They say we can't leave

Chapter eleven

Emma is standing beside me sobbing repeating over and over again that she is sorry. I pull her into me and tell her it's okay. My heart hurts as I watch the radio sink farther and farther down. Now we may never know if someone else is out there. Someone had to have been playing that music right? I wish I could remember the words all I know is that it was a woman and the music was very soft and sweet, it was a beautiful sound. I'm engulfed in my thoughts when Emma breaks the silence "I heard it too." I look at her puzzled. "The music Ace, I heard it before I bumped into you. What do you think it means?" I look into her bloodshot eyes and wipe her remaining tears away. "I don't know exactly but it gives me hope that there are other people out there. From what my parents used to tell me about the mainland is that there were people who would work in that kind of place and play the music through devices so I think someone would had to have set it up for it to come through." Emma looks at me thoughtfully, I can see the wheels spinning in her mind. "What are we going to do?" She questions to me quietly. "I'm not sure but we will figure it out. We can't tell anyone about this though. Something weird is going on and I don't want other people to know about this until we figure it out." Emma shakes her head agreeing with me. We pack up our blanket, and slowly start to descend the stairs closing the porthole as quietly as possible behind us. Emma still seems a little rattled by her encounter with the bird. She has always worked below the surface so I don't think she has had many encounters with animals, plus that was the biggest bird I ever seen. We are walking past the farm when I hear shuffling in the distance towards the other edge of the farm. I put my finger to my lips motioning a "Shh" motion to Emma and point my finger toward the noise. We knee down behind a lattice with cucumbers scaling it and listen closely. I hear voices start to come through.

Suzy: "You look terrible. You can tell you're getting worse. You aren't going to be able to hide the patches of fur here soon. You are gonna spread the scruff to everyone and we are all going to die. It will be your fault."

Emma and I stare at each other and, her hands begin to shake. I lay flat on my stomach and peek my head around the lattice. I can just barely make out Suzy's feet across the farm but I don't see another set of body parts anywhere. I look over her body and I can see her head she is talking into one of the plants but I can't make put another person. She whips her head toward me and I shoot up nearly knocking Emma over. I wait to see if I hear footsteps but I don't hear any. We wait there for what feels like forever. Suzy didn't talk anymore and we never heard another voice. We slowly made our way to the stairs and then sprint to our apartment closing and locking the door behind us.

We are sat on our couch trying to catch our breath and Emma speaks "who was she talking too?" I shake my head "I don't know I couldn't see anyone but her. She looked like she was talking into a plant but I couldn't see another person. Emma hangs her head in her hands. "I am scared Ace what the hell is going on?" She says through sobs. I pull her close to me "I don't know but we will figure it out. Stay away from Suzy for now because she was talking to someone who clearly has the scruff and we don't know how to protect ourselves from it. Watch for symptoms just incase." Emma shakes her heard agreeing. I stand up and pull her up with me. "Come on let's go to bed there is nothing we can do about any of this right now. Let's try and get some sleep." She follows me into the room and we lay down next to each other until we both fall into a fitful sleep.