Gated

The good in this world, what little of it that remains, is worth protecting by whatever means necessary.

We can’t be afraid to stand up and defend it.

—Pioneer, leader of the Community

Shoot to kill this time, okay? Will winks and pushes me into the tall corn as we walk through the field to the gun range. I push him back and he laughs. The sky is a perfect cloudless blue and the air is hot from the summer sun. It’s a day meant for picnics, not pre-end-of-the-world target practice.

But that’s why I have you, I say. I fiddle with the leather strap attached to my rifle, sliding it back and forth across my shoulder until it rests comfortably in the crook of my neck. Turning my face up to his, I’m sure that I’ll see his lips curl into a smile at my routine grumbling, but instead he’s frowning.

What if I’m not with you when we’re attacked? You can’t assume someone else will pull the trigger for you all the time. His hand tugs absently at his ear, a sure sign that he’s not joking anymore.

I swallow back my answer and look out past the corn to the prairie beyond. The unspoken words drop into my stomach, making it hurt. The gun range is up ahead. Marie and Brian are already there. The popping sounds of their guns carry over the cornfield, punctuating the sudden awkwardness between Will and me.

I’m just saying that maybe it’s time you took all of this seriously. Will reaches out for my non-gun-toting hand. I hesitate, my fingers twitching in the air. He dips his head and gives me a sidelong smile.

I know he means well. He always means well. He cares about me. I am the problem. Exactly three months until the end of the world and I still can’t muster up the proper response. I pull in a long breath, glad for the abundance of air around me. Thinking about the end of things always makes me feel like I’m suffocating.

Will chases after my hand with his own until he snares it. He laces his long fingers through mine. I worry about you, Lyla. I can’t be with you every second, even once we’re in the shelter. I just want to know you’ll do what you have to to survive.

I can’t keep a sigh from escaping. We’ve had this conversation so many times. It’s intensifying now because of the target shooting. This is only our fifth time out on the range, and his pestering is reaching epic proportions.

Come on, I finally say, like he’s the one who’s holding us up. He squeezes my hand lightly. We walk the last few yards to the open grass and the gun range. I fish my earplugs out of my pocket and stuff them in my ears before Will can say anything more. He leans down, his lanky frame casting a shadow over my face. He’s like a barometer—constantly measuring my moods and reporting them back to me in his expressions. His stonewashed-blue eyes are troubled and his freckled nose is crinkled with concern. This means that he thinks that I’m overly anxious. I want to reassure him, if only to get him to look away, but it’s as if clouds have suddenly formed and gathered over my head.

Brian’s standing behind Marie, his face buried in her dark curls. He’s gently guiding her rifle to her cheek for what I’m sure is the hundredth time. Together they aim her gun at the large collection of hay bales across from them. Each hay bale has a life-sized cutout of a person bound to its front. They’re aiming at a woman. It’s a silhouette, but still it makes my skin tingle when the gun goes off and I see a piece of the plywood lady’s chest fly out into the grass. Marie grins at us and her cheeks flush pink.

Did you see that? she asks. I can’t exactly hear past my earplugs, but I don’t need to. She says the same thing every time she manages to land a shot. I paste a smile on my face and walk toward them and out of Will’s shadow.

Nice! I holler back. I take my usual spot in the grass, across from the hay bale with the man cutout. I’m pretty sure this makes me sexist, but the man target is the only one I can stomach shooting. I lower the rifle from my shoulder and try to psych myself up.

Not enough room for everyone. We can’t take them all. They had their chance. We have to protect ours.

I play this litany over and over in my head, hoping that somehow it will make my heart understand. It didn’t work the last time and I don’t hold out much hope for this time either. How can I take someone’s life when he’s just scared and looking for help, even if it saves my own?

I glance over at Will. He’s shooting at two plywood cutouts: a man and a woman. His rifle is tucked into the space between his chest and his shoulder, and his cheek is welded to the gun’s stock. He keeps both eyes open, lines up his sights. There’s no hesitation once he gets the sights level. The rifle jumps as he takes the shot and the plywood man’s head flies backward. His featureless face searches the sky. Will readjusts and shoots the plywood woman in almost the exact same spot. Her head stays upright, but it’s missing its rounded top. He smiles as he lowers his gun and looks at me.

I turn back to my own hay bale and the silent man-board waiting there for me. I pull my rifle up into position and ready my stance. I can feel the others watching me, hoping that for once I’ll shoot one of the mandatory targets: head or heart. My bangs are plastered to my forehead and sweat tickles my back as it runs down my spine. I still my body, put my finger on the trigger, and pull. The recoil makes me wince and I shut my eyes. When I open them and look out at the silhouette man, I let out my breath in one relieved rush. The bullet hit exactly where I wanted it to.

Really, Lyla? The kneecap again? Marie has her hands on her slim hips and one foot jutted out as if she’s suddenly become a seasoned assassin. She can’t seem to wrap her mind around my continued reluctance to shoot right.

"It’s her tribute to Terminator Two, Will says. Where the kid orders the Terminator to take nonlethal shots all the time." He doesn’t look at me as he walks back to his spot and aims at his target again, but I know that our discussion isn’t over. It won’t be until I manage to find a way to do what they want, to give in and fight.

We keep shooting until we each go through our ammo cartridges. My plywood man is the only one with a chance at life by the end. The rest of his silhouette friends have been dead since the first round of bullets. I set my rifle on the ground and start helping the others pick up the shell casings littered around our feet. I’m moving faster than everyone else. If we get done early enough, I might be able to get in some painting time before dinner.

Marie crouches down next to me and plucks a shell casing out of the tall grass between us. So what gives, Lyla? Why don’t you shoot right?

I shrug and drop shells into my pouch. "I don’t know. It’s just that every time I look at those stupid people targets, I see actual people—like you or Brian or Will. What if somehow we got stuck outside the Silo and needed help? I mean, how do any of them out there even know it’s the end? Pioneer chose to save us, but does anyone else have any idea that the end is coming? Wouldn’t they already be here, fighting to get in?"

Marie stares at me. Her face is as clear of concern as the sky is of clouds. I don’t know, Lyla. You worry too much. You’re safe and so are your family and friends. Isn’t that enough? Besides, the Outsiders are supposed to die. It’s their destiny, not ours.

I don’t know what to say. Yes? No? What’s the right way to feel when you know that everything’s about to go so wrong for billions of other people? Forget it, I say instead. I’m just in a weird mood today, okay?

Marie shakes her head and goes back to collecting shells. I start to do the same when the Community’s beat-up red truck emerges from the far end of the cornfield. It’s too far away to see the driver clearly, but his rigid posture gives him away anyway. It’s Pioneer, our leader.

Terrific.

He’s come to check up on our shooting. He’ll see that I’m not improving. He was patient with my reluctance to kill the last time we practiced, but he made it clear that I would have to do better, and soon. My hands start to shake. I’m dropping more shell casings than I manage to pick up.

Pioneer stops the truck and slides out of the driver’s seat. Immediately the field around us seems closer, smaller. Pioneer seems to fill most of the space now. It’s not like he’s a particularly big man or really muscular or anything. In fact, he’s pretty much the opposite—pale and rail-thin. It’s what is under the skin that’s large. His intensity isn’t contained in his slight frame. It pulses all around him like sound waves or beams of light. He almost seems to glow most of the time. He’s the only person in Mandrodage Meadows—or anywhere else, for that matter—who does. I can’t seem to look away when he’s around; he just doesn’t leave room for that option. He rubs at the scruff along his chin and ambles over to us.

Marie, Brian, and Will glance at me. I ignore them and pretend to search for more shells, wishing for a hole to bury myself in.

So how’d it go today? Pioneer’s voice is mellow and warm, practically filled with sunshine.

Um, good, Will says.

I hold my breath. Wait. With any luck, Pioneer will simply let this be it, take Will at his word, and go … but I’m holding out very little hope for that. I sneak peeks at Pioneer and the others as I continue to pick up casings. Despite his pleasant, conversational tone, his blue eyes are sharp, cutting into each of my friends in turn. He knows something’s not right.

Marie bounces toward Pioneer—all curls and energy. I hit the head and the heart twice in a row!

Without Brian’s help? Pioneer sounds skeptical. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his hand go up to pat her shoulder.

Yep. The last couple shots, I did.

She really did, I hear Brian say.

I look up again just as Pioneer beams at Marie and then bear-hugs her. Well done. I knew you’d get it … eventually.

Will and Brian both let out a snicker, and Marie sticks her tongue out at them.

Pioneer’s gaze swivels to me again, catching me watching them. I try to smile, fake excitement that he’s here. The others begin to move so that they are between Pioneer and me. They’re trying to distract him, have been for the past few minutes, I realize, and I feel a rush of affection for them. Even though they’ve been pressuring me to shoot right every time we’re out here, it’s only because they don’t want me to get in trouble with Pioneer.

Shall we examine the targets? Pioneer says from behind the wall of my friends, extra loud so that I know he means mine specifically.

I drop the shells I’ve been gathering into a pile on the ground, stand up without a word, and join the others. The air feels charged, like there’s an approaching storm, even though the day is still clear and beautiful. I ball my hands into fists and follow everyone to the targets.

Brian shows Pioneer his target first. Will rushes in with his next. Pioneer nods, clearly pleased with them both. Then Marie shows him hers—chattering the whole time about how she’s improved her stance and doesn’t jump anymore when the rifle goes off. I know she’s trying to stall, distract him just a little longer for me, but it’s irritating Pioneer. He’s practically vibrating, like a tuning fork that’s been struck particularly hard. I grit my teeth and come forward. Marie’s voice winds down immediately and she backs away until she’s between the boys. She looks scared. I swallow a laugh. I’m the one in trouble and she’s scared. Typical.

Lyla, Pioneer says slowly, show me your target, please.

I can only manage a tight nod. I’m about to disappoint him, but what can I do about it now? I point at my plywood man like it’s a particularly lame prize from that game show Pioneer lets us watch sometimes. Then I try to square my shoulders and wait for his reaction.

Pioneer stands in front of the target for an uncomfortably long time. I fidget from foot to foot, bite my lip, and pull on my braid. The others huddle together silently.

This target looks relatively unharmed, Pioneer finally says. Why?

Will opens his mouth to speak, but Pioneer shushes him with one glance. My question was directed at Lyla.

His eyes bore into me, searing my skin. Why can’t I shoot right like everyone else? There’s no answer that I can give that’ll make him understand, when I don’t even understand myself. So I panic, like always, and say the first thing that pops into my head.

The wrong thing.

Um, I guess I have a soft spot for the tall, dark, and faceless? I let out a short, nervous burst of laughter. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know how flippant they sound, but it’s too late to take them back now.

Pioneer’s voice is ice. This is not a joke. You are a liability to the Community if you can’t help defend it.

He takes a deep, measured breath and his eyes soften. His lips curl into a smile. I just want to keep you safe. He gestures to the field and the targets. All of this is meant to keep you safe.

He walks over to Brian’s target, stoops, and picks it up off of the ground. He knocks on it. They’re just pulp. Wood. Not people. This practice should be easy. It’s meant to be easy. You have to desensitize yourself. If you can’t hit the targets, you won’t hit the actual people. And we need you to, Lyla. We most certainly do.

Pioneer moves to where Brian is standing and gestures at his gun. Brian hands it to him. He turns to me and raises the gun so that it’s pointing at my stomach. His eyes flash as he stares me down. I know he won’t shoot me, but it still makes my muscles tense, my nerves thrum.

Those people out there don’t know you. They don’t care about you. They will shoot you to take what you have if it means saving their own. He swings the gun around and points it at Will. Will flinches. I can see him fight the urge to take a step back. They’ll murder the ones you love if you give ’em the chance. He looks back at me. And they will not hesitate. Ever. So you can’t either. He drops the gun and we stop holding our breath.

Pioneer takes my arm and guides me to the space across from the unused target. It’s the silhouette of a woman holding hands with a child. I tense. It’s silly, I guess, but I can’t help it.

You can’t see them as people like you or me. They’re already ghosts. The Brethren will save only us, their chosen ones. When the earth’s rotation reverses in three months, most folks’ll be wiped from the planet in a matter of minutes, swallowed up by tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. So the Brethren have told me and so I’ve told you. Time and again. It’s their destiny, just as it is ours to survive. Do you not believe my word? Do you not believe that the Brethren, our all-knowing creators, in their infinite wisdom, have seen who is and who is not worthy to start again? Has doubt taken hold in you?

I shake my head and swallow. His words cut me to the quick. He’s right. If I resist this, I am as good as spitting in the faces of those who have helped show me the light. What’s wrong with me?

Would you let them take some of us with them while you hesitate? Do you not care for us as we care for you? Shooting those who would hurt your family and endanger the Brethren’s plan shows your love for us, your faith in the Brethren. He pats my shoulder. You are a gentle spirit, Little Owl. It’s why you are one of their chosen. But even lambs have to be lions sometimes.

He’s using my nickname—the one he gave me because I’m always watching everything, taking things in. Usually I like it and the way his voice warms when he says it, but not now. Today it just makes me feel weak.

He guides my rifle back up onto my shoulder and gently moves my braid from between it and my cheek. I focus in on the woman cutout first and level the gun. I have to do what he’s asking. I owe it to him, to all of us.

When you pull the trigger this time, you will aim for the head or the heart, Pioneer whispers in my ear. Show me, show them—he points at Will, Brian, and Marie—how much you love us.

He backs away to stand with the others. I can feel their eyes on me. I chew on my lip. Get ahold of yourself. They aren’t even real. I aim at the woman’s chest. Breathe in and out. Then I close my eyes at the last second and pull the trigger. When I open my eyes, there’s a hole in the cutout’s chest.

Good. Now again, Pioneer commands.

I aim at the smaller target. I try not to see its small hands and feet. I concentrate on the black middle of the plywood. Still, when the bullet explodes out of my gun, my chest tightens. Pioneer makes me shoot both targets again and again and again. They are mangled and unrecognizable when I’m through, but I’m not as sick as I was to start with. I still don’t like the shooting, but I can at least do it now without flinching each time.

Pioneer’s grinning widely at me. That’s my girl! He pulls me to him and kisses my forehead. His shirt smells like hay and grass and gunpowder. Your sweet nature is what I love most about you. But unfortunately, until this world is no more, that nature is dangerous. To you and to all of us. You have to prepare for the months ahead of us yet. Get strong. He tilts my chin up and looks me in the eye. Let me prepare you, Little Owl. The more you fight what I tell you, the harder things will be for you. There’s an edge in his voice now that undercuts the warmth of his embrace. It makes me shiver.

You all will help her come around, won’t you? You’ll let me know if she needs my undivided attention again as we go forward toward these last days?

My friends nod obediently. I swallow and focus on the grass beneath my feet. I’m everyone’s project now. I can’t look any of them in the eye. I’m just too embarrassed.

Well, now, afternoon lessons begin in twenty minutes, Pioneer says. Hurry and clean up. I’ll be expecting you all to be on time. He turns and heads for his truck without looking back.

Silence settles over us. We pull our targets off their mounts and replace them with new ones from the shed at the far end of the field. Dust still swirls in the air from where Pioneer’s truck kicked it up. I cough as some of it goes down my throat.

When the range is back in order, Will and I follow Brian and Marie to the cornfield and the road beyond. The air between all of us is still awkward and tense. I hate that I’m proving to be such a failure at defense—even Marie is more reliable at it. I’m not sure how to readjust my instincts, be as quick to shoot as everyone else. Pioneer’s help hasn’t changed this.

Halfway to the road, Marie turns and points her gun toward the range again. She lowers her voice, makes it sound vaguely mechanical. I’ll be back, she says. Her face is perfectly deadpan. It breaks the awkwardness between all of us, and I want to hug her for it.

Brian rolls his eyes and laughs. What is it with you two and the Terminator movies? I thought they were supposed to be for guys.

Marie and I look at each other and she grins. Um, it’s impossible not to quote them when Pioneer’s shown them to us about a zillion times. And besides, when there are guys in them as totally hot as that Kyle character, they most definitely become girl movies.

Brian plugs his ears. Not listening, he says a little too loudly, and we all start laughing.

Any remaining tension in the air floats away. I give Marie a grateful look and she winks. I know that I owe it to her—and to Will, Pioneer, and everyone else, for that matter—to come around. These are my people. My Community. My family. I can’t trouble myself anymore with the rest of the world. Their fate was decided a long time ago—as was mine.

If I can manage to help just one other person find peace and contentment, well then, I can die a happy man.

—Pioneer

The first time I laid eyes on Pioneer, I was just five years old. He went by another name back then, one closer to the kind the rest of us have, but I don’t know what it was anymore, since for as long as I can remember, we’ve called him Pioneer.

We lived in New York City back then, in the brownstone my parents bought just before my older sister was born. I remember the pink-and-white-striped wallpaper in Karen’s and my room and my sister Karen’s brown suede school shoes, the ones that she always left right in the middle of the front hall. My mom was holding those shoes when we found out that my sister had disappeared. Karen and I had been out in front of the house playing—well, fighting over what to play, anyway. Karen wanted to draw and I wanted to do hopscotch. I’d run in to tattle on her for pulling my hair, and when I came back with Mom, she was gone. No one saw anything. There were no clues to show where she’d gone or who might’ve taken her. There was only one bright yellow piece of chalk and a half-drawn picture of our family on the sidewalk out front. In the drawing, only our feet weren’t completed. I used to think that whoever took her made her stop there on purpose so we wouldn’t have a way to follow.

My mom cradled Karen’s shoes to her chest nonstop after that—when the cops showed up to ask questions, and especially a few days later, when the two big buildings downtown got hit by airplanes and the cops stopped looking for my sister and started looking for survivors.

Pioneer came to us not long after. I remember my father letting him in the house. The way he smiled seemed to brighten up the entire room. I hadn’t realized how dark it had become, even with the lights on, until he was in it. Something about the way his eyes filled with some unseen candlelight when he smiled made me think of Santa Claus or maybe even Jesus—even though he looked nothing like either of them. He was pale, with close-cropped black hair—nowhere near handsome, but he was kind. I could just feel it.

The few times my mom’s spoken about those days, she’s mentioned that Pioneer heard about us on the news. He’d told her that he couldn’t get Karen’s face out of his mind and that my mom’s pleas for help haunted him. When the towers fell and the world went crazy, somehow it was my family he felt drawn to. He thought that maybe helping to look for Karen might be a way to focus on one small piece of the giant tragedy surrounding all of us, that this might make it less overwhelming somehow. He offered to help continue our search, and for the next few weeks he made good on his promise. He even brought others along with him. Later, some of those people came with us to Mandrodage Meadows.

I’m not sure why we all took to him like we did. I think maybe we just knew he was special. My family was pretty shy. Quiet. We never needed anyone else around until one of us was gone. But we couldn’t find Karen on our own. We were too scared and sad to know what to do. Pioneer never seemed scared or sad. He seemed so sure of everything.

Almost every night, Pioneer sat with my parents in our kitchen for hours while my mom cried. I could hear their voices from my bed when I couldn’t sleep, when the emptiness on Karen’s side of the room seemed to