Runners
Chapter 2
I think my boyfriend, brother and I tried to escape. We weren’t the only ones. Vehicles were racing in every direction, kids screaming and jumping out of the way to keep from getting run over. I saw a girl I had been friends with for years, dirty and crying, missed by a speeding truck by mere inches.
“Finn!” I screamed, “Stop, we have to let Sarah in!”
“Can’t stop, tell her to run!” The truck had slowed down, but Finn was right. If we stopped we’d either be run over, or unable to ever move again.
I turned out the window, “Sarah! Sarah! Run, hurry, come get in the back!”
Her head whipped around, a fear in her eyes like I had never seen before. We made eye contact and she took a great breath, that fear replaced by hope. She began to run, mindless to the speeding vehicles around her. She was running as fast as she could but the distance was slowly increasing. “Run!” I closed my eyes, sucking in shallow breaths of air when I felt her body-weight lower truck’s bed. My eyes shot open, and she looked at me with a half-smile. She would smile after something like that, even sweaty-faced and short of breath. I don’t remember how we lost that truck… just that we were beat for trying to escape. We survived. I haven’t seen Sarah since.
But by God’s will – I say that, but to be frank, I haven’t believed in God in a long, long time – I haven’t yet been separated from my little brother, nor my boyfriend. Those two are allowed to stick closer together than I am to them, because of gender separation. Finn has promised that he will never, ever let anything happen to Max. I know he won’t. But I worry nonetheless.
My younger brother was fourteen when we were taken, I was barely seventeen, and Finn was just a few months older than I. How far we have traveled, I can’t tell. We are on foot, and they run us as often as they can. I’ve seen my fair share of kids collapse in exhaustion, heat stroke, or they just couldn’t go on anymore. The Drivers usually let us slow down when too many take a fall. That’s the thing. A lot of kids talk about this like the death marches that the Germans forced their prisoners to make, but Finn and I agreed that it is something different. The Drivers care for the sick and wounded; they want to lose as few of us as possible. To what means, I still don’t know, though I’m sure it can’t be good.
We were taken just as the chill of spring began to burn into summer. As we move west, it gets hotter and hotter, a heat that I was not used to. Out east, the heat was humid; this was a scorching heat. We lost a lot of kids during those summer months. They were carried off by horses, sometimes in wagons and sometimes draped over a horse’s hindquarters. I think that was one of the strangest parts of all. The Drivers were on horses. Big, sturdy horses that were built for long trips. The kind used on cattle drives hundreds of years ago. That’s why we felt so much like cattle, I think. Had the Drivers been on foot or even in vehicles, the situation would have been much different. Less dust kicked up by the animals, perhaps. But with vehicles, there would be fewer stops. Even the hardiest of horses tires eventually.
We have seen few people on our trek. The Drivers know how to avoid people. Sometimes a plane would fly over and we would all look up with hope, knowing someone must have seen us. But they always kept flying. And no one ever came to help us. Then, of course, the planes stopped too. In fact, I haven’t seen a plane in weeks.
The silence out here is sometimes too much to bear. The kids don’t talk anymore. Even the little babies stopped crying a long time ago. Most of them don’t survive more than a couple days, especially the newborns. There aren’t many of those taken in the first place. The ones that last more than a couple days usually go on the wagons. I don’t know what they do with the ones that don’t.
“Finn!” I screamed, “Stop, we have to let Sarah in!”
“Can’t stop, tell her to run!” The truck had slowed down, but Finn was right. If we stopped we’d either be run over, or unable to ever move again.
I turned out the window, “Sarah! Sarah! Run, hurry, come get in the back!”
Her head whipped around, a fear in her eyes like I had never seen before. We made eye contact and she took a great breath, that fear replaced by hope. She began to run, mindless to the speeding vehicles around her. She was running as fast as she could but the distance was slowly increasing. “Run!” I closed my eyes, sucking in shallow breaths of air when I felt her body-weight lower truck’s bed. My eyes shot open, and she looked at me with a half-smile. She would smile after something like that, even sweaty-faced and short of breath. I don’t remember how we lost that truck… just that we were beat for trying to escape. We survived. I haven’t seen Sarah since.
But by God’s will – I say that, but to be frank, I haven’t believed in God in a long, long time – I haven’t yet been separated from my little brother, nor my boyfriend. Those two are allowed to stick closer together than I am to them, because of gender separation. Finn has promised that he will never, ever let anything happen to Max. I know he won’t. But I worry nonetheless.
My younger brother was fourteen when we were taken, I was barely seventeen, and Finn was just a few months older than I. How far we have traveled, I can’t tell. We are on foot, and they run us as often as they can. I’ve seen my fair share of kids collapse in exhaustion, heat stroke, or they just couldn’t go on anymore. The Drivers usually let us slow down when too many take a fall. That’s the thing. A lot of kids talk about this like the death marches that the Germans forced their prisoners to make, but Finn and I agreed that it is something different. The Drivers care for the sick and wounded; they want to lose as few of us as possible. To what means, I still don’t know, though I’m sure it can’t be good.
We were taken just as the chill of spring began to burn into summer. As we move west, it gets hotter and hotter, a heat that I was not used to. Out east, the heat was humid; this was a scorching heat. We lost a lot of kids during those summer months. They were carried off by horses, sometimes in wagons and sometimes draped over a horse’s hindquarters. I think that was one of the strangest parts of all. The Drivers were on horses. Big, sturdy horses that were built for long trips. The kind used on cattle drives hundreds of years ago. That’s why we felt so much like cattle, I think. Had the Drivers been on foot or even in vehicles, the situation would have been much different. Less dust kicked up by the animals, perhaps. But with vehicles, there would be fewer stops. Even the hardiest of horses tires eventually.
We have seen few people on our trek. The Drivers know how to avoid people. Sometimes a plane would fly over and we would all look up with hope, knowing someone must have seen us. But they always kept flying. And no one ever came to help us. Then, of course, the planes stopped too. In fact, I haven’t seen a plane in weeks.
The silence out here is sometimes too much to bear. The kids don’t talk anymore. Even the little babies stopped crying a long time ago. Most of them don’t survive more than a couple days, especially the newborns. There aren’t many of those taken in the first place. The ones that last more than a couple days usually go on the wagons. I don’t know what they do with the ones that don’t.