Free Gated by Amy Christine Parker

can’t keep pace much longer. Will takes my hand and starts to pull me along. I can’t match his long-legged stride, but he pulls me anyway, forcing me into a jumping run.
    Marie is screaming, her face white with panic. Brian is pulling her along just like Will pulls me. The tall grass is making shushing noises as we run through it. For some reason the noise and the running strike me as funny—like Will and I are suddenly part of a life-and-death three-legged race against Marie and Brian. I feel hysterical laughter bubbling up in my throat.
This can’t be real, can it?
    Will veers off to the left, leading us to the front gate. We make it there just as the siren hiccups and almost dies. Will sucks in a breath and slows. We all freeze. I feel as if the sound of the alarm has been controlling our motion. For a moment I hope it really is a false alarm, but then the siren winds back up again. We stop at the guard station just long enough to figure out that no one’s in it. Everyone is already inside the high walls of our development—either on their way to the thick steel door of the Silo or already deep inside the underground cement structure itself. Still Will rattles the station door’s knob, tests it to see if it’s unlocked.
    “Leave it, there’s no time!” Brian yells.
    “The gate’s closed. We need to get it open if we want in,” Will yells back. My heart stutters the way the alarm just did. The sta S di9;s closedtion is supposed to get locked up tight before it’s abandoned. We can’t open the gate if we can’t get in and hit the button. I close my eyes and silently will it to be unlocked, but it isn’t.
    Will roars and kicks at the door until it slams open. He runs inside. Pioneer will not be pleased that he’s destroyed the guard station door. But then again, does it really matter if we never need it after this? I shake my head. I can’t think straight anymore.
    The large iron gate screeches on its track. We don’t wait for it to open all the way or bother hitting the button that shuts it again before we slip through. The entrance to the Silo is on the other side of the development. We have at least another mile to run before we’ll even be close. My heart pounds in my chest and I put my hand over where it sits under my skin, hoping to somehow calm it. Marie slows and comes to stand beside me. I’m pretty sure that she’s thinking about the distance too, because she starts to cry.
    “We can’t make it.” She sobs between ragged breaths. “It’s too far. Oh, God, we’re gonna die.” No one tries to comfort her, because she’s right. We are out of time. As if in confirmation, the siren wheezes. Stops. This time it doesn’t start again and suddenly everything is still.
    “No, do you hear me? No!” Will shouts at the sky. He turns and runs toward his house, then disappears inside.We watch him leave and then Brian sort of shivers and puts his arms around Marie. She collapses against him, utterly hysterical now. I wrap my own arms around myself and spin in a circle to try to keep from screaming. My eyes rest on trees, houses, yards, as if somehow focusing on them will calm me down.
What do we do now? Seventeen feels too young to die. I need more time. We all do
.
    Will’s garage door rumbles open just as I’m on my fourth spin. He erupts from the dark space behind it in his father’s golf cart and swerves to a stop in front of us.
    “Get in!” he barks. I slide in next to him and Brian throws Marie onto the backseat before climbing on himself.
    “Hold on!” Will yells as he stomps on the gas pedal and we start to pick up speed. The golf cart can only go twenty-five miles per hour, but it’s fast enough to almost throw us off as we whip past the center lawn where the greenhouse, lake, and picnic tables are. Still, it’s not fast enough to make my heart quiet or to make Marie stop screaming. I grip the tiny rail pressing into my thigh and hope that I’ll be able to stay put, that