Authors: Masha Leyfer
I settle down in the seat, sliding forward to allow Nathan room. He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls his glasses down. I do so as well, letting go of the handlebar for a moment to wave to those who are staying behind.
Mike puts his glasses, down, turns around and shouts, "Let's move." The four snowmobiles touch off, leaving behind the familiar distinctive tracks in the dirt. We ride in a similar direction as we did on my first raid, but we turn off before we reach the field that smells of life.
We ride for several hours nonstop, finally settling down in the middle of the woods to eat breakfast. Big Sal packed us egg and mushroom sandwiches. I devour it ravenously. My hunger has grown over the course of the ride.
I sit down next to Nathan against our snowmobile. Facing us, Desmond and Kristina sit against theirs.
"Do you think this raid will really help us defeat the CGB?" I ask between bites.
"No," Desmond says.
"Yes," Kristina replies simultaneously. Kristina shoots him a look.
"Shut up, Desmond, of course it will. Every raid we execute helps us defeat the CGB."
"That's what we tell ourselves, isn't it?"
"That's the truth."
Desmond sighs. "Sure."
"Why did I join the Rebellion, then, if it doesn't help defeat the CGB?"
"I wouldn't know," Desmond responds quietly.
"On second thought, why I joined is irrelevant. Why did you join, if you don't believe the Rebellion helps defeat the CGB?"
Desmond shrugs and turns away.
"I had nothing better to do, did I?"
"Hmm," Kristina grumbles. "What about you, Molly? You brought this up. Do you believe in this crap?"
"Well, I...yes, I suppose I do."
"Why?" Desmond asks.
"I don't have anything else to believe in. I guess I'll believe in this. Mike once told me that everyone has to choose something to believe in, because if we spend our entire lives in doubt, we'll never accomplish anything. So this is what I choose."
"Fair enough," Desmond says after a pause.
"Do you not believe in this?" I ask cautiously.
"I believe in death," he responds. "Death is the one thing you can always rely on."
I nod slowly.
"Fair enough."
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
We ride until Mike stops his snowmobile and signals the rest of us to hop off as well. We hide our snowmobiles in the woods and begin to jog towards our destination. During lunch, Mike had told us to hide in the nearest bushes and await further instruction. Half of us will go in
—
that's me, Nathan, Mike, and Smaller Sally
—
and the rest will stand guard outside at four corners of the building
—
Kristina, Emily, Rebekah, and Desmond.
We run out of the forest and down a mountain. We continue jogging for half an hour through what looks like it used to be a nice suburban neighborhood. We run over cracked roads, already partially consumed by growth. A lamppost lies across the street. None of the houses are completely intact. Windows are broken, doors are ripped off their hinges. Everything looks abandoned and forgotten. The entire neighborhood exudes nothing but emptiness and the weight of a world that could have been.
Our footsteps echo in the empty streets. I look over my shoulder uneasily. It seems that eyes are lurking in every corner. I hunch my shoulders, trying to make myself smaller, but I feel too large. too exposed. I am eager to get out of here.
Finally, Mike gives us the signal to halt. We stop in front of a large, derelict building and disperse through the nearby bushes. Kristina, Desmond, Emily, and Rebekah take their places around the perimeter. The rest of us stay near the front. I give the building a closer look. Of everything we’ve seen in this town, this looks the most abandoned and the most dank. None of the windows remained intact. Shards of glass abundantly littering the ground are the only thing hinting that the building ever owned windows in the first place. The roof is caved in in several places and even from this distance I can smell the rot inside. The leftmost corner looks like it has been obliterated completely. Only a pile of rubble remains in its place.
We crouch in the bushes, waiting for a signal to move and taking it all in. I find myself becoming increasingly nervous to go in. I didn’t feel safe on the streets. Now I feel directly under attack.
After what seems like an eternity, Kristina appears from behind the building, holding out a thumbs up
—
the universal symbol that all is well. Mike nods at us and we stand up and go in through a small side door
—
or rather, what used to be a side door. Now, it is just a frame with a flickering red EXIT sign on the inside and a small pile of dusty bricks at its base.
We file in, guns loaded and at hand. If the outside looked abandoned, the inside looks even more so. Most of the lights are shattered and shards of glass and plastic lie on the floor. The building has clearly been in hasty use recently. All of the rubble is swept to the sides and the lights that are still intact are on and humming.
Rooms are spaced at equal intervals throughout the hallway. I glance inside one of them. Chairs and tables are overturned. Ripped paper covers the floor. Our country’s flag hangs in tatters on the wall.
We keep walking in silence. The air is very dusty and very little light is permitted through the windows. I don’t feel safe. I grip my gun for comfort and try to stay out of the light. Nathan glances over at me. I catch his eyes and nod nervously.
He doesn’t like this place either.
We keep moving. Everyone is quiet. There’s something about this place that warns you not to speak. The muffled shuffling of our footsteps and the creaking of our jackets seems too loud, too out of place.
The hallway seems to continue forever, but it finally comes to an end. We breathe out a sigh that is equal parts relief and nervous anticipation.
I look forward. The final wall is dominated by a giant flag: a black cross on a white background. The flag of the CGB.
We all stop, but still no one speaks. Carefully, Mike steps into the last room. We all follow suite. I grip the gun tighter. This room is dustier than the rest of the building, but at least it is illuminated by the dull sunlight clawing its way in through what’s left of the window. As we move, the dust rises and most of us find ourselves suppressing coughs. I walk over to the back wall. I run my fingers over the surface. They come off white with dust. It takes me a moment to recognize it for what it is: a chalkboard. This had once been a school. I become sick to my stomach. Of all the places that could have been used as a meeting place for destruction, why did it have to be a school?
Mike clears his throat. The quiet sound echoes so intrusively in the empty room that all of us turn around. He takes out a bag of small cameras and hands us one each. We move out into different rooms. I place mine into a crack in the back wall of this room, near the chalkboard. It is still uncomfortably silent. The only sounds are the scuffling of our feet and Mike mouthing,
quickly, quickly.
After a minute, everybody crowds back around the doorframe. I catch Nathan’s glance again. He wipes his palms on his pants. He looks uneasy. He can feel it too. Disaster is in the air.
After all four of us are back, Mike begins to mouth,
Let’s-
He is cut off by gunshots.
All of us fall to the floor as thirteen years worth of dust and disintegrated chalk rise into the air. The bullets continue and the air right above our heads explodes with metal. I press my face to the floor and gasp in a choking mixture of fear and disbelief. A machine gun. We’re being shot at with a machine gun.
Everyone begins coughing. The bullets keep getting lower and lower. I can feel the wind from them getting stronger and stronger. My veins clot with fear as death shoots right past my ears.
Dear god, please don’t let them go any lower, I don’t want to die, please, please, I don’t want to die…
Then, as suddenly as they started, the bullets stop. None of us dare to move or even breathe. We wait for what will happen next. From the murkiness, we hear a careful clicking sound
—
the shooter reloading.
As one, the Rebellion begins to rise. We are driven by fear, not logic. We shoot out of the blind instinct to live. The sound of dozens of bullets fill the air. I can’t see much through the dust, but I am certain that we killed the shooter. There is no way anybody could have survived a shower like that. However, when the bullets stop, instead of the silence we expected to hear, we hear running.
“Let’s get ‘em.” Mike’s voice responds with the first words we’ve heard in this place. Everybody breaks into a sprint, driven by the adrenaline that bubbled up inside of us as bullets flew past our ears.
Through the dust and gloom, the shooter remains a dark figure at the end of the hall. We keep running, slowly closing the gap between us. The figure turns around to shoot, but before it can press the trigger, Emily and Rebekah run up behind it and tackle it to the ground. They grab its hands and pull it up. The rest of us point our guns at it. I find that my hands are shaking.
This was too close a run in with death.
I grip the gun tighter and push my fears aside to inspect the figure closer. It is a dirty, unshaven man. His hands are course and his face is scarred. I judge him to be in his late thirties, but the dirt and scars on his face age him. He is wearing a bulletproof vest and a strange type of helmet.
He was ready for us.
He was prepared.
We weren’t. We were just lucky.
Mike approaches him.
“Who are you, then?” The figure doesn’t answer but spits at Mike’s feet.
“Murderers, killers, criminals,” he says. Mike’s expression turns steely and he looks the man in the eyes. The man stares straight back, matching Mike’s gaze. There is so much hatred in their eyes that I’m afraid the air between them will ignite.
After thirty seconds, neither of them has broken contact.
“Rebekah, you have rope?” Mike says quietly, still not breaking eye contact. Rebekah hands him a meter of rope. Mike ties the man’s arms behind his back, still staring him in the eye.
“Wait for me here,” he says. “I’ll be back within half an hour.” He takes the man’s hands and walks out. I lower my gun and take a small step back. The five of us who are left exchange a glance and watch Mike leave. Everyone is concerned. We can all sense that Mike knows something that we don’t.
After Mike leaves, the rest of us walk out of the building. Nobody wants to stay here. We walk out to a clump of bushes several hundred meters away from the building. Desmond and Kristina join us.
“What happened?” Kristina asks. “All we heard was gunshots.”
“We’re not exactly sure,” Smaller Sally says. Her voice is different than it usually is. More closed. “Somebody tried to shoot us, I think. But...but he didn’t, and to be honest, I don’t think he ever actually intended to kill us. We were in a very vulnerable position, but he aimed above our heads, did you guys notice that?”
The rest of us nod uneasily. My mind begins to clear up a little and I realize that she’s right. The man could have killed us easily, but he didn’t. Nobody says it out loud, but we all think,
We’re missing something.
“I think he was waiting for you,” Desmond says. “Did any of you see anyone go in?” The four who were stationed outside shake their heads.
“He was ready for us,” I say. “The vest and the helmet, did you guys see that?”
“But what does that mean?” Rebekah says quietly. “How did he know? Why didn’t he kill you? He must want something.”
Everybody shrugs and I feel the air grow heavier. Not knowing makes everybody nervous. Nothing about this raid
—
I’ve started calling it the chalkboard raid in my mind
—
seems right.
I feel that all of us want to say something, but nobody wants to break the silence. The power of the school extends even over here. Besides, what would we say? What would it do?
But the silence seems even heavier than words would and after several minutes, it grows so heavy that it is impossible to lift. Still, nobody speaks, almost as if the silence is a law of nature that can’t be challenged. I grip the gun even tighter, if that is possible. My knuckles turn white and my fingers grow stiff. I try to t
I could have died,
I think.
I could have died, right now, I could have just stopped. This could have been it, this could have been it, this could have been it.
My gun shakes in my hands and I can’t stop it. I feel repulsed holding it.
I pulled the trigger. I sent bullets at a living human being.
What was I thinking?
In the heat of the moment, there was no other option. I had to save my life and the rest of our lives.
But at the expense of another life? I remember Hopetown’s gate.
Who doesn’t matter. How many does.
I have never felt more insignificant than I do at this moment. I rock back and forth on my toes and try not to think about it.