Survivor Read Free

gas mask hung under his chin, loose as if ready to pull on at a moment’s notice. He wore a bulletproof vest over a plastic camouflage jumpsuit, a white parka over his shoulders. Black boots. Big black boots.
    His rifle had a timber stock and a black steel scope, like a hunting rifle. It was steady in his hands, and pointed directly at me. I looked beyond this appendage to the man, and I realized his issue with me: He thinks I’m a Chaser. Or worse, the enemy.
    I said, “Don’t kill me.”
    His expression didn’t change. The man’s eyes, framed behind glasses, told what could have been a lie: that he didn’t have it in him to kill me. Or that was what I chose to see. Every second of hesitation gave me hope. Here was a man standing over me, a man with his own choices to make, his own unpredictable nature to contend with.
    â€œPlease. Don’t. Don’t do it.” I tried a smile, a friendly gesture. “Look, see? I’m not sick . . .”
    My throat gave out with “sick”; a croaking, hoarse, feeble cry, all I had after so many days of soliloquy.
    I showed him my empty hands, how I was unarmed, on the ground, at his mercy. Yesterday, maybe I would not have been so willing to submit, but today, now, I wanted to live, to hear what he had to say, to learn what was out there, to somehow get home.
    I pleaded softly, “I’m not the enemy . . .”
    He reached down and I inched away, shuffling back in the wet snow from both the threat of his grasp and his pointed rifle, but he took a long stride after me and dragged me to my feet. He held me up by my collar, at arm’s length, shaking me to see how I’d react. I didn’t fight him. His three colleagues stood beside the pair of all-terrain trucks with their monster-sized tires and stared.
    This man who held me turned around and shouted: “He’s not sick.”
    â€œSo?” one of his colleagues replied as he climbed back into the truck. Visible through the open back flap of the canvas-topped truck was a container the size of a small car with USAMRIID stenciled on the side of it.
    â€œThey said they were all sick . . .” the soldier holding me said quietly to himself, dangling me in midair, his gaze locked on mine.
    â€œForget him!” The shout rattled around the empty street. “We gotta hustle.”
    â€œShoot him!” yelled another. “Do the kid a favor.” He slammed the cab door of the second truck and it motored off in the cleared wake of the first.
    The last soldier remained, watching closely from the other side of the street, cradling his rifle. If this one here doesn’t kill me, that one will, won’t he? I swallowed hard. Should I run? Twist away and run? Zigzag my way around debris and hope they miss?
    â€œPlease . . .” I said to the one who held me. He had a name tag on his vest: STARKEY. “Please, Starkey, I’m not sick. You can’t kill me.”
    â€œKill him!” The order echoed across the street. Guns entitled men to do anything. They were clearly Americans, so why shoot me? Out of anger for what’s happened here? Out of fear? No, these were outsiders. They probably knew what was going on here, they had information . I was more afraid than he could ever be.
    I pleaded with my eyes. I didn’t want to die, and now, more than that, I wanted to know . I wanted to talk, to ask questions, to listen and learn.
    He let me go. “How old are you?”
    â€œSixteen,” I replied.
    â€œWe’re moving!”
    â€œI’ll catch up!” Starkey yelled across to his buddy, who shook his head and remained standing there, rifle slung in his arms like a child. “Where were you when this attack happened?”
    â€œHere.” I was too frightened to lie.
    â€œHere in this street?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “A subway; I was in a subway.”
    He nodded. “How many like you?”
    â€œLike