"Listen to me, you have to stay quiet."
"Dad? What's going on? Where's Mum?"
"We-We're playing a game, sweetie. Hide and seek, you remember how to play that right?"
"Oh, I like hide and seek! I'm always reeeeaaally good at finding places to hide!"
"Well, we're playing hide and seek. We need to find a place to hide where no one can find us. Can you help me?"
I nodded. "Is Phil playing too? Is he looking for us?"
"Yes, yes, but we need to hide. Remember, we need to be really quiet. Not a sound, okay? It's really important. Promise you won't make a sound."
"I promise."
Dad smiled and I watched in silence as he cracked the front door of our house open a little to peer outside. There had been a lot of scary noises out there for ages but it went quiet a while ago. I wanted to ask Dad what was going on but I remembered my promise to keep quiet and kept my mouth shut. After a few minutes, he turned away from the door and lifted me into his arms. I gripped his shoulder with one hand and held onto Green Lion with the other. Green Lion was a small beanie green lion toy. The fur of his mane was worn out and matted, but he was precious to me.
Together, Dad and I left our house. I didn't like how dark it was. The street lights weren't working so we only had the light of the moon and several fires that burned in the street to light our way. There was a weird feeling in my stomach and I found myself checking over Dad's shoulder for anyone who could be with us. The road was empty, but I couldn't shake the feeling that we weren't alone. Dad was being careful, I could sense he was scared too. Keeping to the edges of buildings, we walked far away from home, farther than I'd ever been. I tried to remember the way we went, but after a while I gave up trying. Dad's eyes were hard and his eyebrows were furrowed with concentration. What's going on? Why are we leaving home in the middle of the night? Will Phil be able to find us if we go this far from home? Maybe Mum is helping him…
"Just a little further…" Dad whispered in my ear. His breath was becoming irregular and laboured. He had this weird look in his eye now, one that I'd noticed a few times. I'd noticed it in Mum and Phil's eyes a lot before Dad took them upstairs a few days ago. An unfocused, dazed look, like they weren't really in reality anymore. I didn't like it. I shook his shoulder a little, bringing his eyes back into focus. He looked down at me and smiled weakly. "Just a little further…"
I could her noises in the distance now, loud banging noises, like crackling but louder and more aggressive. It reminded me of the sounds that would come from the TV when Dad and Phil watched movies I wasn't allowed to watch. Phil would always tease me and say I wasn't old enough, even though he was only two years older than me. Still, this sound was scary…plus there was the roaring sound. Screaming, yelling, explosions, it wasn't the sort of stuff you'd want to be heading towards and yet that's where we were going. I looked desperately at my dad but his eyes had gone weird again. "Dad?" I whimpered.
"Shh," he hissed, tightening his grip on me. I shrank in his arms and kept quiet as he edged around the corner of another building.
Absolute chaos, that's the only way I could describe it.
I didn't really want to describe it.
The people.
What was happening to them?
Everywhere, men and women were being gunned down. Armed men in uniform stood behind barricades, firing into the swarm of humans that surged before them. People were falling everywhere. Red everywhere…
"The Cranks," I heard my dad whisper. I flinched at the word. I'd heard so much about them. The grownups talked about them a lot in hushed whispers. Mum used to always get concerned about them, said something about her friend Louise getting sick and turning into a Crank. As far as I knew they were sick people who were dangerous. That's how Mum and Dad always described them.
Suddenly, we were moving forward towards the fences. I screamed and clung to Dad as a man with a bloody face staggered towards us with a crazed look in his eyes. Dad kicked him away and kept running. "Don't shoot, I have a child!" He yelled, stepping over several corpses as he continued towards the barricades. I glanced up and caught the eye of one of the armed men in black uniform.
"Is she immune?" The soldier yelled over the noise, his voice emotionless and robotic. He almost sounded bored.
"Yes! Please take her; it's not safe here anymore! My wife…my son…" He stopped, tears gathering in his eyes. "You have to take her…"
The soldier snapped a few orders to the men nearby and a gap opened for us in the barricade. "Pass us the girl."
We were among the Cranks now. They mostly ignored us, but a few sniffed at me curiously. Dad growled at the ones who came too close and they usually shrank back and the few that ignored his snarls were shot by the armed men. We forced our way forward and when we were right in front of the gap I felt Dad begin to lift me away from him.
"No!" I screamed, holding on tighter.
"You have to go."
"No, you can't leave me!" I felt rough gloved hands grab me from behind the barrier. "No! Dad, please!"
I saw tears stream down my dad's face, but he was giving me a pained smile. "I love you."
The hands tore me away from him and lifted me to safety as the barricade closed again and Dad's face disappeared into the horde of Cranks.
"DAD!"