Run!

2026

It was a nice neighbourhood until the election; then, like the rest of the country, it went to hell. Elizabeth, from her loft space, watched the crosses burning in her neighbours front yards. RUSP police stood guard as hooded Klan members, probably the same white guys from the Regional Committee of Governance, set cars alight on driveways, kicked down doors and dragged whoever had been dumb enough, too proud or too poor to stay.

She watched Mrs Washington struggling, screaming at her attackers, dragged her by her hair across her lawn where a rope was looped round her neck and they hanged her from a telegraph pole on the street, hooting and hollering. She’d taught Brian and Madison at eighth grade.

Her phone rumbled in her palm and she stepped back from the thin slit between the shingles where she’d been watching, so as not to risk a light giving her away. Tom.

“Honey, made it to Esther’s! You need to leave urgently, avoid main routes as roadblocks in place. The migration corridor is flowing so you need to join it! Brian and Madison are doing fine. Call me. T.”

Elizabeth slipped the phone in her pocket, background chanting getting louder as more Klansmen arrived in looted pickup trucks. She looked to her small backpack, one she’d picked up in Seoul where she’d won her last Olympic gold medal, and wondered if it would slow her down?

1988 SUMMER OLYMPICS, SEOUL

     Another podium place, gold, and Elizabeth had tears streaming down her cheeks as the US national anthem blasted across the stadium. She was so proud that day, she’d trained so hard for her last chance at an Olympic gold; touch and go after a pulled Achilles deep in her calf only six weeks before. All that talk about her age too, ‘could she still cut it?’, ‘approaching the end of her career’. Man, she wished she could see their faces now.

     Draped in the stars and stripes she posed for photographs, the medal heavy on her chest, 400 metre sprint champion again, and she’d never felt happier.

2026

Elizabeth had to tune out the TV, because it wasn’t news she was getting in Mississippi, it was fascist propaganda. Following husband Tom’s retirement as a pro footballer, they’d left LA to return home. He was head coach with their NFL team, she a social justice advocate lawyer.  

She and Tom had watched in disbelief when the results of the 2024 elections came through and with a low voter turnout in critical areas, the republicans had narrowly taken control of the presidency. Retribution came fast; pardons for previously prosecuted associates were swiftly followed by legislation forbidding demonstrations and gatherings, anti LGBTQ+ laws stripped rights and access to services, healthcare initiatives were wound back as were protections for women in the workplace. Protections for people of colour were wiped out with initiatives such as the ‘Right to Manage’ bills allowing states to implement ‘Regional Committees of Vigilance’ outside the governance of The Supreme Court, and the creation of ‘Reclaim US Patriot (RUSP)’ forces to run law enforcement. Licenses to oversee National Parks went to oil and mining companies.

Resistance was quelled with force; Federal Agencies were wound up, libraries burned, homes and businesses became targets for violent attacks. The economy buckled, the fragile and increasingly thin veneer of civilisation giving way to chaos. Violence and vigilantism took hold, the death toll spiralling, until on July 4, 2026, the United States of America went to war with itself. 

Elizabeth was grateful Madison and Brian were living north of the new neutral zone running loosely from southern California to Virginia. She was planning to join the millions of displaced Americans heading north on one of the recognised migration corridors, wondering whether she’d get out of her house alive.

1994 SUMMER OLYMPICS, LOS ANGELES

     Elizabeth had been favourite for the 400 metre sprint after crushing record after record in state, national and international competitions. Studying law at UCLA she had the best coaches and the finest network of support; no one worked harder or pushed themselves further. Proudly she’d carried the Olympic torch for a local leg as the relay wound its way across the country, and was spat at by punks wearing swastikas.

     Her win, when it came, before a deafeningly loud crowd at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, shook the stadium to its foundations. For the first time she draped the stars and stripes around her shoulders and jogged around, clasping the hands of people as they waved and cheered, signing her name for autograph hunters and posing for the TV cameras. 

     Endorsements and appearances rolled in, building a portfolio for an unknown post competition world. 

2026

     Elizabeth laced her shoes. Sure, she ached more these days, her knees weren’t what they were and her sciatica was a literal pain in the butt, yet she retained an athlete’s discipline. She crept quietly through the loft space, ducking her head under the beams. Something banged below her feet, in the room beneath, her and Tom’s bedroom. She stopped, shallow breaths, controlling her movements, stilling her mind.

     “You reckon she’s gone?”

     A loud man’s voice with a thick southern accent. Local.

     “Sure, she’s gone and run away.”

     Elizabeth recognised the second man’s voice. Former police lieutenant now RUSP chief, Eugene Knapp. A corrupt bully and racist, who, until two years ago, faced charges for the unlawful killing of a young black delivery driver. They’d butted heads many times and she knew he’d come for her and the family when the country fell apart. A vulture picking over the carcass of her city.

     She could hear cheering in the distance. Another lynching? No, bigger, more industrial, the college football stadium, now the mass execution site for the dissenters; kids who spoke out, lecturers and teachers, disabled folk, queer people, faces who didn’t fit. Tom used to coach as a volunteer for the college team, hours spent pacing the sidelines, yelling encouragement. Now the place had been requisitioned by the vigilance committee to quell dissent, a killing field. She heard the rapid sputtering of automatic gunfire and clenched her fists in fury, driving her nails deep into her palms, reminding herself to feel.

     The porch door slammed; she recognised the squeak from the hinge Tom always promised to oil and never got round to. The two men’s voices drifted up from the front of the house,

     “She can’t have got far. Reckon we’ll pick her up north of Batesville on I55?”

     “She ain’t dumb, she’ll go cross country west and try to slip through Arkansas and Missouri to the corridor. She’s the trophy I’m after, a new head on my wall.”

     The braggadocio faded away, Elizabeth silently shifting to look outside one last time. From what she could make out the Klan had moved on. Crosses still burned, illuminating the strange fruit dangling from trees and lampposts up to the junction with Main Street, hellish shadows dancing on the sidewalks.

     Okay, she told herself, one step at a time. Carefully hauling on her backpack she checked her laces again, a race ritual from the days when she’d explode from the blocks. She tugged quietly on the rope holding the loft ladder in place and gently let it and the hatch unfold until it rested on the bedroom landing.

     Gently she descended, rung by rung, the smell of smoke and gas from burning crosses filling her home. Cautiously she walked the thickly carpeted route to the staircase. Family portraits and competition images lined the walls, lit orange by the fires outside; Brian in his crib, dressed in pink, Brittany as he was then. Madison feeding ponies at her aunt’s ranch in Minnesota. Tom grinning and hugging pundits and fellow players at his testimonial game. Elizabeth smiling, aligners on display, as a ninth grader having demolished the competition at a school athletics meet. 

     Elizabeth could still barely fathom the speed at which the nation had fallen apart; the grotesque horror of the country she’d once represented and felt patriotic fervour for, burning. Got to put this out of my mind, she reminded herself. Through the darkness at the kitchen door she heard more gunshots from the football field.

     “Gotta go!” she told herself.

1979 PAN AMERICAN GAMES, SAN JUAN

     This was Elizabeth’s first international race. She was the youngest on her team for the four hundred metre relay, awestruck by Olympian teammates, cowed by the scale of the event.

     “You ‘kay,” asked coach and she simply nodded, hummingbirds replacing butterflies in her belly. She ran the final leg and three times in practice she’d fumbled the baton exchange, again in the heats where she’d recovered and pulled enough from the tank to take second over the line.

     She heard the crack of the pistol and watched Cindy blistering away from the blocks, swiftly and cleanly passing the baton to Yvette who ran so fast Elizabeth thought she’d pass Mary-Beth without stopping but the pass was so smooth it barely gave her a moments pause before Mary-Beth was approaching and she was turning, arm outstretched, winding up her pace. The aluminium baton tapped her palm and with a firm grip she grabbed it and ran.  Brazilian Solange Souza had set the pace and was streaking towards the finish, the crowd erupting, Elizabeth’s whole body pumped, approaching the line she leaned, barely breathing, taking first place.

     Despite the fuss and interest, Eliazbeth made a solemn vow to own the whole lap for herself in future. 

2026

     Pacing herself, Elizabeth trotted silently behind the houses and stores using the alleys and hidden paths to keep herself from the streets. At a junction she paused, stepping back into the trees as that nice Mrs Albermarle, the pastors wife and Sunday school teacher drove by. The God-fearing woman who held the children’s hands and had them singing hymns as she led them into the stadium and the firing squads. The car passed without slowing, but Elizabeth was taking no chances. Her pace increased as she jumped a fence and ran towards the rail line heading west, following it with only the moonlight to guide her.

#

     “You seen this woman pass by here?” asked Knapp, armed with at least two semi-automatic weapons.

     He was talking to two older men sat on the stoop of a shotgun shack beside the rail line. They’d heard Elizabeth stumble, and despite rising to their feet and raising their guns, when they saw it was a woman running the line they both sat and nodded their heads to her.

     “Can’t say I have,” said Bobby Joe, spitting a wad of tobacco at the RUSP chief’s feet.

     “Nope,” added Wesley, eyes never leaving the chain link fence between his property and the railroad tracks.

     “Well, if you do and it gets back to me you ain’t told me, my boys will have to pay you a visit.”

     Bobby Joe looked at Knapp, “I knew your momma when you were a nappy headed boy. She always said you were no good. Go leave two old soldiers be.”

     Knapp stomped back to his pick-up, muttering. Dawn was emerging and birds sang as he kicked up gravel and sped back down the track.

     “You need any help with that leg of yours?” called Wesley.

     Elizabeth emerged from the undergrowth beside the track and brushed herself down.

     “You got any iodine?”

     Bobby Joe looked at Wesley and shrugged, “We got ‘Band-Aids’ and antiseptic from Walgreens if that’s okay?”

     Elizabeth nodded, “Why you guys helping me?”

     “You’re Elizabeth Wrye ain’t cha? Recognised ya’ll. Bad times, Elizabeth, mighty bad times.” Wesley stood and went inside, shaking his head.

     “Never thought I’d see the day, this country fightin’ and killin’ its own folk. Always blamin’ someone for everythin’ and never once lookin’ to itself. Now there’s no jobs, no money, no food, no justice. We ain’t great again, that’s for damn sure.”

     Elizabeth watched the old man prod at a loose plank on his porch when a noise in the trees nearby made them both freeze. A small head, a deer, skittishly watching them, taking a drink from a pail. Its brown eyes gleamed in the morning sun, its breath little clouds. A snapping branch nearby startled it, ears flicking it turned tail, gone.

     “You hunt them?” asked Elizabeth.

     “No,” Bobby Joe stood and made his creaking way over to the pail, lowering it into the well. “It ain’t done me no harm so I repay the favour. We got tins and we got flour, we don’t need to kill any critter to survive.”

     Wesley appeared with a small parcel wrapped in a grubby dish towel, “This here is the ointment and sticking plasters. Got some bread too. Long way to the corridor, got to keep your strength up.”

     He tossed the bundle over the fence and Elizabeth set to fixing the cut on her leg. Satisfied she stood; no new aches and pains. 

     “I’m going now. Thank you, both of you. Stay safe.”

     Bobby Joe nodded his farewell, Wesley stood at the fence.

     “My son and his partner, and my grandchildren, they’re all safe and over the line. Here,” he passed a folded sheet of paper to Elizabeth who took it and zipped it into her pack.

     “There’s no email and no phones these days, so if you make it, I’d be obliged if you could find them and give them that there letter. If you make it.”

     Elizabeth pulled on her pack and turned to begin her run.

     “I’ll see he gets it.”

1974

     “And in the third lane, for Biddulph Junior High, is Elizabeth Penn.”

     A smattering of applause for the scrawny girl with big hair and teeth that could eat an apple from the other side of the room. She waved to her dad, and coach Stevens. She spotted Tom Wrye, tall and broad, now at Neil Armstrong High but back to cheer on the track and field teams. He winked at her and she felt herself burn with delight and embarrassed anguish.

     The pistol cracked and she leapt from the blocks, pacing the first fifty yards before setting the rhythm she needed to hold for three hundred, her arms slicing the humid air, her legs pistons. She held the momentum through to the last fifty, flying, cutting through her competitors, carrying the ribbon across her chest as she took the gold with seconds to spare.

     She jumped, whooping, looking about her. Dad was standing in the bleachers, cheering, coach was clapping, inscrutable behind his shades. Then she saw Tom, running towards her, the  biggest smile on his dumb face.

     “You’re a machine,” he shouted, gripping her shoulders, “No one can beat you!”

     Elizabeth impulsively gave him a peck on his cheek and he blushed to his socks.

2026

     Elizabeth stood silently watching the caravans of people, belongings piled into trucks and trailers, their lives displaced by hatred and ignorance. The corridor was a slow moving throng all heading north. She watched for a while to see if anyone was coming south but no, people fled the atrocities.

     She saw a problem. A barrier lay between her and the makeshift blockade where those abandoning the confederacy could join the migration. She saw armed RUSP men in hunting gear and peaked caps, jostling people approaching to join the flow, pushing back.

     She’d need to be fast. She couldn’t outrun a hail of bullets but she could sure as hell try and climb the fence about four hundred yards away. Anyone in the corridor was protected by a fragile pact between the divided nations, the UN appointing both Canadian and European forces to uphold the deal. 

     A group of military personnel stood guard against the chain link, backs to her. An oil drum, used as a seat by RUSP police, leaned against the fence, cigarette butts littered about, mainly Russian brands as they were the only nation recognising the new southern state alliance.

     Elizabeth took a deep breath. She visualised each move, kneeling at the blocks, waiting for the announcement to get set, the pistol shot and then, head down, pumping her arms and legs, holding her pace then building, building, building until the sprint when there was no oxygen left, her body screaming in pain, her mind only aware of the prize.

     A RUSP goon moved away from the oil drum and went to nearby bushes for a leak. Elizabeth pounced, the gravel scrunching as she increased her pace, fixed only on the drum and clearing the fence. From the corner of her eye she saw three armed men begin to turn, raising their weapons as she pounded and jumped, hitting the drum with a clang, gripping the fence, using her momentum to lift her high, just high enough…

     Shots rang out and Elizabeth hit the dirt.

2027

     “There’s someone here,” a child called out, her father appearing from the kitchen where he’d been preparing dinner whilst watching the news. The confederacy had collapsed and forces were on the streets. All the broadcasts were horrific; mass murder in ‘re-education camps’, starvation, slavery, sexual violence; all in US cities and towns.

     The man wiped his hands on his apron and followed his daughter to the front door where he peered through the door’s viewer,

     “Who is it?”

     “Is this Mr Wesley Brown’s residence?”

     “Yes. What do you want?”

     “I have something for you.”

     He vaguely recognised the face on the other side of the door, so he shooed his daughter away and put the chain on and opened the door a crack.

     “Look, I’m not buying anything…”

     “This is for you,” a woman’s hand passed a folded sheet of writing paper to the man, which he took and turned over then began to read. He unchained the door and opened it.

     “Your father gave it to me to bring to you.”

     Wesley Jr. gaped, “You’re Elizabeth Wrye, the runner.”

     She smiled and nodded, “I sure am.”

END