Page 86 of Calico Descending

They drive off from the Ragers, who chase behind their truck, and my gaze falls on the entrance once more. In my periphery I watch the Ragers turn their attention on me, but I don’t move. I don’t run. Instead, I keep my eyes ahead and wait for them to tear the rest of me apart.

The infected only get within a few feet of me, swiping out their mangled hands and gnashing their teeth, but fail to breach the protective halo of Cadmus and Titus. I’m too exhausted to understand why they don’t attack with the two of them at either side of me, but as more of them circle around us, keeping their distance from where I sit beside the soldier, I begin to care less for what might happen if they manage to break through and drag me away.

Nothing could be more painful than watching those doors seal shut.

Nothing could be more agonizing than hearing the sound of my heart dying inside my chest.

Chapter 36

I step through the rubble and ash scattered in front of the silver doors, which seem to grow bigger as I approach. Aside from a few Ragers that feed on the bodies of the dead, there is no other sign of life in these ruins.

Smoke rises, where fires burned and blazed through the night, while I mindlessly watched through the growls and clicks of the surrounding, angry Ragers, until Titus and Cadmus fought them off. The scent of burned flesh and gunfire clings to the air, as I step over halfeaten carcasses and debris. When I finally reach the doors, my whole body is trembling, and I stare up the length of the impossible barrier, where not a single crack allows me any hope of breaking through.

Reaching out a hand, I feel the heat of the morning sun blazing off the steel, and the moment my fingertips make contact, I let the burn remind me that it isn’t only a nightmare. I rest my cheek against the back of my palm. Against the tomb wherein my beloved Valdys lies trapped. “Versimilitude,” I whisper, and close my eyes to the tears. In the quiet that follows, I listen for Valdys on the other side, as if I might hear him calling to me from in there. As if there’s any chance he might know I’m here.

I’m here!

There’s nothing.

No evidence that there’s any more life on the other side than here, like two empty halves divided by one barrier.

“Valdys.” The sound of his name on my tongue is a bittersweet song of pain and love, and I realize how the two have become one and the same for me. Everything I’ve loved has been shadowed by pain, as if one can’t possibly exist without the other.

My mind drifts to days past, when I sat in his cell, terrified of him and convinced there was no chance of knowing what it felt like to be in his care. To be protected by him. Tormenting memories of his hands on my body, and the steady beat of his heart against my ear, taunt my already broken heart.

I wish I could rewind to the moments yesterday evening, when he kissed me before leaving. I would’ve told him then to stay with me. I would’ve begged him to leave that illusory paradise, and we might’ve been lying under the stars one more night. But time and love are criminals who spare no one--not even the most desiring. Time is the thief who comes in the night, silently chipping away at the present.

And love is the killer of hearts.

A nudge at my side is Cadmus carrying a narrow piece of metal debris, and I step back to allow him a moment to run his hands over the surface in search of a chink--one small fissure in the door.

“You won’t open it.” The soldier’s voice is somber, still affected by the tears he cried most of the night for his younger brother. “It’s designed not to open. In training, they tell us … if ever there’s a security breach, be grateful you happen to be standing on the other side, because if you’re not, you’re likely already dead.” His voice cracks, and he lowers his head, wiping at his swollen eyes.

“There has to be a way in. There has to be.”

Shaking his head, he sniffs. “Nope. Computer shuts down inside. It’s failsafe.”

“Computers control the doors?”

“Shut down. Like I said.”

“But a computer can be turned back on. I saw it happen the night we escaped. It came back on.”

“Someone has to turn it on. From the inside. Kinda hard to do when there’s no way in.”

Cadmus slams the metal into the door, over and over again, until the scrap is bent and twisted into a shape that’s no longer what it was.

“Doesn’t matter, anyway.” The soldier tosses away a small twig he’s used to draw circles in the ash for the last half-hour. “They’re all dead.”

Pain pushes through the blackness inside me, and I fall to my knees in front of him, gripping his shirt. “They’re not dead! Do you hear me? They’re not dead! I’m going to find a way in! And if you don’t shut your damn mouth, I’ll seal it shut like this goddamn door!”

Eyes wide, he holds his face away from mine, staring back at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Perhaps he thinks I’m nothing but a stupid savage, but I don’t care. Releasing his shirt, I push off him, to my feet, and back away. “I saw Kenny on that truck. If there’s one person in the place who knows the computer system well, it’s him.”

“The rebels are probably long gone by now.”

“Maybe they are. And we’ll search this entire desert, and beyond it, until we find them. However long it takes. I won’t stop until we open these doors.”

“There’s a community on the other side of that wall, Cali. Maybe a chance for you to start over.” Cadmus doesn’t turn to face me, as he tosses the bent and twisted metal to the ground. “You could be chasing after nothing. He might very well be dead by now.”

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