by Alex Fedyr
When at last her feet were free of their contaminants and the final wounds had healed— unnaturally fast— Kalei wanted nothing more than to curl up in her corner and die. Instead, she pushed herself off the floor, carefully made her way across the room, and grabbed the door handle.
Kalei didn’t know how many times the sun and the moon had passed by her window, nor could she say how many meals she had skipped. Neither hunger nor sleep plagued her anymore. She looked back at the cracked window at the far side of the room and saw only a warped reflection from the single fluorescent light that shone from the ceiling. It was too dark outside to see the world without, but somewhere in the distance, she could hear the screeching of a hungry bat. She didn’t care. She opened the door.
In the hallway, a figure in full SWORDE uniform spotted her. As the uniform stepped forward, a stern woman’s voice came through the visor. “This way.” Without waiting to see if Kalei would follow, she turned and walked down the hall.
Kalei followed, for lack of anything better to do. The woman led her through the battered hallway and down a grand set of carpeted, rotting stairs— which smelled terrible, like someone had poured milk down the walls and left cabbage out to spoil. The mold and spores that squished beneath her feet only served to add to the cacophony of smells. It made the musty, dried blood smell of her room seem like a basket of roses.
All the while, Kalei’s escort didn’t say a word. Kalei was grateful for the silence. She had enough going on within her own skull without having to worry about anyone else’s bullshit. They walked along another hallway, passing a series of heavy wooden doors with small windows, and each with a small placard beside the door that read, “Conference Room.” Most of the rooms appeared to be empty, but occasionally, Kalei would spot a person or two lurking in the corners or sitting at a table.
The room Kalei was shown into was as simple as all the others: four walls with peeling wallpaper leaning over an old, abused table like aged corporate directors looking down upon some old plan or proposal. At the head of the table sat the little boy from the foyer wearing a blue suit similar to his brown one. To his right sat an old woman with frayed white hair standing at all angles on her head, and a heavy brown coat that looked to be a size too large sat on her shoulders. She seemed to be shaking from head to toe. It’s not that cold in here, Kalei thought passively.
The boy looked up. “Ah! There you are. Mar here is a bit ahead of you, but I don’t think she will mind slowing her lessons while you catch up.”
Kalei’s escort was already retreating down the hall. Kalei watched her go and then looked at the little boy. “Where is Fenn?”
“He is safe. That is all you need to know.” The boy stood up and flashed Kalei a smile. “Won’t you join us?”
Kalei clenched her jaw. She had expected as much. SWORDE wasn’t going to give her a straight answer. She nodded to the old woman. “What is this?”
“Training,” he responded cheerfully.
Kalei didn’t return his enthusiasm. “Why?”
“It is requisite; all Recruits must go through it. You should join us. I assure you, it will not be a waste of your time.”
“I think it would be,” Kalei replied apathetically. “I have no intention of joining the organization that killed my parents and kidnapped my husband.”
The old woman looked up and brusquely shouted, “Shut up! Your stupid whining is breaking my concentration, you little bitch!”
The boy calmly reassured the old woman and set her back to her task with a few small words. Then he turned back to Kalei and said, “Come now. SWORDE had nothing to do with your parents’ deaths. The organization wasn’t even founded until the following year.”
Kalei was disconcerted by the fact that he knew exactly when her parents were murdered. “Perhaps, but the man who founded SWORDE had everything to do with it, and there is no way in hell I am working for him.” Kalei was fed up with their games. She turned and left the odd pair to their lessons.
Nobody stopped Kalei as she found her way to the main exit, not the boy or anyone else. This time, the front desk was empty as she carefully stepped through the shattered doors and into the night.
The cool breeze was nice, like a distant whisper carrying the scents of the sea to Kalei’s nose to calm her despite her battle with the darkness. Kalei could feel it now that the addiction had faded. The darkness beat against her: a steady, consuming drum that made her body its home and brought her nothing but misery. She could see no point to it. There was no point to any of it.
Kalei wandered the cold streets, the rough bite of the pavement on her bare feet an echoing reminder of the shards that had been ripped out just minutes before. Kalei watched the cracked asphalt pass beneath her and tried to make sense of it all. Everything was a mess. It was as though she finally fell asleep that late night and now she couldn’t wake up.
She thought about the trip to the park with her two nieces. Kalei felt as though it had happened only a couple days ago. But something told her it had been much, much longer since she had seen them.
And only SWORDE knew where they were now. The story might be that they were in Victim Protection, but what did that mean? The truth was, it could mean anything. Once people went into Victim Protection, they were never heard from again. For all Kalei knew, Fenn could be dead. The girls could be slaves. Or worse. They could be Estranged like Kalei. She didn’t want to think about it.
And then there was the attack that brought her here. Kalei had been on the scene of many attacks, if only to keep the peace, and she had never heard of more than two or three Estranged being involved in one attack. A couple dozen indicated something more, something organized. Estranged didn’t just get together and buy a couple motorcycles before attacking a random house. No. And it couldn’t be a coincidence that Xamic was there either, on the anniversary of her parents’ death.
But why? And why was it that when she woke up, the other guy was there, the teenager with the flowered nails? None of it made any sense.
The only thing she did know for sure was that SWORDE was a sham. The people in Celan thought they were being protected by SWORDE. Heck, Kalei had even idolized them growing up; they were the only ones who could do anything against the Estranged. And now she knew they were Estranged themselves. The thought made Kalei want to vomit. She felt betrayed. She felt infuriated.
The list of people Kalei needed to kill had just gotten longer.
After her parents died, Kalei had decided that she would exterminate every Estranged in existence. Not just for revenge, but to protect everyone in the city. When she was ten, she used to sneak out at night with her foster mom’s old revolver, searching for the black-nailed monsters so that she could exterminate them all.
But Kalei never found an Estranged on those excursions. Most nights, she never met anyone on the streets. Some nights, a stranger would find her and bring her back home. Kalei always resented that. At school, she heard about Estranged attacks all the time, but somehow, she was incapable of being at the right place at the right time. More than anything, she wanted to stop those attacks from happening. Even as young as she was, she didn’t want any more people to suffer the way she did. Of course, there was always the possibility she would fail and fall victim to an Estranged. If that happened, she’d always hoped she would be dead instead of turned. The gaping hole that was created when her parents died left her okay with leaving this world behind.
Then one day, she was climbing out the bathroom window when she met a boy her age. He was lost, crying, and utterly shocked when he saw her sneaking out of the house. “What are you doing! It’s night time— get inside!” His arms were clenched close to his chest. His head quickly checked left to right and then returned to Kalei. “You’re going to get killed! I’m going to get killed! Big brother said Estranged come out at night and go after— Oh man, I don’t want them to eat me!” And with that, the boy burst into tears.
Kalei dropped down to the grass with a soft thud and
retorted with all her nine-year-old confidence, “You idiot, Estranged don’t eat people! Besides, they come out in the daytime too. It’s not like they’re nocturnal.”
The boy looked up at her and snuffled. “Nocturnal?”
“It means they only wake up at night, stupid, which they don’t. So stop whining.” She pulled out her foster mother’s gun and stormed off into the street.
The young boy panicked. “What are you doing!”
“I’m going to shoot an Estranged,” Kalei yelled back.
“What!” The boy was totally bewildered. He ran after her. “You can’t do that! They’re bigger than you! You’ll die!”
“Yeah, right. I’ll shoot ‘em before they can even get close!” she retorted arrogantly.
The boy started crying, louder and harder than before. He caught up to her and clung to her arm as he blubbered, “Please don’t go after the Estranged, please!”
That night had changed things for Kalei. The boy refused to move until Kalei went back into her house, but when Kalei tried to ditch him, he followed her doggedly, too terrified to be left alone. He followed her for an hour before Kalei realized he truly didn’t know his way home. She might have been willing to sacrifice herself in the pursuit of Estranged, but she didn’t want this sniffling little boy to get hurt. She asked the boy for his address, but he wouldn’t tell her. He wasn’t just scared for himself. The tight grip on her forearm, determination in his eyes despite the trembling of his jaw; it occurred to Kalei that he was scared for her too. Until she promised to stop hunting Estranged, he wouldn’t allow her take him home. But she refused.
And thus, a long and loud debate between nine year olds ensued. It was a sign of the times that no one dared step outside to scold the two kids.
“Why do you have to kill Estranged?” the boy insisted.
Kalei’s hands clenched into fists, the gun tucked safely into her belt. “Because they killed my parents!”
“So! That doesn’t mean you have to kill them. That’s what SWORDE is for. Didn’t you hear? They built a big huge fence in the city and they’ve been throwing Estranged in there and keeping them locked up!”
“They shouldn’t be locking them up; they should be shooting ‘em,” Kalei replied sullenly, crossing her arms.
The boy became animated, eager to share his knowledge. “They do that too!”
Kalei’s arms unfolded and a smile slipped onto her face. “Really?”
“Yeah! I saw it in the newspaper! They do it all the time. Not even the police can fight Estranged anymore. Only SWORDE can take ‘em on!”
The boy’s enthusiasm became infectious. Kalei’s grin widened. “Really!”
The boy nodded, all knowing. “Yeah, because the police aren’t strong enough to stop the Estranged. They keep dying. That’s why my mom says no one wants to be police officers anymore.”
“So. The police are just wimps! Anyone can kill an Estranged. It’s easy!” Kalei held up her borrowed gun proudly.
“Have you killed an Estranged?” the boy asked in wonder.
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” she replied.
The boy caught on. “You have not!”
Kalei’s lip pouted out defiantly and her eyebrows came together. “So! I will!”
The boy’s eyes widened. “But— but what if they kill you?”
“They won’t,” Kalei replied, her eyebrows returning to normal and her chest sticking out boldly.
The boy started to cry again. “But if the police keep dying, then that means you’ll die too! I don’t want you to die! Don’t go after them, please! I don’t want anyone else to die. Not you too!”
Kalei relaxed, concern growing in her eyes for the first time that night. “Who else died?”
“My— my best friend Freddy,” the boy sniffed.
“Oh,” Kalei said.
The boy cried for a while longer, and then suddenly he became enthusiastic. “Oh! I know! You can join SWORDE! Then you won’t die and you can kill all the Estranged you want!” He grinned at Kalei, eager for her approval.
“Why can’t I just kill them now?” she asked sullenly.
“Because you’ll die,” he pointed out sternly, glaring at her through puffy eyes.
Kalei considered him for a moment, then decided she wasn’t going to win against this whiny boy. “Fine, I won’t kill any Estranged until I join SWORDE.”
That was the night she met Fenn. That was the promise she made to him. Now what was she supposed to do? SWORDE was run by the very people she had been determined to kill.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Other Side
Kalei passed beneath streetlight after streetlight, watching the night close around her when she passed under a burnt-out lamp, and then letting it retreat again as she stepped into the light of the next one. She felt anger, frustration, and pure hatred. She hated the bastard who killed her parents, she hated SWORDE, she hated the world, she hated herself. She wished she could take a knife, stab it through her heart, and then tear the blade down across her abdomen so she could reach in and rip out all the stupidity, futility, and stabbing pain that resided within her.
Kalei passed by the hollow husks of restaurants, shopping centers, and a decimated children’s museum. Sitting on top of these corpses stood the ever-present skyscrapers, penning Kalei in and blocking out the sky, making the night feel all the darker. Kalei’s eyes skipped from one building to the next, taking in what little she could see of their crumbling stone and rusting metal. She wished every one of these structures were on fire, burned to the ground so the people of Celan didn’t have to be haunted by these dark memorials anymore. She hated it; she hated it all. Still, she walked on in the cold, dark night.
“Oh hey! Kalei!”
Kalei saw Lecia approach from an intersection up ahead, but she didn’t respond. Lecia dodged a dormant delivery truck that sat deserted in the road, and gave a small Smart car a wide berth as she made her way over to Kalei.
Kalei watched as Lecia navigated the car-littered street, surprised an Estranged hadn’t jumped out of one of the vehicles to attack the woman, and alarmed at the possibility. Lecia came up to a solid walk of four sedans and a sports car, all smashed bumper to bumper. Apparently, the woman decided the best way around the pile was through it, because she opened the door to the nearest car and climbed into it.
Kalei stopped watching and marched over to the heap of metal. “Are you some kind of stupid!”
The car door nearest Kalei shuddered and then popped open. Lecia climbed out, head first. “What?”
“How did you know there wasn’t an Estranged sleeping in there, huh? And what the hell are you doing down here in the middle of the night?”
Lecia smiled as she brushed off the dust she had picked up from her excursion. “Research never sleeps. So, how are things going with SWORDE?” She looked up at Kalei and grimaced, “Sheesh, you’d think they’d at least give you some decent clothes. Why are you still wearing those grubby PJs?”
Kalei looked down at herself and saw she was still wearing the same shorts and tank top she had worn on the night she was turned. Only now, they were brown, frayed, and half the shirt over the left side of her stomach was missing. Kalei was appalled. But not nearly as appalled as she was at Lecia’s implication that she was involved with SWORDE now. She clarified, “I’m not with SWORDE.”
“Really?” Lecia seemed confused, her eyebrows came together. “You’ve been gone for two weeks. I just assumed—”
“Two weeks?” Kalei repeated. That didn’t seem right. And yet— “How long has it been since the attack?”
“I’m guessing you mean the one that turned you Estranged? Let me think...” Lecia paused and muttered the names of months while absent-mindedly counting them out on her fingers. “Almost a year and a half now.”
A year and a half? Had it really been that long?
Lecia continued, “So, why aren’t you going to work for SWORDE?”
Kalei felt the muscles in her ne
ck tense. “I’m not going to answer that. Wait, you know SWORDE is Estranged?”
“Yeah, of course. I can’t get anyone outside the fence to believe me, though. Everyone seems to think I’m a coot.”
“Well, you are.”
Lecia huffed up. “Am not!”
Kalei laughed, and Lecia folded her arms stubbornly. Then Lecia said, “How am I supposed to get people to listen to me if none of you will take me seriously?”
Kalei shrugged. “Stop being a coot.”
Lecia scowled at Kalei. “Oh, now that’s real helpful. Anyway, what are you up to now? The last time I saw you, you were all gung-ho about finding your family. Did SWORDE tell you anything?”
“No.” Kalei was done talking to Lecia. The woman seemed to have a talent for getting on her nerves. Kalei turned and started to walk back to the sidewalk.
Lecia didn’t get the message. She followed Kalei, keeping pace at Kalei’s shoulder as she went on. “Well y’know, Tusic might have some information. I hear they’ve been investigating SWORDE, super-secret though, off the books—”
Kalei looked at Lecia. “Tusic? You mean the GPS company?”
“Yeah, Landen Franklin has his own organization of Estranged, kind of like SWORDE. Except they operate outside the fence and they don’t get along with SWORDE very well. This one time—”
“Why would Landen Franklin have an Estranged organization?”
“Didn’t you know? He’s Estranged too. I guess he doesn’t agree with the way SWORDE does things, so he formed his own group, but he can’t get the government to hand Estranged policing authority over to him, so he’s been keeping the whole thing hush-hush for PR reasons. But they still have people all over the city, he even—”