SAFE

by Dawn Husted

  The dog came trotting back into the area with a small fish hanging out each side of her mouth. I rubbed her head as she sat beside me and began tearing the fish apart. I stood up and gathered my dry clothes off the ground, then put my boots back on. After a few seconds more, James appeared through the trees.

  “Hey Penny,” is all he said.

  “Are you hungry? I still have some more stuff in my pack—”

  “Lucan gave me some rabbit,” he replied.

  “Okay.”

  The awkward silence was worse than what the bomb caused as it exploded at the perimeter. Thankfully, Lucan broke up my uncomfortable, meager attempt at a conversation. “Hey, are you both ready?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I replied. My ankle felt close to completely healed and I opted to walk, even though I knew it would’ve been better for me not to.

  Chapter Eleven

  I walked, more like hobbled, in long strides, trying to keep the weight off my left foot. To my surprise, I was doing well. However, I still slowed the group down. Luckily, the guys were nice enough not to complain, at least aloud, and I only heard a grunt escape from James’ lips every now and then. Along the route, Lucan found a long stick and broke off a portion at the top, making it a perfect height for a cane. That helped some. Now, besides looking like a hobbling idiot, the cane finished the ensemble and I looked like Mrs. Rice, an old lady who lived down the street from me. My parents called on her to babysit many times when I was growing up and I always waited until she fell asleep to sneak more food out of the kitchen. The only sign she was fast asleep was when her cane fell to the ground during her short rest on the couch. I’d run over and move the cane down a tad, just far enough out of easy reach. I realize now that was sort of mean, but at the time I thought it was hilarious. Then I’d run into the kitchen. One time I found the jackpot, a tiny piece of chocolate. It was something that was rationed every year. However, this one was small, half eaten, and whichever parent stashed it had long forgotten about it. It was mine. As I snorted out loud from the memory, Lucan turned around and raised his eyebrows as if I was going crazy.

  Shortly after, we heard the sound of rushing water and James ran ahead, leaving Lucan and me behind. When we finally caught up, what I saw wasn’t the ocean. Instead, it resembled closer to the size and fast currents of a river. The water tumbled over itself, splashing into every inch as it tumbled over the next. I looked down, trying to see if there was a way around, but it curved on for miles. Too wide to hike around, so we agreed to cross. This time I asked James for help.

  Slowly, he sauntered over to me without saying a word. He bent down with another grunt as I climbed on his back. It took all my strength to hold on once he became waist deep and let go of my legs, using his arms to balance. I felt his muscles tighten along his neck and his speedy steps became more cautious with every move against the current, the slippery rocks not making his job any easier. I managed to look behind. The dog struggled and was falling further down stream.

  “Lucan!” I yelled. “Help her!”

  Lucan was already ahead of us, near to the other side, but he turned around and steadied himself with the current, letting it drag him towards the dog. In less than a minute, he reached her, just as her snout began dipping under the glossy surface.

  Once James finally reached the embankment, he lowered me to the ground. I hobbled over to the dog and patted her back while she coughed up the river.

  Lucan pulled out his bag of water, unscrewed the spout, and dipped it into the edge of the current. The bag expanded as water flowed in.

  Afterwards, we immediately began our hike, not taking anytime to rest.

  “Do you guys smell that?” Lucan asked. He stopped in the midst of trekking through overgrown bushes and covered his nose with his hand. “The odor is repulsive. It smells like a… like a dead animal. Like a hundred dead animals.” He pulled his shirt up, covering half his face like a bandit. Right then, a strong wind blew in our direction and immediately my nostrils filled with the horrid stench he complained about. He was right. There was definitely something dead and rotting ahead.

  “Maybe we should go around it, whatever it is,” I suggested.

  “You’re scared of a few dead animals, Ms. Science?” James asked, finally making a joke and easing the tension between us.

  Maybe there is hope yet. “Ha-ha,” I said. “No. I just don’t feel like getting any closer to the source. It is making me want to puke.”

  “If you ask me,” Lucan jumped in. “The smell is strong. We’ll probably reach and pass through it quicker than if we try to mosey around it.”

  I let out a sigh and hunched my back. “I know.” I wasn’t happy about it, but he was probably right. “Let’s go.”

  More overgrown bushes and trees blocked our path, still heading north, and thorny vines tugged at my shirt, causing a few snagging holes. Lucan swung a large knife, from his duffel, at the heap of thorny vines, helping clear our path. I carefully guided through the oversized, prickly, thorns poking in our direction. Once we cleared the area, I noticed a small glimmer through a mess of dirt. One single ray of sunshine lit up the tree and its surroundings, flickering against a metallic object in the ground.

  “Hold up,” I said. I walked over and bent down, brushing the dirt off with my hands, revealing a corner of something red. The rest of the object was still buried beneath the dirt.

  “It must’ve washed up from the storm.” I began digging with my fingernails around the red edge, tugging, pulling, and scraping the dirt away. I wasn’t getting far and Lucan and James didn’t help. Instead, they stared on with bizarre expressions plastered to their faces. “Geez guys, thanks.”

  “It’s just a piece of trash,” Lucan replied.

  I looked to the side, found a thick piece of bark, and banged it against the tree. It didn’t break so I used it as a shovel. Much better.

  I tugged one more time on the red object and out slid a dirty, beat-up octagon with the faded, white words STOP etched in the center.

  “Oh my!” I yelled. A shiver of excitement ran down my spine, escaping through my fingertips.

  “What?” James asked, suddenly curious. “Looks like an old sign.”

  “Ya, but not from home. It’s from before. You know before the old Land shook to pieces from the quakes. Don’t either of you remember reading about it in History class?” My hands felt tiny around the large red sign—a forgotten piece of treasure.

  “I didn’t go to your school,” Lucan replied.

  “And I didn’t really pay much attention,” James added.

  “Well, you two, this is incredible.” The science nerd in me clearly made itself visible. “A long time ago, the earth held multiple, gigantic pieces of lands called continents.” I was positive the guys at least knew this, but just in case… “People used multiple resources for energy, the main ones, and the one guessed to have caused multiple chains of earthquakes and sinkholes, were the dams. Every continent had hundreds of dams, using them to provide what they thought was safe, electronic energy. However, they miscalculated the amount of pressure caused by the water. Each dam placed enormous amounts of weight on the tectonic plates underneath and thus caused the quakes that destroyed… well, everything. If you didn’t die from being buried underneath the devastation of fallen buildings, highways, and other manmade crap, and if you didn’t fall into the large crevices as the continents tore apart, then you were still left to survive a series of explosions and fires. There were survivors of course, but the population had nearly been depleted. And then if you still lucked out enough to be alive, at that point you had to find refuge on a military vessel or any large boat willing to take you out to sea until the smoke and fires starved themselves out. That’s when our great-grandparents settled here on our Land. This is a sign from way back before all that happened.” I looked up, finishing my brief flashback. James stared at me, eyes glossed over, and Lucan picked at a fresh sore on his hand.

  “That’s great, really i
t is, but none of that matters now. Besides, the smell is still awful.” Lucan covered his nose with his shirt again as another strong breeze passed through the trees.

  I rolled my eyes and stood up, a tad embarrassed by my rant. We didn’t have the option of carrying the sign with us and even I knew it wouldn’t do us any good lugging it around, so I left it behind. Lucan cut more shrubs and prickly bushes, and James chunked the debris out to the side.

  “Watch out. There’s a massive ant pile,” Lucan warned as he walked around the mound, larger than anything I’d ever seen before. The ant home must’ve been record high, tip pointing as tall as my shoulder and the width even larger. James and I carefully stepped around the death trap.

  “I bet the ants inside are ginormous,” I said, gazing at thousands of large holes poking into the mound.

  Ahead, the foliage became thicker and Lucan tossed James a knife. They both began chopping vines and branches, clearing the pathway much faster. Squawking sounds filled the air and dozens of birds flew in a circle further ahead. It didn’t take a genius to realize why they were circling in the sky—we were about to locate the source of the decayed stench.

  The moment James and Lucan chopped another section from our path, an open field appeared, knee-high golden grass covering the ground, swaying in the breeze. A few trees still stood between us and the field.

  Another strong wind blew our direction.

  “E-e-w-w.” Vomit climbed its way up my throat in reaction to the smell and I swallowed it back down. The odor became worse and I puked to the side. “There goes my breakfast,” I muttered. I wiped my mouth and covered my nose. “What—Is—That?”

  The shrilling sounds from hundreds of birds penetrated my hearing, making it hard to listen. The shrieking dominated all my other senses, except for smell, which I desperately wanted to turn off. Meters ahead of me, a dozen gigantic birds hunched over—vultures. And beside the ones in the sky, I knew they couldn’t be the only birds causing such a horrid monstrous noise. There had to be more. But where?

  I realized the vultures on the ground were standing around the edge of an oversized hole, hundreds of feet in diameter. The tall grass made it hard to notice at first. “What could be so big to fill up that entire grave?” My curiosity, in a bad way, outweighed my other senses. My mom’s voice in my head screamed, Turn back, go around, leave the field alone. Don’t look inside!

  Why would anyone need to bury something so far away from the perimeter? And who had the authorization to be out here?

  “Penny, maybe you should let us look first,” James suggested and Lucan agreed.

  As much as I wanted to forget this whole moment altogether, I needed to face whatever was in that hole. I didn’t want there to be any more secrets and I was done being in the dark. I felt the guys thought of me as a piece of glass, capable of breaking with the slightest amount of pressure.

  But I wasn’t. And I was just as strong as either one of them, vines or not.

  “No, I need to see.” I pushed ahead, shoved my shoulders between them, and walked straight towards the hole.

  I was a mere twenty steps away from seeing what was inside.

  Now fifteen.

  Thirteen

  Twelve

  Eleven

  My body was numb and my hearing silent. My breathing slowed and the only sound I heard was my heartbeat. I tried focusing but with every thump of my heart, the pressure pushed through my ear, as if my cheek was pressed against my own chest.

  Ten

  Nine

  Eight

  Seven

  Six

  Five

  Four

  Three

  Two

  Nothing could’ve prepared me. Nauseous didn’t begin to cover the treacherous feeling clawing at my stomach. At first appearance, the hole looked filled with a black and brown sea of birds, wing to wing filling every gap, pecking away. However, blood covered their long, skinny necks inside the horrid mess. I launched my body over and threw up multiple times into the black pit.

  A gunshot rang out, loud, but the birds didn’t move.

  Lucan shot again, and again, and again.

  Finally, the birds startled enough and took flight out of the bloody hole, landing in the open field around us, waiting for when they could feast again.

  Lucan went limp and fell to his knees. I stood in horror, not believing what I saw.

  Children’s bodies piled on top of one another—covered with dirt and blood. Hollow holes in place of where their eyes should have been, pecked out by the birds, pieces of flesh torn and tossed around. It was a massive grave and the bodies had been thrown in without any decency or human kindness. From what I could see on the top layer were seven adults with babies lying near them, mixed with a handful of young kids and teenagers. Nobody had vines except for the adults.

  I looked over at Lucan, who was sobbing uncontrollably. Tears dripped from his cheeks wildly to the ground and his fingers clutched angrily into the earth.

  “Did you know them?” I cried, sickened by the image burned in my head.

  “Yes, a few,” he replied through tears.

  “It couldn’t be.” I didn’t want to accept what I was seeing and examined their faces from up top. On the right in between two bodies, I saw one face which looked familiar, but a tad older than the picture I had seen. A row of beads laid in a tangled mess around his neck and each letter of his name had been intricately carved out of wood. The letters J-A-C-E rested in blood. It was Jace. Sidnee’s Jace.

  “Who would do this?” I was mortified.

  James didn’t say a word, his eyes not glancing away from the pit—dead children, families.

  “What happened? Did they die of an illness?” I tried to convince myself of a reasonable explanation. Would I be amongst them if James hadn’t helped me escape that night? My body involuntarily hunched over, puking, this time off to the side on the ground, not wanting to add any more disgrace to the remains—to the people.

  “You keep telling yourself that, Penny!” Lucan became angry. He stood and turned on his heels, facing us, blood boiling through his pink cheeks. “Y’all are the reason for all of this! You live up there in your nice little houses, pretending like you’re better than everyone. Don’t tell me you didn’t know this was happening! Especially you, James. You worked in the Academy! Don’t lie to me!” In an instant, Lucan soared past me and tackled James, punching him repeatedly in the face. James shoved him off, but didn’t fight back. Lucan ran and tackled him again and James shoved him off.

  “Stop it!” I screamed. “Just stop it! Of course he didn’t know. Do you really think if either of us, or anyone else for that matter, knew about this, we would’ve let it happen? What kind of people do you think we are?”

  Lucan’s face scorched with more anger and his clenched fists lowered to his side, shaking.

  “Tell him, James. You didn’t know about this either.” I was trying to calm the situation.

  But James didn’t answer.

  “James, tell him!”

  “You see, Penny. Your James isn’t such an innocent guy, is he?” Lucan didn’t take his eyes off him. “Tell me what you know!” he demanded.

  “James.” My voice was calm and collected. “No, you didn’t know. Did you?”

  The words left my mouth, as I moved closer.

  “James, look at me,” I said.

  He wouldn’t.

  “Look—at—me!”

  Finally, his head turned down towards me, though his body remained stiff.

  “Who did this?” I asked. “You need to tell me.” I suddenly realized I didn’t know the guy in front of me at all. How much of him was a lie?

  His head turned back up, higher than me. “I don’t know,” James said.

  “He’s lying!” Lucan accused.

  Finally, James broke his superior stance. “No, I’m telling the truth. I don’t know—this goes well above my clearance. I never knew this was happening, or was going to happen. I
swear.” James’ voice was barely audible now.

  “What do you mean, going to happen? What do you know?” I asked.

  “Look Penny, I promise. I didn’t know,” he said again, ignoring my question.

  “Tell me what you did.” I reached up, grabbed his chin, and turned his face towards mine, forcing him to look me directly in the eyes. “Now!” I screamed.

  He shook out of my grasp. “Look, two years ago when we met, that was no accident. I was put on an assignment by Falcon. He simply asked me to get to know you better, become your friend.”

  “What?” I took a few steps back. “But why?”

  James continued, “At first I didn’t know. All I knew was that he wanted us to become close, good friends. I had no idea that I was going to fall in love with you, I swear.”

  “Why did he want you and I to become… close?” Now I was even more confused and angry. “I’m nobody special.”

  “But your father is,” he replied.

  “What?” It all became clear. “You’re the one that turned my father in?”

  “I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong! Falcon asked me to keep an eye on him, let him know who he talked to and where he went. For two years, nothing came of it. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. But then the other day I happened to follow him. I saw him meet up with a woman and her newborn. He handed her some pills, vitamins he called them. It was useless information. I promise if I knew telling Falcon would lead to this,” he motioned to the grave, “I never would’ve done it. It was a mistake.”

  I grabbed his arm. He allowed me to force him towards the uncovered hole of bodies. “Does it look harmless now?” I yelled. “Is one of them who you saw my father talking to?”

  He nodded and a tear rolled down his cheek as he pointed to a young mom and her baby.

  “And what about me, what about my family? Did you ever think of what would happen to us?” I said.

  “I didn’t know. I had no idea your father was in the middle of… this. I didn’t know. I promise. I was only supposed to gather information, that’s all.”