Darren just looked at me. There wasn’t a look of disbelief on his face, no anger for me yelling at him, but something else that I quickly picked up on.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“What?” He tried to play stupid with me.
“That look on your face that abruptly appeared when I mentioned what happened to me and about those assholes at the school.”
He looked to see the undead closing the gap between us. “We might want to get out of here before they get any closer,” he suggested.
“No. We aren’t going anywhere until you answer my question,” I said with an efficient dominance. “And seeing how you have no window to stop them from getting you, I’d suggest you start talking, as you’re quickly running out of time.”
He could see them passing the half-way point and looked at me. Anger no longer stared back at me, it was replaced with that all too familiar look of fear. I’d known it well and had even experienced more than I would like to admit, so all he was doing was limiting the amount of time he had left. My window was still intact and I was armed, so my chances were far greater than his.
“Let’s go,” he said sharper this time.
“They’re almost here,” I reminded him.
Darren bolted from the pickup and ran toward the cruisers. The undead shuffled into his way and he drew the .9mm to shoot them to find it was empty. He threw the empty weapon at them, knocking only one of them backwards, cut to the right and ran around the rest.
“Where are you going?” I shouted. He didn’t look back or even respond. He just kept running until he reached the closest cruiser, got in and started it. I brought the short rifle up and put all of the undead down, and then fired a few silenced rounds into the hood of the cruiser he was in.
He threw me a glare as if I had murdered his family and gotten away with it. I began to see the larger picture slowly forming before my eyes and watched as he backed up, sped forward and rammed the other cruiser far enough out of his way that he could get past. I put a few more rounds into the tires on the left, which would slow him. I received another glare from him, although this time it was like I was looking into the past and I recognized his eyes. There was something rather familiar about those eyes that made my blood boil.
I gave chase in my pickup.
We both hurried down the street, my pickup was much faster than his shot up cruiser with two flat tires, yet I let him stay ahead of me and didn’t try to ram him, run him off the road or even try to pass. I wanted him to lead me back to the truth. If he wasn’t man enough to give it to me, then I’d force him to take me to it.
“You’re not getting away, kid. Not today,” I said aloud and closed the gap between our bumpers. I could see him glare at me in the side mirror and the rearview mirror every now and again, to which I would simply smile or wave to let him know there was no escaping me. Eventually he’d make a mistake and I might have to run him off the road, that is, if I felt he was trying to lead me off into nowhere. Although I would have no idea if he were doing that, so I’d have to rely upon my intuition. From there I’d get him to talk, as I had learned ways to make people talk or face agonizing pain, curtesy off the Young Woman.
He turned right at the next street and I was directly behind him. I flipped the bright lights on hopping to make his run even more harrowing. He had to know that he couldn’t get away from me and that I was toying with him, and if he wasn’t aware of such things, then I’d enlighten him and have a ball in the process.
We topped a slight incline and the thoughts I’d had earlier – mainly just a hunch – suddenly were all too real and I had a feeling that he was heading to the school complex. I wasn’t positive why he would want to go there, unless in some twisted way, he too was part of the vile group within. It did explain a lot, as well as answered some lingering questions I had formed no more than five minutes prior. It pissed me off to the point I wanted to kill him, especially having put my life on the line to save his. “I swear as God is my witness, kid. If you have anything to do with these people, the same ones that took my son…” I let my voice die away. There was no need in pretending not to know the truth any more than shouting idle threats only I could hear.
He and that Woman had been in it together and were somehow connected to the Guards at the school, probably coming across as helpless victims in order to lure or abduct unsuspecting survivors back to Professor Smith. I knew better than to go back for him, yet I did it anyway. That was dumb on my part and it would not happen again.
I’d listen to my gut from her on out.
The .9mm was still on the pavement far behind me, so all I had was the pickup and the SBR, either of which would get the job done without any problems. This little prick needed to die and I would be the one to gladly fulfill this new need. I gunned the accelerator and the pickup lunged forward and quickly slammed into the rear bumper of the cruiser. With two flat tires, he was not going to get away from me like he normally would have been able too. This time things were in my favor.
I saw him look at me through the side mirror and motion for me to back off. I replied by slamming into him once again with a smile cresting my face. The short rifle was only usable if I could get alongside or in front of him, which in the cruisers current state shouldn’t be hard. I swerved to pass him and he cut me off. Our bumpers met once more and the rear of the cruiser was pushed to the right. He fought with both hands to keep the vehicle on the road while I fought to put him into a ditch or a tree, whichever was fine with me. We weren’t going fast enough to kill him if either of those objects just happened to stop the cruiser. But I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t feel all that great at the same time.
“How does it feel you little, prick?” I shouted to him. “Sucks when the shoes on the other foot, huh?”
He wasn’t going to get away this time.
I could see the faint lights of the school complex filtering through the growing mist and I tried again to get around him by pushing harder on the gas pedal. The pickup ground up alongside of the cruiser and I readied the rifle with my right hand. All I needed was a split second of clear sights on him and it would all be over with.
“Leave me alone!” I could hear him scream to me.
I pressed the pickup harder, no longer worried about causing any major damage that would put me back on foot. I didn’t care about that anymore, as I knew there would be a plethora of other vehicles to choose from in this town.
The first two rounds missed and hit the windshield. If he hadn’t noticed already, he was certain now that I was trying to kill him. Correction, I was going to kill him.
“I didn’t do anything to you!” He shouted.
“Pull over or I swear I’ll shoot you in the head!” I shouted, amazing myself that I was willing to listen to what he had to lie about instead of killing him as I had originally planned.
“NO!” He shouted and stomped on the gas. The cruiser sped up and I quickly matched his speed and fired two more rounds, one of which struck him near the left side of his hair line. He jerked toward the passenger seat and covered his face with one of his hands, but kept going. It was a graze shot, nothing he would die over, and at best would leave a scare. I guess I’d have to make it a better shot the third time around?
The cruiser suddenly braked, pushed hard against the passing pickup, forcing the front to spin to the right and down into a deep ditch he went. I locked up the truck brakes and slid sideways with the passenger door facing the front of the wrecked cruiser. I brought the rifle up and waited for him to try and run for it. A single round to the back of his leg would put him on the ground, as I was in no mood to be running around chasing some snot nosed little prick and certainly not in such proximity to the school.
He sat there looking at me and threw up both hands. From what he had watched me do so far, he should know that I had the ability to put my morals easily in check and I’d shoot him whether he tried to run or not, although him running was what I preferred.
“You better start talking, kid! You’re running out of time… quickly!” I shouted to him.
“I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t shoot me again!” He replied. A thin line of blood moved down his forehead, crossed the bridge of his nose, and dropped to his lap.
What the hell was I doing? This little prick could say nothing that would change my mind, so really there was no need to even say a word to him. I’d be justified in shooting him right now and getting it over with, because the longer I gave him to try and talk his way out of things, the better his chances were.
I could feel my finger taking up the slack in the trigger and any second now the rifle would go off and startle me, yet there was a small part, and when I mean a small part of me, I mean a very small, minute part, that wanted to hear him say what I had been thinking for several minutes now.
“Are you with those Guards in the school complex?” I asked him and didn’t give him time to respond. “And I swear as I am sitting here, that if you even think of lying to me I’ll make you die slowly… and very painfully! Just like those poor people that you and that bitch lead here!”
He nodded his head, which confused me as I wasn’t sure if he was making the movement to my question or to my threat.
“The guy you called, Smith… Professor Smith. He was the science teacher at my school and also my dad,” Darren responded.
I felt very much like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole; only the sides of the bottomless pit were not made of earth and tree roots, but broken glass and jagged rocks. I could feel each pierce of my skin, feel the blood flow freely, yet could do nothing to stop myself from falling. What I had thought was coming quickly took another route. I was stunned. If ever there had been a single moment during this whole ordeal that caught me so far off guard that I was left hanging, dangling from a thin string over the mighty abyss of total confusion, this was it.
I loosened my finger from the trigger and leaned back in my seat. What good would it do to kill him now? Where would the resolve be? He’d already lost his dad, so I’m pretty sure mom and any siblings had been killed as well. This kid had suffered more than anyone I had met thus far and here I was playing God and deciding who lived and who didn’t. I felt sick to my stomach; although there still remained his actions to which he might be responsible, not directly of course, but indirectly for a lot of innocent people’s lives. I don’t care how much he has suffered or what was taken from him. None of that gave him the right to take other people’s lives on some bullshit excuse of coming up with a cure. Smith was a science teacher, not a NASA scientist, yet even then I still would not have agreed with any of his actions.
I backed the pickup next to the wrecked cruiser. “You knew what he was doing to them, don’t try and tell me you didn’t,” I told him, trying my best to control my temper and voice. “You sent them into that place where they would never leave and now you sit there begging me not to kill you, like you were better than they were. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.”
He looked at me through fearful eyes, unable to answer the question and shrugged his shoulders, which infuriated me further.
“You’re not even going to try and answer the question?” I asked him, wondering about his motive of silence. “I can kill you right now, and with all that you’ve been a part of, I should!”
There still came no reason why I should not kill him, although his demeanor did change as he continued to look at me and down the barrel of my short rifle.
“You do what you think is necessary,” he said. “I’ve lost everything I ever knew in this life that meant something to me… and maybe that’s why I did the things I did. Maybe I actually thought my dad could cure this and withy the death of a few, the world could be saved – millions could be saved.”
Nine days had passed since my life had been turned upside down, since everyone’s life had been turned upside down. I had that moment to reflect all the things I had seen, witnessed, and been a part of myself. I had done things to survive that normal people in a normal world would never have done, yet I sat here judging another. Unless we learn from our past, we are destined to repeat it, over and over again. He was no different than I. I was no different than he.
He was a product of circumstance and killing him would neither change nor bring about any major event. He’d simply be another body in the street; another person I had killed in my ever growing search for something I knew was a lost cause. Like him, I was running out of things to care for and when that happened I might find myself at the end of someone else’s weapon showing the exact lack of remorse he was.
I dropped the short rifle in the seat to his surprise and offered him a swift suggestion. “Get out of here!” I told him.
“What?” He asked in a confused tone.
“Leave!” I said. “Get out of my sight and stay that way!”
He fumbled with the door until he got it open, crawled out and seemed to think about his words a moment before speaking, “Why are you doing this, just letting me leave and not killing me?”
“I’m letting you leave because you’ve been through more than enough already. But don’t ever let me run across you again!” I issued my threat. “You grab a vehicle and hit the interstate, because if I ever see you again, you won’t be lucky twice, I guarantee you.”
I backed the truck up and turned around. He watched me from the middle of the road as I drove away, glancing over his shoulder at the school complex.