Sometimes We Ran (Book 3): Rescue Read online

  Elizabeth went to an inside pocket of her jacket, and produced a fancy pink model with chrome stripes. I clicked it on, and the strong, white light pierced the darkness. The foyer and living room were empty.

  “Let's go.” I looked down and saw Elizabeth clutching her rifle with white knuckles. She was breathing pretty hard, and not blinking. “Easy, Liz. Finger off the trigger until we see something.”

  Elizabeth relaxed a bit. “I'm okay.” She let her rifle hang, and shook out her hands for a few seconds. “I'm okay,” she repeated.

  We walked into the dark house and began to search. The single-level, L-shaped ranch-style house was still decorated with the former occupants' possessions all covered in plastic tarps. Everything was stacked against the walls, and the carpet was removed. The hallway to the bedrooms was barricaded by some extra furniture. A strong breeze flowed through the living room, which set the tarps dancing around. Sound echoed off the walls of the small space. Liz and I paused at the entrance to the back porch. It was open with no door, and covered with another tarp that moved in the wind. The door itself was leaning on a nearby wall, broken and useless after a previous incident. The tarp covering the opening was covered in greasy handprints.

  I nodded towards the empty door frame. “That's how he got inside.”

  A clattering sound came from inside the house. Very close by.

  “Kitchen,” I whispered to Elizabeth.

  She nodded. “Should we split up? You take the dining room, and I take the hallway and get behind him?”

  I thought about it for a second. “No. Let's stick together. Less chance of us shooting each other in the dark.”

  We walked as slow as possible, trying not to make any noise. Noise, smell, sight...it didn't matter. The zombies could spot you all three ways. It was hard to sneak up on the Red-Eyes. With any luck, it was occupied by something in the kitchen and wouldn't notice our approach. Luck was something else you needed in a zombie apocalypse.

  Elizabeth and I crossed the dining room, still full of beautiful furnishings. With the exception of the dust, it looked like dinner could be served here at a moments notice. I marveled at how quickly things could change. One minute, this house was a thriving family home. The next, it's a dark, empty house of horrors with a zombie locked inside. Many of the houses of Cannon Fields were still empty and dark. We still planned to fill them up one day with more survivors.

  We stood in the kitchen doorway, and got our first up-close look at Zombie-Boy. He stood before the stainless-steel refrigerator and slammed himself into the large appliance over and over, trying to attack his reflection. Sometimes he used his teeth and hands, leaving smeary handprints on the steel. His frostbitten feet made squeaking noises on the marble floor.

  I put away the flashlight and drew my gun. Nothing fancy. Just kill the bastard. As if Elizabeth could read my mind, she took cover behind the door frame and readied her weapon. She looked back at me, and I nodded. The kill was hers.

  Before Elizabeth could pull the trigger and extinguish the zombie's spark, it lifted its head and took a deep, snarling sniff of the air. The zombie had caught our scent. After taking in few more gulps of air, it pinpointed our location and turned around. Zombie-Boy hunched over into attack position, and a low growl that made the hair stand up on my arm escaped his rotting lips.

  The Red-Eye pounced on us from the kitchen. It knocked me to the ground, and my gun came out of my hand. It disappeared under the dining room table. I watched from the ground as Elizabeth retreated from the doorway, fumbling with her rifle. She hesitated as the zombie got near her, and she never raised her rifle or fired a shot. The zombie grabbed onto her jacket, and they both tumbled into through the dining room..

  Elizabeth waited too long. It may have killed us both.

  I watched as Elizabeth, with Zombie-Boy attached, struggled and fell into the living room. It was a miracle, but Elizabeth managed to not get bitten. She crawled under a glass table to fend off the zombie's attack. Zombie-Boy hopped on the table and continued the battle. He slammed his head into the cheap glass to get to Elizabeth, who was now calling for help. It was only a matter of time before the young Red-Eye figured out how to get to her. As quick as I could, I got to my feet and drew my secondary weapon: a knife I kept on my belt. I hurried into the living room, and tried to lure the walking corpse off the table.

  The zombie saw me enter the room and turned his laser red eyes on me. Elizabeth was forgotten as he leaped off the table. When he got near enough, I blocked his outstretched hands, and jammed the knife in his throat. Zombie-Boy went to his knees as blood spilled out of the gaping wound. He gathered himself and made one last attempt to make a meal out of me. As he closed in, I plunged the knife into one of his eye sockets, turning it quickly to scramble his brains. After emitting a few low moans, it fell to the floor, dead. I watched for a minute as it twitched at my feet. Soon, the eyes turned pink, and Zombie-Boy went silent. His hand opened, and a small, blue object fell out. The zombie had been clutching it the whole time. Zombies sometimes held on to objects from their past life for a while after being turned.

  In this case, it was a die-cast model car. This zombie had been holding on to a favorite toy.

  Elizabeth had already crawled out from under the table. She took a seat in a nearby chair. Even in the murky light of the house, I saw that Elizabeth couldn't stop shaking.

  I walked over and placed my hand on her head. “Are you okay? Did it bite you?” I asked, checking her neck for the telltale marks of a zombie bite.

  Elizabeth didn't answer at first. She placed her head between her knees. “No bites. Just feel like I'm going to pass out or throw up.” She paused to take a few breaths. “Maybe both.”

  “You're bleeding,” I said. A few drops of dark, red blood were coming from a slight gash in Elizabeth's scalp. It dripped onto her jacket and stained her long blonde hair. I took a decorative napkin from the dining room and held it to her head. Elizabeth winced a bit, and began to cry.

  “I'm sorry, John. I almost got us both killed,” she said between sobs. She was trying not to cry, which made her sob even harder.

  Patting her shoulder, I said, “It's okay. We'll talk about it later. You want to help me get our deadhead trespasser out of here? Then, we can go find a warm place to rest up a bit.”

  Elizabeth nodded, and took my hand so I could help her up. “Okay.”

  I found a sheet and wrapped the zombie up. We dragged it to the front door, and then went back to cleaning up the scene so as not to attract any of the zombie's dead friends. Elizabeth took care of the blood, while I picked up the floor a little. After wiping off the gore, the Red-Eye's toy car went into my pocket. I also retrieved my gun from under the dining room table.

  Elizabeth and I stepped to the front door and prepared to leave. Elizabeth's wound was still seeping a little blood. “Better let Doctor Connelly take a look at your head.”

  “Right,” she replied. Elizabeth took one last look around. “Can't wait to get outside. Stinks in here.”

  I hadn't noticed the smell until Elizabeth mentioned it. It was a heavy dead animal smell mixed with the mustiness of an empty house. “Yeah...you got that right.”

  I opened the door, and light flooded my face. The sun had made a rare appearance. A stiff, cold wind assaulted our faces. It was refreshing, and chased the bad smells from my nose. We stepped onto the porch, dragging Zombie-Boy behind us.

  I held up my hand to stop Elizabeth for a second. I had forgotten something. “Lisa! Ben...but especially Lisa! It's John and Liz,” I called out, into the yard. “We got the zombie, and we're coming out. Don't shoot us.” I waited until I saw our friends approach the porch, then we exited the house with our kill in tow. We were back out into the cold again.

  Chapter 3: The Report

  “We didn't hear any shots. How did you get him?” Lisa said, as she ran up to greet us in the yard. Elizabeth and I dropped the covered corpse on the lawn to take a little break. It fell to the gr
ound with a sickening thump.

  “John got him with his knife. I screwed up, and it almost killed us,” Elizabeth answered. She turned to walk away to the infirmary.

  Lisa grabbed Elizabeth's arm. “Screwed up? How?”

  Elizabeth pulled her arm away, and started walking up the street. “Ask John,” she said, as she disappeared into the fog.

  Lisa turned to talk to me. “What happened?

  I didn't want to go into it. Lisa could be a little harsh to her little sister. “Nothing. The bad guy was a little more livelier than anticipated. With the close quarters in there, we couldn't get a shot off.”

  Ben was taking a look under the sheet. “Ugly sucker. What do you think, John? Twelve, thirteen years old or so?”

  I looked at our recent kill. Ben was right. Zombie-Boy sure was ugly. The knife wounds were still weeping black blood, and green fluid had begun to run out of the eyes and nose. The Red-Eye's mouth was set in a permanent grimace of pain. “No...younger. Also a lot fresher. Probably recently turned.”

  “How can you tell?” Lisa asked.

  I pointed to the creature's jaw. “The teeth are still kind of white. This zombie hasn't eaten too much raw meat yet. The older ones have a lot more remains stuck to their teeth.” I pulled the cover over the dead boy. The smell was making me sick.

  We picked up the sheet and began to drag it to Lisa's fence kill that was still lying in the road. It was a long walk back, but eventually we reunited the two corpses. Someone had wrapped Lisa's kill in another sheet with stars and planets all over it. All of us were breathing hard in the cold air, so we took another break for a quick sip of water. I wasn't looking forward to dragging these heavy zombies all the way to Doctor Connelly's infirmary, but her orders were clear. The doctor wanted to look at all the zombies we killed. She was trying to find clues to the source of the infection.

  I wasn't comfortable with that. I'd rather burn them in a big pile and be done with it.

  As we stood there, a pair of powerful headlights and a sound like a motorcycle approached us through the winter gloom. It was our Chinese-built, utility all-terrain vehicle, with two residents of Cannon Fields on board. Someone must have thought this was an emergency because the ATV was never used unless things got bad. It cut into our dwindling gasoline supply.

  The camouflaged, 4-wheeled beast of burden slid to a stop on the front lawn, and the occupants leapt off their seats and into action. One was Big Thomas, a hulking country boy who hadn't met an animal he couldn't hunt down and kill. His skill as a hunter was invaluable to Cannon Fields. Thanks to him, we always had something to eat.

  The other person was a bit more diminutive than Thomas. Standing five-foot-one and weighing in about a buck-ten was my good friend, Claire. Before I was a resident of Cannon Fields, Claire had been my companion on the road. Her small size masked her toughness. Claire could be a wrecking machine. She jumped off the ATV, wielding her favorite weapon: an aluminum baseball bat. I think she had a rack of them at her house. Her shoulder-length auburn hair was still damp. Must be bath day.

  They walked up to our little group, and looked us over. “Is everything okay? We heard there might be zombies on the loose inside the fence,” Claire said.

  “Everything is cool. We got them,” I said.

  Big Thomas lowered his prized hunting rifle with the big, silver barrel. “Coming down here, we told everybody to stay inside. How many this time?”

  “Three,” Lisa said. “Ben and I each got one, and John and Elizabeth greased another one trapped in one of the houses.”

  Claire frowned. “Which house? How did it get in there?”

  “1201 Songbird. Got in through the back door,” I said, uncovering Zombie-Boy to show Claire.

  “Oh...that house,” she said. She looked down at the broken corpse. “So young. Nice work with the knife.”

  “Thanks.” I didn't want to tell her that my gun had been knocked out of my hand. She would never let me hear the end of it.

  Ben started coughing again, much worse this time. “Okay Ben. That's it. You need to go to bed.” Lisa gently shoved him away from the group.

  “All right. You win,” he said. Ben slapped me on the back. “Let me know if you need me.” He turned towards his house to get some rest.

  “Come on guys. Let's get these things to Doctor Connelly before we freeze to death,” I said. We pushed, pulled, and struggled to get the sheet-wrapped corpses into the little flatbed area on the ATV. When we finally got them situated, Lisa strung a few bungee cords around them to keep them secure. The bodies were stiff and unwieldy, and it was quite an effort to move them around.

  “Man...these things get stiff in the cold. I don't know where to grab them,” Thomas said, wiping his forehead.

  We all piled into the little vehicle, and Thomas turned around to take us back to the admin building where Doctor Connelly had set up the former Cannon Fields fitness center as an infirmary. We bounced through the front yards and curbs at a steady but slow speed. I was grateful for the ride. The thought of dragging two heavy zombie corpses wrapped in sheets was not a pleasant one.

  We rode in silence, as it was too cold to talk. I hung on as Thomas skillfully took us down the street. Several residents stood on their porches and waved as we passed. Some stared at the two bodies in the back. We waved back, and tried to hurry up the task at hand. Just get the dead Red-Eyes to the doctor and everyone can get back to their lives.

  It has been a hard winter so far. This was the coldest winter of the past five years since the outbreak, and the first one that really tested our resolve and survival skills. It tested our willingness to keep going. Our supplies were okay, but we were still rationing to make sure we had enough. Between the cold, sickness, and the zombies, we didn't know which might get us first. We were all pretty exhausted and frustrated. Spring was still about two months away.

  Thomas brought us to the traffic roundabout in front of the Cannon Fields office buildings. The admin building, where all the action took place, loomed up to my right. All the business of survival and keeping people happy took place in this building. We ate our main meal, got medical attention, planned missions, and asked for supplies in this building. Some of our people were born here, and others had died. It was our castle, and the nerve center of our little, fenced-in world.

  And it was warm.

  Thomas pulled up the curb and we got out. Lisa unstrapped our silent cargo and placed the bodies on the ground. A few people hanging around the building stared at us as we made our arrival. They asked no questions. The body fluids staining the sheets provided all the answers they needed.

  Lisa wiped some sweat from her forehead. “It's okay, John. Big Tom and I will take care of the bodies. We'll get them to the Doctor. You go make your report.”

  “You sure?”

  Lisa and Thomas nodded. “Yeah...we got it,” Thomas said, grabbing an arm.

  “Okay. You guys be sure and get warm,” I said. Claire and I turned and walked up the steps to the building. I opened the door, and warmth flowed over my body. Someone had built a fire in the big stone fireplace.

  We walked up to the desk, basking in the warmth of the lobby. Jaci, the eighteen-year-old helper to the leader of Cannon Fields, was there to greet us. My wife, Karen, was the usual assistant, but she was sick at home. “Is Denise in her office?,” I asked.

  Jaci smiled, revealing a mouthful of braces. I often wondered how she was going to get them removed with all the orthodontists gone. “She's in a meeting. It's almost over, I think.”

  “Thanks, Jaci,” I said. Claire and I turned down the short hallway to the most important office in the building: Denise's office. The leader of Cannon Fields.

  “What do you need to see Denise about?” I asked Claire as we walked. The hallway was nice and warm.

  “I broke my can opener. I have to ask for the key to the storage locker.” Can and bottle openers, vegetable peelers, and other assorted essential kitchen tools were some of the most valuabl
e things in the world these days. We kept them under lock and key in case bandits from the road broke into the compound. People will kill for a good can opener.

  Raised voices reached our ears from Denise's office. Claire and I stood outside the door to see what was going on. It was a meeting with Salvatore, our resident butcher and food guy. Also present was our quasi-governing body, the association, who assisted Denise in running Cannon Fields. From what I could gather from my eavesdropping, they were discussing our supplies. The conversation was getting a little heated. Denise was her usual stoic self. She was listening to everyone and trying to keep things moving forward. These skills made her a good leader. Solutions came easy to her, and she could compromise like a pro. Denise was one of the reasons we were all still alive.

  At least she kept us from killing each other.

  “Maybe we shouldn't be snooping at the door,” Claire whispered.

  I nodded, and we left the hallway for the big fireplace in the lobby. Jaci had built a huge roaring fire that warmed the whole room. I took off my gloves, and tried to warm my semi-frostbitten fingers. Claire did the same. She was looking at me funny.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?” I asked.

  Claire made a circular motion with her finger in the air around the lower half of my face. “When did you grow that?” Someone else making fun of my beard.

  “I was sick, and I ran out of blades. I almost died trying to shave with a knife. You don't like it?”

  Claire scrunched up her nose. A sign that she thought I was terminally uncool. “Doesn't do anything for me. Makes you look kind of old. It came in gray.”

  “May I remind you that Ryan, your husband and love of your life, not to mention the father of your son, has a beard?”

  Claire giggled. “Yeah...but he's younger. He pulls it off better.”

  Jaci walked up with an armload of wood for the fire. “I think the beard is cool. It makes you look distinguished, like a professor or something,” she said, looking at my face.