Sometimes We Ran (Book 2): Community

by Stephen Drivick

  Claire’s middle name was Margaret. I didn’t know that. “Where is she?” I repeated my question.

  Wallace waved his hand to an unknown part of the facility. “She’s here. In a room like this one.” He checked the folder again. “Claire was a little undernourished and underweight, but she’s okay. Nothing a few good meals won’t cure.” Wallace leaned back. “She asked for pizza and citrus cola. Young people and their pizza, huh? The cook made her a hamburger and double cheese. Last time I saw her, she was eating.”

  I was glad Claire was eating and being taken care of. If it was true, it was a load off my troubled mind. “I want to see her.”

  Wallace leaned forward and held up his hands. “In due time. Both of you are quarantined for the next couple of days. We have to make sure you won’t turn. You’ll see her. I promise.”

  I looked into his eyes. I didn’t really know if this man’s promises were worth anything.

  Wallace finished removing the domes off the food. “You must have a million questions. First, I want you to eat. You’re pretty underweight, too. A big guy like you needs to eat. Now, since you were…let’s just say sleeping, I couldn’t ask what you wanted to eat. I took the liberty of having my cooking staff make you a few dishes.”

  Taking off the little metal domes off the plates revealed a full dinner. A small salad for openers, followed by a steak main course. French fries and seasoned vegetables were crowded on two smaller plates. Dessert was a small piece of peanut butter and chocolate pie. It was the most food I had seen in a while. Despite not trusting Wallace about anything, my stomach began to growl.

  “Looks good?” Wallace asked. He stood up and patted me on the shoulder. “I didn’t know what you wanted to drink. The doctors said your stomach might be upset after the sedative, so I brought some ginger ale.”

  It all looked good. I wanted to dive in and not stop eating till I was about to burst. I still didn’t trust these guys. Something did not feel right. It was all too perfect. They might be hiding something. I felt it in my gut. I picked up the knife and fork.

  Wallace beamed. “Good. Eat all you can.”

  I sliced through the steak. It was perfectly done: slightly pink on the inside, but well cooked on the outside, with a hint of seasoning for taste. The smell brought back memories of Fourth of July cookouts, and trips to steakhouses before the end came. I only hoped it was cow, not some fellow survivor.

  “That’s it, John. Not exactly a five-star steak house, but the chef knows his New York strip. That’s real one-hundred-percent American beef you got there,” Wallace said.

  I started to bring the fork to my mouth, but paused. I turned the fork around and handed it to Wallace. “You first.”

  Wallace’s expression turned to shock. “This is ridiculous, sir,” Odegard said. “He’s paranoid, or…,”

  Wallace held up his hand to silence Odegard. He smiled at me, saying “ If I wanted to harm you, I could have done it a lot easier. Why would I poison you?”

  I moved the fork closer to his face. “Maybe not poison, but you could drug me again. Humor me.”

  Wallace pointed at me. “You’re a very smart man. A little paranoid, but smart.” He took the fork and put the steak into his mouth. When he swallowed and didn’t keel over, he said, “Satisfied?”

  “Almost. I want you to sample everything else.” I glanced at Odegard. “You, too.”

  Wallace and Odegard clearly looked annoyed, but they indulged me. They both took little bites of all the food. After they were finished, and didn’t die or anything, I was satisfied the food was good.

  “Satisfied we’re not trying to kill you?” Odegard said with annoyance. Wallace shot him a look.

  I took up knife and fork. “Yeah, I guess. You could still kill me later.”

  Wallace laughed, but then he turned very serious. “I don’t want to kill you. You’re a survivor. You and that little girl in the other room are the future of our society. I don’t want to want to hurt you. In fact, I need your help.” He reached out his hand. “You’re going to have to trust me, okay?”

  My gut was still churning with uncertainty. Something still didn’t feel right. Despite my doubts, I shook his hand.

  Wallace’s smile returned. “Great. Now, me and Odegard are going to leave you alone to eat. We’ll talk later.” With that, he turned and walked out the door, with Odegard trailing behind him. The door closed and the lock snapped shut.

  I began to eat. I forced myself to eat slowly. If you eat too fast after near-starvation, you could get sick. Not to mention that I didn’t want to seem too eager to any watching cameras. It might be construed as a weakness. I cleaned all the plates. They were so clean, a dishwasher wasn’t needed. I hoped Claire was eating this well.

  After my most satisfying meal in weeks, I lay back on the bed to relax. Wallace had called me and Claire the future of society. He had also said he needed my help. I wondered what help I could offer.

  My eyes began to get heavy. My road-weariness was returning. I hoped Wallace and Odegard weren’t cannibals. I didn’t want to become food served under little metal domes. That kind of help I wasn’t prepared to give.

  Chapter 5

  Not Safe

  My nap was short. At least, it seemed short.

  Without a clock, I couldn’t tell if it was night or day. I also couldn’t tell how many hours had passed since I ate. I sat up and looked at the table. The empty plates and the cart were gone. Two unopened bottles of water had been placed on the table.

  I sat down, opened one of the waters, and took a drink. The cool fresh liquid went down smoothly. The bottles were still cold. It hadn’t been very long since they were placed on the table. I must have been tired. I didn’t hear a thing. I passed time by reading the water bottle label. It was nice to have plenty to drink after so many weeks of rationing.

  This place still bothered me.

  It was too perfect. They had food, lights, and even computers. It also looked like they also had plenty of fuel and ammunition. I wondered what this place was really about. I kept trying to force myself to relax, and accept the help, but something kept gnawing at me.

  Not as fit as you think, Odegard had said. Not fit for what? Not fit to survive? Maybe not fit to be cooked and eaten? My head hurt at the possibilities. Claire and I could be in danger and not even know it. We both needed to stay alert.

  I thought about my secret knife in my backpack.

  They had taken my guns and tomahawk, but they might have overlooked my secret knife. It was sewn into a flap of fabric in the bottom of my old backpack. Small and easily concealed, it might have been missed. The little knife wasn’t much: a carbon-fiber handle with a sharp blade that folded, but it was enough to defend myself. Just go for the jugular. Cut them and they’ll bleed to death in just a few minutes. I had taught Claire where to cut as well.

  As I sat at the black plastic table contemplating the trouble Claire and I might be in, the door beeped. Wallace stepped into the room.

  “Are you decent, John?” he asked, slurring his speech a little. My senses went into overdrive. It looked like he had been drinking. He still had his huge silver revolver at his hip.

  Wallace came over to the table and sat down in one of the chairs facing me. He didn’t say anything as he stared me in the eyes. “No guards tonight?” I asked.

  Wallace waved his arm as if to dismiss my question. “No. I know you’re not going to turn.” He breathed a heavy sigh, and leaned forward. “I’ve come to talk.”

  “About what?”

  Wallace waved his hand again. “Anything you want. Actually, I wanted to ask you a few things.”

  I leaned forward in my chair. I stared in Wallace’s eyes trying to read his mind. His eyes were steel gray, with a hint of sadness. It was a look I was familiar with: Most survivors had the same look in their eyes these days. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, it’s where we found you. Here’s Chattanooga,” he said, drawing an imaginary line on
the table. “Here’s Atlanta,” as he drew another line with his finger below the first. “And let’s say this is Valdosta and the Georgia-Florida border.” He drew a final line on the table, south of the Atlanta line. “We found you guys here.” Wallace circled a space southwest of Atlanta where we were picked up on the interstate. “You two were on the interstate scrounging for food.”

  “So?” I said.

  Wallace leaned back. “It’s just that the whole damn state of Georgia is a dead zone, I figure. Along with parts of Alabama, the Carolinas and Tennessee. And don’t get me started about Florida. It’s all dead.” He paused for emphasis. “I’ve sent patrols as far south as Panama City. They reported that there isn’t enough life left in these areas to fill a school bus.”

  “What do you want to know, General?” This was a different Wallace than before. He seemed more serious. He was building up to something.

  Wallace stood up and began to pace around the table. “How did you survive? A former telecom engineer and a college student, surviving all this time out in a dead zone.” He stopped pacing, and turned to face me. “No training, yet you survived among all those reanimates. How did you survive?”

  I remembered the hard times with Claire on the road. Survival hadn’t been easy. We got lucky. A mild winter, along with some careful scrounging and rationing, had allowed us to stay alive. We had started moving southwest looking for warmer weather and greener pastures. Running for our lives helped a lot, as well.

  I looked at Wallace, and smiled. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  Wallace smiled back. It was sinister. A real slick little grin. “No. It’s something else. My scouts watched you for a while. They said there was something different about you two. I have to agree. When they brought you in here, I saw a real fighter. A guy that would do anything to survive. Usually we put people in these rooms and they tear the place apart.” He shook his head sadly. “Most people have been out there too long, killing and scratching to survive. By the time we find them, they’re…,” Wallace struggled for an appropriate word. “Broken. Most survivors are useless. But not you.”

  I couldn’t imagine what he was trying to say. “What are you driving at, Wallace?”

  He sat down and moved closer. The scent of liquor got stronger. “Have you ever stood outside on a starry night, looked up and asked, why me? Why was I spared while so many went to their death? For what reason was I given the chance to live?”

  A shiver went down my spine. Wallace had hit the bull’s-eye. I had been asking myself the same things for a least a year now. The look on my face must have given him my answer.

  Wallace continued. “I asked myself that question every night for six months. I obsessed on it. It occupied my every thought. It almost drove me insane. And then I had a breakthrough. I was spared to make a difference. God in his infinite wisdom had left me here to do something important,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “What did you come up with?” I asked, terrified at what the answer might be.

  Wallace started to beam. “I was left here to take it back. Me and my men were still alive at the end of it ready to cleanse the Earth. Return it to the living. A chance to start all over again. Think of it, John. A chance to reboot the world and form it in your own image.”

  “What image is that?”

  Wallace stood and held his arms apart. “They’re all gone.”

  “Who’s all gone, Wallace?”

  He bent down to whisper in my ear. “All the people who stood in this great country’s way: the lawyers, the politicians, the immigrants, the race-baiters, the queers, the lazy. Every useless waste of skin that held us back. Swept away by the hand of God and the zombie swarms. It left people like you and me. Survivors. Ready to push those undead bastards into the sea .” He paused to take a breath. “I need you, John. I need your survival instinct, your calm, your ability to think on your feet, and your sense of loyalty to your friends. Together we can take it all back. What do you think?” He walked to the end of the table to await my answer.

  I sat there, taking small breaths, unable to process all the information that had been presented. Wallace wanted me to join him in trying to take back the earth. He had a grand plan. He obsessed over it. It was his legacy, his gift to mankind. I could only come to one conclusion as I sat there stunned in the little quarantine room.

  Wallace had gone a little nuts.

  He wanted an answer. “Well, John. What do you say?”

  I stood up. “I’m sorry. I’m not in the world-building business. I’m a survivor. Nothing more.”

  Wallace stepped back with a shocked look on his face. “I can’t lie to you. I’m a little disappointed with your lack of vision. We’ll talk again after you think about what I said. You know deep down I’m right.” He turned toward the door. As he stepped into the hallway, he paused for a second. “Oh by the way before I forget, our resources here are quite limited. When quarantine is over, we usually put our survivors with the general population of the shelter. A guy like you will do okay I think, but your little girlfriend Claire Margaret may have some trouble. Some of those guys haven’t seen a new woman in about a year or so. I would hate for her to be hurt or anything.”

  My hands tightened into fists. Rage built up in my body till I felt like I might explode. I didn’t like where this was going. “If you hurt Claire, you and I are going to have a problem,” I said in a low, even tone.

  Wallace winked. “Now, there’s that survival instinct I was talking about. Think about what I said. We’ll talk later.” With that, he quickly walked out into the hall and disappeared. The door shut and locked behind him.

  I stood for a few seconds boiling with anger. Wallace was a nut, and this whole setup was no safe haven. He was trying to recruit me for a suicide war against the zombies, and get Claire raped. We had to find a way out of here. Now.

  Not caring if a camera was watching me or not, I quickly walked over to the storage locker on the wall. I found my backpack and began to search the bottom for the little flap of fabric that contained my emergency knife. At first, I couldn’t find it. Bastards must have found it. Dammit! Then my probing fingers found my little secret friend. I ripped open the little pocket and brought it into the light. The carbon-fiber handle glinted in the soft light of the room. I flicked it open and tested the blade. Very sharp. Many nights of working the blade on my stone had honed it into a deadly weapon.

  I palmed the knife and lay down on the bed. I stayed awake and waited. When the time came, I would get Claire and find a way out of this nuthouse.

  All I needed was someone to show me the exit. The next person to come in the room would be the one to help me find it. They won’t have a choice. They’ll have a knife at their throat.

  Chapter 6

  Escape from Double-Six

  I lay in the dark, turning my little folded knife over and over in my hand. I was waiting. Waiting for a volunteer to show me the way out of this madhouse. I stayed awake, hardly blinking, listening for the beep of the locked door to signal me that someone had come in the room. At the beep, I would leap out of bed and put the knife at their neck. Then, I’d spring Claire and get the hell out of here.

  That was Plan A.

  After a few hours of straining to hear the beep, it finally happened. The door opened and someone stepped inside. Here we go. I pretended to sleep as my unknown visitor strolled around the room in a sneaky fashion. I held my breath as they started walking over to the bed. They came near and peered down at me. Like a coiled spring releasing its energy, I jumped out of bed and forced the dark shadow in front of me to the ground. In one swift move, I opened the knife and put the blade to its neck.

  “Jesus Christ! Where the hell did you get a knife?” It was Odegard. His glasses were askew on his face.

  “Good,” I said, pressing the knife a little bit more into his neck. “The other maniac. I hoped it would be you. Congratulations. You’ve volunteered to show me and Claire the way out of this asylum.”<
br />
  I pulled him up from the floor roughly and deposited him into the nearest chair. He was white as the clean sheets on the bed. “Put the knife down. That’s why I’m here. I’m going to help you.”

  I pulled the blade away from his neck. “Help me? You and your General buddy are trying to get Claire and me killed.”

  Odegard rubbed his throat. “I know. I’m here to get you and your friend out of here. You need to let me explain.”

  Despite my better judgment, I put the knife away. “Okay. Start explaining.”

  Odegard fixed his glasses. “Okay. First of all, Wallace isn’t a real general. He was a civilian attached to the army for logistics. Disaster management. He was brought in and attached to the Southeastern Command after the shit hit the fan with the reanimates. At first, it was considered a local emergency. All he had to do was go to Atlanta, set up a few survival camps, run evacuations, and advise the army. That was all.”

  So far it made sense, if anything in this world made sense anymore. “Go on.”

  Odegard reached for a bottle of water on the table. “You mind?” I waved, and he opened the bottle and took a long drink. “Well, Atlanta fell to the undead. We all had to evacuate. We retreated to the north, but were swarmed by Chattanooga’s problems. East was no good… too many reanimates that way as well. Then, the orders stopped coming.” He looked down. “It was every man for himself.”

  I remembered those awful times. Swarms of zombies left the major cities, and crisscrossed the countryside, eating anything with a pulse. Add in crowds of refugees and a military on the run, and it was a good recipe for the end of the world.

  Odegard continued. “We lost everybody. The unit we were attached to got wiped out. They lost their leadership, and just about everything else.” He paused. “Wallace took over. He put on someone’s uniform with those stars on it, and all of sudden, he was a leader. Self-appointed, of course. All of us began to listen to him. He kept us together. He was the one who knew where this facility was.”