The man shrugs his shoulders. “Doesn’t look like it to me. You aren’t from around here, are you?”
“No, but we’re leaving now,” Sin says. Usually, I would expect him to answer a little more tersely, but he’s playing along with this guy.
Sin’s arm wraps around my back, pinning me to his side. “Pretty sad what happened around here, don’t you think?” the man asks, approaching the edge of our shadows—too close for comfort. Sin’s hand slips down into my back pocket, curling his fingers around the folded-up pocket knife.
“I’m not going to hurt you. There aren’t many of us left, you know? Us, meaning, those who weren’t infected, those who are allowed to carry on as normal.” Normal? There is no such thing anymore.
“Where is everyone else?” I ask. I know Sin would rather I not ask questions, but we sure as hell won’t get real answers anywhere else. Maybe everyone’s lies will eventually point to at least one common truth.
“Like I said, there aren’t many of us. I’m a government worker, one of the lucky ones who survived this chaos.” He’s calling this world-ending epidemic “chaos.” I think it’s safe to assume that he isn’t right in the head. The hairs on the back of my neck are starting to rise, and I think it’s time to make a run for it.
“Right. The government workers survived this. Lucky you,” Sin says, pulling me across the street.
“You seem as though you lucked out as well,” he says, saying more or less the same thing over and over but with different words.
“How do you know we aren’t sick like the others?” Sin continues, still pulling me ahead, creating more space between us and the man who is now following us.
With my head twisted over my right shoulder, I watch as the man stops walking, laughs and pulls his hands from his pockets, crossing them over his broad chest. “Trust me, son, you know when someone is sick. After five years of living like this, I’ve learned who to stay away from.” He lets out a frustrated groan and continues after us. Please, just leave us alone. “I’m Alan,” he says, reaching his hand out toward us, not that we’re anywhere close enough to shake his hand, even if we were crazy enough to do so. “Where are you headed?”
“Chipley,” I say, earning myself a deadly glare from Sin. Yup, probably shouldn’t have offered that information. But none of those patrols seemed to know what I was talking about, nor did they care. Or, maybe they did and like everyone else, they were screwing with me.
Alan laughs again. “You must know my brother then.”
“Your brother?” Sin replies, stopping momentarily.
“JJ Solis. He’s a Fed agent in your town.” I can’t help but to choke, laughing a little through it.
“Toothless JJ?” I ask him. “The man who sleeps behind a shed, trying to kill people with venom-infused berries?” As the words are slipping from my tongue, I recall the familiarity of the well-dressed man who was in the observation room with me in the bunker. He looked just like JJ, but I never got confirmation on that. I could have been imagining that, too, for all I know.
The smile on Alan’s face is becoming uncanny. “My brother was always the best undercover agent this state had. Nothing gets by him. Nothing. Including his own brother.” The smile is gone, and our shadows on the sidewalk are covered by his once again. “Take me with you.” His voice is soft but stern, almost demanding. “You’ve got to help me get out of here. I’m surrounded by people who have more or less turned into animals. The patrols here think they were actually in the military before this shit happened, but they’re nothing more than ingrates who found biohazard protection to use as a method of power and defense to run this town into the ground. Those veterans who survived are smart enough to stay away from this shit. Because of those patrols and their lack of experience, there’s hardly any of them left now, leaving me alone, living in a hole below one of those shops down there. Please, let me help you people in Chipley.” That explains why none of them had real weapons, I guess.
Sin’s grip on my hand relaxes, which surprises me a bit. “Your brother isn’t a criminal?”
Alan snorts. “God, no. The guy never even had a detention in high school.”
“The patrols are dead. Possibly all of them,” Sin says.
Alan’s head cocks to the side, and his eyes widen. “What? All of them?” He looks shocked by this news even after he just told us there aren’t many of them left.
“There was a family in one of the apartments a few streets back. They attacked the patrols. I don’t know how many of them there are here, but any of them that I saw are now dead.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit, Shit, Shit.” Alan’s sturdy disposition weakens as he runs out into the street, looking in each direction. “There were Juliets alive and loose?”
“Yeah, about nine of them,” Sin replies.
“Oh shit. My God. We need to move…now!” He’s right. We’ve been more concerned about the patrols than these Juliets. “Can you get me into Chipley with you or not?” He’s borderline having a nervous breakdown.
“I don’t even know if they’re going to let us back in,” I tell him.
“We can try,” Sin says, pulling me with him as we continue forward toward the hill. “Follow us.” Another surprising move from Sin. He doesn’t trust anyone, including his mother, yet he’s allowing this guy to come with us, possibly into Chipley, which ironically enough might be the only safe place left.
“I tried to find a way into Chipley a few times, but I was unsuccessful. I figured since my brother is married to the mayor, they’d come looking for me or something, but they never did. He thinks I’m a traitor because I didn’t come with him in the first place. I mean, who would volunteer to go live and work in a criminally insane compound? Whatever the case, I should have gone when I had the chance. I know that now.”
“He’s married to the mayor?” Sin questions.
“Amelia James,” Alan replies.
“That’s my mother,” Sin says, catching me up to speed. I know Sin’s weaknesses, but I didn’t know his last name or his mother’s name.
