Undone: A Dystopian Fiction Novel

by Chad Evercroft

  “We’ve been listening to the radio,” Mr. Hoskins continued. “It’s a huge story now, and the National Guard will be coming soon.”

  “How long has it been since you talked to the media?” Tyrsa asked.

  “About a day and a half,” Mr. Hoskins replied. “One of the students had recently been able to charge their phone and had the number of the newspaper and TV station saved for their internship. It was a really lucky break.”

  “We gotta get up there,” the redhead interjected.

  “Yes, yes,” Mr. Hoskins said.

  The redhead turned to us, frowning.

  “You want to stay with us? Make yourself useful.”

  Tyrsa, Rick, Lawrence, and I were all handed weapons and instructed to go upstairs and stop anyone who got through. Beth looked concerned about us leaving, but I could see her internally decide to keep her newly-aggressive nature hidden. Because of the lack of guns, I was given a hunting knife while Rick got a metal baseball bat. It didn’t feel much different than being the bait for Matt’s crew, but now it was on the other side.

  “Has anyone gotten in before?” I asked the redhead, who introduced himself as Tyler.

  “Only two guys,” Tyler said. “Shot ‘em.”

  As we walked up the stairs, I looked over at Tyler and noticed he wore a pair of dog tags around his neck. Army guy? Quite possibly. I didn’t have time to ask before we reached our destination. The front doors had been barricaded by couches and a variety of chairs from all over the building.

  “We put boards up, too,” Tyler explained.

  He gestured with his gun to a second couch barricade.

  “Here.”

  We crouched down behind the couches. I peered over, one of the couch feet right by my face. I could see flashlights gleaming through slits in the barricade. I had not relaxed since we started running to campus; the adrenaline made my muscles rigid, like my veins had been replaced with steel rods. I had Tyrsa on my left and Rick on my right. With each ram to the doors, we all flinched a little.

  “It’ll be better in the morning, right?” Tyrsa asked Tyler, who was holding his gun like he was a sniper, squinting intently at the doors.

  “They all go crawl into their holes,” Tyler said. “Some still wander around, stopping anyone who tries to leave, anyone who has a car. But it’s a little safer.”

  No wonder Rick and Tyrsa couldn’t find a car. The looters were hoarding all of them. An especially hard hit struck the doors and we heard cracking glass. Tyler shone a flashlight on the barricade to assess the damage. The couches had begun to move, rocking back and forth against the doors.

  “They might get in tonight,” Tyler said, almost to himself.

  He choked his gun. I took a deep, shuddering breath and looked at Tyrsa. I could barely see her in the dark, but I thought I saw her smile. Suddenly, we could hear angry shouts and gunfire. It sounded like the crew trying to break in had been interrupted. We stayed hunched down, hoping the turf war would draw everyone away from the bunker. Rick turned and was about to say something to me, when he suddenly flinched. He looked down at himself.

  “What happened?” Lawrence asked.

  “What the…?” Rick whispered.

  He brought his hand up so he could see. It was wet with blood.

  “Shit,” he groaned.

  “Ricochet!” Tyler hissed. “We gotta get him downstairs!”

  Tyler thrust his gun into my hand.

  “You three stay here! I’ll take him down.”

  Tyler pulled Rick to his feet and they disappeared down the hall, a trail of blood behind them. My heart was in my throat. Lawrence’s eyes were teary from fear. He wiped his nose violently.

  “What do we do?” he cried, raising his voice to be heard above the sound outside.

  “Stay down!” Tyrsa replied.

  I could tell there were bullets flying everywhere now, finding their way through the broken windows, through the barricade, and ricocheting off the walls and thumping into the couches. Each time I heard a bullet make contact, I flinched, imagining that the couch was my body. What did being shot feel like? Rick knew.

  Oh, God, Rick.

  We braced ourselves against the barricade, bodies stiff. The ramming started again. They were breaking in. They were in. Of course, we ran. We didn’t have a choice. The looters came in shooting and shouting. I grabbed one of the chairs from the barricade, an office chair with a rickety wheel, and we backed into the hall. The chair was a poor shield, but it was all we had. As soon as we were clear, we nearly fell down the stairs, stumbling in the dark.

  “I got hit,” Tyrsa cried.

  I whipped around to see her leaning on the railing, holding her side.

  No no no.

  I ran back to her.

  “Can you walk?”

  “Help me.”

  She put her arm around my shoulder and tried to step down, then cried out.

  “My leg, too,” she breathed.

  I picked her up, her arms around my neck. I felt her warm blood on my hands and shirt. The flashlights were fast approaching from upstairs.

  “Helloooo?” a voice called. “Anyone?”

  I recognized the voice immediately, that cocky, glib tone. Matt.

  Chapter 14

  Lawrence was waiting for us with the door open. He pulled us in without a word, slamming the door behind us. Tyler and Mr. Hoskins were there to push a desk against it, and turn the lock.

  “What happened?” Tyler demanded.

  “They just came in shooting,” I explained. “She’s hurt.”

  I lay Tyrsa down as gently as I could on the nearest sleeping bag. She winced.

  “So you just abandoned your post?” Tyler spat. “Great!”

  He raised his hands to the sky in frustration. The other students looked worried, but did not share his anger.

  “What did you want us to do? Just stand up and get killed?” Lawrence shouted back.

  “We don’t have time for this!” Mr. Hoskins said. “We’ve got two wounded.”

  I turned my attention back to Tyrsa. She had two wounds, one in her side and one in her thigh. It looked like the bullet had gone all the way through, leaving an exit wound. The sight of her blood made my stomach churn, but I knew she needed me to be calm. I looked frantically for Jenny. She was in the corner, a lantern beside her. From its light, I could see she was kneeling by Rick.

  “Jenny, I need help. Where’s the bag?”

  “Here,” she said, lifting it.

  I went over and hastily rummaged through it.

  Bandages, alcohol…

  I had no real idea of what I was doing. I looked around for anyone else who could help me. Everyone else looked paralyzed. Tyler and Lawrence were by the door, sullen and on-edge. I could hear the drumming of footsteps approaching. They were coming.

  Beth was bending over Tyrsa. She was still conscious, her eyes were wet with tears, and she was losing blood fast.

  “You have to take her clothes off,” Beth said “And stop the bleeding. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll get a blanket. She’ll go into shock.”

  I lifted Tyrsa’s shirt just enough so the wound was exposed. The bullet had carved a perfect hole in her side. With limited bandages, I tore off my own shirt and pressed it against her. She inhaled sharply. Beth returned with several blankets and helped me carefully remove Tyrsa’s jeans. The wound to her thigh looked much worse and was bleeding faster.

  “It looks like the bullet came out this way,” Beth murmured.

  I wrapped Tyrsa’s leg in the blanket. It soaked through almost immediately. I added another blanket.

  “Is she ok?”

  It was Tyler asking. I looked at him with an exasperated expression.

  “What do you think?”

  We heard a crash from the other side of the door. We all jumped, expecting hell itself to descend upon us, but there were no other immediate noises. I looked down at Tyrsa.

  “Stay with me,” I told her.

  I fel
t her forehead. It was clammy and cold. With one hand still pressing on her side, I arranged the last blanket around her shoulders and arms to try and keep her warm.

  “I need help!” Jenny called out suddenly.

  I looked over to see her frantically opening bandages and leaning over Rick. I turned back to Tyrsa, who grabbed my wrist.

  “Help him,” she said.

  “I’m helping you,” I said. “I…”

  “He’s doing worse,” Tyrsa insisted. “I’ll be ok. I have help.”

  Everything in me refused to leave Tyrsa. My hand was warm from her blood and I could feel her heart beating, pumping the blood out of her body.

  “No.”

  “I’m not asking you, Morgan,” Tyrsa said, her voice raspy.

  Tears filled her eyes. A knot formed in my own throat and I cupped the side of her face with my free hand. Beth, who was applying pressure to her thigh, looked away.

  “Don’t tell me to leave you,” I begged.

  “You’ll regret it the rest of your life if you don’t,” she said.

  I looked over at Jenny. No one had gone over to help her, and I could see Rick’s body slumping further and further down.

  “Okay,” I said, giving in.

  I called Lawrence over and he took my place. His hands were shaking as he pressed them against the blood-soaked blanket.

  “Just try to control the bleeding,” I told him.

  Rick was in bad shape. The bullet had gotten him square in the gut, and Jenny couldn’t stop it.

  “I don’t have any clotting stuff,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “And I’m running out of bandages. He’s lost so much blood.”

  We were kneeling in a pool of it. Guilt washed over me as I looked into Rick’s pale face. He was fighting to stay conscious.

  “Hey, man,” I whispered.

  He tried to lift his head, but couldn’t. He smiled instead.

  “You ok?” he asked.

  I nodded, suddenly unable to speak. I hadn’t really admitted it to myself before, but Rick reminded me of a lot of the image I had of my father. Big, strong, caring. He was always looking out for the rest of us, like a big brother. He was one of my best friends. And now he was here, bleeding to death while people outside banged on the door and shouted curses. Who could have imagined it would end this way?

  In movies and books, dying people usually have some profound things to say to the people they leave behind. Sometimes those left behind have profound things to say to their dying friends. I wanted so badly to say something really meaningful to Rick as he slipped into unconsciousness, but my mind was completely blank. I just held my hands to the layer of bandages on his belly like Jenny told me to, and watched the light leave his face. He muttered some things, but he was delusional, and didn’t make sense. I felt cold from the inside out, like my heart had turned to ice. Goosebumps freckled my skin. I fought involuntary shudders. I don’t know how long I sat there, my jeans soaked in blood. There were still loud noises outside the door, crashing and scattered gunfire, but eventually it became like white noise to me. I barely even noticed when Jenny gently pulled my hands away from Rick’s body and wrapped her arms around me. My arms stayed at my sides, limp. Beth and Lawrence came over to say their goodbyes, but they were like shadows. I somehow found myself with Tyrsa again, holding her hand. Jenny had attended to her wounds, which had stopped bleeding enough so Jenny could bind them with the bandages she saved for her.

  “He’s gone,” I said, my voice sounding hollow.

  Tyrsa closed her eyes, teardrops clinging to her dark eyelashes.

  “Oh my God,” she breathed.

  We couldn’t say anything else. The noise outside suddenly increased. It sounded like a herd of elephants was running down the hall. Then came the banging right on the door.

  “Okay, we looked everywhere else, so we know you have all the supplies in there!” a voice shouted from the other side of the door.

  “It’s Matt,” I mouthed to Lawrence and Beth, who were sitting around Tyrsa’s sleeping bag.

  Instead of fear, their eyes grew bright with hate.

  “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow this door down!” Matt screamed.

  Another heavy thwack hit the door. It sounded like an axe.

  “Open up!”

  Everyone started scrambling. Darcy burst into tears, her small wail rising above the rest of the noise. Jenny scooped her up and went to the back of the room. They huddled in a corner under one of the tables. I lifted Tyrsa as gently as I could and put her with Jenny.

  “You look after her,” I told her, our eyes locking.

  Jenny nodded. Whereas the students had been paralyzed before, their instinct to survive kicked in and they all grabbed anything they could use to defend themselves. Lawrence tossed Beth Rick’s baseball bat.

  “Ready?” he said, looking back and forth at Beth and me.

  “Ready,” we replied in unison.

  The door began to splinter. A small crack appeared in the center, above the couch, big enough to fit the barrel of a gun. Tyler stuck Tyrsa’s AK-47 through it and fired. The noise was deafening in the contained room and we heard shouts and the thump of bodies hitting the floor. Tyler whooped.

  “Yeah! How you like that, cocksuckers!” he shouted.

  Their reply was a shotgun blast through the crack, spitting both the door and Tyler’s chest wide open. He flew back, smoke pluming around the room. We all stared at Tyler’s body in shock for just a split second before the significance of our own lives took priority.

  “I like that better,” Matt said.

  He held the shotgun. I could see his head and torso clearly through the hole. He recognized me and a grin spread across his face.

  “Well, hello!” he cried, before ducking away from the opening in case someone took a shot at him.

  “We thought we lost you!” he added from his hiding spot.

  “He knows who you are?” Mr. Hoskins asked, creeping up behind me.

  “Yeah,” I replied darkly. “We’ve met.”

  We heard rumblings and what sounded like helicopters. My heart stopped for a second.

  The National Guard? The military? Are we saved?

  Matt and the others continued hacking at the door like they hadn’t heard anything. Matt stood with the gun pointed straight ahead into the room.

  “If anyone tries to poke out and shoot me,” he warned, “I shoot first.”

  We heard smashing wood and thundering footsteps from above. Beams from flashlights waved around outside the door.

  “National Guard!” an authoritative voice boomed. “Put your weapons down!”

  Through the crack, I could see Matt turn to the side. His face transformed from a laughing goblin’s to a terrified little boy’s. He dropped his gun immediately and put his hands up. He began to shake.

  “Don’t kill me!” he cried. “Please don’t kill me!”

  Ten minutes later, the four of us were outside, watching them take Rick’s body away. It was covered by a sheet on a stretcher, but we could tell it was him.

  As soon as the National Guard had burst into the room, we all dropped our weapons and raised our arms. A flashlight shone around the room, illuminating our terrified faces.

  “We’re here to help!” a guard shouted.

  We were guided out of the doorway, wood in smithereens spread through the room and hallway. The guard’s yellow flashlights kept shining in and out of our faces so we were nearly blinded.

  “Two dead!” I heard a guard yell.

  I tried to turn around, but a guard stuck out his arm.

  “Whoa, hold on there, son,” he said.

  “My friend is hurt. She’s still in there!” I sputtered.

  “Okay, we’ll get her. Don’t worry.”

  I was jostled back in line and we filed out into the campus courtyard. Two tanks were parked right there beneath the bare trees and a helicopter was spinning above us, a spotlight waving down on the buildings. Ther
e were at least five bodies littered around the courtyard, being covered by sheets as we walked out. Casualties of the looter war. Several medical officers swarmed us, asking dozens of questions all at once and covering our shoulders with blankets. I kept craning my neck to look for Tyrsa, but I couldn’t see her in the swarm of black uniforms. Beth, Lawrence, and I were separated and I found myself sitting in the back of an ambulance while a nurse shone a penlight into both my eyes and asked me my name.

  “Morgan. Morgan Fisher.”

  After a few more questions, he determined I was fine and I was allowed to go. I searched through the crowd for anyone I knew. Beth and Lawrence were sitting beneath a tree on their blankets. They each had a water bottle. Beth offered hers to me when they saw me approaching.

  “Have you seen Tyrsa? Or Jenny and Darcy?”

  “They took Jenny and Darcy,” Lawrence said, his voice oddly slow. “They walked past me real quick when the nurse was looking at me. They said they were taking everyone to a safe base.”

  “What about Tyrsa?”

  “We haven’t seen her yet.”

  With the blanket still around my shoulders, I went back into the crowd. Beth and Lawrence followed me, their steps heavy. I checked all the ambulances, and finally found Tyrsa there being examined. She tried to sit up when she saw me, but the medic gently held her arm.

  “Stay still.”

  We rushed over to her. All together, we began to cry in relief, but soon that relief turned into a soul-wrenching sadness. They were taking the bodies past us, and we could tell which one was Rick’s. I felt Tyrsa take my hand. Without taking my eyes off the stretcher, I entwined our fingers and squeezed.

  Whatever happens.

  Another ten minutes later, we were in a truck driving to the safe base with Tyrsa’s ambulance behind us.

  “There’ll be showers, food...you can call your parents,” the driver told us. “I bet they’re worried sick.”

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  Someone has to call Rick’s parents, I thought.

  I looked out the window as Bloomington passed by. Smashed windows, trash everywhere, and swarms of uniforms. Was this the last time I would see this place? I couldn’t imagine coming back. Would this be the last memory? I turned away from the window and stared at the back of the driver’s seat. Beth, Lawrence, and I all held hands to keep ourselves from dissolving, from drifting away like tendrils of smoke. We were undone. We were truly starting over.