by Abi Ketner
“Can you give us ten?” I ask, my voice coming out harder than intended.
“Sorry, but this can’t wait,” Bruno says, ducking his head back out of the hut.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say to Cole. “We can’t leave it like this. You have to tell me whatever it is you’re afraid to.”
“Not today,” Cole says, his expression dark.
“Get your asses out here, lovebirds,” Bruno says.
I step toward Cole, attempting to grab his arm, but when I do, he pulls out of my reach. “Cole,” I plead.
He shakes his head and then walks away from me.
“What’s so important that it couldn’t wait?” Cole asks.
I snake my hands through my knotted hair and pull it back before going out. I shake as my emotions range from wanting to wrap Cole in my arms, to wanting to punch him in the face. I don’t even understand what the hell just happened.
“We gotta get out of here,” Bruno says, Grace at his side.
“That’s it?” Cole asks.
“Yeah, dude, that’s it.” Bruno flicks his eyes between Cole and me and then cracks a knowing smile. “Did I cock block you, is that why you’re mad?”
“Stop it,” Grace says, smacking Bruno’s arm.
“I totally did, didn’t I?” He shakes his head, and Cole’s face smolders. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.”
Grace punches him in the arm this time, her face reddening. Bruno turns to her quickly and then back to us. “What? This place is dirty, diseased, and crawling with all kinds of insects and rodents. Just think of it as a favor, dude. My gift to both of you. And, you’re welcome.”
“So why the rush to leave the hut last night then?” Cole sounds annoyed.
“We can still have fun with our clothes on,” he says. “And anyway, I’m dying of thirst, and I’ve got an idea.”
Grace looks like she is waiting for the ground to open and swallow her up.
I’m so flustered I can barely speak. Stringy hairs hang in my face, and I straighten my shirt. I want to give Bruno a piece of my mind, but his smile is already gone. He stares upward, his gaze fixated elsewhere.
Screams echo above our heads, and I glance up at the sky. Turkey vultures circle around, six of them, like they’re waiting to feed on us. Their bodies are dark against a sky sponged with silver and gray clouds. I run my tongue over my cracked lips just thinking about rain, but I know it’s not coming. The artist in me longs to paint this scene. The fighter in me thinks it’s a bad omen.
“Bruno, I’m thinking you’re right. We should probably go. Even though I’d like to punch you right about now,” Cole says. His voice breaks my fixation on the hungry scavengers. He’s intense and broody.
Grace looks in my direction, but I refuse to meet her gaze. I don’t want her to see the tension between Cole and me. And yet, maybe she’s exactly the person I should talk to about it, since Bruno was also a guard. But now isn’t the time.
Turning away from me, Grace asks, “Where are we headed?”
“The underground,” Bruno says.
“Are you sure it’s still there?” I ask.
“For our sake, I sure as hell hope so,” Bruno says.
“And what exactly is down there?” Grace asks. She looks pale as she puts her hand against Bruno to steady herself.
“Supplies, I hope. It’s the only place that might have what we need,” Bruno says.
I nod my head, biting the inside of my cheek just thinking about it. The underground where Keegan trained me is full of dark passages and hidden entrances. It could be crawling with guards and completely booby-trapped by now. I lock eyes with Cole, and he furrows his brow, his lips sealing into a thin line. Despite our feelings toward each other at the moment, we both know we could be encountering a shitstorm walking in there, especially with the limited resources we have. But we don’t have any other options left. Either we find water, food, ammo, and medical supplies, or we die out here.
“Bruno, can you take point?” Cole asks. “I’m running out of ammo.” We’re all running out of ammo, but there’s something else going on with Cole.
“Yeah, sure … that’s why you want me to lead,” Bruno says with sarcasm. I roll my eyes. “Let’s send Bruno to the front line, because everyone knows the black guy in the movie always dies first.”
We all laugh. I don’t remember the last time I saw a movie. Watching surveillance cameras with Cole hardly counts as entertainment. It lightens the mood, but only for a moment. Only long enough for me to build up enough courage to follow Bruno into the place where I first connected with my brother.
“Let’s take the route by the hospital, the way the van took us,” Cole offers. “Unless you know of another way to get there?”
“I’m afraid not,” Bruno says.
“Are you sure it’s abandoned?” Grace asks. “Like really sure?”
“According to Sutton it is.” Bruno wipes his forehead. We’re sweating out valuable fluids when we’ve got nothing to replace them with. “I thought about going there first, but once we got in, everything sorta just blew up and we ended up here.” He rubs his temples as if he’s trying to remember something. “I’d kill to get in and raid that training facility, have myself a weapon holiday.”
“And we definitely could use some medicine and first-aid kits,” I say. “Zeus’s wounds need to be cleaned. He could probably use some antibiotics too.”
“There you go again. Always thinking about that dog,” Bruno says. Zeus growls at him and nudges him with his head. Hard. “Okay, okay, I’m just kidding, buddy.”
“Right. So we avoid confrontation at all cost,” Cole says with a scowl on his face. “Be smart. Get the basics, don’t waste ammo or energy, and move fast. We got this.”
There’s a shrill squawking overhead. The vultures fight over something on the roof of a nearby building.
“Stupid birds,” Bruno says. “I’m so tempted to shoot one.”
“And do what? Eat it?” Grace asks.
“What else would I do with it? Use it as a weapon? Carry it around as my pet?” Bruno asks. He smacks his lips. “Beats starving to death.”
“I’m not eating that,” she says. “Those birds are foul.”
Shooting a vulture and cooking it does sound tempting. But anything sounds good right about now. I bite my lip, just thinking about the food I had in my pack before I lost it. Canned beans sound delicious right about now.
Bruno pulls his near-empty pack on and nods at Cole before moving out of the shadows. We all fall into a silent line behind him.
At one point, Grace turns to look at me. Her eyes search mine when our gazes meet, and she whispers, “Are you okay?”
With Cole’s eyes boring holes into my back, I shake my head at her.
Eventually, I fall into a rhythm, counting my steps, when I notice Zeus dragging his feet beside me. It worries me. His injuries need to be tended to, but we’ve got nothing to clean or bandage them with. I touch his head, prompting a swipe of his dry, rubbery tongue across his teeth. One of my worst fears is that his wound gets infected, and we have nothing to treat it with. But I can’t think about that now.
We pass behind my old building. Memories come pouring back to me from when Bruno took me to see Sutton after Wilson pistol-whipped me in my quarters. My head aches just reliving it. He took me out the back way, and it was the first time I had ever laid eyes on the shantytown behind my building. It was a place of squalor then, but now, even my imagination can’t think up anything more gruesome.
We stop against the familiar cement-block walls and duck away from the daylight. I let my eyes wander over the mass of huts, tents, and crudely made living areas. It’s like a collage of colors, muted by dust and weathered by the constant beating of the sun.
The stench from a pile of rotting bodies invades my nose. Flies buzz around my face. I swat them away, cringing and trying to keep my mouth closed. Swarms cover the corpses even as the turkey vultures swoop down to tear at the dead
flesh. I cover my mouth to stem the feeling of nausea that sweeps over me. Too late. But there’s nothing to throw up anymore. Just stomach bile. My retching must be loud, because everyone stops.
“Get us away from here,” Grace says in Bruno’s direction. She pats my back and holds my hair away from my face. I hear disgust and maybe even pity in her voice. Then she dry heaves, once.
“That right there is by far the sickest thing I’ve ever seen,” Bruno says. I straighten my back and look at him as he covers his entire face. I guess he’s never seen anyone throw up yellow stomach fluids before. But he’s pointing to the vultures dining on the dead Sinners.
“Yet you want to eat one of those vultures?” Cole asks. It’s a half-attempt at being funny. Maybe he will be back to his old self soon. Broody, sulky Cole isn’t working.
He touches my shoulder. When I look into his eyes, pity’s written all over his face, in the way his eyebrows gather in and his mouth turns down. I’m still unsure of what to think or say. His behavior makes me question what exactly he’s hiding, and yet, I know he loves me.
“Ready?” Bruno asks me.
I nod.
Bruno clears his throat and runs down the alley filled with trash. He accidently kicks a can, and it rattles against the walls and between his feet. He jumps like it’s a firecracker. I’m too nauseous to laugh at him, and I know that sound could give our location away to any guards in the area. He stops and holds up his fist. So we all stop and wait for his next command.
It’s quiet, which is abnormal for daytime. Before, the Hole was a constant chatter of noise. People would crowd into the streets, buying, selling, bartering, and surviving. Patrol was constant. Vehicles would rumble past, and prostitutes worked the streets, some as young as twelve years old. Guards were always detaining Sinners for this reason or that. Children of Sinners would play ball in the streets, yelling as kids do.
Where’d all the people go? Wilson couldn’t have killed them all.
Bruno goes forward again, checking left and right, up and down. He signals for us to follow. Grace hops over the trash behind him, and Zeus stops to sniff and dribble urine every once in a while. I don’t even know how he has any left. But at least he’s still producing it.
I follow Grace. Zeus pees on the wall, just as a shadow moves to my right. I jump away, startled. Zeus lowers his leg and sniffs at the person. Satisfied, he walks away. A hand pulls back a dark hood, revealing a gaunt face. Cole and I draw on him. There’s no way to tell his age because of how sickly he appears. His eyes rest in deep, hollowed sockets. His neck’s branded orange for gluttony. He opens his mouth. I notice blisters around the edge of his lips in the creases, and his tongue’s covered with them as well. I lower my weapon.
He tries to speak, but nothing but a hoarse whisper comes out. His bony hand reaches out for me, but I step back, unsure of what to do. He opens his mouth again, but nothing happens. He raises his shaky right hand to his mouth.
“Maybe he wants a drink,” Grace says, hand on the weapon at her waist.
“Like the rest of us?” Bruno says, cocking his head to the right.
“Is that what you want? Water?” I ask. His eyes register what I’m saying, and he nods, barely able to hold up his own head. “We don’t have any. I wish we did.” His eyes close, and his head slumps back against the building. I look back at Cole, who still has his gun drawn. I wave my hand up and down so he will lower it. The guy isn’t a threat. He can’t tell anyone we’ve been here. He can’t talk.
“Lexi, I’m sorry. But we can’t help him,” Cole says quietly, keeping his gun trained on the guy. I suck in my bottom lip and turn back to face the man. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes this time. I turn back to Cole, sighing as I wait for him to tell me what I want to hear. He shakes his head, avoiding eye contact. I step forward toward the man, careful not to get too close.
“I wish we could help you,” I say.
“Now the Hole has zombies? Awesome,” Bruno says, under his breath but loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Let’s go before I lose my mind,” I say.
I start to feel weak. As I step away from the ill man, my knees wobble, and my hands feel limp.
At the end of the alley, Bruno checks both ways twice before crossing the street. The ground begins to rumble. Bruno holds up his fist, and everyone but Grace comes to a stop. I think the sun must be in her eyes. She’s going to step out, in full view of an oncoming vehicle. Bruno’s frantically waving his arms to get her attention. He can’t yell for fear of giving away our position.
My stomach drops as panic creeps up my insides. I have to stop her. Just before Grace takes her first step into the street, I jerk her shoulder to a stop. She stumbles backward, her body landing on top of me. Cole drags us both back into the shadows. At first, she flips over, giving me an angry glare.
Then she hears it too—the unmistakable sound of an engine sputtering along the street. Her shoulders tense. She stands and holds out her hand. It’s clammy as I take it. We press ourselves against the building, willing ourselves to disappear into the cement blocks.
The vehicle, a big, black SUV, careens along the street. It zips past our position, leaving nothing but another cloud of dust to cover us as we finish crossing to the other side. Once there, Grace pulls me into a hug. When she releases me, her eyes are glassy, and her chin trembles.
“Thank you, Lexi,” she says, exhaling a sigh of relief.
“You’re welcome,” I say. I know she’d do the same for me.
Bruno wraps his arms around Grace and pulls her into his chest and says, “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, you hear?” He kisses the top of her head and takes a deep breath. “You should’ve gone home like I said.” Grace elbows him and gives him a dirty look.
“I’ll go home when you go home,” she says, smiling and still breathing heavily from the scare and adrenaline.
“We’re not moving fast enough,” Cole says. Our heads all swing toward him in unison. “We’ve gone one block. One freaking block.”
“Hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Bruno says.
“Yeah, well this isn’t Rome,” Cole says with disdain.
“We need frequent breaks. None of us has had any water, and the heat is too much.”
“True. Let’s just try to make it before nightfall,” Cole says.
“Let’s keep going,” Grace says, looking to Bruno to lead.
He treks onward between buildings, mountains of trash, and the searching eyes of the cameras mounted in the streets.
I exhale, attempting to let all the tension out of my body, but it’s no use. Soon we will reach the hospital where I first met Sutton, where Alyssa died, and where I was almost raped.
I’ll never forget riding in the blacked-out van to meet Keegan for the first time since he’d left home. The van was shot to hell by the time we arrived, but the joy and utter excitement of seeing my brother again made it all worth it. This time, there will be no happy reunion. He’s gone forever. Now, the best I can hope for is water. If I allow myself to hope, maybe even food and first-aid supplies.
Bruno leads us down the alley where Cole helped me hop over the ledge so many times before. And just like then, Cole jumps over and reaches out to assist me. His hands tenderly wrap around my waist, pulling me down into his arms. He doesn’t release me until my feet are steady. He lifts my face to his.
“You’re angry with me, I can tell.”
“I’m not mad at you; I’m hurt more than anything,” I say. “You know how I feel about being lied to.”
“We’ll talk soon. Promise.”
“Yeah.”
He touches his forehead to mine and looks into my eyes. “Focus on my voice. We’ve overcome all this; and we’ll do it again.” He kisses my lips, and his are just as chapped as mine.
I nod.
“Okay, you good?”
“I’m good.”
The stench of sewage hits me like yesterday, and no matter how many times I�
��ve walked through the narrow alley, breathing through my nose still isn’t an option. I hear Grace suck in her breath in front of me. At least I don’t see any rats this time.
The buildings squeeze us into a line. Bruno’s elbows barely clear the high-reaching walls as he stops at the edge of the street across from the hospital. He checks both ways before turning right. Grace disappears around the corner after him.
And then it’s my turn.
We’re here.
The formerly clean façade of the hospital has aged seemingly overnight. The walls crumble in places. The glass is blown out in the majority of the windows. The main entrance is boarded up with wooden planks and red tape.
Zeus nudges me from behind, prodding me to move. I check both ways and glance up at the top of the hospital where the guards used to be stationed, but no one’s there. Here it goes … I sprint around the corner with Zeus on my heels.
I tap Grace’s shoulder when I catch up to her and Bruno. Cole taps mine. We move from building to building and house to house, in the shadows if we can find them, but otherwise, out in the open.
A bicycle lies on its side against a shack. I wonder who used to ride it. From the way it looks, it used to be blue, but the faded color has surrendered to the orange rust creeping up the metal bars.
Bruno stops to catch his breath, so I press my back against a building, and my eyes are drawn to the black entrance of a small house. There are torn yellow curtains hanging idly in the single front window. A weird sound, like a pot banging around inside, suddenly stops. I squint toward the house when I see the small face of a child peeking back at me.
The wide, hazel eyes of the child are striking against her dirt-caked cheeks. She blinks. Her long hair falls over her shoulders. She looks up and down the street and then returns her stare to me. I’m guessing she’s about six years old. She shifts positions. Then she sees Zeus, and her lips part. Her hands cover her mouth in shock. I remember that feeling. Oh please, little girl, please don’t scream.
I slowly raise my hand and wave at her, not wanting her to be afraid of us. She waits a few seconds before waving back. But she doesn’t smile. Her eyes look far too mature for her heart-shaped face. I was starting to wonder if anyone had survived the revolt and lived here anymore.
