Read Online Sometimes We Ran (Book 2): Community by Stephen Drivick - Free Book Online Page A

“Hey Jenny. How did it go?” he said in a cheery voice.
    “Badly, Ben. We lost Mitch.”
    The one she called Ben looked at the ground. “Damn. Lost a good man.” He stepped back and waved us inside.
    “Yeah, we did. Hope it was worth it.” She glanced back at us. “I’m going to take these two over to quarantine.”
    Quarantine? We were going into another locked room. I felt Claire’s little hand take mine and squeeze. Hopefully, this time we could at least be together.
    We drove down a short road, passing small attached townhouses with slightly overgrown lawns and bushes. Even though it was early morning, a few people were out and about doing some chores. Some carried tools and supplies. Others walked in groups with rifles. Maybe they were hunting.
    We came to a roundabout, surrounded by a few larger buildings. There were also a few open green spaces that were just starting to look a little overgrown. Even more people were milling around. Everyone looked like they had a job to do. It looked like a nice place.
    It would be nice if they didn’t try to kill us.
    The female driver brought the van to a brake-screeching halt in front of the largest building on the roundabout. She and her male passenger exited and walked around to the sliding door. It opened to reveal two rifles pointing at us. “Out,” said the tall redhead.
    Claire and I quietly exited the van, and stood on the sidewalk. A small crowd began to gather to watch.
    “Let’s go. This way.”
    “Are you guys going to explain what’s going on?” Claire said defiantly. The redhead called Jenny turned around and glared at her. She towered over the smaller Claire.
    “No.” With that, she got Claire by the collar and pulled her away from the van.
    Claire started to protest. “Hey, you red-headed bitch! Get your hands off me!”
    Jenny got a weird look in her eye, then backhanded Claire across the face. The force of the blow knocked her to the ground. Jenny went in for another strike.
    Rifle or no rifle, that was enough. I stepped between Jenny’s striking hand and Claire and said, “You’re not going to hit her again.”
    Jenny gave me the evil eye. “Is that so?” She let her rifle hang and drew a large revolver from a holster on her hip. She jammed it into my face. My hand went instinctively to my handgun, but I never got to draw it. The male from the van, called Ryan, and two others aimed rifles at my head. They had me outgunned. I put my hands up as another resident took my gun. These people meant business.
    “That’s better,” Jenny said. “Now let’s go.”
    I helped Claire off the ground, and we started to walk toward a shed near a swimming pool. Jenny kept her gun trained on us as someone else unlocked the shed and opened the doors. Jenny waved us inside with the gun.
    My eyes slowly adjusted to the low light in the shed. It looked to have been at one time a storage area for lawn equipment and other gardening tools. Jenny led us over to three enclosures on the back wall of the shed that looked like cubes of chain-link, resembling dog pens.
    Jenny opened the gate on the middle one and waved us inside. “Get in.”
    Claire and I stepped into the cage. There was no furniture, no bed, no lockers. Just some old wood and a few dirty blankets. We were going to sleep on the hard concrete floor. After we stepped inside, Jenny slammed the gate and padlocked it closed.
    A slight smirk crossed her face. “You two have a good evening.” Jenny and her cohorts turned around, and left us in our chain-link prison. Someone slammed the shed door when they left. At least they left the lights on.
    “Well, screw you, too!” Claire yelled to our captors. Her voice echoed in the expanse of the shed. “Now what do we do, Tiger?” She rubbed her face where Jenny had slugged her.
    I took off my backpack, cleared a spot on the floor, and sat down. I leaned against the wall and said, “I guess we wait.”

Chapter 8
Cannon Fields
    We were locked in our