by Jeff Altabef
He folded his arms against his chest.
She sighed. “Do we need the other three or just this one?”
He shook his head. “Only the girl.”
“Okay, we’ll take her, but we have to go now!” She stomped her foot in frustration, retrieved two gas masks from the table, and checked to make sure they had a full two-week charge. That’s the maximum amount of time they would have together, as they could not risk being in contact with the Soulless girl unprotected.
The Red Death was easily transmitted through air, so just being near a Soulless would cause infection. Those contaminated died young, never lasting beyond the early twenties. If an older person encountered the disease, death came almost instantly. No known symptoms foretold the disease except what showed in the eyes. The children all knew the rhyme: ...eyes turn red, you’ll soon be dead.
Aaliss watched Wilky as she changed into her jumpsuit.
He held two beakers in his left hand and a dropper in his right. He squeezed fluid from each beaker into the steel door’s lock. Smoke spiraled upward and an acidic odor filled the room, as the metal fused together and melted the lock.
“Nice work, Wilky.” Fully dressed, she approached the holding pen with her key in hand, and looked back at her brother. “Are you sure we have to take her? This is crazy. She’s going to slow us down.”
“Need!” He grabbed his cloak and glared at her.
She regarded the girl again, whom she’d gathered two days earlier. The girl had been odd and constantly talked to herself in a language Aaliss did not understand, but she’d taken direction and seemed harmless.
Aaliss donned a gas mask and made sure Wilky had his on securely, and then she opened the glass door and waved for the girl to follow her.
The girl tentatively stepped forward.
Wilky gave the girl a cloak and a satchel, and motioned for her to follow him.
Aaliss unlocked the door to the tunnel into the Zone. Dread filled her as she peered back at the lab.
A large framed picture of Jacob hung by the door. Underneath the photograph was the Guardians’ sacred motto: The Soulless are Not Human. To Kill in Jacob’s Name is Just.
Red lights flashed.
An alarm blared.
She grabbed her supplies and turned to push them forward, but Wilky and the girl had already started to run—straight toward the Zone and the full moon.
***
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Chapter 3 – Piers
Piers smiled as bright sunlight kissed his face. The pain in his arm and the weakness in his leg had vanished, and he stood tall and straight, strong and whole. He rubbed both sides of his face and felt nothing but smooth skin—the scars had disappeared. His toes brushed lightly against the soft grass in the courtyard on a perfect spring day.
Rebecca stood beside him—lovely Rebecca, his Rebecca. Red highlights sparkled in her short wavy brown hair, and her wide chocolate eyes shined lovingly. They both wore plain ceremonial wedding robes the color of freshly fallen snow. A yellow rosebud hung from Rebecca’s neck, fastened by two strings of white twine twisted together. The flower symbolized their love, and the twine the life they would lead together.
Piers’s parents hovered next to him, with Aaliss and Wilky at their side. They all looked happy, dressed for a great celebration and feast.
Admiring Edenites gathered for the festivity and crowded the rest of the open space. The scene felt familiar to Piers, having dreamed of this moment with Rebecca many times before....
Before the fire?
A harp played soft music in the background, signaling the beginning of the ceremony.
Piers turned to face the High Priest, who plastered a wide grin on his doughy face. He was clad in his rich purple ceremonial robe, the one reserved for significant festivals such as this.
The High Priest nodded to the harpist so he could begin the service, but the music didn’t stop. The harp grew louder, its notes turning from light and whimsical to harsh and discordant, as if a child were scraping his hands across the strings.
Piers winced, and a scowl darkened Rebecca’s beautiful face. The noise grew louder still, splitting his ears.
The High Priest grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around. His eyes blazed crimson as he slapped Piers hard across the face.
***
Piers tasted blood and woke with a start to find two Monks inches from his face.
One had a nasty welt on his neck, and the other shook him. “Wake up, scar face!”
The large Monk with the bruised neck grabbed him by his sleeping shirt and yanked him to his feet. “Time to get up, Father. The High Priest would like a word with you.”
Piers barely had time to grab his simple black robe from the bedpost and slip it over his head, before a harsh shove sent him skittering into the bed of the novice who slept next to him. Six other novices shared the sleeping chamber. Though they all appeared to be asleep, he knew they were faking. No one could have slept through that commotion.
The two Monks took turns pushing him into the hallway and toward the High Priest’s office.
He had difficulty keeping up with them as he dragged his bad leg, scraping it against the floor. By the time he reached the office, sweat drenched his sleeping shirt and anxiety rippled through him. He had never heard of a Priest being treated with such disrespect. What could he have done to deserve such shabby treatment?
The big Monks rapped on the door three times.
Piers cringed at the loud noise. He tried to calm his thumping heart with a few deep breaths, but with little success—it felt as if it would explode in his chest.
There must be some mistake.
The High Priest bid them to enter.
The smaller Monk opened the door while the large one tossed Piers forward with a heave.
Piers stumbled into the office, fell to his knees, and braced himself with both hands against the floor.
The High Priest sat on his tall throne chair behind a massive oak desk. The chair had armrests shaped like lions’ heads, and velvet cushions the dark red of dried blood. The desk looked sturdy and simple with straight, clean lines that glistened with the sheen of hundreds of years of careful polishing. Two white candles flickered on both sides of the desk.
In contrast to the simple desk, the rest of the office was ornate: elaborate wall sconces provided soft yellowish light, carved cherry paneling stretched halfway up the walls, and paintings of dozens of past High Priests hung above the wood paneling. All the men were memorialized in the same pose, and with the same solemn expression on their faces.
“That’s not necessary, Josh.” The High Priest sounded friendly, but his eyes burned hot. “Help our friend up and bring him over here.”
Josh, the big Monk, yanked Piers to his feet, dragged him to a chair opposite the desk, and shoved him onto it.
“You can leave us now.” The High Priest dismissed the Monks with a wave of his hand and a phony smile. When the door shut, he turned his attention to Piers. “Is this the first time we’ve had an official meeting in my office?”
Piers wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his robe. He wanted to vomit, but he choked down the acid that rose in his throat. “No, your Grace, I was here three years ago, after the fire.”
“Ah yes, how could I have forgotten?” The High Priest folded his hands contentedly on the desk. “That was a bittersweet day—the bitter news about your parents, offset by your sweet decision to join the priesthood. I trust you haven’t regretted your choice?”
“No, I have not.” The question alarmed Piers.
“That’s so good to hear, my son. I knew we could count on you.”
We?
A shadow glided from the corner of the room, and Piers’s heart skipped two beats.
The shadow morphed into a man. Gray hair speckled his neat black goatee, slate gray eyes glimmered in the candlelight, and a thin braid shifted on his shoulders. He moved silently and
confidently in his black ostrich-skin suit, which showed the well-sculpted lines of his arms and torso. Two curved short swords hung from both of his hips.
Piers knew him instantly, although he had never met him.
They called him the Viper—the Priest in charge of the Guardians, the High Priest’s nephew, and a Blood Relative. Stories swirled about him—horrible, violent stories.
Piers dismissed them as exaggerations, or myths even, but watching him now, he believed every one of them, and a frost spread throughout his body.
“We can count on you, can’t we?” The High Priest ignored the Viper, who remained ominously silent.
Piers nodded. “Yes, of course. I’ll do... anything you ask.”
“Do you know the story behind this desk?” The High Priest leaned forward. “It’s very special. It’s the Desk of Jacob, the very same desk where he penned the Book of Jacob. The Creator spoke to him while he sat behind this desk. No one can lie in its presence.” The High Priest lovingly rubbed the desk’s smooth surface with his pudgy hands. “Do you believe that, Piers?”
Piers tried to focus on the High Priest, but it was impossible with the Viper skulking toward him, so he ended up dancing his eyes between both men, never settling on one for long. “If you tell me it is true, I will believe it with all my-my soul.” His voice cracked as fear threatened to consume him.
“Where are your siblings?”
The Viper glided even closer, his arms within reach.
“I don’t... know. They should... be sleeping.”
“They should be sleeping, yet they are not. When was the last time you saw your sister?”
They must have caught Aaliss with the bread.
Piers regained a measure of control and sat straighter. Only his desire to protect his sister could overcome his fear. “Aaliss visited me tonight. She was worried about the state of the Guests in my brother’s lab. She thought they were starving. I gave her a loaf of bread for them. It was my idea and my fault. I accept full responsibility.” He lowered his head in submission. He could have refused her, should have refused her. Now he just hoped he could take all the punishment for the rule breaking.
The Viper moved closer still.
Piers smelled apples and imagined the man’s breath against his neck. He tried not to tremble, but his hands shook like leaves in the wind.
“You gave a loaf of my bread to the Soulless?”
“Yes, your Grace. I beg for your forgiveness.” He kept his gaze downcast.
“What else did you do with your sister? Did you conspire with her to betray us?”
He lifted his eyes. The High Priest’s face had turned purple, and Piers’s stomach lurched.
What else has she done?
He spoke quickly in one burst. “No, your Grace, I just gave her the bread. She would never betray Eden.”
The High Priest shared a glance with the Viper and the purple drained from his face. “Oh, but they have, Piers. Your sister and brother have betrayed us. They made a deal with the Soulless. They freed a Soulless girl and fled to the Zone.” The High Priest rubbed his hand through his hair. “They went arm-in-arm and face-to-face with a Soulless girl. They took no gasmasks. I can only imagine how the Dark One tempted them, but now they are traitors and contaminated, their souls forfeit.”
Only a slight tremor in the High Priest’s left eye betrayed his dishonesty, but the news had shocked Piers so much, he couldn’t be sure whether he’d imagined it.
His body felt as if it had turned to liquid. If he had not been sitting, he would have ended up on the floor in a puddle. “There must be some mistake, your Grace.” He leaned heavily against the desk, an apple-sized lump having formed in his throat. “Aaliss and Wilky would never betray us. It makes no sense. Why would they submit to the Red Death? Their souls will have been taken.”
“The Dark One works in mysterious ways.” The High Priest nodded to the Viper, who grabbed Piers’s arm.
He struggled, but the Viper held him firmly and jerked his scarred arm hard toward the desk.
“Now, tell me everything,” said the High Priest. “Where are your sister and brother, and what are their plans?”
He stammered, “Th-there must be-be a mis-mis-mistake. I know nothing.” Blood pounded inside his head and drowned out any thoughts.
The Viper slid the nearest candle toward his arm.
Piers struggled more fiercely, but he couldn’t free himself from the Viper’s iron grip. “N-n-not the fire.”
Images of the fire three years ago flooded his mind’s eye. He remembered carrying Wilky through the smoke and then racing back for Aaliss, who was trapped in her room by a burning beam. He had kicked it aside, pulled her out, and pushed her toward the front door and safety. Then when he had turned to his parents’ room, he heard screams and tried to reach them, but the flames had grown too large and wild. They jumped everywhere, burning higher and hotter, blocking his path. They leaped at him, eagerly licking his body, consuming him. He remembered strong arms carrying him away as his parents screamed, and then darkness had overtaken him.
The Viper pulled Piers’s arm over the flame.
As he cried out, the smell of charred skin replaced the scent of apples.
The High Priest smiled beatifically, drumming his fingers on the Desk of Jacob as if listening to a concerto only he could hear.
***
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Chapter 4 – Aaliss
Aaliss slammed the tunnel door shut.
Thud!
And with that ominous sound the unthinkable had become real. Her Guardian code would never open the door again, and without the tunnel, they were stranded in the Zone with the Soulless and the full moon. She could take care of herself, but Wilky would be practically defenseless in the wild.
Being responsible for him had become second nature to her, but she could manage him in Eden, a safe place filled with quiet rooms where distractions wouldn’t overwhelm him. The Zone was different. Dangers filled the Zone, seeping into the very trees and grasses, and the Red Death made even the air lethal.
How am I going to keep him safe here?
Wilky and the Soulless girl bent at the waist, gasping for breath from the sprint through the tunnel.
He looked fragile, and she worried that the rough world outside of Eden would swallow him whole.
She cursed her uncle under her breath. That snake had betrayed them. She had never trusted the High Priest, his low character as obvious to her as a foul stench, but she had hoped for more from her uncle. Admittedly, they were never close, but to betray his own kin? A special place in hell waited for him, and she wanted to be the person who sent him there. She’d die happy, if only she could strangle the life out of him first.
You’ll get yours, Uncle, even if I have to die to do it.
Revenge would have to wait, however. She groaned and pounded the door a half dozen times. It felt good to hit something, even if it was just a steel door.
The door blended seamlessly with the surrounding forest, as if it belonged to a thicket of shrubs and small trees. A computer projected the camouflage onto the steel. It changed with the time of day and the seasons, thus always ensuring an almost perfect match to the surroundings. Only those trained to find the slight tells could actually see them—tiny imperfections that differentiated the digital image from the natural forest that surrounded it. Everything about Eden involved trickery and deceit, even the way in.
She frowned and turned to face Wilky and the Soulless girl. Speaking more to herself than her brother, she said, “Okay, which way shall we go from here?”
The Zone consisted mostly of dense forest. Mature oaks, maples, and evergreens competed for space with giant gray ghost trees. Ferns, mosses, and thick grasses covered the forest floor.
“We could travel along the main way.” She pointed to a path straight in front of them. “Or we could venture out to the north.” Barely visible, the thin northern trail wasn’t wide enough
even for Wilky’s slim frame. “We need to put as much distance between them and us as possible. They probably have four teams of Guardians in the Zone. The Monks should have radioed them by now, so they’ll likely converge on us by way of the main path. But if we go north, the going will be slow and noisy, and you don’t have the proper training to navigate that narrow trail. Any fresh team they send after us will easily track and overtake us.”
Wilky frowned, but she had always told him the truth, no matter how difficult, and she refused to change now. Lies were for other people, scum like the High Priest and her miserable worm of an uncle.
No lies in my family, not between my brothers and me.
Wilky spun in a slow circle, and trembled. This was his first time in the Zone.
Fear is a good thing. There’s much to fear here.
She spotted two Eyes perched in a nearby oak. One pointed at the tunnel door, and the other away from it. Battery-operated Eyes peppered the Zone, transmitting images to the Compound. She unsheathed her blade, climbed up the tree, hacked at the cameras to knock them from their perch, and watched as they tumbled to the ground, useless.
She jumped from the tree and stomped on them with a satisfied grin on her face.
The Eyes were only one of the obstacles they would have to overcome. The Edenites had added all sorts of traps to the buffer area. Aaliss knew what to look for—strategically placed mines, spring traps, and poisonous gas canisters, all designed to prevent the Soulless from wandering too close to Eden—but Wilky had no idea what was dangerous, and he might trigger one without realizing it. She’d have to keep him close.
He tugged at her arm. “Water.”
She sheathed her blade. “We don’t have time for a drink now, Wilky. I’ve got to decide what to do, and we need to move fast.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and shot Aaliss that familiar stubborn look again.
“You’ve got to be careful in the Zone. Dangerous creatures roam out here. You have to do what I say and follow close behind me and try not to make much noise.” Aaliss turned to the Soulless girl.