Z2012SITEGTHEMARKERS

Outliers

The people can’t see me but I can see them. They all look the same: wearing nice clothes like they are going out to brunch, grabbing their possessions from the pile of leather suitcases, all so happy, so ignorant. Watching them walk in a huddled group toward the stone markers, I snicker, the power of their bewilderment seeping into my blood. They stop just shy of the symmetrical pillars, gathering in the thin track where the grass has been stomped brown. My men, like the obedient soldiers they are, fall into place behind them, urging the crowd into the cement forest. A sudden rapping plays on the door to my hidden chambers like a song written in Morse code and I subconsciously reach for the gun in my lap. “Sir! It’s urgent,” shout the voices from the other side of the door, the portal into all which makes my head hurt. I reluctantly abandon my perch, perfectly designed for the eagle eyes I have come to appreciate, and cross the floor, mindful to let them wonder why I do not answer right away. When I open the door, they are standing in their expected positions with faces red from running. “Yes?” “Prisoners, sir.” “What about them?” “They’ve escaped, sir.” “Which ones?” “All of them…..sir.” “Al-” I manage to choke out. Backing away and slamming the door in their faces. Falling to the red velvet carpet and gripping it as if I were hanging on for dear life. Then curled up and sobbing, fists flailing like a toddler denied his cookie. This demeaning connection brings me back to the present and I stand up, pulling my suit tight again. Opening the door, this time my face trying to turn red against my will. I am embarrassed in myself. Not for breaking down. No, that is inexcusable too, but not as bad as letting the men I had raised, had provided with such an enormous opportunity, crumble like the walls of Jericho. Their insolence sears a sour taste on my tongue. All gone? All escaped? All evasive of the Ruo? I spit with distaste on the floor before my two members of this now disgraced group. “Leave,” I say, forcing it out from between my lips to suspend in the tense air, “and DON’T fail me again.” “Yes Sir.” All. All. 19 Prisoners. 7 new today. All gone. All part of the 19 success stories I swore I would never allow. The 19 people who slipped from clench. I squeeze my hands into tight fists, my knuckles turning as white as the sheets that no longer contain my prisoners. All probably laughing, drinking, not even knowing who I am.

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The bus ride to the base was nothing but pain. Three solid hours of slamming into a metal pole every time the driver, who I swear was more drunk than I’ve ever been (and that’s saying something), decided it would be fun to see how fast he could apply a brake and not send everyone flying through the windshield cemetery of unfortunate mosquitos. I would have given anything to be one of those blood-sucking, sundried pests with wings though. Anything would be better than knowing you were being sent to a naval base to be kept as a prisoner because the warden at your jail back home had become to “soft.” At least I had my friends… and my cards. Those two things turned out to be enough to get me through until, without realizing it, we had driven up to the base. We started counting the steps we took until they outnumbered the number of days we had counted to in the last jail. The Annex, as they (these unhappy Roo-oh) called it, loomed in front of us, tall, silo-like towers, bars on every window, a thick black fence running around. The Roo-oh guys led us up to a clear door and one of them took out an impressive key ring that must have weighed a good 20 pounds. As he fumbled to unlock the door, we heard the shouts of a few other men, raised to an unbearable yelling, mixing with their pounding bare feet as they charged at the door. The Roo-oh pushed us back, but not fast enough because the two of them were knocked unconscious by rocks thrown from the porch of a neighboring building. I probably should have thought about the source of this distraction, given a polite wave, but my heart began to sing “FREEDOM!” over and over, harmonizing with the hearts of my friends and the other 10 or so men who burst through the door in a shower of glass. Then it was all about the run. Running before they caught on. Running as knees bent in awkward positions, unaccustomed to this type of movement. Running for our lives, for as long as we could.

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These big guys in black clothes are scary. They look like Spot when he sees the cat in the yard next door. I miss Spot. We had to give him to Grammy and Grampy when we came to this big place. It's huge. We rode on a bus and I fell asleep even though I said I would stay awake and see how long it took. Mommy said it took a long time. I wonder if there are any other kids my age. I miss Stevie and Jimmy and Willie and Bruce. The big guys are making us walk to a whole lot of cement posts. I'm scared. I look for Mommy and can't see her. I step back to look for her. One of the big guys comes up and pushes me forward. They tell us to walk around between the posts. That seems like a silly game. There's no point! I see Mommy on the other side of the field of posts. I try to run between them to find her and I fall in a patch of clover. Everyone looks sleepy. They keep walking. The big guys don't see me. I'm really scared. What is going on? There is a big bird on one of the posts. He is looking right at me. He starts to fly away. Some lady faints. The big guys run over to her. They won't notice if I go away for a minute, will they? The bird has stopped again. I run after it. He flies for a long time. I wish I could fly. Then I could go anywhere... like China! I stay behind it a little so it won't see me. It swoops inside a small building covered in red ivy and graffiti. I hear people laughing inside. I go to the open doorway but don't let them see me. "Hello," I call into the chaotic chuckles.

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I can't take it anymore. The screams, the fervent final prayers, the transition from normal to possessed. It is my blessing that I can see their pain. It is my curse that I couldn't be brainwashed with the rest of them to never feel guilt. Everywhere I go, the blue serum follows me. It's on a tray on the cart whizzing down the hall. It is splashed on the front of an apron of another nurse. The disease, blue and cold, pours out of the walls like water into a pitcher. The hallway is nothing but a tunnel of white, echoing with the symphony of a hundred dying souls and the sterile, metallic, under-beat like nails on a chalkboard. A runaway cart crashes into the wall next to me with the force of a clap of thunder but the sound is dissolved in the clashing of footsteps across tiles and clipboards on impermeable doors. At last I break into the sunlight and the screams do not remain in my shadow. A cluster of birds chirps from a tree, completely oblivious to the annoyance their cheerful song is bringing me. I finger the reflex hammer in my pocket, hoping it brings me some sort of tranquility, but all it does is remind me of the horror I have just left. The happy tune of the birds follows me, and echoes in my ears the entire way to the abandoned building I often go to to relax in. It stirs the red blood pulsing through me and gives me such an awful headache I consider sitting down. But I refuse to give in. I let the hypnotic melody repeat itself, multiply, exchange notes, then I get to the building and it stops.

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Long have I been empty. Ever since that night several years ago when a man was walking on my roof and fell through, catching his foot on a ladder on his way down and remaining there until the morning when the men came to examine his lifeless body. Nobody heard him scream except for me. Who am I? I am Building 1167, long abandoned except for the nurse in the white dress who thinks that when she comes here, she is alone. I am still in this state of emptiness when a group of unshaven men run in with red faces and orange jumpsuits. They fall in a sweaty pile on my floor and pant to the equivalent of a high-power fan. One man gets up immediately and runs to one of my windows, whipping his head back and forth, looking for someone or some people. Just when I am getting used to them, I spy a little boy at the door. The men don't seem to notice him so I can't imagine that this is the person they feared. The little boy crouches low to the ground and moves along one of my walls until he crawls into a pile of tires in the corner. He observes the men with curious eyes, yet he doesn't dare to waddle over. It is only a few minutes later that the nurse is standing in the doorway. She looks like she just ran without knowing where she was going and now is completely surprised to be where she is. This time the men notice her and a minute or two of stunned silence kills all of the emotions in my room as the humans face off. Then both sides start talking simultaneously, full of questions about why the other side is there, trying to feel out the allegiance of perfect strangers. They eventually determine that they are all the "good guys" and talk in muffled voices like people at a play.

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We decided we could trust her and took the next couple of minutes exchanging all of the information we each knew. She is a nurse, a mother of a patient at the infirmary. She knows about the dark circle of doctors and brainwashed nurses who slowly kill the healthy people. She tells us that she comes here to get away and rebel in the only way she knows how. We all get curious about this and she explains that some days she can sneak away with a vial or two of the blue serum and she brings it here to be destroyed because this is the one place where nobody ever comes. Then she looks at us with questioning pale blue eyes and says, "do you want to help me?" So what else could we say? She lifted a tarp we had not noticed along the far wall to reveal a collection of vials full of liquid the same color as her eyes. Without waiting for us to come over, she picked one up and threw it at the adjacent wall, blue streaks running down the cement like tears on a face as the glass fell to the heap of shards below. She reassured us that we could not be heard as we joined in the rebellion, creating a broken masterpiece and feeling stronger with each throw. We were only halfway through when we heard the click of the gun.

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I don't let myself get too mad at losing the prisoners because this time, I know we will find them. We have to find them. The rest of our force joins in and we spread out to comb the grounds without attracting too much attention. I check to make sure my radio is on in case someone finds them. I don't want to pay the price for not being at the scene of the discovery. I find myself near the old machine shop and hear strange crashing noises coming from inside. Strange. Nobody has been in there in years. I consider investigating myself, then realize that if the prisoners were in there, it would be 1 to 19, a pretty uneven fight. I radio the others and they come running over like multiple shadows faster than lightning. We surround the building and then I look in through the door.

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One of the big scary guys is standing in the door. I don't think he sees me. He came really quietly, like how they say mice walk. He's glaring at the lady in the white dress and the men in the funny orange outfits. He sees the big mess they made. He looks really angry, probably because he thinks they should pick up after themselves. He makes a motion with his hand and more men come. I crawl back further into my pile of tires. They smell funny. The first man pulls out a big gun. He aims it at the group of people and it clicks so loudly the entire building goes silent. Then his men do the same. They look like they're about to talk and then they decide against it and they all pull the triggers. The room gets really loud and warm and smoky and my ears hurt so I cover them with my hands like Mommy does on the 4th of July. The people all lie down and look like they're sleeping except they are all covered in blood. I know it's blood because i've seen it before when i've skinned my knee. The men all walk away and I wonder where they're going. The men are staring into space without blinking. I crawl out from the tires and look both ways in the doorway like I'm crossing a street and then I run in the opposite direction from the bad guys until I think it's safe.