If I Lose

by Kelsey D. Garmendia

  I throw the covers off of him and grab a duffle bag from under his bed. Boots, socks, warm clothes for each of us. I repeat it in my head until I can see the words floating in the dark air of our apartment.

  Why didn’t I leave with Isha? He had a plan—he was thinking about doing this for months, and all I could do was say no. I panicked—that’s what really happened. So

  much of me wanted to leave with him and get back to Xavier where I could live and be free. Freedom was the ultimate safety.

  But part of me was afraid for Aisley and Nolan. Aisley was finally getting a taste of normalcy with Tristan and Nolan—could I really punish him to a life of running from psychopaths? I laugh; guess that’s what I’m doing now.

  But my situation is much worse than Gunnar keeping an eye on us. If it weren’t for Keturah, they would’ve tossed me as free food for the cannibals. “I’m so sorry, Keturah,” I whisper. “You’ll be with Nikia now.”

  “Grabbed everything I could,” Aisley says from the doorway of my bedroom. “Explain. Now.”

  I let out a long sigh and throw a pair of boots from Aisley’s uniform into the duffle bag. “Now’s really not the time, Aisley—”

  “Well, I’m not going anywhere until you explain yourself.” She steps into the moonlight and folds her arms across her chest, blocking the doorway. “I’m better equipped than you are to keep you from leaving this room, and you know that.”

  She’s right—a 14-year-old girl trained by the Fort could take out an adult with a rocket launcher. “They found out everything, Aisley,” I say. My voice is monotone—a side effect of the torture numbing my nerves no doubt.

  “How?” Aisley says with the same level tone.

  “They knew since we were brought here,” I say. “Isha showed me papers and documents weeks ago. It had information about both of us; they know who your real parents are, and they know we both remember everything.”

  I hear a gasp escape her throat. “Tristan,” she says. “I told him everything.”

  “Well, if they didn’t know that yet, they do now,” I say.

  Aisley runs from the doorway and scales the wall to the window in my room. I just reach her in time to grab her ankle. “What are you doing!”

  “I’m going to get him,” she says. I can hear the panic in her voice. “I did this to him. I put him in danger by telling him what I knew.”

  “And what do you think I did!” I say. “I brought you here thinking a flimsy lie could keep you and Nolan safe!” I tug on her leg, but she tightens her grip on the window’s ledge.

  “Xavier brought us all here,” she says through her teeth. “And if you’re trying to place blame then stop. No one knew the people here were crazy. No one could’ve known. We were told it was safe, just like I thought our secrets would be safe between us—between Tristan and I.”

  Her voice cracks at the end. There it is, that’s why she’s so hell bent on getting to him. She loves him.

  “I’m not letting them hurt him,” she says. “I—He—He means everything to me.” I look at her eyes film over with tears and the strangling grip she has on the window frame. “If it were Xavier, you’d be doing the same thing.”

  My grip loosens on her ankle, and she shimmies loose. “Aisley,” I say before she vaults herself over the edge. “You have 10 minutes. Meet us near the gates and we’ll wait for Keturah’s signal.”

  She nods once and flings herself through the window. I grab the bag and swing it over my shoulder. Nolan walks from his bedroom with his shoelaces untied and hair disheveled on top of his head. His crystal eyes look up at me, and he smiles.

  “Are we going to find Daddy?” he says.

  Yes, we are. He shouldn’t have to grow up with stories and memories as a filler when he’s out there probably running, surviving on his own out in The Wild. I have to get out of here—we all do.

  0237 Hours

  I never thought I would run from safety, but this place will kill us if we stay any longer. Five years, six months and fifteen days—that’s enough safety for our family.

  I throw the other strap over my shoulder, and my knees buckle temporarily. Aisley must be a lot stronger, or I’m much weaker than I thought. I tighten the straps until they feel like a second skin and lower Nolan down from the window Aisley jumped out.

  “Hide,” I mouth. He nods and runs behind our building on the far side.

  I grab the knife Keturah gave me and squeeze the handle until my fingers pulse. Go for the throats—quick and easy. Yeah, right. I reach for the front door and turn the knob.

  “It’s her!”

  Gunfire.

  0243 Hours

  “It’s the girl!” another voice shouts.

  “Aisley!” I could never mistake that voice—Gunnar. I push the door open the rest of the way. Machine gun fire lights up the field like fireflies.

  “She’s heading for the third class boy’s dorm,” I hear another soldier say.

  I slip out the front door and sneak past the two soldiers guarding it. One of them unloads a clip to the left and runs off in that direction with the other soldier close on their heels. I rush behind our house.

  “Nolan,” I whisper just loud enough to hear above the gunfire. I squint my eyes, but I can’t see through the

  darkness, not even with the moonlight’s assistance. The gunfire dulls momentarily and leaves nothing but shouting to fill the night air. “Nolan!”

  An explosion from the far side of the Fort sends the clock tower up in flames. Shit—that was Keturah’s diversion. I’m moving too slow.

  “Nolan,” I shout. The gunfire is at an all time high. Each reverberating gunshot pierces through my chest. The pinging of empty clips makes goosebumps litter my skin. Aisley’s out there in that somewhere. No, Hayley—focus on Nolan. One thing at a time. She can take care of herself.

  “Ms. Henderson,” a voice says that turns my nerves to glass. “Nice of you to show up.” I turn and see Gunnar holding a gun to Nolan’s temple.

  And I shatter.

  “You’re out after curfew, Ms. Henderson,” he says. “Punishment for this after your first offense is pretty harsh.” He tightens his grip around Nolan’s throat, but I can feel it on my own.

  “Please,” is all I manage to get out. Nolan’s eyes are wide, the ice blue piercing in the small cone of moonlight. I bite my lip trying to stifle the begging plea from my throat. I reach behind me and grip the knife.

  “This can all be solved with you turning yourself over for exile,” he says.

  “You’ll let them go?”

  “Sure,” Gunnar says. “But they’ll stay here.”

  I can hear Nolan whimpering and watch tears stream from his face.

  “He’s my son—”

  “You lost the right to call him that when you chose to incite chaos here!” he says.

  I flinch at the sound of his voice. Please don’t pull the trigger, please. “I can’t leave him with you,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  Gunnar smirks and points the gun at me. “And what’s Miss Aisley to you then?” he says. “I want to hear you say the lie.”

  Nolan bites down on Gunnar’s arm and slips from his grip. I reach for the knife and grab its blade. Gunnar lets out a scream and aims his gun at us. I throw the knife and lunge forward at Nolan.

  A gunshot rings out, and Nolan collapses into my arms.

  0304 Hours

  “Mommy,” his tiny voice says in my ear.

  “Nolan,” I say. “You’re all right!” I check him over twice—not even a scratch.

  “You’re bleeding,” he says reaching for my arm. I look and find a bullet graze on my right arm. Nolan cups my arm gingerly, like he’s done this a hundred times, and looks at the wound. “You need to get it cleaned and stitched.”

  I smile; just like his father. I look over his shoulders at Gunnar. The underside of his boots are illuminated in the moonlight. His left leg twitches steadily.

  We inch closer to his body, the gargling growing
louder with each step. “Nolan, close your eyes,” I say, but I know he won’t.

  Gunnar lies on his back, reaching upward towards the sky like he’s searching for some type of savior. Blood flows from his neck like an open faucet through the flimsy pressure he attempts to place on it. He looks at me, his eyes filled with some mixture of fear and wrath and tries to speak. It’s a pathetic sight; someone so powerful, so crooked, begging for his life when there’s no hope he’ll survive.

  I kneel down next to him, and his eyes go wide like a deer in the headlights. “I’ve been working on that for quite some time,” I say into his ear and twist the handle of the knife. A muddled scream makes it past the blood in his throat. “No one fucks with my family.” I pull out the knife and wipe the blood off on my shirt.

  “Mommy,” Nolan whispers. He hides behind my leg with his eyes closed.

  “It’s ok, Nolan,” I say. “He can’t hurt us. He won’t.” I pick him up and press his head into my shoulder. I jog in the shadow of the buildings avoiding contact with any soldier we can hear.

  “Where are we gonna go?” Nolan says after a stint of silence.

  “We’re getting out of here.”

  His eyes light up and a grin melts onto his face. That right there is what confirms I’m right. In spite of everything—all the bad, good and evil things that have crossed his eyes—he still has hope that there is something better out there.

  0317 Hours

  The clock tower burns a deep orange. I try to read the hands through the flames, but the thick smoke distorts its face. Nolan sits in my lap. The gunfire still rings out over the field in the Fort.

  A man’s voice echoes over the loudspeakers saying, “Please remain inside your homes. We will tell you when it’s safe to come out. This is a code red lockdown.”

  I have no idea what a code red is, but I’m sure all the idiots living here will do what they’re told. Hell, a couple of weeks ago, I was turning into one of them. I rub Nolan’s head hoping to quell the shaking that’s traveled throughout his body.

  Another explosion from the direction of our building jolts us both. I look around the corner down the alleyway. The fire blasts against the stone walls of the Fort. Another smaller explosion sends something ricocheting off the bricks. Jesus Aisley, where are you?

  “Mom!” I hear from somewhere in the alley. I squint my eyes and see Aisley sprinting towards me with Tristan close behind. He’s almost in complete uniform except for his top—just a T-shirt.

  “Aisley,” Nolan squeaks. He sprints towards her and squeezes around her waist.

  “Hey,” she says squeezing back. “You all right, kid?”

  “Yeah!” he says. “Mom killed a bad guy!”

  Aisley looks over at me, and I show her the knife. “Guess your teaching stuck,” I say. She smiles and then her eyes widen.

  “Are you hurt?” she asks.

  “Just a scrape.”

  “That’s a gunshot,” Tristan says coming to my side. He cradles my arm and brings it into the light from the burning clock tower. Blood seeps through my thermal and covers my entire sleeve now.

  “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

  Tristan tears a piece of his T-shirt and ties it around my wound. “That should do it for now,” he says. “We should really get some stitches in that.”

  “There’s no time,” I say. “But thank you.” He nods his head and half of his mouth turns upward in a crooked smile.

  I instantly feel guilty. This kid never asked for this. He’s only a couple years older than Aisley and now he’s fleeing one of the only steady things he’s known since this hell has been dropped on all of us. I reach out for his wrist and squeeze. “You know what this means, right? That you’re here with us?”

  “That I’m stuck with you all?” he says. The crooked smile returns when he looks at Aisley over his shoulder. She looks down at him and red fills up her cheeks. “Yeah, I know, Ms. Henderson.”

  “Well, first thing right off the bat—”

  “Yes, Ms. Henderson?”

  “Don’tever call me Ms. Henderson again.”

  Aisley turns her head down, but not before I catch a glimpse of her smile. “Um, so,” she says. “What’s next?”

  “Keturah rigged the front doors to blow,” I say.

  “What!”

  “Mom, you’ve got to be joking?”

  “That’s what she told me,” I say. “The clock tower was her doing.”

  “The explosion over that way was us,” Tristan says. “It was the only way for us to get away.”

  “I blew up our apartment with the propane tanks from our stove,” Aisley says. “The whole compound was after us. I had to do something to stop them.”

  “No need to explain,” I say. “I hated that place.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Nolan says still holding onto Aisley’s hand.

  “So are we gonna wait here ‘till the explosion—”

  A loud roaring sound sends me stumbling onto my knees. Aisley squeezes Nolan to her body and falls hard on her side. Tristan dives on top of them pulling me as close to his body as he can. Debris smashes into the ground leaving craters in the cold January soil. I throw my hands over my head feeling pieces of mud and concrete pound my body.

  Nolan cries underneath Aisley and Tristan. I reach out a hand and grab a hold of his arm. The roar finally dulls down and is replaced by shouting.

  Tristan springs up swinging both bags over his shoulders. He pulls Aisley to her feet and then helps me up. I scoop Nolan into my arms, and we take off towards the sound of the explosion.

  0350 Hours

  “Run!” I yell. Gunfire passes by the three of us. I push Nolan’s face into my chest and tuck my head down. The air makes a swirling sound as bullets zoom past my head.

  “Mom!” Aisley screams out.

  “Go! Just keep going!”

  Nolan screams in my arms as I get closer to the hole in the fort’s walls. I can feel the fresh air blow by me. I look up and see a glimpse of Aisley’s head disappear behind the gap.

  “Someone land a bullet in that girl!” I hear a soldier yell. My legs burn as I push past the fort’s walls. The

  gunfire dulls down and is replaced by voices shouting. I continue to run into the woods, the frozen grass whipping across my shins. The shouts eventually die off and is replaced by silence.

  We are free.

  “Aisley,” I call out. The moonlight colors the forest with a gray blue film making me feel like I’m in a dream. The thought of freedom—this freedom—being something made up scares me. Maybe running wasn’t the right choice. Nolan cries in my arms as I wander through the woods.

  A whistle echoes through the trees. I whip my head around and see Aisley and Tristan crouched down in the bushes.

  “You all right?” I say.

  “Couple of scrapes,” Tristan says. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

  A siren sounds from the fort followed by dull shouting. It’s silent for a few seconds before a noise erupts from the forest. Tree branches break by the hundreds. The sound grows louder. I can hear screams from the fort.

  “What is that?” Tristan says clamping his hands over his ears.

  Aisley looks at me, and I shrug my shoulders. A tree branch cracks directly behind me and a gasp escapes my mouth. I’m tackled by something, and Nolan screams.

  “Mom!” Aisley yells.

  I try and reach back for my knife, but whatever it is pins my arms down. I can feel its hot breath on the nape of my neck. I struggle to break free of its grip—a growling laugh seeps through the heat of its breathing. Tristan grunts sending it off of me. I turn and whip my knife from my belt loop.

  “What is that thing?” Aisley yells over the roaring screams coming from the fort.

  “It looks almost—”

  “Human,” I say. The creature stands close to my height but its skin radiates a yellowish gout color. It’s completely naked and covered in a sheen of sweat despite the cold night air. Its eyes
are what takes away the humanity; the bloodshot glow to them sends a cold streak down my spine. It crouches and lets out an earsplitting screech. It lunges, and I swings my knife into its chest. It cries and runs towards the fort leaving a trail of blood behind. I wipe the blood off the blade on the ground and tuck it back into my belt loop.

  “Are those—are they—”

  “They’re what’s left,” Aisley says covering her mouth.

  Five years of nothing but starvation and lack of food—this is what the cannibals turned into. Isha had a theory that something like this would happen, but I don’t think he ever expected it to get this bad. There’s so many of them. I look out into the forest and listen to the footsteps and gunfire.

  “Xavier, where are you?” I can’t drown this guilt that creeps up on me—this pit in my stomach that feels like this is my fault. If I had been better, more prepared when Xavier left us at the hotel, we would’ve never been separated.

  “Ms. Henderson,” Tristan says. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I spit out. “We need to find shelter.”

  “The hotel?”

  “It’s too far to travel at night,” I say.

  “I can build a lean-to,” Tristan says helping Nolan from the ground. “You wanna help, Nolan?”

  “Can I Mommy?”

  I nod my head. Tristan takes Nolan’s hand and begins to walk off into the woods. I grab his shoulder and pull him back. “We’ll need a place that’s concealed, but nothing that will obscure our view. Somewhere we can see all points from—”