Runner Series (Book 1): Runner 3 (16 page)

“I’m always going to be here for you, Audrey,” Lincoln insisted.

“I hope you will be,” she said quietly.

He walked next to her down Main Street toward to the healthcare center Dean was in, “Why do we need to go to Carlsbad tomorrow?”

“I just need to catalogue some things down there for the information books,” she said offhandedly. “Besides, we were told we need to destroy the entrance to the Caverns.”

“But there aren’t any different mutants there than there are here,” he said. “I think Mr. Ruthers was right. We don’t need to worry so much about what’s going on down there until we get everything under control here.”

“We just have to go, okay?” Audrey snapped at him. “It doesn’t matter what you or Pat Ruthers think about it because we were told to go.”

“If you just need extra time away from Roswell we can just drive slower on the way home from Hobbs. We can say we went to Carlsbad,” Lincoln suggested.

“No, Lincoln. Please, don’t worry about it. I have a quick stop to make down there so I can check on some things and then we can head back,” she took a deep breath and looked at him with a blank expression that made him uncomfortable.

“All right,” Lincoln gave up. “I’m going to head home and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah, I’ll go pick up the truck now and visit Dean,” she said stiffly and turned away from him. “Bye.”

Lincoln watched her walk away, but couldn’t shake the feeling that she was hiding something important from him.

Audrey walked alone the rest of the way to the clinic. The trucks and cars that were used by the Council were still there from transporting injured citizens into the doctor’s care.

She opened the door to an old ‘98 Chevy truck that had a maroon and grey paint job. She like the way it looked because it reminded her of her grandpa’s old truck she rode in as a little kid.

It was the truck the Council had given her keys for to use the next day. She climbed in and stared at the building in front of her through the windshield. Dean was in there. She cringed inwardly at the thought of his mother might be with him again, but there was a chance he would be alone.

She didn’t know the next time she was going to see him and it saddened her.

He had been one of her best friends throughout her life and now she hardly ever talked to him. It wasn’t entirely her fault they didn’t talk. He’d made himself scarce after Peter died.

She put her forehead on the steering wheel and growled in frustration. It made her feel a little better, but she felt more like crying than screaming.

“What should I do?” she asked herself even knew she was going to have to go in and talk to Dean. She bumped her head against the steering wheel a few more times before muttering, “Fine. I’ll go.”

She hopped out of the truck and walked quickly passed a couple exiting the building and straight to Dean’s room without stopping at the reception desk.

She stopped herself just outside his door and had her hand raised to knock, but couldn’t bring herself to touch the door.

“Is someone there?” she heard Dean ask from inside the room.

She opened the door and sidled into the room. “I, uh… Hi, Dean.”

His lips curled into a smile, “I saw your shadow at the bottom of the doorway. I’m glad you came.”

“Dean, I have a lot to say,” she interrupted him. “I think I need to get this out before you leave tomorrow. Don’t say anything until I’m done, okay?”

“Okay,” he nodded and clasped his hands together in his lap.

“A lot has changed in the last month. You changed. After Peter died you weren’t you anymore and I miss the old you. I miss hanging out with you and just goofing around and not being stressed,” she looked away from him because she felt like she was shaking. “I needed you when Peter died, too, and I feel like you ruined it by throwing emotions at me that I didn’t want and then disappearing all the time.”

“Audrey, I—”

“No, Dean, let me finish. You’re like a brother to me. I don’t want that to change, but I feel like it already has,” she tapped her hand against her leg nervously. “I can’t have feelings for you like that because I think there might be someone else.”

Dean frowned at her, but he didn’t try to say anything.

“I don’t want you to leave tomorrow thinking I hate you, but I also can’t let you leave thinking I’m here waiting for you with a broken heart until you come back,” she finished.

Dean didn’t say anything, but he looked hurt. She wanted to give him a hug because she hated seeing him upset, but she didn’t want to give him mixed signals and she couldn’t tell what he would think if she tried to hug him.

“Do you have anything to say?”

“I don’t know, Audrey,” he toyed with the edge of his blanket. “I know how I feel about you and some day you might feel the same way. I don’t want to give up on that.”

Audrey sighed, “I don’t think that day will ever come, Dean.”

“I love you, Audrey, but if you can’t reciprocate the feeling, then I’ll just have to deal with that for now,” he looked at her for a second before looking back down at his lap.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” she asked, frustrated with his stubbornness.

“Of course I did, but just because you like someone else right now doesn’t mean you’ll never feel that way for me,” he insisted.

Audrey crossed her arms and resisted the urge to scowl at her friend. She knew when he made a decision about something it would take a lot to get him derailed from what his train of thought.

“Dean, I have to go,” she got up and opened the door to his room. “You’re always going to be my friend and I hope you know that, but I can’t do this with you right now.”

“We can talk about this when I come back,” he said. “I’ll always love you, Audrey.”

“Good bye, Dean,” she said sadly and left.

She rushed out of the clinic and climbed back into the truck. She silently fumed to herself about Dean’s stubbornness and forced herself to drive slowly through the streets of Roswell on her way home.

She turned on the radio and listened to the static for a while before she started turning the knobs just to change the sound the static made. She switched the radio from AM to FM and played with the knobs for a few more seconds when she stumbled on a signal.

“Thanks for tuning in to DJ Mack. It’s nine P.M. and there
still
isn’t a lot going on in Roswell,” a young male voice said. “The clean-up from the attack by a giant mutant dreg is ongoing and some of our beloved Runners are heading out in the morning to get supplies to repair the wall.”

Audrey stared at the radio in shock. When had a radio station started up? She listened to the boy talk for a while until he started playing a song for his listeners.

Audrey pulled up next to the curb in front of her house. She quickly shut the truck, locked it, and ran inside.

“Are you home Sadie?” she said loudly in the empty living room while she kicked off her shoes.

“Yup!” she heard from the hallway and scurried into the girl’s room excitedly.

“Hey, did you know there’s a radio station?” She asked and sat down on Sadie’s bed.

“Nope,” the girl shook her head. “When did you find out there is one?”

“Just now on my way home from the clinic,” she said. “Do you want to go out to the truck I have and listen?”

“No, I don’t want to go to the truck you have outside,” Sadie leaned over the side of her bed and pulled out an old alarm clock radio. “We’ll just use this. Do you know the station?”

Audrey shook her head, “It was on the FM setting though.”

Sadie plugged the radio in and started turning the tuning wheel slowly until she picked up the station playing music.

“Are you serious?” Sadie exclaimed and set the radio on her nightstand.

“I know! This is awesome,” Audrey said.

“I can’t believe they’re playing Lady Gaga. I haven’t heard this song in forever,” Sadie giggled.

Audrey looked at the other girl and then laughed with her, “Yeah, it’s been a while.”

Sadie calmed down and stared at the radio, “This is pretty big. Do you know who’s running it?”

“The Council hasn’t said anything about a station. The DJ said his name was DJ Mack,” Audrey told her.

“I wonder how far away you can hear it,” Sadie picked up the radio and put it on her nightstand. “Want to dance?”

“No, I don’t dance,” Audrey refused. “I’m more interested in finding out who’s doing this.”

“We’ll I’m not going to dance alone and it’s not like you can drive around looking for the signal,” Sadie grabbed her hand.

They stood up and started dancing to the upbeat songs that were playing on the radio. They danced with each other through a few songs and then sat down when they were out of breath. Sadie produced two candy bars from her stash and they munched on them happily.

“This is the most fun I’ve had for a while,” Sadie bit a large chunk off of a candy bar that had been sitting on her bed.

“Same here,” Audrey leaned against the wall. “We should hang out more often.”

“Totally. All you need to do is clear your schedule a bit more,” Sadie poked Audrey in the arm.

“That would probably help,” Audrey rubbed her arm and stood up. “Unfortunately, today is not the day that happens. I have to go to bed.”

“Are you one of the Runners going to Albuquerque?” Sadie asked.

“Nope. I’m picking up ammunition from Hobbs,” Audrey said.

“Hobbs? Wasn’t that town, like, super overrun with dregs and crap?” Sadie said with a worried look.

Audrey bit her lip nervously, “I guess so. Lincoln said it was pretty bad, but he thinks we’ll be able to get in and get out pretty quickly.”

“I hope so. That place was so bad even the National Guard evacuated it,” Sadie told her gravely. “I’m sure you guys will be okay, but stay safe.”

“We will be,” Audrey walked gloomily out of the bedroom.

The National Guard couldn’t even keep Hobbs open. How were she and Lincoln going to get in and out without something bad happening?

She took a quick shower and rummaged through her nightstand for her phone and plugged it in to charge before getting into bed. She watched the battery bar fill up while she thought of all the things that could possibly go wrong the next day.

It was seven o’clock and the sun was already up when Audrey hastily exited her house. There were a few people out and about taking walks, watering flower beds, or doing other things already and it frustrated Audrey.

She threw two bags with everything she needed for the day into the truck bed and jumped into the cab.

“Can’t believe I woke up late,” she muttered, slamming the cab door closed behind her.

She started the truck and her heart skipped a beat when the green numbers said it was after eight. She checked her watch again and sighed with relief when she saw it was only ten minutes after seven. She was already an hour late and didn’t want to be even farther behind.

She revved the engine and put the truck into drive, going as quickly as she could around the corner while watching for people who were frequently in the streets since no one used vehicles anymore.

Lincoln was patiently waiting for her in the middle of his yard with his bag on his back when she finally pulled up.

“You’re late,” Lincoln tossed his pack into the truck bed and climbed into the passenger seat. “I thought we were supposed to leave closer to six.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night,” Audrey mumbled. “Mr. Davies called me to wake me up after we were already late.”

“Why didn’t you set an alarm?” Lincoln asked.

“I slept through it,” she told him.

“Did the guys going to Albuquerque already leave?” He put on his seatbelt as Audrey pulled onto Main Street and headed to the south gate.

“I think so, they left through the north gate though. We’re going south,” she said.

She turned on the radio expecting to hear the music from the night before, but was met with static. She turned the knob back and forth a couple times, but gave up when nothing came on.

There weren’t people on Main Street yet because none of the businesses there were open yet. Most places usually opened between nine and ten in the morning since no one was in much of a hurry anymore.

“I like the quiet small town feel of Roswell,” Lincoln said trying to distract her.

“It is a small town,” Audrey rolled her eyes. “Everywhere is a small town now.”

“Yeah, but Roswell is smaller than some places and it still has that ‘home’ feeling,” Lincoln insisted. “It’s nice.”

“I guess if you call living behind a wall nice,” Audrey disagreed.

“It’s the same as living in a fancy gated community like everyone used to want,” Lincoln insisted.

“The only difference is no one is wealthy anymore. At least not the people who matter,” Audrey started to chuckle.

“There we go,” Lincoln smiled at her. “No need to be upset when there are things to be happy about. Like people not being able to buy their way through life anymore.”

They quickly reached the south gate where Mr. Davies was impatiently waiting.

“What took so long?” He asked as he walked to the side of the truck so he could talk to Audrey through the window.

“I had a hard time sleeping after I went and saw Dean last night,” she answered.

“I see,” Mr. Davies took a step back from the truck and checked his watch. “The other Runners already left.”

“We’ll do our best to get back quickly,” Audrey said.

“Good. We found out Albuquerque doesn’t have everything we need and are getting some extra supplies from Santa Fe. The other guys will be gone an extra day,” Mr. Davies added. “You need to go now. There was a pretty decent sized group of dregs that tried to get in the fence last night that took a decent amount of the remaining ammunition we had.”

“Good thing we’ll be back tonight,” Audrey said. “I have my phone, so if you need us back you can call me.”

“Can do,” Mr. Davies said and tapped his hand on the side of the truck. “Go on, we’ll see you later.”

“Okay, bye,” Audrey said as she slowly pulled out of the south gate, sticking her hand out the window to wave goodbye to Mr. Davies.

It had been a long time since Audrey had driven out of Roswell. She usually ran wherever she left to help conserve gasoline and she wasn’t familiar with the route to Hobbs.

“There’s an old GPS unit in the glove box, Lincoln. Can you get it?” She asked.

He dug under the papers in the tiny compartment and pulled it out, “Here you go.”

He turned it on and entered the town name. A robotic sounding woman’s voice started giving them directions.

“So, how long did you live in Hobbs?” Audrey asked him.

“Five years, my mom moved us there when I was thirteen. It wasn’t the smallest place in the world, but it felt like everyone was involved in your business,” Lincoln complained. “Not that life is any better now when it comes to how much people know about you.”

“Yeah, Roswell was the same way while I was growing up,” she said. “When it got bigger when they reopened the Air Force Base. That’s why we moved there at first. My dad was in the Air Force when I was a kid. Roswell was where my dad was transferred when I was in elementary.”

“He didn’t get transferred out?”

“He went out on a couple tours in the Middle East, but we stayed in Roswell. He after his second tour he left the Air Force and pursued a career in science,” Audrey explained. “My mom liked it in Roswell, so we stayed.”

“At least it’s a nice place, right?” Lincoln looked out the window and tapped his fingers on the door.

“Yeah,” Audrey agreed. “So, how bad is it really in Hobbs?”

“Well, the National Guard came in because it was getting harder to control the outbreaks and Hobbs wasn’t exactly small, even if it felt like it,” he said. “They brought in this huge caravan to try and keep people from crossing into Texas or vice versa.”

“That’s how it was in most places,” Audrey said.

“It was,” Lincoln conceded. “The guy who was in charge emptied the armory and took it to the high school because it was located in the middle of the zone they fenced so they could keep everyone left in the city within a small radius. It didn’t do anything but get everyone sick. Then they went a little overboard killing people.”

“Is there a way to go overboard when killing people who are turning into dregs?” Audrey gave him a sidelong glance.

“Not when they’re actually infected. The guys started killing people who even came into contact with the infected without scanning them or anything,” he clenched his fists and let out a deep breath. “When the guys with the guns started getting infected it was impossible for the rest of us to get to them because they attacked anyone who came close to them so they wouldn’t be killed.”

“Do you think it’ll be too much for us now?” Audrey thought about the dream she had of being overtaken by mountains of dregs as soon as they made it to Hobbs the night before.

“No. We can both handle our own and I had never heard of the mutants until I went to Artesia with the remaining guys from Hobbs’ National Guard,” Lincoln rested his bruised ankle on his knee.

Audrey nodded, “It would be nice to just be in a place with nothing but dregs. Mutants suck.”

“It would have been easier to get rid of all the dregs in Hobbs than it was taking down that Behemoth,” Lincoln rubbed his ankle.

~~~

The rest of the drive went by quickly. Audrey didn’t bother going the speed limit because there wasn’t any traffic and thanks to the state of life there were no cops that would pull her over—if there were any cops left in the area at all.

They drove slowly through a town called Tatum, but they quickly discovered it was deserted.

It was almost noon when they finally reached Hobbs. It was surrounded by large panels of chain link fence that were topped with barbed wire. Behind the fence were thousands of dregs wandering aimlessly.

“We should put our packs on before we go in,” Audrey suggested.

Lincoln nodded and they hurried to get their packs from the back of the truck. They closed their doors and rolled up the windows while they awkwardly strapped on their gear.

“At least we’re not in a small space trying to put this all on,” Lincoln muttered while he strapped his belt that held his ax around his waist.

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Audrey sat stiffly in her seat half a foot closer to the steering wheel than she was before. “There’s plenty of room in here.”

“Let’s just go,” Lincoln said, giving up the fight of pushing his ax in his belt loop while sitting down.

“How do we get in there?” Audrey looked around for an opening or gateway.

“Drive through the fence,” Lincoln answered. “When the rest of us left we sealed it off, so there’s no way to get in there now.”

“Did you get everyone out?” she asked.

“We got everyone we could,” Lincoln looked at the fence stonily.

Audrey didn’t say anything else and backed the truck up a few yards. She took a deep breath and held it before she pushed the gas pedal to the floor. A few panels of fencing bent over when she drove through the fence.

“I guess that’s a few less we may have to deal with,” she looked in her rearview mirror at the dregs that had been caught under the fencing.

“Head west,” Lincoln pointed down the street. “You’ll see a few military tanks around an old high school. That’s where the stockpile is.”

Audrey slowly navigated the streets while following Lincoln’s instructions.

She could feel anxiety building in her chest the farther they got because the whole town was swarmed with dregs. Luckily, they were uninterested in the truck as it drove passed them. A few of the more excitable dregs ran towards the truck and pounded on the sides, but Audrey sped away from them.

“Turn right in two blocks,” Lincoln told her after she ditched a small group of dregs. “The high school will be on my side.”

There were bigger hoards the closer the truck got to the school.

“Are those guys wearing riot gear?” Audrey asked when they reached the corner.

“Probably. There are probably a fair amount of the Army and National Guard guys in the city,” Lincoln said.

Audrey parked the truck behind a big dusty beige tank and they sat in silence while she gathered herself with deep calming breaths.

“Okay, what do you think we should do?” She asked him.

“We’ll just go in, fill up our packs with ammo a few times, and head out of the city,” Lincoln said. “We need to pick up as many boxes and whatever else we can find that will help. Mr. Davies said to find something to close up the caverns. I bet there’s some C4 in there too.”

Audrey clenched her jaw and nodded, “Alright, let’s go.”

They got out of the truck as quietly as they could and walked around the tank to scout out the area around the school.

“We’re going to need to run,” she told Lincoln. “Will your ankle be okay.”

“Yeah, let’s just get in a see what we have to deal with,” he said.

They ran through small groups of dregs that stood around the school as quickly as they could. They used their weapons to kill as many of them as they could on their way into the school.

Audrey ran and opened a door at the front of the school, “You doing okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered and ran passed her into the school. “Let’s just hurry this up if we can.”

The school was mostly empty aside from the heaps of bodies that lined the halls, “Why are there so many here?”

“This is probably where the dregs used to bring their prey,” Lincoln guessed aloud. “They’re all stripped to the bone see? If they had just died they would still be decomposing in the dry conditions here.”

Audrey grimaced at the few decomposing corpses amongst skeletons, “Where is everything at?”

“It’s all in the gymnasium. Follow me,” Lincoln said.

He led her through the small building and pushed a door to the gym open. There were multiple mounds of ammunition boxes full and guns.

“How much should we take?” Lincoln asked her.

“As much as we can fit in the truck bed like we said before,” Audrey replied. “Do you think we could drive it in here?”

Lincoln shook out his ankle and nodded, “Yeah, let’s fill our packs now and then we can move the truck closer to the door.”

“Okay,” Audrey grabbed a few rifles and gave one to Lincoln.

She used the strap on one to carry it on her back and filled her pack.

Lincoln filled his bag and grabbed a couple small boxes that were heavier than they looked and headed back to the front of the school.

They didn’t have to fight off any dregs on the way back out to the truck. They put their bags and the cases Lincoln grabbed in the back of the truck.

“You could drive the truck to the front of the school and I can open the doors,” Audrey said when they climbed into the cab.

“That’s a good idea. The bars in between the doors have pins that can be removed. We can take those out and you can back the truck all the way to the gymnasium,” Lincoln added.

“Okay, now we have a plan. I’ll see you in the school,” she said and opened her door.

“Audrey, wait,” Lincoln grabbed her hand. He pulled her closer to him and gave her a tight hug, “Be careful.”