Sometimes We Ran (Book 3): Rescue (17 page)

“I'm grateful,” Lyle said. “Claire...will she be all right?”

I got up, and brushed off my pants. “She'll be fine. It was the kids we lost that day that hurt her. I'll go find her. Keep an eye on the van, okay?”

“Okay,” Lyle said. He put his head in his hands.

I went to find Claire in the creaky, yellow house. The door from the patio room to the house was open. I assumed she had gone into the house alone. Claire knew better than that.

The door led to a small kitchen. I caught a glimpse of faded flowered wallpaper and busted tile through the open door. “Claire,” I said in the loudest voice I dared. “You in there?”

There was no answer for a long minute. Then, a small voice came from the house. “In here. Come on in and join the party.”

I stepped over piles of debris and broken furniture, closing the door behind me to give us a little privacy. It was an older kitchen, probably built sometime in the seventies. The appliances were all of the vintage variety except for the refrigerator, which was one of those fashionable stainless-steel ones. Huge gaps marred the sandy yellow tile, and water had damaged the pretty flowered wallpaper in spots. All the drawers and the refrigerator door were wide open, and the contents were dumped on the floor. No food, just piles of utensils, broken plates and cups, assorted cookware, and other kitchen debris. Someone, or groups of someones had raided the place pretty hard.

The only other furniture in the room was a small metal table and four chairs. One of the chairs was flattened and twisted apart on the floor. At one end of the table was Claire, with an empty chair beside her to her right. At the other end of the table, occupying the last available chair was a dead body draped in black, with its head thrown backward. Even in its decayed state, there was an obvious hole in the forehead. The body had been there so long it had become part of the chair and table. Fibrous growths, maybe mold, grew and attached the poor fellow to the furniture. The dried gore spread across the sink behind the body told a story with a sad final act.

Suicide. It was nothing Claire or I hadn't seen before. The road was full of endings like the scene in the kitchen. We hardly flinched anymore.

The remaining empty chair creaked and groaned a bit as I settled into the seat. For a minute, I thought it was going to collapse and dump me on the floor, but it held. “Who's your friend?” I said, nodding to the body seated at the table with us. It was like some macabre family breakfast.

“The owner, I guess. Gun is on the floor. There's a note on the table,” Claire said. Her tone was flat and defeated.

Among the forest of liquor bottles and debris on the table was a yellow legal pad. Scrawled in red ink were the words, “Gone to Huntsville.” They were underlined twice. 

“Looks like he decided to stay in and have a bender,” I said.

“Rest of the house is clear. I guess he was alone when he offed himself,” Claire said, still sounding a little listless.

I read a few of the empty bottles on the table. Tequila, aged scotch, champagne...all good stuff. Our dead friend really did go out with a bang. “I had to tell Lyle the story about River Mills. He had to know. I don't want any secrets,” I said.

Claire looked me in the eye. Her eyes were red-rimmed from some light crying. “I know,” she said. “I just hate that story.”

“Not half as much as I hate telling it.” I fiddled with a clear bottle near my right hand. It used to contain some apple-flavored vodka.

“Maybe we'd tell it to more people if it had a happier ending,” Claire said, trying to smile.

“Maybe.” It was all I could say. That horrible day had burned itself into our minds and souls. It had become part of us and would never go away. We just had to try and put it behind us. You had to do some awful things to survive these days.

I took her hand to try and reassure her a little, and I felt how cold her tiny hand was even through my glove. “Come back to the fire. Your hands are freezing.”

“Okay. It is kind of cold in here.”

The light from Claire's flashlight turned brown and began to waver. “Your flashlight is about to die,” I said.

“Needs some new batteries.” Claire reached for the dying light. The flashlight began to vibrate on the old table. In fact, the whole kitchen started to shake. The air was filled with the sound of whining machinery. Something was going on outside.

Claire and I flew out of the busted kitchen, leaving the body behind. Claire was in front of me navigating through the junk on the floor. I brought up the rear with my gun drawn. Loud bangs and the sounds of metal hitting metal continued from the outside.

Someone was stealing the van. It was the only explanation.

Claire got tangled in an errant piece of debris on the floor. She fell to the ground, hard. Not missing a beat, I picked her up to continue the chase. She had stepped into a metal folding chair, and it had wrapped around her legs. “John! Wait a minute. I think I really hurt myself,” she said.

I set Claire gently on the ground. I prayed nothing was broken. A broken bone, especially a leg, could be a death sentence. Outside, the sounds continued. It sounded like the thieves were having trouble hooking up the van.

“Where does it hurt?” I asked.

Claire winced in pain. “Right ankle. Twisted, I think. Dammit.”

I checked out her right ankle. My heart sank as I noticed it was already beginning to swell. It might be a sprain. “Claire, the van...”

She rubbed her hurt leg. “Go. I'll be fine.”

I left Claire to her injury to stop our van from disappearing into the night. Noticing that Lyle was absent from the fire, I threw the door to the outside open and leveled my gun at whoever was trying to take our ride. It was too late.

The sloping nose of our van was already sliding around the house into the side yard. It began to pick up speed as it neared the road. I took off after it, but there was no way I was going to catch up. The thieves had the accelerator down and were moving so fast the wheels were spinning on their vehicle.

I watched from the street, breathing heavily as the black tow truck went down the street and disappeared into the night. The Junkmen had found us and had taken their prize. I had no idea where Lyle was, and Claire and I were stranded far away from home. All we had was the clothes on our backs, my gun, her bat, and whatever supplies we had in the backpack.

With nothing else to do, I walked back to the yellow house on the corner. Going after the Junkmen would have to wait. The night was not a great time to travel, and I kind of knew where the van would wind up anyway. Claire was hobbling around the enclosed patio when I got there.

“I can't find Lyle. Where is he?” she asked.

“Don't know,” I answered. Lyle wasn't here, and I wondered if the Junkmen did something to him. “I told him to watch the van.”

Claire found a solid chair to sit down on and put her ankle up. She groaned in pain as she removed the shoe and sock from her injured leg. A purple ring had already started to form near the ankle, and it was swelling. “That hurts,” said Claire, trying not to shed tears.

I found the bandage from our first-aid kit and began to wrap Claire's injured ankle. Not a perfect wrap, but it would have to do for now. “In the morning, if your ankle feels better, me and you are going to the Fort to get our van back,” I said. The wrap seemed to help. The swelling was going down a little, and the bruise was starting to subside. That was a good thing. We had a lot of walking to do tomorrow.

T
he sky was beginning to go that gray color just before the sun comes up. I sat in the metal folding chair I found, gun in my lap and waited for the day to start. Behind me, Claire slept soundly, wrapped in a few blankets we'd found the night before. During our long days on the road together in the past, this is what Claire and I did. One of us would sleep, while the other stood guard to keep the bad things away. I always volunteered for the last shift before morning because it was always nice to see the sun come up.

It was also the most dangerous time of night. The zombies were at their hungriest before dawn.

Some tall grass moved in the dark yard. I sat up in my chair, muscles slightly stiff from the cold and middle age. A pair of yellow-green eyes came from behind the grass and stood in front of my chair. The eyes were only a foot or so off the ground, a little too short to be a man-eating zombie. I settled back down in my seat and relaxed a little.

It was a cat. The mangy, white fur ball crossed the back yard with a kitten in its mouth. Just a mother cat moving her offspring to safety. Another resident of earth going about the business of survival. With a parasite that turned dogs into salivating, flesh-eating monsters, cats had become man's new best friend. Cannon Fields had a few dozen as pets, and I myself had two. Claire had one as well. Charlie was his name. They earned their keep hunting and killing the vermin that tried to steal our food. They also roamed the countryside, living off the land and trying to survive.

Just like us.

The mother cat gave me the evil eye as she passed, as humans no doubt made her suspicious. I silently wished her luck as she moved through the yard, looking back at me. With a flip of her tail, she jumped into another clump of high grass and disappeared.

Another young one safe from harm.

The sky got a little lighter. About another hour and the night would be over. Behind me, Claire was stirring and getting up. She walked up, and placed a blanket around my shoulders. It smelled vaguely of mothballs. “Morning,” Claire said. “Lyle ever come back?”

“No,” I said, pulling the blanket closer around my chest. The morning was misty and frigid. “Couldn't find him anywhere. Unless he's in one of these other houses, he's gone.” Claire was still hobbling around on her gimpy foot. “How's the ankle?”

“Sore, but I think I can manage,” Claire answered. She found another chair, and set it down next to me. With a sigh, she settled into the seat and placed her injured foot on a plastic ice cooler. The swelling had gone down since last night, but it was still kind of purple. Claire twisted her foot to check out the injury. “Looks like hell, though.”

“We'll have to wrap it later. I hope I can remember Doctor Connelly's basic first aid lessons,” I said.

Claire passed me a bottle of water and a few granola bars for breakfast. “What's the plan?”

There was no plan. The van was gone, Claire was injured, we had about a day or two tops of food and water, we were stranded far from home, and it was winter. The mission had gone belly up. “I know I said I wanted to go find the van, but with your injury and our current situation, I'm afraid this mission might be over,” I said.

Claire finished her granola bar, and stowed the wrapper in a plastic bag in the backpack. Even with the world in shambles, she didn't like to litter. “Well, if Denise stays to form, no one is going to look for us for a couple of days. That is, if they can actually find us.”

“Not going to be easy,” I said. The policy at Cannon Fields was to wait, then send out search parties to find our lost people. That's if we sent anyone out at all. It wasn't good to have all of your people tramping around in a dangerous world. When we went outside the gates, we knew we were on our own. I'd give up most of my precious coffee ration for a radio or walkie-talkie right about now, but they were rare and used up our limited battery supply.

Claire pulled a blanket around her shoulders. “I was thinking last night during one of my watch shifts. Maybe we should go look for Lyle. He might need our help, or he's hurt somewhere,” Claire said. 

“It's risky. The Junkmen aren't that friendly, and with no vehicle and your bad ankle it might be a better idea just to go home.”

“I just hate to think of him out there somewhere. I mean, we came out here to help him. I'd really hate to just abandon him.”

Claire had a big heart, and it made her a good survivor. “You know, during one of my watch shifts, I was thinking the same thing. I tell you what. When the sun comes up, we'll scout the street and look for a car or something. We'll pay a visit to the Junkmen. See if we can find Lyle and the van.”

“If we need a truck, we can go back to that factory up the road and poke around,” Claire said.

“Hell, no. Too many zombies. They can keep their trucks,” I said.

The first thing we had to do was attend to Claire's injured ankle. Some of the swelling had gone away, but it was still a purple-reddish color. I was able to find more bandage wrap for minor sprains, and attempted to bind Claire's ankle so that she could at least be more mobile. Mobility, sometimes more than a gun or a baseball bat, was important in these times. If you can't run, you can't get away. Better find a good place to hide, or you're dead.

It took about three tries, but I was finally able to wrap Claire's small foot and ankle. The wrap was kind of sloppy and loose, but it was better then my first two attempts. They had been too tight, and Claire's toes turned a blueish color as the circulation was cut off. I put her shoe on carefully over the wrap. “Okay...try it out.”

Claire stood up, and jumped up and down a few times. She took a few laps around the backyard, flexing her foot. “It's all right. Still hurts a little, but not bad.”

I wasn't sure if she was lying or not. She was still limping around. “It'll have to do,” I said.

The next order of business was to try and find some sort of vehicle. Claire and I picked a vantage point in the front yard of the neat yellow house to scout the neighborhood. Deep in the overgrown bushes, near the front door offered us a good spot to check out all the other driveways. I swept my binoculars up and down the street while Claire kept an eye out for bad guys.

“See anything?” Claire asked.

The driveways were empty. Most of the cars that had been left behind were stripped to the bone or burned to the ground. Nothing looked drivable. “Whole lot of nothing. We may have to try another street,” I said.

Making one last sweep of the street, I spotted what looked like the tailgate of a pick-up hidden in a carport across the street. It was sticking out of a blue tarp. “Wait a minute. I think I see a truck.”