The City

Katie

"Oh that's funny, you think I'm gonna do your dirty work for you?" I spat.

"No, it's not like that really. We just assumed that... that you could help us solve a few problems that were of your expertise." Dr. Calrod said trying to make her explanations sound better than they were.

"So you brought me here, froze me for over one hundred years, and now you want me to go back out there so I can keep the diseased from your precious city." I was completely baffled by these people expectations. I didn't know how they even believed that I would fight for them when they stole me from my time, not that I would have lasted much longer in it. "Fight your own battles," I looked to the scientist now, "can we leave now?"

"It is not exactly like that," Dr. Calrod rambled on. "Yes, we would like to have forces outside the walls, but in addition we need to withhold things inside."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said with a small laugh and shaking my head. They were crazy, all of them. I was not one of their pawns that they could force to move where every they chose.

Dr. Calrod looked over to Lisa and gave her a stare that seemed to say you know what to do. Finally breaking the stare Lisa diverted her attention toward me.

"Follow me," Lisa muttered shyly.

Reluctantly I followed her out the door. We walked back through the office and out the front door. We were back out into the light of the sun that shined high above us. We walked down the sidewalk passing a couple building. There were food markets, clothing shops, and even restaurants. I heard a growl come from my stomach as I thought about what they might be serving there. Was it possible for them to make spaghetti here, I thought I deserved a plate. After all, I hadn't eaten in one hundred and fifty years.

I saw children walking along with their parent. Some of them had backpacks on so I figured the city must have a school. Those kids, small helpless they had no care in the world. How I envied them. No not just envied, I hated them; it wasn't fair how cruel this world could be. I wasn't fair that I lost my parents I they had there's. It wasn't fair that they could get in a fight with their parents and make up the next day, while I never got to say sorry. I never got to tell them I love them, I never even got to be a kid. How fair was it that at sixteen years old you get your parents ripped from you by an unknown disease and then you had to kill them before they could get you; this was a cruel world.

Lisa took me to a square metal building. It was two storied, had a flat roof, and no windows. She took a bundle of keys out of her pocket that rattled as she put the right one in the door and turned the lock. She pulled the handle of the door to the right and it slid open. I peered in, amazed, at what I was seeing. There were people of all ages, at least sixty, crammed into this one small building. Some had dull-gray skin, but all of them worn a symbol on both sleeves of their gray polo shirts. It was a black 'I' that had a circle with a slash through it. The whole room stunk of death and it was quickly seeping out the door and everyone in it was noticeably infected.

I reached behind me to my back pocket and felt it. My knife. I made an attempt to grab it to fend of the diseased, before I could get it out Lisa grabbed my wrist and pulled my arm to the front of me.

"Calm down, it's okay," she said reassuringly.

"Look, I know you don't know how to handle these types of situations but I do. It's killed or be killed," I said.

"No, it not, not here anyways," Lisa said then pulling me into the building and the door shut behind us. It looked more like a prison.

She dragged me to the middle of the room while the diseased turned their head following our every move. She stopped when we were in the middle of the room. I made another grab for my knife but Lisa took hold of my other wrist. One of the diseased stared walking to us, I stood there frozen, but there was nothing I could do. I knew that I was stronger than Lisa, but even if I did manage to get away from her we were surrounded. The diseased was a little boy. The boy was around seven maybe eight years old. He had pale graying skin. The whites of his eyes were yellow and brown and sunk into his head. He walked quite well for an infected, moving with a small limp, slowly and shyly like a kid going to give his presentation in front of class. When he was within a foot in front of me he finally stopped. Up close I could see a name tag on the right side of his shirt that said 'Hi my name is Jed'. I realized now they all had name tags. The boy now stared me in the eyes and I promised myself if he made a charge for me I would tear my wrists away from Lisa and attack him.