by Amber Garr
As we reached the far side of the gates, it surprised me how quiet it was. There had been more activity closer toward the front, but now the back part of the city drowned in silence. A light fog had settled into the valley, causing the limited street lights to cast an eerie glow over what was left. Burned out buildings dotted the landscape, broken glass littered the ground
We’d crouched against the ground, using the overgrown weeds to hide us. “Okay. Let’s go in over there. Stay with me.” Max looked pointedly at Zach. “Both of you.”
Zach huffed when I nodded in agreement. Max jumped into action, dodging any wisps of lights that reached the outside perimeter and hugging the shadows like an assassin. With guns in our hands, we followed closely behind, stepping every place Max had as though he knew some secret route. Once we reached the gate, we bent down and held still until Max gave us the all clear. He pulled back the wire mesh to make the hole in the gate large enough for him to fit through. Zach grabbed it next but then ushered me inside first. I gave him an annoyed look and enjoyed seeing his smile when he responded.
Just as Zach stepped through the opening, lights from a vehicle started to get brighter as they came closer to us. It sounded like a large truck, the wheels crunching over shards of glass and building debris, the spotlight zigzagging back and forth looking for something. A red light flashed somewhere on the vehicle, sending streaks of hazy reds through the night.
“Get down!” Max whispered, pushing us both toward the brick building closest us. We crouched behind the back of building, but stuck our heads out to watch what was happening in the street. We were still covered in darkness, and as long as we stayed quiet, or they didn’t shoot their spotlight in our direction, we should remain undetected.
A few seconds later, the vehicle rolled into view. The size of a dump truck, the military transport vehicle had been converted into something similar to an ambulance. Complete with a flashing red light on top, someone from inside spoke mechanically through an intercom.
“Come inside for hot food, hot showers, and a decent place to sleep. All you have to do is enroll. Why suffer? It’s not worth it.”
“What the hell?” Zach breathed. I completely agreed with his sentiments.
“What is that?” I asked Max.
He kept looking at the street but I saw him shake his head. “Not sure. I think they’re luring deserters.”
“Luring them? Like fish?” Zach asked.
“It’s why the holes aren’t fixed,” I said, quickly putting the pieces together. “They’re expecting deserters to enroll in the draft.” I looked around again, taking in the surroundings with a whole new eye. “That’s why it’s so dark on this end. They’re giving the illusion of safety, but really they’re hoping we’ll come to them.”
“Vee, don’t be ridiculous,” Zach said but then Max quickly shushed him.
“Look,” he said and we both focused on the vehicle again.
It had stopped in the middle of the road, giving us a clear line of sight at the end of the alleyway we’d entered. Across the street, shuffling out of a dilapidated store front, four people emerged from the squander and made their way slowly to the vehicle.
“What are they doing?” I asked no one in particular.
“That’s right. How does a warm meal and a hot shower sound?” The intercom voice coaxed them closer.
“I don’t like this,” Zach muttered.
We watched as the four deserters cautiously approached the government soldiers. In the dim light, I saw that words had been painted on the side of the truck. Relief. Aid. Supplies. In spray paint. And the person who’d decorated the vehicle had terrible penmanship. There was no way this could be a legit operation.
But the deserters didn’t seem to care. With their ragged and torn clothes, no shoes, and gaunt frames, they hadn’t been as lucky as we had over this past year. In fact, I wondered how long they’d actually been on the run. If they’d come to Pikesville looking for supplies, they didn’t succeed. None of them carried a weapon or even a bag. Only the clothes on their backs kept them company.
And now they were willing to give up their freedom and join the draft just to make their lives easier. I dark pit of dread settled in my stomach. Something wasn’t right here. Something was off. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end. Not for any of us fighting back. Maybe those deserters didn’t know the danger of going with the soldiers. The rumors had been circulating since the first bombs went off—those who entered the government factories never came home.
When the first deserter, a woman I think, reached the front of the truck, five soldiers jumped out of the side door and surrounding the group. Their guns weren’t drawn, but their hands rested precariously close to their holsters. I knew the lady saw that.
“We just want some food and water,” she said with a voice stronger than I’d expected.
“Yes, ma’am,” the shortest soldier said. “We just need to take a quick sample?”
“A sample?” The three other deserters gathered behind her, eyes wide and clutching at each other like lifelines.
“To make sure you are clean of illnesses,” he explained with a smile. The red light continued to flash over the faces of the concerned deserters and the eager soldiers. “We’ve had some contagions in the local area, and we just want to make sure you’re cleared before coming inside the truck.”
The woman looked at her companions, a thousand silent messages passing between them. Finally, she spoke again. “How do we get tested?”
The soldier smiled and my warning instincts kicked into high gear. “What are they doing?” I whispered.
“A simple blood test. Just a few seconds and we’ll know,” the man said at the same time the other three soldiers pulled out a small, white plastic contraption that looked eerily similar to a small gun. “Just hold out your right arm…” he started.
The four deserters complied, pulling up their sleeves and letting each of the soldiers grab their wrists. In rapid succession, they each pushed the white plastic into the pit of the elbows and the machines made a hydraulic hiss just before each person reacted to the needle prick. With pinched brows, they rubbed their arms once the sample had been gathered and looked up longingly at the vehicle behind the soldiers.
“Can we go in now?” the woman asked.
The lead soldier was still looking down at his device, waiting for some kind of answer. A few seconds later his flashed green while the other three flashed red. He looked up at the woman and gave her a menacing smile that made my skin crawl. “You can, ma’am.”
A second later, the remaining soldiers pulled out their guns and executed the three deserters standing behind the woman. She screamed in terror, hands covering her mouth as she tried to decide who to run to first. I let out a gasp and immediately covered my mouth when I realized how loud that might have been.
“Vee!” Zach pulled me back into the shadows. He smothered me against his chest wrapping me in an embrace I wished could have erased the scene I’d just witnessed.
“What did you do?” the woman yelled. “What did you—”
Her question was cut off and I pushed away from Zach so that I could see again. The soldier who’d been speaking now had his hand gun pressed against the lady’s forehead. “You are coming with us,” he said, voice lowering to a sinister level.
“Why?” she asked in no more than a hushed whisper.
“Because we need you,” he said simply. “Now move.”
With the gun pointed at her head the whole time, the three other soldiers escorted her to the side door and shoved her inside. She glanced back at her dead friends and broke into a round of hysterical crying. I felt the tears run down my cheeks before I could stop them. What if that would have been the three of us? What if the soldiers executed Max and Zach right in front of me? I couldn’t even fathom the depths of the emotions I might feel if that occurred. All I could think about was how much more I hated the government now than I did just an ho
ur ago.
Once the woman was captured and the other three soldiers disappeared inside the vehicle, the lead soldier stood in the street alone. Reds flashed across his face, showing us the smug look that painted it. Suddenly, he turned toward us and I sucked in a breath. We didn’t move, despite out heads hanging out past the edge of the building, but a movement like that might draw his attention. For now, I assumed we were still covered by the shadows.
And sure enough, a few seconds later, he looked back at the bodies lying on the ground. Holstering his gun again, he made some kind of noise. And then he kicked at one of the dead deserters. Over and over, he kicked the corpse in the rib cage until he’d release whatever pent up rage he had. Max shifted beside me, and Zach squeezed my shoulder. There was nothing we could do for them right now, even though our instincts wanted us to act. When the soldier finally stopped, he tweaked his uniform until everything was back in place, and climbed back into the driver’s seat. A few seconds later, he put the vehicle in gear and started his slow drive through the streets again. A hunter stalking his prey.
We waited, frozen in fear until the last of the blinking red light disappeared deeper into the abandoned part of the city. Once we thought it was safe to leave our hiding spot, Max ran forward to check on the bodies. Zach and I followed closely behind, hugging the edges of the building in the short ally.
“Are they dead?” Zach asked.
I looked over at him in disbelief. “Of course they’re dead,” I said.
Max, crouched next to the body that had been kicked, let out a sigh. “Yeah. Head shots.”
There was a part of me, a sick and twisted part I didn’t like, that wanted to look. I think maybe the best tool in our survival kit was the ability to be desensitized to the violence. And the only way I was going to earn that kind of apathy was to see every piece of the destruction of our society. But when I focused on the bloodied mess, where pieces of skull and brain shimmered in the street lights, I almost hurled. What if that would have been Zach?
“Don’t look, Vee,” Zach whispered in my ear as he held me tight.
“Change in plans,” Max said once he stood. “You two stay here and I’m going to try and find a store I saw through the binoculars.”
“No. Wait—” Zach complained.
“This isn’t up for discussion,” Max said.
“But we might be able to find something along this street,” Zach continued to push. Apparently the earlier conversation with Max had left his brain.
Max looked at both of us, and then at the bodies on the ground. Finally coming to some kind of internal decision, he turned to face us. “Fine. But don’t leave this block and meet me here in two hours.”
“But where’s our backup meeting place?” Zach asked.
“Here,” Max growled.
“No. We need a plan B.”
“It’s a good idea,” I agreed.
Max’s gazed traveled past us back down the alley we’d been hiding in. “If I don’t see you here, I’ll meet you at the top of that hill. Where the trees start. Okay?” We both nodded and Max swung his rifle around to the front. “Stay hidden. Don’t fight. With anyone. Got it?”
“Yeah,” Zach said, since the command had really been directed at him.
“Okay. Meet you in two hours.”
I looked at my watch and noted the time. As Max dodged in between the shadows and out of sight, I wondered if that was going to be the last time we’d see him.
“He’ll be fine,” I told Vee when I saw her panicked face. “It’s Max. No one can kill him.”
She looked up at me in worry. “Let’s hope not,” she muttered. “This place freaks me out.”
I glanced down at the bodies and then immediately tried to erase that image from my brain. Having a goal would help both of us stay focused and not think about all of the horrible things we’d just witnessed. Especially the unnecessary deaths.
“What do you think they tested them for?” Vee asked. She’d dropped to the ground and looked at one of the deserters, a younger woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.
“No idea,” I said. I’d been trying to figure out what illnesses would have resulted in instant death, but nothing had come to mind yet. “We should start looking for supplies.”
Vee took another moment to stare at the dead deserter. I didn’t know what could possibly be running though her mind but I did know that we shouldn’t stand out in the open much longer.
“Let’s go over there,” I said, pointing to the next block.
“You heard what Max said.” Vee tucked her gun in the back of her pants and removed her sword from its makeshift sheath she’d slung across her back. “We should check out this block only and then wait for him.”
I waved my hands back in forth, taking in the street in front of us. “Do you see anything here? There’s nothing but burnt up stores and trash.”
“You don’t know that,” she snapped. “We’re going to check every building and then, if we have time, we can check on block over.”
I tried not to, but I smiled at her. I loved it when she took charge. Even though I’d never tell her that. “Fine,” I said, pretending to pout.
Just twenty minutes later, we knew that it was time to try and find something else. With this block being closest to the deserter holes in the fence, it had probably been cleaned out of anything useful a year ago. So we decided to ignore Max’s demands and went out in search of something that would make this trip worthwhile.
I led us to the end of the street where the buildings started to spread out some more. Then we turned left and headed toward the more central part of the city. This side, away from the front gate that served as a supposed supply station, was bathed in darkness and reeked of post-apocalyptic charm. Burnt chemicals, urine, and decay. Something skittered in underneath the rubble lining the streets and I caught Vee backing away.
“Probably just rats,” I teased.
“Great.”
After a quick glance down another abandoned street, I made a decision. “We need to go closer to the front of town.”
Vee stopped suddenly and turned toward me, her sword hanging by her side. “Are you crazy?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Zach, this isn’t the time to joke around. We’re not going anywhere near the government soldiers.”
“We need to get supplies.”
“We need to stay safe.”
I reached forward and put my hand on her shoulder. She looked at it and then glared up at me. “We’ll be fine.”
“You’re an idiot,” she mumbled and knocked my hand away.
“Vee, we can’t go back empty handed. They’ll never let us go on a supply run again.” Even though I wasn’t sure if that was totally true, I certainly didn’t want to let everyone down. After all, we’d just lost half of our people and many of our food and water supplies. We especially needed medicine.
Just as Vee was about to either argue or agree with me, a flashing red light caught our attention. “Oh no,” she whispered. “They’re coming back this way.”
I looked down the long, empty street leading eventually to the front of the city and the government-run supply station. In the distance, the same vehicle promising a better life rolled through slowly. My heart sped up while I tried to think of the best solution for what we should do next.
“We need to get out of here,” Vee said first.
“But—”
“Now, Zach. We can’t let them find us…” Her voice drifted off as she caught movement in the distance. “Oh no.”
I followed her gaze and felt my stomach drop in fear. The vehicle promising nothing good was still a couple of blocks away, but closer to us, several deserters had emerged from their surroundings and appeared to be running to the soldiers.
“What are they doing?” Vee whispered and she started to move toward the awaiting confrontation.
“Stop!” I growled and
grabbed her arm. She stumbled forward and I feared I may have hurt her. But I had to keep her safe. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“We have to warn them,” she yelled at me. “They don’t know it’s a trap.” Her panicked eyes focused down the street again. “We can’t let them get killed!” She pulled away from my grasp and took off at a dead run.
I sprinted as fast as I could to keep up with her, but she had too much of a lead. She waved her arms back and forth and shouted at the deserters who had almost made contact with the soldiers. I think the noise of the truck drowned out her warning calls because not a single one of them turned around. But Vee continued to yell…until someone attacked her and dragged her to the side of the street and into the darkness.
“Vee!” I shouted and ran faster than I ever thought I could. “Vee! Answer me!” As I reached the spot where she’d been taken, I frantically searched underneath the overhang of an old diner. There, in the shadows, I saw her struggling against her assailant, kicking and twisting trying to break free. “Leave her alone!” I screamed. Three more steps and I would be able to hit him.
“Stop shouting!” the guy hissed. He had one arm wrapped around Vee’s waist and the other firmly covering her mouth. She groaned underneath his grip but her attempts to speak went unanswered. “I’m not going to hurt her if you shut the hell up!” His dark forehead glistened with sweat, and something about the look in his eyes let me know he was telling the truth.
“You’ll convince me better if you let her go now,” I said.
Vee struggled again and the guy stuck his head our around the corner, looking at the commotion down the street. When he turned back around, he spoke directly into Vee’s ear. “It’s too late for them. See?”
I looked out of the darkness only to see that the deserters were standing still in the spotlights that now trapped them. With hands in the air, they were already surrounded by soldiers pointing guns at them. They were too far away to see faces, but I had a feeling I knew what the lead soldier looked like.
“I’m going to let you go, but you have to be quiet,” the guy whispered to Vee.