by James Harden
“Let’s go find Jack,” Kenji says. “Let’s regroup. Take a breath. And then we can plan our next move.”
Chapter 17
It feels like we are forever doing this. Running. Re-grouping. Taking a few precious seconds to catch our breath before we plan our next move. Is this what our life has been reduced to?
Running.
Hiding.
Planning the best course of action to not die in the next moment or two.
Before we leave the church we check the pantry and fill up on canned food. We can’t fit much more in our bags, but the few extra cans might mean the difference between eating and starving, living and dying. The extra cans of food might just give us an extra moment or two. Once we’re satisfied that we can’t possibly carry any more food, we move back to the entryway of the church. We do this so we have a good view of the street and so we can see if anyone is moving towards us.
So far so good. We appear to be alone.
“My guess is they came through here to check the walls,” Kim says.
“Check the walls?” I ask. “Why would they do that?”
“Don’t know. Maybe to make sure they’re still standing, that there’s no possible way inside.”
“Wait. How do we know there is no way inside?” I ask. “We’ve only seen this one side. There’s three other sides to check. Maybe there’s a weak point somewhere.”
“There’s not,” Sarah says quietly. “Trust me.”
“Guys, we need to focus,” Kenji says, bringing us back to the problem at hand. The problem being, where the hell is Jack and how do we get to him without being shot to pieces. “Those walls and the people behind them are not our priorities right now,” he continues. “We need to find Jack. And we need to avoid any more confrontations with this gang of marauders.”
“Don’t forget Marko,” I say, reminding everyone of that evil son of a bitch. “That psycho is still out there somewhere. And his brother is here as well.”
“His brother?” Sarah asks.
“Yeah. The big one.”
“Damn,” Kim says. “Ivan is here as well?”
“Yeah. We saw him walking down the street. Not a care in the world.”
“I wonder if the gang will find him?” Maria says wishfully. “Maybe they’ll kill Ivan for us.”
“We can’t plan for that,” Kenji says. “We can hope for it, but we shouldn’t expect it. But most importantly, we need to be invisible as we make our way through the streets. We need to be invisible because we can’t outrun their bullets forever.”
“How’d you guys even get away?” Sarah asks. “Heard a lot of gunfire…”
We fill Sarah in on what had happened.
How we tried to get Marko’s work truck.
How we saw Ivan the Terrible stalking his way down the street.
We don’t tell her about Gabe, not yet. We’ll cover that later. Instead, we talk about how these people, these scavengers came out of nowhere, forced us into a fight, backed us into a corner. We tell her that we’ve probably killed at least five of their people. And that we’ve definitely killed three of their people. So if they catch us, they will not show mercy.
“We have to keep moving,” Kenji says. “They won’t expect us to go anywhere near the main road. They won’t expect us to be out in the open.”
“And they might be angry,” I add. “I mean, of course they’ll be angry. But more than anything they’ll be scared.”
“How do you know that?” Maria asks. “We’re just a bunch of kids. We’re wounded. We’re vulnerable.”
“They’ll be scared because it’s just human nature. And they don’t know that we’re wounded. All they know is we’ve evaded their capture and we’ve killed three or five of their people. We’re an unknown threat to them. At the moment, we’re the hunters in the night. Not them. We’re the monster under the bed. Not them. These people will be jumping at shadows right now. So we have the advantage. And as long as we stay hidden, as long as we’re careful, as long as we’re smart, they won’t see us coming or going.”
My little speech lifts everyone’s spirits just a little bit. Maybe too much. So I remind them that these people are heavily armed and that we can’t go looking for trouble.
“Agreed,” Kim says. “We sneak into the fire station and we sneak out before they even know we’re there.”
“Or maybe we might be better off staying inside the station,” Maria suggests.
“You think?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. But we overheard them talking about food, remember? That seems to be their main priority. Maybe a bit of reconnaissance. I reckon they’ll be focusing on shops and grocery stores. And then I think they’ll head for the houses. I also think they’ll want to be out of here by sunrise.”
“They were pretty excited when they got the canned goods from the church pantry,” Sarah adds quietly. “Heard them talking about how they’ll be rewarded. How it’ll get them in the good books…”
“Probably not much food at the fire station,” Maria says, thinking out loud.
“And even if there is, they probably won’t look there first,” Kenji adds. “The most obvious places are the shops and the houses. This means the fire station should be relatively safe and empty.”
“All right, let’s go now,” Kim says, getting anxious and impatient. “While they’re scared, while they’re confused. They’re probably still searching the houses where the explosion was. We can use this to our advantage. We slip by them and get inside the fire station. We find Jack and then we figure out whether to stay put and wait for daylight, or if we need to make a run for it. My gut is telling me that we’ll probably end up hunkering down for the night.”
This is fine by me.
And it sounds like a rock solid plan.
As long as we don’t draw attention to ourselves. As long as no one sees us.
Chapter 18
I was feeling confident of our little plan of action.
Emphasis on was…
But now that we’re back on the street, I am not so confident. Because on the main street there are parked cars and dark shop fronts. Every now and then there’s a tiny alleyway between buildings. There are plenty of hiding spots. Plenty of windows for a sniper.
I keep telling myself that we’re the hunters in the night, that we are killers and that we can defend ourselves if it comes to that. We’ve already done it and we’ll continue to do it. But deep down, I know we’ve been more than just a bit lucky. We caught these people off guard. They weren’t expecting anyone else to be exploring this town. What they were expecting is empty streets and full shops. They were expecting a looters paradise. But instead they found us. And now they know they aren’t alone, now they know we can defend ourselves, they’ll be ready for us and they won’t be so careless.
And… if they find us, if they capture us, there is no way in hell they’ll show us any mercy.
“Which way?” I ask. “It’s back this way, right?”
“Yeah,” Kenji answers, pointing up ahead. “North, along this road. This is the way we came in.”
“Keep your eyes open for the fire station,” Kim says. “It should be close by. It should be right here.”
“Wouldn’t expect so many cars in town,” Kenji whispers, mainly to himself, thinking out loud.
“It’s like the townspeople got caught in here unaware,” I say.
“Or maybe they were having a town meeting,” Maria suggests. “Maybe they had all decided to move into the town center so they could defend the town together, build the barricade together. Safety in numbers, you know?”
“That makes sense,” I say. “And maybe that’s why the majority of the infected were situated right here.”
“Still,” Maria continues. “I wonder when those walls went up. I wonder how many of the townspeople survived? Like, how many people were caught outside when the virus hit.”
“My guess is not many,” Kenji says.
He’s right. It was
never many. The Oz virus is too damn lethal, too damn quick. It would’ve been a mad rush to get everyone in here, to build the barricades. They would’ve worked around the clock, day and night. They would’ve worked non-stop to build something that in the end, was ultimately futile, ultimately useless. But at least they tried, at least they went down fighting. I can respect that. Admire it. And honestly, if it comes down to it, this is how I want to go out. I want to go out fighting. I don’t want to ever give up.
“There it is,” Maria says. “The fire station. Dead ahead.”
The fire station is basically a large garage. The main roller doors are closed. There’s a smaller door off to the right, just to the side of the roller door. Hopefully it’s unlocked. We approach the fire station carefully, making double sure the street is empty, making double sure that we are actually alone.
“Well?” Maria asks. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
Kenji moves forward, opening the door. Thankfully, it’s not locked. “Come on,” he whispers. “Inside. This lock has been broken.”
Looking down the road, off into the distance, I see the failed barricade. And I thought I saw movement. A shadow.
A dark shape.
Moving.
Running.
Hiding.
Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Is my exhausted mind playing tricks on me?
“Come on, Rebecca,” Kenji whispers. “Move it.”
I slip inside the fire station and there he is. Jack. He’s sitting out in the open, leaning against the front wheel of the fire truck. He’s clearly in pain. The bandage around his leg is once again red and bloodied. His face is pale and sweaty. I guess running for your life with a wounded leg is not an ideal situation. The fresh bandage on his leg is no longer fresh, blood is once again seeping through, snaking down his leg. His stitches have definitely come undone. Both he and Sarah are in bad shape, and if we don’t find a place where we can rest and recover for more than a couple of hours at a time, I don’t see how these guys are going to get better. I wonder for how much longer these guys could run and fight.
Jack lifts a weary and heavy arm to wave at us. “Hey guys. What took you so long?”
Maria runs over and hugs him. Doesn’t stop hugging him.
“Sorry for the delay,” Kim says. “But there are way more people here than we first thought.”
“More?” he asks. “How many more?”
“We’re not sure. But enough to pose a very serious threat.”
“Are they close? Are they nearby?”
“Don’t know.”
And then suddenly there’s a blast, a shotgun blast, and the shell and the shrapnel smashes into the garage door and this answers the question of whether or not these people are nearby.
The answer being… yes.
They are very nearby.
In fact, they are just outside.
At the sound of the shotgun blast, everyone dives for cover and Kenji pulls us under the fire truck.
These people have stalked us. Followed us. I thought I saw a shadow, something moving and hiding behind the barricade. I should’ve said something. I thought my eyes and my exhausted mind were playing tricks on me, but I should’ve said something.
Because these people have stalked us and now we are trapped. And now they will show us absolutely no mercy.
“Throw down your weapons,” a man shouts. “You’re surrounded. The only way out, the only way you live, is if I let you live.”
Chapter 19
I am completely frozen. I wriggle further underneath the fire truck in an attempt to hide as best I can. Maybe if I’m hidden well enough they won’t find us.
Yeah, right. This is wishful thinking. This is a fantasy. Because we are not really hidden, and we are completely surrounded.
And the only way we live, is if he lets us live.
Kenji on the other hand is not frozen and he is not afraid. He is ready for action. He crawls over to the garage door with no regard for his own safety. Built into the garage door are several clear plastic windows. He takes a huge risk and moves up to one of the windows, the one closest to the shotgun blast.
He takes a quick look outside and then crawls back to us, sliding under the fire truck. “Not good,” he says. “Not good at all.”
“How many?” Kim asks.
“Too many.” Kenji looks at the roller door and then looks towards the back of the fire station. “We’ll probably need to find another way out.”
“But he said we were surrounded,” Maria says.
“Yeah. That’s what he said.”
“Should we create a diversion?” I suggest. “Like last time. And then we can sneak out.”
Kenji thinks it over. Shakes his head. “No. That won’t work. There’s too many of them.”
“So what do we do?”
“Not sure. Need to think.”
“You’ve killed three of my people,” the man shouts. “You burned them alive. I know it was you. It wasn’t the King’s men, and it sure as hell wasn’t the dead.”
King’s men? Jesus, what have we walked into here. And wait a minute, he thinks we’ve only killed three of his people? I guess this means he doesn’t know about the other two. I don’t know whether this is a good thing or not.
“But I’m going to assume that you people are new to the area,” he continues. “I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and assume that you people don’t know the rules. Am I right?”
We all exchanged frightened looks.
“Rules?” Maria says. “What does he mean by that?”
“Does he expect us to answer him?” I ask. “Does he expect us to have a conversation like this?”
“This guy’s crazy,” Sarah whispers. “Getting crazier. Guess it’s happening all over. Above ground. Below ground. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, right?”
“What do we do,” Jack says. “Do we talk to this guy? Or do we just make a run for it?”
“He knows this town better than we do,” Kenji says, thinking over our options out loud. “He’s got more people. We don’t know how many and we don’t know how well armed they are. But I think it’s safe to say they’ve got way more people than we do and they’ve got way more weapons than we do.”
“What are you saying?” Kim asks. “You’re not saying we do what he tells us to do? You’re not actually suggesting that we surrender?”
“What choice do we have?”
“Are you kidding me? We fight. We run.”
“Jack can’t run. Sarah can’t run. Running is not an option.”
Another shot gun blast into the garage door.
I cover my head and cover my ears. I want this to be over.
And then the man continues our conversation… “Hey! In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been very goddamn reasonable with you people. Now I need you to return the favor. Come out with your hands up and your weapons lowered, preferably all the way to the ground. We’ll have a nice friendly chat. And I’m sure, once we work everything out, we can come to some kind of an agreement.”
An agreement on his terms. I’m guessing we won’t like these terms.
Kim finally answers him. “You’re being too loud, you idiot. You’re going to attract the infected here. You’re going to get us all killed.”
“Did you just call me an idiot? Are you serious? Do you have any idea who you’re talking to? And in case you haven’t noticed, the dead… wait, what did you call them? The infected? The infected have split. They’ve chased something off into the desert. So right now we’ve got the whole town to ourselves. Crazy, isn’t it? We’ve got the whole place to ourselves and we still can’t get along. This town is deserted. It’s empty. And it’s still not big enough for the both of us.”
“Your people shot at us first,” Kenji says. “They shot without warning. They shot to kill. We were forced to defend ourselves. We had no other options. We had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” he replies.
&n
bsp; Yeah, we could’ve given up… taken a bullet. That’s not much of a choice.
“And no, we’re not alone,” Kenji adds. “There’s a couple of cannibalistic serial killers that have come to town. One of them herded the infected out into the desert. That’s why this place is empty. But he’s coming back… and if he finds you here, he’ll kill you, he’ll eat you piece by piece, limb by limb. All of you.”
The man outside laughs. He laughs long and loud. “Wow. You really have no idea who you’re talking to.”
I tug Kenji’s shirt. “There’s no reasoning with this guy. He wants our blood. He wants revenge for the people we’ve killed. He needs to punish us. He needs to make an example out of us. If he doesn’t, he’ll appear weak in front of his people. He’ll lose control of his people. I’m guessing he’d rather die than let that happen. So killing us… or one of us to assert his power and his dominance will really be no big deal to him. Therefore, we need to go. And we need to go right now.”
“How?” Sarah asks weakly. Again, her eyes are closed, her face is twisted into a portrait of pain. “We’re surrounded. I’m not going to make it. Whatever the plan, whatever we decide to do… I can’t…”
“You will make it,” Kenji says with confidence in his voice. Confidence and excitement. This is Kenji in his natural element. He was born for situations like this. He thrives under pressure, under the threat of death. He says, “Does anyone know how to drive a fire truck?”
Chapter 20
“What are you suggesting?” Kim asks.
“We can’t outrun them on foot,” Kenji says. “And we can’t fight them. But what if we pile into this thing,” he says pointing with his thumb to the fire truck that we are currently hiding underneath. “We jump in, strap in for safety, and smash our way out.”
Maria crawls forward slightly so she can voice her concerns. “Smash our way out? But they’re armed with machine guns and god knows what else. This truck is a huge target. A huge red target.”
