Kassy Tayler: Remnants of Tomorrow

“Wren!” Pace yells above the voices. He shakes me. “We’ve got to go before they kill us.”

“This way!” Findley says. He shoves my father’s body out of the way with his foot and opens the door. Pace pulls me inside, and the rest of my friends follow.

“Find something to block this door,” Lyon commands as he and Findley lean against it.

I shake my head. All around me is chaos. David and Levi run to do Lyon’s bidding. James takes the gag from Zan’s mouth and unties her hands. Then he puts his hands on her cheeks and kisses her. She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him back. “Let’s see if we can find another way out of here,” James says to Zan, and they take off, hand in hand.

Pace is standing before me. From somewhere he got a handkerchief, and he is using it to wipe the blood from my face. I can see the mob through the window. Some of them beat against the doors. Lyon and Findley push all their weight against them to keep them from getting in. My father’s body is out there.

“We shouldn’t have left him,” I say.

“There’s nothing we can do for him,” Pace says. And then through the window I see my father’s body, moving through the air, carried over the heads of the people as if he were a dead fish floating on the surf. There is nothing they can do to him. He is dead, yet the knowledge that they have him, that they will defile him, sickens me. Pace continues to dab at the blood on my face while David and Levi return with a large table.

The mob beats at the door. They are organized now, working in unison while shouting vile things at us. They don’t know who we are. They don’t realize that we are trying to free them. They are angry and full of hatred and looking for someone to blame and since my father took the coward’s way out their hatred is now centered on us.

“I just wanted to help,” I whisper. “Don’t they know that?”

Pace puts his hands on my face, but I continue to stare out the windows at the people pressing against it. David and Levi struggle to push the table into place while Lyon and Findley try to hold back the mob.

“Wren. Look at me.” Pace puts his hands on my face, forcing me to stop looking out the window and to look into his beautiful blue eyes. “We’re not done yet. We’ve come so far. You’ve got to stay with us.” He kisses me quickly. “You’ve got to stay with me.”

I understand what he’s saying, but I can’t seem to keep up with him. I feel as if my mind and body are completely out of sync, as if time, for me, is going at a different speed. I know that I still hold Levi’s crossbow in my hand and it feels as if it is a part of me, an extension grafted to my bone.

I see James and Zan come back to where we stand. James shakes his head. “We’re surrounded,” he says. “It’s as if everyone in the dome is out there. It’s only a matter of time before they make their way in the other entrance.”

My mind and body come together again in the time that surrounds me, and suddenly everything makes sense. “Everyone is.” I look at Pace, and he smiles as he runs his thumb beneath my eye, catching a tear that I did not know was there. “We’ve got to talk to them.”

“We can’t go out there,” James says. “They’ll kill us.”

“We’ve got to,” I say. “It’s the reason why we’re here.”

“We’re not going to have any choice,” Levi announces. “We can’t hold them off much longer.”

“Everyone have your weapons ready,” Lyon instructs. He hands Findley one of his guns. “This is a lot better than the one you have. It shoots more than one round.”

“Thank you,” Findley says, and shakes his head as Lyon pulls another gun from a shoulder holster so that he once again has one in each hand. Levi hands one of his guns to Zan and fills his empty hand with one of the long knives he carries on his back. David and James are both armed, as is Pace, and I have the crossbow.

“Keep your heads and try to stay together,” Lyon says. “Try to make for the tank.” Before his words fade into the noise outside the door splinters and the glass breaks. Hands reach through, trying to grab us. Behind us are the sounds of voices raised in victory and the pounding of footsteps. They are coming at us from both directions. The table screeches across the floor as the crowd beats on it and finally the door flies open as it clears the table.

“Shoot at them to discourage them,” Lyon yells, and he aims at the first man who comes through the door and drops him. More people press through, stepping on their fallen comrade without thought. More shots are fired but there are so many of them and suddenly we are all outside, surrounded by pushing and pulling and screeching voices. They will tear us apart. All of us.

Somehow I am torn away from Pace. I see him, reaching for me. Calling my name. I raise the crossbow and shoot the man who drags me away from Pace. I hear gunshots and screams and the heavy steps of the tank. Somehow I find myself at the fountain and I try to step onto the dais. I notch another arrow into the crossbow and look above the crowd for Pace. Instead I see my father’s body, hanging by the neck from a lamppost and it sickens me. Yes, he deserved to pay for his crimes, but this, this is so very wrong.

More gunshots sound, and I realize that all my friends are fighting for their lives. We have the superior weapons, but there are so many people. Where is the tank? As if in answer to my prayer, I feel the vibration beneath my feet that means it is close. It storms into the square and people scatter as a volley of gunfire bursts from the windows.

Suddenly Pace has me and is rushing me away from the fountain to the tank. Lyon is there, along with Findley.

“Where are Zan and James?” Lyon shouts. We all shake our heads. More shots are fired into the crowd from the tank. People fall to the ground, some wounded, others in fear, screaming and covering their heads. More shots sound on the other side of the square. James and Zan? I can’t see who is shooting. Pace presses me against one of his legs and shields me with his body. Lyon fires his gun into the air and the noise subsides as the crowd quiets down, knowing they are outmatched. I can feel them trembling in fear. No matter how angry they are, they don’t want to die.

It grows so quiet that I can hear crying. Who is crying? It sounds like Zan. Is it Levi? Oh God, please no, don’t let it be Levi.

Pace gasps, and then he turns to me and his face is stricken. I am too short. I can’t see over the people. I can’t see over the crowd. “Who is it?” I ask. “Who is hurt?”

“James,” he says. “It’s James. I think he’s dead.”

The crowd parts for us as we walk through. I don’t know if it’s the weapons we carry or the looks on our faces that humble them. We move until we come to the steps of my father’s building. Zan sits on the top step with James’s head in her lap. Lyon dashes to her side. Behind us I hear the heavy clomping of the tank as Harry pushes through the crowd to stand between us and the mob.

James.

Our friends appear. Adam runs up the steps, followed by Jon, Colm, and Joe. Levi appears and then David. They are both bloody and their mouths set in a grim line. Bluecoats line the steps, and Pace and I pass through them. I kneel beside Adam.

“He saved me,” Zan says. Tears run down her face. I look at James and see the hole in his chest where his heart lies. I see the blood seeping out of his chest.

“One of them took my gun from me,” Zan says, and I see that she is bloody too. “He didn’t know what he was doing. It went off and James stepped in front of the bullet. If not it would have struck me.” Lyon puts his hand on her hair, and she crumbles into him.