Seen what?
The End.
Do I believe Crenshaw can see the future? No. I’m not nuts. But do his ominous words sink into my brain and make me nervous? Maybe even paranoid?
I wish you to join me.
Why?
For protection.
Yeah, they sure as shit do.
I watch Ryan closely as he works with the other men to prep the weapon. His hands move quick and strong as they bring the arm down to the ground, a large net of bulky stones rising into the air across from it. He’s slow and gentle as he helps load a small, dark ball of deadly into a basket at the opposite end of the arm. As I watch him handle the explosives my sight goes fuzzy at the edges and I can see my pulse vibrating my vision. I realize I’m holding my breath.
I let it out in a loud burst of air, gasping a little after.
“Are you okay?” Trent asks, looking genuinely concerned.
I nod. “I forgot to breathe.”
“Maybe biology will be our first lesson?”
“It’s beginning to sound like I’ll be going to school for the rest of my life.”
“It’s not unlikely.” He gestures to the trebuchet standing between us. “Do you want to know how it works?”
“I’ll wait and see.”
“Seeing something is one thing. Knowing the mechanics of how and why it does what it does is completely different.”
I shrug. “I don’t know why it rains but it still does. The world is doing fine without me poking around in its underwear drawer.”
“Ready!” a Vashon cries loudly.
I take a few steps back from the machine. Trent is right—I don’t know how it works and I’m suddenly worried I’m about to get my head snapped off.
“Fire!”
There’s a sharp snap! followed by a groan. I watch the net of stones drop rapidly, forcing the arm to shoot up into the air. It drags a long rope behind it, arcing it up and over the machine. At the end of the rope is the bag of explosives. It swings out high above us. At the tip of the arc, I watch in amazement as a small, round shadow flies out of the bag and soars far down the shore. It’s headed straight for the gates.
I lose sight of it in the dark. I’m worried it missed its mark and hit the water, but then I find it again. I catch it for just a split second as it’s haloed against the lights around the Colony gate. I don’t even have time to process that I’ve seen it when it explodes.
It’s immediately very clear that these are not flash grenades.
The night lights up in a blaze of angry red and orange, but it doesn’t fade out immediately the way the grenades did. This is meant to burn. It’s meant to destroy and it does its job. They haven’t hit the gate. We’re waiting on that. We’re drawing them out and bringing them running the way we did with the stadiums to make it easier for the cannibals to do their job on the inside. This was their signal. Right now they should be running around like the phantom ninjas they are, slipping through shadows and leaving behind lit fuses at every corner of the Colony. They’ll destroy a lot of buildings, but the important thing is that they’ll send people running into the open. Then they’ll disappear back into the tunnels, blowing the exit behind them and heading home.
That’s when the boys will hit the gates.
“How long do we give Elijah and his people?” I ask.
Ryan’s brow shoots up in surprise. “They’re people now, huh?”
“People who eat people, but yeah.”
“They have thirty minutes,” a Vashon guy tells me. He’s probably in his forties, short and stocky. He reminds me of Taylor. “We’ll launch two volleys while we wait. Hopefully they remember to stay away from where we’re firing.”
“What’s a volley?”
“It’s like buckshot,” Trent says.
I stare at him, waiting.
He stares back.
“Buckshot,” Ryan begins mercifully, “is scattered fire. Comes from one source, smaller ammunition. It’s less precise but it can be more damaging. We’re gonna do a mix of small explosives along with stones. We don’t want to blow the whole place up right now, but we want to keep them scared.”
“What if we hit someone with a stone?”
“It will kill them,” Trent answers plainly.
“Aim!” Crenshaw shouts to his team.
They move quickly to their places, each of the men taking position around the trebuchet. They roll it over the uneven ground on its large wheels until it’s facing farther inland. They’re aiming closer to the heart of the Colony.
“Load!”
More stones and dark globes are carefully lowered into the waiting bag.
“Fire!”
The trebuchet launches the mix of ammunition toward the center of the peninsula in another high, sweeping arc. I don’t see any of it fly this time. It feels like we wait forever for the impact, but finally it comes. Several small flashes of light explode on the other side of the wall. I can’t see the fires on the ground, but their light flickers against the underside of tree branches, desperate to climb the tall, dry trunks.
The watching crowd of Vashons cheers and shouts across the camp. They’re so loud I can barely hear Crenshaw speak.
“The Page is approaching.”
It’s a girl a few years younger than I am with long, light hair and a very serious expression. She’s panting for breath when she reaches us.
“Master Crenshaw, they’ve given the order!” Her words fly excitedly out of her mouth in one quick rush. She takes a deep breath. “They’re here. The zombies are here. He says to blow the damn gate.”
Cren stares at her, his face pinched with annoyance. “Did he say that word in front of you?”
“Zombies?”
“No, the swear. Did he use that word in front of you?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
I smile. This is funny from the outside.
“‘Yes,’ not ‘yeah.’ And I will blow the cursed gate. Please tell him that exactly as I have said it. Do not swear again, young lady. Not until you are older and have a stronger understanding of the weight of the words you use.”
“Yes, sir,” she says meekly.
“Very good. You wil—”
“Return fire!”
I look across the water to see a comet blazing into the sky. It’s a big ball of burning that’s been hurtled into the air, and it’s heading straight for us.
I go to run back, desperate to get out of its way, but suddenly Trent is there. I run smack into him.
“Move!” I shout, struggling with him. “Run!”
“Joss, no!”
“Run toward it!”
Everyone is yelling at once. I can’t understand all of it and I definitely can’t understand why they’d want me to run toward the fireball. I don’t have time to ask or fight about it because Trent easily lifts me up and runs us forward—right into the danger. As he swept me up into his arms I saw Cren take hold of the Page girl. He’s running her right behind us.
The fireball blazes closer to us. It looks large enough to blot out the sky—definitely large enough to crush us all into ash. But just when I think it’s going to drop right on top of us, it soars over our heads and touches down somewhere far behind us. Trent drops to his knees, curling his body over mine to cocoon me between him and the ground. There are screams when it lands, our intentional chaos in the camps suddenly turning very real. I wait, listening to Trent’s breathing against my chest and the sound of dirt and rock raining down around us.
When it stops, I hear fire burning strong and angry. My pulse quickens.
The trebuchet.
“Trent, are you okay?” I whisper.
He nods his head, uncurling from around me. He leaves me sitting on the ground in front of him as he sits up straight on his knees. The fire is burning behind him but I can see the arm of the machine standing up straight into the sky.
“Do you know why you couldn’t run backwards?” he asks seriously.