The weather was a nice mild October weather, in the mid-fifties, perfect weather for a bit of exercise. The sky was cloudy but not dark, although it gave the wind a bit of a bigger chill. Most of the autumn leaves had fallen, but the field was wide open. The only places that had the brown and yellow leaves were the edges where the trees bordered the field. At the four far corners, a baseball field stood, untouched by anyone in the past few months. The baseball season here ended during the last days of men’s softball season in August. Fitting, that the softball games would close out the baseball fields for the year.
Soccer nets were placed at either end of the field, six nets in total, three soccer fields for rec soccer. Each had the white posts with orange netting. I had thought more than once to go out there and cut a few of the nets down. They could make for good defensive tools.
“I’ll do three laps at least, or until I get tired enough to stop,” Chelsea said. Before I could acknowledge her words, she was off. She ran faster than I expected, with each lap around the field being nearly a quarter of a mile, she was at the next baseball field before I knew it, touching home plate as she went.
I had brought my trusty baseball bat, the heavy wrench, and a large kitchen knife to fight with. The wrench would give me a bit of better strength in my chest and shoulders, which I figured would work nicely with the bat as well. The kitchen knife was a different story. I would have it with me because I wanted to learn of the penetrating power it had on the contaminated, and if it could be an effective killing tool. I was sure that the bat and wrench would crack open a skull fairly easily, the latter being better for such a task, but I had no idea if a simple kitchen knife was up to the task.
Since we were in a field of grass and dirty sand, I came equipped in baseball cleats. I figured that I might have to move with a bit more speed if I was to try the kitchen knife, and they gave me better traction over many different types of terrain. The baseball cleats might just be what stood between my life and death.
I started stretching my leg muscles. I had hamstring issues in my past playing backyard football with my friends, as embarrassing as that sounds. If a contaminated were to attack, I decided that having a pulled hammy would not give me the best possible fighting advantage, and I wanted to avoid that at all costs. I continued upwards on my body, a bit backwards, but who was going to tell me off? Spending the most time on legs, I eventually got to my upper body, back, shoulders, and everything else that needed a good stretching.
Once fully content with my stretching, I gave the field a long look, interested in the surroundings that I knew so well. Chelsea was already passed the third baseball field and on her way to my position. The rest looked quiet, almost somber, as if the field was depressed. The grass was easily overwhelmed by the weeds scattered throughout the field, and the leaves from the trees covered most else. The baseball fields had always been kept in poor condition, cleaned by the town once each year and raked only when they so desperately needed it. The sand was darker than normal baseball sand with weeds and strange looking growths sticking out at random.
I began to do small sprints from home base to first and back again. Once back I would stop momentarily to rest and gain my breath. This was for two reasons. 1) I was super out of shape. The last exercise that I had was running from the deli to my house which is only a block, and that was already a few days back. 2) If a contaminated was to show up, I would be useless if out of breath. If I was out of breath and could barely swing a bat, that would put Chelsea’s life at risk, something that she just conquered.
I got two sprints in before Chelsea made her first round past home plate, “Looking good!” I said as she passed, and she was. Upon closer inspection, I saw that she was clad in a light grey sweatshirt and those trademark gym shorts that girls wear, you know the ones that are so tight on their butt that it’s essentially a different shade of skin. Love those things.
She laughed at my words as she ran by, a light pant in her breathing. She would be sore tomorrow…from the running! (pervert). Fortunately, we had a decent supply of pain medication since my mother started getting head splitting migraines. She used to just be making dinner in the kitchen when suddenly she would shout out for her meds. Dinner was not so good those nights.
I was surprised that no contaminated had wandered onto our exercise area yet. Chelsea was practically a walking target, or a running one, or a jogging one. I glanced over the field once more before starting up a sprint. This time I decided not to stop after I made it back to home, but go a second round to first and back to home.
My feet kicked up the sand with powerful strikes from my legs, the spikes in my shoes eight indentations into the ground. Each step seemed powerful in the cleats, my footing more sure than on any other platform. I could cut from side to side without fear of sliding while going
