Beyond These Walls Box Set [Books 1-6] Page 2

  The only buildings taller than one storey were communal and government buildings. The mayor had a three-storey house, several warehouses were slightly taller, three or four monuments celebrating Edin’s greatness, and of course, the Arena. Just looking at it gave Spike a boost, his arms hurting less than they had a few seconds ago. “I’ll be there tomorrow. And when I’m the next protector, I’ll be there most nights. I’ll make sure you have front-row seats whenever you want them.”

  They usually chatted a lot on their trips to empty the pots, discussing everything from what existed far beyond their walls to how long it would be before the next section of Edin opened up to everyone. But as they moved up to the third wooden platform—the entire walkway shaking with the thud of Edin’s citizens moving along it—Spike’s dad didn’t seem to have a reply in him.

  On the fourth and final walkway, Spike now had the clearest view he’d get of the city. Ten thousand citizens divided into districts. Agriculture, ceramics, textiles … all of them standing in stark contrast to their neighbours. The ceramics sector was distinguished by the glorious mosaic of colour throughout. They had wind chimes outside nearly every house. Sheets of every possible shade and colour flapped in the gentle breeze of the textiles district as they dried in the open air. Large swathes of yellow and brown marked the agriculture area filled with its crops and ploughed fields. They all worked to make Edin greater and to support an ever-growing populace and infrastructure.

  As wonderful as the patchwork looked, the clear demarcation lines reminded Spike why he had to be the next protector. If he failed, he’d be imprisoned in the agricultural district for life. He loved his mum and dad, but he didn’t want their restricted existence. He wanted to move freely through the city. He wanted a job that made him feel alive. Most importantly, he wanted Matilda. She lived in ceramics, and if he wanted to be with someone from another district, he had to be a protector. There was a saying in Edin about falling in love with someone from another district. They said it was reserved for protectors, politicians, and fools. No way he’d be a fool. Even less of a chance of him becoming a politician.

  Spike looked across to the opposite end of the city at the two large gates leading to the national service area. It was where the national service cadets stayed. He would be one of them in two days’ time, spending evenings there and days outside the city’s walls, extending Edin’s boundaries so the city could grow.

  “Just focus on national service before you think about becoming a protector,” Spike’s dad finally said, breaking him out of his daze.

  Spike looked away from the gates and to his dad’s sombre face. “What’s wrong?”

  His dad looked the other way, staring out over the wall, his deep frown set against the strong wind as he gazed at the wastelands and the vast lake beyond the city. A scratching sound from where he rested his ceramic chamber pot on the top of the rough stone. About five feet wide, the huge barrier had so far stood the test of time. “I love that you have the ambition to be the next protector, and I don’t want to take that away from you.”

  “But?” Spike said.

  “National service is brutal. You need to promise me you’ll take every day a step at a time. Focus on what’s in front of you so you remain alive. Don’t go into it overconfident, because you won’t get to the end of the six months.”

  “But you’ve always supported me in becoming a protector.”

  “And I still do. It’s just, I don’t want you to underestimate what’s coming to you in two days’ time. There’s a reason why only fifty percent of cadets return from national service.” He snorted an ironic laugh. “If you can call many of the broken shells who come back returned.”

  “Why don’t more people talk about it?”

  Usually, whenever Spike had a question or wanted to pose a thought, his dad would always listen intently and offer the best heartfelt advice he could. Today, he had a glaze to his eyes that showed he had his attention elsewhere. “It’s brutal,” he said. “In national service, you’re forced to make decisions. Life-and-death decisions. Sometimes you have to choose your own well-being over that of others. You might have to watch someone die to save yourself, and the chances are you know that person well because you’ve shared a dorm with them for however long you’ve been there. No one wants to relive that, and no one wants to be judged for the choices they made. For that reason, it’s easier not to talk about it.”

  While letting go of a hard sigh, his cheeks puffing out, Spike too looked at the lake outside the back of the city. He felt the force of the strong wind without a wall to block it. He looked at the pulley system they used to retrieve water from it without having to go outside. The complex wooden framework had many of the characteristics of the scaffolding he currently stood on. It stretched across over two hundred feet of long grass before it reached the water.

  Then he looked at them. Even now, on a seemingly quiet night, Spike saw the shambling forms of at least fifteen diseased. It reminded him of the walls keeping them safe from the creatures desperate to take chunks from them. Another reason to become a protector: he wanted to be part of the solution, culling them on a daily basis and showing them they wouldn’t ever win, no matter how many of them there were.

  A loud horn sounded. A Pavlovian response to it, Spike smiled at his dad. But his dad’s face remained stoic. Not even an eviction could excite him tonight. “What do you think this one’s done?” Spike said.

  They often played the game, and Spike’s dad did his part as best he could. “Maybe he robbed someone.”

  “I think he’s a murderer.” When Spike had been little, his dad would make the people being evicted the worst kind of people he could imagine. He’d make them scarier than the diseased so Spike felt safer to have them outside the city. At times, he even came close to feeling grateful to the diseased for dealing with them on Edin’s behalf.

  A few moments of silence always followed the horn, those on the wall watching, waiting for the evicted to emerge. The snap of the heavy bolt on the gate cracked through the air. The diseased in the long grass lifted their heads as one. Then the first scream. A hellish and broken wail of torment, it sounded somewhere between a hiss and a shriek. The sound of the long grass rubbed against legs as the creatures took off, sprinting at the gate. Even from where he stood, Spike’s stomach clamped with the adrenaline rush. It didn’t matter how thick the barrier between them, he always felt like this would be the time they got through. The time when one of them went for the gate rather than the evicted.

  “There goes the rabbit,” a woman farther down the wall shouted.

  Spike saw the man. He couldn’t have been much older than Spike himself. He looked fresh back from national service. After doing his bit for the city, he’d clearly then screwed them over in some way. Although, the younger they were, the better the chase. Maybe he’d make it to the water.

  As the young man made his bid for freedom, the diseased closest to him screamed as if to call the others to its position. The pack altered their course, zeroing in on the young man and ignoring the gate completely. The bolt snapped home as someone locked it below.

  Many of Edin’s evicted knew if they went the wrong way, not only would they find the ground boggy underfoot, but they’d be coated in the contents of everyone’s chamber pots as the residents emptied them from above. Like so many before him, the young man ran away from the full pots.

  “He’s fast,” Spike said, bouncing on his toes while he glanced at his dad.

  Although his dad smiled, his eyes didn’t.

  Spike looked back at the man in the grass, his path easy to follow because of the trail he left behind him. “He’s seen a gap. I think he might make it!” The closest diseased lost distance to the man as he headed for the lake. Very few made it to the lake. If they did, and if they could swim, the diseased would follow them in, but they couldn’t stay afloat. Every drop of water from the lake had to be boiled until it almost evaporated. God knew how many infected bodies rotted
at the bottom of it.

  The man had already halved the distance to the lake. “He’s going to make it!” As much as Spike hated the criminals when he was a kid, he now saw them as the underdog. Besides, he knew what the diseased were and he couldn’t bring himself to root for them. Not like he might have done as a younger boy.

  Crack! A diseased exploded from nowhere and clattered into the man’s side. Spike winced at what sounded like bones breaking on impact. Despite their withered appearance, the creatures were both fast and strong.

  The diseased who’d taken the man down snarled as it bit into him. Another crunch, this time from where its teeth sank into flesh and bone. The bite turned the man limp.

  The diseased who were running after the man just seconds before stopped as if he no longer existed. The one who’d taken him down got to its feet. Feral and with blood coating its maw, its eyes glistened a deep crimson and were spread wide on its wrinkled face. It walked away from the downed man, leaving him in the long grass. Now it had bitten him, it had done its job.

  No matter how many times he’d watched it, Spike couldn’t ever look away from someone who’d been taken down. They always started with a pulsing twitch. Violent in how it threw their limbs away from them. The man’s right leg went first. Then an arm. Like many before him, the disease ripped through his frame, spasming and snapping his form. Seconds later, he jumped to his feet, blood coursing from his eyes like those of his diseased brethren. No more than fifty feet between him and the water’s edge, as much as Spike knew the man to be a criminal in some way, his heart hurt for him. “He got so close.”

  The touch of his dad made Spike jump and turn to him. Where his eyes had been glazed, some of the presence he knew his dad for had returned. “I’m sorry to be negative today.”

  Spike shrugged and emptied his chamber pot over the side. Every few weeks, they rotated where they could dump it from so the ground around the wall’s foundations didn’t get too boggy.

  “I want you to enjoy your birthday tomorrow and your trip to the arena. Tomorrow is the last day of true freedom; you should celebrate that. Just promise me you’ll stay focused when you go for national service. Worry about becoming a protector when the time comes. Just surviving will put you in a good position to try out for the apprenticeship.” Tears glazed his eyes for a second and his features twisted as if they might buckle out of shape. “If I could go in your place tomorrow, I would.” He tapped his own heart. “Know I’ll be thinking about you every second of you being away.” Once he’d emptied his pot over the side too, he said, “Come on, let’s get home. You need some rest if you’re going to the big event tomorrow.”

  His dad’s sombre tone sank through Spike. As he looked at his hero’s slumped shoulders, he drew a deep sigh. Surely national service wouldn’t be that bad. And surely it would be worth it if it gave him a lifetime with the girl he loved.

  Chapter 2

  Just over two hundred spectators sat shoulder to shoulder on the stone benches encircling the fighting pit. Spike knew this because … well, there wasn’t much he didn’t know about the main event and the city’s protectors. After all, he planned to win the apprenticeship to be the next one. He might not know the other cadets he’d be competing against in national service, but he doubted any of them wanted it more than him. He looked at Matilda on his right.

  The fighting pit in the centre of the arena had bloodstains covering the stone ground. In the very middle, it had a metal sheet that lay flush, a trapdoor over a hole through which the protector emerged. Spike sat several rows back. The best seats in the house were lower down at the front. They were the closest to the action, but were still elevated at least fifteen feet from the pit. They were lifted high enough to make them a safe spot to watch from. In a lifetime, a resident of Edin might get five or six trips to the arena. No chance would they get one of the seats in the front row. Those seats were reserved for the more influential contingent in the city.

  Despite there being over two hundred spectators, no one spoke. It was so quiet, Spike could hear the beating of his own giddy heart. Another look at Matilda on his right. She might not have had the same enthusiasm as him for the main event, but there was no one else he’d rather be there with.

  After smiling at her, Spike looked down at those in the posh seats again. They wore finer clothes, had more space on either side of them, and didn’t look behind them at those in the second row and beyond. To get there, he’d have to become a politician or protector. No way would he ever become a politician.

  Like most of the structures in Edin, the arena had been built from stone and concrete. It made Spike’s seat too hard to be comfortable. But he didn’t care, he’d waited a lifetime to be amongst the crowd for the main event.

  Although Spike leaned in to talk to Matilda, he stopped himself. The noise would carry and he had nothing to say that he hadn’t said a thousand times already. She knew how excited he felt.

  Despite it being Spike’s first visit, he knew the experience well. He’d asked so many questions of those who’d been there before him. Inquisitive to the point of being irritating, but he’d had to know. The seats were as uncomfortable as they all said. The tension as thick in the air.

  Having just turned eighteen, Spike got his invite to attend the main event that morning. And a good job too. Occasionally, some eighteen-year-olds were forgotten about and they had to appeal. He’d be in national service tomorrow. If they’d screwed his allocation up, he’d have had no chance of finding a councillor to rectify it with so little time.

  Spike smiled at Matilda again and she smiled back. Despite her pallid hue, she’d said she wanted to come. She wanted to be with him on his eighteenth birthday, however he chose to celebrate it.

  Then the sound they’d all been waiting for. It started as a series of clicks. Many of those in the crowd looked skyward in reaction to the shriek and grind of the old machinery. Despite its daily use and maintenance, the ancient crane groaned like it didn’t have long left before it gave up completely. Spike looked up and behind him too. He took in the long neck of the mechanical beast. Red flaking paint, it wore its rust like psoriasis. It strained from the weight of its cargo, which currently remained hidden from view. A buzz of excitement broke the crowd’s silence, and Spike leaned close to Matilda. “It’s finally here.”

  Despite her nodding at him, her intelligent brown eyes taking him in, Spike couldn’t ignore the slight strain to her features. She’d wanted to be here to share in this with him—she’d said that a thousand times over—but she couldn’t share in the sadistic pleasure many got from the main event.

  A reluctance in his muscles told him no, she’d reject him, but Spike reached across and held the back of Matilda’s hand anyway. An already rapid heart, it beat quicker and harder at the contact of her warm skin. They’d spent their lives holding back from one another—led more by her than him—and would have to continue doing so until he became a protector. After a few seconds, he pulled away. If he hadn’t, he’d hold on forever and she’d have to reject him. “Are you sure you’re okay with being here? We can leave if you want to.”

  “What? That would break your heart.”

  “Not as much as making you suffer would.”

  It seemed to disarm Matilda, who stared at him for a few seconds before she said, “All summer you’ve made it your mission to pass this arena every chance you get.”

  Spike smiled.

  “I’ve been with you so many times, it would be anticlimactic to miss it now. Even if it does mean sitting through a main event. I want to be here. I truly do.”

  The bright sun caught the shine of Matilda’s long brown hair. When she tucked half of it behind her left ear, Spike took in her tanned face. Nowhere near as dark as him, she’d inherited the olive-skinned complexion of her parents. It didn’t matter that he’d known her his entire life, just the sight of her still ripped the air from his lungs. His forbidden love from ceramics. He’d entered the realm of protectors, politicians
, and fools. “Thank you,” he finally said. “I know how coming here is bittersweet for you. With your dad and all.” Not that he knew the truth of her dad, just that he made their life at home hard and it had something to do with the protectors. It prevented her from trying to be one herself. She’d tell him when she felt ready.

  A slight steeling of her features, she turned to face the arena. A second later, tears glazed her deep brown eyes. Spike watched her throat bob with a hard gulp.

  When Matilda looked back, she appeared to have regained her composure. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t want to put a downer on your birthday by talking about my family. Let’s just enjoy it, yeah? I’m honoured to be here with you. Happy birthday.”

  All the while, the clack of the crane called out. The neck of the thing continued to creak and groan. A permanent feature on Edin’s skyline for as long as Spike had been alive, the crane could be mistaken for a wreck for those who didn’t know. But at least two to three times a week, when the arena hosted a main event, it came to life like an old skeleton finding the motion it had once had when encased with muscles and flesh. Apparently, back in the old days, the crane operated on something called an engine that ran on a liquid called diesel. Not that he understood the magic of the olden days, but the end result meant the crane could move without manpower outside the arena. It seemed light years ahead of the pulleys and winches that shifted the large beast now.

  The sun hurt Spike’s eyes as he waited for the glass container to lift into view. A glance at the crowd showed him they all squinted up at it too. Only the front row remained facing forwards. They’d probably seen it hundreds of times before. The novelty had well and truly worn off for them.

  The noise of the crowd rose when the glass prison appeared over the wall. A buzz of excited chatter, it lifted the hairs on Spike’s arms and the back of his neck. He bounced where he sat.