We marched, shoulder to shoulder, like ants through the streets.
No, not ants.
Ants were organized—single file and orderly. We were swarming like bees without a queen: chaotic and frantic with only one possible direction to go. The evacuation was in full swing and my family and I had assimilated into the crowd shortly after attempting to drive to the evacuation point—my high school, actually, which worked out since we knew the route by heart.
I was even more livid about the whole thing than I had been when Mom first demanded I start packing, and I had spent the entire walk bitching about how my lovely parents had opted to leave behind my best friend: our Aussie mix Teeter Totter (or Tot for short). Named thus because of the way she'd teetered around when she was a puppy.
They were doing a bang-up job ignoring me as I shouted about how terrible we were for leaving her at home while we evacuated, barely audible over the clamor from the other people. I moaned about how we were condemning her to either an awful death when she starved to death or being bitten by an infected possum and becoming one of those awful soulless creatures.
"Possums don't get rabies," Mom pointed out. Of course she would be unable to keep herself from responding to that part of my tirade but ignore the rest.
Did they even care about my dog?
"Yeah, the old rabies! And she's still going to starve to death."
Angry tears had been streaming down my face the whole time, much like the ones staining my sister's face. She had her bright yellow backpack strapped to her and a single wrapped Christmas present clutched in her arms.
It had been the only way my parents had been able to convince her to stop screaming long enough to leave.
This time, Dad spoke up. "We left her all the dog food we have, filled plenty of water dishes, and left the doggy door unlocked and the gate to the backyard unlatched. If she needs to go somewhere else, she can. They said no pets allowed, I'm sorry Taryn."
"That does not make me feel any better!"
My mom rounded on me—well, as much as she could while she was dragging my sister behind her and clinging to my father in front of her. "If you do not stop whining, Taryn, you will be grounded until you are twenty-one!"
I bit back a spicy retort and resigned myself to glaring at the pavement beneath my feet. The whole conversation had been screamed at one another, as that was what everyone was doing. Screaming and yelling and shoving and crying and—
Needless to say, I had a headache. Everyone probably did. All I wanted was my dog, was that really so much to ask?
The freezing cold wasn't helping anything. Between my heavy winter coat and the backpack I'd crammed full of anything I couldn't bear to part with—clothes, sentimental stuffed animals, some books I really liked, and a myriad of other things—I was quickly becoming exhausted during our breakneck pace to reach the evacuation point.
Luckily, my school wasn't far away. I hadn't imagined there were this many people within our district and I wondered if it was bad in every area. Were they only using high schools or were they using other things like churches or stores?
I supposed it didn't matter in the long run.
At least the mass of bodies helped to stave off the chill a little bit. It still bit at my cheeks and nose, turning them rosy. I wished I had worn gloves, too, because my fingers felt almost like they were slowly freezing off.
Within the crowd, I lost track of how long we'd been walking. Our house was barely within the range of the bus route so I normally took that to get to school. I had no idea how long it should take to walk there, but I was sure the whole mob panic was probably making it hard even though it felt like we were practically running there.
All I knew was that my sides were sore and my legs felt like they were full of jelly instead of bones and muscle. I could barely breathe—I'd gotten all my sports credits at school by being the "manager" of the boys' basketball team.
Read: glorified clipboard carrier and towel dispenser.
It saved me from having to really try. I was kind of wishing at that moment that I had just gone through with one of the girls' sports teams. Maybe volleyball or tennis. That might have been fun.
Too late now.
After who knew how long, we finally reached the school. The crowd thinned out as people filed into several different lines and our family train came to an abrupt stop when we found our own to queue in. I had been stuck in "drive" for so long that I almost ran over Maddie, making her squawk in surprise.
"Mommy! Taryn stepped on me."
"I didn't mean to."
Dad snapped at both of us. "Hush! This is not the time to be fighting with each other."
Every ounce of strength I had left went to keeping myself upright. I tried to peer over the heads of people in front of me, barely making out the complaints they were voicing. Buses were lined up several yards away, but the lines were barely moving forward. All around, portable construction lamps were lighting the grounds up like a stadium. It was almost like it still day time.
"What's going on?" I tugged on Mom's shirt: she was the tallest out of all of us.
She stood up on her tip-toes to get a better view. Her head craned this way and that until she finally flattened out and said, "I don't know. There's some sort of military checkpoint with fences set up and a gate . . . I can see tents, but I don't really know what they're doing."
Dad shifted his baggage for easier carrying. He had his own pack on his back and a duffel bag across his shoulders. I'd seen him loading it up with imperishables, bottled water, our first aid kit, and some blankets. Mom said that the news had told us to pack an evacuation kit and those were the suggested items.
"I imagine they are trying to weed out any possible people infected by the virus," he said, his accent weaved into each word.
Mom nodded as if she'd known that all along. "Yes, you're right. I think I heard somewhere they had fixed up a quick field test to check for the infection."
"What? Why?" I asked.
Maddie shuffled in front of Mom and put her arms up, her Christmas gift still clutched in her hand. Mom cooed and said, "Honey, Mommy can't pick you up right now."
Her lip jutted out in a pout and she stomped once. "My legs hurt!"
"I know, sweetie, all of ours do, too. We'll just have to wait until we can sit on the busses."
My heart was busy sinking into the soles of my shoes as the implications of what my parents were saying sank in. What if I didn't pass the test but they did? What if none of us did? What if only some of us didn't? Maddie had been suffering from a cold up until a week ago, what if that tainted the test?
I started to breathe harder and fresh tears began to fall. Dad noticed and pulled me over to him while Mom tried to mollify Maddie. "Taryn, what is wrong?"
"What if—what happens if we—Dad what if I don't pass the test? Maybe my seizures will make a false positive or whatever they call it? And Maddie was sick just a little while ago what if we can't leave?"
He let the duffle bag rest against his hip and took me by my shoulders. "You remembered to pack your medicine?"
Panic shot through me and I wracked my brain to try and remember, but I could vividly recall right where I'd put the bottle and pat the side of my bag. The reassuring jangle of capsules could barely be heard over the din and I sighed in relief. "Yes, yes I have it."
"And you always have this," Dad said, indicating to the chain of my medical necklace with all my information on it.
Slowly, my panic was melting away. "I do."
"See? All you have to do is let the soldiers know about your epilepsy and they will have to take that into consideration." He further assured me with a warm smile. "And if any of us don't pass the test, we will all stay behind."
Mom chimed in, having given in and picked up Maddie in the end. "That's right. We're all going or none of us are."
Their reassurances placated me for the time being, but my apprehension increased the more the line moved. Well, what semblance of a line there actually was. Maybe at one point in the night, there had been a proper queue, but now there was only screaming people vying for entrance; a surge of angry and scared citizens pushing and shoving and all moving as one toward the barricades keeping them from the buses. The men with guns were doing a good job of deterring trouble makers and they were liberally using them as threats.
Everyone had a good reason to start panicking—the busses were going to start leaving soon and there were still so many people waiting to board.
The shouting grew even louder the closer we moved to the barricades until it turned into a caterwaul of crying and screaming. Everything my father had said was undone when we were close enough to finally see what was going on—anyone that didn't pass the test was forcibly removed from the queue and thrown into a gated, fenced-in area. The military was shoving people apart, dragging the ill over past the barricades, cornering them like rats and keeping them in place with their guns. I couldn't help but gape. The panic was starting to sink in again when I realized if one of us failed, we were going to be torn apart.
"Dad," I whimpered, tugging on his jacket.
"Don't stare, Taryn," Mom gently chided me.
But I couldn't look away.
Some of them really did look sick. Their faces were sunken, all of the color drained from their skin. I had only seen the infected from a distance in videos that I watched on the tiny screen of my phone, so seeing them this close, this vividly . . . It was sobering and terrifying. Many of them were snarling insults and shaking the fence and it dawned on me that a good majority of the noise was coming from them.
I had to look away, try to put them out of my mind. They never left me, though, and I was shaking from more than just the cold seeping through my coat.
Over the sound of everything else, the voice of someone on a megaphone filtered through. They were bellowing out commands and updates, urging people to keep calm. I looked around to find the person and spotted him standing up just behind the barricades on a makeshift stage, waving his hand for emphasis.
Even with the megaphone, I could barely make out the words he was saying. They were warped and tinny, and if you mixed that with the cacophony roaring around us, it made for an unintelligible speech.
"Stay close, everyone," Dad said. "We are next."
A lump formed in my throat and my knuckles turned white when I gripped the straps of my backpack so tight. I marveled at the fact that they had seemed to erect this whole operation overnight. It was like a mini, outdoor hospital: there was a giant tent that people were being ushered into with different exam rooms split by privacy screens. Military doctors in sterile uniforms were waiting for patients.
It was quite elaborate and might have impressed me had I not been scared out of my mind.
I was shaking so much I was about to fall apart by the time my family and I were ushered toward the white canvas tent. An officer stepped in front of us and held out his hand.
"I need to see some ID."
Without speaking, Dad nodded and pulled out his wallet. Beforehand, he had gathered all the identification from us to make sure it was in a safe, central location: my school ID, Mom's and his driver's licenses, and Maddie's birth certificate. He handed them all over and the soldier skimmed through.
He looked at each of us and repeated our names. "Sung-Soo, Emma, Taryn, and Maddie Choi?" A nearby soldier scribbles the names down on his clipboard.
We nodded in turn.
"Alright. Leave your things at that table. It will be returned to you after screening." The soldier pointed out the table he spoke of and we obeyed.
"Sir, my daughter has important medication in her bag," Mom said, patting my school bag. It was covered in pins and patches from various fandoms.
The soldier acknowledged her with a grunt and gestured with his head at me. I took my medicine out of the side pockets and showed it and my medical tag to him, then pocketed it when he approved of it.
Then I was swiftly ushered away. "This way."
"Wait—What about my family? I want to stay with them!" I tugged against this new soldier's grip on my arm, trying to pull away and return to my family. Only, they were being taken away to separate stations, too; only Mom and Maddie were allowed to stay together.
The soldier gave me a sympathetic expression. "You'll see them again on the other side of the barricade. We need to use what stations are open."
Reluctantly, I stopped fighting and let him lead me to a table where a doctor was waiting with the screen test. A sinking feeling of foreboding had long since settled into my gut and I was convinced I wasn't going to see my family again.