by Misty Vixen
David glanced at her, then at Ellie, then at Cait. Cait still looked distracted. What was going on with her?
“We could use the help,” Ellie said. “You remember how to shoot, right?”
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Give me a fucking break, Ellie.”
“All right then, let’s get a move on. Sooner we can do this, the better.”
“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” David said as they headed for the exit.
“Good luck,” Donald replied.
They all walked back out into the frigid air.
…
There was another path through the forest, an old dirt road that was still decently well-maintained, that led them west, away from the hospital. As the four of them struck off, David found himself torn between catching up with Jennifer and wondering what was up with Cait. Because something was. She’d hardly said anything, and she was staring ahead of them, her face a flat, neutral expression.
Had she just gotten some awful news? Was something wrong with her?
Ultimately, he decided that whatever it was, she would probably tell him in due time. So he allowed himself to be distracted by Jennifer, who was really distracting right now. She walked very close beside him, and quickly took his hand in hers. As soon as she did, however, she let go and looked over at him nervously.
“Sorry, I should ask. Are we like...are we good?” she asked.
“What? Yeah, of course,” he replied, offering his hand. A look of powerful relief swept across her face and she smiled broadly as she took his hand. It was interesting to see her being so...expressive. Good, but interesting.
“Sorry. I didn’t know where we actually, uh, were. With how we...feel about each other. I mean, I know how I feel, obviously, it’s just that I wasn’t really sure how you felt about me, or us, or touching, since we haven’t had a chance to see each other since then. Not that I’m mad! I mean, I get it, you must have been busy...”
“Jennifer, oh my God, you’re fucking babbling,” Ellie said.
“Piss off!” Jennifer shot back.
“Am I wrong?”
“Jennifer,” David said, trying to mediate, “I’m happy to see you, I still feel very good about what happened between us, and yes, I was very, very busy, and I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to see you. I would have gladly taken it.”
“...okay,” she said, and stepped closer to him as they walked.
He let go of her hand and slipped an arm around her slim waist, and she pressed herself against him. “So, I don’t want to put a stop to it, but you seem very...exuberant. Compared to the first time we met,” David said.
“Oh. Yeah. Well, let’s just say you kind of opened up Pandora’s Box-”
“Yeah, he did,” Ellie muttered, smirking.
“Fuck off, Ellie! Anyway. I’ve had a lot of reason to be cautious and anxious and not trust people, and it has caused me to become very, shall we say, reserved. And I wasn’t really naturally like that, before...I became a wraith. And you’ve awoken my natural...exuberance.”
“Is that what you call it when you’re horny?” Ellie asked.
“You are such a sassy fucking bitch today, aren’t you?” Jennifer snapped.
“Yeah. Apparently David’s got me riled up too, you fucker,” she said, glaring briefly at him, though she had a small smile on.
“What’d you do to her?” Jennifer asked.
“I made her be decent to someone. Twice. In a single day.”
“In a single morning, fucker,” she growled.
“Wow. I’m surprised you’re still alive,” Jennifer murmured.
“Now you shut the fuck up,” Ellie said.
“What have you been doing, Jennifer?” David asked, attempting to once again get the conversation back on track. He swore that between Ellie, Cait, and now apparently Jennifer, they could bicker for hours.
“Helping the doctors,” she said. “There’s a lot of stuff that needs maintenance and fixing around their outpost, and they have a surprisingly healthy supply of lube, and-” She hesitated.
“And…?” David prompted.
“I’ve begun seeing Vanessa,” she whispered.
“You what?!” Ellie cried.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Jennifer groaned.
“Wait, what’s happening? I missed that. Sorry. What’s going on?” Cait asked.
“So kind of you to join us,” Ellie said.
“Piss off,” Cait replied, but she still sounded a little dazed. “What’d I miss?”
“Jennifer’s hooking up with Vanessa,” Ellie replied.
“Oh shit, I knew it. I saw the way you were looking at her. I thought you just had a crush. How serious is it?” Cait asked.
“It’s not serious. It’s just...fun. Play. We’re playing. She’s got this strap-on and...I’ve said too much. Please don’t mention that to anyone. I don’t think she’d care and I’m pretty sure everyone at the hospital already knows, I get...noisy...but still. Please?”
“We won’t say anything,” David replied.
“Thank you...but yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing.” She paused for a few seconds, then looked at David. “Do you think...I mean, if we have time, you’d be willing to...what I mean is, uh, David, could we...make love?”
“Yes,” he replied immediately. “Enthusiastically yes.”
“Oh good,” Jennifer said, looking deeply relieved. “I was really hoping that was the case. I really miss you and your cock.”
“I miss you and your pussy,” he replied, and he kissed her. She kissed him back immediately, though stopped when he nearly tripped.
“So, um, Cait...is everything okay?” he asked after another moment.
“What? Yeah. I’m fine,” she replied.
“Are you sure? You seem...distracted.”
She was silent for a few seconds, not looking at him, focusing on the path ahead. “I’m okay,” she replied finally.
“Super convincing,” Ellie said.
Cait let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh my God, Ellie, I’m fine. Don’t worry David,” she said, and she seemed to really come back to herself, to the conversation, regaining her natural confidence and ease. “I’m really okay. Did you really fight vipers on the way over here?”
“We really did,” Ellie replied.
“They scared the fucking shit out of me,” David muttered.
“They are really scary,” Jennifer said. “God, I hope nothing’s happened. I mean, I’ve heard that there are vipers in and around the lake, but they’re supposed to be pretty rare. I also hear that there’s a group of squids living there, and sometimes they trade with the humans.”
“Here’s hoping nothing went wrong,” Cait murmured.
They kept walking through the forest, between stands of tall, dead trees that seemed to reach towards the cloudless blue skies with skeletal fingers. The path they walked was mostly slush now as the sun warmed and melted the heavy layer of snow. David found himself yearning for longer days and warmth and greenery again. Spring was probably his favorite time of year. It was so beautiful and it wiped away the cold, dead misery of winter. They walked along the slushy pathway for another five or so minutes before coming to a break in the trees and a fork in the road. And, evidently, the lake. It had been too long since he’d seen a large body of water.
The lake was quite large.
The waters were a grayish blue and mostly flat. The lake’s edge, a muddy and rocky coastline, stretched away from them to either side for quite a ways, eventually curving back in on itself after several hundred meters in either direction. To his left, he could see the river and the inlet where it let into the lake, a collection of small structures, probably no more than some shacks, and further beyond those, larger structures, off in the distance. And, not far from it, an island. All of this was edged by a forest where it wasn’t by water. To the right, more structures, these closer, and he’d guess this was the fishing village. From his vantage point, granted to him by a rise in the land, he could see so
me wood docks extending into the water, a large, blocky structure, and a seemingly random collection of other buildings around it.
“That’s it,” Ellie said, facing to the right. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I don’t see any activity,” Cait murmured as they started walking.
“Neither do I. Have your guns ready,” Ellie replied.
Now David was really regretting leaving his SMG behind. He should have just stuck with the fucking thing. But he had his pistol, it had some decent stopping power and he was a good shot, and he had five magazines to spare.
That was enough…
Right?
He supposed he’d find out. And he was with three other people, all of which were armed, two of which were fantastic fighters, (he wasn’t sure about Jennifer, though Ellie said she wasn’t great), so he’d probably be okay.
As they approached, David got a better idea of the layout. There were about a dozen and a half ramshackle structures cobbled together from sheet metal and wood and evidently anything else the builders could get their hands on, built roughly along either side of a road that led off the main street they were now walking along to the docks themselves. Dominating the area, in between the end of the makeshift structures and the water’s edge, was an enormous metal structure that looked like the warehouse Ellie had saved his life in, and a two-story wooden structure that might once have served as a control area for the docks.
He also saw that something was definitely wrong. It was unnaturally quiet, save for the soft murmur of the lake and the occasional call of a bird or other animal. And he thought he saw still forms, dead bodies, strewn across the main road. As they came to the junction and began making their way down the path, he confirmed that yes, that’s what they were. There were a dozen corpses strewn across the area, but most of them were, he saw with a sinking feeling in his stomach, vipers. There was a lot of blood.
“Oh fuck me,” Cait whispered as she saw the massacre.
“Jesus, they were hit hard,” Jennifer muttered.
“We need to look for survivors,” David said. He looked to Ellie, who was scowling fiercely, her eyes darting between structures, pistol in hand. “Ellie!” he hissed.
“I know!” she snapped softly. “Jennifer, with me. We’ll take the left side. David, Cait, hit the right. We’ll work our way down to the warehouse. Be fucking careful, okay?”
“We will,” Cait said. “Come on, David.”
She set off, her shotgun in hand now. David followed after her. His pistol felt heavy in his hands, but reassuring. The place was a wreck. Clearly, whatever had happened here had been very bad. Many windows were broken out, and blood and bullet holes scarred the fronts of most of the buildings. One of them had apparently burned down to the foundation, but luckily it hadn’t been like River View, it hadn’t spread to the surrounding structures. They approached the first building, a small shack, and Cait gently pushed the front door open.
“Is anyone here? We’re here to help,” she asked, raising her voice just loud enough to be heard. They waited. Nothing. “Fuck,” she muttered.
She rejoined him and moved onto the next structure. Glancing across the way, he saw Ellie and Jennifer roughly doing the same, with Ellie checking the structures and Jennifer watching her back. She glanced his way and caught his eyes, a look of anxiety plain on her face. He turned his attention back to Cait, listening closely for signs of life. They made slow, arduous progress down the fishing village. Most of the buildings were thankfully vacant of bodies. When he’d seen the state of the main road, he’d been worried that it would be a slaughterhouse, and who knew? Maybe the slaughterhouse was yet to come.
He found his eyes drawn repeatedly to the looming gray warehouse.
They continued working their way slowly down the string of buildings, occasionally turning up a dead body. The only real upside of that was that usually it was a dead viper and not a dead person. Ten long minutes passed in the cold light of day and they didn’t find a single survivor. As they came to stand between the warehouse and two-story structure, David felt the unseen presence of watching eyes. He looked around again and again, trying to see if there were any vipers lurking. For originating in the water, they seemed surprisingly adept at hiding and fighting on land. But he could see nothing, save for the corpses.
“Now what?” Jennifer asked.
“Let’s search the wooden building,” Ellie replied. “Then, if we don’t find anyone there, we’ll search the fucking warehouse.”
They crossed to the wooden building, where the front door hung open. As they began to head inside, Ellie, who was leading them, froze. She whirled around and he saw her eyes go wide. David twisted around, raising his pistol.
“Oh no,” he whispered.
A dozen bulbous heads were lined up next to the warehouse now, staring with huge black eyes at the four of them in total silence. Cait and Jennifer turned around as well, and both raised their weapons. One of the creatures suddenly let out a piercing shriek. Another shriek rang out from their left, and he jerked in that direction, and saw another dozen of the horrible things lined up on the docks now. Where were they coming from!?
All at once, the packs of vipers began sprinting towards them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They opened fire.
All hell broke loose.
David focused his aim on one of the ones charging at him from beside the warehouse and blew its head half off, a good chunk of its brains splattering the others in a horrendous spray of gray gore. He could hear nothing but the roar of gunfire as Ellie and Jennifer opened up with their pistols, Cait with her shotgun. She blew holes in their ranks as they drew in closer, blasting off both of her barrels before hastily cracking the weapon open and shoving two more shells in. David kept up the rate of fire. There were certainly more than enough targets to shoot at.
More of them were coming from the village now.
Had they been hiding?! He supposed it was entirely likely. There were trees and rocks and lots of bushes surrounding the little village by the lake. He tried to keep his hands steady as the hideous, alien things ran shrieking towards them, circular mouths open and hungry and desperate for fresh meat. He dropped one, another, three in total, and wounded a few more, before his pistol ran dry. Hastily, he ejected the magazine, tore another from his pocket, and slammed it in. Then he kept aiming and firing, squeezing the trigger again and again.
Before he knew it, the second magazine was gone and this time half a dozen of the oddly wet, gray things had gone down. But there were more coming. Gunsmoke filled the frigid air as he reloaded a second time. Suddenly, he wondered if he had enough ammo. It didn’t seem like it. Their initial numbers had not just doubled but tripled in the span of scarcely thirty seconds. Where the actual fuck where they all coming from!?
He shot another one in its weirdly round mouth and the back of its head burst open as it flopped to the ground, tripping up two more. He shifted aim and blasted another through the neck, fired again and put around round into its chest. It dropped like a ragdoll. Beside him, Ellie and Cait were screaming like Valkyries on the battlefield. More of the awful things came at them, and how many more was this drawing in like flies to shit!? Zombies, stalkers, anything could be nearby. Sometimes they stayed away from each other, something about territory, he’d guess, but zombies mixed with pretty much every undead type from what he’d seen.
By the time he was reaching for his second to last magazine, David saw that they’d put down probably thirty of the creatures, but twice that number had arrived and were swarming in from every side. He flashed back to the time with the stalkers, and how many of them there had been. The only way they’d gotten out of that was-
He heard a shout from off to the right, back from the way they had initially come, and a glance thrown in that direction showed him several more figures rushing down the road towards them. He felt a fresh spike of terror as his initial impression was that more monsters were coming at them, but he quickly realiz
ed that their strides were too consistent, too purposeful. Not zombies or any other type of undead, reinforcements!
“Keep fighting!” he snapped, firing off more bullets into the gray, dark-eyed creatures as they ran towards them.
Gunfire erupted as the newcomers opened fire, and immediately the vipers began wilting and dying under the concentration of incoming lead. He and the others fell back a bit towards the wooden structure, to get out of the line of fire, and after another thirty seconds or so, they had managed to put down the last of the monsters.
For several moments, no one spoke. David and his group looked at the ones who had saved them. He could immediately tell that at least they weren’t from Lima Company, though that might have actually worked out for the best this time, given his need to speak with them. For a few seconds, he worried that these people might belong to the thieves, but after studying them for a bit longer, something told him no.
If he had to guess, he’d say they were the fishers who lived here.
There were about a dozen of them, all of them armed, mostly with pistols. They walked down the length of the road until they came to stand across from the four of them, and David wondered if this might turn sour. He prayed not, but he suddenly realized how this might look. They could easily be opportunistic scavengers raiding these people’s homes. They weren’t, but the truth didn’t always matter to everyone.
“Who the fuck are you?!” someone demanded.
“Emmett, you relax, now. This is Cait and Ellie, we know them,” an older man near the front said. David studied him. He reminded him of William Thatch, not in appearance, but in how he carried himself, and his presence. He was a heavyset man with scraggly blonde hair and a set of scars across his neck. He carried a long-barreled shotgun with a distinct ease, and had a pair of pistols, one on each hip. He looked very calm.
“Doesn’t mean they weren’t fucking robbing us-” the same voice groused.
“Emmett, don’t make me regret bringing you along,” the older man said. His tone shifted very, very slightly, but the effect was immediate, and the younger man who had spoken instantly clammed up.
