It Might As Well Be My Fault

"Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come."

-Haruki Murakami 

The chapel hall was silent.

“You opened the gate after sunset. You know the penalty.”

Carter looked bewildered. He held out his palms and shook his head. “No. You don’t understand…” He ran out of words.

“You opened the gate after sunset. You know the penalty.”

The elders seated at the long table in the front of the chapel had solemn eyes and stern faces. People seated in the pews in the rear began to mutter darkly among themselves. Daniel Granderson, a large man who worked in the woodshop, stood and crossed his arms over his chest and stared angrily at Carter, his nostrils flaring.

“You don’t understand. Candace couldn't make it back from the fields before sunset. She went down to the stream to wash up after the workday ended and she slipped and hurt her ankle. I was watching from up on the wall when I saw her limping back. I had to let her in.”

The elders exchanged hard looks.

“You opened the gate after sunset. You know the penalty.”

Candace stood up from the pew directly behind Carter, favoring her good ankle.

“No. Please! It was only just a few minutes after sunset. They never come that early. Nothing happened! My brother was only trying to protect me. What would you do?”

The elders exchanged a few quiet words and then Benjamin Buckley, the Senior Magistrate, stood up slowly and pronounced in a grave tone, “This hearing is finished for now. I think we know all that we need to know.”

He waved a palm at the other six elders seated at the table. “We will discuss this among ourselves and reconvene here at the end of the workday tomorrow, and then a final judgement will be passed. I strongly recommend that you make all necessary preparations for the penalty that is very like pending, Carter. Good evening. This hearing is now convened.”

Carter just sat there, stone still. Tears ran down Candace’s cheeks. Everyone else exited the meeting hall quietly. They sat together in the gloaming and spoke in hushed tones.

“What should we do?”

“It’s not a question of what we should do. I’m on trial here, not you, and there’s no way I’m going to let you share my fate.”

She just stared at him for a few moments before she replied.

“And there’s no way I would ever leave you.”

Carter hung his head and thought about things.

“It’s all gonna end soon anyway. You’ve seen the cracks in the walls. You’ve seen Lyle Porter’s repair crews trying to patch up those fissures, ineffectively. Just a mirage to keep people from panicking. It’s only a matter of time. You’ve seen that space along the wall behind the infirmary. How long can that hold up? That generator is on its last legs too.”

He paused, outstretched his right palm, then added, “Things Fall Apart.” It was her favorite book.

She took his hand in hers and squeezed lightly and gave him a very small smile. It never came close to reaching her eyes.

When the massive armada of alien ships arrived almost six years ago most of the human population was decimated within a few months. They released their spiders, and the spiders did all the hunting for them. They weren’t actual spiders but that’s what most people around the world called them, because of the general similarities in form and motion.

In France they called them Araignées and in most of China they were ZhīzhūBut, but it was all the same. They were almost eight feet tall, and they had the ability to multiply rapidly. They weren’t entirely bulletproof, but they were savage and fast and very hard to kill. More importantly, there were just too many of them.

Their only limitation seemed to be that they were averse to daylight. They never came before sunset, but then they came in their numbers and probed the walls of the commune for areas they might breach every night. Sometimes they slammed into the gates, denting the steel bars and loosening the hinges from their cement anchors.

The commune here in Boulder, Colorado was previously a federal prison complex but it was shut down in 2018. The state was in the process of taking bids from contractors for its demolition and removal when everything began. Some people were smart enough to retreat inside its 25-foot-tall cement walls, and that is what saved them. There were 248 souls living there now, and all of the other communes stopped responding to radio calls years ago. This might be the last surviving community of humans in North America. In the world. There was no way to know.

“You remember that song by Matchbox 20, when we were kids?”

“Which one?”

He looked at her and sang a verse softly, sadly.

“It’s all gonna end…and it might as well be my fault.”

She gave him an even smaller smile and sang in reply...

"Well, she's got a little bit of something. God, it's better than nothing."

He instantly responded, pointing an angry finger down at the floor with two quick jabs, "And the clock on the wall has been stuck at 3 for days and days!" His tone was dark and angry.

She thought for a moment.

“I can't help but be scared of it all sometimes,” she quietly replied. A tear ran down the left side of her face, then another down the right.

Carter put a loving arm around her shoulders and hung his head again. She nodded.

“It might as well be my fault.” He wasn’t singing now. He was just whispering quietly. They left the chapel and returned to their assigned domicile on cell block 12. There was almost nothing for dinner. The crops were failing. Things were growing increasingly desperate in a number of different ways. It was only a matter of time.

About an hour before sunrise Carter left Candace sleeping and took the hammer and chisel that he had snuck out of the workshop to the front gate. The spiders always retreated back into the forest by then so the guards would be off-duty now. He knew that the hinge that anchored the top left side of the gate was already loose. He used his tools as quietly as possible to loosen it further.

**********

In the meeting hall the next evening, about an hour before sunset, Carter’s trial commenced. He could see his fate in the eyes and faces of the town elders as they took their seats. There would be no mercy. He hadn’t expected any. Ben Buckley wasted no time with the pronouncement of their judgement.

“Carter McKay, you have been found guilty of opening the gate after sunset and your sentence has been passed. You will now be expelled from the commune. It is imperative that we maintain order and follow the laws that keep us all alive. We must do this now as sunset is less than an hour away.”

He nodded to the bailiffs, two large burly men with sour faces behind their beards. They stepped up and one took Carter by his arm and led him out of the meeting hall and towards the gate. The crowd that was gathered there to witness the trial followed along quietly.

When they arrived at the gate there were two guards on duty there and they solemnly lowered their heads as they opened it. Carter could see how it was hanging lower on the left side.

“Carter McKay, you have violated the most fundamental law of this commune and your judgement has been lawfully passed. You are on your own now. I wish you the best of luck. May God keep you safe.” Ben Buckley lowered his head in some odd mixture of humility and piety. One of the bailiffs placed his hand on Carter’s back, gently urging him forward. He did not resist.

Instead, what he did was take a few running strides, then he jumped up and grabbed onto the left side of the gate, putting his full weight on it, ripping it loose from the hinges in the wall. It came crashing down and he jumped out of the way. A chorus of gasps rose up from all around.

“Dear God, Carter! What have you done?” Benjamin Buckley was stunned. Everyone was.

Carter looked at the elders and responded with a perfectly blank face, in a perfectly flat tone.

“I’ve done you all a kindness. I've spared you from the dread. I simply hastened the inevitable. I strongly recommend that you make all necessary preparations for the penalty that is very like pending.” He pointed an angry finger down at the ground and stabbed it twice.

Then he looked at Candace, standing there just ten feet away at the front of the crowd. They exchanged the very smallest of smiles.

It would be quick and mostly painless. It was only a matter of time anyway. They both knew it. They both knew that things fall apart.

Carter took his sister's hand and they walked out of the commune together, into the setting sunlight.

THE END