Runner Five
At night she can hear the zombs moaning outside Abel's gate. The little township feels smaller than ever, then, runner Five thinks, when you hear them clawing and scratching on the walls, shuffling past each other. The walls never feel so thin as when you can hear the zombs on the other side, just a few feet away, separated only by stone that's never seemed this fragile.
Sometimes she's tried to drown them out with the noise from the radio, but even when Eugene's and Jack's voices are the only thing she can hear, she still knows that the zombs are out there. They are always out there at night. And every time she during the day heads out beyond the gates she knows that when night falls, there will be more of them. Their number never seems to decrease. And she knows that when night falls she might even be one of them herself.
She's not even Sam's second runner Five, she knows, she's his fourth. And when she's sitting there, listening to the moans she can't help but wonder if there will be a fifth. Maybe even a sixth. She used to have a name, but it doesn't really matter anymore. Here, she is a runner. She is a number, as replaceable as all the other numbers, as all the other runners. She goes missing in action and somebody else takes her place. She turns, and the people of Abel will watch as they take her out with a bullet, maybe when she's standing there with the rest of those who've turned, scratching her fingers bloody at the gates. And she'll be like Alice; another zomb, another pair of dead eyes, seeing everything but seeing nothing, another body that should be laid to rest in the ground but is still moving. Shuffling, sprinting, falling apart but still moving, driven only by the urge to feed.
And like Sam said on the radio, who will remember her, then? Will Maxine? Janine? Will Sam remember her, or will she just be another number to him? Will he let out a weary sigh when he tells his next runner they're not even his second runner Five- they're his fifth? Will he tell them how they had to pull the trigger on both Alice and her? Or will she be the one who tears this township down? Will she find herself after a mission wounded, bitten, but unable to do what's required of her? Will she return to Abel to turn, taking the entire township down from within? If she finds herself with that scratch that will turn her grey, then what- what will she do then? She knows that this night it was too close- the mission went wrong, she shouldn't have been out there, it had just been a matter of minutes, she had barely believed that she'd make it herself. In her mind she is still running, she is still out there even though she's safe in Abel- it was too close.
That's what's going through Runner Five's mind there, in the middle of the night when she's lying in bed, when the zombs are clawing their way through the walls in the lights underneath the klaxons and under the constant surveillance of the security cameras.
And she remembers everything Sam told her about engineering class, about his family, about not being able to make his parents proud, about rebuilding a future, a civilization, about those who have turned being the lucky ones. And she wishes she could make him see just how important he is to the runners, to Abel, to the effort to rebuild. To her, most of all to her. But she knows that if she tells him, he'll only play it off as a joke, and never fully take in what she's saying.
And she thinks back to the house where she was raised, to her parents who loved her, who brought her up, to the first pair of running shoes she bought, to her high school friends. To when she was training, years back, and running all alone on a forest trail, the moon and the stars shining down on her, lighting up the narrow forest trail, her breath and the sound of her feet hitting the ground the only noises that could be heard. Running just for the pleasure of running, never knowing that her life one day would depend on it. And she'll know that there are still things that can be salvaged, and missions to run, and that all she can do is to try to make it through.
But she also knows that it is possible that she will not.
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Sam
At night the comm center goes quiet, but sometimes he remains there even if they have no runners out.
He knows for certain that he never wants to have another runner out during the night again. And he knows he's lucky that Five came back- he wasn't expecting her to. He'd known that she was dead. When he'd been talking to her, he'd been talking to himself. And he'd known for certain that he had lost her.
He doesn't know her that well, really. And that's what he reminds himself of as he sits there in the dark, trying to get his thoughts straight.
He should know better after Alice. He should know better than to let himself get carried away with these people who every day pass the gates of Abel, because even though they come back safe and sound most of the time- there always comes a day when they do not.
He knows that he does not want to bring in another runner Five. He knows that for certain. There isn't even a name on the list to cross- one runner five is replaced by another, just like that, and the only thing that changes on the list is the description of the runner's skills. He should always remember the runners only as numbers. He's even been told that by Janine. That is how they should stay. Alice should have remained runner Five. And this runner Five…He doesn't even want the name of this one. Because he already knows too much.
They are sent out from Abel and he talks to them and he guides them, it's his job to get them safely away from the hordes and safely back home again. And the more he talks to them- the more he guides them- the more he gets to know them. And the more he gets to know them, the harder it is when they turn. The harder it is to close the gates behind them, only to notice them bleeding from a long scratch or an open wound on the arm or the leg, and realize what must be done.
Or even worse- to have to close the gates before them.
This night he stays up, by the comm controls, and he knows that it was too close a call. He can hear the zombs trying to claw their way through the walls, and he knows that she could have been out there with them still, one of them. As he buries his head in his hands he knows it's not going to get any easier. Because she'll go out there again. One mission, and then another. Something to fix, somebody to rescue, another supply run. And he'll be there with her, up until her final run, up until her final moment, close enough to hear her, but too far away to be of any help.
He knows she's in the housing right now, he knows that she can hear the sounds just as well as he can, and he wonders what she's thinking. He wonders what she'd think if he walked right in there, sat down next to her, told her.. If he told her she could not go for any more runs, because he did not want her out there. If he told her he would do everything he could to keep her safe, he'd lead her as far away from any horde as he could, but that it might not be enough. If he told her the next time they had to pull the trigger it might her the gun was aimed at and he didn't want to see that, didn't want to see that happening for anything. If he told her that if it was up to him, he'd send all his runners out, every last one, if it only ensured she would return safely.
And as he sits there, in the comm shed with the dark township outside the window, he knows that in this apocalypse, there are no guarantees, and no room for what he wants. He knows that Abel is bigger and more important than any one person. He knows that the day she doesn't return will be just another day, just another runner lost, just another number. And even though he'll remember her face, her voice, her smile, her smell, she'll disappear along with the rest of them, with everybody else he's ever known, everybody else he's ever met. Her face will blend with the other's until he no longer remembers it, and the only way he'll be able to recall her is as he sees her when the grey has taken her. He knows it because that's how it's been with everybody else he's seen turned.
And he knows that she'll never know just how much hope he had lost. She'll never know that right now, she is his one reason for remembering that they are trying to rebuild, not merely survive. He knows she'll never realize that when she ran past those gates tonight, he would have kissed her if he'd only dared. That he'd wanted to kiss her. That he'd wanted to hold her as tight as he could and never let go.
And she'll never know that he, Sam Yao, failed engineer student and communications operator, who'd lost three runner Fives before her and believed he'd lost her too, has never seen anyone more beautiful than she was when she passed those gates tonight, cold, sweaty, dirty, flushed and out of breath, and alive in a world where everything else was dead.