by Tara Brown
Taking a breath, I put my hand on the bottom of the hatch and try to calm the shakes, but I can't. I push on the hatch and light floods the small space even though the crack is tiny. My eyes adjust to the bright morning light. The sun hasn’t completely risen, just as the moon hasn’t fully set, but it is dawn.
There is greenery everywhere around the hatch. Moss and brush surround me. I don’t see anything, but the sounds of the screams have filled up the air. The animals make no noises, as the people have taken over the space with their screams again.
"Puuleeease. Please. Stop, please. I have money. I have riches."
Her voice scares me. The desperation frightens me. I have never been that desperate, but I know I have it in me.
"Please, sir, please. Don't you have a sister or a wife that you would want kept safe. Please. I'll let you do whatever you want—please, just don’t take me. Don't take me back there. I will die in there. Please."
I want to rock back and forth on the ground. I wish they would just kill her so she will shut up.
I'm frozen. I don’t leave my bunker, but I don’t close the lid either. I don’t move.
I know I'm in danger. I take a deep breath and think about Leo and Jake. I think of poor Anna alone and taking care of Jake. Bravery—or stupidity—flits around inside of me for the smallest of seconds as I pull myself out of the bunker and slide along the moss and brush. I make very little noise but every movement or rustle feels as loud as a gunshot. I creep along the ground on my hands and feet, like Leo does, and move away from the town. I don’t know where I am, but I'm scared.
I get to a crowded bunch of trees and bushes and decide that I need to risk it and stand. I need my bearings. So I take another deep breath and slide my body up alongside a tree, trying to blend in as hordes of people gather in the street in front of the town. I can see the field and the cement road. I'm on the right side.
Women and girls are being loaded into trucks as they sob and reach for their loved ones. One girl looks about thirteen. Anger is welling inside of me. There are the four guards from the gates and five other men milling around the trucks. The tenth man is inside the cab of the truck.
My brain is screaming at me to help the girl. She's a kid. That won't stop them. I close my eyes and shake my head to rearrange my thoughts.
I turn my back on them and run away like the coward I am. I run until I find the broken branches. I use them to lead myself back to my weapon stash. I breathe easier when my bow is back in my hands, and I could kiss my knife. I tuck it into my boot and start the run back to the house. I run faster than I did the day before, running with a new fear.
When I reach the house in the middle of the night, I see Leo's eyes before anything else. He stalks to me, sniffing me everywhere like he’s checking to make sure I'm okay. When I bend my knee to kiss him, I sob. He's seen this before. He knows sometimes I just need to get it out.
"Em?" I look up to see Anna pointing a gun at me.
I smile through the tears I don't want her to see and hold up the sack.
She lowers the gun. “You okay?"
I nod into the darkness. “No, but it's not anything new. How is he?"
The answer is a grim look in the moonlight. My stomach sinks. I want to panic and cry out.
"He's fading fast. I was about to cut his leg off when I heard you."
I break into a run, bursting through the farm door—something I've never done before.
I'm pulling the needle out of the sack with one of the vials, as I kneel before him, in a crazed hurry. His dark hair is matted against his sweaty face. I can see the moisture in the moonlight.
Anna pours the vodka we found in one of the cupboards all over my hands, the needles, and the vials. The liquor is splashing all over me. She holds the bottle up to my lips. It burns its way into my empty stomach. The bits of food I've eaten are long gone. Thank God. She wipes his arm. I finish putting the vial together and stab him in the arm, slowly injecting into his vein like my dad showed me. Jake doesn’t stir. He doesn't register that I'm pumping his arm full of antibiotics.
I pull the bandages off his wounds. The red lines are everywhere. I swallow hard. Anna puts the vodka back to my lips. I drink again. I pour the tea tree oil she has set next to the vodka all over the wound and the blade of my knife. I slice into swollen parts of the injury and milk the pus from it. I pour the tea tree oil on after I douse it in vodka. I am careful not to rupture the wound and make more infection. When it's clean and no more pus comes out, I smother it in the old tube of medical salve I always get from the farmhouses I go to. I cover it again with a gauze bandage and tape.
His fever is still high so I stay and place cold cloths on his face.
My eyes flutter, but I force them to stay open, watchful of him until the mass dose of antibiotics starts to work.
My head is nodding when he starts to move and moan.
“Hey.”
He licks his lips and looks down at me with bloodshot eyes. “You made it back."
I nod. His expression is breaking my heart. He looks weak. This is why I never care for things—they always die. Well, except Leo.
Jake reaches a hand to mine and squeezes. “I was worried."
"I can take care of myself.” I don’t even let the bizarre day I've had cross my mind. It's not the moment to stress him out.
"I don’t doubt that. You scare me."
I shrug and yawn. I can't even help myself. He's huge and no doubt strong—stronger than he knows. Stronger than me. I try not to think about the young girls in the truck. I am a coward.
"I'm going back to watching.” Anna is gone suddenly, and we are alone. I feel funny about it.
He pulls me up onto the couch. “Come lay down with me."
I shake my head, pushing on his warm chest. “No. I need to go back to watch. Anna needs to go to sleep.” The request makes me feel weird. I don't cuddle people or snuggle. I just don’t. I snuggle Leo, he’s my people.
He pulls harder, with more strength than I imagined he had. His eyes sparkle. “Em, I’m dying. Don’t make me die alone.”
I roll my eyes for show. “I put the antibiotics in you. You aren’t dying.” I don't want him to know that there is a very good chance the antibiotics won’t work.
He wraps himself around me, making me go limp. He laughs. “You’re bad for a guy’s ego.” He pulls me alongside him on the couch. His arm is burning hot but it feels amazing as he wraps it around me. “Tell me a story, Emma."
I pause, realizing I don’t have any. I want to tell him something fun about my childhood, but it basically looks just like my life now, but with more showering. I really miss all that showering.
My brain has to stretch for a minute as I search through it for a story. I can’t think of one so I decide to just tell him the thing I thought about today, when I was in the town. “I went to the town that I was at today a long time ago. The infection was newer then. I ran through the woods and broke the branches to make a path for myself to find the farmhouse again. Just like my dad taught me. He said to always break the branches up higher so people think it’s a bear but you have a trail. I was excited when I saw the gates. I was so stupid. I thought being with other survivors would be better for me. I went in and begged for food from a lady. She laughed at me.” My air is getting trapped in my throat, stuck on the shame filling me that is my punishment.
I deserve it.
"I went out her door and sat in the narrow alley near the back of the houses. I was hidden by a bunch of old buckets and garbage. I was so tired and weak. My dad had told me to stay away from them, but I wanted to believe they would help me. I wanted to believe in people. The lady and her daughter were walking around the back with bags of stuff. Some men came. They started tearing at them. They hurt them.” I choke slightly on my next sentence, “I ran into the store and stole as much food as I could carry. I ran and hid and gorged myself in the back of her store. I could still hear her screaming, and I did nothing. I ate."
He squeezes me and kisses the top of my forehead. I stare into his black t-shirt that’s soaked with sweat.
"You're kind of bad at storytelling. I sort of wanted to go to sleep. Now I think I'll never sleep again,” he chuckles.
I laugh with him. It kills the moment of suffering I deserve.
He kisses my forehead again. “Do you have anything lighter? I don’t want that to be the last thing I think about when I die."
I laugh again, but this time I want to cry. What if he is dying? What if the antibiotics from the town are fake? Instead of me leaving him, he's possibly leaving me, and it hurts. It’s why I don't love things or let them get close. They always die or get taken away or you have to leave them behind, crushed by a vehicle.
He shivers and coughs. “Try again.”
I give him my happiest memory. I don't know why it is, it just is. “I have one memory of my mother that's a good one. She was in the hospital bed. I was two years old. She looked like me—dark-blonde hair and green eyes, but she was really pretty. Her lips always looked like she was pushing them out."
"Duck lips."
I frown. “What?"
He laughs. “They were called duck lips back then. Will used to do them with his iPhone all the time. Man, I would kill for an iPhone. No walking ten miles minimum for everything."
"Okay—well, she had those. She was in the bed and she let me climb up with her. I sat on her lap and we watched TV. It was a cartoon about dragons and some little Mexican kids."
"Dragon Tails. I loved that show. LOVE IT,” he speaks in a high-pitch voice.
It makes me smile. He remembers things so clearly.
He nudges me. “What happened then?"
I shake my head. “Nothing. We just sat in the sun on her bed. I remember how soft her nightie was, and she let me eat her pudding."
"Yeah okay, that is another bad example of storytelling."
I want to defend myself, but I know it will only make him feel sorry for me.
He smiles and I realize I am no longer limp. We are snuggling and I don't mind. He sighs and starts talking, “Once when I was six, me and Will went and played down by the river behind our house. Our mom was really strict about it and never let us go down there. We figured 'cause Will was old enough to babysit, we were good. We brought boats we had made out of newspaper. We went to the edge of the river and pushed the boats in. They floated perfectly until mine flipped over. I reached for it before it got too far away and, of course, fell in. Will grabbed me before I got pulled away. I would have drowned for sure. We ran back to the house, but we took too long getting home, and Mom was there already. We snuck in the backyard. I thought we were dead meat, but Will grabbed the hose from the side of the house and sprayed me. Mom came out the back door and walks around the corner to find Will hosing and me screaming. He got grounded for a week for being a bully. He was the best brother ever."
A weird emptiness overtakes the other feelings I have. I am jealous that I don’t have a single story like that one.
I look into his eyes and feel lost, like I'm part of his family. I have become part of their us and they have become part of mine.
He smirks and ruins the moment. “Now that is a story, jackass."
I frown at him.
He lifts my chin and presses his warm lips to my cheek before I can react. I freeze up again, pushing on him. He pulls back and smiles. “You're supposed to close your eyes, Emma, and turn your face so your lips and mine touch."
I shake my head, still pulling back. “You aren’t supposed to kiss me. You don't have my permission.”
He laughs. “It was on my list of things to do before I die." His words sting.
“Right!” I snarl at him. “You haven’t ever kissed a girl before?"
He shakes his head. “Not a girl I really like."
“Your fever is making you crazy."
"Good."
Chapter Nine
The sunlight coming in the window blinds me as I wake up disoriented and shivering from the cold breeze that’s coming from down the hall. I am still lying next to Jake. I shiver harder when I notice his shirt is soaked in cold sweat. His skin is clammy and cold.
Tears burst from my eyes, streaming down my cheeks. I push on him but he doesn't move. He’s cold, very cold. “No. No.” I push on him again. His body compresses against my push, but he doesn’t stir.
"Emma, what is it?” Anna comes running into the room. “Oh God. No. Please, no.”
Jake sputters and snorts. He rolls over on the couch, knocking me off and onto the floor. I start to laugh. “He's alive. I thought—he's cold. Oh my God, he's alive. His fever broke. He's going to live.” I jump up and grab the next vial of medication.
Anna rushes to his side and feels his face. “Oh my God, I was scared. I thought for sure he was goners.” She hugs me when I come back in. She smells like Leo and I smile. We traded family members for the night.
I hug her back, but notice the difference in our bodies. She is melded into me, squeezing me, whereas I am rigid. I think I am always going to be rigid.
We give him his next shot and pull the bandages off his leg. The red lines have receded but the wound still looks angry. I know we aren’t out of the danger zone, but I feel good knowing that we are one step closer.
He sleeps the entire day while Anna and I hang out. We take turns keeping watch and playing with Leo. I can see his affinity for her is getting stronger. I know even I feel different. I am getting closer to Anna and Jake. Sitting in the barn, I relive the moment his lips pressed against my cheek. It was wrong of him to do it, but the feeling of someone kissing me, almost like in the romance stories, is better than I imagined it might have been. It scared me and I don't know if I would do it again, but I’m glad it wasn't what I thought it would be.
"Em, what are we having for dinner?” Anna breaks my thoughts.
I shrug down at her from the window of the barn. “I can go kill a bird."
She nods. “Alright. I'll start the fire."
We seal up the house completely and cook in the bunker. It's gross and sweaty with a fire down there, but it makes perfect sense. No smell escapes out into the wind.
I climb down with my bow and quiver, heading across the grass. I slip into the forest, but instead of finding a tree to climb, I freeze. I smell them before I see or hear them. I slide back up against the tree and wait to figure out where the smell is coming from.
"It was rude of you to leave without the escort we offered."
When I turn to the voice, something smacks me in the forehead and everything goes black until a voice pulls me back.
"Wake up." Pain overwhelms me as I open one of my eyes to find bars in front of my face.
How long have I been out?
"Please, wake up,” the voice says again.
In the muted firelight, I find a small girl poking me with a stick. It's made a small bleed on my arm, but that’s not where the pain is coming from. I close my eyes tightly and then open them again. It's dark. Orange firelight licks across the dark metal bars of my cage. I turn to the small girl and ask, “Where are we?"
"The others have us,” she says.
My stomach falls into my bowels. My heartbeat and breath quicken. I push the door to the cage with my foot. My boots are gone.
"Where are we specifically?"
The girl frowns at me. “What?"
"Our location."
She shrugs. She is young and filthy. She makes me think about Anna, which makes me panic. I wonder if they knew Anna and Jake were there. At least my bow and quiver are leaning against the tree near me. When we escape I will have a way to kill them all.
"There she is."
I look up at the filthy scumbag who had chased me to the town. He is grinning again. He seems very proud of himself.
"You are a pretty girl. What's your name? I bet it's something pretty like Jessica or Stephanie or Grace."
I lick my lips and put a finger to the source of my pain. He w
inces as I touch the red sticky spot. “Sorry 'bout that. I had to surprise you. Bet it hurts, doesn’t it?"
He kneels on the ground in front of my cage. “Wanna tell me about how you got outta that town?"
I gulp.
He rattles the cage suddenly and starts laughing at my horrified expression. “Jesus, you aren’t mute, are you? I like it when you girls scream.” He points to the little girl next to me. “I guess we can make her scream for you."
She shies away from the bars and curls into a small ball. I want him dead. Right now.
He points at me again. “You're going to fetch us a good price. I know it."
Fear rocks me. I don’t have a plan. That’s one of my rules. My plans where capture was a possibility have never included a cage. I always thought the girls were grabbed and dragged to trucks.
He walks back to the fire and howls into the night air, unzips his pants, and pees on the fire.
"John, that’s disgusting. You filthy bastard."
The hot steam rises from the fire, polluting the air around it. A large group of men start to gripe and complain.
I look at the little girl who has a disgusted look on her face. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that anywhere near me."
I gasp at her language. She’s so young to think like that.
She grins at me. “Name's Meg.” She is a savage. “What’s your name? You can talk, right?”
"Emma, but everyone calls me Em.” I glance around nervously for Anna and Jake. I don’t see them anywhere. “Are we alone here? We have to get out of here now.”
She spits on the ground outside of her bars. “I’m fifteen so I guess that means the farms for us, don't it?” She is malnourished. She will be made to labor in the work farms. She won't be a breeder.
It doesn't matter, I won't let either of us end up that way.
In the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of a small silver thing on the ground. I nod at her. “Poke that stick this way again." She slips her skinny arm through the bars and passes it to me.