Eden (9 page)

“
What kind of a
scientist?” I asked.  Just the word scientist brought up all
kinds of hateful feelings in all of us.  It was the scientists
who had ruined our world, our race.

“
He did experimental
stuff.  It was weird; I was always around other adults. 
I never even knew any other kids really.  We lived in a unit
that was attached to where they worked.  A woman came to take
care of me during the day while they were at work.  When she
couldn’t come they would take me to work with them.”

“
I bet that wasn’t too fun
for you,” I said as I stared into the flames.

“
It was all I really
knew.  It might have been harder if I’d ever lived any
different,” he said with a shrug.  “And you don’t remember
anything?” he asked.  “Nothing before you came to
Eden?”

I shook my
head.

“
No parents?  No
childhood friends?”

“
Nothing.  I know
everyone has lost someone, but I don’t even remember there being
anyone.  People talk about electricity and running water in
houses, but it’s just a story to me.  A myth even.  The
world in Eden, the world of raids and running is all I’ve ever
known.”

West looked over at me and
I looked back at him, watched the flames dance in his eyes. 
“Maybe it’s better you don’t remember.  Not everyone has had a
happy childhood.”

I wasn’t sure how to
respond to that as I looked back into the fire.  Even though I
didn’t feel cold often, the wind that gusted through suddenly shook
me with a shiver.  West draped an arm across my shoulders,
squeezing me to his side.  As he did, I felt something square
and flat press into my side.

“
What is that?” I asked
him again as I indicated it. 

“
Nothing,” he said,
suddenly tensing up.  “Just… a connection to my
past.”

I looked at his face for a
moment, observed his dark eyebrows, the way they furrowed over his
earthy brown eyes.  His hair fell across his forehead in the
unkempt mess everyone but Avian had.  More secrets.

“
We should probably get
some sleep,” I finally said as I looked away from him.

“
Good idea,” West said as
he stood.  We both kicked dirt over the dying fire until it
was smothered.  Even though it would be cold tonight, it would
be dangerous to keep it going all night.  It would be spotted
easily from a helicopter above.

West helped hoist me up
into the hammock and I pulled him in after me.  Despite how
uncomfortable and awkward I felt, we wrapped our arms around each
other in an attempt to keep warm.

As West quickly drifted
off to sleep, I felt myself relax.  I considered the fact that
I was going to be sleeping in the arms of the boy I wasn’t sure if
I could trust and could hardly stand just a week or two ago. 
The fact that he had chosen to take off with me into dangerous
woods with no hesitation washed away the majority of any doubts I
had about him though.

And, for the second time
in the last week, I was being touched in a way I never had
before.  While it didn’t have the safe familiarity Avian’s
touch did, it still felt good.

I didn’t sleep more than a
total of three hours.  Every little sound made me jump, ready
to pull my handgun out and unload it.  West slept like the
dead.  Good thing I didn’t need much sleep.

We got moving long before
the sun came up, as soon as it was light enough to make out the
trees that surrounded us.  We were quiet again as we moved,
each feeling the seriousness of what was coming soon.  The
closer we got to the city, the more Hunters there would
be.

We managed to keep out of
sight of any Fallen that day and made camp far back in a cave that
night.  Not much was said and I silently wondered if West was
regretting his decision to come with me.  He was finally
understanding just how dangerous this really was.

I doubted either of us
slept that night, each thinking too much about what was to come
tomorrow.  We left before we could even really see at
all.  It was a widely speculated theory that the Fallen were
stronger during the daytime.  We would get there before the
sun came up and woke the ranks. 

It was always haunting,
walking among the houses, feeling the pavement underfoot. 
This may as well have been an alien world to me.  I think I
still would have preferred my canvas tent to the brick walls. 
They seemed too much like a prison. 

The suburbs eventually
gave way to the rise of apartment buildings and offices.

We crouched behind a long
abandoned car, the world foreignly silent.  After I checked to
make sure nothing was watching, I signaled to West, and we darted
across the street to the pharmacy.  Hugging the wall, we made
our way around to the back of the building.  As we stepped
inside, I heard the whooshing of helicopter blades off in the
distance.  Gray color started to creep into the
city.

The door had been busted
in by Bill a few years ago.  We’d cleared out the things we
needed, things to reduce fevers, things to clean out wounds. 
I just hoped I would recognize the syringes Avian
needed.

“
Hurry,” I whispered as I
looked around the building to make sure there wasn’t any sleeping
Fallen inside.

“
What are we looking for?”
he asked as he hopped over the counter and started searching
through shelves.  I hopped over as well and started searching
with him. 

“
The adrenaline was in a
syringe,” I said as I headed to look toward the back.  I
noticed the fridges and opened one.  It seemed a miracle that
the electricity still ran in the building.  The fridge was
still cold.  Row after row of vials and syringes greeted
me.  “Got it!”

We both scoured the
labels, searching for any indicator of what we needed.  I
didn’t even understand what most of it was supposed to be.  I
felt my heart start pounding faster as the room lightened. 
They would all be waking soon.

“
This is it!” West
suddenly gave an excited hiss.  “There’s… one, two, two of
them.” 

“
That’s all?” I asked,
feeling my stomach sink into my knees.

“
Ya, I’m pretty sure,” he
said as he checked again.

I grabbed the syringes
from him and wrapped them in the cleanest shirt I had, packed
exactly for that purpose.  “Check for aspirin, anything that
looks like we could use it.   And hurry, we haven’t got
much time.”

We picked our way through
everything.  I wished I could load up one of those long
forgotten about cars outside and just dump the entire store into
it.  Even if everything was expired by several years, it could
still help us.

“
Come on,” West said as we
double checked to be sure there was nothing left we might
need.

We slipped out the back
door.  As we did, I picked up on the sound of the chopper
blades again, this time sounding further away than earlier. 
They were heading out to scan the outskirts of the city.

The other pharmacy was
five blocks to the east, all city with nothing but abandoned cars
for cover. 

I bit my lip, scanning the
road for any signs of activity.  I glanced at West, only
becoming scared when I saw how white his face was.

“
Let’s go,” I said before
either of us panicked and did something stupid. 

I bolted toward a bus that
was sitting half in the middle of the road.  West’s footsteps
pounded softly behind me.  My own adrenaline raced in my
system, propelling me all the faster as I peeked around the bus,
saw that the coast was clear and sprinted along the side of a
skyscraper. 

“
You okay?” I asked as I
stole a brief glance at West as we pressed against the side of the
building.

He only nodded as he
stared wide-eyed back at me.

I looked around the
corner, keeping my body pressed to the cool surface of the side of
the building.  I caught sight of a woman walking in the
opposite direction of us.  Only half her head was covered with
red hair that trailed to her waist.  The other half of her
head was shiny metal.  I noticed her left hand had no flesh,
only a cybernetic skeletal frame of fingers poked out of her long
sleeved shirt.

I glanced at West, pressed
a finger to my lips, then motioned for him to follow me.  We
both sprinted silently across the street.

There was only one block
to go.  I could see the pharmacy when something inside the
bottom floor of a sky scraper caught my eye.  I froze with
stunned horror.

They were there, just as
West told me they would be.  Rows of Fallen inside the
building, facing the windows, watching with inactive eyes. 
There were children with cybernetic legs, women with half faces,
men with bare metallic chests.  And they were just standing
there inside.  Waiting.

“
Eve, come on,” a voice
said urgently as it tugged on my arm.  I had been pulled ten
steps away before I managed to take my eyes off of them.

“
Why are they like that?”
I asked, panic filling my voice.  How had I not ever noticed
them like that before?  “What are they waiting
for?”

“
Let’s not find out,” he
said as he checked to make sure we were clear before we crossed the
street.  He grabbed my wrist and dragged me across.

I finally snapped out of
it as we stepped through the large broken window.  We went to
the fridge first this time.  The electricity was still working
in this building as well.

“
Here we go,” West
said.  “Four… five… six.  There’s six of them
here.”

“
Great,” I said as I
wrapped them with the others.  I stuffed the shirt back in my
bag and set it down on the ground as I went to scour the
shelves.  “That’s got to be enough.  I don’t think we’ll
have to go to the other pharmacy.  We probably couldn’t make
it anyway with it getting this light.  It’s across the
city.  Six or seven miles.”

There were bottles and
bottles of aspirin, cases of allergy medication I hoped would help
Sarah.  There was probably something here for seizures as
well, but I wouldn’t know what it was. 

“
Does it smell funny in
here to you?” I asked as I followed the source of the strange
scent.

“
Just like an old
abandoned building with breaking down chemicals,” he said as he
stuffed his pack full of life-saving medication.

I wandered to the back of
the building, into a utility room.  A rusty looking water
heater dominated the cramped space.  Electric cables and lines
ran in different directions, disappearing into the wall.  This
was where the smell was coming from.

A movement caught my eye
outside the small window to my left.  By then it was too
late.

The glass shattered as the
Hunter outside fired.  The bullet brushed past my left
shoulder, embedding itself into the thick metal side of the water
heater.  The spark of metal was small, and it wasn’t a heavy
gas leak, but it was enough to cause the explosion.

“
West!” I screamed as I
ducked as the flames billowed out at me.  “Get out of
here!”

I could feel the oxygen
being quickly sucked out of the building as the flames ate it
up.  I scrambled along the floor toward my pack.  I
couldn’t leave it here.  It was the whole reason we had
come.

“
Eve?!” I heard his
screaming toward the front of the building.

“
Run!” I screamed as I
came to his side, grabbed his hand in mine, and bolted out the
door.

By this time the sun had
broken over the buildings and the morning rays were charging the
enemy.  I heard the rev of an engine come from behind the
building and the screeching of tires against
asphalt. 

We were only two blocks
away from where the forest butted up against the city but we
weren’t as fast as an ATV.

The hunter shot across the
street behind us, the sound of the engine the only thing I could
concentrate on as we ran for our lives. 

The pile of metal that
slammed into me from the side and knocked me to my back wasn’t the
one I expected.

Neither of us had noticed
the other Hunter hiding in the shadows of another building. 
He had launched himself at me, tackling me to the asphalt, choking
the life out of me with one bare flesh hand and another cybernetic
one.

As I stared into his
metallic eyes, I couldn’t believe this was how my end was finally
going to come.

The Fallen who had slammed
into me suddenly jerked to the side as a metal rod dented its head
in.  It collapsed with a hiss of dying electric sounds. 
I looked up to see West holding a five foot long broken street
sign, looking quite pleased with himself, a half smile tugging at
his lips despite the terror in his eyes.

We didn’t hesitate though
as I jumped up, pulling my pack tighter, praying none of the
syringes had broken during my fall.

As the screech of tires
against pavement assaulted my ears again, I turned and pulled my
handgun out. 

In one shot, I embedded
the bullet into the gas tank and the ATV exploded in a ball of
blazing glory for humanity.