Sometimes We Ran (Book 2): Community (8 page)

The rest of the trip went quietly.

Jenny drove slowly and carefully to the main road. She stopped every few miles or so to take a look. We thought that maybe the guys in the white truck might have had some friends. We didn’t want another chase.

The glancing blow with the tire had damaged the car a little. A few black lines were now scrawled on the bottoms of the doors, and the metal was pockmarked with little dents. We were lucky. Jenny could have hit the tire, destroying the car and us. Thank God she had some skills behind the wheel. A great thing to have in a world where you may have to run for your life.

Our little shortcut took us to the main road, a few miles from the accident that had blocked our way. Having to go around the blockage and the chase had cost us some time. We were now a little late and would have to spend less time at Safety One to stay on schedule. Jenny turned onto the main road, and picked up a little speed. “We’re close. Start looking for the sign,” she said.

Ben and Ryan started scanning the road for something. “There it is,” said Ryan. “On the right, Jen.” We passed a broken-down mall sign with about twenty names of stores on it. Jenny turned right at the next driveway.

And straight into hell.

The wreckage was particularly bad in the mall’s parking lot. Besides the usual cars and trucks, there were quite a few bodies on the ground. Fire had broken out among the wreckage and had scorched much of the parking lot debris. Jenny had to slowly pick her way through the carnage, giving me an up-close and personal view. In some places, the bones of the dead had really piled up.

“This mall must have seen a bad swarm,” Jenny said, with a tinge of sadness and fear in her voice. “It was much worse before we cleaned it out. Once in a while, a few deadheads come back. I hope it’s clear over by Safety One.”

We picked our way through the piles of rusty metal to a block of stores at the back of the mall. Jenny pulled into a spot hidden by a few wrecked cars and trucks. She parked our car so that it looked like part of the wreckage. “We’re here,” she said.

I got out and took my first look at Safety One. It was an unremarkable ex-ice cream parlor next to a store that used to sell young and hip women’s clothes. The glass had been shattered in the area and the contents of several of the stores had spilled into the lot. Mannequins, smiles frozen on their faces, still posed in the windows.

“What do you think?” Ben asked.

It was perfect. A broken sign that said “Ice Cream” hung above the door. The windows were stained with a little brown grime, and debris from the mall covered the walkway in front of the door. The place looked dead and gone. It was a great place to hide for a while. Ryan and Ben got a few supplies from the car, and we began to walk to the front door. That’s when I heard a noise from the busted-up cars around us.

It was a low growl.

I stopped in my tracks. The rest of the crew kept walking. Jenny noticed that I had stopped, and asked, “What’s up, John?”

I looked around for the source of the growl. “I thought I heard something.”

Now I had them stopped as well. We froze in place and listened. The only sound was the wind, blowing through the broken stores of the mall and the automotive remains in the parking lot. I began to doubt my zombie-addled mind. Maybe it was my imagination.

“Must have been the wind. I don’t hear anything,” Jenny said, walking ahead of me. “That, or maybe the new guy has been on the road too long.” Ben and Ryan shared a laugh at my expense.

Maybe I was going crazy. I rubbed my eyes for a few seconds to try and focus. Jenny was right. I have been traveling too long. The noise I heard was probably in my mind.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

As we approached the door, about half a dozen Yellow-Eyes began to exit the broken stores around Safety One. They stumbled out and began to shamble in our direction. Some looked a bit fresher than others, so they moved a little quicker. In the space of a few minutes, we were partially surrounded.

A plan of action developed. Ben, Ryan, and Jenny were in a triangle formation with me in the middle. Ben and Ryan dropped the supplies and raised their rifles. Jenny raised hers, as well. They began to get targets. To prevent getting accidentally shot, I retreated a bit out of the way and drew my gun. A little girl zombie and a taller teen-age version fixed their sickly yellow eyes in my direction and began to trot toward me at full speed. I prepared for battle. At the same time, the sounds of our first shots began to echo off the walls of the dead mall.

Ryan fired wildly in the general direction of the Yellow-Eyes. He managed to drop one, but he emptied half his magazine. Ben took out two with his rifle and scope and careful shooting. Jenny fired, but missed and caught her target in the knees. The zombie went down in a heap nearby clutching at the ground. That left my two.

I aimed and fired at the teen-ager first. I caught her in the forehead, and she went down after a few more steps. I stepped back a bit and aimed at the little girl. She had picked up a little speed and was coming in hot. Green foam dripped from her grimacing face, and her bright yellow eyes went wide as she ran towards me. I fired, but missed and hit her in the shoulder. It slowed her down, but she stayed on her feet. The little deadhead began to screech. I aimed to fire again. This time, I had to hit her, as I wouldn’t get another chance.

I started to pull the trigger. As I watched through my sights, the little girl zombie’s head exploded. She gurgled a bit, then fell to her knees. After a few seconds, she crumpled to the ground face down.
Ben ran over and grabbed my shoulder. “You okay?”

His well-placed shot had taken the zombie out. “Yeah. Nice shot.”

Ben beamed. “Sorry. She was getting a little close.”

The little girl zombie was at our feet. Her red shirt and jeans were splattered with gore and dried blood. Ben turned her over to see her face. Green liquid leaked from her eyes and mouth. As I watched, her eyes slowly went gray.

“Damn,” Ben said. “How old do you think she is? Ten, eleven years old?”

I looked at her young face. I tried to imagine her in life, running around, worrying about school and summer vacation. The kids were always the worst. They shouldn’t have to go through this and become monsters.

“Younger,” I said. “Too young.”

“Let’s get inside before more of the damn things show up,” Jenny said, dispatching the zombie she had shot in the leg. She ran to the front door, and fished a key out of her pocket.

We hurried inside before the rest of the Yellow-Eye army showed up. Jenny ushered us inside, then she piled a little debris in front of the door as a diversion. It looked like no one was inside. After a few scans of the parking lot, she came inside, locking the door on her way.

It must have been a hip place in the old days. Neon tubes covered all the walls. The wallpaper was a crazy silver-black color that managed to give me a slight headache. It must have been a colorful place before the end came. Most of the tables and chairs were pushed to the walls or piled in the corners of the store. It left an open space in the center. The ice cream counter and register still stood at the back wall. I found a dusty sign on the wall that bragged about fifty flavors like “Cocoanut Dream” and “Bubble Gum Chunk.” I started to feel a little nostalgic for an ice cream cone. It had been a long time.

Ben directed me to a back room. “Check this out.” He opened a door to a small storage room filled with supplies. “We found the place a few months ago. The glass was intact, but the door was wide open. Jen found the keys in the office. We cleaned out the deadheads and the bodies, filled it with supplies, and we had Safety One. It’s a nice little bunker from all the bad stuff out here, huh?”

I took a look around. There was food, water, ammo, fuel, and sleeping supplies. There was even hygiene and personal toiletries. Medical supplies were neatly stacked on another shelf. For the car, there was a box of auto parts. A selection of automotive fluids graced a shelf nearby. “You guys thought of everything.”
“Well, you never know what you’re going to need,” Jenny said, as she brought a few lanterns out of the storeroom. Ryan followed with our lunch: a carton full of canned food and bottled water.

“How often do you guys resupply?” I asked, helping Ben with the supplies. I grabbed a box full of food and water. Claire and I could have really used this food a few days ago when we were starving.

“Every time were out here. We try to keep it full,” Jenny answered. She was setting up a small camp stove.

The place looked warm and cozy. The lanterns were set low, so they cast a yellowish light around the place. The windows were a little dirty, so no one on the outside would be able to see inside. The four of us were pretty safe.

Ryan, Ben, and I set up a few folding chairs while Jen finished setting up the stove. After our tasks were complete, we all sat down in a circle, facing each other. Jenny produced some fruit juice, still fresh in its unopened carton. “We can’t start a fire, so it may get a little chilly in here.” She poured a little of the fruity liquid in four plastic cups, and started passing them around. “Hey new guy. You want some juice? Sorry there’s no ice.”

I took the cup. I was a little parched. “Sounds good. After our little dance outside with the Yellow-Eyes, I’m a little thirsty” I took a sip of the aromatic liquid. It quenched my thirst, and returned a little energy.
Ryan downed his drink in one gulp. “Those guys weren’t so bad. I dropped mine like a bad habit.” He laughed a bit and waved his hand. “No problem.”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “All it took was about fifty bullets or so. Is there anything left in your gun?” We all laughed. Even Jenny chuckled a bit. She had a nice girlish laugh.

Jenny poured us another round of fruit juice, and she and Ben began making fun of Ryan’s judicious use of ammunition. I sat there, drank, and watched. The camaraderie was intoxicating. This is what Claire and me were looking for. It was nice to find some humans again. We sat and drank as they shared inside jokes and gently ribbed each other.

During a lull in the conversation, Jenny looked at me and asked, “What about you, new guy? What’s your story?”

I glanced back at Jenny. She was actually smiling a little. ”You first,” I said. “I want to know your story, first.”

Jenny smirked. “Well, I married a guy ten years my senior and moved to Florida. We tried to have a baby to save our marriage, but it turned out he didn’t have enough sperm to even make a sample. He blamed me, we started to fight, then he began having relations with some neighbor skank. So I divorced the scumbag, took his money, and moved here.” She paused to take a drink. “Then dead people started to walk around, and, well, you know the rest.”

“Sorry about your divorce.” I was beginning to understand Jenny.

She snorted. “Don’t be sorry. Best thing that ever happened to me. I felt like I lost two hundred and sixty pounds of ugly fat.” Ryan and Ben nearly fell off their chairs with laughter.

Jenny poured me some more juice. “Now…it’s your turn new guy.”

I swirled my juice around in my cup. “What do you want to know?”

Jenny leaned forward. “Well, first of all, where are you from?”

I sighed a bit. The following story was not going to be an easy one. I don’t think I had ever told the whole thing at once. “North of Atlanta…place called Alpharetta. I lived on the outskirts in a rental house with my wife, Gia.”

Everyone stopped laughing. Ben whistled under his breath. “North of Atlanta. Damn…you really have walked through hell. Heard some bad things about Georgia.”

“Yeah. It certainly felt like hell.” I took the picture of Gia out of my pocket, and passed it to Ben. “My wife.”

Ben looked at the picture, then passed it to Jenny. “Very pretty,” she commented. “What happened to her?”

“Don’t know. I never found her.” My heart started to get that heavy feeling I usually got when I thought about Gia. A whole year, and it still caused physical pain. “The shelter she was supposed to evacuate to was compromised by the time I got there. I barely had time to get away.”

Jenny passed the picture to Ryan. “So you started to walk,” he said.

I paused for a moment to collect myself. “Not at first. I hung around town with some other survivors for a while. I hoped to find her, but she never came out. One day, we woke up to a city in flames. They firebombed Atlanta and its suburbs to stop the undead. We all decided to part company, since the city didn’t exist anymore. So then I started walking.”

Ben, Jenny, and Ryan were silent and on the edge of their chairs. Jenny found some words. “What did you find out there?”

I downed the last of my drink. “Nothing much. Most of the towns I saw were dead. I checked out Atlanta, but it was in flames and dead as well.” Images of burned and abandoned Atlanta flashed in my mind. Most of the buildings had burned and now looked like rows of rotten teeth. I could almost smell the horrible oily stench of gasoline and dead bodies. “Other places, it was mostly undead or people trying to kill me. I did a lot of running in those months. I just kept going, hoping to find anything. I started losing hope. That little voice in the back of my head began to tell me to give up. It told me that it was all over, and that I should die and join the wreckage around me. That little voice began to get louder. I almost…almost gave in. Then, something happened that changed everything.“ I looked up. Everyone was staring at me.

“What happened?” Jenny asked.

“Claire happened.” I laughed a little, remembering our first meeting. “I found her, and she saved me.”

“I thought you were the one that saved her. Denise told me you gave her food,” Ben said.

I looked at Ben. “Oh, no. It’s the other way around. Claire came around, and I had something to care about, something to live for. I don’t know what would have happened if she hadn’t come along.” I suddenly missed Claire very much.

“Wow,” Jenny said, finishing her drink.

It was quiet for a few minutes. Everyone was digesting my story. Then, Ryan said, “So what’s the story with you and her? Is it romantic? Are you guys an item or anything?”