“Don’t let me catch you down at that infirmary,” Grandpa warned us. So, naturally, we hatched a plan to see it.

Randy was twelve; I was fourteen. We weren't sure what an infirmary was — there being no internet since the cataclysm, we couldn’t look it up — but I guessed it was something like a hospital. “I bet that’s where the Twisteds come from,” Randy said.

I shoved his shoulder. “Twisteds aren't real.” I tried to sound certain, even if I wasn’t. Randy didn’t remember our parents (I did, but only a bit) and as his big brother, I figured it was important to keep him from being scared.

The compound was ringed with barbed wire and Grandpa (not our real Grandpa; it was just what everyone called him) said we had ten years' worth of ammunition. We numbered about 350, mostly relatives from five extended families. Outsiders heard about the ammo and crops, so starving families would show up at the gate, begging to be let in. “At least take my baby!” I heard a woman shout one day.

The visits from the mayor’s men came at the start of every season. Arriving on a rusting Jeep, fully armed, they'd meet Grandpa at the gates. He'd go back into the compound, retrieve a teenager, and hand him or her over to the squad. The screams of the teen's parents would drown out the Jeep's engine as it sped away.

* * *

Randy and I spent a week hoarding extra sandwiches and snacks from our rationed meals. One night, we snuck into a supply shed and stole a flashlight, some batteries, and a canteen. The next night, at around 1 a.m., I woke him. "It's time."

We crept to the perimeter gates. The overnight guard's only task (other than watching for Twisteds or nomadic clans) was to open them when the surveillance teams returned.

Randy and I hid against the fencing, crouching in the darkness, waiting. Within ten minutes, one team returned, the headlights of their pickup flooding the area. As the gates opened, we heard moaning and weeping from the open bed. “Med team!” the driver shouted. “We have wounded!”

The truck rushed through. The gates remained open. This was our moment. “Run, Carl,” my brother whispered.

With a deep breath, I did.

* * *

We scrambled through five miles of dense brush and soot-dark forest, flashing the light sparingly. Branches snapped under our feet like breaking bones. The scurrying of what I hoped were only squirrels or groundhogs repeatedly broke my stride. Tall oak waved in stiff winds as if chiding us.

Randy trotted ahead, his resolve unwavering, and I forced myself to hold to his pace.

In four hours, we reached the infirmary, a hulking structure at the end of a rotting strip mall. We scurried up to a set of large windows. We saw our reflections, nothing more. "I'm going to shine the light in," my brother said.

"Uh—" Before I could protest, he beamed the flashlight onto the window. Two grinning faces stared back at us. We screamed.

* * *

We couldn’t run far. Guards dashed out of the facility and chased us down, bound our hands behind us with plastic ties, then dragged us inside.

"You showed ingenuity getting here," said a man seated on a stool at the far end of the infirmary. He had a thin nose and cheeks specked with grey whiskers. Standing next to him was a woman with flowing black hair and shadows under her eyes. Both looked to be in their 40s. Both wore lab coats.

"Ingenuity, or foolishness," she said.

Two guards with pistols stood nearby. Around us was an array of metal examining tables, stretchers stacked high, medical monitors, and other devices.

Randy scowled. "What is this place?"

The man shrugged. "Might as well show them." We followed him through a side door, down a dim corridor and into a second room, larger than the first. The woman switched on the lights.

Randy and I gasped in unison. "Twisteds!"

Around the perimeter of the room stood a dozen enormous glass cylinders filled with orange liquid and connected to buzzing electronic devices. Inside each cylinder floated thin human figures with limbs contorted at odd angles.

"No," the man said. "The Twisteds are roaming in the wild, the ones who mutated after the cataclysm. These," he pointed toward the cylinders, "are our answer."

I stepped closer. Some had combinations of elongated necks, fangs, and claws for hands. Several had two heads. Others, bloated abdomens. All writhed as if in pain. "What answer?" I asked.

"The Twisteds are rapidly growing in number. Soon they will overwhelm us. We need to create our own. That's the only way to fight them."

The woman faced us with a frown. "The war is coming, Carl and Randy. We must be ready." She smiled. "And now you can be part of our work."

* * *

We were led to the entrance of another chamber, this one with a vault-like door. Inside, we saw two dozen teens on hospital beds, moaning and crying, arms and legs constrained by straps. Some appeared to be missing limbs.

The guards pushed Randy and me inside, forced us onto separate examining tables, and began to bind our arms and legs.

“Wait!” I protested, then looked directly at the woman. “Come over.” With an uncomfortable glance at her partner, she came to my beside.

I whispered so my brother could not hear. “We never told you our names. But you knew them. How—”

She shook her head, then gently reached out and brushed my hair back.

I understood. “Damn it! You’re our parents, aren’t you?”

The woman leaned in and whispered. “Carl. We brought you to Grandpa's compound as toddlers for your own safety. But now that you're here, you must contribute." Her eyes were moist. "We love you, but our work is too important."

Before I could reply, or even cry out, she and our father exited the chamber, and the door slammed closed.