"They're clean," the soldier announced, smilingslyly at the other soldiers.
The man in charge spoke with a plain voice. "Don'tyou know you people are supposed to stay inside?"
"Our building was going to burn downaround us," Rudy started before the man in charge cut him off.
"Looting is a capital offense during martiallaw." He squatted on the ground and picked up Rudy's backpack. He unzippedit and pulled out the plain white boxes that contained his medications. He heldthe offending items up.
"I was going to die," he complained. "Theglass was already broken."
The soldier put the medicine back in the bag, zipped itup, and tossed it at his feet. "Yeah, desperate times and all that. Thefact is, you're lucky we found you. You can relax. We're not going to arrestyou. In fact, you're saved."
They stopped leaning on the wall and turned around tolook at their saviors. "What do you mean?" Chloe asked.
"We're setting up a rescue center. We'll take youthere."
Rudy felt his heart leap in his chest. A rescue center!Some place guarded by soldiers. They were saved. No more running. No morefearing for their lives.
The soldiers surrounded them. The man in charge said,"Let's get them to the trucks," and then they made for the exits.Rudy watched as the soldiers pocketed items from the store, so Rudy did the same,grabbing a bag of chips, some exotic flavor of Cheetos. Amanda grabbed a warmsix-pack of beer off of a shelf, and stuffed it into her backpack. One of thesoldiers looked at her, disapproval in his eyes.
"What? I'm in college," she said, as if that wouldexplain it all.
"Can I get my gun back?" Chloe asked as theyapproached the broken glass that now served as the Walgreen's main entrance.
The man in charge spun around, walking backwards, andsaid, "You won't need it where you're going." As he stepped out intothe sun, ashy brown hands clamped around his throat, and the ghastly face ofone of the dead appeared, snaking a bite out of the man's cheek before anyonecould do anything.
The soldiers were slow to react, their rifle strapscatching on their soldiers, panic in their movements. The man in chargeattempted to push away the creature that bit him, but another appeared, sinkingits teeth into the meat of his arm. He screamed, and gunshots rang out in thehot air of the day. The first creature went down in a heap, and the man incharge pushed the second one to the ground, cursing under his breath. It was alittle girl, her dress covered in blood that had dried brown. She looked up atthe man in charge, and she snarled at him, bits of his flesh caught in herbraces.
The girl rose to her feet, hungry for more. The soldiersdidn't know what to do. They were waiting for a command from the man in charge,but he gave none. He seemed confused, content with looking at the blood thatran down his arm. He dabbed at the bite on his cheek, wincing in pain.
The girl reached her arms out to him, and the man incharge shoved her away, almost without thinking. Chloe was the first to speak,"Shoot it," she said. Rudy looked at the faces of the soldiers aroundhim, young men, not much older than himself. They looked at each other,wondering which one of them was made of tough enough stuff to gun down a littlegirl in the streets of Portland.
"Gimme a gun. I'll do it," Chloe said.
Amazingly enough, one of the soldiers handed his rifle toher. She looked down the sight of the gun, lined up her shot and squeezed thetrigger. She handed the rifle back to the man who had lent it to her.
The soldiers ushered Rudy and the girls to the trucks.Already a crowd had gathered around them. The soldiers dragged the man incharge after them. "You ok?" one of the men asked him.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm alright. Just stings alittle."
They climbed up into the back of the truck, a largetwo-ton beast that guzzled diesel and looked like a mechanical ancestor of thecovered wagons that so many had used to emigrate and make their lives in Oregonover a hundred and fifty years ago.
They sat on the metal benches that lined the sides of thetruck. The man in charge leaned his head back against the tight green tarp ofthe truck. "Send Silva up here," he bellowed. A man with sickly,yellow brown skin stood up and rushed to the man in charge. He began washingand cleaning the wounds, water mixing with blood and falling to the floor ofthe gurgling truck.
"Can I have my gun back now?" Chloe asked.
The man looked at her, smiled, and said once again,"You're not going to need it." Sweat gathered on his brow, and Chloeheard his stomach grumble as they bound his wounds. "Don't worry. You'llbe safe," he said, before coughing weakly. "Hurry, up with thatbandage, Silva. I don't have all day."
Rudy and Amanda watched as the man in charge paled. Theirhands were interlocked. Rudy turned to Amanda and asked, "Can I have oneof those beers?"
Chapter 10: Safe
Katie had driven towards the river and into one of themore industrial parts of town. She saw few people. If they were there, theywere hiding. The only signs of life she had seen had been other cars passing onside roads, there for an instant and then gone. Large warehouses, someseemingly as old as the city itself, rose into the sky, most of them thirty orforty feet high. The views were terrible, but due to the lack of housing in thearea, she could almost forget that they were in the middle of a potential apocalypseevent. Her Dodge Durango purred along while the voice on the radio droned on.
A shelter, she thought. Would it be enough tokeep them out? Would it be safe enough? She thought of the
