Sounds of Safety

Post Bus Ride

            Once we were on the bus we did exactly as Rye said. We ignored the weird noises, the stench of the sick,  and our grumbling stomachs as Jillian and I took turns sleeping because one of us had to read signs to Rye. It became blatantly obvious that the driver couldn't read either because a bus ride that should have taken three hours, took seven. So when Jillian woke me with the great news that she saw the Laguna Beach sign in the distance, it was music to my ears. 

           Now at the mercy of the strangers of Laguna Beach, we set out on our final hike to San Diego. The sun was blistering, the ocean was loud, and the people we passed were down right scary, but if we hurried we could make it there in a few days. This would turn out to be easier said than done as everything in our bodies wanted to quit after the first day, and after the second day but Rye didn't raise quitters, so we pushed through even when it got dark. Once dawn hit on our third day, our spirits were lifted with the rising sun as we started to see little green flags lining our path and Rye turned around and shouted to us with a gaping smile, "we made it!"

           Just a few more minutes of following the flags and we came up to an intimidatingly tall barbed wire fence being guarded every few feet by men bigger than I had ever seen my whole life, not that this is surprising considering I had only ever seen sick people from the upstairs window at home. The area beyond the fence went on for miles and miles, as far as the eye could see in every direction and it was scattered with small houses like cabins from movies, and other larger more important looking buildings. The biggest man of them all who appeared to be the leader greeted Rye as we stood back behind her, cowering like sissies. But finally the gates opened with a screeching cry, and the guards ushered us in as Rye took a step back for us. 

         All of a sudden the horrible realization hit me as I whirled around and saw that Jillian and I were crossing the threshold, but Rye remained on the other side. "No!" we screamed over and over as they drug us away farther and farther from her. She knew this would happen. Rye knew that she would be losing her only family if she brought us here, and she brought us here anyways. The woman who saved us as baby orphans and protected us from this horrible world, now grew smaller and smaller from the other side of the barbed wire, looking as heartbroken as ever as teared pour from her eyes. 

        So we fought, we refused food, we refused to shower, and we even refused eye contact in hopes that they might think we were crazy like the rest of the world and release us back to the only mom we ever knew. But of course, the next day we got hungry... and we decided to act civilized. Once we showered and ate, we talked to the same man who met us at the gate who introduced himself as Captain Phillips, the leader of the healthy people, who appeared to only maybe be 5 years older than me. He went on to tell us that "this compound houses all the healthy children people are willing to turn over, and as bad as it sounds, you guys are here to hopefully find someone you feel comfortable having a minimum of nine kids with to expand the healthy human race while we wait for the sick to die, which we suspect will only take another twenty years, and then we can all leave and start over out there." We stared back skeptically, we were only sixteen and we were supposed to think about settling down and starting a family in the destroyed world we just walked through? Noticing our obvious discomfort, he added that we could write letters to Rye if we wanted to. This actually made me laugh out loud, write letters to the ex-professor who couldn't read a thing, yeah right. But then and there I decided I would not be a complete idiot and foil a plan that probably killed Rye to go through with, so I shook Captain Phillips' hand and truthfully told him we would do what we could.