Forgotten

Chapter 19

        THE MAIN ROAD IS TOO DANGEROUS TO TRAVEL ON, so Rowan, Hayley and I find an alternate route—climbing over fences, sneaking through backyards, and trying as hard as we can not to disturb other homesteads’ animals. The moon gives us just enough light to travel by, and slowly but surely, our path takes us westward.

            The journey is a long one for Hayley, who struggles to keep up on her short legs. She’s breathing hard after about five or ten minutes. After about half an hour, Rowan leads us to the back of an abandoned shed in the backyard of a girls’ homestead. We shelter there for a few minutes, resting and giving Hayley a chance to catch her breath.

            “How much farther?” I ask, looking worriedly at Hayley.

            “Less than a mile,” Rowan replies. “Darrington’s a small town.”

            I kneel down next to Hayley, who has slid down to a sitting position on the ground and is staring tiredly at the grass in front of her. “Are you okay to go on?” I ask her. “It’ll only be another ten minutes or so.”

            “Yeah,” she says, pushing herself painfully to her feet.

            I nod at Rowan, and he leads us forward to the next fence. I climb over first as usual, then Rowan hoists Hayley up, and I catch her on the other side. Rowan is just behind her.

            Everything has been quiet. We’re lucky—if one of the kids in a homestead had been awake while we were sneaking through their yard, there’s a good chance we would’ve been caught. After a few minutes, I take Hayley’s pack on top of mine, leaving her shoulders free of the heavy weight. She seems better after that, and walks more quickly.

            Finally, the endless row of houses comes to an abrupt stop. Rowan, Hayley, and I conquer the last fence and crouch on the other side, taking in the sight that meets us there.

            A massive chain link fence, about ten feet high, stands just a stone’s throw away. Cruel, curved barbed wire circles the top of the fence, making it nearly impossible to scale. Large floodlights stand at intervals along the fence, illuminating a few armed guards that pace along the border. There aren’t many—I can only see two, and the fence goes on in either direction as far as I can see.

            “Okay,” I say after a few seconds of observing our next obstacle. “What now?”

            “The whole thing is charged with electricity,” Rowan says. “One touch, and you’ll be fried to death.”

            “How are we supposed to get across, then?”

            Rowan points to the nearest guard. “You see those fence poles that he’s pacing between? The only parts of the fence that aren’t electrified are the areas near the guards—and for this guy, that means the area between those poles. They made that a regulation after some idiot tripped over his own feet and fell backwards into the fence. He died instantly.”

            I shiver, thinking about just how easy it would be. One misstep, one misjudged move, and you’d slip right into a horrible death.

            “So…” I say, trying to distract myself from that thought, “we take down the guard, and we can…what? Climb it? I don’t like the look of that barbed wire, and Hayley can’t climb that high.”

            “’Course not.” Rowan rummages in his pack and pulls out what looks like a pair of wire cutters. “I’ll cut a hole for us to crawl through.”