Born to Fight (3 page)

Brian looked back at me and tried to smile like he always did, trying to make me feel better. Dad never sugarcoated anything. He wanted me to know the worst. He always wanted me ready.

Brian disagreed. He wanted me to be a little kid. But I had never been a kid. I'd always been more.

Sometimes they fought about me, like a mom and dad would. More than my mom and dad ever did.

I would never forget Brian's face, as he tucked my hair out of my face, and gave me a small sucker. He always had candy. It was red. I didn’t really like red, but I took it anyway.

He grinned, "It'll be fun at the cabin, kid. Lots of things to do there."

I rolled my eyes, "Fun? My iPad, iPod, DSI, Xbox, and even that stupid eReader, Granny gave me, are all dead. What fun is there? I've been to wilderness camp every summer for five years. I know what there is to do at a cabin. It's never been fun."

Brian laughed.

My dad eyed me up in the rearview window, "Em, you know those things are part of a world that doesn’t exist anymore. Your generation is soft, weak. One day you'll thank me for all that camp. I can tell you now, no other girl your age has been going to camp since she was five."

I scowled, "I know." And I did. The other girls at camp always thought I was weird. They had been sent because the other summer camps had filled up and their parents just needed somewhere for them to go for a few weeks. I, however, was almost able to teach the stupid courses. Shooting with a bow and a rifle, setting traps, first aid, and everything else. My favorite thing was when we learned how to make a bow and arrows.

Dad went over the map one last time before we drove away from the bunker. I looked back once and missed it instantly. The place I hated all those weeks was gone, and in its place was the unknown.

The jeep could drive over everything… logs, broken roads where the bombs had dropped, bumps Brian told me not to look at, everything. I covered my eyes and peeked through my fingers.

There were cars and trucks and vans and people everywhere when we got to the freeway. People had been hiding out in the beginning, but when the food and supplies started to run out, they fled the cities. Everyone ran.

The panic was over by the time we left the bunker. What was left, was unimaginable. The road was broken everywhere and lined with burned-out vehicles. A huge, burned-out jet plane sat in a field next to an old house. It looked like a skeleton but burned badly. I couldn’t help but wonder, if anyone lived.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to drive through the city. The freeway was bad enough. I couldn’t imagine the city. Brian lived in the country, in a small town on the outskirts of a city. He bought the house because it had an already-built bunker from the Cuban Missile Crisis.

As we drove, we passed people straggling along the roads in small clusters. They looked broken and half dead. It looked like a movie.

"Every one of those people probably has the fever, Em. You gotta remember that. Every one has potential to kill you now. It's us and them, Em." The more things we saw, the less annoying his voice got. I gripped the book to my chest. His voice was calm and haunting. Like a narration to the things I was seeing.

"The water is going to be sick for a long time where the bombs were dropped. The fields too."

The tear-stained and filthy faces of the people we passed, made me feel scared and sick. I'd never felt smaller. I wanted to curl into myself, and hug my knees and rock, but I couldn’t stop looking at them. Cars turned over. Burned-out old trucks. People carrying children and bags. People dragging suitcases on wheels. People holding hands and pulling each other along. People.

"Look at them. They're fools. They still group up," he pointed at a small group.

I saw a man with blood-shot eyes, and I knew from the pictures Dad had shown me, that he had the fever.

The man looked at me. His blood-shot eyes seemed like they saw everything inside of me, all my fear.

A little girl, who looked like she was my age, was walking alone. For a moment, I swore I knew her. She looked lost. She turned in a circle and cried and no one helped her. They walked by her and ignored her. Just like we did. When we drove by my eyes met hers. She waved her arms and for a small moment, I swore she screamed my name. Her lips formed it perfectly. Her eyes stopped feeling self-pity and became impassioned. She chased the jeep. But we drove by anyway.

It was us and them.

We got stuck behind a huge crash. A trucker had jackknifed, and between the huge eighteen wheeler and the trucks and cars, we couldn’t get through. We turned around and went back.

Dad and Brian fought. I ignored them and pretended to sleep.

I could hear the others outside the vehicle. I could hear their screams and the crying as we slowed down.

"They're taking the women. Look at that," Dad whispered, trying to hide his voice from me, but I could hear him.

"No doubt looking for healthy females. It's just like Doctor Fitzgerald said it would be," Dad sounded smug and scared at the same time. His whispers scared me. I held my breath.

Then I heard a bang followed by another. Then nothing.

"Holy shit. He shot him, Bri. He shot him in the head. We need to get out of here now."

"Turn around, man. Go that way. Up the hill." Brian sounded scared, which made me scared.

"It's the wrong way."

"Who fucking cares. DRIVE!"

The jeep sped up and I felt a huge bump.  Then my stomach felt like it was rolling around inside of me. I lost my grip on the seat and was flung up. The thick book hit me in the face. My seatbelt caught me and I saw colors behind my eyes, as I was thrown back onto the seat. It didn't feel comfortable anymore. It felt hard and scraped my skin.

We turned over and over and loud bangs filled up all the air there was.

I heard them screaming and then it stopped. Then it was just me screaming. We stopped moving, but my lips stayed open and my cries were everywhere.

I heaved slightly and looked around. I was upside-down and hanging by my seatbelt. I clicked it, but I didn't fall. The top of the jeep was closer than it was before. I could see blood. Some of it was mine and some of it came from the front seat. Brian was gone. The windows were gone. I heard a groan.

"Em," Dad groaned.

I reached frantically, "Dad. Dad. I can't see you." His headrest was up and the jeep was bent and crumpled around him. I slithered out the back of it and dragged myself onto the dry, brown grass. There were other cars surrounding us and in no better shape than the jeep. In the distance, I could see other people, but not many. I could see them noticing the accident and pointing.

"Em, the others will want our stuff. Run," he whispered harshly and coughed.

I dragged myself to his window, which was gone. His body was stuck, pinned by the jeep. I pulled on the door handle, but it didn't budge. I cried and scratched and slapped at the jeep. I kicked at the door, but it wouldn't move. I was too small and too skinny and I couldn't even dent the metal. All my anger, pain, and fear wouldn't even scratch at the cold, hard door.

He looked bad. His body was upside down, but not hanging. The jeep was all around him, snug.

He moaned again, "Em. Run. You can run fast and far, don’t let yourself give up. Take this and run. "

He held nothing out for me to take, but his hand was bent funny. I sat on the grass beside him and cried. I could feel the defeat.

He licked his lips and looked at me with the most frightening eyes I'd ever seen. "Run, Em. Run and get to the cabin. Go up that mountain to the right of us. Climb up until you come to a dirt road. Follow it until you come to an old farmhouse. From there, it's across their hayfield and up the mountain behind their house. To the right." He slipped his bent hand out and grabbed mine. I could feel his fingers click when he bent them. "It's us and them, Em. I'm still with you. You can feel it, you'll always feel it. But right now, I need you to be a brave girl—the brave girl I trained for exactly this moment. Run and don’t help anyone. Don’t ask for help. It's everyone for themselves now. They're all sick, Em. In some way, they're all sick."

Blood dripped into his hair from a cut above his eye. I shook my head and cried. I heard a truck behind me.

He screamed at me, "RUN, EM! THEY'RE COMING! NEVER GET CAUGHT, EM! NEVER!"

I backed away on the grass and stood on my bruised and battered legs. They almost buckled in fear, but I did as he said. I swallowed my sobs and turned and ran. I ran across the freeway and up the hill into the grass. Feet made noises behind me, but I had always been fast, even as a little girl.

I heard the vehicle and the gunshot. I heard the others. I knew they'd shot him, if he lived that long.

I ran and ran until I threw up in the grass, and even then, I ran. I ran until my eyes saw things that could not be and heard people I knew to be dead. People like my father. I felt him pulling me up the hill and yelling at me to hurry up. I felt his breath on my face, as he shouted and squeezed my hand.

I ran until I saw the farmhouse. Then I crept and snuck and hid in the shadows of the dark. Then I sat alone in those shadows, too terrified to cry. Too terrified to move. But I knew food and water would be waiting at the cabin. All the food and water, I could manage to get inside me. Hunger gnawed at my spine. I stumbled across the field in the dark. I got to the other side and climbed one of the trees there. Its rough bark reminded me, I was alive. Just as he always said it would, pain reminded me I was still alive.

The flashes stop, and the memory fades, and I am alone in the dark room with the smiling statue of Jesus. And again the pain reminds me I am still alive, just like it did then in the big tree at the edge of the field.

Chapter Three

When I wake, the pain is gone, but I've peed myself. The pee is everywhere. My pants are sticky and wet. It smells rusty like blood, but I recall peeing. I recall the pain and the pressure and how good it felt to let go of the pee. I am becoming one of the infected. It's what he put into my arm. I know it. I've peed and cramped. Soon I will wander about and crave flesh…or just die and be eaten by the other infected.

Where is Anna? Has she come for me? Is she captured? I need to be stronger to save her, unless she was truly a hallucination.

The room is so dark that I can't see Jesus, but I assume he is still here. I wonder if he is grossed out that I've peed on the floor and am so weak I cannot move out of my own filth. I wish he wasn’t a stone statue, but rather a mannequin. I need new clothes. The image of being infected and wondering the world in robes that I stole from a Jesus mannequin, makes me smile.

I grab one of the bags of glucose and pull the plug from the bottom of it. I drink the sweet water until I feel sick, and even then, I force a little more down. I drain the bag and drop it to the floor, where I then lower my face and arms. The cold of the floor is comforting somehow.

My eyes flicker like the lights in the hall and I know I'm passing out again.

I don't dream this time. I don’t remember anything else about before. I just sleep and then wake up.

When I wake again, I lick my lips. They feel chapped and cracked. The pee is dried and when I move my legs, they feel stuck in the pants. I am weak. Very weak. My breath feels like effort. My heart doesn’t feel like it's beating at all.

"Find the door and find Anna," I whisper to myself, and maybe Jesus. He's like Leo. He makes me less crazy, because with him there, I'm not talking to myself.

I push myself to my knees and crawl to where I think the door is. I feel along the wall for the gap where the handle will be. The edge of the door evades me. Did the room seal while I slept? I look around in the darkness for Jesus. From what Granny said, he is supposed to be my light in the dark, but even my animal eyes don’t work in this place. There is no light in this room.

The wall feels like it is never-ending. I feel like I will travel this wall in a circle, until I go mad and claw my way through it. I wonder if I am in hell. I am being punished for the sins I have committed. I'm not really sorry for any of them. That might be a problem.

I turn and feel for the statue of Jesus. Nothing feels like it will happen fast enough. The air in the room feels like its oxygen supply has been sucked dry. All that’s left is the pollution I have made with every panicked exhale. My heartbeat feels like it's been started with a shock, and it's now making an attempt to rip itself from my chest.

It's a panic attack. I recognize it as my fingers touch the cold statue. My fingers meet the cold of his robes and I fall at his feet in a heap. I am like his followers. The ones I've seen who save the children crying alone on the road. The ones who seem kind and gentle, but somehow their eyes make you feel not good enough.

"Help me," I whisper, gripping to his cold robes.

I hear something and lift my head.

At first I think it's Jesus whispering, making me shiver. I am about to become devout for the remaining seconds of my life, when I realize the wind is coming from the door. I crawl away from Jesus, feeling along the floor for the bottom of the door where the air is coming in. It's clean and fresh. Something has changed in the hallway outside. Anna?

I feel the slight cool whisper of air, as my hands reach the base of the door.

I run my hands up it to the handle and hang on for dear life. I turn the lock on the door, just as the handle turns. It gets stuck on the lock.

A voice follows the movement of the handle, "Clear here too." The vibration of the movement jolts through me. "She went up the stairs. Everything else is locked."

I almost leap back screaming. But I force myself to be calm. I hold my fingers on the door and wait. They are checking the hall and looking for me. They know I am gone. I am not alone. The doctor wasn’t alone. Where were they when I was killing him? Are they looking for Anna?

Another voice fills the silent air of the hallway, "God dammed, do you know how important she was? For Christ's sake. It's one little girl."