Elliott stuck his head out of the door and looked both ways like he was a five year old crossing the road. He dashed from the shadow of one building to the shadows that fell beneath the next.
It had been a sunny day, bright and cheery and warm for September. The pavement beneath his feet was toasty. But there was a promise of autumn in the air too, lthe warmth only residual, like the heat radiating off a cast iron skillet in a cold room: intense but temporary.
Elliott briefly checked his backpack. Water, jerky, some protein bars and a KitKat just for a treat. His shoes and several pairs of socks if he couldn’t find a ride. Also a camping kit with a flashlight, lighter and space blanket in case he had to sleep outdoors. There was a pair of wire cutters in his back pocket. He’d thought about bringing one of the dogs but Junie was with them more often than not and there was no chance he could escape with one without being noticed.
He didn’t want to think that there no chance he could escape, with or without the dogs. That kind of negativity would get him nowhere.
He slipped away from the building and sprinted across a parking lot ,ducking behind a vehicle for cover. It was mostly military transports. He longed for the site of a Honda, a Ford, anything that wasn’t olive drab and armored. Even here in Washington where the reality of what was happening everywhere else had yet to truly hit, there weren’t a lot of people out for Sunday drives. Folk were holing up, gearing up, and freaking out. The apocalypse was at their door. It hadn’t knocked yet, but its dead, fetid fist was raised. It was only a matter of time and even the most optimistic fool knew it.
By now Elliott knew this route by heart. He’d promised he wouldn’t do it again but they wouldn’t have left him unguarded if he hadn’t. It wasn’t really his fault he was breaking promises he had made when they left him no choice. He considered a moment what Junie would think of that line of reasoning. He thought about the look on her face when hurt feelings permeated the perpetual fog she lived in.
He stopped thinking about that pretty quick. She was his best friend. She would understand. Someday? Once he had Shavian he would make her understand. He’d gotten her into this mess, kidnapped her into this damned mess, and he was going to get her out.
Elliott peered around the fender of a tank then bolted for the chain link fence. He leaped when he was feet away, grasping the fence about ten feet up its fifteen-foot height. He grasped the links with his bare toes, pushing up and pulling at the same time, the cold fence making him wish he’d put on socks.
His fingers were only about a foot away from the top when there was the scuffle of feet. Someone drew in a world-weary breath that was expelled as a world-weary sigh.
“Lio, get down from there,” Private Thomas ordered. Elliott, currently hanging precariously from the border fence of a highly guarded military installation might not have had the wherewithal to recognize the voice. But Jenson Thomas was the only one who called him Lio.
He looked over his shoulder, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Oh, hey, Thomas,” he said with a strained smile, but only slightly strained, he realized wonderingly. At lease his shoulders didn’t burn as much as they did the first time this happened. Maybe he was getting better at this.
“Nice evening for… um… “
“Another failed escape attempt?” Thomas finished for him, his dark eyebrows raised, a tightness around his lips giving away that he wanted to smile. “Come on, man. Get down and let’s go back. Again.”
Elliott huffed and let go of the fence, pushing off a bit, landing with bended knees to absorb the impact.
Thomas rolled his eyes. “Put your damn shoes on, man.” He considered a moment. “That was pretty smart though. Better footholds in the chainlink, right?”
Elliott nodded, then dug his shoes out of the backpack and slipped them on. He fell in step with Thomas as he began the walk back to the barracks, trying not to sulk.