Things had all started to go south after Stephen had met the strange blond man roughly four days ago. It had been a day like any other, his time spent guiding confused refugees from one place to another inside the sprawling camp, until he noticed a new person wandering the streets.
By that point it had been nearly three days since Natalie had first shown up in town, and the blond man was the only other newcomer to arrive since. In keeping with his self-appointed duties, Stephen had greeted the stranger with his usual candor and offered to help him find his way around.
The moment he heard him speak, Stephen noticed something was wrong. The man was perfectly cordial, and for all intents and purposes he was no different than any of the other people seeking safety inside the camp, but still Stephen’s instincts had insisted that this man was anything but normal.
Stephen had helped many people over the course of his time in the outpost, and he had grown accustomed to dealing with refugees of all sorts. In light of that experience, everything about the gentleman in front of him had felt off-kilter. It was as if he were looking at a very well done forgery, perfect in nearly every way, but made by someone who had never actually experienced the subject of their work.
Worse still, the stranger was looking for Natalie. According to him, he had been separated from her for a few days and was hoping to hear if she had safely arrived in the camp. Even if he couldn’t explain it, Stephen had felt that answering him honestly was a bad idea, and instead offered to take the newcomer to registration.
Polite as ever, the man declined his offer, claiming that he had already gone through the process and was simply trying to find his friend. Almost as an afterthought, he had added that he was concerned for her safety, and Stephen’s skin crawled. Then without another word, the stranger had wandered away into the crowd.
Stephen found him again the following morning, this time at Lia’s place getting rations. He had waited for the man to finish his business and leave before approaching Lia, who had just wished him good luck in finding Natalie.
After pulling Lia aside and telling her of his concerns regarding the stranger and Natalie, she had dismissed him, chiding him for feeling jealous over his “little crush” and allowing it to make him paranoid. Ever since, his relationship with Lia had taken a turn for the worse, and his only real home in the outpost had felt less comfortable.
Today was the first day Stephen had been back to Lia’s, and that was only because the story of BJ’s crew supposedly crying wolf had bummed him out too badly for him to care about anything else. All in all, he just wanted a place to relax and clear his head for a little while. As such, when he joined Lia in the cramped room that served as their office to look over their supplies, he felt an obvious tension between himself and the older woman.
“You’ve been gone a while. Everything okay?” Lia handed him a sheet of paper filled with records on what supplies they were supposed to have on hand, but Stephen guessed she didn’t have much interest in really getting the work done. Instead of responding, he took to doing his job anyway.
Neither of them spoke for several minutes, though Stephen could feel Lia studying him from a distance. After it became apparent that he wasn’t feeling up to a chat, Lia sighed and set her papers down.
“I don’t know if I should be telling you this, but… you may have been right, about the guy looking for Natalie.” Stephen’s attention was caught at that, and he whirled to look at Lia directly. Without further need for motivation, she continued, her face uncharacteristically grim.
“He said his name was John Smith, which I guessed was fake, but I figured it was none of my business.” A sharp spark of rage flamed to life inside Stephen’s chest, but before he could speak, Lia hastily added, “I’d already told him about Natalie being assigned to the medical ward before I gave him his supplies, so there was no stopping that.”
Stephen shook his head in silence, unable to think of anything to say. He knew the guy had been bad news, and Lia had blown him off like he was just some jealous kid. Finally, he sat down with a huff, hunting for words that wouldn’t come to him. Lia was wringing her hands, and with a feeling of growing unease, he realized she wasn’t finished yet.
“There’s more, Stephen. We… we don’t know where he is. He hasn’t gotten any rations from me, or from any of the other suppliers, for a few days. I talked to Clarence over at the registry, and he told me the guy got tagged by the soldiers for snooping around the medical ward. That was the last time anybody saw him.” Lia’s words were like a lead weight in Stephen’s stomach. He could see her concern for him written all over her face, but he was infinitely more worried about Natalie.
“Has anybody told her? I mean does she know there’s some, some psychopath or something that’s looking for her?” Stephen’s voice was high pitched and uneven, but it wasn’t something he found he could control. He was doing his best not to panic, and his best was proving inadequate.
Stephen had never lived a hard life, and this level of worry was not something he was accustomed to handling. He had been one of the first people to establish themselves in the outpost, alongside Lia and a handful of others, and though there had been rough patches inside the walls, most of the problems had never involved him personally. Now that he was faced with a legitimate danger, and one he may have inadvertently let slide, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.
“Relax, honey. Just relax. You saw that girl. She’s always got her eyes open, and besides that, she’s with BJ and the Mercado boys, now. Safest place in the whole camp. If we tell her about this guy, she’s just going to lose sleep over it.” Stephen started a haughty protest, but Lia wasn’t having any of it. She had resumed her motherly role with vigor.
“If you’re worried, keep an eye on her for yourself, and I’ll do the same. That’s my compromise. After everything she’s been through today, adding more to the plate isn’t going to help her.” Lia was being stern, but Stephen knew she was trying to do what she believed was best for Natalie. Instead of agreeing with her, or pressing the matter further, he let out another heavy sigh.
“Lia… do you believe them? About the new monster, and everything about the undead disappearing just being a bad omen? Because as much as I don’t like saying it out loud, I do.” Stephen looked down at his lap, idly twiddling his thumbs while he tried in vain to keep his spirits up. “It’s just… it’s BJ, you know? I know it’s easier to believe everything is going to be fine, but still. How can anybody not trust him?”
Part of Stephen desperately hoped Lia would disagree with him, would tell him that he was being pessimistic for thinking they might be in real danger. When Lia came over to his side and gently took his hand, he knew his hope was futile. Whether or not she said it aloud, Lia was worried just as much as he was about their future in the camp.
It was a feeling that lit a fire in his heart. Stephen cared deeply for Lia, and for many of the other refugees that had come to be his friends and family in the camp. Squeezing her fingers reassuringly, Stephen made a promise to himself.
Come what may, he was going to do everything in his power to protect them. He would continue to help the people around him as best he could, and while he did, he would hunt the strange blond man that was pursuing Natalie. Given his connections amongst the refugees, Stephen was confident he could find him. It was only a matter of time.
Three days had passed since Natalie had accompanied BJ and the other soldiers on their ill-fated errand to recover the corpse of a new monstrosity. The ensuing blacklist of their names had left the crew with relatively little to do, and so their time had been centered on furthering Natalie’s training as a member of the team.
Bruises covered a fair portion of Natalie’s body now, and as much as she would have loved to say that they were markers of her education, she felt the reality of her progress was less than impressive. Rico had been attempting to train her in basic hand-to-hand combat, and the result was a series of grueling and unforgiving sessions that left
her more the worse for wear.
If she wasn’t being thrown repeatedly to the ground by Rico, she was barely resisting the urge to murder Marco. He had been tasked with educating her on the subtler nuances of her weapon, from how every piece works to how they each can fail. The information was a simple enough thing to take in, but Marco made for a horrible teacher. Thankfully, at least in that field, she was definitely making progress.
BJ had spent very little time with them since the event. More often than not, he was busy trying to convince Captain Wesley to act on his report of a new creature. He never got close, but he refused to give up, and would spend hours hunting for a meeting with the man. Natalie hated to say it, but she was worried about the grizzled old-timer.
At the moment though, Natalie was appreciating a rare moment of companionship with her boys. Marco had returned from grabbing their supply of rations from Lia, and they were all enjoying their meal together. The sun had even come out to join them, giving Natalie the feeling that she was on a picnic trip with friends.
A recruit passing by openly sneered in their direction, and Natalie had to resist the urge to growl. Friends had become a precious commodity over the last couple of days. Lia still took good care of them, and being in similar circumstances had brought Thomas closer to their group, as well.
He kept to himself most of the time, but wherever they went, he was nearby. After his interrogation and subsequent dismissal, word had gotten out about his involvement with the failed mission and he had been ostracized.
Natalie didn’t know if she could call Thomas a friend, but they were always kind to each other, and she could tell he badly wanted to be able to talk to people. His burns were doing much better, though the majority of his head was still in bandages.
With everything that had happened, Natalie didn’t know if his coming to the camp with them had been an improvement for him or not. She could see him resting against a nearby wall and she offered him a wave, which he returned enthusiastically. Smiling to herself, she decided to believe he was better off inside the walls.
Natalie was in the middle of taking a bite out of a particularly stale cracker when a low rumbling made her pause. Glancing at the others, she saw her sudden concern reflected back at her. Slowly, Natalie put her food away and readied her weapon, straining her ears to hear anything further.
Since they had returned, the crew had made it a point to always keep all of their gear on hand, just in case of an emergency. There had been a handful of false alarms where the team had launched into action over a loud noise, a fact that had been spread through the camp endlessly, but they were willing to endure the mockery. Whether anyone believed them or not, they had seen the truth with their own eyes, and they knew there was a very clear and present danger around them.
As another more insistent rumble thundered around them, Natalie abandoned all pretenses of indifference. BJ and the others were in agreement, all of the crew now standing alert and ready. A handful of the soldiers nearby chuckled at them, cracking jokes at their expense, but Natalie wasn’t paying attention to them.
Her eyes had locked on Thomas. He had bolted to his feet, and appeared to be hyperventilating. Staring wordlessly at the ground, he began shaking his head violently from side to side, his mouth working overtime in an attempt to form a sound.
“Thomas.” Natalie said only his name, but it was enough to convey her point to the others. As each of them saw his panic attack, they came to the same realization: they were about to be fighting for their lives.
BJ tried to bark a warning to the other soldiers, but before he was able to finish, gunshots began ringing out through the city. First one, then a dozen, and then too many to count. What followed after was a cacophony of screaming and gunfire that chilled Natalie to her core.
Thomas had barely registered that Natalie had come to his side when a digger erupted from the ground nearby, immediately slamming a surprised soldier to the ground with a sickening crunch. In the daylight and without injuries, the monster looked more terrifying than Natalie remembered. Two massive and nearly all black eyes were boiling under the sun, sending the monstrosity into a literal blind rage as it began to shred anything that made a sound.
BJ opened fire alongside Marco and Rico while Natalie tried to bring Thomas back to his senses. She looked away from the battle long enough to force Thomas to meet her gaze, and when she turned back around, the situation had deteriorated into a bloody chaos.
Biters were everywhere. They had followed the digger out of its tunnel and were swarming into the camp, bearing anyone in their way down to the ground in a swarm of teeth and flesh. All the while, the hulking beast above them continued to rampage, scything through ranks of friend and foe alike, unable to tell the two apart in its maddening newfound blindness.
The guards on the walkways above the slaughter had tried to stem the tide, but a swipe of the digger’s massive hands tore the scaffolding out from under them. Natalie barely heard their screams as they were swallowed up by the wave of undead now pouring from the hole.
Natalie realized there was no fighting this, and BJ knew it, too. Rather than continue firing fruitlessly into the ever growing swarm, he spun on his heel and launched into a dead sprint toward Natalie and Thomas. The cousins were on his tail, but so were more of the runners from the tunnel. As he barreled past her, Natalie was at least pleased to see Thomas had returned to his senses and begun running alongside them.
Joining BJ in his mad retreat, the crew was unable to even fire slowing shots behind them as they fell back, for fear of hitting other friendly targets. The whole camp had turned into a rampage of terror, diggers having torn their way into the city from a dozen different locations, all of them followed by hordes of undead. They had nowhere to go.
BJ led them ever forward, his giant frame clearing a path through the insanity as he ran. People were being killed everywhere Natalie looked, and as she glanced upward to the walkways above, she realized the guards were gone. Rather than stay and fight, they had abandoned their posts entirely, likely to retreat back to the inner ring. The refugees, almost entirely unarmed, were left to fend for themselves.
Natalie’s mind was numb. Countless people were dead or dying all around her, and there was nothing left to stop the zombies from attacking. She didn’t know where they could possibly escape to, either.
The inner ring was closed off at the best of times, and with all of the death out here, Natalie held no hope that it would suddenly be opened to them for their safety. The front gate would let them out into the city, but there was no promise that the undead wouldn’t be waiting for them when they got out.
For all the possible danger, it was the best choice they had. BJ must have already reached the same conclusion, as Natalie recognized the path they were taking as the shortest to the gate. A gunshot rang out from behind her as Marco dropped a biter that had gotten close, and Natalie resisted the need to panic. Somehow, they were going to find their way out.
Ahead of them, Natalie recognized a couple familiar faces leading a small group of refugees in their direction. Stephen and Lia had organized some of the survivors and were attempting to lead them to safety. They were armed with makeshift poles and other slapdash weapons, and it looked as though they were at the end of their rope.
Lia spotted BJ and began frantically pointing and gesturing to the rest of her party. A moment later, and their company had swelled from five to fifteen, a terrified Stephen keeping pace alongside BJ and speaking as quickly as he could.
“Came from the gate. It’s all bad, B.” Stephen was barely coherent, choking down gasps of air as best he could, but it was enough to stop BJ cold in his tracks for the moment. “They’re all dead or dying or worse. It got hit hard, nobody has been able to open the doors with all the undead around. Don’t know… don’t know where else we can run.”
There was no time to stop, and nowhere left to go. All at once, the group lost its fire. The only people refusing to give in now were BJ and Nat
alie, both of them pouring over their knowledge of the outpost in the hopes of finding some other solution before they were butchered on the spot.
Nothing that came to mind that was of any use, and as Rico and Marco began to fire more relentlessly into the crowds, Natalie realized there was no way she could come up with a path that Stephen wouldn’t have already considered. The man knew the lay of the outpost better than anyone, and if he had no other ideas, then they were trapped.
Abruptly, the answer to their problem struck her. I’ve got it. Oh fuck me, I’ve got it. It had occurred to her the instant she thought of traps. Natalie knew her solution was a terrible plan, but it had worked in the past and they didn’t have any other better options. Locking eyes with BJ, Natalie motioned violently toward the only chance they had left: the tunnels.
Her gestures were met with a sharp nod, and with no time left to waste, BJ began his charge toward the closest tunnel within sight. The others, unsure of where he was heading but not willing to be left alone, ran along behind him.
It was a long shot, but if Natalie was right, then all of the zombies were already inside the camp perimeter. The tunnels might be clear, and she knew for a fact that they led outside eventually. It was better than staying behind.
The instant the group recognized what the plan was, several people faltered. Natalie couldn’t blame anyone, but neither could she stop to try and convince them. Many refugees had already been brutally wiped out, and as their numbers dwindled, it became more and more likely that BJ and the others would fall under attack.
As BJ hit the crumbling entrance to the underground, only the original crew plus Stephen, Thomas, Lia and four others were following behind. The rest had hesitated, and in that moment been slaughtered by a dozen ghouls that had appeared from nowhere. That meant Natalie and the others were only seconds away from sharing the same fate.
Down into the darkness they ran, the footing rocky and uneven but their adrenaline seeing them surge forward regardless. Natalie tripped more than once, and she could hear others doing the same, but now that they were out of sight of the general chaos above it looked as if they had become less of a target.
The Phoenix Trilogy (Book 1): World On Fire Page 25
