The Invasion of the Tearling

Lily pressed the gas again, gently this time, and rolled the car forward, out of the bright circle of light.

WHEN LILY WAS in the car, Jonathan used the private highway. But there had been a few times when the highway was down, blocked by debris dragged onto the roadway or sabotaged by explosives. Even Security couldn’t repair a badly damaged highway in less than a week, and at such times Jonathan always turned onto a small back road a few miles outside the wall, a dirt track that headed north for a few minutes through the woods before it joined with Highway 84. No matter how hard Security worked to keep the public off the private roadways, they always found a way through, cutting new paths through the woods and digging tunnels beneath fences. This idea, which would have alarmed Lily a few weeks ago, now seemed oddly comforting. Jonathan’s back road might have allowed William Tear to get close to New Canaan before slipping over the wall, might have allowed Dorian to evade Security as she fled from the base. It took Lily several U-turns before she spotted the small break in the undergrowth. When she guided the car through, she could hear the scrape of brambles along the paint.

“The better world,” she whispered as she guided the Mercedes forward through the woods, feeling the sharp thump of rocks beneath the tires. Trees surrounded the car, ghostly white pillars in the glare of the headlights. “It’s out there, so close we can almost touch it.”

She kept an eye on the side windows and rearview mirror; there were probably some people living out here somewhere, though they’d need some serious weaponry to break into this car, which had steel-reinforced windows and was built like a tank. But she saw no one, and after twenty minutes of carefully crawling along, she emerged onto the public highway. Highway 84 was much wider than the private roads, its northern span stretching six lanes across, and without the ten-foot walls that bordered most private freeways it felt very wide, almost limitless in its emptiness, remnant of a bygone era when everyone could afford cars and gas. Signs on Lily’s right advertised the speed limit as sixty-five, but Security never bothered to police the public highways anyway, and sixty-five seemed ridiculously slow, almost like standing still. Lily sped up, then sped up further, easing the car over eighty-five and up toward ninety, finding a pure pleasure in going fast, in watching the miles fly by.

Several times she saw the remains of old barricades on the highway shoulder: piles of trash, blown tires and tree branches that had simply been cleared to one side and left for wind and time to disperse. She couldn’t fathom the purpose of such barricades, and this, more than anything else, drove home to Lily how little she knew about life outside the wall. Even as a child, she had always used the private roadways, always had temperate weather, never needed to worry about starving.

Occasionally she saw fires lining the sides of the road, large bonfires surrounded by the silhouettes of many people. The poor, moving out of the cities and into the forests … safer, most likely, but also harder to survive. Lily couldn’t slow down to take a closer look; armored or not, a Mercedes rolling at street speed was an open invitation. But she couldn’t help staring at them in the rearview mirror, all of those human shadows standing around the flames. She couldn’t help imagining the lives they led.

“The better world,” she whispered, repeating it every time another mile ticked off the odometer and into the night at her back. Green exit signs flew by, some of them so worn that Lily could barely read the white letters announcing their towns. Vernon, Tolland, Willington. Some of these were undoubtedly ghost towns, while others were alive but given over to lawlessness. Lily dimly remembered hearing Willington mentioned on a news site a few months ago, something about a cult. But she couldn’t remember, and then Willington was behind her. She was halfway to Boston now, only seventy-five miles to go.

Her phone beeped, and Lily gave a small croak of fright, certain that Greg had woken up, that he had gotten hold of a phone. She could barely bring herself to look at the screen, but when she did, she saw the word Jonathan shining against the bright blue background.

“Answer … Jonathan?”

“Where are—Mrs. M.?” His voice crackled with static, dropped out. But of course, cell service would be wretched outside the walls. People like Lily weren’t even supposed to be here. With the advent of panic buttons in cars, no one even used a phone for emergencies anymore.

“I’m on my way to Boston.”

“What’s in Boston?” She might have been imagining it, but even under the static, Lily sensed a sudden, guarded quality about Jonathan’s voice.

“The warehouse! The port! They’re in trouble, Jonathan. Mark had Arnie Welch over for dinner—”

“Mrs. M.? Can—hear you. Don’t—” Now the static cut in for a long moment, “Boston!”

“Jonathan?”