She reaches out and grabs my hand and squeezes. Her skin is soft, and somehow it seems to warm my insides despite the bitter wind that hits me. I know what this touch means. It means that this is the time we are supposed to kill Shadowface. All the other times, I knew we were going to fail. But this time we will get him and my father won’t care if we stay in the group or not. He won’t care that we want to leave and pursue a life away from him. Ashley understands me. She understands my father, probably more than I do. She knows how overbearing he can be and how his obsession might turn his mind to think we are betraying him. By helping him get Shadowface, then leaving, we finish what we started and can go on with our lives.
When I slide into the driver’s seat and begin following Ashley and the others, I can’t help but let out a short sigh. I look in the rearview mirror at the motorcycle that I am leaving behind. It’s a small reminder of the things one must give up in order to survive.
“I don’t know why you don’t listen to Ashley,” I say to my father. “She knows what she is talking about.”
“Are you suggesting that I don’t know what I’m talking about?” he asks me.
“Not at all. But you let her on our team because she is experienced with this kind of thing.”
“And she has made calls like that in the past,” he says. “Did we get to Shadowface?”
I don’t answer him. He doesn’t expect one. “I just don’t want your past failures to make you reckless and get us killed.”
“Maybe we haven’t been reckless enough,” he says. “Perhaps we’ve been too careful. With great risk there is great reward.”
“Or death.”
“This was the plan,” he says, “and we’re sticking with it.”
Death is waiting for us at the crumbled wall. The gun is deafening inside the SUV as my father lets off rounds into the greyskins’ heads. The truck in front of us is bright with gunfire from all sides. So much ammo is being used to kill the greyskins that I’m afraid we won’t have enough to take on Shadowface’s soldiers.
The smoke is so thick as we pass through the hole in the barricade that I have to hold my breath for at least twenty seconds. My eyes burn and it’s hard for me to keep control of the SUV as it jostles back and forth over the chunks of broken rock and wood. Reckless doesn’t begin to describe what we are doing. The hope was that the explosion and greyskins would be so surprising, so overwhelming, that the guards wouldn’t even see us slip through, but here we are announcing our arrival with every pull of the trigger. There is no way we will get in unnoticed.
The SUV sinks to the left and the steering has become impossible. I’m forced to slow to a stop in the middle of a herd of greyskins with smoke billowing all around us.
“We’ve got a flat!”
My father curses loudly, but I’m more distracted by the greyskin that smashes its face up against my window. Its black eyes stare into mine as its jaw chomps up and down, begging for a bite into my flesh. I make a quick glance to my father and I can feel the snarl on my lips. With my father’s unprecedented rash decision-making, it’s as if we have fallen into a pit of venomous snakes without any clothes on. How should we expect to come out unbitten?
I pull my knife from the strap on my belt and roll down the window just a little. With a sharp jab, the blade goes through the greyskin’s forehead and it instantly drops to the ground. Since the SUV is unable to move effectively, I shove the door open and start firing with the M-4. Heads snap back and brains splatter. It’s always the same. Aim for the head, the greyskin stops moving.
My father and I hop into the back of the slow moving truck in front of us until we come out of the smoke and into the middle of Shadowface’s compound. We all get out and duck behind a large chunk of wall that must have been blown sideways in the explosion. My father is about to yell out orders but we’re spotted by one of the soldiers before he can even say a word. On top of the fact that greyskins are crawling toward us at our backs, I would say that my father has led us into a trap.
But there is no time to point fingers right now. All we can do is try to make it out alive. At least, this is the thought that runs through my mind just before my father points to one of the buildings in the distance and shouts, “Shadowface!”
Each of us looks up to see a group of people rushing toward a line of vehicles. Our guns only briefly point toward them and we begin shooting, but the chaos around us forces us to ignore them as the engines fire up and the greyskins charge us from behind. Soldiers are closing in around us, and the escapees are already in their caravan. I shoot at a few of the greyskins that come up behind us. Everything is a blur until I feel what seems like a bucket of liquid splash over me. When I look down, I see blood and pieces of bone on the front of my shirt and pants. Then as my eyes move ahead, I see Ryan lying on the ground in a pool of blood. A soldier’s bullet has found its mark. I’m about to order everyone to get into the truck, but I’m interrupted by another dead body. This time it’s Josh. The bullet passes through his shoulder and the distraction makes him pull up sharply. I can see the shock on his face as the pain becomes real to him. But it is a short moment. Three more bullets pass through him until one finally finds his head.
I don’t scream out. I can’t do anything. I am frozen to the ground. I fear lifting my head above the barrier because I have just seen how well the enemy can shoot.
Lester dares to lift his head up. He ducks down quickly as a bullet ricochets off the concrete inches from him. “They’re coming in closer.”
The caravan is moving now, revving the engines toward a back exit at the other end. We should have had Ryan and Josh cover the back, just in case, but this mission hasn’t worked out like we planned. I try to take another shot at the caravan, but it’s no good. Shadowface has escaped us again. Only this time, we’re going to die for it. I let out a curse. This was supposed to be the time we got him. This is when we were supposed to end this.
I keep low and fire toward the greyskins at our backs until the pursuit seems to lessen. Lester lifts his head to get one more good look at the exiting caravan. It is his last time, as a soldier’s bullet finds its mark and he drops to the ground with a hole in his head.
With the soldiers firing more rounds, the greyskins turn their attention to them, so I hold my M-4 close to me. I dare not lift my head to see the soldiers coming at us. In a matter of seconds, we have gone from six members to three. I feel something against my arm. When I look to my left, I see Ashley gripping it tightly. I’ve never seen such fear in her eyes. It disturbs me in a way that I’ve never felt before. I don’t really know how to react.
The soldiers stop shooting at us and the silence is more shocking than the onslaught of bullets. I hear them shouting orders—something about looking behind them. The firing starts as quickly as it had stopped. This time I pop my head up only to see that the soldiers have their backs to us, fighting off the greyskins that have begun to overwhelm them. I waste no time. With a single shot for each person, I take down soldier after soldier, capitalizing on the distraction. Shadowface might be long gone from our reach, but the three of us just might survive the day.
My father and Ashley continue to keep the greyskins at bay as I finish off the soldiers. A few of them realize that I’m taking them out and offer some opposition, but they are too late. By the time they realize that they are now the ones trapped, I’ve already killed them.
The silence comes again once I can’t see any more of the soldiers, but I keep my eye fixed down the sight of the gun, scanning the compound for any sign of movement. Then I see it. I’m about to pull the trigger on the four people that are coming out of the building below, but I hold off when I notice they aren’t wearing the black getup of Shadowface’s soldiers. I lift my finger from the trigger and pull my head away from the sight.
Led by a female, a group of people walks out into the open with their hands up in the air. They carry no weapons. I count them. There are four. One woman and three men.
I st
and, my M-4 still pointed at them.
“What are you doing?” my father asks. Ashley says something too but I don’t pay attention to them.
“Who are you?” I shout to the small group moving toward us. “Stop walking.” A look of fear is spread across their faces. They don’t belong here.
“We’re from Elkhorn,” the bearded man says.
“What are you doing here?” I shout.
“Shadowface was holding two of my men,” the man says. “I was negotiating their release when you showed up. We don’t mean you any harm.”
“Elkhorn?” my father asks, now standing next to me. “We’re not taking them back.”
“You’re not making the decisions anymore,” I say, looking at him with as fierce a stare as I can give. My eyes then travel to the three dead bodies on the ground next to us. “Look what your decision-making has done for us today.”
He says nothing and turns to walk toward the truck. He lifts a pistol and shoots a lone greyskin through the head before getting into the passenger side.
Ashley now stands beside me and I take a deep breath. “What are your names?”
“I’m Stephen,” the bearded man says. He motions toward the woman. “This is Remi. These two are Jim and David. It looks like our vehicle was destroyed in the blast.”
I lower the gun and look all around me. I am sickened by the death of Lester, Josh, and Ryan. The group has been cut in half by a single, stupid decision. As far as I am concerned, I’m finished with them. Most of all, I’m finished with my father. If I want Shadowface to die, then it will be on my terms. But even then, I’m not sure it’s worth the effort anymore.
“We would like some shelter and food,” I say to them. “We will take you back to Elkhorn if you are willing to offer those things to us.”
“Of course,” Stephen says, his hands lowering.
“We should really hash out the details later,” Remi snaps. “Unless you want to deal with more greyskins.”
I motion for them to get into the back of the truck. As we walk toward it, I offer an introduction. “I’m Mitch, and this is Ashley. The man in the truck is my father. His name is Jeremiah.”
Chapter 3 - Waverly
It feels like the morning sun refuses to heat the outside. It has to be fifteen degrees cooler than last night, a testament to the storms that tore through the region. I press my palm against the window and it feels like ice. Part of me longs to travel north for the winter where the snow will fall heavily. In this area of the country, there will be no shortage of cold days, but instead of big snowflakes and slippery ice, there will only be miserable drops of water to soak us and chill us to the bone.
Rain doesn’t slow the greyskins down. Snow and ice can, but then there are other factors. Without electricity, there’s very little to keep you warm. Everything is a tradeoff. Maybe in the snow, a greyskin might be slower, but so are your joints. Sometimes a blade might stick to the sheath. A handgun might be harder to shoot because your fingers feel numb. Greyskins already feel numb, so they have the upper hand in that case.
I step away from the window and walk to the door on the other side of the room. I feel the doorknob and twist. This is probably my sixth time. I do it thinking that maybe at some point the door will just open for me and I will no longer be locked in here. Though, I’m not sure what I would do if the door did open. I would have nowhere to go. It’s not like I wish to leave. This is where Remi is.
My heart beats fast at the thought. For the past three years, I have been sure that I was the only one in my family left. I heard my father die over the phone. I saw my mother’s blood ooze beneath the crack of the door when the greyskins were on top of her. I can’t begin to guess how many times I tried to reach my sister on her cell phone without any luck. With Elkhorn being as far as it was from Oakridge, there was no chance of going there to find her. If she had survived, she would have fled the Epicenter as quickly as possible. If she died…well…
All these thoughts rush through my mind without having seen her yet. She might not even be my sister. I have only ever met another person in my life that went by Remi, and that was because her parents had named her Remember. She didn’t like her name, so she changed it. I always thought it was odd, but I liked it. It was different, which I thought the world needed.
But my Remi, was always just Remi. It wasn’t short for anything. I don’t know where my parents got the notion, but once the idea formed in their minds, they stuck with it. I wonder if they ever thought she would turn out to be a difficult daughter to deal with. To say that my parents and Remi didn’t get along is an understatement. She always accused them of living a life as though they didn’t have children. With all their parties and business trips that sent them to places like Venice and Paris for weeks at a time, I can see where she was coming from, but I always thought it was a bit unfair. My parents loved us, and took care of us. Sure, they hired Hattie to watch us when they were away, and yes, Hattie had become more than a nanny or housekeeper to me, but my parents made sure that they had someone trustworthy.
Something I know, that Remi won’t understand, is that my mom and dad’s last thoughts were of their children. My father called me to make sure I got into the basement with Hattie. My mother burst into the house, shouting my name when she knew something bad was happening.
I can feel the tears start to sting my eyes as I dwell on them. It’s hard to think about the people I’ve lost. My parents…Hattie…Lucas… But the hope within me that I might see Remi again is almost too much joy to bear. I just hope it isn’t someone else. Perhaps I’m just so hopeful that I’m deceiving myself.
When Gabe told me about Remi, I had started to shake. It was as if I was afraid, but it was something different—an overwhelming desire for good news, perhaps. Everything had been going badly for us. The moment we ran into Scarecrow and his raiders, everything went downhill. Lucas was killed…the greyskin attack on the school in Foley…my inability to save Gilbert. Hearing that my sister might be alive just seems too good to be true. I had Gabe describe everything about her—from her appearance, way down to how she talks.
“She’s beautiful,” he started. “Her green eyes are as vivid and bright as a field of grass. She has dark hair. Long. She usually keeps it in a ponytail. Her nose is—”
“Pointy?” I asked.
“Not in a bad way,” he said, looking at me in the rearview mirror. “Looks a lot like yours actually. You two have very similar faces. But your eyes are blue, aren’t they?”
I nodded yes. “I take after my dad.”
He then described that she put on a tough front all the time. He didn’t know if she had always been that way, or if it was a characteristic she had gained since the outbreak, but she seemed to be a person that liked to take care of herself.
“No,” I said. “She’s always been that way. “She’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever known, though it has gotten her into trouble in the past.”
“That sure would be something if it is her,” Ethan said. He sat close to me in the back of the SUV. I looked at him and smiled hopefully. It was good that Ethan was with me. I’m not sure what I would have done over the past week without him. Though Gilbert had just made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us, his temperament would have been unbearable for me if Ethan had not been around. Since Lucas died, Ethan has been by my side, ready to help me.
But thinking of him only makes me think about this weird new ability that I gained the same time we came across Scarecrow. For some reason or another, when I touch someone, I can see into his or her future. Only, so far I have been unable to control what or when I see. For Lucas, I saw only seconds into his future. For Gilbert, I had seen days ahead. For Scarecrow, I saw minutes. Only then had I been able to change what I saw, giving me the confidence to know what I needed to do for Ethan.
I had held his hand, but only for a second. A second was enough. I saw him walking through a street that I have never seen before, but these days they all look t
he same. He was holding a rifle and was alone. The sun was behind him and he had a look of determination on his face. Then, without warning, a loud gunshot blasted and a bullet passed through his chest. He fell to the ground and closed his eyes. I don’t know if he was dead or alive. The vision didn’t linger enough for me to see if he was breathing.
What disturbs me the most is that I never saw a shooter. I know I can change the future now if I see it beforehand, but this situation eludes me. How can I change it if I have nothing else to go on? I could try to never let Ethan out of my sight, but I know that won’t work. I can’t stay on him every hour of the day. Besides, there is no way to know when this will happen either. It could be tomorrow, next week, next month, or two years from now for all I know.
I haven’t told him about it. He and Gabe now know about my ability, but there has been little time to talk about it. We drove through the night and stopped to rest in the middle of Elkhorn. Each of us fell asleep in the car. Gabe leaned a little in the front seat, while Ethan sat up straight as I rested my head against the window. When I woke a few hours later, Ethan’s jacket was over me. He later told me that I was shivering in the middle of the night, but I don’t remember being too cold.
In the morning, Gabe spotted a lot of debris that looked like a barrier. When we drove up, we were met by guards with rifles pointed at us. My first thought was that we had come up on a group of raiders. I wasn’t prepared to deal with it, but it soon became apparent that these were just people like us. Their leader was away, but they eventually let us in, and I hoped they would let us stay for the night. The guards separated us, and now I’m in a room alone. I assume Ethan and Gabe are in a room like mine—mostly empty but for a cot and a window. The only security is a deadbolt on the other side of the door.
I told one of the guards that we were looking for someone named Remi. I was shocked when he said that she was here, but gone with their leader, Stephen. I asked what that meant, but they refused to tell us more. I’m okay with it. Remi will be back, I’m sure.
Away From the Sun Page 4
