Titus slowly raises his hand, holding his gun.
"Stop!" The man pulls the knife closer to her neck, "she will die if you make one more move."
"We all walk out alive if we give you everything?" Kris asks. I don't know if Kris is serious or not. Would he really go out without a fight? They might kill us anyway.
Titus jerks his head over to Kris. I know exactly what Titus is thinking: Why? Are you serious? You can't be serious! Then, Titus notices another gun sticking out the back of Kris' trousers. He knows we won't give up.
Titus looks back at the new group, "we walk away free, with Lindsey, right?"
The man, shaking and wide-eyed, screams, "Yes! Just give us what you have!"
Suddenly, I notice the girl in the shadowed corner of the pantry raising her hand. She looks at me, shaking her head. "It's okay. It's okay," she keeps mouthing at me. She opens her palms at me, showing she won't hurt us. This mystery girl has our attention. Kris continues to talk to Lindsey's attacker, trying to buy time.
The girl reaches down and grabs another knife that came from the kitchen. She points it at the man holding Lindsey then looks back at us. She swipes a tear away before it could get too far down her face. Her hand begins to shake, wobbling the knife in the air.
Within her group of five, two more raise a knife. They're about to take care of them for us. I can tell they don't want to, but they have to. Lindsey and the man still have no idea what's happening behind them. This group has had something go on. They don't trust each other. Thankfully, they don't agree with each other either.
"Now!" the girl in the corner screams.
She lunges forward and stabs the man in the back. Unexpectedly, the group falls apart, right in front of our eyes. The group self-destructs. The mystery girl and her two friends kill the others. Leaving four survivors: The young mystery girl. An older, pale woman. An older man. And Lindsey.
Lindsey gasps for air and desperately crawls back to our group. The three, two young girls and one older man, throw their hands up and sit in the growing pool of blood.
"Please. We couldn't be with them. They were evil. We promise we will help you. We were not a part of that!" The girl with long black hair tells us.
Everyone looks around at each other, confused and still trying to figure out what just happened. Kris loosens his grip on his gun. Titus drops his shoulders and puts his gun away. Lindsey crawled her way to the far left corner of the room. She's sobbing and aggressively scrubbing at the blood on her arms. Owen steps towards Lindsey to comfort her.
"No!" she screams, flaring her arms and pointing at him.
She's more intimidating than I've ever seen. This is a whole new Lindsey... She's more than broken.
Owen turns and rubs his fingers through his blonde hair. He searches the bloody room, trying to understand.
Kennedy leans forward and grabs the youngest girl's hands, pulling her from the ground. She throws her bloody knife behind her.
And just like that, our group went from six to nine.
"How long have you been here?" Kris asks them.
The older man, around my uncle's age, speaks up as he rises from the ground, "close to four days. We heard you all coming in and thought you were one of them," he says with a scratching, deep voice. The bass in his voice vibrates every word. Everything about him is violently sharp. The man has a dusty-gray, unshaven face. His eyes are a haunting gray. He's muscular and doesn't smile like other people would.
"You just killed those two people. Why?" Kris points behind the man at the deceased.
"We had to. They were strictly out for blood. They were not going to let that girl go. The minute you handed over your stuff, they would have shot you... with your own guns. We could not be with those two anymore. They were uncontrollable."
"Is there running water here?" Kris asks.
"Yes. The kitchen sink was wet when I was in the there," I answer for the newcomers.
"Go take a shower."
Owen and Kris take the horrible job of dragging the bodies to the backyard. I close the glass doors to the dining room and lock them. Not under any orders, but because that room scares me now. The blood stains, the path Lindsey made when she crawled to the corner, it's too much. It's just two glass doors, and you can still see it. But, it's better than letting the vicious air seep into the rest of the house.
Meeting them at the back door, I ask Owen, "you're just gonna leave their bodies out there like that? Wouldn't it draw attention?"
"Hopefully the opposite. I want the sleepers to see the bodies. Maybe they'll keep running. Maybe they'll overlook this place... I want them to think they've already been through the house."
__________
As the three newcomers clean themselves up in the back bedrooms of the house, our group sits in the living room on the couches. The room is laced with blues and browns. The white, hardwood floors have scratches from the legs of the furniture.
"Is this the right choice?" Titus asks as he scratches his palm.
Owen answers, "I think so. I know I just met you guys... but you let me in. You let me join this group," he makes a good point, "you saved my life. I wouldn't be here without you. I think we should let them in. Let them be a part of us. They killed those people right in front of us... for us."
"That's right. They killed two people in their own group. What would stop them from doing the same to us?" Titus suggests.
"The other two were about to kill Lindsey. They didn't want to be a part of it. I watched the younger girl fight her thoughts. She didn't seem ready to kill her own group. She was scared... but she did it for us," I tell them. I look over at Lindsey. She's rubbing her neck, still shaking her head.
"I think he's right. We should let them in," Kennedy says.
Kris nods his head, "we need to watch them. We'll let them go with us... but watch them. I think they're good people, but be careful, and that goes for anything. Watch out, guys. Be on guard at all times. Please. For your own sake. We may get split up, we may lose someone. Be strong and be ready. It's fight or flight now. And sometimes, you may have to do the wrong thing for the right reasons."
That last sentence sticks in my head. I look down and let what he said sink in.
Then, the two girls emerge from the kitchen and stand in the doorway. They're clean and look nothing like they did before.
One is pale and tall. She has black hair that flows behind her shoulders like a waterfall over smooth rocks. She has a beauty about her, with green eyes that look a little foggy. She keeps her shoulders back. Sometimes it looks cocky, but it actually just makes her look confident.
"Thank you," she says as she unzips her red raincoat and takes a seat next to Owen.
"What's your name?" Owen asks her.
"Mika Hadden," she tells us. She takes a deep breath, "you all know that had to be done. Those two were not good for anyone. I had to do that." Mika looks over to the other girl, "we had to do that."
The other girl sits on the floor, leaning against the couch, "and my name's Sage Francis."
Sage Francis is the younger girl that had the knife. She's African-American with beautiful bronzed skin. Titus and Sage look extremely similar. If I didn't know Titus beforehand, they could have fooled me into believing they were siblings. Her clothes seem very comfortable. She's wearing a designer white tank top with denim shorts. She has this glimmer to her that makes it hard to look away. Something about her smile. It makes you feel like you've got a best friend.
"How old are you?" I ask.
"I'm eighteen," Sage says.
"Oh, and I'm twenty-two. And the other guy is—I don't know—thirty-eight or something like that. He looks older than he is," Mika jokes.
I like this girl. She's confident in herself. But most importantly, she has humor that we've all missed. Her facial expressions add an extra flavor to her sentences.
Finally, the man walks in...and I instantly feel inferior. He rubs at his scuffled beard. He looks around at everyone with his daunting eyes. I think my sudden insecurity comes from his threatening presence. I can tell he's a leader. Kris and the man meet eyes. He walks to my uncle, "the name's Caspian Cain." I'm expecting a handshake... didn't happen.
"Kris Easley," my uncle nods, "and this is Owen, Vince, Titus, Kennedy, and Lindsey," Kris pointed at us one by one. Sage and Mika also follow along trying to memorize our names. Mika keeps pointing to everyone, mouthing our names.
"That's gonna take a good minute for me to get all that," Mika giggles. She's someone who can take out the deadly edge from the atmosphere. She's great. Mika's that person that forces you to smile. I think we'll get along just fine.
"So it's Caspian, Sage, and Mika. Right?" Titus asks one last time.
"That's right. That's us," Mika answers, holding her arms out like a game show host.
"Who were the other two?" Lindsey asks out of nowhere. Her breaking silence adds an elephant in the room we were all avoiding. The perkiness drains from all three of the newcomers. It's obvious they don't want to talk about it. I guess they're good at putting thoughts away and ignoring things.
"I don't want to talk about it," Sage says boldly. She doesn't move or even turn towards her.
"We've never killed anyone... until today," Mika tells us.
Titus and I meet eyes; the sleeper zone has made us all do thing we would never do.
"I know what you mean. This has changed a lot of us. Broke some of us down and forced some of us to fight for what we have. Titus and I both have killed someone since this started. It's horrible," I tell them. Then, what Kris told us earlier comes back in my head, sometimes, you have to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.
The room gets deathly quiet once again. Mika finally breaks it with a witty joke. We spend the rest of the day getting to know each other. Mika's a great girl. She's just a little older than me, but I relate to her. She's someone who fits right in. She's an adapter. No one's going to make her feel uncomfortable...or at least she's not going to show it.
Sage Francis is cute. Her voice is pitched just right, too. She reminds me of cotton-candy. The way it smells like a tasteful perfume. Not too much, just enough that you know it's there. Sage's glow is something you can't hide. She may not say anything, but you know when she's in the room.
__________
Kris and Caspian walk around the house, but something about them is off. They don't seem to be clicking the way everyone else is. The way they walk... it's like two competing lions in East Africa.
We decide that we should stay the night here. Tomorrow, the plan is to find a map. We need to know where the sleeper zone is. Heck, we need to know where we are.
We make a watch schedule, two people at a time throughout the night. I'm lucky and won't have to keep watch at all tonight. I'm going to use this time wisely. I need sleep. I curl into the cloud-like bed in the back bedroom.
__________
The next day, Owen, Kris, Caspian and I search the black car in the front driveway for anything useful. I dig through the back seats. Owen scavenges through the trunk. No keys. No supplies.
Caspian pops open an interior container in the passenger door. He slides out gold. A map.
Kris lays it out on the hood of the car, "where'd you say the sleeper zone was, Owen?"
"Jacobsville to Kinsworth was the last I heard."
Caspian hands Kris a red pen to mark where it is. "Sleeper zone? What's that?" he asks.
"The killers. The bad guys are the sleepers. The area they're occupying is called the sleeper zone," I explain.
"Okay. What's the formation of this sleeper zone? A circle?" Caspian asks.
"Yes. They started in the center and are trying to work their way out. And it's not just one sleeper zone. It started out as five or so small towns. They worked together to form huge sleeper zones. I'm pretty sure we were caught up in the biggest, strongest sleeper zone," Owen leans forward to look at the map as Kris draws the circle that we know about. Owen's face goes pale and he leans away from the map.
"What?" my voice quivers.
I peek around Owen to see the worst possible situation. "That's not us, is it?" I look closer to see where he marked on the map. A red circle from Jacobsville to Kinsworth. I had no idea just how far those two places were.
We have a lot of work to do if we want to survive...We're dead center in the sleeper zone.