Oasis

by Eilís Barrett

  ‘And?’ I ask, my heartbeat picking up.

  ‘And that was it.’ He looks back at me, shrugging. ‘That was all she said.’

  I bang my fist into the doorframe in frustration.

  Kole disappears into the house for a moment, then comes back out, tucking two handguns into the waistband of his trousers.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he says abruptly, and starts walking towards the trees.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I call after him.

  ‘Somebody needs to teach you how to shoot,’ he says, without looking back.

  I glance back at the house, thinking of my first miserable attempt to learn with Mark, but the idea of being cramped in the house all day is worse than any embarrassment I might have to endure with a lesson, so I jog to catch up, following him into the trees.

  Kole walks us farther west, in the opposite direction to Oasis, until we’re far enough away from the camp that I can’t inadvertently shoot anyone. He pulls one of the guns from his waistband and throws it to me, and I look up just in time to clumsily catch it before it hits me over the head.

  ‘Now what?’ I ask, taking the gun into my other hand.

  He shrugs, cocking his head to the side.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘You?’ I ask, fighting a smile.

  ‘That tree,’ he says, pointing to the thick trunk of a tree to my left.

  ‘That’s it?’ I ask.

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘You’re an awful teacher,’ I mutter, turning to face the tree.

  I stand with my shoulders squared, my eyes locked onto the bark of the tree. I see a blurry, dark image of Aaron’s gun pressed to Bea’s temple, feel the secondhand terror.

  I pull the trigger, my eyes squeezing closed as the bullet skims the bark of a tree to the left of the one I was aiming at.

  ‘See?’ I say, trying to sound dismissive, but I can feel the anger bubbling up beneath my skin. ‘I can’t do it.’

  Kole considers me carefully, his eyes skimming over me like he’s analysing my every movement. I shift my stance, feeling uncomfortable, and he takes a step forward.

  ‘Do it again,’ he says.

  ‘No,’ I snap, the anger bursting to the surface. ‘I hate this.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he says, and suddenly his dark eyes lock with mine, his stare so intense I want to take a step backwards, but I won’t show that kind of weakness. ‘That’s exactly your problem. You need to stop hating it. You need to stop feeling anything for it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What did you think about? Just before you fired, what were you thinking of?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I say, too quickly. ‘I wasn’t thinking about anything.’ I see Aaron’s face in my mind, the light of the Celian City glancing off his blonde hair as he looks at me, his smile mocking.

  ‘Well that’s a lie,’ he says, coming to stand beside me, pulling out his own gun and aiming at the tree. ‘I don’t need you to tell me what it was, but I do need you to stop thinking about it. It doesn’t matter now.’ He shifts his stance, releasing a slow breath as his eyes narrow on his target. ‘Forget everything but the gun and the target.’

  He pulls the trigger. The bullet buries itself in the centre of the tree trunk. He lets his arm fall, and turns to look at me.

  ‘Now it’s your turn.’

  I shake my head, fixing my stance in determination, pulling the gun up in front of me.

  He tweaks my hold on the gun, placing my thumb on the opposite side, the callouses on his fingers scraping against the skin of my hand.

  ‘Deep breath in, deep breath out. When you feel all the air push out of you, that’s when you fire,’ he says, quiet now. I do as he instructs, but every time I release a breath Aaron’s face appears in front of me, or worse, Bea’s. He sees the expression on my face and knows what it means.

  ‘Your emotions won’t help you,’ he says, looking directly at me, his hand cupping the gun beneath mine. ‘Not now. And not when there’s an Officer in front of you. You need to let it go. Everything, every single thought inside your head. Let it fall away from you.’

  I take a better grip of the gun, closing my eyes as I inhale, feeling his hand fall away as I imagine my brain clearing, my emotions fading away.

  I open my eyes, pull the trigger, feel the recoil push me back a step as the bullet lodges itself in the bark, just beside Kole’s.

  36

  The next day, a quarter of the group leaves. Jonas and Meredith are the only ones I know personally who are leaving, but it’s hard to see them go nevertheless.

  ‘Don’t go,’ Lacey begs, tears streaming down her face as we stand at the front of the house, seeing them off. ‘You don’t have to fight either. Just stay here with us, where it’s safe.’

  But no one answers her, because we all know it’s not. It’s not safe here, and it’s not safe out in the open, and it’s certainly not safe raiding the Officers, but as the group of nine people walks past the clearing and into the forest, I think the fighting can’t possibly be worse than this, just staring helplessly as parts of your community slowly fall away.

  In the ten days that follow, we find two separate Officer encampments. The first one is small, and we take it on just with the scout group, which is me, Jay, Clarke, Walter, Mark and Kole. The other camp is bigger, and we regroup at the base, returning with the rest of the group, now sixteen people in total. Word of our raids must be getting around, however, because we got the distinct sense they were ready for us. The fight was bloody, and several of our people were injured, but the numbers were on our side, with almost twice as many of us as there were Officers, and eventually we were able to go home intact.

  Lacey still won’t talk to me. Although the missions are successful, we come home each time with more than a few of us injured, which means our makeshift hospital on the third floor is kept busy. After the last attack, I listened from my room as Lacey argued with Kole in the kitchen.

  ‘We can’t do this anymore,’ I heard her whisper furiously. ‘We can’t afford people getting injured like this. It’s only a matter of time before you’re carrying home a dead body, and then what?’

  ‘Lacey,’ Kole murmured, trying to calm her down, ‘we’re getting on better now than we ever have. The supplies we’re taking from the Officer camps more than cover anything we sustain during the fighting, and our food stock has been growing. We could win this, Lacey.’

  ‘Win what?’ Lacey asked, with more venom than I expect. ‘Because I don’t see any great prize at the end of this. They are stronger, they have more weapons, they have numbers on their side. You’re winning battles, Kole, not the war.’

  There was a silence then, before Kole said, ‘Lacey, I know where you’re coming from, but I don’t want to keep running either. I don’t want anyone to get hurt, but I want to provide a safe place for us. The others are convinced this is the best way to do that. I don’t have a better answer, so I have to be willing to let this happen.’

  Lacey sighed. ‘You know I like her, Kole, but I don’t like what she’s doing to the group.’

  ‘I do,’ he said, and there is a firmness in his voice I didn’t expect either, no trace of doubt left over from when he was fighting against me, instead of with me. ‘I think she’s what this group needed.’

  ‘But when Jay was doing this, you said he was reckless. That he was a danger to us all. How is she any different?’

  ‘Jay ran headlong into the biggest patrol we’ve ever seen, grief-stricken and angry. She gathered people. Made sure she was meeting the Officers on her own terms.’ I heard him take a deep breath, could imagine him running his hand through his hair, desperate to keep everyone happy.

  But he can’t. At least I knew that.

  ‘Listen,’ he said softly, ‘it’s not perfect. But it’s better than nothing. We couldn’t have continued on like that forever. Running from Oasis was never going to do any good, even though I convinced myself it was our only option. But it wasn’t. We always ha
d a choice. All Quincy did was open my eyes to that.’

  I heard Lacey sigh in a long, drawn-out breath.

  ‘I want to stand by you, Kole. I want to support you. But I can’t. Not this time.’

  I could feel heat burning its way through me at her words. I couldn’t believe her. I couldn’t believe any of these people, willing to stand by, criticising us from the sidelines as we try to fight for our lives – and theirs.

  The restlessness to keep moving forward has been taking me over the past few days, and no matter how much we do or how fast we work, I still can’t shake the feeling that it isn’t enough, that we need to do something more.

  Instead I tell myself that everything is fine. That we’ve done more in the last few weeks than this group has done in years. I tell myself it’s enough, and attempt to ignore the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, pushing the sense of foreboding somewhere deep inside of me, where I can forget about it and it can’t touch me.

  37

  Kole forces me to take a hand-to-hand combat session with Mark in the mornings. I tried to argue that I didn’t need it, but he insisted. An hour into my first class I flop down onto the grass, groaning.

  Clarke, who is sitting on the grass sharpening a knife as she watches us train, bursts out laughing. I throw her a sour look, and she grins at me.

  ‘Hey,’ Mark says, crouching down beside me. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Other than getting beaten up for an hour?’ I ask, sarcasm dripping from my tone. ‘Peachy.’

  I’m not used to fighting with my own two hands; I had a knife in Oasis, and a person with a knife was the person in charge, and that was never questioned. But the bruises on my face from the brawl with that Officer are a testament to how different things are out here, and Kole insists we know how to defend ourselves from any position.

  ‘You didn’t do too bad,’ Mark says, sitting back onto the grass as he slings his elbows around his knees.

  The sun is warm against our backs, and as the first touch of spring melts the ice from the rivers and takes the edge from the wind, it feels almost too perfect out here, considering what we’re training for.

  ‘That was horrific,’ I say with a shudder. ‘I’ve never been so bad at anything in my whole life.’

  ‘You’ll catch on. Everyone finds it hard in the beginning.’

  ‘I suppose …’ I murmur, rubbing my ribs where I took a hit. ‘Couldn’t you have gone a little easier, though?’

  He just shakes his head, like I’m being ridiculous.

  ‘He was going easy on you, genius.’ Clarke laughs. ‘You need to toughen up, that’s your only problem.’

  Clarke doesn’t pull punches, but her snarky remarks seem to have changed from aggressive to laid-back, as though she’s not actively trying to tear me down anymore.

  Wonderful.

  ‘Hey guys.’ Kole lands beside me. Startled, I shove him when I realise he’d been creeping up on us. He laughs at my reaction, and I almost jump again. The sound is still a shock every time I hear it, incongruous against everything else I know about him.

  ‘Having trouble?’ he asks, handing around water to us all.

  ‘No,’ I say, just as Mark and Clarke say, ‘Yes.’

  Kole bursts out laughing again, and I move to get up and leave, but he drags me back down.

  ‘Stay,’ he says, trying to keep a straight face. ‘I promise I won’t laugh.’

  ‘You’re laughing right now!’

  ‘Okay, I promise I won’t laugh in one second.’ His mouth works as he tries to stop, and I shake my head, looking out across the clearing as I drink.

  The house we’ve been living in is mostly buried in trees, but directly around it is bare, except for the grass and weeds that have taken root in the years it’s been desolate. I wonder who lived here, and I wonder why they left.

  Lauren is up and moving around now, and the bullet wound is slowly healing. She’s still not saying more than a few words to anyone, all of them mundane, meaningless and completely useless to us.

  Kole has finally stopped laughing and is talking to Mark about the content of the training sessions for the next few days. This easy, calm version of him makes me edgy, because suddenly I don’t know what to expect from him. Frowns and jabs and arguments I’m ready for, but not jokes and laughter and smiles. I don’t know this Kole, and I haven’t even decided if I want to.

  He sees me watching him and he grins, his dark eyes sparkling in the sun. I lie down on the grass so I don’t have to look at him, too confused to think straight, and close my eyes against the bright sun, letting the gentle hum of conversation wash over me.

  But maybe I shouldn’t push away this newfound Kole. Everyone has been changing, not just him. Suddenly people are smiling when they see me, and conversation doesn’t drop off when I come near. I feel like maybe this is what it feels like to belong somewhere.

  And maybe I shouldn’t push that away, I think sleepily. Maybe this is what I was looking for when I left Oasis.

  38

  Kole shakes me and I try to push him off, but when I open my eyes he looks frantic, and I’m abruptly wide awake. I sit up and he grabs my hand and starts pulling me back towards the house, shouting something at me, but I can’t hear him, can’t hear anything but the terrifying crashing all around me, the sound of something howling in the distance.

  I look over my shoulder, watching the chaos unfold behind me. Officers in blue uniforms swarm out of the trees, and the sound I was hearing was shouts and screams and gunshots and the advancing troops, pouring out of the forest endlessly.

  Kole and I burst into the house, and I can’t breathe. The kitchen is packed, and everyone is shouting, and I can hear people crying in the background as I feel the room closing in on top of me.

  ‘Help Lacey get everyone upstairs!’ Kole shouts into my ear, dropping my hand and grabbing a gun from under the sink. He bolts through the door before I can respond, so I turn around, scanning the room for Lacey, who is over by the stairs, guiding people up to the next floor.

  ‘What happened?’ I shout to her.

  She shouts to someone behind her, then turns back to me, eyes wide with fear.

  ‘They just appeared out of nowhere and started taking pot shots at us. This is payback,’ she says, looking directly at me.

  ‘Is everyone okay?’ I shout over the noise, ignoring her.

  Lacey grabs my arm and drags me upstairs. ‘Quincy, we need to go! Now!’

  I shake myself, forcing my feet to run alongside Lacey, taking the steps two at a time. Upstairs is a mess. There are people crying and arguing and shouting at each other, all piled into the room together. The minute Lacey makes it into the room she screams for everyone to be quiet in a way I didn’t expect to come from her.

  ‘Everyone get down on the ground! They can shoot through the windows!’ She sounds scared, but everyone obeys her, and soon everyone has their backs to walls or is crouched on the floor.

  ‘Check upstairs,’ Lacey instructs me. I nod, sprinting up the steps and onto the third floor, where I find several of the injured sitting bolt upright, four pairs of terrified eyes staring wildly at me.

  ‘Everyone downstairs!’ I shout, helping a man up by the arm. His leg was injured in one of the raids and he still hasn’t healed enough to walk on his own. I move them downstairs as fast as I can, leading the man by the arm.

  There are muted sobs in the back of the room, but all anyone can actually hear is the shots being fired.

  Clarke bursts into the room, a gun in her hands and a fierce expression on her face.

  ‘Clarke,’ I breathe, and I don’t know how we got to a stage where I’m relieved to see Clarke’s face. ‘Get three others and guard the doors,’ I order, and my voice doesn’t shake.

  ‘Hey.’ She catches my arm before I walk out the door. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to fight,’ I say, looking straight into her dark eyes.

  She nods, without a word, and walks strai
ght through into the room, picking three people to defend the room with her.

  I turn on my heel, sprinting downstairs and into my room for my gun and then straight for the door. I push it open, my heart thundering in my chest as sweat drips onto the back of my neck.

  We haven’t dealt with this before. Not this many. Not on their terms.

  I slip around the side of the building, my eyes scanning for Kole and the others. They’ve set up posts around the house, hiding behind barrels and debris as they fire blindly at the Officers, who are constantly moving forwards and getting closer.

  There has to be fifty Officers at least, breaking into units and moving together, as if they have one brain, their movements not their own. I push up against a corner, setting up the rifle behind the wall and dodging in and out, firing at the spots of blue swarming the clearing.

  We should have been ready for this, I think, we should have been prepared for a counterattack, for them to do to us what we’ve been doing to them. I feel a white hot anger at my own stupidity as my sweaty palms slip on the cold metal of the gun. The smell of the steel enters my nose, and it calms me. I remember Kole’s instructions, and wipe my mind of thoughts and emotions. I exhale slowly.

  It doesn’t matter.

  How we got here doesn’t matter.

  What happens next doesn’t matter.

  All that matters is the gun in my hands and the targets in front of me. I fire, only watching long enough to see the Officer fall before moving my aim to the left, firing again and again and again.

  Officers fall like flies all around us, but I can’t see any of my friends, and it’s putting me on edge.

  Let it go, I tell myself sternly. I have to keep my focus.

  I quickly fall into the rhythm, just like every other fight: one Officer at a time, one shot at a time. My aim is better now, a million times better, but every time I miss I struggle to keep my temper in check, frustrated with myself.

  Focus.

  I pick another one off, and then another.

  And then I see them dragging him out, four Officers surrounding a black blur, knees scraping against the gravel as they pull him along by his arms.