Gray Skies by Brian Spangler

carry-cage. If she hurried, she wouldn’t have to wait. The urge to yell out and tell her to rush was trumped when a market seller bumped his arm, shoving a plate of dried lizard tails in front of him, blocking his view.
    “Can I offer you some—” the merchant started to say.
    “Not now,” Declan snapped, stretching his neck past the man. But immediately, he regretted his tone. He offered a quick apology, and turned his attention back to the old merchant.
    “Liz-tails? Good for them young bones,” the market seller wheezed. He was an older, stout man, with straggly hair that hung past his ears, and he grinned, baring a few stray teeth, as he eagerly licked his lips, anxious for an answer. With beady, sunken eyes, the merchant stepped back, sizing him up. When he was done, he pushed the plate up again, winking an eye at him, and puckering his thin, crinkled lips.
    “Liz-tails are good for keeping things up those nights after you get chosen,” he exclaimed in a way that whistled some of his words. Declan rested his eyes on the plate of lizard tails, and then smiled at the old man. Considered a fine delicacy, liz-tails weren’t one of his favorite things to eat, but he couldn’t help but wonder if there was any truth to what the old merchant claimed.
    “No. No, thank you,” he answered, and pushed the fleshy lizard smell away from his nose. The merchant moved on to greet a passerby, just in time for Declan to see Sammi’s pile of red hair nearly at the carry-cage. Behind him, he heard the attendant of the building’s second carry-cage calling out. This lead to his floor, and he was anxious to get up to his dwelling, and then back to the theater.
    The salvaged stainless steel and wood frame was just big enough for a handful of people. While the floor of the carry-cage wobbled once the ropes were taut, they were in the air, and moving to the first floor within a few pulls. The attendant turned to ask Declan for a floor number, but then pushed his chin up when he recognized him.
    “Celebrating, today?” he asked, and then licked his lips with a quick swipe of his tongue.
    “Isn’t everyone?” Declan answered him. “It is the End of Gray Skies, after all.”
    “Right, you are,” he answered with a nod, stabbing his lips with his tongue again. “And in case you were wondering, the carry-cages will be down during the End of Gray Skies, so you’ll have to take the back stairs.”
    Declan shrugged a quick thank you, thinking that he wouldn’t need the carry-cages, or the back stairs. He’d be in the theater with Sammi. When they reached his floor, the carry-cage wobbled again, and the ropes above him creaked as he stepped off. The heavy tone of a man’s scream echoed across the floor’s balcony, drawing his eyes up. He cleared the carry-cage, and stopped to listen, uncertain of what he had heard. The clash of wood and metal interrupted the man’s cry as the carry-cage doors closed behind him, and then moved on to the next floor. When the carry-cage lifted above him, he saw the source of the yelling. His heart sank, and his mouth went dry. It was his father, and he wasn’t alone.
    Standing outside of their dwelling, his father clutched something against his chest, as four guards from the executive floor held him against the wall. Two of the larger guards pinned his father, while the others pried at his arms.
    Declan started running, and his heart leaped to his throat when a guard reached for a battering club. The guards towered over his father; they towered over everyone in the Commune. No one ever chose to be a guard for the executive floors: they were picked. Dressed in their formal black coveralls, with thick belts hanging from their hips, they carried enforcements that only guards were allowed to have; they were an ominous sight. But why would they want his father? His mother was dead; what business did the executive floor have with them?
    They’re going to hit him. Knock him down for resisting.