Beyond the Fence: The Dartmoor Chronicles, #1

By Jen Minkman

"People turn their heads when I walk past them. They know where I’m going. My feet almost stumble on the uneven pavement of the cobblestoned street when I sense Mark’s gaze on me. This is the only time he takes notice of me, and it’s for a reason I wish didn’t exist. All the other times I want him to see me, his eyes skip right over me. I’m a wolf in sheep’s clothes to these people. A potential threat.

I already know what will happen once I get to the Clinic. I’ll have to talk to that clueless psychiatrist so he can measure my possibly violent tendencies. Because that stigma has been on me ever since I turned twelve and the person I loved most in the whole wide world was Purged from this city.
My name is Sarah, and my father was a violence offender."

Return to the world of the Island series and meet Sarah, resident of Dartmoor City. She's bitter, she feels trapped, and she wants nothing more than to venture beyond the fence that's keeping her in. She just has no idea how to. But when she discovers a secret that President Jacob would rather keep under wraps, Sarah is forced to make a move for freedom - because she meets a guy who is even more of a prisoner than she is, and he desperately needs her help.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dutch Venture Publishing
• Release date: Nov 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519946652

Jen Minkman

Jen Minkman (1978) was born in the Netherlands and lived in Austria, Belgium and the UK during her studies. She learned how to read at the age of three and has never stopped reading since. Her favourite books to read are (YA) paranormal/fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian and romance, and this is reflected in the stories she writes. In her home country, she is a trade-published author of paranormal romance and chicklit. Across the border, she is a self-published author of poetry, paranormal romance and dystopian fiction. So far, her books are available in English, Dutch, Chinese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Afrikaans. She currently resides in The Hague where she works and lives with her husband and two noisy zebra finches.

Book preview

Prologue

I leave my house on Heather Terrace on a bright Saturday morning. The wind outside feels warm and inviting on my skin. Which strikes me as wrong, somehow, because I’m on my way to the Clinic. And that’s the very last place in Dartmoor City where I want to be right now.

People turn their heads when I walk past them. They know where I’m going. My feet almost stumble on the uneven pavement of the cobble-stoned street when I sense Mark’s gaze on me. This is the only time he takes notice of me, and it’s for a reason I wish didn’t exist. All the other times I want him to see me – in school, on the market square, during holiday celebration parties – his eyes skip right over me. I’m a wolf in sheep’s clothes to these people. A potential threat.

I already know what’ll happen once I get to the Clinic. I’ll be given the awful herbal tea that always makes me drowsy and sick to my stomach – to ‘calm me down’, they say – and then I’ll have to talk to that clueless doctor who’ll ask me the usual questions about certain scenarios and how I’d respond to them. To measure my possibly violent tendencies. Because that stigma has been on me ever since I turned twelve and the person I loved most in the whole wide world was Purged from this city.

My name is Sarah, and my father was a violence offender.

1.

By the time I get to the inner city gate, dark clouds have drifted in from the west. Looks like there’s going to be a thunderstorm.

Passport, Miss, the man in the guardhouse stops me when I want to go in.

If only Jesus would show some mercy and bless this guy with a generous helping of long-term memory. I come here twice every week, after all, and he’s always here on Saturdays. It’s humiliating enough to be one of those who need to report to the authorities every Wednesday and Saturday because of ‘family issues’. It’s even worse when border control employees fail to recognize you as the serious threat you allegedly are if a member of your family suffered from violence affliction in the past.

Maybe I shouldn’t get so worked up over this. I scold myself as I dig up the passport from my messenger bag. The friendly face of God’s son smiles up at me from the cover, but right now the image does nothing to calm me down.

There, I say to the guard, opening the booklet and showing him the black-and-white photo and personal details. That’s me. Satisfied?

He narrows his eyes and gives me back my travel document with a contemptuous look. Easy on the vitriol, Miss Hart.

Not smart enough to remember a face for more than a few days but astute enough to pick up on my sarcasm? Well, bless his soul.

I know I’m being obnoxious. Too aggressive. Obviously, that’s all due to my bad genes.

Seriously, if one more person tells me I have bad genes because of my dad, I swear to Gideon I’m going to give that commentator a fine example of bad genes to remember me by. My glower is known to have stopped the wickedest of critics. I might even raise my voice a little. Just because they expect me to, anyway.

Sorry, I mumble as meekly as I can. May I pass?

He steps aside and lets me through. I don’t look back. Instead, I quickly continue down the road and stare contemplatively at the passport I’m still clutching.

There’s my name, linked to two other names – Sam Hart and Iris Masterson. My mother insisted I adopt her family name after they publicly Purged my father in the palace square, but I didn’t want to. It’d feel like betrayal... to the gentlest dad in the world.

I still don’t know what exactly happened that day. My mother doesn’t want to talk about it to me or Timothy, my little brother. Well, Tim was only three at the time, so he doesn’t really remember Dad at all. But I do. I remember that day very clearly. The town was buzzing with excitement because visitors from the west were gathering in our town. Descendants of Old World war survivors who had apparently settled on some island after the bombs dropped. I still recall asking Mom to lay out my best dress so I could go to the town square with my friends and gawk at the strangers that evening. Back when I still had friends.

Instead, Mom kept me inside all evening and all night after the presidential messenger had shown up on our doorstep. Your husband was Purged according to the law, ma’am, he’d said.

Timothy had cried in his bed all night. He was too young to understand the law, and after lying awake and listening to my brother’s desperate sobs until morning, I decided I was too angry to understand it. But I abide by it for the moment, just for my mother’s sake. She can’t take another Purge in the family, so I sit pretty, roll over, and lie down whenever they expect me to. The only thing I won’t do is play dead – because I live to break out of my constraints one fine day.

When I see the imposing brick structure of the Clinic looming in the distance, my stomach drops to my knees and I try to steady my nervously-beating heart. I hate that place. Hate it with all my heart and soul. It reminds me, time and again, that there’s no way out of here. Not for me, with a red-stamped passport like this. The Manifested of Dartmoor City never allow me to go anywhere outside Greater Dartmoor, not even to New Bodmin for the Annual Fair. The only place I can go to beyond the fence is Exeter, and I’m not quite that desperate yet.

Hey, Sarah, one of my former classmates calls out to me. Peter is standing next to the public letterbox, popping in a few postcards. His voice sounds friendly enough, but his eyes tell a different story. He doesn’t trust me and he looks down on me, but he’s too polite to give it to me straight. So he smiles and waves at me, taking a hesitant step back when I actually change course to head for the red letterbox as well.

Don’t sweat it, I mumble. Just need to mail out a letter.

Sure. Peter gives me a weak smile and scampers off. The coward.

My mom writes to her sister in New Bodmin every week. Sometimes, Aunt Viola visits and tells us about her town. Bodmin seems like a dream to me. Far more tolerant and easy-going. If I ever manage to break out of here and venture beyond the fence, that’s where I’ll go. Well, I won’t call on Aunt Viola, of course. She doesn’t need trouble. But I’ll find a place to stay and build a new life. Maybe I’ll even find a nice boy who won’t look at me in disgust.

It’s embarrassing, but I’ve never been kissed. At age seventeen. I’ve never even held hands with anyone. I was twelve when my dad’s Purge happened, and afterwards, I turned into a pariah. There are some other kids like me, who’ll never be allowed to sign the Manifest, but none my age. Most are well over eighteen and have shitty jobs in the mines. Also, there’s a ten-year-old girl, Janice, and a thirteen-year-old boy called Ferris. They call him Ferret behind his back. And to be honest, I get why. He’s kind of a sneak.

Welcome, Miss Hart, the receptionist says, looking up from her desk with a friendly smile. It truly touches her eyes. I always like it when she’s on duty. She makes my visits to the Clinic just a tad less horrible.

Thank you, Michelle, I reply. May I take a seat in the waiting room?

Sometimes, they want me in a separate office so I won’t bother ‘normal’ visitors.

You may, Michelle nods her gray head. I’ll bring you your tea in a minute.

Oh, joy. I throw her a faint smile and slog off to the waiting area with slumped shoulders. Last time I didn’t need to drink the vile stuff. Maybe they wanted to see how much of a monster I’d be without being drugged. Too much, it seems. I’m back on the smells-and-tastes-like-lukewarm-piss herbal tea menu for now.

The waiting room is empty. The walls are bare and stripped of anything remotely comforting or welcoming. It could use a few jolly posters, if you ask me. We have an old waiting room poster in our museum which says ‘An Apple A Day Keeps the Doctor Away’. No idea why. People in the Old World were probably nuts. A few months ago, Timothy started eating apples for breakfast every day, which puzzled me until I figured it out – he’d been to the museum on a field trip and he must have seen the ‘apple poster’. He’s hoping he won’t ever have to go through the same thing as me. But when he turns thirteen, his number will be up. That’s when boys get lower voices and girls grow breasts and start to bleed. That’s when we turn into potential threats to society. Our smart doctors have got it all figured out. Violence runs in the family, so the sins of the father are the sins of the child.

Here you go. Michelle interrupts my angry mind babble. She shoves a mug of steamy badness into my hands. Drink up. Doctor Harrington will be with you shortly.

Thanks, I mumble, obediently sipping from the tea as she watches me. Is it just me, or does the flavor really get worse every time? I almost gag when I drink a large gulp of the stuff.

The receptionist turns to leave once I’ve downed half the mug of tea. Outside, the thunder rumbles and big drops of rain start to patter on the corrugated metal roof of the Clinic waiting room. I was right – those dark clouds I saw are bringing the first autumn rains of the year. Soon, Dartmoor’ll get cold and dark. Soon, we’ll celebrate another Christmas around the tree without my dad, singing songs for the original Gideons who distributed the Holy Bible for their leader, so we could all learn about Jesus.

No crying, no pain, I mumble, eyeing the sign above the door that spells out the slogan of Dartmoor.

That’s when I hear someone crying. The sound is dim, but it’s clearly there. I furtively look at the door to my left. It’s slightly ajar and it seems to be leading to a dark corridor. Soft sobs echo down the hallway, I’m sure of it now. Desperate cries of pain, which morph into shouts of frustration and anger as I keep listening to them. Anger – in this place? That can’t be. No one’s stupid enough to show violence within the Clinic walls. Maybe the tea’s messing with my head. Or maybe they’re setting me up to see how I’ll respond to another violent person.

Well, if this is a test, I’ll play. Maybe I can show them just how calm and composed I can be. My legs feel unsteady when I get up, but I still make my way to the door. It’s one of those entrances with a doorknob on just one side, and the side I’m facing doesn’t have one. It swings toward me, and it’s clearly not supposed to be opened from this side at all. My heart starts to beat in my throat.

Silently, I slip through it and also leave it slightly ajar behind me. At first, I don’t see a thing because there are no strip lights on the ceiling and the only small window in the cramped corridor is all the way at the end near the top. But when my eyes adjust and the dark recedes to give up its secrets and reveal shapes to me, I can make out three doors to my left. No, not doors – barred entrances. Small rooms with the kind of bars they once used in this place to lock people inside. Dartmoor was a ‘prison’ or ‘jail’ – they taught me that in school. But no one gets locked up in Dartmoor anymore. So why is it that I hear the cries of a man emanating from the room furthest away from me?

I gulp down my nerves and tiptoe forward, slowly approaching the old cell. Let me out, the voice says. For Luke’s sake, let me out. Or just kill me – let it be over. I hold my breath and his voice rises with hysteria. You bastards! I hope Darth gets you all. I hope you all die in pain, and your families with you! Angry fists rattle the bars of the prisoner’s cage.

Wide-eyed, I stop dead in my tracks, my mind a confused blur due to the brain fog that always comes with drinking the tea. Fear fingers its way up my spine. I don’t know much, but I’m sure of one thing: this man is not from Dartmoor. I doubt he’s even from Bodmin or the faraway city of Exmoor in the northwest. No one I know would risk speaking like this. No one. If any of the Soldiers of Gideon heard him, they’d stick a needle in his arm before he could blink. Besides, he has a very strange accent that’s definitely not local.

Hello? I call out tentatively, my own voice shaky. Uhm – I’m not one of the doctors. I think you should calm down. You can’t shout like that. A part of me still believes this is a trick. Some way for Doctor Harrington to figure out how I’ll react when confronted with men who behave like my evil dad.

At once, the man in the cell stops shouting. Slowly, I advance and come to a stop in front of the bars separating me from the aggressive creature inside. What’s your name? I ask him, cringing immediately at my inane question. Whatever next – inquiring after his favorite color?

He seems to be thinking the same thing, because he lets out an incredulous snicker. What d’you care? he grumbles.

Now that I have the opportunity to see inside the cell, I notice that he’s not as old as I thought he was. His voice sounds gravelly and tired, but in the dim light I can see that he’s a young man – about twenty years old, I guess. He’s wearing a pair of gray pants and a long-sleeved black sweater with the hood pulled up. Strands of auburn hair are stuck to his forehead, which is slick with sweat. He looks really sick.

If you want me to leave... I say a bit huffily.

No. His response is immediate and urgent. His eyes flash to mine and I tense up at the unadulterated anger and despair burning in his dark irises. My name’s Jinn. He closes his eyes, almost as though he’s trying to remember the rules of idle chit-chat. What’s yours? he then continues.

I’m Sarah. I shift uncomfortably. I come here twice a week so the doctors can check my development. When he doesn’t react to that, I swallow and ask him: Is that what they’re doing to you too, in here?

The sheer horror of that thought rocks me to the core. Maybe Doctor Harrington’s trying out methods to take the violence out of us Red Stamps by locking us up so they won’t have to Purge us at once? They need compliant workers, after all, for the dangerous jobs no one else wants.

They’re doing tests, Jinn says, very quietly now.

What kind of tests? My heart is beating against my ribs.

Medical tests. To find a cure for the war disease.

I never even knew they were working on that. Are they using children of the Purged as guinea pigs? Is this a new way to redeem ourselves, besides doing a pilgrimage to Exeter Cathedral?

But then it hits me – this guy isn’t from Dartmoor. His imprisonment makes a kind of sense in the light of him being extremely violent, but it doesn’t explain why he speaks a form of English that I can hardly make sense of. Just for how long have you been here?

Jinn is quiet for a long time. "I came here about five years ago. From the west. We sailed out from our island with fifty people. My brother and I decided to stay and make Dartmoor our new home, but then things got heated. President Jacob suddenly put a price on our heads