A part of Noah hated that he was letting himself be led around by his stomach, but he was genuinely too hungry to care. He was finding it harder and harder to be bothered by the judgement his actions would bring upon him. He would go back to ‘normal’ once he got cured; no point worrying about it until then. Even if he felt he was turning into a caricature in the meantime.

They reached the town and started passing the first storefronts, all of them dark and empty. No people strolled the sidewalks. The only sign of life, strangely enough, were the campus shuttles rattling occasionally up and down the road. Noah soon realized that the ones heading away from campus were full of people, while the vehicles traveling back were empty.

“They’re shuttling away the students,” he said, nodding at the most recent bus to pass them by.

They stared warily after it. Kids sat squashed against the large square windows, some of them staring out with bored expressions. Noah made eye contact with a few of them, and in each instance the person did a double take. Nobody expected to see him or his friends casually strolling through town when it was so clearly in the middle of a lockdown.

“You wanna bet all these people are infected, or not?” Brian asked. “I can’t imagine they’d throw everyone in together. They’d know better than that.”

“It could be either,” Leah replied.

Noah squinted after the bus, wondering if his instincts would kick in to inform him if they were good food or not, but he got nothing. They must’ve been too far away.

“Let’s find out,” he said to himself, rubbing his hands together.

They soon found themselves outside the Corner Market. It was just as closed as everything else. There was a new sheet of paper tacked beside the one with the store’s hours, looking very clean and white in comparison. Brian read it aloud.

“‘CLOSED for obvious reasons. Go home, idiot’.”

“That’s not very professional,” Leah commented.

“He means well,” Brian said with an unbothered shrug. “And it’s a justified sentiment, anyway. We are kind of idiots. Do you see any other people out taking a walk?”

“I’m surprised there aren’t more military-type people around, with how many trucks went by,” May said. “I thought the whole town would be swamped.”

Then they went around the side of the store, just a few more steps, and stopped short.

Spread out across the shallow grassy basins of Oakridge’s sports fields was what looked to be a full army camp. The fields were covered in large brown tents and swarming with what must’ve been the whole student body. From their elevated viewpoint, the four friends could see the many lines that students were being arranged into, all eventually leading into one of the tents. Students would enter on one side and soon be led out on the other, directly to a row of campus shuttle buses lined up on the gravel road nearby. When a bus was full, it would pull onto the main road and turn either back towards campus or in the opposite direction, towards town.

As the next bus came their way, the friends wordlessly agreed to edge around the side of the store and out of view. They hadn’t had any issues with any of the previous buses, but seeing the full extent of the operation made them nervous.

“I don’t want to end up on one of those,” Leah said.

“You aren’t curious where-”

“Nope. Not even a little,” she cut off her brother.

“We should find out what’s happening,” he said.

She squinted at him. “You sound like Noah.”

Noah, who had been nodding in agreement with his friend, gave Leah a peeved look. “You don’t have to sound like that’s such a terrible thing.”

“I’m curious as well,” May interrupted. “We should ask someone if they know where everyone is being driven off to.”

Leah gazed at her incredulously and pointed down. “Do none of you see all the soldiers? How do you propose we get past them without ending up in the lines ourselves?”

They all peered down at the fields. Now that it had been pointed out to him, Noah noticed a very loose perimeter of soldiers casually encircling the entire area. At the moment they were merely strolling about with a threatening demeanor, but each of them held an oddly long and narrow rifle-esque weapon, more than ready to react to any trouble.

Noah swallowed. In the back of his mind he had been waiting for a good moment to dash down onto the field, but he could see now that there would have been no chance he made it past the subtle sentries. Even if the soldiers currently seemed more concerned with keeping people in than out.

“So, yeah,” Leah said. “I’m quite happy with observing from our current perspective.”

“We could get a little closer without too much risk,” Brian said. “Close enough to overhear if someone’s talking about what’s going on, which I guarantee you most people are. I say we go for it. Even if we get caught, what’s the worst that would happen? They can’t be sending off an entire campus’s worth of students to their deaths. It’s probably some form of quarantine, maybe even a treatment facility. We just need more information.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Noah opened his mouth to agree, but all three of his friends turned a thunderous gaze on him and he snapped his jaw shut.

“We know exactly where your motives lay, Noah,” Brian said. “You don’t need to argue for going down to the field; we’re well aware that you’re all for it.”

He blinked. “Oh. Okay.”

“Insight is sticking their filthy hands into this mess,” Leah said. “They’ve got their trucks and their people all over the place. That’s enough to tell me I want no part of whatever is going on down there.”

“We’re not walking into the middle of everything and turning ourselves in,” her brother argued. “There are plenty of nice big vehicles conveniently parked between us and them. They’re practically asking for someone to sneak over.”

“You and May can go down,” she allowed after a moment of thought. “I’ll stay here with Noah.”

“Hey!” he yelled. “I am in full control of myself.”

“You can’t say that when all you mean is that you won’t be fighting your own instincts to eat the closest person. You’ll only get yourself killed anyway. This isn’t some poor helpless family; these are armed soldiers who have definitely been warned to look out for anyone behaving exactly like you.”

He looked stricken and fell silent for a long moment. With an uncharacteristically serious expression, he nodded. “You’re right. Let me go down. I promise, I won’t do anything to endanger any of you. Or myself.”

They all stared doubtfully at him.

“Let me prove I’m not just a dumb zombie,” he pleaded. “You can even bring the blindfold.”

Brian’s mouth twisted. “Oh, we’re definitely bringing that.”

May scowled at the two boys. “Don’t tell me you actually trust that he’s not going to just run after the nearest bystander. Why risk anything when Noah can just stay here?”

“Let me do this,” he insisted earnestly.

Brian looked between the girls, makeshift blindfold already in hand. “I’ll be ready if he tries anything. We can treat this as a test.”

“Fine.” Leah threw up her hands. “But I’m going too, then.”

“Okay,” Brian said easily. “I’m not worried about you suddenly deciding to eat someone.”

Noah just smiled at his friends. “Are we ready?”

Brian grabbed his arm. “Yeah. Come on.”

They crept quickly down the hill, beelining for the nearest truck. All of them crouched down even though the vehicles were more than tall enough to conceal their forms, fearful of presenting themselves as large targets. It made them look quite suspicious, but it wasn’t as if anyone was supposed to be walking around outside of the military cordon anyway, standing upright or otherwise. Noah could only hope that none of the nearby soldiers suddenly decided to turn around while they were still out in the open.

The four of them made it to the first truck and dashed onward to the next without pause. This second one had a large covered cargo bed, which Noah glanced at nervously. It was big enough for people to theoretically be sitting inside. Nobody emerged, though, and they safely continued away.

“Okay, we’re close enough,” May said. “There’s too much space before the next truck.”

“We’re not close enough to hear anything. There’s no point stopping here,” Brian said evenly.

May gave him an unhappy grimace. Her whole posture was tense, but she went with them when they stepped out towards the final vehicle. Noah kept his eyes firmly on the closest soldier, standing about twenty meters away. They didn’t seem interested in looking away from the students on the field at the moment.

Leah and May were faster than him and Brian, simply by virtue of them being able to run freely. Brian wasn’t about to let go of Noah, not when they were so close to so many people. Regardless, all four of them made it to safety without issue.

“Easy,” Leah whispered.

They crowded around the edge of the truck, some kind of boxy utility vehicle, and waited to see if their efforts would be rewarded.

There were plenty of people standing around close by, and the sound of chatter filled the air, but it was all indistinct, carrying from further away across the field.

“Why isn’t anyone in this line talking?” Brian muttered. “What are they doing, just standing around?”

He risked a quick glance around the side of the truck, then pulled back with a displeased look on his face. “Everyone nearby is on their phone.”

“Should we go to a different truck?” Leah asked.

Noah looked around. There were no other vehicles parked anywhere near the field.

“Do any of your phones still have a charge?” May asked. “There might be a school announcement or something.”

May pulled out her phone. “Good idea. Let me check my email real quick.”

They all sat down to wait.

“The connection out here sucks,” May muttered.

Another minute passed before she perked up. “Hey, look at this. There was a campus-wide message last night. Everyone was told to show up at the fields at seven this morning.”

“Seven? Do you think that would have included us?” May asked. “I wonder if this would have taken precedence over our trip to Insight.”

“Does it say anything else?” Noah wanted to know.

Leah frowned. “No.” She put her phone down and went quiet, just listening.

All of the conversations tangled into one muddy mess of words, making any individual phrases indecipherable. Noah was about to suggest they get away from the field and back to safety when the words “already found a cure” floated over to them from somewhere nearby, making all four of them go absolutely still.

“Did you-”

“Shh,” May held a hand up, and Brian went silent. They strained for all they were worth to catch more of the conversation, but it had disappeared back into the muddle of hundreds of voices.

“Do you think they really figured it out?” Brian asked. “Because if so, I don’t care what you guys are doing, I’m walking over there right now.”

Noah didn’t know how to feel about the idea that there was already a cure. He searched himself, trying to make sense of his own emotions, and slowly realized… he didn’t care. He didn’t feel like he needed to be cured of anything. Sure, he was hungry, but that would stop being an issue as soon as he could get away from his friends for a minute. Not that he would try to do that, he quickly reminded himself. It was just bound to happen on its own sooner or later.

Then his dad popped into his mind for some reason. He found himself wondering what he would do if the man was right beside him. Would he be able to stop himself from doing to him what Sophie had done to her own mother?

I’m not as far gone as she was, he thought. She was totally crazy. Her brain was melted. I only lost a finger.

Even as he tried to convince himself, the only emotion he could feel was the nagging hunger, a constant needle pricking at his will. He shut his eyes. I wouldn’t hurt my dad. Right?

He suddenly stood up and stepped out from behind the truck.

“I’m getting into line.”