by Marlin Grail
My bullet wound.
I break concentration with our telepathic conversation. My actual voice is louder than the loudness I could make in my head. Both ears start to process surrounding audio again. However, the great indicator and reliever of its return is coming from a source I wish it didn’t.
It comes from people.
The haze will hide me. The haze will hide me.
The rustling is intelligent. There’s mumbles to one another, from perhaps four people total. I wonder if their decision to come near is in response to the exploding haze.
“Would you look at that,” one of them, a male, says. “Boy, go get closer to it.”
I can tell, because the sharp slice through the air he makes with his arm, he’s hand-signaling whoever this “boy” is to follow through.
Just move on. Just move on.
A few steps track the ground, reluctant when they reach a frozen point but a few feet away from the haze, thereby a few feet away from me.
Don’t speak or move, Gary. Don’t speak, or move.
That male voice encourages the feet close to me to do more. “Go on. Get it moving.”
Don’t do it. Please move back, boy.
The crushed grass under this boy’s feet pan from the left of me, then to the right. These feet are circling the haze, gradually stepping with more confidence. This haze may cloak my presence, but sound within a haze won’t mud up beyond it.
I hold my breath tightly, while firmly pressing both of my palms on my bullet wound, but I don’t know how much longer I can take do both. I grow irritated when I sense the boy lean near the haze, by extension near to me. That irritation pumps my heart faster, which in turn, pumps more blood out of my thigh.
You don’t have the freedom to be a human in pure agony, Gary. Mind over the body, no matter how abnormal you feel pretending you’re in a calm and non-urgent circumstance. No breathing, groaning, or whimpering out your pains.
The male voice finally is sound with receiving the results he wanted to witness. “That’s good enough. Come back, boy.”
I can sense the discomforting presence of that boy back away from the haze. The squishing of grass is heard panning right to left this time, fading in volume the farther he’s gets back to his people.
Thank you. Thank you.
The male voice congratulates the boy. “See? I don’t know why it didn’t go after you, but you can tell it’s just appearance that gives it mass. You could chuck a rock at it, and see that be the truth.”
He then proves his point.
Oh damn.
It couldn’t have been a large amount of pebbles, or a small rock, but it had to be a large rock, landing right onto my stomach, where so much of my breath has been stored away. This whale has no further choice but to emerge and expose its blowhole to the surface.
My culminated holding of breath, of holding back my expressed pain, and my above all hurt, can’t hide anymore.
Why? Why?
“The hell!” the male voice startles them all.
I hear rattling of guns’ frames being held tight by the nerve-racketed hands of the others.
Don’t. Don’t.
“Anyone in there?” he questions, sounding more about to rampage rather than offering a helping hand.
If I stay quiet, he might just lob something else in the center of this haze, possibly a bullet straight at me.
My gaze dart in every possible direction, in terror to which two decisions I should enact. I can either stay silent, and likely get shot at, or speak up and likely get questioned. And then killed.
Think of your people, Gary. Think of Lissie. You can’t die here, but you’re injured. These people could help, if I allow myself to take the chance they can. Life’s a chance, but there are no wrong outcomes. Just some where we question what we could’ve done differently to not have gotten where we get.
Sometimes, we don’t always have to critique what we do to get where we get. We just need to succeed at the basic duty life requests we do.
Survive.
“I need help,” I croak out.
Immediately, commotion uproars from all four of them. They don’t sound happy. If I were like a werewolf in a book, then this is the part where they’re raising up their pitchforks.
“Out! Get out here!”
Chapter XXXIII
Being on my back, and with my palms not capable to help me besides putting pressure on my thigh, I strain our moment of potential peaceful interaction to a weak thread when I take a long time turning myself over.
Another voice, female, ruminates to the male about something. “If someone can survive in those things, maybe they will be useful…”
I claw and drag out of the haze with my left hand, crushing grass strands in this distressed stage of my awful condition. I keep my right thigh bent and spread up, to keep the wound exposed and away from the ground, maybe also to show them on first impression I truly am at their mercy.
“Help me,” I implore to all four of them.
The man who made the boy get up close to the haze, the female, and another man, they all aim straight at me still. Beyond the known man’s iron-sights of his rifle, his voice shoots back, “Only if you will help us.”
There’s only one why to answer.
If I must. If I’m to get healed, thereby one step closer to my people, then I must accept our vocal contract.
Chapter XXXIV
(Will)
“Be more adroit with your hands, man!” my turret shooter yells.
I give an expression of not understanding what that word means, because I don’t. But it’s an expression he’s seen of me all too well at this point. Mostly, it’s been directed in disbelief to the piles upon piles of undead that keeping piling up.
“I guess that means ‘better’, right?” I ask, assuming it’s correct.
I grab the next ammo box to insert into the side of this 50 Cal Turret. Something that should be as simple as picking up the first wave of stringed bullets is probably why he brought up his comment the way he did.
My energy is extremely wacky, and my fingers have trouble lifting and passing over the strip to him, taking longer than it should. But, the way I’m seeing it, we’ve got time because of the progression we’ve made.
It’s been 15 straight minutes, with no intervals of the undead changing their tactic from just shuffling in bunches, which does make them easier to kill in clusters. Even in this stressful “clean-up” duty, there are a few things to be thankful for.
To start off, Hannibal explained that the trenches three and five were blown open, and those didn’t seem to have the most haze-incubating undead in them. Those that would be haze-incubating haven’t seemed to waltz in.
Yet.
More on the positive scale, those hazes I recalled seeing out there have either not noticed this onslaught, and are distracted by whatever, or they’ve moved on from the base. Either way, it does keep more skin on our backs.
With bodies loitering all throughout the main floor, we’ve managed to push back the remaining undead so they’re stuck by the front hanger entrance. I grow quite impressed with seeing that they’ve stopped trying to ridiculously walk over their fallen kind. Only because the three-digit count of them already shot and laid out represents the meager intelligence the majority have the capacity to contain. Now, they don’t even try walking in, not until at least until one turret purposefully stops.
When being a turret assistant, you have greater opportunity to actually watch what’s being shot at, and take it in how it’s being handled. For instance, a few feet away in distance there’s a turret to my left. I can see the gunner and ammo supplier tend to hoot. They’re invigorated by exactly how much stopping power their turret alone has been.
Not to mention the three total working at once when things seemed to get a little hairy.
Can’t lose confidence in ourselves. We’ve had this on autopilot, because we can’t afford to forget they’re just harder because of their la
rge numbers. At this point in the apocalypse, we as people could rally together and revolt against them. Would everybody be ready for that? Am I ready for that?
Hannibal assists the gunner next to me and my gunner. Every now and then, he and I make eye contact. On one hand, he looks riveted with success screwed in his eyes, but something else bothers him at the same time.
It’s probably the sight of all these bodies, clogging the main floor. The mass alone surely has jammed the ability for those hanger doors to close back up.
Before the defense began, Ashton and he were arguing over something. When Hannibal and Janice returned over here, I was already encapsulated by the preparation to help blow away undead number one. Definitely, now past number 100, I beginning to get curious what they were talking about.
God must’ve felt me winding down in my anxiety levels—he’s always messing with me like that—for it rises right back up to the sound of several undeads’ exploding bodies. Then, a large haze starts peering in from outside the hanger.
“Hey!” my turret shooter shouts in the open, the voice booming from the echoing in this hanger. “We’ve got to consider getting the chamber open!”
We’ve gotten to this point. The fight’s reaching its final phase. Putting in hazes to the problem makes it the most advanced stage too.
Hannibal gestures an order with a flailing arm for any officers to volunteer in getting that chamber door open. Lissie takes up the offer, but doesn’t ask to do so.
I’ve haven’t been able to make eye contact with her for a while, so I can’t tell if her eyes have dried up and swollen like crazy yet. I imagine they haven’t, otherwise her eye coordination with how she’s jogging would have her derailed, bumping up against a wall from drowning eyes.
Instead, she’s quick to the wheel. She’s able to turn it for as many revolutions as it requires.
The door makes a brief rusted-metal squeal, then the vacuum of that ginormous space is ready to admit hazes in.
Question is—how do we get everyone aware of what to do?
Simple. Help instruct, Will. Be confident that you’ll know what you’re talking about. Hell, just yesterday, when Ashton needed your help in distracting one, you were bobbing and weaving from it for a ridiculous amount of time.
Maybe, now, with the opening I see ahead for us to get out, that’s what Ashton was arguing about, and what Hannibal was worrying over.
I pat my gunner’s shoulder, him being the first to hear of my escapade. “Pop off the last ones you see, then stop!”
Realization then sets in.
Shit, Will, what are you thinking? Any more haze-incubating blown, that only adds more danger that can’t be handled with bullets! Please call me out on my idiocy, guy!
“I see what you’re thinking!” he replies, energetically. “Hey, Hannibal!”
Chapter XXXV
Dammit, Will! Try and be confident with yourself!
Hannibal’s hunched-over body extends back up over the turret he’s assisting. My gunner momentarily stops shooting ahead of us. “We’re gonna need to fall back to the chamber, Hannibal! But, keep firing through the clouds until we absolutely can’t! If left flank doesn’t get into trouble with the clouds, then let them handle any more limpers we fail to get out here!”
Hannibal’s eyes look down at his ammo box, probably so he can have an easier time concentrating on what he’s just heard.
Have some damn confidence in your thoughts, Will. This slow and steady tidal wave couldn’t be bobbed and weaved by all of us. You were right to spark up the plan. Gary would be thinking about everybody, no matter the shit sandwich everyone’s in.
The new-born hazes hover absurdly slow, but do get closer to us with every passing second. The same goes for the aged one that came from outside. It’s farther back but not for long.
Things upfront begin to get seriously overwhelming. A plan needs to come to fruition. Fortunately, Hannibal finally nods when my gunner can’t spend any more time idle from firing away. He passes this plan down, officer to officer, personnel to personnel, until someone close enough in proximity to the left flank, to Ashton’s area, informs them of our plan.
It seems everybody’s sirens go off at this point, which is what I originally wanted, before silently screaming to myself how ludicrous I believe my skills are.
Deep down, I feel I was lucky yesterday tangoing with that haze. I would feel top of the human pyramid right now if I allowed myself to believe I helped our entire forces here with a plan. I don’t think I’m okay giving credit to myself about anything, because I can’t feel empowered, because “power” is something I can’t handle healthily.
The last ammo box below me is up next. It fits that it should be our last go at whatever’s left through the dark and thickening hazes. Our front firing team can’t honestly see any more what’s beyond them. We can only guess, based on the intuitive spots shot at to kill 100-plus undead.
Officers kneeled by our barriers, whose kneecaps are surely going to be sore soon, start to run low on their magazines. In response, a few begin falling back to the chamber space Lissie opened up for us. They’re blurting out obscenities during the whole sprint to it. It sounds as though they’re angered with having to retreat, probably thinking to themselves how undead and hazes are this tough.
Here is where I’d say our luck, my luck, isn’t that high. God is a sick joker, because one thing we gain, we lose in another. Me, Ashton, Lissie, and Janice all escaped from our caved-in quarters. Then, we find out Gary is…with him.
With God.
We’ve become allies with these people. Then, we have to work together to survive against more than all of us combined. On top of that, it’s safe to say we’re not reclaiming this hangar.
What happened to the simpler times?
The haze tidal wave is but a barrier away at this point. The stacked shelves that were our crudely-placed shielding won’t stop them. Like water, it always finds a way to get through, and the open gaps to these shelves are its access points.
“Fall back!” everyone on the front lines flurries with breathing pants and redirected attention to our chamber.
Janice and Lissie are right beside Hannibal. And as Hannibal is the leader, he gets through the door first, gaining the freedom to reach the far end of this chamber space.
Good job, girls. You’re my top priority at this point. Even if I’m on the verge of tears from the stress. Even if Ashton was right with us, I’d still want you two going first. “Ladies first” is my motto that I’ll stand by.
Me and my gunner seem to dare ourselves to stay the absolute longest, firing off a second round of bullets. Then, without further choice, we’re forced to flee with the rest.
This door, no more the size of a one standard to a house, is the opening to a vacant space. Inside is a different matter. A mansion wouldn’t have its house be this wide and tall. The glass has no smudges, until my thumbs grab hold of the ledge where the chamber door would block this ledge.
The glass stretches from the ground to the ceiling, really depicting how large in size the hanger is. People mush their bodies together, two pairs of shoulders wedged beside one another, having to force themselves through. Everyone is trying their hardest to not jam up the flow of one another making it.
In order to hold back my anxious impatience to receive my ticket in too, I just continuously look up, amazed at this space’s size, knowing it will be plenty to get past the hazes. I do get sad when I see back behind me. I’m not so much scared at this point, but sad.
So far, when me and my people get into something meant to be larger than us, we get into unfortunate predicaments. As I said, God’s a sick joker that way. I’m really starting to miss those good ‘ol days, when it was just a group, against undead, and hazes…
Maybe I even miss it when it was just me I had to worry about.
A small cough comes out. There’s true irony I feel when knowing the major threats are still the same elements. Undead and hazes.
But, I guess I’d like to go back to those times when I could, to a degree, pick and choose daunting adventures. Mainly scavenging, but not for an organization.
Mostly…I miss being alone.
My life’s route doesn’t have to be accepted here though, by this chamber door. Once we get in, we’re going straight back out. Maybe that’s what our group’s situation is. We came straight here, and we’ll be heading straight back out…
After long months with several people, something I was tossed straight into by Harold, maybe it’s time I can finally…
I’ve mentally been napping from the crisis happening behind me, missing when things were simpler. But I finally do receive a push by my gunner to take my opening in now. The firm and rude nudge was a forgiving way to keep me in the moment.
“Thanks, man.”
He and I split ways at this point, mainly more by my decision to go meet back up with Janice and Lissie. They’re glued to the farthest wall, and everyone has that idea too.
Our left flank lets out shots consistently. They’re the best loud sounds, even though they still startle me and get my adrenaline rushing. Still, I’m happy for those rounds to keep going.
Ashton’s position is still powering over from the undead. I can’t currently spot him through the darkness, but he’s there. Alive. I won’t say he’s safe yet, not until Lissie, Janice, and I escort him and his medical bed out of this hangar.
Which reminds me, when Hannibal is but an officer away, I catch his divided attention. “I think it’s safe to say we’ll need to know exactly where to go from here.”
His swiveling head is going to give him vertigo. He turns quickly to the hazes, then to us, then back over to the hazes, then finally to the personnel beside him, repeating this several times. It’s clear he’s panicking.
“W-we’ll get to the helipads. Ugh… There are four around this entire base.”
Lissie extends a hand towards him to reassure a concern within her—for several of us. “Are there enough helicopters to carry us all?”
