If I Lose

by Kelsey D. Garmendia

  “No offense, Hayley,” Tristan says. “They were training us for stuff like this every day in the Fort.”

  Touché.

  The Wild

  Book Four

  January 1, 2018

  I remember when I used to go to sleep thinking that bad things—catastrophic things—happen somewhere else. I used to watch the news flash horrific images on the television and think, that’s horrible, but it would never happen to me.

  I used to click the T.V. off, curl up in my empty queen-sized bed, and listen to the sirens and city chatter seep through my windows. Every day was the same thing. I’d walk past a homeless man wearing plastic bags as shoes, and instead of actually helping him, I would turn my head in the opposite direction and pretend he didn’t exist.

  His life was the complete opposite of mine, he suffered day-to-day and sometimes barely managed to get by.

  Honestly, before the cannibals, I never knew loss. I understood it, accepted it as something that happened, but nothing more than that.

  Then, I lost Cassie. Loss and I got real close after that curveball. Xavier came into my life, and in a flash, he disappeared too. Sometimes I think maybe I could forget. Ha—if only I could be so apathetic still.

  Aisley sleeps next to Nolan who twitches from a mild nightmare. Tristan drapes his arm across Aisley and sleeps soundlessly. I, on the other hand, am too awake and depressed to even shut my eyes.

  I always thought something horrific like what I saw on the city streets, in movies and books would happen to someone else—but now I’m living it. I’m the character in a book that you cry for, the person that you see on the news on their televisions and feel pity for—I am that homeless man I pretended not to see. My body shivers at the thought.

  Most nights, I lie awake staring at a new canopy Tristan constructed praying for sleep. I beg for it sometimes with silent tears running down my face. All I want is one night of sleep without fear burning through my nerves. The only reason I haven’t cracked is because of the torture Gunnar put me through; I guess the Fort did me some good in the long run, even if I had to bleed to get to where I am now.

  But things are much worse than they were five years ago. Tristan is a good hunter, but nowhere’s near as good as Xavier was. All of us can barely manage a three hour walk before we’re collapsing from fatigue; it’s not only me now that is sacrificing meals for Nolan—Aisley and Tristan are close to bones. And even though Aisley

  surprises me more and more everyday, her body can only take so much. She’ll come back from the woods, and I can see her breaking point directly behind her vacant gaze. She tries to hide it, but at the rate things are deteriorating, we don’t have much time ‘till she turns to dust.

  I look back six years, and I can’t help but be disgusted with myself. I pitied people in situations similar to the one I find myself in now with no intent to help them. I was like the Fort—I was just one person sure, but I turned the other cheek just like the Fort did to Xavier, Nikia and countless other people. I pretended that if it were me in those news stories, that I would help people get back up on their feet. But I just signed it off as somebody else’s problem. Now, I’m living it. I swear my mind is going to be the one thing that will bring me down.

  I leave the lean-to and grab the longbow from the ground. The frozen leaves crunch under my boots as I trudge out into the forest. The air is frigid, but it feels good against my clammy skin. I’m not that good of a shot—I know that—but if I could catch something tonight, there’s a chance we’ll be more prepared for our hike tomorrow.

  I surprise myself with how quietly I can move through the forest which has helped develop my tracking skills. I tiptoe through the woods until I hear a crunch to my right. I draw back and hold my bow in the direction it came from. I let my eyes adjust to the sun creeping through the trees. The light casts pinstripe shadows on the ground. I don’t see any movement, but spot something brighter through the evergreens. My mouth goes dry, and I feel my heart pound viciously behind my ribcage.

  A dull yellow sign in the distance with the faded message of “Satisfaction Guaranteed” flickers through the

  trees. My knees wobble until they finally collapse—the hotel.

  Safety

  I run back to the lean-to. “Everyone up!” I shout. Tristan shoots up along with Aisley; Nolan groans and rolls back over.

  “Mom, what is it?” Aisley says.

  “The hotel,” I say.

  Her eyes go wide. “What?” she says in disbelief.

  “I know! It’s right through the forest that way,” I say flinging my arm in the direction of the hotel. “You’re gonna need this.” I throw the bow I took with me towards her. She catches it and with one fluid motion, swings it over her shoulder while pulling her bow over her shoulder.

  “Mom?” Nolan calls out.

  “Come on, Nolan,” I say holding out his jacket. He holds out his arms, and I put it on for him. Tristan zips his coat and swings his own bow over his shoulder. I pull my knife from my belt loop and take hold of Nolan’s hand.

  “It’s barely sunrise, Hayley,” Tristan says. “Those things have the advantage on us.”

  “I know, but if we don’t go now,” I say, but he holds up his hands like a crossing guard.

  “I know,” he says.

  I nod my head and duck under the lean-to’s opening. Our feet crunching on the ground is the only noise besides a few birds chirping. We keep the silence as we trek towards the hotel’s sign. “Mommy, are we going to find Daddy now?” Nolan says in a whisper.

  I smile and nod my head. His eyes light up and begins skipping instead of walking. The leaves crunch under his feet a little too loud though—too loud to be just him walking through the woods.

  “Mom!” Aisley yells. “On your left!” I turn and spot a pack of cannibals fighting each other to get to us.

  “Run!” Tristan yells.

  My breath gets caught in my throat as I sprint through the frozen air. I grab a hold of Nolan and swing him from the ground into my arms. I clutch him against my chest and cut hard to the right.

  “Aisley!” I shout out. The cannibals drop like flies as Tristan and Aisley fire arrows at them. I push Nolan towards both of them and charge towards the remaining ones. My knife wedges its way into the soft spot of one’s head. A growl passes behind me. I swing my arm around; the blade slices through the pale skin of its neck. An arrow goes through its head—that’s definitely a shot from Aisley.

  I get tackled and my face smashes into the frosted weeds. My knife sinks into the ground. The growling screech of the cannibals rings in my ears. I scramble for my knife, but a clammy hand pins my wrists into the dead leaves.

  This is it. This is what the moment before death feels like; hot breath sinking into your skin, pumping through your veins like a snake’s venom. I struggle under the cannibal’s grip, but it’s pointless. Its teeth snap in my ear before my muscles give out. I close my eyes and breathe in the stench of dirt and rot.

  I’m sorry, Nolan. I’m sorry.

  Tristan

  A loud snap reverberates in my ear and the hot breath on my neck ceases. The weight from the cannibal’s body lifts off of me. I flip onto my back to see Tristan standing over me. His chest rises and falls in a fast even pattern. His cheeks are flushed from the combination of running and the winter air.

  “You ready?” Tristan says holding out a hand. I nod my head at Tristan and pull my knife from the dirt. He lifts me off the ground, and I brush myself off.

  “You all right, Mom?” Aisley says holding Nolan’s hand.

  I nod my head and swallow the dryness in my throat down along with the dirt from the ground. “Thank you,” I say.

  Tristan smiles and nods his head. “So what’s the plan?”

  “The plan is Tristan and I are going to check out the hotel while you and Nolan hide somewhere safe out here—”

  “No way!” Aisley says shaking her head. “We all go—”

  “Out of the que
stion,” I say. “I need you to stay out here with Nolan to protect him. You’re more experienced than I am. Tristan and I will go check if the hotel is clear—”

  “And I’m just supposed to sit here and hope you’re ok?”

  “Aisley,” Tristan says gripping her shoulder. “Your mom is right. She’s just learning all the skills we already have. You staying out here with Nolan keeps him the safest, and me going with Hayley keeps her safest.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t argue,” he says holding up his hand. “Trust us on this one. We’ll be back before you know it.”

  Aisley chews on her bottom lip and lets out a long sigh. “Fine,” she says. “Come on Nolan.” He takes her hand and walks off in the opposite direction.

  Tristan and I walk towards the hotel’s front entrance in silence. It looms over us as we get closer, but my heart doesn’t beat faster. I’m calm for once—I guess enough near death experiences will do that to you.

  “Let’s do this,” Tristan says.

  We pass through the doorway into the black of the hotel lobby. The air is thick with silence; my footsteps

  struggle to cut through it quietly. The echo spreads like a virus and comes back at us louder than what it started out as. Tristan and I walk side-by-side with nothing but our ears as guides.

  The light from the doorway ceases when we turn the corner. I run my hands along stucco walls counting the doorways as we move towards the window at the end of the hallway. Tristan knocks on the doors, hoping the noise will bring out anything in the darkness. We make it to the window, switch sides and go back in the opposite direction.

  “You think anyone is here?” Tristan says, his voice low but shaky.

  “I don’t know,” I respond. But I’m praying Xavier is. He knew it would take quite some time to orchestrate an escape from the Fort. Did he think it would be five years? Probably not, but he knew this was the last place I would remember. He has to be here.

  The only logical thing that would place him anywhere else would be if he was chased off—or if he was killed before we got here. I refuse to believe the latter.

  “Hayley,” Tristan starts.

  “Yeah?”

  “What was Aisley like before the Fort?”

  “Uh,” I start trying to switch my thoughts. “I don’t know. Younger.”

  He laughs softly and knocks on another door—nothing. “I meant, like how was she?” he says. “She’s hard to read a lot of the time. I think she’s got a lot of pain in her past, things she didn’t have control over then. I like her a lot, and I want to be everything Xavier was to you for her.”

  My head whips in his direction. I can’t get my voice out of my mouth for a couple of seconds. I clear my throat a couple of times and try to think of some type of answer.

  “Aisley—she was different,” I say. What am I trying to tell him? That she has a jaded past and needs someone to bring out the soft side again? No. That definitely wasn’t Aisley. “When Xavier came back with her to the car, I was sick. I had been kidnapped by these gang-banger types. They gave me some kind of drug that nearly killed me.”

  “Jesus,” Tristan whispers after another knock on a door.

  “I met Aisley in a moment of clarity,” I say. “She was nine, and I was lying in a cold sweat in the back of a stolen car with track marks in both my arms. That’s not even mentioning the cigarette burns and bruises that were all over my body. And there’s Aisley, a 9-year-old, seeing all of this.”

  My heart races. I can’t explain why. Maybe part of it is because the girl I’m talking about is hiding outside with my son. Or maybe because she’s the only person I’ve got left from that life. The only one who can attest to the fact that I’m not insane—that Xavier is real and surviving somewhere in the woods waiting for all of us to come back. I breathe in deep through my nose to try to slow my rushing blood.

  “It wasn’t the way she acted around me; how she took care of me in the littlest ways, like getting water for me first or food. It was the way she looked at me. There was no pity, no fear, no anger,” I say trailing off.

  “She just saw you,” Tristan says. I can tell in the sound of his voice that he saw the same look I did. “She hasn’t changed a bit, has she?”

  “No,” I say. “Not a bit.” A smile makes its way onto my face. The muscles in my face feel tight; I can’t remember the last time I smiled anymore.

  “Tristan—” A scream blocks out the rest. A girl’s scream.

  Gunshots

  I’m sprinting before I can stop myself. At first, I think I hear another person screaming when I realize the scream is coming from my throat.

  “Aisley!” Tristan yells not far behind me.

  No, please no—I’ll let them kill me. Not my children. Kill me. Kill me. “Kill me!” I’m screaming as we both reach the sliver of light that the front door casts on the floor.

  A stairwell door slams against the wall followed by another scream. I turn and see a girl with long straight black hair and chocolate-colored skin sprinting towards us.

  Behind her, a group of cannibals stumble through the open door.

  “Run!” a voice shouts from the other end of the hallway. “Marieska, run!”

  Isha! Tristan grabs my arm and tugs me towards the front doors. “Isha!” I scream. “Isha, get out!”

  “Aisley!” Tristan calls out. I hear a whistle—Aisley and Nolan are safe. “Hayley, we need a plan. Where—”

  “Around the side of the building,” I say. “There should be a weapons stash at the very least.” I fucking hope so anyway.

  Tristan bolts past the side of the building ahead of me. I look over my shoulder and see Nolan reaching a hand down for Marieska. Her skin is shiny in the morning sunlight. I squint and see that the shine is red, blood red. Isha stumbles out of the doorway falling to his knees and then scrambles forward. A swarm of cannibals pour out of the front doors of the hotel.

  “Hey!” I shout. A few of them look my way and then sprint towards me. Shit. I turn and push my legs harder and close the gap between Tristan and I.

  On the other side of the hotel, I don’t see our car. My heart aches—whether from the running or the fact that my proof was missing. The only way to prove Xavier and I were real is if the guns are still there. He wouldn’t leave us without weapons. He wouldn’t—

  “Hayley, where am I looking!” Tristan says. His eyes scan the woods and flash back to me. “Hayley!”

  I look at the edge of the forest and spot a patch of grass more worn than the rest. I sprint past him and dig just beyond the patch of wilted grass. I hear the whooshing sounds of arrows. My fingertips burn as I claw deeper into the frozen dirt.

  “Hayley!” Tristan says.

  “I know!”

  My fingers numbly grip the rocks that wedged their way in between the grass and dirt that was turned over by Xavier’s hands. This is the only hope I have. I’m starting to think that maybe I had some psychotic break, and the time Aisley, Xavier and I spent running was something my mind created to deal. As I claw my way through the dirt with nothing to show for it, I feel my heart sinking.

  “Hayley, I’m running out of arrows!” Tristan yells.

  My palm hits the smooth surface of something beneath the ground. I close my hands around plastic and pull it to the surface. “Tristan!” I yell ripping the plastic off; beneath it lies three firearms and an extra clip for a 9 mm.

  Tristan turns and I throw him the handgun. He pulls back the top and fires six shots into the heads of the remaining cannibals. Silence spreads outward from them until a scream from the other side of the hotel makes my blood run cold.

  “Nolan,” I say and run.

  Hope

  “Hayley!” Tristan calls after me. I shouldn’t have left them alone. How stupid can I get? Why did we split up? My heart races as another scream pierces through the air. I don’t turn around, I don’t miss a beat—I grip the shotgun from the bag and turn the corner.

  Isha swings wildly wit
h a knife at a group of men cackling at him. Marieska is behind Isha, covered in a thick layer of blood. The men are in blood-soaked plaid outfits. They look more human still—possibly people who were able to survive longer. Nolan struggles to break free from Aisley’s grip.

  “Hey!” I yell.

  The man closest to Isha turns and smiles; blood drips through his teeth. “Well, looks like we got a fighter on our hands,” he says; they all laugh along with him.

  “I always like my lunch with a little extra oomph,” another one says. They walk as a wall towards Tristan and I. “I’ve got to get to Aisley,” Tristan says.

  “Well, I’m about to give you an opening,” I say. I pump my shotgun and the casing flies out of the barrel. Tristan makes a run for Aisley, Nolan and Marieska. I make eye contact with Isha. His ocean eyes are dark, and with one slow shake of his head, I know I made a mistake.

  I fire three shots—two scatter into two of the cannibal’s chests and they fall to the ground. The third misses the man in front by a hair. They all screech simultaneously and the one I missed says, “Get her!”

  “Hayley!” Isha says. “Run!”

  Four rounds left—gotta make ‘em count. I have a good chance if I wait until they’re just in front of me. The rest of the men run towards me like a pack of wild dogs; I’ve got maybe fifteen seconds until they’re in range. I raise the shotgun and aim at the closest’s chest.

  “Mom!” Aisley says.

  I’m tackled from my right by a man in fatigues. When I look over my shoulder, drool from his rotten teeth splatter on the ground next to my head. I swing my elbow into the bridge of his nose. The blow startles him just enough to squirm from under him.