Rule number one for survival in the Dead Zone: look out for number one. Don’t care about anything or anyone except you.
I mean, it’s the apocalypse. You don’t want to be weighed down by… oh, a crying baby, for example.
Especially when the baby won’t stop crying. No matter how much I threaten the nursemaid with a gun, she can’t keep the baby from crying, which is fine and dandy when you’re underground but a little more dangerous above ground, where the dead can hear you.
Some irony in that, I’m sure.
The nursemaid jiggles it, hushes it, and I wonder if Captain Nutjob really needs this thing alive.
“Can you shut that thing up?”
“I can’t. Here. You try.” She thrusts the baby into my hands. Flustered, I nearly drop the thing but catch it just in time.
Its eyes are blue. It has one tooth growing in its gums. It curls its fingers around my hand, and coos.
“Oh,” the nursemaid says. “I think she likes you.”
***
It takes a little over four days to cross the Dead Zone and into the Captain’s territory. We walk hard, and stop little, and by the time we reach the center of the Fort where the Captain’s feast room is, all three of us are exhausted. Ready to drop.
The Captain looks at us. At the nursemaid. At the baby. “I said, one baby. One.”
“You would’ve had a dead baby,” I say. “She’s not weaned yet.”
“She?” The Captain gives me a sly smirk. I catch a glimpse of gold in his front tooth.
When I don’t respond, he comes toward us. Looks at the baby--at Emma, at her impossibly blue eyes.
“Don’t get soft on me now, Kira.”
“No, sir.”
“It’s going to fetch a good price, you know. Chthon Inc. can’t wait to get their hands on it.”
“Yes, sir.” I pause. “Sir--if you don’t mind me asking--what are they going to do her?”
“Hell if I know,” he said. “Experiments, maybe. Not my problem, though. Why? You got a problem with that?”
He tickles under Emma’s chin. My fist and my stomach clench. I do. I do have a problem with that.
I draw my sword, my gun, and every last ounce of strength I have left in my body. All it takes is the blink of an eye to catch the Captain by surprise. A sneak attack, a well-placed bullet in every man in there, and I’ve got the nursemaid’s hand in mine, and we’re running, running as fast as we can with Emma in her arms, crying, ringing the alarm…
I don’t know how we manage to escape. But we do, back into the sewers. Back to where this all started.
“Where are we going?” the nursemaid--Leona, that’s her name, Leona. I can finally say it.
“I don’t know yet,” I tell her. “But I’m not going to let them take it. Her. Emma. Okay? We’re going to keep her safe. You and me.”
I don’t tell her that the Captain’s probably going to try and find us. That we’re never going to be able to breathe easy, or stop looking behind. But right now all that matters is that as long as we keep running, we can keep Emma safe.
I can keep her safe. I can keep them both safe.
Rule number one of survival in the Dead Zone: don’t care about anything or anyone but yourself.
Guess some rules are made to be broken.
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