by Keary Taylor
We were going to need more.
As if Sarah’s illness wasn’t enough, there was a lot of anxiety flowing through Eden. A Hunter had been spotted twenty miles away and a helicopter had been heard, though not seen. We needed to move camp but Avian begged them to wait. He didn’t dare move Sarah in her current condition, especially since he was out of the adrenaline.
Camp was quiet as I rose and strapped my pack to my back. There was barely even enough light to see by as I pulled my boots on. I bit my lower lip as I pulled the shiny silver handgun from under my cot and tucked it under my belt. I pulled the box of ammunition out as well, dumping a heaping handful into the side pocket of my pants.
I surveyed the tent carefully, making sure there was nothing I was going to leave behind that I would need later.
Last night had been one of panic. Sarah had started coughing again so violently it left traces of blood on her lips when she finally stopped. As I helped Avian, Bill had come into the medical tent informing us that there were now two Hunters that had been spotted. They were getting closer. Gabriel was ordering everyone to pack up. Eden was to move in two days. Those who could leave sooner were encouraged to do so.
“We can’t move her,” Avian said, panicked. “She won’t make the trip.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Bill said quietly. Even though I knew he felt for Avian and Sarah, he would obey Gabriel’s orders. “If we stay here, we’ll all die.”
Avian hung his head, his hands braced on the table.
“If Sarah had the right medicine, would she be okay?” I asked as I placed a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. I felt awkward. I wasn’t good at that kind of thing.
“She’d stand a chance. But it’s all gone. I don’t have anything left.”
So there I was, walking out of my tent, ready to take the two day journey to the city by myself. I wasn’t going to let Sarah die. It was pointless to ask for Gabriel’s permission to go on a raid, not with Hunters in the area. Besides, I didn’t need his permission, he wasn’t king.
I had just gotten to the outskirts of the tents when I heard the sound of fabric being rustled. I turned and looked back down the row of tents and saw West stepping out of his, his eyes locked onto me.
I briefly considered bolting into the woods. I couldn’t afford to lose time now. Dealing with West, trying to convince him not to rat me out to Gabriel or Avian would delay me too long.
Yet there I was, frozen as I watched him duck back into his tent then reemerge a few moments later with his own pack. He was at my side before I even realized what he was intending to do.
“Let’s go,” he said quietly as he looked away from me into the woods.
We jogged through the trees silently for nearly an hour as the sun crawled up into the sky. I had to remind myself frequently to keep my pace slower. West was in good shape and he was by no means slow, but few people were able to keep up with what was my normal pace. But then I knew he was capable of outrunning me; he had done it before.
We came to a stream and slowed. I was about to barrel right through it when West noticed a tree that had fallen partially over. There was a large boulder close enough to the end of the tree and the other side that we could jump.
As we got to the other side we both slowed our pace to a swift walk.
“Why did you come with me?” I finally asked. “You don’t even know where I’m going.”
“I figured it must be important if you were willing to head into the woods by yourself with Hunters in the area,” he said as he glanced at me. “I felt like I needed to do something, even if I’m not sure where I’m going.”
“I’m going to the city. There’s a few pharmacies that should have the medication Sarah needs,” I said as I jumped over a tree that had fallen across our path. “This is going to be really dangerous.”
“I know,” he said as he jumped over after me. “She’s really important to you, isn’t she?” West asked. “Both of them are.”
I nodded. “Sarah has been like my big sister. She’s taken care of me.” I paused as I was about to say something about Avian. I wasn’t sure what exactly Avian was to me anymore. He would always be family in a way, everyone in Eden was, but now there were new feelings mixed in. After he had held my hand, I felt strange. In a way I wished he had never done it and yet at the same time I kept hoping he would do it again.
“They must mean a lot to you if you’re willing to risk your life and take off to the city by yourself,” he said.
“But I’m not by myself,” I clarified as I glanced over at him for a brief second. He gave a faint smile in my direction.
We stopped briefly at mid-day to drink from a stream that looked clean and I shared some of the food rations I had taken the night before. We were going to have to be careful. I had only taken enough for myself. Now it was going to have to keep the two of us going for the next five days. Maybe we’d get lucky and find something non-perishable in the city.
The sun was hot as it started toward the western horizon. I actually had to remove my jacket as sweat beaded in the small of my back. I felt hope though. Spring was finally starting to warm up into Summer. This was exactly what the gardens needed.
I explained the layout of the city to West as we walked. There were certain hideout spots we knew to be safe, places the Fallen didn’t know about, or would never care to go. There were three pharmacies in the city, each on opposite ends. It would take us nearly a full day to get to all three, if there were no complications and we didn’t get caught. It was one thing going on a raid with four of us that had experience with this kind of thing. It was another going by myself with someone who I knew almost nothing about, had no idea how he would handle himself in a situation like this.
As the light faded away, we found a place to make camp. Traveling in the dark wasn’t safe.
I caught a decent-sized rabbit and was lucky to find a large handful of wild, though not nearly ripe, blackberries. When I came back to our camp, I found West had built a fire and slung a hammock high up in a tree.
“Where did you get that?” I asked as I set to skinning and gutting the rabbit.
“I found it in my old camp. Someone left it. It will be a lot safer sleeping up in that than it will be on the ground,” he said as I gave him the rabbit. He drove a narrow, sharp stick through it, then set it over the fire to cook.
I gave a nod, pretending like the fact that we were going to be sleeping right next to each other didn’t make me uncomfortable.
It felt good to get food in my system. While none of us were starving, we had to be careful over the winter to make sure our stores would last until spring. It was nice to get my share. I licked my fingers off and threw the bones as far as I could to keep the wolves away.
The heat of the day faded away and the chill of evening started to set in. We both huddled closer to the fire, palms raised to the flames.
“What do you remember from before the Fall?” I asked, my voice quiet.
West glanced at my face for a brief moment, taken off-guard by my sudden, very serious question.
“I lived with my father and my grandfather. My mother left when I was really little. My grandfather was a scientist, my dad was a doctor.”
“What kind of a scientist?” I asked. Just the word scientist brought up all kinds of hateful feelings in all of us. It was the scientists who had ruined our world, our race.
“He did experimental stuff. It was weird; I was always around other adults. I never even knew any other kids really. We lived in a unit that was attached to where they worked. A woman came to take care of me during the day while they were at work. When she couldn’t come they would take me to work with them.”
“I bet that wasn’t too fun for you,” I said as I stared into the flames.
“It was all I really knew. It might have been harder if I’d ever lived any different,” he said with a shrug. “And you don’t remember anything?” he asked. “Nothing before you came to Eden?”
I shook my head.
“No parents? No childhood friends?”
“Nothing. I know everyone has lost someone, but I don’t even remember there being anyone. People talk about electricity and running water in houses, but it’s just a story to me. A myth even. The world in Eden, the world of raids and running is all I’ve ever known.”
West looked over at me and I looked back at him, watched the flames dance in his eyes. “Maybe it’s better you don’t remember. Not everyone has had a happy childhood.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that as I looked back into the fire. Even though I didn’t feel cold often, the wind that gusted through suddenly shook me with a shiver. West draped an arm across my shoulders, squeezing me to his side. As he did, I felt something square and flat press into my side.
“What is that?” I asked him again as I indicated it.
“Nothing,” he said, suddenly tensing up. “Just… a connection to my past.”
I looked at his face for a moment, observed his dark eyebrows, the way they furrowed over his earthy brown eyes. His hair fell across his forehead in the unkempt mess everyone but Avian had. More secrets.
“We should probably get some sleep,” I finally said as I looked away from him.
“Good idea,” West said as he stood. We both kicked dirt over the dying fire until it was smothered. Even though it would be cold tonight, it would be dangerous to keep it going all night. It would be spotted easily from a helicopter above.
West helped hoist me up into the hammock and I pulled him in after me. Despite how uncomfortable and awkward I felt, we wrapped our arms around each other in an attempt to keep warm.
As West quickly drifted off to sleep, I felt myself relax. I considered the fact that I was going to be sleeping in the arms of the boy I wasn’t sure if I could trust and could hardly stand just a week or two ago. The fact that he had chosen to take off with me into dangerous woods with no hesitation washed away the majority of any doubts I had about him though.
And, for the second time in the last week, I was being touched in a way I never had before. While it didn’t have the safe familiarity Avian’s touch did, it still felt good.
I didn’t sleep more than a total of three hours. Every little sound made me jump, ready to pull my handgun out and unload it. West slept like the dead. Good thing I didn’t need much sleep.
We got moving long before the sun came up, as soon as it was light enough to make out the trees that surrounded us. We were quiet again as we moved, each feeling the seriousness of what was coming soon. The closer we got to the city, the more Hunters there would be.
We managed to keep out of sight of any Fallen that day and made camp far back in a cave that night. Not much was said and I silently wondered if West was regretting his decision to come with me. He was finally understanding just how dangerous this really was.
I doubted either of us slept that night, each thinking too much about what was to come tomorrow. We left before we could even really see at all. It was a widely speculated theory that the Fallen were stronger during the daytime. We would get there before the sun came up and woke the ranks.
It was always haunting, walking among the houses, feeling the pavement underfoot. This may as well have been an alien world to me. I think I still would have preferred my canvas tent to the brick walls. They seemed too much like a prison.
The suburbs eventually gave way to the rise of apartment buildings and offices.
We crouched behind a long abandoned car, the world foreignly silent. After I checked to make sure nothing was watching, I signaled to West, and we darted across the street to the pharmacy. Hugging the wall, we made our way around to the back of the building. As we stepped inside, I heard the whooshing of helicopter blades off in the distance. Gray color started to creep into the city.
The door had been busted in by Bill a few years ago. We’d cleared out the things we needed, things to reduce fevers, things to clean out wounds. I just hoped I would recognize the syringes Avian needed.
“Hurry,” I whispered as I looked around the building to make sure there wasn’t any sleeping Fallen inside.
“What are we looking for?” he asked as he hopped over the counter and started searching through shelves. I hopped over as well and started searching with him.
“The adrenaline was in a syringe,” I said as I headed to look toward the back. I noticed the fridges and opened one. It seemed a miracle that the electricity still ran in the building. The fridge was still cold. Row after row of vials and syringes greeted me. “Got it!”
We both scoured the labels, searching for any indicator of what we needed. I didn’t even understand what most of it was supposed to be. I felt my heart start pounding faster as the room lightened. They would all be waking soon.
“This is it!” West suddenly gave an excited hiss. “There’s… one, two, two of them.”
“That’s all?” I asked, feeling my stomach sink into my knees.
“Ya, I’m pretty sure,” he said as he checked again.
I grabbed the syringes from him and wrapped them in the cleanest shirt I had, packed exactly for that purpose. “Check for aspirin, anything that looks like we could use it. And hurry, we haven’t got much time.”
We picked our way through everything. I wished I could load up one of those long forgotten about cars outside and just dump the entire store into it. Even if everything was expired by several years, it could still help us.
“Come on,” West said as we double checked to be sure there was nothing left we might need.
We slipped out the back door. As we did, I picked up on the sound of the chopper blades again, this time sounding further away than earlier. They were heading out to scan the outskirts of the city.
The other pharmacy was five blocks to the east, all city with nothing but abandoned cars for cover.
I bit my lip, scanning the road for any signs of activity. I glanced at West, only becoming scared when I saw how white his face was.
“Let’s go,” I said before either of us panicked and did something stupid.
I bolted toward a bus that was sitting half in the middle of the road. West’s footsteps pounded softly behind me. My own adrenaline raced in my system, propelling me all the faster as I peeked around the bus, saw that the coast was clear and sprinted along the side of a skyscraper.
“You okay?” I asked as I stole a brief glance at West as we pressed against the side of the building.
He only nodded as he stared wide-eyed back at me.
I looked around the corner, keeping my body pressed to the cool surface of the side of the building. I caught sight of a woman walking in the opposite direction of us. Only half her head was covered with red hair that trailed to her waist. The other half of her head was shiny metal. I noticed her left hand had no flesh, only a cybernetic skeletal frame of fingers poked out of her long sleeved shirt.
I glanced at West, pressed a finger to my lips, then motioned for him to follow me. We both sprinted silently across the street.
There was only one block to go. I could see the pharmacy when something inside the bottom floor of a sky scraper caught my eye. I froze with stunned horror.
They were there, just as West told me they would be. Rows of Fallen inside the building, facing the windows, watching with inactive eyes. There were children with cybernetic legs, women with half faces, men with bare metallic chests. And they were just standing there inside. Waiting.
“Eve, come on,” a voice said urgently as it tugged on my arm. I had been pulled ten steps away before I managed to take my eyes off of them.
“Why are they like that?” I asked, panic filling my voice. How had I not ever noticed them like that before? “What are they waiting for?”
“Let’s not find out,” he said as he checked to make sure we were clear before we crossed the street. He grabbed my wrist and dragged me across.
I finally snapped out of it as we stepped through the large broken window. We went
to the fridge first this time. The electricity was still working in this building as well.
“Here we go,” West said. “Four… five… six. There’s six of them here.”
“Great,” I said as I wrapped them with the others. I stuffed the shirt back in my bag and set it down on the ground as I went to scour the shelves. “That’s got to be enough. I don’t think we’ll have to go to the other pharmacy. We probably couldn’t make it anyway with it getting this light. It’s across the city. Six or seven miles.”
There were bottles and bottles of aspirin, cases of allergy medication I hoped would help Sarah. There was probably something here for seizures as well, but I wouldn’t know what it was.
“Does it smell funny in here to you?” I asked as I followed the source of the strange scent.
“Just like an old abandoned building with breaking down chemicals,” he said as he stuffed his pack full of life-saving medication.
I wandered to the back of the building, into a utility room. A rusty looking water heater dominated the cramped space. Electric cables and lines ran in different directions, disappearing into the wall. This was where the smell was coming from.
A movement caught my eye outside the small window to my left. By then it was too late.
The glass shattered as the Hunter outside fired. The bullet brushed past my left shoulder, embedding itself into the thick metal side of the water heater. The spark of metal was small, and it wasn’t a heavy gas leak, but it was enough to cause the explosion.
“West!” I screamed as I ducked as the flames billowed out at me. “Get out of here!”
I could feel the oxygen being quickly sucked out of the building as the flames ate it up. I scrambled along the floor toward my pack. I couldn’t leave it here. It was the whole reason we had come.
“Eve?!” I heard his screaming toward the front of the building.