by Mark Gordon
Chapter 79
Release
Dylan put his ear against the cold steel. “I can’t hear a thing.”
“You people have a death warrant now!” threatened the captured marauder, who was sitting on the floor, bound at the ankles by his studded belt.
“Shut up! Nobody said you could speak!” ordered Matt, brandishing the marauder’s liberated shotgun.
“You’ll all fuckin’ die! And the girl!” he countered, defiantly, before falling silent once more, realising there was nothing more to say.
Over the past few hours, the sounds of mayhem had diminished until nothing could be heard outside in the corridors. It was clear that a massacre had taken place last night after Montana had opened the gates, but until they witnessed the scene for themselves, there was no way for the seven survivors to tell which group was hit hardest. The feeders had the element of surprise and almost supernatural strength on their side, but the marauders had a huge stockpile of weapons, which had been hammering away throughout the night as the battle raged. This must have been what it was like for citizens of London during World War 2, thought Matt, when they had to spend the night in air raid shelters, as Nazi bombs pounded the city streets above.
“Wait!” Dylan exclaimed, “Can you hear that?”
Everyone nodded their heads as the engines of motorcycles and cars could be heard starting up somewhere outside.
“That means some survived,” offered Matt, with an expression of concern.
“Yes, but they’re leaving. That means we can get out of here soon. I’m going to check it out.”
Matt glared at the marauder on the floor. “It looks like your friends are deserting you, doesn’t it?”
“They’ll be back. More will come too. Your kind has no chance. If you had balls you’d shoot me now! If you don’t, I’ll fucking kill you the first chance I get!”
Dylan was already striding towards the biker. He snatched the shotgun from Matt and jammed the end of the barrel hard into the marauder’s mouth, before anybody in the room realised what was happening.
“No!” yelled Matt, as Dylan’s finger tightened on the trigger of the weapon.
The marauder stared straight at Dylan, as if daring him to pull the trigger, and for a second the captives thought that Dylan was going to spray the wall of the computer room with the brains of the biker, but Dylan pulled the stock of the weapon out of the man’s bloodied mouth and turned back towards the door.
“Pussy!” screamed the demented marauder, before Matt kicked him in the ribs, before joining Dylan at the locked door.
“Let’s get out of here,” he suggested. “I’ve had enough.”
Dylan was about to unlock the door and check the corridor, when a rattling in the lock indicated that the door was about to be opened from the outside.
“Everybody behind me!” he yelled, as he stepped back and aimed the shotgun at the centre of the door.
“Get down on the floor! If I start shooting, be ready to run!”
They moved behind Dylan and huddled as close together on the floor as they could. Dylan stared down the barrel of the shotgun, ready to shoot, as the lock disengaged and the door slowly swung open. He took a deep breath and tightened his finger on the trigger of his weapon as the figure appeared in the doorframe.
“Montana!” he exclaimed, allowing the gun to fall to his side, before stepping forward to embrace her.
She burst into tears as she fell into Dylan’s arms, and within seconds Matt was there too, reunited with the girl he had once rescued, but now loved.
“Now we’re even,” she sobbed, as the other captives moved silently to the door and peered out into the corridor.
“It’s all right,” said Montana, through the tears, as she gently pulled away from Matt’s grip. “They’re gone - all of them. I watched through a window. It’s not a pretty sight out there either,” she added, as she stepped into the corridor with Matt.
“Oh my god!” cried one of the women, as she surveyed the carnage.
The others stared in disbelief at the gruesome scenes before them. Most of the bodies that were littering the floor were marauders, but there were also feeder corpses scattered here and there, riddled with bullet holes and leaking dark blood onto the vinyl floor.
“Let me out of here!” screamed the biker, as they began to leave the room.
Dylan walked back to the doorway and glared at the man, who had managed to stand, despite his shackled legs.
“Hey, you said your friends would be back, right?”
“So?” the marauder challenged.
“Well, they can let you out when they get here,” sneered Dylan. He closed the door and locked it with the key that was still jammed into the keyhole from last night.
“You prick!” screamed the man from behind the door. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
“Wow! Harsh!” exclaimed one of the captives, as he stared at Dylan with something like admiration.
“Fuck him,” said Dylan, as he turned from the door and joined the rest of the group.
As Montana and Matt led the crew of survivors through the corridors towards the main exit, the story behind last night’s horror became clear. After Montana had unlocked the gates, the feeders had swarmed like locusts into the building, looking for fresh bodies to gorge on. It was clear that the initial stages of the battle were a mismatch, as marauders stumbled unwittingly into the corridor only to encounter the creatures’ frenzied assaults. As they realised what was happening however, some marauders had managed to grab their weapons and fight back, or find somewhere safe to hide for the night. The ones that hid were probably the ones they heard leaving this morning. As the battle continued, it was obvious that the feeders had begun to dominate. The marauders either fled or were killed, and for the rest of the night, the creatures had been able to feed at their leisure. The evidence of their ruthless consumption was all around. Formerly fearsome bandits, now lay on the floor, their stomach cavities hollowed out by the ravenous packs of pale night dwellers, their lives reduced to nothing more than becoming a very messy link in the food chain.
Matt led the survivors, as they stepped over body parts, blood and gore, to the smashed front doors of the school, which he held open for the others as they exited the school for the last time. They stood around in the empty car park, shivering from the cold, despite the weak sunlight, and looked at each other, waiting for someone to speak. Eventually Matt broke the ice. “What are your plans now?” he asked.
The five survivors looked at him, as if lost for an answer.
“I don’t know,” replied one, perhaps a little more resilient. “Where do you go when you have no family or home? Or friends?”
They stood in silence, not knowing how this question could be answered.
“Really,” he repeated. “I don’t know. Where will we go?”
Matt looked over to Dylan, who was shrugging his shoulders, as he walked away to inspect some of the vehicles that had been left behind.
“Well,” said Matt, “I guess if I were you guys, I would take a couple of these vehicles, arm yourselves, and head west. That’s what you were doing before, right?”
“I guess so,” replied the man, who seemed to have become the default leader of this new group. “We weren’t travelling together, though.”
“But now I think you should. You’ll need each other. Gather your friends and go find a couple of cars and get some weapons. Who knows? We might see you again some day?”
“Okay. Thanks,” he said, as he turned to his four new partners. “Okay guys! You heard Matt. Let’s get moving.”
After the weary group trudged off to forage for equipment, Matt turned to Montana. “Wow! That was some plan you came up with last night! You’re not just a pretty face.”
“Hah! I never was just a pretty face. You just hadn’t noticed before.”
“Wanna bet?” he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her.
After a few seconds they separated and Mon
tana stepped away. “Oh man! You smell so bad! We need to get you home and into a shower!”
“That sounds excellent,” he replied, smiling. “You can give me a good scrubbing.”
“Ooh, I’ve never heard it called that before,” she whispered cheekily, as she took his hand and headed over to their car.
-
Half an hour later they were on the road, and heading back to Millfield. They had waved goodbye to the others, and Dylan had found a fully fuelled SUV, while Matt and Montana had collected weapons that were lying around beside the bodies of dead marauders. Matt drove while Dylan rode shotgun, watching for bandits, as Montana lay on the back seat, covered by a blanket, pleased to be warm at last.
“I’ll be glad to get home,” said Matt, not taking his eyes from the road. “That was insane. What do you think happened to Scarface?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe the feeders got him. Those bodies were pretty badly mutilated.”
“Yeah, maybe. But why do I feel like he’s still out there somewhere?”
“Maybe because evil has a way of enduring. Whether he’s alive or not, his influence will continue to be spread through his followers. If he is dead, someone will sprout up and take his place, and people will follow them. Humans are dumb like that.”
“Wow Dylan, I didn’t realise you were such a philosopher.”
“I wasn’t before all this shit. Let’s drop it anyway, I just want to get back to the farm.”
“Yeah me too. I miss it.”
Matt accelerated and they exited the streets of Carswell towards the open road.
“Hey Dylan, how many feeders do you think turned up at the school last night?”
“Gee man, I don’t know. Hundreds probably. Why?”
“Well, I was wondering about the bombs we put in the caves. Do you think they made a difference?”
“How do you mean?”
“Did it do any good? Will it have any impact? There seemed to be plenty of feeders left over to attack the marauders last night.”
Dylan gave Matt a surprised look. “I don’t think those zombies last night were from the caves. It’s too far. They must have been camped out near town somewhere.”
“So what was the point of blowing up the caves then?”
“Shit man! I don’t know! It just felt like we should, you know! What do you want me to say?”
Montana moaned in her sleep from the back seat, as Matt became silent. Dylan’s reaction had surprised him. He thought that the expedition to the caves was a strategic plot to win the battle against the feeders, but Dylan was making it sound like yet another personal revenge mission.
“Hey man, look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get angry,” said Dylan. “I’m just struggling with this whole business, and I miss my daughter so much. Hey, maybe the caves were some kind of breeding grounds. We saw quite a few pregnant females. Maybe our plan was more effective than we think.”
“But we can’t just keep hunting them surely? There are too many aren’t there?”
Dylan stared at the white line on the road as it unfurled beneath them. “Too many to fight like that probably,” he agreed.
“How should we fight them then?” asked Matt.
Dylan looked at Matt.
“We’ll need an army,” he stated emphatically, before returning his gaze to the western horizon.
