Run

by Gabby Tye

  We sat there for a long time, too frightened to move away from our hiding place. What if they were still out there waiting to pounce on us?

  Jae looked pale and distressed, all the bravado and swagger gone. I didn’t realise I was shivering until he started to rub my back.

  “It’s okay. They are gone,” he said, uncharacteristically gentle.

  His green eyes looked right into my heart, and for no reason at all, I felt better. I gave him a weak smile. He put his arm around me and I leaned on him. It was nice.

  Finally, after a long while, Jae stood up.

  “Let’s go. This is ridiculous. We can’t sit here forever,” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “This isn’t safe either,” he insisted.

  He stuck his hand out. I took it and hauled my butt off the ground.

  Jae took one last look to ascertain that no one was around. Still holding my hand, we ran all the way home, fuelled by the adrenalin, fear and terror coursing through our bodies.

  CHAPTER 17

  When we finally reached our home, it was dark. Our bags of food were gone. Goodness knows where they were. We must have dropped them while we were running. Jae looked at me nervously as the kids circled us.

  “What happened to the both of you?” Shulin demanded anxiously.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Where’s the food?”

  Everyone was jostling around us, hurling questions, fear and anxiety written all over their faces.

  “We are not okay. We saw some adults. They were gross looking… very gruesome. And… and we saw them eat their own friend! ” I blurted out shakily.

  “He was still alive!” Jae added.

  The kids recoiled in disbelief. “What? They were eating each other?”

  “Where were they? What did they look like?” Kyl asked, shushing the rest of the kids with an authoritative wave.

  I gave him a blank stare. My mind had shut down.

  Jae was the one who answered.

  “They were over by the main road, you know, near the start of the HDB estate. They looked… they looked… like zombies.”

  Someone laughed. I turned my head to glare. It was Dyanne.

  “Zombies? Zombies? Like dead people come back to life? Oh please! Have you been watching too many zombie movies? They went out of fashion, oh, like 10 years ago, you know.”

  “Yeah! Are you sure?” a frightened kid spoke up. “Maybe you were too far away. Maybe they were eating something else.”

  “That’s right!” said Dyanne. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  A few other kids nodded hopefully.

  Jae spoke up again, “Listen, guys. We were near enough to see them clearly. Okay, they may not be zombies, but they definitely don’t look human.Something’s happened to them, and we need to find out what. We need to find out if they are a danger to us.”

  “What do you mean?” Kyl said. “You think they can attack us?”

  “Yes, I think so. One of them almost spotted us. I don’t know what would have happened if she had found us,” Jae said.

  Suddenly, he turned his gaze on me, probably wondering why I was being so quiet. “Umm… are you okay? Oh no, there’s blood running down your arm.”

  I touched my arm, and sure enough, I felt something hot, wet and sticky. I stared at my left arm. The cut inflicted by Tattoo Guy was still raw and angry-looking.

  Suddenly, it all became too much for me. I pushed past the kids, and ran towards the back of the house. In my dazed state, I could hear Jae scrambling after me, and the kids shouting and arguing over what to do about the adult problem.

  When Jae caught up with me, he touched my arm gently. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, still traumatised.

  Suddenly, he pulled me into a tight hug. I stiffened, not expecting it. Then I relaxed and rested my head on his chest, taking in the warmth of his embrace and the feel of muscle under his shirt. He rubbed my back softly and said, “It’ll be fine. Don’t cry, okay?”

  I nodded, my chest tightening. I fought back my tears.

  “I’ve never seen them like that before. They were never this bad,” Jae told me, somehow managing to run his fingers through my long tangled hair.

  I nodded again, still unable to talk, but this time, for a different reason. I was acutely aware of his hand around my back and his breath on the back of my neck. I didn’t want to ruin the moment.

  Jae stroked my hair until I relaxed completely. Slowly, I pulled myself away and smiled at him awkwardly. “I’m okay now, thank you.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Jae took an old rag out of his pocket and pressed it to my arm. The cut wasn’t very deep, but it hurt like anything. I hoped the rag was clean.

  I winced. “Ouch!”

  His deep green eyes stared intently into mine as he held my injured arm. My heart beat a little faster. What was I doing? I thought. This wasn’t a time to be crushing on some boy I just met!

  He led me to the toilet, dipped the rag into the pail of water and put it on my arm. I held it there while he rooted around the toilet cabinets for a bandage. He found a plaster and positioned it gently on my arm.

  “C’mon, apple blossom, let’s get out of this stink hole,” he said, trying to cheer me up.

  Apple blossom? I rolled my eyes.

  We walked out into the backyard and slumped on the stinky sofa. When he put his arm around me, I didn’t complain. Then out of the blue, he bolted out from the seat, bent over and threw up. He clutched his bandaged arm, his face now pale.

  I looked at his arm, my eyes widening with concern. I saw a bead of blood snaking down from his bandage.

  “Gosh…” I whispered. I felt so wretched.

  I was so wrapped up in my own misery and pain that I hadn’t even stopped to consider that Jae might be in pain too. He had not once complained about his already injured arm. The fighting must have made it worse.

  “Sit back,” I ordered him. Now it was my turn to take charge.

  The wound, I saw, had not been cleaned properly. It was all swollen and looked infected. Yellowish pus was oozing from the long gash that stretched from his upper arm all the way down to his elbow.

  I resisted the urge to gag. Running back into the toilet, I brought out the pail of water. I scooped some and poured it on Jae’s arm. He bit his bottom lip and scrunched up his eyes. He looked so cute when he did that, I thought.

  I mentally slapped myself. Stop doing that! But I couldn’t help it. There was just something about him that drew me to him.

  I wiped all the blood and pus away, then wrapped his arm with a new bandage. I hoped it was enough.

  He sighed and sat back. I settled down next to him, careful not to jolt his arm. We sat there in silence. It was nice.

  CHAPTER 19

  “Tell me something, Zee,” Jae said, his face regaining some normal colour. “Where did you learn how to fight like that? You were awesome.”

  He was looking at me strangely, with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. I sighed inwardly. Trust a boy to spoil a perfectly sweet moment!

  I looked away. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re freaking me out.”

  “I’m freaking you out?” he said incredulously. “You fight like some martial arts expert and I’m freaking you out? How about you freaking me out? Who are you, anyway?”

  “Good question. I wish I knew!” I snapped, my irritation rising. I wished everyone would stop asking me who I was. If I knew, wouldn’t I tell them?

  “Can’t you try to remember anything? Where did you live? Were you rich? Did you have brothers? Sisters?” Jae asked.

  “To answer your questions: No. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know!” I said, my voice rising to a screech.

  “Some of the other kids are wondering how you managed to survive on your own for so long,” Jae continued relentlessly. “And why you are so healthy. You look well fed.”

 
I was stumped. I had no answer to that. How had I survived?

  “We think that maybe there are other groups of kids like us around Singapore, surviving just like us. It would make a lot of sense,” Jae said. “But in the last two months, you are the first kid we have seen around here. Maybe you are a new reject.”

  “What? A new what?” I said, really annoyed now. Did he just call me a reject?

  “A reject. You know, thrown out of Camp Zero.”

  “Thrown out?” My mind was whirling again. There was too much information to process.

  “Didn’t you understand what we were telling you?”

  “No, all I know about Camp Zero is that the people inside were specially selected. They have food and water and beds and everything. Right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “So… you mean I could have once been inside? And I was thrown out?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would they throw me out? Was my whole family thrown out?”

  Jae looked at me blankly. “No. They only threw the kids out.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “The adults on the inside,” he said simply.

  “You mean your own parents threw you out?” I asked, horrified. But at the back of my mind, I felt the hint of a memory coming back to me. An image of someone screaming flashed in my mind. I felt a wave of terror wash over me, brought on by a memory I could not grasp.

  CHAPTER 20

  I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate. Something was familiar; what was it? The idea of being thrown out by adults and soldiers, it triggered a memory. But it was too far away and too fleeting. The more I tried to catch hold of it, the more it faded. I opened my eyes and urged Jae to continue.

  “They must have realised that they were not going to have enough food. So they threw us out. We never knew what was going on, and…” Jae faltered.

  “I’m not sure if our parents knew what was happening, but surely they must have been told. One day, a group of soldiers just led us out. They gave us a name – Rovers – and we were all really excited. We thought it was a game, and we were so pumped up because it was getting boring in Camp Zero. Then, they left us around here. They never came back.”

  “What?” I said dumbly. “That’s not possible. They couldn’t have done that.”

  “It is. And they did,” Jae said. “They led us out and left us to starve. Like Hansel and Gretel.”

  I stared at Jae. Something about what he said rang true. We had been left to die. Only this wasn’t a fairy tale. This was real. We didn’t have stones. And we didn’t have breadcrumbs. If we did, we would probably have eaten them. And it didn’t look like our happily-ever-after was anywhere near.

  “So, that means that I could have just been released from Camp Zero?”

  “That’s what we think. It would explain a lot. We just have to figure out why you were left alone, and why you have no memory.”

  “No. No. NO!” I shouted suddenly, startling Jae and some others who had just come out of the house and into the garden. “You are wrong! My parents would never throw me out. I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you! I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!”

  “Zee,” he said calmly. “It is true. Whether you want to believe me or not is a different story altogether.”

  I glared at him. He looked so calm and it annoyed me.

  “You’re stupid!” I yelled. “Don’t tell me things and expect me to believe you. I don’t even know you. You don’t know me.” At the back of my mind, a little voice warned me not to continue down this path. Don’t rant like a crazy person again, the little voice told me. You actually like his attention, it said. But I pushed the thought away angrily. I stood up and faced Jae.

  “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. GO AWAY!”

  I was now shouting hysterically. The events of the past two days had caught up with me. Waking up with no memory of who I was, to a world I didn’t remember. Being set upon by thugs and having to fight them off. Discovering that I could read minds. Coming across crazed man-eating adults. And now, being told that my parents had plotted to abandon me – to save themselves. It was all too much.

  I pushed past the gaping kids and ran into the house. I ran blindly, opened the first door I came across, flung myself in and locked the door behind me. Luckily for me, it was a nice little room with no windows, so no one could see me make a fool of myself, crying like a baby.

  So, that is my story thus far… at least the last two days that I can remember. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I came from. All I know is I am here now, stuck in this room, in this house full of kids who think I’m a freak.

  CHAPTER 21

  When I wake up the next day, I am stiff and sore all over. Jae is standing over me with a sympathetic grin on his face.

  “Hey, are you awake?” he asks, an embarrassed smile on his face.

  I look around. I am still in the little room, lying on the floor. I must have cried myself to sleep. How pathetic. My mouth feels icky and dry and I simply grunt at Jae and try to shoo him away. He refuses to go.

  “Are you okay? I’m really sorry I upset you yesterday. We’ve been living like this for more than two months, and we’ve all kind of accepted the fact that we were left to die. It must have been a shock for you to find out the way you did. I’m really sorry,” he says. He reaches his hand out, offering to pull me up.

  I ignore him, still feeling sore, tired and grumpy. And guess what? I still can’t remember anything. I sigh inwardly. Then it occurs to me that I locked the door yesterday.

  “Hey, how did you get in here anyway?

  I locked the door!” I demand in a voice that sounds disgustingly raspy.

  “Uh… I can pick locks, remember? I opened this door in, like, two seconds,” Jae says, a tad smugly.

  “So why didn’t you come get me earlier? You just left me here the whole night?”

  “Err… umm, I thought you wanted some privacy.”

  I glare at him coldly. I’m angry. Not at him, particularly, but just angry. I’m in such a bad mood I want to lash out at somebody, anybody, but I hold myself back. These kids have only been trying to help me. Jae has been nothing but patient with me. Plus, right now, he looks so cute standing there looking sheepish. I feel my anger seeping away a little and I offer a weak smile.

  “C’mon, let’s get you some water and get you cleaned up. You’ll feel much better, I promise,” he says, offering his hand again. This time, I take it and he hauls me up and pushes me out the door. So much for male chivalry.

  After a dismal breakfast of dry crackers – only two each – Kyl gathers us all and makes an announcement.

  “Jae and I have decided that we need to start planning again. We have been too complacent for the past four weeks, living in this house,” he begins. “We need to really go out to look for more food every day. We need to be more organised. We need to be able to pack up and run if we need to. We’ve been a little too comfortable here.”

  “Comfortable? You call this comfortable?” a boy shouts out.

  “You know what I mean,” Kyl continues, putting his hands up to shush the kids. “I know the first few weeks were really hard. We had nothing, we had no plan. We just slept outside and ate whatever we could find. After finding this house with all this food, we’ve become a little lazy. This food is not going to last forever. Jae and I looked at the store. I think we have food to last us all for maybe three weeks – four, if we are really careful. What are we going to do after that? We need to start planning now.”

  I look around and notice some kids nodding in agreement. A few of them look really depressed.

  “What’s the use?” Dyanne says. “We are all going to die anyway. We might as well just eat all the food now and die happy.”

  The kids stare at her in shock, but I can tell that her words have hit home with some of them. I myself can’t help but wonder if she is right. Are we all doomed to die? If there is no food left, isn’
t death a certainty? Why delay the inevitable?

  CHAPTER 22

  It is Brion who breaks the silence. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not giving up that easily. I’m not going to die here. And while I still can, I’m going to fight to survive. We are still alive, aren’t we? I don’t think anyone expected us to live, but we are still here. I don’t intend to give up now.”

  “Exactly,” Kyl says. “We need to fight. We need to survive. And we need a plan.”

  “Don’t forget, we have a new threat. Those crazy adults we saw yesterday. We need to form a team to check them out. We need to know how many of them there are, and whether they are dangerous,” Jae adds.

  Before Dyanne can retort, a loud crashing sound coming from the front door startles us. I grab a stick. I don’t know what else to do. Together with Jae and some older kids, I rush towards the front just as someone barges in from the living room.

  It is the man from yesterday. Tattoo Guy! He is wearing a different shirt, but I would recognise those tattoos anywhere, not to mention his bald head. How did he find us? I was sure we weren’t followed.

  He blusters into our dining room. He scans the crowd of faces and stops at mine.

  “You!” he screams. His neck muscles are bulging with exertion and he looks furious. “Give me back my food!”

  In all the excitement yesterday, I had forgotten to tell Jae and the other kids that Tattoo Guy had recognised me, and that he might somehow know me. I don’t feel like telling them now, seeing as how I seem to have led the guy right to their hideout.

  Jae, quite needlessly, jumps to my rescue. “It is not your food. We found it ourselves. Go find your own food.”

  “I can handle this,” I whisper to Jae. “Back off.”