Sometimes We Ran (Book 3): Rescue

by Stephen Drivick

  But the worst part was that I was alone, and I couldn't wake up.

  Claire rescued me from the terrible images in my imagination that threatened to consume me. I welcomed her voice and the gentle shake. I grabbed her small hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze to show I was okay and awake.

  “What were you dreaming about?” Claire said. “Must have been bad. You were reaching for your gun in your sleep.”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just a bad dream.” I said, still shaking as the images left my brain.

  Fighting my aches and pains, I got up and walked up to Lyle in the driver's seat and knelt beside him. We were pulling into an older part of town in the suburbs of Huntsville. It was a typical Southern town: brick storefronts with dark alleys between them and sidewalks for nice walks around town. The rear ends of abandoned cars poked out into the main drag from curbside parking. Decorative planters with brown trees and wooden benches were spaced at regular intervals along the concrete sidewalks. This particular part of town was being reconstructed before the end came. Construction equipment, waste dumpsters, and building materials were scattered all over the street. Signs had been placed to warn the residents and tourists of all the various construction sites. Lyle pulled up to a pile of concrete, old cars, and other debris in the center of the road, and stopped the bus among the debris. It was about noon or so, and the sun was right above us.

  “Barricade,” I said, nodding out the windshield. “How's it look, Lyle? Is this the place?”

  He nodded slowly. “This is it.” He pointed up the road. “The bank where I left them is up the road, around those overgrown trees.”

  Claire joined us at the front of the bus. “Where are all the Red-Eyes?”

  “In hiding, I suppose,” Lyle said, leaning forward on the steering wheel of the bus. “As I left, I saw a few zombies picking through the stuff on the street, but I didn't see any up near the bank. That's why I left them there.”

  “How about any living? Anybody left alive in town?” I asked.

  “No...didn't see any. Looks like most people left. A few must have stayed behind to build that barricade we passed up the street,” Lyle said.

  “That means most of them might still be in town as Red-Eyes.” I stood up, and went to the door. “I'm going to take a look outside.”

  Lyle opened the bi-fold door, and I stuck my head out. I looked up the road as far as I could see, and saw more of the same derelict cars and construction equipment. Garbage and other debris was piled high all over the place. Plenty of places for bad guys to hide. A light winter breeze kicked up and blew the trees and weeds around making a solemn scratching noise. Other than the wind, it was deathly quiet. Taking a quick sniff of the air revealed no smell of death, only fresh air. I stepped back inside the bus.

  “Go around the barricade and up the street.” I looked at Claire. She was holding her bat with a grip of death. “We'll take a chance.” Patting Lyle on the shoulder, I said, “Nice and slow.”

  Lyle put the bus in gear and started up the street. He crawled along at a snail's pace as we scanned the empty buildings for any threats. So far, nothing had shown its ugly face but it didn't mean the town wasn't infested. The Red-Eyes were great hide-and-seek artists. They would keep their heads down until the hunt so we couldn't see their tell-tale eyes.

  Then they would strike.

  Lyle carefully steered around the garbage and dead vehicles in the road. Another much larger barricade loomed ahead of us, down a few buildings from the bank. Lyle stopped the bus a few feet from the blockage. He craned his neck looking for a way through.

  “Can you get around?” I asked.

  Lyle shook his head. He was out of his seat, and had his face pressed to the windshield. “Can't tell. Lot of stuff in the road.”

  “Where's the bank?” I asked.

  Lyle pointed at a dark, brick structure with a large glass window in front. “That's it. The front door leads to a lobby with the cash machines. The main door to the bank is in there.”

  Lyle stowed the bus in a parking space a few doors down from the bank and opened the door. The quiet of the town was unnerving. It felt like a thousand eyes were watching us. I stepped off the stairs of the bus. As my left foot hit the pavement, I winced as a bolt of pain surged through my body. I still wasn't healed from my beating at the Fort.

  Claire put her hands out to catch me. “You all right?”

  I rubbed my injured side. Bruised ribs was my guess. “Fine. How's the ankle?”

  Claire lifted her bad foot off the ground, and twisted it all around. “Sore.” She put her foot back down on the ground. “I tell you one thing,” she said, as we made for the bank. “We both could use a nice ice pack right about now.”

  We approached the bank in single file. There was no movement around the building except for the paper and leaves stirred by the wind. No noise except for our steps as we crossed the curb, and hit the sidewalk. We took cover by a bridal shop next door to the bank. One of the wedding dresses in the window was green and grimy from mold.

  “No movement. They still in there?” Claire said.

  Lyle peeked over Claire's head. “I told them to stay inside, no matter what. We'll have to knock.”

  Knocking could cause a bad reaction. “Lyle, you better go first. I don't want to get my face caved in by one of your friends,” I said.

  “Yeah. Good idea,” Lyle said, stepping up to the door. Claire and I took positions behind him near a large sedan parked in the space near the bank's door. Lyle put his hand on the glass to look inside the ATM vestibule. He pulled the handle, and found the door unlocked.

  Claire was staring at the bank's door, bat ready. “You think it's going to be this easy?”

  A noise from the distance sent a jolt through my spine. The Red-Eyes could be waking up. “No...don't think so,” I answered, pulling my gun.

  Lyle turned, and shrugged. “The ATM lobby door is open, but I know it was locked before I left. I see some movement in the bank, but I don't know what's going on.” He joined Claire and I near the broken car. “I told them to keep an eye out.”

  “We'll have to go inside and get them,” I said. We all turned as another sound, this time closer, echoed off the brick walls of the dead town. It came from the fish belly white sedan behind us.

  One of the doors was opening.

  We turned in unison and backed up towards the bank. A giant Red-Eye emerged from the car and began to lurch onto the sidewalk. Time and exposure to the elements were not kind to this humongous zombie. Blood ran from open sores on his exposed chest, now a sickly yellow color instead of the usual undead gray. Blood also ran from his huge red eyes, and most of his hair had fallen out. A terrible groaning noise, rising in pitch as he zeroed on his next meal, came from his rotted lips and teeth.

  The monster Red-Eye picked up speed as he anticipated some new flesh to eat. The groaning noise turned into a low-pitched howl as he flicked his hand in Claire's direction. She ducked, and I shot the giant in the face. It was only partially effective, as the zombie staggered back a few feet, grabbing his shattered jaw. With a monstrous gurgle, he stepped back onto the sidewalk and continued his attack.

  Claire, Lyle, and I were already retreating to the bank. Lyle tore open the unlocked door and pushed Claire inside. He went in next, and I followed. With surprising speed, the gargantuan zombie caught me at the door and reached for my jacket. I leveled the gun, and fired twice. This time, the bullets tore through his decaying throat spraying blood in a fan behind him. The Red-Eye fell to his knees and began to whimper. I closed the door, and turned the lock. The wounded zombie clawed at the door for a few seconds, then gave up and began crawling down the sidewalk. A trail of gore, two feet wide at least, followed him.

  I joined Lyle and Claire sitting on the floor. All I could hear was the staccato beat of our heavy breathing. Lyle recovered first, and said, “That's the biggest zombie I've ever seen.”

  I was having a little trouble catching my breath. Mayb
e it was the injuries from my beatings. “Three slugs right in the face. Hardly slowed him down.”

  Claire jumped to the ATM vestibule's window. “We have a problem outside.”

  Lyle and I joined her at the glass. The commotion with the giant had sent a wake-up call throughout the town. From the other buildings, cars, and alleyways came all the Red-Eyes out of hiding. It was the residents of the town, turned when the undead swarms came through from Huntsville. They were dressed in the tattered remnants of the clothes they chose to wear on that horrible day of the outbreak. They stumbled and ran to the bank as mindless slaves to the hunger for living flesh. There had to be at least thirty Red-Eyes coming towards us.

  The three of us backed slowly away from the glass as the fresher ones got close. At first, the crowd of zombies couldn't pinpoint where the three of us were located. They fumbled around, sniffing the air to catch a scent of our flesh.

  A young male in a mud-covered suit came near the bank's door. He put his face to the glass, and his evil eyes lit up as he caught sight of us. We couldn't hear the growls as he slammed against the window. He tried again, but only managed to rebound off the glass. A few of his companions joined the party and tried to crash inside as well, but the window held. When the crowd got too large, the first row began to simply paw at the glass, leaving dirty streaks.

  “The glass. It didn't break,” Claire said, staring at the mob outside.

  “Shatterproof. To protect the cash machines,” I said, nodding to the two ATM's on the wall. I was trying to keep my voice level and calm, but inside I was at full scare as the Red-Eyes surrounded the bank, and filled the window.

  We were trapped. The ATM vestibule had become our whole world.

  “What the hell are we going to do?” said Lyle. He stepped back against the wall, next to the double door of the bank.

  Glancing around, I noted our options were limited. The ATM area was empty of anything useful, including a second exit. Deposit slips and even some paper money littered the floor. An open backpack, it contents scattered, lay in one corner. This rescue was going bad in a hurry.

  I joined Lyle at the main door to the bank. It was a thick glass double door with beautiful metal fittings. The bank's name was stenciled on one of the doors in fancy gold script. Grime and dust had coated the inside of the door, making it hard to see inside the bank. No lights, and a general lack of windows made seeing inside even harder. I wiped the glass, and strained my eyes to see anything. In the dim space beyond the door, I could make out a nice marble floor and several dead plants in the lobby area. The teller spaces and offices were lost in the darkness. I caught some fleeting movement inside the bank. A few formless, gray shapes were crossing the room.

  “That's them! They're still here, thank God,” Lyle said, raising his voice. He pushed the metal bar of the door, but it was locked tight. “We have to get in there.” Lyle returned to looking inside, and waving at anyone he thought he could see.

  A heavy-set woman in a stained dress stepped into the weak light. Her head was down, and she was swaying back and forth. Lyle got excited. “Miss Jeanie! Hey, I found someone to rescue you guys. I told you I'd be back....” Lyle trailed off as Miss Jeanie raised her head to greet us.

  She had been hiding her eyes. Miss Jeanie wasn't alive anymore.

  Lyle and I jumped back as the zombie slammed full-speed into the door. The glass shuddered from the blow, and for a second, I thought we were going to have a rampaging Red-Eye at our side. The door held, and the zombie crumpled to the ground. Not even scratched, Miss Jeanie's corpse popped back up and began to pace the glass. Her growls of hunger were muted by the doors to a dull roar. It still sent shivers up my spine.

  “Oh, no. Oh God, no,” Lyle said. As we watched from the floor, other zombies from the bank joined Miss Jeanie at the glass door. Lyle stood, and grabbed me by the jacket. There was a strange, wild look in his eye. “We have to get in there. They could still be alive.” He pulled me close. “You can do it. You can shoot your way in, and we could save the rest. Please, John!”

  “They're gone, Lyle. It's over,” I said.

  He pushed me into the door, sending the Red-Eyes into a frenzy on the other side of the glass. “No. You promised to help! We've got to get them out.”

  Something inside me broke. Lyle still didn't get it. I shoved him off me, and into the center of the vestibule. “They're gone! Dead...just like everybody else in this damn town. Get it through your head. It's over.” My voice reverberated off the walls, and was amplified by the small space. I took Lyle by the shoulders and shook him. “Your people are gone. We're not going in there. There is nobody to rescue.” I released him, and he sank to the floor again.

  Claire walked up with the discarded backpack in her hands. “Marianne. It belonged to someone named Marianne.”

  Lyle looked up from his stupor. “Not Marianne. Please, not her.” He ran his hands along the girl's backpack, then put his head down again in sorrow.

  We now had zombies on both sides of us. I stood there, out of options, my mind racing. Any attempt to escape would make us permanent residents of this town. The growls and cries of the undead began to rise in pitch, as the hunger drove them insane.

  Claire looked around at our situation. “It's over. All over.”

  “No medicine, either. Nobody to bring anything back for our sick people,” I said, leaning against the wall. My thoughts turned to poor Cora, the young girl coughing her life out in the infirmary. The burning of children's corpses was one of the more distasteful parts of the zombie apocalypse for the survivors left behind. Lyle had a strange look on his face, and he couldn't look me in the eye. A horrible thought crossed my mind.

  “You never had any medicine, did you Lyle?” I asked.

  He looked down at the gray tiled floor of the ATM vestibule. “No. I thought it was the only way I could get you out here to help me. No one does anything for free these days. You know that. I needed a way to get you to help me.”

  Claire threw the backpack into one of the corners. She bent down, and got in Lyle's face. “You lied to us! We risked our lives, and John nearly got killed, and you lied to our faces.”

  She stood up, and turned her wrath on me. “Do you see what's going on here? We're never getting out, and we're never going home. I am never going to see Ryan and Alex again. You are never going to see Karen again, either.” Claire's voice broke as emotion overwhelmed her. “How do you propose we get out of this, John? Tell me.”

  The Red-Eyes were stacked against both glass windows. More zombies had come from inside the bank to join Miss Jeanie. The terrible muffled moaning increased as the undead clawed to get inside the ATM vestibule. The doors and glass walls were holding, but I didn't know how long we had before anything got to us. I turned and found a seat on the floor under one of the wooden shelves where people used to fill out deposit slips and do there banking in happier times. It was a place to rest and think. Putting my weary, throbbing head back against the wall, I closed my tired eyes

  “I'm going to sit and think for a while. Maybe we all could just sit and think,” I said, to the room. Neither of my travel companions bothered to answer me.

  Chapter 20: The Rescue

  “Could you use some company? Getting kind of cold and lonely over on the other wall.”

  I picked my head up, and looked into Claire's smiling face. “Yeah...okay,” I said, moving over to give her some room. It had been a few hours since she had spoken to me.

  She sat down with a heavy sigh, and put her head against the wall. “Got to say. Not one of our better trips outside.”

  I managed a small laugh. “No. Not very smooth, I guess. Saw you talking to Lyle before. Did you get anything out of him?”

  “No,” said Claire with a tinge of sadness in her voice. “He's pretty out of it.” She stretched out her legs, and flexed her injured ankle. “I guess losing everything does that to a person.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  Claire put her head on
my shoulder. “You remember the time you and I had to hide out in that candy store?”

  “Yeah. That was so long ago. I remember the rain. We were both drenched. The Red-Eyes surrounded the place, and you found that stale fudge with the green fuzz on it in the back.”

  Claire laughed softly. “It wasn't so bad with the green stuff cut off. We pigged out.”

  “Filled our bellies,” I said. The memory washed over me like an ocean wave. That had been a long night.

  “How did we get out of that one?” Claire said.

  “The rain got worse, and turned into hail. It drove the zombies back into hiding. We made a break for it out the back door,” I said

  “Oh, yeah...across the field with the black mud,” Claire said. “I remember running over all the bodies buried in that mud. Still have dreams about it, sometimes.”

  “Stepping over skulls,” I said. “Are you saying that time was similar to this situation?”

  “Maybe. We won't be able to use the back door,” Claire said.

  “The cold may drive the zombies away from the bank. Maybe we can make a run for the bus,” I said. It was, at least, a little hope.

  Claire took hold of my hand. “Do you think they miss us back home?” Claire was full of questions.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “Maybe they're looking for us right now.”

  Claire was silent for a while, like she was thinking. Then she said, “That guy at the Fort. The one I hit with my bat. I killed him, didn't I?”

  A chill ran through my tired body. “I don't know...”

  She sat up. “Don't lie to me.”

  Claire was my good friend. We had been through hell together, and came out the other side. I couldn't bring myself to her anything but the full truth. “It didn't look good.”

  Claire looked down, and shook her head. “I knew it. Been thinking about it since we left the Fort.” Disgusted with herself, she continued, “I'm starting to agree with you. What you said before. It's getting too easy to kill.” She began to cry softly, tears running down her cheeks. “We will never be forgiven for what we've done.”