Future Lost

25

“We left him behind,” Adam says.

“We had no other choice,” I say.

This future isn’t real, I tell myself over and over. It’s. Not. Real.

But it sure as hell feels real.

04:47

Paige pulls up outside the Aether building with a screech of tires. I fire off another round at the three Infected following us. One drops, but then my gun clicks empty. I reach around in my bag, looking for more ammo, but come up empty. I toss the gun aside. “I’m out.”

Adam fires at one of the remaining Infected, but his shot misses. I knew I should have made him come to the shooting range with me. “I’m out too,” he says.

As we come to a stop, Zahra leaps out of the car and shoots both Infected in the head. Her time at the range has definitely paid off. “We’re clear.”

The rest of us get out of the car, but Paige moves a little slower than before. Blood trails from a wound on her leg.

“You okay?” I ask her.

“I’ll get over it.” Paige glances back the way we came, back toward the base where we left Jesse, and then shakes her head. “How much time left?”

I check my watch. “Eleven minutes.”

Another group of the Infected emerges from a building across the street and begins loping toward us. I count five of them, but then three more jump out of the shadows and trail behind. As they approach, I grab the knife I took off the guard and grip it tightly. Zahra reloads her handgun with her last rounds of ammo. Paige can’t have much ammo left either. Taking on all of them is going to be tough.

Paige pumps her shotgun. “We’ve got this. You two get inside.”

I glance back and forth between the Infected and our friends. Leaving them here now, outnumbered and with barely any ammo, will be signing their death sentences. And no matter how much I tell myself that none of the deaths here matter, it’s different when it comes to my two best friends.

“We can’t leave you with them,” I say, as the Infected get closer and closer.

Paige removes the baseball bat from her back and hands it to Adam. “Don’t worry about us. Just head to the aperture.”

Zahra rests her hand on my shoulder, looking me in the eye. “You need to go. Get back to the present and make things right.”

My throat is tight, but Adam speaks for me. “We will,” he says. “We’ll fix all of this.”

Paige and Zahra take up positions outside the Aether building, ready to defend us with their lives. They both have to know they’ll never make it out of here, but they’re sacrificing themselves so we can escape. So we can undo everything that’s happened in this future.

“We won’t let you down,” I promise them.

“Go!” Paige yells before firing her shotgun at the first Infected. It drops to the ground, and she shoots another. Zahra begins firing too.

“Come on!” Adam grabs my arm and yanks me inside the building just as the Infected attack. I stumble after him and over some debris, the broken glass crunching under my boots, trying to ignore the sounds of combat behind us.

As we near the stairwell door, I make the mistake of glancing over my shoulder. The Infected have surrounded our friends, and Zahra’s ammo clicks empty. She drops her gun and pulls out her sword as one lunges for her. A choked cry escapes me, but there’s nothing I can do but keep going. Especially since some of the Infected have broken off from the main group and are rushing toward us, their jaws snapping, their eyes glazed and hungry.

Adam slams one with the baseball bat, right in the face, with a ferocity that surprises me. I give a hard kick to the one coming for me and send him sprawling back, then turn on the other with my knife. Cold, rough hands grip my arm, tugging me toward them.

I yank my arm free and yell, “Run!”

Adam rushes ahead and throws the door open. I fight off the one nearest me with a s***h of my knife to its throat, then turn and run toward Adam as fast as I can.

But just as I slip through the door, hands grab onto my backpack and yank it off my shoulder. “No!”

Adam is already closing the door behind me. I reach for my backpack, but it’s already being dragged away and ripped open, as the Infected search it for food. The door shuts and locks, and the only light comes through the cracks around it.

I reach for the door handle. “The photo was in there! We need to get it back!”

Adam grabs my hand to stop me. “We can’t. We’ve got to hurry if we’re going to make it to the aperture in time, and there’s no way we’d survive against all of those things.”

The Infected pound on the door with metallic thuds, and I know he’s right, but I also feel sick to my stomach at the idea of going back without that photo. Adam and I both saw the man in it, but without the photo, we can’t show it to anyone else or use it to warn people.

“How will we change things without the photo?” I ask.

“We’ll have to rely on your memory.” Adam rests his hands on my shoulders to steady me. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

I nod, but I’m not sure I agree with him. Things are so much worse than they ever were before, and we have so little information to go off. But we’ll worry about that once we return to the present. Our time in the future is running out.