Running Red

by Jack Bates

  Great jets of fire erupt above the bleachers. I can hear the rush of gas. Now I know why Denny hates to waste propane on things like showers. He’s all about the pageantry. Petunia has been fattened to feed Denny’s ego.

  Denny continues. “Let us enjoy the day’s activities in the spirit of camaraderie. This is our world now, not theirs. We have seen the results with them in charge. Look before you if you doubt. Do you honestly believe that those lost souls in the pen are part of a natural evolutionary process?”

  There is a chorus of “no’s!”

  Denny continues his rant. “Of course not. I know we all heard the announcements on those idiot boxes we use to glue our eyes to. They told us runners were victims of an infectious fungus, but I ask you—where did that fungus originate? In nature?”

  Again, the “no’s” are deafening.

  “This guy is a whack job,” Brent says. We make eye contact. “Listen, you’re in our database. We know you’ve been wandering, systematically destroying runners.”

  “Systematically?” I think. I shake my head. “No. I’ve defended myself, rescued others.”

  “Cut the crap, young lady,” Brent says. “You’ve been hunting them. You and that pooch of yours.”

  “It’s not like that,” I say.

  “Shut up and listen to me,” Brent says.

  Matt looks over his shoulder at me. “Hey. What’s he telling you?” he asks.

  “Nothing,” I say. I turn my back to Brent. His voice is lower, but it is as clear as the blue sky above me.

  “Listen. By now our base has pinpointed our location. They are going to be sending in the ground forces to try and rescue us.”

  “How could your base know?”

  “GPS tracker chips implanted in our skin.” Brent holds up his arm. There is a tattoo of a star within a circle. He points at the heart of the star.

  “You have tracking chips in your skin?”

  Matt has become interested in the conversation. He sees the tattoo, and I see the realization in his eyes before he’s had a chance to realize it himself. Matt turns to the fence and starts yelling up at Sledge. Sledge, for his part, glares down at us. He flips Matt his middle finger. Matt keeps yelling to get Denny’s attention. Scarecrow Jimmy takes a baseball bat and swings it face level into the fence. Matt wails and falls backwards. His mouth is bloody.

  “You have to listen to me,” Matt says. He spits out blood. I kneel down next to him.

  “Matt, what are you doing?” I ask.

  “Are you kidding me, Robbie? If Denny knows these guys are leading an army here, and I tell him, he’ll let me go.”

  I stand up and wave my arms over my head. I yell to Denny, but with the cheers and chants from the race fans and Denny’s babbling, no one is interested in anything we have to say. Scarecrow Jimmy reminds me of this as he bangs the baseball bat over and over on the post of the cage. The bat cracks in half, leaving a splintered mess sticking up out of the handle.

  “Guess our rabbits are jumpy,” Denny says. His voice echoes over our heads. Laughter fills the arena.

  The next thing I know, the bugler plays a fanfare. Scarecrow Jimmy opens our cage and pulls me out. Striker steps forward from their side. Scarecrow Jimmy steps inside the pen on Matt’s side and locks the door. Brent lets loose a string of curse words I didn’t know could work that well together. Scarecrow Jimmy smashes the baseball bat into the fence. Brent doesn’t even flinch.

  The fans are at five when I realize they are counting us down.

  “How soon before your friends get here?” I ask Striker.

  “Not soon enough,” he says. He’s in the process of telling me how far we are from the old Guard base when the chanters reach one and Sledge opens the cage door. Four runners stagger out. They hesitate around the smaller cage Scarecrow Jimmy cowers inside of.

  Striker and I look up the ramp. The first of the four runners is coming down.

  Twelve

  I don’t have the luxury of worrying about the bruise on the back of my leg. I will have to fight through the pain. Striker, for a member of an elite squad of warriors, seems to be nursing his ankle. He spins me around and points me towards a six-sided cylinder that has puncture holes in the side. The holes are way too small to crawl through, but I see Striker hook a foot in one of the lowers ones and reach over his head. He immediately pulls his hand away and I see the palm is bleeding.

  The house crowd cheers. Gumm’s people boo.

  “Edges are razor sharp,” Striker says. “They’ve been splayed. There are burrs.”

  Going up it is useless. We can buy some time hiding behind it. Striker once again pushes me forward and we stand with our backs against it.

  “You don’t have to keep pushing me,” I say.

  He looks over his shoulder at me, a bit surprised. “Sorry,” he says. “Instincts. I was trained to serve and to protect and to rescue civilians.”

  The first runner appears around the side of the column. My instinct is to run, but Striker has essentially put our backs to the wall behind the column. Flames erupt out of the cylinder and they drive us against the west bend of the infield. Over the roar of the flames I can make out the cheers.

  Above us the track slopes up. There are no wooden studs to grab and pull ourselves up onto the bend in the track. There is a large, rectangular segment that has been removed about ten feet above us. The edges are scorched.

  Striker swings his bad foot around into the ankle of the runner. The runner goes down on its back. The black mandibles open and close and click as its hands claw at the air. Striker lifts the heel of his boot and smashes it down onto the runner’s face. Not a good move. The mandibles lock around his foot. The hands clawing the air grab his leg. Striker stomps a couple more times until there is nothing but a puddle where the face used to be. The fingers keep grabbing.

  A great shower of flames erupts from the top of the column.

  There is another cheer. I don’t have to look behind us to know that a second, maybe a third runner has caught on that we’re free meat.

  Striker is still struggling with the runner that has latched onto his foot. Blood is beginning to run freely from his foot and flow over the face of the runner. There is nothing I can use on the runner, so I go over to it and start kicking it in the head. It’s like kicking an overripe melon. I can feel the skull inside break away, but the mandibles won’t release him.

  “Get out of here,” Striker says.

  “Where the hell am I going to go?”

  I kick several more times. The runner looks backwards at me. I think I see pain in its face, but I know that’s impossible. All the same, the runner releases its hands from Striker’s leg and starts clawing at me. The mandibles open. Now free, Striker hobbles backwards on one leg.

  This time I grab Striker. I pull him to the edge of the ramp and point to the opening. We try running up the slope, but it is too steep. I can’t imagine how bikers stayed on it when they were racing. I would have wiped out and slid to the bottom.

  “All right, all right, four minutes left!” Denny says. His voice comes out of the megaphone like a swarm of mutated, electric bees.

  Striker flops down on the slope. He calls to me over his shoulder. “Use me as a ladder,” he says.

  “What about you?”

  “Do it unless you that want to have that runner latch onto you.”

  I step onto Striker’s shoulders. He puts his hands under my boots and extends his arms. He is surprisingly strong for an older guy. I’m still an inch or two from the edge of the hole.

  “I can’t reach it,” I shout down to Striker.

  “Stretch. Crawl. Hook your finger tips over the edge.”

  Striker stops yelling directions. All of a sudden I’m sliding down. I look behind me to see Striker struggling with the runner I kicked in the head. His arms are extended like the massive limbs of a tree. The runner turns its head back and forth. The mandibles unfolded from inside its mouth and snap at his wrists. Red, blistering
hands have clamped over Striker’s wrists and the runner tries to yank his hands from its throat. Striker looks up at me.

  “No! You get up there now,” he yells.

  The third runner sticks her head through the interlocked, straight arms of Striker and the runner. She clamps her own red, pus-covered hands around Striker’s neck. There is a sickening crunch as her insect-like jaws clamp down onto his flesh. Striker’s arms buckle. There is a chorus of both elation and disappointment from above. The runner Striker had been struggling with ceases his attack. It stands there in that eerie, motionless stance, head down, as if it is plotting.

  And then it looks up at me.

  The runner crawls over Striker’s body the way I had. It’s on all fours, methodically making its way closer to me. I can’t watch him die with people cheering above me. My hand finds a slight rise in one of the sheets of plywood. It’s enough that I can use it to pull myself up away from the runner behind me. I swing my leg up and my foot finds the same little ledge. Now I can reach the edge of the opening in the track.

  It is as I feared: The opening is a trap. Two four-by-eight sheets of plywood, probably the sheets that were removed to make the opening, lie below. There are rows and rows of nail tips sticking up. I’m about fifteen feet above them. If I’d jumped into the hole to escape the runner, I would have fallen on the boards and been impaled. I wouldn’t have been killed, but I would have been badly injured.

  There is a thump behind me. When I look, I see the runner chasing me slapping its palms on the track. It is trying to crawl up to get me. The business suit it wears is dotted with black, oily stains as the juice seeps out of its body.

  I stand on cautious legs. The world slants away before me. I’m close to the north side bleachers. A little higher and I can grab the rung of pipe of the track barrier. I see one of the female presenters from Gumm’s tribe. There’s hope in her eyes, I think. She’s hoping I make it. I reach for her, pleading to her with my eyes for help. Just when I think she’s going to do something for me, there is a loud crack of the wood next to me. Something has struck the warped plywood. There is a tiny hole in its place.

  The crowd has started counting down the time.

  Another shot strikes closer to my head. I turn around on my back. Shielding my eyes from the sun I see Aubrey standing on the bleachers. He’s shooting at me with my wrist rocket. His right hand pulls back on the tubing. Just as he takes aim, the crowd screams, “Time!”

  Aubrey lowers the wrist rocket.

  The Freedom House side of the stadium erupts in cheers. Because I have stayed alive, they have all won a basket of soap.

  “All right, let’s get ready for Round Two!” Denny says. More cheers. There is no time to regroup in between rounds, I discover. I have ten minutes to survive, although given what awaits me, I don’t know if it is worth it.

  The bugler blows his horn. Sledge releases two more fresh runners. Scarecrow Jimmy prods a reluctant Matt with the splintered end of the broken baseball bat. It takes two other men to bring Brent out of the cage. One of them draws a small revolver and points it at Brent. Brent raises his hands and steps forward. He and Matt stand on the edge of the lower platform. The man with the gun shoves Brent forward. As if on cue, Brent and Matt spin on these two new men.

  Brent struggles with the gun wielding man. Matt elbows the other man in the gut. When the man doubles over, Matt turns and slams his palms into the man’s shoulders, knocking him down onto the infield. Before the fallen man can scramble to his feet, one of the fresh runners latches onto him. The runner holds the man from the back by the shoulders. Its mandibles have clamped deeply into the man’s neck. For several moments the man flops about like a fish out of water, and then he goes still.

  My heart skips a bunch of beats. The runners here aren’t just latching, they are killing.

  A gun fires. The bullet strikes the female bearer above me. The crowd on Gumm’s side scatters. There are loud cheers from the Freedom House tribe. I’m living in a madhouse.

  The girl looks to me for help, but there is nothing I can do. She holds a hand over her chest. The blood seeps through her fingers. She holds a trembling hand up to her face and turns her bloody palm to me to show me.

  “My name is Anna,” she says. She coughs out a small laugh. “I’d almost forgotten it.”

  I don’t have time to say anything to her. There is a second shot. Matt comes from behind and kicks the man struggling with Brent. The man weakens and Matt wraps his elbow around the man’s throat. Brent gets the gun. Instead of using it on any of the runners, he spins, drops to a knee, and takes aim at Denny.

  That’s when the pellet hits Brent in the head. He drops instantly. The gun falls from the platform. Brent never moves again.

  A runner stands at the foot of the platform. Matt releases the choke hold on the man he’s been holding. The man drops to the platform, gasping for breath. The runner’s hands drag the man off the platform. There is a single scream.

  Matt jumps down and falls on the gun. When he stands up, he’s got it trapped between his palms. His middle fingers try to find the trigger. He can’t control the weapon. The crowd laughs. Both sides. We are nothing more to them than the clowns in an old-fashioned traveling circus.

  I make my move. I run on the sides of my feet as best I can around the sloping embankment of the west curve. The track coming out of the bend straightens out somewhat, but it’s still a bit bowed. I am screaming at Matt to throw the gun up to me.

  Matt stumbles back up the ramp to the platform where we were caged. The runners haven’t quite figured out how to get up to him. Matt flattens his back again the cage’s fence, trying to keep as much out of the runners’ grasps as possible. Scarecrow Jimmy smacks the broken handle of the bat against the fence. It isn’t until he begins prodding Matt’s back with it that it has any effect on Matt.

  “Why are you doing this, Jimmy?” Matt screams. “We’re all in danger. They’re coming.”

  “Shut up, pussy,” Scarecrow Jimmy says. He jabs Matt in the kidney area.

  I am almost directly behind Matt and I am screaming for him to throw me the gun. I take another step closer to him, and that’s when the floor opens under me. I teeter on the edge. My arms pinwheel as I try to keep my balance. From the hole I hear a loud bark, and I look down into the frightened eyes of a large, golden beast.

  It’s Yuki.

  Thirteen

  I waste no time. This is a shorter drop than the one into the pit of nails. As long as I don’t land on her, I should be okay. It still stings my bruised leg when I drop, though, and I have to roll around on my back a few times to get my mind off the pain. Yuki licks my face.

  I’m not sure how she wound up here, but it is apparent she didn’t get here on her own. Denny must have had men from Freedom House out all night trying to trap Scarecrow Jimmy’s mountain lion.

  Outside of our little den I can hear the crowd counting down the end of the second heat. Not that time matters in this bat-house crazy arena. I can hear the multitudes chanting and every so often I hear a solid ping coming from the cage. It’s Aubrey, I think. He’s firing warning shots at Matt.

  Still on my back, I look at my surroundings. Denny has rigged this place with all sorts of trapdoors. All of the doors have hinges and are released when a latch is slid open.

  I have a pretty good eye in my head, and when I see a trapdoor that would be right around where our holding pen would have been, I get an idea. It was probably put there as an escape route for the handlers. The locking mechanism isn’t engaged on my side, but there could be one out front.

  A sudden burst of an elongated “ooo” echoes from outside. I’m not sure what it means, but my stomach feels kind of squishy. I worry that Matt has been dropped by a pellet the way Brent was. Above me, I hear feet scuffling. I have to risk it, I realize. I stay low and go to the door I think is behind the cage. I give it a slight push and it pops open lifting up. Crouched down, with the door barely open, I am looking at Matt�
��s feet on the platform in front of me. I throw the door back.

  Matt has the gun dangling off his middle finger. I don’t see Scarecrow Jimmy at first. It isn’t until I push the door open all the way and Matt comes running towards me that I see Scarecrow Jimmy. He’s sitting on the floor of the platform, holding his cheek. There is blood all over his hand.

  Matt comes through the trapdoor and I slam it down behind us. He stops when he sees Yuki and tries to raise the gun on her. I put a hand on his wrist and take the gun.

  “She’s with me,” I say. “She’s what I was trying to hide at the Get Gas.”

  Neither one of them are certain about the other. Yuki alternates between growls and whimpers. Matt, exhausted from his struggles outside in the arena, breathes in large gulps and stares at the dog.

  “What happened out there?” I ask.

  “Aubrey shot Jimmy with your slingshot. I don’t know if his aim was off or if he was trying to hit him. He’d shot a couple of times and hit the fence before one of them went through and got Jimmy in the face.” Matt laughs absently. “That guy has really had it rough since you and your mountain lion got here.”

  We can hear shouts. Feet are running along the track, coming towards us.

  Matt and I are in the bowels of corridors, storage closets, and locker rooms beneath the stadium. I can see where our hallway T-bones at the end. An accordion style gate in front of us is closed with a chain and a padlock. I step in front of Matt and point the gun at the catch. I fire once. The lock breaks away. I barely hear it clink on the concrete ground; the echo of the shot reverberates in my ears. I pull the chain away and push open the gate. Neither Matt nor Yuki moves until I say, “Go!” We run to the end of the hall.

  There are doors at either end of the intersection. Each door has a window that the light of the afternoon spills through. It must have cost the community a lot in vandalism. It would explain the ten-foot-tall fence they put up around the stadium. Once we leave the Velodrome we’ll have to get pass that fence.

  We’re being chased. I lead Matt and Yuki to the east door. Outside the stadium the fence is ten feet away. I think the main entrance is on the north side where we came in through the tunnel. It doesn’t matter where we go or if we flatten ourselves against the cinder block foundation. There are people all over the place. They are running and screaming. It isn’t until they pass us that I realize they aren’t running at us.