Inside

by Kyra Anderson

  Once we were far enough away from the convenience store to be unable to see the building in any detail, we slowed and caught her breath.

  “You better tell the others that we have to move through the night,” Clark insisted, licking his dry, cracked lips.

  “I don’t think that they thought of us as a threat, or as criminals,” I said, shaking my head as we walked over the sand in the direction that the others were waiting.

  “Doesn’t hurt to be cautious.”

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Our luck continued to hold. I began to believe that we had managed to not be spotted by the two men in the black car by some miracle. When we returned to the bushes where Jeff and Jessica sat, I expected to meet a furious Mark. However, he had still not returned.

  Of course, once he did rejoin us, seeing the new supplies, we had to explain what we had done and what we had seen in the convenience store. He was clearly livid, his nostrils flaring and his eyes boring into us with the anger that a parent has toward their misbehaving children.

  Before Clark could even suggest it, Mark insisted that we walk through the night to put as much distance between us and the little town as possible.

  I knew Mark was angry, but I could not stop the blooming pride in my chest at our accomplishment. It felt good to have taken such a risk and had been rewarded for it. Being able to wrap Jessica’s wound in a larger bandage and giving everyone something new to eat made me feel proud.

  Mark seemed even more on edge than ever before, though I attributed most of the attitude to his fury at me and Clark for putting ourselves in such danger. He was constantly looking over his shoulder, his hand occasionally going to rest at his gun when he felt particularly threatened by something none of us could see or hear. However, his tension was getting to all of us. Soon, we were all feeling a bit paranoid about who could be following us, even though we did not see or hear anyone.

  We manage to get to the next safe house in two days. However, rather than assure us that we were safe, the people who owned the house were just as nervous as Mark.

  “We’d love to do more for you,” the man said, a nervous edge in his voice. “But this town has been crawling with Commission employees and officials looking for you guys. Unfortunately, I think the best we can do is give you some food, water, and a little bit of time to sleep until nightfall. But it’s probably best that you try to move when it’s dark outside and get out of town.”

  As we rested through the afternoon, Clark and Jessica sleeping, Mark, Jeff, and I brainstormed ways we could get to the border with so many officials trying to capture us.

  “Moving in the dark will be an advantage, keeps us from being seen,” Jeff noted.

  “Except that any movement seen after curfew hours will immediately be suspicious,” Mark explained on his quickly-dwindling notepad pages.

  “Would it be better to find a safe place to lay low for a while?” I asked.

  “We don’t know the area,” Jeff said, shaking his head. “If they found us, we be sitting ducks.”

  “Getting across the border creates a difficult situation for the Commission to find and capture us,” Mark added. “Getting across the border would allow us an extra layer of protection, since international laws will slow Dana down.”

  “I don’t want to put this family in danger,” I said strongly. “Perhaps we should leave before it gets dark, just so that it doesn’t seem quite as suspicious for us to be hiking.”

  “That’s suspicious, too, though,” Jeff grumbled. “This place is a barren wasteland. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for people to be camping out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “We could always say we were looking at the stars away from the city lights,” I suggested.

  “If someone gets close enough to ask us that, we’re as good as caught,” Jeff said quietly.

  Mark drummed his fingers along the paper before writing once more.

  “I have a feeling that, no matter what we do and no matter which route we take, we’re going to have the Commission directly behind us. Maybe even already in front of us already.”

  “So what do you want to do?” Jeff asked.

  “I think the only thing we can do,” Mark wrote, “is to try and handle each situation as it arises.”

  As soon as we had rested out of the heat and regained a little bit of our strength, the family gave us a few more non-perishable foods that we could take in our backpacks and filled our canteens and bottles with clean water. They then offered to drive us to the city limits, where there was a drive-in movie lot where we could sneak easily out of the vehicle and to the side of the parking lot, allowing us to disappear into the surrounding landscape as the family pretended to watch a movie.

  We all piled in to the covered bed of the man’s pickup truck, remaining flat on our bellies and trying to pretend we were not there at all. The man drove out of his neighborhood and onto the freeway, where we bounced in rolled in the old truck bed, unable to find much to hold onto for stability. But once he turned off the freeway, it was only a few short minutes before he had stopped in the parking lot of the drive-in movie theater. We heard him talking to the attendant of the parking lot before he rolled forward and parked.

  I sat up and spared a glimpse out of one of the small windows in the side of the covered truck, seeing that there were a few old cars, even fewer new cars, and several different trucks of different sizes and shapes, all gathering for a summer horror film that was playing at the retro drive-in theater.

  The driver slid open the back window of the cab and then the window into the back of the truck to talk to us.

  “What one of the other groups did,” he explained, pointing, “was climb into the cab and get out of the passenger side one by one every 10 or 15 minutes, pretending to go back to the concession stand and get some food. There’s a billboard in the empty field just off the side of the freeway. You can’t miss it. You could probably gather around that and keep going from there.”

  “How busy is the freeway, though?” Jeff asked. “We need to stay as far away from civilization as possible. Particularly, if there’s so many officials lurking around.”

  “The only thing further south of here is the old cemetery,” the man explained. “After that, it’s open range land. Shouldn’t be too hard to disappear.”

  “I doubt they’ll be patrolling a cemetery much,” Clark agreed with a nod. “Okay, so we need to get to the billboard and regroup, then get past the cemetery, and then try and get as far away from the road as we can. I think we can do that.”

  “I’ll get out first,” Jessica offered.

  “No, I’ll go,” Jeff said.

  “I should go first,” she insisted, her tone strong. “We don’t know how close any of the officials are to this area, or if they’re watching from the freeway, or even worse, if there are any around this theater. I’m already hurt and I move slower than the rest of you. I should go first, just in case it’s not safe.”

  “We don’t do any of that sacrificing yourself for others shit,” Jeff said strongly. “Just because you’re injured doesn’t mean that you’re some sort of liability. Let me go first and I’ll keep an eye out for anybody who might be watching.”

  The background music of the summer horror film began to play and added to the tension that the two were clearly feeling.

  “I am not sacrificing myself,” Jessica snapped. “I want to get across the border just as much is you. But I’m also not some baby that needs to be coddled just because I got hurt. Let me go first, scout the territory, and I will meet you at the billboard.”

  Jeff stared at her for several long minutes before hanging his head and nodding once.

  “Okay,” he agreed.

  Jessica carefully maneuvered herself through the small window and into the cab of the truck where she reached over her shoulder to grab her bag from Jeff. She placed it on her shoulders and then thanked the man, shaking his hand before getting out of the truck and closing the door behind he
r.

  I watch through the dark windows she walked around the truck and made her way through the cars to the back of the parking lot, where there was a brightly-lit concession stand. However, she walked past the stand toward the bathrooms at the very far end of the lot, where I lost sight of her in the dark shadows of the desert.

  “Seems like she made it out of this area just fine,” I noted, though it was impossible to tell if there were any figures waiting just beyond the dark limits of the drive-in movie theater.

  “I’ll go next,” Jeff insisted. Mark nodded in agreement.

  In the same fashion, Jeff climbed into the truck cab, however he waited for fifteen long minutes, watching the movie play out on the giant screen before he, too, got out of the car and walked to the end of the parking lot, though he was sure to take a different path than Jessica through the cars to limit suspicion about multiple people filing out of the same truck.

  I insisted that Clark go next, and once he had made it out of the area, it was nearing halfway through the movie when I was able to also leave the truck. Mark gave me a stern look, as of warning me not to do anything else stupid to irritate him. I knew he was more sensitive to me taking risks after narrowly avoiding me being captured by Dana, but I wanted him to trust me a little more with my decisions and my ability to survive such high-stress situations, so the look irritated me a little.

  As I exited the truck, I maneuvered easily through the cars, glancing back at the movie as if I was really interested in the storyline, even though I found it quite cliché.

  I walked past the concession stand where a bored teenager was watching the film rather than what he was supposed to be selling. I passed his stand and went toward the bathrooms, walking past them and into the dark landscape. It was difficult to see at first, but as my eyes adjusted, I was able to see the small hill beyond and the top corner of a billboard on the other side of the hill.

  The billboard was dark underneath, the lights illuminating an advertisement for dental surgery to repair crooked teeth. I walked briskly over the sand, weeds, and sun-fried grass to the bottom of the billboard where Clark, Jeff, and Jessica were waiting.

  We only had to wait ten minutes before Mark also showed up to take the lead for us once more, moving us away from the billboard. We walked within sight of the freeway, trying to orient what direction we were going.

  We started getting further and further away from the highway, but Mark’s anxiety only seemed to grow rather than diminish. Because of the dark desert and the light of the distant freeway that barely penetrated the shadows, we did not see the old cemetery until we were practically on top of it.

  We reached the north fence and were able to see the barely lit-up entrance on the west side, which allowed access to the old graves and mausoleums dedicated to heroes of the second revolution and all those had come before us.

  Mark began walking along the fence, heading towards the back of the cemetery, hoping to walk around it. But the cemetery proved to be much larger than we anticipated. Soon, it was almost impossible to see, but the fence continued to block our journey south.

  Frustrated, the leader of the Eight Group finally sighed and studied the large iron fence as of trying to find a way to get into the graveyard.

  “Mark,” I said seriously. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll just keep going along the fence. Eventually it has to end, right?”

  His nervousness was starting to get to everybody, and we all began jumping at the sounds of our own feet brushing over the grass and shrubs. For such a small town, the graveyard was much bigger than I anticipated and I began to wonder if the fence would ever end. I started convincing myself that we had somehow turned ourselves around and we were going a different direction, unable to see the path in the dark.

  Mark suddenly stopped, holding up his hand to the rest of us, his entire body tensing.

  We were clearly in danger. Mark’s entire demeanor changed and we all had to listen carefully for what spooked him. Not far from our location, I heard the sound of an engine drawing closer. The tires sounded as though they were moving over a dirt road rather than asphalt.

  We all looked around quickly, trying to see the headlights of the vehicle that we heard approaching.

  As it got closer, I was able to discern that the engine was not one used for small maintenance or security. It was a big car, perhaps even an all-terrain army vehicle.

  Mark motioned to the graveyard fence, instructing us to immediately climb over it.

  No one hesitated, all of us finding different spots of the ornate, iron fence to grab onto, contorting our bodies so that we were able to move our legs into position and climb to the top. There were spikes along the top of the fence that we had to carefully maneuver around, though some of us hissed in pain when our legs caught on to though the sharp metal. I even managed to cut my thigh trying to pull my second leg over the other side of the fence. The pain was so sudden and surprising that I immediately had to bite my lip to keep from making a noise. However, the pain also disoriented me and I lost my grip, falling to the ground of the cemetery my legs hitting the fence with a loud bang.

  Hitting the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of me, it took me a while to realize that someone’s hands were yanking me upright and pulling me further into the graveyard. Finding my footing again, adrenaline fueling me, I ran with the others among the scattered headstones, trying to find large ones to duck behind. However, as we moved, flashlights began passing over the area and barked orders could be heard from all sides.

  We began to run together, trying not to yell at one another to keep going, or turn left, but rather whisper hurriedly, hoping that we had not been spotted and only heard. But our quiet whispering was shattered by the sound of several bullets being fired. My entire body tensed not sure if I had somehow been shot even though I felt no pain, stunned by the sudden cacophony.

  We managed to get a little further into the graveyard, heading toward the largest mausoleum when another hail of bullets came over us. I hand against my head pushed me to the ground, forcing the air out of my lungs once more. I flinched at every gunshot, my heart beating so fast I was sure it was about to explode.

  The bullets stopped and everything remained very still, trying to listen for anyone approaching.

  I heard the mechanical screech of the main gates being opened, the loud, groaning of metal filling the dark stillness of the graveyard. I looked to one side, inching forward on my belly to peek around the nearest headstone, where several pairs of headlights moved into the main parking lot, an area that was far too close for comfort.

  We were trapped—how fitting that we had would be captured in a graveyard.

  Mark tapped my shoulder, causing me to jump and turn to him. He was on his hands and knees, motioning for me, Clark, and Jeff to follow him. I looked around, trying to spot Jessica, but all I could see was her dirty blonde hair motionless on the grass between the gravestones. Cold realization hit me.

  Before I had a chance to wrap my head around the fact that Jessica was dead, Mark tapped me again and motioned to follow him. I also got on my hands and knees and crawled behind him as we moved among the gravestones, trying to remain silent and unseen, even as sounds began to surround us.

  We managed to get to one side of the mausoleum, stopping to press our backs to the cold stone, listening carefully.

  “Anyone got eyes?” one man called.

  “No, sir,” another man replied. “But we got a perimeter.”

  My heart sank.

  We were surrounded.

  While our ears strained for any noise that would indicate how far away they were, I watched Mark intensely, knowing that he was trying to find any angle that could get us out of the cemetery alive.

  His eyes were darting all over the place, assessing each element of his surroundings, listening for noise that would indicate a weak point in the perimeter, or the direction it would be most likely we would be attacked.

  When his head swung violently to
one side, I tensed. He motioned for us to follow him once again, and we rounded the corner, crawling to a door, which he tried to open only to find it locked.

  He studied the lock for a moment and then looked to the ground, finding a large rock from the planter bed next to the door and throwing it with all of his might across the graveyard. It hit one of the headstones with a resounding crack. Almost instantly, the sound of gunfire followed. He drew his gun, and shot the lock of the door pushing it open and allowing us inside, the gunshot masking the sounds we made.

  Our footsteps were much louder on the marble floor of the mausoleum as we passed by each plaque with the etched names, the scent of roses and other flowers filled our nostril as we passed by the more recently-visited graves. It was cold, and only the lighting around the emergency exit doors allowed illumination inside the large memorial. I hoped desperately that Mark had some semblance of a plan, because I could not see how it would be possible to hide in the building. However, the experiment seemed far more comfortable inside the building, so I stuck close to him.

  Mark rounded a corner and yanked us with him, putting us further into the hallway as he pressed his back to the grave placards on the corner, peering around the edge to see if anyone was coming. It seems like ours that we remained in the silence of the cold, marble-lined halls.

  There was a click and then the whine of a hinge as one of the doors opened. Every muscle in my body tensed.

  Slow deliberate footsteps could be heard, and after ten paced, they stopped, plunging us into another, eerie silence once again.

  “Little Lily…”

  My stomach turned, my blood running cold in my veins.

  It was not an employee of the Commission or the police that had found us.

  Dana was there.

  I was completely frozen in terror, both Clark and I shaking uncontrollably. Jeff seemed confused by our reaction, but knew that we were not overreacting. Mark drew his gun, ready to shoot at the leader of the Commission. With the stillness in the mausoleum, I was certain that our pounding hearts would give away our location.