Miles was sniffling and fighting back his tears but losing that fight.
“Stop crying so much. People gon think you weak.”
Miles wiped his face with his tied hands. “I’m not weak!”
“Then stop cryin’!”
“I’m not weak.” Miles wiped his eyes again and had a mean-mug expression on his face with his lip poked out.
“Aite.” Antonio smiled then turned to Julia. “Aite, we good.”
Julia nodded in response. Brandon went inside the office with the boys and hugged Miles and Antonio, embracing them for a long time before Baker asked him to step out.
“I can’t believe I found you guys again.” Brandon stood up from where he was kneeling and let go of the boys. “I’m glad to see you’re still alive.”
The captain cleared his throat to signal Brandon and he exited, wiping his eyes. Baker went past the emotional man to stand in front of the boys and cut Miles’ zip ties with a knife. “Neat trick with the pens.” The captain then pointed at the pack on Antonio’s back. “Where’d you get the bag and the bat? In the store?”
“Nope, I found it outside.” Antonio backed away. “I’m keeping the bat. And the can of beans I found out there. We found it, it’s ours.”
Baker chuckled. “Ok. Well, keep your bat and your pens to yourself. I don’t want any trouble with you guys. You’re both crazy as hell. And we all owe you our lives for what you did. But I can’t keep letting it slide every time you attempt to attack us.”
Antonio flips off the captain and crosses his arms in defiance.
Baker shook his head and turned to leave but stopped to pull a full canteen of water from his waistband. Before holding it out to the boys, he took a swig in good faith and tossed the steel water container to Miles; who fumbled before catching it. Baker laughed and closed the door behind him, locking it.
The boys were alone in the office again. Miles opened Baker’s canteen and started drinking from it, then Antonio snatched it from him and started gulping it down. “Hey!” Miles complained.
Antonio shoved him. “Why you make all them deals with these people? You know the old man would be pissed.” The teen dropped the backpack he was still wearing and opened it to reveal the canned food that was inside. “You still got that knife they gave us?”
Miles patted himself down, before lifting his shirt, and found the knife hidden in the band of his shorts. “They said they’d give us more food. We need more food and supplies.”
“We can just take what we need and get out of here. These people gon get themselves killed, Miles.” Antonio shook his head and sat down on the floor. “They didn’t even remember you had that knife. They hella dumb. We ain’t stayin’ here.” He used one of his pen weapons and punctured a hole in the can.
Miles hung his head. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to go home.”
“We ain’t stayin’ here.”
“I know.”
It was one of the first things the old man taught them after the world went to shit. Staying with big groups of people always led to everyone dying. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to survive with a group, it just never worked out. The first year on the road, everywhere the old man took them, they’d meet a group, try and make it work and it would fall apart. The old man could always see it coming and would tell the boys to get ready to leave. Then like clockwork, a small issue would turn into a bigger problem and the encampment or the holdup or wherever the group was staying would crumble and people would scatter.
They found the treehouse soon after the last group they tried staying with and the old man made it final, they wouldn’t join anybody else. They’d stay hidden, only take what they needed from the less fortunate and keep a safe distance from large groups of survivors. It had worked up to this point and though times were difficult, the boys and the old man made it for a long time. But then Johnathan died, and the boys didn’t have his guidance to always point them in the right direction. Miles hoped he was making the best decision, but by the look of irritation on Antonio’s face—as he pried open his can of beans and started greedily scooping out helpings with his fingers—the small boy wasn’t as confident in his judgment calls. He wondered what the old man would do in this situation. Johnathan always seemed to know what to do.
Miles pulled his phone from his pocket and flipped at the blank screen, pretending to search for a song though the music was only in his head.
***
Manson made his way down the hall back to his lab, elated by the new turn of events. An opportunity to go out and actually see these different classes of infected was an exciting endeavor. He saw Burrows still waiting outside the bathroom door, pacing back and forth before rushing to the scientist when he saw him.
“It’s about time, doc. I been over here tryna watch this door, worried the captain would find me.” Burrows wiped a nervous sweat from his forehead.
“Calm down, Burrows. And go get some rest, you’re coming with me tomorrow morning on an excursion to find our lost search party.” Manson took the army man by the shoulders and looked him up and down closely.
Burrows just shook him off. “Wait, what are you talking about doc?”
Manson’s lips went from a line to a smirk. “I’ll need my assistant out there with me. You have to come along.”
“Doc, what the hell--” The radio on Burrow’s hip came on and he grabbed it, bringing it to his ear.
“Burrows, where the hell are you man?” A voice called through the receiver.
“I’m on the way.” Burrows shook his head and turned around to leave; taking off to a slow trot.
“I want you out there to help me with my research,” Manson called after him. He also wanted him out there to keep an eye on the soldier and the effects of the vial he had injected him with.
Chapter 6
2 years prior—
Miles sat on the floor of the BART train, crushed from everything that had happened up to this point. He had cried his last tear and his eyes were red. Miles poked out his lip and squeezed his eyes tight together.
Francine watched the boy from her seat with a small girl from classroom 5. She couldn’t remember her name, but she had finally calmed the little girl down and she had passed out in Francine’s lap. Brandon sat on the other side of the girl looking vacant with his mouth hanging open.
“Brandon? Brandon?” Francine’s voice was small and shrill. She couldn’t remember screaming but she could feel the effects of it now. “Brandon… are you ok?”
Brandon blinked and looked at her. He blinked again and took a breath. “Francine… yeah. Yeah, yeah. I’m OK.” His eyes opened wider and he was finally able to see what was right in front of him.
“Can you watch her? I wanna get Miles from the floor.” Before Brandon could answer, Francine was already scooping the girl up and putting her in Brandon’s arms.
The girl clung to Brandon and wrapped her arms and legs around him like tentacles. Brandon struggled to hold the heavy eight-year-old. Francine slid down on the floor with Miles and the boy looked at her with big doughy brown eyes. He started to whimper.
“It’s OK Miles. C’mon. Come sit with me and Brandon. You wanna sit with us?” Francine stretched out her arms to him and looked down to see her skirt was ripped up the side of her leg.
“Ms. Francine…” Miles said as his eyes started to water. “Ms. Francine, did everybody die? Is everybody dying?”
Francine collapsed into the boy and wrapped her arms around him. “Miles…” she whispered, then started rubbing his back trying to soothe him.
“Is Ms. Dottie dead? Is Mr. Arthur dead? Is Ms. Amber dead? Is my mommy dead?”
Francine started rocking with the boy and cooing him, not sure of what else to do or say.
Johnathan was at the other end of the train with Antonio chasing behind him. “Mr. Johnathan, what we gon do? Where we goin’?” Antonio was on high alert and had latched onto the old man. “We need to kill them niggas out there that’s kil
lin’ people! That’s what we need to do!”
“Watch your mouth boy!” Johnathan kept moving and slapped a hand to his face.
“Then what we gon do Mr. Johnathan? My brother got hella guns in Vegas! He let me shoot ‘em before! I can shoot! If I had a gun I woulda used it too! I woulda used it!”
“Antonio, just calm down, OK! We can’t just kill those people. They’re sick. We don’t know what’s wrong with them.”
“They killin’ people! And if I had my brother’s gun I’da shot them niggas!”
Johnathan stopped and turned around, “Antonio, stop it!”
“I woulda killed them niggas…” The young teen was crying and squeezing his fist. “I woulda killed them and saved Ms. Rachel! I’da save her! I’da shot them niggas and I’da saved her!”
Johnathan grabbed the distraught teenager and put his arms around him. “It’s ok. It’s ok. It was nothing you could do. It was nothing you could do.”
“What’s happenin’ Mr. Johnathan? Why are them people going crazy?”
“I… I don’t know Antonio. I wish I did. But right now, we can’t worry about that. We have to get somewhere safe. We’ll just ride the train and get off in Frisco and go to that quarantine Brandon found on his phone.”
“That place got overrun!” Some grizzled man in a gray fleece coat and blood splatter on his face stood up with his phone in hand. “The quarantine zone in San Francisco had hella people turn crazy and start attackin’ people! It’s hella them crazy people in San Francisco! It’s all over Facebook!”
Johnathan’s eyes narrowed.
A woman’s voice came from somewhere and called out, “Oakland just as bad! Kaiser is all fucked up! Them crazy people there too!”
“Where the hell we ‘pose to go? What the hell we ‘pose to do?” another voice shouted.
The police station! That’s gotta be the safest place!
City Hall! Don’t they got armed guards and shit?
What is going on? Is the world going to hell?
They ain’t people no more! They ain’t people!
It was chaos. There were so many voices now that Johnathan could barely make out what was being said. He just held onto Antonio and pushed through the throngs of people getting out of their seats and into the aisle.
“Mr. Johnathan, what we doin’?” Antonio asked the old man.
Johnathan shoved a man aside and pulled Antonio under his arm. “We can’t stay on this train! The front car is the next car ahead! The conductor said he wasn’t going to stop and was going straight into San Francisco!”
“Johnathan! I have to go home! This isn’t the train that I take to go home!” Grant came running through the people, standing in the aisles, following the old man.
“Grant, go back with Francine and the others!” Johnathan didn’t even know the boy was following him. “We’ll get off at the next stop and figure out what to do.”
“You shouldn’t get off! Them monsters everywhere!” A woman reached out and grabbed at Johnathan but he snatched away.
Finally he reached the sliding doors that led to the next car. Just as he prepared to pull open the glass doors, a maniac on the other side, launched himself into the door violently. Johnathan looked through the glass and saw the storm of wild people attacking anything moving. There were still people trying to fight them off and trying to save themselves, but the situation was dire. He wasn’t going to open that door. The risk was too high. The front car was lost.
But what did that mean for the train? Was there an emergency brake somewhere to pull? Johnathan didn’t like the idea being trapped with crazed people in the next car and going to San Francisco. Maybe getting off at Lake Merritt station and going to City Hall was the best place to go.
“Johnathan, I have to go home to my mother. She’s probably worried sick right now. We--” Grant stammered and waited a beat. “We should’ve stayed at the school like Ms. Michelle said. We should’ve stayed at the school. My mother is probably calling the school and asking for me!” He twirled the shoestring he still carried around his fingers.
“Grant, you gotta relax man. There’s a lot going on right now and you’re making things more complicated.” Johnathan wiped his face with his hand, finally realizing he was sweating a lot but thankful he wasn’t still bleeding from the cut above his eye.
“We have to get off this train!” Grant shouted and threw his hands up in the air.
“I know that!”
“Man, shut the fuck up, Grant!” Antonio punched his hand and cracked his knuckles.
Down on the other end of the car, Francine finally got Miles to settle down and was rocking with him in her arms. The voices and the shouting all around them turned to white noise and the two were tranquil on the floor in the middle of the aisle. Francine sat the boy down and wiped his eyes when he looked up at her.
“You wanna listen to my phone, Miles? I got like a thousand songs downloaded on here.” She reached in her coat pocket and pulled out the Samsung phone with white corded headphones. “Here.”
She put the earbuds in Miles’ ears and plugged the cord into her phone. She entered her password and turned the phone around to him so he could see the buttons she pressed; in case it went into sleep mode while Miles was listening. On her music app, she clicked the ALL folder and pressed play.
“I just charged my phone too. One hundred percent. You can just listen to it until my phone dies, OK?” Francine smiled.
Miles smiled back as the first song started to play through the earbuds, Georgia by Ray Charles. Miles giggled and Francine’s smile spread wider.
Johnathan stepped in, “We have to get off the train. There’s infected people in the front car.”
Francine’s joy deflated into despair and she sank down. “Oh no.”
“It’s ok! We’ll be alright.” Johnathan grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
Miles swallowed hard and said with a big goofy smile, “You two should get married.”
Johnathan scoffed, “Yeah, as soon as we get off this train. Everyone’s here right?” He stood from where he was kneeling and saw Brandon holding a little girl, Antonio standing by, but no Grant. He looked further to see the boy, still down at the other end of the train, trying to pull open the connecting doors. “GRANT! Don’t do that!” Johnathan’s voice was like thunder that quieted the other voices around him.
Grant looked up and looked around a bit confused. “There’s a woman in there! She needs help!”
Johnathan started moving down the aisle, “No! Grant, everyone in that car is infected!”
“Infected?! Like them crazy people?!” A woman jumped up and started running to the opposite side of the car. Many others started to do the same.
“But there’s a woman in that car that needs help! You have to be a gentleman and help her!” Grant struggled to push apart the first set of doors.
“Somebody stop that retarded kid!” someone yelled out.
“No, leave him alone!” Johnathan went running towards Grant but the flow of people going against him made it difficult.
Grant pushed open the second set of doors, ignorant of the danger on the other side. A man grabbed him and threw him to the floor. But once the doors were open, two crazed fiends hurled themselves through the opening and everyone went into a panic. The chaos was swift and the two fiends went attacking right away. Johnathan kept trying to push through the throngs of people running in the opposite direction, but when he saw more infected rushing through the open doors, Grant was lost in the mess of people kicking and screaming.
Johnathan turned and ran to where Francine and the others were. He shoved people aside and climbed over those who fell in the stampede. Suddenly he stopped and jerked forward, falling to the floor with many others when the trains brakes slowed the vehicle down. The BART train screeched to a stop behind another train at the Lake Merritt station. All the doors to exit flew open and Johnathan jumped back up to his feet in time to see the train operator running across the platfo
rm for the stairs. Several tweaking maniacs chased after the operator. Johnathan had his own pursuers on the train to worry about, but at least the doors were open now.
Johnathan jumped over two people still down on the floor. He picked up Miles in his arms and snatched Francine to her feet. He grabbed Antonio by the hand and looked around for Brandon. But he saw the younger man was already off the train and running for the stairs, still holding the little girl. When two freaks ran up to Brandon and grabbed the little girl’s legs, Brandon tried to hold on to her but let go when he saw it was useless. He turned and ran and that was the last Johnathan saw of him.
“John!” Francine had a hand to her mouth almost ready to cry, but her body reacted, and she ran off the train towards the girl and the psychos tearing her apart.
Johnathan grabbed her shirt and yanked her back. He redirected her down the platform along the side of the BART train. Other survivors went running from the open doors. Johnathan shoved people out of the way, clearing a path for himself and the others. Francine was holding his right hand. When Johnathan wasn’t knocking people out of his way, Antonio was holding his left.
“C’mon! Stay close! Stay close!” Johnathan checked Miles again, who was wrapped around his chest like a snake. He was glad the boy was holding on so tight.
The group whipped around the escalator and though the steps were going down, Johnathan ushered Francine and Antonio up the moving stairs. Antonio skipped steps and made it up the staircase quickly, one bound after another. Johnathan pushed Francine up the stairs, hearing the shouts getting louder from people being attacked and people doing the attacking. When he looked over his shoulder to see how much time they had before anything reached them, he didn’t stare too long. Besides a few people trying to make the run up the escalator behind him, Johnathan saw no infected people. But he could hear them, and they were close.
“C’mon! C’mon Francine, use that track speed!” Johnathan yelled, putting a hand on her back and urging her on.
Two Alive Page 22