The original plan of ‘run-run-run’ had drastically changed once Greg came out to the wall and started shooting at them. He grazed Val’s arm and scared the shit out of Maverick (actually speeding the boy up), but didn’t stop there. From the ground where they had been running they could all see Yan screaming bloody murder at the man to stop, at one point he had been slapped across the face hard enough to get him to fall off the wall – luckily he fell inside and not outside where a small group of biters had crowded that section of the wall. Greg was reloading when Beck began running away from the wall instead of around it. Jaye followed her, sprinting past the older woman, and behind some buildings. The guys were next, dodging both the monsters roaming around outside the gate, and the one on top of the gate’s bullets.
Jaye rested her back on the boarded up window of a movie store, slowing her breathing. She pulled a knife out of the holster on her hip which had been hidden from view thanks to her long shirt, and cut all the bells off. They jingled in a way that reminded her of Christmas when they hit the ground. Beck approached her next, silently asking for the knife and doing the same to the bells on her joints.
Holding one hand over the nick in his arm, Val desperately tried to stop the bleeding. Those things were like sharks, attracted to the sight and smell of blood. Maverick ran beside him, holding both of their hammers and throwing one in a crowd of them to slow them down. A few fell down but they kept coming at them. They rounded some buildings, running into the girls again. Beck was trying to remove the boards off the door of some video store. “My knife,” Val says, lifting his left foot to Maverick who got the idea and rummaged around in the man’s shoe, pulling out the sheathed blade. He cut off their bracelets and anklets, tossing them a good twenty feet away from them, drawing a few biters towards the sound.
“Shit!” Beck kicked the door. “I can’t get in.”
“We should find a car.” Maverick suggests, looking behind him at the slowly approaching herd. “Get outta here before things get too bad.”
“Kid’s right.” Val nods. “Greg’ll be sending someone out here real soon to get us. Bastard doesn’t like to lose.”
“I know a place.” Jaye whispers, pointing behind her. “Not far.”
Beck nods apprehensively, looking to Val and the boy. “You gonna be okay old man?”
“’ll be fine, let’s just get the hell out of here.”
Jaye led the way without a word. She wondered if she should take these strangers to her sanctuary of books, especially with all the biters following them. It was dangerously stupid. But she wanted to grab a few books and she knew there was a car there, hidden under tree branches and hacked apart bushes.
They made sure to keep to smaller areas, alley ways, back streets, places where the herd couldn’t completely overpower them and get enough room to spread out. Val removed his hand from the small wound, glancing at the blood and wincing. Greg was going to kill them. He wasn’t sure why yet, but he knew the man had planned on putting them out there to die. But he had missed. Their fearless leader, while he did come off as the man with the most kills under his belt, was a terrible shot. On multiple occasions he had tried to pick off some of the runners by the walls, but just ended up wasting ammo and getting pissed at everyone else for ‘messing up his mojo’.
Thank god for his lack of accuracy. If it had been Yan shooting, they would all be dead on the pavement right about now. His mind wandered back to the guy who blatantly said he had no plans of picking their remains up off the ground that day, and wondered what repercussions his actions and his words were going to have on him.
Picking off some of the faster members of the herd, Beck held up the rear of the group. She had hastily accepted both Val’s and Jaye’s knives, using them to take two down at a time. It had proven difficult to remove said knives however, as they were both extremely dull and continuously got stuck in the gray matter she had been trying to rid them of. Using her foot she kicked one hard enough that the knife came out on its own, ripping up the skull and the outer flesh along the way. “How much longer!?” She yelled, turning to catch up with them.
“We’re close, just right there.” Jaye motioned towards the bookstore. She pulled the key out of her pocket and slowed to the stop at the door. Her hands didn’t shake as she undid the lock, pulling the chain off and slipping inside. Maverick used his hammer to bash a skull in that was getting a bit to close, and pulled himself and Beck into the building. Jaye used the chain to lock the door behind them.
Mouths, hands, and teeth pressed up against the doors, groans and growls coming from the owners. “Now what?” Maverick asked, stepping away from the door, but not taking his eyes off it. Jaye wasn’t paying attention. She was hastily searching the bookshelves, removing stacks upon stacks at a time. The rest of them ignored her apparent lapse in sanity.
“The car, we need the car, where is it?” Beck decided that it was good as time as any to take control of these people, to grab the leader bull by the horns and deal with the responsibility that would more than likely fall on her anyways. She searched the store for car keys or any other indication that there was a car nearby. There was none.
She did find some cloth totes and handed them to Val. He seemed to know what he was doing, and began ripping them apart. Maverick helped him create a makeshift bandage and wrap up his arm. “Shit, it’s deep.” He said, poking his finger in the wound to see if anything had got caught in it. “Got me good.” He used the big part of the totes to cover the wound and the handles to tie them tight to his skin. Beck watched in curiosity.
“You a doctor or something.” She asked.
“I was a dentist.” He smiled at her. “But I knew enough about the human body when the world ended and I just learned the rest on the fly.” He shrugged. “Or from the other doctors around the compound. Ah, shit! Careful.”
“Sorry.” Maverick looked sheepish, letting go of the ties on Val’s arm. “Is there, uh anything I can do?”
Beck nodded, handing him one of the knives. “Control the crowd.” Her eyes flicked to the door. He followed her gaze. They had managed to get some of their arms through the cracks in the doors. Maverick took the knife and headed for the door, not without a sigh of discontent and his shoulders slumping, and stabbed two right off the bat. Beck, glad to see that both the guys weren’t going to be a major problem, at least not enough for her to kill them for her own safety, she headed for crazy pants by the bookshelves. “Where’s that car you were so excited to tell us about.” Sarcasm, while it was unneeded on most occasions, typically got people listening, and if she was lucky, put them in a good mood.
“I have to get some of these first.” The girl says softly.
“What’s your name?”
“Jaye,” She stops, and looks up. “Yours?”
“Beck.” The girl nodded and pulls another book from the shelf. “What about you two?” She calls to the front of the store. Val introduces them both, Maverick a little busy at the moment with the blade in his hand and the biter on his shirt. It fell to the ground and teen took a step back. Beck bent her knees to come to eyes level with Jaye who was sitting on the floor. “Can you just, tell me where it is so I can get it ready for transport?”
“It’s out back. Silver Honda, it’s locked though.” Jaye didn’t look at the woman as she tossed her keys up. “You’re probably going to want to full up the tank too.”
She raised a brow at the girl. “You have the keys?”
Jaye nodded, standing to move to another shelf. “It’s my car.” She glanced up at the woman. “I’ll be ready soon.”
Checking in on Maverick and Val before she went to go get the car ready, Beck told them to get ready because they’d be leaving soon. Maverick seemed thankful, saying that there’s no way the doors will last much longer than another ten minutes, if that. She took the hint, and did her best to move quickly.
She pushed the back door open slowly, propping it open with a box. She spotted the car rather quickly, quietly running for it. She unlocked the car, cursing the rare but loud noise, and sat in the driver’s seat. There was nothing in the car but a stack of books in the back seats. She hoped there’d be room for all of them. The car grumbled to life, not as silent as she would’ve liked it to be, and hummed the short way back.
Locking the car, she headed back inside the store, helping Val to his feet and tugging Maverick away from the front door. “Get to the car, let Val drive.” She handed them the keys and sent them away from the car. Jaye had a big stack of books in her arms, nearly covering her face, and was on her way towards the back door when Beck stopped her. “You really think bringing those is a good idea? There’s already barely enough room in the back seats with what you got in there.”
“They’ll sit on my lap.” She said defensively, throwing the back door open with her foot. The girls sat in the back, both of their feet lifted by the stacks of novels on the ground. Jaye set her new stack down between them and along the floor.
Val pulled away from the bookstore with a screech. He dodged a few biters that had tried to block their way, and aimed the car towards the south end of town. “When you get out of town head west, we can get to Houston before nightfall.”
“We’ll need to stop soon, there’s only a quarter of a tank left.”
“Shit.” She looked to Jaye who just shrugged, a silent ‘I told you to fill up the tank’. “Okay, let’s just get the hell out of here.”
“Why can’t we go back?” Maverick asked, chewing on his thumb and rolling the knife around in his hand.
Beck leaned forward and snatched the blade out of his hand, wiping the blood off the blade on her jeans. “Because, I for one am not going back anywhere near that phsyco.”
“If I go back I’ll slit his throat with my fingernails.”
“Whoa, dark.” Beck nudged Jaye playfully in the side, getting nothing more than a serious stare in return. She made a note to not do that again. “Uh,” She had to tear her away from the girl to her side to look up in the front seat. “Plus, who knows what he might do to us. He was shooting at us, damn near killed your friend.” She patted Val on the shoulder. “I don’t think he was aiming to miss, I think he’s just a shit shot.”
“You’d be right about that,” Val jerked the wheel to the side to miss the biter that jumped out in front of the car, calmly turning back into his lane. He saw no reason to abide by traffic laws, but that instinct part of him couldn’t stop his muscles from checking the mirrors when he changed into the other lane or even his perpetual need to stay between the lines. They’d get to Houma in an hour or so and they’d have to full the tank all the way up if they wanted to get to Houston. He planned on having to stop along the way to fuel up again just in case. “Why Houston?”
“What?”
“Why’d you suggest Houston?” He looked in the review mirror, catching Beck’s eyes who stared right back.
“Another Safe Zone’s there, and if we’re lucky there ain’t any people in it. And if we’re really lucky, it has food.”
Val ‘ahh-ed’. It had been a long time since he was on the road, a really long time. He remembered when he was with Greg that first week, the man had been so nervous, questioning every move he made. The conversation of where to go had taken a good day before the five person group at the time decided to try for the Safe Zone in Louisiana. It took a couple of months to get there, what with the deaths they experienced along the way, but once they did get there everyone cheered. Val didn’t have to go through what Maverick and the others went through. His first base was his only. He’d heard stories from the boy when he first arrived how he, his dad, and his mom had gone to three different places, his dad dying along the way and his mother shortly before he arrived at the zone Val had been at.
He didn’t know much about Beck or Jaye, but he had a feeling they must’ve gone through some similar instances. Val had been lucky. When things went to hell his parents had already been dead for the better part of year, he had no siblings, neglected to ever get married, and he definitely didn’t have any kids, so he was alone in the world. With no one to take care of or to lose. He was thankful for that small victory.
“Stop the car!” Val slammed on the brakes. He could feel Beck’s head hit the back of his seat. His eyes darted to Maverick, who had been the one to yell, and who was currently getting out of the car. “I have to get something!” They hadn’t even made it out of town and the kid was making his life hell. He pulled the e-brake, and got out of the car himself.
Maverick was sprinting towards the RadioShack he had risked his life to get at, his backpack slamming against him as he ran. “Take the damn thing off.” Val growled under his breath. There was a reason why kids needed to be in groups, they were so damn irresponsible.
The kid threw a rock through the door window, glad to hear the alarm not go off, and unlocked the door. It was one of the few places left that hadn’t been raided or boarded up. He sifted through the part of the store he knew had to have the things he needed. Then he filled the rest of the space in his backpack up with batteries, some flashlights, and new receiver for his radio. The one he had was fine, but he figured a new one wouldn’t hurt. Val was hissing his name loudly and quietly all at the same time, trying to only attract one person’s attention. He ran back holding his backpack tight to his back with one hand and opening the car door with the other. “Next time you do that,” Val said, not waiting for him to put his seatbelt on before hitting the accelerator. “I’m leaving your ass.”
“Hush.” Maverick chided, pulling the radio out of his backpack and setting it on his lap. “I can do this now.” He removed the side panel and began putting everything back together, tearing out useless wires and throwing them out the window. “It’ll only take…” He sifted through his bag and pulled out the supplies he’d gotten. “A second.” Val watched the road, occasionally flicking his eyes over to see what the boy was doing. It took more than a second. More than a minute even. A good half an hour later he finally announced he was done and set the radio on the dash. “And to top it all off, some batteries.” He closed the battery gate and flicked the power button of the back. “Ta da.”
“Damn kid. It actually works.”
“Course it does. Don’t doubt The Maverick.” He smiled and removed the receiver from its holder. “Now to just try out some of these channels.” He turned the dial to the first one, five. “Hello, hello, is anybody out there? Hello? My name is Maverick King, is there anybody out there?” He set the receiver down and pulled the car’s radio out of its port.
Jaye leaned forward. “Hey.”
“It’ll give me a farther range.” He explained, hooking in some important looking wires from the car to the radio. He repeated his message on the same channel. They listened to him repeat and repeat his message on the ten different channels he had listed on a little piece of paper. Then he went through and tried every other channel. By the time the reached a gas station that wasn’t completely overrun, they were almost out of gas, and Maverick was almost done.
Val grabbed his knife and had Beck grab one too. “Jaye, stay in the car. Maverick I want you to stand guard behind the car. Beck, you’re with me.” He and the woman went up to the gas station side by side, Val instructed her to go inside the station and get any food or supplies they might need, especially water if there was any. He roamed the outside, grabbing up a couple of fuel cans and seeing if there was any gasoline left in the pumps. There wasn’t. “Shit.” There were a few empty cars sitting around so he went to syphon fuel out of them. He only got two gallons in the can when Jaye screamed for someone.
The sound of her shrill yell was enough to make his heart beat faster and he turned to look in her direction. Maverick was already on her, his hands shaking and his mouth moving rapidly, probably spewing some rendition of ‘are you okay?’ and then what looked like happy shouting and Maverick jumping into the front seat. She looked at him and nodded. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he knew it was something positive in their all too negative world.
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