The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

clutching at him, feeling everything inside me open. I realize that I am happy. Travis's hand strays back to my hair and I relax against him, releasing the last of my hesitation.
    It is a perfect spring day. The birds have come back to our village, the snow has turned to mud and the sun is bright and soft and warm. A breeze covers us and the sound through the trees reminds me of my mother's stories of the ocean.
    “Times like this, it's hard to believe that we aren't the only people in the world. Just the two of us on this hill,” Travis tells me. I smile.
    He continues, “But then other times I think that we can't be the only people in the world. This village, I mean. That there must be more out there, something beyond the Forest.”
    I try to pull my head back so that I can look Travis in the eyes. It's as if he has spoken my heart, found his way into my dreams. I thought I was alone in my belief in life outside the Forest. With a gentle pressure from his hand he keeps my head against his shoulder and my heart pounds through his words.
    “You are not the only one who was raised with stories,” he tells me and I hold my breath, waiting for more. “And they just make me think that there has to be more out there. That this can't be it. We can't be it. There must be more to life than this village and its edicts.”
    His voice is tight, as if he too feels the binds keeping us apart from each other. He places a finger under my chin and raises my gaze to his. “Don't you sense it, Mary? That there's more? That this life here is not enough?”
    Tears spring to my eyes and my blood seems to sing. I look toward the fence line as if I could look toward our future. It is far enough away that I can't see individual Unconsecrated, just a mob of them pulling at the chain links. As the wind shifts I can hear their moans carried up the hill.
    I am about to tell him about Gabrielle—proof that there is more—when a flash of red darts from the trees and my heart skips a beat, my breath catches. I sit ramrod straight now, every sense attuned to the Forest.
    “What's wrong?” Travis asks, also sitting up, a hand on my back.
    I think I'm hallucinating but then I see the flash again. An unnatural bright red against the shadows of pine trees. I stand, forgetting the calm, the happiness I just felt, and stumble down the hill, tripping over roots and rocks and not caring. I can barely contain myself as I approach the fence stretching across the base of the hill, pulling back just in time to keep my distance so that I don't risk being bitten and infected.
    The red flashes again and then comes near me. She is at the fence now, with the others. And it's clear from looking at her that she is Unconsecrated. Her limbs don't work as if of one body and her skin stretches tight over her frame, as if the bones on her face could punch through at any moment.
    But the red of her puffy vest is still vibrant and strange and I know that it's her. It's the Outsider. Gabrielle.
    I want to link my own fingers through the fence. Travis hobbles behind me and pulls me back.
    “What are you doing?” he demands, his voice a hiss as he sucks in breath. He walks with a cane and a limp and it suddenly occurs to me just how much of a struggle it must have been for him to make it down the hill after me so quickly.
    Gabrielle darts around the other Unconsecrated. She's like them but somehow different. Sleeker. Faster. She thrashes against the metal links with a speed and voracity that I have never seen before. I stand with Travis on our side of the fence, not knowing what to feel, what to do.
    “Never do that again,” Travis says into my ear, his arms wrapping around my shoulders, pulling me against him.
    I want nothing more than to let go, to let him envelop me and take me in and protect me. My entire body shakes with each heartbeat, my hands tremble. “She was the one in the room next to you,” I say, pointing to Gabrielle. “The Outsider that came to the