“Doesn’t it seem like that’s probably the point? To go after places that are actually random?” She waved her hand over the map, ignoring all of the individual marks for the sake of reminding BJ of what it actually represented.
“It’s all military, all good guys. Anything you go after, you know you’re sticking it to the enemy. What would be the point of keeping it organized? That just makes it easier to get caught. This way, you’re constantly off-guard.” Natalie shrugged her shoulders, a light-hearted gesture for a dark conclusion. BJ’s expression hadn’t changed, though he did rumble in agitation.
“I considered that, but it isn’t a whole solution. They have us outmanned and outgeared, but they’re not worried about putting an end to things right away. Why? Why draw this out, why let us scramble to put together a plan?” For a thought that seemed to convey a feeling of hopelessness, BJ’s words were laced more with confusion than gloom.
Natalie knew he was right. The horde had already proven how destructive it was; if the enemy’s end-game was something as simple as genocide, they had the ability to get it done without much fuss. Several theories and ideas flitted through her mind, but in the end, all of them were dismissed.
“We’ll have plenty of time to think about this when we get to safety. With the information from the other teams, we might be able to put something together.” Relaxing down into his kit, BJ nodded to Natalie. “Three hours. Then get Rico.” She barely had time to return his nod before he’d closed his eyes.
I guess he trusts that I can follow simple rules. Great. Good dog, Natalie. She snickered to herself, knowing that she was being overdramatic. With three hours to kill and nothing to do, she was going to have to find some way to entertain herself.
It didn’t take long for her attention to wander from her duty. Staring at a door only afforded intrigue for a few minutes, and after that it was hard to keep focus. Instead, Natalie decided to tackle the mysterious puzzle that BJ had brought to her attention. At least it had a chance at being a productive distraction.
Lifting her journal from her bag, Natalie began to create a list of what they knew. After a few moments of brisk writing, she grabbed the stopwatch to check the time. Eight minutes, forty-four seconds. A wry smile played out over her face. Just another one hundred and seventy-one minutes and sixteen seconds to go. Natalie shook her head in an attempt to keep herself on track. It did little to help, a revelation she accepted with a heavy sigh.
This sucks. This sucks hard. Tempting as it was to sit and complain, Natalie returned her attention to her writing. She was determined to get something done with this time, even if it killed her. Another glance at the stopwatch, and the handful of seconds that had passed, was enough to confirm that dying while on watch was a distinct possibility.
Focus. You’re going to need to grow an attention span if you don’t want to get yourself killed. Glancing back over her shoulder at the rest of her group, Natalie bit her lip. Yourself, or anyone else, for that matter.
Putting her nose back in her journal, Natalie was reminded of how little they really had to work with. With a brief memory of various old crime dramas on the TV, she resolved to make it work. If she’d learned anything from Law and Order, it was that she wasn’t going to get anywhere without finding a motive. It seemed as good a place as any to start.
The undead were created on purpose, engineered for a reason. That means whoever was behind this is smart, and has access to some nasty tech. Or we seriously pissed off God and He’s had enough of our shit. Can’t say I’d be surprised.
Realizing that she was getting off point again, Natalie growled, a noise that immediately set off a twitch in BJ’s leg behind her. She winced and reminded herself that noises like that probably weren’t the best thing to be making while next to sleeping soldiers. Best to keep her frustration internalized.
Assuming we’re dealing with people who are capable of making the ‘impossible’ possible, they must be after something. They don’t want us dead; they could have done that by now. If they need bodies, they’ve got them by the truckload. Unless they want live specimen?
Natalie was trying to be precise and scientific, but her use of the word “specimen” made her feel sick. Maybe she was better off sticking with her clownish wording. It was harder to take seriously, and while that wasn’t much, it did make the morbid conjecture a little easier to process without making her feel like she was about to throw up.
If they want us alive so they can abduct us, why nuke the world first? With this much power, they could have taken anybody they wanted and never been caught. Killing everybody off and setting us all to red-fucking-alert seems unnecessary, if that’s all they wanted.
Once again, she had to stop herself from trying to touch her face absentmindedly. Recalling that Rico had placed some hand sanitizer in her pack for just such an occasion, she rifled through her belongings to find it, her thoughts continuing to process as she did so.
So, the world-wipe was intentional. Leaving some survivors alive also seems intentional. It doesn’t look like they want us for experiments, though that is possible. They also keep hitting us, like they’re following a plan. That could imply they’re trying to harves… collect, us. Christ that’s just as bad. But…
Natalie took in the room around her once again, autonomously scrubbing her hands clean as she did. This place was a massacre, and memories of the gas station suggested the same thing: it wasn’t impossible for the people inside to have survived their attack, but it was unlikely. If the soldiers were being killed rather than taken, as the evidence suggested, then whoever their opponent was didn’t seem to be interested in taking prisoners.
The attacks could be random, or they could be targeting specific people that we just don’t know about. I’ll have to bring that up to BJ in the morn-
Just outside the door, a faint squelch sent lightning racing down Natalie’s spine. She wasn’t even sure she had heard it, her senses straining to pick up another sound, when a rustle from behind caused her head to jerk around so quickly it felt like she nearly broke her own neck.
To her relief, it was Marco. He held his weapon at the ready, and he nodded to Natalie, confirming that whatever it was outside, he had heard it too. In unison, they tapped at the other two’s boots, Natalie taking BJ while Marco woke his cousin. In a heartbeat, everyone was awake and ready, though Natalie held a finger over her lips at BJ’s inquisitive look.
Cupping one ear, Natalie leaned toward the door. Her effort was rewarded as, a moment later, there was another muffled squish. The memory of her own approach lingered in her mind, Natalie recalling the fresh blood in the hallway that was still soaking into the carpet. Sickening as the thought was, the soldiers’ gore was serving as a makeshift alarm system.
There was a small piece of paper taped over the apartment peephole, likely there in case any would-be intruders possessed a means of reversing its use, but Natalie doubted they had anything to risk by removing it. Besides, if it helped them prepare for whatever was coming, it was well worth the danger.
Lining up her eye, Natalie immediately began flashing signals to the rest of the group. She had expected the peephole to be of no real value, considering the hallway would be nearly pitch-black, but the telltale beam of a flashlight down the hall was more than enough to confirm that whatever they were dealing with was human.
Given how badly the light was shaking, it was a human who was not doing very well. Or a liar who managed to murder a bunch of soldiers and is coming back for the new guys. Natalie didn’t mark her thought as pessimism, remembering BJ’s earlier advice that being paranoid was safer.
BJ tapped at her shoulder, and she conceded her spot to him. He was probably going to be a lot harder for their mysterious stranger to deal with if push came to shove, and Natalie was perfectly comfortable with bringing up the rear alongside Marco.
She would have assessed how Marco looked, now that a few more hours had passed, but Rico had shut their light off. Judging by th
e small noises in the dark, he was moving it to aim at the door. Natalie briefly failed to understand, before a sly smile crossed her face.
If their new friend proved to be not quite so friendly, she guessed a powerful light suddenly being shone in its direction would be a pretty blinding experience. It was a clever tactic, and again Natalie found herself appreciating the company she had.
After another few moments of silence, and being unable to see if BJ was actually signaling anything, Natalie began to wonder if they would be passed by without incident. It would certainly be a pleasant change of pace, considering they seemed to get the short end of the stick nearly every time they tried to do anything.
With a short and hasty knock at the door, Natalie didn’t bother to hide her low sigh. Of course. Here we go. She tried to play it cool, forcing her thoughts to be calm while she kept her face in a neutral pose. Anyone looking at her now would think she was the picture of poise under duress. In fact, the only hint that she was stressed were her knuckles, clenched and white around the crowbar in her hands. She was not cool. She was not collected. She was tired, and she wanted to have a moment of peace to let her guard down.
Another bang at the gates, this one more insistent, and Natalie realized that she wasn’t sure if she would ever have a chance to relax again. She glanced toward BJ’s figure in the dark, just barely able to make out his outline against the door. He was perfectly still, content to leave the person outside to their own devices.
Even Rico, who Natalie would have pegged to be the first to consider going to someone’s aid, hadn’t shifted from his place on the floor. Whether this person was friendly or not, nobody in the room was going to be taking chances. After another handful of tense seconds, the knocking came again, this time accompanied by a panicked whisper.
“Come on guys, you agreed to let me back in when I came back. This isn’t fucking funny. There’re things out there. Christ’s sake, let me in. Guys?” Whoever it was, they were male. Natalie quirked a brow at his words, wondering if he really did have any connection to the original occupants of the apartment.
She had no intention of finding out. The soldiers had been killed by somebody they let in, or so the scene had suggested, and there was nothing short of a dire emergency that was going to get them to make the same mistake. Sorry, guy. If this had been any other time or place, you might have had a shot. As it stands, we’re not falling for it.
The pounding at the door intensified, before suddenly stopping short. A muffled curse and choked gasp echoed from the other side, before the rapid sound of receding footsteps took their mysterious stranger further down the hall.
Natalie didn’t know if he had just given up or gone to get reinforcements, but she felt significantly more uneasy not knowing exactly where the man was. She was about to ask BJ what they should do when Rico flicked their lamp back on, light once again flooding the room. Now illuminated, Natalie saw that BJ was slowly signaling to them.
His fingers came down to form a two, noting walkers in the hall. When he went to identify how many, he hesitated. First one, then three, then four, BJ doing his best to make out figures in the dark.
Natalie also noted that the cord to the lamp was laced through his signaling hand, following from the plug in the wall down to the floor, before running through Rico’s fingers. She had thought it was a Hell of a coincidence that Rico had hit the light just as BJ began to sign, but like everything else she’d encountered with the group, it was just more careful planning. BJ tugs the cord; Rico hits the lights.
The briefly unsettling thought that those who had been killed here were probably just as capable was one that Natalie immediately shoved from her mind. It was a losing battle, her pessimism creeping in despite her best efforts, when a growling from beyond the door cut through her internal struggle.
Suddenly, two thoughts clicked into place. The first was that Natalie didn’t believe there was any hiding place down the hall, so if the stranger had headed deeper into the building to evade the dead, he had backed himself into a corner. The second was that she had no idea how well those things could see in the dark. A grim voice in her head informed her that she was very likely about to find out.
As she had predicted, the snarl outside turned into a choked howl, and the thundering of rushing feet was pierced by a strangled yelp. Natalie began to feel a surge of guilt, certain that the man outside was about to meet a terrible fate.
They couldn’t have let him in, and she knew that, but it didn’t change the fact that she was once again playing a part in someone’s death through complacency. Now she had to either allow herself to drown in misery over her inaction, or harden her heart to these kinds of plights in the future. Neither choice was comforting; suffer for the sake of her humanity or abandon it just to be safe.
A dull epiphany struck her as she realized, through her musing, she had heard no screaming. In fact, the clatter of movement had subsided, now reduced to echoes coming from further away. The stranger had retreated deeper into the building, and the hunters had pursued.
Natalie was harboring a weak hope that whoever had sought refuge with them would find a way to escape the dead. After all, she and the others had managed to lose the horde inside a building just a few short hours ago. Who could say if this attempt would be any less successful?
A crashing sound from above them informed the party that the chase had been taken to the next floor. That wasn’t the best sign; unless he could find a fire escape or secretly knew how to fly, he was going to be caught between a rock and a hard place.
Natalie was getting ready to ask BJ what they should do when a sudden pounding at the door caused the group to take a step backward.
“Let me in, Goddamnit! Let me in! You heard them out there, let me in let me in!” The fever-pitched cry was unmistakable. Somehow, their stranger had led the dead astray and found his way back. It was an impressive enough feat, but Natalie knew it wouldn’t avail him entry. Nothing had changed. They couldn’t afford the risk, and that meant the door stayed closed.
BJ’s hand blurred as he signed something too quickly for Natalie to follow, but a heartbeat later she was being hauled aside by Marco and the lights went dead. Out of reflex, she nearly squawked her surprise before a hand clamped firmly over her mouth.
“Gun. Keep your head down, and stay quiet. The door will hold.” Marco’s voice came out in a hoarse whisper, but he relaxed his grip and released his hold over Natalie. Her skin was prickling, suddenly picturing a hail of bullets pouring through the door, any one liable to strike a soft target inside. The voice outside had risen to a yell, a twist of madness and desperation flavoring its note.
“Fuck you! Fuck all of you! Let me in or I swear to God you’ll regret it!” The rush of noise upstairs had been working its way past them, suggesting the undead were moving down the hallway just above theirs. With the outsider’s howling, the pattern reversed itself, and the sound of bodies crashing over each other receded back to the stairwell. They were coming back.
The stranger knew it, too. A gunshot rang out, the sound of splintering wood following so quickly behind that Natalie wasn’t sure if she imagined it. A weighty kick against the door came next, and Natalie’s breath caught. He was trying to shoot out the lock, but after another failed attempt, Natalie realized it was a fruitless effort.
Marco had been right. The soldiers before them had wasted no resource in ensuring that the door would stand up to all manner of abuse, and it was holding up its end of the bargain. It barely rattled under the force of the blows, a result that prompted the man outside to fire twice more.
A spike of panic welled up within Natalie, the thought of a stray bullet finding one of them growing more and more pronounced. She would never have believed herself capable of feeling grateful to the undead, but at this point, they seemed to be the only way to make the shooting stop. Or at least, make it change targets.
A sudden hunting cry sounded their arrival, and Natalie exhaled a heavy sigh of relief. Th
e walkers had discovered their prey once again, and with their fervor reignited, the stranger was forced to abandon his attempts at entry.
Three more gunshots in rapid succession split the air, these ones seemingly aimed at the undead no-doubt barreling down the hall. Heavy thudding sounds were quickly accompanied by angry screeches, indicating that the gunman had managed to at least stall the hunters’ advance.
There was another howled threat from the outsider, now muddled too badly with the cries of the dead to be heard clearly, and a sudden burst of movement from BJ’s corner. Natalie was able to process a single word before he slammed into Rico, bearing both of them to the ground: Grenade.
Everything that followed after was chaos. There had been a brief flash that poured through the bullet holes in the door before the walls were torn apart. A roar of disintegrated drywall blew inside, overtaking the apartment like a blizzard of wood, plaster, and blood.
Natalie’s entire head rattled, her skull aching with an intensity that she had never experienced before. She was barely aware of her mouth wrap being pulled up around her nose by Marco, followed quickly by her goggles being lowered onto her eyes, but she did feel a weak warmth that at least he was okay.
The world had been returned to pitch black darkness, and with the ringing in her ears she was completely unable to decipher what was happening. Her body was numb with shock, but her sense of smell was able to pick up on the distinct coppery aroma of blood coupled with foul sickness. That scent was like a breath of smelling salts, and Natalie’s adrenaline began to kick in as she regained her composure with a panicked start.
Questions assailed her foggy mind, spikes of concern for the others punctuating the roiling din that was dampening her senses. She started to move before Marco pinned her back down. Her instincts were screaming that she had to get up and go, but his grip was insistent: now was the time to stay put.
The Phoenix Trilogy (Book 1): World On Fire Page 13
