bottoms of his jeans. He removes his outer shirt and checks himself to locate the reason for all of the blood but finds himself whole. Well, except for his feet. He presses the remains of his shirt against his feet to stop the blood flow and then wraps pieces of it around them.
He walks gingerly across the lot, keeping an eye on the building he just left, and picks a random direction. The sun is coming over the horizon and a chill fills the air as he limps along a street. In the distance, he sees a wall and heads warily in that direction. A short time later he sees a large metal gate and sits down on the pavement outside. His feet ache and he removes the strips of cloth he put around them. He isn’t comfortable just banging on the gate or shouting given his very recent experience but he just can’t walk any further.
He hears a screech of metal on the other side and the gate partially opens. Two soldiers step outside aiming weapons at him. He is too tired, sore, and scared to do anything other than continue sitting. They help him inside. They ask him about the blood on his clothes to which he has no answer. From behind, he hears, “Hands on your head and on your knees.”
“We found this guy at the front gate but something doesn’t seem right, First Sergeant. We have him under guard,” the guard replies.
“What’s not right?” Lynn asks.
“It’s hard to explain, First Sergeant. Perhaps you should just see for yourself,” the guard says.
“Okay, we’re on our way,” Lynn responds.
“What the fuck is that all about?” I ask Lynn furrowing my brows.
“I haven’t the faintest clue,” she answers.
There is a cacophony of noise in the parking lot as trucks are warmed up, gear stored in Humvees, doors slammed, and the general murmur of conversations with the occasional bark of laughter or raised voice. The teams heading north gather in several vehicles and head towards the gate with a flurry of revving engines. Approaching the gate, I see a man kneeling on the ground with his hands cupped behind his head. Two guards stand behind covering him with their M-4’s. We pull up in front and stop. Exiting, I walk over with Lynn to the man and two guards.
“What’s up?” Lynn asks one of the guards with the guy on the ground looking back.
“We found this guy outside of the gate when we arrived this morning, First Sergeant. He claims he can’t remember anything except going to sleep on a couch, waking up in a dark building the next, and being chased. He said he saw the walls and made his way to the gate after escaping. We just thought it was odd especially with him being in bare feet and his clothes covered in blood,” the guard answers.
Lynn and I turn to get a better look at the man. His dark hair, hanging to the bottom of his ear, is matted. He is indeed not wearing any shoes. His feet are dirty and covered in grime. Cuts with fresh blood can be seen on his soles. The tattered jeans and what perhaps used to be a white or yellow T-shirt are smeared in rust-colored stains. It looks like he ran through a hose spraying blood; some obviously old stains and others looking relatively fresh. The thighs of his pants are caked and to the point of being solid rather than pliable cotton.
“Escaping from what?” Lynn asks.
“He said he’s not sure who they were,” the guard answers.
“Did you search him?” Lynn asks.
“We did, First Sergeant, and didn’t find anything,” the guard replies.
“Okay, good job,” Lynn says and turns to the man. “What’s your story?”
The man gives us his story but says he can’t remember anything prior to lying down on his couch. He feels that some time has passed between then and now but can’t remember a thing. He mentions he has vague dream- like recollections of running at night and other horrible things but those are just patches of images with no association.
“Call Drescoll and have a team come up to pick him up. Clean him up but keep him under guard,” I tell one of the guards from Green Team.
“Will do, sir,” he replies.
“We’ll help you but understand we have to take precautions,” I tell the man.
“Against what?” He asks confused.
“Have Drescoll brief him as well and find out exactly what he remembers,” I add to the guard.
“If you truly don’t remember and it’s not just a knock to the head, you’ll be filled in. Just wait here and you’ll be fine shortly. Sorry but that’s the best I can do right now but prepare yourself for a pretty shocking story,” I say. The man just nods.
Lynn and I climb back into the idling Humvee. Driving past the man and guards, we exit the gate with the rest of the vehicles following.
“What do you think that was all about? Do you think he could possibly have been a night runner?” Lynn asks.
“I really don’t know but looking at the state of his clothes and lack of memory, I suppose it’s possible. We’ll have to talk to him when we get back and see if he can remember anything. If he can, that will give us an insight into the night runners,” I answer.
“You know that means you could have been right about Julie. She could have been one as well like Drescoll mentioned,” Lynn says.
“Yeah, I know. You get to ask her about it though,” I say.
“Fucking no way!” She retorts.
“Okay, well perhaps Drescoll can again but he’s already done that and came up with nothing,” I say chuckling.
We continue our drive north talking about the ramifications. Following the map, our little convoy makes several turns and we pull into a huge expanse of warehouse buildings. I stop just inside the open gate awed by the size. One extremely large warehouse sits across an equally sized paved lot. Tractor trailers line a humongous loading dock in front of rolling warehouse doors which are all closed. Many other semis are parked in the lot. The immensity of the one building is almost overwhelming. I just hope it’s not full of night runners and we don’t have to clear it.
We drive forward and pull to a stop near one end of the loading dock. A steel security door is set into the wall near the first bay. Setting up a perimeter with the teams, Lynn, Bannerman, and I walk to the door with Red Team. There is a coded security panel next to it but pulling on it, it swings open. With no power, the magnetic locks must have disengaged. Red Team enters at the ready but it is for naught as nothing greets us but mountains of pallets stacked ceiling high. The area in front of the sliding loading dock doors is clear with several fork lifts parked randomly. The inside is almost as light as the outside as the roof, almost four stories high, and is filled with skylights.
“Holy shit,” Robert says softly at my side.
It doesn’t appear anyone has touched this place since everything went down. The immensity of goods and supplies stocked within cannot be adequately described. There are mountains of items stretching far into the distance. Bannerman begins heading toward the stacks. I reach out to grab his arm.
“Wait. We still need to clear this place as I’m sure there are dark corners somewhere. There may not be night runners in here but we have to make sure we are alone before we start looking around,” I say. He nods stepping back.
“While we clear it out, think of a way to keep the doors secure when we leave,” I add. “Lynn, bring Black and Blue Teams in to clear the area. Red Team will keep an eye outside and be a response team if needed.”
“You got it,” Lynn says and calls outside to bring in the teams and organize the search.
It takes a couple of hours searching the entirety of the building, having to look between each and every stack, but we find it empty. Bannerman, along with Blue Team, begins inventorying the stacks. He even comes across a stack of blueberry flavored mini-wheats much to my delight. It takes a large part of the day and we still don’t cover the entire building. We check out the other buildings and find a tremendous amount of supplies. One building is entirely devoted to medical supplies, both over the counter and prescription medications. Another is a refrigerated warehouse that can no longer use the definition of being refrigerated. It emits an odor that reminds me of the slaughter yard down south. We close the door immediately knowing there is nothing inside that will do us any good.
“I think this will do us nicely,” Bannerman says as we prepare to depart. “I’ll have some of the drivers head
