Kristen Simmons - Article 5

We scanned the parking lot for any signs of danger, and then ran for the semitruck, a hundred yards away. I couldn’t help but think of the last empty parking lot we’d been in, at the sporting goods store, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise up. My wary gaze circled our position.

Just as we approached the eighteen-wheeler, a scuffle came from within.

I snapped back against the metal siding and froze. Though I expected help here, my body was now trained to react. Chase swooped in front of me and removed the baton from his belt. I wished we had the gun and ignored the fleeting awareness that I wouldn’t have thought that two days ago.

It could be an animal. But then we heard the distinct and steady groaning of footfalls on metal.

Chase glanced over his shoulder, making sure I was behind him.

I squatted to look under the truck, past the flattened tires, and saw a person’s legs as they jumped down. Then another, and finally a third, though this one more slowly, waiting for a hand from the other two.

Three of them. Two of us. They must have been sleeping when we arrived. Either that or the truck’s compartment had muted out voices. We wouldn’t be so lucky now. We didn’t know what weapons they had, and it was fifty yards back to the trees. If we made a run for it, they would certainly hear us.

Please let them be friendly.

A moment later, a boy about my age came around the corner—and froze.

He wore an old suit jacket, torn and patched by various fabrics on the stress points, and several layered T-shirts beneath it. His cargo pants were tied on by a length of red twine. He said something we couldn’t hear, and then two girls revealed themselves. One was about his height, wearing a torn long-sleeved thermal. The other was short, with pretty mocha skin and rounded, candy-apple cheeks.

She was at least six months pregnant.

I felt my blood buzzing with the same suspicion these strangers surely felt. They turned their heads to confer with each other quietly. Chase returned the baton to his belt and raised his empty hands in peace. He took a few slow steps forward.

We were twenty feet away, and the trio still had not moved. I saw the male pull back his jacket, revealing a black tire iron tucked into his waistband. My breath caught, but I was somehow relieved that there was neither a gun nor a knife visible. Yet.

Chase scoffed.

“Hold up,” the boy called. We stopped.

“We don’t want trouble,” Chase told him, clearly not intimidated. The tall girl turned to the boy and whispered something in his ear. Closer now, it became obvious that these two were twins. They had the same androgynous face: straight brows, flat cheekbones etched by the shadows of malnourishment, dark hair coming to a widow’s peak in the center of their foreheads.

“Got a trade?” the female twin asked.

“We’re looking for a carrier,” I said.

I felt Chase brace before me and wondered if I’d been too bold. But it wasn’t like these people were going to turn us in to the MM, at least not immediately. Scalping anything that the MM had profit rights to was illegal.

“We’re car salesmen, not drivers,” said the female twin. The boy elbowed her.

I didn’t like her tone. Or the way she was staring at Chase.

“Do you know a carrier or not?” I asked.

“There’s one in Lewisburg that goes to Georgia and South — ”

“Can’t go to Lewisburg,” Chase interrupted.

“Then Harrisonburg, but that’s farther.”

“Can’t go there, either,” Chase said flatly. I felt my jaw tighten.

“Bad boy,” clucked the girl. She grinned flirtatiously at Chase. I narrowed my eyes at her, and though it was cold out, I rolled up my sleeve to show off the ring on my left hand.

The small girl was whispering something to her boyfriend. When she turned to the side, she placed a hand on her distended abdomen. I felt suddenly sorry for them. She was only fifteen or sixteen — too young to be married — and certainly in violation of the Moral Statutes. That was probably why they were living in a truck.

“MM following you?” she asked.

Neither Chase nor I answered.

“You need Knoxville,” she continued. “Tennessee. You know it?”

My attention perked at this.

“What’s in Knoxville?” Chase asked.

“A carrier?” I clarified, feeling my breath begin to come faster.

“A whole underground system,” said the girl twin. “Lots of people have been heading there. That’s where half our cars have gone. Total liquidation.” She laughed.

“Knoxville,” I repeated. I felt Chase release a slow breath beside me.

We were back on track.

ITwas a long day.

The new Red Zones, those cities evacuated from the War, and Yellow Zones, those areas entirely comprised of MM, were marked in bold corresponding colors on highway signs and called for multiple detours throughout Virginia and Northern Tennessee. For brief patches I dozed, never falling fully asleep. I lingered on edge, my heart always beating a little too fast, my mind filled with worries.

The girl twin occasionally popped up in my mind, and I found myself bitter when I thought of her. She’d insisted on a trade for the car, and since we had nothing they wanted, we’d had to pay them. One thousand dollars. Cash. For an item that wasn’t even theirs to begin with. But since they’d siphoned all the gasoline, our hands were tied.

Still, I didn’t regret the interaction.

A whole underground system, the girl had said. A whole resistance movement. My mind couldn’t wrap around what this might look like. People like us. On the run. Scheming against the MM. My fantasies seemed too unrealistic. All that mattered was that someone would take us to South Carolina.

As the day wound on, my chest began to squeeze with that familiar anxiety. My mother was just beyond our grasp, but now when I focused hard on her, I only saw fragmented images. Her short, accessorized hair. Her socked feet on the kitchen floor. I needed to find her soon, or I was afraid even more of her would disappear.

Finally, we came in range. As we closed in on the city of Knoxville, the MM presence on the highway increased. There were other cars as well. Not many, but enough for us to blend in. This fact didn’t ease our minds as the FBR cruisers began flying by with regularity.

Then we saw the sign. YELLOW ZONE. The western half of Knoxville had recently been closed to civilians to make way for an MM base.

“Think they lied?” I asked Chase nervously. “Do you think they sent us here because we didn’t give them enough money?”

“No,” Chase answered, though he didn’t sound very convincing. “I think the safest place is right in the enemy’s shadow. There’s resistance here.”

And so we went to hide beneath the belly of a monster.

He took a busy exit after crossing over the gray waters of the Holston River, and parked in a dark lot behind an outcropping of sandstone medical buildings that belonged to the city hospital. Outside we were flooded by the sounds and scents of a working city during rush hour. Even after just a couple days in the country, being around so many human bodies made me feel crowded and paranoid, like everyone was watching us. I could smell the sewers, the sweat, the smog filling the stagnant air. It did nothing but add to my sense of unease.

It was cool, but not cold. The sky hung low with humidity. Rain was coming. Chase grabbed the bag and rounded the car. He didn’t have to tell me not to leave anything. I already knew we wouldn’t be coming back.

We entered the street and were immediately surrounded by pedestrians. Some rushing, fortunate enough to be wearing their work clothes and therefore employed. Some homeless, begging off to the side with their cardboard signs. Some twitching, scratching, talking to unseen hallucinations. High or mentally ill. The Reformation Act had eliminated treatment programs to fund the FBR.