The Immune

4: The First Time

On my thirteenth birthday, Dad gave me a bike. It seemed like a great present; the compound wasn't so crowded back then. I could go out in the outer hills, ride around on broken sidewalks, and enjoy the feeling of the wind in my hair— something I missed more than I'll ever be able to explain.

For a moment, while I was riding that bike, I tasted freedom in that wind. I could forget for a moment that I was surrounded by The Wall and watched constantly by guards. I imagined I was back at home in my red-brick house with a short, picket fence. My brain conjured up images that may or may not have been real of people riding by on bikes just like mine, waving and smiling.

Anything to escape from the black-and-white world inside Compound 4.

It was a luxury, that bike. They were so expensive.

I spent several hours every day riding my bike up and down a hill in the middle of the circular compound. My friends called it Center Hill due to its location. Rumor had it that the mound of dirt was actually an old Indian burial ground. I never bought into the fantasy. Yet, from the very top, I could see the ruins of Chattanooga, and I pretended that city lights flashed in shattered windows and smog rose out of ancient smokestacks.

Laying here on this quarantine bed for the second time, I wish I'd never taken a ride that Tuesday. I wish it had been cloudy, not a perfect sunny day. Dad tried to get me to stay home and study for my spring midterms, but I craved the feeling of flying.

So, when the alarm went off, I was standing on top of that hill. I should have been afraid, should have run home. But what did I do?

Ran for the gate.

Stupid, curious, thirteen-year old Jaelyn ran for the closest open door in the entire compound.

I just had to see what was coming. Hartley hadn't announced a drill, so this had to be real. At that point, I'd only seen pictures of Infected. The teacher had us list their physical attributes, strengths, weaknesses, and history. I could recite the infection dates— from the time the virus started to the day that it came to a virtual standstill.

But I had never actually seen one in real life.

Curiosity got the best of me.

I hauled off that hill on my bike, pedalling so fast that the wind knotted my hair into a bird's nest. At the gate, the guards hustled around in a wild frenzy, and I left my bike tossed aside in the grass. Darting past them was easy; I've always been small for my age. They shut the gate without even knowing I was out there.

What I found outside was a man. He was walking slowly with his head down. Not limping or crawling like I expected an Infected to be. A thin layer of dust covered his clothes, or what was left of them anyway. The gray and white pinstripe uniform hung off his gaunt body like folds of excess skin. Peeling black letters on his pocket told me who he was.

Duncan.

It's the name that I wake up screaming, the name that makes me chew my fingernails off and scratch my arms until they bleed. Every ghost in my nightmares shares that name.

From where I stood, several feet inside the gate, he looked like a faded photograph, black and white and crumbling at the edges. The only sign of the virus was his bloodshot, dilated eyes. Unlike the girl's green eyes, Duncan's were blue. Yet, they were so alive and desperate, frantic almost.

Whatever possessed me to help him still doesn't make sense. I didn't understand then, and I don't understand now. Dad asked me countless times in the days following; I never answered. President Hartley chalked it up to hormones.

Whatever it was, I couldn't stop myself.

Something mysterious drove me to run up to him and wrap a shaking arm around my shoulders. I pulled him towards The Wall carefully while he wordlessly tugged at my arm, grunting and whining.

At the time, the idea that he was afraid hadn't occurred to me. I was helping him, wasn't I?

When the guards heard me yelling for help, they threw the ladder over immediately. Two second later, feet landed on the packed earth, and the guard set his eyes on us.

There was no hesitation. No blinking. No second thoughts. He raised his gun, stock to his shoulder, elbow tilted away from his body, eye trained on the front sight. His form was perfect. Throughout my own Guard training, I would see him in the back of my mind and shiver. He pulled that trigger in a perfect response time— one bullet straight through Duncan's head and another aimed at me. The color of his blood and bone scattered across the grass still gives me nightmares, and that juxtaposition sends chills up my spine.

I remember being terrified. It was a feeling deep in my toes, like someone had picked me up and dropped me in ice water. My heart stopped; my breathing paused. I stared into the barrel of his gun and saw nothing but my own grave. I was willing to risk everything for Duncan just moments ago, and here I was facing losing everything.

And I regretted nothing.

I didn't move or duck or anything as the guard pulled his trigger on me. I refused to scream as I hit the ground, wallowing in the warm combination of my own blood and Duncan's. My mind wouldn't even let me pass out as I was carried back up The Wall and sent to the Infirmary, weak and silent with shock.

Obviously I survived that bullet to the leg. Hartley took bikes away from everyone, including me, issued me a series of extra chores after school, and built a fence around Center Hill.

Dad explained to me later why Duncan didn't look like an Infected.

"He was freshly ill," he said, sitting on the edge of my quarantine bed. Back then, he didn't have as much gray in his beard and his hair hadn't started thinning. He stood up straight and met my eyes when we talked. "Maybe four or five hours in. That's why he could stand the daylight and why he was acting so normal. It takes at least a day for the virus to really ravage a person."

Luckily, Duncan hadn't touched me. No bites; no scratches. Hartley still wanted extensive testing done to make sure there was absolutely no chance of the virus showing up in me.

Hushed whispers told me he regretted that decision. They say he should have left it alone.

Because when the reports came back, "IMMUNE" was printed across the manila folder in bright red letters. Duncan couldn't have infected me. No one could have. The virus couldn't touch me.

Word spreads fast inside Compound 4, especially when that word is immunity. Nothing was the same after that, for me or Dad.

My friends wanted nothing to do with me— due to either jealousy or guilt by association. I finished school and was assigned to Wall Guard the day I turned fifteen. Hartley watched Dad closer than ever, always investigating my state. Eventually, things calmed down, but no one ever saw me as the tiny innocent girl after that.

I was a wart on the face of an ugly, dark society.

I was Muney. I still am.