I’m doing what I’m best at: I’m hiding. I knew the club was going to meet without me. It’s like those horror movies KC and James used to watch in our basement, they think I’m too little to hear whatever they’re going to talk about. That’s why I’m hiding behind the split kits, eavesdropping on their conversation. And while I listen I can see why they want to leave me out ‘cause what they’re talking about is scary, even scarier than those movies.
“The alarm went off because the dead arrived in droves.” Ghost’s voice.
“How do you know? You weren’t there. You were about to play kissy-face with Katatonic here!” That’s definitely Doom’s voice.
I both hear and feel Ghost sigh in the darkness. “I know because last week I found a way to the roof and had a look myself.”
“What? How could you do that, you could have been killed!” KC sounds weird, like she cares or something.
Ghost doesn’t snap at her though. “Don’t worry. I went up there in full raingear.” His voice sounds soothing just like my mom’s does when I’m sick.
“How did you get up there?” I think that might be Linus’s voice.
“If you go to the loft level of the custodian’s office, there’s a set of stairs that lead to a door to the roof.”
“So let me see if I’m hearing you right. You’re telling me that from up there you could see ALL the way across the compound to the outside wall? You must have seriously good eyesight.” I’m not sure whose voice that is, but it doesn’t sound nice. I want to tell that mean-sounding voice that Ghost has got that super-cool night-vision gadget I saw him wear at Eric’s house, and if the soldiers took that then they probably left the binoculars in his split kit. I bite down hard on my tongue instead. I can’t say nothing ‘cause if they find me they’ll make me leave. I don’t want to stay ‘cause I don’t like being left out…although I really do hate being left out. It’s more like, well…even though they’re talking about pretty scary stuff, I’m even more scared to not know what’s going on.
Ghost ignores that person anyways. “I’ve been up a few times, just to scope things out. You can keep out of the soldiers’ sights if you hide behind the vents. Besides, the guards in the towers are mostly focused on what’s going on outside the walls, not inside. I used to sit up there and wonder why I didn’t see any of the dead. I knew they were there. The soldiers couldn’t have shot them all the night we ran in. And every now and then a breeze will carry their malodorous scent to me.”
KC interrupts Ghost with a spooky voice. “The writing on the Rock said ‘They watch from the trees.’”
Everyone gasps except me, ‘cause I don’t really know what she’s talking about. I hear a few excited voices say, “I didn’t know that!” and “There’s new writing on the Rock?” and “What else did the writing say?” But KC says it’s not important now and she’ll tell them about it later. Ghost has stopped talking for a moment like he’s thinking about what KC just said, but then he goes on. “I think the Infected are doing the same thing they did in our neighborhood. I think they’ve been camouflaging themselves in the woods and waiting for an opportunity to get to us. Something must have happened to bring them out. I went up to the roof after everyone fell asleep last night. There was enough light to see what was going on; the soldiers had their searchlights trained on what was happening beyond the walls. And in those lights I could see the dead pressing up against the wall in the hundreds.”
I shiver at the thought of all those gross bodies surrounding our new home just like they did our old home. I want to ask why the soldiers didn’t start shooting at them, but I can’t without getting kicked out. Could they be out of bullets already? How will they protect us if they’re out of bullets?
I hear someone breathe out slowly. “Wow. At least the soldiers are letting us move about now. I mean, the walls are high and we’re inside a fortress. How are they going to get in?”
“I’d feel better if there was barbed wire on top of those walls so those things could get stuck in it. Why don’t we have barbed wire?” That sounds like my big brother.
“Probably the same reason none of us could get it for our home: the government used it all up for their fortresses and the factories couldn’t keep up with demand. Besides, they’re not going to waste it on the least important refugee center of them all. Remember, we’re not even sure if the outside world is aware of us. There’s no one out there to miss us and no communication from us, so we no longer exist, right?” Count on Doom to make things worse.
“What I want to know is, what would bring them out?” That sounds like Nemesis’s voice. “We were all at the dance, so it had to be something the soldiers did.”
Everyone goes quiet for a bit. We’re all thinking of what the soldiers could have done to bring out the dead.
“There might be something…” says my brother. “I was dancing with this girl and making small talk. She asked me what I’m good at and I asked what she’s good at and she said she has exceptional hearing. She then leaned in to me and whispered in my ear: ‘In fact, I swear I can hear a truck engine under all this music.’ I thought she was being weird at the time and decided I wouldn’t dance with her again, but now that I think about it…”
“The soldiers might have been trying to use the dance to cover up their getaway,” says Doom.
Whoa.
“But there were soldiers stationed at the doors of the gym! Do you think they’d volunteer to be left behind?” snaps Kaboom.
Ghosts sounds like he’s thinking aloud when he says, “We need to start storing things up here and make a plan to retreat, just in case.”
“Now look who’s overreacting!” says Doom. “They didn’t leave us, they’re still here! And retreat to where? The only place we can hide is up here!”
Hey, that’s not true! If they’d only ask me, I could show them plenty of hiding places. Oh, wait. They’re the kind of hiding places that would only fit me.
“What makes you think we need to get ready to hide within our own refugee center?” Nemesis doesn’t sound like she’s having a go at Ghost. She sounds worried…and a little frightened.
“I think last night was a dry run for when they do plan to leave.”
I remember hearing the trucks start up every now and then after we got here. Houston told me they needed to run the engines sometimes to keep the batteries from dying out. Sometimes we’d see the big army trucks driving around the inside of the compound. That is, I think they’re army trucks. They’re army color, but they have no army symbols on them. They looked like little forts on wheels with all their extra metal bars over their windows and stuff. They’re so big and solid; I bet they could drive over a hundred zombies! It used to make me feel good to look at them ‘cause I thought that if things ever got really bad, we’d have a safe way out of here. We could get to the next refugee place without getting killed.
I don’t feel good about them anymore.