Claire
Flames surrounding me, I'm crying for my mom and dad; boards have fallen. in my mind there's no escape. Red, yellow, and orange flames are in my way. I trip over a burnt fallen board, I fall to the ground; I look up seeing my father lying on the floor a few feet away from me. The smoke from the fire makes my eye sight a little hazy. I get on my knees and crawl my way over to my dad and find a knife in his back and a puddle of blood around him. I sit there staring at his motionless body, letting the blood stain my clothes, while I question what had just happened. A man in yellow comes rushing within a few minutes a and snatches me away from my father. I scream out in cries,
"Don't leave me daddy! Daddy Get up, come on, get up please!"
******
I am sixteen and it has been nine years since it happened. The memory haunts me every night, it comes back to me and I can't stand it, can't stand it anymore. Why this had to happened is still a mystery to me, I don't know if I will ever find out why this fate had to happen. For all I know my future could be even worse, but it will remain a mystery for now.
"Wake up!" yells the guard while all the cell doors slowly open.
"God I'm sick of this place" I mumble.
"Well, Claire you're leaving, so shut up and get over it," the guard tells me while walking down the rows of cells.
"Yeah, to a different detention center, that sure makes me feel a hell of a lot better." I say sarcastically." Thank god I won't be here much longer and no longer taking orders from your ugly ass." I add under my breath.
" What did you say?" the guard walks up to me and gets in my face.
" Bitch, you heard me!"
" Claire, I am not your bitch, I am the one who is in control, so therefore you are my bitch. Now get your ass moving to the bus so I can get rid of you already." The guard grabs my arm and shoves me forward.
As I walk to the bus to be transferred to the new detention center I notice that it says "Gasping Tommy Manhattan"
I whisper to the girl standing next to me who is also going to the same place, "Have you heard of that place before?" She looks back and says,
"Yea, have you heard the stories?""
"Just a few."
"I heard that there was this guy named Tommy, and he was the first prisoner that was transferred there. Soon after he was more kids were transferred there. One of the kids that was locked in the cell across from Tommy's cell saw Tommy rebel against a guard. An argument broke out. The kid watched intently the argument get heated, and Tommy hit the guard. The guard got his night stick and started beating Tommy, other guards saw Tommy tackle the guard. The guard yelled for back up. About five guards started beating Tommy. They beat Tommy up so badly that he could barely inhale and exhale. Later on Tommy was thrown into solitary confinement. The kid who witnessed all of it told other kids that were locked up there, and they told other kids. Guards over heard the kids conversation, plus all the guards that were involved in the fight also told the story,the thing is that more things were probably added to the story so who really knows what happened. According to this story it was spread to other detention centers, prisons, and jails. People say after about a week a guard was asked to get Tommy and take him to the guard that he attacked. The guard stayed and watched the other guard beat Tommy and then strangled him. While Tommy was being strangled he was gasping for air, the only words that he could manage to say with the little air he could inhale was, and I quote, "I will come back for you." she tells me, "But that's just a story that i was told and it could just be completely made up. Anyways that's how is got the name "Gasping Tommy Manhattan," plus it is in Manhattan so that's where that parts comes from." she laughs a nervous laugh.
"You know what the weird thing that I heard was, the kids who have gone to Gasping Tommy Manhattan are the kids who have no family and if they do they are the once that were meant to be executed. So they either erase all their records and just not actually kill the kids. But that's just what I heard, I don't think it's true."
"Well do you have a family?" She asks to make sure that it's just made up stories.
"Yea, of course I do." I laugh nervously. "Do you?"
"No... well at least one of us has a family so you know those stories aren't true unless..."
"No I was not suppose to be executed, they would be smarter than that, I would think." The girl begins to giggle. Sadly she doesn't know the truth of me not actually having a family. I guess those stories are true.
I step up on the bus, and the doors close behind me. I make my way to the back of the bus. The bus driver starts up the engine and I sit the listening to the humming of the engine and stare out the window to see the road to my next destination.
*****
Blades of grass dancing in the wind, dust blowing over the soulless bodies that are spilling over the trenches. This land has become a waste land that's stained red with the blood of pedestrians killed in the bombing. This was the first place Russia targeted with their bomb attack. When I was little and July 4 came around my dad would tell me the stories of what happened. He told me it was the most divesting thing that happened in Americas history. Russia dropped the first bomb on Manhattan. This bomb was no ordinary bomb, it wasn't like the atomic bomb that America dropped on Hiroshima. This bomb was worse, it was bigger. It was a form of an atomic bomb but ten times more enhanced. The whole city was blown to smithereens, but also other cities in a 66 mile radius were also blown up, nearly completely destroyed, then other cities in 34 mile radius of those were effected by the radiation. He told me this happened in 2025 three years before I was born. So ever since then July 4 never was a celebration for our independence it was a funeral for all the people that were murdered by Russia. I would ask him if we were safe from Russia. He always told me we were, but he spoke lies. I could see it in his worried eyes. He would then lean down to my level, rub my head saying "I'm doing everything I can to keep you and your mom safe." I never knew what he meant about that, guess I will never really know. At this moment America is safe from Russia only because we have giant walls built around out boarders and guards watching to make sure that the war doesn't come home to America, but I know that we are losing the war. There a trenches filled to the top with bodies of our soldiers because they are dying faster than we dig a 6ft hole in the ground. The rest of our country doesn't know that because these trenches are hidden in locations nobody ever wants to visit because of all the radiation. They are hidden where the most dangerous prisons are such as Gasping Tommy Manhattan.
*****
The bus suddenly comes to a halt. My body jerks forward almost slamming my face into the seat in front of me.
"Why did we stop?" I ask while looking at the kid sitting next to me for answers. The kid just shrugs and looks down the isle of the bus. I slightly stand up to see what is happening, but nothing is. All the guards are sitting in their seats.
"Why did we suddenly stop?" A kid shouts from their seat. Nobody responds to the kid so they stand up trying to figure out what's happening soon all the other kids stand up. A guard gets up out of his seat and yells down the bus,
"You need to sit down, we just ran into some traffic."
"Wait traffic... Nobody lives around here, no one even drives to Manhattan." I think to my self. "What do they mean by traffic?" I press my face up to the window and glare out. "Damnit I can't see anything." I reach up to the top of the window. I squeeze the sides of the window and slowly lower it. A high pitch squeal comes in through the window. Everyone's head shouts to the back of the bus and stares at me. They then begin to stare out their windows to fulfill their curiosity of the sound. Each kid squeezes the sides of the windows; as they start to lower the window a guard stands up slaps on kid across the faces leaving the sound of the slap echo down the bus. Everyone freezes, whips their heads to the front of the bus to see the kid clenching their face to try and stop the stinging of the slap.
"Everyone stop, leave the windows up otherwise all the toxic air will come in!" The guard yells. The kid next to me turns their head stares at the small opening of the window then flips shit.
"Hurry close the window! You're going to kill us all!" The kid slams me up to the wall of the bus trying to get to the window. He try to squeeze it and close the window but he can't lift the window up. So he panics even more.
"Get off of me and I will close it!" I yell at the kid, but the kid is too panic to pay any attention to what I said. The pressure from the kids body suddenly vanishes, I look over to see the kid falling to the other side of the bus and a guard leaning over me closing the window. The guard looks down at me. They grab my arm securely, drags me out of the seat and up to the very front of the bus. The other kid that was sitting next to me finally calms his ass down and sits back at his seat. The guard forces me to sit down next to him in the very front of the bus.
"Is this really necessary? I was going to close the window but that fucking kid had to to flip shit over nothing." The guard gives me a glare, then his hand raises and clenched my face, turns my head to the window. I look out the window shocked no... Amazed by what I see. A pack of six legged coyotes with a second face growing out of its original face. They are at least six feet tall, legs, and bodies thick with muscle. Their feet are wider that the legs with long sharp nails growing out of the feet.One coyote turned its head back at me. It's lips slid up against its teeth as it growls. Blood slides down its huge K9 teeth that are razor sharp and drips to the ground. The coyote turns the rest of its body toward the bus. It cautiously walks up to the window. It peers into the bus, the coyote lowers its lips to cover it teeth. I see the air that the coyote exhales come in contact with the window. I raise my hand up, press it up against the window. I slowly slide my body closer to the window. The coyote tips its head cockeyed. The corners of its lips raises as if it's smiling, then it's lips raise up over its teeth. White foam forms up in the corner of its mouth. The coyote crouches back and down. It begins to growl, the growl low and quite, slowly it gets louder and it springs forward at the window. It's face smashes up against the window, the guard quickly grabs my waist and pulls me away from the window. A small crack creeps its way up to the top of the window. The coyote jumps up on the bus digging its long sharp nails into the body of the bus make its way through the metal body. The bus driver quickly steps on the gas and drives over a few pups of the pack.
"That's why we keep the windows up, mutations will happen if you inhale this toxic air." The guard says while letting go of my waist. I turn my head up to him. I then shake off the fear and scoot away from the guard.
"Well then why the fuck did you let the thing get that close it carved holes into the body of the bus?" I ask. The guard looks at me then at the front window of the bus ignoring what I just said. I turn and to stare out the window. I see in the far distant about 12 animals chasing the bus. I get closer to the window of the bus. "Damn those animals are fast. Wait aren't those coyotes." I look over at the guard. I grab his arm and shake it. He brushes me off because he is to focused in a conversation with another guard. I stand up and walk closer to the front of the bus where the bus driver is.
"Not to bother you but umm... There is a pack of those coyotes chasing us. I think it's because you ran over it pups. So you should make this thing go faster." I warn him. The bus driver glances in the rear view mirror; just keeps driving at the same pace. "Ok don't give a shit whatever." I walk back over to my seat. I gaze out the window watching the coyotes get further and further away. "Now why did they stop chasing us? Maybe the just got tired..." I think to myself, but at that moment I see a giant building out of the corner of my eye. I twist my head forward to find Gasping Tommy Manhattan imprinted with large letters on the big solid metal doors. "There has to be a reason why they stopped chasing this bus. No way in hell am I going to find out why. Fuck that shit!" I panic in my head. I quickly but cunningly make my way to the very back of the bus before the the bus comes to a complete stop. I sit down in the back as the doors to the bus open. I sit there waiting for everyone to get off. I look out the window seeing all the guards being distracted by counting all the kids that were on the bus to make sure everyone is there. I open the emergency back door to the bus and jump out. I job low to the ground to keep from people seeing me, but then the kid who like to flip shit opens his mouth
"Hey, look over there! Someone is escaping,"
I stop and look back, "well fuck that's fantastic." I see three guards looking in my direction and soon start running after me. Then the girl that I was talking to before I got on the bus, jumps on one of the other guards. Everyone stands there in shock, then they start to rage and attack the other guards. Two of the guards turn back to try and get that situation under control while the other guard charges at me. I turn around trying to out run him, he pulls out a tranquil gun, stops to aim and then that same girl from before jumps on him, smashing his face into the ground. She stays on top of him trying to hold him down, until a guard grabs her and pulls her off. I get to the edge of the fencing of Gasping Tommy Manhattan I stop for a second because there is a guard standing a few yards away from me; I start to run because knowing how these guards work he will tranquillize me. Instead he says to me,
"Claire..."
"How..." I begin to say then he cuts me off.
"You need to leave. You have to keep running you can't get caught. There should be a forest many miles away from here, but you got to keep running and don't stop till you get their because either the guards will get you or the other things out there on these dead plains. A few miles in the forest should be near civilization. You need to get going now!"
I turn around and begin to run. I keep running till the building becomes a distant blur.
•••••
That is chapter one of my book and no more editing :) please vote and comment. Hope you enjoy😁