Undone: A Dystopian Fiction Novel (11 page)

              “There’s some stuff in the backpack,” Jenny said. “I just grabbed everything it would hold, I don’t know if it’s enough.”

              “How long will it take us to get to the farm?” Rick asked.

              “Like 13 hours, at least, if we can drive all the way.”

              We watched as Tyrsa and Jenny looked through the backpack.

              “It looks okay,” Tyrsa said, her voice uncertain. “But we really don’t have much choice. We need to find someplace safe to hide until we get a car. We can’t be out wandering around all together without a base. Ariel and Matt are going to be looking for us. And I have a feeling they won’t be bringing us back with them again.”

              Each moment we spent outside and exposed felt like one moment closer to a bomb going off. We began to run again, eyes peeled for cars. I wore Jenny’s backpack for her and the cans clanked together, making a seemingly impossible amount of noise. We passed stores with parking lots littered with runaway carts and flying trash and rows of dark little shops with “Closed” signs hanging in their windows. It was like Bloomington had become a ghost town. We ran past the IU grounds and were shocked to see a few people roaming around. They were like zombies; they either didn’t see us or didn’t feel the need to react at all. We kept running. We were heading into the suburbs, where the big houses were.

It didn’t take long to see just how degraded the place had become. The boards on windows had been ripped down, the glass shattered, and door frames splintered. We entered a few of the houses, cautiously, and searched for useful supplies. There was a surprising amount of items left behind. The previous inhabitants must have left in a hurry. One house had several windows broken, but the door appeared to be undamaged. We circled the building a few times to see if anyone was home, but after looking through the windows and listening for noise from inside, we determined it was indeed abandoned. This would be our base for the moment. Rick found some loose nails and used the back of a book to put the wooden planks back up just enough so no one could see through. We didn’t want to make the place look too secure, or else it would alert looters that there were supplies or people for the taking. By keeping the house grungy, we made ourselves look uninteresting.

Rick and Tyrsa went out first to look for a car. She took Dirk’s gun with her and I could tell by her face when she left that she was totally prepared to kill anyone who tried to hinder them. It was the safest option. If they just ran back to the house, they would be exposing the rest of us to danger.

“We’ll stick to the suburbs for now,” Tyrsa told us. “It’s still quieter, at least in the daytime.”

“Be careful,” Jenny told them, casting a worried look at Rick.

He smiled at her and looked down as Darcy ran up to embrace his knees.

“You take care of your mom, ok?” he said. “We’ll be back soon.”

With Rick and Tyrsa gone, the rest of us finished searching the first floor of the house. One of our most important discoveries was a working clock. It was in the kitchen - just like our clock - and read ten-am. Ariel must have gotten back from laundry by now, and realizing that made us all nervous, especially for Rick and Tyrsa.

“They rarely go out during the day,” Jenny said, trying to make everyone feel better.

“But this is a special situation,” I countered. “I doubt they’re going to just do business as usual. They’ll want to catch us!”

Jenny nodded, chewing anxiously on her bottom lip. There wasn’t much we could do but hope Rick and Tyrsa got back quickly with a car. To distract ourselves, we moved upstairs to look around. Darcy found what must have been a little girl’s room. The walls were painted lavender and the bed was piled high with stuffed animals. Darcy became quiet and solemn. She sat on the floor holding out one of the toys - a plush unicorn - and staring at it intently. When Jenny asked her what was wrong, Darcy just looked at her with sad eyes. She couldn’t articulate why she felt the way she did, but Jenny seemed to understand.

“I think she’s worried about the little girl not having her animals,” Jenny explained to me.

In the master bedroom, I found some toiletries on the bed - toothpaste, toothbrushes, Band-Aids - and clothes. After I brushed my teeth with a little bottled water, I put on a sweatshirt and fresh socks and felt very strange. I thought about writing a note explaining our circumstances, but that forced me to think about if anyone would be coming back here. Well, of course they would, right? It wasn’t like this place got hit by a tornado or something. Eventually, things would calm down and get back to normal, and families would return. Wouldn’t they? The other option was that no one would be coming back because they were dead.

I wrote the note, made the bed, and set it on the middle of the bedspread.

With nothing else to do, I began to worry again. How much longer should I expect Rick and Tyrsa to be gone? How long was too long? Visions of them being ambushed by a rabid Matt and Ariel filled my head so that it began to hurt again. I searched in the bathroom cupboards for Aspirin. I didn’t hear Jenny approach me from behind, and thus, when she spoke, I jumped.

“I should change your bandage.”

“Ah! You startled me.”

“Sorry.”

I sat on the toilet lid while she slowly pulled off the bandage from my head. Our eyes met and she smiled a little. Her eyes were green.

“You probably don’t exactly agree, but I’m glad that we ran into each other again,” Jenny said. “The situation could have been better, though.”

She investigated the bathroom cupboards and found that it was nearly fully-stocked. She dabbed a cotton ball with alcohol on my wound before putting on a new bandage.

“We were worried when you left the apartment,” I said. “Rick, especially.”

A smile tickled the corner of Jenny’s mouth and I saw as she blushed.

“He really cares about you and Darcy,” I added. 

“Well, I’m really grateful for his help. For all your help. And for letting us go with you.”

“Of course.”

I helped Jenny take down the supplies we found in the bathroom and spread them on the dining room table. Beth and Lawrence were in the living room, talking quietly. Beth was still holding her bloodied art knife. In our hurry, I hadn’t really gotten to take a good look at her. She seemed surprisingly unfazed, but her eyes had a kind of distant look, like she was disassociating herself from the situation.

Makes sense. She’s in shock.

I thought back to what seemed like an eternity ago, when Beth was worried about the lengths we would have to go to in order to survive, about the lines we would cross. She had crossed that line. No one can come back from that and be the same person they were before. Beth was here, standing in front of me, talking about the backpack supplies, but who was she really now? How much of her died along with Dirk, or would slowly die as time passed?

I found the body in the backyard. I had gone out to see if there were any yard tools or anything we could use as a weapon. It was lying in what used to be a garden, but what was now just a tangle of dark bushes, asleep through the winter. The body was curled up, as if trying to hide. It scared me to death. I leapt back, covering my face with my hand, and gagged. Whoever it was had been dead for a while. Birds and other animals had been picking at its flesh. The eyes were gone, leaving empty, gory sockets. Based on what remained of the clothes, I guessed it had been a man.

“How do you think he died?” Lawrence asked, when I called him out of the house to help me deal with my macabre discovery.

“Maybe shot?” I guessed. “Maybe he was running away.”

The ground was too hard to dig a grave, but we felt weird just leaving the body out there in the open. As a compromise, we covered it carefully with a sheet from one of the bedrooms. It was a rather futile action, as the birds and what not would undoubtedly find a way to get in there, but at least while we were there, the body wasn’t totally exposed to nature’s brutal burial rituals. We told Jenny and Beth about it - it was pointless to try and shield them from it - and they just nodded. Jenny went upstairs to be with Darcy while the rest of us remained downstairs. I looked through the cupboards again for food in hopes we had missed something, but no. It looked like whoever looted the place cleaned out the first floor, but left the second. Their loss, our gain. I sat down on the couch in the living room and folded my legs up beneath me.

Where are Tyrsa and Rick?

I don’t remember falling asleep, sleep seemed to be hitting me pretty suddenly and violently these days, but I woke to the sound of voices. I sat up, realizing I was in darkness, and feeling very disoriented. A flashlight shone in my face and I lifted my hand to shield my eyes.

“Good, you’re awake.”

It was Tyrsa’s voice.

Thank God.

“We couldn’t find a car,” she said.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw that everyone was standing around the living room. I rubbed my eyes hard to rid them of sleep and stood up.

“What time is it?”

“About 4:30,” Tyrsa replied.

“Jesus, why did you guys let me sleep so long?”

“Looked like you needed it,” Lawrence said.

“So, no car,” Tyrsa said again, her tone frustrated. “What are we going to do?”

“Can we stay here the night? Is that a good idea?” Jenny asked, sounding very unsure.

We all felt apprehensive about staying in one place, but the other option was to go out into the night. That sounded worse.

“I guess...stay here, but be ready to run? Head to the IU campus? There’s probably lots of places to hide there.”

“Why don’t we just go to the campus now?”

“I said, “probably,” and who knows what kind of people are there already? That has to be a last resort. We
are
safe here, for the moment. Let’s take advantage of that.”

Rick’s suggestion made about as much sense as anything else we might have come up with. We pushed the couch in front of the door and made sure we had a clear path out the back door.

“What if they come through the back?” Beth asked. “The couch is blocking this door.”

“Or they come in both ways…” Lawrence added.

We decided to stay outside in the backyard, armed and ready, so we wouldn’t be surprised. We would hear or see them coming if anyone came that way, and could bolt. The scariest thing about that plan was that we had to sit in the dark. A flashlight would alert everyone to our position. However, darkness was our friend this time; we would see other flashlights heading our way well before they were upon us, and we could sneak off without raising the alarm. We took out the dining room chairs and sat in the cold dusk, the light fading quickly around us. It felt like we were vampire hunters, waiting for the undead to rise from their crypts and stalk the living.

We sat outside for about two hours. It was almost peaceful. Everyone had found warm clothes in the bedrooms, so we were all comfortable in the chill air. We ate some crackers and canned tuna, and to treat ourselves, we all shared a can of pineapple juice. Darcy sat in Jenny’s lap, her mother’s arms holding her tight, and dozed. Refreshed from my long nap, I was wide awake and alert. We didn’t have a car, but if we made it through the night, we could look again tomorrow.

If.

Darcy woke from a dream and looked around, unsure of where she was for a moment. I could barely make out her face by the streetlight across the yard and considering that we had retreated to the shadows. How old was she again? Five or six? This time would probably be one of her first really concrete memories. Would the images come in tattered fragments or in more complete pieces? How long would it be before her dreams weren’t haunted by an aura of danger? I hadn’t dreamed much recently. My brain couldn’t handle processing what I experienced when I was awake, so it just sat down and shut up. A small blessing.

I was still looking at Darcy when I noticed her jump off Jenny’s lap. She had noticed something.

“Look!” Darcy cried, pointing.

We all looked. Down the street, about five buildings from us on the opposite side of the street, a house was on fire. The flames rose from the roof, smoke illuminated by the bright tongues, and moving through the house quickly. We stood in shock for a few moments, unsure of what to do. Then we heard shouts. The fire was drawing attention. We froze as flashlights bobbed by us, carried by people running toward the burning house. We were not seen, but there were more coming. We also noticed people spilling from the house itself, dark figures that moved jerkily, like shadow puppets. The shouting increased and we heard gunshots.

“We have to get out of here,” Tyrsa hissed. “To the campus.”

              Being the fastest, Rick naturally became the leader. Jenny carried Darcy on her back while Lawrence, Beth, and I flanked her. Without speaking, we decided that Jenny and Darcy were the most vulnerable and needed protection the most. Tyrsa ran close to Rick, her gun out. We stuck to the shadows, but even then, we sometimes had to huddle in dark alleys until a group passed. We didn’t see anyone we recognized and everyone seemed preoccupied with the fire. We moved slowly towards the campus, stopping frequently to hide, and trying very hard to become invisible. When we reached the outskirts, we saw a large group gathered in the courtyard.

              “Shh!” Rick whispered, ducking behind a tree.

              We all pressed together, body to body, and held our breath. Rick peeked his head out a few times, saying nothing. I looked behind us at the long stretch of unlit sidewalk. Clear. After an agonizing minute, Rick began to move forward again. We followed, imitating his hunched position.

“They looked like they were organized,” he whispered back to us. “Then they broke off to different buildings.” 

“Were they armed?” Beth whispered.

“Yes.”

We came to the back of a building where it was dark and climbed the steps. Rick tried to open the door, but it was locked. He stared at the handle in shock, as if the possibility of being locked out had never crossed his mind.

“Go! Try another door!” Lawrence said.

We ran back down the steps and back around to another building. I looked up to read the carved letters indicating what the building was. The letters were large enough so that I could just see what they said.

Student Center.

As we approached the door, we heard a roar from the opposite side of the building- from the courtyard. For a moment, we were petrified and unsure of what it was, before I identified what the sound was.

“Air horns,” I mouthed.

On the verge of panic, Rick grabbed the handle, but again, it was locked. He pounded on the door, cursing through his teeth.

“Come on!” he shouted.

I thought I saw movement inside the dark building and threw my fist against the glass.

“Hey!” I cried, nearly pushing Rick to the side. “I see you!”

The figure moved closer and a middle-aged man with a flashlight came into view. He moved slowly, his eyes full of fear, and just looked at us.

“Let us in!” Rick shouted.

The man bit his lip and shook his head. I suddenly recognized him as one of my professors from Ivy Tech. Mr. Hoskins.

“It’s me!” I cried. “Mr. Hoskins! It’s Morgan!”

              His eyes widened a little and I could tell he recognized me, but he still hesitated by the door. Jenny grabbed Darcy’s hand and lifted her up so he could see her.

              “Please!” she begged. “There’s a kid with us!”

              Mr. Hoskins’ mouth fell open and in a single motion, he unlocked the door and opened it.

              “Get in!” he shouted.              

              We all rushed in, tripping over each other’s feet, until we were safe inside. Mr. Hoskins locked the door behind us and adjusted his glasses, flustered.

              “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I didn’t know. I didn’t know what you were going to do.”

              “We’re not looters,” Tyrsa said firmly. “We’re trying to get out of town.”

Mr. Hoskins made a kind of scoffing noise, but it wasn’t mocking.

“I thought about that once,” he said. “One of the boys tried. When he didn’t come back, we thought maybe he made it, but then the next night, he shows up on a raid and tries to break in with the rest of them.”

The din of air horns began, like an emergency siren. Mr. Hoskins grabbed my arm.

“Come on, it’s not safe here. Come with me.”

He led us down two flights of stairs. I had been to the IU Student Center a few times, but it was completely transformed. Couches were turned over, chairs smashed, and the little cafe that served pizza was stripped bare, even the light fixtures. Two flights down was one of the student lounges where the bookstore had been. Mr. Hoskins knocked three times on one of the doors, counting two seconds in between each knock, and we were let in by a stone-faced redhead who carried a handgun. He hesitated when he saw us, but Mr. Hoskins just nodded.

“They’re not with them,” he explained. “And there’s a kid.”

We entered what looked like a combo of a military strategy room and bunker. Someone had drawn a large, detailed map on the dry erase board which was marked up in various marker colors with writing. All the tables had been pushed against the walls, freeing the floor to be a landscape of sleeping bags, backpacks, and lanterns. The room was not large, but about twenty faces all turned towards us when we came in, all young, like ourselves.

“Welcome to the resistance,” Mr. Hoskins said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

“How long have you been here?” Beth asked.

“About a week, though it seems like forever. We were all driven out of our houses or dorms by looters, and ended up here. The walls are concrete and this door is new, so it seemed like a pretty safe place to hunker down. The looters found us though. They haven’t been able to get in, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“Why wasn’t the backdoor secured?” Rick asked.

Jenny and Darcy were swept away by concerned young women and I saw them offering water and crackers. These were good people.

“They’ve just been focusing on the front. Some of them went around once, but I guess they decided splitting up wasn’t the best idea, and they had already made progress with the front. That’s why I was up there though, to make sure we knew where they were coming from.”

“What’s your plan, though? Just wait here until they break in?” Lawrence asked, sounding bewildered.

I noticed he was counting the weapons in the room, and I did the same. Counting Tyrsa, there were three semi-automatics and one handgun. Who knew how many bullets each one held? 

“We’ve been waiting for the National Guard,” Mr. Hoskins explained.

“They aren’t coming,” Rick said firmly. “They don’t care about us.”

“No, no, you’re wrong,” Mr. Hoskins insisted. “We called a newspaper. And a TV station. We told them what was going on, that looters were taking young people and killing the others, and that there were gangs forming who went around at night attacking each other and us.”

I glanced at Tyrsa in disbelief. There were other crews besides Matt and Ariel’s that were doing the same thing? And there was some kind of turf war going on outside? Which crew was outside now?

“We’ve been listening to the radio,” Mr. Hoskins continued. “It’s a huge story now, and the National Guard will be coming soon.”

“How long has it been since you talked to the media?” Tyrsa asked.

“About a day and a half,” Mr. Hoskins replied. “One of the students had recently been able to charge their phone and had the number of the newspaper and TV station saved for their internship. It was a really lucky break.”

“We gotta get up there,” the redhead interjected.

“Yes, yes,” Mr. Hoskins said.

The redhead turned to us, frowning.

“You want to stay with us? Make yourself useful.”

Tyrsa, Rick, Lawrence, and I were all handed weapons and instructed to go upstairs and stop anyone who got through. Beth looked concerned about us leaving, but I could see her internally decide to keep her newly-aggressive nature hidden. Because of the lack of guns, I was given a hunting knife while Rick got a metal baseball bat. It didn’t feel much different than being the bait for Matt’s crew, but now it was on the other side.

“Has anyone gotten in before?” I asked the redhead, who introduced himself as Tyler.

“Only two guys,” Tyler said. “Shot ‘em.”

As we walked up the stairs, I looked over at Tyler and noticed he wore a pair of dog tags around his neck. Army guy? Quite possibly. I didn’t have time to ask before we reached our destination. The front doors had been barricaded by couches and a variety of chairs from all over the building.

“We put boards up, too,” Tyler explained.

He gestured with his gun to a second couch barricade.

“Here.”

We crouched down behind the couches. I peered over, one of the couch feet right by my face. I could see flashlights gleaming through slits in the barricade. I had not relaxed since we started running to campus; the adrenaline made my muscles rigid, like my veins had been replaced with steel rods. I had Tyrsa on my left and Rick on my right. With each ram to the doors, we all flinched a little.

“It’ll be better in the morning, right?” Tyrsa asked Tyler, who was holding his gun like he was a sniper, squinting intently at the doors.

“They all go crawl into their holes,” Tyler said. “Some still wander around, stopping anyone who tries to leave, anyone who has a car. But it’s a little safer.”

No wonder Rick and Tyrsa couldn’t find a car. The looters were hoarding all of them. An especially hard hit struck the doors and we heard cracking glass. Tyler shone a flashlight on the barricade to assess the damage. The couches had begun to move, rocking back and forth against the doors.

“They might get in tonight,” Tyler said, almost to himself.

He choked his gun. I took a deep, shuddering breath and looked at Tyrsa. I could barely see her in the dark, but I thought I saw her smile. Suddenly, we could hear angry shouts and gunfire. It sounded like the crew trying to break in had been interrupted. We stayed hunched down, hoping the turf war would draw everyone away from the bunker. Rick turned and was about to say something to me, when he suddenly flinched. He looked down at himself.

“What happened?” Lawrence asked.

“What the…?” Rick whispered.

He brought his hand up so he could see. It was wet with blood.

“Shit,” he groaned.

“Ricochet!” Tyler hissed. “We gotta get him downstairs!”

Tyler thrust his gun into my hand.

“You three stay here! I’ll take him down.” 

Tyler pulled Rick to his feet and they disappeared down the hall, a trail of blood behind them. My heart was in my throat. Lawrence’s eyes were teary from fear. He wiped his nose violently.

“What do we do?” he cried, raising his voice to be heard above the sound outside.

“Stay down!” Tyrsa replied.

I could tell there were bullets flying everywhere now, finding their way through the broken windows, through the barricade, and ricocheting off the walls and thumping into the couches. Each time I heard a bullet make contact, I flinched, imagining that the couch was my body. What did being shot feel like? Rick knew.

Oh, God, Rick.

We braced ourselves against the barricade, bodies stiff. The ramming started again. They were breaking in. They were in. Of course, we ran. We didn’t have a choice. The looters came in shooting and shouting. I grabbed one of the chairs from the barricade, an office chair with a rickety wheel, and we backed into the hall. The chair was a poor shield, but it was all we had. As soon as we were clear, we nearly fell down the stairs, stumbling in the dark.

              “I got hit,” Tyrsa cried.

              I whipped around to see her leaning on the railing, holding her side.

             
No no no.

             
I ran back to her.

              “Can you walk?”

              “Help me.”

              She put her arm around my shoulder and tried to step down, then cried out.

              “My leg, too,” she breathed.

              I picked her up, her arms around my neck. I felt her warm blood on my hands and shirt. The flashlights were fast approaching from upstairs.

              “Helloooo?” a voice called. “Anyone?”

              I recognized the voice immediately, that cocky, glib tone. Matt.