After Grace

10. Run

"This is it," I said. "You won't get another chance." But the prisoners remained in place, like skeletons unaware of a life outside the grave. I felt a burning anxiety at my back, Annie and Camden were being hunted and, at any second, the door behind me would open and I could be shot down where I stood. I was out of time. "I'm sorry," I told them. "I can't wait anymore." I turned on my heel and jogged to the corpse on the floor.

I went through every pocket on her person but she had nothing except the knife. Another jab of hunger cut through me and I became temporarily immobilized. I tried to focus, shaking away the lightheadedness and thinking of the children who needed me. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would collapse. I pulled the nylon black holster off her belt and slipped it into my own. I looked at the body beneath me, even though she was dead, to me, she still looked warm. This part I wasn't looking forward to, but then again, none of this had been my choice. I unzipped her black leather jacket and pulled it off her back. I slid it on and instantly felt better. I zipped it closed and crossed to the door, gently opening it. I peeked out: right, left, back again. Empty.

The town hall still burned, the orange light filled the corridor as it pulsed through the long row of windows lining the north side of the hallway. I remained crouched and moved silently toward the stairwell. When I reached the first stair I saw something stir out of the corner of my eye. I turned back to the hall I had just come from and saw the prisoner girl who'd warned me not to kill Tamara. She stood alone, simply staring. I could see her face in the firelight. She had big brown eyes and a small, downturned mouth. I smiled and waited for her to join me. She quickly lunged to the window across the hall and leaned her head through the broken glass. "Help!" she shouted. "She's escaping!" she pulled her head back in and looked at me again, then, as if nothing had happened, returned to the library. My mouth fell open. Beneath me, I could hear the men Tamara had just kicked out rushing back inside. I was on the third floor, they were on the first. I jumped to the landing below me, and again to the one below that.

I heard the sound of their guns being cocked as if I was right beside them. I ran down the second floor hallway trying to put as much distance between me and them as possible. Before I was even halfway down, they exploded from the stairway behind me and took aim.

"Don't shoot you idiot!" the voice had come from a second squad, this one was in front of me. They had run into the school from behind and now came pouring out of the stairway to which was running. I was surrounded front and back with no way out. No way except for the broken window in front of me. Without thinking I rushed the empty frame ahead and dropped straight down. The fall seemed to last forever but I knew it had only been a second or two.

I heard something beneath me break as I landed. It wasn't until I stood up that I realized the crunch I had felt was my shoulder being snapped out of place. I ignored the pain as best I could and ran to the sporting-goods store across the street. Pops and bangs of guns being fired exploded from the school behind me. The screeching whistles of their bullets passing by my head polluted the air around me as I ran inside.

The glass doors behind me shattered as a barrage of gunfire ripped through the store. I dropped to the floor and crawled through the falling shards using only my good arm to drag myself along the tiled floor. When I got to the safety of the storage room, I put my back against the wall and slid up to stand. To stop was to die, so I didn't. When I was back on my feet, I pushed myself off the wall-- barreling out the back door and stumbling into the exposed grassy field of the town's baseball diamond. Hunger, pain, it all just fell away. I ran for the forest, through their bullets, into the dark.

Branches, like sharp fingers, reached out to scratch my face as I hurled myself between night-black trees, following the white light of the full moon. My feet finally found the path, I yanked the knife from its holster.

"Annie!" I screamed. "Camden!"

"Grace!" I heard her shouting back. "He's got a gun-" by the time she'd said it, it was too late. The man grabbed both kids and pinned them against his body with one arm. He raised his gun and as I jumped out of the way he began to fire. His bullet followed me into the woods, drilling into the dry weak trunks of the trees around me.

Sweat once again covered me in an oily film. The last of my hydration leaking out in pints. He continued to pull the kids along, I waited. In the not-so-distant dark, I heard my pursuers mocking me from behind, hoping for a reaction.

"She's here!" yelled the large man carrying my charge. I remained silent and still until he lumbered by. I rounded the tree and moved behind him careful not to snap any twigs or kick any rocks. He aimed his gun at the wind as it shook loose the last of dry leaves from the skinny tree beside him.

I lifted myself up on my tiptoes to reach the back of his head. The knife cut into him as easy as any deer meat. I pulled the blade out, he tumbled face first to the ground.

The kids pulled themselves from beneath the giant man and threw their arms around me. "Where's the other guy? They sent two," I asked.

"I shot him with your gun, but I ran out of bullets," Annie said.

"Show yourself you coward bitch!" a voice pricked through the trees only a hundred feet away. I took the dead man's pistol and checked the magazine.

"Run, stay on the path," I said. Annie didn't ask, she only took Camden's hand and ran. I waited until I could hear footsteps ahead of me and fired.

"Get down!" I heard a woman shout.

"Cover!" someone else yelled. Once again, I ran.

#

I broke from the trees and found a back road cutting through the woods. Annie and Camden stood on the double yellow lines waiting for me. My shots had slowed our pursuers but they were still closing in. I fired into the woods again to keep them back. I turned to what I thought might be north and hurried along the road pulling Annie by the hand as she did the same with Camden. "Come on, we have to keep moving, they won't know which way we went."

"Camden?" I heard her say behind me. I turned just as the boy fell backward on the asphalt. "Camden!" she yelled. I rushed to him and pat my hands over his body, he had no wounds but his lips were cracked dry, he was dehydrated. The distant snap of cracking tree branches inched closer and closer as the cannibals drew near. I picked the boy off the road and carried him in my arms. Annie ran beside us, her hand on his chest. I knew it was only a matter of time before I too would fall.

"Look!" she said, "What is it?" her voice fell soft. I stopped in my tracks when I saw it; two white lights bounding in the dark. They were high off the ground, too high to be a car. "It's coming fast," she said, afraid.

Annie tried to pull me from the road. But I didn't move. I couldn't take another step. I remained standing only for the adrenalin in my veins. I had nothing more to give. The truck rose from the black like a dragon with glowing eyes and a roaring flat snout, it let out a wooshing exhale as it came to a screeching halt in front of us. The driver's side door opened and out came a man dressed in full body armor. His nose and mouth were hidden behind a mask, and the mask was behind a plastic visor attached to a thick gray helmet. In both hands, he carried a long assault rifle. A line of cars followed behind the truck.

"Please," was all I could say. Annie pushed herself against me, more afraid now than before. The eyes behind the visor contemplated.

"Get inside," he said.