The Immune

7: A Full House

My brain flounders for a second trying to comprehend what she just said. I'm still gaping when Isaac reappears, brandishing his clipboard in the air.

"You're all clear, Jane. Head to the storage blocks to unload." He sounds chipper and excited, and I can't form coherent thoughts.

"Thanks, kid," Jane says, climbing back into her truck. She brings two fingers to her lips and lets out an ear splitting whistle. Her crew comes clambering back to the vehicles. They settle in, and Isaac and I watch them drive off.

"Isaac, who was that?" I ask, blinking back shock.

"Jane," he says simply, turning to the ladder.

"Jane who?"

"Jane... Clayton, I think." He grabs a hold of the ladder and hoists himself up. I follow close behind, hoping he isn't done. "She's the captain of the 3-to-4 Transfers. I see her about once a month."

We take our seats. My leg trembles as I untangle my thoughts.

How did she know me? What did she mean my name is well-known outside The Wall?

It doesn't make sense. There's nothing outside of The Wall. Nothing but devastation and emptiness, ruins and Infected.

I can't ask Isaac either; he wouldn't know. He didn't hear the conversation. Plus, what would he know about the world outside? Nothing, that's what.

"Isaac, why are you MU?"

I regret the question the moment it slips out. It doesn't even have anything to do with Jane. Plus, it's rude, like asking someone why they're crazy or why they can't function in normal society. Most MUs can't hold a job and don't survive in the compound; they end up in solitary in the Research Facility.

Isaac takes a deep breath and looks out over The Wall.

"You don't have to answer that," I say quickly, feeling my cheeks turn pink.

"No, it's fine." He squirms in his seat, thinking. "I was transferred to Compound 4 a few years ago. I started out in Compound 5."

He's not really looking at me, even though his eyes gaze in my direction. For a moment, Isaac's quiet. Then, he hands me his sketchbook. Not knowing what to do with it, I flip to a random page where I find a drawing of a person— rather the remnants of a person. In the picture, the human doesn't have any arms. Instead, bones protrude from empty shoulder sockets. Legs show gaping holes where chunks have been bitten out. Eyes sink in. The body hunches over, and behind it, a huge, black shadow looms.

For a black and white sketch, it's incredibly gruesome.

I flip through the next few pages, grimacing at a host of similar pictures. He's drawn endless scenes of Infected in their late stages--feasting on others, falling apart, scaling compound walls, and basically terrorizing the sane humanity.

"When the virus broke out, I was seven. I didn't have parents. Instead, I lived in this really nice boy's home in the city. We lasted a month after the initial outbreak, and then everything fell apart." He runs a hand over his hair and lets out a long breath. "Long story short, I spent about a year on the street before Compound 5 found me and brought me in."

I hand him his sketchbook back, thinking he's done. Instead, he looks down and keeps talking.

"I couldn't sleep. I would wake up screaming about monsters. Eventually, they gave me sleeping medication, and it helped. But when we started job training, gunshots made me have God-awful flashbacks. I was a mess.

"The captains didn't want someone who couldn't stand to hear gunshots working in a place that specializes in weaponry. So, the president labelled me as mentally unstable and sent me here."