Fever Dream Red

45

I went upstairs and started packing, feeling a pang of sadness when I looked at the bed me and Sunny had never really had the chance to properly share.

I took a swig of my almost empty bottle and went downstairs with my big fat rucksack to refill.

Alfie was there, cleaning the pots with wet wipes.

I had no idea why he was washing up.

"You okay?" He asked me while he scrubbed a stubborn piece of cereal off of one of the bowls. It was a duck egg colour, with little speckles of black dotting it.

It must've been fancy.

"Yeah. Just about." I tiredly murmered.
"What's wrong?" He asked in a warning tone. He knew something was wrong.
"Nothing!"
"Hm. You missing Inez and Danny?"
"Of course." I gulped.
Alfie nodded, heavily in thought.

"Me and Doug have been thinking." He began.
"Oh yeah?"
"We might go back." Alfie sighed.
"Are you kidding?" I said perhaps a little too loudly.
"Shut it!" Alfie told me. "The others don't know."
"Will you ask them?"

Alfie shrugged.

"You can't do this Alfie! We only just escaped. We can't just go back because life out here is a little harder than expected."
"We can't keep running forever. Skye's leg is bad and- well. Were you ever really planning to never see your family again Finny?"

I had, I supposed. I had always assumed they would escape too. I hadn't ever truly thought that I would never see them again.

But I guess that that would have to be if I wanted to stay free.

But was this free? I was expecting something better, and yet all I got was running and driving and boredom.

I couldn't think which was worse anymore.

I thought frantically to come up with excuses.

"Nick will kill Skye! They knocked him out!"
"They've already had their karma handed to them. I doubt Nick will do anything more."
"You don't know though."
"I don-"
"And what will he do to us? We escaped when he was pretty uptight about us staying put. We're screwed Alfie!"
"We can't keep running forever!" Alfie yelled at me, just in time for Doug to hear.

"Oh." He says into the silence. "You told her."
"Come on Doug. Please!"
Doug looked at the floor shamefully.

"It's for your own good."
"You idot." I almost screamed at him across the room as he grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. He was trying his best to ignore me. "You'll regret this. You'll regret this when we're all dead!"
"Don't say things like that!" Doug snapped and turned around to me. "No one's dying, okay? We have to go back."
"Do we?"
"Do we do what?" Sunny asked. She had one hand on the doorway and another holding one side of Skye up. I supposed Chloe was holding up the other side.

"Go back. To The Base." I declared.
"What?" Sunny and Skye said in unison.

Chloe just looked baffled. I couldn't blame her.

"No. I am NOT doing that." Skye announced solemnly.
"You don't have much choice. You can't walk." Doug pointed out.
Skye just shrugged in response.

"There's no point in running. They'll find us wherever we go." Doug sighed, looking out of the window in a pure act of melodrama.

I think it was then I silently resigned myself to the fact that I would have to go. Ultimately, Doug and Alfie were our drivers and nearly twenty years our seniors. And however much we liked to pretend it, we couldn't survive on our own.

Skye and Sunny sighed and shrugged their shoulders, giving up with unexpected ease.

We all bundled into the car and set off. Doug said we would have just enough gas for the journey. I thought he was lying.

So not for the second time in the span of what seemed like a month, I was sitting in a cae silently cursing Doug.

It was clear he couldn't be trusted with things, but at least this time I half understood him.

We had everywhere to go, but everything we had known was back there. I guess it was inevitable that we would always return, as much as I had hoped we wouldn't have to.

We stopped at various gas stations on our way back, not for fuel but just for manky prepacked sandwiches and protein bars which we hoped would keep our hunger at bay. Sometimes we just stopped just so we could all have a toilet break.

We drove for a while, until the morning breeze had turned into a frosty night chill. It was dark when we arrived, and I forgot just how creepy the island seemed at night.

The causeway was watery again, so we would have to wait until morning to set off and cross the island.

We sat in the car, silent. No one knew what to say. Three of us were dissapointed and two of us were perhaps glad that their turn of babysitting had at last reached an end. The other one of us was just overall confused.

"Where are we going?" Chloe wondered to us, much like a little kid.
"The Base."
"Hmm. That's wierd."
"Why?" We all chimed in. None of us had heard of The Base since the apocalypse. We had only taken Nick's word that it existed before then.
"Rings a bell. Don't know which one, mind. Mayne I'll remember." Chloe thought out loud. Perhaps she wasn't aware that the rest of us were hanging onto her every word. Perhaps she didn't care.

We all dipped back into out seats, slightly let down by Chloe's vague answer.

The noise dulled down again.

Then suddenly bright lights flickered into our car from the distance.

We looked onto the other side of the causeway.

A few men in black suits waved to us from the other side.

My heart dropped, and I then realised the dreadThe Base had instilled in me.

"Does anyone get a sense of deja vu?"