Edge of Chaos [Book 1]

by Jack Lewis

  Max grabbed the gun, released the clip and threw it to the floor. “Fuck,” he said. “Empty.”

  A rumbling sound sent a tremor through the ground. A loud screech stung her ears, and a cloud of steam drifted from the train next to her. The rumbling grew. The train was getting ready to leave.

  This was her last chance. She had to do something. She would take the blow of Charles’s pickaxe if it meant Max could stop the bounty hunter. She would do anything as long as the train didn’t leave.

  As she moved toward Charles, Max got there first. A knife flashed in his hand, and in one swift movement he stabbed it into Charles’s chest.

  Max went to pull it out, when Charles grabbed his hand and held the knife in place. With his other hand, he squeezed Max’s neck. His gloved fingers closed around the Resistance man’s throat and made him gasp for air.

  Heather looked at Max, and at the train. The wheels of the train turned, and plumes of steam drifted from the top. Her pulse hammered. It’s going to leave.

  Across from her, Max’s face reddened. There was nobody to help him except for Heather. If he died, the Resistance suffered a mortal blow. He had sacrificed himself and left his family for the greater good, and if he died now, it would have been for nothing.

  Did she help Max and the Resistance, or did she help Kim?

  I can’t leave her. “Sorry,” she said.

  She ran toward the train. She reached the stairs of the last carriage and climbed onto them as the train moved.

  As the train crawled along its tracks, she tried to ignore the sound of Max and Charles struggling, for fear that guilt would make her turn back. Instead, she put a hand on the door handle and opened it.

  A man in a Capita uniform stared back at her from the inside of the carriage. His eyes registered a glimmer of surprise. In one swift motion, he pushed her off the train and onto the ground.

  Pain burst in her back when she hit the ground. Ignoring it, she straightened in time to see the train pick enough speed that it was impossible for her to catch it. As she watched it move away and into the distance, carrying her daughter to a Capita hell, she wanted a hole to open in the ground and devour her.

  Behind her, Max squirmed out of Charles’s grip. He was standing over him, with the bounty hunter on his back on the ground.

  The blood poured from her shoulder and down her arm, and her body trembled all over. Keep it together. Don’t pass out.

  She watched the train fade away, white stream chugging toward the sky. She didn’t know where the train tracks led. A scream built in her, but she held it back.

  This wasn’t going to be the end. She would find Kim again, even if it meant following the train tracks for thousands of miles across infected-filled wastelands.

  “I’ll find you, Kim. I promise.”

  With Kim and Eric safe, she would come back. She would return to the Dome and face the Capita. They didn’t inspire fear in her anymore, only hate. Now, she wasn’t scared to do something about it.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ed

  Ed was so stunned that he couldn’t get off the ground. He looked at The Savage’s face and waited for him to laugh. He was joking at Ed’s expense. It couldn’t be true.

  Then again, if it wasn’t, how did he know his brother’s name? There was no way he could have known James, was there?

  He looked at the darkening sky. Soon, blackness would cover the island again. He didn’t want to spend another night on Golgoth. He wanted to leave it, but not because of the infected. He wanted to get away from the house which was nothing but a shrine to memories he’d never forget, to people he’d never get back.

  “You’re lying.”

  “I never lie,” said The Savage. “Well, sometimes I do.”

  Lia or not, The Savage’s words wouldn’t affect him. James was gone and never coming back. The fact he’d lost his brother didn’t mean he should give up on everyone else.

  Bethelyn was standing a few feet away from The Savage, staring at him warily. She didn’t seem to know whether to help Ed or to keep guard against the stranger. Behind them, toward the village, the rest of The Savage’s group fought the infected.

  It was a battle of eight against nearly sixty, but the strangers seemed strong and experienced by the way they swung their weapons, and it looked as though the numbers would even-up soon enough.

  From across the plain, Ed heard their grunts as they carved through the flesh of the infected. A man, wearing a fur coat with a grey streak down the middle, didn’t see an infected as it crept behind him. Before he could react, the infected dragged him to the floor and tore open his neck. His screams sounded across the plains.

  The Savage leaned on his spear. He wasn’t perturbed by the scream. “I’m right, aren’t I? I never forget a face. You look just like him.”

  Ed wanted the sick joke to end, but he wasn’t in a position to make demands.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “You’re Ed Furness, aren’t you?” said The Savage.

  Questions flooded Ed’s head, but a thick sludge filled his mind. He tried to form words but couldn’t coax them out. Bethelyn seemed similarly confused from the way her forehead scrunched up.

  “You’re wondering how I know that, aren’t you?”

  There was another scream across the plain, this one so full of pain it made Ed shudder. A woman was on the floor with six infected knelt beside her. Some chewed on her arms and legs, while others ripped open her stomach.

  Ed still couldn’t form words. The Savage was playing a trick, but why? Finally, it was Bethelyn who spoke for him.

  “The question did occur,” she said.

  The Savage put his spear back into the holder on his back. “It’s simple. I know who you are, because I know your brother.”

  He’d never met anyone who knew his brother before, save for the other residents of Golgoth. James’s time on the mainland had been a mystery, because he rarely spoke about it except to tell Ed how much he missed his girl.

  He was going to ask The Savage where they had met, when a different question struck him. “Wait,” he said, and sat up. “You said ‘know’, not ‘knew’. What the hell is going on?”

  Bethelyn’s eyes widened. “No fucking way. He’s alive?”

  The Savage folded his arms. “He said he had a little brother, but he didn’t mention this place. James isn’t one for words,” he said.

  Ed shook his head. He wasn’t going to be taken in by this. “Bullshit.”

  “James Furness,” said The Savage, “Six foot tall. Sandy hair. Likes to pretend he’s the strong, silent type. That him?”

  Ed opened his mouth wide, but no sound came out. It was as though his brain had glitched. Part of him tried to cling onto the hope from The Savage’s words, but another part wanted to run and hide.

  Was James alive? How was that possible? They’d all seen the parts of the ship that washed up on shore, and that was proof he was gone. But we never found his body.

  He was going to try and speak, when shouting came from across the plain. The Savage’s men fell in number until only three of them remained to fight the infected. They hadn’t been as good warriors as Ed first thought. Everything about The Savage and his men was an act.

  The three survivors left the battle and started running back across the plain toward Ed, Bethelyn and their leader. Some infected gorged on the fallen fighters, but the others, nearly thirty in number, walked toward the group.

  Ed got to his feet. The cliffs of Golgoth were behind him, and beyond the chalky slope was a sea that stretched out toward the mainland. Was James out there somewhere? Had he made it to the mainland and started a life there? If that was the case, why the hell hadn’t he tried to come back for Ed?

  “Your men,” said Bethelyn, and pointed.

  One of the survivors had fallen onto the grass. The other two, rather than help him, carried on running, and three infected pounced on the fallen fighter.

  “Selfish bastards
,” said The Savage.

  The Savage, without looking back to the survivors, walked over to the cliffs. He stood on the edge, a foot away from the drop, and stared out to the sea.

  He turned around to Ed. “Do you trust me?” he said.

  “Not a fucking inch,” said Ed.

  “My ship is forty feet below. If we hit the water without getting knocked out, we can make it.”

  There were two ways this could go. They either tried to fight thirty infected in a hopeless battle, or they followed The Savage, braved the sea, and trusted him not to double-cross them.

  Ed looked at the houses of Golgoth one last time. The island was lost to him now, and he had no reason to stay. Away from the island, was the mainland. Suddenly, he wanted to get there more than anything.

  Ed was going to reply, but before he could, The Savage leapt off the cliff.

  Bethelyn ran over to the edge and watched. Ed was too slow to see him fall, but the splash as he hit the water made him wince. He joined Bethelyn at the cliff edge. He grabbed her hand and held it tight.

  The infected advanced on them, swollen in number and spread across the plains. There was no way out.

  “Are we stupid enough to follow him?” said Bethelyn.

  “It doesn’t look like we have any other choice.”

  Bethelyn looked at him with wet eyes.

  “Do you trust me?” said Ed.

  She nodded her head.

  For the first time in years, he trusted himself, too. The light at the end of the maze was so bright it hurt his eyes. James is out there.

  He’d thought about leaping off the cliffs lots of times, but it was always with the idea of ending things. Now, it was different. His leap off the edge would mark his beginning.

  He gripped Bethelyn’s hand tighter. “Ready?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  Ed counted to three in his head and took a running start. The pair of them leapt off the cliffs of Golgoth and fell toward the raging sea. He closed his eyes mid-flight, and the wind rushed over his face. He was alive.

  The End

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