by Casey Herzog
“What did you see?”
Dante looked away, his gaze dropping to the floor.
“I saw my loved ones die. They were killed; gunned down by Coalition Special Forces.”
Andrew took a step back. Aaron and Beth looked uneasily at each other and then back at Dante.
“Andrew? What’s going on? What kind of dream did you make me have?”
King shook his head and sighed.
“What you have seen…It’s really going to happen.” He looked up at Dante once more and sadness crept over his face. “I’m sorry Dante. It was a real vision. Your loved ones are in danger, and you probably have no chance to save them.”
PART III – Rude Awakening
CHAPTER NINETEEN
~Comfort Zone~
She sat up, the sheet falling off her bare chest. Beside her lay a young man, snoring softly. Maria watched him for a moment, wondering what he saw in his dreams. Although she wished he was imagining their future together, it was more likely to be a fantasy of finding his father alive once more.
They had waited. Despite the despair, the nerves, and the terror of uncertainty, they had stayed at the community and waited for their parents, guardians, and caregivers to return.
It had been a week since the departure of the adults when the first noises were made. Even the youngest children were desperate. Callum had been the last to leave, his own desperation forcing him to promote both Maria and Alex to the position of interim leaders of the community. He’d gone out in search of the rest of the adults, despite Adam and Johanna’s wishes for him to stay behind and take care of things on his own.
Alex felt cheated by the soldier and had told Maria as much, but she understood why the man had left. Not even all of us with guns and gear could do as much damage to an enemy as he could. He’s too good. She had always admired Callum, and had even felt a childish infatuation towards the man since she could remember.
Still, it was Alex she loved. The boy’s eyes opened slowly, and he saw her sitting there awake. He pulled her down towards him and kissed her on the lips, running a hand through her hair.
“Why are you awake?”
“Just watching you sleep,” she lied. The truth was that she couldn’t sleep. She hadn’t been able to for days. Everyone wanted to go out and look for the rest. Correction — everyone had voted whether to go out already. She was the only one against it, nonetheless it was happening in slightly more than twenty-four hours.
“You sure? It sounds too nice to be true,” Alex said with a grin. He turned over onto his stomach and pointed at an area of his shoulder. “Give me a quick massage and tell me what’s really going on.”
Maria sighed. He knew her too well.
“I don’t feel comfortable with this. You must be happy that you won the vote,” she said as she pushed her hands down on a knot in Alex’s back, “But I think you’re being reckless. You need to remember that most of the ‘soldiers’ who voted aren’t even old enough to carry a rifle. They’re not even old enough to cook their own meals, for crying out loud—”
“Are you seriously going down this road again?” Alex interrupted, his expression one of annoyance. He had already argued with Maria on at least two previous occasions about the journey outside the vault door. “We’ve already discussed why we’re going out there. Age doesn’t mean anything. All of these kids — all of us — have seen war and death. It’s nothing new. Say we go out there and we find out our parents and guardians are dead and then some of us die…so what? That’s the way of the world. It can’t stop us from moving forward!”
“So what?!” Maria exclaimed, but Alex wriggled out from beneath her and stood beside the bed, only a pair of shorts covering him.
“So what, yes, but not in the way you think. What I mean is we’ll still die in here if they don’t come back and somebody finds us. It won’t take much, a heat-scanner, an Outsider ship with their hunting technology, a Coalition squad lurking in the sewers…Also, don’t forget Dante is gone. For good. Maybe it’s an epidemic that ends our lives. A rotten pot of food that kills us all one by one. Who’s to say one of the adults who left hasn’t been captured and given away our position already?” He shook his head. “Step out of your bubble, Maria. This is more than just worrying about our safety; it’s about knowing the truth and moving forward now.”
Maria stared at him for the longest time. She hated him for being so right, but still, he didn’t see the consequences. They had everything to support them here, even enough males and females to form an underground city by reproduction. It was a premature thought, but it was biologically possible. Alex knew how to make things, she knew how to cook and produce food with the resources they had: it was a perfect scenario. There was also the obvious fact that whatever Callum, Dante and the rest had encountered had either killed or captured them. This was clearly too much for a large group of teenagers and children to handle. Even if the teenagers and children were armed to the teeth.
“I don’t even have anything to say to you. We’re just going to have to agree to disagree.” Her eyes grew moist, and she ran over to the cupboard to put some clothes on and pulled the door open. Before she stepped out, she heard him call after her, but she was already gone.
Maria walked out into the passages of their home: stone walls and stone floors with pipes running along them, a soft lighting illuminating the corridors and giving it a homely feel she knew she would miss when they left. It had been part of the sewers, but Callum and the rest had isolated it from the dirty water and rodents that filled the areas outside the community’s borders. Sometimes, she had heard the adults refer to the place as Eden, but even she had found the name laughable.
Most the children slept, but there were a pair of voices coming from a nearby room. Maria knew that while the members of the community all respected and loved both of their young leaders, she could not force the kids to sleep if they didn’t want to. As long as they worked their shifts, she couldn’t punish them for staying up late.
She found the four kids sitting in a circle, a lamp standing between them and lighting something on the stone floor.
“Miss Maria!” a girl with widened eyes exclaimed, the look of a guilty child caught doing something he or she had been told not to. The other kids straightened and stiffened visibly, and Maria took a few steps across the room to see what they were looking at.
“Richie, don’t bother…I’ve already seen it.” She glared at the child who had tried to pull the map out from under the lamp, and he let it go, dropping it and standing with a look of embarrassment and guilt on his cute, brown-skinned face.
“A map?” Maria asked out loud, not expecting an answer. She picked it up off the ground and inspected it. It had clearly belonged to Callum once, meaning the children had probably stolen it. “Where did you get this?”
“We…” Susie, the girl who had seen Maria enter the room first, tried to look for an answer but it was useless.
“I stole it.” The voice came from behind Maria, spoken by a child whose words didn’t surprise her. The pale-skinned boy looked up at her with his dark, ringed eyes, and she felt a chill run down her spine. His permanent sickly look made her uneasy. Nathan was his name. He had never been a very nice or loving child, the boy having been brought to the community by Johanna, who had found him in the remains of a burning town full of corpses a couple of months ago. Somehow, his mother had kept him alive until she had succumbed to the wounds the village’s attackers had caused her and died on top of the boy.
“How? And above all, why?” Maria asked. She suddenly wished her Aunt Paola was around, a much stricter woman than she. Paola wouldn’t have been intimidated by those creepy eyes and the kid’s reputation,. If Dante was a source of light to the community, Nathan was the representation of darkness. There was something wrong with him, clearly.
“I broke into Mr. Callum’s room with a lockpick and found it on his desk. He probably had been planning his trip before he left. I needed it more than he d
id — actually no, we needed it more than he did,” Nathan finished with a smile.
Maria narrowed her eyes.
“What are you thinking of using it for? I saw all of you vote to go on that expedition,” she said suspiciously, “So why would you need maps? We have our own.”
The children looked at Nathan, and he shot glances at the rest of them, as if to force them into silence.
“We want to be sure where we’re going,” he said finally.
The older girl stared at them. They’re planning something. She checked the map and inspected it. In an instant she found their location, marked with a very discreet circle. Callum’s handwriting was in red marker, and Maria’s eyes followed tracks that he himself had drawn, areas that seemed like a radius to measure where the first expedition group had gone. Clearly, Callum had been suffering for all of those days while the rest of the adults were missing. He’d created paths all fanning out from the community, all of them a hopeful alternative to the one he’d marked as ‘Worst, but most likely scenario – Ayia’.
“Where are you going, Nathan? You can trust me. I don’t want to ruin whatever plans you have, but I want you to be truthful and honest with me. You can’t forget I was left in charge of the group, and I can’t have any of you disappearing on me. Especially not all four of you.” The children looked at her guiltily, all except for the boy with the black hair. Nathan simply glared, keeping his answer to himself. She finally caved, though she hated herself for it. “Fine, don’t tell me, but you’re still getting punished for breaking into Callum’s office and stealing this. Double shifts for the rest of the week for all of you once we’re back. You should rest; tomorrow you’ll need it. Alex will hear about this.”
She turned to leave and walked to the door with the map in her hand, but an eerie voice spoke up. It was Nathan.
“You feel safe here, Maria, believing this fantasy is going to last forever. The time is approaching for us to leave…or we shall witness our own ends within its walls. Death is approaching the community.” He spoke softly and with a smile on his face that gave his words a tone of amusement.
Maria turned to look at them all, their eyes fixed on her own. There was something there, as if they fanatically believed the strange child’s words. It creeped her out so much, that she left as quickly as she could and made her back to the room she shared with Alex. The door was slightly stuck, but she managed to pry it open and close it behind her, her chest heaving as she fought back the fear and unease of what had just happened.
Alex didn’t even shift — he was already sleeping once more.
Maria looked at the time on the clock beside the bed. 5:01 a.m. Suddenly, she felt more tired and worried than ever and decided it was time to rest. At least until 6:30, when she would have to get up again.
She lay down and closed her eyes, dumping the map on the bedside table…
…but then she got up once more and crossed the room to lock the door and place a chair behind it.
Just in case, she told herself, a nervous laugh escaping her lips as the dark, ringed eyes returned to her mind, just in case.
The children heard the door close and sighed.
“That was close,” Susie breathed. She watched Nathan pull something out from under his crossed legs and looked into his eyes. They were full of malice. There was something dark about the boy, but he seemed to know things that others didn’t. I’d rather believe in him than anyone else right now, the young girl thought.
“She took the map we didn’t need, the fool,” Nathan hissed. He unfolded the crumpled-up plans he had hidden beneath him and revealed them once more. The dark had allowed him to move quickly when he’d heard the woman approaching. Maria had a good heart, but she was too afraid and naïve to be the leader of a community. Once more, the map of a city became visible to the quartet of children, and Nathan smiled. “So anyway, as I was saying. When the distraction takes place, we set off towards our real mission…” He continued speaking, his hands spreading across the sheet of paper beneath him.
It was not just any sheet. It was the map of a city, and in that city he would meet a group of people who were waiting for him.
Eden was going to have new owners soon. Owners who deserved it more.
“You know what to do, guys,” he said to his friends. “Get some rest. Only a day until we set off to our destiny. Good luck, see you in a few hours.”
The best part of it all, he thought, is that not even my friends here have any idea what’s coming…
CHAPTER TWENTY
~Into The Unknown~
Maria woke up suddenly. Her eyes darted to the clock, and she realized that she’d slept in.
Shit, 8:07 a.m.!
Alex hadn’t even bothered to wake her up, the bastard. She stood up and hurried to the bathroom, washing her face with the thin line of tank-fed rainwater that came out of the basin’s tap and quickly getting changed. Work awaited; nobody over the age of six in their community was exempt from adding their labor to keeping everything going. Shifts were usually rotated, but many had specialized jobs: farmers, cooks, builders, smiths, cleaners, teachers, and watchmen all practiced their trade within the limits of the community.
Maybe back before the war we were children and would have been allowed to enjoy ourselves while our parents provided, but times have changed. She put on her best smile and stepped out of her room. Immediately, the noise of a busy day in Eden reached her ears. Not just a busy day, the busiest of them all. Despite her protests, the expedition was set to go before dawn tomorrow, and today would be the massive final preparation day.
There were children taking care of the provisions being loaded into crates to take out into the wastelands, and others were checking the armory for weapons. Not everything could be taken with them for security reasons, but they were pretty much leaving a skeleton inventory behind. Another reason to back out of this, she thought. If this mission fails and we take too long to get back, we may as well die. There wouldn’t be much food, water or weapons to come back to if anything went wrong.
“Alex!” Maria shouted over the noise. The tall eighteen-year-old turned to look at her, smiling and beckoning her over. He was overseeing the slaughter of several animals, their sacrifices serving to the necessity of fresh meat for the trip. Elsewhere, a couple of teenagers were pulling vegetables up from the soil Maria had taken care of for the past year. A moment of fury passed over her, but there was nothing she could do.
“Hey babe. I let you sleep in, so that you could avoid having to watch all of the preparation for the journey. I hope that’s okay with you; you needed rest.”
Maria didn’t smile at him, her eyes following the children as they pretended to get ready for something that they would never actually be ready for.
“It could just be a few of us,” she said, but immediately shook her head. “Yeah. Don’t worry; I know what you’ll say next. ‘Everyone wants to help. Every gun counts.’ They better count if we go up against properly armed men and women. Your conscience will weigh heavily down on you if this goes wrong, won’t it?”
Alex simply nodded, as if to shut her up.
“Boys, you’ve prepared the cooling systems haven’t you?” he asked the ones carrying the meat, ignoring Maria’s annoyed looks at them. “You have? Good.” He flashed a smile at her, and she rolled her eyes. He was a charming young man, but he wasn’t ready.
“Do you really think Frank is alive?” she asked all of a sudden.
Alex froze, straightening in an instant. He hadn’t liked the question at all, even if it was a doubt he himself had carried for a while now. Maria saw him look away and mutter something under his breath, before he started to walk away. She grabbed him and pulled him close before he rested his face on her shoulder.
“He’s dead, Maria. I know…” A soft sound escaped his lips — almost a sob, but not quite — but it was all he allowed before sniffing back the tears and wiping his face. “I’m not only going because of my father. You should kno
w that. We must make our presence known. Paola is out there as well, and several others. We owe it to them.”
Maria tensed at the name of her aunt, but unlike Alex, she had given up on the woman a long time ago. My poor auntie…I just hope it was quick.
“Fine. I’m going to help here. If these little fools are going to cut and prepare the meat, they at least better do it the right way,” she said in annoyance and walked after the two boys.
The rest of the day went by in harmony, most of the kids happy to see that Maria had finally joined in on the action. She received words of support and the smiles of children who needed her positive attitude. Although Alex was heavily respected and considered a mature young man, he didn’t quite bring the same soothing effect Maria did with her smiles and her surprise meals. She had even baked a large carrot cake a few weeks back, all to lift the mood in the community.
Night arrived, and finally the last preparations were made. Maria stood next to Alex, her head resting on his shoulder as he watched the kids scurrying away. He lifted her head by the chin and kissed her, smiling as he stepped back and pulled her away.