mean nothing here. Be glad you’re immune. You could have a decent life.”
“I miss my Mommy,” my childish voice said, muffled by my faraway memories.
“Your Mother and Father are dead. And you will be too if you don’t wipe the stress from your eyes. Today is the day you grow up, little Walker.”
I felt a hand grip mine, jarring me out of my memory. “Where’d your mind go just now?” Kemper asked. I paused to stare out at the audience once more and sighed.
“This is where I was auctioned.”
Ahead of us, Jules and Tallis were leaving, but my men lingered, staring at Kemper and me. “Let’s go,” I choked out. There were much worse things in the Zone than the auction post. I was lucky. I was procured by a wealthy family. This was where I met Josiah.
“Just hope Lackley doesn’t get you. He and his favorite little scientist have been experimenting on immunes,” the auctioneer’s voice said in my memory once more.
Something about that made me pause. It was like I was staring down the barrel of a memory. I knew it would destroy me, but I couldn’t help but look.
I shook away the flashbacks and allowed Kemper to steer me off the stage and through a back door which led to an alley in the Zone.
“Now, we have to make it to Madam B’s brothel without running into any guards. Louis is still working on removing your face from the database. He needs to do a new scan of your face after I’ve done some of my magic.”
“Okay.”
The seven of us spaced out as we walked, hoping to not look suspicious in such a large group. Jacob kept his hood up and stepped in front of me a few paces, leading the way in case we got separated from Jules and Tallis.
Kemper was still holding my hand, standing rigid as he took in the dismal surroundings. He looked unsure and entirely out of place. The uncomfortable way he took in everything would surely draw attention to us.
“You know, I think I lived close to here as a child,” I said to Kemper.
“Oh really?” he asked, looking at me. I squeezed his hand and pleaded with him to relax with my eyes.
“I can’t remember exactly where. But this feels familiar. I’ve often wanted to see my childhood home again,” I replied.
From what I remembered, it was nothing but a two bedroom shack with running water and a stove. We had it a lot nicer than other Walkers. Dad worked at the garbage station, hauling trash for members of the Elite. Unfortunately, it was how he contracted X.
“My dad worked outside the Zone at the dump. He processed trash. My mom sold bread on the corner. We were one of the few families with a working kitchen, so she made do. Although, if I remember correctly, she would just hand out most of the bread instead of charging for it. She couldn’t stand to see a hungry child.”
“They seem like they were wonderful people,” Kemper said.
“I think they were,” I replied with a shrug. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do, but most of the time, I wondered if what little memories of my family I had were real, or if it was something my adolescent brain made up. They could have been bad people. Negligent. My perceptions were limited, and I liked it that way. I’d rather cling to the idea of who my parents were than know the truth.
Even though I was an attendant in the Stonewell home, I still had a good life. I was provided for. I might not have been comfortable, but I was alive.
My parents gave me a future when they died.
I stared at the street where barefoot children stumbled past us, clutching their threadbare clothes to their chest. The colder season was upon us. Within a few weeks, it would be too chilly for them. I’d heard stories of Walkers freezing to death in the streets of the Zone. They became solid as ice.
“I know we had a red door. It was two bedrooms,” I said while squinting and trying to place my childhood home in my mind's eye. Kemper nodded, and I saw the wheels in his head turning. If anyone could figure out where I once lived, it was him. He was a fixer. A finder of lost things.
The Zone was dirty. Trash littered the streets. Blood stained the concrete, but people kept walking like it was a regular occurrence.