Silo

Chapter 2

We'd come less than a quarter mile when the blister I'd been nursing for more than a week split open. I glanced down at the worn hunting boots, the warmth of infection seeping into the fabric of my sock. The boots were my reward for stomaching the grotesque job of stripping the clothes off an elderly farmer and his wife, both dead for longer than I cared to dwell on. A half-size too small, they rubbed in all the wrong places, but what they lacked in comfort, they made up for in warmth.  

Evan paused, the resistance on his section of the chain mounting. "Jake, you good?"  

"Yeah, just gimme a sec." I loosened my grip on the drag sled and extended my hand, working the kinks out of my stiff fingers. Taking a seat on the base of a rotten tree, I kicked off my boot and peeled off my sock. The sting of ruptured flesh sent me reeling, and I bit back a vile string of curses.  

In the east, the muted light of the sun was beginning to materialize. "We gotta keep moving," I said, nodding towards the glow of a fire in the distance. "We're close. Too close to them."  

Turning my sock inside out, I worked it back onto my foot, keeping my gaze trained on the flames. They raged, licked the edges of the disappearing night sky, leaving a halo of smoke in their wake. History taught us to keep our distant from people. They would take what they could of yours and beat to death if you refused. I didn't have a lot of possessions worth stealing, but what I did have, I intended on keeping.  

That fire, that stupid, smoke-ridden fire, forced my mind inward, brought me back into the darkness of that day. Trapped, struggling to survive, and wishing I was dead. I tried to put it out of my mind, but the strangled screams of my classmates were seared into my memory, calling out to me as I replayed every hideous detail of the accident in my mind. 

The storm came out of nowhere, blackening the once clear, blue sky. It was the combination of gasping and four-lettered words that startled me awake, forced me to open my eyes and see the horror unfold. I had no idea then, but for that split-second it took my eyes to adjust to the blinding light, I got what was to be my last glimpse of green grass, of moving cars, of my teammates...my friends.  

A pale, green cloud hovered in the sky, its edges blurring against the horizon. The air changed, the faint smell of smoke filtering in through the bus's cracked windows, like something out of a bad sci-fi movie. Within thirty seconds, that cloud had melted every high-voltage power line that ran parallel to the old farm road we were on, sparking a deadly chain reaction.  

I watched in horror as the first lines oozed from their poles, sparks lighting up the sky like the Fourth of July. With the smell of hot metal pouring into the bus, the driver began swerving, the smoldering lines falling like dominoes in front of us. It was useless. Even back then, as my body jerked from side to side, I knew we were as good as dead. Eventually, the driver ran smack into one of the poles, rolling the bus. It didn't take more than a few long seconds before a spark from a downed line ignited the gas, the entire front of the bus exploding into flames. Lucky for me, I was in the last row.  

I regained consciousness and fought for air. My vision blurred, the rims of my eyes burning as I struggled to catch a glimpse of Evan in the smoky black-out. I'd located his body at almost the exact moment Tyler looked up and locked eyes with me. He was struggling to drag his twin brother, Dustin, across the shattered, side windows.  

"Jake," Tyler called out. "Help me!"  

I stared at Tyler, unmoving. Dustin's pant leg was caught on a twisted piece of metal and ripped open, his shin bone jutting out of his skin. 

"Oh God. Oh crap. I think his leg is broken," Tyler said, jerking Dustin's body toward the nearest exit. 

Dustin's screams echoed through the bus as his brother jerked him along. Tyler grasped the seat above his head for stability and kicked at the buckled emergency door, hoping to free himself...to free his twin brother, but it didn't budge.