peter squealed and flailed his arms around, trying to break free.
“Stop it, right now!”
Out of nowhere, one of Peter’s wild elbows caught me in my mouth, and I fell to the ground, stunned. I reached a trembling hand up to my stinging lip and pulled away a red-coated finger. The metallic tang of blood seeped into my mouth. Probing with my tongue, I felt the cut in my bottom lip and grimaced as it began to swell.
I glanced up at the two boys and listened to a few foul words flying almost as fast as their fists. My gaze drifted past them to see if anyone else was concerned.
Finally, I saw Thomas and one of the older soldiers who patrolled the field jogging toward us. I think the guard’s name was Jack or Jake or something like that, but the only thing I cared about was somebody finally coming to break up the fight.
Without any more than a snarl, the soldier wrapped his fist in their jackets and yanked them apart. Before they could scramble back together, Thomas pushed Zeke back with a grunt, and the guard grabbed Peter’s elbows, not that Peter was struggling too hard to get back into the fight.
Peter’s whine filled the air. “He attacked me!”
The guard’s voice carried deep and gruff. “I don’t care who started it. The Council will decide your fate.”
The Council. Always the Council. They both stopped their struggles and hung their heads. Consequences from the Council could be unpredictable. They might give them extra chores, or they might decide they posed a threat to the community and needed to be an example for all. Since I’d been a part of the community, one man was given a backpack full of provisions, a map, and sent away because he’d been caught stealing food. It hadn’t been his first time. I don’t know what became of him, but the thought of losing Zeke in the same way scared me more than I cared to admit.
The soldier walked away with Zeke on one side and Peter on the other, and I didn't know if I should follow or turn back to my work. In the end, it didn’t matter. Just as I stepped toward the group filing toward the edge of the field, we all froze, an unusual noise filled the sky. A loud honking sounded in the air. All the workers around me stood straight and looked upward. Over the trees from the north, long-necked birds flew in a V shape over our heads—geese. I hadn't seen animals in so long, I stood there with my mouth open, watching as the sight of something so rare reminded me that perhaps we weren't the last living creatures. Maybe a humongous city where the Draghoul didn’t exist and humans once again ruled the day and night really existed.
Two loud cracks rang out and one of the geese fell from the sky. I swi
veled my head and watched as another soldier across the field lifted his long rifle and fired. A few more shots rang out. I stared, narrowing my eyes, as he lowered his weapon. Surely the weapons were kept for protection, but it had never occurred to me the soldiers would be so accurate with their guns. As far as I’d known, they never shot them. Now a few soldiers jogged into the forest, and I returned my gaze toward the sky, spying the scattered geese, flying on with loud, stressed-out honks.
A few minutes later, the soldiers emerged from the tree line holding four large geese above their heads. Cheers erupted from the workers in the field, and I had to admit I was excited to taste something other than warm grainy mush and boiled vegetables. Tonight the community would feast, and excitement bloomed in my chest to be a part of it.
I watched as the soldiers left the field and Zeke and Peter followed behind them, their arms wrapped around each other and huge smiles on their faces. Boys were so strange. Moments before, they'd been at each other’s' throats. Now all was fine again because they'd get meat in their bellies.
I turned back and walked to the far side of the field where I’d worked before and bent to pick up my hoe, deciding to continue where I left off. Zeke would be okay, I was sure now. He would have a few more chores, and I probably would only see him in the fields over the next couple of days, but there wouldn't be any long-term consequences.
A few hours later, I paused to get a drink of water from a bucket and dared to glance into the forest. The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention, and I shuddered, feeling as if someone, or something, was watching from the trees. The wind blew cold through my oversized jacket, and I thought I heard a keening cry, low and soft, carry out of the ominous branches. Sometimes you could smell the rotting skin of a Draghoul before it attacked, but as I sniffed the air, only the woodsy odor of the forest drifted to my nose.
I gazed at the cloud-covered haze where the sun was descending in the afternoon sky and bit the inside of my cheek. My stomach tightened with the thought of long winter nights that would too soon be a living nightmare. I tried not to think of last winter, but I couldn’t forget the screams from the forest or the look on my mother's face as hope drained out of it, leaving a pale, sad stranger in her place.
My father was gone at that point. He’d left months before because our supplies were all but gone, and he was determined to get help for my pregnant mother and me, but he never returned. Winter set in long and hard, and my mother decided we didn’t have a choice but to find help on our own. I stubbornly refused to leave, sure my father would come through for us. He would never let us down.
“He’s not coming back, Charlie.” She’d started calling me Charlie at the beginning of the previous summer after my father completed our underground bunker, and we moved away from my aunts, uncles, and grandfather. My uncle John was the only person I’d ever known to leave safety and return to tell about it. He’d been gone two weeks when he came back and tried to convince everyone to leave with him. He said there was a massive fortress on the other side of some wall and we’d all be safe there, but my mother didn’t want to leave. Maybe still because I believed it, but she wanted to be in the bunker when my father showed. So we stayed, my mother and me, and all the others around us left. At first, I didn’t mind. Then, the supplies really were gone, and I worried we wouldn’t make it through the winter on the little I could gather from the area around us.
My mother was growing bigger with the baby, and I grew anxious about the birth. I had no experience, and I was scared to be alone during the delivery, in case something went wrong. I needed help, but no one remained at that point.
Finally, a familiar face showed up, but it wasn’t a rescue. It was an attack.
“Charlie…Charlie!”
A hand on my shoulder shook me free from the terrifying memory, and I heard someone call my name. My eyes focused on Thomas’s face, and my mind fast-forwarded to the present.
“Hey, everyone’s gone. Are you trying to get shut outside the gates?”
I glanced around with widened eyes at the nearly empty field. Only Thomas and a few guards remained, and I cringed at the sun’s low position in the sky. I knew better than to get lost in the past. I couldn’t change a thing now, and if I didn’t follow the routine, I wouldn’t survive an hour after the sun went down.
“Zeke usually keeps me on track.”
“He’s probably peeling potatoes about now, but he’ll be back tomorrow. You think you can manage the walk back without him?”
My jaw gritted at the question. Why’d he have to make me feel so brainless? Getting angry at him was useless though. He was right. I had to rely on others less if I wanted to make it in this world of many horrors. Grumbles firmly in check, I set my gardening tool on my shoulder and nodded.
“Good. Come on.” He waved his hand and walked in the direction of safety. I followed swallowing my anger but not ready to concede defeat so soon.
“You know, you don’t have to be so mean to me.”
He glanced over his shoulder, his eyebrows pushed together like I’d said something ridiculous…again. His shoulders lifted briefly before he looked ahead again and continued on as if I hadn’t spoken.
“I mean, did I do something to you? Take something from you? I just don’t get it.”
“You put us in danger. Enough said.”
I nearly choked as I inhaled, but only exhaled slowly with a low short cough. Would this be it? The time I dreaded every second, every minute, every hour of every day. Would he expose me?
Yet, he tromped on, and as we passed through the gates with the others, listened to the mechanical grind as they rolled shut, he said nothing more. Maybe he objected to my lack of attention to the routine, like not leaving the field on time or stepping into the forest to take care of my needs. Didn’t matter either way because my exposure was only a matter of time. This kind of secret didn’t last, no matter how carefully guarded. Eventually, someone would find out, and I’d do well to have a plan for that day.
“Charlie! There you are. Get over here before you miss the feast.”
Zeke’s face was split into a wide grin, the altercation from earlier no longer a concern. As I drew closer though, I noted a few light bruises around his cheek and chin. Apparently, Peter had gotten in a few good blows. My own mouth was still tender to the touch, but the bleeding had stopped pretty quickly and the swelling had come and gone.
“Ah, man! You’ve never smelled something so good as geese roasting. Hurry before everything’s gone.”
Despite my emotional turmoil and the precariousness of my situation, I managed a smile. In this moment, Zeke’s enthusiasm for the coming meal lightened my mood. Things were far from perfect, there weren’t enough breadcrumbs left in the world to line the trail back, but for tonight, we’d all forget our reality for a while and enjoy the rare treat of meat.
Chapter 3
Mostly habit ruled my life now. After the fields each day, I washed the field dirt off, changed into my only other pair of oversized pants and bulky sweatshirt with a hood that fell over my eyes when up and would be my work clothes tomorrow. Then I usually grabbed my sister and went straight to work in the laundry room, but not this evening.
I washed, changed, and charged into the lower level to locate Star. I nodded as I passed Levi and John standing at attention this time, outside the Council chambers. I was mildly curious why the Council would still meet at such a late hour. Usually, they were first to fill their plates at the evening meal, so it must be something pretty important. I shook my head and continued. Whatever crucial decision they currently debated didn’t matter to my grumbling stomach, so I passed quickly, turned left away from the meeting rooms and toward the living spaces.
If I wanted to listen in on the proceedings, it wouldn’t have been difficult. Zeke told me about a tunnel that led to a small room no bigger than a closet that shared a vent with the sanctuary and was the perfect place to spy on the almighty Council. I’d never actually done it,
and I wasn’t going to start now. I only wanted to get my sister and secure a place in line for us in the cafeteria.
Another couple guards stood outside the Councils’ dwelling rooms, but as soon as they saw me, they smiled, and Thaddeus turned to unlock the large, steel door.
“I thought you’d come soon. We could smell the feast all the way down here.”
They were young. This was one of the first duties of the novice soldiers because nothing ever happened down here, but it gave the more experienced soldiers an idea of how well the trainees could be trusted to remain at attention even with such a monotonous job. It was a test of sorts, and they all knew it.
William ducked his head briefly before giving her a sly grin and asking, “Do you think you could sneak a plate down for us tonight?”
“Won’t they let you join the feast?”
Thaddeus answered, “Nah, we have to guard the names for the Choosing.”
I’d almost forgotten about the Choosing. Each year, a person was chosen and sent to make contact with other survivors and bring back supplies. In the past three years though, only one had ever made it back—Victor—and he was half-crazed when he did. Though he still lived, he kept to himself mostly, except for the random rants he treated us to sporadically. He gave me the creeps whenever I saw him, and I did my best to avoid him. I hoped he wasn’t at the feast tonight. “Is the Choosing soon, then?”
“Right after harvest begins next week. The Council’s in chambers now, placing names inside the box. They’ll lock it up in Jonas’s room, so no one can tamper with it.” Thaddeus hung his head.
“Is every name put inside the box?”
William scratched his head. “No one knows for sure. Supposed to be everyone seventeen and above, even guards, and every member of the Council’s name is supposedly inside too, but there’s some who say the council names are never added.”
“Has a council member ever been chosen?”
William turned his brown eyes toward the ceiling as if the answer was written there, but he shook his head and said, “Not that I ever recall.”