Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

Cass emptied herself onto the ground while not far away children played and people shared a meal and survivors dared to hope. She was only allowed to be a part of this community because they didn’t know. If they knew what she was, they would most likely banish her. They might even kill her.

And she wasn’t sure she blamed them.

When she returned, having wiped her face on her sleeve and chewed a few kaysev leaves plucked from a plant that had rooted along the house’s foundation to cleanse her mouth, Cass returned to the gathering as nonchalantly as she could. Zihna gave her a concerned look but Red was in the middle of a story so Cass just forced a smile and pantomimed that she was fine, then settled back into the group and watched people finish their meal.

Dor was sitting with a group that included Jasmine and Sun-hi. Jasmine had ridden in the panel van all day, but she looked drained and exhausted, her enormous belly clearly making it difficult to get comfortable on the ground. When Dor dragged over a dusty ottoman for her to lean against, she smiled at him gratefully.

Dor was incapable of sitting still; he was always on the lookout for things that needed doing. She was watching him rig a footrest from a sofa pillow when voices raised in argument caught her attention.

“Aw, man, let him,” Luddy said. He was talking to Dana, the sack that had held his dinner dangling from his hand. Luddy and Dana had never gotten along-punk and do-gooder, Cass figured there were probably some sort of father issues going on there-and it looked like Luddy was trying to provoke him, as usual. “Come on, if he had it you’d know by now.”

Owen looked on, chewing on hardtack. Luddy was right, he looked fine from a distance, and it did seem cruel, leaving him alone at the edge of the group after their long day. Dana said something quietly and shrugged, but now they had the attention of the rest of the group.

“Come on, are we really gonna sink to this on our first day out?” Luddy demanded.

Owen got uncertainly to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, stuffing the plastic bag that had held his dinner into his pocket.

“We need to be consistent enforcing the rules-” Mayhew started to say, but Dor turned on him.

“The only we here is you, buddy,” Dor snapped, his hands in tight fists at his sides. “You’ve done all right so far, but I wouldn’t start thinking you’ve got a free ride to go around giving orders.”

That was apparently all the encouragement Owen needed. He walked toward Dana and was only a couple of steps away when a gunshot blasted and he went down, a hole ripped in his thigh.

She whipped around to see who’d fired-Smoke, his gun now aimed at Owen’s heart. “Nobody go near him,” he yelled. “Not until we’re sure.”

“What did you do? ” a woman screamed.

“Stay where you are!”

“Put that gun away!” Mayhew had drawn too and was aiming at Smoke. It wasn’t an easy shot-too far, too many people in the way.

“Smoke-” Cass started, but he cut her off, his voice calm.

“Fine. I’ll go myself. I am going to walk over and check him. I’ll leave my gun here.” He slowly lowered it to the ground, in reach of Cass and away from the children, then stood with his hands in the air. “Shoot me if you want, but I’m telling you, if you don’t know if he’s infected and he’s close enough to touch a citizen, he’s the one you need to shoot.”

Owen was sitting on the ground whimpering, his hands over his thigh, blood coursing through his fingers. Dana had scuttled back a few steps.

Mayhew said nothing for a moment and then nodded. There was silence as everyone watched Smoke limp painfully toward the downed man. When he got close enough, he knelt down, slowly, using a hand on the ground to brace himself.

For a moment the two men stared at each other. Cass knew what Smoke was looking for-the same constricted pupils citizens checked for at the buddy-ups, and the sheen and flush of the skin. If Smoke was wrong, the man was still as good as dead unless the group was willing to give up a cherished spot in one of the vehicles, as well as precious medication. But if he was right-

Suddenly Owen sprang at Smoke, knocking him over. He pinned Smoke and pounded on his chest with his fist, yelling curses. People screamed as Smoke struggled to hold off the attack. Owen was skinny and now he was also wounded, but Smoke was exhausted from the day on the road, and Cass saw that he was weakening fast.

Cass snatched up the gun from the ground and ran, stumbling over people and abandoned meals. In the seconds it took her to reach them, Smoke had managed to force Owen off him and had rolled to the side. Owen was snarling and desperately trying to grab Smoke’s kicking legs.

Cass shot him. She was running when she took the shot and it went wide, hitting his shoulder rather than his head, but he stopped trying to grab Smoke and lay in the dirt, howling and bleeding from both his wounds.

Mayhew came running, followed by Dor. “Get him still,” Mayhew ordered to no one particular.

“You think I’m getting close to that?” Dor demanded, and then, contradicting himself, he went within a couple feet of Owen’s writhing body.

“Stop flailing around, goddamn it,” he yelled.

Cass’s gun hand shook. If Owen wasn’t infected, then it was the second shot that had doomed him. Hers. There was no way they’d risk transporting a man with two serious wounds, a man who wouldn’t be well enough to work for months, if he recovered at all.

He didn’t appear to hear them. He was sobbing as he tried to stem the flow of blood from his wounds. Dor toed him in the good leg.

“Look at me, you bastard, or I’ll kill you right now.”

That finally got Owen’s attention. “Bitch shot me…” he said, turning his unblinking eyes up at Dor.

They all saw it-Cass knew by the gasps from the crowd. Owen’s irises were tiny black pinpoints, and though he was staring straight into the setting sun, he didn’t squint at all.

Cass knew she only had a second. She crouched down as close to Owen as she dared.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” she demanded. “You blew up the island, didn’t you?”

Owen’s expression turned into a smirk and he looked at Cass defiantly. “We’re all gonna burn, baby, it’s just a matter of when.”

He barely got the words out before someone shot his face off.

SAMMI SAT ON a little swing that had been hung from a covered arbor that once had plants growing on it, watching the sky go from purple to gray. There were dead spikes on the arbor, probably roses or something. Sammi had seen things like that Before, benches no one sat on, ponds with fountains that no one ever threw pennies in, paths that went nowhere. Just another way for rich people to spend money on nothing.

She’d been sitting here trying to forget what Owen Mason looked like after he’d been shot, how half of his face looked kind of normal and the other half looked like a steak dipped in barbecue sauce and covered with pink cottage cheese. There was no way she was eating anything ever again, and she kind of wished she could just lie down and sleep and not wake up until the world was normal again.

“Wondered where you went.” Sammi jumped, but it was only Colton. He’d sneaked up on her-not really, but he never made a lot of noise. He was quiet, and Sammi liked that. Most of the time she loved hanging out with Kyra and Sage, but sometimes she just wanted to not talk.

That’s what they did for a while. Colton put his arm along the back of the swing, and Sammi leaned into it, and that was nice. There wasn’t anything going on with them, despite what anyone thought. After Jed, Sammi wasn’t…well, it would be a long time before she looked at a boy like that again, if she ever did. And Colton wasn’t like that anyway, he never did anything. Maybe he was gay or something. Which Sammi wouldn’t care if he was, that was cool. But whatever.