Free When They Come by Jason Sanchez Page A

yet?
     
    Margie, Paulie, and Kara were tired. They had spent the last few hours both running and walking and hiding. Some cars were driving off road, shooting at anything that moved. Any distant outline of a human went down whenever the trucks went by.
     
    “What the hell are those things?”, Kara said.
     
    Paulie looked at the navy blue truck going by.
     
    Margie cringed when she heard the people inside screaming victoriously and making cowboy noises.
     
    “They look like vigilante squads. They kill anything that moves since they probably think it’s a zombie”, Paulie worriedly said.
     
    Margie sensed the worry in his voice and clutched her gun tight.
     
    “So, that’s good right. They kill those fuckers and step by step the world goes back to normal. It works”, Kara replied back quickly.
     
    “Normally, that’d be fine, but did you see that last one? I don’t think one of those dead things would wave it’s arms like that and then cover it’s face when it sees a gun”, Paulie said back, now his eyes wide open, keeping a look out for that truck.
     
    “We need to get to that mall, and fast. That truck might circle back and we could be next”, Margie said. She began to walk faster towards the mall now. It wasn’t too far anymore.
     
    “What do you guys think happened to Tommy?”, Kara said sadly.
     
    “Why should you care? You wanted Margie here to kill him!”, Paulie yelled back.
     
    “It was for his own good! He was gonna die anyway! It doesn’t matter!”, Kara defended herself.
     
    “But, still, it’s not right. He could have had a chance. You don’t know with these things!”, Paulie said back with tears in his eyes.
     
    “I should have killed him”, Margie quietly said.
     
    “I should have shot him right in the head”, Margie said louder
     
    Paulie and Kara got quiet. They were both stunned.
     
    “I could have put him out of his suffering and been done with it. God would have forgiven me. I was showing mercy to him! He had lost his father and I could have made it so that he joined him sooner, but now he’s probably just like one of those things! He’s doomed to walk the earth for…”, Margie began to rant, Kara cut her off.
     
    “Y-You did the right thing. If it wasn’t for that distraction, we would all have a bunch of those things on our tails right now. We would not have been able to get this far”, Kara said back with sympathy in her voice.
     
    “Tommy, Tommy was nuts already. He probably wouldn’t have done much good. Maybe even done more harm than anything else if we left him. I think Kara’s right. You did the right thing, Margie”, Paulie said back without any anger in his voice.
     
    Margie nodded. “Then how come it doesn’t feel right?”, she whispered to herself.
     
    “YIP YIP YIP YIIIIP”, echoed through the group. They all became paralyzed with fear.
     
    “I GOT SOME MORE HERE, JEB!”, a deep southern accent yelled.
     
    The blue truck sped towards the group quickly, kicking up dust behind it. The group ran as fast as they could towards the mall. It wasn’t too far now.
     
    “Th-The noise. Won’t it attract those things?”, Kara forced out.
     
    “Yeah, it will, we need to get to the mall, and fast!”, Tommy yelled.
     
    Crack
     
    Crack
     
    “YIIIIP YIP YIP! YOU BETTER RUN, YOU SUM BITCHES!” Those words echoed as hard as the gunshots to the group.
     
    One whizzed by Kara’s head as she dropped to the ground.
     
    “KARA!”, Margie yelled. She stopped to pick her up.
     
    “Come on! HURRY!”, Paulie yelled. He slowed his run to a jog so the girls could catch up to him.
     
    Kara grabbed his hand. The crack of the gunshots rang through their minds and seemed to echo for an eternity.
     
    Margie ran past Paulie and Kara and hid part of her body behind a tree.
     
    “Margie, what are you doing? We need to get to that mall right now, it’s our only chance!”, Paulie yelled.
     
    Margie ignored him and uttered a short