Runaway

Chapter 3

© Sweetslover8 2013. It is illegal to copy and/or steal.

~Uploaded September 6th, 2013

Girl's POV:

"So what?

I'm still a rockstar,

I got my rock moves,

And I don't need you!"

My feet pounded on the pavement to the beat of P!nk. It was my last jog in this town, ever, and I decided to make the best of it. I had extended my jog by another 10 minutes, taking a street I didn't really use. I checked my watch and picked up the pace. The girls were going to be at my house at 10 this morning, about an hour from now, to help me pack. Although there wasn't much to pack in the first place.

I turned right onto Pinewood Street and furrowed my brow. Something was off. I paused the music and stuffed the earphones into my hoodie pocket. To the naked eye, everything seemed normal. There were the usual amount of people walking on the sidewalks, with the occasional jaywalker crossing. People walked about, minding their own business and hurrying off to work. Young couples walked hand in hand, making the most of the fading summer heat. Young children ran around, chasing each other down the street. But none of this fooled me. I knew something was wrong.

I walked to the market, where Mr. Gardner was arranging a new shipment of fresh watermelons. They had the best watermelons ever. I walked over casually and said, "Good morning, Mr. Gardner. How are you this morning?"

The elderly man turned quickly. An flash of surprise and nervousness crossed his face before he replaced it with a broad grin.

"Why good morning, Corey! I am fine, thank you. And yourself?" He seemed like his usual, happy-go-lucky self, except that I had seen his quick change of expression.

"I'm fine. Just came to get a few things for the road", I said while moving to enter the store.

"Actually", he said while stepping in front of me with a seemingly forced grin. "Daisy and I packed you a small bag for the road." As if on a very creepy cue, Daisy, Mr. Gardner's wife, stepped out holding one of those reusable bags.

"It's got a few canned goods, some fresh apples, a melon because we know you love those, and a bunch of other things you might need", Daisy piped in. Every alarm in my body was screaming that something was wrong, but what was I supposed to do? Attack an elderly couple? I forced a smile onto my face and accepted the bag graciously.

"Have a safe trip, dear!", I heard Daisy call to me as I walked away. That was weird; as much as she liked me, she had never called me dear before. I walked down the street towards home.

I saw Zach on the way. He was an elderly man that always sat on the sidewalk between the café and the soup kitchen. He was really kind as far as I could tell. I had tried talking to him a few months ago when I arrived here, only to find out that he couldn't answer me. He was a mute. But that didn't stop him from communicating. He wrote words with a small piece of chalk a child had left lying around. His writing wasn't terrible but I still had to squint my eyes to read it properly.

He was sitting against the brick wall, holding his hat out for any spare change. I saw a couple of toonies in his battered Yankees cap. I dug around my bag and threw in about five dollars of change in there. Zach looked up, surprised. When he saw it was me, he smiled his straight teeth and nodded his shiny bald head. He patted the spot on the ground next to me. I had a few minutes to spare.

I lowered myself to the ground and was about to sit when Zach suddenly grabbed my arm. I looked up and saw his deep brown eyes filled with warning.

"Zach", I whispered. "What's wrong?" He nodded his head to across the road, where a dark car was parked. There was something about it that made my skin crawl.

"Who is it?" He removed my arm from his strong grip and fumbled through his ripped coat for something. I waited impatiently.

He finally took his hand out of his pocket and came out with something blue. His chalk. He immediately started scribbling something on the sidewalk. I tilted my head to read what he was writing, but I couldn't make it out. It didn't even look like English. I took another look and saw that it wasn't English. It was something else entirely.

My eyes widened as I recognized what he was writing. He wasn't forming letters; it was dots and dashes. Morse code. I vaguely remembered that Zach had served in the army many years ago, before he retired due to a leg problem. But why would he write in Morse code? I squinted at the lines and almost immediately decoded it. I looked up to Zach to make sure he wasn't joking. He nodded his head and tapped his finger at the code vigorously. If this was true...

"Thank you", I said gratefully. He shooed me away and proceeded to splash a bit of water from his bottle onto the code, making it vanish. With that, I got up and ran, his message still running through my head.

Alfa-Romeo-Uniform-November-Zulu.

I knew exactly what the code meant. It was developed years ago to signal military experiment runaways, like me, that they were close to being found. That black car must have been one of theirs. I was hoping that Zach was wrong, but even if he was, I was leaving today anyways. This just gave me reason to leave sooner.

The code consisted of Alfa, the first letter of the phonetic alphabet, the words Romeo, Uniform and November, (spelling run) then finished with Zulu, the last letter. In short, it meant to start running or it was the end for you. They must have already been in town. But for how long? It couldn't have been long. I jogged that way every morning and Zach didn't say anything until just now. They must have arrived just last night or really early this morning. Then how come they haven't found me yet?