by E. L. Giles
I stare out the window beside me. Raindrops hit the glass horizontally as the wind blows fiercely. The metal wall of the bus vibrates under my hand. I squint, looking past the opening in the trees and fences that allow me to see the river we follow, as lightning strikes the ground some distance away. Then comes the rumbling of thunder, cracking in the sky over us. I don’t believe this wreck of a bus will ever make it to the Retirement Center in this weather.
The road seems endless as we drive alongside the border fences separating the river to my left, the factories of District 6, and later the cow fields and farms of District 7 to my right. Wafts of slurry tickle my nose on the way in. The road is marked with antique mile markers, remnants of another time.
Slowly, we leave the riverside and enter into bushlands I have never seen before. Trees and groves and foliage grow around us everywhere. I can no longer see the river, and the greenery dissimulates the fences. I quickly tire of looking at the same landscape scrolling past my eyes and wonder when things will finally move. When will I know what’s going to happen? I’ve been more than patient. I’m ready for a revelation.
The unificator-turned-guard remains silent, unlike the guard at the front of the bus who is having a lively discussion with the driver. I can’t hear them, but the guard seems enthusiastic about their conversation, gesturing and laughing animatedly. It’s like we—the passengers—don’t even exist. He even turns his back to us and stops looking over his shoulder. I’m relieved to not feel his puffy eyebrows and round pig-like eyes roaming over me.
A scratching noise at my side gets my attention. I turn toward the sound and see the corner of a piece of paper appear in the gap between the wall and the edge of the backseat. I slide my way down the seat until I get close enough to pick it up without looking suspect. After one last look at the guard at the front of the bus, whose back is still turned, I unfold the paper.
Hold on. We’re almost there, it reads.
I turn my head, frowning, and mutter, “Where?” at the unificator-turned-guard. He nods and jerks his chin up one time, telling me to look forward.
I feel the pressure of waiting pushing my chest inward as if I’m being squeezed by a vice. I must hold on. I must hold on. The sting on my thumb makes me realize I’ve nervously scratched it bloody. I still hear Anna’s voice in my head as she wiped away the blood with one of her white cloths. But she’s gone, and I don’t have any cloth, so I use the hem of my shirt instead. We seem to have escaped the storm. The rain is quieter, the thunder a mere rumble in the distance, and the wind a softer breeze. But there’s another storm brewing—the one boiling within me in the form of impatience and apprehension. I must resist the urge to turn around and grab the unificator-turned-guard by the collar and shake him until he reveals what’s going to happen.
Fortunately, I don’t need to fight the urge long, as another piece of paper appears at my side, this time rolled instead of folded. I discover a pen inside of it.
Mile Fifty, wait for my orders is written inside.
I watch eagerly out the window for the next mile marker until it appears: Mile forty. Ten miles before it happens. Before what happens? And moreover, why is he helping me? Why do I need help? I have this pen in my hand; I should ask him.
Why are you helping me? What’s going on? I scribble before I give the paper back to the unificator-turned-guard through the same gap he used.
He sighs, and the scratching of the pen on the paper fills my ears. Then the rolled piece of paper appears back at my side.
Marcus asked is all he wrote. I didn’t expect a whole paragraph, but at least something more.
WHY? I write and slip the paper back to him.
“Dammit. Marcus was right—you are meddlesome,” I hear the unificator-turned-guard grumble quietly behind me.
Determined, not meddlesome. That’s what I’d like to spit back at him, but the guard in front of the bus has turned around and is now staring at me, his piggy eyes creased with seriousness. For a moment, I think my heart has stopped beating in my chest. My throat feels constricted, and no air passes the lump that has formed there. I lower my head and look at my feet. I don’t want him to come over to me.
When I dare another look forward, things seem to have returned to the way they were, the discussion between the driver and the guard more animated than ever. I turn my head toward the window and wait until the next mile marker appears.
Mile forty-five. Only five miles.
And the paper comes back. When I tell you, pretend to faint. Be convincing.
“Wait, what? Why?” I hiss under my breath without paying attention to the guard at the front of the bus.
“Shhh, stupid. Do you really want to die now, or what?” he grumbles.
To die? To die…
In this instant, as the bus crosses miles forty-eight, my stomach wrenches at the dream that comes back to me, the events from it, and the real-life events playing in a loop, leading to this fate. My death… All my muscles stiffen painfully before going numb, my vision tunneling at an alarming pace like I’m going blind.
“I—I don’t…” I start, my voice dying in a whisper as I fall to the side.
“Hey!” hisses the unificator-turned-guard behind me, grabbing my shoulder and pushing me back onto my seat.
I can’t think of anything other than releasing this pressure that is building within me, but it’s too strong for me to calm it. I explode. I stand from my seat, swaying, shudders taking over, throwing me to the floor. I kneel and try to pull myself up, but my arms ache and tremble too hard, and I slump back onto the floor, pain nauseating me. A burning liquid rises from my stomach with such force that the hand I clapped over my mouth can’t stop it from getting out and spreading all over the dirty black floor.
“Stop the bus!” yells the unificator-turned-guard as he leans over me. His voice sounds weird, far away, as if it’s coming from the other end of the bus. “I said, stop the freaking bus!”
The bus stops abruptly, and I can’t brace myself fast enough to avoid my head slamming against the hard floor. I feel the tight grip of hands clenching my shoulder and then the cold, metal barrel of a rifle brushing my neck.
A scream rips out of me as I fight and shove the hands aside. I roll over. Now lying on my back, I thrash at the large shadowy figure that stands over me. The shadow has recoiled a bit, and I roll over again, trying to crawl down the aisle. I twist my waist and grip the floor until I scrape my fingers bloody and they go numb, pushing forward with my feet.
Hands grip my shirt right over my shoulder blades, and I’m lifted off the floor, then pushed down the aisle. My feet barely touch the floor until we reach the guard at the front of the bus. He shoves me to the right, and we climb down the two stairs as the driver opens the door.
A draft of fresh air crashes against my burning neck. The shock is brutal, making my teeth chatter against each other as my feet land on the rocky ground outside the bus.
“Leave me alone!” I fight to free myself from his grip.
“Stop it now, stupid! I’m saving you, not killing you,” he says through gritted teeth.
“And how can I trust you? What guarantee do I have that you won’t kill me?” I retort.
“You’d already be dead if that was the goal. Now stop it, or you’ll get us both killed.”
It’s true that if he had wanted to kill me, he’d already had plenty of opportunities to do it—back at my appointment with Marcus when he’d picked me up with the car. But he hadn’t. It’s all nonsense to me. I can’t see the point of any of it as everything rushes through my head. I can’t make sense of it all.
He leads me toward a little red-brick cabin farther up the road, near the fence border. The small building stands in an opening about the size of the Justice Court. I don’t see anyone else. It’s like we’re alone. This suffices to calm me enough and I can gather myself together again. My stiff muscles relax, and moving becomes easier, like breathing as the lump in my throat disappears. I wipe the tr
ail of dry tears with the hem of my sleeve, listening to the roar of the bus behind us, idling while we keep heading forward.
“Now listen,” he says. “We go behind the cabin. There, I fire twice. Then you—"
“Hey!” interrupts a shrill voice beside us.
We stop abruptly and turn around. The unificator-turned-guard’s hand tightens its grip on my arm, causing it to ache. Two guards stand in front of us, both with their pistols drawn, pointing at our heads, their fingers brushing on the triggers. Where had they come from?
We keep our position, and I’m glad someone is holding me because all my strength left me the moment I heard their voices. The guard to the right moves toward us, his pistol still pointed at our heads as he stares first at me and then at the unificator-turned-guard with angry, pale-blue eyes that makes me feel sick to my stomach. The blue-eyed guard stops about two feet from us, a malicious grin contorting his face as he stares only at the unificator-turned-guard.
“What’s the matter?” inquires the unificator-turned-guard.
“You tell me first,” the blue-eyed guard says. “What’s going on here?”
“The citizen here was going mad on our way to the Retirement Center, and I had to—”
“Nah,” the blue-eyed guard says, cutting him off, raising his free hand, palm facing us. “You know what, I don’t care.”
Before I understand what’s happening, I’m being shoved aside. I stumble on my feet and then fall stomach first to the ground. It takes me a full second to turn around, and in that second the unificator-turned-guard has unholstered his pistol and raised his hand, and an ear-splitting bang fills my ears. For a moment, every sound is muffled, choked by this ringing. There are rushed footsteps around me, but they are not the unificator-turned-guard’s. The unificator-turned-guard stands still across from me, mouth hanging open, empty eyes staring. Then his shoulders slump, his features contort, and a red spot spreads between his eyes. A rivulet of blood flows from a bullet wound, following the line of his nose, and finally, he falls, his body slamming heavily onto the hard ground, lifting a cloud of dust that pricks my eyes.
I scream at the top of my lungs—and scream again, until my throat burns, until my voice breaks. I roll over, jumping to my feet, and prepare to sprint. I must run. I don’t know to where, only that I must run. I propel myself forward, but someone pulls me back by my ponytail. I fall to my back with a painful smack that takes my breath away and I watch through watery eyes as the blue-eyed guard comes into view. He starts toward the unificator-turned-guard’s body, dragging me behind him like a trash bag. My scalp feels as if it will tear from my skull, and the more I struggle and try to free myself, the worse the pain becomes. I reach both of my hands up to his fist and dig my nails into his skin. He curses sharply, then leans over me, driving the barrel of his pistol into my jaw before he throws me beside the dead body of the unificator-turned-guard. The screams are there, but I clench my teeth tightly, suppressing my cries of pain and terror. My jaw feels numb, and blood trickles down my throat.
With a swift kick, the blue-eyed guard sends the pistol of the unificator-turned-guard out of my reach even before I think to reach for it. He then points his gun between my eyes. All I can see is a black hole pointed at me—it’s the only thing that separates me from life and death now. It’s over.
I close my eyes and wait for the click and the bang, for the bullet that will perforate my skull. I hear a muffled thump, then a groan, and the anticipated bang finally fills my ears. I jerk and scream at the pain that radiates down my left arm—an electric shock that throbs torturously down to my stomach.
I open my eyes, reach my right hand to my left arm, and feel for the wound. My fingers sink into warm, thick liquid soaking the sleeve of my shirt. Blood. Spreading and saturating the fabric. Through the blur of my sight, I notice a shadowy silhouette moving into my line of vision. I flinch when I hear another bang, which is followed by a tall shape falling to the ground and then another figure moving toward me.
“Hey, are you all right?” a voice asks.
I heard the shots, but I’m still alive. Someone is asking me if I’m all right. No, I’m not. The pain in my arm is unbearable. My senses are muddled, and I feel as if I’m sinking away into the numbness of my head, where everything feels lighter, easier, and less scary.
“Hey. HEY!” the voice shouts. Someone shakes my shoulder. I raise my head. “Are you all right?” asks a concerned voice. When my vision clears some, I see a soiled and sweaty young man with an untrimmed beard and deep green eyes. A lumberjack?
He drops his bloody axe at his feet, where the bodies of the blue-eyed guard and the other one now lies dead, bathed in their own blood. I notice that the young man holds a pistol in his other hand. I recoil and collide with the body of the unificator-turned-guard.
“Calm down. I’m not here to hurt you,” the lumberjack says, holding his hand out to me. I do not take it, instead I choose to stay on the ground where I feel safer.
He sticks the pistol—it seems he took it from the blue-eyed guard—into the waistband of his pants and crouches beside me, feeling my arm around the wound. He brings out a knife from his back pocket, and I can’t help but recoil again.
“It’s all right. Trust me.”
He cuts the sleeve of my shirt below my shoulder, and wipes away the blood.
“It’s just a scratch,” he says, tearing a clean piece of fabric from my sleeve and wrapping it around the bloody wound.
“Just a scratch? I’ve been shot!” I say through gritted teeth. The contact of the cloth around the wound sends new electrical waves of pain straight to my heart.
“You’ll survive. The bullet doesn’t seem to be stuck in your arm,” says the young man. “Think you can walk?”
“I guess.” I pant as he helps me to my feet.
“Who…who are you?” I ask.
“Stephen, but it’s not really the time for—”
A bang resonates in the distance, coming from the direction of the bus. We both jump and turn at the sound.
“Roman!” exclaims Stephen.
Another man, a lumberjack like Stephen, stands beside the lifeless body of a guard, next to the door of the bus.
“The guard!” I exclaim. “I totally forgot about him.”
“Are there any others so we don’t risk getting shot in the back?” Stephen asks.
I shake my head.
“An entire patrol is coming!” Roman cries, listening to the guard’s communication device. “About ten soldiers—fifteen at most.”
“Dammit,” says Stephen. “He must have warned them.” He turns his attention back to me. “Can you walk by yourself?”
“I think so, but what’s goin—”
“Roman, Nicholas, protect the convoy!” yells Stephen.
The bald man named Roman nods and rushes to the front of the bus before crouching behind the driver’s side. The other man—a short, portly man who is surely Nicholas—strides past us, plucking the pistol out of the hand of the other dead guard, and heads to the back of the bus.
“Now listen to me,” Stephen says in a grave tone. He touches my good shoulder and turns me slightly, then gestures toward the fences. “The fences there are ele—”
A sudden burst of gunshots cut him off, and we turn our heads. Roman and Nicholas both stand up, their backs against the wall of the bus and their pistols drawn. Bullets bounce off the metal frame, and the windows shatter. Inside the bus, people cry and throw their arms over their heads. Roman leans forward, drawing his pistol toward the edge of the woods, and begins firing. Then he gets back to his position before one of the bus’s tires explode under the assault of more bullets. Nicholas shifts his body to the right and fires.
“You gotta get the fuck out of here!” Stephen shouts at me.
“But—” I start, but he cuts me off, grabbing my collar so tightly the fabric digs into my throat.
“What are you waiting for? RUN!”
He pushes me away, and th
e moment his hand releases me, a strong invisible wall hits me from behind, followed by a rumbling explosion and a wave of heat that burns my skin. I’m propelled off of the ground, and for a moment, I hear nothing but a shrieking hiss. I see nothing more than the gray of the sky above me. I feel weightless, free from gravity...then my breath is choked from my throat as I slam into a jagged, rocky surface—the ground. I gasp and heave, searching for air, curling into myself. My heart pounds in my wounded arm. The pain is nearly intolerable.
What happened? Is Stephen powerful enough that he sent me flying off of the ground with only the strength of his arm?
As air slowly seeps back into my lungs. I manage to pull myself into a sitting position. I don’t see much through my tunnel vision, and as I let my sight adjust, a strong and pungent smell assaults my nose. I cough. Between the fit of coughs that threaten to choke me again, I realize it’s not Stephen who sent me flying off the ground.
Stephen lies on his back at my feet, his tousled hair sticking to his face. I lean forward and crawl to his side. At first sight, I recoil, and I must close my eyes and take a deep breath. There is so much blood on him, I can’t stand the sight. After another deep breath, I squint my eyes.
“Stephen…Stephen,” I repeat, trying to shake him into consciousness.
He’s covered in metal shrapnel and pebbles that have torn his skin to strips of flesh and blood. I look over my shoulder to discover, through the wall of black smoke, that what used to be the bus is now a wreck of fire and ashes. I turn my head back to Stephen instantly. The sight of the body parts that scatter the ground is stomach turning, and my breath catches in my throat again.