Damned Are We

by Durman, Jason

walked forward side-by-side, the only lights guiding them from the flashlights of their weapons. Their

  footsteps were swal owed by the darkness, which felt alive all around them.

  However, a single point stood out to them in the gloom. It was a distant, far off light, coming through

  the glass of a covered pedestrian bridge, from the fires of the war-blasted landscape outside. They

  could see the sky-bridge.

  As they made their way toward it, the flickering light suddenly vanished, and then reappeared a

  moment later. It was as though a silhouette had passed across it. Markus shone his flashlight in that

  direction, but saw nothing and no one.

  But the sounds from the far recesses of the room – the muffled shifting, the quiet murmurs –

  remained. There was no telling how many of them were in here... with them.

  A sudden and terrible scream tore its way through Markus' core and he swung his light around to see

  a gaunt, blood-covered woman bearing down on them from out of the shadows. His machine pistol

  spat flame as he unloaded a hail of bul ets into her torso, dropping her in an instant.

  However, the muzzle-flashes momentarily lit up most of the room. As soon as the light breached the

  darkness, Samantha was met with the scariest sight she had ever seen.

  All around them, scattered throughout the room, were the haggard and hunched figures of the

  Infected. There must have been dozens upon dozens of them. The loud burst of gunfire from

  Markus' pistol caught their attention, and, in one single terrifying instant, al pairs of eyes turned to

  them.

  Absolute darkness immediately enveloped the room once more, but the four survivors could stil feel

  the eyes of the huge crowd of Infected boring holes into them. There were several moments of

  silence, before enraged growls and screams began to echo throughout the darkened room.

  Suddenly, with no idea anymore in which direction was the way out, Samantha found herself

  dashing, dead blind, across an endless black abyss.

  Chapter 54

  3 HOURS UNTIL FAILSAFE

  Pandemonium reigned in the multistorey car-park as howls and cries echoed al around Samantha

  and her team. She tried to stay close to Corvo, but was pushed away when two Common Infected

  charged at him.

  "Get to the sky-bridge!" he shouted as he fired a quick succession of shots from his SIG-Sauer, dropping the attackers. "I'll meet you there!"

  Automatic bursts of gunfire fel ed the maddened humans in droves, but for every one that fel , two

  more took its place. Scattered muzzle-flashes momentarily lit up the immediate area as the group

  ran and fought for their lives through the darkened room.

  Corvo sorely wanted to arm his pipe-bomb, but using an explosive in such a tight area could easily

  damage a supporting pil ar and cause the whole structure to col apse.

  Jacob and Markus coordinated their reloads and worked together to carve a path through the

  Infected rushing toward them, the latter growing seriously worried when he found that he was almost

  out of ammunition for the Glock 18. Samantha and Corvo's SIG-Sauer's barked constantly, taking

  out anything that the first wave of gunfire missed. Despite their efforts, the Infected were about to

  overwhelm them from all directions, which pressed them with utmost urgency toward the sky-bridge.

  "Keep moving!" Corvo shouted as he ran.

  Fumbling through the darkness, Samantha ran headlong into a car, gasping as she felt a bolt of pain

  shoot through her body. It took her a moment to realise that the shrill and blaring klaxon was the car

  alarm she had inadvertently triggered. She froze for a moment in terror when her flashlight showed a

  solid wal of Infected rushing toward her and the car.

  She was completely fucked.

  Abruptly, flowers of red burst from heads and chests of the group and they fell, revealing Jacob

  standing behind them, gripping the stil -smoking Colt M4. "This way!" he shouted, raising the rifle and opening fire again.

  Samantha's legs felt like jelly, but she wil ed them to move. With al the maniacs rushing toward

  them, a single moment of hesitation could not be afforded.

  However, in the bursts of light from weapons discharges, she could see that, for the some strange

  reason, the number of Common Infected between them and the exit did not seem quite as

  overwhelming as before. In fact, some even ran past them, ignoring them completely. Everything

  made more sense when the former col ege student looked back and saw a mob of Infected fal upon

  the car, its lights still flashing and alarm still blaring. The sounds of windows being smashed and

  metal being mercilessly pounded joined the cacophony of hysterical shrieks and staccato gunfire.

  She could hardly believe their luck – the obnoxious car alarm had actual y drawn more attention from

  the Infected.

  Markus fired an extended burst into the group in their way, consuming the last of his ammo but

  clearing a path. "Come on!" he shouted, breaking into a run.

  The others fol owed him, pushing away any Infected that came too close, before stepping out onto

  the sky-bridge, several stories above the ruined streets below. A terrible metal screeching fil ed the

  air, and they spared a glance back to see the Infected rol the ruined and partial y flattened car

  completely over. Their wild eyes darted around and came to rest... on them.

  "Move! MOVE!" Corvo shouted, just as the air was rent with the bloodthirsty cries of the horde.

  The survivors ran across the bridge for their lives. There were simply too many pursuers for them to make any kind of stand. Halfway across, they came across a steel lattice security gate, col apsed

  and pushed into its holding slot on the side.

  "Get that gate closed!" the war veteran shouted at the other men. "Kid, you're with me!"

  She nodded, and stopped before the gate, unbelievably turning back to face her pursuers.

  "Here!" Jacob shouted as he tossed the M4 over to Corvo, who caught it one-handed. He nodded

  quickly at Samantha, and then the two of them opened fire on the horde.

  Blood splattered across the glass and bodies fel over each other. The steady flow of gunfire

  stemmed the Infected rushing at them as the sky-bridge became clogged with bul et-riddled corpses.

  Regardless, the Infected clawed their way through, desperate to tear the life from the humans who

  had the audacity to disturb their peace. Rage coursed through their very veins, and their angry

  screams echoed down the bridge.

  "Get the door shut, quickly!" Samantha screamed, emptying her entire pistol clip into the crowd.

  The clanking of metal on metal sounded as Markus and Jacob pul ed the latticed gate across the

  length of the corridor.

  "Hurry up and get in!" he bel owed, squeezing off a few rounds from his Beretta.

  The defenders turned and ran through the tight opening before the big biker slammed it shut and

  rammed the bolt home, securing it in place. It was only several seconds later that the

  horde slammed into it, the steel gate buckling outward from the force. The Infected screamed, their

  arms outstretched through the gaps in the lattice.

  "That ain't gonna hold 'em for long!" Corvo shouted, slinging the assault rifle over his shoulder as he turned. He grabbed Samantha by the shoulder and pushed her along down the footbridge. "We gotta

  run!"

  The survivors sprinted down the path, the pounding of their footsteps nearly drowned out by the

  infuriated growls and
screams behind them. As she was running, Samantha spared a glance through

  the glass windows of the sky-bridge and was shocked by the scene before the entrance of the

  airport below. Countless mountains of rubble could be seen, scattered among shattered and burnt-

  out wreckages of cars and trucks. There was even a crashed Boeing jumbo jet in the distance, fires

  stil burning around it. The destruction on the ground below stretched as far as the eye could see.

  To think that the Green Flu could have caused such devastation was beyond reckoning. It was

  completely insane.

  "Come on, Samantha! Keep up!"

  Corvo's shout brought her mind back to the task at hand, and she put on a burst of speed, easily

  passing al three men. She skidded to a stop when she came across a darkened doorway and shone

  her flashlight through the opening.

  A startled growl drifted out of the darkness, and she shot two Common Infected dead where they

  stood.

  "Come on, this way!" she called, beckoning the men out onto the balcony above the foyer area of the airport terminal. "I have an idea!"

  "About what?" Markus cal ed.

  "How to get away from those freaks behind us."

  Almost as if on cue, there was a loud CRASH as the security gate was ripped free of the wal by the

  people pounding on it, toppling to the floor. The Infected shrieked in unison and poured across the

  sky-bridge in pursuit of the survivors.

  "Holy fuck, RUN!" Jacob shouted.

  The team dashed down a stil set of escalators and into the main check-in area of the airport.

  Counters and baggage checks for various airlines stood, stil and darkened, never to be used again.

  The lobby was in disarray, but none of the group stopped to look, pausing only to take quick pot-

  shots at any Infected in the area, before the main crowd burst out onto the balcony above them.

  "Now would be a good time to tel us that idea, Samantha!" Markus panted as he ran, his legs feeling like lead. The non-stop running over the past ten minutes was starting to take its tol on him.

  "Through here!" she shouted, leading the way toward the series of low rol er doors behind the

  baggage check area. She leaped up onto the conveyor belt and crawled through the low opening to

  find herself in a dimly-lit corridor, criss-crossed with conveyor belts and long-forgotten bags and

  suitcases. She set to work, running down the pathway and pul ing down the rol er doors over the

  other openings before securing the locks on them.

  Markus followed suit just as the horde spil ed out onto the balcony above the foyer.

  "Jacob, hurry your slow ass up!" Corvo shouted, bringing the assault carbine up to his shoulder. The burst of automatic gunfire was deafening, but it felled a group of attackers that were barrel ing down

  the escalators toward them.

  The biker kept up his speed, leaped onto the conveyor belt and slid through the baggage hatch, the

  rough contours of the surface burning into his back. The war veteran loosed one more burst for good

  measure, before finally turning and crawling through the smal doorway. Markus slammed the rol er

  door shut immediately behind him.

  A loud series of bangs began to echo throughout the corridor as the Infected pounded on the doors

  from the other side, but it appeared as though they would hold up against the assault.

  "Not the place to relax," the old man grunted, leading the way down the hallway. "We gotta keep moving."

  Their footsteps echoed off the cement floors, concrete wal s and metal frames of the conveyor belts

  as they ran down the length corridor. They soon turned a corner to the right, and the noise from the

  Infected pounding on the doors decreased. The travel ers followed the conveyor, soon coming to the

  main nexus of the airport's baggage col ection area.

  "I always wondered what was back here," Samantha commented absently.

  "I'm glad you did, 'cause it just saved our asses," Jacob said.

  "Let's get the hell outta this hole and back out into the main terminal, so we can figure out where we

  are," Corvo muttered.

  "To do that, we gotta take the stairs," Samantha teased, smirking playfully at the oldest member of the group. "Sorry, Corvo."

  "Would ya cut it out already?" he snapped in annoyance, more at the situation than at her.

  The group climbed a metal staircase and passed through the door at the top into what appeared to

  be the security check area of Metro International Airport. If the scene outside the sky-bridge

  appeared bad, it almost seemed to be worse inside.

  Samantha was absolutely flabbergasted at the intensity of the destruction throughout the terminal. It

  was as though a tornado had swept through the place; crushing wal s; picking up partitions, baggage

  vehicles and trol eys, and flinging them clear across the hal ; and leaving a trail of devastation in its

  wake.

  As the travellers wandered through, past piles of rubble and discarded weapons, they came across

  the grisly remains of a group of soldiers who must have died horrible deaths. Ribs and chest cavities

  had been crushed, limbs had been ripped off, and many appeared to have simply bled out where

  they fell.

  The young woman remembered the horrible screams and shouting that came through the radio back

  in the Harbour View Hotel, bile rising in her throat. The screams of men who knew that they were

  going to die. Had these soldiers suffered a similar fate? And what was the scale of the countless

  others throughout the country who now lay heaped and broken in the streets?

  Without warning, she leaned forward and vomited on the floor.

  Three sets of eyes turned to her in worry. "You alright? You stil feeling like... yourself, Samantha?"

  Jacob asked tensely.

  "Y-Yeah, I'm fine," she stammered, struggling to catch her breath. "I don't feel like I'm infected." Not yet, anyway...

  "Then what was that vomiting episode about?"

  "Uh..." The girl's eyes frantical y scanned the others. "I accidental y jostled the bump on my head. No big deal, I promise." She absolutely refused to divulge the fact that she felt the weight and sorrow of

  what could possibly be mil ions of people horrifically kil ed come crashing down upon her shoulders.

  The last thing she needed was for the guys to think she was flaking out on them.

  "You've been pushing yourself too hard," Corvo commented, and she resisted the urge to rol her

  eyes. "It looks like there's a safe-room across the way. Let's hole up there and get you checked out."

  Looking forward, Samantha could see that there was indeed a familiar red door set into the wal – a

  sight for extremely sore eyes. Truth be told, all the shocks, scares and intense combat over the past

  two hours since they had left their sheltered room in the power-plant had worn her down to a

  practical y nervous wreck.

  But we're almost there, she told herself. All we have to do is find the runway and then we wil be evacuated before the city is bombed.

  She sincerely hoped that nothing would go wrong.

  Murphy's Law had a habit of rearing its head at the worst possible instances.

  2.5 HOURS UNTIL FAILSAFE

  A little while later, Samantha was absentmindedly picking at the patch covering the gash on her

  cheek, which had been changed recently, along with the bandage on her neck. The wounds that

  Jacob had sustained back in the hotel had also been looked to, and the group allowed themselves a

  little extra time to get their nerves back under control.

  "Do you think the army is sti
l out there on the runway?" Markus asked from the door they had come

  through, peering out into the dark terminal through the barred windows.

  "They'd better be," Jacob grumbled as he chewed on a granola bar. "Else we came all this way for nothin'."

  "It's been about ten hours since we made contact with them at the hotel," Corvo commented, not

  noticing Markus abruptly stiffen at the door. "Judgin' from what we've seen in the airport, I don't like their odds. But hopeful y they held out – "

  He was interrupted by a hissed "shhhhh!" from the black man, fingers to his lips. "I think I hear something!" he whispered.

  The war veteran joined him at the door and strained his ears to listen out for whatever had Markus

  so spooked. It was dead quiet on the other side, and he frowned. He turned to tel the younger man

  to calm down... but then stopped.

  He could hear it too.

  It was quiet, but it was definitely there. A low series of grunts and groans, intermingled with heavy

  breathing. Whatever it was sounded big, and it was coming closer. Corvo and Markus backed up

  away from the door toward the others. They all stared at each other wide-eyed as the sounds grew

  louder, eventually stopping right outside the safe-room door.

  Everyone remained rooted to the spot in fear.

  Abruptly, the sounds started up again as the thing moved to and fro, and it appeared as though the

  creature – whatever it was – was moving away from the safe-room.

  After some time, the sounds ceased entirely, and absolute silence descended.

  Markus let out a deep breath he had not realised he was holding and looked slowly around the room.

  "I think we're okay," he said quietly.

  THOOM.

  A deafening crash echoed throughout the safe-room, and the red steel door shook as it was struck

  with terrible force.

  The four survivors backed up, in fear and in shock. This could not be happening. They were

  exhausted, low on ammunition, running out of time, and now something was knocking on the door?

  They caught glimpses of the thing through the barred windows of the steel door, and with what they

  could see, no one was left wondering how it had the strength to cause such damage. They could tel

  that the monster was enormous, pink and muscle-bound.

  "Holy s hit! " Samantha screamed. "What the hell is that thing?!"