Beyond These Walls (Book 5): After Edin

by Robertson, Michael

  “Are you insane?”

  “How about while I set it up, you see if you can think of a better solution?”

  Chapter 21

  It took Max about ten minutes to set up the path he expected William to cross. In that time, William still hadn’t come up with a better plan. The inaction had invited the cold back into his bones. The sky had turned gunmetal grey with the onset of night. They were running out of time.

  Six large stones in total, each one no more than four feet tall. The largest gap between them stretched three feet at the most. It took William back to the wooden platforms they’d hopped across while they trained prior to their time extending Edin’s wall. The jumps before him were much easier. Although, if he fell here, he’d lose more than his pride.

  “I can’t do it.” William stood up as if it would help him better assess the path he had to take and shook his head again. “I can’t do it.”

  “Go to the back corner of the building and drag the diseased with you,” Max said. “It’ll clear the way. I’ll track you from the ground.”

  “There must be another option.”

  “Until you’re out of sight, we’re screwed.”

  Matilda, Artan, and Olga watched William from the church’s attic. When he got there, he could rest for the night. But he had to get there first. He laughed. “You think I can make this jump, Tilly?”

  She cupped her mouth with both hands to be heard over the diseased. “Of course. You can make any jump.”

  “But you always said—”

  “I was winding you up. Come on, you can do this. Don’t overthink it.”

  The words lifted William and he filled his chest with a deep breath. He stood an inch or two taller. He could do this.

  William’s legs trembled as he walked along the back wall to the far corner of the old building. Many diseased piled in through the once door, many more surged around the outside, all of them fighting to gather around him.

  Max moved far enough away from the building to allow William to see him from his current spot. When he gave William a thumbs up, William filled his lungs one more time and stepped forwards. But his legs turned weak and he shook his head.

  “Come on, William,” Max said. “You can do this.”

  Several nods to himself, William then took off. The top of the building uneven, his feet twisted and turned to accommodate the awkward angles as he tore across the short back wall, turned to run across the long wall, and when he reached the end, jumped for the first rock. What if Max hadn’t settled it properly?

  Too late now. The rush of diseased behind him, Max running at his side, William returned to his training in national service, to following the trail blazed by Matilda on the wet poles. One step on each stone, he landed on the first one and propelled himself towards the next.

  The gaps between each were easy enough to cross. Five stones to go, four, three—

  A diseased slashed at his feet, clipping him as he leaped, but unable to hold on. William landed on the penultimate stone off-balance, the large rock wobbling beneath his step.

  Another diseased in front of him, it waited to trip him on the next stone.

  Max body-checked the creature aside, and William jumped as if driven forward by the diseased’s roar crashing into his back like a strong wave.

  William kicked off the last stone, the final leap to the building with his friends in. He caught the edge, his lower body slamming against the stone wall.

  Matilda, Artan, and Olga grabbed William’s arms and the back of his shirt, tearing cuts along his front as they dragged him up over the rough bricks and into the attic with them.

  Breathless, William rolled over onto his back and stared up through the gap in the roof at the dark sky. He laughed. It started as a giggle, but he soon lost control. Matilda leaned down and planted a kiss against his forehead while he covered his eyes to hide his tears.

  When Max appeared a few seconds later, William stood on shaking legs. “Thanks, man.”

  “Anytime. You okay?”

  “I will be.” He hugged Max, pulling away instantly. “Jeez, you stink!”

  Max shook his head. “Funny that!”

  “Let me do the first watch,” Artan said, taking the sword from Max.

  Although Matilda opened her mouth to object, Artan said, “Don’t worry; I’m fine. I could do with the time on my own.”

  “You sur—?”

  “Yes.”

  William and Matilda leaned against the back wall, holding one another as night settled in. Max and Olga sat nearby, the shadows inside the church’s roof almost hiding them from sight. They were close, but from the way Olga leaned towards him, not as close as she would have liked. The stench clearly didn’t bother her.

  The fading light turned Artan into a silhouette. Only a few feet away, he faced out in the direction of the large metal structure like a gargoyle on the edge of a Gothic building. The metal frame’s base stretched at least fifteen feet by fifteen feet. Decay had bitten the top off. How much taller had it been in its heyday?

  As she nestled into his hug, Matilda said, “What was that about earlier?”

  “Which part?”

  “The chivalrous bullshit part. Again!”

  “Huh?”

  “Like when you let me go first up the back ladder of the gym in the national service area.”

  “I told you, that was because you’re the fastest climber. By going up first, you cleared the ladder for us quicker.”

  “Okay, let’s say I believe that—and I’m not saying I do—how can you justify waiting for me back there? You think you’re stronger and faster than me or Artan?”

  “No.”

  “What, then?” Despite still leaning against him, Matilda’s frame had tensed.

  The words caught in William’s throat.

  “Come on, if it’s not your male ego, what the hell is it?”

  “I’m sorry. I see that I shouldn’t have done it. The thing is, I care more about your life than I do my own.”

  Matilda relaxed. It took her a few seconds to say, “Oh.” She leaned into him again.

  William rested against the wall, held Matilda, and closed his eyes. Hopefully sleep would come, but even if it didn’t, the rest and proximity to his love would be more than enough to get him through tomorrow.

  Chapter 22

  Pins and needles ran down William’s right arm from where he’d spent the night hugging Matilda. The funky taste of morning lay along his tongue, and his clothes were damp and cold with dew. The black sky had turned dark blue on the horizon.

  If anything, the gap between Olga and Max had grown wider. From the way Olga faced him, and from the way Max turned away, he’d initiated the distance between them. Artan—his back hunched as he hugged his knees to his chest—still sat close to the edge of the building, staring out over the ruined city.

  While biting down on his bottom lip as if it would keep his actions slow and quiet, William twisted free from Matilda, laying her down on her side. Despite the chill, he removed his top, the early morning giving him gooseflesh as he lay his shirt across her sleeping form.

  Close to the edge of the building, but far enough back to be hidden from sight, William sat beside Artan. The boy continued to study the horizon, his eyes bloodshot, heavy bags beneath them. The lack of sleep had turned his haunted, withdrawn face positively skeletal. “What do you think this city once looked like?”

  For a moment, Artan remained dead still. Just before William could ask him again, he said, “Beautiful.” Tears stood in his eyes.

  The twisted and broken pylon close by, William squinted against the wind. “Still no Samson and Cyrus, then? Or anyone else for that matter? Why didn’t you ask someone to switch with you? You look like you need the rest. Do you want to have a quick sleep now while I stay here?”

  “I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway,” Artan said.

  The main crowd might have moved on, but the diseased still meandered through the ruins. Some
alone, some in pairs. One—a woman dressed in a stained pink nightie, torn and grey with dirt—stumbled through the rocks and fallen walls, her face a slack mask of shattered turmoil. She looked like a mother who’d lost a child. Yet, despite her plight, no one else gave a shit.

  “What was it like in Edin? I didn’t get to see most of it,” Artan said.

  “Awful. It fell so fast.” William shuddered and clenched his jaw against his trembling body. “There were thousands of them. It was like every diseased within a ten-mile radius sensed the opening and charged into the city.”

  “And Hugh was the one who left the gate open?”

  “Yeah.” William sighed. “He left Edin to come and find us …” What would he achieve telling him Hugh busted out to let them know Artan was still alive? That Edin fell because of his need to deliver that specific message. If Matilda wanted to tell him, he wouldn’t stop her, but it certainly wasn’t his place to reveal it, and the boy didn’t need it on his shoulders. Especially not at the moment. Max must have known why Hugh left too. Being the one who told Hugh about it in the first place. He finally filled the silence. “His head wasn’t in the right place.”

  The two boys watched the horizon, a light blue band where the sky met the ground. William finally said, “But if it wasn’t for Hugh, we wouldn’t be here. He might have lost his head, but in the end, he fought like no one else I’ve seen.”

  “Why did he kill himself?”

  The wind added to the burn from the rising sun. William blinked several times, his throat locking so tight it strained his words. “He said he was done. I hate to say it, but the truth is, he became a liability. I miss him every day, but he kept making mistakes. And if his mistakes had led to Matilda’s death, I wouldn’t have ever forgiven him. He screwed up a few times and put us in the firing line because of it.” He flinched as images of Hugh getting dragged beneath the rush of diseased in the labs’ corridor charged through his mind. “And as much as we would have stood by him and helped him, Hugh didn’t want to be saved.”

  For as long as William wanted to talk, Artan listened. A lull in the conversation, the boy said, “I’m sorry about your mum and dad.”

  “Me too, mate. And yours.”

  “Mum wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in this new world.” Artan’s expression turned stony. “And Dad had to go. I’d do it all over again.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of people die over the past few days. I even had to kill someone. When Olga and I were following you back to Magma’s fortress, a woman jumped out. We would have been caught if I didn’t take her down. There was nothing else I could do.”

  “Needs must,” Artan said.

  “Sure, but it’s not an easy thing to take a life. And it must be harder when you’ve known that person like you knew your dad. No matter how justified or how much you hated them.”

  When Artan snapped alert, it took William a few seconds of scanning the horizon to see the tall figure with thick curly hair. A shorter person walked at his side.

  “Before we wake the others,” William said, “I want you to make this choice. I trust your instinct about Samson. Do we go to meet them or not?”

  “My gut says no, but I don’t think that’s enough to condemn someone to death.”

  “I need to know you’re happy with this, Artan.”

  The boy winced as he stood up and stretched. He then walked over to wake Matilda.

  Like most things in the ruined environment, the tall metal structure wore its decay like a peeling layer of skin. A coating of rust on the twisted and pockmarked steel, the gritty flakes rubbing off on William’s palms as he climbed. Unlike the building they’d spent the night in, the metal skeleton had few places to hide from the sight of the diseased. Although Samson and Cyrus watched him, he kept his words back until he’d climbed close to them.

  “First,” William said to Cyrus, holding out his hand to shake, “I want to introduce myself. I’m William, and I told you I’d be back.”

  Cyrus’ smile lit his face as he accepted William’s gesture, his grip firm. He laughed. “That you did.”

  Then William turned to Samson. “Thank you for meeting us here. Can we move somewhere else?” Even as he spoke, Matilda, Artan, Olga, and Max fought on the ground, taking down the diseased who appeared beneath them. He’d left his sword with Matilda. “We need to be somewhere where we can hide from the diseased.”

  They chose a building towards the edge of the ruined city and climbed onto its roof. Only one storey high and half of it had already collapsed. The other half looked like it would soon follow. Samson had brought a sack with him, and now they were sitting again, he handed out water, carrots, bread, and some dried meat.

  “This ain’t human, is it?” Olga said, eyeing the cured brown strip. “Coming from Magma’s fortress and all.”

  Samson laughed. “Protein is protein.”

  “This is human?”

  He laughed again and shook his head. “Don’t worry, Magma hasn’t got that desperate yet.”

  “Yet?” Olga said.

  “Come on, you saw what he was like. If the animal meat ever runs out, he won’t think twice.”

  Resisting the urge to drain his flask of water in one, William took slow sips in between mouthfuls of deer. Too much and he’d throw it all back up again or, at the very least, spend the next few hours trying not to.

  Several diseased’s cries, Samson leaned forward to watch a small pack of the vile things pass through the ruins below them. “This place is a nightmare.”

  “You have no idea,” William said, his shoulders still sore from dragging himself along the pipe over the crowd of creatures the previous day.

  “You think?” Samson lost focus. “Remember the one hundred that left the arena? I was the only one who survived.”

  “Sorry, of course you have an idea. I was more referring to yesterday; there were hundreds of them. If Max—”

  “Hadn’t found that old building to hide in,” Olga said and her eyes narrowed, “we would have been screwed.”

  Not only did Olga glare at him, but Max, Matilda, and Artan all stared his way too. And rightly so. He’d nearly outed the boy when he’d specifically asked them not to. It didn’t matter if he trusted Samson and Cyrus, Max had to be the one to tell them.

  “I’m sorry we left you on the roof in the national service area,” William said.

  Cyrus shrugged. “It’s fine. I get it. I didn’t want to go into Edin anyway. You said you’d be back, and you were true to your word.”

  “If only Trent saw it that way.”

  “Trent’s better off with Magma. They’re on the same wavelength.”

  William pulled the map from his pocket again and stretched it out on the roof. The small blue blob of the nearest community sat close to the edge of the ruins. They were already at the city’s border, the old buildings giving way to grass, rocks, and fallen walls scattered throughout the lush expanse. His finger on the community, William said, “I don’t think we’re very far away from this place.”

  “That’s the plan, is it?” Samson said. “Find another community to settle in?”

  “You have a better one?” William said.

  After a moment, his thick jaw working on the piece of bread he’d just bitten off, Samson shrugged. “No. I think the safety of being inside walls makes sense. There’s no future in living on roofs, scavenging as we move from elevated position to elevated position.” He pointed out across the grasslands. “From the look of the map, I think we should head that way.”

  When no one else offered any thoughts, William folded the map. “Shall we move on, then?”

  Olga had tried to hold Max’s hand, but he’d pulled away. Instead, she strode ahead of the group, walking backwards through the long dewy grass, her hands hanging down as she dragged them through the meadow. She faced her friends and what they were leaving behind. “I suppose this is it, then? We had somewhere to hide when we ran into the diseased in the ruins.” She drew her sword and spun
full circle, her eyes aglow. “We see any now and we have to stand and fight.”

  By the time William had drawn breath to warn her, Olga had backed into the tip of the boy’s spear. She stopped and turned around. The boy lifted the flint point to her face, his thick arms holding the shaft with a tight grip. Fifteen to twenty of them—all boys around William’s age and older—appeared from the long grass. Naked from the waist up, they were all ripped. Fit lads. Hunters. Each of the boys was armed with a spear. Each one decorated with what looked like the dried blood of their prey. Each one had their hair shaved to the scalp. They were warriors unlike any he’d seen before, and they were in charge of the situation.

  The largest of all of them was a boy maybe two to three years older than William. His closely cropped hair revealed a hint of red, the same flecks in his stubble. Eyes of deep hazel, he spoke with a measured calm. “Put your weapons down, and we won’t hurt you.”

  Olga let her sword go, and before William could hand his over, someone behind him pulled it from its sheath and discarded it nearby.

  Artan glared at Samson while throwing his sword to the ground. “You set this up!”

  The tip of a spear resting against the back of his skull, Samson shrugged. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You set us up. You’ve handed us to Magma on a plate.”

  “Who the hell’s Magma?” the lead hunter said. “You know what? Don’t answer that. The next one to speak will get a spear through the back of their head. I don’t know how you’ve survived out here; you walk through the grass like cattle. If you want to stay alive, shut up and come with us.”

  The spear tip pressed against the base of William’s skull stung like an ant’s bite. One hard lunge would force the flint through the front of his face. He moved off with the others, a million questions silenced by the threat of death.