Sometimes We Ran (Book 3): Rescue (13 page)

“I don't think he sees us,” Claire said. The windows of the market were tinted, and we were cowering behind some barricades. If we didn't move, he might just move on to something else. I drew my gun anyway, and prepared for battle.

“Claire...I think he's deciding what to do. Let's make for the back room,” I said

Claire and Lyle nodded. We began creeping back from the window slowly, as not to alert the bad guy outside. As we moved away, Trench Coat made his decision. He walked up and reached for the door.

Things were about to go bad.

We all stopped in place again as Trench Coat put his shoulder to the glass door and began to push. It was locked, and resisted his entry.  I raised my gun, faded into a dark spot, and prepared to defend myself. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Claire and Lyle backing into the dark shadows of the store, and into ambush position. We were ready.

Trench Coat cupped his hand on his forehead to shade his eyes, and looked inside the store. I held my breath, and drew my gun. Trench Coat looked at the window, then stepped back as if he was going to break the glass to unlock the door. He brought out his gun again, and prepared to use it like a hammer to smash his way inside. My finger went to the trigger. I wasn't going to ask any questions. It was a shoot- first kind of situation. He had nearly beat one of his friends to death. I had no idea what he would do when he found three strangers inside the store.

Trench Coat raised his gun to strike the blow. My finger twitched on the trigger. He would be dead before he hit the ground, and then we would run away.

A loud horn sounded close to the store, and Trench Coat stopped in mid-swing. It was his Subordinates in the ramp truck. Subordinate Number One had blown the truck's extra loud horn to get Trench Coat's attention.

Trench Coat put his gun away and turned towards the truck. With hands waving, he yelled at his companions for blowing the horn. The two jackasses in the truck shrugged their shoulders and tried to explain themselves. Trench Coat turned from the door, and walked back to his truck. A small argument ensued, but I couldn't hear what was being said. After more frantic hand waving and pointing, he opened the door and slid inside. The truck started to move away, the silver minivan on its back.

I finally took the breath I had been holding in the whole time. I retreated a bit into the shadows as the truck, minivan swaying on the ramp behind it, passed slowly past the store. As it passed, Trench Coat looked right at me in the semi-darkness. Our eyes seemed to lock as the truck passed by and out of the parking lot. The Junkmen took a right turn onto the main road and headed north, out of town. Maybe it was my imagination, but I think Trench Coat knew we were here.

Or at least he suspected someone was in the store. We might be in trouble.

Claire and Lyle walked up behind me causing me to jump. “Are they gone?” Claire said.

I holstered my weapon. “Yeah. I think the guy in the trench coat suspected something. Looked right at me as they left.”

“What do we do now?” asked Claire. “Go home?”

Lyle looked a little worried. “I don't think my people can hold out.”

I leaned against a nearby wall for a few seconds to think. If they were waiting up the road, we could be screwed. On the other hand, they were already carrying a minivan on their back. They probably have to get back to their Fort to drop it off. If Trench Coat and his gang were the only Junkmen out here on the road, we might have a chance to avoid them.

“We'll keep going. I think if we stick to back roads and shortcuts, we can avoid the Junkmen. We'll find a different route up north. But we'll have to be extra careful. Don't want to start a battle out here.” Claire and Lyle nodded in agreement with my new plan.

We stood around for at least a half an hour to give Trench Coat and his Junkmen a little head start out of town. After what we thought was enough time, we took our seats in our van and got on the road. Lyle did some navigating with the maps we had on hand. It was going to take us a little longer, but we would get to his people up north.

I turned onto the new route that would help us avoid the Junkmen and motored out of town. Safety Two receded in my mirror as we stepped into the unknown. The road got a little curvy, but it was at least clear enough for our big van. The lush Alabama forest swallowed us up and we disappeared into the landscape. Lyle's people just had to hang on. We would be there as soon as we could.

T
he Alabama woods provided great camouflage as I pointed the van towards Huntsville to find Lyle's lost people. The steady, reassuring hum of the engine, and the clear dashboard told me everything was okay under the hood. Lyle read the maps the best he could, and Claire and I looked out for problems on the road ahead. We hadn't come across any more Junkmen, and I hoped to keep it that way by choosing a new route that would keep us off the main roads. We didn't want a chase out here on the road. Stopping once in a while at intersections and wide spots in the road allowed us to check things out, and make sure we weren't being followed.

So far, so good.

The real enemy we were fighting was time. I shot anxious looks outside as the sun traversed the deep blue winter sky. The new circuitous route to where Lyle had stowed his people was taking us out of the way and costing us daylight. I tried to hustle the van as fast as I could. More time was lost by wrecked cars and auto graveyards on the road. Even on the back roads, panic gripped the population and everyone tried to leave at once. In some places, the cars were piled up thick on the asphalt, and we had to find a way around the mess. The van barely fit on the tiny grass shoulders of the road.

We passed a faded, green sign. It had “Huntsville” written underneath another small town, but I couldn't make out the mileage. We were moving in the right direction. “We're getting there, Lyle. Won't be long.” I said.

Lyle kept rubbing his hands together. He was getting more and more nervous as we went further north. “Just hope they're still there.”

“Yeah. Also hope we have some daylight to drive home. I would rather not travel home at night,” I said, glancing out the window again. Driving home in the dark ranked only slightly higher than camping out on the road. Both options were likely to get us all turned into Red-Eyes.

We broke out of the woods and onto the open road. A recent light rain glistened off the road ahead, and fresh, fragrant air filled the cabin of the van. If it weren't for the zombies and the destruction, this could have been just another nice ride in the country.

“Been up this road before?” Lyle asked.

“Yeah. Been a while. A couple of our teams came through to find supplies,” I said. That had not been a great trip. It was about a year after the dead rose, and the bodies of the unfortunate were still pretty thick on the road. The Red-Eyes were all over the place. Our group fought them car-to-car, and we lost a few good people. I spared Lyle any further details. “If I remember correctly, there's an intersection up ahead. We'll stop and take a quick look around.”

The road went straight, and we could see what was far ahead. It was a long road of mostly farmland and fields of wild grass. The sun played hide-and-seek and threw funny shadows on the road as the clouds passed overhead. This is the way I wanted it. Nice and smooth. No zombies, no Junkmen, and clear weather. We would pick up Lyle's people and go home to our families, and I could go home to my Karen.

The farmland ended, and we traveled into an area with a few stores and businesses. The abandoned vehicles were piling up again, so I slowed down so I wouldn't hit anything. I had to weave around a few accident scenes. The cars and trucks were all stripped to the bone. Hoods, doors, and trunks were open to the elements, and parts were scattered all over the road. It was a common sight. In the days and weeks after the outbreak, people stripped everything useful of value from the stores and the remnants of civilization. Car batteries, tires, and other vital parts became commodities in short supply. Denise sent teams of Cannon Fields residents to the roads to find and carry back as much as possible. For a short time, we had all been Junkmen.

The cars and trucks thickened up. As we continued up the road, the apocalypse junkyard became a continuous line blocking our path. I took to the somewhat clear opposing lane to continue our journey. It didn't have a solid line of cars, but it was still rough going. I took to the shoulder at some spots to get around some hairy looking blockages.

The intersection I mentioned to Lyle from my murky memory came into view. It was a four-way stop, with two businesses across the street from each other. One was a gas station, and the other was one of those touristy stores made out of logs. The gas station was a blown-out mess with no windows and a collapsed roof, but the store was in better shape. The windows were intact, and the walls still stood.

Stopping on the road near the store, I said, “Maps.”

Lyle and Claire shot me a strange look. “What about maps?” Claire said.

I turned into the store's concrete parking lot. The van bounced over the cracked and broken surface as we came near the store. “Just thinking maybe the store has a few maps handy. Ours are so torn up, I can hardly make anything out.”

“Not a bad idea,” Lyle said. He held up the remains of one map of southern Alabama that was pieced together with tape. “This one is nearing retirement.”

I pulled the van up the front door, and parked among a few of the abandoned cars. A good spot,  it was hard to see from the road. One of the cars in front was a good-looking hot rod pick-up truck. Dusty, but good-looking. A giant supercharger poked through the hood, oxidized by the elements. Amazing what you can see out here on the road.

We got out and stretched our legs for a second. It was colder up here, and our breath came out in big, white puffs. “Lyle, keep an eye on the van. Claire and I will check it out.” Lyle gave me a quick salute, and took a defensive position at the back to watch the road. 

Claire and I stepped inside the quaint little building. We waited a moment for our eyes to adjust to the yellowish light. The country store had been a tourist trap, selling cheap souvenirs to the travelers that came in to use the bathroom. Faded signs on the wall told of homemade fudge, boiled peanuts, and foot-long hot dogs at incredibly low prices.

“I'll check the back for a storeroom,” Claire said. She bounded away to the rear of the store.

I walked around and took a quick look. The place was a dusty, moldy mess. The food items were gone, and only the useless trinkets remained. Wood crafts and toys littered the floor, and the dead eyes of a thousand stuffed animals stared at me in the dank environment of the store. Most of the good stuff was gone, and I didn't see any maps. The metal shelves were pulled down to the floor.

“I found it,” Claire called from the back of the store. Jogging to her general location, I found her crouched over in front of some double doors that led to a dark room. Claire was already getting out a flashlight. “I'll check it out,” she said.

“You sure? Looks kind of dark in there.” I parted the doors slightly, and the faint smell of rotten food hit my nostrils. At least, I hoped it was rotten food.

“I'll be fine,” Claire said. She put her ear to the door to listen. In the reality of the new world we lived in, you didn't just open the door and bust inside. Something horrible could be waiting in the darkness to eat you on the other side.

A muffled growl came from our right, and something banged hard against the door. Claire fell to the floor, right on her butt. Instinct made me draw my gun. I picked Claire off the floor with my other hand, and brushed off about a hundred discarded peanut shells. “You all right?”

Claire pointed at the ladies room door, marked “Southern Belles”. The banging and scraping continued, but the door held. “I guess it's occupied.”

We stood there for a second to see if the door would hold the creature inside the bathroom. The door moved around a bit as the creature thrashed against it, but continued to hold. I imagined the red-eyed monster penned up inside: hungry, probably desperate, and prepared to tear apart anything living outside the bathroom. I wondered if it had been in there since the beginning, getting hungrier each day until it was ready to rip the door off its hinges. Another bang, louder this time, was followed by a long, gurgling moan that echoed off the tile inside the ladies room. A gray finger topped by a blackened fingernail poked out from the space under the door.

That was enough for me. I grabbed an overturned chair, and jammed it under the doorknob.

“Good idea,” said Claire.

I jammed the chair tightly against the doorknob until it wouldn't budge. “I thought the door could use some help.”

Claire clicked on her flashlight, and carefully entered the stock room. I watched until the light disappeared around a corner, and then turned back to the store. There was nothing much left. The good stuff, like food and water, was already gone. I did find a few postcards and other useless items on the busted shelves and floors, but not much else. The magazine rack held a few new issues, so I grabbed them for our library in Cannon Fields. It would be nice to have something new to read. All the residents knew our old magazines by heart. I still wasn't finding any maps.

I was checking out the area near the cash register when Claire burst out of a door behind the counter. “Find anything, kiddo?” I asked.

“Not much. Just a lot of useless stuff.” She came from behind the counter, and asked, “How about you?”

“More of the same. The cash register is full.” I nodded to the machine on the counter, overflowing with bills. “Owner got rich before the swarms came.”

“I hope that's not the owner in the bathroom,” Claire said. “There's got to be about a thousand dollars here.” Claire grabbed a few handfuls of notes and stuffed them into her backpack. The money was useless, but Cannon Fields kept a supply on hand for possible bribes. Some crazy people still thought it was worth something. “Find any maps?”

I was still scanning the floor. “No...wait a minute.” Under a turned-over shelf was a spiral-bound book of maps of the southern United States. Further digging turned up a few fresh maps of Alabama and other states. “Here you go.” I tossed everything to Claire. She put it in the bag, along with the greenbacks from the register.