Sometimes We Ran (Book 3): Rescue

by Stephen Drivick

  “What's up?” Claire handed me her binoculars to check out the action.

  “Looks like some kind of a flatbed truck and a couple of ugly guys,” she said. “They pulled up from behind the restaurant across the way and started looking around the parking lot.”

  I placed the binoculars to my eyes, and took a look. There were three strangers, two in camo jackets and one fellow in a black trench coat, walking around the edge of the market's lot. As they walked, they peered into the windows of the dead cars and trucks. At every third or fourth vehicle, they would open the doors and search inside. I scanned them for weapons. The younger guys had automatic rifles. I couldn't see if Trench Coat was packing anything, but he might be hiding something under his long jacket.

  I turned my attention to their vehicle. It was a large, flatbed truck with some yellow lights on the roof. I could make out the words “Buddy's Auto Repair” on the door. In the past, the truck had been used to transport ailing automobiles for repair at Buddy's garage. The flatbed tilted, and the car was hoisted on board by a heavy-duty winch at the front of the ramp.

  Unfortunately, it was still being used for its intended purpose.

  “Junkmen,” I said, handing the binoculars to Lyle.

  “Who are the Junkmen?” Lyle asked. He took a look through the glasses.

  I hunkered down at the window to keep an eye on our new friends. “They're from up north. They like to search the abandoned vehicles on the road for supplies. Sometimes, they take the whole car home with them. Supposed to be a home-built compound up north somewhere built out of metal to keep out the zombies. We nicknamed the place 'The Fort.'”

  Lyle handed the binoculars to Claire. She trained her young, eagle eyes on the roaming bandits outside. “Have you seen it?” said Lyle.

  “Never been to the Fort, but about two years ago we met a few of them on a scrounging mission near the Georgia border. Not the friendliest guys in the world. We tried to open some trade relations, but they just wanted our vehicles.” I paused to watch as the Junkmen crossed into the supermarket's lot, checking the cars and trucks as they walked around. “They usually stay close to their home base. I think they have fuel issues. Never seen them so far south before.”

  Claire looked back at me. “Maybe they ran out of cars up there.”

  Outside, something had caught the Junkmen's eye. Trench Coat had selected a silver minivan as their next victim. He directed one of his subordinates to get the truck, then stood by the door of the helpless van to direct traffic. He waved the ramp truck back to within a few feet of the minivan, and directed Subordinate Number Two to winch their new acquisition onto the truck.

  Subordinate Number Two went into action. He worked the levers on the side of the ramp truck with great skill, tilting it down at an angle to retrieve the minivan. He reached up, grabbed the hook, and quickly attached it to something sturdy underneath their prize. He moved back to the levers, and began to winch the van onto the truck. The cable went taut, and the silver van began to move from its resting place. It was a very quick and efficient operation. It was obvious this group had snatched a few vehicles in the past.

  Trench Coat stood guard, managing the operation from a short distance away. He looked around, scanning in all directions for trouble. A few times, he would bark an order or point to something on the ramp truck or the minivan. Subordinate Number Two would run and correct the problem. Under Trench Coat's strict supervision, the minivan reached the edge of the truck and began to climb up the ramp. After a few more seconds, the winch stopped. Subordinate Number Two began to tilt the ramp flat for travel. The operation was almost finished.

  Maybe Subordinate Number Two mishandled the levers, or maybe the truck's hydraulics were failing, but the ramp fell the final few feet and slammed into the back deck of the truck. Even though we stood inside the market's front window, we all heard the audible, metallic thump as the ramp came down. The sound echoed off the empty buildings, and the ramp truck and the minivan jumped around for a few seconds. Trench Coat and Subordinate Number Two jumped away from the truck, just in case the hapless van fell off.

  The mishap didn't make Trench Coat happy. He got in the face of Subordinate Number Two and started yelling at him. Subordinate Number Two's hands flew around as he argued back. Trench Coat would have none of it, and pulled a gun. He stuck it in his companion's face and began to advance. Subordinate Number Two started backing up, holding his hands up.

  He was begging for his life. Me, Lyle, and Claire all pulled in our breath.

  Trench Coat didn't shoot his subordinate. He just pistol-whipped him a few times. Trench Coat used the gun as a club. Subordinate Number Two fell down, and tried to cover his head. Trench Coat began kicking him as he lay on the ground. The beating went on for a few agonizing minutes.

  My hands tightened into fists as I watched the one-sided fight. Besides the zombies, one of the more distasteful things about the apocalypse was the bullies and strongmen who preyed on weaker people. I fought the urge to go outside and help. It was too much of a risk, and we had a mission to complete.

  “Can we help?” Lyle asked.

  “No,” I answered. “Too risky. Our mission to get your people is our priority. If we go out there, they might want our van. We'll wait until they go away.”

  We watched in silence as the beating continued for a few more seconds. Subordinate Number One exited the truck and tried to protect his friend. At first, I thought Trench Coat was going to beat him as well but he simply glared at him and walked away, barking orders. The Subordinates picked themselves up, and got in the truck.

  Just go away. Please, God, don't let them see the van, I thought. As if he heard what I was thinking, Trench Coat's evil gaze focused in our direction. He squinted his eyes and started walking towards the window.

  In unison, Lyle, Claire, and I tried to make ourselves as small as possible in the dark store. We froze in place, eyes trained outside on our potential adversary as he approached the store. I could hear somebody breathing in gulps of air.

  I think it was me.

  “What should we do? Run like hell?” Lyle said in my ear.

  “Just freeze. Maybe he didn't see us. Maybe he saw a reflection or something,” Claire said. Being the smallest, she was the closest to the floor. She peered out of the front window through a narrow slot of daylight between the soda machines outside.

  Trench Coat broke into a slight jog, and got closer to the door. He stopped at the last row of cars, and took cover by a wrecked sedan. Every few seconds, his head would pop up and he would scan the entrance. Moving to another car, closer this time, he repeated the process. Soon, he was standing in the open, looking at the doors to the market.

  “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.

  Chapter 12: Headed North

  The 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 d
oor, 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.