FIVE
IT WAS AROUND FIVE in the morning when I finally gave in, pulled on some flip-flops, grabbed my keys and a jacket, and tiptoed out of the house. Once on the highway, I steered the car toward Newport. I spent my last two bucks on the tolls and drove over the bridges, straight to the southern tip of Aquidneck Island. There, the narrow Cliff Walk began its winding, three-mile path between mansions and ocean.
Nadia once said that when she was on that rocky trail—luxury on one side, crashing waves on the other—the two halves of her came together. She’d brought me here a bunch of times. This was where I’d taken that picture of the shoreline she liked so much. Maybe this was the place I would find her again.
I parked at the side of the road, right by the entrance to the Cliff Walk. The wind gusted around me, tangling my hair around my neck and face. The chill of it sliced right through my thin jacket as I stepped onto the stony trail, making the tattoo on my arm flash with bright, sharp pain.
As soon as it did, a hallway appeared in front of me. My mouth filled with a sour tang. I looked down at my hand. On my palm…Nadia’s palm…sat a few pills. I was in her head again. She wanted to numb herself up, too tired and terrified to care about anything but nothing. Deep inside her chest, I felt it: a gnawing, festering emptiness, a yawning chasm. She was going to try to fill it with those pills. Don’t, I whispered, but just like always, she didn’t hear me. She put one foot in front of the other, making her way down the dimly lit corridor to an open doorway at the end of the hall. With a flash of relief, I realized she had taken the Guard’s advice. She was headed for an apartment.
As her head buzzed with need, my own vision sharpened. Wherever her gaze landed, I soaked it in. Lanterns hung from sconces along the hallway, casting sickly greenish light across the closed doors, which were covered in peeling, dark pink paint. The pale orange walls were streaked black, and the floor was kind of furry. What the…? It was mold, growing like moss, all over the carpet. She left footprints in the damp, squishy clumps as she plodded toward her destination. Her fingers closed over the pills. Her mouth watered.
Something shifted behind her. She didn’t notice. All she could think about was getting into that apartment and lying on the floor, letting the pills shut her down for a while. She didn’t hear the faint brush of steps along the moldy carpet, the quiet hiss of breath coming closer with each second. Look behind you, Nadia.
She didn’t. She just shuffled toward that open door, oblivious to the soft, hooting laughter now coming from whoever or whatever was in that hallway with her. Run, I shouted. Please, run, I whispered.
She didn’t hear me.
Her heartbeat was slow and steady in my chest, but my thoughts were my own, and they were on fire. I had no trouble hearing the reedy voice cackle, “She’s perfect.” My muscles ached with tension, trying to make her sprint, but it was like running in water. She had all the control and we moved at her speed. Faster. You’re almost there. Lock yourself in that apartment.
The footsteps quickened. They were just behind her now. I felt a warm breath against my neck and smelled something rotten, but she did not turn, did not feel, did not smell it. She leaned on the doorjamb and stumbled into the apartment, forgetting to close the door behind her.…
My entire body shuddered as I was hit with a gust of chilly wind. I opened my eyes. I was now standing at the summit of a hill high above the ocean surrounded by low, bristling scrub. A thin band of orange rimmed the water as the sun emerged from the sea. The waves slapped in echoing rhythm against the rocks below. I had no time to think about how the hell I’d gotten there. All I could think was Did she make it? Did they get her?
In my helpless frustration, I shouted at the sky. “This isn’t fair! First I’m punished with these visions, and now I can’t have one when I need it most? What kind of bullshit divine justice is this? I need to know if she’s okay!” I took another step forward, trying to get closer to whoever might be listening up there. “I have to know if she made it. Please—Oh, shit!”
A sharp gust of wind hit me, and I slipped and tumbled over the scrub. My arms pinwheeled as I tried to grab at the scraggly, brittle shrubs, but they snapped off in my hands. My hips and legs bounced off the side of the boulder as I fell, but then I was plummeting through open air, plunging toward the jagged rocks and ocean below. My scream unfurled from my throat, high and clear. Oh God oh no oh no no no no—
As soon as I became aware of myself, I knew I was dead. I recognized the soaring feeling of freedom from the night I’d tried to kill myself, and I waited for the crash.
It didn’t come. Instead a bubble of contentment inflated inside my chest, bright and shining, somehow reassuring me that the fight was over, that everything would be all right. A fleeting worry crossed my mind: please don’t let Diane think I jumped…. But I couldn’t hold onto it, because the feeling of safety and happiness crowded it out, leaving no room for longing or fear or regret.
I lay on my back and stared at the piercing blue, cloudless sky. I was lying in a field, and the grass cradled me, silken and fragrant, soft as any bed. I sat up slowly, trying to recall exactly what had happened. I only remembered falling, then nothing else. I had a faint memory of being upset but couldn’t remember why. Nothing seemed worth worrying about at the moment.
I got to my feet, smiling.
And realized I wasn’t alone.
People appeared around me every few seconds, materializing out of nowhere, lying in the grass and then rising, grins lighting their faces. Each of them looked around, some slightly puzzled, none afraid. They turned their faces to the sun and walked away across the flowered meadow, backs straight, strides relaxed and smooth. Old, young, of every color. All happy. I understood their expressions. I felt the same way. I’d never really had a home, but this sure felt like one. I raised my arms to the sky in silent gratitude, soaking in the warmth of the sun above.
Then I saw her face on my arm.
She’d come with me, haunting and hunted. The sorrow in her eyes hit me like a solid punch to the gut, deflating my bubble of contentment instantly. My arms fell to my sides, and that’s when I heard it: the unmistakable shriek from my nightmares. The Suicide Gates swinging open. I spun around, trying to locate the source of the sound, amazed I hadn’t noticed it before.
There, in the distance, a city sprawled, ringed by a high wall. A dome of darkness arced over it, veiling the skyline in constant midnight. As soon as I saw the Gates, as soon as I heard them, I recognized the place. And I knew Nadia was in there. All I’d dreamed, all I’d seen was real.
The people around me didn’t seem to hear the metallic screams of those Gates. None of them turned their heads. None of them were aware of the city that loomed on the hill behind them. But once I saw it, I couldn’t look away.
I hiked through the grass toward the dome, flowers tickling my ankles, my joy just another distant memory. When I reached the boundary between light and darkness, indecision kicked my feet out from under me, and I sank to the ground.
What if…
What if she’d made it safely into that apartment? What if I could find her? What if I could get her out? What if I could bring her into the sunlight? What if I could do in death what I hadn’t done in life?
What if I could save her?
But saving her would mean I’d have to go in there. The place I’d been trying to escape for years. Did I really want to put myself through that? What if I couldn’t help her at all?
I have no idea how long I sat there staring into the darkness, listening to the Gates swinging open and slamming shut. I have no idea how long it took me to decide. It was harder than I would have expected. All the times I’d dreamed of the city, I’d never had any idea of what lay outside its walls. It was heaven out here in the Countryside, and I didn’t want to leave. Everything I’d ever needed was here. I was sure of it.
But how could I walk away from Nadia? How could I enjoy my afterlife if I never found out what happened to her? After everything she’d done for me—all those nights of studying with me, sticking up for me to her friends, even writing a letter to my probation officer…after she’d showed me I was worth something, after she’d told me she had faith in me…how could I turn my back on her when I knew what she was going through? Would I fail her again?
No. I couldn’t. I had to go after her. I could only hope I wasn’t too late.
My plan: Get into the city. Get Nadia. Keep us safe. Find a way out. Simple.
I got up, took a breath, and stepped through the veil of darkness before I could change my mind. It rested heavy against my skin, clammy and chilling, weighing me down. I fell forward, hit by a barrage of despair. I lay, forehead against the ground, palms against the stones, any remaining hope and happiness leaching away.
I was back.
The road leading to the city was paved with rough slabs of stone and teemed with hunched, moaning people. A wet, scrunching noise made me jump. A young man with dark skin and hair appeared in a heap just to my left. Slack jawed and blinking, he raised his head to the Gates and let out a cry in a foreign language, then staggered to his feet and joined the crowd.
Dazed, limp souls materialized in pathetic piles behind me and on both sides, a grisly parody of what was happening just on the other side of the veil. These poor folks rose automatically and stumbled toward the mouth of the city. The Suicide Gates sucked them all in. No one tried to escape or resist. They looked neither left nor right. Like most of the people in my nightmares, including Nadia, they seemed concerned only with themselves and whatever they were going through. I waited for that feeling, that urge to walk toward the Gates. But it wasn’t there. I could go in, but I didn’t have to. I still had a choice.
Behind the Gates, the city clung to the slopes of its hill, a cement fungus. The tallest buildings clustered at its massive center, rising so high I couldn’t tell where they ended and the sky began. The only disruption to the pattern of the city, in which low buildings lay at the outskirts and grew in circular patterns toward the center, was on its farthest wall, where an enormous, shining white building rose. In a place that ate light, absorbed it like a sponge, this building glowed. I suddenly felt total sympathy for those insects that get drawn into bug zappers. I didn’t know what that building was, but it called to me.
I tore my eyes from the building. I only had a few more minutes before I walked through the Suicide Gates and let the city swallow me, so I allowed myself one final look at all I had left behind. The lush, rolling Countryside was still visible though the sooty veil of night. Beyond the far edge of the city, a wild forest stretched for miles. Behind me, shimmering rivers meandered through golden wheat fields. And the sun shone above it all.
Nadia needed that. She needed to be out there.
I turned back to the Gates, clenched my teeth, and marched forward. Others pressed in behind me, trapping me against layers of bodies, filling me with nausea as they pushed against my back, reminding me of things I’d worked really hard to forget. I wriggled myself along, carefully nudging past arms and shoulders, chests and heads, toward the outer edge of the crowd. Time for a close encounter with the Guards. I wailed and cried, uniting my voice with others’ despairing sobs.
“Please,” I cried, reaching out toward the Guard and drawing his attention with my waving arms, “please, help me.”
When the gloved hand reached for my hair, I ducked quickly. Fingers closed around my forearm. The Guard jerked me off my feet and onto the back of the man in front of me. The poor guy fell to the ground in a crumple of arms and legs. I used the Guard’s grip as leverage to pull myself toward his armored chest. As soon as I was close enough, I twisted my arm from his grasp and used both feet to push against his metal breastplate, sending myself to the ground. I reached up quickly and yanked an elderly Asian woman down on top of me. I’d created a human pileup. Now there was a small mass of people at the Guard’s feet, and I was on my hands and knees at the bottom of the heap, right next to his boots.
Above me, the hapless victims of my plan whined and groaned. The Guard snarled angrily. He teetered against the writhing bodies shoving against him as they tried to right themselves. I lunged against the Guard’s shins, hoping all the Guards carried the same kind of hunting knife the deadly young Guard had, smiling when I found the sheath at this one’s ankle. As he took a few steps back, I unfastened the leather strap and pulled the knife free. I stuffed one hand up my shirt, holding the knife against my body, and inched forward on my knees. With my other arm, I held the Asian woman against my back like a shield, praying the Guard wouldn’t notice me creeping away with his knife.
My knees were torn and bruised by the time I made it over the threshold of the city. I collapsed to the ground, trying to catch my breath. Released from my grip, the old woman rolled to the dirt, got up, and shuffled away.
The razor-sharp blade bit my skin. I needed to be careful—the knife would do me no good if I stabbed myself with it.
One glance back at the Guard told me he hadn’t noticed my theft. He had returned to his task of herding people through the Suicide Gates. I scanned the wide plaza in which I lay. No one was paying attention to me. I got to my feet.
New arrivals dotted the open square, taking a few moments to recover before wandering off. Freed or imprisoned—I didn’t know which. I watched the Gates slam shut one more time and then turned toward the interior of the city, taking in all the details I’d never really noticed before. Old-fashioned gaslights lined the cobblestone streets, giving off a sickish pale glow. None of the light extended more than a few feet beyond each lamp, leaving broad patches of darkness along the road. Unlike the streets, which were uniform in style, the buildings in front of me were an odd assortment. The one on my left was modern, like an office building, all right angles, reflective gray glass, and metal. To my right, a crumbling adobe house squatted stolidly at the edge of the square. East meets Southwest. The city planners in hell either had very bad taste or a strange sense of humor.
I trudged forward slowly, like the people around me, even though I wanted to sprint for cover. I bent over, one arm curled around my middle, hoping any Guard who saw me would assume I was nursing an injury rather than concealing a weapon. My pants were splotched with blood from my knees, so I certainly looked the part. I felt nothing but relief as I finally reached an alley off the main road.
I crouched at the mouth of the alley for several seconds, listening for the presence of things I might not be able to see under the blanket of darkness. Hearing nothing, I sank into the murk and started to watch.