Born to Fight (7 page)

He laughs, "Yeah. I'm not going in there. You'll be safe from the military in there. It's the infected, and possibly the others, that you'll need to worry about."

I don’t know him, but I don’t want him to go back there. I grab his hand, in an act that is completely awkward for me, "I know where a retreat is. You can go there and just rest. The people will help you."

He shakes his head, "I have to go back and help as much as I can. I'm one of the few on the inside, who are trying to stop it."

I frown, "Why?"

His leathery smile doesn’t reach his eyes, "I'm your dad's right-hand man. He doesn't know I'm not on his side."

My eyebrows knit together, "You will go back there and live like this?" The words are awkward.

He nods, "I have to. I'm the only hope for a lot of the women. The facility is quite nice."

"I was there—it was a shit show."

He shakes his head, "The building where you were being kept isn’t the facility. It's down the way, closer to the nice part of the city that’s still standing. My life there is nice. I'm supposed to be on a convoy this week. The rebels are making sure it's destroyed. I'll be the only survivor. I'm heading there now, opposite direction of where you're going."

His eyes are so familiar and suddenly I see it, "You were the first doctor in the room with the cold table. The one who was nice to me?"

He nods, "I was. I planned on getting you out, but I needed the abortion to be completed. I couldn’t release you into the world pregnant. I'm sorry."

I swallow, "Why?" Anna draws nearer to me but I scowl at her, "Keep your distance. I have it on me. I need soap."

She steps back as he ignores us and continues, "You already live with the possibility of being unstable. Your emotions are so heightened compared to normal girls. It's a problem with the DNA. You don't have normal emotions. You don’t feel things normally. Everything is bigger and faster in your world. We don’t know what someone like you would make. You have to try not to ever have a baby, Emma." He hangs his head, like he's ashamed.

I didn’t have that as an option for myself, not in the world I lived in, but his words hurt me. I'm ashamed Anna has heard them. I'm a freak. How many times could he say the words not normal?

I feel my anger rising, but I force myself to remain calm. A thousand flashes pass behind my eyes as I see it all. I nod, "Okay."

He grabs my arms and squeezes, "You deserve to be free. Your father is a monster. Run and don't ever come back. Stay hidden away. Stay away from other people. You don’t know when your brain will switch and you'll become one of the Gen kids in every way. The rage and irrational behavior is a side effect. Your father doesn’t see it. He is constantly trying to perfect them, but he sees only the positives, he misses the negatives. I know you've proven you don’t have the irrational behavior, but you never know. Better to be safe."

I almost twitch, thinking about the times I've done things he would call irrational. Would I though? I can justify every action in my mind. I am instantly wondering what Anna is thinking. I can't look at her.

I need Leo.

"How will you get back?" Anna asks him, changing the subject.

He shakes his head, "Don't worry about me. Get to the wolf and get out. You're one of a kind, Emma. You should know that, at least. What you did back there with the infected and the gunmen—you're one of a kind. The other Gen kids are a disaster. I think you are what we had planned all along."

I could spit on him. "I don’t care. I just wanna go home." That's not the truth. I want to stop my father who was my uncle. What a mess.

I look both ways, because it's how I still cross streets, and walk across the broken filthy road. I can hear Anna following with the gun. The destroyed concrete crunches under the crappy boots he gave me. I'm exhausted and I haven’t even started yet. I climb the wall of crap on the side of the road and look into the street. The infected are not there. I expected hordes, but I don't see any.

I look back at him. He waves. He looks desperate and beat down.

I hate him. Him and everything he represents. "Stupid bastard," I mutter and pull my knives out. I glance at Anna who grins and tightens her grip on the gun.

"I don’t care what he says; you're amazing, Em." She nudges me and starts down the hill of debris into the infected zone.

"Thanks." I don’t feel amazing. I feel not normal. I guess I always have and now I have a reason to feel that way.

Chapter Five

The infected move fast. Not as fast as we can—thank god. The gun helps a lot. It, and the fact, Anna is a deadly shot. The ones that get close, as we race through the alley, get cut. I already have their blood on me.

We entered the alley and didn't see any at first, but when we got in deeper, we could see them moving about. They never move when you're looking for them. Damned infected.

Their infected blood scares me still, but I assume I'm already sick if I can get it. We get to the end of the next alley. My thighs hurt from the running. Everything hurts. My body is weak from the little food I've eaten and the way I've laid around.

I look behind at the horde of them running after us, the high moans are grating on my skin. Anna fires a shot, dropping one in front of us.

I heave for breath and look around. I see a building with a smashed-in window.

"Anna, here," I shout and run to it. I smash out the glass more and leap into the window. She is in and falling on me, before I can get out of the way.

Before I can scream for her to get off of me and get away from the possible infection on my clothes, the stink hits my nose, filling my eyes with water.

"Sweet God," Anna gags and covers her face.

I can't ignore the stench of rotting flesh and possible sewage. The room is no doubt filed with germs. I don’t know how they work but the room is bad. There isn’t anything in here but office equipment but the smell must be coming from somewhere.

I grab the bookcase at the side of the wall and tip it over. It slides across the window. My head is jerking and twitching as I gag and heave. Anna moves another shelf against the one I put there. I can taste the dead in the air.

"Leo and then the forest," I whisper, trying to calm myself down.

"I can't wait for the forest. I can't wait to go swimming," she mutters.

I move a leather couch in front of the bookcase and run to the door of the office.

She follows me. The hallway is dark. Instantly, I want to turn around but I can hear the infected at the window. Their high moans and screams make my skin crawl. The stench in the hallway is worse. I step out into the darkness. The only light is coming from the door I am leaving behind. I walk quickly into the abyss with my hands extended, running my blood-soaked knives along the wall. My left hand drops into a doorway. I lower my hand, searching for the knob. It's locked. I continue walking. My feet meet soft things and crunchy things, but I keep walking. I'm grateful for the dark and for her.

"Thanks for coming for me," I whisper.

"You did it for me. No one leaves their family behind."

Her words bring tears to my eyes. Even after everything she's heard, she still calls me family. Even though I'm not a normal kid/woman/girl.

The high moans are the only sounds, beyond my breathing and the scratch of my knives on the wall.

I ignore when my right hand slips into a doorway. I need to get out the other side, opposite the infected horde behind me. The feeling of their hands grabbing for me, lingers on my arms. I shiver as my left hand drops into a doorway again. I grab the handle. It's unlocked. I open it slowly. The air is stale but less like rotting flesh. Dim light filters in the room.

The high moans sound like they're in the building as I slip inside and close the door. I lock it and drag a desk from the inside over to the door. It's a small office with rotting furniture and dust. Layers of dust. The smell in the stale air is the dust and mildew getting into the furniture. The small windows are closed. They don’t open but there is a door.

"That looks like what we're looking for," she mutters.

It still has a sign over it that says ‘Open in Case of Emergency’.

"Feels like an emergency," I mutter back. She laughs.

I grip the lock and take a deep breath. The windows show no signs of life, just broken down shit and bushes. The city is slowly becoming the jungle again.

"See anything?" I ask. She shakes her head and scouts the street.

A scratch at the door startles us both. I turn, holding my breath and waiting. Not only have they made it inside, but they can smell us. I'm not sure how they can smell us over the rotting things in the dark hallway. Then I look down at my crotch and wince. The miscarriage. It's disturbing on so many levels.

I look out the windows again, as I turn the lock and open the door. I should have waited. I'm panicking as I peek my head out, but the scratches have become thumps on the doors.

The fresh air of the city is welcomed. My nostrils are burning from the other smells. I look both ways and step out into it. God only knows, what waits for us.

Anna closes the door and we turn and run. I don’t even care if more of them chase us, we just need to run. I need Leo. I'm close, I think.

Something moves to the right of me, but I ignore it. I run. It chases us, but the gun goes off.

In its place, I can hear footsteps behind us. I get to a wall of debris, like the one I climbed over to get into the infected section. I jump at it. I'm clawing and climbing. Anna is doing the same. We scramble up fast and furiously. I can hear them behind us, the ones who saw us running in the alley.

My hands slip on the boards, as pieces of things under my feet break. I don’t look back. I look for Anna; she's at the top. I pull and climb. Something grabs at my boot as I get a hold of a metal bar and pull myself up. I curl up into a ball on the top of the junk wall and look back. I lean against the top of the debris wall of junk and take deep breaths. Anna nudges me, "That was scary," she heaves for air.

I nod.

The infected are making their way to the bottom of the wall and crowding around us. They breathe hard, making whistled sounds that will haunt my dreams forever. I am eighty-percent certain, I will be wandering aimlessly with them in a week—once the fever is done burning my brain. I don't believe everything he said to me. I don’t want to. I'd rather be dead than manufactured. I look down at the green goo and filth covering me. There is no way I have escaped getting the infection, if I can get it.

I turn my back on them and look at the road ahead. There is a small bridge that lies in ruin and a road that looks like a highway. I'm at the edge of the city. I would sigh relief but I'm more terrified of the things outside of the city.

The infected we can outrun or kill, but the things outside of the city are strong and armed. I glance back at the city and swallow.

"That looks like the place, the doctor was talking about," she points to the side with the bridge.

I nod, "Yeah, I think it is."

The infected try to climb the wall. Their shrieks and screams are distracting and frightening. I see them differently now, though. Up close I can see it, the faces of what used to be human.

Anna looks at them and shrugs the gun up higher on her shoulder, as she starts the climb down into the open roads. I follow.

I still feel the bad feelings from the days before. I still feel my impending doom. I nudge her and mutter, "I had this bad dream a few times when I was in the room. It was about Leo and he was in a cage. He looked hungry and scared. His ears were twitching like a cat's. They do that when he gets nervous. He looked at me from the cage and smiled his sloppy-wolf smile. His tail wagged. But I could see a man behind the cage. Leo couldn’t see him. I tried screaming to him. I was jumping up and down and pointing but Leo just smiled at me. The man was wearing one of the space suits and holding a red-hot poker. He stuck it in the cage and Leo's fur singed. I could hear his howl. It's still haunting me."

She shudders, "Creepy. You know he'll be fine. It's Leo."

I chuckle, "He's survived far worse I suppose."

"Yeah, God…he was so nice when that horrid kid of Mary's was always mauling him. Little brat."

I laugh harder and we continue in silence. We know how to move quietly and not be seen.

The wind whistles and replaces the sounds of the infected. The clean wind is exactly the way I remember it being, fresh and warm. The smell of rot and sewage and stale cooking is gone. I'm grateful for it, but at the same time, I miss the closed-in feeling of the city. Now my eyes dart nervously. Every speck of gravel that is dragged across the ground, sounds like footsteps. It sounds worse than the simple knock at my door. The memories flash in my mind when I let my mind wander. My doubts still think I made the wrong choice. Looking at her, I know I made the right one. I hold my knives and walk, pushing the memories away. She came for me. She is my ‘us’.

Loving them all, and missing the ones not with us, hurts me in a way I cannot understand. It hurt when my mom died. It hurt when my dad dragged me away from my Granny's house. It hurt the most, when my dad died. But none of it hurts the way, being away from him does.

His eyes and the way he watches me—he's always got my back. I feel tears threaten my eyes. I'll never needed anything the way I need him. He is the one who was there when I was small and scared. He's my first family member after the world ended and I was alone.

The closer we get to the small cluster of buildings in front of us, particularly the one that says U.M.I.N.A., the worse the fears get in my belly. I'm terrified of what we will find.

I pocket one of the knives and jog up to the first building, Anna slides along the wall with me and looks the other way. I slip along the side of it, away from her and glance around the side. It seems cleaner here. I hear something I haven’t heard in a while. A truck. I freeze and wait for a better idea of where it is. I look back at Anna; she's listening too. It's coming towards us. I turn and run for the far side of the building, following Anna. She heard the truck's direction too. She moves like I do. She is getting better and better at this life. That would make me sad, but we don’t have time for that. I look back the way we came. I don’t see anything.