by Nick Courage
It has to be open, I reassure myself, mouth watering hungrily at the thought. People have to eat.
My bike glides so smoothly that it feels like it’s pedaling itself, like I’m being pulled—effortlessly—by the prospect of a hot meal and familiar faces. I just wish Mom and Dad were here to see the Grey. While there were a lot of strangers on the Avenue kowtowing to Mr. Malgré and . . . her, there are scores more here—Pickers who weren’t so sick after all, and federale refugees, all setting up camp on overgrown front lawns while they clear out the ruins. It’s what my parents have always wanted, ever since the Tragedies: Greening the Grey, like Before. It’s still early days, but if Dr. Singh can help those Pickers crowding the Hospital, it’s not hard to imagine the Grey Zone filling out like an actual neighborhood again, full of families and—
I wave at a rag-tag group of evacuees as I pass them, the glow from my hand streaking beside me like a low-flying comet, and their happy shouts follow me as I turn onto the far end of the main drag, where hundreds of flags and banners flap lethargically from dormant telephone poles and riotously-painted houses, unfazed by the federales. A dog barks faintly in the distance, heralding my approach, and I smile.
It’s Julia.
After that terrible night in the truck, I’d recognize her bark anywhere.
Unlikely as it seems, a crowd of people are grouped together at the far end of the street like some sort of welcoming committee, and I realize that either those cheering evacuees recognized me from the City, or I was expected, with news of my approach somehow preceding my arrival.
It makes sense, I think. If my parents have “little spies,” why wouldn’t the Other Siders? It could have been Dr. Singh—she knew I was looking for Carel, although . . . if she was an anti-Malgré operative, she could have just told me where he was rather than play dumb.
Still . . . like everyone else in the Zone, I’m sure she had her reasons.
As I shield my eyes with the hand I may or may not have temporarily broken earlier in the day, a warm glow of wellbeing spreads across my already buzzing body. They’re hard to make out, but I spot Tom, and I think I see Rachel as well. Ben’s white plaster cast stands out amidst the crowd, and it looks like Ava and Conor on either side of him. Behind them, as red and rusty as the day I first saw it, is Carel’s truck. They’re all waving and shouting, and I’m grinning so hard I feel it in my ears. As I get nearer, I start waving back, prompting more cheers to break out for the returning hero.
“I made it,” I shout.
It’s only when Julia’s barking turns manic and then—reaching a crescendo alongside the whooping and hollering of Tom and Rachel and the rest of the group—stops abruptly as she scampers, whimpering, to hide beneath Carel’s truck, that I realize they’re not cheering for me.
They’re white-faced and screaming.
Terrified.
Judging from the collective tilt of their necks, whatever they’re warning me about is behind me, and it’s big. I take my feet off the pedals, dragging the rubber soles of my shoes across the broken pavement until I come to a skidding stop about thirty feet from my welcoming committee. Pausing before I turn to face the terror, I let the bike clatter to the ground and take a deep breath as a flock of S-necked egrets take off into the distance from the banks of the darkening river beyond the Other Side.
For one long moment, I wish I was one of them.
That’s when the pressure drops, leaving me cold despite my sizzling heat. Shivering, I take one last look at my friends. They’re all there, like before the federales came: Tom and Rachel and even Moonie. Ben, still staring skyward, mouths, “You have got to be kidding me,” as I catch Ava’s widening eyes.
“Henry!” she shouts, her voice swallowed by a sudden gust of wind as the sky churns ominously above us. “Run!”
My calves spasm instinctively, ready to sprint for cover—but, squinting at Ava through the first slashing drops of rain, I stand my ground. Listening. In the distance, barely audible above the rain and wind, is a familiar whirring. Helicopters cutting through the storm. The muscles in my legs flex again, the tension rippling up my back and neck.
Federales.
All at once, the rain starts in earnest, the sky opening up as if on cue to blasts of crashing thunder. Still, nobody moves—not me, and not my “welcoming committee.” They’re immediately drenched, so wet they’re not even bothering to shield themselves, and stock-still . . . staring as the rain evaporates three feet above my head, unable to penetrate the waves of heat radiating from my pulsing core.
Flexing my fingers, I feel the power surge, cords of white hot electricity crackling across my palms and up my goosebumped arms. We’ve been through too much to run, all of us—my parents, the Other Siders . . . the entire Zone. We’ve come too far to give everything up, to the federales or Malgré or anyone.
I’ve come too far.
Whatever happens, I think, watching Moonie unsheathe his sword before I turn slowly around, clenching my fists into wildly pulsing orbs of cold white light; smiling. We’re all in this together.
THE END