Outliers_A Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Novel

by Kate L. Mary

  It must have been a huge city, because even now it seemed to go on so far that I was unable to discern where it ended. The ruins of a few tall buildings jutted up here and there, most of them so in shambles that even from a distance they seemed ready to crumble, but the majority of the buildings looked as if they had been leveled hundreds of years ago, and what remained were only outlines of what had once been there.

  “Is this real?” I gasped.

  “It is. Pretty amazing, right?”

  I nodded, only amazing seemed like the wrong word. It was common knowledge that a different world had existed centuries ago and that something—no one knew for sure what—had wiped it out, but before now I had never seen more than a handful of the ruins. Where we lived very little was left of the old world, and what remained was usually unrecognizable. Here I could easily imagine where the buildings had stood, could picture them towering over the ground as clearly as if they were in front of me now. Time and nature had not been kind to the city, but it was still possible to make out where the roads had been, and where the vehicles from that old world had once traveled.

  “It would be nice to go there one day,” Bodhi said. “Not just there, but beyond it. Sometimes, I find myself sitting here for hours thinking about it. Wondering what might be out there and if it is better than the life we have here.”

  “There has to be something better,” I whispered.

  Bodhi squeezed my hand and turned to face me. “We could go. You know that, right? It would be hard, but if we were together we could make it.”

  “What?”

  Bodhi had never talked like this before, and I was uncertain how to respond. Could he be serious? No one ever left the area, there were too many unknown dangers out there, things that might make lygan and grizzards seem like cuddly babies. But when I searched my husband’s face, I realized that Bodhi was completely serious. What was more, he had brought me here for this very reason.

  I dropped his hand and stepped back. “Bodhi, you know I cannot.”

  “Think about it.” He grabbed me by the shoulders as if he was trying to get my attention even though he already had it. “If we left you would never have to worry about the Sovereign or the Fortis again. We could go somewhere new. Start a life in a new place, maybe with new people. We could get away from here.”

  “I can’t leave my mother and Anja, Bodhi. You have to know that.”

  “They can come with us.”

  It hurt to see the excitement and hope in his eyes. I hated to be the one who took that from him, but I had to. What he was suggesting was crazy and unrealistic, and much too risky.

  “My mother is sick,” I said gently. “She would never make it, and Anja would never leave her behind, even if I would. Which was impossible. We have no way of knowing if there is even anything out there. Think about that, Bodhi.” I pulled from his grasp and turned to face the ruins, and he did as well. “Getting there would take hours of traveling through the wastelands, and that would only be the beginning. Living in the ruins would be impossible. We would be worse off than we are in the wilds, so we would have to walk more. Who knows how long it would take to reach something beyond that or if it would even be better? Odds are that there is nothing better than the wilds. That there is nothing but wastelands.”

  When I turned back to face him, Bodhi’s smile had melted away, and I felt the loss of it. Felt as if I had reached out and stolen his happiness.

  “I know.” He let out a deep sigh, followed only a second later by a bitter laugh. “It was a silly dream, but it was nice.”

  I stepped closer, slipping my hand into his and resting my head on his shoulder. “It would be nice to go away, but you know we will be okay here. As long as we are together, we can make it.”

  He kissed the top of my head and whispered, “I know.” Something in his tone made me shiver.

  We left the dreams of life beyond the wilds behind and climbed back down the hill. After our conversation, I was afraid Bodhi would be too dejected to teach me to shoot. Thankfully he recovered quickly.

  We practiced first, me shooting the bow a few times while he gave me pointers. More than ten years had passed since I had held one of the weapons in my hands. Back then I had been a good shot, and a few tries told me that time had not taken that skill from me. Bodhi was all praise, telling me that I was a natural. It boosted my confidence even more as I fired arrow after arrow at the tree.

  When I had perfected hitting a wide trunk, we moved on to a smaller one, and then an even smaller one until I finally missed. When that happened I tried again, missing the tree three more times before finally hitting it. Each time I released an arrow my aim seemed to improve, much to Bodhi’s delight, and before long he declared that I was ready to go hunting.

  The snow made it easy to track animals through the forest, and Bodhi took his time showing me how to tell the difference between new tracks and old ones, as well as the best places to find big game. Forest cats were unpredictable he told me, but much easier to find and kill during winter than rodents were. He was right, and after following a set of tracks for nearly an hour, we came upon a cat that was right in the middle of eating one of the very rodents that had managed to evade us.

  A variety of cats lived in the wilds, some with long brown hair that seemed more fitting for blending into the wastelands than the greenery of the forest, while others had pelts decorated with stripes or spots. The one in front of us now had a swirl of gray and black fur; its stripes intermixed with spots. It was smaller than Bodhi, but bigger than me, and had teeth as pointed as the tip of an arrowhead.

  “Perfect,” Bodhi whispered when he saw that the cat was distracted. “Now is your chance.”

  I raised my bow and took aim, going through the same motions I had while practicing on the trees. The cat was mostly still, only its head moving as it tore into its dinner, and I knew I could take it out. All I had to do was release the arrow and I would have my very first kill.

  A branch snapped to our left and the cat’s head jerked up. Bodhi grabbed my arm and pulled me down so fast I almost released my arrow anyway. We were behind a bush, and for a moment I thought we were hiding from the cat, but then I saw how big Bodhi’s eyes were, and I knew it was something else. A lygan, maybe? They rarely ventured into the wilds, but it did happen from time to time. Only, if that were the case it would have charged already. Even at twice its size, a forest cat would be no match for a lygan.

  A spear sailed from the trees to our right a beat after the thought entered my head and I nearly let out a yelp of surprise. As if sensing it, Bodhi’s hand covered my mouth. His palms were clammy despite the cool day, and he was as still as the now dead animal in front of us, and it was not until a moment before the Fortis man stepped into view that I realized exactly what we were hiding from.

  He was big, just like they all were, and the dark clothes he wore stood out against the snowy ground. His red hair was wild and his blue eyes piercing as they narrowed on the cat. It was as if he thought the animal might only be playing dead. When the cat made no move, the man yanked the spear from its body and slipped it into a holster on his back. Blood dripped from the point and landed on the snow, starkly red against the white blanket on the forest floor.

  My legs ached from crouching, but I remained frozen in place. We could see everything from where we were, and I was terrified that if this man looked our way he would spot us immediately. And so I held my breath and remained still. At my side Bodhi did the same, while in the clearing the man hefted the cat’s body up off the ground with a grunt. Then he turned, his gaze moving over the trees where we hid but not focusing on anything for longer than a beat. When he let out a whistle, the clump of footsteps was followed by the appearance of a horse pushing its way through the trees and into the clearing.

  Bodhi and I remained hidden and still as the man loaded his kill onto the animal, and it was at that moment that a strange thought entered my head. We could kill him. Hidden the way we were, he would nev
er see it coming. I could lift my bow and take aim and kill this man before he even realized we were there, and his death would mean one less Fortis was around to torture my people.

  As quickly as the thought entered my mind, I pushed it away. Killing a person, even someone so unworthy of life, was wrong. It was not up to me, a simple Outlier, to decide who got to live and who got to die. Let God rain his judgment down on the Fortis in His own time.

  When the man had finally climbed onto his horse and ridden away, Bodhi let out a sigh of relief and pulled his hand from my mouth. “That was close.”

  My heart was still pounding wildly, echoing in my ears and nearly drowning out my words when I asked, “Do you see them often?”

  “No. They usually stick to the valley, close to the river. In winter it can be hard to find game though, and they end up coming deeper into the wilds.” He stood, pulling me with him. “You just need to keep your ears open out here.”

  “I will,” I whispered.

  I was thinking about this man, about what would have happened if he had snuck up on us, but also about how my husband would have reacted if I had killed him. Would Bodhi have been disgusted? Would he have looked at me with the same pride and admiration as he had after I killed the lygan? I had no way of knowing.

  At my side, Bodhi frowned and looked around. “Now we need to find a new set of tracks.”

  He had been right to say that game was harder to come by in winter, and it took us several hours of exploring the snowy forest before we were able to locate another animal. It was a cat once again, this one with fur that was nearly as white as the blanket of snow covering the wilds. Just like before, I took aim, only this time no Fortis guard showed up to ruin the shot. My arrow flew through the air before finding a home in the animal. The cat let out a roar and reared back before taking off, and Bodhi and I were right behind him. He only made it a short distance before succumbing to his wounds though, and by the time we came upon him, he had already taken his last breath.

  Bodhi smiled at me before pulling the arrow from the cat’s body. “It is a good kill.”

  I returned his smile as I took the arrow and replaced it in my quiver, but I said nothing. This was not the first animal I had killed, but it was the first I had tracked and hunted, and the knowledge filled me with something impossible to name. It made me stand taller.

  Bodhi dropped to his knees beside the animal and I followed his lead, taking a knee beside him. When my husband bowed his head, his blond hair fell over his forehead, covering his passage markings.

  His eyes were shut, but I kept my gaze on him as he began to recite the simple prayer our people reserved for the passing of animals, the words low and reverent. “May your death provide life to our people and sustain us through hard times.”

  He was only halfway through the prayer when my gaze moved to the cat, and this time I recognized the rush of pride that swept through me. This was my kill, and the meat of this animal would help feed not just my family, but also others in the village. For the first time I felt like I was able to provide so much more than just what the Sovereign gave me, and it made me feel useful, strong even. It was a feeling I was unused to, but one I liked.

  15

  Life in the city grew more and more complicated as time passed, but back in my village, in my role of Bodhi’s wife, things were serene. We continued to hunt, me improving every day, and went to the cave often to get away from life in the village. My mother was stronger than she had been, something I attributed to the extra protein she was now getting, and I began to hope that her condition would improve instead of grow worse. That she might live long enough to see grandchildren, not just from Bodhi and myself, but from Anja as well.

  Spring bloomed early in the wilds and the heat of the wastelands became more intense. The animals living both there and on the cliffs grew more active, making our trek to and from work more difficult. My aim with the bow improved each time Bodhi took me into the forest, and before long I began to carry my bow instead of just a knife, knowing that it would give Mira and me an advantage if we had another confrontation with a lygan.

  My aim was not the only thing that had grown, Bodhi’s confidence in me had as well. With that confidence, my uneasiness about why he was teaching me to shoot also grew. His explanation that he wanted me to be able to take care of myself rang true, but with it came the knowledge that he had thought, more than once, about me being alone. Did that mean he was also thinking about coming into the city to avenge me? The more I thought about it, the more I worried that he might do something rash, and every night when I settled into bed at my husband’s side, I prayed that nothing would happen to force his hand.

  It was shortly after every spot of snow had melted from the wilds that the next big change sprang up. Mira and I had both been off work the day before—she had spent time resting while Bodhi and I had once again gone to our cave—and during our absence something had happened in the Fortis village. We spotted it from a distance as we stopped just past the Lygan Cliffs to stash our weapons; only it was hard to tell exactly what was going on.

  “What do you think it is?” Mira asked.

  I shook my head, unable to come up with even a guess. In three years of working in Sovereign City, I had never seen the Fortis do much—at least not in their village. Now though, they were visible in the distance moving planks of wood, and the bang of what could only be hammers echoed through the air.

  “Building something,” I said. “What, I have no clue.”

  “Asa would know,” Mira replied.

  I glanced her way, knowing that it was not intended as a jab but feeling the sting of it anyway. No matter what I did, it was impossible to completely push away my guilt over the situation. There was nothing going on between Asa and me, but I knew he had feelings for me and that he was putting himself at risk on a daily basis because of those feelings. It had not been at my request, as Mira had pointed out at least a dozen times, but it still felt wrong.

  Then there was Bodhi. My husband, who I loved. He was all I wanted, but at times the secrets between us felt as insurmountable as the wilds that spread out beyond the ruins we had stood on the hill and looked down on. Even though the secrets were for his protection, I still hated that it had to be this way. I knew Asa was genuine in his desire to help me and that there with no strings attached, but Bodhi’s only experience with the Fortis were the times they had attacked innocent women from our tribe or killed our hunters when they were in the forest. He would never trust Asa, and I was terrified of what he might do if he found out what was going on. Of the promises he might break.

  Mira and I moved through the Fortis village, heading to the gate, but still we were given no hints as to what was being built. The streets were typically deserted this early in the morning, and today was no exception, and we made it to the wall with no interference.

  When the gate opened in front of us, we trudged inside. It scared me how foreign the streets now felt. Where once the walk to and from Saffron’s house had been relaxing, it now felt as if we were running a gauntlet of danger. Every guard who looked our way seemed to have a sneer on his face, every dark corner felt as if it held doom. We practically ran now, and I would be lying if I said I did not look for Asa’s face everywhere we went. He alone would be able to save us if one of the men we passed decided to take advantage of his position, which was yet another thing I had to feel guilty about. Bodhi was supposed to be the one who protected me. Not Asa.

  We were out of breath by the time we made it to the house, but thankfully we were also unharmed. Mira and I stormed in, gasping, and nearly tripped over a Fortis man who for some reason was standing in the middle of the mudroom. My heart skipped once before I saw who it was, but in a blink the terror was gone and had been replaced by relief.

  “Asa,” I said, gasping out his name.

  Heat flooded to my cheeks and I had to look away when memories of the night before came rushing back. Bodhi on top of me and of how I had gasped out hi
s name in much the same way as I had Asa’s just now.

  The Fortis guard gave his usual silent greeting, a nod that seemed to say twice as much as most people said with words, and Mira mimicked him, her eyes down the way they always were when in his presence. She trusted him now, of that I was sure, but she was unused to looking anyone in the eye within the walls of this city, and I doubted she would ever get over that. After everything, it was a shock that I managed to pull it off.

  She grabbed her apron and hurried off, shooting me a look that said she wanted me to ask about what they were building in the Fortis village. I knew I would, as much for me as for her, but the idea of being alone with Asa made me nervous.

  I waited until she was gone before turning to him, and what came out of my mouth had nothing to do with the building in his village. “You were waiting for me?”

  His head bobbed again, just once, and his eyes stayed on me, focused and intense enough to make my scalp prickle. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. I didn’t see you yesterday.”

  “It was my day off,” I said, doing my best to act as if his gaze did not make my skin tingle.

  “I know.”

  His words made me blush yet again, and I had to look away. He had known it was my day off, which meant that his motivation behind waiting for me had not been concern for my well being. He had missed me.

  “My husband and I went hunting.” Bodhi was already present in the room, I could feel him hanging between us, but I still flushed again at the mention of him.

  “Did you get anything?”

  “A forest cat,” I replied, my eyes still down.

  Asa said nothing, and I looked up through my lashes to find him watching me the way he always did, with emotion in his brown eyes that had no business being there.

  I took a step back. “What are they building in your village?”

  “You saw that.” It was his turn to look away, and when he did he let out a deep breath that sounded almost painful.