SURVIVAL

Scrambling around the dry bushes and cacti that loomed out of the darkness, Cristofer ran alongside the railroad track. “Miguel?” he called. “Miguel?”

The events of the last five minutes cut through his mind like scenes from a disjointed movie. Running along the top of the freight train. The gang with their guns. Miguel fighting like a tiger in defense. The gang, throwing Miguel off the train, shooting him in midair. Like a clay pigeon in a skeet shoot.

Cristofer stopped, gasping for air. Miguel could be anywhere. Or he could be dead. “No,” Cristofer muttered. “He can’t be.”

Dashing into the darkness again, Cristofer shouted, “Miguel?” A gust of wind tugged his hair, teasing him, reminding him how alone he was.

Then there was a voice, so quiet Cristofer almost missed it. “I’m here.”

There he was. Cristofer saw his brother, lying in the dirt. A dark stain of blood spilled across his shirt from his shoulder. Falling to his knees, Cristofer said, “You’re alive. You’re here. What do we do now?”

Struggling to sit, Miguel said, “We need to get to Ciudad Juarez. Find someone to help. We’re so close.”

“How do we do that?” Cristofer asked, putting his arm around Miguel’s waist to help him sit.

Miguel groaned, his face tight. “It’s up to you, Cristofer.”

“What? I can’t,” Cristofer protested. “I don’t even know which way is North.”

Miguel slumped back to the ground. “You have to.”

“But…” Cristofer looked at his older brother. Miguel was the leader of their escape North. He had made every decision, and every decision had been right. “I can’t do it,” Cristofer said, choking back tears. “I can’t do it.”

They sat by the train tracks in silence while the sliver of a moon soared slowly across the sky. Miguel’s breathing was ragged. A coyote yipped nearby. Then Cristofer heard a sound that made his heart plummet to the soles of his dusty sneakers and his stomach curl up like an armadillo. It was a deep, chopping throb, whipping its wind across the desert toward them.

“La migra,” he breathed.

It was fitting, he thought. They made it within fifty miles of the border, and the gangs caught them. The immigration police found them.

“We’ll be deported,” Miguel said, trying to sit up.

Deported, sent back to beatings, dead parents, and gangs. His scars throbbed as a constant reminder of their old home. They’d kill them if they went back. Cristofer remembered their threats; they haunted his dreams.

Cristofer stood, facing the coming helicopter searchlight.

“What are you doing?” Miguel said.

“We’re not getting deported,” Cristofer said. He put his arms around Miguel’s waist and pulled. Miguel stifled a moan.

As the helicopter whirred closer, searching along the train tracks for hiding migrants, Cristofer dragged his brother away from the tracks, muscles straining as the sand whirled around them. The helicopter was near, almost on top of them. Cristofer dropped his brother and pressed himself against the ground, trying to burrow into invisibility like a snake. The pounding of the chopper filled his ears as the searchlight passed them by, illuminating where they’d sat moments before. Then, it was gone.

Cristofer sat up and watched the disappearing helicopter.

“It worked,” Miguel said. “You saved us from la migra.”

Tearing his gaze from the helicopter, Cristofer saw his brother smiling at him proudly. “Do you think you can get on the train with one arm?” Cristofer said.

“I don’t know,” Miguel answered. “I could try.”

Imagining Miguel losing his grip and being torn to pieces by the train, Cristofer shook his head. “No. Can you walk?”

Miguel nodded.

“We must have been on the train for a few hours before the gang came,” Cristofer said. “And you said we were four hours to Ciudad Juarez when we boarded.”

“I get it,” Miguel said. “You think we’re close enough to walk to Ciudad Juarez?”

“I think so,” Cristofer said with growing excitement. “Come on, let’s follow the train track. Maybe we’ll get there before the sun comes up. Then we can find a Coyote, and maybe we’ll even be in the United States by this time tomorrow.”

Miguel laughed as Cristofer helped him up. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, little brother. It’s a long journey.”

“We can do it,” Cristofer said. “We’ve survived a lot already. We’ll make it.”

Anna Engstrom is a screenwriter of historical fiction, fantasy, drama, and stories for the whole family. She is earning a Bachelor of Science in creative writing at Full Sail University. When she isn’t writing, Anna loves attempting to bake gluten free treats, as well as walking through the woods and beaches beside Lake Michigan and dreaming of being a fairy of the woods or a pirate on the beach.