Waterproof

by Garr, Amber

  A second after I found a small spot on the floor, they tossed Max in after me. His face looked nearly unrecognizable as both eyes had swelled more than I knew possible and blood covered his mouth and chin. Bending my head down, I listened to Max’s breath. In spite of his injuries, he seemed to be breathing slow and steady and relief washed over me. If Max couldn’t survive, surely none of us would.

  Hunter climbed in next and immediately hurried to my side. The boy that tried to protect me now cowered behind my own trembling frame, accepting our fate and dealing with the emotion of our impending death.

  I reached behind me and across Hunter’s waist. “Don’t be scared,” I whispered.

  The driver snorted at my words as he began to pull down the dark green tarp. The rising sunlight gave way to a murky and musty environment, reminding me how trapped we all really were. Rats in a cage on the way to the sewer.

  “You going back out?” the driver asked, and I assumed he spoke to Riley.

  “No, I’m following you in.”

  “Did you get your quota?” Silence filled the air. “Your funeral,” the driver said before I heard the distinct sound of footsteps crunching in the gravel.

  Suddenly, light pierced through the back of the truck, forcing me to shield my eyes. As the stars sparkling through my vision began to clear, I noticed Riley staring directly at me. Our gazes met and just when I expected him to threaten me, he dropped his head and closed the tarp.

  Engines rumbled to life again, fumes filling the back of the truck. Several of the captured deserters coughed and groaned with the movement, but most stayed silent. I wondered how long they’d been traveling along this road. It wasn’t often that we came across other camps. But maybe they were forced to take a risk like us. The need for food and water trumped safety and common people risked being captured for a chance to live one more day.

  “What happened to Zach?” Hunter asked.

  I looked behind me and pulled him in a tight hug. Rubbing my hands over his back, I let the tears fall freely. “I’m sure he got away,” I said.

  “And the others?”

  “Yes, them too.”

  Except for Carrie, but neither of us had to say that out loud. Max stirred beside me, or maybe it had just been the movement of the truck. Either way I worried for the safety of all the mercenaries when Max woke up and realized Sasha was gone. He would think the worst and he would make them pay.

  Just like I vowed to do as soon as an opportunity presented itself.

  NINE

  Zach

  Not long after we ran away from camp, Sasha steered us back in the same direction. The escalating sunlight did little to improve my mood. When the unconscious mercenary girl fell against my shoulder, I pushed her away a little too hard. I couldn’t bear the smell of her.

  “What are you doing?” Trevor asked Sasha.

  “We’re going back,” she said.

  “Are you crazy?” Trevor continued, even though I wanted to ask the same question.

  Sasha didn’t answer right away and instead stared straight ahead with no expression. I don’t think I’d ever seen her so cold before, and it worried me.

  “Did you hear me? What if they’re waiting for us? What if that whole camp was just one big trap?” Trevor wouldn’t shut up, but his words began to sink in. The cabin now seemed like a perfect lure for deserters on the run. Structures, a fire pit, a bed. Had Sasha lead us into an ambush?

  The girl stirred beside me and made some kind of noise. I looked down at her with contempt and annoyance and fought to control my emotions. She now represented everything that went wrong a few hours ago. The death of Carrie, Hunter and Max’s capture, Vee… I tried to remember that we needed her, while most of my psyche craved revenge.

  “I heard you, Trevor,” Sasha finally answered. “But going back is our only way to retrace their steps.” She jerked her head toward the sleeping girl next to me. “That, and she’s going to show us which way they went.”

  Trevor snorted. “Yeah, right. Are you prepared to beat it out of her?”

  Both Sasha and I looked at him.

  “Seriously?” he asked. Turning to face the girl he sighed. “But she’s so pretty.”

  “And she’s the enemy,” Sasha said just as I cuffed Trevor in the back of the head for making such a stupid comment.

  We drove over the top of a small hill surrounded by forest and I recognized the path we’d walked on yesterday. A flood of Vee memories flowed through my head. Our time in the cabin, doing something that I’d waited my whole life to enjoy with her. And now she might be lost to me forever.

  “Do you think they’re dead?” I asked anyone who would answer.

  “No,” Sasha quickly replied. She wiped the back of her hands across her eyes and I knew she had the same thoughts scrambling through her mind. Max was her partner in life, and with him gone too, her hard exterior began to crumble.

  “Stop!” Trevor shouted, throwing his hand onto the wheel and yanking it hard to the right.

  Sasha slammed on the brakes causing the girl and me to fall to the side. I stopped myself but let her traitorous body plummet to the floor. One more bruise wouldn’t hurt.

  “Did you see that?” Trevor asked while climbing out of the vehicle. He looked from side to side, then dropped to the ground and crawled behind a tree.

  “Trevor, we’re in the open. That tree isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference,” I said.

  “Shh.” Trevor waved a hand at me and I rolled my eyes. Whoever he saw would certainly know our position by now. “There! Down by the fire.”

  I squinted to see through the early morning fog now hovering just above our heads. A tall, dark figure lurked in the shadows, and I thought the shape looked familiar.

  “Jackson!” Trevor jumped out from behind the tree and waved his hands over his head like he was directing air traffic.

  “Be quiet,” Sasha hissed. She ran over and met Trevor before I could untangle myself from the captured mercenary. “You don’t know who that is.”

  “Yes, I do. It’s Jackson—”

  A small arrow embedded itself into the tree, just inches from Trevor’s head. The unmistakable sound of wood splitting under pressure put a smile on my face. There was only one person I knew skilled enough with a crossbow to intentionally make that shot.

  “He’s right,” I said, jogging down the hill to meet our friend.

  Jackson looked up at me, crossbow aimed, and for a moment I worried he wouldn’t recognize me. But no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than he lowered his guard and moved toward me.

  “Zach,” he said, giving a one-armed hug and pat on the back. “Man, am I glad to see you.” Dirt and dried blood splattered his dark face. A gash on his forehead had been filled with some kind of moss, probably another island remedy passed on by his grandmother. Jackson leaned out around me and looked up the hill. “Where’s Vee?”

  I dropped my head and swallowed the lump trying to claw out of my throat. “They took her. And Max. And Hunter.”

  Trevor walked up to Jackson and gave him a burly hug. “What happened to you?” He reached up to touch the wounds on Jackson’s face, but the bigger man swatted him away.

  “As soon as Carrie broke free, I saw an opportunity.”

  “She didn’t make it,” Sasha said, joining us and resting her hand briefly on Jackson’s shoulder.

  He shook his head. “I know. She’s over there.” He looked off in the direction across from the now smoldering fire. “Too much blood for them to collect her.”

  Over the years we’d noticed that when mercenaries came through, they often left the dead behind if their body had been too damaged. Why they did this, we didn’t know, but I couldn’t even imagine a worst case scenario.

  “Who’s that?” Jackson asked and we all turned to follow his gaze.

  The young mercenary girl stumbled out of the vehicle and tried to walk away. But her equilibrium was off, and she continued to fall on her knees over an
d over.

  “She’s going to lead us to them,” Sasha said with such venom I feared for the girl’s life if left alone with our leader.

  “Not if she gets away,” Trevor said an instant before the distinct swish of a crossbow firing pierced the morning air.

  The girl screamed and fell to the ground again, this time lifting her leg close to her face and staring at the arrow now sticking out of it. A rather awkward move for someone who had their hands bound. Instead of rushing to her aid, the three of us stood there and relished her pain. I shouldn’t have been proud of my reaction, but I found it hard to show compassion for someone who represented all that I hated right now.

  After a moment, Trevor sighed. “I’ll go get her.”

  “Let me help,” Jackson said and the two of them marched up the hill at a slow pace.

  Sasha left my side and walked toward the cabin. I started to make my way to Carrie’s body, but then decided I didn’t want to see it. I imagined we wouldn’t be staying here long enough to give her a proper burial, and the thought of putting another one of our friends to rest drained me of my last ounce of fight.

  So I joined Sasha on her way to the cabin, following behind in silence. Once inside, she stopped and looked around the small living, dining, and kitchen area. Her head moved but her eyes focused on something else.

  “Do you think this was a trap?” she asked.

  I didn’t know what to say. “You’ve always done the best you can to protect us.”

  She scoffed and looked up at me. “Not this time, Zach.” Her gaze returned to some distant memory. “Not this time.”

  Did I think this camp was too good to be true? I suppose if I dissected it all now, it did seem a bit too convenient. After two days of hiking and not finding a single outpost, to then happen upon a fully functional cabin…I suppose it did seem suspicious. The area had patches of green trees and chirping birds. We should have known that the mercenaries would be nearby. They rarely strayed far from productive areas.

  “Did I ever tell you how Max and I met?” Sasha’s sudden change in topic caught me off guard.

  “I thought you knew each other before the war?”

  She sighed. “Oh, no. We met at a deserter camp. The one your parents brought you guys to in the beginning. Remember?”

  How could I not? Rumor had it that camps like ours were all over the country and in a short amount of time, the carnage would clear and we could all return home. My parents and Vee’s parents had somehow found the place, but I didn’t remember seeing Max there.

  “He didn’t really talk to anyone,” Sasha said. “In fact he and I spoke maybe ten words the entire first two years we knew each other.” She chuckled again. “You know how he is.”

  I smiled. “A man of few words.”

  “Exactly.” Sasha shuffled her feet along the floor and made her way to the kitchen. “I didn’t know anything about him, but I watched. He’d often sneak away from the group and work on his fighting skills. Usually a poor tree got the brunt of his punishment, but one day I saw him kicking and punching Josh.” She looked up at me. “Do you remember Josh?”

  I nodded. He’d been one of the original members but had died many years ago. Not from mercenaries, but from sickness. Probably pneumonia.

  “After Josh’s face had no undamaged areas left on it, I finally stepped in and told Max that I wanted to spar. He looked at me as though seeing me for the first time, and…that was it.” Sasha swallowed loud enough for me to hear then cleared her throat. “He never practiced with anyone else after that.”

  “He was a good trainer,’ I said and she inhaled sharply. “I mean is, Sasha. He is a good trainer and a survivor and I’m sure the mercenaries would rather have him alive than dead. He’d be a good asset to the factories.”

  I should have shut up while I my foot was only partially in my mouth. Sasha’s tears fell in uncontrolled streams.

  “They’ll kill him if he fights,” she whispered.

  “Yes, but Max is too smart for that. So is Vee. They’ll hang on so the sooner we rescue them the better.” As I said these words, I suddenly believed them to be true.

  I think Sasha believed in them too. “We can’t waste any more time.” Switching back into leadership mode, she continued. “Grab what you can and let’s see what that little bitch has to tell us.”

  “Sasha?” I’d rarely ever heard her curse before.

  She smiled in a way that made my skin crawl in fear. I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that look. “We don’t have time to waste, Zach. She will speak to us.”

  I nodded and walked out the front door to look for any of our packs that may have been left behind. The mercenaries fled just as fast as we had, so I hoped they neglected to steal our supplies.

  Just as I made my way around the fire pit, I caught the sound of someone sobbing. “Jackson?”

  My friend stood and wiped his face before turning around. I looked down at the ground to see Carrie’s body lying under a pile of leaves Jackson must have placed on her.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  Jackson shrugged and ran his hands over the crossbow in a familiar gesture. “I’m tired of this shit.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Let’s get our friends and go south. Maybe we can go to one of those islands you’re always talking about?”

  He smiled. “That sounds good.”

  But we both knew the islands were gone or at least uninhabitable now. Something about salt water intrusion. A colony wouldn’t survive more than a few days without food and water in the harsh conditions the tropical climates now provided.

  Trevor yelled something we couldn’t understand, so Jackson and I jogged to the other side of camp to join him. When we got there, he was crumpled over in pain clutching his precious anatomy. His prisoner sat on the ground with her back against a tree.

  The mercenary girl smiled up at us. “Morning gentlemen. Care to take one step closer?” Apparently the reach of her foot had fooled Trevor, but we weren’t going to fall for it.

  “Why’d you have to kick me?” Trevor squeaked, his voice an octave higher than normal. “I was trying to make you comfortable.” Trevor always had a soft spot for the ladies, even when all they wanted to do was kill him.

  “Don’t speak to her,” Sasha snapped. She threw down a couple of backpacks and pulled the pistol from her side. Pointing it at the girl, she stepped in front of all of us, taking charge once again.

  “Name?” she asked.

  The girl stayed silent and pulled at her bound wrists.

  “Zach, tie her feet up.” I looked at Sasha. “There’s an extra set in the bag,” she added, answering my unspoken question.

  I didn’t know our inventory consisted of plastic cuffs, but I certainly wasn’t going to complain. As I reached for the girl’s ankle, she tried to pull it away. Jackson’s heavy foot stomped down on her thigh and she yelled in pain.

  “Get off of me, you ass.” Spit flew from her mouth but her face crunched up in pain. Jackson had stepped on the thigh he’d shot not too long ago.

  Jackson ignored the girl and stayed silent as I cuffed her two ankles together without much more fighting from her. When finished, I stepped back and looked at the girl. She seemed young with short blonde hair, a pretty face, and perfect teeth. Perhaps close in age to Vee and me. The mercenaries got younger every year and I wondered why the mindset of my generation hadn’t all decided to rebel against the government. Why would she choose to hunt other human beings?

  “Name?” Sasha demanded again.

  “Fuck you,” the girl replied.

  Sasha whipped the gun around and hit her in the side of the face. I heard something crack, but felt no sympathy.

  When she looked back up at Sasha, the red welt on her cheek had already started to bruise. “You should just kill me. I’m not going to tell you anything.”

  “Name?” Sasha asked, gun pointed at the girl’s skull.

  “Number 137652.”

  “This
isn’t a joke. What’s your name?”

  Silence.

  “Jackson?” Sasha said, and without another word my friend knew what to do. At close range, the arrow pierced clear through her other thigh in a matter of seconds.

  Her screams echoed in the otherwise silent forest. With gritted teeth and heavy breathing, she squeezed out one word.

  “Rachael.”

  “Nice to meet you, Rachael,” Sasha said over top of the girl’s agony. “Now, tell us where they took them.”

  Spitting on the ground, Rachael cackled. “Fuck. You.”

  This time Sasha hit her hard enough to bring unconsciousness.

  “What are you doing?” Trevor asked, but he didn’t move from his spot.

  “She’ll wake up and when she does, she will talk.” Sasha secured the gun in her lower back and picked up the bags. Her fiery red hair glowed in the morning sunlight like a sailors warning. “Let’s get ready to move. We’ll follow their tracks.”

  She started to walk away and then turned back to us. “Get her on the vehicle and make sure she stays alive.”

  “Then you need to stay away from her,” Trevor grumbled at our leader, but either Sasha didn’t hear or she chose to ignore him.

  I helped the guys gather up our supplies and our prisoner, taking one last glance at the cabin. I’ll find you, Vee.

  TEN

  Vivienne

  At some point I must have fallen asleep, because the truck’s sudden stop forced me to fall on top of Max. Hunter had nestled down between the mound of body parts and his swollen face made it difficult to determine whether or not his eyes were open.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Are we here?” Someone’s voice drifted from behind a pile of prisoners. Fear echoed through the truck as she asked the question we all wanted to know.

  “What will they do to us?”

  “I can’t go in there.”

  “They’ll kill us!”

  Panic wafted through the small space along with the smell of defeat. No one knew what to expect because no one ever came home. The idling vehicle did little to calm our dread as we waited like cattle being led to the slaughter house. One by one the terrified voices filled the din, whispering questions and reciting prayers that would go unanswered.