Sometimes We Ran (Book 2): Community (7 page)

“Yeah. I was told about that.” I hated to think Double-Six knew where Claire and I were. I didn’t want to get Cannon Fields in any trouble.

“Yeah. We haven’t seen them since.” Ben walked over and unlocked one of the handgun cabinets. He reached in and brought up a few guns. “You a revolver man, John? I got a couple of nice ones”

“Got any thing in a 9mm or so?” I felt like I was purchasing a pair of pants.

“Here you go. Couple of them have laser sights. Got plenty of ammo, too.” Ben showed me a few guns from his magic locker. I selected a newish-looking one, along with a few extra magazines. I checked the action and loaded the weapon. It was ready to go.

Ben looked on with a little pride. “Damn. You know what you’re doing.”

I placed my new gun into my holster and said, “You learn quick.”

Ben handed me a knife with a black handle and matching sheath. “For your belt. You should always have a knife on you when you go outside, right?” He turned to Claire. “Now, how about you little lady? What’s your poison?”

“Actually, I’m a blunt instrument kind of girl,” Claire said, walking over to the rack of bats.

Like a golfer picking out a club for a shot, Claire picked a few bats off the rack and checked them out. She looked at a few, and then selected a black-painted aluminum job. “This is it. This is the one,” she declared.

Ben shook his head and gave her a knife as well. “All right, then, I guess we’re ready.” He took one of the assault rifles off its rack and dug around in a little box for ammo. “We’ll bring an extra rifle too. You guys know how to fire one of these babies?”

I remembered my rifle that I lost some six months ago. It was a law enforcement model stolen by some punks Claire and I met up with on the road. “Oh, yeah. I had one. Served me well. How about you?”

Ben patted the battered rifle on his shoulder. “No. I do better with the old-fashioned kind. Never took to these fancy rifles. Now, Jenny and Ryan…those two really like the automatics. In fact, Jenny has been teaching everyone in Cannon Fields how to shoot.”

As we exited the Cannon Fields House O’ Guns, I tripped over a box marked, “Caution! High Explosive.” My curiosity was piqued. “What’s in the box, Ben?”

Ben got a slightly evil look in his eye. “It’s a box of rocket launchers. We found them in a busted-up National Guard truck. They are all kinds of bad-ass; they’re shoulder-launched with long-life batteries. I think they heat-seek as well.”

Holy mother of God: rocket launchers. Now I’d really seen everything. “How many do you have?”

Ben patted two large crates. “Two boxes, six each. We’re scared shitless of them. We haven’t figured out a way to test one yet. We decided to keep them anyway. Don’t want them falling into the wrong hands. Besides, they might come in handy someday.”

Cannon Fields was armed to the teeth. “Damn. The next trouble maker that messes with you guys is going to be in a world of trouble. Remind me to knock when I come to the gate.”

We exited the house, and Ben locked it up. With all the guns and bats, we looked like a small army. We arrived at the car just in time to see Jenny and Ryan putting supplies in the trunk. Jenny appeared to be upset, as usual. She and Denise were in close conversation.

Jenny looked up as we approached. “It’s about damn time! It’s getting late.” She glared at me as I held the rifle, and said, “Okay first of all, no rifle for the new guy. The gun is enough. I’m sorry. This is non-negotiable.” Before any of us could protest, I decided to comply and handed the weapon to Denise for safe storage.

Jenny then looked at Claire. “And she doesn’t go. I’ll have enough to do watching the new guy. I don’t need Bonnie and Clyde here cutting my throat and taking the car.”

Jenny still didn’t trust us. Denise started to protest

“Now wait a minute -.”

Jenny cut her off. “Sorry. She stays here. You put me in charge of this thing, Denise. I have to put my foot down; the new guy’s little girlfriend stays here.”

Denise was ready to argue, but I put my hand up to stop her. I turned to Claire. “Well, kiddo. I guess she’s in charge.”

Claire’s face flushed red from anger. “It’s okay. Do what you got to do.”

I had to make sure Claire would be okay. I wasn’t going to leave her if she wasn’t going to be safe. “Denise, I’ll only do this if you can assure me Claire is going to be safe. You have to promise me that.”

“John, you have my word. No harm will come to Claire. I’ll put her with Karen. She can help out in the office. I’ll keep my eye on her.”

I turned to Claire. “Is that okay?” She looked at the smiling Denise, and nodded her approval.

My concerns addressed, I said, “Okay. What’s the plan?”

Jenny got a map from the back seat of the car and unfolded it on the trunk. “Our objective is here: an urgent care clinic. Doctor Connelly has been alternating between the clinic and the mall for the past few months or so. According to our last conversation on the radio, the clinic is becoming compromised. She doesn’t have many weapons, and her options are limited. We’ve got to get to her quick. I don’t want to attract any attention to us, so it’s going to be a quick trip.”

“We’ll still have to take it easy,” Ben interjected. ”The roads are clogged with dead cars and trucks. We may have to detour.”

“Ben’s right. There may be a few detours. Ryan has marked a few alternative routes. We’ll get to Safety One first, eat something, and resupply. Then, we’ll hit the road to the clinic.”

I had a question. “What’s Safety One?”

Jenny looked a little annoyed, but she pointed to a green circle on the map. “Just a wide spot in the road. In this case, a mini-mall. We stocked an ex-ice cream parlor with extra food, ammo, and other supplies. It’s kind of a safe place to get to when we’re out and about scrounging for supplies.”

Jenny started giving some more information about our trip, but my attention drifted to Claire. She was over by Ryan having a conversation and laughing. Claire was showing him a few of her moves with the bat. There was something weird about their conversation.

I think Claire was flirting with Ryan.

It made sense. Ryan and Claire were about the same age. Ryan was probably her type: tall and lanky, with longish hair and scruffy beard. Still, I felt a little queasy. It was like watching your daughter talking to boys for the first time. I may have to keep an eye on ole Ryan when we get back. I drifted back to the matter at hand as Jenny was wrapping up.

“Okay,” she concluded. “I guess we’re ready to go. Everybody say your good-byes.”

Claire walked over and gave me a little hug. “I guess I’m sitting this one out, huh, Tiger?”

“Yeah. Kind of sucks.”

Claire’s eyes got a little teary. “Yeah. Kind of sucks.” She looked around. “I don’t know if I fully trust these people.”

“You’ll be okay. These people are all right.” I glanced around. Everyone was staring. “Just in case they’re not, keep your bat handy,” I whispered in her ear.

“You bet.” Claire put her arms around me. “Just come back, okay?”

“I will.” I nodded to Ryan. “You want me to bring his narrow ass back, too?”

Claire blushed. She had been caught flirting. “Shut up.” She gave me one last hug.

Jenny took the wheel, and Ryan took the seat beside her. Ben and I slid into the back of the spacious sedan. The seat was very comfortable. I hadn’t been in a car in a long time. Maybe if I asked nice, Jenny would let me drive.

Denise poked her head in the window. “You guys be careful. Get back safe.”

Jenny started the car. It ran a little rough on the old gasoline, but eventually it smoothed out. She put it in gear, and we were off. There was no fanfare, ticker tape, or cheering crowds. We just had Claire and Denise waving as we left.

A guard opened the gate, and we left Cannon Fields. I couldn’t help myself, and I took a lingering look back. We had left the relative safety of the community and were in the big bad world. I secretly hoped I would see Cannon Fields and Claire again.

“Who’s ready to smoke some zombies?” Ryan said, his voice full of glee.

It was going to be a long trip.

It’s amazing what happens to the world when people disappear.

As we rode slowly through the countryside, I took in the remains of our once great civilization. We passed parking lots and side roads overgrown with weeds, buildings that had collapsed, and hundreds of abandoned cars and trucks. In some places, the remains of automobiles blocked our progress down the road. We often had to detour down side streets. Detours that revealed even more decay and destruction brought about not by war or disease, but by simple neglect. No one was left to cut the grass, cut down the weeds, paint the walls, or repair the lights and signs. It was amazing how much maintenance the world needed. I felt like I was on some bizarre vacation as I watched the ruined world go by in the window. Many places we passed were still infested by the undead. I wondered if anyone would be able to put it all back together. Maybe no one could.

I tore myself away from the window. Ryan, Jenny, and Ben were gossiping and sharing inside jokes about the various residents of Cannon Field. I felt like the odd kid going to school in a strange carpool. No one wanted to share anything with the new guy. I missed Claire. If she were with me, at least I could talk to somebody.

It was slow going. The debris on the road forced us to keep our speed down so we wouldn’t hit anything. Sometimes I wondered if walking wouldn’t have been easier. Even though it was only a forty-or-so-mile trip, it was going to take all day. We were also going slow as to not attract attention to ourselves. We didn’t need anybody, living or dead, following us around.

At least that was the plan.

“So, John,” Ben said. “What’s it like out here? I haven’t been outside the gate in a while. Been taking care of family.”

Someone was finally talking to me. “Wife and kids?” I asked.

“Actually, my Momma. She’s got dementia. Started a few years ago. After this whole undead thing started, I made my way from Mobile to take care of her. My Uncle came home as well.”

“Sorry to hear that, Ben.”

“Yeah.” Ben fiddled with his seat belt. “Sometimes she has trouble remembering things, but she can still cook. Momma sometimes forgets we’ve already eaten so she cooks again. Some days I get four or five meals.”

I couldn’t help myself, and laughed. “Sorry. Don’t mean to laugh.”

Ben laughed along with me. “It’s okay. She would want us to laugh. So, what’s the story out here? I remember the deadheads with the red eyes. They were like maniacs. I killed one in Mobile. Had to smack it about a dozen times with a two-by-four before it went down. Are they the same?”

Images from the past came up in my mind. The Red-Eyes were always the worst. You had two choices: shoot or run. “Yeah, still the same.”

Jenny chimed in from the driver’s seat. “Dead is dead. As long as you’ve got the right equipment, you can take care of them.”

I sighed. It had been a long time since these guys had seen Red-Eyes up close. “No. It’s not the same anymore.” Painful memories of days and nights when Claire and I would have to hide from the prying red orbs of multiple zombies came flooding back. Sometimes we would barely escape with our lives. “They’ve changed. Something has happened to them. They hunt now, sometimes in packs of three or more. They hide and wait in ambush for unfortunate victims to stumble upon them. They’ve become predators. The whole food chain has been turned upside-down.”

Ben and Ryan stared at me as I told my story. I could sense that they were not looking forward to any encounters with the current crop of Red-Eyes. My intent wasn’t to scare, but to warn them that it wasn’t a picnic out here.

Jenny wasn’t buying. “Yeah, well, they’re still dead. Should be no problem.”

“Right,” Ryan said. “Hit them between the eyes.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said.

We continued on our way to our first objective. Jenny had timed our trip perfectly. We were close to Safety One, our first stop. I had been nervous the whole trip. Getting close to our safe place was a relief. So far, the trip had been somewhat uneventful. Jenny had detoured around any potential trouble spots, and we were close to safety.

Then we rounded a curve and Jenny slammed on the brakes.

About half a mile ahead of where we stopped was a nightmare. A huge wreck between a tractor-trailer and several cars littered the road. The way was partially blocked, but we might have been able to get through. The problem was the group of zombies circling the pile of cars. The large group endlessly circled the accident scene in a clockwise direction, looking for food.

“Damn. What the hell is this?” Jenny said. She pulled the car into the shoulder to take a look with binoculars.

“Can we get through?” Ryan asked.

Jenny scanned the area, and then handed the binoculars to me. “What do you think, new guy?”

I put the glasses to my eyes and checked out the horrible scene. It looked to be about a hundred or so Yellow-Eyes orbiting the scene of the wreck. I spotted what had attracted them: the picked over carcass of a deer lying on the ground nearby. The zombies had been drawn to the site and simply stuck around. It was like when you drop a wad of gum and ants appear. It was a dead end. We had to find a way around.

“Looks bad. We don’t have enough ammunition,” I said.

Jenny got back in the car. “You got that right. See if there’s a way around, Ryan.”

She turned the car around as Ryan consulted his maps. He drew a red circle in the approximate location of the zombie wreck for future reference. “We can backtrack down about a mile. There’s a side road that will get us around this mess, and back to the main road.”

“Okay. Let’s do it.” Jenny picked up speed.

We found the turn-off and proceeded down the road. Jenny picked up a little more speed, despite the junk scattered from curb to curb. I watched her steer the car with the ease of a stunt driver. In her capable hands, our plain-vanilla sedan danced across the road.

“Just a few miles,” Ryan said. “There is going to be a right turn back to the main road around the wreck.”

Jenny didn’t answer. She just looked nervously in the rear-view mirror.

“You might want to slow down, Jen,” Ryan said. “The turn is coming up soon.”

“I can’t slow down,” Jenny said, in a flat monotone.

“Why can’t you slow down?” I asked. I was beginning to get a little nervous. Something didn’t feel right.

She quickly looked over her shoulder at the road behind her, then back at the road ahead. “We’re being followed.”

Ryan, Ben, and I turned in unison to look out the large back window of the car. About fifty feet or so behind us, and gaining, was a white truck. It was weaving back and forth through the wreckage and coming towards us.

“Damn,” Jenny said. She pressed harder on the accelerator. The car underneath us responded with an all-American roar and picked up speed. We watched as the truck behind us matched us in speed and began to catch up.

Jenny was concentrating on the road. She was trying to keep our pursuers from catching us and keep us from crashing into abandoned traffic on the road. “How many in the truck?”

I looked quick. I could make out two men in the cab. They moved back and forth as the truck swerved through the wreckage. “Looks like two. They don’t look happy, either,” I answered.

Jenny was struggling with the car. It wasn’t designed for this kind of driving. The tires squealed as we ran. Ryan started to put the window down. “I’m going to shoot out a tire,” he said, getting his rifle ready.

Ben and I looked at each other. Ryan had seen too many TV cop shows. The chance of him hitting a tire at this speed was marginal at best. At the very least, Ryan would waste ammunition shooting at a moving target.

And these guys just might shoot back.

“Not a good idea,” Jenny said, above the sound of the car. “It’s a moving target.”

Ryan looked at her like she was nuts. He looked out the rear window. “So what the hell do we do?”

“I’m going to try and outrun them. Their truck isn’t actually made for this kind of pursuit. Maybe they’ll crash or something.” Jenny squeezed some more speed out of the car. We were now flying through the wrecks. Piles of cars and car parts zipped past my window.

We flashed past our turn. “That was the road back to the main,” Ryan said. “I don’t think they’re going to give up.” A quick glance backward confirmed Ryan’s fears. Our adversaries were still hanging on, but they weren’t gaining anymore. It began to look like we might get through this nightmare.

“Crap!” Jenny exclaimed, as she turned the wheel violently to the left. A large truck tire lying on its side appeared in our windshield. The car responded, but we glanced off the tire. The car shuddered with the hit, but Jenny somehow managed to maintain control.

The truck chasing us was not so lucky. I watched as it hit the tire nearly head-on. It rolled over the tire, and nearly tipped over onto its side as it crashed down. The truck took a sharp ninety-degree turn and stopped. It receded quickly as we sped away.

Ben couldn’t contain his excitement. “Damn! You were right Jen.” He gave me a celebratory slap on the shoulder. “Son-of-a-bitch! Jen was right. The bastards crashed.”

I think I was about to turn blue. I realized that for the most of the chase, I had been holding my breath.
Jenny gathered some more speed. “Well, I’m not sticking around. Let’s find a place to hide.”

We drove for a few more miles until we found a place to hide out for a while. Jenny made a quick U-turn and found a spot near an overturned tractor-trailer full of formerly new cars. She stopped the car, and we got out and hid among the wreckage with weapons and binoculars ready. Our car was neatly hidden behind the wrecked truck, a perfect ambush point if our friends in the white truck decided to make an appearance.

We sat and waited a few moments to see if the bad guys and their truck would show up. We heard nothing but the bugs in the grass and the birds overhead.

Ryan, Ben, and Jenny pointed their rifles down the road toward where our pursuers might come up the road. I didn’t have a rifle, just a handgun, so I sat nearby, watching for anything that might walk up and surprise us. I glanced at Jenny, our hero driver. She stared intently down the barrel of her rifle. Her hair had come a little undone from its ponytail, and a few stray wisps of fiery red hair were waving around in the slight spring breeze. A tough, no-nonsense expression was riveted to her face under her glasses.

“That was some fancy driving, Jenny. Where did you learn how to drive like that?” I asked.

Without taking her eyes off the road, Jenny said, “My father was a hobbyist race car driver. He taught me a lot of stuff. He really wanted a son to follow in his footsteps, but all he got was a daughter.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think he would be very proud of you today.”

Jenny looked down at me, and her face softened a bit. Not quite a smile, but it wasn’t the scowl I usually got. “Maybe you’re right, new guy. I hope so.”

“You can call me John.”

Jenny smirked. “Okay…John. Ready to go to Safety One?”

I was past ready. I had been ready all day for Safety One. ”Ready.” Jenny grasped my hand and helped me up.

She rounded up Ben and Ryan, and we all got in the car. Jenny pulled the car out of our hiding place. We took it slow, so as not to antagonize anyone else. The white truck had disappeared, leaving only a chunk of plastic grill behind. Jenny found the turn back to the main road. We were a little behind schedule, and Safety One waited.