Running Red (6 page)

I’m assuming it will be one of the boys. It could be anyone. I hope it’s not Auntie Alice or the bearded man who called me Sunshine. Watching Auntie Alice beat Matt with the spine of her book freaked me out. And the bearded guy was just downright freaky.

When I stand up, my head feels like it’s going to explode. I take a couple of steps and knock into the pole lamp. It clinks against the window. The bulb must be old because no sooner does it hit the glass then there is a flare and a pop. The bulb goes out. I don’t have time to consider what that might mean. All I can concentrate on is getting out of the room and then the house.

There doesn’t appear to be anyone in the house. Also missing from where I last saw it is my hiking pack. That means no tent, no supplies, and, worst of all, no wrist rocket. This, above all else, upsets me the most. I’ve gotten good at using it. I prefer it over guns and crossbows and knives. Even if I ran out of pellets, there are projectiles all around me. Rocks, screws, nails: the world is my arsenal.

I go back down the narrow hall, my hands on either wall. It is narrower than I remember, but then again, I was carried down it last time. There’s wainscoting. The upper half of the walls are painted a muted, mustard yellow. Framed photographs hang on the walls. I catch a glimpse of the family that used to live in the house.

I basically spill out of the hall. My hands flail for the wooden banister of the staircase. I have to stop for a minute, catch my breath, clear my head. I look back over my shoulder at the dark sunroom. The hall is ridiculously short, but it felt a mile long just now. I want my legs to carry me out of here. I look at the door and I tell myself it’s as short a trip down the porch, across the walk, and to the gate as it was going down the sunroom’s hall.

When I get to the door, I think of my hiking pack. It’s a crazy thought, but I’ve named it Baby, after all, and I don’t feel right about leaving it behind. I don’t have the luxury of searching for any of my belongings. The wrist rocket. The hand axe. The tent. I’d hate to be out on the road without those items. Maybe I can rebuild my war chest. Maybe I can’t.

Something inside me is telling me I need to get out of the house.

I look over my shoulder at the kitchen door. It’s closed. No light spills out under the door.

I am forgetting there is an iron gate out front with a row of spear tips running along the top of the entire fence. When we arrived, there was no lock on the gate, but that could be different now that it is night and everyone is in the compound. All I can do is go out and hope for the best.

But it’s the worst possible scenario. The gate is chained and padlocked. I look over my shoulder. No one is following me. I put my hands on two of the spear’s tips, hook my foot into the lower railing to get a boost, and my heart sinks. I am in no condition to attempt a climb over the fence. I lose my footing and the tips of the fence spears will pierce me.

The revival out behind the house continues. The man doing the speaking is in a frenzy now. He’s going on about climate changes and the end of days, about the living left behind by those who were sworn to protect. The dead are reborn. We are approaching a war with nature, and man has never toppled nature.

A wave of dizziness sweeps over me. I fall down against the gate, leaning my head back against the metal bars. I should be careful, I think, so my head doesn’t slip between the bars. I laugh at the thought; would it be possible to have my head on the sidewalk and body in the yard? I laugh harder. I might as well go back in, wait until my head is clear and my legs remember how to support me.

I lean forward to get up and that is when I feel something tug on my hair. I jerk my head forward again and something tugs it back. I strike the iron gate with enough force that I see tiny dots flashing around my eyes. But this also gives me some clarity.

I smell old, moldy potatoes, wet garbage, and decay.

A runner has a tuft of my long hair in its grasp. It is trying to latch onto me. The runner snarls and snaps its teeth, unable to get its face through the bars. I scream. My hands flail around the dewing grass, searching for a weapon to fight back against the runner. The knife on my hip is gone. I have no idea where my wrist rocket is, not that it would do any good from the angle where I sit. The hand axe would come in quite handy right now, I think. It would take two, maybe three swings to hack off the runner’s hand.

I try to remain calm. I tug forward. There is a slight give in my hair, but only for an instant. The runner’s fingers close nearer my scalp. I am bending forward when I hear an odd clicking coming from behind me. It pretty much sounds like someone dragging a stick or thin rod over the iron rungs of the fence. I’m able to maneuver myself around onto my hands and knees, and I look up into the face of the runner.

There’s something long and dark on either side of the runner’s mouth. Two pointed appendages with scimitar shaped intervals along them open and close over the runner’s teeth. In the dark, they look like the fingers of a claw that are trying to pinch something. These black, pointy talons open and close, sliding over both rows of her teeth, wearing them down. This is what makes the clicking sound.

“Somebody help me!” I scream. My voice raises two pitches and squeaks off at the end. I am frantic. I roll over on my back, twisting and turning and flopping, trying to break free of the latching.

Flashlights, dozens of them, come around the house. Another handful bob and weave from the narrower side of the yard. I see shadows advance from behind the wall of lights. There are flashes of fire and the sounds of thunder as guns are fired.

There is no life in the hand that has attached itself to my hair. I try to stand, but the corpse of the runner holds me down like an anchor. Aubrey kneels in front of me. His hands are clamped onto my shoulders as he tries to calm me, only his hands freak me out. I don’t want to be held, I don’t want to be touched.

“Hold her still,” someone shouts. Aubrey holds me from the front. “Lay her down.”

I’m fighting against him. Aubrey is trying to push me down; I’m trying to stand up. He’s saying something, but I don’t want to listen to him.

“I can’t cut it off with her sitting like that,” a man says. “Get her on her back.”

“No!” I scream.

“Knock her out,” someone else says. This voice is male, thin, and a little nasally. In my mind I picture the skinny guy in the tree fort swinging his legs over the side.

“No,” Aubrey says. “Robin. Listen to me. It’s all right. Sledge killed the runner. We have to cut off its arm to free you. Robbie, do you understand? She’s latched.”

I blink through tears. Aubrey stares at me. I can barely see his face from all of the flashlights shining on my face, into my eyes.

“Lie down, Robbie,” he says. “Trust me, okay?” His voice is a little softer. I feel him push me towards the grass. I feel the cool, dampness of the blades under me and against my face. Then I remember Aubrey was the one who drugged me, who carried me to the back room. Trust him? No, I most certainly will not trust him.

I hear the metal clang of a heavy blade as it strikes concrete. I hear it twice more. My head moves freely. I sit up. A woman behind me screams.

“The hand is still in her hair,” the woman says. It’s one of the women who spied on me earlier. This one has short blonde hair. She’s waif thin. Her blue jeans hang on her narrow hips.

The next voice I recognize. “We’ll just have to cut it out,” Auntie Annie says. “Matthew, fetch me the shears.”

Heavy feet clomp up the wooden steps of the porch. The screen door slams, and several moments later it slams again. The feet come down the steps. In between, I lay on my back staring at the stars. If I move my head, it feels like the fingers are clawing at my scalp.

“It’ll be okay, Robbie,” Aubrey says. He puts a hand on my forehead and smoothes back my hair. I know he’s trying to be helpful, but I am so pissed off at him for drugging me I try to spit at his face. Nothing comes out of me. I am that severely dehydrated.

“Roll her over,” Auntie Annie says.

Aubrey gently lifts me by my arms. I sit up in front of him.

“Here’s the shears,” Matt says.

“You use them,” Auntie Annie says.

“What if I mess up her hair?” Matt asks.

“Matthew,” the beard man says, “you heard Aunt Annie.”

“Yes, sir,” Matt says. His voice drops low. Matt looks down at me. I can see that he’s uncertain how to proceed. I try to smile at him.

“It’s okay,” I say. My voice is full of rocks.

Matt reaches into my hair with one hand. I can feel him lift the hand. My hair pulls off the back of my neck. I bite down on my lower lip. He puts the shears over my hair and tries to cut too much all at once. It feels like he is ripping the hair out of my head. I reach up behind me and put a hand on his wrist.

“Cut less,” I tell him. “Cut around it.”

It takes Matt a while. I see my hair piling up around me. He keeps cutting until, at last, he tosses the hand onto the sidewalk. I immediately put a hand on the back of my head. There is a noticeable chunk of hair missing from the back of my head.

“Get her inside,” Auntie Annie says. “And keep her there.”

Aubrey reaches for me, but it is Matt’s hand I take. Aubrey steps back, his hands on his back pockets. My legs are still a bit weak, but Matt tugs me up. I fall against him. His hands go up over my back and mine land on his shoulders. We’re kissing close and I turn my face away from his. That is when I see the runner who latched onto me. Her face is gone, but in the uneven glow of the myriad of bobbing and swaying flashlights I recognize her rainbow tank top and shorts.

It’s the female runner from the house that afternoon.

“It’s her,” I say. Everyone lifts their flashlights at my face. I am momentarily blinded by the glare. I turn my face away.

“It’s who?” the bearded guy asks.

I shield my eyes and step back from Matt. I can feel one of his arms try to hold me closer. I gently push myself away from.

“It’s the runner we saw locked in a house earlier today,” I say.

Auntie Alice immediately challenges me. “Locked in? If she were locked in, how did she get out?”

“Maybe she opened the door,” another woman says. The crowd around me laughs. I can see this woman just outside of the flashlights’ glow. All I see is her face. Her hair is pulled back super tight off her face. Her arms are folded under her breasts. Another woman stands almost directly behind her. These are the other two who kept an eye on me when I arrived.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if she did open the door,” I say.

“She’s a runner,” the woman with the pulled back hair says. “Everyone knows a runner is brain-dead.”

“They’re changing,” I say. “The runners are changing.”

“They ain’t getting any smarter,” the bald guy says. He uses the tip of his machete to move what’s left of her face to the side.

“Finish it,” the bearded guy says. There’s a key chain hanging on his hip. From it he finds a key he uses to open the padlock and undo the chain holding the gate closed.

The bald man chuckles. He wraps his fingers around the handle of his weapon and raises it over his head and brings it down on the neck of the dead runner. His skinny, denim clad friend kicks the head into the street.

“He’s shoots, he scores!” the skinny guy says. He chases the head out into the street, his hands flapping over his head. The bald guy laughs and runs after him. They begin playing some bizarre game of trying to kick the head past one another.

“Matt, Aubrey, deliver the rest,” the bearded guy says.

“Yes, sir,” Matt says. He immediately takes the runner’s feet. I can see why. Spewing from the open neck is a puddle of slick, red juice. The stench of spoiled vegetables gags me. Aubrey straddles the puddle forming on the grass.

“Cage, Dirks, get some gasoline. Pour some on the lawn there where the juice is puddling. Pour the rest on the husk out there in the street.”

“Okay, Denny,” one of the men says. He has a moustache and slaps the arm of the other guy. It is the guitar strumming man I saw earlier.

For a moment I’m left standing unattended. I could easily slip away. As if reading my mind, Auntie Alice steps up next to me. She puts a hand on my elbow.

“What were you saying about the runner?” she asks. Her voice is low. When I look her in her eyes, I think I see concern.

“Today, when we found her,” I say. “It was like she was aware we were there.”

“Of course she knew you were there. Runners live to find new carriers. It’s how the fungus spreads.”

“But it was more than that empty gaze they give you. It was like she was watching us. She kept slapping the window like she was trying to get our attention.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Auntie Alice says.

“She was trying to remember how to open the door,” I say.

The woman with the pulled back hair and her friend step up to us.

Auntie Alice’s eyes grow wide, then narrow when she looks at the two other women. She is suspicious of what I am telling her. “That’s impossible.”

“I would have thought so too,” I say. “But there is something going on with the runners. They’re adapting or learning. This one stared at the doorknob. It was like watching a puppy learn a new trick.”

Out in the street there is a loud whoompf as the gasoline poured over the runner’s body goes up in flames. A smaller fire burns on the front lawn where the red juice is burned away. The air has a thick, oily smell.