In The Flesh(Teeth)

10

"We cross our bones for miracles and pray we get better, they say we'll get better. We fill the holes with chemicals, They say we get better. Who cares if we're never alive?"-Cross Our Bones by Crown the Empire

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Where do I begin? Where do the memories end?

Her name is Katy and she smells like spring.

Her coltish legs flail as she hops in puddles and giggles. Her red galoshes squeak against each other. I laugh with her and chase her with the umbrella, but she's intent on staying under the rain. I let the umbrella fall from my hand and the fat raindrops drop into my open mouth.

Katy loved playing in the rain. I remember that best about her- that's why she smelled like spring. Fresh rains and blooming flowers and the earthy smell of dirt after you've dug your toes into it.

We never talked about Mrs.Rudy after she left. She was gone the next morning. Mom and Dad gave me a look when I came downstairs that told me not to talk about it. And I didn't. I stopped going outside. If Mrs. Rudy had become desperate enough to hold neighbors at gun point, then so could the others. Not that it mattered, because by that point, most of our neighbors had gone. They had either picked up and left or been forced to leave.

The rush of leaving my home has been forgotten. I'm uncertain when we did and where we went. It's sort of ironic- I left the place where I had made the most memories and learned about life in and I can't recall when I left it. I just know that Katy had filled my heart to brim when she couldn't decide which toys to take with her because she didn't have enough room to take all of them. I found her in her room with big eyes and wet cheeks. When I asked why she was sad, she told me it was because she didn't want to leave anyone behind.

And then we were off, to some destination that has been lost to me. We traveled aimlessly. It seemed like we were the only ones whose family was intact. We would see people walking along roads as we drove by, backpacks and sacks slung over their shoulders as they moved along. Their faces would lift and I would see how dirty they were, the lines on their faces, the dark that had swallowed them.

I could sympathise with their despair, because I knew how the Breathers snatched people. I had lost my friend to one, and found his mangled body. That was enough to scar me. Too bad I never believed that there were worse things to come.

I found myself avoiding all thoughts of John. He became a boy that I had know of, not someone I had eaten six Chipotle burritos with in one sitting. Not a guy that I hung out with. Just a face that I passed in the halls. Just a memory. It was easier that way. It took away the reality of my situation. Pretending like he never existed and that it was just some movie was all I had to hang onto my emotions. I couldn't fall apart- not this early in the game.

There were many nights holed up in abandoned houses. Each one was spent with me laying in the dark clutching my sheets to my chest, eyes wide and staring into the darkness. Waiting for the click of those bony spines and the hiss of a Breather. I'd heard the whispers and stories. People who traveled in groups were more susceptible to being taken. It made sense- why waste time collecting individual humans when one could just sniff out a an entire family for the taking?

At what point does this fear give way to a discourse in being scared? Never.

The worst part was watching Katy lose herself. A child so happy should never suffer or know pain or know how hard things can get, but they do and that's the worst crime, for innocence to be soiled and corrupted by the evil of life.

With each day, she smiled less and her laugh seldom tinkled in my ears and bags grew under her eyes and her cheeks began to poke through the soft surface of her young flesh. I would hold her close to me at night, stroking her hair and telling her that it would be okay. I never thought that someone else would be dependent of me.

More running. Or was it driving? Constantly on the move, eating from cans and bags and boxes from abandoned houses. I'd never eaten chili from a can or roasted a hot dog on a clothes hanger or made noodles over a fire in a metal trash can before then.

I think we began to give up somewhere along the way. Mom and Dad were so silent. Mom would hold Dad's hand loosely in her pale, skinny hand as she stared out the window. She no longer looked in the back seat to see if Katy had her seat belt on the right way. The strain that fear of being taken away at any moment seemed to wear her down.

And just like any prisoner of war who has fled, our luck ran out. No one can hide from the Breathers forever. I learned that, too. We didn't listen to the rule, and it kills me inside. What if we had split up? We would have never seen each other again...but at least there was a better chance of surviving.