I see one more watcher in the doorway of a building twenty feet in front of us. Thunder rattles the windows as the watcher stares at us with unblinking eyes. I barely register the rattle of gunfire until the person’s face is torn to shreds.
Chapter 18
STRONG ARMS PULL me to the ground. Tomas drapes himself over me, acting as a human shield, as the sound of gunfire continues. From the asphalt, I see the watcher’s sightless, bloody body hit the ground. Then I hear the cries behind us. I do not know the words. But I understand. Outrage. Anger. The need for vengeance. The group is no longer dozens of yards behind us. They are moving forward. Fast.
Tomas scrambles to his feet first and holds out his hand. I take it as another rattle of bullets sparks the pavement and sends wounded watchers to their knees. The bullets chew apart limbs, torsos, heads—creating a gore unlike any I have ever imagined. The mutated humans shriek as bullets cut their comrades off at the knees. I catch a glimpse of blond hair, a tall, muscular build, and the dark metal machine gun atop a three-story building as Tomas pushes my bicycle toward me and yells to ride.
But I can’t. I know the boy wielding the gun. It’s Brick.
“Stop shooting,” I scream, waving my arms to get his attention.
Cries of anguish come from windows and doors that line the streets and mix with my screams as more watchers arrive. Dozens and dozens of them. And while I should be scared of their vengeance, all I can do is scream for Brick to stop firing and stare at the horror he has wrought. It is impossible to tell that the tissue and flesh on the ground were just moments before standing in front of us. The smell of blood makes my stomach rebel. From the retching I hear next to me, I can tell Tomas is not in much better condition. Doubled over, I see the rainwater streaming down the road toward us swirling with red blood. Red. The same as ours. Human. All human. All dead.
Amid the thunder and the guttural cries, it takes me a minute to realize Brick is shouting down at us. “I have you covered, Cia. Run! Hurry. Get out of here before they attack you. Go!”
“Stop,” I scream. Tears clog my throat. Revulsion threatens to choke me. All these people dead. Killed by a boy I helped to survive. “You’re killing people. They weren’t hurting us. They’re just people.”
But Brick isn’t listening. He has opened fire again, farther down the street, at people who despite this horrific provocation are not attacking. All the living want to do is care for the dead. And now they, too, are among the fallen.
Tomas grabs my arm. I lose my grip on my bicycle, and it clatters to the ground.
“Pick it up. We can’t help them, Cia. We have to go.”
I barely keep my balance as I cast looks behind me, willing Brick to stop. But he doesn’t. Rattles of gunfire echo through the air. How many more dead? Because of me. Because I saved Brick’s life and he in turn believes he is saving mine.
More than once I stop pedaling as the enormity of the massacre I witnessed overwhelms me. Tomas’s patient voice is the only thing that keeps me moving forward. All I want to do is curl into a ball and weep.
And I do. On the outskirts of the city, Tomas spots a small building that looks sound and insists we stay there for the night. The downpour has ended, but our clothing, hair, and shoes are soaked through. He finds enough wood to build a fire on the stone floor near a window and encourages me to change out of my wet clothes. I follow his request even though my other shirt is stained from my first encounter with those people—when I too killed.
My body isn’t up for food, so I pull my legs tight against my chest and stare at the fire, trying to imagine my family safe and warm in front of theirs. Tomas insists on treating my arm. He digs out some pain pills and makes me take them. Maybe the pills will stop my body from shaking. Thunder still echoes in the city streets as Tomas tells me how much he loves me and holds me as I cry myself to sleep.
My dreams are filled with gunfire and rivers of blood. When I wake, I remember the dreams were real and nausea rolls through me. I know I need to eat, but my stomach curdles at the thought of meat. I force myself to eat a pear and drink some water. Our boots are still damp, but we put them on, store the rest of our belongings, and step outside. The sky is a brilliant shade of blue. The wind is cool and refreshing. There are even a few flowers blooming under the brilliant sun. A perfect day that mocks the horror of the night before.
Out of habit we consult the map, wheel our bicycles to the road, and begin to pedal. According to the Transit Communicator, we have just under two hundred miles before reaching the end of the test. We pedal hard, as much to reach the end as to get away from the death behind us. As we ride up hills, we can see the fence line to the north moving closer. Perhaps as little as a mile separates the two boundaries. Yes. Our Testers want us to face each other. I wonder whether the Testers will have to make a choice when this is over. With what I have seen, it will be a miracle if twenty of us cross the finish line alive.
We travel throughout the day with only minimal stops. My arm is worse. I am sweating mo
re as we ride, and my fingers on my left hand grip the handlebars with less assurance. But I force my legs to move around and around. I will our wheels to go faster and faster to the end. We meet no other candidates during the day, and there are 150 miles left to travel when we stop. Tomas holds me close again at night, kisses me gently, and whispers that if we keep up this pace we can make it to the end in three days. Just three days. I tell myself I can make it and hope I am right.
The sky is gray when we once again set out. My legs feel weaker, my arm more inflamed. I take more pain pills. Use more ointment. Know that both are useless against the poison festering inside me. Will they know how to treat the wounds when I get to Tosu City? Tomas says they will, but he will say almost anything to keep me from giving up. Funny, but giving up is the last thing I will do. Not after everything we have witnessed and the things we have been forced to do. Giving up would be like admitting none of it mattered. And it needs to matter. It needs to be remembered. But, now that we are so close to the end, I worry about the memory wipe my father said is coming. As we ride, I recall everything I’ve learned about the workings of the brain from our teachers and from Dr. Flint and when we break for lunch, I tell Tomas I’m tired and need a nap. Instead of lying down, I take off my bracelet and walk fifty yards away. After a few minutes, Tomas does the same.
“What’s up? Is your arm worse? We can slow our pace a little if you need a break.”
I ignore the pain that has moved from my arm to my shoulder and down my torso and say, “We’re almost to the end.”
His face breaks out into a wide smile. That familiar single dimple makes me want to cry. “I know. Another day. Maybe two and we should be there.” He feels my forehead and frowns, which only tells me what I already know. I’m burning up. “They’ll fix up your arm as soon as we get there, Cia. You’ll be good as new in no time.”
I might be. But I can’t worry about that now. “According to Dad, they’re also going to fix our memories so we don’t remember any of this.”
“Maybe taking away these memories isn’t as insidious as we first thought. Maybe they’re trying to help us survive. Do you really want to live remembering Malachi die or watching Brick with the machine gun?”
“No,” I say honestly. A lifetime of nightmares isn’t my idea of a good time. But neither is being reprogrammed to forget what I lived through. What Malachi died for . . . What Brick did for me . . . “But I need to remember. Forgetting that it happened doesn’t change anything. Nothing can change the past. My father’s nightmares prove the memory wipe isn’t complete. Now instead of being haunted by what he did and didn’t see and do, he can only guess and wonder. Isn’t that worse?”
Tomas kicks at the ground in front of him. I can see him struggling with my words and I can understand why. The idea of forgetting is seductive.
Looking up, he says, “Your father’s and Dr. Flint’s nightmares make me think the memory wipe isn’t being done with surgery.”
I tend to agree. Dr. Flint says that the long-term and short-term memory centers of the brain are easy to find, but that every brain is slightly different. Trying to alter a specific path in the brain that only affects three or four weeks of memory would be tricky on one patient, let alone the hundreds who have graduated from the University.