Sometimes We Ran (Book 1) Read Free Page B

last night, a couple of candy bars, oatmeal cream pies, crackers, and a half jar of peanut butter were stuffed in my backpack. A few rolls of mints and a few bottles of water, too. It didn’t seem like enough. I was going to have to find more. Easy-to-find foodstuffs were getting a little rare. Most of the ready made and canned foods was already used up. You could usually find more on the interstate, what with all the abandoned trucks and cars, but that’s dangerous. The undead really liked the interstate, so food runs could be suicide.
    I settled for crackers and peanut butter. A small meal, but it felt like Thanksgiving.
    Actually, I was lucky. I had at least a little food to keep me going. There were reports of people resorting to dogs and cats after the food ran out. After that, people turned to rats and mice. After the rats and mice ran out, there were reports of cannibalism. That was mostly in the big cities. Kind of glad I didn’t see any of that. I think I’d rather put a bullet in my brain than eat my neighbor.
    After breakfast, I always tried to give my weapons a quick once-over. I looked over my handgun first. Clean and ready to go. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what kind of gun I have been using, but it has been flawless so far. I “liberated” it from a gun dealer along with a few boxes of hollow-point bullets. My rifle was next. Again, I do not know what type, but I believe it was some kind of semi-automatic. I took it off a dead policeman. Actually it was a mostly dead policeman. The ammunition is tougher to find, so I try to use the weapon sparingly. Clean and fully loaded, it’s ready to go as well. I didn’t know anything about guns before all this stuff happened, but I learned quick. If you don’t learn quickly, you die out here.
    Next are my edged weapons. I carry a large knife and a modern tomahawk. The tomahawk is all kinds of cool; hardened steel with a shiny chrome finish. It has a very sharp axe head, good for hacking and chopping. The other side comes to a sharp point, good for piercing soft, undead skulls. It’s a great weapon. It’s saved my life more times than I can count.
    I also had a secret knife enclosed in a flap in the bottom of my backpack. It was a small folding job with a sharp blade and a cool carbon-fiber handle. I reached into my backpack, and felt the small lump in the bottom that reassured me it was still there.
    It was my last chance, close-in weapon in case things got really bad. It could be shoved into a zombie’s eyesocket or cut the throat of a living adversary. So far, it has never seen the light of day.
    Time to go. It would be nice to stay in the body shop. It seems relatively safe and out of the way. The truth is, you have to keep moving or the undead will find you. I don’t know how, but they always seem to find my nighttime hiding places no matter how secure they seem. You have to keep moving to survive. Even as I stood outside ready to start walking again, I saw a few scattered zombies in the distance walking up the road towards the shop. Looks like they found me again. I take care to try and get rid of all the evidence that someone camped here, and then hit the road.
    It was really a nice morning. What month was it? October? I lost track of days long ago. The air was cool, with a faint wisp of dewy fog hanging over the grass. If it weren’t for the zombies, it would have been a great day for a drive in the country. How long has it been since normal? Eight months, maybe. Somehow it seems longer. I remember sitting at my desk at home, working, when strange reports of group violence started coming up on the news. I mostly ignored them and continued to work. I had a deadline, and my client was waiting. My wife Gia kept calling me, asking what we should do. I told her I didn’t know what to do. Besides, it would probably blow over. Then the reports got even more serious.
    The violence got worse, and then it spread. Suddenly the army got called out, and