I can’t believe they took the Jeep.
It took me a while to find an upstairs classroom that didn’t have a class in session or wasn’t full of refugees, but I managed to find one that faced the way we came in last night. My mind has been filled with thoughts of escape ever since we arrived. We came here for sanctuary, but it didn’t take long to realize that this is one of those out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire types of situations. I mean, why are they so uncommunicative and controlling of our sense of time? What kind of soldiers go to the lengths of removing people’s watches in their sleep?
The best idea I could come up with last night was pushing the Jeep out of its rut, filling our packs with whatever we could scrounge from the kitchen, and being on our way. It’s clear from their faces these soldiers see us more as burdens than wards, so they should be happy to get rid of us. Of course I’ll have to convince the MacFarlanes to get out of here. We’ll have to leave soon, before we get attached to anyone.
Eric ordered that Jeep just for this type of world. “It’s a 2004 Jeep Wrangler,” he said proudly when he first showed it to me. “The Rubicon model. That’s right, the Best Supertop NX! One hundred-ninety horsepower, four point oh, six-cylinder engine, and a hard top with sunroof, luggage rack, and plastic side windows.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, the numbers of horsepower or cylinders meant nothing to me, but I was afraid to ask questions in case he’d go into more detail. Instead I ventured a guess. “Did you go for the plastic side windows because they can’t be broken?”
“That’s right, boy, and they can’t bite you through the plastic either. It’s high-grade, premium sailcloth fabric that maintains its shape in all temperatures, mildew-resistant, has UV inhibitors…”
“I don’t think sunburn is our biggest problem at the moment…”
“Don’t be a smart-alec, boy. You know I like to cover all my bases! Yes, sir, this baby was designed for some serious off-roading. It’s quieter than other models so it’s not easily heard. It’s all black so it’s not easily seen, well, not at night. And it’s a more convenient ride than previous model years…” I don’t remember the rest of what he said. I felt I knew all I needed to know about our getaway vehicle so I let my mind wander.
My mind’s not wandering now. My mind’s wondering what happened to our premium-sailcloth-with-UV-inhibitors invisible-in-the-dark Jeep. I can see the ditch from up here, and it’s pretty deep. No matter how serious the off-roading capabilities that Jeep might have, it couldn’t handle a ditch that deep. If we had been going any faster, we would have flipped or died on impact, or both. Of course, there’s no worry about either happening since someone’s pulled it out of the ditch and taken it off to who-knows-where. The curious absence of tracks makes it impossible to see what direction it was towed in.
But the car’s not the only thing that’s gone. Where are the Infected? I guess they ran for the protection of the trees when the soldiers started firing; but then, where are the bodies that were hit? Did the soldiers go out there at first light and clean them up? And if they did, what did they do with them? If they were cremating them, where’s the smoke? I can’t imagine they’d go through the trouble of burying them.
What if it’s not the soldiers? Would the Infected come back to reclaim their own? For some reason, they seem unable to carry on without an undamaged brain; like that’s the only place they can set up a command center. That means a corpse with a bullet in the brain would be useless.
So do we stay here with the shifty soldiers, or take our chances in the open with the intelligent Infected? As I stand here looking outside the window, I can’t help but wonder which one’s the frying pan and which one’s the fire.