Last Morning in Marenford

This is part 5 to the Marenford series.

Read Part 1, "Everything's Illegal in Marenford."

Read Part 2, "This is Marenford High."

Read Part 3, "Freedomford."

Read Part 4, "You're Invited!"

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My alarm buzzed under my pillow and my eyes shot open. I turned it off quickly, hoping my parents didn’t wake up. I waited for a second. Silence.

My eyes were droopy with fatigue. I had tried packing the night before but I didn’t know what to bring. Sam still hadn’t given me more information. 

I stuffed everything I could into this huge duffel bag I found in our storage closet. It was probably my dad’s. I hoped he wouldn’t miss it.

I brushed my teeth quickly and tossed the wet toothbrush in the bag. The duffel bag looked about ready to explode. I hoped the zipper wouldn’t break. 

I put on my favorite bracelet. It was gold with pink charms on it. My older sister had given it to me for my birthday before she disappeared. I had been six, and she had been 20. She went out one day and never came back. I remembered the police interrogations and the news headlines. But the rest of it was a blur. I was starting to forget what she even looked like now. 

I put on jeans, a brown cable-knit sweater, and a warm pair of socks. I looked at myself in my bathroom mirror one last time, adjusting my curly hair. This was it. This was my last morning in Marenford.

I assumed that for most of the trip we’d be on foot, so I decided to wear my most comfortable boots. 

I was careful to slip out of the house quietly, shutting the door behind me and making sure it didn’t creak. I wondered what my parents would think. Would they be sad? Angry? Upset? Or, worse, disappointed?

I walked down the porch steps, taking one last look at my house. Again, it struck me how every house on this street looked exactly the same. A white exterior, a dark blue roof, and a simple, mahogany door.

This is it, I thought. 

I made my way to Leota’s Field. This time was scarier than when Sam and I snuck out a few days earlier. It was way earlier. And way darker. The alleyways and sewer gutters were more sinister than before. 

I walked this time, not running. I didn’t want anyone to wake up and call the cops on me. 

By the time I got to Leota’s Field, the sun still wasn’t up. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever been awake this early before.

I sat down on the grass and listened to the wind. It tickled the trees, making a sound that kind of reminded me of a running stream. The air smelled clean. 

“Hey.”

I whipped my head around, my heart beating. But when I saw who it was I let out a breath.

“Dude, you freaked me out,” I said, getting up and dusting the grass off my pants. 

He smiled, his teeth shining in the dark. “Sorry.”

“By the way,” I started nervously. “I didn’t tell my friends that you were coming yet so-”

“Who the heck is he?”

Panic shot through my veins again. It was Sam. And Ethan. They emerged from the darkness of the trees. 

Shoot. I didn’t plan this out properly, I thought.

“Jasmine,” Sam said in a rough tone. 

She was wearing a black hoodie and black jeans with a bandana over her hair. She looked ticked off. Which was understandable.

“You brought someone?” she asked, her voice strained.

“Sam, I meant to tell you, I just didn’t-”

“Do you realize how dangerous this is?” she interrupted me, taking a step forward. 

I had never seen her so angry before. It scared me, honestly.

“I trusted you to not…” She looked down and sighed. “I trusted you to not compromise this.”

Ethan had been silent during this whole conversation. He was also decked out in all-black. Minus the bandana. 

“I didn’t compromise anything,” I promised her. “He didn’t tell anybody. Trust me.”

She glared at me one last time before turning to Noah, who was terrified. 

“Who are you?” she demanded, crossing her arms.

“I’m Noah,” he said, standing up a little straighter.

Finally, Ehtan spoke. “Wait,” he said. “Are you Noah Crawford?”

Sam turned to him in surprise. “You know him?”

“Yeah, he…” Ethan’s voice trailed off. “He’s on the Government watch list.”

My blood turned cold as Sam’s eyes pierced into mine.

“You brought a criminal?” she asked me. 

“Sam, if you would just listen-”

Ethan cut us off by standing between us. 

“He’s not a criminal, Sam, it’s complicated. I shouldn’t have said anything,” he said, giving me a look I couldn’t read. “At this point, there’s no point in arguing. We don’t have a lot of time.”

And that was the end of that. That was one thing I liked about Ethan. He was very diplomatic about things. He knew how to diffuse situations.

We started walking straight ahead, away from Marenford, away from the houses, and away from everything we hated. 

We walked in silence, the tension thick in the air. Sam and Ethan were whisper-arguing. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I think Ethan was trying to calm her down.

I wondered how long it would take before we got to the civilization Sam was talking about. Would we be walking for hours, or days, or weeks, or… months? I was too afraid to ask her at this point.

After a few minutes Sam slid up next to me. 

“I’m sorry for yelling at you,” she said and gave me a hug.

“I’m sorry for inviting this guy without telling you,” I said sheepishly.

We walked in silence for a few seconds before she turned to me.

“Is he your friend?” she asked, squinting at me.

“What? No,” I said quickly. “I met him, like, yesterday.”

“You met him yesterday and you invited him on a life-threatening escape trip?”

I pursed my lips. It didn’t sound so good when she put it like that. The sun was starting to peek through the horizon now. All I saw in front of me were more hills and more grass and more land. No sign of civilization.

“Yeah, I mean,” I picked at my fingernails. “There was something different about him.”

Sam raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “Alright. Anyway, Ethan gave me a run-down yesterday of what this trip is going to look like. I forgot to text you about it.”

She pulled out a map from her backpack. It was huge. 

“We’re here,” she said, pointing to a dot on the map just outside of Marenford. 

Marenford was a lot bigger than I thought. I knew that there were different municipalities, but I didn’t know there were that many. I wondered how much of it was a mystery to me.

“It’ll take us a couple days to get to New Haven, but once we’re there, we’ll be safe,” she said, pointing to another spot on the map. To me, it just looked like a forest.

“What’s New Haven?”

Sam rolled up the map and put it back in her backpack. “About 50 years ago, a group of people fled Marenford and created New Haven,” she explained. “Every once in a while, there will be new escapees that try to get there. Some make it. Others don’t.”

I shivered at the severity of her words. 

I looked at Noah and Ethan. They were talking now. I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

“So how long are we walking for today?” I asked.

“Until the sun goes down,” Sam answered. “By the time it’s nine, the Government will already be looking for us. We need to be so far away by the time they realize that they’ll just give up.”

I nodded slowly. 

“What happens if they find us?” I asked, knowing the question didn’t have a positive answer.

“Then, well… Let’s not think about that,” Sam said dismissively. “It won’t happen.”

We continued walking in silence. I think that the boys were starting to become friends now since they were laughing together.

Ethan was the quiet type, which surprised me when Sam said they had started dating. I always thought she’d be with someone more outgoing and social, but I guess it balanced things out for them. We had all gone to the same elementary school together. 

The sun was fully in the sky now, rising up over us and burning into my scalp. Marenford was a hot and sticky place, but it was even hotter and stickier when you were out in an open field. I saw a cluster of trees in the distance, but I knew it would take at least an hour to get there. I turned around and the city skyline was becoming further and further away. 

I turned back to Sam. Her brown eyes were shining in the sunlight. She looked determined.

We were all leaving so much behind. I imagine the trip would have been much harder if she were close with her brother. Sam’s older brother was named Arlo. And by older, I mean 10 years older. He was in jail for an attempted robbery. I only met him once, and he seemed normal-ish, but Sam said he was crazy.

“When we were kids, he’d always talk to himself at night,” she told me one day. “It freaked me out.”

Apparently he started hanging around with the wrong type of people and wound up behind bars indefinitely. It was kind of sad, honestly. But that’s just how Marenford was. Second chances weren’t our motto. 

We walked in silence for a while. I breathed in the cool air. 

“So… you’re not mad at me?” I asked cautiously, not looking Sam in the eyes.

Sam laughed and hugged me. “I’m not anymore. Just no more surprises, ‘kay?”

I smiled. “Alright, no more surprises.”

Little did I know, we were all in for a big surprise.