by J. Dursky
Chapter 13
I make my way back to Ayla's car. It’s still parked on the highway where I left it. I see blood on the ground in front of the car. It’s a large pool like something laid there and bled for quite some time only to get up and walk into the field across the street. The strange thing is, the bloody footprints look human.
I throw the backpack into the passenger's seat and get in the car. With the blood and cracks on the windshield, I can hardly see at all through it. I use the windshield washer fluid to wipe the blood off. I can see better now that the blood is gone, but it still has the cracks.
"Don't freak out." A little voice from the back seat says.
It makes me jump. I am already on edge with everything that is going on, and now someone is in the back seat of Ayla's car talking to me.
"Who are you? How did you get in here?" I ask.
"I'm sorry, I got in the car when I saw it sitting by the trails. I needed to hide and the bathrooms were locked." He says.
"You needed to hide from who?" I ask. That makes sense why I saw the car door open and Ayla didn’t.
"The men who took my parents and sister, and the Fallen in the woods." He says.
There's that term again. "Fallen." I need answers and he may have them. It is funny to think with everything that is going on around me, my best shot at learning what this is, comes from a little boy. I put the car in drive and turn around in the school parking lot. I still need to get to Lila. I need to protect her, I need to tell her about Ayla.
"Come sit up front. What’s your name?" He looks like any other boy. He wears jeans and a t-shirt with a super hero on the front. He is probably 11 or 12, dirty blonde hair, and seems calm considering what is going on.
“Jensen.”
"What do you know about what is happening around here?" I ask.
"I don't know. I am not from here. I have been staying in an army base. My parents took me and my sister there about a week ago because of the nightmares I’ve been having..."
"Nightmares, what kind of nightmares?" I ask interrupting him.
"I don't remember, my mom and dad tell me that I sleep walk a lot, I talk and scream in my sleep, and I wake up outside sometimes. So, they took me to see a doctor." He tells me.
"They took you to a doctor on an army base?" I ask.
"Yeah, Dr. McNeal. She is a doctor on the military base that specializes in brain waves."
"They took your parents? I’m confused."
"They said they just wanted to run some tests on me and my sister and I can see them when the tests are done. They said it would only take a day. It has been way longer than that. I kept asking to see them, but they won’t let me. They said they took my mom and dad to a different base so they didn’t interrupt the tests."
"So that’s why you ran away?"
"Yeah, my sister came to me in my room yesterday and said I needed to go get help. She is older than me but she can't walk and hasn't been able to since her accident. My sister said if one of us could get help it would have to be me."
"How did you get out of the base?" I ask.
"Through a ventilation shaft in the building and a little hole at the top of the barbed wire fence. I snuck out last night."
As he is explaining this to me, we pull up to a stop sign at a T-intersection. There has been a car accident. There are several cars either in the ditch or sideways in the road. Upside down in the field I see a military truck. It looks like the same type of truck that chased me down the highway yesterday. Given the circumstances I would probably just drive past to get to Lila, but of all the cars on the side of the road, her car is one of them.
"Stay in the car, lock the doors, and only open the doors for me, I need your help later." I tell him as I get out of the car.
A few steps from the car and I hear them lock behind me. I run to Lila's car. She isn't in there. I look around, no blood, no damage to her car, where is she? I hear people talking behind me. They are at the military truck but they must be on the other side. I run over and step around the overturned vehicle. It is Lila; she is pulling a man out of the windshield of the truck. I rush over to help.
"Lila!"
"Baby! Oh my god!" She says as she turns from a man on the ground and puts her arms around me. "I've been looking everywhere for you! I tried to call you but couldn't get through!"
"We need to get somewhere safe, we can't be out here like this." I tell her.
"He’s right." Says the military man as he finishes crawling out of the truck.
He climbs out of the truck from a hole where the windshield used to be and stands. He wears a military outfit but does not look like a soldier. He is about my height, scrawny, with medium black hair, and glasses. The patch on his chest says Dr. Hunter. He stands to face us and when he does, he has a look of absolute shock on his face.
"It's you!" He exclaims.
"Me?" I ask feeling very confused.
"Yes! You’re the one from the video!" He replies.
"What video?" Lila asks looking confused, turning from him to me.
I shrug my shoulders and shake my head with a confused look on my face as well.
"The Ranger that found you on the trail, you and your sister, was it? He had a video camera on his helmet."
I look at Lila, I feel like she will see the fear in my eyes. She doesn't know about her best friend yet. I need her to know but I do not want to break the news. I get a knot in my stomach, I feel light headed and dizzy.
Dr. Hunter continues what he is saying, looking at me. "We have watched that video many times over the last few hours and we still can't explain what you did."
"What I did? What about what that Special Forces asshole did to my sister!?" I step towards him yelling.
He steps back and puts his hands up like he didn't do anything wrong. He looks afraid of me.
"After the gun was fired, the video turns to static for a second. When it comes back on, it shows you, extremely blurry, running at the camera and striking the ranger. Now, that part can be chalked up to a technological glitch, but the damage done to the soldier cannot be explained." He says.
"He said on the radio, she was Fallen. What does that mean?" I ask.
"What are you two talking about?" Lila asks me.
I look at Lila. I don't know how to say it, I want to tell her about Ayla. What does he mean it can't be explained? All I did was punch him in the chest. I take a deep breath to try to explain everything to her, but before I can say anything we hear a noise coming from the opposite end of the overturned vehicle. It sounds like a groan and heavy breathing. We all turn to look at the same time. It is a soldier, probably from this truck we stand next to, and he has that same look. He is Fallen.