6: Levi

Levi

 

 

          He leapt onto the chainlink fence which rattled metallically. He swung his legs over and leapt down, not daring to look behind him. Darting to the right, he gathered distance from the house before taking a sharp turn left and heading for a massive oak. Miguel was waiting for him behind it.

          "You distract them?" he whispered, his eyes on the second floor window of the house they had just abandoned. Levi had done more than that. He had killed one of them.

          And he held no remorse.

          "I blew one f****r's brains out, the rest came chasing me. Look there they are." Flashlights flickered around the backyard of the house. Two soldiers scanned in all directions, their rifles against their shoulders and aimed. Once satisfied, they alternated between climbing the fence and covering each other. The two man team moved off to where they had seen Levi initially run. With every step they went farther away from their targets.

          "Shouldn't Ryan and Sarah be getting Michael out the window now?" Miguel asked impatiently, his hands pressed against the tree as he crouched.

          Levi shrugged. "They may be using the stairs. It's probably easier. Don't worry, man, they'll be coming soon and we can get out of here."

          Anxiously the two watched the house but no one was coming out the back door or the window. With frustration, Levi stood up, glanced around quickly, and began running toward the house. Miguel followed protesting.

          "We don't have the time for this. We're helping them." Levi said as they neared the fence. Before Miguel could respond, a burst of gunfire sounded from within the house sending both high schoolers onto their stomachs. Levi flicked the safety off his pistol and grabbed the cold metal bar running atop the fence. He was about to vault it when Miguel grabbed his arm.

          "Are you trying to get yourself killed?" the darker teen asked harshly. Levi shoved him off and planted a foot against the crosshatched metal. He lifted himself halfway onto the fence when a blast of debris and smoke exploded from the second story window with concussive force. Long, jagged shards of wood spun outwards and glass glimmered in as it rained down in the moonlight. The accompanying crack was loud and powerful. Levi stared in disbelief, rage welling up deep inside him. Tiny splinters of wood and drywall rained down into the yard as grey-brown smoke billowed out and dissipated. "You fuckers!" he screamed as loudly as he could muster, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. "I'll f*****g kill you!" He started to climb higher, adrenaline and anger completely in control of him. With pistol in hand, he was nearly over when a pair of arms wrapped around his waist and yanked him down from the fence. They hit the ground and Levi began to struggle.

          "There's nothing we can do! We need to get the f**k out of here! Listen to me, Levi!" Miguel released his friend and grabbed him at the shoulders. "There's nothing we can do. We need to go!"

          Levi stared at his friend, whose eyes too were misted. He wanted to kick in the door and shoot every soldier in the house; to watch them all die for what they did. But Emma and Jake were waiting for them at the river bank. They needed to stay as a group. Levi trembled from fury, but turned his eyes away from the smoking windowsill. Miguel offered him a hand up, which he took silently. Together they sprinted away toward the river. He barely noticed his surroundings. It was all in a fog. All his mind's eye kept seeing was the sudden rupture from the window. The spinning debris. The billow of smoke.

          "Hold up," Miguel grabbed Levi's arm as they neared South Tropical Trail, the secondary road that ran the length of the island parallel with Courtney. Abandoned cars littered the street, but aside from the ghosts of normalcy, they were alone. "Alright, let's go." At a sprint the pair crossed South Tropical and reached the small grassy decline that led to the Indian River. They were between two massive waterfront homes that were barely a step under mansions. One of them had a dock with a pavilion at the end. It was there where they would find Jake and Emma.

          The river lapped gently at the large stones that had been placed at the shore. Levi and Miguel kept their profiles low as they walked along the thick sand to the wooden pylons. The moon provided decent lighting but the shadows under the dock were impenetrable. Once they were close, they adopted more caution.

          "Jake?" Levi beckoned in little more than a whisper. "Emma? It's us. Come out." There wasn't an immediate response. "Jake?" he asked little louder.

          "Levi?"

          He let out a small sigh of relief. "Thank God. Come out. It's time to go."

          Slowly the faces of Jake and Emma materialized out of the shadows. Their eyes revealed their fear. Emma's jeans had sand clumps still clinging to the knees and shins.

          Miguel looked nervously behind him then to Emma. "Do you still have the backpacks?"

          "Yeah. They're under the dock. Where's everyone else?" she asked, removing a stray strand of hair from her face. "Are they almost here?"

          Levi's eyes dropped to the sand. More than anything he just wanted to punch something and let out a scream of agony, but he didn't have that luxury. Not right now. His outlet would have to wait; he needed to be as strong as he could for the others. Mustering all the resolve he could, he faced Emma. He opened his mouth to speak but the words wouldn't come.

          "What's wrong?" she asked uneasily. "Levi, what's wrong? Are they okay?"

          Levi looked into her eyes and for the first time since he was a very little child, he let his tears fall without shame.

         "Oh my God," Emma wailed and fell to her knees. Her chest began heaving in spastic motions, her breaths short and labored. "No," she whimpered. "No, God, please." With one last desperate hope, she turned her red eyes up to him. "Tell me they're okay."

          Levi did his best to keep a stoic face as he knelt and grabbed her hands gently.

          Wordlessly Emma began to bawl. She pushed Levi's hands away and grabbed his shirt, pulling herself into his chest as she sobbed uncontrollably. Her face went red and her body shook. Levi wrapped his arms around her and rocked her slowly. With her in his arms, he no longer felt the burning rage. No longer seeing red, it began to hit him in earnest. They had just lost those people forever. Levi hadn't been close to his own family, not since his dad died; his friends had become his family. Michael, Sarah, Ryan, Sabrina, they were all gone now. He would never be able to talk or laugh with them, never get the chance to tell them he was proud to call them his friends. Their families would never be able to say they loved them. Everything was robbed from them.

          He couldn't wrap his head around everything that had happened. Some of his closest friends' lives were now gone, their own lives had been upended, he didn't know where his family or girlfriend Addison was or if they were safe. They were abandoning their homes and running away. It was all happening too fast for him to keep up.

          "We can never go back, can we?" Jake asked quietly.

         "Back here?" Miguel picked up the Russian pistol from the ground and put the safety back on.

          "Back to normal," Jake said. "Living life without worry or fear. We've all been separated from our families and our homes, and our friends are dying. Can you recover from this?"

          Miguel put a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder. "We'll find a way somehow. Just take it all one step at a time."

          Levi had regained his composure and felt a little more in control. He pushed his emotions to the back of his mind. "Emma?" he said giving a small comforting squeeze. "We'll have time to think about all this and we will have a time where we can let our emotions out, but it isn't now. We're not out of this yet. If we have even a little luck left we'll be able to find a boat and get to the mainland. Come on, there's nothing left for us here."