Static

CHAPTER TWO

    We reached the other side, the doors of the Block, Flea and I were both breathing hard, panting like dogs.
   "Hold on."  I said stopping her hand before she could reach the doorknob.
   "Catch your breath first.  We've got a long way to run." 
   She nodded, gasping for air.  We waited there no longer than 30 seconds before I asked her if she was ready.
   "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess."  Flea shrugged and backed away from the door to let me open it.
    "Go, go ,go!"  I shouted, it didn't matter if someone heard us now, we already out in the open, entirely exposed.  It was dark out, and cold.  As we ran, the freezing air stung my cheeks and I felt the tips of my ears go numb.  The wind ripped against my skin, brining tears to my eyes that blinded me from everything but the fence.  It was lit up by white spotlights.  Several monitors were shouting, I could hear their voices.  But no guns were fired, no bullets whizzed past us.  Maybe they didn't know what my curse was, maybe they figured that the electricity coursing through the wires of the fence would do the dirty work for them.  But when we reached it, we paused just long enough for me to catch my breath yet again.

      "Let's go, Roach!  They're coming!"  I could barley hear Flea's frantic cries, I was to busy trying to convince myself to grab hold of the fence.
      Flea was right, the monitors were getting closer, close enough that I could hear their boots thudding along the snow cleared paths. 

      "Stand back!"  I screamed.  I closed my eyes before I did it, like that would help save me if something went wrong.  I latched my hand around the bottom wire of the fence.  I didn't scream, nothing hurt bad enough to.  I felt rather than saw the purple-white bolts run from where my hand was grabbing onto the wire, up my arm, electrifying every nerve along the way.  I reached out behind me with my other arm, not aware of where Flea was or any of the rapidly closing in monitors but I hoped with all that was left of my heart that this would work.  I felt something deep in my gut, that slow rumble of power that picks up speed as I got ready to release everything I have into one surge of electricity. 

      The burst shook everything inside of me as I let it go.  I opened my eyes at the same moment to see four out of the eight monitors fall to the ground and convulse just like Dr. Kumke had.  The other four left standing froze.  Then one shouted for them to retreat, to find cover, or something similar that made them all turn and run back to the monitor's Bunker.

      The blast that I'd just let fly died down.  My skin was on fire and I was stinging with the after effects of the surge. 
     I let go of the fence with my shaking hand and touched it one last time.  I felt no more energy, I had drained it and directed it to the monitors and I had killed them. 

    "I think I broke it."  I said to Flea, she was cowering down on the ground in a ball, her hands over her head and rocking slowly back and forth. 
    "Flea, we have to run, they'll be bringing in backup any second now."  I tried to ease her up myself but she brushed my hands off.
    "I'm fine, lets hit the road, Jack."  And so we went for it.  We didn't know where we were going but we did know wherever it was, it was better than here.
     At first we ran. We had to put as much distance between us and that zone as possible.

     It was all so strange though.  It had been three years, three years, since I'd seen the sky from another angle.  Since I'd seen anything other than dull grey and dying brown grass.  And it was to dark to appreciate anything.  I did, however, notice a couple things as we hurried away.
     One, we were on a road.  That road was surrounded by trees, an incredibly thick forest that stretched on and on and on.  There were no street lamps, no light of any kind except from the stars and moon above.
     Me and Flea didn't say a word until we could look over our shoulders and only see road and trees, the lights from the zone no longer in sight.

    "We need to go through the trees."  I said to Flea when we paused for a break.
    "The road is the first place they'll look when they gather up enough people to come search for us."  Flea was not amused.  I could tell she saw the logic in what I'd suggested but I could also tell that there was no way I was going to get her to come with me through an unknown forest in pitch black even if the road was just as unknown as what lies inside the trees.

    "Can't we just walk along the road until we find a gas station or something.  I don't want to go through the forest just yet when I can finally see the stars."  I couldn't agree more.  Back at the camp, the stars were never seen by any of the girls since we were already back in our bunkers before they came all the way out.  But this was life or death right here, we can't just stare at the stars the whole time when there are people hunting us.

      "We don't know when the next sign of civilization will show up, we could be walking for hours until we reach a town, it's best if we walk through the trees.  Keep ourselves hidden."  I said.  Flea kicked a rock that I could barley see and mumbled an ok.  I turned to walk into the trees.

    "Roach?"  Flea said from behind me.  She was still standing in the middle of the road.
   "Yeah?"  I faced her again and I saw that she was staring down the road, not in the direction we had come but in the direction we still had yet to go. 

   "Do-do you hear that? Holy-". I didn't get to listen to what she had to say next.  I did hear what she had inquired about, though.  I heard the car that was coming down the road.  I saw its headlights shine on Flea's mud splattered uniform as she jumped out of the way and crashed into me, knocking me to the ground.
      The huge black car or at least it appeared to be back (it was hard to tell in the dark), did not blow past us like I thought it was going to.

      We were to dazed and stunned to move, to do much of anything but watch as the car screeched to a halt no further than 6 feet away from us.
     Two people unloaded, one from the drivers side and another from the passenger side.  They circled around the car in a blur until the one who'd been the driver rushed over to us. 
      I was still on the ground so I tried to scrunch away from the approaching figure as best as I could but I gave up when my foot caught on a vine plant that was growing in a tangled unruly mess on the roadside. 

     "Come on, we don't work for the zone!"  The figure that approached us, that I now knew was a boy based on the low pitch of his voice. 
     "Get away from us!"  Flea screeched, her voice cracking halfway through.
     "I'm serious!  Come on, they're hot on your tail, we don't have forever!"  He shouted.  I finally came to my senses.  I am not some ordinary little kid, I am cursed, this guy should be terrified of me!  Does he have any idea what I could do to him if he tried to drag me back to the zone?  I held out my hands confidently, in warning.  Flea caught on and I watched her do the same out of the corner of my eye. 

     The man didn't back down.
     "Chill out, we are just trying to help!"  He urged.  I didn't listen.  Flea was the first to let go, I felt the wind change direction around me, shifting toward the stranger.  Then I followed suit, lighting up the area around us with thousands of volts of electricity.  I couldn't see the man now, I was to focused on conjuring up my curse.  I let it fly into his heart holding it there long enough to make sure that when he hit the ground he wouldn't get up again.  Flea pushed him back hard.  He flew and slammed into his car and slid to the ground. 

      I cut off the flow and waited a good thirty seconds before the dizziness subsided and I could fully take in the scene and figure out how to get out of it.
     Here's the thing, remember how I said that cursed kids aren't effected by each other's curses as much as regular old people are?  Yeah well, this guy, he should've been dead.  His partner should have been on the ground next to his lifeless body balling his or her eyes out.  But no.  It was something worse.  Something much, much worse.