Run: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller by Rich Restucci Page B

possible. The brilliant summer sun made him squint as he moved.
    Now the only question that remained was how to get off the island. After all, it was a prison.
    He was almost to the beach, on an overhanging piece of crumbling retaining wall near the former industries building, when he heard soft voices on the beach below him. He stayed low and listened, but he was still in a hurry.
    “Damn G, you ain’t gonna dry off dat gat fo’ we git goin is you’?”
    “Don’t dis the weps my brotha. You don’ clean em’ an’ you got Five-O drillin’ you wit’ no way to kill a bitch.”
    “I’m wit’ you dog, but if we don’ git back to Doc Murda soon, he gon’ be pissed!”
    “Yeah man, but if we call fo’ we scout this place, he gon’ kill us bof. He need to know how many folks is here, ‘specially cops and bitches. He got a plan fo’ da cops, an’ a even better plan fo’ da bitches.”
    There was hushed laughter.
    “True dat. Les’ go check shit out.”
    Billy could hear the two men move along the scrub below him. They were moving to his left, and he was above them. He picked up a broken piece of concrete, and waited for them to pass by him just a little. He silently hopped up on the ledge of the broken retaining wall. The two men, dressed in gang colors, didn’t see him behind and above them. Billy hurled the concrete and jumped back without waiting to see what happened. He heard a meaty thump, and then a muffled shout. He moved quickly to his left, positioning himself in front of the two gang bangers, and looked over the edge. The banger in the back had been hit in the head, and the one in the front was kneeling over him checking out his unconscious buddy.
    “Dog, dog you OK? Damn man what happened? Did somethin’ fall on…”
    His question was punctuated by a vicious snap as Billy’s foot caught him on the back of the neck. Billy had jumped off of the retaining wall and landed on the man’s back after an eight foot fall. The banger’s neck had been broken, and the other man was not looking good either. Billy checked the man he had hit with the rubble, and he could see gray matter in the blood and grit on the man’s shoulder. While not dead, this guy would never shoot another old lady for her social security check. Billy stomped on the man’s Adam’s apple to make sure. The man started making a strangled gurgling noise, but Billy had already grabbed their weapons and moved on, satisfied that neither man would pose a threat to the folks on the island. He hadn’t made a sound the whole time.
    He walked down the short beach and found a small six-seat aluminum boat with a motor on it. He pushed it out into the water until it began to float. Jumping in, he immediately started it up and made for the San Francisco shoreline.
    Billy shook his head and snickered at the irony of everything. He was escaping the safety of an island fortress to enter a city of the cannibalistic living dead, so he could save the lives of people that were scared of him.
    He was saving them from himself. He would have laughed if he didn’t think of Sam right then. He had known the little eight year old for less than a day, but he already loved her like a sister.
    Billy was instantly morose, the murders of two people less than five minutes before forgotten.
    His next thought was that he had actually escaped from Alcatraz, and that in itself was an accomplishment to be proud of. Torn between elation and sorrow, Billy chose indifference and shrugged his shoulders in silence.

 
     
    2
     
    Immediately after Billy was discovered missing, Detective Captain Michael Meara wasted no time in organizing two search parties go find him. Meara had decided to split his talent, and he sent Detective Rick Barnes with Rick’s father Paul, and SWAT sniper Pablo Martinez with one of the civilians. All were armed to the teeth.
    A thorough search of the island yielded no trace of Billy, but there were hundreds of places he could be hiding. Martinez