Astray

Gated

A good shepherd doesn’t lie down when one of his sheep is still astray.

—Pioneer, leader of the Community

It’s been a month since the world was supposed to end. By now you’d think I wouldn’t wake up every morning in a panic with the Community’s alarm echoing in my ears and my breath coming so fast that I’m not actually taking in any oxygen.

But I do.

Maybe it’s because somewhere deep inside I can’t believe that the apocalypse isn’t still looming over every horizon. My family and our leader, Pioneer, warned me about it every waking moment of my life from the time I turned five. How can I suddenly just switch gears and believe that it was all a lie?

I wipe the condensation from the bathroom mirror and stare at the swipe of my reflection that’s visible. I ran the shower long enough to slow my breathing back down, to stop my body from trembling visibly, but inside I’m still thrumming with a nervousness I can’t soothe—not with a hundred showers. It doesn’t help that this bathroom still
feels foreign to me, that the place I live in now is not my home and that the people who live here with me are barely more than strangers.

“Lyla, we don’t have much time. My dad’s already left,” Cody says from outside the door in a low voice.

I begin to quickly dry off. Cody’s dad is the sheriff, the person who raided the Community’s development, Mandrodage Meadows, just before Pioneer sealed us underground to wait for the apocalypse. Today he’s going to transfer Pioneer from the hospital to the county jail, and Cody and I are going to watch him.

“Be right there.” I put my mouth close to the door so I won’t have to talk too loud. Cody’s mom and sister are still sleeping. If they wake up before we can manage to get out of the house, we won’t be allowed to go. I can’t say that I’d blame them for stopping us. None of us knows how I’ll react to seeing Pioneer for the first time since I shot him, not even me.

“Lyla, for real, hurry,” Cody says. He taps the door for emphasis.

“Okay!”

I tug on a pair of Cody’s jeans and his baggiest sweatshirt. Pulling my hair into a tight bun and covering it with one of his baseball caps, I check the mirror one last time and try to find some speck of courage in my expression, but my face is all pale terror.

Can I really do this?

I try a few guy-like slouches. With any luck, once Cody
finishes giving me a fake beard and I cover my too-shapely body, I’ll be believable enough as a guy to fool Pioneer, the sheriff, and anyone else we run into. I don’t want anyone other than Cody to know that I’m there. I’m not sure I can face Pioneer otherwise.

I hurry out of the bathroom. Cody looks at me and smiles. I have to look away, because I’m unnerved enough right now. I can’t deal with the circus that happens in my stomach whenever he looks at me like that.

“Not bad. You’re not dude-like just yet, but we’ll fix that.” He grabs my hand and leads me downstairs and then into the basement. We tiptoe to the far corner where Cody keeps all of his monster projects and makeup tools. He pulls over a metal stool and I perch on it. My hands land in my lap and I rub my thumbs across my jeans. I breathe in and out.

“Ready?” Cody’s all shiny-eyed and eager. I’ve just given him a way to practice what he loves. I’m his personal special-effects project this morning. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m his personal project in a lot of ways. He doesn’t seem to mind, but it’s bothering me more and more. Who wants to be the most broken person in the room all the time? That’s why I’m going to the hospital today, to start repairing the damage that Pioneer did to me. Seeing him again is the first step.

“Yeah,” I say. I watch as he picks up what looks like a tube made out of dark brown hair and unrolls it. He holds it up to my face and compares it to my real hair color.

“Close enough.” He’s not really talking to me as much as himself. He cuts off a few inches of the hair and fans it out between his fingers before laying it across the table beside me. I glance down at the Wolfman head he’s been working on and the severed limbs beyond it. It’s realistic enough that most people would probably get grossed out just looking at it, but I don’t. Once you’ve seen real blood and gore, the fake stuff isn’t all that believable, no matter how good it is.

Cody leans over and grabs the TV remote off the table. “This’ll go faster if you watch something,” he says as he turns on the TV and hands me the remote. I’m pretty sure that he’s not worried about me being bored. He’s trying to get me to stop thinking about Pioneer. The only problem is that ever since I left Mandrodage Meadows, I haven’t been able to do that. When I close my eyes, Pioneer’s there. I’m back in the stable reliving the moment right after I shot him. I see the blood blooming across his dingy white shirt all over again. Sometimes I think I can even catch the coppery scent of his blood in the air. And the blood of my best friend, Marie. Pioneer slit her throat so he could “send her to be with the Brethren in a better place.” There isn’t a TV show that can compete with those memories. Still, I scan through the channels.

Suddenly, like my thoughts conjured him up, Pioneer’s face fills up the screen. It feels like my heart freezes up. He’s staring right at me. I turn up the volume.

“Alan Cross, who now calls himself Pioneer, along with his followers spent the last ten years isolated in an apocalyptic compound.”

Cody grabs the remote out of my lap—I must have dropped it, but I don’t remember it falling. “That’s enough of—”

“No, wait! I … I need to see this,” I say, even though part of me wants to cover my ears and squeeze my eyes shut. If I can’t deal with seeing Pioneer on a television screen, how can I expect to do it in person?

Pioneer’s face fades and a new image of the hospital flashes across the screen. Gathered on the sidewalk just outside the entrance are my friends. They’re huddled together on their knees, their hands upturned toward the sky—every one of them in the exact same position. They smile at the camera. The look on their faces … it’s eerie how happy they seem. My stomach roils and I have to swallow to keep from gagging.

“… his followers say that they will continue to show up at the hospital until Pioneer is released.”

Julie’s face fills up the screen. She grins widely at the camera. “He’s alive! Pioneer should’ve died, but he didn’t.” She looks over at Mr. Brown, who is standing nearby, and he beams at her.

The man holding the microphone gestures to the way she’s sitting. “You’re all kneeling. Why?”

Julie laughs, a high-pitched, tinkly one that sounds nothing like the sound she makes whenever she finds
something truly funny. I hate it. “We kneel because we want to show Pioneer our obedience and renewed faith.”

The interviewer tries to look serious, but he’s having a hard time.

Julie looks at him and her mouth twists. Her grin turns into a smirk. “You’ll remember this moment—when you refused to see the miracle of his survival. On earth’s last day you won’t be mocking us anymore. You’ll know he was right—that you’re gonna die.”

“Totally deluded, the idiot.” Cody shakes his head angrily and taps hair onto my chin. I don’t look at him, because I don’t know what to say. I believed in Pioneer once … does that make me an idiot too? I bite my lip and try to focus on the screen so I won’t cry.

“… they have begun to share their message publicly on YouTube through taped sermons Pioneer gave in the last ten years.”

Footage of Pioneer standing in front of our old clubhouse pops up. I suck in a breath. I can see myself in the background. This past me smiles as Pioneer walks toward her and holds out his hand. I watch as she leans her cheek into his palm. My heart starts to hurt. Even though I don’t want to, part of me misses that girl and her belief. I haven’t felt sure about anything at all since I left the Community. My mouth tastes sour and I look away, up at Cody. Has he spotted the old me?

“The end is coming, isn’t it?” I watch as my parents, my friends, and Past Me nod and clap.

Cody lets out a disgusted sigh and I stand up and lunge over the table to hit the TV’s power button, getting beard hair stuck to my shirt in the process. I slam back into my seat and hold my head in my hands. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that Past Me was nodding right along with everyone else … or the fact that Present Me still has an inexplicable urge to. My brain feels like it’s split in half and Past Me and Present Me haven’t decided who’s in charge yet. Maybe seeing Pioneer today is a mistake. Maybe it’ll tip the balance in Past Me’s favor. I start to shake; I can’t help it. I am suddenly overcome by nerves.

“We don’t have to do this, you know. I could go by myself and tell you all about it afterward.” Cody studies my face. He touches my cheek with his fingertips. They’re warm. I move away almost by reflex. It isn’t because I don’t want him to touch me. Pioneer always told us to steer clear of Outsiders, and my body still hasn’t figured out how to make disobeying him a regular habit. I guess this means that Past Me still has the upper hand. It makes me want to punch something.