Born to Fight (8 page)

We stand there breathing softly and wait. The truck's engine has a slight squeal. We crouch in a bush and wait. The truck drives by slowly, patrolling. It's a pickup with two men in the back with huge guns. Guns like I've never seen before. They turn to the right and disappear into the tidy area.

"The others?" she whispers.

I shake my head subtly, "Worse, military."

I hear her swallow, "What does that even mean?"

I shake my head again, "I don’t know. Wait here. Cover me and shoot only when you have to."

She gives me a look.

Sweat is pouring down my face. My nerves and exhaustion, combined with the midday summer sun, are brutal. I creep back to where I was, trying to forget the dry feeling in my mouth, and the ache of starvation in my stomach.

I glance up to the top of the buildings. I notice movement. I realize it's just like the camps. I lean against the wall and watch them. I'm never going to get him back. I turn and wave for her to follow me. We run around the building, going in the opposite direction of the guards. I round the corner and fight the feelings of rage and hopelessness that are brewing inside of me. I'm feeling psychotic enough to make my hands shake.

I take deep breaths and glance up. No movements. Looking down the road, I can't see anything, just buildings with huge lettering and parking lots like the breeder farms. Things are clean here like the farms too, like nature is kept at bay by something. It isn’t overrun with bushes and trees and vines like in the city.

I hear voices. Women's voices. I freeze, Anna stands right next to me. I hear her fingers slide against the gun as her grip tightens. We lean against the building and look out into the road. Two women walk with matching guns and bandanas on their heads.

"You think they're part of the army?" I whisper.

"I don't know. What should we do? Want me to shoot?" she asks softly, crouching down.

I shake my head and whisper, "Get in the bush and play possum. They have guns and those matching bandanas; they're guards. This must be their patrol."

I curl into a ball next to the bush I am beside and she follows, doing the same.

"Don't move till I say it's okay. No matter what," I whisper into the warm silence.

The bushes hide her and the gun. I tuck my hands behind my back, holding my knives. I let my face go slack.

I lie there and wait. If they're any good at their job, they’ll find me. If they're really good they'll just shoot me dead. It's what I would do. But after seeing the training on the other guards, I have hope I'll be alive and well within minutes of them both being dead.

The voices get louder, "Oh I know. I heard she was at the farms. It's sad but we all have to do our part." She sounds cold and detached.

The other lady doesn’t sound the same. She sounds upset, "She was seventeen. It isn’t right. I don’t give a shit what anyone says, she was too young."

The other lady's voice grows tense, "Well, when you are in ear shot of the others you better sing a different tune, Linda."

"I will."

They're almost on top of me. I relax my breath and play possum.

"Oh my God—look. It's a girl." One of them rushes at me. It's the distant sounding one. Her hands are warm when they touch my arms.

"She might be infected, Luce. Masks."

"She isn’t infected, no fever. She's sick; look at her. She's pale."

I take a breath and open my eyes.

The cold lady has dark hair and soft brown eyes. She smiles, "You okay?"

I nod and swallow.

"You been bit?"

I shake my head but I'm covered in brownish-green blood. I look like I'm carrying the infection.

"Can you get up?" she asks. The other lady watches me with sharp, steel-blue eyes and holds her gun on me.

As I get up, I move my hands fast. I slice the first lady across the throat and grab and spin her. The other woman fires but she shoots her friend in the back. I toss her friend aside and kick her legs out from under her. When she goes down, I stab into her heart hard. I pull the gun away and her bandana. I tie it around my throat the way they have it. I take the one with blue eyes and drag her into the bush. Looking around, I pull her shirt off. I rip mine off and pull on hers. We take their boots and pants too. It's against my rules, but I need clean clothes and we both need better boots. They aren’t amazing but they're better than the crap Vincent gave me.

"Get up," I whisper.

We rifle through the pockets and find the card that is the door key.

"Put the bandana on the way she has it."

We drag them both into the bushes and grab their guns. A truck comes along with men and women in it.

"HALT!" a man shouts, just as we leave the two dead naked women.

We stop.

He narrows his eyes, "You fire a shot?"

I shake my head.

"You hear a shot?"

I turn and point back the way I came, "No. We just came from there and a truck was driving by. It had a fan belt that was making a squeal. We didn’t hear anything but that."

He looks that way and nods.

I'm trembling inside. Anna is completely silent.

"Eyes and ears open, both of you," he points forward. The people in the truck drive on. I'm sucking air, like I've held it for a year. I think I've peed my pants a little. I look down at the small wet spot and shake my head, "Damn, new pants too."

Anna looks and smirks a little, "You having an issue?"

I fight a grin, "Yeah. Whatever they did to me is like my monthly situation combined with no bladder control."

She shakes her head, "We gotta get home."

"Okay, next part we act casual like this is our patrol," I nod up ahead.

We walk along the side of the building and I see it. It's across the wide road.

UMINA

There is no one. I take a breath and try to control my heartbeat. I feel like running in the other direction, when I take the first step to cross the street. The pavement here looks like before. The windows aren't stained with blood and dirty hands of the infected like everywhere else is. It looks like the infected have never been here before, like the farms. I cross the road, trying not to look wide-eyed and psychotic. We walk past the building as casually as we can.

My skin prickles with fear and excitement.

I can feel him, he's close.

We walk around the back of the building, like we are doing our job. When we get to the backside, I see something that makes me sickly uncomfortable.

"Oh God," she says.

I swallow and glance at her. I shake my head, "It's okay."

She turns pale, looking at the bins—huge bins, like at the breeder farm.

I shudder and we walk up behind them. I can smell rot and trash as I climb the stairs. I don’t look around. I just try to act like this is the way we're supposed to go.

I open the door with the keycard in my hand and hold it open for her. Inside is a hallway, not a room like the farms. It isn’t like the breeder farms at all. It's more like an office building. I don’t know where to go or what to do.

I close the door and take a deep breath and glance back at her. She has the same lost look, I imagine is on my face.

We walk through the hallway until we come to a room with an open door. There is a sink in the room. I leap at it and turn it on as Anna comes inside and closes the door. Cold water comes splashing out.

"Oh my God! The water runs and there's soap," she whispers.

I gasp and shove my hands  under it. I scrub until I am raw and my knives are clean. Then I plunge my clean face in the water. I let it pour into my mouth, swallowing as fast as I can. I want to drink more, but I don’t. I know how water sickness feels and I'm more than likely leaving here with guns firing at me. I back off and let her get at it. She scrubs herself completely and then gulps the way I did. I pull her back, "You have to stop. Too much after so little, makes us sick."

She burps and closes her eyes "I miss the farms sometimes."

I let a small laugh escape, "I know. I miss the food. Remember Sarah got Cook to put that sauce on everything?"

Anna smiles brightly. Her blue eyes sparkle in the dim light of the room. We're so close, I can feel it.

The feeling like I'm going to die hasn’t left me, since I was strapped to the metal table. I still feel like it's going to be any second, but when I look at her, I know I have to get her to safety. I have an obligation to protect her. She came for me. She called me family.

I wash my face, hands and knives. I want to take the clothes off, but until I get some replacements, I can't. At least my hands and knives are clean. Anna does the same. The soap smells exactly like the stuff in all the washrooms at the farm.

I turn and open the door to the hallway. It's long and looks like the breeder farms. I see stairs and hurry to the exit. Anna is behind me the whole way, moving like I do.

We don’t look in the doors, we just walk. I open the door that has a sign and says it's to the stairs and run down them. I want to curl into a ball and hide but he needs us. He wouldn’t hide like that, if it were us missing. He took the dart for me.

I open the thick, heavy door at the bottom of the stairs. It's filled with plants and mist. I'm confused.

"What the hell?" she whispers.

I shake my head, "I don’t know."

The heavy air feels like it has just rained in the forest. I walk through, looking for other people. Plants grow, like in the greenhouse Granny had, on counters and the floor. Water sprays from pipes above. I slip through, terrified.

"Where is everyone else?" she whispers.

Again, I shake my head, "I don’t know. It feels like a trap."

Our hands tighten simultaneously on the guns we're holding.

I walk to the door on the far side, gripping my gun and looking all around me. It's too easy, something isn't right.

I open the door with the card and crack it open a tiny bit. I listen, I almost close my eyes and try to listen like I used to do. I don't hear anything, but my ears don't work as well here. I don’t like it here. I just want to go home.

God damned, Marshall. I clench my jaw and open the door wider. I freeze as a woman in a white coat walks past the door away from me. I hear Anna suck air against my back.

The lady doesn’t notice us or turn around. Her long, dark hair is shiny and pulled back in a ponytail. She walks away into another door and closes it. I take a deep breath and open the door, enough to peek my head in and look about the hallway. The light is on full power here. It's weird that it's so clean and there are no infected here. There aren’t a lot of them left, but there are enough that they should at least come near here. We didn’t see anything after we left the city. Why haven’t the military firebombed the cities to kill the infected? It doesn’t even make sense, except the creepy thing Vincent said about experiments.

I just want to get back to the borderlands. I want the feel of a bow in my hands and the wind on my face.

We slip out into the empty hall.  Every step feels like I'm wading through mud. My body is exhausted and weak, but my need for him drives me forward. I'm running on sheer hatred and stubbornness. I got it from Lenny. I don’t care what Vincent said, Lenny was my dad. I don’t care what any of them say.

I grip the gun tighter and try to control my breathing and heartbeat. I round a corner to find a door with a glass window. I look through to see cages and desks. A man mills in front of one of the cages and writes something down. He looks only a little older than I am. They're more than likely expecting us. I know they are. I open the door and point my gun at his face.

He glances up with a smile that drops as quickly as the thing he's writing on.

"What are you doing in here?" he asks nervously.

I walk through the door. Anna closes it but maintains her gun on him.

"Don't move," I say quietly. I'm actually listening to the rest of the room behind him that I can't see.

He shakes his head, "The food and medicine are on the other floor. There's loads of it."

As amazing as that sounds, I shake my head, "We just want the place where the animals are held."

He swallows hard, "What animals?" His eyes dart nervously.

I growl, "I will not hesitate to kill you."

He looks defiantly at me and shakes his head, "The gunshot will bring down a whole lot of military people."

I sling it over my shoulder and pull my sparkly clean knife out, "I know."

He flinches and steps back, "Please, don’t kill me."

Anna moves forward, "She said not to move."

I don’t need to look back to see the hardened look on her face. I know that look well enough. His eyes show the loss of strength and courage. He slumps and shakes his head, "Which animal?"

I pause and look at Anna. She shrugs and says, "All of them."

He raises his head and his eyebrows, "What? All?"

I nod and realize what she's doing, "Yes, all."

"Behind me, around a corner and through a steel door. The cages are back there." His voice is soft and defeated, but I see something in his eyes.

"Do you have any rope or anything?" I ask.

He shakes his head.

I see clear plastic tape on the counter and nod my head at it, "Pass me the tape."

He frowns, pauses and does it. He passes it to me but still doesn’t make eye contact. Something is wrong. He's planning.

I grab his arms and tie them behind his back. He doesn’t fight me. I walk him around the corner to the steel door. I open it but his feet stop the door. He is backpedaling and fighting me.

"N-n-not this d-d-door."

I glance back at Anna. Her eyes narrow. She shoves the gun in his back, "What's in this room?"

He looks back, his face is flushed from scrambling, but I have his arms up his back. "The wild cats. They caught them eating the infected. They're immune. Most animals are."

I see movement behind the door and drag him out. I close the door, just as an angry mountain lion stalks up.

Her eyes are savage and vicious.

He nods his head, "The dogs, wolves and bears are that way."

Anna shoves the gun in his back again, "You were going to let us go in there?"