Sometimes We Ran (Book 3): Rescue (14 page)

“Good. Can we go now?” Claire said.

Our quick scrounging mission inside the store was over. “Anytime you're ready.”

I wrote a quick, unsigned note to warn future visitors to the dead store about the zombie in the bathroom, and we walked outside to rejoin Lyle at the van. He was poking around in the hot rod pick-up. His leather boots stuck out of the driver's door as he searched the interior.

“You trusted laughing boy not to drive away with our ride.” Claire said, nodding over to Lyle. He saw us, and emerged from the window of the truck.

“Maybe, but I don't think Lyle would do that. I kind of trust him.” I showed  Claire the keys from my pocket. ”Still, I don't think he'd get too far without these. I may trust him, but I'm not stupid.” Claire broke into a fit of giggles.

We all met at the back doors of the van. “Find anything?” Claire asked.

Lyle looked back at the truck with the big supercharger. “Not much. Stripped pretty clean.  Sweet ride.” He stopped to admire the sleek lines of the truck. “I was looking for the keys. It'd be nice to take it home.”

I ran my hand over the flanks of the souped-up truck. It probably made at least five hundred horsepower before the zombies came. Now it was a sun-bleached relic of a forgotten time. “Tempting, isn't it? Someone probably tried to escape with this thing. Ran out of gas, and now here it sits. Useless.”

“You need to be careful about poking your head into cars, because something could be strapped inside. One time, John and I...,” Claire trailed off and began looking at the road.

She heard something.

Besides being a good mother, teacher, champion lock-picker and a bat-wielding, zombie-killing bad-ass, one of Claire's other gifts was a sharp sense of hearing. Earphone abuse and general middle age had taken away a little of my hearing, so it wasn't quite as sharp as it was in my youth. In the past, Claire's sharp ears had saved our bacon on the road. Anytime she paused to try and hear something, I listened.

“Something coming?” I asked. I began glancing up and down the road.

Claire held up her hand. “Wait for it.” She pointed west, up the intersecting road. “That way.”

Lyle and I strained our older ears to hear what was coming down the road. It took a minute, but under the slight breeze, another sound emerged. It was the growl of a hard-working engine headed our way.

“Let's get in the van. Got a bad feeling about this,” I said.

It was too late. A sinister, black tow truck going very fast screamed through the intersection on the crossroad. It roared past the store before we could get in the van. It was more Junkmen on the prowl.

Claire sat herself down in her seat and buckled her seat belt. She was probably going to need it for the chase I knew was coming. “Maybe they didn't see us. It was moving pretty fast.”

I stabbed the gas, and we lurched onto the road. After fishtailing for a few feet, the van settled down. I continued north, hoping the tow truck wouldn't give chase. I knew they had to make a U-turn, and that might buy us a little time to get away.

“Lyle...start looking for roads that might allow us to ditch these creeps.” My heart was pounding in my ears, and I was trying to stay cool. “Also, you may want to see if you can find a place to hide.” Lyle, with Claire's help, filed through the new maps from the store. I pushed the accelerator, and our van began to bounce and clatter along the road as it picked up speed. After narrowly avoiding a collision with a group of cars on the road, I took a look in the side-view mirror.

It was a tiny, reflected horror show.

Coming up behind us at great speed, weaving through the wreckage, was the black tow truck. Dark smoke poured from chrome exhaust stacks as it got closer and closer. They were driving some kind of a hopped-up animal of a truck. The Junkmen had found us, and they were in pursuit.

T
he van was definitely airborne.

It was a strange sensation. My stomach dropped to the floor, and the ground seemed to fall away. The little asphalt ramp that led to the railroad crossing had given us a little altitude. I thought we were going to fly forever, but then we crashed to the ground with a great metallic clatter.

I stole a quick glance in the side-view mirror. Our pursuers in the black tow truck navigated the railroad crossing with ease and continued the chase. All they had to do was keep us in sight. Eventually, we would crash, run out of fuel, or give up. Then the Junkmen would take their prize home.

A clot of cars blocked the lane in front of us, and we came up upon it fast. Jerking the wheel to the left sent me into the opposing lane, into another potential accident with a fallen motorcycle. Another jerk of the van's leather-padded wheel avoided certain doom and got us back into the proper lane. I didn't know how long I could keep this up, as I was certainly no racecar driver.

And our van was no racecar.

We had to find a road to ditch the Junkmen. Stopping was not an option. I had no intention of being left out in the middle of nowhere with no vehicle. It was a long walk back to Cannon Fields, unless the Junkmen decided to slit our throats or something. “Lyle, Claire...talk to me. Any way out of this?” I asked.

They rifled through the maps to find a solution. Claire spoke up first. “Turn coming up.” She shoved the map in my face, and pointed. “Doesn't look like a major road.”

“I'm taking it,” I said, sliding the van around another wrecked car.

The turn came up fast. It left the main road at an angle and went down a small hill into some suburban neighborhoods. I made the turn at the very last minute, hoping to throw the Junkmen off track. The van swayed dangerously as we made the transition to the smaller side road. All of us in the cab had to fight to stay in our seats as we sped down-hill. It was a miracle I kept the van out of the cliff-like ditch on the side of the road. I shot a quick glance to see how the Junkmen fared trying to make the turn. In the mirror, the black truck skidded from lane to lane, as the driver sawed the wheel back and forth trying to keep up the chase. I thought for a second the whole thing might be over, but the skillful driver brought the big tow truck under control, and continued the chase. Like our van, the Junkmen's truck didn't seem to be well suited to a high-speed chase. Pressing the pedal to the floor, I tried to put on more speed. If I could the Junkmen to wreck, the chase would be over. The van fought me as we flew over the broken, old asphalt. My crazy, half-assed plan only worked if we didn't wreck first.

Lyle scanned the maps as they jostled in his lap. “We're coming to the end of the road - right or left.”

“Perfect,” I answered under my breath. A quick turn, and I might get the Junkmen to crash.

At the speed we were going, we came up on the intersection quickly. The road to the right was blocked by a line of cars. The left was clearer, but not by much. It was going to be a tight squeeze. In front of us was a black-and-yellow, double-headed arrow sign telling motorists “right or left only”. Beyond the sign was woods and tall grass. The sign loomed closer, and I spotted my gap to the left. I went back to the mirror to check on the chasing tow truck. As if sensing my devious plan, the Junkmen had put on a little speed and were trying to catch up. Pushing the accelerator to the floor again, the van jumped into speed under my feet. This was it. One of us was going to make this turn, and the other unfortunate vehicle was going into the weeds.

I braced my left foot against the dead pedal on the floor and locked myself into the seat. “Everybody hang on to something,” I said. Lyle wrapped his hand around the passenger assist handle molded into the interior trim. Claire hunkered down in her seat behind me.

We reached the turn, and I went hard left. The van leaned over and threatened to tip, but I kept turning. I narrowly missed a pair of wrecked sedans and a pick-up truck in the intersection by a foot or less. We bounced over various pieces of junk and debris, and the tires squealed in protest as we joined the new road. I held the turn until the force nearly threw me out of the driver's seat. The van leaned over, lost the battle for traction, and began sliding out of my control.

Hold it. Got to hold it.
I feathered the gas pedal to try and control the skid and keep the van from turning around. I fought the wheel to keep us from crashing. Even with all my efforts, the van continued to crab sideways, tires wailing in protest. Another vehicle loomed in the windshield and passenger side window. We were headed right for it.

I think I closed my eyes for a second.

Claire yelled something from the back as we made contact. A deep, shuddering thump rang through the body of the van as we bounced off the hapless car to our right side. The force of the blow shook us all up to our core and tried to bounce us out of our seats. Somewhere, I heard soft crunching noises and glass breaking. Lyle's head snapped to the side, but he continued to hold onto the handle.

The blow seemed fatal, but when I regained my senses I realized the van was still mobile. The semi-accident has straightened us out and kept us on the road. My right foot found the gas, and I pressed it down. The van responded, but not with the vigor of before.

The Junkmen were not in my mirror anymore. Lyle opened the window, and said, ”Slow down a bit. I don't see them.”

I did one better and stopped in the middle of the road. Lyle leaned out the window for a few seconds, then said in a loud voice, “They're in the weeds! They didn't make it!”

I got out of the van and walked around to Lyle's side to take a look. The black tow truck of the Junkmen had gone straight through the turn and into the woods. The rear end of the truck was all that was sticking out. There was no movement, and everything was silent.

I took a few steps toward the stricken tow truck, but stopped as I thought about our situation. Any negotiations with our former pursers, even if they were injured were not going to go well. We were moving on, and I returned to the van.

“What's going on?” Claire asked. “Can't see crap from the back seat.” The color was now just returning to her cheeks.

“Junkmen had a accident,” I said. I restarted the van. It took a few cranks to get it going.

“Any survivors?”

“Not sticking around to find out.” I took off down the road in haste, but something wasn't right. The van didn't seem to be running correctly. The idle was off, and it became sluggish.

As to confirm my worst fears, a yellow attention light blinked to life on the dashboard. It was shaped like a tiny engine block, meaning something was amiss under the hood. As I drove on, it was joined by a few more warnings on the dash.

Claire pointed at the dashboard over my shoulder. “What's that mean?”

“Don't know,” I said. “But it's bright yellow, so that can't be good. We need a place to hide out for a while to check it out.”

We drove for a few more miles as the van got progressively worse and more sluggish. We were now struggling down the road. I needed to find a place quickly or be stranded. All we passed were endless farmland and woods. We needed a little luck, and soon some showed up.

“There.” I pointed to a driveway through an open chain-link fence. ”That should get us out of the way for a bit.”

I turned and hurried up the driveway. After passing some overgrown landscapes with expensive trees and bushes and some parking areas, we came across several long metal buildings. Piles of metal objects and trucks were set in various places.

I made a slow run through the place to check things out. It was empty of people and zombies. The large, yellow buildings had their doors opened, and several were damaged. In the man made alleys between the buildings, were the same parked trucks and pallets of metal shapes. A few of the trucks wore only primer paint on their flanks, and consisted of only the cab and a bare frame. Everything was rusty and broken down.

“Manufacturing complex, I guess. Some sort of a factory,” I said.

Lyle pointed to a few green trucks near a fence. “Looks like they made garbage trucks.”

Claire hung onto my shoulder with a death grip. “Creepy,” she said under her breath.

I pointed the van towards the back of the complex. “Some of the goddamn doors are wide open. All kinds of bad things could be inside,” I said. “Kind of dark, too.”

“No bodies. I don't see any zombies on the ground, either. Maybe the place was evacuated,” Claire said from the back seat. “Might be empty,” she added, trying to be hopeful.

A few raindrops began to fall on the windshield. Another winter rain, but at least it wasn't snow. The van wasn't getting any better. We had no other choice for a place to hide out.

“Let's go inside,” I said. Lyle and Claire nodded. I hoped it wasn't my last. “Keep an eye out for anything that might kill us, and hang on. I might have to get out in a hurry.”

I picked a building near the office. The large, sliding double doors were wide open, and I could see a few feet inside. Beyond that it was almost total darkness. A few shafts of light from overhead skylights were the only illumination, but it was still pretty dim.

“Going to stay near the door. That way we can get out of here pretty quick. The darkness will hide us a little,” I said.

After a few deep breaths, I pulled inside the big yellow building. We crossed the threshold of the door into a large space with a concrete floor and pallets of steel sheets and other metal objects all stacked around an empty space in the middle. Tables for assembling components were close to the walls near racks of parts and supplies. Papers and other assorted debris blew around on the floor.

I pulled in as far as I dared into the assembly shop and shut off the engine. As it went quiet, we sat there for a few seconds, just looking around and waiting for something to jump out of the dark. The light was dim, the late afternoon sun coming through the dirty skylights the only source of light.

Claire and I got out flashlights, and we exited the van as quietly as possible. “Everyone stay within running distance of the van,” I said.

We fanned out in a semicircle, weapons drawn. Dust stirred up from our entrance floated through the weak shafts of light from the ceiling. I swept my flashlight from wall to wall, then floor to ceiling, trying to illuminate all the corners I could. Claire did the same, but neither of our flashlights could penetrate the darkness all the way to the other end of the building. Nothing moved in the vast space. Jagged metal and rusty tools were neatly arranged in racks all the way to the top of the space. Pallets of material that loomed over Claire were parked in various places among the tables. I took a deep breath through my nose to try and detect any zombies. It only smelled musty and burnt.