After the Fire

by Will Hill

  Doctor Hernandez turns his head, searching for what I’m seeing, for whatever has caused me to physically back away from them. Then his eyes spring wide and he jumps to his feet and hauls Agent Carlyle out of his chair by his shoulders.

  “What the hell?” the agent shouts, his face flushing red. He tries to wrench himself free, but the psychiatrist grips him tightly and bundles him towards the door. Carlyle struggles, twisting and protesting, until Doctor Hernandez hisses, “The gun, you idiot.”

  Agent Carlyle freezes, his face turning ghostly pale, then lets himself be pushed out of the room. Doctor Hernandez slams the door behind them as he follows the other man out, but it doesn’t catch; it stands open, just the tiniest crack. I stare at it while my heart pounds in my chest and I realize it’s been a really long time since I last took a breath.

  My insides feel like they’ve been turned to concrete. I stare at the door and the sliver of grey corridor wall I can see through the narrow gap and I focus on it really hard and I tell myself to calm down, and after a long silent moment in which nothing happens I manage to force a thin whistling stream of air down my throat and I feel everything relax, just slightly, and maybe I’m not going to faint after all. I take a deeper breath, then another, and the pressure in my chest and the buzzing in my head clears and I hear distant voices coming from the corridor outside.

  “What in God’s name were you thinking?” asks Doctor Hernandez, his voice sharp and cold. “Do I need to tell you why wearing a gun into a therapy session is inappropriate? Please tell me I don’t need to explain that to you.”

  “I didn’t think,” says Agent Carlyle. “It’s habit, okay? I put it on in the morning and I take it off at night. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry,” says Doctor Hernandez. “Okay. Great. Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you have any idea what that girl has been through? I mean, you read the reports, right? You understand the things she saw?”

  I grimace in the empty room. Part of me hates hearing them talk about me like I’m some specimen in a laboratory, but another part likes hearing Doctor Hernandez being angry on my behalf. It’s been a long time since it felt like anyone was on my side, even just for a moment.

  “All right, all right,” says Agent Carlyle. “I’m taking it off. See?”

  “Make sure it’s off before you come in next time,” says Doctor Hernandez. “I’m going to be perfectly straight with you, Agent Carlyle. If you do anything that I believe jeopardizes Moonbeam’s progress in any way, I won’t hesitate to file a report with your section chief. I’m entirely serious.”

  There’s a long silence. I perch on the edge of the sofa, straining my ears.

  “You’re right,” says Agent Carlyle. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Thank you,” says Doctor Hernandez, and some of the usual warmth has returned to his voice. “Just remember where you are and where she’s been, okay? She’s stronger than I had any right to hope she’d be, but don’t underestimate the gravity of her situation. She’s in an extremely fragile state.”

  “PTSD?”

  “I haven’t finished my initial assessment yet,” says Doctor Hernandez. “I haven’t ruled anything in or out, including PTSD. So tread lightly, okay?”

  “Got it,” says Agent Carlyle. I hear him let out a deep sigh. “She’s the same age as my daughter, give or take six months. Did you know that?”

  “Get your head around it,” says Doctor Hernandez sharply. “Process it. Bringing your personal baggage in there isn’t going to help you or her.”

  “I’ve been in the FBI for eighteen years,” says Agent Carlyle. It almost sounds like he’s smiling. “Did you know that? I’ve led more than seven hundred interviews during that time.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “No point. I just thought it might be of interest. Are we going back in?”

  There’s a long pause, and I wonder what’s happening on the other side of the door. Are they staring at each other? Is Doctor Hernandez making Agent Carlyle wait for an answer because he’s actually considering his question, or because he wants to make it clear who’s in charge? Silence can be a weapon when it’s used properly – it makes people nervous, makes them say things they shouldn’t say to break the tension. Father John understood its power really well.

  “Fine,” says Doctor Hernandez eventually. “Let’s go back in.”

  I scramble back into my usual position – curled up in the corner of the sofa with my knees pulled against my chest – as my mind races with questions.

  What’s PTSD? And what did he mean by “an extremely fragile state”? Am I going to break?

  The door swings open. Doctor Hernandez frowns down at the handle then over at me, but I meet his eyes with what I hope is an expression of total innocence. He holds my gaze, just for a second, then sits down. Agent Carlyle does the same, the shoulder holster now nowhere to be seen, and looks right at me.

  “I’m really sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking. I guess you’ve seen enough guns to last a lifetime, huh?”

  I nod.

  “It won’t happen again,” he says.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

  “Of course you weren’t,” says Doctor Hernandez. “Your response was completely legitimate.”

  “I’m sorry,” repeats Agent Carlyle.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Glock 22, right?”

  His eyes widen. “Come again?”

  “In your holster,” I say. “It looked like a Glock 22.”

  “That’s right,” he says.

  Doctor Hernandez frowns. “I don’t think this is a productive line of—”

  Agent Carlyle sits forward. “You know a lot about guns?”

  You have no idea.

  On Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and Saturday afternoons, we have training.

  It’s one of two Legion activities – the other being Father John’s Sunday morning sermon – for which attendance is absolutely compulsory; it overrides anything else that might need doing around The Base, no matter how important, and even any illness a Brother or Sister might be suffering. I’ve seen people in the feverish grip of flu collapse halfway through a session only to stagger back to their feet and carry on once they’ve been revived, their faces full of terrified determination.

  Training always begins with a lecture from Father John, in which he reminds us about the evil that lurks Outside, the monstrous horror of the enemies that we are destined to face.

  When the End Times arrive we have been told to expect demonic creatures with scales and wings and mouths full of teeth that will rise from the earth and take on the forms of those we love; grotesque animals with a dozen heads that breathe fire and scorch the ground beneath their hooves. When the Final Battle begins at last, The Lord will fill those who are True with the power needed to defeat the forces of darkness, and once the day is won we will Ascend on pillars of light to sit at His side.

  But until that Glorious day finally arrives, there is another enemy that we must protect ourselves against – a human enemy, corrupted and twisted by sin, who Father John only ever speaks about in a tone of pure venom.

  The Government.

  It goes without saying that all agents of the Government are Servants Of The Serpent, but to hear Father John tell it, they are almost as bad as their master. They are rats in human bodies, soulless abominations who hate The Lord and will do everything in their power to drive good men and women from the True Path. They will not think twice about murdering me and every one of my Brothers and Sisters if they get even the slightest chance, and would love nothing more than to lock us away and torture us for the rest of eternity. The Government comes in many forms – the FBI, the ATF, the CIA, the Sheriff’s Department, the Police, the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security – but it is all one many-headed Hydra, a sprawling monster with a single ambition: the victory of The Serpent on Earth
.

  I walk across the yard towards the Big House. I don’t hurry, even though I can see most of my Family already gathered on the shooting range behind it and arriving late to training is guaranteed to result in punishment. But it feels like everyone is already watching me, thanks to Nate and my mom, that everyone is whispering rumours about me, and right now, at this particular moment, I don’t care if I give them another reason to look at me sideways.

  I stride round the side of the Big House and join the back of the crowd. Honey glances in my direction and gives me a smile – a gesture that I appreciate more than she could ever guess – but nobody else seems to notice my tardiness. In the clearing in front of the shooting range, Father John has already started his lecture, his face tight and his eyes narrow as he explains exactly what the Government will do to us if we let our guard down for even a single second.

  The Government has helicopters that will drop burning gasoline on you if they catch you Outside, beyond the reach of Father John’s protection.

  The Government will murder our youngest Brothers and Sisters then roast their bodies over a pit of Hellfire and eat their flesh.

  The Government will impregnate the Sisters of the Legion with parasitic creatures that will devour them from the inside.

  The Government will cut off your arms and legs and sew up your mouth, then laugh as you starve to death.

  By the time Father John is finished, several of my youngest Brothers and Sisters are in tears; they weep quietly as their parents stand beside them, nervous looks on their faces. Weakness is not something that is tolerated inside The Lord’s Legion. I glance at Honey out of the corner of my eye and see her staring straight at The Prophet, her expression absolutely unreadable.

  Once the lecture is over, it’s time to shoot.

  The range is as far away from the Front Gate as possible, hidden from prying eyes by the Big House and the gardens and a row of maintenance sheds. It is absolutely vital – Father John constantly reminds us – that our enemies don’t realize how prepared we are until it’s too late.

  The Centurions are armed at all times, but the rest of The Lord’s Legion are not allowed to have weapons of our own. In Father Patrick’s time most people kept at least a rifle in their rooms, but that changed after The Purge, along with almost everything else. So during training we use guns that are brought up from the locked room in the basement of the Big House by Amos, who carefully counts each weapon out at the start of every session and back in at the end.

  We shoot for almost an hour, our sights trained on trees painted with crude likenesses of men and women with FBI written on their chests, on archery target discs, on cans and bottles and plastic jugs and pretty much anything else that can be hurled down the range. The noise is deafening, and the smoke that fills the air is thick and bitter and catches in your throat.

  We fire Glock 17s and 22s, Desert Eagles, MP5s, Smith & Wesson .45s, AR-15s, Sig Sauer P226s, AK47s, M4s, M16s, Remington double barrels, Beretta 9mms, and dozens and dozens of other guns. Children younger than eight are not allowed to shoot, but everyone – regardless of age – is required to be present. I’m pretty sure that most of my younger Brothers and Sisters could list twenty-six different models of firearm before they could recite the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

  I sight down the barrel of an M4, a rifle I remember barely being able to lift the first time it was handed to me, and squeeze the trigger. I’m braced for the recoil, my weight over my front foot, the stock pressed into my shoulder, and my arm barely jerks before I pull the trigger again, and again. The shots are metallic drumbeats, each one followed by chunks of tree bark exploding into the air.

  I empty the magazine and as I reload I glance in Father John’s direction. He is standing beneath the white oak tree at the edge of the western garden, watching his Family with a look of benevolent pride on his face, and all of a sudden I’m incredibly aware of the gun in my hands and what it can do and a thought flashes through my mind that is so far beyond Heresy that I instantly push it away in case it somehow shows on my face.

  When the shooting comes to an end, Amos gathers up the guns and carries them into the Big House while the rest of us get ready for combat training. The whole Legion separates off into pairs of Father John’s choosing, then fight for three minutes with everything they’ve got and anything they can find: hands, feet, fingernails, teeth, rocks, lumps of wood.

  Like all training, it isn’t optional. But unlike shooting, it’s impossible to fake. If someone was watching really closely they might notice if your bullets were failing to hit their targets, but you can pretty much get away with not trying that hard if you don’t feel like it.

  Combat is completely different. If you take it easy on whoever you’ve been paired with and a Centurion notices, they’ll drag you out in front of everyone and make an example of you. There is no room for mercy inside The Lord’s Legion – along with weakness and disobedience, it’s the transgression that is punished most harshly, which is something you learn quickly if you’ve got any sense.

  Father John whispers names to the Centurions, then watches as we’re separated into two long lines that face each other. Standing opposite me today is Lucy, one of the kindest, sweetest girls in the entire Legion.

  There’s no way it’s a coincidence.

  And I would have to be stupid not to understand what’s really going on: Father John is testing – publicly testing – whether I will still hurt someone I care about simply because he has told me to. Whether I will still obey orders. Whether I am still to be trusted. It feels like being on trial without ever having been told the charges, even though I know what they would relate to.

  My mom.

  Nate.

  Lucy is only twelve, a full foot shorter than me, and probably eighty pounds soaking wet. I could take her down in about five seconds, and I know that’s exactly what I should do – get this horrible business over with as quickly as possible, causing her the absolute minimum amount of pain in the process. But I don’t want to do that.

  I won’t do it.

  I’m trying to hide it – and I honestly think I’m succeeding, most of the time, at least – but I’m absolutely furious with Nate, and with my mom, and with myself. The anger is hot and sharp and my head is full of thoughts that make me feel sick, thoughts that I was raised to believe would damn me to the eternal fires of Hell, and even though I know things have changed – that I’ve changed – part of me is still the person I used to be and that person still fervently believes that I should be punished for what I thought when I was holding the M4 and looking at Father John, and for all the other things that keep me awake long into the night and poison my dreams.

  That’s bullshit, whispers the voice in the back of my head. You haven’t—

  I tell it to shut up. Because I do deserve to be punished, even if nobody knows it but me. I’m scared and angry and all alone, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.

  But right now, I just want to feel something.

  So when Bear shouts “Go!” and Lucy shuffles forward and throws a tentative punch in my general direction, I don’t move a muscle. Instead, I let her small fist collide with my nose and relish the pain that spurts through my head.

  My eyes instantly fill with water and I taste coppery blood in the back of my throat. Through my tears I see a panicked look appear on Lucy’s face, but she has nothing to worry about because I’m not going to retaliate. I wait, as still as a statue, for her to understand the situation, then let her hit me again, and again.

  Her third punch, much harder than the previous two, sends me stumbling backwards until my feet tangle and I hit the ground on my back. Lucy stands over me, her usually gentle face twisted by the visceral thrill of violence, the primal pleasure that comes from inflicting pain on another living creature. I stare up at her and give her a smile but it must look horrible with my mouth full of blood, because her eyes widen and for a split second she looks like herself – before Jacob Reynolds
shoves her aside and looks down at me with eyes that are blazing with anger.

  “Get up,” he spits.

  Everybody else has stopped fighting. Beneath the white oak, Father John is staring at me, but he doesn’t look angry; his expression seems to be mostly curiosity. As I get slowly to my feet, I’m incredibly aware that I’ve become the centre of attention.

  “Pull that crap when the End Times arrive and you’ll be dead,” says Jacob. “Are you listening to me? You won’t Ascend, you won’t sit at the hand of The Lord, you’ll just be dead and your soul will be in Hell. Is that what you want?”

  I stare at him for a long moment, then give my head the tiniest of shakes.

  He points at Lucy, who is looking at me with eyes full of apology. I want to tell her that it’s not her fault, that she didn’t do anything wrong, but I know that would only make things worse.

  “You think you’re doing her a favour by not fighting back?” asks Jacob. “You think you’re protecting her? You’re not. If she doesn’t learn how to fight and get hurt and stand up and fight again, The Lord won’t guide her through the Final Battle and she’ll end up right beside you in Hell. You’re failing her.”

  I spit blood onto the ground and when I look back up at Jacob it’s like I’m seeing him – really seeing him – for the very first time. He’s fat and ugly and mean and I don’t know why I’ve ever listened to a single word that came out of his mouth.

  “Hit her,” he says.

  “No.”

  There is an audible gasp from the crowd of my Brothers and Sisters, because nobody speaks to a Centurion like that, even one who was so clearly second choice.

  Nobody.

  He takes a step towards me, his eyes narrowing. “You hit her or I will.”

  “Moonbeam,” says Lucy, her voice a trembling whisper. “It’s okay. Just do it.”

  “I will not!” I shout.

  Jacob flinches. He glances around, his face flushing with embarrassment and anger, then turns back to me. “Last chance,” he growls.

  “Go to Hell,” I say.