by David Peters
Dean winced as the wave of heat and flame rolled over the top of him, “Can they burn through this door, Mike?”
He thought for a moment, “The door is mostly steel reinforced concrete but it was designed to take pressure, not heat. I think there is enough of them to do it. The concrete bowl shape is going to keep the fuel against the door while it burns. Yeah, they would burn through it.”
“So what do we do?”
There was a loud snap from the gap in the concrete. Hastings turned to face them and shrugged his shoulders, “Guess you weren’t right about the line...” with a thump that shook the ground around them the counter weight was released. The door moved far faster than he thought it would, twenty tons of steel and concrete slammed into place, sealing the tunnel forever and ending another man’s life mid-sentence.
Mike tucked the shocked look on Hasting’s face away for review at some other time. “We need to lead them away from here.”
“How the hell do we do that?”
Mike grabbed the remaining sticks of dynamite and his rifle, “You got your running shoes on?”
Dean’s jaw dropped as Mike ran to the top of the bowl. He fired an entire magazine into the approaching crowd while screaming like a mad man. Dean climbed up the edge and joined in the gunfire. They used their weapons like fire hoses. Martha was sitting on the ground firing into the approaching crowd. Her dress was singed in several places and it looked as if her hair had caught fire at one point, wisps of smoke still trailing off of her as she shifted to fire at different targets.
Mike looked at her, “We are going to try and draw them toward the river to the southeast. I don’t want them to realize they can burn through the door. Dean and I are going to make it look like we got away in that direction.
She said nothing as she waved them away. She whimpered slightly at the pain. One of her hands was covered in deep burns where the Sapper’s biofuel had landed and burned her to the bone.
The two men fired another long burst then sprinted toward the south wall exit. Three Hunters broke through the smoke to pursue the two men. Dean killed all three before they could close the distance. Several more broke out of the cloud and descended on Martha. A black cloud of smoke obscured their view but the sounds of gunfire continued for several more seconds before falling silent.
“They ain’t taking the bait, Mike.”
“We’ll see about that.” Mike moved out from the small doorway and looked for the largest grouping of Hunters. Nearly a dozen were milling around the sealed doorway while another, similar sized group moved toward the barn. He lit the first stick of dynamite and threw it into the crowd by the exit. It detonated with a massive crack sending Corrupted body parts thirty feet into the air. Two more sticks arched through the air and landed in the large groups. More body parts were blown around like child’s toys. He fired another long burst from his rifle and fled when the screams started rolling through the enemy positions.
First one Hunter then several more, and finally the horde ran to follow the pair of fleeing humans. Someone running was far more than their instincts could handle and they set in after their new prey. They had a good twenty five yard lead on the closest Hunter when they slammed the metal door behind them and fled out into the open field.
“Don’t look back man! Just run like you have never run before!”
“I thought we were already doing that.”
They had made it almost three hundred yards when the wall finally detonated behind them. Rock, wood and soil launched skyward as the Hunters gave chase yet again. There were hundreds of them, if not more. A solid wall of black hatred closed in on them. Screams of anger filled the air as the Hunters gave chase.
“Mike, I can’t keep this up man! I have to stop!”
“You can keep it up and you will!” Mike answered around heavy breaths. “You want me to tell Kelly you gave up? That you didn’t have what it took to save your own hide?” He looked over his shoulder then regretted it. The Hunters were less than one hundred yards behind them now. Both of them were in the best shape of their lives but they couldn’t outrun the horde behind them and he knew it. It was only a matter of time but time meant distance. Every yard further away, was another yard for the survivors to escape.
“I have an idea, follow me!” He turned slightly east and began moving up a small hill.
“Asshole,” Dean said around heavy breaths, “now you are just showing off!”
“We can talk about it on the other side of the river. These Hunters don’t have stamina, they are already falling behind.”
Dean stole a quick look over his shoulder. The nearest Hunter was less than a hundred feet behind them, “Now you are an asshole and a liar!”
“Now we have two things to talk about on the other side of the river. Starting to sound like date night!”
The small bluff overlooking the river was in sight, just barely ahead of them at the end of the trail. Mike stole another look over his shoulder. There were hundreds of Hunters behind them. They covered the trail and ran along the side of the road through the heavy brush.
“Dean? Have you ever been up this road?” Mike asked as they neared the top of the bluff.
“Not that I recall. Why?” he asked around his heavy breathing.
“Just wanted to give you a heads up,” he yelled as they plunged into open air, “There’s a slight drop so point your toes!”
They threw themselves into the open air off the bluff. Dean began to scream the instant he saw they were nearly sixty feet above the wide, slow moving river.
They landed with a massive and painful splash. Mike struggled for the surface through the disorienting air bubbles around him. As he surfaced, he took in a lungful of air and looked around him for his friend.
“Are you okay, Dean?”
“I’ve decided to survive all of this just to make the rest of your life a living hell. Does that count as being okay?”
Several screams came from the bluff above them. Two Hunters attempted to jump into the water. They landed with a massive splash and vanished from view. A long string of bubbles continued to surface for nearly a minute before stopping.
“Guess we know why they don’t like water now.”
“No kidding,” Mike said as he watched the rising stream of bubbles slow, “damn things float like boat anchors.”
The two of them continued to tread water for nearly fifteen minutes as the Hunters looked on in anger from the bluff high above them.
“This river doesn’t take us in the right direction, does it?” Dean asked quietly.
Mike turned himself in a slow circle several times as he tried to figure out where on the river they were, “It moves west for another mile or so then makes a sharp turn to the north. It will keep us moving away from the rest of the town.” He looked up on the bluff at the Hunters continuing to hiss with anger as the men below slowly drifted downstream.
“That works for me. Keep an eye out for my shoes, will you? They flew off at some point during our re-entry from orbit back there.”
The two of them breathed deeply as they drifted lazily down the river. The Hunters followed for nearly a mile before the terrain began to slow them down and they fell behind. Jagged breaks in the cliff face made it more and more difficult for them to climb and keep up with the slowly moving river.
After floating for nearly three hours, they found a large section of tree that was buoyant enough to allow one of them to get out of the water long enough to warm up in the sun. They would switch back and forth every half hour as they continued down the lazy river. As the sky to the east began to darken with the coming night, a steadily growing sound caught Mike’s attention.
He shook Dean gently on the log, “Dean, wake up.”
“Oh man. Is it your turn already? I was just dreaming about the lovely hard ground in my tent back home.”
“You hear that?”
Dean slid quietly into the water and listened intently, “What the hell is that sound? Sounds l
ike an old World War II bomber or something. Someone manage to get something working after all these years?”
They drifted around a tight bend in the river and nearly half a mile away they could clearly see what was making the noise.
“That’s the biggest damn hive I’ve ever seen,” Mike said quietly.
Dean could only nod, his mouth hanging open in silent amazement.
They were far too low in the water to see anything beyond the top portion of the hive. The three dusky-brown towers rose high into the darkening sky. The center tower rose several hundred feet and appeared to be at least ten feet in diameter at the top. The bottom was lost in the woods but they could clearly see it fan out in all directions against the mountainside.
“That has to be where they came from. I haven’t heard of anything like that, have you?”
“I’ve only heard of the normal sized ones, like Sumter or Boise.”
“That has to be where our ‘Rupts came from. That would explain the numbers,” Mike thought out loud.
Dean worked his way around to Mike’s side of the log and helped him climb on top, “Any idea how much more we can ride this river out?”
Mike tried to remember the hiking maps they had back in the early days of the town but the memory was faded, “It should turn south in another few miles then southeast. It gets kind of rough from then on so we will need to hoof it once the water gets too fast. No way we can take it much further than that and not risk drowning.”
“As long as we are moving away from that damn thing back there, I don’t really care how rough the water gets.”
~2~
They sat on the sandy beach for over an hour as they tried to get their sea legs to go away. The two of them had drifted down the river for twenty-six hours on the log and they both still felt as if they were bobbing along even while sitting still. Dean’s only form of footwear, his socks, were drying out on the sand next to him. Mike suggested they share his boots but his feet were two sizes smaller than what he wore and there was no way they could make it work. They found large leaves that they rolled up and placed in his socks then bound that up with the laces from Mike’s boots. They lasted for nearly a mile before the heavy wool had been shredded to nothing. They continued to bind the remnants of the socks to the bottom of his feet but after another mile in the thick brush there were no pieces left large enough to use. Even the laces were beginning to disintegrate.
They resorted to tearing their shirt sleeves off but with the laces gone they couldn’t come up with anything to keep the pieces on his feet.
“I’ll make do Mike. You did what you could.”
“Sure wish my feet were bigger.”
“Or mine were smaller.”
“Yeah. That too.”
After traveling through the tough underbrush and thickets for half a day, they came upon a well-traveled game trail that was moving in the direction they needed to go. The ground was worn soft and they were able to make good time without having to stop for Dean’s feet every few hundred yards. They slept under logs and boulders when they could find them. Huddled together they managed to stay warm on the cool nights. It would still take at least half an hour before the soreness from the hard ground had passed but it was soon replaced by the pain of the continued forced march.
They had been moving fast for nearly three days when they came across the first signs of the people from Folkesburg moving toward Paradise Falls. One burned out wagon and wide open area of clear ground left blackened and charred. Torn up tents and randomly strewn clothing littered the entire area. Thankfully there were no bodies to be found.
Mike walked around the edge of the camp carefully looking at all of the footprints as he looked for any clothing that could be used as shoes for Dean. He found the direction the bulk of the group appeared to have left in. It would take them down into the valley below and through a draw in the hills to the northwest.
Mike looked at the turned up soil and the number of tracks left in the soft ground, “I think we should go wide and hook further to the south.”
Dean was carrying a handful of clothing he might be able to use, “Why would we do that? It’s pretty obvious they went down into the valley. We should be able to follow this trail, even in the dark! We must be close, couple days at most. It’s a straight shot, why go any other way?”
“This is the same trail the Hunters will be using to track. I can see a shit ton of their footprints in the dirt already. Not to mention that if they hit the people again, they will be carrying anyone they get back along this trail. We aren’t in any shape to fight anything beyond a pissed off squirrel at this point and if we follow this same trail I can almost guarantee we will run headfirst into ‘Rupts before we ever see someone we know. ‘Rupts that will be looking for people like us and if we take this trail they’ll find us fast.”
Dean nodded tiredly before he crawled into a partially burned tent, “Jackpot!” He came out holding a pair of furry pink slippers with worn, brown rubber soles.
“Those will look amazing on you. Find any food or water?”
“A torn up nightgown and what’s left of a sleeping bag, no blood so I’m cool with it.”
“Most of the clothing I found is shredded or burned to scraps. Let’s get moving, this place is giving me the creeps.”
They headed directly south out of the destroyed camp site. After what felt to be about a mile, they turned slightly west and followed along the ridgeline as they continued along the game trail. The soft, narrow trail lasted for nearly a mile before it turned sharply down the hill to the south. Mike gave Dean an apologetic look before he grudgingly turned into the brush and forced their own trail through the woods as they continued directly west. Mike knew that they would cross a freeway at some point and be able to get their bearings once there. He would continuously turn to see how Dean was doing. He could see the man wince in pain every so often but he would remain quiet and say little about the pain.
Ridgeline after ridgeline passed behind them. The climbing was brutal but they usually found water at the bottom of each valley. Both were concerned about getting dysentery but they needed water and would die without it. If they got a stomach bug of some sort, they would at least be in Paradise Falls before it could kill them. They knew there was a doctor in the town and had faith that he would be able to coax them back to health from something as simple as a stomach bug.
After nearly six days of walking they stepped out of the woods onto a vast, open expanse of freeway. Gray pavement stretched for several miles in each direction before being lost in the forest or around a mountain turn. The air was still and uncomfortably quiet as they walked down the middle of the road. Dean was happy to no longer be walking on sharp sticks and pine needles but found the random stone on the pavement excruciatingly painful to step on as his slippers slowly tore to shreds. Aside from his grunts of occasional pain, they didn’t make a sound as they continued to move west.
As they passed their eleventh mile marker, Dean let out an angry growl.
“Problems?”
“Yeah. These slippers have had it. You know what I’d give for a roll of duct tape right now?”
“If you could make tape magically appear why not wish for shoes?”
“You are obviously not in the spirit of this game, Mike.”
Mike held his fingers to his lips, “You hear that?”
Dean tilted his head to listen, “Sounds kind of like someone crying. A lady I think.”
“This way.”
The two moved quietly several dozen yards down the freeway until they were overlooking a large drainage culvert. They could clearly see the prints on the side of the ditch where someone had walked down into the ditch recently.
“Is there anyone down there?
The crying stopped abruptly when Mike called out.
“We aren’t armed, could sure use some food if you have any to spare. Maybe we can help each other.”
A female voice called out from the pipe below th
em, “Mike? Is that your voice I hear?”
Mike turned to Dean but he simply shrugged his shoulders, “Yeah, my name is Mike, who are you?”
A woman and a man stepped out into the daylight, “It’s me, Tracy. This is Brian. I think you two have met before.”
“Where is everyone else? Why are you hiding down in that hole?”
“We were separated a few nights ago when the Hunters came into the camp. People ran everywhere. Brian and I just started running. People were screaming all around us, fire was everywhere. I could hear the Sappers exploding all around us. We didn’t know what to do so we just ran. We found this freeway and just kept running until this morning. We didn’t know what we were going to do.”
Brian added, “We have no idea where we are and no idea how to get to Paradise Falls.”
Mike offered a helping hand as the two of them climbed out of the drainage ditch, “You’re welcome to join us. I’m not exactly sure where we are but I have an idea. We are going to keep moving on the pavement as long as we can, Dean’s feet won’t be able to take the trail for much longer and I can’t carry him.”
“Do you know how to get to Paradise Falls?”
“The plan right now is to keep moving west until we find a gas station or hotel or something. We can hopefully find something there that will tell us exactly where we are and which direction we should move in.”
“What if we run into Corrupted?”
“I honestly don’t know. We don’t even have a pocket knife to defend ourselves. We try not to move at night and have been sleeping pretty much anywhere we can find shelter. If we see any large towns then we turn and go the other way. We keep talking to a minimum, move as quietly as possible and bury all waste. Are you with us?”
Brian nodded, “Sounds better than waiting to die in a drainage ditch.”
~3~
They had passed the previous six hours in relative silence. The group would stop to rest every hour, the four of them separating to find somewhere comfortable to sit. The heavy overcast threatened to rain on them any minute but as of yet they hadn’t seen a single drop.
