by Nikita Eden
“You don’t have—”
“I’d be happy to help out.” He leaned in and whispered, “Just between you and me, I have a soft spot for Runners.”
“If you insist,” she smiled and followed him to his tent while they chatted about things like the weather from earlier that day.
“Well, this is my tent,” he pointed to a small blue pop tent. “I know it’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.”
“It’s perfect. Thanks, Lincoln,” Audrey said. “Is there anywhere I can put my bike? I don’t think the tent will hold it up and I don’t want to lay it on the ground.”
“I’ll take it to the supply shed and bring it to you in the morning,” he took the handlebars from her and turned the bike around.
“Thanks again,” Audrey tossed her bag through the tent’s opening. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Absolutely you will,” he said cheerfully and turned on his heel, heading toward the front gate with her mint green bicycle and a bounce in his step.
The sounds of Howlers chasing their prey through the cover of darkness kept Audrey awake well into the middle of the night. She had tossed and turned for hours on the thin padded mat she was laying on. It made her yearn for the days when she slept in her big bed at home with her warm comforter drawn up to her chin when she was afraid of something.
At ten o’clock Lincoln and some of the other guards made rounds through the base calling for lights out. Roswell, like Artesia, had a curfew, but generators kept lights running in select parts of the city to deter animals so the Howlers wouldn’t be attracted to the walls that surrounded the city.
Even for being the middle of the night the small camp was eerily quiet. In Roswell and a lot of the bigger cities and trade hubs there were still children. Artesia didn’t have the sounds of small children or babies crying in the night among the pop-up tents. Audrey found it unsettling. She enjoyed taking care of the children of Roswell in her down time and the absence of them reminded her of the dire circumstances the world was in. She been through Artesia a handful of times, but had never noticed the absence of the children before.
She stared at the sheer paneling of the tent and wasted time passing her phone from hand to hand for a while before turning over onto her stomach. She stared at the dark screen before holding down the power button to turn it on. She ran her thumb over the front of the phone, feeling for the crack in the bottom corner, and turned it on.
The light from the start-up screen was bright but she squinted at it until her eyes adjusted. She clicked a switch on the side to turn the phone onto vibrate and unlocked it. She flicked back and forth between the two screens she had filled with the few applications she had left on her phone.
Dean had someone take the preloaded applications off when she became a Runner, but thankfully he didn’t argue when she asked to keep all the pictures and solitaire. It helped her feel like the world wasn’t as bad as it could be if she could still play games on her phone and look at pictures of her family.
The phone vibrated and a black bar dropped down from the top of the screen showing her a text message.
Where are you?
It was Dean. She knew he would be worried when she didn’t return to Roswell as planned today. She opened the messages and typed out “Artesia” and waited.
Artesia? Are you going to make it back in time?
Audrey sighed, but was happy there was still someone in the world that cared about her enough to check on her. Of course I am. I got a bike today.
An owl hooted faintly in the distance and Audrey turned to lay on her back. She held the phone above her head.
A bike? Where?
Back of the Walmart in Artesia. She responded. She didn’t mention it had been after dusk when she had finished assembling it or that she’d ridden it through a couple groups of dregs.
I’m going to send someone to meet you.
Audrey rolled her eyes and smiled. Dean had adopted a mother hen attitude since she returned to Roswell alone in her family’s car and was barely coherent from sobbing. She was taken back to his house where she had revealed to him and his mother that her family had turned into zombies.
She was lucky to be alive at that point and Dean told her he was never going to risk losing her.
He and his mother quickly found her a place to stay. It was a small house that was shared with a few other girls who had lost their families to either the virus or the Cure.
The transition to becoming an orphan while at the brink of adulthood had been hard for Audrey. It didn’t help being surrounded by strangers, but Dean had come to her new house every night and stayed with her until she fell asleep for the first month.
When the City Council decided to create a safe community by building a wall to keep the dregs away from uninfected people the Runner program was born. The idea had come from other towns that were still functional and independent. It kept Roswell in touch with other communities and the changes that were happening to the dregs.
Dean had been appointed the Director of Runners shortly after the group’s establishment. He knew Audrey wanted to leave Roswell and had done everything he could to prevent her from becoming a Runner, but she had passed the physical requirements the Council put in place and was eager to do what was asked of her for the community.
Don’t send anyone. It’s a waste of resources. I promise I’m fine.
The sound of footsteps crunching in the gravel coming towards made her jump. She held the phone against her chest and held her breath. The phone vibrated once. She opened up the messages as soon as the person walked away.
I’m coming with Peter first thing in the morning. Stay there until we meet you.
Audrey pursed her lips and exited the message. She opened the picture gallery on her phone and scrolled through the thumbnails. There were newer pictures taken in Carlsbad from when she had been sent to classify different kinds of dregs that had mutated. She flipped through the horrifying pictures of nests of dregs until she got to the older photos of her family which she was looking for.
Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes as she looked through them. Her nose congested and her tongue felt thick when she tried to swallow. She sat up and crossed her legs, sitting her phone on her ankle while she wiped away the tears.
The phone vibrated and a new message popped up: Audrey? Are you going to stay there?
Yeah. See you in the morning.
She sent the message and laid down after she could breathe comfortably again. She pulled the itchy, grey wool blanket up over her head.
She scrolled through the pictures again and found one of her with her dad. They were smiling at the camera with their heads together while she held up a medal from a track meet. She stared at the snapshot for a few minutes, not recognizing herself before shutting the phone off and finally falling into a shallow and restless sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
Audrey was typically a morning person. She was used to being up and ready to take on whatever was asked of her at the crack of dawn, but she had not slept well. She was curled in the fetal position and kept her eyes closed while she took in the sounds of the morning. Before too long she decided it was time to get up and was gathering the strength to sit up when she was violently jerked out of her sleepy state by someone grabbing her shoulder and shaking her.
“Ah!” She yelped and lashed out with her hands and feet.
She landed a solid punch on the jaw of the person who had startled her. When she opened her eyes, she realized to her dismay that person happened to be Lincoln.
“Argh!” he cried out, immediately bringing his hands up to cup his face as he fell backwards onto the ground. “What did you do that for?”
“I’m so sorry Lincoln!” Audrey got up onto her knees and tried to look through his fingers. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that!”
“You didn’t mean to?” He dropped his hands, revealing his lip was bloody and had started to swell, “You punched me in th
e face!”
“You scared me!” Audrey defended herself.
She leaned over him and grabbed her pack from behind him.
She pulled a small roll of medical gauze out of her first aid kit and tore some off. She folded it a few times and knelt down next to him so she could gingerly dab the cotton on his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
Lincoln stared at her and held her gaze for a moment before he moved. She felt a tingle rush down her arm when he touched her hand and slowly removed the gauze from her fingers. He held it to his mouth on his own and looked away.
“It’s okay,” he pulled the gauze away from his lip to see how much it was bleeding. “I was just coming to tell you that Dean Davies is here with someone.”
“That’s Peter, he’s another one of the Runners from Roswell,” she informed him.
“I see,” he wadded the gauze up in his hand and put it in his pocket. “Well, they’re talking to Dr. Searle right now, but he asked us to make sure you would be up and ready to leave when they’re done talking.”
Audrey looked at the top of the tent that was starting to lighten in color from the rising sun, “It’s barely even light out. How are they even here?”
“They drove here in one of Roswell’s city vehicles, but they probably started driving a little before dawn,” Lincoln licked his lip. “He looked pretty upset when he got here.”
Audrey rolled her eyes and silently fumed over the fact that Dean had actually wasted the resources when she would have been home on time later that day.
Audrey pulled her running clothes out of her pack and took a couple deep breaths to soothe her bubbling irritation, “He’s probably just worried because I’m getting too close to the time limit.”
“So, is he just a friend or something?” Lincoln asked as nonchalantly as he could. He looked out the open flap to the tent and watched people walking down the gravel path.
“Yeah, we’re friends. We have been since we were kids, but he’s also in charge of the Runners in Roswell,” she explained.
“Oh, so he’s just doing his job?” Lincoln asked he crossed his legs and looked at her quietly.
“Yeah, I think so.” She looked around the small tent and then held up her running clothes, “Um, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to change now.”
Lincoln’s ears turned bright red and he scurried out of the tent on his hands and knees, “Yeah, of course. Sorry.”
Audrey chuckled after he left. He was pretty cute, even if he made things a bit awkward from time to time.
She slipped the soft grey clothes she had had gotten from the decontamination showers off and folded them neatly before setting them on the lightly padded mat. She was going to miss the soft material that had been so warm and comfortable against her skin.
Audrey listened to the residents of the base who were already waking up and walking around outside. They talked in the raspy, quiet tones of people who were still tired. Even though they were quiet it was easy to hear conversations through the tents. Audrey’s attention was piqued by two people talking about the vehicle parked outside the gate.
“Why do you think they’ve come from Roswell?” A woman whispered.
“I don’t know. It’s our local trading hub,” a man answered. “Maybe they’ve brought supplies since we’re running low again.”
“They aren’t supposed to come until next week. Are we really that close running out of food?” the woman worried aloud.
Audrey heard Lincoln clear his throat and answer, “It is unofficial business, Maura. One of their Runners is here after a scouting trip. She was almost stranded, so they came to get her.”
“They must have quite a bit of fuel left if they can come to get one person,” Maura scoffed haughtily. “I wish we had such luxuries.”
“Elaine and Olivia Scott have luxuries like that,” the man retorted. “Not everyone is as bad off as we are.”
“They still live in their house and are able to drive their car everywhere,” Maura huffed. “People like them need to learn to conserve what we have. Apparently Roswell needs the same lesson those girls need.”
Audrey’s fists were balled up on her knees as she listened to the woman called Maura talk.
How dare she say Roswell was being flippant with their resources? They were a trading hub that gave away resources to towns like Artesia that had run out of supplies because they lived extravagantly and didn’t think about conserving anything.
“Everything we have will run out sooner or later,” the man said, moving away from the tent. “Might as well start getting used to it.”
Audrey nodded her head in agreement with the man who had half-heartedly defended Roswell. She pulled on her running shoes and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She grabbed her pack and put it on her back, more than happy to leave the camp.
“They sounded annoyed,” she said to Lincoln as she crawled out of his tent.
“Maura wants things to be the way they used to be,” Lincoln commented.
Audrey snorted and brushed her hands and knees off. There were a lot of people who wanted things to be the way they used to. It didn’t mean they needed to be snide.
“She does realize that between the virus and the cure there’s less than forty percent of the world population left, right?” Audrey asked.
“Some people are still in denial,” he acknowledged. “She’ll get used to things the way they are soon.”
“I hope she does, otherwise she’ll be angry for a long time,” Audrey stated.
Lincoln was holding her bicycle for her and handed her the handle bars. She was grateful there was someone as kind as him in Artesia. The last few times she had gone through the town everyone had kept to themselves and she was left to fend for herself when it came to medical supplies and new water.
She leaned the bicycle frame against her hip, “Thanks for letting me use your tent. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem,” he smiled at her.
“Where do I need to meet Dean at?” she looked around.
“I’ll take you to the shed where Dr. Searle stays. That’s where your friends are,” he replied.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met the doctor,” she mentioned. “What does he do here?”
“He used to be a family practice doctor at a small clinic here. We’ve all felt like he’s a good judge of the way things should be, so he’s been an unofficial leader,” Lincoln said over his shoulder.
“Unofficial? Don’t you guys have any elected leaders that help run things?” Audrey asked.
Lincoln shook his head, “A lot of the people here don’t trust elected officials after the government accidentally infected the human race with a deadly virus.”
“That’s fair,” Audrey admitted. “So, how are things run?”
“People keep to themselves mostly,” Lincoln explained. “The National Guard set this place set up a while ago so we can decontaminate people and have a safe place to sleep, but not everyone takes advantage of it.”
“You think people should?” Audrey fell into step next to him.
“I do. It keeps them from getting sick and spreading everything to the rest of us, but you can’t force people to do what they don’t want to,” he frowned.
“Isn’t that the way life has always been?” Audrey asked. “People have stuff around them that will keep them safe and healthy, but they have to find something wrong with it.”
Lincoln smiled at her, “You’re right. People are just stubborn.”
Audrey had never done more in Artesia than stop for a quick break and a refill on water. She looked around at the encampment inside the fencing and noticed it was bigger than she had previously thought it was.
Lincoln recited a bland oration about each of the areas he led her past. She learned that the latrine now had plumbing that connected it to the sewers and there was a small garden the people had planted to supplement the supplies Roswell brought every month. Lincoln was proud to point out that
it was more successful than they expected it to be because of the water shortage due to the dry monsoon season.
“And this building is where Dr. Searle takes care of the paperwork for Artesia’s aid from trading hubs,” Lincoln gestured at a large wooden shed.
It was a regular shed that looked like the ones Roswell used to store things they needed.
“You guys have a pretty simple set up,” Audrey observed. “I’ve never been shown around before, but I like it. Do you let your people go out during the day?”
“Yeah, Dr. Searle figured we could give them time out of here while the roamers aren’t out.”
“Roamers?” Audrey asked.
“Yeah, you know, the regular ones that walk around like they’re bored or something,” he shrugged. “I’ve always wondered why people can’t just call them zombies.”
“We call them dregs in Roswell. I think people don’t like thinking of them as zombies because they’ve never been dead. Or they’re just in denial about everything going on,” Audrey stated. “I didn’t know Artesia still had a doctor.”
“I guess we all call them something. As long as we all know who’s who,” Lincoln chuckled. “We’ve had Dr. Searle since before the infection. It’s been helpful having him around, but he has an interesting way of looking at things. He’s really interested in the roamers and the way they mutate.”
“Audrey!” a young, masculine voice cheerily interrupted the conversation.
She turned around and saw Dean and Peter standing in the doorway of the shed. They were both wearing running clothes.
“Hey, Audrey,” Dean said with a smile that revealed his perfectly straight white teeth.
“Hey, Dean,” Audrey said coolly, crossing her arms over her chest. “Crazy running into you here. It’s almost like you came looking for me.”
Dean’s smile faltered and he raised an eyebrow. He walked to her and gave her a tight hug. He released her so he could look at her when she started tapping his back.
“You have to be more careful you know. These long runs down to Carlsbad need to stop,” his voice was light, but full of concern.
