Ever since the adults left, the volume of the gunfire only a few blocks away had sky-rocketed. My mind was wrapped around the possible horrifying fact that Mom and Dad could be in some real danger, or maybe they were already dead! The two boys tried their best to keep me at ease, but my tiny body couldn't stop trembling in Edwards arms. No matter what they said or did it had little effect on my current mental state.
I couldn't get that bloody image from my head. His whole face was just a beat red and strained in agony. My blood ran cold when I remembered the amount of power he had put into his attacks, it was like a rabid dog. If I didn't duck down when I did, he would've killed me! I wrapped my arms around my shaking body and embraced myself tightly to try and still my nerves. Edward's eyebrows knitted together in deep, deep concern and worry. He wrapped his arms tighter around me, feeling my each and every sob building up. He cupped the back of my head and held me close to his chest. From where I was, I could hear his heart beat frantically inside his chest. He was scared for his parents too. Peeking from under his arm, John was in no better emotional state.
They've been gone only twenty minutes, but it felt like forever ago. The longer I had to wait for them to return, the more tempted I would be to just get up and run right out that door! I think Edward could feel my excitement of the thought, and saw me looking maliciously at the exit. He shook his head and held me tighter supporting my lower back. "Sarah, don't get any ideas" he warned.
I didn't respond.
He took my hand in his, and turned my head so I looked him straight into his eyes. "Look at me and listen" he began,"Our parents are strong. They can handle this."
"But I gotta know if Mommy and Daddy are OK! I want to help!" I pleaded on the verge of tears.
Edward sternly shook his head, glaring down. "With what weapon? You don't know how to use a gun! And besides, Mom and Dad told us not to leave the truck!"
"I don't care!" I started to cry, squirming and wriggling out of his arms. John saw my strength, and he scooted over to the opposite end of the truck so that he and his brother cut off both doors, leaving me stuck in the middle. They were both bigger than me, and with me between them, I was certain that I wasn't leaving this vehicle.
"He's right, Sarah" John spoke. "Me and Ed are both scared for them, but in order for them to do their duty, they have trusted in us not to interfere and get in the way by staying here!"
John's words beyond his years caught my attention, and I stilled my body.
"They're busy protecting the city, protecting what little we all have left...protecting us. If they're going to fight, they don't have time to stay and babysit us. We're all not babies any more, and we need to help them by doing exactly as they say without question. Do you remember what your Mom told us when we wanted to come along?"
"Only if you don't leave the car, and do as we say without any 'ifs or 'buts."
A defeated frown came upon my face, and I slowly nodded.
John and Edward both looked at each other, and nodded. They had got to me. It's amazing that them being only a few years older than me, they have their parent's wisdom. They have never failed to convince me in the past, but in this dire hour, I was certain that nothing was going to stop me from fighting to get my way.
John looked down at me with a soft smile, and used his sleeve to dry away the tears on my puffy cheeks. Making sure that I was OK now, the two of them leaned over and held me in a comforting embrace. I could feel my fears be absorbed with their warmth, and my heart started to settle. I supposed I could wait for the fighting to stop now.
Suddenly, as if my prayers were answered, the gunfire had ceased in the background. It took the three of us a few moments to realize it, but our heads perked up at the alien silence. "What's going on?" I asked timidly. Edward quietly hushed me, and leaned over and peeked out the window breaking our embrace. He shifted his body around to try to angle himself so that he could see around the corner. John and I awaited in the chilling silence, getting more anxious by the minute.
We got our answer. Ed's face had flushed of color when he swiftly spun around and tackled the two of us to the ground. "Get down!" he shouted.
John and I instinctively grasped onto each other as Edward threw his body over top of us, pinning us down. An enormous abrupt boom exploded from the street, rocking the cabin and shattering all the windows. We grunted as we felt the power ripple through the air and strike the truck with great power. Edward's face was scrunched up in pain when we opened our eyes again. Shards of fragmented glass fell into the crevice's of the leather seats, and dazzled the floor mats in treacherous white sparkles like snow. When Ed pushed himself back up, shards of glass slid down from his back and piled behind him. Shaking his head in dismay, he looked down at us with concern.
"Are you guys alright?" he asked panting, given that the breath had been knocked out of him.
John and I exchanged shocked glances, and nodded.
Edward looked behind him and saw that the truck was too hazardous to take refuge in. With a grunt, he leaned over the two of us and opened the door. With the powerful impact the explosion gave us, the door gave way and fell to the pavement with a loud crash. He carefully maneuvered over us and hopped outside into the alley. John slowly leaned up with me in his arms, careful of any stray shards, and handed me over to Edward who had his arms wide open. He took me and placed me beside him on the pavement, returning to assist his brother out of the back seats. He wrapped his arm around his shoulders, holding up his weight and worked as his balance when he hopped out of the back. When his feet hit the ground, he bumped him accidentally. Edward let out a loud cry of pain, and got down onto one knee clutching his side.
John dove down to his brothers level, and looked him in the eye. "Are you OK?!"
Edward grinded his teeth in pain, and pushed himself off of John's shoulders to get back to his feet. He felt something warm and sticky on his hands. When he straightened up fully, I caught a stream of red run down his leg. I cried out upon immediate notice. John and Edward's heads shot up and looked to where I was pointing. John's eye's widened, and he lifted his siblings shirt from behind. Ed took his hand away from his side, and saw that its entire palm was caked in fresh, red blood.
There...sticking out of his backside...was a large shard of glass!
It wasn't very thick, but looked long enough to poke one of his organs!
John wandered around his brother, inspecting the injury from all angles. His face was etched with worry. He didn't have the slightest clue what to do, and neither did I!
Do you take it out? Do you leave it in?
This is stressing me out!
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
Edward looked up to his brother weakly and nodded, humming yes.
John took the dangling hem of his stained shirt, and started to tear it off. If he had put it down, the fabric could get caught on the glass and dig its way deeper. Once torn off, he knelt down and started to lightly dab away the blood. Upon the first touch of the tender wound, Edward hissed deeply, and bit down hard upon his lip. The scene before me made my stomach instantly sour, and I couldn't watch. Every touch felt like a hot iron to him, until he couldn't take it any more. He roughly brushed his brothers gentle hand away from the wound with a cry and started to limp towards the wall for support. He leaned against the brick, and slid down to sit in the gravel. A relieved sigh blew through his parted lips, but a wave of pain surged through him and he grasped his ribs with pure agony.
"We need to get him help!" I cried.
John looked at me with sheer panic. "Help?! Where are we gonna get help?!"
I paused for a quick moment for thinking. Suddenly, the gunfire started up again. That's when it hit me.
"Mommy's a doctor! She can help!"
John's face flourished when he remembered that she was with the C.D.C. But then it melted away remembering what they were told. "But-"
"John, please. This is an emergency. I couldn't live knowing that I could have saved my friend's life, but didn't because someone said 'no."
John looked back down at his suffering sibling. Edward's face was becoming paler with every passing moment, his blood pooling around where he sat. John had a decision to make. Send out a six-year-old into a war zone, or leave his brother in his dying moments. He let out a deep, graving sigh. He looked up at me, dead in the eyes. Without a hint of any other emotion but pure seriousness, he whispered to me "...be careful..."
I nodded without hesitation, and looked down at Edward. "Don't worry buddy, I'll get you help."
His face was going whiter with each wasted second of talking. I jumped up to my feet, and bolted down the alleyway into the open sunlight. The first thing that hit me was the intensifying heat of the spreading fires all around me. With the already scorching summer California heat blazing down my back, it felt like walking straight into an oven! I stood out in the empty street, ears open for the sound of rifle rounds being unloaded. When I heard their distant echoing shooting, I made a break for the sound. Mom said that they were going to Zone 7. That was a few blocks away.
But Edward's life was depending on me!
Securing my mask to my face, I took in a deep breath, and charged down the street.
Almost every three minutes I would have to switch out my magazine with fresh rounds, they just wouldn't stop coming! Already there were at least two hundred bodies scattered across the highway and side walks. My gun barrel was roasting hot with the discharges and add the heat all around us, it was starting to become a problem to just hold it. With the sun making its way towards the western coasts, I could hear the distant rumbling of the storm clouds roll is from the east under our shooting. The whole street was stained with mixed puddles of blood, pools formed around each baking body till the whole pavement was a dark ruby pit.
Hopefully this wouldn't last for too much longer.
I spoke too soon. As soon as I had cocked in a seventh clip and took aim, their army of the sick had somehow managed to double in size! They were forcing those that didn't want to contribute into the battlefield! I turned to the chief of police, Norman Burston, who was perched a few meters away from me with an AK-47, and called to him "We can't hold out for much longer, I'm down to two clips!"
He looked over to me, and replied over the deafening shots "I got a squad of pilots flying in from northbound! They're gonna napalm B Zones 8 through 5 where the virus is more concentrated!"
My face dropped into pure shock. "But all the people-"
"Who are healthy have been notified and have evacuated the area to Zone 1, far from the blast and safe."
I felt my heart stop. Dreyfus, Maddy, and Peter all heard what Norman had said. Their faces told the same fearful story. "The kids!" Peter cried out.
We had left them in Zone 6, right in the middle of the blast! Dreyfus and Maddy immediately dropped their weapons, and started to climb from the wall. Burston watched in shock. "Where the hell are you all going?!" he shouted.
"Sir, with all due respect, we have families we need to protect. You've already called in the air support, its only a short matter of time before they burn half the city to the ground! The infected wont make it very far through the barrier, they won't be able to escape the blast perimeter in time." Maddy called up from below.
"Get your's out of here now!" Dreyfus added from afar.
Before Norman had time to protest, the four of us had already abandoned our posts and were disappearing into the narrows. We didn't have much time to make it back and out of here. With the sun hot on my back and flames dancing in my face, I could feel the energy within me drain away with each running stride I took. My maternity instincts had my legs going out full speed just to make it back to the kids, but it was wearing me out faster than I thought. Peter noticed this right away, and tried to wait for me to catch up. I shook my head and yelled up at him "Don't worry about me, I'll catch up! Get to Sarah!"
Of course, he didn't listen. He turned straight back around, and bent over for me to climb on his back. "Get on!" he ordered.
I didn't want to, and pushed right on forward. "You need your strength, I'll be fine!" I protested.
He didn't take no for an answer. When I tried to march on, he ran right up from behind and scooped me up into his arms bridal style. The sudden lift almost made me drop my gun, but I wrapped an arm around his neck and hung on for the ride. The strength he put in behind each stride was astounding to me. Even in this blazing heat, he still managed to maintain his stamina and muscle power. We passed dozens of abandoned vehicles, but one of them was engulfed in flames. The buildings all around us were void of any windows, and their glass was shattered and spread out all around the side-walk.
"Zone 6!" Peter called out, seeing the large font text in a bold orange printed upon the bridge.
Dreyfus looked down each and every corridor alleyway we passed, until he called out "Found them!"
A huge wave of relief washed over me, and Peter placed me back upon my feet. I followed him around the corner, passing Dreyfus and Maddy, into the side street, into the cool shaded darkness. The first thing I did was call for my daughter. "Sarah!"
Too my confusion, I didn't hear a reply in a small high-pitched voice. "Hey, over here! We need a doctor!" a lower pitched voice called to us.
Oh no, what happened?!
When that voice echoed out of the shadows, Dreyfus and Maddy bolted right pass Peter and I towards them deeper in, I could make out two forms. One standing up, the other curled up on the ground. Getting closer, it was John and Edward. Maddy dove down onto her knees, dropping her weapons and hugging her son. Dreyfus came up close behind and looked over the pair's shoulders. His face flushed of colour, and he dropped onto his knees seeing his son's state.
"Mad, his side!" he addressed in a very worried tone.
She released John from their embrace, and turned her second son over to see what was wrong. When she saw the large shard of transparent crystal embedded into her baby's right side, she let out a horrified scream that rattled all of our ears. "Edward!" she cried out.
She placed a gentle hand upon his neck to find a pulse. Her face relaxed the tiniest bit when she felt the faint pumping in his veins. When Edward felt her motherly touch upon his skin, he whispered in pain "Hi...Mom."
"Oh my god, what happened?" she started to gently sob.
"He saved us from an explosion" John answered, "Shielded us from the blast with his on body."
Dreyfus looked up at John in disbelief, and back down at his son with tears in his eyes. "You're such a brave boy" he whispered, stroking head proudly, holding back shaky, hitched breaths.
I gently pushed past the couple with a steady hand, and knelt down beside the injured boy. "I will do what I can" I assured them. They looked up at me with tears in their eyes, and moved aside so that I had room. Behind me, Peter was looking all over the car. "Hey, where's Sarah?!" he called out.
John's head shot up when he heard her name. "She went out looking for you!" he said to me, "Said that you could help us!"
My eyes widened. "How long ago was that?" I asked.
The young boy's eyes saddened, and he looked away. Hesitantly, he replied "I don't know."
I looked up at my husband, who was just as scared as I was. Suddenly, the loud chopping of rotor blades could be heard creeping towards us from the distance. We were out of time. I looked down back at Edward, who's breathing was becoming shallow and weak. I took off my backpack from my shoulders and unzipped it open. Taking out a roll of absorbent bandages, I looked into the young boys eyes. "Ed, this is going to hurt" I warned him.
His eyes widened a little, but he shut them tightly and braced himself.
I took hold of the exposed end of the glass gently between my fingers, and swiftly swiped it cleanly out of his body. He let out an ear splitting scream of pain as the edges sliced his skin . His parents beside me took hold of each other tightly, watching their boy suffer. I tossed the bloody shard aside, and used my free hand to pull him upright. "John, I need you to hold him up while we bandage him up. We don't have any time to spare!"
He obliged without question, and held his brother steady. I looked up at Dreyfus, and handed him the roll. "Dreyfus, I need you and Maddy to patch him up while I go looking for Sarah. Take the kids and Peter, and get them clear of the blast."
Peter grasped my shoulder. "You're not going out there alone!"
"I can move faster if I look by myself. I'm her Mother!"
"And I'm her Father! We work as a team!"
The sounds of several other choppers came flying in. All of our heads shot up to the sky, nerves on edge. "If you both go you'll get caught in the drop!"
"Mad, give us five minutes. Please." I begged.
Her expression changed from panic to deep thought. Dreyfus looked up from bandaging Edward, also taking the thought into consideration. I looked at the couple with tears streaming own my face. I could feel my heart pound in my chest, sweat dripping off my face. "Please..." I whispered, "she's my daughter..."
Maddy looked to her husband for his insight on the situation. His face held sympathy and uncertainty, a nerve-racking combination. She sighed, and looked back to us.
"Five minutes."