“Girl, come on! You have to trust me!” The boy shouted. His dirty, dust colored hair blew in the wind, causing him to look like one of those fake surfers you see in the movies. Despite the fact that he’d been living on the streets most his life, he wasn’t bad looking. I don’t know you! I wanted to shout. You’re just a street boy! But I couldn’t, They were too close. I could hear their snarls and gasps as their wet, blood soaked bare feet slapped the hot pavement. “Girl, it’s now or never, trust me.” The boy looked at me with pleading eyes like a puppy.
After taking a gulp, I said softly, “No. No, I can’t.” My feet turned opposite from the boy and ran for the shade of the buildings. So what if he was eaten by Them, I didn’t care. I just couldn’t trust anymore, after what happened to my family. Turning back, I saw the boy chasing after me, but he wasn’t fast enough. Them were catching up to him, and to me. Crouching down, I nearly hit my head on a building. They all floated about six feet above the ground due to global warming, so they wouldn’t burn up on the ground. Until yesterday, I had never touched the ground, felt real grass, touched rough pavement. Guess what? The ground is hot and sometimes flooded with sizzling, skin burning water. Why was I down here? Well, my sister’s dead and so are my parents. The government killed them all and banished me from the city. My dreams of being a military leader, gone. My little sister, gone. My life, gone. This was all because of Them, the infected people. Usually they were poor people who couldn’t afford the protection and lived on the ground of on the hover-busses. Their skin oozed red, hot blood and their eyes rolled back. Oh, and did I mention the fangs. That’s what happened to my little sister and my parents. I had come back from military training one day and what do I see but vampires replacing everyone I loved. What I believe is that was the fault of the government, so I ran and took to the ground. Not far did I get before I was chased by Them and ran into a street boy. Luckily, military training had kicked in and I ran.
“Shoot!” I gasped, looking in front of me. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” There before my eyes was a large cement wall, put up to ‘protect our city’. More like to keep me trapped inside! “Why didn’t I see this before?” I cursed myself and turned around. Them were catching up and so was the boy. I’ve scaled 12-story buildings, but those had windows as foot-holds. A bare wall, perfectly straight and upright, was impossible.
How could I be so stupid? This was the end of Carter Stacy Williams. “Girl, trust me!” The boy yelled. “They’re going to get you if you don’t trust me.” He repeated, an intense look in his blue eyes.
Street boy or Them? I asked myself. “Fine,” I bitterly spat, “you’d better know what you’re doing, street boy.” Them stood three yards away from us, close enough to bite if they stretched.
“Step on my hands,” The boy commanded. I looked at him as if he was crazy. “Don’t ask, just do. Step on my hands and boost yourself onto the wall. You have to trust me.” I was never one for talking to strangers, but I really wanted to nag this kid about addressing girls. Never should you ever tell one what to do, especially when she’s a military-leader-in-training. “Come on, we don’t have time to argue, just step on them, girl!” He shouted vigorously.
I took a step back before launching myself onto his hands and pulling myself over the crumbling wall. The other side look not much different, just broken old roads that hadn’t been used in hundreds of years and the remains of old buildings. This burden of climbing the wall had nothing on me, but the boy was sweating and he hadn’t even gotten up yet. “Boy!” I shouted and flopped onto my stomach. “Grab my hand, I’ll pull you up.” The wall was thick enough for me to trust I wouldn’t slide off as I lowered my arm. The boy looked up at me as Them approached, his eyes reflecting fear and nervousness. There was something there I didn’t recognize. Something that looked like he was about to surrender as Them got closer. “Boy, come on. Grab my arm, a life for a life!” I repeated, starting to get desperate. If this boy died because of me, I’d never be able to forgive myself. Them were so close, I could feel their disgustingly hot and slimy breath on my arms. If I stretched a little more, I could feel their slimy, bloody skin under my soft hand. “Boy!” I had to be the virtuous one, he had to take my arm!
The boy looked at me and whispered something sounding like ‘I deserve it’. Them grabbed his shoulder and just as it was about to bite, I grabbed the boy by the shirt collar and yanked him up next to me.
“What’s your name?” I demanded after securing his safety. I was answered by a loud scream as he clutched his shoulder. “Boy! What’s wrong?” I mumbled and he gasped. Turning to his shoulder, I noticed something. Teeth marks in his shirt. “No! No, no, no!” Muttering to myself, I ripped of the shoulder of his shirt, exposing a gush of white, sticky blood. Yes, white blood is what you bleed if you’re bitten by Them. When they bite a limb, you’re infected, but if they bite anywhere else, you’re a goner. “This is bad,” I said to no one in particular. “Okay, boy. This is what we’re going to do, okay? I’m going to help you onto the city and then we’re going to get some help.” I announced, pulling him to his feet.
To my dismay, the boy shook his head. “No help!” He then gasped and nearly fell off the wall before I caught him a steadied him again. “I’m cool- I’ve got it,” The boy argued. I glared at him as he tried to avoid one of Them, trying to jump onto the wall. “Okay. Maybe I need –Agh! - maybe I need a little help,” He admitted quietly, as if Them would ridicule him if they heard. “I might not have long, I’m going to have to trust you. Get me to the Cleans.”
The Cleans, I had heard of them before. Their names had been spray painted on apartment walls, and they were one of the most wanted figures in the state. That’s it, I thought to myself angrily. No more city girl. The Cleans are your last chance of help. “Okay,” I sighed. “I can get you to the Cleans, I’ll get you better. But your shoulder- do you think,” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence. It was either I get him to the Cleans, he died, or he turned into the vampire infected people and that was as good as dead. “Never mind. Let’s just get you onto the city,” I mumbled and formed a plan in my head. I could see it, we just had to jump a few feet and roll onto the fake vegetation of the floating city. Luckily, we were right next to the green, fake park that I had always gone to when I was younger. “So Damian,” in Military training, I learned to keep the person talking so you know when you’re losing them, “what do you do for a living? What happened to your family?”
Damian chuckled and then gasped in pain. “Want to know all about me, don’t you city girl?” He asked, shaking his head. I pulled back my red hair in response. He sighed again, taking that as a yes and began to tell me his story. “I guess you could say that my life is very exhilarating. Always running, hiding, and stealing in a never ending cycle,” He explained as his green eyes found mine. I nodded for him to continue as I tried to find a way for us to jump a yard or two to the floating park without being yanked down by Them bellow us. Damian cleared his throat and continued. “When I was seven, I ran away from my family. I didn’t like living on the poor sectors. The land cracked in some places, so you could fall to the boiling ground, and I was a little afraid of heights. My mom was mean and my dad kind, but they died from being bitten by Them, leaving me with two little brothers to raise. One of my brothers’ teachers was contaminated by Them and kill Kev- my younger brother. The other one ran away with me, but was killed off pretty quickly from starvation. By then, I was 8 years old and fighting against the world.” It might’ve been a trick of the light, but I swore I could see a tear in his eye has he explained and went on. “Living was just a tantalizing dream for me, I was just hardly surviving. I’ve trusted people now and again, but I always manage to get them killed or imprisoned by the government,” he said with a forlorn tone of voice. “That’s my story, I think it’s your turn.”
I hadn’t noticed that he was finished, I was too bust wondering how long his shoelaces were. Subtly, I looked down, trying to calculate the length we he cleared his throat. “Oh!” I shouted, turning to smile. “How- how long would your shoelaces happen to be?” Then, I recalled his current impairment and corrected myself awkwardly. “Never mind. I- err- I needed them for- something. But it’s alright now,” I cleared up not-so-swiftly. My heart pounded like a wrestler in my ribs and sweat trickled in a river down my forehead. Never had I even been so unprepared. “Okay, Damian, I’m going to need you to bear with me here. We’re going to simply leap across this this and hope for the best.”
Worry registered along with pain in the boy’s eyes. “I trust you,” He said softly. Before he could rethink this, I seized his hand and yanked him across the gap. After almost toppling back over onto Them, I regained my balance and look over at Damian. He looked okay despite the fact that he was severely wincing in pain.
“Oh, shoot,” I muttered and knelt next to him. “Cleans- get you to the Cleans. I’m bad at this!” Damian tried to smile but winced in pain. “Okay, okay,” I was starting to panic. Why hadn’t we covered this in medic class? Oh right, it’s ridiculous. I tried to imagine my professor telling us what to do when you had a wounded street rat at your feet. Sadly, there was no such lesson. “Back on your feet, boy,” I ordered. “We’re going to find those Cleans and they’re going to fix you.”
I heard a throat clear behind me. “Did yeh say somethin’ ‘bout the Cleans, girl?” It asked. I spun around to face it. In front of me was a tall, African American boy who looked as though he hadn’t eaten in a while. Dreadlocks framed his face and hid his eyes, adding to the suspicion that he wanted to hurt us. “I asked you if you said somethin’ ‘bout them, girl! Answer me!” He demanded, his voice echoing through the empty floating apartment complex.
Damian yelled in pain again, signaling me that it wouldn’t be ideal for me to be killed by this kid. “Um, yes- yes I did. My friend here, Damian, he was bitten in the shoulder by one of them and,” I was cut off when the kid stepped closer to me. I could feel his breath on my forehead and he was nearly stepping on Damian.
“The name’s Nate. I’m a Clean.” He told me, spraying spit all over my face. “Follow me, girl. Bring your friend.” I wanted to shout sir, yes, sir! But I figured I should go for more of a benign approach with this kid. He irately led us through the buildings, helping me lug Damian. We passes parks, abandoned apartments, no one was out. Everything was empty. One though kept running through my head. Where is everybody? Did Them get them? I hoped my friends were all okay and kept my mouth shut as I followed Nate as if I was his duckling. I was very apprehensive about going to see the Cleans, but I’d have to do it to save Damian.
Nate stopped ahead of a brick wall, looking at me as if deciding if I was worthy or something. Finally, he grunted and hit the wall with his bandage-wrapped fists. One, two, three times he hit it before rubbing his knuckles. To my surprise, the wall peeled open like a banana, revealing a tunnel. “Welcome to the layer of the Cleans,” Nate grunted and move aside so I could see five teenagers and a little girl. “This is Martha, she’s the commander- so to speak- of all of us,” He explained.
The oldest girl, maybe 17 years old, stepped forwards. Her long brown hair was woven into a braid, complete with leaves, sticks and dirt. She had piercing yellow eyes, so intimidating that I wanted to cry. Her dark grey t-shirt tied at the side and she wore tight black sweatpants with blue running shoes. Scars lined her arms and face, partnered with purple bruises and red scrapes. The skin on her left wrist was odd, signaling she had probably cut it or broken it multiple times. In all, this girl looked rock hard, like she’d break my neck with the lift of her pinkie. So this was Martha. “Who are you, why are you here, and who is your friend?” Martha asked, waving a hand at Damian, who was still moaning in pain.
All of my instincts told me to flee. The dark, stone walls, the look in Martha’s eye, the kids backing her up, not exactly my idea of friendly. I owed this to Damian, so instead of making a break for it, I answered her. “My name is Carter, this is Damian. He was bitten by Them and I need your help saving him,” I answered confidently.
Martha slowly nodded her head. “James, Claire, see what you can do to him,” she ordered. Two kids, no older than 13 and completely identical rushed out and kneeled next to Damian. “I know who you are. You’re the governor’s angel. War commander in training, famous little sister, we’ve wanted you for years,” Martha told me, eyeing me as if I was a god. She stepped forward and I resisted the urge to leap back. “Carter, we don’t have your friend’s antidote,” she began, “but we know how to get it.”
The look in her eye told me that this was going to be fun. “Fill me in,” I told Martha, smiling.
The leader of the kids smiled back at me. “Okay, but first you need to know these kids. James and Claire, best healers in the business. Kid right there, we don’t know her name. She doesn’t tell, we don’t ask. She’s an expert hacker, we call her Kid,” Martha explained. The little girl to her left smiled and waved her fingers at me. “Over here we have DJ, defense artist and the one responsible for our healthy eating habits,” Martha told me. A fifteen-year-old boy with a baseball hat raised his hand slightly. “You’ve met Nate. He’s my second in command. Last but not least, we have Carly. She’s our techie, knows all there is about computers as long as Kid can hack ‘em,” Martha glanced at me to be sure I was following.
“Right,” I said. “What’s the plan?”
Martha smiled. “That’s the fun part!” She said, giving me the excited eye look again.
“You’re sure you can do this, city chick?” DJ asked and looked up at the tall building. “It’s at least 20 stories high!”
I scoffed at him and rubbed my hands together. “I’ve scale some pretty tall buildings, DJ,” I reminded him. “The only problem is that I’m afraid of hospitals,” I added softly.
DJ looked as if he wanted to slap me. “Of course! Face it, girl, your friend is dead by now. We are trying to break in to one of the most guarded structures on Earth. There’s only two of us, and we’re armed with three knives against 50 men with guns. Let’s go back,” he frowned and spun on his heel.
“No way!” I shouted. “I owe Damian a life. Plus, I’m not that scared of hospitals. Just some bad memories is all,” I explained. “Let’s do this!”
“That’s copy righted!”
“Shut up!” My palms began to sweat as I look up, squinting in the light. Slowly, I reached up to the first grip-hold on to hospital. Before I had time to reconsider, I was scaling the side of the building. Pull, grab, step, pull, grab, step! I reminded myself and grunted. I faintly heard DJ calling bellow me, trying to find the right bricks to grab, but I ignored him.
Soon, I had reached the fourteenth floor, where they kept the antidotes to the disease that Them poison you with. Even my family wasn’t rich enough to buy it, and no one was stupid enough to try and steal it. Well, no one but me. I waited for DJ to catch up before using my knife to screw off the bars on the window. They fell to the floating streets with a clatter and DJ nearly fell off the window. I wrenched open the window, nearly losing a few fingernails. “It’s probably booby trapped, so be careful,” DJ supplied. I mentally rolled my eyes as I poke the knife through the window. When nothing happened, DJ uttered, “or not.” Silently, I slid through the window and looked around. Guards were posted in every corner of the room, facing the door. The idiots probably never suspected that someone would go through the window. Had they never seen a ninja movie before? If I was commander, I’d totally station a ton of guys at the window. I thought bitterly and crept into the center of the room, hiding behind a plant of glowing green antidote. DJ stuck his head in the window, saw the guards, and slowly backed away. I wondered why Martha had sent him of all people to go with me. I tried waving him over, but he couldn’t see me, he was too busy checking out the female guard closest to the left. That’s what I get for bringing a teenage guy along! Quietly, I slipped a small container of the antidote into my pocket.
That’s when the alarms started going off.
“Carter! Throw it here!” DJ shouted, reaching in through the window. Before I could, read lasers blocked off the window. So much for not thinking of the window!
I slid the medicine into my backpack and shoved the first guard into a wall of antidote. A second guard started shooting at me, but I used my knife to deflect the rays of his gun. They’d have to try harder than that! Clearly, the commander’s techniques were weak. The third guard, the one DJ was obsessed with, dropped her gun and decided to go for hand-to-hand combat. Luckily, that was my favorite kind of combat and she was sent with guard one. I made eye contact with guard four, he was the last one blocking my path to the door. Ten more seconds and the other guards would be here. Shoving the fourth guard aside and praying he wouldn’t try to chase after me, I sprinted down the hallway. Running was another one of my favorites. The tile floors and blue walls gave me horrible memories of my parents when Them had bitten them. When I looked into the doors, I saw my little sister lying in the hospital cots. But, what could I do? I could keep running, so I did. I ran past the guards, the doctors, the nurses, everyone. I ran down the stairs and then back up when I dropped my backpack. I ran until I was outside and found DJ circled by guards.
He was such an idiot. “I swear, I don’t have it!” He cried, on his knees. “I can make you guys some soup, yeah? Maybe a casserole? Whatever you want, just let me go!” Some defense artist. After what seemed like hours of watching him beg, he spotted me. “Carter, tell these guys that I was just visiting my brother!” He shouted.
“That’s her!” One of the guards yelled as they all turned to look at me.
Running again, I grabbed DJ’s arm. “YOU ARE SUCH AN IDIOT! IDIOT, IDIOT, IDIOT!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “I WILL GET YOU FOR THIS, DJ!” He didn’t respond, we were too bust running.
“Stop!” A voice I recognized. I skidded to halt, seeing none other than my father’s best friend in a soldier uniform, his gun aimed at me. His partner was the one more alarming. She was my ex-best friend, Miley. “Stop, Carter.” The man repeated.
I didn’t have time to cry or be shocked. The only time I had was to run. “No! I don’t know you anymore!” I shouted and plowed past them, DJ at my heels. After realizing that I didn’t know the way to the Cleans’ cave, he took the lead and I slowed my pace.
DJ stopped at the same brick building as before, leaping over a hole in the ground where a chunk of floating city had popped out. You could see the steaming, cracked old roads bellow. He pounded on the bricks as hard as he could, three times like Nate had before.

This time, when the wall slid open, I was much more surprised.

On the ground was Damian, dead. Next to him laid dead Martha, Nate, Kid, Carly, Claire, and James. DJ and I stared at each other in alarm.

“Give up now, Carter,” a raspy voice demanded. Out of the darkness emerged an entire army, led by my ex-tutor. My past was just coming back to bite me in the butt today! Miley, my dad’s friend, Them, and now my tutor!

DJ and I were as good as dead. “Do you trust me?” DJ whispered, not daring to turn his head. I nodded, feeling incredibly confused and broken. Then, he took my hand and we ran.