“We will run and we’ll lose them in the orchards.” I looked both parents in the eyes as I said it.
We stood outside the shadow of a long, unused warehouse. Me and the Garcia family. I had helped the four of them escape this far—to the part of the landfill so hazardous the guards rarely spent time here.
The guards would pursue. We needed only to keep our head start.
The winter sun felt warm on my afflicted skin. Smells of rot and astringent chemicals floated on the breeze. My stomach grumbled for more food because breakfast had been the refugee special: weak coffee and bread that had cut my tongue.
“How do you know this will work?” the woman, the mother, said. “There is nothing to hide us. You are so young for this.”
She reminded me of my own mother, or, well, pictures I had seen of my mother. Soft brown hair, oval face, and warm brown eyes.
“How can you tell?” I joked.
No one laughed.
“Mamí,” the daughter said, a warning note in her voice.
I was only a few years older than the girl. Fifteen compared to her eleven years, but age no longer mattered. Well, age mattered more now than ever before. The uninfected killed the Vs and the Faints—anyone too far gone from infection—but rounded up Feebs like us into their work camps. Feebs were people infected with both the virus and bacteria, people with aged skin beyond their years, people with memories that came back as ghosts and fevers and hallucinations.
“She’s a rustler,” the father said. “It doesn’t matter how old she is. Gabbi said she was the best.”
The parents looked at each other, at me, at the bare hills that had once been green but were now yellow, the dead grasses chewed to stubs by ranging cattle and a dry winter. Not a tree or a bush or a telephone poll to hide us.
“The bare hills are a problem,” I said. “The fence is two stories tall, but we’re going under it and then we only need to get across the hill.” And across the abandoned freeway and then into the orchards, but I decided not to point out those facts.
When my uncle had cared for me at the beginning, when I had been like a wounded animal, we spent hours together on black-and-white crosswords, jigsaw puzzles with beautiful landscapes, interlocking blocks the size of his hand that needed to separate in a certain way. This escape was a puzzle. I was good at puzzles.
“And full sun to highlight our infected skin,” the mother said. “And not a single cloud or anything moving out on the valley floor to hide us and—”
“I’ve done it a dozen times before,” I interrupted, “in other places, for others like you. I thought Gabbi told you?”
“She did,” the boy piped in.
At her brother’s high-pitched voice, the girl looked up. Her hazel eyes, sunk deep in wrinkled and bruised skin, stared at me like I was some kind of hero. And maybe I was when it came to smuggling Feebs out of prisons and experiments and hangings, but it made me uncomfortable.
“Okay, then you know. I never lose anyone.” I said it matter-of-factly because it was the truth. In the two years since Gabbi and I had been freeing Feebs with Alden’s help, I hadn’t failed once. “The way we do it this time is get outside the fence and hide in the orchards.”
I pointed to the trees. They were a few hundred yards on the other side of a freeway that hadn’t seen traffic in years. Green leaves and fermenting fruit hung heavy from the trees, creating a dense canopy. From winters spent on my uncle’s orchard ranch, I knew underneath that canopy we’d find room to run and places to hide and the rotting fruit would cover our scent from the dogs. The slight breeze would work in our favor, creating enough noise as it rustled the organic matter to allow us a decent pace without revealing our location.
But the citrus orchard was a familiar place and sometimes familiar places triggered the zombie in me. Others didn’t like calling it that, but it’s the only thing that made sense. I knew about three of my triggers: a slap to the face, jingling bracelets, and the smell of my uncle’s sandalwood cologne.
A hand tugged at the hem of my shirt. I looked down, into the brown eyes of the boy. His plump cheeks held hints of tiredness, wrinkles, bruising—normal for our kind. An ache started in my stomach. I did not understand how eyes could look so happy outside this building of broken windows, rodent droppings, dust that tracked every shoe print.
“Don’t get lost in the memory-rush. Jump up and down if you need to. Exercise helps.”
I smiled. A kid reminding me what every Feeb knew. Exercise held back the memories. No one knew why, but it worked.
“Thanks.” I tousled his hair.
His eyes lost focus, caught in his own memory-rush. I shook his shoulder. He flapped his arms up and down. I held back a laugh, afraid it would offend him.
His eyes cleared.
“Come on,” I said.
The mother didn’t move but held my gaze for a long moment. Her cheeks were lined and gaunt, aged beyond what the double infection had done. I wondered what she had endured to keep this family alive and together. My eyelids twitched, but I knew if I turned away she would not trust me. She looked at me like adults do when they are deciding whether to treat you like a kid or like one of their own. She looked at me like my aunt used to do when she was getting ready to tell me off. But then something changed. She rested a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “We must go, mamita.”
The daughter brushed off her worn pants and shirt. She held out her hand. It dangled in the air until I understood and shook it. She nodded solemnly. “Thank you for taking us through the fence.”
I made them cover their clothing with dirt to blend in with the yellow hillside. We dusted our hair, our skin, every inch of our clothes. The mother and father helped the little one. I helped the girl. I inspected twice, fussing about missed spots and clothing edges.
Once they camouflaged themselves to my satisfaction, we crawled to the next abandoned building. The landfill covered hundreds of acres. The work camp never used this side because of the rectangular pond and the general disrepair of the buildings here that had been used for processing hazardous waste. The uninfected ran the camp from the offices on the other side. The refugees lived in Cell Four, in makeshift tents and wooden barracks, with newspaper for insulation. Alden didn’t know what this camp did even though he was part of the uninfected side of camp—and Sergeant Bennings’ son.
All Gabbi and I knew was this camp didn’t grow food like the other camps. Everything was barren except for the orchard—and that was left unpicked.
There had been at least six camps once. Now there were three. The other camps had fallen to the Vs—people infected with the virus that made them relive and reenact every horrible moment of their lives.
Alden had told us we needed to get this family out. He didn’t share any details beyond that, but it was enough. When the rest of the runaways and I had been imprisoned at Camp Eagle, Alden and I became friends in spite of everything. He’d been helping us get Feebs out of the camps for two years. I knew I could trust him.
We hid now in Cell Three. The boy was tucked under his father’s arm. The girl pressed into her mother’s side. I was behind them. I was apart from them. They were so perfect.
Acidic fumes rolled off the neon green water of the pond nearby. A headache formed behind my eyes. I forced tears away and blamed it all on the chemicals in the pond. These four people, the Garcia family, were alive and together. It was my job to keep them that away. They saw me as some kind of savior, superhero, saint, and maybe I was a little of all those things. Out of all of us who helped other Feebs escape, I had helped save the most. Others like Gabbi and Ano would get V bites along the way and fall into fevers, but I was able to dodge and anticipate and escape tight spots that had gotten others killed. I would not lose any of them. People I had been tasked to save—I saved them.
“The guards patrol the fence,” I said to no one in particular, except that I had to talk. “Between us and the valley floor are abandoned cattle ranches, abandoned distribution centers, abandoned vineyards, abandoned orchards, abandoned mining operations, get it?” I didn’t wait for a response. The fumes made my head dizzy. “The guards wear gas masks in this section, which messes with their sight. The pond will make your eyes water, and then you’ll start sneezing, and then after the sneezing, the trembling begins—”
The daughter narrowed her eyebrows and grimaced.
“—but we’ll be gone before that,” I finished, feeling lame. Gabbi wanted me to grow into a hard, silent type like her. Corrina didn’t think it was possible. I suspected Corrina was right.
I motioned for the family to press themselves against the exterior cement wall of the last building. Maybe fifty feet stood between us and the small depression of dirt I’d hidden at the base of a pole along the fence line. Push the dirt aside and the space uncomfortably fit one large adult. We only had to get through it before anyone noticed the family of four had gone missing.
A mechanical noise filtered through the silence and froze my group. I motioned for them to hug the ground and keep their faces turned to the dirt while I did the same. The soil felt cool and gritty against my bare palms. It even smelled like chemicals, though less so than the breeze. The landfill had been closed for a number of years before the V virus had swept everything away, but chemicals always leached and containment measures always failed. That’s why we were going to win.
The noise grew louder, turned into an engine. I balanced my chin in the dirt, daring to look. A deep urge to blurt out something, anything, grew inside me. A jeep with two men and guns and spotlights appeared on the outside of the fence. The vehicle kicked up rocks into the metal links, throwing sparks. I held my breath and waited for them to stop.
They disappeared around the hill’s base. The engine noise faded into a silence broken only by the rustle of wind in the scrub grass.
I whispered around the grit on my tongue for the group to crawl out of the building’s shadow and run for the fence.
The shuffle of our shoes coupled with our hard breathing seemed fatally loud.
I dug into my dip of dirt and pushed the pile away from the fence in deliberate strokes to the right and left, minimizing the dust cloud that might bring back the patrol. I forced back a sneeze. My eyes watered.
First the father went under the fence. The waist of his pants caught on the metal links, shaking the entire section, sending pins of reflected light that could probably be seen for miles. Blood pounded in my ears. I unhooked where his pants had caught and used my feet to push him the rest of the way. Without waiting for him to get up, I pushed the boy through. He did not make a peep and laid himself flat on the dirt. Next came the mother. She smiled at me. I helped her through, and she squeaked when the edge of the fence scratched at her neck.
“Shh,” I said. I turned for the girl.
She stood several feet away, looking back the way we’d come, looking back at the building’s deep shadow.
The stillness was no longer still.
Two men with rifles and gas masks broke the edge of the shadow. One held up an object with an antenna and spoke into it.
The faint noise of an engine reappeared.
“Come on, come on!” I yelled, not caring now about quiet. Guilt tore into me. I hadn’t asked for their names. They were the Garcia family. That was all I knew. We had been so silent, and then I had rambled on about the plan. I had never asked for their names. There was nothing I could call out to help her out of the memory-rush that locked up her muscles.
The mother screamed. She threw herself against the metal fence and the entire wall of it shimmered in the sun.
I ran to the girl and tackled her to the ground. I turned her face to me, her brown hair and eyes and nose a perfect match to her mother. Her hair was wrapped around her head like a crown, sprinkled thick with dust. I shook her thin shoulders.
Her head whipped around. She blinked, but did not come out.
I wondered what she relived and whether the memory-rush created a nightmare, or people she did not want to leave, or a ghost I could not see.
The littlest one shouted for his sister in Spanish.
I would not let him lose his sister. Not like this.
My hand snaked out like it had a mind of its own. I realized what I did a second too late. I slapped her sharp and hard across the cheek.
The shouts and the engine noise stopped. The men with gas masks disappeared.
I looked back at her on the ground, but we were no longer on the ground and a different woman had taken her place.
We stood in a carpeted room that had always smelled of dried-up roses, a cloying scent that reminded me of dead things ready to crumble at the slightest hint of shame. My aunt opened her eyes and gripped my wrist like she did every time she slapped me for being born a daughter instead of a son. Her long, proud nose was pointed like a hawk, her brown eyes were like beads, her grip was like a clamp.
“You are a disgrace!” She pulled her long robe closed with her other hand. “You should have died with your mother.”
Tears streamed down my face. “I am sorry,” I said for the millionth time, the words catching in my throat like a ball.
Her hand snaked out. The slap came as a sound first. Sharp, echoing, like the wap-wap of shoes on new linoleum. The sting came next, burning, like a million needle pricks. The heat moved from my cheek outward like a flow of lava from my head to the rest of my body until my feet burned and I could not stand still. I had to run. I had to run. I had to run.
The room disintegrated. I pounded down the hallway and out the front door, but my aunt’s face remained.
I released her thin, dusty wrist. I was back on the hillside, with the girl on the ground, lost in a memory-rush. Men with masks shouted, but it was my aunt’s face that moved me.
I ran away. I left the girl behind.
My brain screamed at me to go back, go back, go back. I dived under the chain-link fence instead. I sprinted by the father and mother on their hands and knees who screamed out of mouths that no longer smiled.
Wind pumped into my lungs. Gunshots sounded. The mother’s screams cut off. My feet stumbled when they hit the freeway pavement. More shots and all their screams went silent. I hoped for the burn of a bullet next. I had heard the shots. One must be meant for me. Next would come the pain and I would welcome it because I deserved it, because I had abandoned them. Please, please, please. The girl had not moved and I had slapped her like a fool.
But the burning did not come and I lost myself in the orchards.