Free Undone: A Dystopian Fiction Novel by Chad Evercroft

just soaked through. I couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. I just grabbed the case of water and ran after Tyrsa and Lawrence. We joined a huge crowd of people running from the store, dodging police officers. Even with the reinforcements, the police were dramatically outnumbered. We didn’t have a problem getting past them. There were people attacking them, some with crowbars like the dead man inside, and others just throwing themselves at them, completely unhinged with rage. We heard more gunshots and ran faster, our feet pounding on the pavement, water bottles sloshing. We didn’t stop running until we couldn’t possibly run anymore. Our lungs burned from the cold air. I wasn’t even sure where we were for a few seconds. There were still people running around us, some policemen yelling into handheld radios and pushing people up against car hoods. We ducked into an alley, coughing, and took a moment to catch our breath.
    We were all soaked in blood. I didn’t have a clean place on my clothes to rub my hands, which were slick with it. I shook and shivered like a leaf; I knew I must be in shock. My throat on fire, I coughed so hard that I vomited, barely moving in time to a spot a bit away from Tyrsa and Lawrence. Seeing me get sick caused Lawrence to double over as well. Only Tyrsa was able to hold it together, though she turned white and turned away.
    “We’re almost home,” she said, her voice raspy. “We gotta get home.”

Chapter 7
                  The suburbs were no longer the violence-free oasis they used to be. People were preparing for a siege. Those who had stayed to guard their homes were boarding up their windows, pounding nails loudly, and stringing barbed wire over fences. Some men sat on their porches, shotguns in their lap. They leapt up when they saw us, all gory from the store, but relaxed when they recognized us.
                  “Are you kids okay?” they called.
                  “Yeah,” we replied, our voices weak and shaking.
                  We walked up the front steps of the apartment. The blood felt cold on my skin, like a sticky layer of ice. All I wanted to do was scrub it off. I would scrub off all my skin if I had to. Rick and Beth gasped when we walked in the door.
                  “Oh my god, what happened!” Beth cried, covering her mouth with her hand.
                  “We’re fine,” Tyrsa said. “It’s not ours.”
                  I ran to the bedroom and peeled off my clothes. I threw them on the ground in a bloody heap. My sweatshirt, jeans, socks, and shoes were all soaked. My T-shirt and underwear were not as bad, but still tinted pink. I stripped naked and, shivering, looked around for something to clean myself with. Lawrence entered, carrying a box of Wet Naps. Without saying anything, he handed them to me and closed the bedroom door before he removed his clothes as well. He was less soiled, but still had gotten bloodstains on his shirt and face. Shaking, I took a handful of Wet Naps and began to rub them on myself. The blood just smeared around at first, but after some more scrubbing, it began to come off. We threw the used napkins in a pile with the clothes.
    I had never seen so much blood. No matter how many war movies or gore flicks you see, seeing blood in real life is always a total shock. There’s something about feeling it and smelling it that makes even the most jaded horror movie junkie shudder. Even it being someone else’s blood changes things. I had gotten a really bad cut when I was younger and had dropped a glass on my foot. It cut my big toe right on the first joint where the toe flexes, about two inches below the nail, and bled intensely for at least a minute. I had stuck my foot under the faucet in the shower to wash the blood off before I put on a bandage, but blood just kept streaming in the tub. Terrified, I just grabbed a towel and held it to my foot until