Inside of the darkness with the heat of the sun bearing down on the black plastic bags we wait.
I think I'm falling asleep when I first hear the sound. It's a truck. It makes a grinding noise. A sharp scream of metal fills the parking lot we are in.
"Emma." Sarah whispers. I can hear the panic in her whisper over the plastic crinkle of her moving bag. I look through the small hole that I've been breathing through, to see Sarah's blue eyes watching my bag through the hole in hers.
I open the hole a little and smile, "Stay calm. This is our ride out."
Her eyes are full of worry. She nods. I can see the terror as the sound moves again and then moves closer.
The sound is what I imagine it would be like being in a factory before the fall.
My grampy worked a toilet paper factory when I was really little. He took me on a tour when I was six. I only saw a small part of the factory but the sound of it is burned into my memory.
I feel the metal bin start to vibrate. I know the truck is closer. My breaths are so short and rapid that I feel dizzy. I can't seem to pull a longer breath than the little ones I'm getting.
I am vibrating along with the metal dumpster.
A loud bang knocks against the front of the bin. It pushes me back. I feel my foot tear through the bag. I struggle to push it down so that it isn’t sticking out and looking like a nurse is in the bin. I forgot to take the scrubs off.
The vibration is so intense that I feel myself sinking into the pit of churning body bags.
"Emma."
I hear Sarah crying out.
"Stay calm." I try not to shout, but I have to over the noise of the machine lifting us into the air. I feel the bin tilt to the front. I hear screams. I know at least some of them are ripping from my throat.
My bag is tossed and turned, until it slides forward and is tossed into an abyss. My stomach lurches forward as I freefall for a second.
I land against metal and bodies. Some are stiff but most are soft. I am lost in them. I don’t know which way is up or down. I can't feel gravity. I can feel the vibration again and the screech of the metal is everywhere.
In between the sounds of the metal and gears I hear sobs. I don’t think they are mine.
There is a final loud bang and then a jerk forward. I open the hole of my bag a little more. I can't see the light. I am under the bodies.
I feel like I'm struggling for air. I don’t think it's that there is no air. I think it's a panic attack. My palms are covered in sweat. I need Leo. I need to run my fingers in his fur. I imagine I am touching him. I slide a hand out of the bag and feel with my fingers. My arms are trapped. The sobs get stronger.
"Emma."
"I can't see you, just a second. We'll be out of the gates in a minute. Just don’t freak out okay."
Anna speaks softly, "Sarah we need to stay still until we get far enough away from here. Just try breathing through your mouth. See the hole is right there."
I wish I had a hole leading somewhere.
I remember what my dad told me about avalanches. I spit and feel it go up in the air and land back on my forehead. I wipe it off with the arm I've freed. I am on my back and have spit on my forehead.
I start to wiggle and push through the bag above me. I tear the bag and push a body off of my other arm. My chest is tightening. The air is harder to get.
I reach my hand up until it feels the air of the moving truck.
I feel myself panicking. I want to claw myself free.
I pull my arm in and look at the light in the gaps of the bags above me. I see other things in the tears I have created in the bags, but I try not to see anything but the light.
I feel the truck lurch forward and come to a stop.
I hear men talking. I hear them laughing.
I am lying in a sea of death and they're laughing.
The truck moves and I feel the bodies on top of me start to shift again. I count to ten and make myself wait an extra couple seconds.
One Mississippi
Two Mississi… Fuck it
"Get them off of me. Get them off."
I feel the shifting and the moving.
"It's okay Emma. It's okay I can see you." My face is cleared suddenly and I can see the smiling face of Anna. She is about three bodies above me.
I reach my hands up and start clawing at the bags.
Anna's face grimaces, "No stop. You're opening the bags. Just give me a second to move them."
I am vibrating. I can't wait. I want out. I want out now.
The weight of them is crushing me. I never noticed but as they are lifted off, I feel relief.
My upper body is freed first. I sit up and use the two dead women next to me to push my legs free. I kick and scramble until I am out of the clutches of the black bags. I see the light of the bright sunny day and the brown of the borderlands. I have never been so grateful to see old hay and dead crops. The green of the forest off to the left side wakes my heart up. We are driving very quickly. We need to get out of this truck before it takes us to the body dump. The drop at the one I saw was huge. It was a canyon. Bodies were splayed along the canyon walls and ground.
Anna is breathing hard and sweating. Sarah is crying.
I point to the back of the truck, "We need to jump."
Sarah shakes her head. I grab her face and focus it on mine, "You need to trust me. You need this. Think about the swimming hole. We will be there in three days."
She sobs with her eyes closed. Her little face trembles. She feels like she did the first day I met her in the dark. Frightened and tiny against the massive world that wanted to destroy us. It feels like nothing will ever change.
I scramble over the bags of death. I don’t think about what I'm touching or doing. I climb to the edge of the filthy truck. I try not to imagine the diseases that linger on this metal ledge.
"Don’t touch your face or anything until we can wash."
Sarah sobs. Anna nods and watches Sarah.
I sit on the ledge and feel the wind whip around me. If I close my eyes I am in the back of the truck and my dad is driving. We are on a gravel road in the middle of nowhere and he lets me ride in the back.
I grip the ledge and look back, "Climb on here with me."
They listen and move quickly.
We sit on the ledge together. Gripping the metal and waiting.
"When you feel the next sharp corner we jump. Tuck your arms and legs and try to roll for the ditch. The truck will slow for the corner."
The truck is moving fast. Not fast enough that we will die but fast enough we may be injured.
I feel the brakes hit hard and jerk us forward, as the truck veers and I shout, "Now." My fingers try to grip but I force them to let go. I roll from the truck.
I hear the screams faintly in the background of the pain and ringing noise. My body bounces on the gravel. Dust is everywhere. Sharp pains cover me. I feel my body come to a stop but my head feels like it's still rolling. Hot liquid is seeping from above my eyes. When it covers my vision the world turns red for a moment.
Through the blood I see a dusty haze. Sarah is picking herself up and pulling at Anna's arms. Anna shakes her head to straighten her vision out. They hop down into the ditch. They're shouting at me. My vision is clouded for a second. I see their faces screaming. I look behind me and see another ball of dust coming our way.
It's another truck.
I stand and run into the ditch. I dive between the thick grass and pull it over me. The truck roars around the corner spitting rocks everywhere.
I can barely hear it over the ringing in my ears.
I turn on my belly and throw up. Blood mixes with my vomit. I'm not going to die here. I force my trembling and twitching body to crawl out of the muddy ditch. I drag myself up the bank and climb over some dead fallen trees.
"Emma this way." Anna is waving an arm at me. I can hear her but she sounds like she is shouting in a can.
I turn and stumble to where they are sitting behind some trees and bushes.
Sarah has a cut on her face that looks like road rash. It's not deep.
"Can you move everything?"
She nods.
Anna has no wounds I can see but she is favoring her right arm. It hangs funny.
She looks terrified, "I think it's broken."
"Okay we need to get going. They can fix it at the camp."
It's going to take us days to get back to the camp.
"Can you walk?"
She nods, "I have to walk Emma. It's not if I can or not. I'm not going back there. We need to bandage your head. It's bleeding bad."
I nod and watch her tear at her scrubs. She ties a dirty white bandage to my forehead. It stings.
"Okay. I think it'll hold."
I offer Sarah my hand. She takes it and we start the long trek back to the building we've just left. I need to get my bearings and the trail back to the camp.
Chapter Sixteen
I look around for a sign of them but find nothing. I knew they would leave me but I never imagined they would leave me empty handed.
They took my backpack even. I see the broken branches and can't help but smile a little. They may have left me but at least they make the walk back obvious.
I point at the hillside in front of us, "It's this way."
Sarah moans.
I look at her and try not to snap, "We walk till dark. That’s the rule okay?" My head hurts and it's making me a little mean.
She slumps and starts walking. We are filthy in our white and pale blue clothes that are now stained and torn. Dirt cakes our faces mixed with the dried blood. The cut above my eye needs a stitch. It's not going to get it. I'm going to have a deep scar there.
It's hard to care when I made it out alive. I never died there. I still block out the images of the torn bags and the things I saw in there. My little cut is nothing.
My feet ache. The slippers are bad for hiking. I slip a few times. Anna is cautious. Her arm still looks funny.
It takes all of our second day to get back to the place where I camped with Will and Jake and we roasted the hare. I lick my lips and think about the hare.
Somehow remembering the hare makes me miss Meg. Her nattering took up the free air where my brain liked to roam while we walked. She stopped my thoughts and drove me insane in a different way than the hunger that is gnawing at my belly does.