by Tara Brown
He licked his lips and looked at me with the most frightening eyes I'd ever seen. "Run, Em. Run and get to the cabin. Go up that mountain to the right of us. Climb up until you come to a dirt road. Follow it until you come to an old farmhouse. From there, it's across their hayfield and up the mountain behind their house—to the right." He slipped his bent hand out and grabbed mine. I could feel his fingers click when he bent them. "It's us and them, Em. I'm still with you. You can feel it; you'll always feel it. But right now, I need you to be a brave girl—the brave girl I trained for exactly this moment. Run and don’t help anyone. Don’t ask for help. It's everyone for themselves now. They're all sick, Em. In some way, they're all sick."
Blood dripped into his hair from a cut above his eye. I shook my head and cried. I heard a truck behind me.
He screamed at me, "RUN, EM! THEY'RE COMING! NEVER GET CAUGHT, EM! NEVER!"
I backed away on the grass and stood on my bruised and battered legs. They almost buckled in fear, but I did as he said. I swallowed my sobs, turned, and ran. I ran across the freeway and up the hill into the grass. Feet made noises behind me, but I had always been fast, even as a little girl.
I heard the vehicle and the gunshot. I heard the others. I knew they'd shot him, if he lived that long.
I ran and ran until I threw up in the grass, and even then, I ran. I ran until my eyes saw things that could not be and heard people I knew to be dead. People like my father. I felt him pulling me up the hill and yelling at me to hurry up. I felt his breath on my face as he shouted and squeezed my hand.
I ran until I saw the farmhouse. Then I crept and snuck, hiding in the shadows of the dark. Then I sat alone in those shadows, too terrified to cry—too terrified to move. But I knew food and water would be waiting at the cabin. All the food and water I could manage to get inside me. Hunger gnawed at my spine. I stumbled across the field in the dark. I got to the other side and climbed one of the trees there. Its rough bark reminded me I was alive. Just as he always said it would, pain reminded me I was still alive.
The flashes stop, and the memory fades, and I am alone in the dark room with the smiling statue of Jesus. And again the pain reminds me I am still alive, just like it did then in the big tree at the edge of the field.
Chapter Three
When I wake, the pain is gone, but I've peed myself. The pee is everywhere. My pants are sticky and wet. It smells rusty like blood, but I recall peeing. I recall the pain and the pressure and how good it felt to let go of the pee. I am becoming one of the infected. It's what he put into my arm. I know it. I've peed and feel cramped. Soon I will wander about and crave flesh…or just die and be eaten by the other infected.
Where is Anna? Has she come for me? Is she captured? I need to be stronger to save her, unless she was truly a hallucination.
The room is so dark that I can't see Jesus, but I assume he is still here. I wonder if he is grossed out that I've peed on the floor and am so weak I cannot move out of my own filth. I wish he wasn’t a stone statue, but rather a mannequin. I need new clothes. The image of being infected and wandering the world in robes that I stole from a Jesus mannequin makes me smile.
I grab one of the bags of glucose and pull the plug from the bottom of it. I drink the sweet water until I feel sick, and even then, I force a little more down. I drain the bag and drop it to the floor, where I then lower my face and arms. The cold of the floor is comforting somehow.
My eyes flicker like the lights in the hall, and I know I'm passing out again.
I don't dream this time. I don’t remember anything else about before. I just sleep and then wake up.
When I wake again, I lick my lips. They feel chapped and cracked. The pee is dried and when I move my legs, they feel stuck in the pants. I am weak. Very weak. My breath feels like effort. My heart doesn’t feel like it's beating at all.
"Find the door and find Anna," I whisper to myself, and maybe Jesus. He's like Leo. He makes me less crazy, because with him there, I'm not talking to myself.
I push myself to my knees and crawl to where I think the door is. I feel along the wall for the gap where the handle will be. The edge of the door evades me. Did the room seal while I slept? I look around in the darkness for Jesus. From what Granny said, he is supposed to be my light in the dark, but even my animal eyes don’t work in this place. There is no light in this room.
The wall feels like it is never-ending. I feel like I will travel this wall in a circle until I go mad and claw my way through it. I wonder if I am in hell. I am being punished for the sins I have committed. I'm not really sorry for any of them. That might be a problem.
I turn and feel for the statue of Jesus. Nothing feels like it will happen fast enough. The air in the room feels like its oxygen supply has been sucked dry. All that’s left is the pollution I have made with every panicked exhale. My heartbeat feels like it's been started with a shock, and it's now making an attempt to rip itself from my chest.
It's a panic attack. I recognize it as my fingers touch the cold statue. My fingers meet the cold of his robes and I fall at his feet in a heap. I am like his followers. The ones I've seen in paintings, who save the children crying alone on the road. The ones who seem kind and gentle, but somehow their eyes make you feel not good enough.
"Help me," I whisper, gripping to his cold robes.
I hear something and lift my head.
At first I think it's Jesus whispering, making me shiver. I am about to become devout for the remaining seconds of my life, when I realize the wind is coming from the door. I crawl away from Jesus, feeling along the floor for the bottom of the door where the air is coming in. It's clean and fresh. Something has changed in the hallway outside. Anna?
I feel the slight cool whisper of air as my hands reach the base of the door.
I run my hands up it to the handle and hang on for dear life. I turn the lock on the door, just as the handle turns. It gets stuck on the lock.
A voice follows the movement of the handle, "Clear here too." The vibration of the movement jolts through me. "She went up the stairs. Everything else is locked."
I almost leap back screaming. But I force myself to be calm. I hold my fingers on the door and wait. They are checking the hall and looking for me. They know I am gone. I am not alone. The doctor wasn’t alone. Where were they when I was killing him? Are they looking for Anna?
Another voice fills the silent air of the hallway, "God damn, do you know how important she was? For Christ's sake. It's one little girl."
Little girl? Are they talking about me? Am I still a little girl, or is it Anna they've lost? My heart is already panicked from the arrival of the men; this doesn’t help it calm down.
I try to think, but my stomach is hurting too much. I don't know what to do. If I go looking for them, I might lead the men to where they are. I'm sick, and most likely dying, so it isn’t like I'll be much help.
I pause my thoughts when I hear footsteps again. "Get her back or it's your lives."
"What about the wolf?" a man asks.
Leo. I almost say his name aloud.
He's alive. He's near. Fire burns in my belly, but I refuse it. I need to find him. I need him.
The voices walk away from me, growing quieter. "She's sick. She doesn’t know where he is. Don't worry about him…find her."
I lose them after that. The hallway is silent again and the wind is gone from under the door.
I pull another bag from my pocket and pull the plug. I drink it down. It tastes sweet and stale and funny but I know I'm dehydrated and sick. The poison he shot into me made me sick but didn’t kill me. I need to replace my fluids.
I close my eyes and press my face against the door. I listen for the sounds of boots and guns. I listen for breath that gets ragged when you're searching for someone. There is nothing. The men's voices are gone. The men who rattled the door and tried the lock are gone. It's almost like they were a figment of my imagination, like Anna.
I want to turn the handle an
d just take a peek, but my rules are slowly reinstating themselves. Waiting is my biggest one.
I turn with my back to the door, my face to Jesus, and slide down the door. I sit and wait. Patience has kept me alive this long, and I won't betray her or my instincts that tell me to wait. The urge to find Leo is almost driving me through the door. But I know he won't live if I burst through and they kill me.
I just want my wolf and the smell of the forest. I just want to go home. Oddly enough, I don’t think about the cabin in the woods, when I think of home. That disturbs me a little.
I think about Leo, Anna, Meg, Sarah, Jake, and Will, only not in that order. I force them into that order. I think about Will and Jake constantly, but I know Meg and Sarah are my responsibility. Anna is the closest thing I will ever have to a best friend. I feel warmth in my heart thinking about them. I want to go home, and they are the home that my heart recognizes. I don’t need a cabin to hide in. I need my friends. My family.
I need Leo the most. I feel the anger and hatred rising in me. If they have hurt one strand of his fur...
The thought creates rage inside of me. I will skin everyone alive until I have murdered them all. Even then, I know I will not feel satisfied.
I remember who is looking down on me in the dark and feel my face heating with embarrassment.
"Sorry," I whisper to the frozen God.
I imagine he knows the revenge I want. I imagine, at one point or another, he has felt that want. The want to end the misery of others by ending the lives of their tormentors. Tormentors who hold everyone hostage. I want to ask him how his father has left us to this, but I remember what Meg told me. The evil is us.
In this room his arms are stretched out and his face is smiling. He is offering love, and for that we have stuck him in this dark room where no one looks anymore. Yet, even in the dark, his arms are stretched out. Even in the dark, he offers me something—companionship.
My eyes grow heavy, and I let myself relax into the darkness I don’t think I will ever escape from.
I don’t know how much time has passed. I wake and open my eyes, leaning over. I'm hungrier than I've ever been, but I feel sick. Bile heaves from my lips. I cough as quietly as I can.
I turn and stand, using the door again. I click the lock slowly and listen. There is nothing.
I wait an extra second and open the door silently. There is nothing in the hall. The papers are there but the lights don’t flicker. The lights aren’t on. There is a light at the end of the hall, making the rest of it dimly lit.
I squint, but I see nothing.
I take my first steps out into the dim light of the hallway. My feet shuffle along the papers and cold cement. I can't be quiet. As much as I want to move silently, I am too tired.
I lean against the wall and walk clumsily. I need to find Leo. I need water and food. I need so many things. It feels hopeless. I will never find them all. Not all the things I need.
My pockets are still full of fluid bags and the other pocket has the knife I stole. I reach in carefully and take the knife out.
At the end of the hall, I find an open door. The fresh air seems to be coming from there. Inside is a huge set of cement stairs. I cry when I see it. I push myself to the huge stairs and start crawling up them. I force my mind to shut off and climb. I won't let my brain try to let me lie down or tell me I can't climb them all. Like my father said, I am a strong girl. I can run fast and far. I can't let my mind tell me I can't do it.
I just climb.
It's hard and it hurts, but in my mind I am in the forest with Leo. He is standing next to me. My bow is in my fingers. I can feel a slight breeze on my face. I can feel things in the air. Freedom and peace.
The wind starts to smell.
I can smell food and people. I can smell the towns.
My body knows the food is there and it pushes harder. I climb the stairs with ferocity and strength I didn’t know I had left. I can feel the water running down into my parched throat. I can feel the meat between my teeth. I don't even care what kind of meat…just roasted meat that leaves a flame-cooked taste in my mouth.
The light gets brighter and brighter the higher I climb. When I get to the top of the stairs, I cry harder but my eyes are dry.
There is a huge door. I stumble into it and take the silver handle in my hands. I don’t check what's behind it. I burst through it. I stumble out into an alley. There is a garbage bin beside me. It looks like the ones at the breeder farm.
The building in front of me is huge and broken, like in the cities. The wind is full of smells. People, food, sewage, dust, and city. I remember the smell from before. I remember before. I turn in a circle and realize I am surrounded.
Broken buildings are everywhere. I am in a real city. A destroyed city.
"No," I whisper and look around, horrified.
I see garbage to my right and cringe. I look down at myself to see the pants I stole are covered in blood and a stain from the pee. I am covered in old, dry blood. I shake my head in a twitch and drop to my knees. I was bleeding from somewhere. The blood on my pants is old and dry. It's brown and gross. My hands are also covered. It's cracked and flaking.
I push myself up and walk along the alley. I don’t see people, but I know the infected live in the cities. I'm like live bait. I reek of old blood and urine. I am too tired to fight them or run. I grip the knife in my hand and stumble.
I feel a hand on my arm. I swing weakly at the owner. I see a man with an old shopping cart full of paper and blankets. He smiles an old smile.
"Get in," he says.
I start to fall, but he puts my arm over his shoulder and pushes me to the cart. I grab the metal with my hands and let him help me in. I don’t understand what he's doing, but I'm tired of walking. I see a red thing flying in the air over me and then I see nothing. There is a red glow all around me.
"Jesus saved me," I say. I don’t know why.
"Relax kid. Just stay down. We're almost home."
Home.
This word means so many different things to me.
The cart rumbles along the ground, and I try to imagine what home looks like to him.
Chapter Four
Home is a little room surrounded by cement. It's a quiet little corner where I don’t hear the infected, looters, or the others. He doesn’t smile.
"You made an awful mess, kid. The doctor was a pretty important man. They're looking for you." His voice is quiet. He freaks me out.
I blink and stare. I'm lost until I hear it.
"Emma."
My head snaps around. I would get up and run to her too, but I can't move. I'm still hurting in so many ways, but the major ways start to heal the second I see her face.
She rushes me and wraps her skinny arms around me. She buries her face in my hair.
I grip her shaking body. "You're real," I whisper.
She pulls back, her tear-stained face and sparkling blue eyes heal some of the cracks inside of me. "Of course, I never would have left you there. I've been looking for you for weeks."
I flinch. "Sarah, Meg…?"
She cuts me off and smiles weakly. "Only you went missing. You and Leo. Sarah and Meg are at the place we left them, safe." She doesn’t say the retreat. She's being careful around him. She sighs and continues, "I panicked when we couldn’t find you. We assumed you'd been taken. We didn’t know by whom, but we saw the trucks leaving."
I nod and try to ignore the shock that’s still paralyzing me. "Marshall," I say softly, eyeballing the man in the corner.
She nods. "Will figured he betrayed you and Leo. Sold you out to the military. We got back to the camp, but Marshall wasn’t there. His friends said that Marshall did it to free the women; you were the one they wanted. You were a danger to the camp and he traded you for healthy normal women." She rolls her eyes. "He's insane."
I nod slowly; it burns and hurts. He traded me for all those other women and their babies.
She smiles. "You okay?"
I want to nod and tell her I am, but I'm not. I can feel it. I let myself be true to my feelings. She is my ‘us.’ I shake my head and look down.
She wraps her arms around me. "You will be."
My common sense is slowly creeping around in my mind, checking on the facts I have. "Who is he?" I mutter.
She shrugs. "He found me, needed me to help him find a girl. We figured out pretty fast we were looking for the same girl. I had gotten separated from everyone else and had hid. Then he found me and showed me where to find you. He needed me to pretend to be a nurse, but then the doctor made me leave before we could rescue you." She chuckles softly. "Then of course, you got away on your own. So we assumed you were hiding and waiting for the military to leave. When they did, we were coming to get you. I went one way and he went the other. He found you."
It's not something I would have done. I don’t accept help from strangers. It's the difference between her and I.
He looks around and speaks softly, "We have to stay here a few more days. You're just lucky I got to you first. I looked everywhere for you."
I shake my head in the dim light of the small space. "Who are you?"
"A friend." He picks up a tin and takes a bite.
I glance at Anna but she shakes her head. "You gotta get out of the city."
"Where are we?" I can't tell anything from the small concrete room. It's like a shanty in the towns with board and concrete walls.
"Spokane."
I rub my eyes and try to focus them. "Where?"
Anna laughs. "I said the same thing. We're in Washington, by the West Coast."
I sniffle and wrap my arms around myself. "How did I get here? Why are you helping us? How did all of this happen? Why would Marshall betray me like that? ‘Cause I defied them?"
Anna looks confused, but the man's eyes dart suspiciously. He asks nervously, "What do you remember?"
I shake my head. "Nothing. Marshall betrayed me and then I woke up on the cold, metal table."
He nods and eats from the tin. Anna holds me like she may never let me go. I'm okay with that. Exhaustion is attacking me again.
