by Jamie Canosa
The hallways are all deserted, and every door we pass is shut tight as we make our way to the third floor. The entire level has been vacated besides us, and a bright red sign hangs over the double doors leading to the ward, warning, ‘Quarantine’.
“It’s the only way to keep your people off security’s radar,” Hixon explains when he catches me staring at it. “Even they’re not dumb enough to break quarantine. If there’s one thing we can count on, it’s their sense of self preservation. They’ll never know what’s inside these doors.”
What is inside are doctors, nurses, surgeons, machinery doing who knows what, pain medicine, clean bandages, and other supplies we’ve been sorely lacking. It definitely beats a bunch of bodies lying all over the guard’s quarters being held together by gauze and masking tape, that’s for sure.
It takes hours before everyone’s been examined. Some are moved directly to a separate section of the floor designated for surgeries, while others are made comfortable in their own beds. Officially, Peter and I are here for the next two days to help everyone get settled while the train moves on to pick up the workers in E. Unofficially, I have absolutely no idea what ‘getting settled’ entails, and everything seems to be under control, so we basically just try and stay out of the way.
When all is said and done, the sun is starting to come up, and I’m completely wiped out. Too exhausted to move another muscle, I collapse into one of the chairs in the waiting room.
***
Sleeping in a hospital waiting room is not something I recommend. I wake up tired, grouchy, and sore. Not a great combination, especially for me. I’m stretched out – as much as one can stretch out – on this dinky little mini bench thing clearly not meant for sleeping on. The hard wood digs into my hip bone, but my head is actually resting on something . . . not exactly soft, but definitely more comfortable. It takes me a moment to notice the knee in front of my face. A leg. My head is on someone’s leg? I roll my head back, about to rocket off the bench in a full blown fit of embarrassment, but what I see stills me. His head is tipped back so that I only have a view of his chest and the underside of his jaw, but it’s enough. I’d recognize Peter anywhere.
I lift myself slowly from his lap, careful not to wake him. Not that I really need to worry. The guy sleeps like the freaking dead. He looks so ridiculous sitting there, passed out, head and neck bent back at some awkward angle that’s probably going to hurt like hell when he wakes up and his mouth gaping open. It’s one of those moments when I really wish I had a camera on me. I afford Peter’s unconscious form one last glimpse, and can’t help smirking as I ease the waiting room door shut behind me. He’s such a dork, but a dork with a pretty comfy lap.
I bounce around for the next hour, checking in on some of the patients and asking doctor’s if there’s anything I can do. They all decline my help. Surprise, surprise. Eventually, I admit defeat in the effort to try to occupy myself, and head back to the waiting room. Peter’s finally decided to vacate dreamland, but doesn’t seem quite ready to rejoin reality, as he’s now engrossed in a book. At least I tried to be helpful.
“What are you reading?”
“Nothing.” He shuts what looks like a fantasy novel judging by the dragon on the cover and tosses it onto a small, round table. “Where have you been?”
“Helping.”
“Helping? In a hospital?”
“Well, trying to help.”
“I think they’ve got it under control, Leigh.”
“You seem relaxed.”
“There’s nothing left to do but wait for the train to come back for us tonight. Why not enjoy the break while we . . .” Peter’s interrupted by series of loud pops coming from outside the building.
There are moments in life that stay with you forever. Unforgettable instances that affect us so profoundly that they are never far from our minds. This is one of those moments. A month ago, I wouldn’t have recognized the sound, but now I’m devastatingly familiar with it. Gunfire.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. Stay here!”
Seriously, has that line ever worked on me? I follow Peter down stairs and right out the front door. Another round of gunfire is joined by an uproar of people screaming and shouting as they run past where we’re standing. At the end of the block, a whole troop of men in black uniforms turns the corner, wielding some of the largest guns I’ve ever seen.
“We have to get out of here.”
“What about the patients?”
“Leigh, they’re looking for us!” He dips his head so that we’re eye to eye. “Someone gave us up. The patients are about as well hidden as they can be, but if they catch us, they’ll have proof that the colony’s helping us. Then everyone will be in trouble. We need to get out of here. Now!”
The relentless popping grows louder as another troop of guards moves in our direction through the alleyway running alongside the hospital. Bodies drop indiscriminately all around them as they go. They appear to be aiming at anything that moves.
“Peter, I don’t think they’re looking for anyone. I think everyone’s already in trouble.”
I’ve never known this kind of hit-you-in-the-gut-and-take-your-breath-away terror before. This is a whole new level of fear than anything I’ve experienced in my life. Peter must feel it, too, because for a few moments, neither of us does anything but stare as they draw closer.
“Move,” he finally shouts, regaining his senses and grabbing my hand.
He pulls me behind him through a sea of bodies flooding the streets. Everyone’s running, everyone’s screaming. Peter clings tightly to me as we race toward the edge of town. I don’t know what we’re going to do once we reach it, but putting as much distance as possible between ourselves and the guards sounds like as good a plan as any. Havoc is too tame a word to describe this. My ears feel like they’re going to bleed from all the noise. The guns, the exploding glass, the screaming people: all of it combines into some kind of booming chorus of destruction all around us. It’s indescribable.
There’s a stitch in my side, and my legs feel like rubber by the time we reach the fence. My whole body has been screaming at me to stop for at least the last mile, but the guns at our backs serve as an excellent motivator. Beyond the fence, the landscape turns into solid forest. Everywhere I look, people are scurrying over and under and through the fence, disappearing into the trees. Several sections are loose and rusted through. It doesn’t take much pressure for Peter to snap a series of links away from a pole. The metal digs into my fingers as we pry it back just far enough to squeeze through. Good thing the local guards are so lax about our ‘protection’, since it actually ended up saving our lives in the end. Peter practically drags me at least another quarter mile into the forest. My lungs feel as though they may explode by the time he finally stops.
“Up,” he pants.
“What?”
He points up the tree beside us. It feels a little like trapping ourselves, but I’m not sure how much further I can run, anyway. He gives me a boost, and I haul myself up onto the lowest branch. Pulling Peter up proves more difficult than I imagined. He may not be Connor, but he’s no lightweight, either. With an exhaustive amount of pulling and tugging, I manage to get him high enough for his elbows to hook over the branch, and from there he hauls himself the rest of the way up. We continue moving upward as high as we can before the branches start to creak and bend under our combined weight.
From our perch in the tree, Peter and I look back toward the colony, trying to get a glimpse of what we left behind. It’s difficult to see much of anything through the foliage, but the gunfire is faint and only sporadic now. It feels like it’s winding down. That’s when we see the smoke. Flames lick the sky, visible even above the tree line. Something’s on fire, something near the center of the business district. What would they bother burning? Town hall maybe or—
“The hospital!”
Chapter 24
I know I’m right the minute I say
it. The only people left were those who couldn’t make a run for it. All of the workers, everyone I brought here. I don’t even get two feet lower in the tree before Peter stops me with a firm grip on my arm.
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“I can’t just—”
“Nothing,” he repeats sternly, refusing to release me.
He’s right, deep down I know that, but I can’t just sit here.
“Peter—”
“Leigh.”
His face reflects my grief, and I realize I’m not the only one who brought them here. I look out over the chaos and watch the plumes of black smoke drift up toward the sky on the lazy breeze. My hands are shaking so badly that there’s a very real possibility of me falling out of the tree. Peter carefully scoots me toward where he’s sitting with his back pressed up against the trunk, and his arms envelope me. I lean into him, knowing that he won’t let me fall.
For one horrific moment, I allow all the sights and sounds of what I imagine is going on down there to fill me up, consume me, shatter my heart, and make me want to claw my eyes out. Then I shut it off. We’re not out of danger yet. There are still soldiers down there. Will they follow us into the woods? Hunt us down? Just the thought is terrifying, and I sink deeper into Peter’s embrace. His arms tighten around me, and his breath brushes the fine hairs on the back of my neck.
“It’s not our fault, it’s not our fault, it’s not our fault—” His voice is so soft that I wonder if he’s saying it to me or himself.
If I’m going to hold it together, then I need to act, to keep moving. Peter grabs for me, but I slip out of his grasp and cautiously maneuver my way further up into the tree until I’m no longer convinced the branches can hold my weight. Anchoring my feet on a sturdy bough, I push up to standing, and look toward the colony.
A large number of guards linger along the fence line, but all of them are on the inside. It looks as though they’re setting up perimeter patrols, but none of them seem keen on the idea of following the escapees into the woods. I’ve been in these woods: I know there’s nothing scary out here. But maybe they don’t. Until I hiked them with Connor, I’d always believed there were some kinds of vicious beasts out here. Why else would they need those fences? But now I know the truth—those fences aren’t there to keep anything out. Maybe the soldiers don’t know that, or maybe they just assume we have nowhere else to go. They’re wrong.
Down below us a crowd is growing, and people are beginning to argue about what the guards want, what we should do next, if we should go back. When the arguments escalate into shouting matches, I know it’s time for someone to step up and take control of this situation before it gets completely out of hand. I guess that someone should be us since we’re the only ones that actually know what’s going on right now. I’m not worried that they won’t listen to me because I’m younger than most of them. One thing I’ve found is that in times of chaos, people are willing to listen to just about anyone who offers them a solution, even if that solution is completely ludicrous.
I slide through Peter’s arms as I drop from the tree, and he steadies me on my feet before letting go. Public speaking has never been my thing, but desperate times . . .
“We’re going to colony L.” My voice carries over the crowd better than I would have expected. Even more surprising is that it doesn’t shake at all, and I actually sound like I know what I’m talking about. Slowly, a hush falls as people listen to hear what I have to say. I never will get used to that. “There’s a train coming by here in the morning. They’ll pick us up and take us to L. You’ll all be welcome there. It may not be what you expect, but we’ll explain more on the way. The most important thing right now is getting out of here before the guards decide to finish us off.”
I think I may have touched on their deepest fear because everyone is dead quiet. Peter pulls me away from the others so we can talk in relative privacy. “What if they already took the train? They must know about it by now.”
“The train was long gone by the time they got here. They might know it’s coming, but I gotta believe they haven’t captured it yet. It’s our only chance, Peter.”
“If they know it’s coming, then what’s to stop them from taking it the moment it pulls into the station tomorrow?”
“It’s not going to pull into the station.” Peter’s forehead creases in confusion, and I wish he could keep up. We don’t have time to waste. “It’s going to take the express track around the colony. Then it can stop further down the line to pick everyone up.”
“Why would it do that? They don’t know anything about this, Leigh.”
“Because I’m going to warn them. I can slip around the outskirts of the colony and intercept the train before it gets close enough for them to stop it.”
“You are not sneaking past that entire horde of troops. Especially not alone. Leigh, you don’t have to—”
“Yes I do,” I snap before softening my voice. “Peter, someone needs to get these people to the tracks further away from the colony where the express line reconnects. I’ll stop the train before the colony junction, and then we’ll use the express line to come and pick you up without ever passing into the colony at all.”
“What if they catch you, Leigh?”
“Then the train will pull into the station according to schedule, and the troops will probably take it over. Then it’ll be your turn to come up with a plan.” I don’t have any more time to argue about this. “I need to go now if I’m going to make it the long way around the colony before dark.”
Peter scans the faces of the crowd still gathering not far off. He knows I’m right, I can see it in his eyes. I try to slip away before he can change his mind, but he snatches my wrist. I wait for his next argument to come, but he just stares at me before letting me go.
The gloom brought on by the thick canopy and drizzly weather seems helpful at first, but it doesn’t take long to realize it’s only creating more problems. I can’t move very fast without tripping over everything in my path, and the racket I’m making in the process is negating any stealth the obscurity has afforded me. You would think that after all the hiking Connor and I did in these woods, I would be better at it, but no.
I welcome the concentration it takes to pick my way through the undergrowth. If I didn’t have to focus so hard on where to place my feet, my mind would drift to other things I can’t afford to think about right now. Progress is excruciatingly slow, and darkness is starting to fall in earnest by the time I clear the far side of the colony’s perimeter.
Somehow, I manage to find the tracks. Technically, I trip over them, but I’ve found them nonetheless. The further away from the colony I can stop the train, the better, so I keep at it, moving along the rails until they begin to vibrate and a loud rumbling fills the air. About a mile ahead of where I’m standing the engine rounds a bend, headed straight for me. I position myself in the middle of the track, and pray the brakes are working. The sound of the whistle pierces the air, making me cringe. Someone is sure to have heard that. The brakes squeal, but my feet stay planted on the track.
Chapter 25
There are times in movies when you just want to scream at someone to move it, and you can’t understand why they don’t just get out of the way of whatever danger is headed in their direction. The stupidity of it all used to drive me crazy, but I understand it now. Fear that intense can literally be paralyzing. Lucky for me, the breaks are fully functional, and the engine comes to a stop well before it reaches me.
“Kaleigh?” Someone shouts from a side door. There’s no rule that says I have to know the name of every person that knows mine.
Two men pull me onboard, and I give them the quick version of events. We need to get moving. The whistle probably gave us away. As we speed past the colony on the express line, I go to a window to assess the destruction. The hospital’s still burning, but not much else seems to be damaged. A sudden shift in the wind fills my nostrils with the scent of smoke, and I barel
y make it to the bathroom before retching. I’ve got to hold it together, now is not the time for this. After rinsing my mouth out in the sink, I move to the engine to help the driver – an older man, who stepped up to the position after we took the train – keep an eye out for Peter and the others. I honestly don’t know what his name is, or anything else about the man, but as long as he can operate a train like a getaway driver, does it really matter?
They made it further than I expected. Nearly five miles from the colony, a large group of people are just sitting around at the edge of the tracks. Not very stealthy, Peter, but at least we’re able to get them on board quickly and get the hell out of there.
“You did it.” Peter finds me in a crowded passenger car where I’m fighting to remain upright.
“Yeah, I did it all right. I left with one group of refugees, and I’m coming back with another,” I muse.
“Leigh…”
“Peter!” I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier. “Your parents?”
“They’re fine. They’re here somewhere. I found them last night. Told them everything. I think my mom’s in shock, but they’ll get over it.”
I breathe a grateful sigh of relief. “Okay then, now we just need to tell everyone else the truth.”
“We can take care of that. Why don’t you go and get some rest?”
“You rest, I’m fine.”
“Leigh, why do you always have to argue? It’s getting late. Just go and lie down for a while. You’ve been at it for hours. Someone else can handle things from here. It doesn’t always have to be you.”
I want to argue, insist that it does have to be me, but my body seems to disagree with my mind. Besides, I’m not sure I can face any of these people right now. They’ve lost their homes, their lives, maybe even their loved ones—all because of me, and soon, they’ll know it. No, I can’t face them. Ashamed of my cowardice, I trudge down the train and into the first vacant compartment I come to.