Run, runner 5

Lay of the land

A few days after my run with Runner 8, Sarah Smith, I find myself standing in front of the gates, stretching my arms. A tall man wearing a blue jumper walks with a 7 drawn onto it, he stands beside me looking down. I give him a small smile and wave; he returns the gesture with a bit of confusion crossing his face. As we stand there waiting to be briefed on the mission I fiddle with the straps on my bag, the headset crackles to life and Sam's voice cuts across the quiet murmur that surrounds us.

"Raise the gates... Runner 5 ready... And go!" Sam calls out, we take off, jogging at a reasonable pace.

"Thanks, Sam, I'll take it from here." The runner 7 tells him.

"No problem Evan, I'll keep the comms link optional in case of trouble. Runner 5, 7 here is the head of runners!" Sam sounds hesitant to stop giving out orders to Evan and me but perks up when mentioning the 'head of runners'. Evan, however, isn't so keen on the title.

"That's not an office title Sam."

"Well unofficially." Evan just shakes his head and sighs.

"That's what you get for surviving longer than most of the others." He looks kind of sad at that but continues on all business like, "I'll be taking you on a quick tour around the base today and show you the main routes into the city; should be an easy run today!" I suppress a groan at that, Sam wasn't so calm at the mention of the run with zombies 'easy'.

"You know what happens when you say that!"

"Whatever happens, we'll handle it, we always handle it."

We ran down the road, heading away from Abel. There are zombies milling about, having no real interest in us, as we were away from most of them. Runner 7, looks over at me and frowns, knowing there is something on his mind. I go to ask what is wrong, but he beats me to it.

"We are sad to lose the old runner 5, but that's the reality of life here on the ground. We've spoken to Mullin's, the base you've come from, and they aren't willing to send another helo until we know who fired the rocket launcher at you, so this is your new home, you're the new runner 5 congratulations. They've told you nothing about us I suppose that's the way it seems to be up at Mullins base, send people in and take them out, don't talk about where you're going, don't let anyone get attached. That's not the way I would run it and it's not the way the major runs it here at Abel township. We take care of our people here and as long as you work hard ... we'll take care of you." The zombies that were previously uninterested in us, change their mind and start to head for us. Evan looks over his shoulder and shakes his head, but chooses not to say anything.

"So you see we are circling clockwise around the township the bunker to your right, that's half the reason any of us are still here. Take a look at it, narrow slit windows built into the ground, we used it as an armoury now, but at the start of the outbreak, some of us spent 3 weeks hiding in there while the world went mad around us. Thank god for survivalists building well-supplied fallout shelters and to the owner of this place, she still lives here." Runner 7 points out the 'armoury' as we run around the base as he continues pointing out parts of the base.

"The other half the reason we're here is that building there in the centre of the compound, the old farm house, thick stone walls good high vantage points especially as it's on a hill, it's easy to see why any of us who know anything about tactics came here with just 5 rifles were fought off 300 of the walking dead within our first week here. We are under the command of Major de Santa, she had lost most of her people but managed to keep us going. That's how we managed to earn out place." Having no questions or anything to add, I just nod my head. However, by this point I was half listening to his rant on the way this are at Abel, I look to the trees to see if there are zombies nearby, but instead catch a white tag fluttering about in the soft breeze. Evan notices it as well, the tag and the zombie who decided that we would make a good meal, should he catch us.

"Hmmm, do you see that white fluttering thing in the tree? Just past the zombie lurching towards the pines. Might be nothing, in any case, it's a good target to run to. Never mind that zombie, if it gets too close our sniper on the roof will handle it, now go." We head down the hill a little bit before the package in the trees becomes easier to see, Evan holds his arm in front of me and points to the tree.

"Ahh I think I see what it is, Mullins said that you've been at the base almost since the start of the outbreak. It's a government drop; do you see that part hanging down? The green tab?" I notice to where he is pointing and I nod, a small green tag is fluttering in the wind, connected to larger white parcel nestled in the pine trees. Evan sees my nod and continues on instructing me on how to get it out of the tree.

"Pull it, it should come straight out of the trees. Ah, we've got company, our position between two large cities does mean we get a constant stream of the living dead. You should be able to do it, just put on a burst of speed now, and you should be able to get the government drop and outpace the zombie, don't stop. Run!" I run down the rest of the hill, straight past a zombie who is missing an arm and half his chest. Being 5" makes pulling the tab hard as the parcel is well above my arm reach, thankfully the tab isn't. I manage to grab and pull the tab successfully retrieving the package, I turn and run back to runner 7 with the package. As I slow to a stop I pull off one of the straps of my bag to place the parcel into it.

"That's good, I can see you will be a valuable asset to us at Abel township, we don't have bullets to waste on zombies, not unless we have to and we certainly don't have enough to shoot wide, so we rely on the runners. you will be well rewarded if you do a good job. Run along the main road here with me, I have something to show you."

"Here we can get the best view of the land, there are the major cities, we will probably send you in there for supplies, but never try to spend the night there... crawling with zombies. See that castle on the hill? That's New Canton, they're the biggest settlement of living humans within 100 miles, we think. For the most part, we don't talk to them, they don't talk to us, and that's how we all like it. See that burnt barns to the west? That used to be a little settlement called themselves Skoobs, mostly teenagers, they were about the size of Abel township. We don't know what happened to them, one day they were doing fine, swapping DVDs with our runners, growing their own marijuana and keeping chickens, then the next a burnt out shell... Probably a zombie attack caused a fire somehow. Right, another practice run lets outpace those zombies and head back to Abel."

As we are running back, Evan keeps looking at me as if to ask me a question, or to make a comment on something. I have a feeling I already know what it's about, I have seen the way the residents of Abel look at me, some with distrust. This is often reinforced by what runner 8 said to me on our run to distract the zombies. However, some of the looks of mistrust changed after that run.

"You know some people at Abel township were worried about taking you in runner 5, the rocket launcher attack spooked us all, of course, we didn't know that anyone in the sector had that sort of capability, and Mullins base haven't always been straight with us. Funny thing runner 5, just before Skoobs settlement was destroyed they had a man sent in from Mullins base arrived on a helo just like you, but without half the supplies they were expecting... strange." He looks at me from the corner of his eye, judging my reactions. I stiffen at the notion that people believe that I had something to do with the rocket launcher attack on the helicopter I was on. Unfortunately, zombies appeared before we had a chance to discuss what happened, "Right more zoms approaching from the east, time to head back to Abel. You've done well today runner 5, I expect we'll have a use for you soon."

As we came through the gates someone ran up to me and helped me remove the bag off of my shoulders so an inventory could be done on its contents. The run with Evan left me feeling much the same as the run with Sarah; more questions than answers.

A/N: I got my character design for both Sarah and Evan (8 and 7) from this photo. 

 Well that's that and no harm done, just to quote the Minister for Magic out of Harry Potter and he Prisoner of Azkaban. I know it took a long time, but university and the fact that this is one of the most boring of episodes and leaves practically no room for added dialogue. It's like 12:40 am in Australia as I'm posting this, but I'm moving onto examination period so I don't go to lectures and sit in the library all day any more. No, I just sit at home and procrastinate doing this. I plan to start the next chapter sometime today. But thank you to anyone who is still reading this.

Good luck to everyone who is like me and is suffering through University or even just school, WE CAN DO IT!!!!!!! To everyone else YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!!!!