Chapter 6: Jocelyn
I hope Jon is alright. He will be. He always manages to take care of himself.
I fold the knife and put it in my pocket after wiping the blood off with a rag in the glove compartment. Just wiping it once removed any trace of it from the blade. The knife may come in handy in the future and if my brother has a gun, I at least want a knife. Although, maybe I should take the gun if it’s going to keep bothering him. I know it must be difficult for him to even have it in his pocket.
We travel through the tunnel. Occasionally, he swerves around cars that are stopped in the middle. Some have their door open, and some do not. My curiosity asks me to look inside, but I am afraid as to what I may find. More dead? People who died from the disease, or worse, people who were killed after?
The car begins to approach the other side of the tunnel. More light begins to pour into the car as the entrance gets closer. I look over toward my brother. He has both hands firmly on the wheel and a dead stare locked on the road ahead.
As my eyes adjust I wonder why I am not a mess over this hostage thing, but then I see something that wrenches my attention...
Mud.
It's on the center console, and I don't remember it being there when my brother reached for a gun behind it. And I remember that moment very well. I turn my head toward the backseat. There is nothing there except for a little more mud that seems to drag up on the back of the seat. Those are footprints. Someone is in the car. I glance over to Jon. His eyes are still fixed on the road ahead. He is slowing down since we are about to exit the tunnel. I guess he is afraid of any surprises. I can feel my heart begin to beat through my chest as I look toward the back seat.
Whoever it is must be hiding behind the seat in the cargo space. Someone really quiet, too, if he or she managed to slip in without us noticing at the bridge. Probably someone smart. Maybe someone deadly.
“Jon can we pull over up here, I am not feeling well now.” He gives me a frustrated look. The area looks pretty safe. There are only a few vacant cars on the side of the road and some paper flying in the wind. “Please Jon, it's really important.” I squeeze his right arm and our eyes meet. His jaw loosens, and his eyes tighten; he now knows something’s amiss. He pulls to the side of the road and lets me out. He follows beside me. We both shut the car doors.
“What's wrong?” he whispers as he grabs my shoulders.
“There's someone in the back...” I mumble through my teeth. Instantly, Jon digs back out the gun. I go for the knife and keep my hand in my pocket clutching the handle. We walk slowly around the car, hunched over so that we’re below the window line.
“Get behind me.” Jon commands, quietly. He prepares the gun in his right hand as he reaches for the trunk handle with his left. He looks at me and mouths, “One, two, three…”
He throws the trunk door into the air and points the gun into the back. Someone huge is hiding back there. Someone filthy. I inhale air in fear. As my eyes focus, I realize that everything I’ve just thought was wrong, except for the filthy part. It is actually two girls. Both of their blue eyes meet mine. They are quivering. I exhale relief and I feel all my muscles release. I reach to pat Jon's arm down, but he already has the gun dangling toward the ground. He drops it. His right hand shakes.
I study the two girls and how tiny they are. Both had the same blue eyes and dark hair. Maybe it’s black but they’re both so covered in dirt that I can't tell. They are the most pathetic looking creatures I have ever seen, apparently homeless and hungry, with sunken cheeks and cracked lips. They must be twins. I feel awful. How many other children already look like this?
One of them finally breaks the silence, talking quickly, just like a little girl might if she knows she’s in trouble with her parents.
“Please help us, we have no one. We didn't wanna scare you, but we didn't know what to do. We are sorry. We didn't want you to leave us too!” I guess they are around ten or eleven years old. Jon looks at me; his eyebrows show more concern than I normally see on his face. The right side of his face smiles.
It isn't long before Jon is giving the girls as much of our food as they can eat. One is making peanut butter crackers while the other washes down her granola bar with some bottled water. Their faces glow with happiness as they fill their stomachs. We all sit in a circle on the side of the road with some food in between us. I keep anxiously looking around us but it seems to be a pretty safe spot. The one girl offers me my own cracker with her dirty hands. Normally I would want my hand sanitizer, but I eat it anyway, and it tastes even better in front of their smiling faces. I hear a crunch to my left as Jon bites into two crackers on either side of his mouth, making a goofy face that pulls a bunch of giggles from the twins. I sigh again, this time with a little bit of happiness.
Still with a smile on his face, Jon clears his throat after swallowing the crackers and wiping his hands on his jeans. “So now that we’ve given you half of our food, what are your names?”
“I’m Sara.”
“And I’m Caitlyn.”
Hearing their lighthearted voices distracts me for just a split second, and I realize that I’ve already forgotten which is which. “Jon, this is going to be difficult…”
A warm laugh comes from my left as both of us look from one identical face to another. “Yes, yes it will Jo.”
No matter how close I look, I can’t find an obvious physical difference between the two. Sara tells me their story as Caitlyn continues to eat. Sara seems to be the more outgoing of the two. We sit for another ten minutes and eventually Jon picks up the food. The girls look so sad and stare at him longingly.
“You can't eat much more or you will both get sick.” he says through a laugh. “Don't worry we will keep you full of food.”
They both smile at him. I had never seen Jon so good with children before, especially considering what I remember when I was younger. I don't know how much longer we will be with these girls, but they quickly brought him a serenity I have not seen in a long time. I smile as the two follow him to the car and pile in the backseat as he finishes putting the food in the trunk.
He looks over at me with a grin, “Looks like you can sit with them.” I chuckle in response and nod. He makes his way to the driver’s side door, intentionally stepping over the gun still lying on the pavement.
I pick up the gun. He wants me to have it now.