The Complete Four-Book Box Set

by Brian Spangler

  “And we’re going to see the sun!” Declan cheered, and began to clap his hands together. The classroom joined in, as did Ms. Gilly. More importantly, Tabby started clapping, too.

  “Okay, class,” Ms. Gilly began, yelling over the raucous cheers, while she thumped her hand against the top of her desk. “We’re calling it an early day so that you can all prepare for this afternoon. We’re about seven hours from the End of Gray Skies. That leaves plenty of time for you to go to your dwellings and do your check-ins with your floor advisors. They won’t mind that it’s early—not today, anyway. But, keep in mind, in seven hours, you’ll want to be with your families and friends, and…” Ms. Gilly stopped mid-sentence. The interruption pulled Sammi’s head up. Grabbing at her mouth, Ms. Gilly seemed overwhelmed by what she was about to say.

  “In seven hours, you’ll want to be with your families and your friends when the sun comes out,” Ms. Gilly finished with a shudder in her voice. Sammi wondered who Ms. Gilly would be standing with. She wondered whom she called family. Surely she had friends, but she had missed her time; she’d never have children of her own.

  Ms. Gilly stood behind her desk, gesturing small waves to the children as they left her class. Declan stepped in front of Sammi, blocking Ms. Gilly from her view.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, and motioned toward the door. The butterflies yawned and stretched inside her, pushing out a broad smile that she couldn’t hide, no matter how hard she tried. Declan was intrigued, and bumped her arm.

  “What is it?” he asked. He furrowed his brow while she tried again to stifle her grin.

  “I’ve got a secret,” she finally admitted.

  “A secret?” Declan sounded intrigued.

  “I’m going to tell you what it is… but not until later.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise!”

  Sammi grabbed her things, and held Declan’s hand as they waved goodbye to Ms. Gilly.

  4

  Abandoning the safety of their classroom, Declan was surprised by what was outside. The early afternoon fog was a much finer mist than what he was used to seeing. It wasn’t at all like the pillow-heavy gray they’d come to expect for that time of day. A quick glance at Sammi’s face revealed a pleasant awe in her expression, too. He waved his hand, catching an errant patch of hanging moisture. No itch or burn, either. The air wasn’t just clearer; it was less caustic.

  “Fog is thin today,” Declan mumbled. “I can see three or four dozen hands in front of us.” He stood a moment, taking in the view. Being able to see such a distance spurred a playful excitement. The air was clear enough to actually run free, something they hadn’t been able to do in a long time. And with that thought, Declan lifted his feet, eager to sprint ahead.

  Sammi clutched his hand and let out a breathy shrill, readying to run with him. “When was the last time we could see this far?” she asked, nodding as her attention turned to the kids racing around them. “Are the VAC-Machines already working?”

  Declan shrugged, unable to answer her question. Instead, they did what they’d always done when the fog was thin: played.

  He felt giddy, even a little silly, and wondered if Sammi felt it too. They knotted their fingers together and stretched their arms out, running ahead of the other kids before spinning round and round. Feeding on the adrenaline and dangers of moving so freely, their exhilaration escaped them in childish laughs. A few of the younger children twirled past them, running from one another in a game of fast-tag. Declan reminisced, wanting to jump in, but instead he kept hold of Sammi’s hand.

  They slowed when they heard a dense thud. Shallower thumps sounded next, and he was certain that the fast-tag game had abruptly ended. Breathless groans soon followed, and Declan covered his mouth, trying to swallow a hard laugh rising in his throat. Sammi slapped his arm for laughing, and hollered to the children.

  “No cracked heads?”

  “We’re fine,” a warbled voice chirped back.

  “Okay, then… looks like the fog is coming back in. Go play fast-tag indoors, where it’s safe. Understand?” Her voice was stern, but amused. Declan mocked Sammi’s guidance until she nudged her shoulder into his chest.

  “Don’t make fun of me. They could’ve been hurt.”

  Declan turned his teasing smirk down, batting his eyelashes at her until the frown she’d held was gone. Sammi playfully slapped him again, but then wrapped her hands around his arm. Declan’s heart quickened with passion that was new to him.

  Looking around, Declan saw that she was right: the fog was becoming thick again. They must have been in a clearing: a big clearing that had settled around their school. Declan took another look at the schoolyard, knowing it would soon disappear.

  Out of the approaching fog, a young mother and her two children bounced off Declan, knocking him to his hands and knees. The ground was unforgiving and wet. He cringed, and his leg ached almost immediately where his knee had kissed the hard stone.

  “I’m sorry,” the mother panted. And before she could say anything else, one of the children blindly raced ahead of them into the fog. The mother shook her head with weary frustration, and moaned a disgruntled turn of words. Declan watched her grab hold of a tether strap, jerking it downward with a hard swing. Creaking against the strain, the thin weave of braided goat’s wool offered little stretch. The tether strap held, and he heard the child thump onto the ground and yell out to his mother.

  I’ve done that… more than a few times, he remembered fondly, thinking of his mother and sister. Though most of the time, he recalled, it was his sister racing ahead to hide in the fog. And if not for the tether straps, their mother might never have seen them again. The thought of his mother and sister brought a pang of sorrow that caught his breath. It took him another moment to wrestle away the emotion, but soon enough it was gone. It pained him some, but he was getting better at pushing away the memory of them.

  The young mother knelt down next to Declan, and pulled the tether strap toward her body. She dragged her child out of the fog until he was safely next to her. Sammi’s laughing prodded a chuckle from Declan. The humor helped ease the pain in his knee. Getting back to his feet, he tried to shake out the throb, but that only seemed to make it worse. As the mother chastised her child, she offered another apology, and then briskly disappeared back into the fog. Soon, silence and blindness were upon them again.

  Colorless and morbid, the gray enveloped them, just as it had every day of their lives. The heavy fog was dank and thick with the smell of salt. Beneath the salt, Declan found a pungent odor that scratched his throat and cramped his lungs. He held his breath and waited out the smell, but knew what he was really doing was adjusting to it. Immediately his lungs felt heavier. The congestion made him think of the waste-recycler filters—the ones that trapped the thousands of words he’d written—and how dingy those filters were.

  Could the clouds be giant filters, trapped by their own weight? He took a breath, and swallowed more of the foul, salty taste. The salt stole the purity of everything good. By now, he knew what to expect, and wondered if he’d ever taste clean air.

  The air had begun to seep through their coveralls, and he felt the first irritations attack his skin. When Sammi let go of him, patting down her sleeves, he was certain that she felt it, too. With the fog breaching their coveralls, the salts leeched the moisture from their bodies. The thick cloud was coming in fast, so the scratchiness would only last a few minutes. They’d adjust to it.

  Survival is about adjustment, Declan thought. Has been for centuries.

  Declan forgot about the irritation on his skin when he realized that something was different. He shifted where he stood, and held his hands up, listening. Sammi gave him a look, questioning his peculiar behavior, but then understood what he was doing.

  Their Commune was close to one of the great oceans—and on some days, they could hear waves crashing onto the black sands of the shore. Some days, they could even hear the fishing parties, whooping
it up after they’d had a catch. After all, fish of any kind was a rare delicacy.

  But today, Declan heard something else: a low hum that hung in the fog, like a tiny salt-gnat buzzing about his ears. He listened past the breaking waves. He listened until he finally figured out what was pulling at his curiosity.

  “Can you hear it?” he asked, exhilarated by the revelation. Sammi tried to listen. Her eyes narrowed to mere slits as she offered him an eager, wishful grin. Declan watched her smile open, but then saw her expression change to concern, and then to fear. She didn’t know the sound, or what to make of it, and began to back away. For a moment, Declan thought that she might turn around and run. He squeezed her fingers, assuring her that they were safe. The sound was mechanical, but to them, it might as well have been alien.

  Their world was a mostly silent one. Machines of every shape, size, and purpose had expired centuries before, leaving behind nothing but their rusted skeletons. Some remained hollow carcasses—withered reminders that time forgot—while others had deteriorated into indistinguishable piles of rust. But VAC-Machines were protected; they always had been.

  “Declan, what is that?”

  “It’s the VAC-Machine closest to us.”

  “But… but that can’t be. Can it? The VAC-Machine is a few days’ walk from here.”

  “That has to be where the sound is coming from. I’m sure of it! My father said that we might be able to hear it today. Heck, he said that the machines are so big, we might even be able to feel the nearest one working.”

  Declan knelt, easing himself down, and laid his hands on the ground. Sammi followed. Small vibrations coursed up into his hands and arms. Sammi’s expression exploded with excitement. Declan let out a light laugh. They’d never felt anything like it.

  “This is crazy,” she murmured.

  “It reminds me of the energy cells,” he answered. “They can vibrate too.”

  “Yeah, but nothing like this.” She shook her head. “I think I can feel it in my feet, too.” Standing, she offered her hand to him. Declan reached, grabbed it, and pulled himself up. As he stood, he closed the space between them.

  “Is there something wrong with the machine?”

  With just a hand or two between them, Declan lost himself in her green eyes and the smell of her hair. Her skin was white and smooth, void of a single wrinkle or blemish. Her face was unlike most. Even his own skin had begun to be affected by the fog: stray lines etching deep cuts around his mouth and eyes. Though Sammi’s skin was more sensitive to the air, he could see none of the wrinkles that most their age wore.

  Sammi thumped his chest and asked, “Well? What do you think this means?” Declan was quick to take hold of her hand, keeping it against his heart.

  “My father told me that the machines have to work five years before a conversion can happen,” he answered. “Think about it: all the machines together, they’re going to change everything! We’ll be able to see—and run!”

  “But in class you’d said the machines stayed on? That they’d always been on?”

  Declan stopped and considered this. “I don’t think the machines were ever turned off. Not completely, anyway.” Declan waved away a foggy streamer that had floated between them. “When the clouds fell, the engineers reconfigured the machines to try and undo the accident. But whatever that change was, it takes all five machines, working together.”

  “Why, though? What difference is a day from a week or a year?”

  Declan shook his head and thought of his mother. She’d known more about the VAC-Machines than anyone else in their Commune. But even then she’d spared little information to those closest to her. As a four-band executive, her days were filled with leadership meetings, with working with the Selectmen and Oversight committees. Sometimes, she’d talk about conferring with representatives from Communes across their region, and even across the territories. But what Declan liked to hear about most was her work with the VAC-Machine teams. He frowned then, thinking about how his mother couldn’t tell them more of what he wanted to know.

  “It’s all such a big secret,” his dad had argued with her once.

  “There are some things I just can’t discuss!” Declan remembered her yelling back.

  Declan didn’t think that his mother would mind if he shared with Sammi what it was that she’d told him.

  “It has something to do with what the machines are storing for the End of Gray Skies. They’re mining. It’s how they work now, different from what they were built to do. At first, it was just the ocean water they’d convert, but now they’re digging deep into the earth, deeper than any machine has ever gone. Every five years, they’ve mined enough to try the conversion again.”

  “But, Declan, what if it doesn’t work? How many times have they tried?” There was doubt in her voice. He’d missed it earlier.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, shrugging. And at once he regretted his answer. He could see her disappointment in the way she furrowed her brow. “I remember the last one, though.”

  “Maybe the sun isn’t really there?” Her voice was shaky and subdued.

  Declan was unsure of what to say next, which made his heart feel like it was shrinking. There was plenty of doubt to share. Many had already decided that today would be no different than any other day, End of Gray Skies or not.

  “Does it matter? Really?” he asked, hesitating and wanting to believe they’d see the sun. Maybe little Tabby from the front row had been right, after all. Maybe their world was enough for all of them. “I mean, is this so bad? This is all we know… it’s all we’ve ever known.”

  “I know… I know, but…” she started to say, and then lifted her chin, tugging on his sleeve and leaning in closer to him. “Don’t you want to see the sun? Don’t you just want to feel it, just once, even if for only a moment? I want to see and feel the sun on my skin. I want to know what it’s like to have to squint from the brightness of it. I want to breathe it in, like the plants on the farming floors do when the fluoro-phosphor lamps shine on them.”

  “Sammi Sunshine,” Declan blurted with a large grin. When she frowned at him, though, his attempt to show enthusiasm quickly faded. The name was a painful reminder, and he shook his head, apologizing.

  “Sammi Sunshine it is, then!” she exclaimed, punching her hand to her hip. “I’ll eat the sunlight, if that’s what it’s going to take.” She raised her face defiantly and then burst out laughing. Declan nodded, relieved.

  Without warning, Sammi pressed her body against his. She stretched high on her toes until he felt their lips touch. There were no words, and no sound. The surprise of her kiss took his breath, but only for a moment. Declan embraced Sammi, kissing her in return. It was a small and innocent kiss, but for him, it was the biggest moment of his life.

  “We can hope,” she said. Her voice was breathy and felt warm on his skin. “I think that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Declan held onto her, his heart racing. When he opened his eyes, the moment ended, and he saw that the fog had grown even thicker. It sometimes did that. Like the tidal waters of the great oceans, the heaviness of the fog needed only minutes to roll in and out, hiding or revealing everything.

  Declan shared the concern he saw on Sammi’s face. She motioned for them to move, but he wanted to be back in the moment of their kiss. And then he remembered to ask, “Don’t you have a secret to tell me?”

  Before Sammi could answer him, they heard the first footsteps. The shuffle against the ground was gravelly and quick. By Declan’s guess, at least three or four were near, circling them. They were in danger. They were being hunted. He forgot about the question, forgot about the secret, and even about the kiss they’d just shared. Instead, he took Sammi’s hand, and turned back toward the school.

  The entire building had already disappeared from their view. Declan knew the school was there, though; it was always there. Their visibility was down to five hands, maybe less. A hollow ache filled his gut. He waved his hand in front,
losing his fingers to the fog. Unease and urgency grew; they needed to start moving. The fog’s tidal change might leave them with no visibility, crippling them. Nobody dared to venture outside when the fog became too thick to see your own hands. You were vulnerable. Everyone was vulnerable. Sometimes you were dead, or worse yet: taken.

  Both Declan and Sammi had heard the awful stories of people who’d risked the walks, reaching blindly into the fog, staggering. Some made it, but some were said to have been grabbed by the Outsiders. They’d become the property of molesters, kidnappers, and thieves. There was even a sect of Outsiders that favored human flesh: cannibal gangs. Declan shuddered at the thought.

  The Outsiders wanted the children more than anything else. Declan’s mother had told him about the young that had been taken, leaving hysterical mothers to pull back frayed tether straps. Some of the older kids said that it was the cannibal gangs in need of fresh meat. Others said that the Outsiders needed children because they could no longer have any of their own.

  Some in his class thought the stories were folklore: a scary tale parents made up to keep their children inside. Declan believed what his parents told him, though. The Outsiders were the darker side of what humanity had become: a group of men and women who were the worst of what the old world had to offer. They’d chosen to wander after the accident, crossing regions and territories, taking from Communes whatever they needed, and whenever they wanted.

  On days when the count of hands was less than five, it was the Outsiders’ cue to come into the Commune and feed. Hiding just a few hands from anyone’s sight. Declan placed his hand over Sammi’s, and held it firmly. Whether they could see five hands, or twenty hands, there were things to be afraid of in the fog.

  The fog settled, separating them. Sammi squeezed his arm—moving closer—and from the dense cloud, she came into his view. He watched gray mist lace in and out of her red curls before thinning away. She pressed against him until he felt her warm breath touch him again. He looked into her upturned face, seeing fear in her expression as she put a finger to his lips. They stayed still, holding one another, hidden in the pocket of fog. Silence was their only tool now. More footsteps shuffled around them. Declan’s legs began to shake. He was afraid.