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              “You fat little bastard,” she hissed. “I’m not fucking crazy! I know exactly what I saw, ooooooohhhhhh I swear I’ll bash your skull in!” She came flying with fists raised and ready to rain down punishment.

Ricky backed into me, shaking and wheezing. If he hadn’t yet, I feared he’d might piss his pants. Pushing the little guy away, I caught the frenzied girl in midflight and held her tight. She pulsated with unadulterated anger and her language raised another few degrees. She slapped against my grip, and clawed at my arms, trying to drag herself to the red-haired kid.

              “Easy Kelly, easy. Calm down. Focus on me. Come on, settle…,” I said as she thrashed. It was some time before she reached some level calm. Her pulse relaxed, and gained a steady rhythmic thumping. She looked up at me, and I saw clarity and trust.

              “You have to go see it,” she said as she became docile, her voice somber. “Look, I realize how I sound, like some lunatic, but there is some serious shit happening Downtown. I’m not talking about the turning—it’s something else, and I just know you’ll understand it.”

              I released her, no longer worried she’d jump on Ricky the first chance she got. Her rage was spent. Instead she walked to the front door, unlocked it, and went running into the sunshine. I stood mystified, completely confused by the one-sided conversation.

              “Utterly, bat-shit, crazy,” Ricky announced.

              I still didn’t understand the reference, but didn’t care.

              “Anyway, little miss crazy isn’t exactly alone in what she saw. Word’s been that some
crazy shit…”
Ricky said, making air quotes while performing a pretty decent Kelly impression “…did happen overnight. Can’t say what it is, but it’s apparently big.”

Ricky stood at the doorway looking outside. His sister joined him, but she didn’t make as much as a peep. I stood behind them, trying to forcibly push them out without physically resorting to that. I was completely done with this interaction.

              “Let’s just clear our heads, maybe get some rest, and you two go home,” I insisted as I took another step forward, my aura of unwillingness pushing the two through the door. I wanted them gone, and any story of whatever was happening Downtown was the furthest thing from my mind.

Images of the Palmer’s house still plagued my mind, and nothing could accompany those pictures and thoughts right this second. Ricky seemed to recognize my unwillingness and gave me a look of curiosity, and a slightly crooked smile. Something was brewing inside his thick skull, and it was about to come out.

              “It’s a timer,” Ricky said.

I shrugged. It didn’t mean much to me, a timer or whatever it was.

Ricky bit his lip and said, “It’s
inside
the barrier…”

Chapter 5: A walk Amongst Ruin

The statement was simple and direct. Ricky didn’t have to say anything else, and he knew it. He beamed with some sort of self-absorbed pride, as if he’d won a competition. The brother and sister departed without a goodbye, and I was left alone with my thoughts. The declaration stopped me in my tracks, over-thinking, reasoning the words into something logical. Yet there was no reason or explanation. It was simply unthinkable.

The words kept repeating in my mind.
It’s inside the barrier. It’s inside the barrier.
Ricky’s voice rang out loud even though he’d gone. It made more sense than the entirety of Kelly’s argument, or whatever that was supposed to be. With a few simple words my perception had changed. I was being pulled back Downtown, to everything that I had known and hated, where I was hated.

“Olivia, we’re leaving. Grab some clothes for the night.” I instructed.

I had already decided, or I should say Ricky decided for me. Olivia didn’t question, but disappeared into her room. It gave me the chance to grab my gun.  I opened the metal cabinet door with my key, and grabbed the gun and a clip, shoving the clip into my front pocket and the gun into my waistband.

“Where are we going?” Olivia asked as she crossed over the old carpet, coming to halt before me.

She smirked up at me, but I couldn’t even bear a smile in response. Instead I just put a hand on the back of her head, and nodded toward the opened front door. She was a bit taken aback, as she was never allowed to go outside, or at least hadn’t been for a while. Keeping her in arm’s reach, we crossed the road and B-lined it for the only two people I trusted besides myself and Olivia.

                                                                      ***

“What’s down there?” Susan asked. I had tried to explain the morning’s events. How Ricky, Jamie, and Kelly came to my door in utter disarray, and just how different the Kelly had been this morning after returning from her foray into the city. As I sat there clarifying the ordeal, it sounded bizarre even to me, but I could already feel myself moving into the unknown. I knew I needed to be down there. Whatever this timer was or wasn’t, if it sat within the barrier then it was important, probably the most significant thing to occur since I woke up without any memories two years ago.

Susan was far more skeptical than I. Her eyes narrowed and she was deep in thought. For me to so willingly venture to a place where I was no longer welcomed was beyond strange. She probably thought I’d gone crazy. I offered a glance at Kyle, who still wasn’t himself. He must have been lost in those images from the Palmers. I would be too if it wasn’t for this new development, and yet they still lingered in the background, those memories.

“Kelly wasn’t clear, but Ricky said something too interesting to ignore. I wouldn’t be going if it wasn’t, trust me,” I said as I twisted on the couch, feeling uneasy about the whole ordeal.

I trusted Susan and Kyle, but leaving Olivia with them, even for a day, felt wrong. I knew that, eventually, sooner or later, this would cause a world of trouble. I had to go, though, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to put Olivia in danger.

Olivia looked up at me. She was caught between betrayal and sadness, questioning why I had to go. She didn’t understand why I had to leave her here. Olivia didn’t remember how bad it got down there. The gunshots, the blood, all the things from those early days. She blocked them out and forgot them. Even if things weren’t the same didn’t mean I was going to change my mind about bringing her now.

“Well, you know we’re more than willing to watch Olivia,” said Susan.

She turned to Kyle who was lost in a daze. Susan looked worried. Kyle probably hadn’t shared what happened at the Palmer’s, or at least hadn’t yet. I was sure Kyle would break his silence, and then she’d wish he hadn’t.

“When do you expect to be back?” Susan asked, swinging her attention back my way.

              “Less than a day. Perhaps early afternoon, I really don’t want to be caught down there after sunset,” I said. There were a few gangs left Downtown dangerous enough to make me weary. Murders still happened. Apparently cannibalism was still occurring. Lucky, there was still law enforcement down there in the form of a few still trying to handle such a burden. Joey and his crew of officers tried their best to keep order in a disorderly world. Though I wondered if they know about the Palmers. Would Joey do anything about that, considering we live up here?

I stood up. I could feel the handgun’s cold metal surface brush my back in my waistband. There wasn’t a way around not being armed when going back to a place that despised me. Olivia was a melting pot of emotions. She probably believed I wouldn’t return.

“Thanks again,” I said.

              Susan smiled and got up. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me deeply. She leaned in close and whispered, “You just come back whole.” She smiled again.

Kyle seemed to break his trance for a moment. He came over, grabbed me by the neck, and brought me close. He didn’t have much to say, but he had been listening, and at least expressed his own heart-felt goodbye.

              “Stay safe, my friend,” Kyle whispered.

              “I will. I promised someone already,” I said without having to look back at Olivia. The little girl suddenly clung to me, and wrapped her little arms around my waist. I looked down at her and knew I shouldn’t be leaving, that we should just go back home and forget about this craziness, but I couldn’t.

“It’s okay… it will be okay,” I whispered. I picked up Olivia and held her in my arms. She didn’t whine, didn’t shake or hyperventilate at my departure. She would miss me I know. She just hugged me with her arms around my neck, silently wishing for me not to leave. I put her down, and without hesitation walked straight out the door and into the world.

              Walking down this familiar street, as I’d done roughly two years ago, I realized that much hadn’t changed. Everything was fragmented: the memories, the surroundings, the people, all broken and in disrepair. We lived on in the destruction that we didn’t remember happening, in another time we didn’t recall living.

              There used to be a river that gushed only a short distance from the street off to the right side. With
The Forgetting
destroying any notion of knowing how to survive, that river brought fresh water to us and our dying thirst. It was one of the only things in this new life to celebrate and hold onto.

The fighting started only a few months after the beginning of the world. Groups argued and tried to control resources. They fought, and died over the water.

              Stopping atop of a broken bridge that still hadn’t fallen from disrepair, I glanced down at the dry riverbed, seeing sharp rocks, debris, and tragic memories. It was probably a twenty foot fall from here to the rocky outcrop below.

              Moving ahead, I looked left to see the dry riverbed running close by. The groups that arose over time did so for two fundamentally different reasons: to take, and to give. Those who wanted to control the waters, to control the people, were almost the greatest threat. They would extort, lie, and kill those in their way. But then again, the ones that sought to keep the waters free for everyone else were utterly terrifying too. They would do whatever needed to be done. They destroyed lives, demolished buildings, and sought to control everybody while trying to keep the waters free. It was a horrible paradox.

A lot of people died in that war. Not soon after the first stone was slung, I could recall seeing the first body floating upside down in the water. It was a bloody beginning to this tragic city. I sympathized with why they did it too, but just not how they ended it. I never wanted to get involved, but always tried to voice my concern, my voice always drowned out in the violence.

              Then one day the river was simply gone, as if it never existed in the first place. No one could explain it, and I sure as hell couldn’t rationalize it. The fighting only grew worse from there. Accusations were tossed around freely, and especially toward those who could stand to gain from the river’s disappearance. More blood was spilled, and more tears were shed. Even more lives were taken. I was one of the people suspected of somehow tampering with the free-flowing water. That was just the beginning of my troubles, I suppose. I thought to the times when I held Olivia at night, when the fighting grew too close to home, when it threatened to beat down our front door.

              I made my way forward. The river dipped down and swung left. From here it would drift another hundred paces or so before disappearing altogether.

              I passed by several broken dwellings. These places had been incinerated at some point. Surfaces were all weather-beaten from the constant rain and the merciless glare of the sun. Paint was peeling here and there. The grass was burned in places, most of it brown and the rest simple patches of dirt. Blackened soot covered everything.

Anything that tried to grow back was sure to suffer an unhappy life. The cement on the foundations was blackened and crumbling, threatening to collapse at any moment. A strong wind could push over these weakened buildings, and often did. It was sometimes loud enough at night to hear something falling apart.

              Some other houses on my right weren’t as lucky, if that was even an appropriate way to put it. Piles of ashes were just heaped on the ground. The burnt and rotted piping, and some framework, jutted out of the ground, barely suggested that a building had existed before.

              Not a single piece of this broken city ever looked unscathed from whatever disaster occurred before
The Forgetting
. As my mind had returned piece by piece, new words and ideas became apparent. War… famine… natural disaster. But nothing fit quite right.

I came to a halt as a not-so-recent memory arose. Olivia was right here, running ahead and pointing, seeking my attention. I wanted to call out to her, to tell her to stop. But this was just my horrific fantasy, or my deepest fear. If I followed where she was pointing, I knew it would only lead me to that circling mass of evil.

This was a memory from the first day, a phantom from my past. The cliff that would drop down a hundred feet with sharp and jagged boulders below. I started moving again, keeping my eyes on my feet.

Step by step I drew ever closer to that edge. Before I knew it I was staring down at the abyss at the bottom of the gorge. The fall would take but a few seconds, and death would be instant. Several graves sat at the bottom of the ravine. Some deaths were accidental, people falling to their doom. Others chose the fall to stop their misery. I knew their plight, their need to let go of the pain and sorrow.

I’d had the urge to leap myself, to no longer worry about the fighting, the hunger, the turning, or anything else would be such a relief. Every time I thought I was ready to jump, I would hear Olivia’s voice echo in my mind. It would be foolish to fall, selfish even. I would not only be killing myself, but I’d leave Olivia alone in this corrupted world. I would never take the plunge.

              Thunder cracked as I raised my head, as if it knew I was coming. Clouds circled about an invisible axis in the distance, the
barrier
right below that veil. The city spread out before me, and was just as broken as before, if not more so.

Towers touched the clouds above, and smoke billowed from the largest ones. This happened often enough, as apparently a fire built up in the skyscrapers. People didn’t know how to control a simple fire, allowing it to spread from the base and beyond. Before anyone could put it out, the flames traveled up the walls and through the windows, where they were fueled with open air. Soon enough, cloud-touching buildings could become raging infernos, expelling multiple families.

              I felt something watching from the darkness beyond. Thunder spoke again while a shaft of lightning rippled throughout the mass. Waves of dizziness swayed my thoughts and threatened to throw me off the cliff, to turn me one of those accidental deaths. I quickly dropped my eyes to my feet, begging my legs to steady. The world rocked beneath me before it finally grew steady.

A rumbling alerted me back to the center of the city, but I dared not look back. It wanted me to stare into the darkness, to draw me in and not let go. Not willing to give the gloom that sort of pleasure, I turned and focused on the expressway. It wove straight into the heart of the city, exactly the way I was going.

              My feet carried on without me. I was lost to the environment as the superhighway materialized before me. It was littered with wreckage. Cars looked glued together they were nuzzled so close.

I glided towards what I recalled being a fire truck. The word
fire
stayed with me as I witnessed the sure and total destruction of the vehicle. It was faded red while constantly assaulted by the weather. The windows were broken, and the driver’s side door was ripped off. Its sides were marked with war stories. As always, there was no driver, no bones to mark a final resting place, no trace of blood. It was as if the vehicle simply drove itself here and died.

              I walked on, passing by cars, trucks, ambulances, police caravans, a motorcycle laying on its side, and even a helicopter that appeared to have crashed and exploded in the middle of it all. I looked at the ‘copter and saw a logo stenciled into the fuselage:—“Bennis Industries” it read. I wondered what type of company that was, but it didn’t really matter.