Zombies, run! Mission Four
I have not edited this even slightly, so apologies if it feels a bit rough and ready. I always think, "oh, a simple enough mission, it won't take long to type up". "LOLOLOLOL," says my brain, "you should know that's not how it works by now. I will give you ALL THE WORDS." And the next thing I know a two-page chapter becomes nine and I'm wondering how, exactly, I'm supposed to graduate.
Master post
Chapter: Mission Four - The Lost Child
Summary: Running isn’t just for supplies; lives can be on the line in more ways than one. There’s a kid out there, alone and abandoned by its diseased parent, and it’s only a matter of time before exposure - or something more sinister - gets its teeth into the child.
Rating: PG-13.
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Missions one and four.
Mission Four
The Lost Child
The base was busier. Definitely busier, Five mused, stripping down for bed. It was only one in the afternoon and the dorm was empty, but she suspected she’d be needed again soon and a nap wouldn’t hurt.
There seemed to be a lot more people milling about in the base now and the base itself had undergone some heavy-duty structural changes since she had arrived. The perimeter fence had been replaced by solid concrete walls with chain-link fences protecting each unit inside. The dorms unit had sprung up a few new buildings, too.
Five had caught a glimpse of the Township rota, and in just the week she had been there the population had gone from sixty to a hundred and five. That was forty-five extra people in seven days, and Abel was fairly restrictive in who they let in. The resources Five was supplying, combined with a stronger military presence and the innovations of the Comms unit, were allowing Abel to grow and become better.
She shrugged beneath the blankets of her cot, wondering idly if Seven had noticed the same thing. The Runners troupe was growing as more people with training (or even just promising newbies) made their way to Abel. Seven would be noticing that, surely. She grinned to herself into her pillow and tried to snooze.
Five slept for maybe two hours when someone shook her awake gently and told her that Sam needed her at the front gate. She was up and dressed inside five minutes, and headed toward the gate at a fast jog in lieu of a warm-up. She knew what this was about, and wanted to be on top of her game.
Five screwed her earpiece in firmly as she rounded the armoury and approached the gate, hearing the sirens start up and the gates rattle open. She was through them without pausing, picking up speed, when Sam’s voice came through to her.
“Hey, Runner Five! Sam here. Those reports we had of a lost child out there have been confirmed. It’s a common story. Parent gets bitten and then runs as far away from the child, so when they turn…” Sam paused for a moment. “Well, yeah, you get the idea. Kids can turn pretty fast. Fast metabolism, faster everything. Once saw a kid turn in five minutes, in front of her parents. That was grim.”
Sam trailed off for a moment, before seeming to realise he was setting the wrong tone.
“Anyway! There’s a kid out there, and your mission is to find it and bring it in. We’re tight on admission in Abel, everyone’s got to pull their weight, but it’s good to know that no-one here would let a kid die of exposure out there. You’re, uh, yep, at a good speed. Find the child, and bring ‘em home. Got to be honest,” added Sam, “You were the first pick for this mission. First all the supplies, then the Canton thing… you’re quite popular back in Command. Good luck.”
Five adjusted her speed slightly, maintaining a higher-than-normal cruising pace, and keeping a very wary eye ahead of her. She was across the clearing and into the forest inside within a couple of minutes, feeling the talons of her fell shoes biting hard into the sparse grass. The extra grip gave her better stability on the uneven ground, grabbing hard in the corners and allowing her ride the rise and fall of the land with ease.
Five stopped, once, listening hard over the regular sound of her own breathing. There were distant sounds of lurching zoms - something had caught their attention - and far-off, filtering through the trees, a child crying.
Five re-orientated toward that sound, stretching out her pace. Her legs tingled with blood and the air on her lungs felt sharp and unforgiving. This was a brutal pace to maintain over a long distance, but the sound of the child’s crying was getting steadily louder. She couldn’t be the only one hearing it.
Rocket launcher, she remembered. It was a dim memory supplemented by the reports and gossip of other Township members, but it was enough to spark a new line of thought. That line of thought began: trap.
The trees were dense but her sense of directional hearing was good. She stopped only once - a rucksack hanging from a tree branch was too good a target to pass up, revealing a bottle of water, bandages, and a bottle of pain meds - but otherwise maintained a constant speed.
“You’re nearly at the child,” said Sam helpfully. The screams were getting louder. “Kid’s just on the radar. You nee- oh. Um, you might have a problem. There’s… someone else on the radar. They’re moving fast. Run. or you won’t get to the kid first. Run!”
Five amped up to a semi-sprint, fighting hard to get enough air into her blood. Thirty seconds later, with the screaming was as loud as it was going to be, Five burst through a tangle of branches to see a child of indeterminate gender sitting on the leafmould and crying with gusto at the sky. It was wearing a pair of faded, grimy blue-jean dungarees over a thin white jumper, and its brown-black hair was a scruffy, pragmatic cut. It could not have been more than a year old.
Five stopped abruptly, and the child focused on her before turning away. It never stopped screaming. Even over the sound, Five could hear something crashing through the bushes and making no attempt to disguise its noise.
Split-second decision. Five leapt forward, scooping one arm under the child’s bottom and the other going around its waist, turning back the way she had come and running steadily. The crashing thing in the bushes changed course abruptly, following them. The child was still screaming, fists waving, and Five supposed she couldn’t blame it. She’d be pretty annoyed if a stranger just grabbed her and ran away, too.
“Hey. Hey!”
Five risked a glance back. The crashing noise resolved itself into the shape of man on a motorbike, fighting his way through her undergrowth. Inexplicably, he was waving something white and fluffy. Instantly, she switched the child to her left hip, leaving her right hand free, and slowing her pace ever so slightly.
The child caught sight of the man over Five’s shoulder and immediately began to quiet. The man, in contrast, got louder, keeping his bike paced with her speed.
“Molly! Molly! Its OK, honey, Daddy’s here. Look, just give her to me, will you?”
Five kept moving, hand free and hovering over the pocket of her shorts that housed her emergency slimline hunting knife. Trap, trap, trap, warned her ever-vigilant paranoia. You know there’s someone out there with a grudge against you.
“Molly, everything’s alright, look, hand her over! Molly, Molly, look, I have Mister Rabbit.”
The white fluffy thing was a toy rabbit. He sounded desperate, more and more so, and he wouldn’t shut up. Five maintained a steady pace, keeping just ahead of him, child grizzling in her arm. Sam was trying to tell her something, but she could hear nothing over the sound of the man yelling just behind her, on the low maintenance throb on the bike’s engine. Christ, they were a zombie beacon out here like this.
“Just give her to me!”
“-on your tail, and-”
“Look, she’s my daughter, Molly, sweetheart, Daddy’s here, just give her to me!”
“-from the south, south-east-”
“Please, just hand her over!”
“-gaining-”
The man stopped the bike suddenly, staring hard to his left, before switching the engine off with a sharp wrench of his hand. Five jogged to a stop, and the silence allowed her to hear Sam’s final warning.
“-there’s five on your tail, and they’re closing in. Run!”
The groans were clear through the trees, and the radar patch in her ear began to bleep steadily. The man looked quickly toward them, but made no more move.
“Look, she’s my daughter, she’s my Molly. There’s zoms closing in. Give her to me, I can get us out of here on the bike-”
He turned the key in the ignition. The engine turned over, sounding tired and pneumonic, but didn’t do anything else. The man swore.
“Look, OK, there’s a fuel dump not far from here. Give Molly to me, we’ll run for it.”
The moans of the creepers were getting louder. They were not far away, and attracting more. Runner Rule Number One came into play: never stay still. Trust could wait. There wasn’t a lot of choice.
Five leapt toward him, pushing the child into his arms. He tucked her up against his chest, swinging one long, khaki-clad leg over the bike’s saddle, and jumping down to the forest floor. He set off immediately and Five kept pace, worrying hard at their speed. This wasn’t enough.
The zoms were catching up, and they were doing half the speed they needed to. Five exhaled harshly, dropping around the man’s right shoulder and leaning in. She grabbed the child, mindless of his immediate complaint and attempt to pull away, slinging one arm under Molly’s rear and resting her weight against her father. He understood quickly, adjusting Molly slightly so that they were both supporting her weight.
Five didn’t give him long to adjust, hearing snarls behind them and instantly stepping up her pace to sprint. God, it was hard. The air was tight, so tight in her chest, the breath sawing in and out of her lungs. It was like trying to breathe razorblades, gulping hard at the oxygen. And if things were bad for her… well, the man was struggling. She was half pulling him along, trying to maintain an emergency sprint between two-and-a-half people.
Her radar was speeding up. She made one last desperate boost to her speed, vision beginning to go gently grey and her thighs screaming in misery. Her breathing was completely out of control but Christ, oh thank Christ, the radar in her ear was dropping speed.
They maintained that brutal pace for another fifteen seconds before the mechanical voice in her ear sounded out “zombies evaded”. Five spilled speed immediately, coming to a complete halt. She dropped to her knees for a moment, clawing for breath and feeling no benefit whatsoever. It took about twenty seconds before a final deep gasp for breath began to correct the oxygen debt and she pushed herself back to her feet.
The man was worse off, actually blue around the lips, chest heaving and clutching his daughter to his chest, who had one ear of Mister Rabbit in her mouth. Five stalked over to him and grabbed his shoulder, pulling. They needed to get moving now. He struggled to his feet, trying to balance both a child and the ungainly string-cut-puppet that was his own body, before staggering after her.
“Thanks,” he gasped out as she dropped her walking pace so he could keep up. Neither of them were in a condition to run for next few minutes. Molly was silent, staring alternately at her father, the world around them and Five with wide, curious eyes. The fingers of one hand were clenched firmly into her father’s chambray work-shirt, and her other hand clung tightly to Mister Rabbit. Five felt herself relax a little. Whatever the man claimed, the kid was familiar with him. Good enough for now.
“I’m Ed,” said the man after a couple of minutes, as they dropped back into a steady jog. He shifted Molly slightly, an arm under her rear and another across her back. Molly hung on firmly to him. “You must be from Abel, yeah?” Five nodded. “Yeah, I recognised the uniform. You guys are kind of tight on letting people in.”
The question had a hook on it. Five deftly avoided it by saying nothing. Ed seemed to understand that he’d be getting nothing there. “I mean,” he continued, “I get that you guys can't let just anyone in. That's how New Canton got themselves into the mess they're in now.”
Five stayed silent. She would make no promises she couldn't keep.
“We were holed up in a farmhouse near here,” Ed began, and Five recognised the symptoms of Imma Tell You My Life Story. It was basic enough; he went hunting for birds, for his wife and kid. He stayed still too long, shouldn’t have stayed out overnight, and when he woke up there were three zoms around the house in which he’d hidden in. Low on ammo, headshots only, but by the time he’s cleared them more had arrived. And more. And more.
He was away for six night, and by the time he’d cleared the last of them and headed home, the place was empty. His wife had thought him dead already.
“She took Molly, a rucksack, and headed toward Abel, I think,” he said, voice emotionless despite his heavy breathing. “She left a note.” He shifted Molly slightly.
Five remembered the rucksack hanging from the tree, oddly deliberate, and the supplies inside. A thin hope that someone might use them, maybe, or even just a way of speeding up to put as much distance between Molly and… well. Yes.
“I figured she must have - she must have been bitten. She ran away from Molly to give her the best chance. I heard Molly screaming, and I followed. Enough said, really.”
He was silent for a little while and they increased their speed, maintaining a cruise speed through the forest. There was a small rise ahead.
“Funny,” Ed said suddenly, cradling Molly’s head. Hey eyes were drooping. “There was a new bunch of guys who set up camp not far from here. I’d not seen them before. Blue uniforms.” He laughed, suddenly. “They even had a rocket launcher! I mean, what were they going to do with that?”
Five said nothing. Her gaze sharpened. Ed didn’t seem to notice.
“They didn’t last long. Disappeared one day. They took some of the stuff, but left the rest. Not seen them since.” They crested a short rise, and Ed slowed, breathing heavily.
“Here we are,” he said, shifting Molly onto his left hip, dropping down the side of the hill. Five followed cautiously, watching as he used one hand to loosen the buckles on a tarpaulin strapped tightly across the underside of the hill. It fell away to reveal a small cave, big enough for several people provided they were willing to bend over to accommodate the low roof. Inside were several wooden crates, blocking the view of the rest of the cave. Five had no idea how far back the hole went.
“Right,” said Ed, looking critically at the fuel dump. “I think I know how this could work.”
Five gave him an expectant look, hands on her hips.
“Could you take Molly? That way I can grab two fuel cans and head back to the bike. That camp I told you about isn’t far from here, just carry on north. They left some stuff behind. Maybe if you grab some of that, they might let Molly n’ me into Abel.”
Five looked at him for a moment. His expression was determined and cheerful, but it was a thin veneer of emotion trying to hide the grey worry she saw in the twist of his lips and the cant of his brow. His grip on Molly was very firm, and he held his body very still. She nodded briefly. Supplies were her job, she supposed, and the quicker he could get back to bike the better. No sense in staying still.
Ed was jiggling Molly gently, plating with Mister Rabbit. Molly looked up at him for a moment, fingers curling and uncurling in his shirt, and he whispered something to her. He turned to Five.
“Here,” he said, and she moved forward to take Molly. The expression on Ed’s face was… difficult.
Five took Molly, carefully. Molly screwed up her face slightly and wailed, extending her arms toward her father. A little at a loss, Five jiggled her carefully, in much the same way as Ed had done. Molly quieted down, but never took her eyes from Ed.
Ed leaned down and pressed a kiss to his daughter’s forehead, gently pushing Mister Rabbit into Molly’s hand. She watched him with her child’s wide, uncomprehending stare.
“Be good,” he said, sounding stronger than he looked, before turning away and heading back, petrol cans in hand.
Five looked down at the child in her arms, wondering how best to deal with this. Mister Rabbit was having his ear rather enthusiastically chewed, Molly’s eyes fixed on the retreating back of her father. Five rounded the hill once more, standing at the entrance of the fuel dump. Right.
A quick rummage revealed a battered haversack with a broken clasp, and the last of a roll of electrical tape. Five sat down carefully on a wooden box, settling Molly on her lap, and praying that she would not cry. Fortunately, Mister Rabbit seemed to be doing the trick.
Five carefully pulled out her hunting knife, wary of Molly, and stretched out the haversack between both hands. A few deft movements of the knife cut out the bottom corners of the pack, and she trimmed them to be slightly larger. The compression clasps were carefully severed from the main and linked together, put to one side, and she finally removed the top half of the front of the rucksack.
Five rummaged in her Runner’s sack for a moment, bringing out the roll of bandages she’d rescued earlier. They were soft, cotton, pliable and wrapped in plastic. They’d do.
The last bit of tape secured the bandages to the remaining material at the bottom of the rucksack. Five viewed it critically for a moment; it was rough, but it would do, and it beat having to carry Molly with both hands. Time to test it out.
Gingerly, she lifted Molly up from her knee and jiggled her gently into the mutilated rucksack. Her legs popped through the holes, kicking in an absent-minded kind of way, and the roll of bandages served as seat and support for her bottom. Five carefully shrugged the straps of the rucksack onto her chest before taking the severed compression straps and locking them around both herself and Molly.
She assessed herself for a moment: one makeshift child carry-pack. Hands free, Molly kept close. Good enough.
Five set off at a gentle jog, keeping a very careful watch on the environment. Everything seemed suitably quiet and, most importantly, the birds were cheeping in the late-afternoon sunshine. Nothing had spooked them.
Ed hadn’t been kidding; the camp was two minutes from the fuel dump. A number of abandoned, torn tents moved gently in the wind, with battered and broken crates lying around haphazardly. Five stooped to investigate, glancing occasionally at the top of Molly’s head. Her hands were up to her mouth, and Mister Rabbit’s nose was getting a good gumming. She seemed happy enough for the moment.
A broken box yielded an odd tone-producing device. Five tested it before shrugging, turning it over in her hands a few times and pushing into the rucksack on her back. A quick investigation into a torn tent revealed a bottle of water lying under a broken camp bed, a new pack of bandages, and a USB with a little water damage. The next tent held a destroyed military-style rucksack that held a book (Harry Potter, of al things), a pair of intact, old shorts, and a broken mobile phone.
So far Molly had been quiet, uttering no more than occasional baby noises and waving her fists from time to time. Her brow had begun to furrow, however, and her head movements had become sharper. Five gently took Mister Rabbit and made it dance in front of Molly’s face, Molly’s eyes tracking the movement, her fist in her mouth.
“Ga,” said Molly, face uncreasing. Five tucked the toy into the makeshift carry-sack next to Molly with a low sigh of relief, standing up and looking back. Time to move on.
She set off at a brisk pace, glancing around the camp. There were more boxes to explore but she didn’t want to hang around, and she doubted Ed would have appreciated it either. Molly seemed OK with the pace, fist up to her mouth and fingers wrapped around one of Mister Rabbit’s long ears. Five risked bouncing into a gentle jog. Still nothing. Good.
The journey back to the fuel dump was short and uneventful. Five busied herself with dragging out a couple of gerry cans of fuel and strapping down the tarpaulin into place. It had been ten minutes since Ed had set off, and she knew that if he wasn’t back in another ten at the outside, Molly and Five were on their own.
Sixty seconds later, however, the dull throb of a motorbike engine in low gear rattled through the trees. Five straightened up, gerry cans in hand, to find Ed manoeuvring the bike through the trees like an expert.
“Hey,” he said, grinning from ear to ear as he stopped the bike just at the foot of the rise. Five jogged down to meet him.
“Nice work,” he said, eyeing the rucksack. Five carefully shrugged the straps down from her chest, passing Molly and her makeshift carrier over to him. He fastened the straps over his own shoulders, carefully belting her against his sternum with the compression straps, all the while talking to her in nonsense baby-talk. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and Molly laughed for a moment.
“Listen,” he said cheerfully, getting Molly comfortable. “I found the rocket launcher those guys had set up in the forest, so I took it apart and strapped it to the back of the bike.” Five leaned around his shoulder, stretching out her spine. Yep. “I strapped the fuel cans to the side, too. So with all that, plus me and Molly up front, well…” He shrugged apologetically. “You’ll have to run.”
Five returned the shrug.
“Listen,” he said again, and there were more nerves in his voice. He stroked the throttle tentatively. “I’m a mechanic, and I’m bringing supplies, and I figure Abel will be using my fuel dump from now on.. Reckon they’ll let us in?”
Five nodded without hesitation. A mechanic, and a fuel dump? He was a positive gold mine. She saluted briefly, half-mockingly, and waved to Molly.
“Catch you later!” Ed said over the noise of his gunning engine, grinning, and set off between the trees. Five set off after them, stretching her legs out into a good pace to stop them stiffening. The forest was quiet, as was Sam, a few songs playing on low volume over the radio frequency. The birds were still cheeping, and that was the important thing.
The route back was only about a mile, as the crow flew. She kept her pace steady and the air in her mouth easy, eating up the distance.
She slowed at one point, seeing the ground ahead was littered with bones and debris. This had been a hunting ground, maybe the end result of a chase. She stooped, grabbing a sealed tin of beans that had a nasty dent in one side. It looked like it had been used as a blunt object, probably from a height. On instinct, she looked up.
There was some indeterminate shape in the branches. It was the work of a moment to shimmy up to it. It turned out to be a wooden crate, battered and repurposed into a small platform. A carefully-strung tarpaulin kept the worst of the weather from it, flapping slightly in the wind where the rope had loosened. Tied to the platform was a small plastic box, faded and peeling. Inside was a pack of bandages, a sports bra, a bottle of water, and (somewhat inexplicably) a box of lightbulbs. Five packed them all away carefully, making sure the lightbulbs went on top, and began to make her way back down.
She paused, glancing up one more time, to see metal glinting in the low light. She reached up, freeing the baseball bat from where it had been strapped under the platform, and hefted it with one hand. It was aluminium and very light.
Five dropped to the forest floor, swinging the bat for balance, before turning for home. The bat was light enough to carry by hand, gripping it upside down for better stability.. She was five minutes from base.
The run back was uneventful, thankfully, and she was back long before the last of the light had faded.
Not bad, she thought, passing through the gate and throwing her rucksack to the quartermaster who had begun to look less surprised with Five’s consistent supply of loot. A kid, a mechanic, a bunch of supplies and a fuel dump. Not bad at all.
“Sad that the kid won’t remember a world without zoms,” said Sam morosely over her headset. Five supposed he had a point; there was a lot had been lost. But if even Abel Township were willing to risk life and limb to retrieve a lost child, foreign and abandoned… well, maybe there was still something left for Molly to grow and appreciate about the world around her.
On to Mission Five: Interlude
Master post
Chapter: Mission Four - The Lost Child
Summary: Running isn’t just for supplies; lives can be on the line in more ways than one. There’s a kid out there, alone and abandoned by its diseased parent, and it’s only a matter of time before exposure - or something more sinister - gets its teeth into the child.
Rating: PG-13.
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Missions one and four.
Mission Four
The Lost Child
The base was busier. Definitely busier, Five mused, stripping down for bed. It was only one in the afternoon and the dorm was empty, but she suspected she’d be needed again soon and a nap wouldn’t hurt.
There seemed to be a lot more people milling about in the base now and the base itself had undergone some heavy-duty structural changes since she had arrived. The perimeter fence had been replaced by solid concrete walls with chain-link fences protecting each unit inside. The dorms unit had sprung up a few new buildings, too.
Five had caught a glimpse of the Township rota, and in just the week she had been there the population had gone from sixty to a hundred and five. That was forty-five extra people in seven days, and Abel was fairly restrictive in who they let in. The resources Five was supplying, combined with a stronger military presence and the innovations of the Comms unit, were allowing Abel to grow and become better.
She shrugged beneath the blankets of her cot, wondering idly if Seven had noticed the same thing. The Runners troupe was growing as more people with training (or even just promising newbies) made their way to Abel. Seven would be noticing that, surely. She grinned to herself into her pillow and tried to snooze.
Five slept for maybe two hours when someone shook her awake gently and told her that Sam needed her at the front gate. She was up and dressed inside five minutes, and headed toward the gate at a fast jog in lieu of a warm-up. She knew what this was about, and wanted to be on top of her game.
Five screwed her earpiece in firmly as she rounded the armoury and approached the gate, hearing the sirens start up and the gates rattle open. She was through them without pausing, picking up speed, when Sam’s voice came through to her.
“Hey, Runner Five! Sam here. Those reports we had of a lost child out there have been confirmed. It’s a common story. Parent gets bitten and then runs as far away from the child, so when they turn…” Sam paused for a moment. “Well, yeah, you get the idea. Kids can turn pretty fast. Fast metabolism, faster everything. Once saw a kid turn in five minutes, in front of her parents. That was grim.”
Sam trailed off for a moment, before seeming to realise he was setting the wrong tone.
“Anyway! There’s a kid out there, and your mission is to find it and bring it in. We’re tight on admission in Abel, everyone’s got to pull their weight, but it’s good to know that no-one here would let a kid die of exposure out there. You’re, uh, yep, at a good speed. Find the child, and bring ‘em home. Got to be honest,” added Sam, “You were the first pick for this mission. First all the supplies, then the Canton thing… you’re quite popular back in Command. Good luck.”
Five adjusted her speed slightly, maintaining a higher-than-normal cruising pace, and keeping a very wary eye ahead of her. She was across the clearing and into the forest inside within a couple of minutes, feeling the talons of her fell shoes biting hard into the sparse grass. The extra grip gave her better stability on the uneven ground, grabbing hard in the corners and allowing her ride the rise and fall of the land with ease.
Five stopped, once, listening hard over the regular sound of her own breathing. There were distant sounds of lurching zoms - something had caught their attention - and far-off, filtering through the trees, a child crying.
Five re-orientated toward that sound, stretching out her pace. Her legs tingled with blood and the air on her lungs felt sharp and unforgiving. This was a brutal pace to maintain over a long distance, but the sound of the child’s crying was getting steadily louder. She couldn’t be the only one hearing it.
Rocket launcher, she remembered. It was a dim memory supplemented by the reports and gossip of other Township members, but it was enough to spark a new line of thought. That line of thought began: trap.
The trees were dense but her sense of directional hearing was good. She stopped only once - a rucksack hanging from a tree branch was too good a target to pass up, revealing a bottle of water, bandages, and a bottle of pain meds - but otherwise maintained a constant speed.
“You’re nearly at the child,” said Sam helpfully. The screams were getting louder. “Kid’s just on the radar. You nee- oh. Um, you might have a problem. There’s… someone else on the radar. They’re moving fast. Run. or you won’t get to the kid first. Run!”
Five amped up to a semi-sprint, fighting hard to get enough air into her blood. Thirty seconds later, with the screaming was as loud as it was going to be, Five burst through a tangle of branches to see a child of indeterminate gender sitting on the leafmould and crying with gusto at the sky. It was wearing a pair of faded, grimy blue-jean dungarees over a thin white jumper, and its brown-black hair was a scruffy, pragmatic cut. It could not have been more than a year old.
Five stopped abruptly, and the child focused on her before turning away. It never stopped screaming. Even over the sound, Five could hear something crashing through the bushes and making no attempt to disguise its noise.
Split-second decision. Five leapt forward, scooping one arm under the child’s bottom and the other going around its waist, turning back the way she had come and running steadily. The crashing thing in the bushes changed course abruptly, following them. The child was still screaming, fists waving, and Five supposed she couldn’t blame it. She’d be pretty annoyed if a stranger just grabbed her and ran away, too.
“Hey. Hey!”
Five risked a glance back. The crashing noise resolved itself into the shape of man on a motorbike, fighting his way through her undergrowth. Inexplicably, he was waving something white and fluffy. Instantly, she switched the child to her left hip, leaving her right hand free, and slowing her pace ever so slightly.
The child caught sight of the man over Five’s shoulder and immediately began to quiet. The man, in contrast, got louder, keeping his bike paced with her speed.
“Molly! Molly! Its OK, honey, Daddy’s here. Look, just give her to me, will you?”
Five kept moving, hand free and hovering over the pocket of her shorts that housed her emergency slimline hunting knife. Trap, trap, trap, warned her ever-vigilant paranoia. You know there’s someone out there with a grudge against you.
“Molly, everything’s alright, look, hand her over! Molly, Molly, look, I have Mister Rabbit.”
The white fluffy thing was a toy rabbit. He sounded desperate, more and more so, and he wouldn’t shut up. Five maintained a steady pace, keeping just ahead of him, child grizzling in her arm. Sam was trying to tell her something, but she could hear nothing over the sound of the man yelling just behind her, on the low maintenance throb on the bike’s engine. Christ, they were a zombie beacon out here like this.
“Just give her to me!”
“-on your tail, and-”
“Look, she’s my daughter, Molly, sweetheart, Daddy’s here, just give her to me!”
“-from the south, south-east-”
“Please, just hand her over!”
“-gaining-”
The man stopped the bike suddenly, staring hard to his left, before switching the engine off with a sharp wrench of his hand. Five jogged to a stop, and the silence allowed her to hear Sam’s final warning.
“-there’s five on your tail, and they’re closing in. Run!”
The groans were clear through the trees, and the radar patch in her ear began to bleep steadily. The man looked quickly toward them, but made no more move.
“Look, she’s my daughter, she’s my Molly. There’s zoms closing in. Give her to me, I can get us out of here on the bike-”
He turned the key in the ignition. The engine turned over, sounding tired and pneumonic, but didn’t do anything else. The man swore.
“Look, OK, there’s a fuel dump not far from here. Give Molly to me, we’ll run for it.”
The moans of the creepers were getting louder. They were not far away, and attracting more. Runner Rule Number One came into play: never stay still. Trust could wait. There wasn’t a lot of choice.
Five leapt toward him, pushing the child into his arms. He tucked her up against his chest, swinging one long, khaki-clad leg over the bike’s saddle, and jumping down to the forest floor. He set off immediately and Five kept pace, worrying hard at their speed. This wasn’t enough.
The zoms were catching up, and they were doing half the speed they needed to. Five exhaled harshly, dropping around the man’s right shoulder and leaning in. She grabbed the child, mindless of his immediate complaint and attempt to pull away, slinging one arm under Molly’s rear and resting her weight against her father. He understood quickly, adjusting Molly slightly so that they were both supporting her weight.
Five didn’t give him long to adjust, hearing snarls behind them and instantly stepping up her pace to sprint. God, it was hard. The air was tight, so tight in her chest, the breath sawing in and out of her lungs. It was like trying to breathe razorblades, gulping hard at the oxygen. And if things were bad for her… well, the man was struggling. She was half pulling him along, trying to maintain an emergency sprint between two-and-a-half people.
Her radar was speeding up. She made one last desperate boost to her speed, vision beginning to go gently grey and her thighs screaming in misery. Her breathing was completely out of control but Christ, oh thank Christ, the radar in her ear was dropping speed.
They maintained that brutal pace for another fifteen seconds before the mechanical voice in her ear sounded out “zombies evaded”. Five spilled speed immediately, coming to a complete halt. She dropped to her knees for a moment, clawing for breath and feeling no benefit whatsoever. It took about twenty seconds before a final deep gasp for breath began to correct the oxygen debt and she pushed herself back to her feet.
The man was worse off, actually blue around the lips, chest heaving and clutching his daughter to his chest, who had one ear of Mister Rabbit in her mouth. Five stalked over to him and grabbed his shoulder, pulling. They needed to get moving now. He struggled to his feet, trying to balance both a child and the ungainly string-cut-puppet that was his own body, before staggering after her.
“Thanks,” he gasped out as she dropped her walking pace so he could keep up. Neither of them were in a condition to run for next few minutes. Molly was silent, staring alternately at her father, the world around them and Five with wide, curious eyes. The fingers of one hand were clenched firmly into her father’s chambray work-shirt, and her other hand clung tightly to Mister Rabbit. Five felt herself relax a little. Whatever the man claimed, the kid was familiar with him. Good enough for now.
“I’m Ed,” said the man after a couple of minutes, as they dropped back into a steady jog. He shifted Molly slightly, an arm under her rear and another across her back. Molly hung on firmly to him. “You must be from Abel, yeah?” Five nodded. “Yeah, I recognised the uniform. You guys are kind of tight on letting people in.”
The question had a hook on it. Five deftly avoided it by saying nothing. Ed seemed to understand that he’d be getting nothing there. “I mean,” he continued, “I get that you guys can't let just anyone in. That's how New Canton got themselves into the mess they're in now.”
Five stayed silent. She would make no promises she couldn't keep.
“We were holed up in a farmhouse near here,” Ed began, and Five recognised the symptoms of Imma Tell You My Life Story. It was basic enough; he went hunting for birds, for his wife and kid. He stayed still too long, shouldn’t have stayed out overnight, and when he woke up there were three zoms around the house in which he’d hidden in. Low on ammo, headshots only, but by the time he’s cleared them more had arrived. And more. And more.
He was away for six night, and by the time he’d cleared the last of them and headed home, the place was empty. His wife had thought him dead already.
“She took Molly, a rucksack, and headed toward Abel, I think,” he said, voice emotionless despite his heavy breathing. “She left a note.” He shifted Molly slightly.
Five remembered the rucksack hanging from the tree, oddly deliberate, and the supplies inside. A thin hope that someone might use them, maybe, or even just a way of speeding up to put as much distance between Molly and… well. Yes.
“I figured she must have - she must have been bitten. She ran away from Molly to give her the best chance. I heard Molly screaming, and I followed. Enough said, really.”
He was silent for a little while and they increased their speed, maintaining a cruise speed through the forest. There was a small rise ahead.
“Funny,” Ed said suddenly, cradling Molly’s head. Hey eyes were drooping. “There was a new bunch of guys who set up camp not far from here. I’d not seen them before. Blue uniforms.” He laughed, suddenly. “They even had a rocket launcher! I mean, what were they going to do with that?”
Five said nothing. Her gaze sharpened. Ed didn’t seem to notice.
“They didn’t last long. Disappeared one day. They took some of the stuff, but left the rest. Not seen them since.” They crested a short rise, and Ed slowed, breathing heavily.
“Here we are,” he said, shifting Molly onto his left hip, dropping down the side of the hill. Five followed cautiously, watching as he used one hand to loosen the buckles on a tarpaulin strapped tightly across the underside of the hill. It fell away to reveal a small cave, big enough for several people provided they were willing to bend over to accommodate the low roof. Inside were several wooden crates, blocking the view of the rest of the cave. Five had no idea how far back the hole went.
“Right,” said Ed, looking critically at the fuel dump. “I think I know how this could work.”
Five gave him an expectant look, hands on her hips.
“Could you take Molly? That way I can grab two fuel cans and head back to the bike. That camp I told you about isn’t far from here, just carry on north. They left some stuff behind. Maybe if you grab some of that, they might let Molly n’ me into Abel.”
Five looked at him for a moment. His expression was determined and cheerful, but it was a thin veneer of emotion trying to hide the grey worry she saw in the twist of his lips and the cant of his brow. His grip on Molly was very firm, and he held his body very still. She nodded briefly. Supplies were her job, she supposed, and the quicker he could get back to bike the better. No sense in staying still.
Ed was jiggling Molly gently, plating with Mister Rabbit. Molly looked up at him for a moment, fingers curling and uncurling in his shirt, and he whispered something to her. He turned to Five.
“Here,” he said, and she moved forward to take Molly. The expression on Ed’s face was… difficult.
Five took Molly, carefully. Molly screwed up her face slightly and wailed, extending her arms toward her father. A little at a loss, Five jiggled her carefully, in much the same way as Ed had done. Molly quieted down, but never took her eyes from Ed.
Ed leaned down and pressed a kiss to his daughter’s forehead, gently pushing Mister Rabbit into Molly’s hand. She watched him with her child’s wide, uncomprehending stare.
“Be good,” he said, sounding stronger than he looked, before turning away and heading back, petrol cans in hand.
Five looked down at the child in her arms, wondering how best to deal with this. Mister Rabbit was having his ear rather enthusiastically chewed, Molly’s eyes fixed on the retreating back of her father. Five rounded the hill once more, standing at the entrance of the fuel dump. Right.
A quick rummage revealed a battered haversack with a broken clasp, and the last of a roll of electrical tape. Five sat down carefully on a wooden box, settling Molly on her lap, and praying that she would not cry. Fortunately, Mister Rabbit seemed to be doing the trick.
Five carefully pulled out her hunting knife, wary of Molly, and stretched out the haversack between both hands. A few deft movements of the knife cut out the bottom corners of the pack, and she trimmed them to be slightly larger. The compression clasps were carefully severed from the main and linked together, put to one side, and she finally removed the top half of the front of the rucksack.
Five rummaged in her Runner’s sack for a moment, bringing out the roll of bandages she’d rescued earlier. They were soft, cotton, pliable and wrapped in plastic. They’d do.
The last bit of tape secured the bandages to the remaining material at the bottom of the rucksack. Five viewed it critically for a moment; it was rough, but it would do, and it beat having to carry Molly with both hands. Time to test it out.
Gingerly, she lifted Molly up from her knee and jiggled her gently into the mutilated rucksack. Her legs popped through the holes, kicking in an absent-minded kind of way, and the roll of bandages served as seat and support for her bottom. Five carefully shrugged the straps of the rucksack onto her chest before taking the severed compression straps and locking them around both herself and Molly.
She assessed herself for a moment: one makeshift child carry-pack. Hands free, Molly kept close. Good enough.
Five set off at a gentle jog, keeping a very careful watch on the environment. Everything seemed suitably quiet and, most importantly, the birds were cheeping in the late-afternoon sunshine. Nothing had spooked them.
Ed hadn’t been kidding; the camp was two minutes from the fuel dump. A number of abandoned, torn tents moved gently in the wind, with battered and broken crates lying around haphazardly. Five stooped to investigate, glancing occasionally at the top of Molly’s head. Her hands were up to her mouth, and Mister Rabbit’s nose was getting a good gumming. She seemed happy enough for the moment.
A broken box yielded an odd tone-producing device. Five tested it before shrugging, turning it over in her hands a few times and pushing into the rucksack on her back. A quick investigation into a torn tent revealed a bottle of water lying under a broken camp bed, a new pack of bandages, and a USB with a little water damage. The next tent held a destroyed military-style rucksack that held a book (Harry Potter, of al things), a pair of intact, old shorts, and a broken mobile phone.
So far Molly had been quiet, uttering no more than occasional baby noises and waving her fists from time to time. Her brow had begun to furrow, however, and her head movements had become sharper. Five gently took Mister Rabbit and made it dance in front of Molly’s face, Molly’s eyes tracking the movement, her fist in her mouth.
“Ga,” said Molly, face uncreasing. Five tucked the toy into the makeshift carry-sack next to Molly with a low sigh of relief, standing up and looking back. Time to move on.
She set off at a brisk pace, glancing around the camp. There were more boxes to explore but she didn’t want to hang around, and she doubted Ed would have appreciated it either. Molly seemed OK with the pace, fist up to her mouth and fingers wrapped around one of Mister Rabbit’s long ears. Five risked bouncing into a gentle jog. Still nothing. Good.
The journey back to the fuel dump was short and uneventful. Five busied herself with dragging out a couple of gerry cans of fuel and strapping down the tarpaulin into place. It had been ten minutes since Ed had set off, and she knew that if he wasn’t back in another ten at the outside, Molly and Five were on their own.
Sixty seconds later, however, the dull throb of a motorbike engine in low gear rattled through the trees. Five straightened up, gerry cans in hand, to find Ed manoeuvring the bike through the trees like an expert.
“Hey,” he said, grinning from ear to ear as he stopped the bike just at the foot of the rise. Five jogged down to meet him.
“Nice work,” he said, eyeing the rucksack. Five carefully shrugged the straps down from her chest, passing Molly and her makeshift carrier over to him. He fastened the straps over his own shoulders, carefully belting her against his sternum with the compression straps, all the while talking to her in nonsense baby-talk. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and Molly laughed for a moment.
“Listen,” he said cheerfully, getting Molly comfortable. “I found the rocket launcher those guys had set up in the forest, so I took it apart and strapped it to the back of the bike.” Five leaned around his shoulder, stretching out her spine. Yep. “I strapped the fuel cans to the side, too. So with all that, plus me and Molly up front, well…” He shrugged apologetically. “You’ll have to run.”
Five returned the shrug.
“Listen,” he said again, and there were more nerves in his voice. He stroked the throttle tentatively. “I’m a mechanic, and I’m bringing supplies, and I figure Abel will be using my fuel dump from now on.. Reckon they’ll let us in?”
Five nodded without hesitation. A mechanic, and a fuel dump? He was a positive gold mine. She saluted briefly, half-mockingly, and waved to Molly.
“Catch you later!” Ed said over the noise of his gunning engine, grinning, and set off between the trees. Five set off after them, stretching her legs out into a good pace to stop them stiffening. The forest was quiet, as was Sam, a few songs playing on low volume over the radio frequency. The birds were still cheeping, and that was the important thing.
The route back was only about a mile, as the crow flew. She kept her pace steady and the air in her mouth easy, eating up the distance.
She slowed at one point, seeing the ground ahead was littered with bones and debris. This had been a hunting ground, maybe the end result of a chase. She stooped, grabbing a sealed tin of beans that had a nasty dent in one side. It looked like it had been used as a blunt object, probably from a height. On instinct, she looked up.
There was some indeterminate shape in the branches. It was the work of a moment to shimmy up to it. It turned out to be a wooden crate, battered and repurposed into a small platform. A carefully-strung tarpaulin kept the worst of the weather from it, flapping slightly in the wind where the rope had loosened. Tied to the platform was a small plastic box, faded and peeling. Inside was a pack of bandages, a sports bra, a bottle of water, and (somewhat inexplicably) a box of lightbulbs. Five packed them all away carefully, making sure the lightbulbs went on top, and began to make her way back down.
She paused, glancing up one more time, to see metal glinting in the low light. She reached up, freeing the baseball bat from where it had been strapped under the platform, and hefted it with one hand. It was aluminium and very light.
Five dropped to the forest floor, swinging the bat for balance, before turning for home. The bat was light enough to carry by hand, gripping it upside down for better stability.. She was five minutes from base.
The run back was uneventful, thankfully, and she was back long before the last of the light had faded.
Not bad, she thought, passing through the gate and throwing her rucksack to the quartermaster who had begun to look less surprised with Five’s consistent supply of loot. A kid, a mechanic, a bunch of supplies and a fuel dump. Not bad at all.
“Sad that the kid won’t remember a world without zoms,” said Sam morosely over her headset. Five supposed he had a point; there was a lot had been lost. But if even Abel Township were willing to risk life and limb to retrieve a lost child, foreign and abandoned… well, maybe there was still something left for Molly to grow and appreciate about the world around her.
On to Mission Five: Interlude