A Story - Introduction

     I had never been one to take no for an answer. Growing up, this had made my training just that much harder for those who took up the chore of teaching me. I was terribly stubborn, though it was more external than internal. I think I just liked to be obstinate: it was more a show of defiance than out of a true belief that I had any power over anyone.

Perhaps that is why the question had always burned within me.

The question. It was the question that was never asked; the question that tore at me and ate me from the inside out with the desire, the need to know. Even in my childish rampages I never voiced the question, but it was always there; tickling the back of my brain. My parents never spoke to us about it, as if ignoring the situation would make the problem disappear. I suppose they thought they were protecting us, but the situation was bigger than any of us, and it would have had to come out some time.

The world wasn't right. I don't know of a time when anyone ever thought it was, but there was something about it now that was worse in a way. Something was being hidden, something was kept secret, and as a kid it drove me up the walls. I saw it in the eyes of those we'd pass as we drove by crowded streets; I caught it in the tone of those we heard gossiping in the aisle ways of the stores we bought supplies at. It was everywhere, lacing the very air we breathed. There was a secret; there was something radically life-altering out there, something that injected fear into the population, and we reacted as if we were one big group of flighty jackrabbits. It was contagious.

It wouldn't have been nearly as bad if I hadn't known my parents were keeping the secret from me. The fact that they knew and would not tell was what made it so infuriating. I tried to figure it out on my own for a while, but I only got bits and pieces here and there. When put together, what scraps of information I did have weren't very helpful. The question was always there, but I never voiced it, as if doing so would rend some fragile bond that kept me interacting with other human beings. It was taboo. As I grew older, I resolved that one day I would find out the reality behind the whispers.

My parents were pathetically superstitious – or at least that was how I termed it to make them sound less crazy than I really thought they were. My dad especially; he would become paranoid over the smallest things. We had already moved five times in the last three years, and each time we moved we completely transplanted ourselves, leaving no trail. My mom was not as outwardly suspicious, she was the glue that kept us together and kept us functioning each time we 'started over'. My two younger sisters and I had pretty much resolved to have no outward social life except what we could sneak away with, since my dad didn't like us getting too settled in to any one spot.
That didn't mean we didn't have a social life, it just meant that we kept it to ourselves. As we got older we became experts at avoiding creaky floorboards and escaping through bedroom windows.
Lately there had been a lot of restrictions put into place. Not just in our district, but in our state. I'm sure there were similar rules put into effect in neighboring states as well. There were curfews starting at midnight and running into the earliest hours of the morning. What good clear streets for several hours would do I didn't know exactly, but my imagination filled in the blank wonderfully. Vaccination records were routinely checked at school, work, and any other regular places you went. Sick people were nonexistent – not because no one ever got sick, but because when someone did get sick, they disappeared. Sometimes they came back, but mostly they didn't. I never told my mom when I wasn't feeling well, I just dealt with it. Most people dealt with it. You could tell when someone was off, but they would try to hide it. It was usually nothing bad with me, just a stomach bug or a cold, but there was still something terrible about being sick that made me swallow my aches and pains. Except for headaches. Sometimes I got terrible migraines, but I had already seen a doctor a long time ago and had pills for when they got really bad. I was still very careful not to tell anyone when I hurt. People were too suspicious.

It really all started the last time we moved. It was a rather rushed move – all our moves had been rushed, but this time we literally flew the coop. Dad was late from work. Often times he was, his job was taxing and we all understood when he couldn't make it home for dinner. I had helped make dinner that night. My two sisters, my mom and I ate spaghetti and meatballs at the large mahogany dining room table. We must have either been really hungry or really wrapped up in our own thoughts, because we hardly spoke. The only sounds were the irritating rasp of silverware on china, the occasional spaghetti sauce slurp, and the barely audible hum of the lights in the chandelier that hung suspended over the table. We finished quickly, and I helped bring the dishes into the kitchen while my sisters scattered to avoid being volunteered for dishwashing duty.

The large kitchen had always felt uninviting to me, with its cool gray granite countertops and stainless steel fixtures. We had said sometime we would decorate to make the place feel more homey, but I think deep down we all wondered if we'd be sticking around long enough to get to that point. The last few houses had felt this way, like we were living in someone else's house; or in an over-furnished, soulless model home. Whenever I thought of home, I still thought of our first house that we had left so hastily: not too big, not too small, with all the wear and tear we had put it through. Every scar in it was like the wound of an old friend. These houses would never be home.

I had hardly set the plates down next to the sink when the front door opened and quickly closed. Dad was home. I went out to see him, but almost walked into him as he came barreling into the kitchen, his coat draped over an arm and his tie valiantly attempting to stay tacked to his shirt. My mouth closed on my greeting as soon as I saw his eyes and the set of his face, and I gravely dried my hands on a nearby dishtowel and headed for my room before he even said anything.

"Tell your sisters to get their things," he said, trying to appear composed. He turned to my mom.
She sighed, and all the years of stress instantly resurfaced in her tired face. Her eyes dulled, and she bit her lip as she went to go get her things as well. My dad trotted over to his office, where he began to pick up various files and paperwork that had all been conveniently stowed for such an occasion as this.

I raced up the stairs and delivered the message to my sisters, who, without question, began to gather up their most precious belongings and ready themselves to leave. We were all beginning to get used to the routine. Once my message had been delivered, I continued on to my own room.
I flicked on the lights, and slid down onto the slick wood floor. As I lay on my belly, reaching underneath my bed for the case I always kept packed and ready, I began to feel a thrumming through the floor. I paused for a moment, but it was only the reverberation from a helicopter. There were always helicopters flying around.

I dragged the container out from under my bed, and grabbed my purse and a few other random objects. My dad hollered from downstairs, telling us we needed to go. I flicked off the light, not even taking a last look around. I was beginning to grow accustomed to this pattern, too.

My dad herded all of us out into his big black SUV. We filed in, and for a moment the only sound was our breathing and the clicking of seatbelts. It wasn't until my dad had pulled out of the driveway that sound began to erupt in the neighborhood behind us. I had just been wondering whether or not I should be feeling any remorse or anger for being made to leave again so soon, and who I should direct that irritation towards, when I heard the helicopter roar nearer. I was sitting in the back seat, and I turned around to look behind us at the darkened street we were leaving. When my sisters saw me turn, they turned too.

My dad was speeding. He was trying to get to the end of the street and out of our gated community before our street really exploded into action, but he didn't drive quite fast enough; and what I saw that night made the question blaze more intensely than ever before.

Cars: lots of dark, sleek cars that sliced their way through the street and stopped sharply in front of a house, three doors down from where we had just been. Some of the cars were bigger and some smaller, but as we were rapidly moving away I couldn't make much out. I did, however, see figures dressed in dark body suits pour out of the back of a dark van as they swamped the yard, and then the porch, of the house. I think we all saw as someone emerged from the house, and was quickly engulfed in the sea of blocky black shapes. The helicopter was still circling overhead; its light playing shakily over the house, then the street, then the house again in an erratic pattern. The person taken from the house disappeared from sight, engulfed by the horde.

I looked up, and saw my mom watching us in the rear view mirror. She was talking to my dad, quietly, so we couldn't hear. Their pretense, their game, was up. They knew we would ask now, and they knew that ignoring what had just gone down on our former street would not work. I felt slightly satisfied, knowing now that I had more to add to my knowledge bank of what the Problem was, but there was also a new feeling that began to knot and thrash in my stomach: fear. I was beginning to understand why so many faces were hollow and so many eyes torn between helplessness and panic.

That had been it. We had spent that night in a hotel, and lo and behold, the next day we were in a brand new house; perfect, furnished, bland. My parents calmed noticeably once we were behind the doors of our fresh new house. I unpacked what little I had brought. We went shopping, bought new wardrobes. I found myself frustrated, wishing I could have just brought the clothes I'd already had. I didn't want the new room I had, that still smelled like fresh paint. The décor was pristine, polished, and fake. I hated it.

A lot of things irritated me now. It didn't help that my parents acted as if nothing were the matter. They had calmed, their distress over for the moment; and after five moves, five similar experiences and their instantaneously resulting calm, I was nearly mad with annoyance. They were composed, like the surface of stilled water: but I knew underneath their tranquil cover was a roiling whirlpool, and if they would not tell me what was really going on I would get my own feet wet.
I tried to ask. I started out simple, planning to work my way up to the big question that razed my conscience.

It was dinner time. My dad was home that evening, and I was not particularly hungry. I couldn't eat, I was too busy formulating exactly what I would say and how I would precisely word things to eke out every last shred of information I could get. I had made up my mind, there was no stopping me.
"So, what exactly happened last night?" I said it as coolly as if I were asking about the weather.
My dad looked at me, then my mom, his mouth half-full of meatloaf.

Meatloaf is disgusting. It's even more disgusting when suspended in someone's partially open mouth.

He swallowed, and looked back at me.

"After dinner," he said, dropping his gaze to focus on his food. That settled it for the moment.
I knew he was just buying time. He had to have known that sooner or later we would ask. He and mom had tried to stay our inquisitive minds by throwing us a scrap of diluted truth each time we had moved, but now I wanted the real deal, and he knew it. He was probably currently deciding what he was actually going to tell me.

I waited, watching every foul bite of meatloaf disappear from the four plates edging the table. The grayish slab remained in untouched grotesquery on my plate. I didn't eat anything. I just waited.
I helped put the dishes away, a visual reminder to my parents that I was waiting. They caught each other's eye in the kitchen, and an unspoken conference was held between the two. I was not included, in the same manner the parents of a much younger child might spell something out so that the youngster does not catch on. Just like the kid who begins to understand those words but doesn't tell their parents, I could read their glances as plainly as if they had been speaking to me. I would get my answer one way or another.

After the kitchen was cleaned, and cleaned again, and no more stalling was feasible, they went to the family room and sat on one of the plush new couches. I sat across from them, my hands cradled in my lap, my mind hungry. As soon as my dad opened his mouth to start to explain, I sighed. I knew I was going to be getting a cut and dried version, and I knew it would not be enough.

"There is something we've been keeping from you. Before now we thought it was better just to remain quiet about it, but you obviously want to know and I think you're old enough to handle it now." My mom eyed him, watching his lips as he spoke: monitoring. He continued. "There is a disease out there that is spreading; a disease that is fatal, a disease for which there is no cure. Scientists are slaving to find a cure, but it is a trickily put together mutation that is resisting all attempts to destroy it. It seems to have a random, haphazard method of choosing its host, but it is highly contagious."

He paused a moment, I suppose to let the information sink in.

"That's why we've moved so frequently. Your mother and I have been trying to keep you and your sisters safe," He looked at my mom, took her hand, and squeezed it. She looked at him, smiling softly.

But that's not what they were really saying with their eyes. What they said with their eyes went more like this:

My father – I think this is going well. I think she will accept it.

My mother – Yes, yes. She will accept it. She has to, she doesn't really know anything about it.

My father again – It is in her best interest.

I writhed. They didn't know I could read them so easily, but then again I had never really bothered to mention it to them before. It was my one secret weapon, the one thing that they in all their parental wisdom didn't know: and I reveled in it. Sometimes it could be pretty annoying to know what they were really, truly saying, and yet have to act clueless.

After that introduction, nothing he said mattered. His lips told one story, his eyes another; and I knew which one I was going to believe. I didn't hate him. I knew he really thought he was doing what was best for us, but I was convinced that what was best for us was not necessarily what was best for me. They told me what they thought I should hear, and I smiled and nodded as I was required to. On the inside, it was the final straw. I knew now that as long as I stayed here I would never truly be free. I would never really know what was going on in the world.

It's the lies that drove me here. Honestly, I think I snapped. As I look back and see the path that led me here, I don't really see anything that justifies my actions. Nothing explains them, and nothing makes what I've done acceptable. The only motive I can identify is the gnawing hole in my subconscious, and that terrible hunger to know what was really out there. I was tired, tired of being lied to; and in my foolishness I thought that anything – even this place, even getting sick, even dying – would be better than being safe, cooped up, and lied to for the rest of my life.

I had done it. I had heard a rumor, and it spurred me to find a way out. I traveled by train for three days and spent a fourth taking a bus as far south as it would go. Now it stood before me, the last thing separating me from what I thought was the truth; the last thing that separated this world from that world. The wall shot up several stories into the air, a massive monument to the fact that this side was absolutely, completely different from the other side. No going back. There would be no going back.

I was about to find out just how foolish I had really been.