Radiation Point

Thirty Three

I felt dumbfounded. It couldn't be true. There was no way the camps had been set up before the bombings. They used to be high schools. But as I thought about the fences lining the camps, the buildings set up with supplies, doubts crept in. The same day the bombings happened, we were advised to evacuate. We were told that due to contamination, refugee camps were being set up in local areas.
My family had loaded our things into our car and drove to our designated camp. At fourteen, I hadn't thought anything of it except that our government was working quickly to help us. But if the camps were set up as Tyler had said-they would have had to have been, to be ready so quickly-did the government already know that we would be bombed? Instead of stopping the bombing, had they just allowed it?
"That's not all," Tyler said grimly, breaking into my thoughts.
I felt sick, but I nodded for Tyler to continue.
"These are the camps we've found within the contaminated zone," Tyler said, pointing to smaller circles within the contaminated zone. "A few of them are running just fine. But the majority of them have been overrun by contaminated; whole rooms of people dead."
"Just like my camp," I whispered. "But if you found it like that, who brought the contaminated? We thought it was the renegades."
"We didn't attack your camp, Nessa. Someone else did and they've been attacking other camps as well."
His words hit me like a ton of bricks. It was as if my world had been turned upside down. I put so much energy into holding the renegades responsible and now, Tyler was saying they didn't do it?
Ellen leaned closer to the map and pressed her finger on a circle in the upper part of Kentucky.
"That's where my refugee camp was," Ellen said, her voice husky. "My girl's died there and I'm telling you, if the renegades didn't step in, we all would have died."
I thought back to Ellen telling Mia and I about her daughters. The medics were uncaring. The doctor horrible and rude. But from what she told me, her daughters had been been bit. They'd been turning. Ellen never mentioned an attack, at least not until the renegades stepped in.
Seeing the skeptical expression on my face, she continued.
"My youngest daughter turned, but she was never bit," Ellen said. Tears rimmed her eyes, and each word was punched with the passion of a grieving mom. "And Joanna, my oldest, she never even turned. They killed her. Plunged that needle into her neck right in front of me. I'm telling you, they would have killed us all."
"Before we went to Ellen's camp, we'd been to the surrounding camps," Tyler said pointing to the camps on the map. Instead of the circles marking these camps, big red X's were over them. "Everyone was dead. But not from contaminated bites or attacks. The victims were strapped into their beds as if sleeping. The doors were locked to prevent the contaminated from entering. It was eerie to see a room full of people and realize they were all dead," Tyler said, running his hand through his hair nervously. "Ellen's camp was the first camp in the area that still had people alive. But it still wasn't pretty what we found there. The doctors had been injecting the patients with a combination of drugs, in a form of lethal injection. Behind the infirmary, there a room that was filled with bodies."
"My daughters," Ellen said, her lips curving into an angry grimace. "My daughters were back there."
"What we don't know is why the camps were killing their own refugees," Tyler said, frustration creeping into his voice. "It just doesn't make sense."
"The commissioner said the outside world had given up on us," I murmured, the truth of the words hitting home. "Maybe the camps were running out of supplies? Growing desperate-desperate enough to kill."
"But these camps were overflowing with supplies. We raided them before we left," Tyler said, not looking up from the map. His fingers tracing the smaller circles, he seemed lost in thought. His finger trailed across the map to the camps with the X's. "No, these camps were different. There was something big going on in them and I have a feeling the commissioner knows something about it."
"The commissioner? What would he have to do with those camps?"
"He knows an awful lot about the workings of the camps," Ellen said, crossing her arms in front of her. "More than any other commissioner I've ever seen. And I been in more than a few camps."
"She's right," Tyler said. "This camp is the only one that's still thriving. The few camps that haven't been overrun are beginning to run out of supplies. The people are getting sick and nothing is done to help them. It's like, they're the forgotten. So why are some camps being left for dead and others overflowing with supplies, but their refugees being murdered? I'm hoping the commissioner will have those answers."
"So you've caught him?"
Tyler and Ellen shared a look, before Tyler answered.
"No, Nessa. That's why we need you," Tyler said, his voice unsure. "We're sending out a group to find the commissioner and question him. We want you in that group."
I shrugged, "I don't see why that would be a problem."
When Tyler and Ellen shared another look, butterflies churned my stomach. What weren't they telling me?
"Sweetheart, your sister can't come with us," Ellen spoke up, her voice gentle.
"Of course not! How could she come with us? She can't walk," I said, shaking my head indigently.
Tyler cleared his throat, his eyes anywhere but on mine.
"We'll have to figure some way for Mia to travel. A cart or something."
"But she's not going. You just said that," I said, my confusion growing. "Besides, she'll be safer here."
The room was silent after I spoke, only the buzzing of the lights above me. I fidgeted impatiently, waiting for some clarification for Tyler and Ellen's strange attitude.
"She'll be safer here, right?" I repeated slowly, my voice hardened.
"Well, that's the thing, she won't be here," Ellen said finally. "No one will."
"We're evacuating the refugees until we catch the commissioner. Your sister's going with them."