Mariah watches over them, taking her role seriously and selecting her targets more carefully to cover them as they reload and keeping anyone from flanking them and slipping up on either of them from a blind spot.
Fewer than half of the initial crowd has gone still. Most of them are still moving in the same direction when Miles begins to fire. He had tried to maximize the effect of each grenade by putting some distance between the separate blasts and focusing on where the crowd was the least dense, hoping to spread the shrapnel to maximum effect. The concussion did a good job of handling the locals immediately surrounding the explosions, but he wasn’t satisfied with the results.
He and Hewitt had been too close for comfort, based on his experience, but he’d banked on the crush of bodies being sufficient to keep the two of them safe from the random bits of shrapnel that can, and often do, travel well outside of the standard blast radius. It looks like he was right since Hewitt joins him in firing on the front wave of attackers.
He wishes he’d had more than just the three M67s and would have gladly settled for even an MK3A2 or two as well. The reality is that he only ever had the three grenades as a joke more than anything else. His friends teased him for being a firearm aficionado, all in good fun, and he’d procured the fragmentation grenades mostly to take their joke and run with it. He’d show them a gun nut if that’s what they wanted to see.
The present circumstances make him wish he’d really been as paranoid and over the top as his friends characterized him as being. A couple more grenades, even just some concussion cylinders would make simpler work of the remaining locals.
As it stands, he figures he managed to kill, or at least cripple, somewhere near 100 of the enemy with the three grenades he’d used. The same density of the crowd that sheltered he and Hewitt from shrapnel also cut down on the effectiveness of each blast. There are a lot more injured than dead, but anyone not crippled by their injuries is still coming as if nothing had happened, just angrier and more insane if such a thing is even possible. They aren’t coming fast though, and that is the only relief he sees in the situation.
The MP5 had always been one of his favorite guns and she is working like a dream for him right now. Conserving ammunition, he continues with three-round bursts, target after target, while he and Hewitt converge at the center of the lane and begin slowly backing their way down the block and toward the impossible distance they’ll need to cover to get back to Mariah. Miles had expected they would be running for cover, but rapidly backing along is enough of a chore that it begins wearing them both down.
They can still hear their guardian angel firing and both men find comfort in knowing that she’s covering them and watching their backs.
Hewitt ejects the final magazine from his handgun and swings the Mossberg 500 12-gauge off his shoulder.
As primed as he is, he’s almost too slow. A man from the crowd lunges at him, howling unintelligibly. The barrel of Hewitt’s shotgun is shoved downward as the man closes in, but he squeezes the trigger just the same and the attacker is hit where his right hip meets his abdomen. The man stays upright for only a moment, until his weight shifts to his useless right leg and he finally collapses.
Hewitt continues firing, other members of the crowd had closed in on him during the brief engagement.
Eight rounds, then reload. He saves his shots for when they count the most, knowing that range is not his friend with this one. The two men slip into a routine where Hewitt focuses on closer targets while Miles tackles the ones further away.
Ears are ringing with the telltale signs of damage that will surely lead to tinnitus. Ear protection wasn’t really an option for them and hadn’t been a priority to procure, but they’re alive so far, and that’s better than the alternative.
The semi-organized retreat to where Mariah is holed up seems to stretch on forever, but the two of them back through the gate and down the sidewalk to the porch only a matter of minutes after the first grenade’s detonation.
The narrow entrance to the yard itself provided by the sturdy gate and wrought iron fence allows Miles and Hewitt to take their time a little bit more and to block the path with bodies, slowing the 50 or so locals still approaching.
Some of the more determined try to climb the fence, but they’re easy enough for Mariah to pick off from above. There seems to be no real cunning left in these people, just a pure hate-fueled drive to keep on pushing forward, to reach the three of them and kill. Hewitt wonders if these people are so far gone that they’ll be eaten as well and whether they will still be alive when it happens.
Ammunition is running low, but so are the numbers of infected still on the offensive.
The same logistics apply as on the street, bodies on the ground slow the ones still coming, but they are steadily closing the gap faster than Miles and Hewitt can plug it.
The plan had never been to retreat into the house, but then again Hewitt wonders if the plan ever really accounted for them surviving this long against these odds.
Backed against the wall and the door respectively, the two men face down the final dozen locals still pressing forward, more like the zombies at this point than the riled-up mob they’d appeared to be in the park.
Miles finally understands why the grenades hadn’t scattered them at all, seeing what had been clear to Mariah for a while. These people are all right on the verge of letting go of those last little remnants of humanity inside of them. Hewitt sees it too, though he’s been noticing the same thing for a short while.
Hewitt begins to suspect that the planned execution of Abraham might have been the final volitional act for all of these people. Even then, he believes they were on autopilot more than actually making any sort of actual choice.
It is with sadness and sympathy that Hewitt fires the final round from the shotgun, dropping a young woman, barely clothed, who had made it onto the porch to his left. Reversing his grip, he bashes the stock into the temple of a boy behind her.
Miles is down to only a few rounds in his 9mm and he’s trying to make them count. Those final rounds don’t last long. They have nowhere further to fall back to, backs pressed against the wall, the final members of the mob closing in more quickly than either of them would like.
The door opens behind Miles and he almost falls backward into Mariah as she steps through the opening and begins firing from her handgun, having left the rifle upstairs since range no longer mattered.
Hewitt and Miles are both painfully aware of the fact that Mariah has saved their asses in the last possible moment.
There is no relief to be felt by any of them as the final approaching member of the crowd falls heavily to the ground, no longer animated and no longer a threat.
There is only crushing exhaustion and dismay. Now that the adrenaline fades they register what they’ve done.
45
After almost a solid week of overcast skies and rain, the sun breaking through the clouds seems like it should be met with more enthusiasm than an exhaled and bone-weary Hewitt can manage to pull off.
How long has it been? he wonders to himself. Has it really been only a few days since the rain began?
His back pressed against the rough wall of stone just outside the mine entrance, only a couple of feet from where Gale had taken his life, Hewitt starts to lose circulation in his legs from the way he has them folded beneath him. He shifts restlessly against the numbness and tingling until the pins and needles begin to fade.
No one else is awake and he can’t seem to make himself sleep any more than he already has. Every time he closes his eyes he sees the same horrible things he’s been participating in since this nightmare all began. Each time he begins to fall asleep he sees himself surrounded by ravenous monsters with the familiar faces of friends and long lost loved ones. There was no comfort or peace to be found in slumber when even sleep is no respite from the nightmares.
From the angle he’s seated he can’t see the town past the pines towering all around and that is as c
lose to rest as he’s going to get, especially now that the clouds are beginning to break up, allowing the sun to send some glorious illumination down toward the mountain across the valley from where he sits.
For just a moment or two, he can almost forget the things he’s had to do and the things still ahead of him, and he can breathe in the pristine and untouched beauty that captivated him during their first days here.
Miles, he thinks, may have the stomach for this sort of thing, but he truly doubts that he has much left in the tank. Days of carnage, trauma, and a perpetual state of terror have eroded any sense he had of being clean or human and he sincerely suspects the others feel the same. He hopes there’s that much left of who they once were, that this experience hasn’t consumed everything good or optimistic like it threatens to do to him.
Still sitting in the same place, he doesn’t hear the scuffing of footsteps approaching him from behind and he jumps when Miles speaks, “It’s still quite beautiful up here.”
“Until you know, you remember the violence, the blood on our hands and soaking into the soil down there,” he replies, his voice hollow and lacking any real inflection. “And, of course, everything we’ve lost.”
“There is that,” Miles replies quickly, “and we had all better remember that, and never forget it.”
Hewitt looks up at his friend, his expression making the confusion he feels plain to Miles.
“This shit,” he answers the unspoken question. “The things we’ve been forced to do. You may want to forget it, it’s only natural to want exactly that, but I hope you never do. You need to remember everything about it, including how dirty and low it made you feel. You’re dishonoring these people, the strangers, and our friends if you allow yourself to forget them. Enemies, especially enemies who had no choice in the matter, they deserve our respect and remembrance.”
“That is some strange fucking advice, my friend,” Hewitt says.
Miles shrugs. “Maybe strange, but it’s true. If you allow yourself to forget these people, you’re taking your first steps toward being a bigger monster than what we’ve seen out there. That’s how you become the sort of person who can just do this kind of thing and walk away content.”
Hewitt has no response.
He silently mulls over what his friend has said, thinking about all of the strangers he’d hurt or killed since all of this started.
He’s lost in thought, not taking in anything in front of him anymore, and he doesn’t notice when Miles returns to the mine interior and the lab beyond.
When he finally returns from his internal musings, he realizes that he’s alone again.
Gazing off into the distance, Hewitt shifts his thinking from the atrocities already committed to those he knows are still to come.
Down there, lurking in the remaining shadows are dozens or even hundreds of people, or what used to be people. They may not still be quite accurately described as people, but Miles’ words force him to remember that these were men, women, and children who had lives before all of this. They had dreams, pasts, and futures until Gale turned everything topsy turvy.
This isn’t over for any of them, the nightmare continues, though for the folks down the hill he sincerely hopes that any part of them that might have been human has left the building long before now. That’s the least they deserve.
46
Comparing the population statistics with the dead they’d discovered on their attempt to sweep and clear the town as well as those they’d dispatched for themselves, only about a quarter of the locals are unaccounted for and could still be out there. The numbers are daunting, but when compared to what they’d already dealt with, it is something manageable even with just the three of them on the hunt. Ben, whether he likes it or not, is not participating in this final act of defiance against the world Gale ushered in.
As confident as they try to be, each of them has their suspicions that what’s coming is going to be a suicide mission. It is going to be rough, it would have been even if all six of them were still around, but left to just them, it is going to be virtually impossible.
If Gale’s projections remain accurate, and so far they’ve been horrifying in their accuracy and precision, it should only be the zombie-like individuals out there now, shambling around and consuming whatever they can find. There may be some exceptions, Gale had even suggested that genetic variance could allow for natural immunity or at least immune responses that would dramatically slow the process, but most of what they know they’ll be seeing is the later stage infected, shuffling their way to certain death.
The sun had started shining again at just the right time. Darkness isn’t their ally anymore, they all agree. What they’re gearing up to fight now isn’t an enemy who will exhibit any guile or strategy, even the most recent encounter with the higher functioning residents had been largely bereft of any sort of cunning. Once they have the attention of the things out there, they should all start coming out of the woodwork.
The plan seems solid as they’ve worked it out, albeit insane, but there are too many unknowns for any of them to feel good about their chances.
They begin by checking homes and businesses they’d already cleared, making certain nothing has changed concerning those properties that fall along their path between the mine and the location they’ve picked for the final offensive. Miles is very clear that they don’t want their rear any more exposed than it has to be while they are getting into position and neither Mariah nor Hewitt have any objections.
All but two of the locations had remained clear and, rather than feel the time is wasted, Hewitt took the opportunity to begin taking a rough inventory of anything worth noting in each home.
Mariah and Miles begin doing the same.
Progress is slow, especially with the rough inventory taking place, but aided by the daylight, it goes more quickly than when they’d previously visited each of the homes in the middle of the night.
It’s surreal, returning to some of these places in the light of day.
Resistance is less than what they expected and certainly less than what they’d experienced before. Only five of the zombified residents await them as they make their way through the center of town and to the neighborhood surrounding the park. Still attempting to maintain some operational silence as well as they can hope to keep from announcing their presence for a while still, they avoid using any of the firearms they’re carrying, also hoping to conserve ammunition until they need it.
As they come closer to the park and the site of the massacre from only a couple of nights before, they all begin to gag on the foul odor of rot and excrement that forms a miasma all around them. They knew it would be bad, but seeing the dead littering the ground and breathing it in during the midday sun paints it all in such a vividly gruesome detail that even Miles has to fight the urge to vomit in anticipation of what they’re approaching, knowing it will be worse before it gets better.
Sure enough, the sights and smells only get worse as they get closer to the park. The site of numerous executions has become a buffet for some of the ravenous and nearly dead.
The sounds of snarls and of flesh being ripped away and consumed warns them of what’s coming before they get within sight of the park itself.
Wary, and with guns drawn, the trio approaches the area as cautiously as they’ve ever done anything in their lives.
Through the carnage stretching out before them a dozen of the townsfolk crawl amidst the bodies of the dead, eating everything they can tear away with either fingers or teeth, the nearly dead gorging themselves on those who beat them to the finish line. None of them take notice of the friends as they approach the gruesome outdoor abattoir.
In the disorienting flurry of a couple of nights before, in the shadows lit only by muzzle flashes and lighting, none of them had been able to take in the extent of the slaughter.
Hewitt feels dizzy while looking around, knowing he is personally responsible for so much of this death and not knowing how to proce
ss that knowledge in a way that makes sense. “Holy shit,” he mutters under his breath, the only words any of them can bring themselves to speak.
The awful soundtrack of the feast taking place around them accompanies a vision that is no less terrible.
With exaggerated care, they make their way through the bodies strewn across the ground, keeping as much distance between themselves and the infected as they can pull off without altering their course too much.
Directly ahead of them loom the small non-denominational chapel, seemingly ominous in its apparent peaceful tranquility while the battlefield surrounds them. The chapel itself isn’t what fills Hewitt and his friends with dread so much as what the place is meant to become once they get there.
This will be the location of their last stand in this dead town, the final battle before they either fall from the weight of unnatural monsters or they prepare themselves for a return to an outside world that may already be collapsing beneath the pressure brought about by Gale’s plague.
None of them know whether they will survive this final stroke in their plan. In the next minutes or hours, it could be only Ben who remains alive and well to leave this awful place.
Beyond the sights, sounds, and smells of the journey through the town itself and into the park, their final stretch to reach the chapel is safe and uneventful, the zombies behind them too preoccupied with their meal to notice the living who have slipped through the area like the ghosts Hewitt suspects they will all soon become.
The door is unlocked and Miles bursts through the door first, sweeping a Mossberg shotgun through the open space. The place smells clean, but they can’t afford to take any chances; so Miles treats the open plan of the church like any other building they’d entered on the way here.
Innocence Ends Page 18
