Doria Falls

by Michael Pierce

  “Slim pickings,” Jeremy said from the lobby.

  “But at least there’s something,” I answered.

  Jeremy and Richard had righted a few tables and chairs that weren’t demolished and sat down with their boxed meals.

  I walked around to the front of the counter. The pastry case had been completely cleaned out and all the refrigerated food was either gone or untrustworthy. I brought Jeremy and Richard waters to barter for some of their crackers.

  Desiree came out from behind the bar and hopped up on the counter between two registers. The counter seemed to be missing the bladeless fan scanners that had complicated Desiree’s and my first visit here, the time we’d met Lazarus Lorne.

  I picked up a fallen chair and removed the tablet from the back of my pants before sitting down with Jeremy and Richard.

  “What day is it?” I asked Richard. It felt very unsettling not knowing what day of the week it was. I didn’t know how much school I had missed; I didn’t know how long I’d been away from home. I felt like I could still be dreaming, like I’d never escaped the bed Nero had cuffed me to or the cell I’d shared with Nero in the asylum. Each experience was an extended nightmare and I still feared waking up and finding myself wrenched back into imprisonment.

  “Wednesday,” he answered. “I take it you’ve been through a lot,” he added.

  I didn’t even know how to reply to his statement. The beginning of the story was too far away.

  Richard reached for the tablet. “That’s a fancy-looking e-reader you’ve got there. You must have been saving your allowance for quite some time or gotten a job I don’t know about. Did you get a job?”

  Jeremy laughed, spitting bits of cookies on the table.

  “No,” I said. When would I have found the time? “It was a gift from a friend.”

  “And what friend might that be?”

  I didn’t really know what to say to that, either. “Logan—just a guy from school.”

  Richard swiped a finger across the screen, but it remained black. “Generous guy.”

  Mr. Gordon strolled out from the back room with a sweater and a jacket. “I thought these might be useful,” he said and tossed the black sweater to Desiree. “Who wants this one?” He held up a blue cotton jacket.

  Jeremy clapped once and left his hands outstretched to catch. Mr. Gordon lobbed it to him.

  I glanced back at Desiree, who now held up the black hoodie in front of her. She stared intently at whatever covered its front side.

  “Oh…my…God,” she said, stretching the short sentence into a paragraph.

  All eyes were on her when she flipped the hoodie in her hands and slipped it over her head. My first thought was the cleavage was gone, but then I quickly noticed what had her so mesmerized. Written across the chest of the hoodie were two words—a surreal and melancholy name—Elliott Smith.

  “Oh my God,” I repeated.

  “Oh my God what?” Jeremy responded.

  Desiree and I were in on the secret, and maybe we were the only ones, which was another special connection we could share that would bring us even closer together. I got up from the table and rushed to give her a hug and she wrapped her legs around me from her seated position on the counter.

  “I don’t get it,” I heard Jeremy say behind us, and it was okay. He didn’t have to.

  When I finally let her go—after a few light kisses to accompany the hug—we noticed Mr. Gordon discussing something with Richard and Jeremy. Jeremy pulled back his left sleeve and Mr. Gordon pressed a thumb to the underside of his wrist. Even from across the room, I could see black ink seeping out from under Mr. Gordon’s thumb and spreading in intricate patterns on Jeremy’s wrist. Mr. Gordon was giving us DNA Brands. When he approached Desiree and me, I thought he’d hand us green bracelets like before, but he didn’t; he gave us brands as well.

  “But we’re not sixteen yet,” Desiree said.

  “Yeah, and you stick strictly to the straight and narrow,” he answered and produced a weary smile.

  We left what was once Café Ynez and ventured back out into the dilapidated street. Some blocks were fairly barren while others were buzzing with chaos and the corrective measures to control it. Mr. Gordon continued to lead the way on his own, disconnecting himself from the rest of the group. He was always detached to an extent, but never this much. I couldn’t help but think that it was because of me, but I couldn’t approach him with a question like that, so I asked the next best one I could think of.

  I quickened my pace to catch up with him and once we were side by side, I asked, “Where are we going? We’ve been walking through the city for hours.”

  “It’s a large city, especially on foot,” he answered, keeping his attention straight ahead. After a pause, he continued. “We’re going to see my contact in the city.”

  “Your contact?”

  “The link between myself and the rebellion—or more appropriately, your father. They move around a lot to keep ahead of Kafka and his side of the family. I periodically check in to get updated orders and she keeps me informed.”

  “So you don’t talk directly with my father?”

  “I haven’t seen him in several years now. It’s been too dangerous to risk blowing my cover.”

  “But I guess your cover’s already been blown with Cias and all.”

  “Yes.” Mr. Gordon sighed. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Are we there yet?” Jeremy called from behind.

  “Who’s the girl now?” I shouted over my shoulder.

  “Hey!” Desiree protested. “I’m not complaining, but since you’re gonna blame all the girls in the world, yeah, are we there yet?”

  “A few more miles,” Mr. Gordon said, and we kept walking through the littered street.

  Besides what parts of the buildings fell from above, the occasional body lay smashed into the pavement like burst water balloons or on top of cars, dangling off the sides in stringy pieces. The asymmetric plane from the House of Mirrors didn’t look this bad, and that was being sold as the nightmare. I gagged on the meager meal I’d had in the coffee shop, and I took a sip from my water to flush the vile taste from the back of my throat.

  “After all this, do you know she’s okay?” I asked. “Or could we be making this trek for nothing?”

  “She can take care of herself. I’m not too worried.”

  “Who is she?”

  I felt an eager hand grab mine and immediately our fingers were interlaced.

  “Who’s who?” Desiree asked.

  “The lady we’re going to see,” I said.

  “Mr. Gordon’s got a lady? Tell us about her.” Only Desiree could regain her schoolgirl giddiness while we trudged through the apocalypse.

  “I don’t have a lady. I have a contact,” Mr. Gordon said sternly. “Who just so happens to be a lady.”

  “Come on, Mr. Gordon,” Desiree whined. “You never give us any gossip about your life. What’s her name? At least divulge that much.”

  “Mattie.”

  “Okay, that’s a start.”

  When we began seeing wild animals roaming the streets, I knew we were close to another familiar part of the city. Peacekeepers had tranquilized a full grown tiger and seemed to be debating the best way to restrain the predatory cat for when it inevitably awoke. The long necks of three giraffes bobbed in the distance and vanished behind a building. A fox stood within a broken storefront window, eyeing us as we passed. And then we saw it—the towering fence of the Provex City Fair.

  “This is crazy,” Desiree whispered in my ear.

  “Let’s just hope we don’t get eaten along the way,” I said.

  “That would be an unfortunate end after all we’ve been through.”

  “Yeah, that would suck.”

  As far as I could see, the iron fence was still fully standing, but the banner across the open gate was bare—no welcoming words streaming across. The ticket booth looked dark and lonely, with a fallen chunk of metal gutting it f
rom head to base.

  “What is this place?” Richard asked, gazing up at the fence. “Some type of prison?”

  “The greatest fair on Earth,” I said, “though you’d never know it now.”

  Inside there were large groups of people seeking shelter in some type of safe haven. A herd of four or five horses galloped past us and out the front gate, relishing in their newfound freedom.

  “Your contact is in here?” I asked Mr. Gordon. I could tell Desiree was thinking the same thing.

  Mr. Gordon looked somewhat amused. “Why? Have you been here before?”

  “Maybe,” Desiree said. “What have you heard?”

  “I hear everything.” He laughed.

  It didn’t take long before we approached a familiar purple tent. The flaps at the front were not tied down and fluttered in the slight breeze. And then Mr. Gordon led the way inside the tent.

  “Madame Matilda’s your contact?” I asked.

  The inside of the tent looked as it had the last time I’d come here, when it was just Nero and me. The tall table and stools had fallen on their sides, but the books and boxes in the back of the tent still lay scattered about. And like last time, a large wolf with bared teeth and a deep growl guarded the toppled table.

  Everyone froze, even Mr. Gordon.

  The grey wolf lowered its head and bared even more of its yellowing teeth. Its growling also intensified.

  Desiree didn’t let go of my hand, but she did slip as far as she could behind me without breaking our bond.

  The wolf snapped at the air and everyone but Mr. Gordon jumped back a step.

  He raised his hands, palms out, and spoke in a soft tone. “Noc sema nuella,” Mr. Gordon humbly bowed his head once he’d finished the foreign phrase.

  The wolf immediately calmed down, sheathed its sharp teeth, and raised its head in a strangely regal gesture of mutual respect and understanding. After a moment, it rose from its haunches and sauntered to one side of the tent, where it took a seat again, quietly and nonthreatening.

  No one said a word, unsure of what would set the beast off and cause him to attack. Mr. Gordon stepped forward and righted the table, repositioned it several times, adjustments of mere inches, and placed one stool in front of it.

  “Those who do not see the way will never find it, and those who can see rarely apply enough attention when looking up,” Mr. Gordon said, climbed first onto the stool, and then stepped onto the table.

  At first I didn’t see any reason why Mr. Gordon had climbed four feet in the air in the middle of an empty tent—but then it appeared. Faintly at first, then growing more defined.

  “Who sees the way?” Mr. Gordon asked.

  With her one free hand, Desiree raised it up like she always did in class.

  “Very good, Miss Behring.”

  Just because I didn’t feel the need to raise my hand immediately didn’t mean I was still trailing behind her.

  “I don’t see anything,” Richard said, and I knew from the moment I saw the floating door, that Richard would be in the dark.

  Jeremy inched forward, gazing up at Mr. Gordon in awe. Mr. Gordon reached out and took Jeremy’s hand to help him up to the table. The table was just big enough for the two of them to stand side by side, and it didn’t teeter. Mr. Gordon turned the ornate doorknob and the wooden door swung inward from a straight-on perspective and vanished from the side. With a nod of silent understanding, Jeremy stepped through the door and disappeared.

  “Richard,” Mr. Gordon said, beckoning him forward. “You’re next.”

  He, too, climbed up onto the table and reached for the open doorway with one outstretched hand. His fingers seemed to pass right through the break in dimensions, where the hole that the floating door created and the current plane collided. But he couldn’t see it. If he was to step through the doorway himself, he probably would have just fallen to the floor and broken his leg again. The doorway didn’t exist for his awareness; he wouldn’t be able to enter that which didn’t exist in his conscious mind.

  Mr. Gordon took his hand and led him through the doorway and they, too, were gone, leaving only Desiree, me, and the wolf alone in the tent. Desiree tensed up a little when she realized that the protection provided by Mr. Gordon from the wild animal was no longer here. It seemed to make little difference to the seated statue with glowing yellow eyes.

  We slowly made our way to the table, careful not to spook the wolf with any sudden movements. I gave Desiree a boost, placing a hand on her butt once she was standing on the stool to keep her steady. She glanced down at me, her face unreadable, but she didn’t say anything. After a short pause, Desiree took the final step up onto the table, and I hopped up to join her. From this vantage point, we could see that on the other side of this door was what looked like a hallway with dark wood flooring, opening up to a living room with floor-to-ceiling windows. Mr. Gordon, Richard, and Jeremy were looking at something on the floor on the opposite side from what we could see. Their eyes were fixed on something in our direction—not at us, but past us.

  Desiree turned her body into me and kissed me firmly on the lips. When I could feel her tongue brush against mine, my head began to swim from the pure ecstasy of realizing she was finally mine. This wasn’t a onetime heat-of-the-moment thing or mistake to feel guilty about afterward—this was us, together. I hooked my fingers into the front pockets of her jeans and pulled her closer.

  She leaned her head back and smiled. I was drowning in the emerald pools of her eyes, something I was no longer afraid of—drowning.

  “You’re not going to leave me when you find your destiny, are you?” she whispered, placing her hands lightly on my chest.

  “Just as long as you don’t go running off again.”

  Desiree shook her head. “I’m with you ’til the end.”

  “Together.”

  “Together,” she repeated.

  Her answer seemed too good to be true, but I couldn’t fight the fact that it was exactly what I wanted to hear. Desiree pulled me in for one more kiss before we stepped through the doorway together.

  5

  Doria

  The vast apartment was white and bright, and when I looked back to see where we had stepped through, no door remained, just open space leading to additional rooms. But the floor occupied everyone else’s attention, and I instantly saw why.

  Three men in black military fatigues lay strewn about in close proximity, a tangled mess of bodies and limbs, with a large pool of blood drying around the dead pile. One man still held a handgun. Two more handguns lay a few feet away, obviously dropped by their fallen owners.

  “What the hell happened here?” I asked. We had seen enough dead bodies in the streets. I had hoped we’d left all that behind, but carnage seemed to follow me wherever I went.

  Mr. Gordon was no longer with us. He had ventured into the living room I’d seen from the other side of the doorway.

  “Hello, Mattie,” he said, and then stepped out of view.

  I left the onlookers behind and hurried into the living room, awash in light from the windows making up the entire wall. Not one of them was broken—and all the furniture in the room seemed to also be in perfect order. Mr. Gordon approached the woman I remembered as Madame Matilda and gave her a rather affectionate hug.

  Her eyes met mine while still in Mr. Gordon’s arms. She pulled back and stepped out from behind Mr. Gordon to look me over.

  “Oliver Lorne,” she said in a low, rough voice. “I knew we would meet again, but I didn’t expect it to be quite so soon.”

  Matilda had fiery red hair pulled back and held by two silver rods, and wore a long flowing black dress that draped down to the carpet, with a low square-cut neckline that greatly accentuated her full breasts. Pearl-white skin shone through four round holes relatively close together that punctured the dress near her stomach, and the fabric around the holes looked wet. She wore no jewelry like she had when we met in the tent, but I did notice a tattoo on her right hand that
I hadn’t remembered seeing before.

  It can’t be.

  I couldn’t see it clearly from where I stood, but I knew it was a wolf-head tattoo.

  “You’re a Lorne?” After hearing my question aloud, it sounded absolutely ridiculous.

  She didn’t even bother to answer. “Are you ready this time, Oliver?”

  “Yes,” I said, gaining my confidence back. “I am.”

  The others finally joined us in the spacious living room. Jeremy held a pistol in each hand, pointing them both at the floor. Desiree strolled right up to me and hugged my arm.

  Matilda nodded to her.

  “Did you take out those guys?” Jeremy asked point blank.

  “They were good enough to get in, but not good enough to get themselves out,” Matilda said with a smirk.

  “There will be others,” Mr. Gordon said. “Now that the group has been compromised.”

  “Yes, Cias. I am aware. I made the last one tell me before I killed him. The promise of mercy after a bit of pain is a wonderful motivator.” Matilda turned to look out the window wall.

  We were high above the clouds, which took me back to Kafka’s apartment, looking down on the city—down on the world. We were not the highest glistening tower on the horizon, but who was counting stories when you were already above the clouds? Several of the other visible skyscrapers were dark, no shimmering exteriors of blue and red, which looked eerie with only the sunlight reflecting off the glass.

  “I’ve lived here long enough. It’s only natural to say goodbye and move on,” Matilda said.

  “What are you planning to do with those?” Mr. Gordon asked, pointing at the two handguns in Jeremy’s possession.

  “Protect myself? Shoot some bad guys?” Jeremy said sarcastically. “Take your pick.”

  “You’re just going to end up shooting yourself in the foot. Have you ever fired a gun before?”

  Jeremy shook his head.

  Mr. Gordon extended his hand, expecting Jeremy to hand the guns over, which he did after grumbling about it under his breath. Mr. Gordon took the first one and examined it closer.