“Shhh, honey, you need to stay quiet.”
I reached for the assault rifle by my side and shouted for him again. The alien voice that came out felt like theft, but it drove me to press on, to separate my mind from my reality.
Further away, a pair of voices started shouting at us. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
The older woman brushed the girl aside as I leveled the gun behind my back and leaned my weight into the metal.
The voices continued to get closer. “Who is that?”
I managed to take a knee when the woman grabbed the girl and shielded me from view. In between them, I could just make out two men walking towards us with rifles raised.
“Please,” the woman stammered. “Please don’t hurt her.” She started to shake, but she stayed with me as the men stopped just in front of us.
“Move!”
I couldn’t understand why she was protecting me. I wouldn’t be able to watch them get hurt. She shook her head. “Please… Please, just leave her alone. You don’t have to do this.”
The closest man aimed at us and I racked a bullet in my gun, flicking the safety off. “I’m not gonna say it again...”
And he wouldn’t have to.
I stepped out into the open and fired, screaming from the bottom of my lungs. Every single vice that had been bottled up inside of me came out right then and there. The gun kicked against my shoulder, sending a shockwave down my spine and dust into the air. I fired again and again, each time explosions rocketed out of the end of the barrel that ended up as puffs of smoke that kicked up dirt.
The woman threw herself over the girl as the two men, completely shaken at being fired upon, started to recover and brought their weapons up and started shooting back, but I wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t. I kept advancing on them. I screamed even louder and kept shooting as bullets whipped through my hair. I didn’t recognize the sound that was coming out of me until one of my rounds finally hit its mark.
Then it stopped.
I kept pulling the trigger, but nothing happened. The moment barely registered in my mind as a searing pain stabbed its way near my chest. I spun half a circle and hit the ground with the taste of blood in my mouth. The immensity was defibrillating. I couldn’t breathe. It felt as if every single fiber of my body gave out at once like a cracked whip.
The pressure in my chest threatened to tear me open. I could only stare at the blades of grass in front of my face as my vision started to cave in around me. I barely noticed the inaudible shouting or could even care as someone grabbed me by the back of my shirt. I could only lie helpless, being dragged across the ground, unable to control my own body when it dawned on me that even though I was surrounded by other human beings, I was dying alone.
Things were different before The Crash.
After the world relived the same death countless times through their reflective screens and forethought, the fear began to set in. It drove the public at large to act irrationally and make split-second decisions when it was exactly the time to slow down and do the opposite.
But before society began its self-fulfilling collapse, a young, blundering college student who listened to EDM and went to too many clubs would first have to feel the fear for herself. Even before she could truly understand what it meant to be lost, she had to feel the same insecurity rise up from her gut and fester into despair, because soon it would be her turn to die.
Too bad I had always been good at letting everyone down.
It was only a few weeks after the first headlines when I came home from my summer job and slammed the front door behind me in comparatively good spirits, only to end up frowning at my reflection in the hallway mirror. I rubbed a finger underneath an eye and tried imagining just how talented I must have been to make my subtle attempt at makeup look like a small child had thrown a box of crayons at my face. Fortunately, I stopped thinking about it as soon as I walked in on my little sister, Sarah, reading a book in the living room.
She glanced up at me nonchalantly. “Hey.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
She shook her head. “Bomb threat.”
Right…
I set my keys down and let the next thought slide. I doubted the police would even get a chance to look into it with how busy they had gotten. Apparently they weren’t the only ones.
“Since when do you read?”
She shrugged. “I read.”
Sure ya do.
I noticed she might have changed a bit from my last semester at school, sporting a different hairstyle, a little less chatty, maybe even a few inches taller, but I couldn’t believe for a second that the spastic little girl I knew and had grown up with could ever sit down quietly long enough to read a book. The two just didn’t jive. “So what’s his name?”
She shot me a small death stare and I couldn’t help but grin as I walked into the kitchen.
Bingo. On the nose.
“What makes you think it has to be about a guy?”
“Nothing.” I walked back out and stared at her, taking a swig of juice straight from a carton and biding my time. “Is he cute?”
She slowly peered up at me before pretending to read again. “Maybe...” She hesitated for a moment, unsure whether or not to open up and provide me with ample ammunition. She really shouldn’t have. “He asked me out.”
“Sooo he lost a bet?” I threw my hands up just in time to block the book that served itself better aimed at my face.
So much for reading.
Sarah frowned. “No.”
“So what’s wrong with him?”
She gave me a face and let it go, tucking her legs up to her chest and resting her chin on her knees. “We’re supposed to go downtown. Didn't you hear what they were saying about it today?”
“Probably...” I had already taken my phone out and was still on auto-pilot. My brain had yet to decide if I should pay more attention to her. I also wasn’t sure if that place could even surprise me anymore.
“They said they might bring in the National Guard.”
Guardsmen. Curfew. Protests. The internet. It so happened to turn out that the kids in the 60’s weren't the only ones that would get all the fun.
She stared past the wall for a second, probably thinking about the inevitable. “Maybe they’ll lock everyone up.”
To be perfectly fair, Sarah was just a few weeks from graduating high school, but she was still my little sister, so it was perfectly justifiable for me to insult her whenever I wanted. It was character building, really.
I set the carton down. “Not everyone—just you—because you suck.”
That got me a pillow thrown at my face and the incredible response of, “You suck.”
Naturally, it was on.
I grabbed the pillow and got ready to smother her. “Hey, when you start applying to schools, are you gonna let them know how ugly you are on paper or just surprise them in person?”
“I don’t know. What did you do?”
I smacked her with a fist full of feathers and she wrestled me down onto the floor, almost breaking a glass vase on the table next to us in the process. If parents didn’t have them for decoration, then it had to be an early warning system for when their kids weren’t up to anything good, in which case I should have taken all those leftover pieces over the years and displayed them as trophies.
After a few seconds of two immature girls squabbling with each other on the ground, I finally managed to get on top of Sarah and keep her hands down, pinning her wrists against the floor.
She tried to catch her breath and blew a puff of air at my face, giving up. “Jerk.”
“You’re a jerk.”
Before we could keep going, our dad came in through the front door carrying a mountain of grocery bags. “What are you girls doing?”
I kept Sarah on the ground. “I’m teaching your daughter a lesson.”
“Then teach her to quit screwing around and help me.”
We let each other go and reluctantly helped our dad bring in copious amounts of canned fruits and vegetables, lining them all up in the kitchen.
Sarah spilled a few bags until she finally found what she was looking for. “Hey, ice cream.”
I pulled up a chair and grabbed two spoons, licked one, and stuck it to her forehead. I laughed and took a scoop of fake strawberries as she tried to see how long she could keep the metal stuck to her face. “You’re such a dork.” I dropped the last bag on the kitchen counter as my dad came in. “Hey, did you raid the homeless shelter or something? You know we don’t eat this much, right?”
“Really?”
I couldn’t help but laugh, even if he was trying to be sincere. “Yeah.”
“Really…” He put down his groceries.
Oh damn. Now it's serious. Let’s see what you got.
“You know, your mom and I could have gotten a horse instead of you two. We probably could have saved money on food.”
I presented my sister as she dug into a jug of ice cream. “Don’t even try and tell me you could replace your breathtakingly beautiful, although inferior, runner-up daughter.” He couldn’t help but grin at that one so I picked out a random can from the pile. “I mean, do horses even eat beets?”
“They do what they’re told.” He stole Sarah’s spoonful for himself and swiped my can in between a mouthful of ice cream. “Even the non-runner-ups.”
Touché. Well played, old man.
He took another scoop. “Where’s your mother?”
“Still at work, I think.” I saw those familiar lines appear around my dad’s eyes and forehead again that made him look at least a decade older. He was usually pretty relaxed, even after living in a house full of women and putting up with our crap all the time, but I could tell something was bugging him. “You okay? We’re not planning on spending the rest of our lives in the basement, are we?” I was happy I got him to smile.
He opened his mouth just as Sarah interjected from the living room, her voice suddenly solemn. “Hey…you guys should see this.”
I followed my dad to see Sarah standing in front of the couch, fixated on a live news broadcast on the television. It was a shot of the city, the words ‘KNOX PROTESTS’ superimposed on top of a rally. It was a heaping crowd walking, chanting, throwing bottles and tipping cars. The camera quickly zoomed out to show the worst of it, the focal point glowing and smoldering in unyielding strength.
“What are they doing?”
My dad was the first to answer, his voice echoing the apprehensive and unsettling feeling that started rumbling up through the bottom of my belly “They’re burning books…”
“Why?”
I realized the anarchy unfolding on the screen in front of us couldn’t have been more than a few miles away from our house when I tried to snatch the remote from Sarah's hand, but she held it back. “It's 'cuz they're idiots. They don't know what to do, so they're just taking it out on everyone else.”
“Sarah,” My dad quickly called for her attention. “Call mom. Find out where she is.” She barely got a question out before he stifled it back down. “Just do it.”
“Okay...” She pulled out her cell and walked out, leaving the two of us to stare at the screen like we'd all become accustomed to over the past few days.
Watching the scenes unfold felt surreal. It was almost like someone had flipped a switch and suddenly everyone had to find a target to pin all the blame on to. Maybe if they had read some of the books that they were torching, they might have noticed that doing so usually didn't turn out so well.
The view of the camera suddenly switched to a close-up of a man covering his face and he tossed a garbage can through a store window to everyone's applause. Another jumped on top of a barricade and swung his hand into the air, leading the group into a chant.
I couldn't help but think about the little girl that had died on camera, but she wasn't the only one, and it couldn't even have been anything more than an accident. I eyed the face on the screen and it seemed to stare back at me with impunity as if we were both looking through a window.
You got our attention... So what are you trying to do?
“Tess.”
I managed to tear myself away from the visceral scenes in front of me and looked up at my dad.
“We’ll be okay.” He put a hand on my shoulder, the same one that would end up taking a bullet in just a few short weeks. The woman that would find herself operating on me without any anesthetic would later go on to tell me that I had screamed hysterically while she struggled to keep me still and labored against a piece of metal that had forced its way through my body, but even before any of that happened, I would squeeze the hand on top of my shoulder and give my dad a smile back.
“I know.”
*
I opened my eyes.
I was on a cot in the corner of an empty tent, but the thought of my family was still fresh in my mind. The aged, white cloth walls around me were stained with dirt and something else I didn’t recognize.
Blood.
Something had happened.
I tried sitting up and immediately an inflexible part of my shoulder pulled me back like a rubber band in dry cement, the pain making me wince reflexively. I had almost forgotten about that.
I redoubled my effort, this time rolling onto my side first and sitting up while trying to keep my back straight. By the time I managed that, the small blanket that had been on top of me had slipped off and I noticed a narrow tube embedded into my arm which was connected to a bag of clear liquid hanging above my head. I tried pulling the line out, but the tube tugged on my skin and hurt too much.
“Don’t do that.”
I looked up to see the same woman who had found me earlier now standing at the entrance.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She placed down a bundle of clothes and hurried over. “It’s just that you might hurt yourself.” She crouched down next to me and pulled the tube out of my arm in a single, quick motion without making it hurt at all. “How are you feeling?”
She stared at me, studying my face, and I returned the favor. Her hair was curling at the tips from constantly being damp and had lighter streaks from countless hours of sunlight. Her face was worn and she had large bags under her eyes, but she was surprisingly beautiful.
I cleared my sore throat and tried to think of something efficient to say in as little words as possible. “Fine.” I motioned to stand up, but she put her hands on my shoulders and gently lowered me back down onto the cot.
“Honey, hold on. You’ve been through a lot. You’re gonna have to take it easy. I wouldn’t go pushing your luck as it is.” She put a hand on my bandaged shoulder and checked to see that the wrapping was still dry. “You were already half way dead from dehydration when we found you. You’re lucky you didn’t lose too much blood, not that there was much to hit, anyways. When’s the last time you had anything to eat?”
I would have told her, but I couldn’t remember. She ran a hand through my hair and looked at me that way again. I felt like I was eleven years old.
Zoey was eleven...
“Listen to me.” I brought my focus back to the woman as she grabbed my hand. “What you did was incredibly brave, but really, really stupid.”
I thought back to the guns, the shooting, the little girl, and I had to clear my throat again. “Where am I?”
“You’re safe, that’s what’s important.” She gave me a quick reassuring smile and a little squeeze. I guess I didn’t mind the feeling, but I had to break it.
“I was with someone...”
She nodded slowly, patiently expecting me to continue, but I couldn’t. The pit in my stomach got heavier and it made me nervous just thinking about it. I let her finish the thought.
“We didn’t find anyone else.”
I could feel the knot in my belly twist over itself again. I had to convince myself that he was probably okay. He should have been. There had to be at least a million reasons why Zach would be better off than me and I was still alive.