Run (4 page)

Jae had problems of his own. He was fending off five men. I saw him take a hard blow to his stomach.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain shoot up my left arm, followed by something warm. I lifted my arm and saw blood.

I was bleeding! Tattoo Guy had slashed me! I wrenched my arm out of his grasp and tried to slap him. How stupid was that?

I felt my body go numb with terror as the three men closed in on me. My arm was hurting really badly and I felt tears threatening to spill out at the corner of my eyes. Tattoo Guy was watching me with a really mean look. He started to laugh.

“Think you're so tough now, little girl?”

Little girl? Who did he think he was, calling me little girl? Now I was angry. I felt a sensation prickling at the back of my skull. It was a strange but not unpleasant feeling. A series of images appeared in my mind, like a video clip played on high speed. I saw Tattoo Guy charge at me and knock me to the ground with his shoulder.

I shook my head in confusion. Tattoo Guy was still in front of me – not moving, but I could tell he was going to. In my peripheral vision, I saw my stick on the floor. I inched closer to it, all the time watching him closely as he started to move.

When he started to charge at me, I dove towards my stick. I grabbed it in my right hand, tucked my head to my chest and executed a perfect roll on the floor, landing back up on my feet.

With quick reflexes I didn't know I had, I then swung the stick at his legs. He tripped and fell flat on his face, arms and legs splayed in all directions. If I hadn't been scared to death, I might actually have laughed.

When Tattoo Guy's two friends came at me, I fought like a maniac, hitting everything that came my way with the stick. I let instincts take over. My arms and legs seemed to be moving on their own. One second I was sweeping the stick at one assailant's knee, the next second, I was pivoting on the spot, my leg flying up in a kick that sent the other man backwards. Wow, that was cool, I thought.

Just when I thought it was over, there was Tattoo Guy again. And, boy, was he mad. Why wouldn't he leave me alone? It was really frustrating because I really didn't want to fight. I just wanted to go home! But he was tough and wouldn't stay down.

Then he said something that sent a chill down my spine, “You think you can just come back here and steal from me again?”

Again? Again? This man knows me? I faltered for one second. Seeing me hesitate, he launched a fierce punch at my face. Weirdly, again, I saw the whole attack play out in my mind before it actually happened. I felt that same prickling feeling. The same strange sensation…

Which was why I was able to bring my stick up to deflect his blow. I heard a sickening crack. I think I broke his arm. I didn't feel bad. He pretty much deserved it.

He charged at me – for the third time – but I was strangely calm as I watched him. I ducked under his clumsy attack and brought my knee up to his stomach. He fell with a dull thud.

“What do you mean ‘again'?” I shouted at him. “How do you know me? Who am I? Who am I?”

“Zee!” I heard Jae call out. “Behind you!”

I swung around to see three more men advancing towards me. I noted smugly that the men had abandoned their attack on Jae to deal with me. Obviously, they thought I was the bigger threat, not him. Ha! Who was the girl now?

I spun the stick in my hands calmly, then swung it at the man nearest to me. There was a satisfying crack as he took the hit on his head. He fell.

I looked at the other two men. These two looked seriously pathetic. They were so thin I could see their shoulder bones poking out from their T-shirts.

“Who's next?” I said, feeling much braver than I had at the start of the fight.

They both ran at me – one from the left and one from the right. This time, when I felt that funny sensation, I just went with it. I saw what they intended to do. One of them meant to get his arm around my neck in a chokehold. The other one, I realised with a chill, wanted to kill me.

I did the only logical thing – I simply jumped out of the way and they crashed into each other and fell onto the floor. They struggled to get up, but were so weak they slumped on the floor again.

I ran over to Jae. I think he was laughing – or trying not to. In any case, he was failing horribly.

“What's so damn funny? You could have helped me, you know!”

“Did you see their expressions?” Jae said, excited the way only a boy could get over a fight.

“Obviously not. I was too busy trying not to get killed!” I shook my head in exasperation. “What happened to the rest of them?”

Jae grinned cheekily at me. “They ran off after seeing what the evil stick-twirling monster could do.”

I rolled my eyes but at the same time, felt relieved that I didn't have to fight any more crazed adults.

“And when were you going to tell me that you could fight like that? I've never seen anything like that,” Jae demanded, frowning at me.

“How could I have told you if I didn't know? I didn't know…” I faltered.

Where had I learned to fight like that? And what about that thing I had felt in my head? I knew what those men were going to do. I could read their minds!

“We'd better go. In case they have a second back-up or something,” Jae said, not looking at me.

I didn't need to be told a second time. I was so ready to go home. We picked up our stash of food and ran.

I wondered if I should tell Jae about what Tattoo Guy had said. I wished I had gotten him to tell me more. He might know something about who I was. And what about the weird mind-reading thing? Should I tell Jae about that, too? I bet he already thought I was weird – what would he make of this, I wondered.

I would tell him when we g0t back home, I decided. Our home was only about two kilometres away. We should be back in less than 20 minutes, I thought.

Boy, was I wrong.

In the end, we took something like two hours to get home. I mean, seriously.

We were crossing a big open road, away from the cluster of HDB blocks we had come from when we spotted them. Another gang of adults. Not again!

We ran back towards the blocks and hid behind one of the big pillars in a void deck.

“Did they see us?” I asked. I couldn't run anymore. I was ready to give up the food we had found and just go home already.

All this fighting and running was too much for me.

“I don't think so,” Jae said, still not looking at me.

“What are they doing?” I asked. I slumped down on the floor and used the bag of food as a back rest.

“Something's wrong,” Jae said. “Take a look.”

“Don't want to,” I said. “Too tired.”

“I'm serious. You got to look at this.” His voice trembled slightly.

That got my attention. I followed his gaze.

There were about 10 of them and they were walking in a really weird way – half limping, half shuffling along. It made my stomach feel a little bit sick to see them.

“What is wrong with them?” I whispered to Jae, unable to tear my eyes away from them.

“I don't know. I've never seen adults look so bad before. Mostly, they look hungry, and they are aggressive. But this group looks different,” he said.

“They are giving me the creeps,” I said, shuddering.

“Then will you be quiet? I don't want them coming after us. I'm too tired to fight again,” Jae scolded.

Just then, one of them – a woman – turned her head and looked right at us. I managed to stifle a scream. Jae reached for my hand and squeezed it weakly, and I was thankful I was not alone. She could not see us, of course. We were well hidden behind the pillar and a pile of old boxes, but we could see her by peering through a crack.

She started dragging her feet towards us. I watched in horror as she took one shambling step after another. As she got closer, I could see that her skin was blistered and broken. Disgusting pus-filled sores covered her arms and legs and even her face. Her hair was long and tangled and if she wasn't this pus-filled sores person, I think that she would, actually, have been quite pretty.

There was a dull empty look in her eyes as she stumbled towards us. I looked at her feet. No shoes. Her feet were covered with cuts, some not properly healed because she was leaving a trail of pus and blood behind her as she shuffled towards us. I was filled with terror. I turned to run, but Jae held me firmly by the waist.

“Shh!” he whispered. “If we run, we'll be seen.”

I don't know what would have happened if the commotion hadn't broken out behind her. She whipped her head to look and started shambling away. We squinted from behind the boxes, trying to make out what was going on. And then, immediately, we wished we hadn't.

One of the adults had collapsed in the middle of the road. Well, it looked like a man, but we couldn't tell. The rest of the group shambled frantically towards him. I thought they were going to help him up.

They didn't. They didn't! Oh my God, they didn't!

They did something else. Something much worse. They stooped down and started taking bites out of him.

I felt bile rising up my throat and I turned around and threw up.

Jae looked as if he might vomit too, but instead, he patted my back gently. My own terror, horror and disgust were all reflected on his face. He peered through the boxes nervously, then looked back at me. His face was pale.

“Please be quiet,” he begged as I started to cry.

He held me close to him as we huddled behind those boxes. We could not – did not – want to look anymore. After a while, the grunting and feeding sounds stopped and Jae got up to take a cautious peek. They were gone, and so was the body. They must have eaten all of him and dragged his bones away. The poor man, I thought, he was being eaten alive.

We sat there for a long time, too frightened to move away from our hiding place. What if they were still out there waiting to pounce on us?

Jae looked pale and distressed, all the bravado and swagger gone. I didn't realise I was shivering until he started to rub my back.

“It's okay. They are gone,” he said, uncharacteristically gentle.

His green eyes looked right into my heart, and for no reason at all, I felt better. I gave him a weak smile. He put his arm around me and I leaned on him. It was nice.

Finally, after a long while, Jae stood up.

“Let's go. This is ridiculous. We can't sit here forever,” he said.

I shook my head.

“This isn't safe either,” he insisted.

He stuck his hand out. I took it and hauled my butt off the ground.

Jae took one last look to ascertain that no one was around. Still holding my hand, we ran all the way home, fuelled by the adrenalin, fear and terror coursing through our bodies.

When we finally reached our home, it was dark. Our bags of food were gone. Goodness knows where they were. We must have dropped them while we were running. Jae looked at me nervously as the kids circled us.

“What happened to the both of you?” Shulin demanded anxiously.

“What's wrong?”

“Are you okay?”

“Where's the food?”

Everyone was jostling around us, hurling questions, fear and anxiety written all over their faces.

“We are not okay. We saw some adults. They were gross looking… very gruesome. And… and we saw them eat their own friend! ” I blurted out shakily.

“He was still alive!” Jae added.

The kids recoiled in disbelief. “What? They were eating each other?”

“Where were they? What did they look like?” Kyl asked, shushing the rest of the kids with an authoritative wave.

I gave him a blank stare. My mind had shut down.

Jae was the one who answered.

“They were over by the main road, you know, near the start of the HDB estate. They looked… they looked… like zombies.”

Someone laughed. I turned my head to glare. It was Dyanne.

“Zombies? Zombies? Like dead people come back to life? Oh please! Have you been watching too many zombie movies? They went out of fashion, oh, like 10 years ago, you know.”

“Yeah! Are you sure?” a frightened kid spoke up. “Maybe you were too far away. Maybe they were eating something else.”

“That's right!” said Dyanne. “There's nothing to worry about.”

A few other kids nodded hopefully.

Jae spoke up again, “Listen, guys. We were near enough to see them clearly. Okay, they may not be zombies, but they definitely don't look human.Something's happened to them, and we need to find out what. We need to find out if they are a danger to us.”

“What do you mean?” Kyl said. “You think they can attack us?”

“Yes, I think so. One of them almost spotted us. I don't know what would have happened if she had found us,” Jae said.

Suddenly, he turned his gaze on me, probably wondering why I was being so quiet. “Umm… are you okay? Oh no, there's blood running down your arm.”

I touched my arm, and sure enough, I felt something hot, wet and sticky. I stared at my left arm. The cut inflicted by Tattoo Guy was still raw and angry-looking.

Suddenly, it all became too much for me. I pushed past the kids, and ran towards the back of the house. In my dazed state, I could hear Jae scrambling after me, and the kids shouting and arguing over what to do about the adult problem.

When Jae caught up with me, he touched my arm gently. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, still traumatised.

Suddenly, he pulled me into a tight hug. I stiffened, not expecting it. Then I relaxed and rested my head on his chest, taking in the warmth of his embrace and the feel of muscle under his shirt. He rubbed my back softly and said, “It'll be fine. Don't cry, okay?”

I nodded, my chest tightening. I fought back my tears.

“I've never seen them like that before. They were never this bad,” Jae told me, somehow managing to run his fingers through my long tangled hair.

I nodded again, still unable to talk, but this time, for a different reason. I was acutely aware of his hand around my back and his breath on the back of my neck. I didn't want to ruin the moment.

Jae stroked my hair until I relaxed completely. Slowly, I pulled myself away and smiled at him awkwardly. “I'm okay now, thank you.”