On The Run

by Scott Medbury

  “Not to me,” Luke replied with a shrug. “Maybe he found out you’re in charge now and wants to give you some advice.”

  “Or maybe he wants to tell me to put someone else in charge,” I said.

  “Too late for that, man. We already voted.”

  “I could abdicate,” I said.

  “You won’t,” he said. “We both know having you as leader is for the best.”

  “Do we? What about you? You seem to know how to handle this stuff pretty well.”

  “I’m not as smart as you are,” Luke said. “I don’t get the gut instinct you do, which has done us okay so far. Plus, in any given situation, I tend to latch onto the first option my mind hits and follow it without thinking it through all the way. In short, I’d be a pretty decisive leader, but probably not the best. I’d probably get a rush of blood and lead us into a disaster.”

  “Wow, sounds like you’ve thought this through.”

  “Yep,” he nodded. “Now go see what Sonny wants.”

  I grunted while I stretched my muscles, and then headed toward the hall where we had left Sonny the night before. I thought about stopping to check on Indigo on my way, but decided letting her sleep a bit longer would probably be appreciated (not to mention less stalker-like).

  I found Sonny sitting up and alert, although clearly weak, with Allie by his side.

  “Isaac, good job last night,” Sonny said, as I walked up. “I know it’s not ideal, but you’ll have to drive when we leave. I’m not up to it.”

  “Yeah, I figured as much. Are you feeling better?”

  “To be honest, it hurts like hell, but I may be up to driving the second half of the trip to New Hampshire. Listen, I have a plan to help prevent this,” he pointed to his bandaged wound, “from happening to you.”

  I nodded and squatted next to him.

  “What is it?”

  “The reams of printer paper I had them get from the office building across the street,” he said. “Take the interior panels of the doors off, stack the reams of paper inside, and then put the panels back on.”

  “I think I saw a TV show where they did that, but with phone books ... will it really work?”

  “If we only have to face small arms fire, it should work well enough, but if we get hit with anything like anti-armor weapons...” he glanced at Allie, who was listening attentively. “Well, let’s just hope we don’t have to face anything heavier. You won’t be able to roll the windows down once you get the paper in there, but it’s so cold I don’t suppose that’s a problem.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think it’ll be a problem for anyone,” I said. “I’ll get right on it. By the way, I’ve been wondering about the toner cartridges, as well. Why did you have them collect so many?”

  “Up in the attic, in the base of the samurai sword stand, you’ll find 15 or 16 old blasting caps, the kind with the fuses that can be lit with a match or lighter. By themselves, they can’t do much damage, but I figured if we taped each one to a toner cartridge, we could make some fairly effective ink bombs. Detonate one of them on a pursuing vehicle’s windshield and the driver would be in trouble.”

  “Where did you get blasting caps…? Never mind, it doesn’t really matter. I’ll have Luke grab some tape and the toners and begin making the bombs while I see to the truck doors. By the way, I know you planned on leaving around noon, but I’m thinking we might want to be out of here a bit earlier than that.”

  “Any time you’re ready to go,” Sonny said. “Allie told me about the vote, and I approve. You’re leader now for as long as necessary.”

  “Just until you get back up and on your feet.”

  “We’ll see,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “Maybe you’ll turn out to have a natural talent for leadership.”

  Surprisingly, a fog had blanketed the city while I was sleeping and the alley and streets around it were cloaked in a thick, white mist, so heavy even the far end of the alley where it opened into the street was difficult to make out.

  This could be handy, I thought, the fog could help cover our escape.

  It took me about an hour, maybe a little longer, to finish armoring the doors of the truck. By then, Luke and John were nearly finished making the ink bombs. I began to think that we might be out of there as early as 9:00 AM.

  As I was headed back in the side door to grab my sleeping bag and the rest of my stuff, I heard a loud banging. It came from the front of the building and with adrenalin racing through my system, I dumped the gear and ran into the hallway as Ben came hustling in from the reception area.

  “Isaac, it’s the Tigers,” he said, breathlessly. “I peeked through the window and there are four of them at the door, all armed. What should we do?”

  “I guess we should see what they want,” I replied, a cold dread gripping my belly. “Do me a favor and go get Luke and John. Tell them what’s happening and to meet me by the front door.”

  As Ben hurried off, I pulled out my revolver and made sure it was fully loaded before slipping it back into my belt. I then picked up the Chinese assault rifle standing against the wall and began walking to the academy’s front door. I stayed out of view from the street by ducking down as I passed by windows.

  The building’s front door was much like those of many schools I had been to, solid double doors with windows of obscured, reinforced glass taking up the top half. The doors had push bars on the inside, and handles for pulling on the outside, but were currently locked and chained. It was quiet now and I couldn’t make out anybody through the door’s windows.

  I approached silently with the rifle’s safety off and flattened myself against the wall to the right of the doors, straining to hear anything to tell me they were still there.

  I jumped as five loud raps shook the door on its hinges.

  “I know you’re in there, Sonny, you and your gang of little virus-proof kids. Come on out, we just want to talk. I’ve got some questions for you.”

  I recognized Chen’s voice immediately. It had the same arrogant, almost sing-song quality to it that I’d witnessed in the car park.

  “My brother Jack got shot... you remember Jack, don’t you, Sonny? My little brother! And then when I tracked down the murdering bastards who killed him, a couple more of my boys got wasted, and those murdering dogs got away in a truck. And guess what? That fucking truck is right in the alley next to your building!”

  Sonny knows these guys better than I thought. Or they know him. Chen continued before I could ruminate on this realization any further.

  “One of the guys we killed was wearing your colors, Sonny! I know you have the laowai who killed Jack in there. Just hand him over and we can put all this behind us!”

  I waited for him to finish and then addressed the door calmly.

  “Sonny isn’t available right now,” I said. “I’ll be happy to relay your message and concerns.”

  “What? You think this is some kind of fucking joke? You tell Sonny to get out here now! I don’t care if he walked away from us four years ago. Once you’re a Red Tiger, you’re a Tiger for life!”

  So that was how Sonny knew so much about them.

  “Again, I’ll pass it along.”

  More swearing and then the voices quietened.

  I saw Luke and John come into the hallway and waved them back out of sight. Leaving my position by the door, I hugged the wall and stealthily made my way to them.

  “We could have a problem here, guys,” I said quietly. “Go check the truck in the alley, very carefully, to see if they’re watching it. If it’s clear, get everybody loaded up as quickly as possible. Grab my stuff if you can. Are all the bombs done?”

  “We still got, like, three to do,” Luke said.

  “Alright, make sure some of them are packed up in the cab. Luke, you’ll be riding up front with me,” I said. “We can finish making the last few on the road.”

  “What are you going to do?” John asked.

  “Stay and watch the door, of course,” I repl
ied. “Come right back if the truck’s being watched. Otherwise, get everybody loaded ASAP then send someone back to get me.”

  “Okay, we’re on it,” John said.

  I watched as he and Luke turned and hurried back down the hall. Turning back to the door, I knelt and brought the assault rifle up to my shoulder and waited.

  A couple of minutes passed before he rapped on the door again.

  “Last chance, Sonny!”

  This time I didn’t answer. I heard their voices, but couldn’t make out any of the actual words, although I got the impression that Chen was quickly running out of patience.

  Another loud bang and the door’s safety glass shattered, spraying the floor in front of me with glass. The wire reinforcement bowed inwards and held for two more hard blows from an aluminum baseball bat, before falling through on the fourth blow.

  The end of the bat was thrust through the window and ran around the edges to knock off any remaining shards of glass. An arm came through, reaching down for the push bar to open the door. I squeezed the trigger.

  My selector was set correctly this time, and my aim was better. The assault rifle fired three successive shots, all hitting the wall beside the door as a warning. The arm disappeared immediately and, a second later, a barrage of small arms fire began peppering the door. I ducked behind a wall as the bullets pinged off the walls of the hallway.

  “They coming in?” Luke called from around the corner at the end of the hall.

  “Soon, I think.”

  The hail of bullets petered out and then stopped completely.

  I peeked back around the corner at the door, which now looked like swiss cheese. There was no movement.

  “Is everybody loaded and ready?” I asked as quietly as possible.

  Luke put his head around the corner and nodded before holding out a toner cartridge with a blasting cap taped to it. The fuse was half a foot long.

  “I say we light this bad boy and slide it down the hall before they break in,” Luke said. “I bet it’ll give them a hell of a surprise.”

  I saw another shadow at the window. They obviously assumed whoever was on the other side was dead or had run off. The arm came through the window again, scrabbling blindly for the bar that would open it.

  “Do it!” I mouthed and watched as he lit the fuse with a lighter and slid the toner cartridge down the hall toward the door. It whizzed by me and came to rest in the broken glass a few feet in front of the doors, the lit fuse sputtering like those on one of the bombs from a Looney Tunes cartoon.

  I left my position and ran down the hall past Luke.

  “Come on,” I yelled.

  He followed right on my heels; we were about halfway to the side door when we heard the ink bomb go off behind us with a loud bang. We had no way of knowing if it had hurt, or even slowed down, any of the Tigers, but the sound of the explosion gave my heart a quick jolt of excitement.

  I felt a strange elation and suddenly understood the term ‘adrenalin junkie.’

  3

  The cloying fog still lay thickly about the alley as Luke and I hurried to the truck. Sonny confirmed that there had been no sign of the Tigers. It surprised me. Obviously they knew the truck was here, Chen had specifically mentioned it. Maybe he didn’t expect Sonny to run? Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter; it just made our life a little easier for a minute or two.

  Luke and I checked the back to make sure everybody was inside and ready. They had done a good job of packing; boxes of gear had been stacked up and strapped against the side walls. It would offer little protection in the event of an all-out attack but might protect against a stray bullet here and there.

  Someone had the good sense to hang ropes from the metal meshing that lined the roof of the cargo bay, and Sonny was directing everybody to wrap the ropes around their wrists and grip them to offer some stability against the movement of the truck. I gave him the thumbs up before we pulled down the door and secured it.

  Luke and I rushed to the cab where Indigo was already waiting for us. Being a local, she had volunteered to navigate us out of the city in place of the injured Sonny. She moved into the middle and Luke and I climbed in on either side of her. She looked nervous, gripping the revolver I had given her tightly, as if she was ready to use it at any second.

  “I haven’t spotted anyone,” she said, indicating the end of the alleyway in the distance. “But that might be because of the fog. You better hurry.”

  I started the truck with the intention of letting it warm up for a few minutes, but my hand was forced when a figure materialized out of the fog in the alley. He took one look and then ran out of sight, presumably to go and tell Chen of our impending escape.

  I gunned the engine and the truck lurched forward. I’m embarrassed to say I took out a few garbage bins along the way and, at one point, the wing mirror on the passenger side scraped along the brick wall as we picked up speed and barreled down the alley.

  I didn’t know whether there would be Tigers waiting for us at the end of the alley or not, but I knew I wouldn’t be stopping if they were stupid enough to try and block our escape by standing in the way. I slowed only slightly as we approached the mouth of the alley.

  “Turning right is the quickest way to get to a freeway,” Indigo said, her voice tight with tension.

  “I know, but that’ll take us right past the front door,” I replied. “They’ll shoot at us for sure, and from that range they won’t miss.”

  “Left, then, and around the block,” she suggested. I nodded and took my foot off the brake pedal.

  The truck was speeding up again when a figure appeared out of the fog to the right. It was Chen. His right hand and the sleeve of his jacket were covered in black ink. I didn’t have time to gloat because that same ink-covered hand was holding a handgun, which he was calmly raising toward us. My eyes met his and I saw him bare his teeth as he began firing at the truck. I flinched, trying to make myself as small a target as possible while Luke and Indigo ducked under the dashboard.

  He was either a bad shot, or he was trying to disable the truck rather than kill us. The passenger side window was shattered by one of the rounds, and others thudded into the front and doors of the truck. I gritted my teeth and drove the truck straight at him. He jumped out of the way just before I struck him and I swung left, taking the corner way too fast.

  Indigo and Luke yelled like they were on a rollercoaster as the truck tilted dangerously and then righted itself before I accelerated down the street and away from the academy and the Tigers. By the time I checked the rearview mirror, Chen was lost in the fog behind us.

  “Everybody up here all right?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Luke said, brushing broken glass off his lap and onto the floor. “Looks like the printer paper armor worked great.”

  “Indigo?”

  “Yes, I’m alright,” she said, her voice solemn. “Without a window, this is going to be a pretty cold ride.”

  “Turn the heat up. It might help some. Luke, help me keep a watch behind us. I’m going to drive around randomly for a while in case we are being chased.”

  “No problem, man,” Luke said, his eyes glued to the passenger side mirror. He reached out and adjusted it so he could see out of it better, making it useless to me as a driving aid.

  We hurtled through the fog, although perhaps the term hurtled is a little ambitious. On a brumous day like that one, doing 30 miles an hour was pushing it. Brumous? Oh yeah, that’s one of my favorite words. It’s one I learned when I was reading dictionaries and thesauruses for fun, back when I was a kid. Nerdy, huh? Well, blame my Mom. She was an English teacher. Anyway, it means ‘of gray skies and winter days; filled with heavy clouds or fog’ – cold, sunless weather, in other words.

  Throw in the snow and ice, and the day we left the academy sure fits that definition; in fact, it could well be the most brumous of all the brumous days I’ve ever experienced.

  After making random rights and lefts for 10 or 12 blocks
, there was still no sign of pursuit and I was becoming thoroughly lost. The truck’s CB had sputtered a few times, but it appeared the Chinese were not talking too much that morning either, probably waiting for the fog to burn off, I guessed. Finally, I stopped the truck at an intersection.

  “I think that’s enough weaving to throw them off the scent. Which way from here, Indigo?”

  She took a few moments to take in our surroundings.

  “Um, if you make a U-turn and go back to the last intersection, turn left there and it’ll put you on Park Avenue. That should take us all the way north out of the city before it meets up with I-190.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, putting the truck in drive and pulling forward and to the right. A U-turn was impossible, so I stopped again and put it in reverse, doing a three-point turn in the middle of the intersection. “Let’s get this party started.”

  To be honest, I was glad Indigo was the one who sat in front to give directions. Just having her sitting near me up in the cab made me feel good inside, you know, warm and fuzzy, even though it was damn cold with Luke’s window busted out. I was surprised to even be thinking about girls, considering how much danger we were in.

  We found Park Avenue easily enough, exactly where Indigo said it would be, and I turned in the direction she indicated. The further north we went, the thicker the fog became, to the point where I could barely make out the buildings along the street. I had to slow down considerably; I didn’t want to collide with abandoned cars or any other obstacles. The visibility was so poor that I wouldn’t be able to stop in time, even going as slow as 25 miles an hour.

  While we kept our eyes peeled for any movement or signs of pursuit, we chatted as the truck crawled northward on Park. My earlier assessment of Indigo was only reinforced by our conversation. She was easily the most amazing person I had ever met. I must admit to being a bit jealous that day though, because it became apparent that Indigo understood a lot more of Luke’s video game references than I did. It was also the first time I recall Luke talking about his sister, Rose.