Mortality

Chapter 24: Savannah

After I finished my medical, I wasn’t able to find the same men I’d talked to earlier. There were just too many people, and they were all dressed pretty much the same. Whitley was a sea of jeans and camo offset with constant flashes of red fabric. It was enough to give anyone a headache.

 No one I met seemed to have any idea about what to do with new recruits. Even my search for Ethan yielded no results, but for that much I was grateful. I had no idea what I was even supposed to say to the guy if I ever managed to find him. Cole hadn’t exactly given me a reunion script.

I was scheduled to leave the next morning with a group bound for headquarters. The hope was that someone there would know what to do with me. I had no intention of making it quite that far, though. If Toni was right, and I was going to pass the United Confederation research lab, then I had to find a way to make that my final destination.

I might have been able to fake some sort of medical knowledge, and offer up my services. Okay, I no one would believe I was some kind of teenage medical genius. I’d have to come up with something else.

I only had to spend one night bunking with three anti-social, soldier women, but one night was more than enough. They shared an apartment and had begrudgingly let me use their couch. Only one of the women, Elise, bothered to introduce herself, but even she insisted that I shouldn’t waste her time with things like conversation or a desire to eat. It was made perfectly clear that they already had plenty to worry about, and I didn’t even make the list.

I put off going back there until it was time to sleep, and instead spent my remaining time wandering around the buildings, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. Part of me just wanted to stay out of the way and be left alone until Cole came for me, but I knew I should at least try to gain something from this downtime.

Wearing the red band around my arm seemed to keep people from treating me like a walking, talking time-bomb who could turn at any second, and I was able to wander around without catching too many eyes. Mostly the soldiers just bustled from building to building, talking excitedly in hushed voices. Almost everything I overheard had to do with Zs or infection, but I could have sworn I heard someone mention explosions. By the time I spun around to see who was speaking, whoever it was had already disappeared into the crowd.

Everything about the United Militia was the stark opposite of what I was used to. New Ravencrest had been boring but warm. People there tried to make the school feel like a home. And while it usually seemed like I’d been locked inside that home, I always felt like part of the group. Or maybe it was just easier to remember it that way.

With the Militia, there was always something going on, and I probably could have made myself useful if I wasn’t trying to stay under the radar. There was nothing welcoming about the Militia. As much as I loved the idea of spending every day working towards vitally important goals, I was actually a little surprised at how much I missed the sense of community.

As I lay there on an overstuffed couch, trying to sleep during my one and only night as a militia soldier, I began to feel a little bad about all of the times I had criticized Paulson for keeping me out of the fight. I could finally see that he was only trying to protect me. We might spend the rest of our lives fighting Zs, and starting us young wouldn’t have changed anything. Even if there is a cure, or a new vaccine, this infection could always be a part of our lives. Who knows if we will ever have Hollywood back, never take the SATs, and never leave our homes unarmed. Adding the daily grind of killing Zs on top of that might have been too much for most people my age to take. But for me, it really did help make everything else a little easier to bear.

Knowing all of that, my choice would be the same. I hope I’m always the type of person that will choose to do something rather than sit back and let life happen. Paulson shouldn’t have taken that choice out of my hands. If he had, maybe things would have turned out differently.