The Sleeper Cells: A Terrorism Story

Chapter 21: Shot

Back with the others, I tell them everything I just learned. But it wasn't much. In fact, I spent more time catching up with her. And to me, that's more important.

Kennedy unexpectedly smiles when I talk about my mom. She nods her head up and down at me like she's happy for me. Happy for me. Kennedy's florescent blue eyes let me see deeper into who she is. It's like she has stripped a layer of herself. I can tell now... she's happy on the inside. Truly content with her situation. She's confident. She's beautiful.

I can sense another feeling inside her. I think it may be a feeling I'm starting to feel, too. This feeling moves you, changes you. You stare a little longer. You smile a little brighter. It's something I never saw in Lindsey.

"Run!" Kris squawks. He throws his hands over his head and pushes us all away from the hill. The first layer of trees explodes and bursts into flames. Mud from the ground shoots into the air and flops down on all of us.

Mika flips on her stomach, "they caught us!? That wasn't a rocket launcher, was it?!"

"It was! Go! Go! Go!" Owen screams as he slings Kennedy up to her feet.

A deep crunching sound emerges from the flames as a dark shadow falls over me. I look up to a tree falling right for me. I roll to my left and jump to my feet, instantly running towards Kris and Owen, leaving my bag behind. The tree slams onto the soil exactly where I was sitting.

"Don't stop! They know we're here!" Kris screams. No one stops. No one looks back. We run until the sky changes from a shining blue to an orange under-glow. My legs ache worse than ever. Shin splints beyond belief. We ran more than we did when it began. I don't want to stop; if I do, I'll never be able to start again.

__________

The sun's just above the horizon. We're headed to a suburban neighborhood. I know we're getting close to the edge of the sleeper zone now. We have to be.

"Are we safe?" Owen asks between his deep breaths.

"We're safe for now," Kris answers.

"We're safe from outside threats, I think. But now it's water. We're literally down to one bottle." Mika tells us.

"I was afraid of that." Kennedy brushes away dried mud from her elbow. Ken and I know that's not our only threat. We know they're after us.

Kris looks ahead, "that neighborhood used to be beautiful. They were some nice houses. They really were. I remember because one of my buddies built them. Kids running around playing, neighbors having small talk while they watered their front lawn."

It's nothing like that anymore. The neighborhood is a few houses in an ash-field. The smell of smoke still lingers in the air. It's obvious the sleepers burned the neighborhood—or at least half of it. The south side has a few remaining houses. The houses next to those are black like a marshmallow left above a fire for too long. And the houses past that are piles of woods and ash with a few standing walls or couches here and there.

"Let's look in the house for water?" Kennedy suggests.

"What guns do we have left?" Kris asks.

It's crazy. In the shuffle from everything, all I have left is my knife. "My knife. That's all I have. I lost my bag by the sleeper camp."

"I have my gun," Owen says.

"I have mine, too." Mika holds up her gun. The weight of it doesn't affect her anymore.