Turtle Doves | Joel Miller

Chapter Eight

Heading west, I keep walking through the night, though it's less than ideal. I take my time, wanting to stay quiet and undetected by both infected and people. The silence of the night allows my mind to mull over what I found today and how everything is supposed to fit together.

My mind can't seem to figure anything out that makes sense. The map is the only thing that makes the most sense to me. The notes, the game tallies, they all seem so odd but there has to be some connection. There has to be some reason these people were tasked with killing a specific age range of children in QZ's across the country. There has to be some reason they're connected to the Fireflies. I'm seeing bits and pieces of the picture, but not the full painting.

But what if this is all a bit bigger than I can take on? Am I walking myself right towards a death sentence? Maybe. Could I be making the wrong decision to go to Nebraska? Possibly.

The other alternatives are either to retreat back to the QZ and be stuck wondering for the rest of my life, or try to track down which QZ the others went to, and I could miss them and have wasted time. But if I guess which QZ they're going to next, I could possibly save more lives. I've never been good at gambling, and yet I find myself playing at the highest stakes.

Each step seems to take ten times the effort as normal as I consider my options, trying to see which is the most logical, which would give me the best odds of finding these people. As soon as I think I've made a decision, I second guess myself. It feels like there's no right decision to be made.

I stop walking in the middle of a street and stare straight up at the dark sky, the stars shining brightly down. If only they could give me the answer. The sound of a clicker in a nearby skyscraper gets me moving again, towards the interstate. It seems I've made up my mind, and only time will tell if this was the right decision.

Readjusting my backpack and yawning, I take in my surroundings so that I'm not ambushed by infected. Sometimes it seems like they come out of nowhere. My thoughts seem to run in circles until it starts to drive me mad. I have to think of something else or I'm going to go insane. And after searching for something, the green sign above the road distracts my mind and reminds me of the stranger I met only yesterday.

I wonder how Joel is doing, how his journey is going so far. He seemed seasoned to life outside a QZ, his time away from Boston likely forced him to adapt. Whatever job it was that he took to get out of Boston must have caused him to not want to return. But no matter the reason, I hope that he has a safe journey, I'm sure whoever is waiting for him is worried sick.

My path leads me to a roadblock where an old FEDRA checkpoint used to be, just before the entrance ramp of the highway. Cars are parked bumper to bumper and there's sandbags stacked on top of each other supporting a thick line of barbed wire. Knowing I can't climb overtop of it, I take a right and decide to go around. Sure, this is going to delay my trip slightly, but it's better than trying to go overtop of barbed wire. I don't really feel like nursing open wounds on my way to Nebraska.

As I go to turn left to get back on track I immediately stop moving. Standing in the street are three runners, all hunched over with quiet sobs. A clicker cries out somewhere close, its screeches ricochet off the buildings and echoes into the open air. My heart hammers in my chest and I take careful steps backwards so that I can keep my eyes on them. Thankfully, they don't see me and I'm able to get back to the front of the barricade.

I take a left instead, and hope for a better outcome. Bracing myself, I turn the corner and am in disbelief with what I see. There are four runners standing in the road. My eyes trail down the street and I see that they're all trapped here. The FEDRA barricade extends down the streets so that the infected in the Boston area can't use this ramp to get onto the highway. On one of the barricade sections I see the telltale sign of a door, there's a giant FEDRA sign hanging above it. That door would be a direct path to the road if it weren't for the infected. It seems that there's no unobstructed way for me to get to the highway. I'm up against seven runners and a clicker, at least. Even during the day I don't know if I could take this on.