If I Lose

by Kelsey D. Garmendia

  I nod my head, but of course I don’t have a headache. I’m burning with rage. That ring was a gift from Xavier—a promise. “Do you remember how you got here?” the nurse asks.

  “Uh—I was hurt,” I start. My memory is really muggy. I rub my eyes and think of Xavier. I rush of energy bursts through me, and I remember being carried through the woods.

  “Ms. Henderson?” he asks.

  “I was stabbed and carried here.”

  The nurse smiles and nods his head. “It seems like your memory is finally coming back to you.”

  “Coming back to me?”

  “Sometimes when your injured or something traumatic happens to you, your mind will shut down in order to protect yourself,” he responds. “It’s called Post Tra—”

  “Traumatic Stress Disorder,” I finish. He doesn’t have to lecture me on something I’m all too familiar with. I attempt a smile. The nurse places the clipboard down and pulls the layers of blankets off of me. “How about we get you out of here and into some fresh air?” he asks.

  “Really!”

  He laughs and nods his head. “Your wounds are healed up and your memory is back,” he responds. “I don’t really see any reason to keep you on bed rest.” I nod my head and swing my legs over the side. “Woah,” he says catching my legs. “Ms. Henderson, remember? You’re nearly six months pregnant now. Your body has changed significantly since—”

  “I know,” I respond. I stand on my feet, and the blood rushes straight to my head. The nurse catches me before I hit the ground.

  “See,” he laughs. “Told you so.”

  I look up at him and smile. His eyes are a deep blue. Like the kind of blue you see when you’re hundreds of thousands of miles away at sea. A hesitant smile twitches onto his face, but it fades quicker than it appears. “Let’s get you into the sunlight,” he says. “I’ll help you walk.”

  I nod my head and try to wrap my arm around his shoulders. When he stands up straight though, he’s about three or four feet taller than me. I let my arm awkwardly

  fall to his waist and cling on for dear life when I take my first step.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “I won’t let you fall.” That’s something Xavier would say. I look up at him and smile. He doesn’t return it this time. His skin is dark, motionless, smooth—almost perfect. The muscles in his arms are barely straining from carrying me. I can tell by the size of my stomach alone that I’m no longer a featherweight.

  His gaze meets mine, and I hold my breath. “What is it?” he asks.

  I shake my head and look forward. “Nothing,” I respond. “You remind me of someone.”

  “Who?”

  I bite my tongue before Xavier’s name slips out of my mouth. “I can’t remember their name,” I respond.

  He nods his head in response. “I hate when that happens.” He brings me towards a tall archway that’s illuminated with a halo of light. I shield my eyes, and my feet stagger.

  “Woah,” the nurse says tightening his grip on me. “I’ve got you.”

  July 19, 2013

  My vision fills with hundreds of white orbs. I squint and shield my eyes further from the light outside of the hallway. Guess that’s what being indoors for six months does to you. The orbs disappear one by one until I can see clearly.

  “Welcome to Fort Ticonderoga,” the nurse says. “Your new home, Ms. Henderson.”

  I look up at him and frown—his voice is flat. The muscles in his jaw are clenched, and his nostrils are flared. He turns his glare towards me and everything relaxes. “Do you need anything else, Ms. Henderson?”

  “Yes, your name?” I respond.

  “Oh,” he laughs rubbing the back of his neck. “Isha.”

  “Isha, I’m Hayley,” I say holding out my hand. “No more, Ms. Henderson. You got me?”

  He nods his head and releases his grip of my side to shake my hand. I still feel extremely unstable on my feet, but I refuse to be carried around by a nurse for the rest of the day. If Aisley and I are going to leave here, I have to be able to carry my own weight—metaphorically and literally.

  “What do I do here?” I ask.

  The fort is huge. Behind me is the gray stone building where I came from; the tall archway is not as magnificent as I thought it was. Isha and I are standing in the middle of a long expanse of dead grass.

  On the far side in front of us are white tents like you see at a quarantine site. To the right of that is another building with an archway like the one I came from; kids are spilling out of the weathered oak doors and dispersing to the white tents in groups no bigger than two or three.

  “That’s the school,” Isha says. “Your daughter doesn’t get out for another 15 minutes yet.” I nod my head. “Those buildings are third class homes,” he says.

  “What do you mean, ‘third class?’” I ask.

  “Its just the army’s way of separating the people who make it here,” Isha explains. “You are second class—women bearing a child or women with infants—”

  “What about my friend?” I ask. “Aisley?”

  “Friend?” Isha asks raising an eyebrow.

  Shit. “Uh—well, you know, I think of my daughter as a friend too.” Dumbest fucking response ever.

  “Right,” Isha responds. “Aisley is in an elite group of adolescents. She proved to be quite intelligent, and the

  higher ups don’t want to pass the opportunity in letting her—”

  “Adolescent?”

  “Well, the higher ups here weed out the bad seeds at a young age,” he continues. “They take the brightest and most adept children and place them in advance training programs.”

  “She’s ten!” I shout. My voice seems to fall silent in the enormity of the fort.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds—”

  “Then what is it exactly?” I yell. My temper is flaring; I can feel the heat rising to my face quicker than usual.

  “Ms. Hen—Hayley,” Isha starts. “Things are different here. But I promise you, the people in charge have everyone’s best interests in mind. They want what’s best for Aisley, just like you would if this apocalypse didn’t change things.”

  I chew the inside of my lip to prevent myself from unleashing every curse word I know. “Aisley goes to school in that building over there,” Isha says pointing to a small gray building to the left of us. “You can’t visit during school hours, but there are brief recesses throughout the day. You can join your daughter over in the white tents over there during those times.”

  “What times are they?” I ask.

  “7:15, noon and 4:45—”

  “What? Is school 12 hours long or something?”

  “Well, yes,” Isha says frowning. “Didn’t the last nurse explain that to you?” I shake my head. “I guess that’s why they moved her down.”

  I frown at Isha’s response. Moved her down?

  A bell rings out sending my eardrums buzzing. I clamp my hands over my ears and clench my jaw tight. “School’s out,” he says and begins walking me towards the small building where Aisley is.

  My heart is pounding so hard against my ribcage. I’m nervous. Why, I have no idea, but I am. I search for Aisley’s head in the small group of children that exit the building but don’t see her anywhere. Maybe something happened to her—maybe she got in trouble for visiting me. What if they’re punishing her? What if she’s being “moved down?” I know it can’t be a good thing judging by the way Isha spoke of it.

  “Mom!” I hear her voice yelp. I look through the group of kids and see Aisley’s long dirty blonde hair gleam in the sun.

  “Aisley,” I cry out. I waddle over to her, and she comes full sprint at me. She slows herself to a jog just before she reaches me and hugs me around my enormous stomach.

  “How’s my sibling doing in there?” she asks pressing her ear into my stomach. I can’t help but laugh.

  “I think he or she is happy—they’ve been kicking like crazy.” Aisley looks up at me and smiles so wid
e that her dimples look like black holes.

  “You’re free to do whatever you’d like for the remainder of the day, Ms. Hender—Hayley,” Isha says from behind us. “Tomorrow I’ll show you what your daily routine will be.”

  I smile and grab Aisley’s hand as she drags us to the white tents on the far side of the camp. I turn back once and see a smile on Isha’s face before we enter our home.

  Aisley runs over to the cabinet and pulls out three C-ration meals for us. “Lasagna and Steak dinner,” I read off the label. “Why do I get two?”

  “Have you looked in a mirror lately, Mom?” Aisley asks.

  “You don’t have to call me tha—”

  Aisley’s eyes go wide, and she shakes her head wildly. “Mom, I didn’t say you were fat,” she continues. “I was just saying you’re almost ready to pop out this kid.” Her eyes flicker to the corner of the room, and I follow her gaze to a red blinking light—they’re watching us?

  I smile to hide whatever reaction that’s trying to spread itself across my face. “Good idea,’ I respond. “Do you want to go for a walk? Show me around a little more?”

  Aisley smirks and nods her head. She rips open both packages and dumps them onto a plate. In another time, I would’ve winced at the slab of meat. But the minute Aisley puts the plate in front of me, I feel my mouth water. Did they starve me or something while I was knocked out?

  “Wanna go on a walk before dinner?” she asks.

  “Let’s eat first,” I say. “I’m starving.”

  Hunger Pains

  “That was the best tasting food ever,” I say leaning back in my chair.

  Aisley stares at me with raised eyebrows. “I guess six months of sedation causes delirium too.” She picks up the plates and washes them in the white plastic sink in the corner of the room.

  Six months—I can’t believe they kept me under for so long. I missed so much of everything; so much of the safety that Xavier gave us. I watch Aisley wash and stack the dishes away in a cupboard. “When did you grow up so fast?” I ask.

  She turns and raises an eyebrow, “Are you really asking that question to a 10-year-old who can fire a 9MM like using the toilet?”

  I smile, “I guess I am.”

  Aisley turns back to the sink and finishes off the dishes. “I guess before you got better,” she says. “When they had you under, I either had to learn how to do things or I would be placed in Camp.”

  “Camp?”

  Aisley sighs and comes back to the table with two glasses of water and a handful of vitamins for me. “Take these,” she says. “The doctors told me you need them.”

  I nod and shovel the pills into my mouth. “Camp is someplace you’ll never want me to go.”

  I sit and sip my water—it’s best I let her explain.

  “All the kids who stumble in here, without parents,” she looks up at me, and I smile; our little secret. “Without anyone with them, they get put in Camp. It’s a less advertised version of boot camp, and a lot harsher to say the least. They’re militarized and placed as guards, soldiers—whatever you want to call them,” Aisley’s gaze drifts to the wood planks in the floor.

  “For protection?” I ask, holding the bump in my belly.

  Aisley laughs under her breath. “Yeah, right,” she whispers. “All I know, is that so long as I have you, I don’t have go to Camp. I’ll just be in advanced classes and weapons training until I’m old enough.”

  “Old enough for what?” I ask. Aisley doesn’t answer my question, but I can guess what happens. “What age?”

  “Fourteen,” she mutters. She gulps down the rest of her water and stands from the table. Four more years—

  that’s all I’ve got with her. I watch the muscles in her back tense and retract as she runs more water into her cup.

  “Aisley, I need to ask you something else,” I whisper just loud enough to hear above the water. She glances over her shoulder. I never was a good liar when someone wasreallywatching me, so I’m sure my face had a hundred questions somewhere between the worry wrinkles and my eyes.

  “Let’s walk off that meal,” she responds. “I’ll show you the rest of the Fort.”

  The outside air smells like those dryer sheets called mountain freshness—or at least, that’s what I think they smell like. It might be the pregnancy talking, but I feel like all my senses are heightened. Kinda like Spiderman—yeah, pregnancy talking.

  “So what is it,” Aisley whispers.

  “What happened to Xavier?” I ask. I choke on my voice. Is it gonna feel like this every time I think of him? I need to know the truth. He can’t be dead. He was always three steps ahead of everyone else around him. He wouldn’t have stayed in the line of fire. “I just—I need to hear some truth.”

  “Well,” Aisley begins, looks over her shoulder and then continues. “He ran off when the soldiers took you at the doorway. I don’t know what they said to him to make him run, but he looked at me and then said something to you, and—”

  “He ran.” I close my eyes trying to remember, but all I hear is gunfire. I rub the back of my neck and look down at Aisley. I can remember her screaming for him in the dream I had when I was sedated. “But he wasn’t shot?”

  Aisley shakes her head. “He’s smarter than that.” I nod my head in agreement. We walk to the edge of camp

  and sit on a pile of wooden boxes lined up along the walls of the fort.

  “They told me he was dead when I woke up the first time,” I say. “You were there.” I feel the tears burn at the edges of my eyelids, but I wipe them on the back of my hand.

  “I know, but don’t believe anything anyone tells you here, Hayley,” Aisley says grabbing my hand. I look down at her, and the intense look in her eyes sends fear flooding through my veins. “They make you forget. They make you empty, like shells. I’ve gotten by because I’m better at pretending than the others.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you think they kept you away from everyone for so long?” Aisley responds. “They couldn’t have someone like you running around camp spreading truths about the Wild. It would’ve been complete anarchy here.”

  Anarchy? Does this girl even know what that word means? She’s 10. What did they do to her while I was in lockdown? I rest my hand on top of Aisley’s. “I’ll never let them get to you or me, I promise,” I whisper.

  “The Wild isn’t spoken of here,” she explains. “We’re safe and that’s all that matters. They’re trying to rebuild. Make everything normal again. So, just go along with it if you want to stay out of Rehabilitation.”

  “Is that where I was?”

  “Yeah,” she says nodding her head. “It’s where people are forced to forget. Once you get out of there, you’re in here for good.”

  “For good?” No, that can’t be right. I have to get out of here. If what Aisley said is true, Xavier might be alive. I can’t stay here if he’s still running out there.

  “You think the soldiers will just let you walk out the front door?” she asks.

  “They will if I fight my way out!”

  A smile flashes on her face, but then she returns to her grim appearance when a tap on my shoulder sends me rigid. “Ms. Henderson,” a husky voice says.

  “Yes,” I say, my voice drowning in fake enthusiasm.

  “What are you and Miss Aisley doing outside at this hour? It’s dinner hour, you’re supposed to be indoors.” She glares at Aisley.

  I look at Aisley’s face and although she’s good at what she does, I can see the fear creeping back into her eyes. “Oh,” I spit out. “I’m sorry, I’m still not accustomed to the schedule here.”

  “I tried to explain to her,” Aisley follows up.

  The officer’s lip twitches into a snarl. “Best not be finding yourselves out here at the wrong time again.” She turns and marches off into the opposite direction towards the schools.

  “Fucking bitch,” I mutter.

  Aisley laughs and holds out her hand. “Come on,
before someone else comes and interrupts our bonding time at the wrong moment.”

  July 20, 2013: 0137 hours

  “Aisley,” my voice is hoarse; I must have been screaming for hours. I'm tied to a cold metal chair in the middle of a black room. "Aisley!" I struggle against the restraints, but they only cut deeper into my wrists.

  "Trying to get out of those won't help you," a voice from somewhere in the room says.

  The muscles in my throat tighten—that voice, I know that voice. "Who are you? Where's Xavier? Where's Aisley?"

  A croaking laugh bounces off the walls. I feel the sound crawl into my veins and pump throughout my body. I shudder and sink into my restraints. "Xavier is dead," the voice says. A rusty door attempts to shut and then, slams leaving the bang to melt into the darkness.

  "Liar!" I growl. My throat burns—I bang my head against the metal structure. "Where are they?"

  I pull at the leather restraints that feel more like hands. They feel like the clammy grips of the cannibals. How they grabbed at me like I was a buck or bear they shot. What if I'm still there? What if they're slowly bleeding me out, drinking my blood like wine? "Xavier! Aisley!" my voice squeaks. "Please!"

  The door swings open, and a shadow stands in the overhang emitting a throaty laugh.

  * * *

  I shoot up in bed mid-scream. I clamp my sweaty palm over my mouth and lay back on my pillow. It was a nightmare—I should be used to those by now. I let my head fall into the pillows. The sun peeks through the slit of window in the bedroom and warms my face.

  "Hey Mom," Aisley says from the doorway. She hurls her backpack onto the floor and crawls into my bed. "Geeze, you're sweaty," she says. She looks up at me, and I can see the panic spread through her face. "What happened? Are you ok? Is it the baby—"