The Jab - Chapter 6

I couldn't risk irritating Sarah any more than I already had. My throat constricted and my heart sank every time my mind wandered towards her leaving me. The thing that I could control is how I interacted with her.

I had restructured my interactions and tried harder than ever to find things to talk about with her. This proved hard because the only videos that we had access to were the government broadcasting, and politics was off the table. It's difficult to talk about things of interest when you can't afford things of interest.

It was five in the morning. The sun wouldn't be rising for another two and half hours. The silence of the morning was deafening, but here we were, having to get ready for our first shift jobs of the day.

Sarah kissed me and grabbed my coffee out of my hand, and walked to her computer in the office. She always did that. If she was able to take food or drink from me instead of having to serve herself, she would every time. To be honest, I didn't mind much even though it really grated me at first.

The first time that she started taking my food was when we were at district's level track meet. Districts really didn't mean much because it just meant the top 3 athletes per school per event. Both of our schools were small enough that it meant that nearly everyone went that could spare the weekend. I had just grabbed a slice of pepperoni pizza from the concession stand, when she came up, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and took my pizza straight from my hand as I was about to sink my teeth into it. I think what bothered me most was that she said "Ugh, pepperoni" before she bit into it and walked away.

I was irritated, but I took it as an opportunity to run up behind her and tickle her as revenge. This was a dangerous proposition for a teenage boy, though. Her soft body fell into me as she giggled, elbowed me away, and ran to catch up with her friends. Her smell was intoxicating and stuck to me even though our contact was so short. Fortunately, no one was paying attention to what was happening below my waist. Those ranger panty track shorts did not leave much to the imagination.

***

The day got on, and I drifted into reading the DWAs between working on the spreadsheets. There was the usual news about how the corporations were manipulating people to rat each other out with regards to social distancing.

It was a really clever trick that they did. They made an augmented reality game for teenagers. The player earned tokens based the number of people that you could capture in a virtual cage in the game. The number of tokens given exponentially grew with the number of individuals you could fit into a single cage. These tokens then could be used to buy new cages and upgrades to decorate your cages. If you got enough tokens, zombies would be attacking the people that you photographed.

All this was old news to me, though. I guess that there were no new insights as to what was going on. Then I noticed something unnerving. There was an article that wasn't an article at all; it was a letter. It was addressed to "Bounder."

The letter read as follows:

Bounder,

I know that you haven't heard this name since high school, and it is most likely safe to use to not implicate you to the casual reader. I have been following your activities online ever since you carelessly referenced some data provided here on our servers. I urge you to cease and desist all referencing anything that we have provided here.

Free speech no longer exists, and to pretend that it does will only get you killed. There is someone amongst our ranks who you have met. You will meet him again soon. I cannot say any more than this.

Godspeed, Bounder. You are responsible for more than just yourself.

I was a bit confused by how they knew a high school nickname that didn't even make it a whole semester.

***

"Did you ever hear back from Jill about cycling? I know you mentioned that you wanted to check out some trails with her," I asked Sarah. I had given up trying to track down Jack and decided to see what happened to the people that were in our immediate vaccination group.

"No, I called, but she never picked up. I texted a few days later and no reply. It's a real bummer, too. I thought we hit it off, but oh well."

"That's weird. Oh well," I said trying to play it cool, but I was anything but cool at that moment. Sweat was dripping down my sides again. Damn these sweaty armpits that I inherited. I quickly put on a jacket so that she wouldn't notice the pools at my pits. If she saw that I was nervous enough to be sweating through my shirt, she would start suspecting something was up.

"Oh, I checked the mail today. We got another invitation to get a vaccine. They put a special note to us that this is our last chance and that they won't send us another invitation if we don't stick around. I think they're serious, and I really don't want to be the only people without the passports. Can you promise that we'll stay this time, baby?" The tinge of frustration with me was pretty blatant.

"Don't worry, we'll stick around. What day is it?"

"Two weeks from today. I put it on our calendar. We can't miss it. You hear me?"

"I got it. We'll be there. I love you."

"I love you, too. I just get so frustrated with you sometimes. Don't ruin this for us."

I was afraid that there was nothing to ruin. In fact, I was pretty sure the ruin would come if, and only if, we stuck around for the "vaccination."

***

That night, I saw a new article. This one was a no bullshit article. In bold letters, the headline read, "ALERT: Destination Found." The article was apparently written by someone who stuck around in the room to find out what would happen. What they described sent cold chills running down my spine.

All of the vaccination appointments go in a set pattern. They bring the people in, isolate them, tell the nurses that something needs to be done as an exercise for the military personnel, and then the people disappear somewhere never to be seen again. All that was well established, but what happened to those who disappeared was completely unknown until now.

Have you ever watched the movie Snatch? In the movie, Brick Top owns a pig farm, but not so that he can make money raising pigs. He explains that if you get pigs hungry enough, they will eat through everything, including bone. Thus, it is a perfect way to get rid of a body. What the author of this article wrote describes exactly that.

The author witnessed as people were rounded up into a bus and hauled out to a pig farm. Everyone on the bus were dumbfounded by the fact that they were getting unloaded by the slaughterhouse on the pig farm.

The word dumbfounded is entirely appropriate. The issue is, when someone is so taken aback by something, they lose all their wits about them. They can be led straight away in any direction that their captor wishes. These people who got off of the bus walked straight into the conveyor that corrals the pigs for slaughter.

Fortunately for the author, he was at the back of the line and was not yet confined. As soon as he saw the bolt gun explode into the first victim's head, he sprinted as fast as they could to get away.

The details of the chase were sparse at best, but my imagination ran wild. I imagined a scene straight from a horror movie like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I pictured the solders slipping skin masks over their heads as they chased their prey into the woods. I imagined branches leaving gashes on the arms of the pursued, and a trail of blood droplets leading the psycho killers to their victim. If it was like most movies, they had come across a shallow stream with steep embankments. Being smart, they would go upstream so as to not make an immediate crossing.

But alas, there were no such details in this article. I would just have to wait and see how my escape would play out in two weeks. That is, if I was not dumbfounded like all the others.

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