by Holly Hook
And then the commander pointed to the barracks.
Our barracks.
This was for David and the other survivors who had just arrived to stay in.
"Time to go," Jerome said, taking my arm.
I didn't resist. I thought about running out first. I was David's most hated person other than maybe his father himself. I could distract David and the commander. Outside, David continued to speak to his father. He was really upping his act, gesticulating and waving his arms and generally looking traumatized. He must be telling the military about us, about how dangerous we were. His father nodded over and over like he was taking mental notes. Either that, or he just didn't care.
If he did care and they found us, we'd be dead in no time. Banishment might be too good for us.
"Do you see any vehicles we can steal?" I asked. "Everyone look outside. Is there anything?"
A large food truck, one with the name of a grocery store chain on its side, was leaving and another was rolling in through the front gates, illuminated by the spotlights. More soldiers stood around it, waiting to direct the cargo to the important people. The military was raiding all the grocery stores and markets for everything that wasn't rotten. The truck stopped and a man in fatigues got out of the drivers' seat while another soldier, a woman in the same garb, walked to the back to help open the door. The two of them slid the back open, checked the area, and walked away. They must be going to ask where this shipment was supposed to go.
I had to make the judgment call.
I was a failure at those, but everyone was waiting. Even Tony was frozen in indecision. Another food truck, this one from another store, pulled up next to the one that was already ready to unload.
“Guys,” I said, taking an extra second to glance at Jerome. “Run around the back of the building and we’ll see if we can run for it behind the commander’s back.” It was so open out there and we’d be so vulnerable, but waiting here would mean certain death. We were the horrible people who had tried to murder the commander’s son, after all.
We all moved in single file, me first and Jerome and Alana pulling up behind me. Alana whispered something that was lost. Tony left the blind up and followed in the very back, right behind Mina.
The light outside was bloody, like we would be about ten seconds after David spotted us. I opened the door very quietly, peeking my head out to see the other civilians waiting by the helicopter. David was still talking to his father, back to us. I could almost hear his voice from here, he was so close, but thankfully the two of them were both facing the helicopter. It was the only reason we hadn’t been caught.
My pulse raced under my skin. I waved everyone out and we crept onto the grass, then around to the other side of the building. If the other civilians noticed us, they didn’t say anything. None of them knew who we were and that we weren’t supposed to be there.
The sun was a faint glow sinking below the horizon of the plains. Only a lone tree watched from the distance as we all moved around the back of the building, between it and the high, barbed wire fence. I spotted a couple of lumps that might be bodies about thirty feet out from the fence, like the army had left them where they had fallen. Then the faint stench hit, confirming what they were. These people had either been running when they were shot or someone had dragged them away from the fence and left them there as a warning to others not to get too close. Tonight, no one was gathering around the base…yet.
“Did David see us?” Alana asked.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think he did.” I stopped and turned now that everyone was out of his view. “We need to get to that food truck out there, the one parked farthest away from us. It’s the only thing we’re all going to fit into and the only thing that’s going to ram a gate down.” I was talking crazy here like some action movie actress. The real thing wasn’t as awesome. There was so much that could go wrong with this plan. I could get shot even if I made it to the truck. The army might chase us. We might not even get to the truck in the first place and even if we did, there was no guarantee they had left the keys inside. It was a chance we needed to take—our only chance.
“I’m scared,” Alana said, leaning close to me.
Jerome shot me a tense smile. There was hope in his eyes, hope that hadn’t been extinguished yet and hope that maybe if we got out of here, life could be a little better. I forced a smile back. I wanted to share it so badly, to grab onto hope again but the dark monster inside of me held me down. I wanted to kiss Jerome again, to play baseball with these people and maybe even have another drink, but reality usually had other ideas and they didn’t involve living.
Maybe this was my chance to redeem myself and allow myself to live. If I got everyone out of here alive, that was.
If not…
I shook my head. “David’s going to go into these barracks,” I said. “I’m sure the commander will bring him over here. When they're inside, we run for it.”
Christina nodded and Gina picked her injured foot off the ground. “I don’t want to hold you guys back,” she said.
“Someone carry Gina,” I said. “Tony and Mina. That’s your job.”
They both nodded and got into position, allowing Gina to lift her leg, when I heard the approaching voices.
“You can shower tomorrow at seven sharp,” the commander was saying. “For now, you’ll sleep here with the others. You’ll survive.”
“But I’m filthy,” David said. “Why won’t you let me use your shower?”
“I have an important meeting with an important person,” the commander continued. He was being so condescending to David that I almost felt sorry for the guy. The door opened. “Stay here.”
“And stay out of your way,” David said like he was rehearsing a line he’d heard a million times before. From the sounds of it, he had.
“Precisely,” his father told him. “Consider yourself lucky that you’re going to be saved. Showers open at seven tomorrow. Be there if you want one. Breakfast will be in the mess hall.”
David said something else, but his voice was muffled. He was heading inside. I waited for the commander to go inside as well, but David was the main one. I heard his footsteps storm inside and down the row of beds.
And then the blind next to us flipped up.
Alana screamed as David’s face appeared behind the dusty glass, first surprised, and then horrified, and then filled with rage. He turned to face all of us in turn as his eyes narrowed.
Gina hiked her arm up over Mina's shoulder and she shook her head, faking a smile. “Um, run?”
And we did. As I took my first desperate step, David slammed down the blind and shouted something.`
I bolted around the back of the barracks and into the open. The two food trucks still waited in the distance, engines idling and lights on. They were golden. Two soldiers were hauling a huge cardboard box out of the closest one. They vanished as David’s voice rang out again, clear because he’d made it outside. “Dad! That’s them!”
I don’t know what the commander said next, except that it sounded like some kind of order to the soldiers still around the helicopter. I pumped my legs faster and Jerome appeared next to me, extending his hand. He shot me a desperate, terrified look.
I didn’t take it. It would slow us down. The trucks drew closer and footfalls echoed in my ears. Tony panted. Christina was babbling. The door to the closest truck was open and the interior was all lit up and safe. The back was open, too. People could climb in and take cover from gunfire. Jerome thrust his hand out to me again but I looked away—
--I couldn’t hold his hand while he died—
And pounded across the pavement of the huge road as the first gunshot rang out. The bullet struck the pavement ahead of me. David’s father was just like him. Vengeful. Impulsive. He shouted at his men to fire again but they hesitated.
Hudson might be one of them.
“In the truck!” I shouted, waving to the back while I ran for the front.
“I’ll
drive!” Jerome shouted. “You get in the back.”
I should, but the driver would be the first to die. “No!” I shouted, climbing into the driver seat as the others split from us.
Another shot fired and a metallic screech followed as it hit the side of the truck. David’s father stood way over by the helicopter, pointing his pistol at us while David stood behind him and watched. I slid into the truck as another shot fired and Jerome piled in behind me, putting himself between me and the maniac trying to do us in without a trial.
“Don’t do this!” I yelled. The engine idled under us. Jerome shut the door as another shot shattered the glass, but he refused to duck. Someone pounded on the cargo area behind us. I knew what it meant. Go. Everyone was on board. I struggled with the gearshift.
“This one!” Jerome shouted, pointing at the gear and pulling back to the final slot.
I stomped on the brake and changed gears. The shots had stopped. I wondered how long it would take for the sirens to start and for the rest of the base to mobilize. They wouldn’t want anyone stealing their food.
I hit the gas and turned the semi around on the grass. Everything sharpened into amazing detail, all the way down to the blades of grass and the patterns on the concrete. I was alive again and I had only been sleeping until now.
David’s father jumped out of the way, rolling as he did so, while the two men in the black helmets watched me blaze past them and back onto the grass. We bumped through the field, around a barracks, and behind another one as Jerome closed the passenger door.
“Now how do we get out?” he yelled, ducking down as another shot fired. The breeze from outside washed over me, urging me to hurry.
A loud intercom announcement said something about thieves and the front gate, and I stepped on it.
The truck lurched back onto the wide road while soldiers ran at us from all directions. The stocky one raised his gun at us and knelt down, ready to fire, and I did the only thing I could and ducked. I wouldn’t be alive much longer. The dashboard of the truck towered over me as Jerome and I squeezed down. The windshield glass shattered. A bullet whizzed past my hair. I was standing on the side of the school with David firing at us all over again. More shots fired. I kept my foot on the gas. The two guard towers stood on either side of the gate and both of them rose in my vision. We were close. I took a breath, screamed, and mashed the gas as hard as I could, aiming the wheel so we were about to drive straight between them both.
“Brace yourself!” I shouted to Jerome.
Men shouted from outside.
A loud crash and a deafening jolt followed, sending a shock wave through my whole body and making my wrists scream with pain. I did the only thing I could and kept my foot on the accelerator as something metallic and cage-like fell over the window of the truck. Another announcement, this one fainter and behind us, aired and got quieter as I continued to plow us forward. The road hummed under us and I took breath after breath.
Next to me, Jerome straightened up all the way. “Laney—the road!”
More panic gripped me and I rose just in time to avoid going off a curve. I turned the wheel of the truck—it was harder than I thought—and plowed around it as a final shot echoed through the air. Jerome did something really brave. He poked his head out of the window and looked back.
“They’re not chasing us,” he said. “I think the intercom said something about standing down. I think that’s military jargon for letting us go.”
Hope started to rise inside of me as the headlights illuminated the road ahead. We drove past some signs that probably warned people not to come closer, a low building around an electric tower, and finally a tiny mile marker than I forgot the number of. The road merged into another highway after two more miles and it was only then that I realized that Jerome might be right.
“Are you sure?” I asked. It was hard to sit straight up. Every clunk in the road made me want to duck down and stay there all over again.
“I’m sure,” Jerome told me. “They probably don’t want to waste manpower chasing after a single truck.”
“But we tried to kill Mr. Commander’s son,” I said. I had to get back into reality. Hope was what got you killed in one way or another.
“They might not know that yet,” Jerome said. “We have a little bit of time to get away.”
I thought of the helicopters in the base, the small passenger ones. “Do you know if they can send any planes or choppers after us? If I had a kid that someone tried to kill, I’d get one ordered off the ground right now.” My thoughts turned to everyone in the back of the truck. If things had gone right, Alana and Mina and the others were still back there and in one piece. But we couldn’t stop now. The faint lights of the military base were behind us with nothing but the faintest rusty glow behind it. Everything else was dark. It figured that everyone else had their power knocked out. The military must have some kind of generator for these kinds of emergencies.
The government had known that the pulse might happen and they hadn’t told us.
They probably hadn’t cared.
Someone pounded on the wall behind us again. I wished we had some way to communicate with the others in the back, but stopping right now was too risky. There was a dragging sound where the truck ramp was still sliding against the road. No one had time to pull it up and it was impossible now. Maybe that was why they were pounding.
Jerome let out a breath and looked back. “I think someone’s coming after us.”
My heart sank and I leaned over to look through the semi’s huge rearview mirrors. A small light was moving away from the base, from the direction of the gate, and going around the curve I had nearly gone off of minutes before. The military was sending someone and I had the feeling I knew who.
No. It was two lights, one right behind the other. One truck to come kill us and take back the food, and the other as reinforcements. Or someone to drive the truck back before looters got the food. We rolled past a pair of people walking towards the base in the dark, a couple holding onto each other and dragging their feet with exhaustion, before they vanished into the dark again. There was no time to stop and warn them. We had to think about ourselves right now.
“Laney, you know, I’m glad we kissed,” Jerome said.
I’d been right to pull away after all, to keep it from going further. Now I wouldn’t have to endure the heartbreak of losing it all. Maybe this would be for the best. The world might not be worth living in anymore if you couldn’t actually live.
“I am, too,” I said, not sure what I felt about it anymore.
I hit the gas harder as the pounding of the ramp behind us got more intense. Anyone in the back would get shot first with the back door down like that and the ramp dragging. Or they might get dragged out and executed on the side of the road and left there, to really warn others about approaching the base. Closing the door would prolong things, would buy them maybe a few minutes. Then the soldiers would cut the door open or drive them back as prisoners. That might be better than getting shot unless there was torture involved.
No. Prisoners were more mouths to feed. These people weren’t going to take them.
The lights behind us were catching up. The semi had eighteen gears to go through. I could make out two sets of headlights behind us. They must be within a mile. I had to decide what to do, and fast.
“What’s the best way?” I asked Jerome. I couldn’t make this decision. It would be the wrong choice.
“I think we should stop,” Jerome said. “Let them close the back door. Then, we see if we can surrender the truck to them. We’ll tell them that we’ll go.” He clutched the handle of his door. “Or we run. David’s dad is probably coming after us.”
I hit the brakes. The truck would never outrun military grade motors. The truck seemed to take an eternity to stop. The white lines on either side of the road weaved slower and slower and the brakes squealed in pain as we became still.
Almost dead.
“Go!” I threw my d
oor open and jumped down to the pavement. I ran around the edge of the truck. The headlights were closer. A half mile away. Only flat plains and grass surrounded us on all sides. “Everyone out! Run into the dark!”
It was our best chance, maybe our only chance. I peered into the back of the truck, to where cardboard boxes and grocery bags all lay stacked on each other. Alana ran out first, running down the ramp which was smoking at the bottom from scraping the road, and then Tony and Mina came out with Gina in between them. They would be the first to die. I waved them all down and pointed at the empty fields. “Scatter,” I kept yelling. “Just scatter!” If a couple of us lived that would be something. It was two more people who might see their families again.
I could hear the engines of the vehicles now. The air around me got brighter and it wasn’t all from the truck. “Come on!” Alana shouted at me, yanking my arm.
Jerome appeared at my side and slapped my back. “Run, Laney!”
I was the one David wanted. I could stall them.
I could punish myself give the others a chance to get away. But then I thought about careful Dad and how devastated he would be when Alana and Jerome found him and told him the news. Death might leave him alive just for that. It loved to torture those still left behind.
So I ran from the open arms of death and into the field. Grass turned a brighter green as it slapped against my jeans. We were running into the rolling plains but even these weeds weren’t enough to hide us. I panted and sucked down the cold night air as the engines reached a peak. They were right behind us.
A spotlight fell on us. I caught a glimpse of Tony and Mina vanishing into the dark and Christina screamed somewhere.
“Duck!” I shouted.
I hit the ground, grass trying to shove its way up my nose, as gunfire rang out for a few seconds. The sound was deafening. I felt like we had landed in a war.