Alice Talbert's Story

The room was filled with dozens of people, most of them in states of undress. Tyler had always been chided when he was a teen for falling asleep fully clothed, but it sure as hell paid of this time. His hoodie and jeans were more than comfortable, and his Nike running shoes were practically shining out of the box, except for a few scuff marks from being dragged across the parking lot and thrown into a military vehicle. A young mom near him was clutching her children to her, more for her own sanity than their safety. All she had on was a sheer nightie, leaving very little to the imagination. He steered his thoughts elsewhere, as there was little chance of going down that path given the current situation.

When the guard had pulled him out of his apartment he had his iPod, his cell phone, and a Gerber survival knife on him. They took it all but the iPod, going so far as to even steal his wallet out of his back pocket. That was for identification purposes he supposed, they wanted to know who they were holding. Modest Mouse's Dashboard played on in his ears, as he attempted to drown out the panic around him. Sure, he would love to get out, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself. That was when the college kid started yelling about escape, and he found a debate amongst the crowd in an older gentleman.

Tyler was interested in how it would play out. He was ready to roll with the young man and leave, though he waited to see what would happen. If he attempted to escape just to be tied down, or worse, die in a flurry of bullets, it wouldn't get him very far. Escape was of the utmost importance at some point, as Tyler had little trust in the government. He stepped back behind the mom with her kids, and a fat man with enough body hair it could be considered fur, to avoid drawing any attention to himself.

The plan was to wait and see what happened. If he thought the escape would be successful, he'd make a run of it. Timing was of the utmost importance, leaving might get easier down the line. In life, sometimes timing meant everything.

The truck pulled up at the area the army was using for quarantine and one of the men threw open the tailgate. Alice shivered as the cold whipped in and around the huddled group of people. She wished she had some pants, hanging around in a long t-shirt and knee high socks wouldn't keep her warm for long here. Taryn was crouched next to her, his eyes darting, taking in the new area. He was always ready for a fight and had been jumpy ever since his short stint in the army. Alice stared hard at her brother. Even when he was nervous she felt safe with him. The army guys obviously did not feel the same way.
'Get out!'
A sergeant shouted at the frightened people in the van and they all scrambled to obey. Taryn jumped down first and helped to lift out Alice and some of the other, older, members in the truck. Alice looked behind her quickly and noticed that only one of the trucks had come here. The truck carrying the rest of her family either hadn't made it or wasn't ever aimed for this destination. She sighed inwardly. She wasn't sure what was going on and wasn't sure why she had been pulled out of bed in the middle of the night but as long as she had her brother she would be safe.
"You've seen the news, guys, you know what happens in these movies every single time the government tries to contain this shit. They separated us from our families; do you guys seriously trust these people?! I'm done arguing, if you want to live, come with me. If not... good luck to you, I guess,"
What was that guy even talking about? Movies? She hadn't heard anything on the radio and she tended not to watch the T.V. What was going on here? Just as Alice turned back to Taryn a couple of soldiers moved in and grabbed her brother by the arms.
'What the hell...?'
Taryn shouted at the men and started to struggle but they only gripped him harder and started to pull him away.
'Taryn!'
Alice screamed for her brother and ran at the men holding him but the sergeant blocked her way and soon another soldier moved in to fasten Alice's hands behind her back and stop her struggling. The other soldiers had disappeared around a corner and she couldn't see her brother anymore.
'Why did you do that?' She glared at the sergeant. 'Where did you take my brother?'
'Miss, I'm afraid Taryn Talbert is a dangerous man. We know him, he was dishonorably discharged from my old unit, I can't take risks in a situation like this. My aim is to keep as many of you alive and safe as possible so you are going to be kept over there until I deem you are not a danger to yourself or any of these people in my care.'
He gestured for the soldier to take Alice over to a corner of the building and secure her hands to one of the pipes. She struggled and shouted curse words at the man but it was no good. It only took a few minutes for the ropes to be tied to the pipes then the solider walked away. Angry and scared Alice surveyed the room. She guessed she had caused quite a scene from all the faces turned her way but she didn't really care. There were maybe a hundred people here. All scared, all huddled and all looked confused. What the hell was going on?

After being pretty brutally handled and tossed into the big hall, Chris was pretty shook up. Still pretty stone, he hadn't quite grasped what had just happened and tried to put the pieces togheter. He looked up at the big crowd in the hall and they all looked confused, afraid, angry and sad. People were crying, some were hurt pretty badly. None seemed to have a clue to why they were here in the first place.

"What the fuck is happening?", Chris thought as he saw people being dragged away, people screaming and crying. It was freezing in here and he had nothing but his PJ-pants and some shoes on. He needed to get something to cover himself with. As he moved around in the hall, he noticed that the rough treatment of his "abduction" had hurt his already injured foot and he needed to sit down for a while.

While looking for a place to sit, there was a young man causing a scene, telling everybody to get the fuck out of here and that the government was not to be trusted, while an older man was pleading everybody to stay, insisting that this place was the only safe place at the moment. "They're both idiots", Chris thought. "Either we try to escape and get shot down on the spot or we stay and get fucking anal probed or whatever they're doing to the people they drag away."

Sudden gunshots made Chris fall to the floor, scared shitless. He slowly looked up and saw that the gunshots didn't come from inside and slowly rose again. On the other side of the hall, a woman was causing a scene over her brother being dragged away. "Understandable", he thought. What was not understandable was the way they handled her. They grabbed her violently, marched here over to a corner and tied her to a pole.

As he walked in her direction he checked his pockets to find out what he had gotten with him. His phone, his wallet, earphones around his neck and a doggiebag with weed. "Nice, this will come in handy later.", he thought, smiling. He sat down next to the tied up woman, standing restlessly looking around. He looked up at here. "They're gone now. Want me to untie you?"

"They're gone now. Want me to untie you?"
Alice glared at the boy sat next to her. He looked about the same age as her. Alice noticed shadows under his eyes and guessed that he had been pulled out of bed the same as her, the same as most of the people in the room. They were in the same situation but she still didn't know the guy.
'Get lost.'
She turned her face away from the guy and strained her eyes to try and find the guy who'd been talking about escape. She couldn't really see him from where she was sat in the corner. She wanted to get to the guy, to tell him that she would join him if he decided to leave. She had to get to her brother but she wouldn't get anywhere tied up. Alice sighed loudly and turned back to the guy.
'About what you said earlier...can you untie me?'

Slightly insulted at the response he had gotten from his offer to help, Chris didn't really know how to respond. He stared at her as she turned her head and appeared to be looking for something or someone. As he was about to get up again to leave, the girl sighed loudly and turned her head back to him. "About what you said earlier...can you untie me?".

Chris was confused and slightly more insulted that she both told him to get lost, only to ask for his help again, but he wasn't unreasonable and the situation called for people working together, not getting at eachothers throath. He glared at her, stood up and went for the ropes. "...sure.". After he untied her, he looked around to see if there was something happening, but all he saw was another man being torn away from his family by the men in hazard suits. "I really need to get out of here.", he thought and turned back to the woman.

"So, my name is Chris. Chris Edwin. May I ask yours?"