I shut my mouth immediately. I don’t know what came over me, what made me blab about such a painful secret from my past to Ryan like that.
“Oh,” he says, his mocking smile immediately disappearing. He looks suddenly serious for the first time since I’ve met him. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.”
A feeling of intense awkwardness overcomes me.
“You couldn’t have known,” I reply quickly, trying to end the conversation.
On the other side of the post, Molly takes a seat beside another guard and pulls out a pack of cards. I’m shocked and a little taken aback to see her, and the other guards around her, looking so lax. No one seems to be alert at all. The Commander made it seem as though everyone at Fort Noix was as serious and militaristic as he is, but here are his guards lazing around.
“Don’t worry,” Ryan says, clocking my expression. “Nothing ever happens on guard duty. There were attacks at the beginning but these days it’s calmed down a lot.”
But it’s not enough to placate me. Everyone back at the fort is relying on these guys to do their job and here they all are sitting around like it’s a big game. Even the guard dogs are slacking off, play fighting with one another rather than looking out for intruders. So much for everyone has a job to do! Only Ben and I seem to be alert to the possibility of lurking danger.
Just as those thoughts are crossing my mind, I notice movement coming from the distance. In the area pocked with bomb craters there’s a patch of trees and shrubbery, and it seems to be rustling.
“Do people live over there?” I say, nudging Ryan.
He peers out where I’m pointing.
“In the bomb craters?” he says. “No way. The radiation levels are too high.”
Every muscle in my body tenses. “There’s someone there,” I say.
I bring up my shotgun. The motion alerts Ben. He comes to my side, poised with his rifle.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Ryan cries. “You guys are getting a bit trigger happy. I’m sure you’re seeing things. It’s probably just a deer.”
Molly notices the commotion and comes to my side.
“What’s going on, Brooke?” she asks, her expression serious and intent.
“There are people in the trees,” I say, not looking at her, my body still positioned to fire, my eyes still locked on the foliage, seeking out possible danger.
Unlike Ryan, Molly doesn’t contest me. She seems to have understood me straightaway. She raises her own gun, taking position beside me.
The trees continue to rustle. Then all at once, something huge and black billows from the foliage. I let off a shot, the noise splintering the air. It’s only after I’ve fired that I realize my evil predator was a flock of innocent birds.
The tenseness leaves my body in one go, replaced by embarrassment. Molly gives me a sheepish look, as if she’s embarrassed on my behalf by my overreaction. Ryan just grins, amused by the whole thing.
“Told you there was nothing to worry about,” he says, arrogantly.
But no sooner are the words out of his mouth, than the sounds of screaming and frantic barking come from behind.
I spin and my heart drops as I see that, just on the other side of the outpost, near the ladder leading up, a group of crazies are thundering out of the vegetation. They’re heading right for us.
Ryan’s slow to react. “Breach!” he finally shouts.
Immediately, I fire my gun at them, but my angle is off and I miss my target. The guards seem stunned, like they were never expecting such a thing to happen. They take far too long to react. By the time they join me, I’ve finally managed to hit one of the crazies, and he goes down like a dead weight.
At last, guns begin firing off all over the place. The noise is so loud I wince. The air becomes thick with smoke from the shots we’re firing and the smell of sulfur.
The crazies start to drop, but some are getting dangerously close to our outpost. I adjust my position and begin firing as they ascend. Ben stands beside me but I realize he isn’t firing his gun at all. His hands are trembling and sweat is pouring down his face. He’s as white as a ghost.
“Ben!” I cry. “Help me!”
But he’s completely frozen. It’s Ryan who sidles up to me and helps me take down the group, one by one, while Molly flanks my other side, firing expertly, too.
Suddenly, I hear a shrill scream from behind and swirl on the spot. One of the crazies must have taken a different route than the others and has gotten up the outpost without anyone noticing. It dawns on me that not a single one of the guards thought to cover us from behind, leaving us completely exposed.