Until The End

by Brown, Derek

  “Daddy, I’m scared.” She whispered to me.

  “I know baby I am too.” Inside I was dying; I am supposed to be the one who protects her from things like this. There was nothing I could do though it was too late. I knew I had to do something, so I figured why not take as many of them as I can. “Emma I am going to do everything I can to protect you right now but I need to stay back behind me, can you do that.” Her tear stained face looked up at me and she nodded leaning up and kissing me on the cheek. I kissed her forehead and got up turning to face Erik. “Well Erik it has been a pleasure, I wish we could have made it out of here but alas that is not mean to be.” He reached up and shook my hand.

  “Archer you are one hell of guy, the pleasure was all mine, perhaps in another life.” He turned to face the infected and pointed his rifle. “As they say Once more in the fray we go.” He winked at me and then began firing. I pulled my arrows out and I began taking aim and letting the arrows fly into the coming onslaught of infected. Everyone it camp was firing every bullet they had into the infected. If they didn’t have a gun they were stabbing the infected as they poured into the city. Yet the infected kept coming as they began climbing over the bodies of the infected already dead clawing to reach our flesh. Then I ran out of arrows and I pulled the only kukri I had left. I moved to protect Emma standing over as I saw the infected pouring over the way like a river. I was moving so fast and my muscles hurt so bad they were burning with exertion and sweat was rolling down me. As I cut them blood spurted all over and I became covered in blood. Somewhere inside of me I found more strength to keep fighting, we all did, somehow we all kept fighting unrelenting. I fell to my knees from exhaustion and my arms wouldn’t come up anymore. I tried to force myself to get up but my body had hit its limit and wouldn’t let me. So with every last ounce of strength I possessed I crawled over to Emma letting my head fall resting on her lap. She cupped my face in her hands and although she was crying she said.

  “Don’t worry, Daddy, you did all you could. I love you.” And she sat there holding my head in her lap. “Do you hear that? I think it’s the angels Daddy.” At first I just thought she meant the sound of death coming but then I heard something to. I struggled to get up and then I heard it more clearly than ever before. It was the roar of engines and then I heard the most beautiful sound ever the sound of 50 cal guns going off and I was filled with a wave of relief. I saw a two Humvees racing from behind the infected, laying down fire into the backs of the infected. The infected were trapped and were getting mowed down. I didn’t believe my eyes at first but they were killing the infected and with a second wind the entire population of the camp started fighting again. The infected were trapped between one enemy who was desperate and one who out gunned them from behind. Within moments we were driving the infected backwards into the 50 cals which were laying down fire destroying anything that came in their path. I saw Michael in the middle of the fray as the infected were pushed further out of the city. Michael saw me and I swear he understood what was going on as he met my gaze before he snarled and savagely moved towards me. There were so many bodies though between the infected and the people from the camp fighting for survival. It was difficult to keep track of Michael through the chaos of the fight. The infected had outnumbered us at the beginning but now we had the upper hand. As we drove them back the people in the Humvees would lay down fire killing the infected. They had the 50 cals pointed parallel to us making sure there was no friendly fire. I dodge and stabbed an infected in the head as he jumped to attack me. When I turned to dodge I lost track of Michael, I was unable to track where he was. I saw an infected going to attack Erik from behind and I threw my kukri and caught then infected in the head. Then I twisted to avoid an infected trying to grab Emma as I brought my hands up squeezing its head as it exploded. I am not sure how long we were fighting but slowly the number of infected dwindled until there were none alive. I looked around at the scene in front of me so many people lay dead or dying, bodies of the infected were everywhere. Those of us standing were helping the wounded. I moved to pick up Emma, trying to shield her from all the decay.

  “Daddy, you saved me!” She was so excited to see me and I her. I picked her up and carried her. We made our way to the Humvees to determine who our saviors were. The door to one of them opened and I stopped breathing.

  “I must be dreaming.” I said out loud as Scarlett stepped out and tears of joy ran down both our faces.

  “Scarlett!” Emma shouted jumping down from me running to Scarlett and giving her a big hug. I moved slowly making sure this wasn’t a dream before I embraced Scarlett kissing her deeply.

  “How, What, When, I, How did you get here?” I was speechless and my words wouldn’t work. I was hugging her and Emma and as the rest of the company of the Humvees piled out. Lazarus, Danielle, and Anthony jumped out smiling and shaking my hand.

  “Hey brother, damn you look like shit.” Anthony hugged me fiercely as he laughed.

  “I knew where you headed once you didn’t meet up at the meeting spot. So we did some recon and managed to discover the location of the Brothers of the Cross, it took some time to get it all worked out. Once we figured out where it was I got everyone together and we took ever weapon we had and made our way down here.” Scarlett said explaining everything to me. I couldn’t have been happier and I grabbed her again pulling her in close. I clung to her and Emma afraid to let either of them go from my grasp.

  “Yeah your wife is one cold hard bitch; you should have seen what she did to this Brother of the Cross that we managed to capture. He wasn’t being very cooperative with Anthony and myself. So she took over and well let’s just say he decided to talk.” Lazarus looked at Scarlett with admiration. I was speechless and I really didn’t know what to say.

  “Yeah she was harder on me than any drill sergeant I ever had in boot camp.” Anthony started laughing saluting Scarlett. “But she is a great leader this whole plan was hers; she came up with the whole idea.” It was overwhelming to hear everything that Scarlett had done to find me.

  “I don’t know what to say to any of you thank you. I never meant for any of you to follow me here.” I looked at each of them thanking them for coming and I turned to Scarlett. “Scarlett how did you know I would be here?”

  “I know you my love and knowing you means I knew you had to come for Emma. I know you well enough to know that you didn’t want to put us in danger so you came by yourself. Which I might add was stupid and you got lucky we made it here in time. But I love you and I know why you came.” She hugged me and Emma tightly. As she did Erik, Queen, and Cat moved towards us they were followed the rest of the survivors. There were only about ten of them left now.

  “Thank you to all of you and thank you Colin, for everything.” Scarlett looked over at me questioningly and I nodded motioning we had a lot to discuss later.

  “What’s next brother?” Anthony turned towards me and then everyone turned towards me. I looked at everyone gathered around me their eyes meeting mine expectantly. My thoughts went back to everything I had experienced over the last few months. The world we lived in once was gone for good; there was no going back for any of us. This group, though, we were survivors and we would survive in this new world no matter what. I thought about what it would take and what we would have to do to survive. I hugged Scarlett and Emma bringing them close to me and I looked out at those gathered around me.

  “We survive.”

  Sometime later… in a cave somewhere far from the camp a woman sat who was treating Michael.

  “Don’t worry my hubby we are going to get them back.”

 

 

 
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