Tracey Ward - Backs Against the Wall

“Please,” I say softly, my eyes imploring.

I see it when he sighs. When he decides to help me. I wonder if it’s because I’m a girl or if it’s because he remembers what it was like to be me out in the crazy or if it’s just because he’s cold too and wants to get back inside. I don’t know and I don’t care. What matters is that he nods reluctantly, gestures for some of his boys to come to the boat to secure my boys and leads me up to shore.

“Do you have any weapons on you?” he asks, sounding bored and annoyed.

I nod, seeing no point in lying. I’ll be searched anyway. It’s then that it dawns on me that I was never searched going inside The Hive. Even to speak to Marlow. I remind myself to ask Ryan about it later.

“An ASP,” I tell the guy, “and a knife.”

“Take ‘em out. Toss ‘em on the ground over there.”

I do as he says. I can hear Trent and Ryan being asked to do the same with whatever they have. Farther up on the shore, three men with crossbows watch us all patiently, their weapons raised and ready.

“Is that it? Nothing else you want to tell me about?”

I shake my head. “That’s it.”

“I’m going to frisk you now. If I find any surprises, you’re getting your knife back in your chest. Got it?”

“Got it.”

He searches me carefully. It’s not the obscenely thorough inspection I got from the Colonists, but it’s for real. He’s quick. He never lingers inappropriately anywhere, but his hands touch me in places that no guy has ever touched me before. I’m tense, having to remind myself over and over again not to punch him in the throat. Finally, when I’m blushing and shaking from more than the cold, he steps away. When I meet his eyes, they’re tight but apologetic. Good to know he feels as weird about what just happened as I do.

He picks up my weapons then gestures for me to walk up the bank. I hear him fall in step behind me a few paces back. He’s giving himself space between us. Breathing room in case I try anything.

“That way,” a guy with a crossbow tells me, gesturing with his weapon.

I follow his directions, cutting left to walk along the shore. I hear them all walking loudly at my back and it makes me sick to my stomach but I don’t turn around. I don’t make any unnecessary moves. First, it’s dark and I can’t really see where I’m going. Second, I don’t want to get shot.

Eventually they guide us inland on a well-worn path that drops us in a parking lot. There are several abandoned cars, all parked with such orderly precision in the faded white lines that it makes me anxious. Chaos I can understand. This is just weird.

We walk for quite awhile in perfect silence, the sound of our feet on the dirt packed earth the only break. That and the crickets. It sounds like they’re everywhere, something that freaks me out. I can’t listen for the sound of approaching Risen in the brush over the noise of theses bugs and the constant crunch of so many men’s feet behind me. But then I guess there might not be any Risen here. That, like the straight lines in the parking lot, makes me anxious and angry.

Eventually we walk along an old driveway until we meet a fence. One of the guys goes up to it, speaks into a gray box and a few seconds later the black iron creaks, groans and swings open slowly. Once we’re ushered inside, I look over my shoulder to watch the gate clang shut behind us. It’s tall and imposing, but push come to shove, I’m pretty sure I could climb it. I will absolutely not be held captive again.

This area is all open field. There are trees scattered around the edges of the property, but for as far as I can see there are fences. There’s also the dark shape of a building looming in the distance, a scattering of lights on in each floor. I start to sweat thinking of all the people probably bustling inside. How many are sleeping in a huge room full of beds? How many will swarm us the second we walk in the door? How many voices and bodies will bombard me for the next few hours or days that I’m stuck here trying to do the impossible?

By the time we reach the front door of the large brown house, I’m ready to turn and run. To try my luck on scaling that fence and head for the water. When the door swings open and light spills out onto the porch, shining in my eyes like the sun, I hesitate. I don’t want to do this again. It’s different, sure, but a lot of it is the same. I don’t know what to expect in here. I don’t know anything about these people at all. Maybe they’re like the cannibals out there in the wild, feasting on other healthy, living humans. Hunting them for the sport of it. Maybe I’ll end up dinner or maybe we’ll become science experiments.

What happens is we’re greeted with silence. A large empty entrance hall with tall ceilings, a huge staircase and absolutely no people. I’m nudged from behind to get me moving and the amazing thing is that I go without protest. It’s warm, light and quiet. It’s dry. It’s empty. It has pictures on the walls, a decent rug over the hard floor. It smells like hot food.

It feels like a real home.

I glance back at Ryan to see him looking around in awe, his face saying everything I’m thinking. This is unreal. This is a step back in time to before the beginning. Before the bad days. Before we lost everything and everyone. He meets my eyes for the briefest of moments before we’re ushered farther inside and his expression reflects my own – it’s terrifying.

“In here,” the stocky guy tells me. “You’re going into quarantine in the back.”

“All of us together?” I ask, feeling my pulse quicken.

If their cleansing practices are anything like the Colonies, I can’t handle having Trent and Ryan in the same room seeing that. Maybe these people are bigger animals than I took them for.

“Yeah, of course. Sorry we don’t have separate rooms but your modesty will just have to survive it, princess.”

I bristle at being called princess, reminded of the first time I met Ryan when he called me the same thing. I sleep on a pile of rags on the floor like Cinder-freaking-rella. How exactly am I princess here?

We’re led down the hall to the back of the house. I hear movement inside as we go. Hurried footsteps on the floor above us, a door shutting quickly. Somewhere in a kitchen nearby a pot or pan is banged against another. I’m trying to get a count on how many people are here but I’m sure I’m not getting all of them. I wonder if this is their main house where most of the people live or if we’re being held somewhere completely isolated. Judging by the open fields around the house, I’m thinking isolated.

“Inside,” Stocky tells me, opening a door to a dark room.

I glare at him as I walk past, not flinching at walking into an unknown, unlit room. I’ve been through worse and I want him to know it. To know that I’m no princess. That I’ve got backbone for miles.

When he flicks on the light, I’m shocked. This house keeps doing that to me. These people keep doing that. It’s a library, full of books on nearly every single wall but it’s really surprise attraction is the cage. It’s built against one of the walls, the bars going nearly to the ceiling. It’s something I’m thinking they stole from a police station. Something they carefully tore down and built up back here in this house. Inside there’s a single twin bed with sheets on a real mattress and a comforter. They don’t match but I’m not judging.

I look at Stocky to find him impatiently gesturing me forward, toward the cage.

“Seriously?” I ask him in amazement. “You’re just going to lock us in there? No showers? No scrubbing? No lice shampoo?”

He scowls at me. “No, no showers. No steam treatments either. The hotel spa is closed at the moment but if the accommodations are not up to your standards I can look into getting you moved to another wing. Do you want me to see if the Presidential Suite is available? Do you need turn down service? Perhaps a shoe shine.”