"He's gone," Molly said.
"What happened to him?" she asked.
"He's gone," Molly said again. "He's gone." She said the words over and over before her voice trailed off and was silent. Her eyes glazed over and she went back to eating the slop.
Sarah tried shaking her back to reality, but it was no use. All of the girls in here had been broken down mentally, and Sarah knew that she would be next. She looked at the other cages and saw all the girls sitting and eating the slop, their faces blank. It would be her face, too. The question was, how long would it take?
As the day passed, her skin continued to bake in the sun. Skin lesions from sunburn covered all of the other girls' bodies, mixed in with their cuts and bruises from the beatings, and Sarah wondered and hoped that they simply couldn't even feel physical pain anymore, that they were numb to it.
The last thing that she felt die with her in that cage before her physical body was her hope. The hope that she had been trying so hard to find, the hope that David had taught her to feel even when everything around her was terrible. She thought she had finally found it, and she truly believed that they were going to make it. She started to believe that God really did have a purpose for them when so many others had perished. But the truth was that their time had just come a little later than everyone else.
Someone came by later in the day and gave the girls some water. Other bandits would come by the cages throughout the day and taunt the girls, spitting at them or throwing stones. As degenerate and chaotic as they all were, they still seemed to have some system of order and a set of rules for doing things. Though they harassed the girls in the daytime, none of them actually went in the cages and touched them. But the night was a different story.
When night fell, the girls were given more slop and a little more water. It became cool again and Sarah's body began to shiver, cold from the harsh sunburn she had.
A couple hours into darkness, Jericho came back to her cage and the guard opened it. He walked in and lifted Sarah's head up by her hair.
She couldn't even cringe or pull herself away from him; she was already too broken to react. As he wormed his greasy hands all over her, she just lay there feeling like she was outside of her body, looking down on it all with total detachment.
"He was your son, right?" Jericho asked. "David?"
He watched her reaction, but she was expressionless.
"I get that motherly feeling from you," he continued. "You came here with him, didn't you?"
He watched her face for clues again, but she still divulged nothing.
"You still think he might be alive, don't you?"
Her face was blank, but internally she felt anxious at the question. A tiny part hidden inside still wondered and hoped that he was alive, and she wanted to know what happened to him, where he was, if he was safe.
Jericho laughed. "He's dead."
Her eyes shot to him, measuring his face to see if he was telling the truth.
"That got your attention, didn't it?" he said, his face twisting into a crazy grin. "We caught a boy sneaking around here this morning. He refused to say anything at first, so I had to hurt him a little. After he stopped blubbering, he told me that he was trying to save his mom. Is that you?"
Her lip quivered and her face became taut as hot tears streamed out of her eyes.
"He didn't stop crying, just saying 'mommy'... 'mommy'..." Jericho reached behind and pulled out his knife. The blade was coated in dried blood. "This is the knife I used to kill him," he said, holding it up to her face.
She couldn't hold back anymore and wept profusely.
Jericho laughed and licked the tears off her face, his thick beard scraping against her skin as his hot, stinking breath billowed across her nose. He put the knife away and undid his pants.
When it was all over, Sarah lay still for the rest of the night, staring up at the cloudy sky. She couldn't feel anything anymore. Her mind was a hum of white noise, all her thoughts wiped away.
The bandit with the huge belly and the blond beard who gave them their food in the morning sat guard on the bent little chair with his back to the cages, looking out over the bridge from left to right then going back and cleaning his teeth with the tip of his knife. His pudgy fingers wrapped around the handle, his fingernails caked with dirt. When he finished dislodging a piece of food from between his teeth, he used the knife to clean under one of his fingernails, removing a stone, then going back to his teeth with it. He gently hummed to himself under his breath and shared a few words with a passing bandit on patrol. When he was satisfied with his personal grooming session, he rested the knife on his big belly, his hands neatly folded over top.
Sarah leaned her head to the side, her bruised face pressed against the cold pavement. Her eyes fell on the guard rail next to her cage and saw a piece of jagged metal that was almost completely sheared off from the metal brace connecting two pieces of the concrete rail. She crawled over to it and reached through the bars. She knew she was already dead, but she was still stuck in the limbo of this cage, unable to move on and see her husband and son in Heaven or wherever they were. She had nothing left to live for and all it would take were a couple slices of the sharp metal across her flesh.
She wedged her shoulder between the bars as far as she could go, hyper-extending her arm, but it was just out of her reach. She shoved herself against the bars and flailed her fingers out, trying to grasp it, but it was no use. Her arm fell limply against the ground and she crawled back into the middle of the cage.
As she scanned the bridge, her eyelids grew heavy and she resigned herself to her fate. Just before she fell asleep, something amazing happened.
She saw a glowing light coming from somewhere on the bridge to her right. It became stronger and stronger until suddenly her husband came into view. He was dressed all in white and he was in pristine condition with a warm smile on his face. Their son was holding his hand and they walked toward her. They both looked so heavenly and she thought that they must be angels.
"Don't worry," her husband said to her in the most comforting voice she had ever heard. "Everything will be okay. You're free." It was so incredible to hear his voice again for the first time in eight years that she broke down and cried tears of joy.
Her husband let go of their son's hand and continued along the bridge until he was out of view. She silently mouthed for him to come back, but he didn't return. She blinked and saw her son standing outside of her cage in all his white, brilliant glory.
He grinned at her like the sweet angel he was, and she never wanted this moment to end. He reached through the bars and held his hand out to her. She slid herself across the ground and reached out to him, entwining her fingers into his.
He stood up and walked behind the bandit guarding the cages, then bent down as if he were picking something up off the ground. He held his empty hand out in front of him, then slowly raised it above his head. He looked down at the guard sitting in front of him, who was unaware of his presence, then he very gently lowered his arm in an arc until it was by his side again.
The guard slumped over in his chair, at first looking like he'd simply fallen asleep, then he fell off the side of the chair and onto the ground below, unmoving.
David knelt down over the man and hovered both of his hands over him, as if he were performing some kind of spiritual ritual on him. Then he stood up and walked to the cage door, his presence so graceful and gentle. Without a word, he waved his hand across it and it opened.
He glided into the cage and knelt by her side.
"Mom," she heard him say, though his mouth never parted the beautiful smile on his face. His voice was so loving and he sounded at peace.
"Mom," he said again. He repeated her name over and over, starting to sound more frantic each time.
"Mom!" he cried in a harsh whisper, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. He knelt over his mom's near-lifeless body and she looked up at him with a blank stare, like she was seeing him, but
not fully understanding that he was there. He was scared, his heart pounding in his chest, afraid that another bandit would come by at any moment.
The guard that he'd clubbed in the back of the head with the rock was lying on the ground outside the cage, a large pool of blood forming under his head.
He shook her again and finally something stirred in her eyes as she glanced around and took in the cool night around them.
"Mom!" he said again, moved to emotion as she started to come back to reality. "Come on, we have to go!"
19
JAILBREAK
David wrapped a blanket around her as she tried to understand what was going on. She was positive that her son was dead, and her mind was having a difficult time correlating the fact that he was standing right in front of her. But the more he poked and prodded her and tried to get her to leave the cage, the more she started to come back to reality.
"David?"
"Come on, Mom, we have to go!" he whispered, pulling on her arm.
She looked past him at the dead guard lying in a pool of his own blood outside of the cage.
"Oh my God," she said. "Did you do that?"
"Yeah."
"David! Why did you do that?" she asked, panicking. Her son just killed someone. Her son just took a life; everything she put him through and every situation she forced him into by taking this journey, it was all her fault. She never wanted anything like this to happen, she never wanted him to see anything like this, let alone effect something like this with his own hands.
"Because they hurt you," he said. "They're bad men." He paused. "Aren't they?"
"Of course they are," she said. She shivered in the blanket and got to her feet. Her legs were rubbery and she stumbled around a bit, but she found her footing. She felt a deep and persistent pain pulsing from her head to her toes. She started to follow David out of the cage, but she paused at the last second, telling him to wait.
She turned and looked at Molly, who was lying on the ground with her head propped on her outstretched arm.
"Molly!" she whispered.
She tugged on Molly's arm and woke her up. Molly dreamily came out of sleep and stubbornly struggled against her, telling her she wasn't hungry. Sarah didn't know exactly why, but she felt like she had an obligation to Molly, maybe because she knew her, or maybe because her husband was dead. But she had to take her with them.
"Come on!" Sarah said. "The door's open! We can get out of here!"
With that, Molly's eyes came into focus and she set them on the open door of the cage where David waited nervously. For the first time since Sarah saw her there, Molly finally seemed to regain some cognizance. Sarah helped her to her feet and they all exited the cage.
Molly looked around, still confused, and took a moment to get her bearings. Her eyes fell on Sarah with something that seemed like recognition. Sarah was delighted to see this and waited for her to give an acknowledgement.
Instead, Molly turned and walked to the edge of the bridge. Without a word, she tumbled over the guard rail and threw herself off. She disappeared from view as if she'd never been there at all, and a heavy thud followed a few seconds later.
Sarah and David reeled in shock. She wanted to help Molly escape and never thought she would do that. She ran up to the edge of the bridge and looked over, but it was too dark to see below. Molly was gone, her suffering over, and Sarah thought back to just minutes ago when she was ready to kill herself before David showed up. Molly chose her way, and Sarah chose hers. She thought David was dead. Jericho had lied to her, but seeing her son again strengthened her resolve to push forward. She thought of the hallucination she saw of her husband and her son as angels, and she suddenly didn't think it was a hallucination at all, but a vision—a message from a power higher than she could understand.
"We have to go, Mom!" David said, seeing that their path ahead was clear.
They snuck along the bridge toward Durham, staying low and staying behind cover when necessary. The patrolling bandit presence on the bridge was sparse, and if they were careful, they would have another chance to get through.
"I hid our things over here," he whispered, pointing to a small tent up ahead. "Most of them are asleep, but we have to be quiet."
They came up to a broken down SUV sitting in the middle of the bridge in front of the tent. A bandit thirty yards away patrolled toward them, holding a lantern. They crouched down behind the SUV and waited as the man approached. David peeked under the vehicle and watched the bandit's feet, and when he began to pass to the side, David led Sarah around it and to the other side. They waited to hear the footsteps fade away, then they went for the tent.
Inside the flap, Sarah was relieved to find the tent empty. A few candles were lit on a flimsy table in the middle of the tent, and one empty bed sat against the edge of it. The place was a mess, filled with random junk that someone might have found in a hoarder's house. David reached down into a box sitting in the corner and began removing some items.
He turned around and handed her a crudely-folded stack of clothes.
She unfurled them and saw that they were a grubby men's t-shirt and a pair of small sweatpants. Nothing fit her terribly well, but it was better than nothing. She dropped the blanket and put the clothes on, then slipped on a pair of ill-fitting men's sneakers that David handed her.
He leaned in the box again and came back with the Glock 17 that they had started their journey with, followed by the necklace he made her that Jericho had taken.
"How did you get these?" she asked.
"I snuck into that big bad guy's tent when he was sleeping and took them," he said. "I also got this."
He handed her the paper card for Noah's Ark that Jericho crumpled up and left on the ground.
"I found it on the ground near you," he said.
Then he hunched over the box and produced a hand grenade from it.
"Oh my God!" she said. "Where did you get that?"
"I found it in one of the other tents. I stole it from one of them."
"David!" she scolded him. "Do you know how dangerous that is?"
"I thought it could help, is all," he said.
Sarah stuffed the paper card in the pocket of her sweatpants and checked the gun for ammo. The bandits hadn't touched it, as it still had an empty magazine and one last cartridge in the chamber.
"Did you find any more guns?" she asked.
"No. They all sleep with them. The grenade was the only thing I found on a table away from them. But here, I found some food and water, too."
He gave her some cans of food and even some bottled water.
Her eyes lit up. She hadn't seen bottled water in years, and her throat was killing her. She was starving too, but the food would have to wait. The cage door was left open with a dead guard in front of it, and there was no telling when someone would find out. They had to move and pray that the last part of the bridge was empty.
Sarah cracked open one of the bottles of water and drank greedily from it. She swallowed it rapidly as water poured out from the sides of her mouth and down her chest. She drank the whole thing in a matter of seconds and set the empty bottle on the table and stuffed the other ones with the food into her pockets. She couldn't fit much, but it would be enough to get them going.
She warily eyed the grenade that David put on the table as she slipped the Glock into her waistband and tied the necklace around her neck. She lined up the beads with her thumb, and the necklace gave her that same sense of warmth again, like it was a constant reminder that everything was going to be okay. It gave her the resolve she needed. She didn't know how, but somehow they were going to find a way to get off the bridge and into Durham. Jericho had lied about David being dead to try to break her; she knew this now. And she knew he was also lying about Noah's Ark being just a myth. It had to be there, and they would find it.
"That's all I found," David said, giving the box one last look.
"Okay," she said.
Before they left the tent,
she looked at the grenade. She hesitated, but then decided that maybe the circumstances dictated that she should take it with her. She picked it up and held it carefully, not sure where to keep it. Ultimately, she just held it in her hand until she figured out what to do with it as they exited the tent.
The coast was clear and they didn't see anyone in sight. They passed a guard a ways up that had nodded off on watch, sitting in a chair overlooking the city below.
They came to a set of familiar sights: a circle of bandits sat around a barrel fire playing cards in a raucous palaver, and the end of the bridge sat just beyond them before it descended down into the city.
The men had already started bickering and looked like they were a few scurrilous words away from violence. Their focus on each other was intense, and the firelight flickered in their eyes, making the shadows around them hard for them to see.
Sarah held her breath and motioned to David to follow her. The two of them skulked along the far side of the bridge and passed the group of bandits. An argument ensued among them and they were none the wiser that Sarah and David had slipped by.
The two of them reached the three broken-down cars that marked the start of the bridge's descent. The dark city of Durham lay beyond, just as dead and unglamorous as the night before.
Three bandits walked around the bottom of the bridge ahead. The streets beyond them were empty, but they kept a tight watch on the bridge's entrance.
Sarah studied them, trying to figure out a way by. It was inconceivable that they could successfully sneak their way to the end of the bridge twice and be foiled at the last possible chance. But there was no cover to hide behind on the rest of the bridge, and the men never appeared to leave their spots. She knew what they needed was a distraction.
She still had the grenade clutched in her hand, still afraid of its awesome power. But it was the only answer.
She tried to determine the physics of getting the grenade down to the bottom of the bridge when she heard part of the conversation of the bandits sitting by the fire behind her.
Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 1): The Fall of Man Page 18