Thumbs

Revelation

As she came to the top of the stairs, Katie heard rummaging in the room where Maya and Jason had talked before. The door was left ajar, allowing her to peek inside to see Jason throwing items into several bags. The one window in this house was open, shining light and wind from the front of the building. Katie wondered if Jason had seen her come up to the house with Ondo.

Katie wanted to push open the door, but the sounds of footsteps began to approach up the stairs, making her panic and run to the room where she had been kept captive for the past few days. She dove under the blankets of the small cot that had been prepared for her in the corner opposite of the iron box and closed her eyes tightly. The footsteps paused at the entrance of the room before blowing out the candle and closing the door. Katie poked her head back out from under the blankets to stare up at the dark ceiling with swollen eyelids.

Slowly, she started to drift off to sleep, her mind fogged by daydreams of candied fruits and Maurice holding his favorite yellow flower.

She awoke to the smell of baked potatoes and burning maple leaves. Sitting up, Katie drowsily blinked her vision clear until she could see Maya standing at the foot of the metal box.

"Good morning." Maya said lazily as she scraped the pan in front of her with a wooden spoon.

Katie rolled over so that her face was buried under the covers again. She did not want to get up. And she did not want to eat Maya's nasty food.

"If you don't get up now, you will sleep away the day. Come on, it's time to eat."

Katie shook her head, rubbing her nose into the blankets.

Maya seemed to have been frustrated by Katie's response, as her tone dropped and her scraping became more rigid.

"Fine. But don't complain to me when-" Maya was cut off by a ear splitting siren that came from outside.

Curious, Katie lifted her head slightly to see Maya's response. However, Maya did not seemed worried, but she still looked concerned enough to stop cooking. She came around the table and picked Katie up from the cot, set her on the ground, and retrieved her old tire shoes.

"Come on, we have to go to the square. Put these on."

The whole town was gathering in the square, everyone looking at each other nervously and exchanging whispers. Katie's hand was being held by Maya's rather tightly, restricting her from getting closer to the source of the commotion. From where she was standing she could see a little over the crowd, but not enough to see any more than the tops of a few brown, red, yellow, and white heads. Looking to the side, Kaite saw that the shops were all closed, and the alleyways and streets were littered with abandoned carts, as if everyone had dropped what they were doing in order to answer the sirens call.

"What is going on?" Jason asked Maya as he merged out from the crowd to stand beside her.

"I have no idea." Maya said while shaking her head.

Suddenly, the voices hushed, and Michael's head appeared above everyone else's. Perhaps he was standing on a wooden box, or maybe he was on the shoulders of a taller man, but Katie couldn't tell from her position in the crowd. Michael was talking to someone below him, his face unreadable from her distance. He then looked up and over the crowd, judging their rally with his black glasses gleaming in the sunlight.

"You all may be wondering why I have called you here today. It is simple." Michael shouted, his voice spread a crossed the square with verbose echos.

"I have called you here, because there has been some major developments that could not have waited. This is good news. As of last night, I have developed a way to combat the IM virus!"