Sometimes We Ran (Book 1) (5 page)

There was also the collapsible fishing rod. It was a gag gift from a neighbor. He had bought it from one of those catalogs that sold all the stuff from TV. It was kind of like a “pocket fishermen” type of deal. The rod folded up into what looked like a pen. The reel was a little chrome-plated deal that attached to the rod. It was in the car, so I grabbed it when I ran. I also had a lighter, matches, and a little flint fire-starter in a plastic bag. Those were in one of the pockets of my pants. Then, there was the photo that resided in another pocket. The photo was of Gia at a mountain cabin. It was the last vacation we took together. Gia always liked the mountains.

It was a semi-candid shot on the porch of the cabin. She was in profile, looking wistfully off into the distance. She looked beautiful and sexy. I can still remember that trip. Every time I see the photo, I can almost smell the mountain air. It rained before Gia and I arrived, and it smelled clean and fresh. No smell of death.

I wondered what happened to her. Was she dead or one of those things? I sincerely hoped somebody put her down. I wished I’d found her at the shelter. I could have taken care of her if she had been turned. Then I would know she was at peace.

Remembering Gia caused my eyes to well up. I felt like crying a bit, but not in front of Claire. She needed me to be strong. She didn’t need some middle-aged goofball crying over his dead wife.

She noticed my pain. “Hey, Tiger? You okay?”

I tried to sound tough. “ Yeah. Let’s get ready to hit the road.”

Even after the end of the world, women still can’t seem to leave on time.

I was standing outside the jewelry store, waiting for Claire. I thought she was ready, but she was running around the dead store like a maniac on fire getting her stuff together. It was getting late. “Claire? Are you ready to go?” I asked in the lightest tone possible.

“Just a minute,” came the sing-song response from the store.

There had been no discussion about Claire coming with me on the road. I couldn’t leave her without weapons or supplies in this hell of a world. I guess I’ll have to try and trust her and take her along. I don’t trust even the living nowadays, but she seems harmless. It might actually be nice to have someone to talk to besides myself for a change.

“I’m ready.” Claire finally emerged from the store ready to go. She looked much better than last night. Although still a little pale, the color had come back into her lips. That first night, they had turned a weird black-and-blue color from impending starvation. Now they were a nice pale pink. She bounded out of the store like a first grader getting ready for the first day of school. On her hand was a gold ring with an absolutely gigantic diamond surrounded by several other diamonds.

“What’s that on your hand?” I asked.

Claire looked at her hand. “Oh this? Just a little souvenir.” She giggled a little bit. “You’re not going to make a big deal out of this, are you?”

“No. Just try to keep it covered up a little bit. I don’t want it attracting attention from any of the locals.” I didn’t like taking things unless I absolutely needed them. Even during a complete collapse of society, I still wasn’t a fan of stealing peoples stuff.

“Actually, I had a thought,” Claire said, opening her backpack to reveal a few other pieces from the store. “Some people out here still put value on jewelry and money. I thought we could take a few things for bribes”

I wish I had thought of that. She was right. Even with the economy flat-lined, people still wanted money, gold, and jewelry. Of course it was completely useless in this new world, but that didn’t stop them from hoarding. I pictured survivors sitting on huge piles of money, thinking they were rich.

“So, good idea or what? I took some of the money, too.” She showed me a stack of hundreds taken from the desk. It looked like it was about a thousand dollars or so.
I watched as Claire shoved the stack of bills in her backpack.. “Great idea. You’re a pretty smart girl.”

“Well, I was in college.”

“What were you studying?”

“Um …General Studies with a concentration in Liberal Arts.” Wonderful. It couldn’t be anything useful like gunsmithing or engineering. Of course not.

I sighed. “Okay, time to rock and roll. Let’s go.”

“Cool. I’m ready.”

Claire and I turned towards the road and set off. We stepped into the intersection where we first met. All was quiet. The only sounds were the songbirds chirping happily in the trees. The crumpled heaps of the zombies I took care off yesterday were still there. The crows are having a feast. I hoped they weren’t like the dogs. I would hate to see an undead crow. “Which way are we going?” Claire asked.

“That way,” I answered, gesturing across the intersection. “It was the way I was going before I met you …west or southwest, I think.”

“Okay. Lead the way.” Claire sounded a little underwhelmed about my decision. I sensed more questions were going to follow. The truth is I really didn’t know where I was going. I just knew I had to get away from the hell back home. The cities were hell, absolute hell. I knew we had to get away from any dense areas of population to be safe if any safe areas still existed. There had to be people alive somewhere …anywhere. Claire and I started to walk.

We walked in silence for about half an hour. I put a few feet between us on the road. I still didn’t entirely trust her. I thought it was good practice. In the past, I let other survivors get too close, and they tried to kill me. Usually it wound up with somebody getting hurt or dead. You couldn’t trust anyone.

I wasn’t going to let someone I initially trusted to get to close to harm me. Not again.

In the morning light, I got a good look at my new fellow survivor. Claire really was a little thing, only standing about five feet tall or so. I bet she barely weighed a hundred pounds. I wondered how she survived the initial outbreak. She looked pretty weak. She must have survived by going from one group of survivors to another. I wondered if she had any real skills at all. I hoped she wasn’t completely useless, because I really didn’t want to be a babysitter.

Claire walked with a purposeful stride. She held her head up high, constantly scanning the road ahead. Once in a while, she shot a nervous glance in my direction. I guess she didn’t trust me either.

Claire brushed some of her hair out of her eyes, and put it behind her ear. I thought the pink color was a little weird, but she was kind of attractive. She had a nice build; not much up top, but her back porch wasn’t too bad. I suddenly wished I were twenty years younger.

Claire looked at me, and started to come to my side of the road. I silently prayed that she hadn’t caught me looking at her behind.

She stepped a little closer so we could talk. “So, we just walk?”

I breathed a little sigh of relief. She hadn’t caught me leering. “Yeah. We walk. Is there something else we could do?”

Claire thought for a minute. “Well, how about some of these cars? I’m sure some of them still work. Look over there. That blue one over there looks good.” She pointed at a pale blue minivan with a huge dent in the side.

“Cars are no good. They attract a lot of attention, and gas is a little scarce.”

Claire didn’t let up. “How about bicycles?”

“Nah. Bicycles are too much trouble. Tires go flat because you run over debris, and they get stolen all the time.” I tried a bicycle a few months back, but it had been a total disaster. One night, it disappeared, the victim of another scrounger on the road.

Claire wasn’t done. “Motorcycles? Scooters? How about a horse?”

“Scooters and motorcycles are still too loud. They attract too much unwanted attention. I think all the horses, uh, became food. Walking is quieter. Besides walking allows you to see what’s coming. It also allows you to run like hell if you need to.”

“Oh. Just seems kind of slow.”

Claire seemed to be in a hurry for some reason. Maybe it was because she was so young.

We walked for a few more minutes taking in the details of our ruined civilization. “Hey, Claire, can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead. I’m all ears, Tiger.”

“Why are you calling me, ‘Tiger’?”

She blushed a little. “It’s something I do. I nickname everybody. Stupid, huh?”

“I didn’t say it was stupid.” I stopped to direct her through a knot of wrecked cars. “I was just wondering.”

“Well sometimes I have trouble with names, so I use nicknames. Be glad I don’t call you what I called my last boyfriend.”

We stopped walking for a second. “What’d you call him?”

Claire started to giggle uncontrollably. “Pumpkin.”

I pointed at her as we started walking again. “First rule if you travel with me. Don’t call me ‘Pumpkin’.”

Claire was still laughing. “Okay, Tiger.”

“I’m not too crazy about ‘Tiger’, either. By the way, if we are going to travel together, I have a few more rules.” I looked down at her upturned face. She was listening.

“First, we need to stay together. No going off by yourself to look at stuff or go into any buildings. Me and you have to be together at all times. I mean it. You are not going to able to even take a pee without me being nearby.”

Claire made a face. “Man, that’s pretty gross. I don’t know if I like that.”

“It’s a reality. Sorry. The same goes for me as well. We have to watch out for each other. Understand?”

“Okay. I guess.”

“We also don’t trust anybody or anything. If we meet anybody or anything, we assume they are bad guys, living or dead. This especially goes for dogs. Dogs are bad news.”

“Yeah. That’s a rule I can get behind. There’s a few mean things out here.”

“Also, I take care of the zombie exterminations. If we meet any, and we probably will, I’ll take care of them, at least until we find you a decent weapon.”

“Okay. Maybe we can find me a pistol or something down the road.”

My next rule was a little harsh but it was necessary. “My next rule may be a little difficult to follow. If anything happens to me, you run and you keep on running till you find a safe place. Understand?”

Claire’s face went a little pale. “What could happen to you?”

“I could get hurt, killed, or bitten. If I get bitten, I will turn into one of those things, and I could hurt you. If that happens, run like hell.”

“I don’t want to think about that.” She was silent for a moment. “If that happens, do you want me to shoot you first before I run?”

I hadn’t thought of that. Pretty gruesome thought. “No, just run. It’ll be safer. Besides, you’ll probably miss and shoot me in the ass or something.”

Claire giggled a little bit. “Okay. Just run. I understand.”

We walked in silence for a little bit. “John?”

“Yes Claire?”

“I have thought it out. If I get bit, I want you to shoot me. I don’t think I want to be one of those things”

We stopped walking, and I looked down at her. This poor girl has suffered so much. She has seen so much death and destruction in her young life. What kind of world is this for her where she has to ask someone to shoot her if she’s bitten by some zombie? “I’ll take care of you, don’t worry. Let’s try and make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

“Okay.” She brightened up, and we begin to walk again.

We walked for a little while longer. The terrain around us was changing a little bit. There were more curves in the road and a few less buildings. Looks like we were headed into the country. We hadn’t seen any bad guys. So far, so good. “Beautiful day,” said Claire, as she looked up into the sky. Claire was right. It was a spectacular morning. The air was fresh and clear. It smelled like a great fall day. No smell of death for a change.

The road was getting a little more curved. So curvy, in fact, that my long range vision down the road was compromised. In some cases, I jogged ahead a few steps leaving Claire a few feet behind me to check things out down the road. All we found were a couple of empty abandoned cars. They’d provide nice shady areas for quick water breaks …if nothing bad was strapped inside.

We stopped at one, I took out two water bottles and handed on to Claire. It was good to stay hydrated. You never knew when you were going to have to run for you life. Claire took a swig from her water and looked around. She pointed to a house to our right. “Hey, John, should we check out some of these houses? We might find some supplies.”

“No houses. Houses can be bad news. You see what’s painted on the door?”

She squinted her eyes and stared at the house. “Oh, yeah. The famous orange skull. That means zombies inside.”

“Yeah. Bad news.”

Claire stared at the ground. “I remember when they evacuated the living out of my dorm. The rescue crews painted skulls on all the doors where they found undead. They also painted them on the exit doors too. I lost a lot of friends.” She turned her head away, and took another drink of water. I think she was crying a little.

I had a few orange-skull stories myself. I remember walking through entire communities with nothing but skulls painted on the doors and walls. Some of them had been painted in haste as the crews themselves were forced to run as the undead swarmed the cities. In a lot of cases, the rescue crews became part of the swarm.

Claire looked so sad leaning against the car. I wanted to put my hand on her shoulder to reassure her, but it didn’t feel right. We were still getting to know each other. Instead, I stood near her, not knowing what to say or do She wouldn’t look me in the eye. I think she didn’t want to cry in front of me.

“You okay?” I finally asked.

Claire looked up. Little tears had managed to escape her eyes. “Yeah. I try not to dwell too much on the past. Once in a while, it overwhelms me though. You ever feel that way?”

I knew exactly how she felt. Sometimes, in the quiet between the moments of terror, memories of the old world would come back. Sometimes they would paralyze me with fear. I leaned against the car next to her. “I know how you feel. We have to be strong though. We can’t let grief overcome us, or we’ll give up. We don’t want to do that. Right?”

Claire tried to smile, but failed. “You’re right.” She wiped her eyes. “So what’s the plan, Tiger?”

Again with the “Tiger.” “Well, we have to find some more supplies. We’re running a little low. Also, we need to find a place to give you a bath. You smell a little like a really overripe banana,” I said, with a little smile.

“Hey, I don’t smell too bad.” Claire lifted her sleeve to take a whiff and made a face. “Oh, maybe I do smell a little bit. You don’t smell too good either, Tiger.”

I feared the nickname “Tiger” was going to stick. “Yeah, you’re right. We both could use a little touching up.” That last line got a giggle out of Claire. I was getting quite attached to her laugh. It was a much better sound than some of the others I’d heard lately.

We stepped away from the car, leaving the orange skulls and our hygiene discussion behind. Suddenly, I had a pressing need to go to the bathroom. The water had gone right through me.

“Uh, Claire. I have to …uh …you know.” I stammered like a teenager.

”What, John? What do you have to do?”

I couldn’t believe how embarrassed I felt. I guess I’d been traveling by myself for too long. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Claire smiled a little crooked smile. “Well, go silly. I won’t stop you.”

I looked around for a good place to relieve myself. I found a large oak tree surrounded by a few low bushes in one of the front yards. “I’m going to use that tree over there. You stand over by that mailbox. Keep an eye out for any trouble.”

“Roger.” Claire threw me a salute.