The Red Oak Woods

The following is an excerpt of the short story I recently submitted to the Ledge Magazine's annual fiction competition.  

We heard the planes before we felt the bombs shake the ground under our feet. An armada had arrived. Thunderous engines roared. We had been in the midst of a standard 12-mile progression run when their bombs started falling. We were already on our way back to the team van when we started running faster and faster. This was no longer training. This was a race to see what the hell was happening. Explosions. Planes coming and going. We had to get back to Coach Novak who had already driven back from our turnaround point to give us fluids. He was to return to our starting point at the edge of the trails to call our splits as we crossed the finish line.

            Today, our times were going to be the best they ever were. We did not think of stopping. We agreed on that; Novak had the van, which was our best way to safety from whatever was happening in the heart of town. We ran faster.

            We had to.

            There were a few murmurs about what might have been going on? A world war? The War? It did not matter at the moment—we could not control the rest of the world. We could only control getting back to Novak. Back to the van. We had to move quicker.

            We had to.

            The ground continued to shake underneath our steps. I rolled an ankle during the last mile as the trail moved under my foot shifting a root and with it my foot to the outside. I pulled up lame for about 30 seconds—the others continued on. Walking was worst. It felt like the explosions in the distance were meant for me, and me alone. The running—even though it was toward the noises—seemed safer.

            Was this the end of the world?

            Most elite running groups from college teams to the professional ranks had a team van. Usually it was a nondescript white van for getting to and from workouts. Slim called vans like ours a “slapper knapper” because the darkened windows in the back made it good for hiding anything you were keeping back there—like kidnapped children. Dark? Yes. However, we were runners, and one of the things we were all really good at was coming up with new names for tired clichés. Slim called them slapper knappers because of the variation he created on the “punch-buggie no punch back” game whenever one would see an old Volkswagon Beetle. If you saw a van with the windows painted out: “Slapper Knapper!” and then you would slap the person next to you.

            Oh the things we used to care about.

            The last half-mile back to the start seemed an eternity even though we were running at just over five-flat per mile pace, the two minutes and thirty seconds we had left were daunting, because we knew we were going to get answers when we got back to camp.

            We had to.

            Coach Novak was nowhere to be seen. The slapper knapper was gone. Our sweats, our Gatorade bottles, our towels, and our protein bars had been purposefully thrown from the back of the van. They hadn’t been stolen, what with their deliberate placement on the ground. We spoke quickly and exchanged ideas. We decided that Novak had abandoned us, taken the van to save himself, but with what little Catholic guilt he had left, he decided to leave our stuff behind. Maybe he wanted to give us a fighting chance. It turned out to be a good decision, but at the time, it felt like we had about as much chance as a marathoner in an 800 meter race…

            None.

            What the hell happened in there? We were east of town. And, all that came from the horizon was smoke. It blanketed the sky. Had all major cities been destroyed? There was no one driving on the two-lane road that ran along the Greenway. Not a single car. Meyer ran down the street to a series of townhomes to see if he could discover what was going on. No one answered their door. It was as if during the 70 minutes we were working out we missed an evacuation notice, an air raid signal, and the raid itself. Meyer snagged a handheld radio from one of the houses to see what was going on. Every station was static. Even the one used for emergency broadcasts.

            The planes were gone now, too.

            We need to find a transistor radio. See if there are others out there, Pickens suggested.

            Not sure what good it would do, I had said. If everywhere else is as bad as us, the next people could be a hundred miles away. At least.

            There could be people on the other side of town.

            Could be.

            Maybe they know what happened.

            Maybe.

            We decided to take an easy run down to the Publix that was a mile and a half away. We needed to shakeout our legs anyway from the progression run, and Zephyr and Diesel had left their wallets in their sweats. We had a little money in our pockets. If the grocery store was still there, maybe they would take our money.

            It took us ten minutes on the deserted roads to get to the Publix on Mahan Drive. We ran up behind it to keep a low profile. None of us wanted attention—we did not know who was out there: friend, foe, or otherwise. We figured if this was the end, we should not tempt fate by being conspicuous.

            The trip seemed a lost cause. Burning was all there was. What had once been a Mecca for people’s hunger was now a smoldering concrete building. But, the closer we got we saw there was still a delivery truck out back. It was no longer connected to the loading dock, and looked to be in decent condition.

            We risked it and ran toward it. The sliding back door to the container was half-open. Pickens found a backpack in the driver’s cabin and brought it around back. We grabbed what it could carry. Fruit, some bottled water, and granola bars. It was as if this delivery was for a bunch of stranded runners. Turned out it was.

            We ran back into the woods behind the burning store to eat our snacks.

            Should we try and get back to the houses?

            They’re not there anymore.

            What about the highway?

            If anyone survived? Probably jammed.

            Do we want to get out of here?

            I don’t think that is a good idea. We don’t even know what happened here.

            All those people. Hundreds of thousands bombed and burned. Gone. Dead.

            Whoever did this, I am not giving them the satisfaction of defeat. This is my town, and I am not leaving it.

            We thought of our families around the country. Asked aloud what we thought was happening? World war? Had our government gotten tired of us? Bored with us?

            We didn’t know—couldn’t know. We just decided to stay together to look for a place to call home. Surely there was a safe structure or two not in flames or blown to bits.

            That was two years ago.

            We’re still in the Red Oak Woods today.