by Nikita Eden
The possibility that one of them may be the new Runner crossed her mind and she didn’t want to antagonize them to the point that they would cause problems for her in the future.
“Whatever,” Elaine folded her arms over her chest.
Audrey pointed to the starting line she had drawn with sidewalk chalk because the lines that were once on the track were severely faded from months of daily practice, “Start here. I’ll be timing you.”
The potential Runners took their marks while Audrey walked off to the side of the track and shouted, “Three! Two! One! GO!”
Each person started off at a different pace. Olivia and Elaine ran as fast as they could and quickly ran around the track once. Lincoln and Gene maintained a steady pace near the middle. Robert, the middle aged man with a bushy mustache, caught Audrey’s attention by walking at a regular walking pace on the farthest outside lane of the track. He was still on his first lap when everyone else had reached their third lap.
Audrey fell in step with him as he moseyed along quietly.
“Hey Robert,” she said kindly. “Are you doing okay? You’re not hurt or anything, are you?”
“No, I’m fine,” he said flatly and kept his eyes focused on the track. “Just doing the laps you said we had to do.”
Audrey studied the man’s stoic features for a minute and decided he looked like someone who would usually put his heart and soul into something if he wanted it bad enough.
“You know the laps are timed, right?” she asked.
“Yeah, I know,” he sighed and scratched the back of his head. “To be honest, I don’t even want to be here. Martha—my wife—she insisted that I try to become a Runner.”
“Why would you come if you don’t want to be one?”
“Our son turned not too long ago,” Robert’s nose turned red and tears gathered in his eyes before he quickly blinked them back. “She wants me to be a Runner so I can go out and try to find him. She thinks there will be a way to turn him back to normal in the future and wants to know where he is.”
Audrey looked away from the sad man next to her. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth and she cleared her throat a couple times before she talked to him again, “Do you think that will happen?”
Robert tried to shrug nonchalantly, but his hands were quivering at his side, “I’d like to see it happen, but everyone knows that the virus and the cure the government cooked up killed brain cells. He might be alive, but he’ll never be able to be our son again.”
The logic behind Robert’s opinion was sound, but it broke Audrey’s heart to hear someone speak so realistically about the future when everyone else around her constantly indulged in the fantasy of what was going to happen when things were normal again.
“Your wife knows we have to kill the dregs we come across now, doesn’t she?” Audrey asked.
“She does, but she thinks if I find him I can hide him and take care of him until there’s a cure for him,” a tear tracked slowly down Robert’s cheek and he brushed it away.
“You’re welcome to stay and test if you want to, Robert,” she said.
They walked for silence while Robert struggled to cry quietly.
“Thanks,” he said and finally looked at her. She saw he was no longer successful at holding back his tears and they were freely flowing over his worn out face. His kind amber brown eyes were full of grief. “I’ll stay for the rest of today’s test, but I’m just going to tell her I didn’t qualify to move on to tomorrow’s testing.”
Audrey nodded, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She walked off the track to sit on the grass and watched as the girls eventually gave up on running and walked the last few laps, huffing while they tried to catch their collective breath.
Lincoln and Gene passed the girls together and finished their laps at almost the same time.
Audrey stood up and met them at the starting line. Gene sat on the track and fanned himself with his hand, Lincoln was stretching his legs, and the girls were wiping the sweat off their faces with wrinkled noses and frowns.
“You all did great!” Audrey exclaimed, secretly laughing when the girls’ gave her disgusted looks for displaying so much enthusiasm. “I’m impressed with the effort I saw from all of you! That’s all the testing we’re doing for today.”
“So, this was just the endurance? What’s up for tomorrow?” Gene pulled his shirt away from his skin.
“Tomorrow we’ll do sprinting and hand to hand combat with some dummies. I’ll end with the results,” Audrey answered.
Gene’s eyebrows knit together with concern, but nodded his head, “Looking forward to it.”
“I’ll see you all tomorrow!” Audrey said cheerily, pleased to watch the continued irritation the twins displayed.
Olivia, Elaine, Robert, and Gene turned and headed towards the north gate, but Lincoln stayed behind on the track with Audrey.
“So, how did you like having a day off of running?” he asked Audrey.
She snorted and slowly made her way to the gate, “It was nice, I guess. I don’t know if I could do nothing every day though.”
Lincoln inched closer to her while they walked, “So, how many days off a week do Runners get?”
“We used to train for six days, but since we’ve had to start doing dreg elimination we’re only doing three practices a week, two days around the hospital and orchards, and then we have our usually daily tasks. I’m hoping we get to go out and do some scouting again soon,” Audrey shrugged. “I guess we don’t really get any days off.”
“Hopefully scouting doesn’t take up too much of your time when it starts again,” Lincoln said quietly, his hand brushed against the back of hers and she inhaled quickly.
“Why does it matter how long it takes?” she gave him a sidelong glance.
“I wouldn’t mind doing more stuff with you is all,” he kicked at a pebble on the ground as they walked.
Lincoln had been spending time with Audrey while she did her daily tasks, and at the end of each day he would ask her if she’d like to go out with him sometime, but because of her schedule she kept having to turn him down.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been out. I’m anxious to go back out there,” she stopped and looked around when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. “But with having to pair off I don’t know if or when I’ll be able to go as far as I have before.”
“To Carlsbad?” he inquired. He’d asked her about it before, but she never gave him more than vague answers.
“Yeah, down in that area,” she looked away from him and quickened her pace to the gate so they could avoid the dregs that were ambling toward them.
“Hey, slow down Runner Three,” Lincoln chuckled and caught up with her. “What’s down around that area that makes you want to go so badly?”
“Nothing really,” she said shortly. “I hear they’re talking about scheduling a long run to Hobbs or over into Texas sometime after we get a new Runner, but I don’t know if it’s true or if Dean is just trying to keep me content until scouting starts up again.”
“I see. Hobbs is a pretty dangerous place now,” Lincoln frowned and studied her. “Would you be the one to go if they do set something up?”
“Probably. I’m the only one of the Runners who is willing to go down south, but they’ll need two volunteers now with the new rules,” she walked through the gate and stood at the edge of the Roswell Commons. “It might make it harder to find someone else. I bet I could get Dean to go with me.”
“Dean,” Lincoln said quietly. “You talk about him a lot. You guys are really close, right?”
“Yup, I’ve known him my whole life and thanks to the Runners we spend at least six days a week together,” she stopped inside the gate and turned to look down Main Street towards the south gate.
“Are you two together?” he asked tentatively. “I mean, I’ve heard stuff about you two, but is it true?”
She shook her head, “I know he wants us to date, but I don’t kn
ow how I feel about it.”
“Is that why you haven’t taken me up on my offer to go out the last couple weeks?” Lincoln asked.
“No, it’s not. I’m not dating him, so I don’t see why I couldn’t go out with someone else if I wanted to,” she continued walking and turned towards her house.
“Maybe we could go do something after you finish recruiting someone then,” Lincoln suggested.
“Maybe,” she grinned, not wanting to let on how excited the thought made her.
They watched the sun turn the clouds fiery red and orange as it sank in the sky. Audrey heard crickets in the grass and a pair of songbirds fluttered above their heads. Lincoln’s fingers brushed against hers and she touched his palm with her fingertips. A bubbling well of happiness sprung up in her stomach when he squeezed her hand and she smiled the entire way home.
CHAPTER NINE
The thick grey clouds that covered the sky lit up with lightning which was soon followed by the rumbles of thunder throughout the next morning. A swift breeze rustled the leaves in the trees and danced along the grass.
There had barely been light enough to see when Audrey woke up. She showered and got dressed before she headed to Runner’s Field to set up the practice dummies and orange construction cones. She was almost done preparing the field for the testing when Dean sauntered onto the field.
“Hey, I figured you might need some help today,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Not really,” she said not looking at him as she carefully laid out melee weapons for the group to choose from. “I did fine yesterday without you.”
“I understand you’re upset with me for not coming to help yesterday, but I am the Director of Runners, so I’m going to take over for today,” he said sternly.
“You may be the Director, but I get the final say in who becomes the new Runner,” Audrey argued. “You can watch, but you don’t have to be here.”
“I’m going to take over, Audrey. It’s my job. You can help me decide, but I’ll talk to the Council about it all later,” he said harshly.
Audrey looked at him with her mouth open and dropped everything she’d been holding on the ground, “Fine. You finish setting up then.”
Dean’s shocked face was satisfying and she dug through her pocket around her house key and some folded up papers that had notes from the previous day to get her phone and head earphones. She put the buds in her ears and laid on the grass, ignoring any request for help Dean had.
She flicked her thumb across the screen and tapped on the old application icons, trying to find something entertaining to do while she waited for everyone to show up. She ended up exiting out of all of them when error messages saying the network was unavailable popped up repeatedly.
“Audrey!” Lincoln called happily from the edge of the field. She sat up and waved at him.
He was the first person to show up. He had a wide smile and a bounce in his step. “How are you?”
“Hey!” Audrey stood up and greeted him with an awkward fist bump, “I can’t complain, I guess. Dean will be leading the tryouts today, just so you know.”
Lincoln looked around the field and frowned when he saw Dean cleaning the blades on a few of the weapons, “Oh, so are you going to be staying to help or anything?”
“Yeah, I’m going to stay and watch since I saw everyone’s endurance testing yesterday,” Audrey sighed. “Dean and I will have to make the decision together since he wasn’t here the whole time and I will have been.”
“You don’t seem too happy about that,” he looked her crinkled up nose.
Audrey stood up and started walking on the track. She pushed her phone into her pocket and gestured for him to follow her, “I’m not, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“How come?” Lincoln fell into step next to her. “You’ve been doing more than he has with the testing.”
“Dean is the Director of Runners. I guess he gets to make the final decision for everything. Even when he’s not supposed to,” Audrey puffed her cheeks up and made a monkey face at Lincoln before blowing the air out of her mouth. “I don’t know if you knew, but his dad is Mr. Davies, the Head Councilman of Roswell. If I want to complain I have to go to him.”
“Nepotism problems there?” Lincoln asked.
“Not really. Dean and his dad haven’t always gotten along in the past and they really don’t get along now. Dean is mad at his dad because of what happened to Peter a few weeks ago,” Audrey put her hands in her pockets and looked around at the track.
“Peter was the last Runner Two?” Lincoln asked. Audrey nodded. “What happened to him?”
“He was attacked by a Howler and turned. Mr. Davies is the one who killed him after he killed two of our nurses,” Audrey grimaced. “Dean thinks the whole thing was his dad’s fault, even though we couldn’t just let Peter leave the community as a mutant.”
“So, why is it a sore spot between them?”
“Peter was our best friend. The three of us have known each other since elementary,” Audrey explained.
“So, why did he suddenly decide to come to the tryouts today though?”
Audrey shrugged and snorted, “Heck if I know. He’s been moody ever since Peter died. I hope he starts acting normal again soon because I’m getting real sick of his bull crap.”
“Grief makes people act weird. It makes us do things we normally wouldn’t,” Lincoln excused Dean’s behavior.
Audrey didn’t respond because she knew he was right. When her family died she had gone through a dark time. When she became a Runner she was able to cope and only Dean knew how she was able to get through it and keep moving on.
They finished their lap around the track together at a slow jog and stopped by the rest of the group after they showed up.
Audrey stood by the starting line she had drawn the day before and waited for Dean to take his place next to her. Everyone stood in their own lanes and waited too.
True to his word, Robert didn’t show up for the second day and though she was expecting him not to show, Audrey felt a pang of sadness for his wife and made a mental note to check up on him later if she had the time.
“Thanks for coming back today everyone,” she started out. “I won’t be running the testing for today. This is Dean. He’s the guy in charge of the Runners and he’ll be the one instructing you today.”
Dean introduced himself and she had to stop herself from gagging at Olivia and Elaine’s squeaky giggles at everything he said. She sat on the grass and rolled her eyes at Dean’s back.
“We’ll see how you do with hand-to-hand combat and agility. We’re going to start with a warm-up mile and then we’ll get to it,” she heard him say to the group as she popped her headphones into her ears.
Gene led the group. He was followed closely by Olivia and Elaine. They seemed to have figured out they could run farther if they went at a slower steady pace instead of burning themselves out at the beginning by sprinting. Lincoln brought up the rear and wasn’t pushing himself too much during the warmup mile.
Dean observed their first lap with his hands behind his head. He turned around and stared at Audrey before sitting by her on the grass, “I’m sorry I made you mad.”
She took her headphones out of her ears and put them in her pocket with her phone so she could hear him while he talked to her.
Audrey snorted and rolled her eyes, “What makes you think I’m mad?”
“You won’t talk to me and you literally dropped everything to get away from me when I first got here,” he picked at the grass on the ground in front of him. “And you ignored me until just now?”
“Fine, I am mad at you,” she admitted. “I am perfectly capable of running the tryouts alone.”
“I know you can, but I talked to the Council last night and they decided they want us to take them out to see how they do against actual dregs with melee weapons instead of just using them on the dummies,” Dean told her.
“What?” Audrey asked incredulousl
y. “They can’t do that! These guys haven’t been properly trained.”
“That’s why the Council wants me to do it,” Dean rubbed his face with his hands and sighed. “They want to see if actually going out there with only weapons will scare anyone away from taking the position. It was Pat Ruther’s idea.”
Audrey looked at the four people jogging around the track. She knew right away the twins would leave when they found out they had to go out for their first encounter with the dregs. She wasn’t sure about Gene. He was anxious to prove himself, but he seemed cautious and might want training before he went out.
“That’s not right,” Audrey stood up and walked onto the track, closely followed by Dean.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to tell them what they have to do so they can leave if they want to,” she huffed.
“Look, I know you want to warn your boyfriend over there of what’s going on, but I think it’s a good idea.”
“First of all, I don’t have a boyfriend. You know I don’t. Second, it’s messed up, Dean,” she whispered angrily at him. “You can’t just scare people away.”
“It’ll work. Just wait and see, only the people who are dedicated will stay after the warmup. It might help us narrow it down better,” Dean caught up with her and stood in her way.
“Whether or not it’s a good idea, it’s not right,” Audrey said stiffly. “Putting untrained people in danger is never all right.”
She side stepped Dean and started jogging towards the potential Runners.
“Audrey, will you just wait?” Dean ran to catch up with her and grabbed at her hand. “It’s not like they’re going to be in any actual danger while we’re there.”
He quickly passed her and stood in front of her. She glared at him and snatched her hand away from him, “You are being terrible.”
She angrily stomped back to the spot in the middle of the field she where had been sitting, took her phone out of her pocket, took a deep breath, and sat on the cold ground.
