"We saw it!" replied the girl, with a communicating enthusiasm, making a little smile appear on her young black friend's face, who was now sitting on the floor.
"I brought a large stock of the drug with me, inside my bag, and as long as I receive regular injections of it," added the good colossus, "I should be able to keep control of myself and greatly help you, instead of trying to devour you."
The two youths sighed while Red remained impassive. Reassured, they approached.
Harry tenderly put a hand on one of Johnny's shoulders.
Red's smile, close to them, disappeared quickly and, looking worried, she said to the others, "Speaking of 'Mengele', as he is called by everyone, how are we going to return to the Community without being shot down by Adams’ and Vlad's men?"
Her question raised an understandable anxiety on her friend’s face, while she resumed, speaking to the colossus, "Harry, I really thought you were going to catch up with them, while they were fleeing with the motorcycle!"
"Yep," the big black mumbled. "By the way, I got a bullet in my forehead." He contemplated the reddish-blackened ball of blood between his fingers and added, "What a souvenir!"
"Harry, do you think you can catch up with them, and stop them before they join the Community?"
"Red!" Johnny shouted to her, looking offended. "After all the things he's gone through..."
"It's OK, son, don't be angry, she's right, we should try..."
Thereupon, Harry left them and did a sprint worthy of Usain Bolt. He left behind him a cloud of dust raised by his acceleration, which caused them both to cough and close their eyes and disappeared behind a tree.
A loud rumble caught the attention of Red and Johnny, who in turn ran behind the tree and discovered Harry, who was lying on his stomach in the dust.
"Dad, are you OK?" Johnny asked, lifting with difficulty the heavy head of his father, whose face was once again covered with dust. Looking at him through his dirtied lashes, Harry groaned in pain and said, "I feel that that bloody bullet must've reached something in my head... I can't synchronize my movements as well… I can't move as fast as before... "
He raised himself by pushing the ground with his hands and, kneeling, struck angrily the ground with his fist, raising a new cloud of dust and shouted, "I can't stop them, shit!"
"I prefer you not to have gone," said Johnny, helping his father to get back on his feet. "I don't want to lose you once again!"
"Lose me?" The father looked incredulously at his son, as if he couldn't believe what he had heard, and then he went on, "But we're doomed, boy. Adams, that goddamn bastard, arrives to reach his men before us! I bet he's going to pay a premium to bring him back our heads, and he'll let them go like dogs on our heels. And, once they find us, for us, it will be Game Over!"
"It's a good reason to run to the van and try to catch them," Red said, adding,
"Harry, if you feel better, I suggest you hurry to go to the van! My grandfather needs to be treated and brought back to the Community as soon as possible. Once we're there, we'll struggle to enter."
"OK!" the black colossus bellowed. Then they both ran, soon out of sight of Bo and Johnny, who returned to Hiroto, who had now fainted.
His heart beating hard, Johnny crouched beside his old Master and, putting a finger at the level of his carotid, tried to feel his pulse. The regular pressure he felt reassured him, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Johnny?" Bo asked, timidity perceptible in his voice.
"Yes?" the young black man replied, turning his attention to his friend who was standing beside him with surprise. Johnny hadn’t seen nor heard the young muscular blond man for a moment, until now, asking himself, has he been hiding somewhere?
But he was curious to know what his old friend wanted, so he repeated, “What’s your question?”
"You don't find it crazy that Harry and Red left us both alone here?" As he said this, the blond man looked up at the truck cut in half, and at the crowd of zombies continuing to feed on what was left of human and chicken flesh.
"Oh, that," Johnny replied, smiling, before resuming, "You know, as it seems, zombies are like lions; once they are satisfied, they aren't hungry anymore, and they won't attack for a while. I think that none of these will come to bother us."
"I hope you aren't wrong!" Bo exclaimed, continuing to look at the creatures not far away.
"If I'm wrong, I have what is needed to defend ourselves," Johnny replied.
He surprised his friend with his sabre that he had been able to retrieve, when they had escaped from the truck.
The van pulled up close to them as its brakes screamed under the tension.
Harry, opening the window on the driver's side, said to them, "Get in quickly with Hiroto!"
Reassured, the two young men gently lifted the old Japanese from the ground, while the sliding door of the vehicle opened, revealing Red standing in the opening, who beckoned them to enter.
As they moved toward the open doorway, transporting cautiously the unconscious old man, Bo and Johnny realized that, besides the sound of the van’s engine, a relative silence had returned.
No more any grunt, or scream of any wild beast...
Looking at each other while one of them held Hiroto by the feet, and the other under the armpits, they looked at the truck. At least, what was left of it.
Dragging feet between the two separate parts of the vehicle, the zombies finally finished tearing each other apart for the poor poultry... and they were now looking in their direction.
A few grunts were heard, as they began to walk toward them, clapping.
"Come on," Johnny shouted to his friend as they were finishing moving the old man. Once they had entered inside, he added, sliding the door close to him, "I believe that the digestion of the lions is over, and they need to go hunting again!"
As they stretched Hiroto out on the same bunk seat on which he had been before, they heard scratches on the closed door, and a few roars.
"Homecoming, now!" Harry exclaimed, and then he put his foot to the floor.
The truck jumped forward, mowing down the creatures trying to get in its way.
***
Choices
Harry seldom regretted being so big.
But this day was one of those times ...
The truck's steering wheel was like a toy in his massive hands, hard to hold.
Although he had made the driver's seat move backward as far as possible, he had to drive in a gathered position, legs bent, an uncomfortable position.
Not only that, but his big shoes – made, fortunately, by one of the last craftsman shoemakers still existing in the world – his shoes sometimes overflowed the brake pedal or accelerator, depending on which one he used, causing either swerving, or sudden braking.
"Be careful!" his son yelled once more, who was sitting at his side in the passenger seat.
They almost shaved again a large oak, while the rear tires of the vehicle slipped once more into muddy puddles, on a steeper curve than the others.
"It's OK, things are going well!" cried his father, clenching his teeth, obviously irritated.
"We almost slammed against that tree," Johnny told him. That's when Red arrived at their level, seeking, as much as possible, to hold on to the seats, and so avoiding to fall.
"Hey, what's happening? Bo and I, we were at one moment so much hustled, that we thought we were going to be knocked out!"
"Sorry, Red, but we don't want to lose a second, I want to catch up with that corrupt sonofabitch! I may not be able to catch them by foot again, but I'll have them by rolling!"
"Hey!" Bo shouted behind them, joining Red, who was also fighting to steady herself. "Red and me, we'll never be able to heal Hiroto, when we’re being shaken like that!"
"I have to catch up with Adams and Vlad, and it was too late from the start for me to leave the driver's seat to someone else. Every second lost gives them an extra chance to warn their accomplices, and to shoot us down!"
That's when he closed his eyes and his head collapsed on the steering wheel, resulting in a loud horn sound, making his son jump. Stressed, but he tried to intervene.
He grabbed the steering wheel made heavy by his father's big head on it, steering the wheel as firmly as he could. He saw that they already close-shaved a tree, but he was quickly reassured, because the vehicle was slowing down. Fortunately, the big foot of his father had released the gas pedal, and the van was almost immobilized, now. Meanwhile, Red and Bo were trying to pull Harry out of the driver's seat, so that the young black could replace him at the wheel.
Their efforts were in vain; the big black man's enormous mass seemed literally screwed to the seat.
The slowdown of the van was not enough when a new tree appeared in their field of vision, a tree that Johnny couldn't avoid, despite him aggressively turning the wheel.
They struck the hard surface, and the three youngsters were shaken by the shock. Red and Bo fell onto the floor behind the front seats, as Johnny was thrown against the windshield.
The engine stopped and they all fainted in the truck. The vehicle's dashboard switched off and they were suddenly plunged into darkness.
***
"Red!"
The girl opened her eyes, but everything was dark and blurry.
She closed her eyes again, glad to let herself drift into unconsciousness, once more. Everything was neither hot nor cold, everything just seemed perfect...
"Red, wake up!" She barely recognized Bo's voice, which was very insistent.
She was given a slap and this gave her a reflex gesture, giving him a violent kick. It caught the tall blond guy in the stomach, and sent him against one of the metallic walls.
"Ouch!" exclaimed the young man, holding his stomach while correcting his balance near the wall.
The red-haired girl began to emerge from her limbo. The back of her skull, her spine, her buttocks hurt. As her eyes began to focus again, she saw the angry, aching face of her friend who was staring at her, above her.
Above her?
She then understood why she felt pain; she was lying on the floor on her back behind the two front seats. Red understood that she suffered because of a bad fall. But luckily, she didn't actually feel wounded.
She then stood up slowly, painfully, and seeming sorry while looking at Bo, and mumbled, "Excuse me..."
That's when, getting herself higher, one hand resting on the back of the passenger seat, she saw that Johnny was no longer seated there. Standing up more and stretching her head, she saw that he was behind the other seat, lying on the metal floor.
Harry was slumped on the steering wheel, his head no longer resting on the horn. We're lucky, she said to herself, I don't want him to attract all the zombies around!
"Bo, help me lift Johnny!" cried Red while scrambling over the passenger seat, joined by Bo, who helped her to lift the young black man from the floor, and they made him sit on the passenger's seat. He had some blood at one of his temples, making his two friends feel anxious, who looked at each other with worried eyes.
Suddenly Johnny opened his eyes, making Bo and Red smile, this time.
The young black asked, "What... What happened?"
"Your father almost killed all of us by making the van kiss a tree!" Bo exclaimed angrily.
"Technically," Red said, casting a reproachful look toward the blond young man, continuing, "it's more complicated than that, but it's pretty close to what happened."
"First of all, why did someone let him drive, after everything he went through?" Bo cried, anger in his voice.
"He won the wheel," Red retorted, casting a bad look at him. "And I don't dare argue with him, as you can guess!"
The young man bit his lip and replied by glancing at her. But because of the intensity with which the girl looked him straight in the eyes, he gave up, and eventually looked down. Their black friend looked severely at Bo, too.
All of a sudden Harry muttered something inaudible, capturing the attention of the others, lessening the tension.
He half-opened his eyes and, lifting his head painfully, asked, "What ... what happened?"
"We had a minor accident," Johnny said softly, lifting one of his father's heavy arms and putting it around his own shoulders.
"Come, Dad, get up, please. It's better for you to lie." His father stood up painfully, and allowed his son to carry him backwards, apparently groggy. Johnny shook his head toward the driver's seat and then at Bo.
The muscular young blond, immediately understanding, dropped into the seat.
"We're screwed," said Boris, now alone while watching the dark dashboard in front of him.
He struck his fist on it to see if it was reacting.
Nothing…
He then turned the key and, to his great comfort, the dashboard switched on and the engine restarted.
As he slowly reversed the vehicle, and after that, made it move forward.
While driving through the wood now, Bo shouted, hoping to be heard behind him, "Adams will arrive before us in the neighborhood of the Community, and will warn his henchmen. They'll get rid of us, as soon as they see us appear over the horizon!"
Later, after many hours, Johnny had taken over the driving, and they were rolling as fast as possible between the trees.
As he accelerated, Red, sitting near him, had suddenly a concentrated attitude, seeming to listen to something. Intrigued by her demeanor, her black friend asked her, "What's up?"
"You don't hear it?" the red-haired girl asked, looking almost annoyed. "It's like... stop and turn off the engine, please!"
"What..." Johnny shouted, casting at her a bad look between two glances on the wrong road.
"I said stop everything, Johnny!" cried his friend.
Grimacing, the young man braked and stopped short, turning off the engine.
Everything had fallen into silence again. It was just interrupted by a few last tremors of the suspension of the old vehicle, which was obviously in poor condition.
"Listen..." murmured the girl, looking at the road ahead. With a disillusioned, mocking air, her friend remained motionless in his seat, his hands resting on the steering wheel.
Then he heard...
A motorcycle noise was heard and they saw a flash of light passing through the dark forest before disappearing, just in time for them to recognize the silhouettes of Adams and his crony, perched on the bike.
"We finally caught them up!" Johnny shouted, restarting the engine and accelerating very quickly, taking a sharp turn to follow them.
The turn made them leave the horizontal position and they were jostled on the left. Red sat with difficulty on her seat, not having worn her seatbelt.
"Damn, the right wheels are lifted, we're balancing on the two left ones," Johnny exclaimed with panic.
"Shit!" Red cried as she tried to cling to her seat, the stress perceptible in her voice.
"Quiet," Johnny retorted, irritated as he violently turned the wheel, "I'll straighten the van... ah!"
He had shouted because he was surprised by the reaction of the vehicle, which was re-passing from the skewed position to the horizontal position, while he and his passenger felt themselves falling, feeling themselves in weightlessness for a split second, that seemed long for them.
"Hang on!" Johnny cried, but Red had hardly the time to follow his advice.
The vehicle struck the ground.
They were both jostled and heard a scream behind them, while the truck began rolling on the wrong road between the trees, which he barely avoided. As he was driving at full speed in the woods, the young black man shouted happily, "We'll catch those two motherfuckers!"
"Hey, what's going on?"
Bo was the one who had yelled, a hand on the
side of his head, while arriving with difficulty at their level. He hung as best as he could with his other hand to the back of a seat, trying to avoid falling.
Glancing at him, Red noticed that blood flowed from a wound at his forehead. He had probably fallen hard on the floor, behind them, while he was busy caring for the two wounded persons they were transporting.
"Sorry," Johnny said, as he focused his attention on the red rear light of the bike, in front of them, further away in the darkness of the wood. "I think my father's behavior definitely got me nervous!"
"The bottom line now is that we catch up with them before they get to the Community," the red-haired girl said, and her two friends nodded, focusing on what was happening in front of them.
Meter by meter, to their surprise, they were catching up the motorcycle. It was rolling ever more slowly, and even, after a moment, began to zigzag.
"Faster!" Adams shouted, as his arms crossed around Vlad's athletic abdominals, he could see the van's lights flashing behind them.
Once again, to his astonishment, the henchman had begun to zigzag, and even, at times, to slow down sharply.
The Administrator then shouted to him, "What's happening to you, Vlad, you want them to catch up with us? Several times, you made mistakes as to which direction we should go! Now, they're approaching us dangerously, stupid!"
"OK, OK," the henchman replied, a trace of nervousness in his voice, before continuing, "Sorry, but I'm suffering very much! All because of what those fucking zombies infected me with. It's distracting me... I don't know how long I'll be able to drive the motorcycle."
He stopped, and swallowing his saliva, he resumed, "Could you take the handlebars?"
"You ask me to… Ride the motorcycle?" the old man asked, surprise in his voice. He continued, angrily, "I don't have the license to drive it, I never needed a license, because I always had someone to help me, to drive where I wanted!"
The old man stopped talking, red with anger now, whilst he clung as best as he could to the henchman. The latter merely mumbled something sarcastic, then he focused again on the worn pathway.
Hungry Series: Tomes 1 & 2 Page 29