“This place is a tomb—there’s nothing here.” Hugo reported as he and the others returned from checking the other rooms.
“There isn’t a third floor?” I asked raising my right eyebrow in surprise.
“Not that we saw—not even a pull ladder access to an attic.” Beau answered with a thoughtful tone.
That was when I heard Billy’s voice calling out to us from the first floor entrance below and I turned and led everyone back down meeting him at the front door—it looked like he and the few others who had been outside working on the rig had come inside and when I glanced outside through the nearby window I understood why; the entire ground outside the resort was now covered with snow and it was coming down heavily.
“As far as we could tell, the rig engine overheated and might possibly need a radiator hose…not sure if we can find anything like that anywhere around here or not, this damned weather is going to cause serious issues for us getting home.” Billy stated upon our glances outside.
“The snow is really piling up…what are we going to do—are we going to try and push on or are we going to stay here for a while?” Darrell asked in a worried tone as his eyes darted around the area nervously.
“If we stay here then we’ll get snowed in and be forced to stay here for months on end until it melts away…if we try to continue, we might break down and get stranded out in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to stay…” I answered with a troubled look.
“Exposure to these temperatures could kill us just as easily as those fucking things roaming around—I don’t know about you guys, but I vote that we just stay here and ride out this weather and just leave as soon as we’re able to.” Billy stated with a thoughtful tone.
“If we stay here then our friends and family back home might starve—we have to get this stuff back to Echo Bay, one way or another.” I stated with a dark look.
“Either option runs an equal risk—this place here doesn’t exactly look like it had been capable of sheltering anyone for a long time, that big-ass window is smashed out, there aren’t supplies or anywhere to hole up incase we need to…whereas if we continue driving we stand a better chance of getting back down out of these mountains to the area where there might not even be snow at this point…” Hugo stated folding his arms across his chest.
“Whatever we decide to do, we won’t be able to use the rig—so all that canned food will have to be loaded into what vehicles we have and it’ll have to be loaded up can by can.” Darrell added with a dark look.
“We should be able to load most of it into the backs of the modified RV and the Zetros—we can fit the rest of it in the backs of our marauder and the armored SWAT vehicle that Darrell and the others drove over here.” I stated as I led the way outside into the snow.
The others seemed to fall in line to that idea soon after and we started the tedious task of unloading the canned food from the flatbed trailer of the semi rig and loading it into the back of each of our other vehicles—the biting cold was making the work a lot harder, but with everyone steadily working to get it done it took us roughly two and a half hours before we had it done; we had crammed canned food into every free nook and cranny that we could and there was still a small amount that we would be forced to leave behind.
“We’re packed full—if we’re going, let’s go before the snow gets any deeper.” Beau stated climbing into the Zetros.
“Good thing that we didn’t bring more people than what we did or else this wouldn’t have worked out…” Billy stated as he climbed into the back of our marauder and found a place to sit that wasn’t crammed with canned food.
I got into the driver’s seat closing the door as my women all climbed inside and I started the engine cranking up the heat—soon after we left the resort parking lot heading back along the roadway east and the snowstorm continued through the remainder of the day and into the night; by that point I was thankful that our vehicle was so high up off the ground and that it had the tires that it did—by morning of the next day the snow stopped falling, but at that point there was at least three and a half feet on the ground already and our descent down into the lower areas of Northwest Territories had been slow.
“As long as it doesn’t snow anymore from here to home, we’ll be okay…” I stated as Jennifer squeezed my right thigh.
The terrain we were passing through was familiar, yet the snow made things seem different than what they were and after several long days of traveling at what seemed like a snail’s pace, we made it to the town of Wrigley; I knew that we only had a little further to go and we’d be back at Echo Bay and the thought caused us to push on and after another day of steady traveling we were close to Great Bear Lake and we could see the fortress across the lake on the island and everything still looked okay as we could see lights in the distance. That was when the ground began to shake beneath our vehicle and I glanced around at the snow-covered wilderness around us trying to figure out what was causing it and that was when one of the same creatures that we had narrowly escaped from back near Whitehorse came smashing out of the nearby forest coming straight toward us.
“Fuck—go, get across the bridge!” Hugo shouted as the sound of engines revving could be heard over the CB.
I didn’t waste any time, I gunned our engine heading toward the bridge across the lake to our island fortress—which was still several miles away at best as the others quickly followed; glancing back I could see the Destroyer as it tore through trees and rocky terrain behind us, it was still far enough back, but it was steadily gaining on us.
“If we can get halfway across the bridge, we can radio to the others to blow the charges…” I stated in deep thought I was forced to reduce my speed to weave in and around large boulders and trees.
That was when the air around our vehicles was surrounded by the deafening sound of breaking steel and I watched in horror as bits and pieces of the Zetros flew through the air past us—I lost control of our marauder as something hit the back of it sending us flipping over onto our top and then back onto our tires smashing out the glass from a few of the windows in the back as the other vehicles came to a skidding stop close to where we had landed as the Destroyer stood in the middle of where we had been with what was left of the Zetros in its limbs as it used its spiked appendages to rip through what was left of it; I was more concerned with making sure that my women were all okay as well as Billy and I glanced at the massive bioweapon just as the Zetros exploded sending out a shockwave that knocked us back into the inside of our vehicle. The explosion cleared and the intense heat from the fuel fire spread as the nearby woods caught fire despite the snow—I glanced up to where the bioweapon had stood as blood was freely flowing down the side of my face from a bad cut that I had sustained on my forehead and I seen that the explosion had blown the creature to pieces and that its legs were all that were left as they fell to the ground with a crash; I was able to help my women climb out of our vehicle and we slowly made our way over to the other vehicles to check on the others. Beau was laying on the ground bleeding badly, he had a large piece of metal impaled through his right thigh and there was no sign of either Hugo or Amy—I soon after found the other armored vehicle that Darrell, Clancy, Kari and Thomas had been driving only to see that it had smashed into a large boulder destroying over half of the front of the vehicle; Darrell and Clancy seemed to be okay, but it looked like Kari and Thomas had both sustained grievous wounds and their bodies were covered with blood.
“Is everyone okay?” I shouted as Richard and Morgana climbed out of their modified RV and slowly came over to us.
“As good as we can be…Hugo…Amy—where are they?” Richard answered as his attention went to Beau who was conscious but in a great deal of pain.
“T-They’re…they didn’t make it…” He answered as tears were streaming down his face.
I turned away shaking my head feeling responsible for our losses even though I knew th
at there wasn’t anything that any of us could have done to be prepared for what had just happened, I turned and checked on my women seeing that they all seemed to be okay aside from cuts, bruises and being shaken up; I glanced around at the ground around us seeing canned food here and there from the Zetros and I couldn’t help letting out an animal shout of rage and grief. Billy hobbled forward with Sheila’s help and we checked on the condition of our marauder finding that aside from dents, broken windows and a few other damages—it was still operational; everything inside had been thrown about and we had to rearrange everything before getting back inside.
“Echo Bay fortress—this is Chaz, do you read me?” I asked speaking into the CB microphone.
“Chaz—is that you, we seen an explosion across the lake on the southern shoreline, what happened?” Noah asked on the other end.
“We…we were attacked by a Destroyer…Hugo and Amy are dead and Beau, Kari and Thomas might not make it either—we need help…” I answered as Jennifer and Rachel tended to the cut on my forehead.
“Shit—give us a minute and we’ll be there.” Noah answered on the other end as we could hear him shouting to the others as he hung up the receiver.
Within minutes several of our other vehicles came racing across the nearby bridge and my daughters were the first to arrive as they pulled their big truck up to the side as Noah and Christina arrived after them in their rig, Jake and Kenyia arrived in their truck and I was somewhat shocked to see the large armored mobile home arrive last and even more so when Josiah came out with a concerned look on his face as the others that had left with him followed.
“I can see the questions in your eyes…I’m sorry for leaving the way that I did, at the time things seemed so hopeless…we decided to come back a few weeks ago and we learned that you guys had left out to scavenge for food and supplies.” Josiah stated as he came up to stand before me as my driver’s side door was still hanging open.
“You want leadership back I’m guessing?” I asked only half paying attention to him as I was more focused on holding the piece of cloth to the wound on my head—which was still bleeding badly.
“No—I gave that up to you when I left…we just want to help and try to make Echo Bay a place for everyone.” Josiah answered as his attention went to the others who were helping load Beau, Kari and Thomas into the back of Mace’s truck.
She along with Remy and Ember came running over to us and they shared hugs with us as tears quickly wet their faces—over the next few minutes the others managed to gather up what they could of the canned goods but we still couldn’t find Hugo or Amy’s bodies and we were forced to accept the fact that we probably wouldn’t; the sounds of the dead-heads and other mutations were getting closer and I knew that we had to get back to the fortress, there wasn’t anything else that we could do. By nightfall of the same day we were back at our fortress and our wounds were being treated by those of the group who possessed a little knowledge of first aid and we watched off to the side as Beau’s leg was tended to—the piece of metal was cut and then pulled out of his leg, the wound was stitched and bandaged.
“Well…we made it back…” I stated bringing my women into my arms.
“How’s your head?” Chloe asked as she and Shae looked up at me with concern.
“I’ll live—how have you girls been?” I answered after a few seconds had passed.
I glanced down at Shae and noticed that she seemed to glow, and then I noticed the baby bump that she sported and realized that she was pregnant—I brought her into my arms kissing her and then I introduced them to Ivy, who seemed content to her new surroundings; over the next few hours, we checked on things around the fortress finding that a greenhouse area had recently been constructed and that there was a great deal of new vegetables and fruit planted. I remembered the seeds that we had found and Sheila handed them to me as I placed them on the top of a wooden table that had been placed close to the glass walls of the greenhouse—it also looked like more survivors had come in as tents and campers were set up around the courtyard area.
“I hope that we can keep this place safe…especially now.” I stated as I glanced at my women—at Rachel and Shae especially.
“I hope so too, babe.” Ivy stated smiling as she wrapped her arms around me as my other women clustered around us.
We left the courtyard heading into the fortress back to our room on the upper levels hoping and praying that we would be safe and that we didn’t lose anyone else, I noticed that Angel seemed like she wasn’t feeling good and when we got back to our room I took a look at her head where she had gotten cut really bad in the incident earlier—the bandaging that we had put on her wound was stained with blood and she soon after seemingly passed out once she had lay down on our bed; I tried to make sure that she was okay throughout the night but at dawn it was apparent that she had suffered from a serious concussion.
“I don’t know what to do for her…we really don’t have anyone who knows about medical issues now that Amy is gone…” I stated in a worried tone as I stared down at Angel’s motionless body.
“A doctor would be worth its weight in gold so to speak in this world…too bad we can’t find someone like that.” Sheila stated in a concerned tone.
I placed my right hand on Angel’s forehead finding that it was warm to the touch and she opened her eyes and smiled—it seemed like she was going to be okay.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked helping Angel sit up in bed.
“My head hurts…but yeah, I think that I’ll make it—I could really go for some pain killers though and maybe some ice.” Angel answered as she kissed me before getting to her feet.
“Let’s go down to the infirmary and see what we can get for you.” I answered as my other women clustered around me and around her helping her walk.
I led my women out of our room and down to the courtyard where we soon after learned that Kari and Thomas had also died in the night from the grievous wounds that they had suffered and the mood and morale of the group had definitely taken a hit; graves had been dug in an area that had been designated as a cemetery and we put Kari and Thomas to rest around noon that same day, just as I knew it would—Kari’s death really hit Rachel hard as she had been her last remaining sibling alive. Graves had also been dug and filled in for Hugo and Amy despite the fact that we still had not really found any trace of their bodies from the explosion earlier; I done my best to comfort Rachel as well as I stood there with a glassy look in my eyes knowing all too well what death was all about, I was hoping and praying that we wouldn’t lose anyone else but at this point I wasn’t so sure.
[Chapter Four: Blood in the Snow]
Four months had passed since the ordeal that we had went through to try and get food, supplies and weapons back to Echo Bay and it was now January 12, 2021; Beau’s leg had healed but left him with a limp, he seemed like he was ready to continue what needed to be done in order to survive despite what had happened. I woke that day to a peculiar feeling like something was amiss—I checked with Jennifer and Sheila as well as my other women and nothing seemed out of the ordinary until I noticed that Chelsea wasn’t with them.
“Where’s Chelsea?” I asked with a worried look coming to my face.
“I haven’t seen her this morning…she was with us when we went to sleep last night, but I haven’t seen her since then.” Sheila answered as frown came to her face.
“I better check and see if any of the others have seen her—maybe she just went to talk to the ones she came in with.” I stated turning and heading for the door as my women continued cooking breakfast over the fire in our fireplace.
I arrived downstairs on the main floor and noticed that a couple of the women Chelsea had arrived with were standing against the nearby wall talking—as I got close, I recognized them as being Victoria Bloom and Maggie Thomas; they nodded at me as I approached.
“Sorry to bother you, b
ut I was wondering if either of you have seen Chelsea this morning?” I asked once I was standing before them.
“We seen her earlier this morning about an hour before daybreak—she was on her way to the bathrooms on the third floor…we haven’t seen her since then though.” Maggie answered casually.
“She hasn’t come back and we haven’t seen her…” I answered with a worried look.
“Sorry for snooping, but isn’t she with you and your girlfriends?” Victoria asked raising her right eyebrow.
“Yes—that’s right…why?” I answered turning to her.
“It just seems odd that since she’s with you guys that she’s not there now…” Victoria answered with an odd expression.
“I’ll go check the third-floor bathrooms and see if she’s there…thanks.” I answered turning away.
I didn’t know how to describe it, but that Victoria woman was giving me some weird vibes and as I got closer and closer to where Maggie had said that they last saw Chelsea, the vibes were getting worse—I entered the bathrooms and flipped on the light switch, nothing or no one was there and I was about to turn back toward the door when something underneath my boot made a crunching sound; I looked down to find that there was glass on the floor and upon further inspection I found that one of the wall mirrors was smashed, there were traces of blood here and there as well.
[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles Page 91
