The World Without Flags

I rotate around the tree and then crouch down over Doctor Bragg’s body. He’s fallen with his head against the tree trunk, staring with dead eyes into the forest. I grasp my knife and then tug. I can’t get it free the first time, but on the second pull, it comes free, bringing a stinking, dark gore with it. Worms writhe along the blade and shivering with revulsion, I wipe it on the front of the Doctor’s shirt before I rotate away, putting the tree between the body and I.

With the knife in my hand, I feel more in charge. I always feel a little better with a knife in my hand. I only have one idea and it’s not nice to think about. I don’t have to cut off my whole hand. Just a part of it, the part below the pinky finger. Just slice off enough so that I can pull it out of the handcuffs. Just a little slice. My stomach turns and I hear myself sob.

“Don’t start, Birdie, damn it,” I tell myself. I breathe quickly, trying to gather the courage to do the only thing I can think of doing, the only thing that will save me and Eric. I sob again without wanting to. It sounds like someone else. I realize that tears are coming down my face. I breathe in and out quickly and then pull at my left hand. I look where the skin bunches against steel, where it keeps the cuffs from sliding off. Trembling, I close my eyes. I don’t have time for this. I breathe. They could come back at any moment, and that would be the end.

I breathe and then hold out my left wrist. I put the shining blade just below where I have to cut. The blade is cold and hard and very sharp. I press down, feel the pressure against my bone.

I close my eyes.

Hold my breath. Feel my body steady.

And then, with one swift movement of my arm, I slice.

154

I come loose suddenly with a feeling like an electric shock in my left wrist. I stagger back, shaking with pain, but I’m free and the elation makes me forget the flesh I leave behind. Without looking at my carved up hand, I run to the campfire where there’s a rag drying on a rock. Feeling faint, I wrap up my cut and broken wrist. I clench my teeth to keep from screaming as I pull the rag tight. Suddenly, my vision starts to darken, like someone poured a dark liquid into my eyes. I sink down to my knees, struggling not to faint from loss of blood, from pain, from the relief of escaping. I struggle against the liquid darkness boiling up inside me, but I feel like I’m drowning in it. I put out my hand and feel the pine leaves of the forest floor. For some reason, this steadies me. I feel the tide of darkness pull away from me. The pain in my wrist roars back to life, and gritting my teeth, I push away from the ground and stand up.

“Don’t you move.”

I hear the warning before I see anyone. But I recognize the voice. It’s Randy.

There’s really only one thing I can do. I have to run and hope that he misses when he shoots with the gun he certainly has pointed at my back. If I stay, he’ll only kill me at his leisure. I’d much rather die running. I tense to sprint into the forest, turning ever so slightly, so that I run at an angle away from him, a little harder to shoot down.

“Don’t do it, Birdie!”

I stop dead in my tracks. I recognize that voice too.

It’s Pest.

155

I turn around slowly. When I see them, my heart doesn’t know whether to despair or celebrate.

“You try to run for it, and I kill them both,” Randy warns me. With Randy’s gun pointed at his head, Pest stands looking at me, his face black with ashes and smoke; beside him, his jaw hanging open, his eyes bound tightly with a red bandana, is Eric. They are both safe. Alive. At least for now. At least for a few minutes longer. I’d give anything to run to Eric, but I know if I start moving, Randy would shoot me down.

Randy smiles at me with his pearly wall of teeth. “I knew I was right to keep these two alive until I had you.” He smiles at me like we’re sharing a joke. He looks around, taking in Doctor Bragg’s corpse and the bloody handcuffs dangling from my right hand. Pest and I look at each other but say nothing. Randy shakes his head. “Goddamn,” he says finally. “You’re a survivor, no doubt about that. Nearly cut your own hand off, I bet.” His face twists into something like pride, but the way his eyes flashes at me is not as innocent as that. “It’s a shame, really.”

Randy raises his gun and takes slow aim at my chest. The sick grin never leaves his face.

“Hold on there!”

My heart stutters in me as I turn my head. Boston and Sydney come striding out of the forest. Randy doesn’t lower his gun, but his grin is gone. It’s been replaced by a stiff frustration that seeps into his eyes, which glint malevolently at me like sharpened knives. He had his chance to get rid of me easily and he’s lost it. He just had to talk. I can feel the regret coming off him like heat waves.

Behind Boston and Sydney, another man enters the camp.

“The President wants to talk to her,” says Boston as they walk forward.