The Reaping

by Annie Oldham

  Jack smiles. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Red is a little trickier. He tries to stand, but his legs buckle underneath him. Jack and I have to carry him—and I’m disturbed at how light he is—onto the truck. We guide him to the back where Nell has already found a spot behind a stack of boxes. She’s half in shadow and disappears even further into the corner as we approach.

  “Lay him here, Terra.” She indicates a spot on the floor where she’s put down the blanket from her gurney.

  We lower him down and he mutters curses the entire time. I knew Red had some colorful vocabulary, but I haven’t ever heard quite this many expletives used in one long, run-on sentence. Nell gives him a stern look.

  “You clean that mouth up right this second, Red.” She looks at me. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, Terra.”

  “I’ve just never been so helpless in my life,” Red says, his breath coming short. He lays his head down, and Nell runs her hand down his cheek.

  “That’s why Jack and Terra are here. We’ll get you to San Diego and get you the help you need.”

  Red looks at us, a probing look that says, “You are aren’t you?”

  I nod and take his hand. Going somewhere safe.

  He raises an eyebrow. He looks skeptical, and I don’t blame him. We’ll see how it goes when I actually tell him where we’re going.

  I turn back to the doors, and the physician’s assistant closes one side. She gives me one last smile and then closes the other door, and we’re lost in darkness. The truck’s engine rumbles to life, but then the shouting begins.

  “Who are you?”

  Jack has been molded into my side, but now he sits up stick-straight.

  “Why are you wearing an agent’s uniform?”

  The woman’s voice is muffled, but I catch the pleading edge to it. She starts begging. I don’t need to hear the words to know this is going to go terribly, terribly wrong.

  Jack’s feet scrape on the floor of the truck as he presses himself as far as he can against the wall.

  “Why were you overseeing the loading of this truck?” The agent’s high-pitched, nasally voice slices through every sound around me.

  “They’re going to open it,” Jack whispers, and we crouch down as close as we can to Nell and Red. I can’t see anything in the darkness, and I feel like I’m breathing so loudly the agents can hear me all the way out there.

  The woman is pleading again, and I hear scraping against the doors of the truck like she’s trying to stop them from opening it. Then a dull thud and she doesn’t say anything more.

  The doors rattle and then a shaft of light breaks the darkness and swings wider. I pull my legs up to my chest. All I can see are the boxes stacked in front of me all the way across the truck. Please don’t search it. Please don’t search it.

  “Everything looks in order, ma’am.” It’s the same soldier who walked us over here.

  “Get in there and take a closer look,” the agent snarls.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Red’s breath catches in his throat and he starts to cough. Jack clamps a hand over his mouth.

  “What was that?”

  “Not sure, ma’am. I’m checking it out.”

  There’s a thump of boots as the soldier clambers in, and I close my eyes and listen to the slow pacing as he searches the truck, making his way back to where we hide.

  “Anything?”

  “Not yet, ma’am. It’s too dark in here to see much.”

  “Well take off your mask, idiot.”

  Scuff, scuff, scuff. He comes closer, and I press myself over Nell and try to shield her. She seemed so happy in the hospital. Granted, it was an obscene, false happiness, but she doesn’t know that. I can’t let her die this way.

  Finally, inch by inch, the soldier steps into view. He looks behind the boxes across from us, and then his head swings our way and he freezes.

  It’s dark back here, but not that dark. I know he can see us.

  I have seen only one other soldier without a mask on. That time I had been surprised at how young the soldier was. This time, I’m surprised at the kind face looking back at mine. I can’t see what color his eyes are in the dimness, but I see he’s a middle-aged man. He could be a father. He could have a daughter my age; he could have a son Jack’s age. Nell and Red could be his parents. I’m not sure what thoughts are running through his head, but his face isn’t anything I ever expected. It belies the rigid posture and the gun held up to his shoulder. He keeps the perfect soldier’s stance, but his face is soft.

  “What did you find?” The agent’s voice makes me jump, and I hold my breath as I stare at the soldier. Two long, interminable seconds pass—it could be a thousand years.

  “Nothing, ma’am.”

  I let out my breath, and I hear two sighs beside me. Jack and Red were holding their breath too. Nell is probably just so confused she has no idea what’s going on.

  “Then get out of there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I realize there are tears in my eyes as the soldier backs away. I hear the thump as he jumps from the truck. The doors close and encase us in darkness again. The truck’s engine groans and then we’re moving—bumping and swaying as we drive away.

  My heart aches that I’ll never know what happened to the physician’s assistant. Half of me hopes she isn’t killed for her disobedience. Half of me hopes she is so she’s spared any misery. And I hope the soldier gets to go home to a family.

  I never imagined I’d find people who work for the government who are truly kind.

  Chapter Ten

  The truck jostles us along for hours, with nothing but fuel stops to punctuate the time. The rear door never opens to let in time-telling daylight. My eyes adjust, though, and with the slivers of sunlight that creep in through a nook here and a cranny there, I make out the shadowed outlines of Jack, Nell, and Red. In the darkness, my fingers find a few water bottles and a few plastic packages of food. Jack and I have an unspoken arrangement that most of this will be for Nell and Red.

  “Come on, Terra. You need a drink too,” Red rasps.

  I take a miniscule sip just to appease him. Nell was weakened in the hospital, but after a good drink and some food in her, she perks right up. Red, on the other hand, can barely sit up.

  “Good, Red,” Jack says, and another food wrapper crinkles. “Now see if you can take another bite.”

  “I don’t understand why he’s so weak. The doctors told me he was in intensive care because they could take better care of him there.”

  “When was her last dose?” Red says.

  Jack sighs. “Probably twelve hours ago. She still won’t believe us.”

  “What are you two talking about?”

  I can just imagine Nell’s hands on her hips. I close my eyes and smile. Then I take her hand and squeeze it once.

  “You two are talking in riddles, and now Terra’s holding my hand like I’m a feeble old woman who needs some reassurance. Will one of you please just speak up?”

  “Red?” Jack says. He’s right. If someone is to tell her, it should probably be Red.

  Red tries to speak, but the words get caught in his throat. He coughs. “Nell, there’s no easy way to tell you, dear.”

  “Oh, stop it, Red. Whatever you have to say stop hemming and hawing.”

  “It’s the loyalty serum.”

  “What about it? You know that’s just lies and rumors the nomads told to make us afraid. We don’t need to be afraid.”

  Faint rustling, and the dark shape of Red’s arm moves from where he’s lying and onto her arm. “The serum is real, Nellie girl. That’s why we were in the hospital. That’s where they test it.” His voice is getting creakier as he continues, and I fumble a bottle of water into his other hand. He stops to take a drink. Nell waits patiently for him. “They got it to work on you.”

  “That’s impossible, Red, and you know it. They took such good care of me there.”

  Red sighs. “What did you
think when we were in the settlement?”

  “What everyone thought. That the government was out to get us.”

  “Did they ever prove you wrong?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “And when did you start changing your mind?”

  “In the hospital, after they took good care of me.”

  “When exactly did you start changing your mind?”

  There’s a pause, and the only sound is the creak and rattle of the truck as we rumble along. I wipe the sweat off my forehead.

  “I . . . I’m not sure. I can’t remember my first week in the hospital very clearly. After I got off the truck—I remember there were so many nomads on it—they put me in a room and took so many tests and drew so much blood, but they said they just wanted to make sure I didn’t have diseases.”

  I remember what Dr. Benedict told me about making sure I wasn’t going to make any of the other inmates at the labor camp sick. Of course I bought into it. They can be so convincing when they need to be.

  “After that, they told me I had a blood disorder they were going to treat. They brought in machine after machine and ran test after test. After another week, they finally brought in a machine with my medicine. After the first dose, I felt so much better. I could see that they were helping me. I could see—” She stops speaking. Then I hear a quaver in her voice. “It’s not true, is it?”

  “No, Nellie girl. It isn’t.” Red’s voice is so low and gravelly I can hardly understand the words.

  Nell’s voice breaks on a sob. “I desperately wanted it to be true. I still feel like it should be. Whenever I think about the doctors or the government or the agents, I think how misunderstood they are. How we made villains out of all of them. But when I stop and try to reason through it, then all the pieces don’t fit into place.”

  “You were given a dose every twenty-four hours,” Jack says. “So you might be confused for the next few hours. I’m not sure how long it takes to completely leave your system.”

  Nell’s breath slows. “I’m sorry if I make this difficult for you.”

  “Aw, Nell.” Red wraps his arms around her.

  “You don’t have the strength for that kind of hug, Red,” Nell says, and I can hear the laughter underlining her words. Then anger blazes into its place. “I don’t want to know what they did to you. And the entire time I just sat back and thought they were helping. They were helping, weren’t they? Those doctors are such nice people.”

  I pat Nell’s hand. The serum can’t wear off soon enough.

  We exhausted our water supply hours ago, and with the heat, I’ve sweated out every drop of moisture. The next time the truck stops, Jack scurries toward the doors. I grab his arm and hiss.

  “Don’t worry. I just want to see where we are. We can’t go much longer in this heat.”

  But I do worry. What if those doors just happen to be opened when he’s trying to see? I can’t see him, but then his hand is pressed against my cheek. His skin is hot and dry. He should be sweating, but he hasn’t drunk enough for that. I nod against his palm.

  “I’ll be fast.”

  His silhouette cuts across the line of silver moonlight that creeps through the crack between the two doors. He presses his face against that crack.

  “We’re in the city. Some of the buildings are lit up. We’re not at a fuel station. Maybe we’re nearing a security checkpoint.”

  “Which means they’ll search the truck.”

  I whip to Red’s direction. What?

  “They’ll search the truck to make sure what the drivers tell them is on the truck is actually on the truck. I saw it enough times at the Seattle supply drops.”

  “Then we need to get off.”

  “Thought you’d never ask,” Red says as he stretches his legs toward me. He groans.

  “Oh, Red, you can’t walk like that. Why aren’t we closer to a hospital? You said they’d give him better treatment, Jack.” Then Nell pauses, and I can tell she’s trying to fit the pieces back together again. “We’re not going to a hospital, are we?”

  “No, Nell, we’re not.”

  She sighs. “Then we have to move. Jack can help you; can’t you, Jack?”

  Jack is at her side in a flash. “Yes, but we have to hurry and we have to be quiet.” Red groans as Jack helps him up. “Terra, you help Nell.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. I think I can manage now.”

  “Nell—” Jack says, but Nell stops him.

  “Don’t you ‘Nell’ me. I’ll tell Terra if I need help. But Red’s worse off.”

  Jack and I each slip one of Red’s arms over our shoulders and we crab-step down the aisle between boxes to the doors.

  “There anyone behind the truck?” Red asks.

  “Not that I could see.”

  “For now, anyway.” Red coughs. “Listen, Jack. I’m going to do my best, but if I’m too slow—”

  “You won’t be too slow.”

  “If I’m too slow, you leave me, you hear? Leave me and get my Nell safe.”

  I shift uncomfortably in the stuffy silence.

  “It won’t come to that, Red.”

  “Safe, you understand?”

  Jack waits another long second before answering. “I promise, Red.”

  “Now you quit talking that way, Red,” Nell says as she comes up behind us to stand by the door. “We’re all going together.”

  “Love you, Nell. Always have, sweetheart.”

  “And don’t you dare go saying good-bye to me, either. Don’t you dare.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Jack peers through the crack again. “Still no one. Here’s what we’re going to do. I think we’ve made it through the perimeter fence, so we’re almost to the inhabited part of the city. I’ll open the door, we get off, and it looks like there’s an abandoned building just to the right. We make for that. We find a place to hide there, and then we think through the next step.”

  I nod. One step at a time.

  “Ready?” Jack says.

  “Yes,” Red and Nell say together.

  Jack unlatches the door and catches it before it swings open. He peers outside. “No one. I’ll jump down. Then we’ll get you off of here, Red.”

  He jumps from the truck and then turns to Red. I help Red sit down, and Jack and I help him slip from the truck. I turn to help Nell when the truck rumbles to life.

  “Hurry!” Jack hisses.

  I lower Nell down and Jack grasps her hand. Nell’s feet have just touched asphalt when the truck lurches forward. I cling to the door and watch Jack slip away from me. He waves me to him.

  “Jump, Terra!”

  I grip the door with both hands and focus on the ground rolling out behind me. Jack takes a step forward. “Hurry!” He doesn’t care now about people hearing us.

  The truck speeds past the buildings, and they’re all dark. The windows in some are shattered. It’s eerily quiet, like a ghost town. I thought Seattle was an anomaly—that a designated city would be bursting through the seams with people. But San Diego is just like Seattle. The outlying streets are vacant and looted, and the people must just be further in.

  I close my eyes, imagining all the stupid things I’ve done over the past year, and leap from the truck. I hit the ground and roll. The asphalt rips the shoulder of my shirt open, dirt sticks to my sweaty arms, and gravel digs into my skin. I gasp as rocks bite through my shirt. I roll to the side of the road and somehow manage to come to a stop in a crouch, and I watch the truck continuing on its way, the doors swinging open.

  I turn back and Jack is waving his arm for me. I stumble to my feet and run for the shadowy space along the sidewalk right next to the building. The night is silent, my feet slap along the pavement, and the sound echoes against the bricks and shards of glass. Surely someone will hear me.

  Hot blood trickles down my arm, and I press my opposite hand to my shoulder. The wound throbs under the pressure, but I ignore it. I’m almost to Jack.

  “Are
you okay?”

  I nod, and incline my head to my shoulder.

  “Let me see.”

  I move my hand, and it comes away wet. Jack leans closer.

  “I think it’s just a really good scrape. Let’s get off the street and I’ll take a closer look.”

  We each take one of Red’s arms and limp into the nearest doorway. Nell hobbles after us. How in the world are we ever going to get to the water like this? We’ll be lucky if we make it to the next building in one piece.

  Jack pulls aside the rusted metal sheet that hangs askew from two of its hinges. We slip through the opening into the musty smell of the building. There are remnants of carpet that has been torn from the floor, and some of the walls have holes in them. The holes expose the bones of the building, and I can see pipes running through it. There’s a steady drip, drip, drip somewhere in the building.

  Water, I tell Jack.

  He nods. “We can hope, anyway. Let’s get settled and then we’ll look.”

  We sink to the floor, and I’m still panting. Red’s breaths are coming out in rasps.

  He okay?

  Jack nods. “I think so. He just tires easily, which is understandable with how he was treated. He should be fine, though.”

  Nell crawls over next to Red and puts his head in her lap. “I love you, foolish man. Don’t ever talk like you did on that truck again, you hear me? We’re in this together.”

  The moonlight filtering in through the windows illuminates Red’s smile. “I promise.” Then his eyes flutter closed and his breathing deepens.

  “Let him rest for a while. We need to decide where we go next.”

  Water first. We won’t get far without it, and Jack and I have been depriving ourselves for too long now.

  “Alright. I’ll go. You stay with them.”

  Nell strokes Red’s hair. “Nonsense. You’ll both go.” Jack opens his mouth, but Nell holds up a hand. “There’s nothing either one of you would be able to do for us if you stayed. If you go together you’ll be safer and probably find water quicker. You know I’m right, so both of you just go.” She sighs and puts her hand to her forehead.

  “Nell?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m fine. I’m just starting to get a headache. Maybe it’s from the serum.”