Something told me this was a dangerous place for my head to be, but I didn’t have the time or luxury to sort it out now. Maybe when we found our final home I’d be able to decide how far I would be willing to go to find happiness and security again and to deliver it to my new family.

Chapter Six

WE RODE FOR HOURS, TRADING bikes and their accompanying loads. Just when we thought we could go no farther, a small sign for the Everglades Correctional Institution came up.

“That’s kind of funny, isn’t it?” asked Winky.

“What?” I responded, huffing and puffing along, my legs on fire from the overexertion.

“That it’s not called a prison. I mean, correctional institution? It sounds like a school for learning manners or something.”

“It was,” said Bianca. “It’s not polite to rape, murder, or steal, children.”

That earned her a few weak giggles. We were too tired to do any better.

“Keep going, guys,” cheered Peter, “we’re almost there!” He had only himself to carry, so he still had enough juice to fuel a burst of energy that had him well ahead of us in seconds.

I turned and looked back at my load. Jenny hadn’t moved for the entire ride. The fact that she hadn’t even roused herself enough to go pee with us was sad. It meant she was beyond dehydrated. I hated to think we’d rescued her only to watch her die.

Thirty minutes later we pulled into the valet area of the prison. It looked like a freaky ghost town, trash blown up against the fences and weeds grown up high along all the buildings and in the center section in front. Even the cracks in the asphalt and sidewalks had grass growing out of them. It made me hopeful that no one had passed through here or decided to stay.

Peter was waiting for us at the front gate. Bodo was next, pulling up beside him. The rest of us arrived soon after, Ronald and Jamal immediately getting off their bikes and putting them down once the girls were off. Both the guys and the girls who had been riding uncomfortably all laid down on the ground.

“What are you guys doing?” asked Winky.

“I’m just dying right here. Don’t worry about me,” said Jamal.

“Me too,” said Ronald. “Just let the Good Lord take me. I can’t move another inch. I really can’t.”

Peter was off his bike and pulling on the fence. “It’s locked.” He put his hands on his hips and huffed out a frustrated breath. “And there’s barbed wire around the entire thing. How are we going to get in?”

“Just give us a few minutes, Peter. We’ll go around the perimeter and see if there are any breaks in the fence. I can’t believe we’re the first people to break in here,” I said.

“Maybe we are. Don’t you remember the news before it went off for good?” asked Gretchen, staring up at the sky.

“No,” I said, trying to think when the last time I watched television was.

“I remember,” said Ronald. “They turned the prisons into hospitals. Lots of the people who were dying were brought here.”

“Oh, great!” I yelled, pissed I hadn’t realized this before. “You mean we came all the way down here to live in a friggin’ morgue?!”

“Well, I guess that explains why this place isn’t being used by anyone else,” said Peter, shrugging his shoulders.

“Peter, you are seriously scaring me with your complete lack of freaking out lately.”

“I freak out when the time is appropriate. Right now I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve picked the best possible place to set up our new home. All we have to do is move the bodies out, clean the place up, and move in!”

“You are actually smiling at me right now,” I said, shaking my head at him. I looked around at the others. “Does anyone else feel the wrongness of all of this? Is anyone else worried about the friggin’ virus that could still be alive in there?”

“Nope,” said Bodo. “Not me. I like dat dis place is like a haunted house. Dat means no one will come here and bodder us.”

“The virus is dead,” said Gretchen. “Everyone knows that.”

“No, everyone does not,” I insisted, disregarding Kiersten’s statements to the contrary. “We have no idea what that virus is or what it’s capable of doing to us as we get older.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” asked Ronald. “I mean, really. When you think about it.”

“We could die? How about that?” I said.

“Yeah? And?” said Bianca, sitting up and looking at me. “Dying of a virus sure beats being raped and eaten in my book.”

“Geez,” was all I could say. My mind was racing with thoughts of our new reality. I felt cornered and sad and desperate, even surrounded by friends and standing in front of a place that I thought was going to be our sanctuary. And the most positive thing anyone can think to consider is which would be a better way to die - by the hands of another kid or a killer virus that wiped out most of the human population. When is life ever going to be about living and not dying?

***

Peter walked the perimeter of the fence with Jamal. They showed up from the other direction thirty minutes later.

“There are no breaks in the fence anywhere,” said Peter. “The place is locked up tighter than my aunt’s special closet, and it’s hugely huge.”

“The one with the high heels?” I asked, smiling with the memory of Peter wearing a pair of them when I first met him.

“Exactly. Secrets are inside this place, I just know it.” He stood with hands on hips again, staring at the fence. “I need to get in there. Why don’t we have a stupid bolt cutter with us?”

“How about we throw a blanket over the barbed wire and then climb over?” suggested Winky, eyeing the offending escape deterrent. It had bits of razor and twisted, pointy spikes on it. It looked like a great way to get a set of very painful and infected wounds.

“I think that razor would cut right through it,” I said.

“Not if you fold it up a bunch of times,” said Gretchen, finally sitting up. “How big is it and how thick?”

Peter walked over to one of the backpacks and pulled out one of the decorated rug blankets I knew had been made by the Miccosukee. “Here it is. What do you guys think?” he asked, holding it up.

“Worth a shot,” said Ronald.

“I agree,” said Jamal. “It’s going to get dark soon. We need to get inside before the sun goes down, even if we just sleep right there on the other side of the fence.”

“Yeah, I’m not all that excited about exploring the prison in the dark, if you don’t mind,” agreed Ronald. “Let’s save that for tomorrow morning.”

“Whatever,” I said. “I’m officially on record as saying I think this is a dangerous place and we need to be super careful.”

“It was your idea to come here, Bryn,” said Winky.

“I got the idea from the twins, first of all. And second of all, I didn’t realize this place was a deadly germ factory before I said we should come. If I had known about the hospital thing, I never would have agreed to it.”

“Well, where would we have gone if not here?” she asked.

Everyone went silent, waiting for my answer.

I couldn’t come up with a good one, with all of them looking at me like that. “I don’t know. A high school … or a big library maybe? That would have been better than this.”

“Yeah. Except you’d be missing all the barbed wire to keep the canners and sweepers out, the kitchens, the bedrooms, the weapons and ammo … need I continue?” asked Ronald.

I frowned but said nothing. He was right. The library would have been good for the books, but useless for almost everything else we needed.

“I think we can all agree we need to be careful going in,” said Gretchen, acting as peacemaker. “Let’s just get in past the gate, go inside to the front waiting area or whatever, and set up camp there. Then we can decide whether to investigate more or just start spraying bleach on everything first.”

Her mention of the bleach made me feel a little better. I had forgotten I had a container of it in my stuff. “We still have the bleach, right Peter?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

“Fine,” I said. “I agree to this plan if you guys do.”

Everyone nodded.

“Here,” said Peter, nudging Bodo with the blanket. “Help me get this over the wire.”

Bodo and Bianca climbed up the fence and reached down for the blanket, which was handed up to them by Gretchen and Peter. Their skinny arms trembled with the effort, but it was good enough to get the blanket to the waiting hands above.

Getting the material up and over the wire was challenging. It kept catching on the razors and spikes, and took ages to remove, but eventually they got it over the worst of the offending mess. It managed to push the wire down a little with its weight, but not enough to flatten it. I was bummed because it made our job harder, but happy that the bad guys wouldn’t be able to get over any easier than us.

Bodo and Bianca climbed down, both of them sweating and shaking so bad from muscle exhaustion they had to sit down.

“I’m sorry. Dat was harder dan I thought it wouldt be. I think that da drugs are still in my body. I can’t stop shaking,” said Bodo, holding out a trembling hand for a few seconds before dropping it into his lap.

“You’re just exhausted,” said Peter. “We all are, but you guys more than the rest of us. Just relax. Winky and Bryn can take it from here.”

“Hey,” I complained. “Who voted we get to have our arms and leg slashed open?”

“Good point,” said Ronald. “Winky’s already been hurt today. She shouldn’t have to go up there.”

“I can go,” said Winky, her chin coming up a fraction.

“No, he’s right,” I said bitterly, disgusted with my own whining but unable to stop from indulging in it. “Just sit down and let me get this over with.” I looked at everyone sitting around. “And what exactly am I supposed to do once I’m over? You’ll still be on the other side.”

“Go find a key to open the gate,” said Peter. “Duh.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Come on,” said Jamal, nudging me on the arm. “I’ll go with you.”

I gave up complaining. I was just being a baby anyway. The heat and the rain and all that pedaling coming right on the heels of the fight had taken too much of my patience out of me. I couldn’t even think straight. All I wanted to do was whine about my circumstances and go to sleep for about twelve, uninterrupted hours. With Bodo next to me.

I walked up to the fence and put my hands on it, looking at Jamal standing right next to me. His face was just inches away. He had the longest, thickest eyelashes I’d ever seen before.

“That is just so unfair,” I said, staring at him.

“What? That you have to go first? Move out of the way, then, and I’ll go.”

“No. That you have eyelashes that beautiful. They are so wasted on a guy.” I shook my head and began my upward climb.

“If I had a dollar for every time a girl said that …”

“… you’d have kindling for one fire,” finished his brother.

“Oh, yeah. Right,” said Jamal.

I reached the top but was soon stuck. The blanket was there, but I couldn’t get a grip on anything around it to get onto it. The wire bulged out over the top, and I couldn’t very well use it for leverage. I looked down at Peter. “What the heck am I supposed to do now? I can’t get over this friggin thing.”

“Push on it,” suggested Ronald. “Make it flat in that spot right in front of you.”