by Logan Keys
“We have to get out of here,” I moan.
Phillip gives a soft laugh and sniffs. “If I could I would have done that before day one.”
“But, you were out of your chains, and you’re the wolf! You must have a plan or something.”
“I did, but that was until I realized they don’t want me dead. I wanted them to end me, then I’d be as free as I’ve ever been. But they won’t kill us. No matter what.”
Something occurs to me. “Do the purged ever zombie out? They say they don’t but is it true?”
“No. The Authority lies. I’ve seen them “zombie” out plenty. Their guards change all the time. They just put them down too quickly for most to know. Besides, how can you tell the difference? They keep it under wraps. Real quiet. The guards turn more than regular people if you ask me. They just fall over and then get up as a zombie though.”
“You said they won’t kill us. Then we need to find another way to die.” I start thinking of a plan. I start to feel better focusing on anything but what the morning will bring.
Right before dawn breaks, I tell him everything.
Phillip doesn’t like my plan. We fight over who does the dangerous role. I tell him that I’m doing it and that’s that. He doesn’t argue with me when I threaten to start yelling.
We wait until it’s darkest. A small window where the moon is so low, but the sun has not come to take its place. He says if he has the edge of complete darkness it will help. The clouds provide cover.
And just when it’s the deep black of early morning, I start my moaning. When nothing happens, I redouble my efforts even leaning over to the one next to me and biting at his leg.
The others had slept while we’d plotted. They don’t know my plans.
The other prisoner realizes what’s happening and begins to scream then the others start in. “Zombie! Zombie!”
The guards rush in, pulling me away, unshackling me, as I knew they would. And without time to turn on the flashlights, they fumble round the cell.
But I see glints behind one of the guards. The wolf’s unnatural gaze. The chain is around the guard’s neck before he can react and Phillip has his baton snatched out of hand. Keys jingle and I lose sight of the eyes, only the sound of fighting, grunts, someone goes down, a guard wheezing and another trying for the door when I trip him and get his neck between my legs. I squeeze hard enough to break something but he’s stronger than an average human. I feel as though I am now, too. He merely fights me until he’s free. But I’ve already gotten his helmet off. I find my target and strike his head against the ground, hard enough to feel like I’ve broken bones.
Warm hands pull me away, and Phillip undoes my chains on my feet as well. He tugs me up and out the door. “But what about them?”
“Shhhhh, leave them. I can’t guide you all.”
It’s not in me to leave people to be abused as we have.
I snatch the keys from him. “Let me at least…”
“Crystal, no!”
“Yes,” I hiss.
I unlock the others. “Listen,” I say to them. “If you want any chance at being free. Wait until it’s almost light enough to see, then stay in the shadows. Good luck.”
Phillip’s not happy. “They’ll follow us out. Make noise.”
I put a hand on his shoulder, then drop it when I feel him stiffen. “Have faith in people.”
In the black hall, without light, he leads me as easily as if it’s daytime.
We almost get to the exit when I stop.
“I can’t go. Phillip, wait.” Inwardly I curse myself.
“What? Are you crazy?”
“I can’t leave him.”
His teeth are gritted, I can hear. “Him who?”
“Jeremy.”
“Crystal. If you are purged or dead he won’t matter, so let’s just get out of here.”
I can hear the panic bleeding out of him and it works its way into me, but still, I hesitate. “I can’t. Go without me. I have to try.”
“Fine. Bye.” He walks off leaving me, and I realize I can’t see anything and have to use my hands on the walls. Was the exit this way or that? I feel along, but every way seems like the way we’d been going.
The blackness disorients.
I jump at the voice near my ear. Had he been watching me fumble in the dark? “I think Jeremy is in the first cell. If we go back, we can try the keys. If we don’t find him. We leave. Got it?”
I grip his hand again. “Okay.”
We quietly turn back, but a guard comes around the corner with a flashlight. We hide in an alcove as he passes by.
“Ready?” Phillip asks, hand touching my neck.
“I guess.”
We work our way from where we came.
After using the key, Phillip presses open the first door.
I enter into the black room, covering my nose at the rankness. “Jeremy,” I whisper.
“Jeremy?” I try more loudly.
“Crystal,” a croaking voice replies.
“Oh God, Jeremy. Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”
He laughs softly. Of course, they have.
Philip’s already working at his chains. Jeremy grabs my hand, weakly, and I lift him to his feet. I pull him into a hug. We hold onto one another until Phillip puts his mouth to my ear and a hand on my shoulder pulling me away. “Enough.”
Phillip leads us down the hall, me holding his hand, and my other gripping Jeremy’s, pulling him along.
Light flashes to the rear. “Stop!”
But the wolf tugs us through the door at the end and we get busy barring it with anything we can find.
Once outside, my vision is better. The wolf’s eyes glint at me, and we take off through the shadows out of the compound. Jeremy’s lagging, and I have to help him keep his feet. I can tell Phillip’s frustrated by my insistence on bringing Jeremy but he can’t possibly understand.
Phillip is so different from what I’d pictured. Now I get why we’d been so inspired by the wolf. Inside the weave of darkness, he threads us into even more cover, where I can see nothing, only feel his arm stopping us, then pushing us forward. He never falters, it seems impossible and his footsteps are silent.
We move like invisible people around guards, through and between them, staying clear of the light, not needing it to find our way. It’s thrilling to hold such a power. Even if the guards have extra strength from their purging, they can’t see in the dark. Only Phillip can do that.
He helps me hoist Jeremy up and over the wall. The gate makes a noise as we climb it, but we land on the other side finally.
To freedom.
Chapter 17
Crystal
Mimi’s breathing slowly. She barely inhales before it comes right back out. She’s trying to pass.
We stand around her bed, the doctor, Jeremy and I.
Her eyes open and she stares at the ceiling and says, “Are you there, Jeremy?”
“I am, Sissy, I am.” He squeezes her hand.
“Don’t be sad,” she whispers, closing her eyes.
He pets her head, and whispers into her ear. They stick out slightly, and I wonder where she got that trait. I know Carolina and Karma don’t have it. And Jeremy doesn’t either.
I smile through my tears. It’s like Mimi’s a changeling, not a Cromwell, after all.
“I’m not sad,” Jeremy says. “But how can I be happy, Sissy? Huh? When you’re going away.” His voice breaks, and I break with it.
I have to force myself not to make a sound. But I’m shaking with frustration trying to burst out of me.
She doesn’t answer for a long time before she says, “I thought it would be dark, Jeremy. I thought I’d go to sleep in a void, like floating in space. It was scary. But… I see it now.” Her eyes are open again and she’s looking at all of us, but not directly, through us. “But… it’s brighter. Like the room was dark before and now all the dimness is gone. So bright there is not a single shadow. Can you see it? T
he light is growing not dimming. Can you see?”
Her perfect blue eyes are wide, and she’s lifting a frail hand to point. “Who is that?”
We turn to look where she is pointing? She’d been smiling. But when we turn back to Mimi, we find that she has passed.
Jeremy shouts, “No!” and lunges toward his sister, grabbing her shoulders, then hugging her to himself. “Mimi. No. Don’t leave me, please.”
I am in shock, I think. She looks like an angel. At peace. No more pain. I’d expected more pain. But pain is living, I suppose.
Mimi instead is like she was all along, a bright and beautiful little girl. Her soul has slipped through his, and he cannot stop it. Maybe it’s already out the door or flying into the sky.
She’s not here anymore.
I just know it.
The doctor has no expression. I probably look the same.
I’m sad. I feel sad. But I’d cried while she was dying. I feel only relief now that she has left this rotten place. I just feel ready. Ready to fight back again.
Thank you, Mimi, for giving me that.
Jeremy cries.
We leave him with his sister.
The doctor gets called away and I’m in the side of Bodega I rarely see. Keeping out of sight, I watch the prisoners. Kids mostly, not much older than Mimi. A few teens but mostly the really young.
I decide I’m going to get a message to Goodman. We need to double up on tram attacks. Take more kids off that death train. I know just the place to send them.
I move down the hallway toward our section of the hospital, and when I turn the corner, I suck back behind the edge of the wall.
Guards.
Two of them. They stand there completely still for a while, and then one moves off.
How do they communicate? It’s like they are all connected.
From here I can see the visor, the mirror reflecting the dim hallway, the baton is hanging loosely in his grip.
I back slowly in the direction I came, but my boot heel makes one lone squeak of sound.
I pause.
Nothing.
Then footsteps in my direction.
There’s only one, I tell myself, but where there is one guard…more will follow. I check my options. Before I can decide a door to my left opens and a janitor, a prisoner, comes through.
He’s the first adult I’ve seen on the island that’s not just staff. His shaved head is clearly marking him a prisoner.
I put my finger to my lips, and he pauses, unsure, then smiles, laughing a silent puff of air. His hands come up and he motions for me to go.
I frown at him, and he raises his naked brows, and quickly opens the door, offering me a way to hide.
It irks me to do this, because the Authority has taken so much from me, but I nod my head in thanks and step inside. But I don’t close it behind me completely. I keep one eye pressed against the crack to watch the young man return to mopping the floors.
The guard comes over but pauses next to the prisoner. Emptily, the guard dressed in black, stares at the one who’d helped me. The idea that I’ve put this man in danger does not pass me by and I ready myself.
It almost feels like the guard checks where I am hiding but instead of opening the door, he waits. The guard motions for the prisoner to do something.
When he doesn’t respond the guard shoves him. “Return to your room.”
The prisoner motions at his ears, then moves his mouth, motioning. I realize that he’s deaf.
The guard shoves him again. “Prisoner, return to your room.”
The man motions to his mouth again and shakes his head. He’s also mute.
I’m shocked at the audacity of the prisoner. It appears he is toying with the guard. Not about him being deaf or mute, but he’s got a mischievous look on his face because he must understand the guard but want to distract him.
The guard lifts his baton and the man, all humor gone now, backs away, hands raised. Still, the prisoner keeps his back to my door, and has not left. He’s doing this I realized, for my benefit.
The guard pauses, swaying strangely on his feet. He does this for some time, and then stops. His head goes left right-left right. This time when he sways, he loses his balance and crashes into the wall.
The guard is turning.
I pull my gun but decide that it would be too loud. Checking to see that no one else has come into the hallway, I open the door.
It turns on me drunkenly, hissing a noise through the visor, seeming confused and angry. A bad combination.
He’s not completely turned but I don’t plan on letting him go to fill himself up on prisoners, or especially this prisoner.
The doctor won’t be happy about having to help with clean-up, but I don’t have a choice.
The zombie seems to decide his move the same time I do, and he rushes me, while I step into a fighting stance. He launches himself at me, tries to grab me.
I mirror him by latching onto his biceps, the padded suit making it hard to get a good grip, but we lock arms.
His face dives in as if to bite me, but he’s still got his helmet on so instead the mirrored image of myself smacks me in the forehead. My face is big in the image, teeth bared, scars pale on my tan skin.
“Come on, bastard,” I grit out.
He lunges again, and this time the visor hits me hard enough to crack.
Shoving him away, I kick him in the gut on his third attack, and then slam him into a wall. The visor breaks completely and his on his side, helmet only half on, nose bleeding.
That’s why they called them bleeders before they called them zombies, because they start out bleeding like a stuck pig. The fresh ones pour out blood like a faucet, and it’s messing up the floor where the fresh mop job had made it shine.
That reminds me…
I grab the mop and break the wooden handle off. With the sharp end in hand, I put my foot on the zombie’s shoulder, force him back.
He grabs my foot and yanks. Any normal human would have a broken leg, and pain shoots up my thigh.
But I’m somewhere between normal and… just like him.
With a snarl, I shove the point end through its eye. The guard goes limp.
I sigh, grabbing its arm, before dragging it into the closet.
I start to mop up the mess but the prisoner returns with another mop and he shoos me away, quickly covering my tracks.
The prisoner signs to me: Thank you.
I know that one, at least. I nod my head.
“You know,” I say slowly making sure he’s looking at me so he can read my lips. “We are always looking for good people.”
He asks with his hands: Who me?
“Yes, you.”
“There is always room for people in our group… erm…rebels.”
He gives a soundless laugh, hands at his belly.
I smile when he points to his eye, then head, then me.
I laugh and nod. He’d said: I know who you are.
Chapter 18
Crystal
My crew helps us three the best that they can, but there are major withdrawals after the purge.
They inject something into you, and it’s like you crave it when it’s gone. Like you crave death.
The pain only subsides when we are unconscious. But then nightmares greet us when we rest.
The worst one for me is when I’m back on my old street on Loretta, in what was once Southern California. My old brick house still stands, even though it’s been long since washed away in reality, but in the dream, I know something sinister lives there instead of me and my family. I’m afraid to open the door in my dream, knowing that everyone inside is dead, but alive at the same time.
Second to that nightmare is when I’ve woken up, alone in a cell again, waiting to be purged.
I’ve dreamt that the hooks they hang me from pull from every direction until I’m pulled apart.
I’ve dreamt that Jeremy was one of them and he arrests me.
Then ther
e are wolf eyes in the mist. But these do not frighten me. These are my favorite ones.
He’d rescued me. The wolf. And I owe him my life for it.
I find Jeremy in his room, sitting up, trying to write, cursing as his hand shakes. His face is haggard, and he’s aged ten years. No more youthful writer of pamphlets, he’s faced the worst of this war, and like me, crawled out onto the other side undone.
“Hey,” I scratch out.
He jumps back and up with a flurry of papers, pen held in front of him like a weapon. “What do you want!”
I smile at his threat. I suppose they are a weapon… his words.
His eyes are glazed with fear and anger, sadness, betrayal, but most of all, fury. He’s got every reason to hate them more than any of us. After all, it’s his own parents that dropped him off to be purged, the Cromwell’s, and leaders of the Authority. And Jeremy being their son is my big secret that even my closest crew isn’t aware of.
Phillip doesn’t know how right he was. Jeremy’s own father sent Jeremy to be purged.
That’s how I ended up there. I’d been trying to rescue him.
Seeing that Jeremy isn’t fit for company today, I leave him be. Let him rest. I move slowly, feet shuffling to the next room. The wolf’s. I find him crouched in the corner, eyes closed. He seems to be meditating.
“Phillip,” I whisper not wanting to wake him but those eyes, I need to see those gray eyes that found me in my nightmares. I need them to do their job of steadying me now.
They slit open and my heart slows. They’re mostly normal, pained, but he’s still him.
Finally, he unfolds to stand. Phillip is not a teen like Jeremy and I, he is a man. He’s a head taller than me and I’m tall for a girl by standards. His ropey muscles have been tight for the days we’ve been suffering, and his square jaw is clenched against what flashbacks he’s facing.
I didn’t realize how close we are until his arms closed around my shoulders pulling me into them with a strength that soaks into my body.
“Every time I slept I dreamt,” he says. “Terrible dreams. But you were there in one of them, calling me to come back.”
