A Midnight Flight
“Westley? Where are we going?” asks little Annah.
Westley, her much older brother, continues to drag her along without much thought. “Somewhere.”
Annah tries to keep up with his long strides, but is having great difficulty doing so. “Is somewhere fun? Could we go somewhere tomorrow instead? It’s awfully dark.”
“No, Anny, we have to go somewhere tonight. Now hush up so you don’t give us away!” her brother replies in a harsh whisper.
Young Annah goes silent as she nervously follows him. She does not like the look of the woods in the dark. They’re too dark with too many scary noises and shadows. As her brother begins to walk more slowly through the dense thicket, she gets closer to him and fearfully glances around. She jumps as a twig snaps under her little pink Maryjane-clad foot and grabs onto her brother’s leg.
“Please, Westley! I wanna go home!” She whines.
Westley glances at her and picks her up. “We aren’t going home, Annah.” He then sighs.
The girl looks confused. “We are after we go somewhere.”
“No, not even then.” He shakes his head.
Annah looks more perplexed and her bottom lip begins to tremble and tears well up in her baby-blue eyes. “We never go home? Never ever?”
Westley nods and takes a deep and slow breath. “Never ever, ever,” he replies.
“But why? What about Mommy and Daddy and Terry?” She sniffs.
“Mommy and Daddy are bad,” he tries to explain. “They have gotten very sick and now do bad things. I have to keep you safe, so we cannot go back ever...Or at least not for a very long time.” He gently wipes a tear from her soft cheek. “That’s why we are going away to my friend’s house.”
“Brad?” She sniffs.
Westley sighs and feels a pang of grief. “No...Miranda. She has everything set up for us to go.”
“But where are we going?”
“I already told you, Anny. We’re going somewhere.” He sighs as he lifts her and carries her close against his chest. His sister quietly sniffs and hugs on around his neck while holding the arm of a pink elephant stuffed animal in her small hand. He continues in silence for a while, for half an hour at least, before he hears the light crackle of crisp autumn leaves somewhere off to his left. He looks that way before slowly and softly laying his sleeping sister and backpack onto the ground at the base of a broad maple tree. Westley then takes out a small pocket knife. He knows it probably will not be much help if it comes down to a fight, but it makes him feel more confident as he stands there, surveying the dark, cool woods.
There is a snapping of a branch, but so far Westley fails to see anyone. He tentatively puts the knife away and tells himself it was probably just a deer or rabbit. He sits down next to his sister with a sigh. He thinks about their situation. He thinks about their parents, their brother, how they had all succumbed to the mind-controlling virus the government had sprung on the town to test, or that the government didn’t send...The government swears it was some Middle Eastern country that we’re at war with. Who? What country? What group? The press continues to change the story. The records keep showing different lies or truth, or whatever. Westley shakes his head some. He is sure his own government did it to test it before sending it off to the growing war.
Their family hadn’t been the first victims to this virus, and Westley is sure they wouldn’t be the last either. Though to his knowledge only adults seem to be affected by the disease, he doesn’t want to risk his sister’s and his lives on the theory. He remembers what he had seen happen to his best friend Brad...It had been horrifying. The mindless, blank eyes and expressions of the adults, their almost feral violent behavior...Brad hadn’t stood a chance against his own parents. With that deeply embedded in his mind, Westley had set to work planning for them to skip town, but to do that he knew he would need help. In which case it had been an easy decision. He decided to collect his girlfriend Miranda for their flight, too.
Westley had already over the past week written plans with her in case his family became infected. They planned for the three of them to escape to Canada. But first they had to stay alive long enough to meet up.
Another branch snap then draws the teen’s attention. He is able to discern a figure this time. It is Terence, their older brother who had turned twenty-one this past month. Terence stands there blank-faced, gun loaded and in hand. Westley feels his pulse quicken. He knows they have no defense against him. He then does the only thing that he can think of. He scoops up his bag and sister in a single swoop and sprints off as he hears the gun firing after them. He does not turn or glance behind himself once as he runs.
He dashes behind a wide tree and situates his pack onto his back and his sister in a better position. He also sends a text to Miranda.
-Had Terence prob; meet @ pond-
Then Westley attempts to double-back and even cover up some of his tracks, like he learned in school that hunted foxes do when trying to confused a hound. He pauses for a bit in an overgrown brown and gold bush and watches as their brother goes past them. His heart is pounding and his mouth feels bone-dry as he waits in complete silence for it to be safe enough for him to start back the other way.
After a while, exhausted, muddy, and chilled, Westley arrives with Annah at the large pond, near the center of the woods. Miranda is there, sitting on a rock with laced up hiking boots, and her purple and black backpack lies on the grass next to her. When she sees them approaching, she gets up and shoulders her pack, but then she softly drops it back onto the ground as she sees how worn out Westley looks.
“Are you okay?” she asks softly and gets Annah from him to let him have a break from carrying her.
Westley nods and drops himself to the ground and lies back in the soft grass. “For someone who was just chased halfway across Montana by his virus-crazy brother, sure, yeah, okay works.” He shrugs, sitting up again, and takes out his canteen and drinks from it.
“You think we’ll actually make it?” she asks and sits down next to him, laying Annah in a leaf pile to continue sleeping.
“Well...The border between here and Canada is unprotected...As long as we don’t meet up with any bears, bobcats, or adults, I think we may have a chance.”
Miranda nods slowly and leans her head on him, her long, wavy black locks falling over his shoulder. “I hope you’re right, Westley…”
Westley nods and silently watches as Annah wakes and sits up in the autumn moonlight, drowsily rubbing her eyes. He then sighs and closes his eyes, listening to the evening songs of the crickets and cicadas and the breathing of his girlfriend close to him.
