Part 11: O Fortuna

The Promised Land:
(Part 11) O Fortuna

The tune in Eden’s head was the same song she sang to Shiloh earlier. She hummed for the majority of the journey.

She stopped humming when they approached rundown houses on the outskirts of a larger city.

The closer they got, the more houses showed up on each side of the road. Narrow streets appeared on either side.

“Take a left at the next intersection,” Caden said calmly.

With further instruction, they weaved through side roads until they drove up to a once-red brick school building. Eden parked the truck by the main entrance and ran to get help.  She came up to the doors only to realize there were metal bars covering all the entrances.

“Ask for Ezra!” Caden shouted from the truck.

Eden reached through the bars and pounded on the rotting wood door. “HELLO?!” she shouted. “Is anyone there? We need some help out here! PLEASE! Somebody!”

A slot in the door slid open and a pair of narrow brown eyes appeared on the other side.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“Please, you’ve got to help us!” Eden pleaded. “I have a friend who’s been shot and he needs attention. I need to see Ezra!”

The door opened and a young girl, about fourteen years old, wearing a dark pink bandana and yellow dress peered through the rusty bars. “Ezra’s not here. She’s back in town.”

“Great,” Eden muttered as she headed back to the truck. “She’s not here!” she shouted.

“Wait!” the girl cried out, causing Eden to stop and turn around. “You’re not going to Jericho, are you? It’s not safe there!”

“We have to. Shiloh’s going to bleed to death if we don’t get him some help!”

“Shiloh?” The girl gasped and disappeared in the shadows behind the door. With a jingle of keys, she returned and unlocked the bars. She ran by Eden and straight to the truck. To Eden’s surprise, five other kids soon followed.

By the time Eden got to the truck, the girl had the back door open and was helping Caden ease Shiloh out.

“What are you doing?! I thought you said Ezra wasn’t here!” Eden was probably more upset by the fact that the children were acting and she was left out of the loop again than she was about the prospect of being lied to.

“She isn’t, but you can go find her while we take care of Shiloh.” The girl carefully took over Caden’s role as the other young ones helped carry him out. “Don’t worry, Cay. Mom and I will do our best.”

Eden wasn’t so sure about leaving Shiloh with a bunch of children and she really didn’t see how wasting time in the extra trip helped him at all. “Why don’t we just take him with us?”

“Because we can’t keep moving him around like this,” Caden responded, already in the driver’s seat. “Get in.”

Eden obeyed and they were off toward Jericho again. Folding her arms, Eden said, “I don’t think we should leave Shiloh with a bunch of kids.”

Caden didn’t look away from the road. “Most of them are just a few years younger than me. Grace and Hope have done more than their fair share of nursing. He’ll be fine.”

“Then why do we need Ezra?”

He didn’t answer. Eden was beginning to expect silence whenever she asked questions Caden didn’t want her to know the answers to.

Looking ahead, Eden realized they were getting closer to the city. A rusted wire fence, which probably once surrounded Jericho, stood in some places and sagged in others. At least one section of it was torn down completely. The sky was greener here, like it was back in Freedom.

Smoke billowed from black houses beyond the fence. A yellow, triangular biohazard symbol hung on an old wooden sign that read, “Welcome to Jericho.”

Caden, unfazed, continued driving. As they passed the wooden sign, a bright yellow sign read, “Warning! Infected Area!”

“Caden?” Eden could feel the panic building up again. “What happened here?”

“Don’t worry. Those are just left over from the war.” His composed voice did nothing to quell Eden’s nerves. In fact, her worry grew.

Before long, they came to a great big fountain in the center of the city. The fountain was dry and cracked, as if the very heart of the city had taken a devastating blow. Caden slowed down and parked next to the ashen spring. A number of people were moving around very quickly, as if they were in a hurry to get someplace. The people were working, moving objects to and from the other side of the fountain.

“Follow me!” Caden jumped out of the truck and pushed his way through the crowd. Eden tried to follow, but she lost him in the sea of moving faces. “Where did he go?” she thought.

She continued through the crowd until she came to the source of activity. Before her, in a small clearing of people, a number of figures covered in blood lined the street. Some were alive and groaning in pain, but most weren’t moving at all. People were moving in and out of the outdoor infirmary. Some people were covering bodies and carrying them away. Others were attempting to dress the wounds of the perishing. What really caught Eden’s attention were the children, the ones kneeling alongside dying fathers, mothers, and older siblings.

Frozen by the horror, Eden could only think of the words spoken by the one who did this, “It was in their best interest to relieve their misery.”

“Eden? Eden.” She blinked, realizing Caden was standing in front of her. “You need to focus. I need your help.”

Eden barely nodded before being pulled toward a group of sobbing children.

“Can you take care of them while I go help Ezra?”

Before she could answer, Caden disappeared into the crowd again.

She was next to a group of eleven or twelve children, the oldest of which was probably younger than ten. Some were just toddlers. All were crying, their worlds of love and care shattered.

Eden found herself gently hushing the weeping children as she wrapped her arms around the youngest two and began rocking. “It’s ok. It’s going to be alright.”