Damned Are We

by Durman, Jason

  Corvo gingerly stepped over the mutilated body of the pilot, regretful of the untimely demise of the

  man who had saved them from certain death. How the hel did he get infected, anyway?

  " Jacob! Don't make me bitch-slap you! 'Cause I will!" Markus exclaimed from across the helicopter.

  Corvo made his way over to Samantha's limp form and firmly shook her. "Samantha! Samantha,

  wake up!" The girl's face was cut and scratched in several places, but her pulse was stil strong.

  "Come on, kid!"

  Her eyes fluttered open, a confused gaze flashing through them. Suddenly, they widened in panic as

  she sat bolt upright. "Shit! The helicopter – we crashed!"

  "Calm down," Corvo said grimly. "Yeah, we did. But I managed to stabilise the fall. Count yourself lucky – the crash was nowhere near as bad as it could have been."

  Samantha looked over to see Markus bending over Jacob, who was just beginning to stir. She

  breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Come on," Corvo said, helping her out of her seat. "I don't know how long we've been unconscious, but it looks like it's moving into the late afternoon. We best be moving on."

  She nodded glumly, looking down at the body of the pilot lying at her feet and feeling an intense

  pang of guilt and sorrow strike her heart. Barely an hour apart, two men had turned before her very

  eyes and she had been forced to kil them. She did not know how much more of this she could take.

  Jacob glowered angrily as he surveyed the grim, outer industrial district of Fairfield that they had

  landed in. "See? I told you. Helicopter crashed. We're not saved. We're all gonna die. Pay up."

  "We'll be fine, Jacob," Markus cal ed out.

  The biker turned toward him. "Hey, Markus! That fancy col ege of yours teach you how to fix a

  helicopter?"

  "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" the other man deadpanned.

  "You're kidding, right?"

  "Less talking, more scavenging," came Corvo's sharp voice.

  Jacob sighed and walked over to the helicopter, retrieving his shotgun. He kicked the wreckage

  angrily, and then saw the body inside the wreckage.

  "Hey, Samantha. Here's the pilot, in case you wanna shoot him again."

  "He was infected, Jacob," Samantha sighed irritably. She could not find the shotgun she had been

  using, and was now reduced to a single M1911 pistol. Wonderful. Her thoughts were interrupted by

  Corvo cursing loudly nearby. "You okay, Corvo?"

  "My M-16... Fuckin' gone..."

  "I lost my shotgun, too," the young woman grumbled. "They must have fal en from the helicopter during the crash."

  Corvo searched the area for silence in a moment, and then came over to her, handing over a

  discarded crowbar he had found lying around.

  She looked at the blunt instrument in disbelief. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this? "

  "Hit stuff?" he suggested simply, bending over and picking up a rusty metal pipe.

  Markus loaded a fresh clip into his Uzi and sauntered over. "So, what's the plan, guys?" There was

  an awkward silence. "We do have a plan, right?"

  "We march our sorry asses out of this Godforsaken city," the war veteran said sullenly. He strapped his newly-found metal pipe across his back, drew a pistol and then walked off, heading westward.

  Samantha looked back at the crashed helicopter – their last hope – and choked back a torrent of foul

  language, before moving off after Corvo. Markus sighed and followed them.

  "Hey, Mr Positive!" Jacob sneered as he fell in behind them. "Guess what? We just CRASHED! Got something positive to say about that? "

  "We're walking away from it, aren't we?" he shot back over his shoulder.

  There was a contemplative silence. "Yeah, alright... I'll give you that one."

  The group drifted between the ugly concrete buildings that adorned the landscape. Burning drums,

  piles of rubble and dead bodies littered the ground, while discarded newspapers tumbled through the

  al eys on the wind.

  "Man, what a shithole," Corvo remarked.

  "Wel , we al know who to thank for bringin' us down here," Jacob growled, glancing over his

  shoulder to shoot Samantha an angry glare. She scowled and looked away.

  The ragtag little band made their way through the alleyways, saying very little to each other. Morale

  was at an all-time low. In a desperate attempt to lighten the mood, Samantha giggled nervously. She

  looked around to see the others staring at her as though she was crazy, and decided to speak up.

  "Okay, here's an important safety tip for you; don't get into a helicopter with an infected pilot." She did not receive so much as a smile, and felt rather downcast.

  Jacob glowered angrily. "Wel , the next time someone offers us a ride, don't shoot him."

  "He was INFECTED, Jacob!" she exclaimed.

  At that moment, rain started to fall.

  "Aw, you're fucking kidding me! " the stocky biker exclaimed. "You know what would make this day even better? Two more Leapers! Hel , why not make it three?"

  "Be careful what you wish for," Markus muttered under his breath.

  "In here!" Corvo called, motioning them toward a decrepit old warehouse.

  The main rol er doors were closed, but a service door off to the side was slightly ajar, giving them

  access into the cavernous building. Rain pounded on the corrugated roof and doors, the patter of

  water echoing throughout the stacks. The survivors stood in the doorway, aiming their flashlights into

  the darkness, alert for danger. Fortunately, the place seemed quite empty.

  "Hm, I guess we hole up here for the night?" Markus asked.

  Corvo nodded grimly, fishing around in his pockets for rations.

  "It's gonna be hard to sleep with that racket," Markus said as the patter of water grew louder as the rain increased.

  The older man grunted. "When I did my tours in Vietnam, the rain always came in at night. You find that the sound gets soothing after a while. It even helps you sleep." He dumped some packets of

  Jameson Hospital oatmeal on the floor. "We're gonna need some water to cook this stuff."

  "You don't have any meat on you, do you?" Jacob grumbled.

  Corvo shot him a withering look. "Go cut some off one of the bodies outside, if you're so desperate."

  Samantha felt sick at the thought, and retched.

  He looked at her concern. "You alright, kid?"

  She gulped and gasped in some deep breaths. "Yeah, I'm fine... I'll go find us something to gather

  rainwater in..." With that, she wandered off into the stacks of shelves in search of a bucket.

  "Stay close!" he called after her.

  Ten minutes later, she had returned with a bucket brimming with rainwater. It seemed to be the one

  thing they had an abundance of. Corvo was setting up a fire fed by newspaper on the floor near a

  front corner of the warehouse, while Jacob was lounging around, being of no help whatsoever.

  Markus had done some searching of his own in the stacks and returned with three smal bowls.

  "Thanks for the water, kid," Corvo said, mixing it in with the oatmeal and heating the mixture over the fire.

  After a tasteless and unsatisfying dinner, the four of them sat around the dying fire. The newspaper

  burned too quickly for them to keep the fire going for long, and no one felt up to the task of going to

  look around for more tinder.

  "Look what I found," Corvo said presently, presenting a box full of empty beer bottles to the others.

  "You plannin' on tradin' them in for ten cents each?" Jacob remarked sarcastical y.

  "Better," the veteran replied, laying a dirty-looking rag next to the box. "We can
use these to make Molotov cocktails."

  "Sounds tasty."

  He shot the biker an unfriendly glare as he produced a canteen bottle. "I took the liberty of siphoning

  some petrol from the helicopter when we crashed, instead of standing around, whining."

  Jacob did not bother to reply.

  Markus, however, was excited with the idea. "Fire in a bottle? What's not to love about that?"

  "I figure we can carry one each, maybe two in the case of Samantha and I, since we both only have

  pistols."

  With that, he, Markus and Samantha undertook the mundane task of making Molotov cocktails. The

  young woman tore off a strip of rag and stuffed it deep into a petrol-fil ed bottle, being sure to pack it

  tight. She looked over at Jacob to see him methodical y inserting shells into his shotgun.

  Slide. Click. Slide. Click.

  "Aren't you going to make a Molotov for yourself?" she asked.

  "Nope."

  Slide. Click. Slide. Click.

  "They'll come in handy," she persisted.

  Jacob gave off a heavy sigh, a clear indication for her to leave him alone. Samantha, however, had

  had enough.

  "What's your problem?" she said angrily.

  "You real y have to ask?"

  "Yeah. I really do."

  Corvo and Markus observed the tense exchange nervously.

  "Alright, fine!" Jacob growled, finally looking up at her. "We're stuck in the city, camping out in some shithole warehouse. We're running out of food, ammo and supplies, and now we have to resort

  to this – " he gestured angrily at the box of empty bottles, "– to survive! We're fucked, anyway you look at it."

  "Now hang on a minute – " Corvo began, but was cut off as Jacob stood up menacingly.

  "That helicopter was our one chance, Samantha, and you blew it out of the sky! This is all

  on your head!"

  "That is total y unfair!" she exclaimed. "If I hadn't done something, that pilot would have kil ed us! And I'm not sure how many helicopters you've hotwired and stolen in your life, Jacob, but I've never flown one before!"

  The two glared at each other angrily, when a loud crash interrupted the heated argument. Everyone

  jumped in fright and looked over to see that the service door had come crashing open with the wind.

  Rain poured into the room through the opening, while a flash of lightning outside momentarily lit up

  the immediate interior of the building.

  "It's okay, it was just the wind," Markus breathed.

  However, before anyone could get up to close the door again, another flash of lightning momentarily

  lit up the whites of many pairs of eyes staring at them from the darkness of the warehouse around

  them.

  Chapter 18

  The flash of lightning lit up many pairs of eyes staring the survivors down hungrily, before darkness

  fel over the room once more. A blood-curdling shriek rang out through the air, as two dark figures

  sprinted at them with frightening speed. Answering bul ets slammed into the pair of attackers,

  sending them tumbling to the ground in flashes of yel ow light and red blood.

  Jacob swung his head around to see more dark shapes emerging from the warehouse stacks

  around them. Muzzle-flashes lit up the room as bullets sizzled through the air. A short burst from

  Markus' Uzi dropped several attackers, splattering blood across the slick floor.

  The din of bloodthirsty growls was answered by the thumping staccato of gunfire, which fel ed the

  snarling intruders before they could reach the makeshift campsite.

  Samantha and Corvo cautiously retreated back toward the others, their pistols not quite as effective

  as the heavier weapons. Just as he was considering using a Molotov, he felt a pair of cold hands

  wrapping around his neck, just as another pair of hands began to claw at his stomach. He cried out

  in pain as the force of the two Common Infected forced him to the hard cement floor.

  "Corvo!" Samantha cried out, rushing forward to help him.

  The grizzled veteran quickly drew his combat knife and swung his arm sideways in a powerful lateral

  swipe that just about decapitated one of the men on top of him, showering him in a spray of blood.

  He kicked the corpse off him and then viscously rammed the knife upward into the jaw of the other infected man.

  "I've had the worst day…" he growled, jumping to his feet. "And you animals just picked the wrong guy to fuck with..."

  Samantha paused in mid-step as she watched Corvo go to town with the remaining three Infected,

  slashing two throats and stabbing the third one through the side of the head. A bel ow of anger split

  the air as yet another straggling Common Infected lurched out of the darkness, eyeing Corvo down

  hungrily. Markus raised his Uzi, but the older man beat him to the punch, drawing the metal pipe

  from behind his back and smashing the attacker across the face with a sickening CRACK, fol owed

  by a dul THUD as the body dropped to the ground.

  Markus stared in a flabbergasted silence, while Jacob snorted a laugh. "Ha! Nice one, Corvo.

  Remind me not to mess with you when you're in one of your 'Vietnam moods'."

  Samantha simply stared in shock as Corvo reached down and retrieved his knife, stil embedded in

  the head of one of the dead bodies. She had never seen him fight with such fury and rage before

  and, truthfully, it scared her. What if al that anger was coming from an unnatural source? What if

  he was turning…?

  "Help me block off this door," Corvo said, moving off toward the service entrance.

  Together, he and Jacob closed the door to the outside and then pushed a table and a number of

  shelves in front of it, confident that nothing would be able to get in now without making a lot of noise.

  While they were busy barricading the door, Markus pulled Samantha off to one side.

  "Look," he whispered careful y. "We need to keep an eye on Corvo."

  She sighed. "…I know."

  Markus patted her supportively on the shoulder. "Hey, there's stil hope, right? I mean, I was immune.

  There's every chance that he could be too. It's been nearly twenty-four hours, and he hasn't turned."

  The former col ege student smiled weakly.

  "Alright, let's get some rest," Corvo cut in, startling the private conversation and causing its

  participants to look up guiltily.

  "I'l take the first watch," Samantha said immediately.

  He shot her an unreadable glance. "You sure?"

  "Positive. I-I can't sleep anyway. Not after that."

  "Thanks, Samantha," Markus said grateful y, curling up on the floor near the dying campfire.

  Jacob gave her the slightest of nods, and then crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.

  Corvo led her away from the group to speak with her privately. "Look," he said. "You don't have to do us any favours – "

  "It's fine!" she insisted. "I'm really not tired. Not after that gunfight a few seconds ago." She shivered involuntarily at the haunting mental image of al those eerie eyes staring at them from the darkness.

  "Besides, it might make him – " she motioned at Jacob' motionless form, "hate me a little less."

  "Don't take it to heart," Corvo replied. "He hates everything."

  "I know..." she replied, casting her eyes downward. "But it is my fault that the helicopter went down –

  "

  The grizzled veteran grabbed her by the shoulders. "Samantha! It is not your fault! The pilot

  was infected! He was going to kill us! You had no choice."

  She nodded silently, but still could not help feeling guilty.

  "Just stop, blaming yourself, o
kay?" Corvo continued. "...Wake me in a couple of hours. You need your rest, too."

  "How are you feeling, by the way?" Samantha inquired.

  "I don't have a ravenous appetite for human flesh yet, if that's what you're askin'," he answered

  sourly.

  "That's good," she replied, although she was still worried.

  An hour later, Samantha wandered through the warehouse, her flashlight shining through stack after

  stack of shelves. Although the door to the outside world had been barricaded, this dark, cavernous

  space that they were camping on the edge of made her feel uneasy. After all, when they had entered

  the building, it had seemed quite safe. But the attack a short while ago had driven home the fact that

  the Infected could be anywhere without them knowing. Thunder boomed outside as the storm

  continued to rol across Fairfield.

  The light from the flashlight il uminated a door set into the wal at the far end of the warehouse.

  Samantha drew her pistol and moved forward to investigate. She cautiously turned the knob and

  shone her flashlight inside, the cone of light revealing a smal storage room. She cautiously stepped

  inside and moved deeper into the room, swinging the light around, eyes peeled for danger. She

  stopped dead and her blood ran cold when her light revealed a mutilated, blood-soaked corpse

  sitting slumped against a wall. The person had been horribly disfigured, long slashes running down

  the entire length of the body.

  Samantha felt sick to her stomach. She knew that, with all the death and destruction confronting her

  on a daily basis, she should be used to this sort of sight by now. But deep down, she knew that she

  never would. No one should have to become used to this scale of death and horror. Those that did

  lived ugly lives.

  The former student sighed and swept her flashlight through the rest of the room, searching for

  anything useful she could take for the group. There were some buckets, tables, boxes, and nothing

  particularly interesting. She turned her flashlight back toward the dead body to gaze upon it one last time. However, all she found was a faint bloodstain on the wal . The body was gone.

  Samantha frowned. Had she been imagining it? Had there been a body there?

  Chapter 19

  Samantha stood irresolute in the middle of the dark storeroom, not quite sure what to do. Had she