Fatima looked at the ground. “You do have a point. I doubt this will absolve us of all suspicion, and I still think we might be missing something here, but I suppose there is little else we can do.”
Ehsan nodded and looked in the direction of the school. “I know this sucks, but we just gotta push through today. Prove ourselves and win Cecilia’s trust, that’s all. We have nothing to hide, so this’ll be easy, right?”
Fatima nodded without making eye contact and the two walked up the street. They didn’t encounter any zombies, but they remained cautious just the same. Ehsan scanned every window, every front yard, every fence, eager not only to look out for zombies, but for any signs of other humans as well. The further they walked, the more he began to think less about questions of their loyalty and more about whoever had drawn the crayon maps and knocked down the walkway. What if they were lurking around here? Were they friend, foe, or neither?
On the next street they saw a single zombie. He took it out easily. Afterward he scanned every single window on the street with great care, increasingly feeling like someone was watching them.
“I hope whoever drew that map isn’t here,” Ehsan worried.
That’s it!” Fatima turned to Ehsan with a look of realization on her face. “This is not just a test for us. If the people messing with the school have no connection to us, they might not have good intel on how many people are inside the school. They might think there are more people than there actually are. Meanwhile, they will see the two of us by ourselves. They can attack us while we sit out in the open, leaving the school safe. Cecilia and the rest of the group are probably at the ready right now, just in case they hear fighting.”
“Huh. Interesting thought.” Ehsan wasn’t convinced, but he had no better ideas. They continued their patrol on high alert. Only two zombies had made their way onto the street before the school. Ehsan felt even more like they were being watched, but he didn’t say anything to Fatima, whom he figured was already on edge enough. They took out the two zombies on the street with ease.
They walked to the end of the street and peered around the corner of the house that began the next street. Ehsan didn’t see anyone on top of the roof. His heart raced. Though he had worried for the school, hadn’t truly considered the possibility that Sarah wouldn’t be there. He turned to his sister.
“Shit, what do we do?” he asked frantically.
“We get a little closer and figure it out from there.”
“What do we do if it’s being attacked?” Ehsan asked. “Do we run back to tell the others, or run in to help?”
“We should gauge the threat and figure it out. If it looks like we can help, then we do. If it looks like a lost cause, we report to the others.”
“If we jump in, we can help make sure it’s not a lost-”
Before Ehsan could finish his sentence, he heard two loud whistles somewhere from the street in front of the school. The blood in his veins froze. He looked over at his sister, just as bewildered as him but making more of an effort to hide it.
“At the school!” Fatima shouted, pointing in the direction of the gate. Ehsan looked over. Four tall, barrel-chested men wearing baggy jogging suits and sweaters with hoods up ran up toward it. They didn’t look armed, but their intent was clear nonetheless: break into the school.
“We have to go back and warn-” Fatima began.
“There’s no time!” Ehsan interrupted. He grabbed his shovel and started to run toward the school, despite every part of his being telling him to turn back and run. “HEY, STOP!”
The men picked up their pace. Ehsan started to regret running in without getting the others, but it was too late to turn back. He thought he heard his sister say something behind him, but his adrenaline spiked so forcefully through his veins that he couldn’t process anything. He glanced back to see her running, too. He returned his gaze ahead to see that the group breaking in had already opened the gate and was in the process of moving the barricade furniture.
“HEY, STOP!” Ehsan repeated as they were about halfway up the street. “SARAH, WATCH OUT! PEOPLE ARE BREAKING IN!” Ehsan scanned the gate for signs of Sarah, but saw nothing.
The men stopped moving the furniture and froze. Ehsan didn’t understand why, but his mind wasn’t in a state to contemplate such questions. He kept running, clutching Dragon Hair with all his might, almost to the school’s lawn. He then heard two more loud whistles from somewhere behind him. He halted and planted his feet. Was this a setup? Had they stopped because they had only been trying to lure Ehsan and Fatima out? Ehsan and Fatima quickly exchanged glances, then looked around for the source of the whistle. Before he could locate it, he heard a familiar voice yelling at him from one of the windows.
“It’s okay, guys! Those aren’t bandits!” Ehsan looked at the second-story window three houses away from them to see Sarah peeking out, cupping her hands by her mouth to yell. “They’re boxers from the clinic!”
Ehsan looked over and saw the men standing by the front of the school had turned around and lowered their hoods. Ehsan recognized Hector, the nerdy boxer they’d met the previous day at the clinic. He avoided eye contact with Ehsan, and Ehsan could see shame engulfing his face.
“What the hell is going on?” Fatima yelled to Sarah. Sarah disappeared from the window. Fatima raised her knife and Ehsan did the same with Dragon Hair. “Ehsan, I’ll watch Sarah. You watch the boxers.”
Ehsan nodded and stood ready. Moments later, he heard a door open and close behind him. He quickly glanced over to see Sarah exit the house with her hands up in surrender, her eyes looking straight ahead but seeming like they wanted to be looking anywhere else, an odd mix of guilt and determination on her face. He immediately returned his focus to the boxers, who remained by the gate without moving.
“Explain. Now,” Fatima commanded, pointing her knife at Sarah. “What the hell is going on here? Are you working with the clinic to take over the school?”
“No, this was a test.” Sarah smiled apologetically. “And you passed.”
“Excuse me?” Fatima shouted.
“I was following you the whole time, ever since you left this morning,” Sarah elaborated. She rubbed the back of her neck. “Cecilia asked me to. She also asked the boxers to come over this morning before you two woke up, before pretty much anyone had. They’ve been waiting across the street all morning.”
“I see,” Fatima replied flatly.
“Cecilia purposefully gave Ehsan lookout duty so I could see if he’d try to communicate with anyone,” Sarah continued. Ehsan turned around to face her. “She asked you two to patrol for the same reason. She told me to watch you the entire time, looking for any sign you were communicating with others. I saw that you weren’t, so when you reached the street, I whistled twice. Had I seen you communicate with anyone, I would’ve only whistled once.”
Ehsan’s jaw began to quiver and his face started to burn. He had thought Cecilia’s plan was odd, but he didn’t realize how deep the distrust went. He clenched his jaw and looked at the ground. He wanted to run away and find somewhere to hide.
“So,” began Fatima, whose voice shook, “you were all in on this? None of you trusted us?”
“No.” The mixture of guilt and determination that’d been on Sarah’s face also found its way into her voice. “It was me, Cecilia, Ryan, and Josue who came up with the plan last night. We’re to blame. We told Manuel the boxers would be there ‘cause we knew he’d worry about his kids otherwise, but he didn’t know why they were there.”
“What about Deon? Julie? Mateo?” Fatima asked, still trying to keep a tough front.
“No, they didn’t know.”
“Why?” Fatima demanded. “Why not get everyone in on it?”
“We figured…” Sarah’s voice broke. “Well, Cecilia figured you’d be suspicious if no one raised a sincere objection to leaving the school so vulnerable. Plus, with Deon and Marcus being relatively new, we couldn’t rule them out, either. Mateo was sick,
so we didn’t see the need to get him involved, and Julie was gonna be inside with the kids all morning, anyway.”
Fatima remained silent. Ehsan continued to look at the ground.
After what seemed like hours but was only a few minutes, Sarah spoke again, once more rubbing the back of her neck. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t like the idea. But we figured it’d be easier in the long run to do a big test like this, rather than let the doubt fester. I mean, you two aren’t stupid. You know how it must’ve looked, with everything starting right after you joined. We wanted to trust you, but had to make sure we could.”
“I get that,” Fatima conceded. “I just… it hurts. I get needing to trust us, but this was drastic.”
“I understand,” Sarah responded as soothingly as she could. “If you need space or something, just let me know. I’d be upset, too.”
Ehsan heard footsteps and glanced up to see the boxers walk up toward them. Ehsan saw Fatima look them straight in the eye. “What?” Fatima demanded.
“We don’t regret doing this, but we’re sorry, too,” replied one of the boxers. “Hector vouched for you guys, but we had to be sure. We know you even less than the people here do.”
Fatima paused. “I understand. None of you have spent more than five minutes with us, you have no reason to trust us.”
“Thanks for getting it.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “If it makes you feel any better, we brought Hector for a reason. He wanted us to be totally sure that you guys were bad before he’d allow us to do anything.”
“It does a little, yeah,” Ehsan admitted, finally speaking. He and Hector exchanged awkward eye contact. “But why’d you leave the clinic almost unprotected?”
“Our best fighter is on guard duty over there,” the boxer informed him. “He’s worth ten of us in a fight. Still, now that we’ve got this out of the way, we’re gonna head back.” The boxers departed, jogging at a light pace to return to the clinic.
“I know I said it before, but I really am sorry,” Sarah reiterated. She rubbed the back of her neck. “And you two really did impress me.”
Fatima didn’t respond to the apology. “I have one more question. Why pretend to have the boxers break in? If they were just here for defense, then why have the fake attack?”
“Cecilia figured that, while we were at it, we might as well see what you’d do if someone were breaking in. She wanted to make sure you two wouldn’t try to join them.”
“I see.” Fatima’s voice contained a tangible blade of anger. “Don’t you think that part was a bit much? We showed we had nothing up our sleeves by not communicating with anyone. Why the extra test?”
“Cecilia said that there was still the chance that you were in on something suspicious, but just weren’t able to communicate with others because of happenstance. If you risked your life to protect us, though, you’d prove your loyalties for sure.”
“I see,” Fatima repeated, the edge of anger in her voice dulled but still present. “Well, I suppose we proved our loyalty, then.”
“Yeah, you have,” Sarah agreed. “I’m sorry again.”
Once more, Fatima didn’t respond to the apology. “We need some time.”
“Of course. Cecilia said that, if it turned out you two were good, to give you all the time you need. She’ll come apologize after the bridge is done.”
“Alright,” Fatima responded. She and Ehsan exchanged glances. “I think we will wait outside until they come back. I want to avoid the school for a bit.”
“Yeah,” Ehsan agreed, still avoiding eye contact.
“Understood,” Sarah said with a look of concern on her face. “Y’know, I do think you two earned the right to know else something, though. Something I’ve only told Mateo and Julie before.”
“What is it?” Fatima asked coolly.
“Yesterday you asked me if we ever had any trouble with newcomers.” She cleared her throat. “Honestly, the biggest trouble they ever had with one was me.”
“What do you mean?” Fatima leaned forward slightly, her brooding subsiding momentarily.
“Well, when I first joined, I didn’t plan on sticking around.” She turned red. “My plan was for me to wait a couple days for everyone to drop their guard. I was gonna leave with as much supplies as I could carry and never come back.”
“So what happened? You have a change of heart or something?” Ehsan asked.
“I’d love to say that I did. Honestly, though, that’s not what happened.” She grimaced and shrugged. “I stayed ‘cause I was impressed with how well they’d set everything up. Before coming here I just scavenged. I saw a lot of fallen groups during that time. But, when I got to the school, I couldn’t help but notice how well everyone seemed to be doing. So I just sorta… stayed. No dramatic moral revelation, no selfless change of heart, nothing like that. I just stayed here ‘cause it seemed like the best choice. Only afterward did I start to care about everyone else.” She looked back toward the school. “Anyway, I’m gonna go back to the school to stand watch. You can hang out on the porch of one of the houses on this street, it should be pretty safe right now.” She glanced back one more time. “Once again, though, I am sorry. Honestly, I would’ve deserved this much more than you two.”
Unsure of how to respond, Ehsan looked to Fatima, who looked at the ground. They walked toward the middle of the street, searching for a suitable porch. They saw a one that had two plastic chairs that seemed to be in better shape than any of the other porch furniture on the rest of the street. They walked up and sat down.
Ehsan tried to process everything that had just happened. He still had trouble believing Cecilia had planned such an elaborate trick. He understood the need to check his and Fatima’s loyalty, but the sting of how far she went felt like a punch to the gut from one of the clinic’s boxers. He rubbed his thumb after setting down Dragon Hair, an old anxious habit of his whenever he had nothing in his hands.
“I cannot believe I liked her,” Fatima muttered as Sarah walked back to the school.
Ehsan put his hand on his sister’s shoulder. “I’m sure she still likes you. You’ll be back to being friends soon.”
Fatima said nothing. The two of them waited for the rest of the group to return. Ehsan hoped they would take a long time. He kept trying to quiet the emotional part of his brain to assess the situation logically. During the hour or so that followed, he kept himself busy by letting his mind wander to other topics, or rather forcing it to, as it kept floating back to the loyalty test anytime he let it wander too freely. He wondered about whoever was messing with them, then thought back to Costco. He wished he could go back. He wanted more than anything to return home.
When the walkway group came back with their tools, Ehsan scanned carefully to see how everyone looked. Deon looked upset. Manuel looked troubled. Ryan looked mildly embarrassed. Cecilia and Josue seemed like their normal selves.
“Hey,” Ryan said to Fatima and Ehsan as they stopped in front of the house.
“Hey,” Ehsan reciprocated flatly.
“Y’all, I didn’t know shit about their schemes,” Deon informed them as he approached. Even with his dark skin, Ehsan could tell it was reddening.
“We know, Sarah explained it all to us,” Fatima assured him. She turned to Cecilia. “All of it.”
“So you two done crying about it, then?” Josue asked, with the same amused yet annoyed smile he had shown the previous day. “You know what they do in the marines to test your loyalty? A lot worse than this.”
“This ain’t the marines,” Deon shot back before Ehsan and Fatima could reply. “Y’all are out here playing games with people, I don’t like it.”
“Pussies of a feather flock together,” Josue fired back.
“Guys, c’mon, this really isn’t-” Ryan started.
“No, fuck that,” Josue interrupted. “Suspicious shit happened when they join, and we’re just supposed to just pretend it’s a coincidence? We tested them, they came through, it’s al
l good. We can either celebrate with them or they can cry about it, it’s their choice.”
Deon looked like he wanted to say something, but Cecilia spoke first. “I apologize,” Cecilia said to Ehsan and Fatima with uncharacteristic earnestness. Her opening choice of words surprised everyone. “I needed to make sure I could trust you. Nothing like this has ever happened to us. This is the first time we have ever done something like this, and hopefully the last. But we had to be sure.”
“I suppose I understand,” Fatima acknowledged. Ehsan could see that Fatima was starting to come around, albeit reluctantly. “I also hope we never have the need for this to happen again, either.”
“I’m going back to lookout duty before I catch some sort of vaginal disease,” Josue said to disgusted looks from Fatima and Deon. He stormed off toward the building.
“I’m gonna go join him,” Ryan decided. He turned to Ehsan and Fatima. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. Yer probably tired of that ‘we had to do it’ line by now, so I’ll just leave it at that.”
With that, Ryan walked back. Manuel and Deon also decided to return to the school so that they could continue gardening. Both looked eager to leave the conversation, though for very different reasons. That left Ehsan and Fatima with Cecilia, who looked like she had more to say. Ehsan wished she would’ve walked back, too.
“So, where do we go from here?” Cecilia asked. “If there is something I can do to make you two feel better, I am listening.” Her stern expression softened ever so slightly. “I truly did not enjoy doing that. If I can do something to help you two feel better, let me know. All I can say for now is that I absolutely trust the two of you. You proved yourselves beyond a shadow of a doubt earlier, and I do not take that lightly.”
“Thanks,” Ehsan replied. Her words comforted him slightly. He turned to his sister. “What do you think, Fatima?”
The Human Spring Page 14