“How many times did he hit me?” Lefty asked.
“Three, I think.”
“You think? Weren’t you watching? Surely a guy with your smarts doesn’t have a hard time counting to three. Or were you cowering behind a banana tree while everything went down?”
“I just—”
“Relax. I’m just giving you a hard time. I didn’t expect you to do anything. I don’t expect anyone to ever jump in and save me from a fight—especially not from Flea.” Lefty began walking toward town, careful to stay off the path they had already rutted a little deeper than they now wanted. “It’s probably a good thing he won this time, anyway.”
“What? Why?”
“I was already worried about what I would tell the people at the clinic. Someone is bound to ask questions about this gash on my arm I got from the fence. Now I can just blame it on the fight.”
Zero nodded and grinned. “That makes sense. You lost on purpose.”
Lefty laughed. “I wish that was true, but at least there’s a bright side.”
They reached the clinic and entered. There was only one room. It was large enough for twenty beds, which were situated along all four walls. There were two large cabinets at the far end of the room. One had a sign on the front that read, “Take only what you need,” and contained the basic necessities for minor aches and pains. The other had a sign on the front that read, “Doctor’s cabinet. Stay out.”
The room was empty and quiet except for one young man sitting on the edge of a bed in the far corner. He looked pale and was breathing heavily as he leaned over a bucket, apparently fighting the urge to vomit.
They crossed the room and opened the cabinet containing supplies. Lefty’s forearm dripped a trail of blood across the floor. Zero pulled out a roll of gauze and reached for Lefty’s forearm.
“Dude. You don’t have to baby me.” Lefty grabbed the gauze from Zero’s hand. “I’m capable of taking care of myself.” Lefty wrapped his arm with his free hand.
Zero held up some scissors to cut off whatever gauze wasn’t used, but Lefty continued to wrap his arm until the entire roll was gone.
Lefty applied pressure to his wound with his free hand, and then sat on one of the free beds. “So, I guess we’ll just wait here until the doctor shows up.”
“You have to push the—” The guy sitting on the edge of his bed lost his ability to hold his vomit before he was able to finish his sentence. Only half of his projectile load made it into the bucket. The other half splattered on his bed and the linoleum floor.
Lefty looked up to where the guy had pointed and saw a red button on the wall next to a sign that read, “If the doctor isn’t present, ring bell for service.” But before Lefty could even make an effort to move toward the button, Zero was halfway across the room. He pushed the button and then looked around as if he expected something to happen.
After about ten minutes the door opened and in walked someone with long blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail. “I don’t recognize either of you two, so I assume you’re some of the new arrivals. It never takes you newbies very long to hurt yourselves—climbing trees and scraping knees. Getting into mischief with your newfound freedom. Trying all the stuff they used to yell at you for doing at school.”
When the doctor pulled on a white smock from a nearby coat rack and slipped it on, Zero read the name “Stitch” over the left breast pocket.
“So, what seems to be the problem?” Stitch asked.
Lefty held up his arm, and then pointed at his face. “My face will be fine, but I should probably have my arm sewn up.”
“Let me take a look at it,” Stitch said. It took nearly a minute to unwrap all of the gauze, the inner layers of which were thoroughly soaked with blood. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“I lost a fight.”
“Wow. You just came right out and said it. Most boys beat around the bush and pretend to be all macho.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose. It’s all part of the game. I’ll get him next time.”
Stitch stood directly in front of him and held an index finger up twelve inches in front of Lefty’s nose. “Follow my finger, please.” After that, he pulled a pen-sized flashlight from one pocket and shined it into Lefty’s eyes.
He put the pen light away and walked over to the refrigerator, opened the upper level, and pulled out an ice pack. The ice pack was then handed to Zero along with the words, “Take this and hold it on the back of his neck, will you?”
“What’s it for?” Zero asked.
“It helps with the concussion.” Stitch walked back to the cabinets, slid a key into the lock, pulled out a few medical supplies, and set them on the counter.
“Are you going to stick that thing in me?” Lefty asked, looking at the needle sitting on the counter. “Are you sure I need it?”
Stitch picked up a small vial of clear liquid, held it upside down, and slid the needle into the underside of it. “This stuff is just to numb up your arm.”
“Are you sure I need it? Can’t we do this without the shot?”
“Sure, I can do it without. But guess what—the suture needle is a lot fatter than the syringe needle. Trust me, you don’t want to be able to feel your arm as I sew you up.”
“I guess.” Lefty closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Zero started to laugh. “Are you telling me you’re more afraid of a little needle prick than you are a punch in the face?”
Lefty held out his damaged arm. “It’s not like I enjoy the feeling of knuckles on my face, but at least I get to hit him back.”
Lefty gritted his teeth as Stitch began the process, starting with some iodine from the end of a large cotton swab, followed by the needle. “Ahhhhhh! Can’t you stick the needle through the skin around it?”
“No. It needs to be injected inside the wound for it to work best.” Stitch jabbed Lefty over and over inside the gash on his arm. “There. Now we just wait a moment for it to numb up.”
“I hate being numb. How long will it be numb?” Lefty asked.
“About an hour, but you’re worried about all the wrong things. You should be a lot more worried about your concussion than about whether or not your arm is going to stay numb all night.”
Once the numbness had fully set in, Lefty sat patiently and watched Stitch sew him up. “Just seven stitches? That’s hardly worth the trip. I got nine last time.”
Stitch rewrapped Lefty’s arm with fresh gauze and smiled. “I have a feeling you’re going to be one of my regulars, aren’t you?”
“That’s a safe bet. We’ll be getting to know each other pretty well.” Lefty hopped down off the bed. “So if that’s all, then I’ll just say ‘see you next time’ and we’ll be on our way.”
“Hold on.” Stitch walked back to the cupboard and pulled out a rolled up bandage.
“No need to bother with that,” Lefty said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t be stupid. You need to keep your arm covered up for a few days. If you let it get dirty it will get infected, and you’ll be more miserable than that guy over there.” Stitch jerked a thumb in the direction of the guy leaning over his bucket.
Lefty pocketed the extra bandages and made his way to the door. He was glad to see that the rain had stopped. It had only poured for about twenty minutes, but that was long enough to leave deep puddles along the sides of the roads and pathways.
Zero attempted to keep the bag of ice on Lefty’s neck as they walked, but Lefty would have none of it. As soon as they were across the street from the clinic, Lefty ripped the bag out of Zero’s hand and threw it over the roof of the clinic. “Get that thing away from me. It’s freezing.”
“But Stitch said you need to—”
He shot Zero a cold stare, and Zero backed off.
***
Dinner was only rice and beans, which was predictably met by a chorus of groans as people took turns dishing themselves their plates of food. The only real treat to their meal was that it came with a glass of horchata.
Lefty and Zero saw that every seat at the “cool” table was occupied, so they found somewhere else to sit. They were surprised when Captain arose from his chair, walked across the cafeteria, and sat next to them.
“How’s it going, guys?” Captain asked.
“Good, sir,” Lefty said.
“Listen,” Captain faked a serious look. “If you call me sir again, I’m going to beat you worse than Flea did.”
“Oh. You heard about that?” Lefty asked.
At first, Zero thought Lefty was about to be in big trouble, and assumed that was the reason Captain had gone out of his way to talk to them, but his grin said that wasn’t the case.
Captain shook his head. “Next time do us all a favor and knock him on his butt. He needs a little sense knocked into him.”
Lefty smiled. “Will do, Captain. It’ll be my pleasure.”
“I came over here to talk to you about something, but I need you to promise you’ll keep this on the down low. I don’t want you to talk to anyone about this.” Captain looked to his left and to his right to make sure nobody was listening in.
“Of course.” Lefty looked like he had never felt so important before.
“Root never showed up to work today. You already know that. And you’re the one who went to his room to look for him, right?” Captain was looking intensely at Lefty.
“Yeah. That was me.” Lefty shifted in his seat. “Do you know where he is?”
He shook his head. “No one does.”
“We were just in the clinic a bit ago,” Zero said. “He wasn’t there either.”
“Lefty,” Captain said, “what did you see when you were in his dorm room?”
“His keys were in the middle of the floor,” Lefty said. “That was the only thing I thought was out of place.”
“Nothing else?”
“No. Not that I remember.”
“Did you look in his bed, or even touch his bed at all?”
“Touch it? No. I don’t think I touched it. I noticed it wasn’t made, though.”
“Well, I went to his room today too, and when I found his bed like that I knew something was wrong. That guy’s so neat and tidy—I bet he makes his bed before even turning on his light.”
“Right. He’s the kind of guy who will cut up carrots and wash the knife before he even cuts up the potatoes.”
“He’s obsessive about keeping things neat and tidy.” Captain smiled.
“Do you think something is up?”
Captain sat back in his chair and thought for a moment, rubbing his chin, and then he leaned back in. “I know Root. I’ve known him for a long time. Those kinds of things might seem insignificant to most people, but I think he did them on purpose—so that someone who really knew him would see those two things—the keys and the bed—and know something was up.”
Zero raised an eyebrow. “Do you think Lucid had something to do with it?”
Lefty’s eyes popped wide, and he turned to Captain to see his response.
Captain shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t want to speculate about anything like that just yet. All I know is that I’ve looked for him all day and I can’t find him anywhere.” They sat in silence for a moment longer before Captain grabbed his empty food tray and stood up. “Remember. Not a word to anyone. I don’t need people coming up with crazy theories or ideas.”
They watched him walk away, bus his tray, and head out the door.
“What do you think?” Zero asked.
“The same as I did this morning, only more so now. Something’s wrong.”
“I don’t know him very well, but it does seem a little weird that he has an argument with Lucid and then he vanishes.”
Lefty became lost in thought for a moment. “You think Captain’s on our side, right?”
“I don’t know what you mean. He’s not on Flea’s side.”
“I mean, you think I can come clean with him on something without him sending me to Exile, right?”
“Come clean on something? Like what?”
“Like the hole in the fence.”
“You’re going to tell him about the hole?”
“Well, it seems like that would be a better idea than waiting for Flea to discover it. Or even for Captain to discover it while he’s out searching for Root.”
“I think that’s a brilliant idea. Tell Captain and never go through the fence again. I think he’ll listen. If he punishes you, I don’t think he’ll send you to Exile.”
The sides of Lefty’s lips curled up into a sinister grin. “But I’m going through one last time first.”
Zero dropped his forehead down on the table. “How did I know that was coming?”
Chapter 11
Zero wanted to be anywhere but here at the fence. The sun was already low in the sky, almost ready to disappear for the night. He was uncomfortable enough when the sun was high over their heads, illuminating every danger in front of them. This situation had him more worried than he had ever been before about Lefty’s safety, and that was saying a lot.
“Look. The cats aren’t even out here right now. I don’t see a single one,” Zero said.
“You don’t know that. They’re good at hiding.”
“And if they’re good at hiding, then that means they’re also good at stalking. You want to be stalked?”
“Stop worrying so much. I’ll be fine.” Lefty turned his back and twisted open the wires. One link at a time, the hole in the fence grew wider until it was again large enough for someone to fit through.
“You promised this would be your last time through.”
“I know. Stop pestering me.”
“I just want to make sure. If you go out there and you don’t even get to see or touch one of the jungle cats, you still said this was your last time.”
“Zero. Stop. You’re not my babysitter.”
“I just worry that this is going to increase your appetite for living outside the fence.”
“Zero!”
“Promise me again.”
Lefty pushed open the fence. “Wish me luck.” He picked up a large piece of raw chicken from off the ground, which he had taken from the cafeteria refrigerator, and stepped through the fence.
“Lefty,” Zero said. “In case you die and I never get a chance to say this to you again, I just want you to know—I kind of hate you right now.”
“Same to you, buddy. Are you sure you don’t want to come along?”
“Oh, I’m sure.”
“Your loss. When you decide to stop being such a coward, let me know.”
Lefty took a few careful steps into the open and then paused. He looked back and forth, squinting his eyes, struggling to see. He cupped his hands around his ear and stood motionless as he waited. He stepped ten paces farther, and then paused again. After fifteen minutes of waiting and inching through the tall grass, he made it all the way to the trees.
“Don’t you dare go into those trees! You don’t know what’s in there.” Zero was whisper-yelling again.
Lefty held a finger up to his lips to silence him. He reared back his left arm and slung the chicken about thirty feet in front of him.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
He began to walk into the thick of the jungle trees, disappearing into the shadows.
“I think you’ve gone far enough. Too far.” Zero wasn’t making any attempt to whisper anymore. “I mean it. If you take one more step I’ll—”
“Quiet,” Lefty said. “I think I hear something moving.”
Zero began to walk back down the trail away from the hole in the fence
. “I should never have let him go through,” he mumbled to himself. “I’m bigger than he is.” He turned around and ran back to the opening. But he knew he couldn’t have stopped him. Sure, he could have held him down, but then Lefty would just come at night after he and the rest of Quirigua were sleeping. That would be even more dangerous than this.
He peered toward the darkness of the trees again, cupping his hands around his eyes and squinting, but he saw nothing. He closed his eyes in hopes that it would somehow make his hearing more acute, but he heard nothing.
Standing by the fence only frustrated him more. He felt helpless there—unable to muster up the courage to follow after Lefty, and unable to coax him back through even though he was sure he was still within earshot.
He went for a short stroll along the outside of the fence. He made it a hundred feet away from the hole before returning. He paced back and forth, wearing a definite path in the grass. Every time he came near the hole, he stopped and looked into the darkness.
He grew angrier over the course of half an hour. Every time he walked away and came back, he mumbled threats under his breath of what he would do to Lefty once he came back through—if he came back through. Worry replaced his anger once the sun was completely gone and the clouds began to glow a variety of oranges and pinks.
“Are you out there?” Zero yelled the loudest he could. Surely the field workers would all be off shift now, so nobody would be anywhere around to hear. He turned his back to the fence and looked around. Nobody. He turned back toward the darkness of the jungle, which was pitch black now. Nobody.
Enough was enough. Zero pushed open the hole and stuck one of his legs through. It was a tighter squeeze for him than it was for Lefty, and when he realized how much noise he was making by jiggling the fence, he cowered back to the safe side again. “I can’t just leave him out there,” he mumbled. He climbed to the top of the fence, but that didn’t help to settle his nerves and did nothing to help him spot his friend.
He descended and once again attempted to squeeze through the hole, trying harder to keep the fence from shaking noisily. He made it completely through this time, but he kept one hand on the fence, holding it open, and he struggled to muster up the courage to let go and step away from it. He felt helpless and vulnerable. He felt sure something was watching him—something that could sense his fear.
The Inner Fence: a dystopian post-apocalyptic young adult novella series (Remnants of Zone Four Chronicles Book 2) Page 7