DUSK 2
Helen was the last one on the second
floor. She’d helped cover the others as
they retreated. Now three of the
soldiers yanked the ladder up as she held on, hoping nobody attacked her prone
body. Instead of trying to aim her rifle
at the doorway, Helen climbed the rising ladder, hastening her retreat.
Several troops lay on their bellies,
taking firing positions at the top of the rigged staircase. Other troops crouched in the hallway,
watching their backs. The black robes
were coming through the windows. Helen
could hear as gunshots were exchanged in the rooms.
A soldier emerged from the third
door on the left. He ran backwards,
shooting into the room. Red sprayed from
the soldier’s chest as he was knocked to the wall.
Two black robes poured out of the
room. As quick as they ran out, they
didn’t seem ready to meet resistance in the hallways. Both of them looked fifteen and probably
weren’t yet seasoned from combat. That
didn’t stop Helen or the other troops from cutting them down.
More, smarter soldiers remained on
the other side of the doorway, taking firing positions.
Sam and three other soldiers emerged
from one of the rooms. The former cop
put a finger across his lips, shushing the soldiers in the staircase. Helen along with the others continued firing
to keep the attackers focused on them.
It took thirty seconds for Sam and
his men to sneak to the doorway and open fire inside.
*
He’d left Rick at the window. Though the younger Turnbull was shaken, he
seemed to be handling himself well. Sam
trusted him to keep the window covered.
He didn’t feel right sending anyone else out into the hallway, though
Sam doubted that any position was safer than any other.
While approaching the doorway, Sam
had been afraid of friendly fire. He
felt blessed when he reached the doorway without getting shot by his own
troops. He felt even luckier when he was
able to poke his rifle through the doorway and open fire, taking down three
soldiers pretty easily.
“What do you know,” he said. “It’s our lucky day.”
Staying low, Sam moved close to the
three bodies and put a bullet in each of their skulls. He quickly moved to the window and fired down
at the approaching soldiers.
*
Lenux protested.
Cooper could smell Sarah, just one
floor above. He ducked as several
snipers fired on his position. Several
of the men around him returned fire, giving him the cover he needed to make it
to the fourth floor. Inside, Cooper
found two snipers, already dead. One was
missing half of his head. The other had
taken shots to the chest. No telling how
long before he became a leper. Cooper
hoped it was long enough for him to get out of the room.
With most of the troops trying to
keep the holy warriors from boarding the second and third stories, Cooper found
no resistance in the hallway. The men
who spotted him were probably dead, or else one of them would be shooting at
him in the hallway.
You
can have her after the battle!
“What’s it matter,” Cooper
mumbled. “There aren’t going to be many
of us left when this is done. You
promised me two things, an empire and Sarah.
If I can’t have one I’m damn well not getting cheated out of the other.”
As he crept past the doorways, he
was able to peer in and see the other soldiers firing. He could have blasted them in the backs and
the men in the other rooms probably wouldn’t have known. Fighting temptation, he moved forward.
*
Sarah and Jasper ducked as the
window sill splintered. She was glad
there was no glass.
“Are you alright?” Jasper asked.
“I’m okay,” Sarah answered,
trembling.
She wondered if she should have
taken her father’s advice and stayed with Adeline and the kids. They were safe for the time being but if
everyone in this tower was killed, the refugees wouldn’t stand a chance. She was angry at her father. He’d been the one who agreed to help in this
battle.
Come
on, they’re the only people who can help us.
We don’t want them to die.
Jasper aimed his rifle down at the
attackers below. He kept count of those
he killed and seemed pleased that the people who killed his family showed up.
“Twelve,” Jasper said.
Before he could pull the trigger
again, his head exploded. Sarah crawled
backwards against the wall, dragging her butt on the ground. She screamed as Jasper’s body tumbled to the
floor. She screamed louder when she saw
the man in the doorway, grinning with a smoking shotgun in his hands. He wore all black and he was balding, but
what Sarah would remember most was the hunger in his eyes. It was beyond what she’d seen in the undead.
She raised her rifle, but before she
could shoot, the man was on her. He
smacked the gun from her hands and lunged forward, grabbing her by the
neck. Sarah was able to connect a foot
with his knee, sending her attacker falling to the ground. His chin hit the floor, but he recovered
quickly.
Sarah tried to scramble away, but
the killer grabbed her ankle. Sarah
kicked at his head, but he seemed oblivious to the pain. He crawled his way up her body and forced her
to the ground with his weight.
She thought of Wade. If she was killed here, at least she could be
with him again.
No,
she thought. Not like this.
She swung her head forward, striking
her attacker in the face. He cried out,
but didn’t let go. The back of his hand
whipped across Sarah’s face in a blur.
This time she cried out in pain.
“God damned slut! I never liked those tiles!”
Sarah screamed again.
*
Moments after he opened fire, Sam
saw a red cloaked figure dash though the second story window. An instant before disappearing, the caped
soldier looked up and Sam recognized him.
One eye. He’d remembered the man
from when he’d been captured. Reed. He’d been their messiah’s head body guard and
now he must have been the head bastard.
“Cover me!” Sam shouted.
Before his men could adjust their
aim, Sam was out the window and running down the fire escaped. A black suited warrior fired at Sam and
missed. Too bad. Sam fired back, striking the attacker in the
chest. He kept moving, not even pausing
when he leapt through the window.
Not expecting some crazy
motherfucker to come through the window after them, the cultists were
concentrating their efforts on the stairway.
Sam wondered how he was going to get
to Reed. He hoped more troops didn’t
come up after him.
*
Nobody else seemed to be coming
through the windows, but several splinters flew around the stairway. Helen ducked.
She’d already turned her attention back down towards the black robes. Several of them lay injured or dead at the
staircase. Occasionally one of the dead
bodies would get up and someone on either side of the battle would put it down.
Helen spotted one body reanimate. It immediately started chomping on one of the
corpses below it as an overpowering urge to move upstairs pulled her. Without saying a word to the other soldiers,
she dashed up the staircase. Drywall and
wood splinters flew as the men below tried to shoot her. However, luck was with her. She reached the top landing intact.
*
Sam spotted Reed a room over. Luckily, the other troops were concentrating
on the stairwell. Their numbers were
dwindling so there didn’t seem to be enough cover to allow the other soldiers
on the ground to come in. Instead they
had to fire at the snipers and undead below.
There seemed to be nobody left below on the other side of the
building. Perhaps that’s why Reed chose
the room to talk tactics with his surviving commanders.
Before they could spot him, Sam
opened fire. There’d been five people in
the room, but Sam was able to take out three of them pretty quickly. The remaining black uniform dove left while
Reed hit the floor and rolled to the right.
Sam fired to the left, sheering away the top of the black suit’s head.
Suddenly, the gun flew out of his
hands and Reed was standing in front of him.
His eye looked into Sam’s left eye.
“You’re still alive,” the Cyclopes
noted. “You’ve earned my respect but the
messiah demands one more sacrifice before you can be forgiven.”
Sam reached for his sidearm, but
Reed kicked it away. He discarded his
own firearms and drew the sword.
“I’ll be happy to send him your
blood,” Sam said.
*
Ty Cooper turned his mother
over. She continued to scream and lash,
but with her belly to the ground, she wasn’t able to find a good angle to
attack from. He grabbed her hair and
pulled back. As she yelped, his erection
pressed against her right buttock.
“You goddamn slut!”
She tried to land an elbow in his
temple, but Cooper blocked the pathetic blow.
She squirmed under him, trying to escape, but only furthering his
arousal. He pulled her head back. She moaned in agony and panic, but when he
tried to slam her face into the floor, her arm held her body up.
No matter, Cooper could just push
his weight down on her. If he pushed
hard enough her arms would either break or give out. At first he’d wanted to fuck her while she
was still alive, but he supposed her corpse would do just as well.
Suddenly, something smacked into
Ty’s face. He felt one of his teeth
banging around inside of his mouth.
He cried out and rolled off of his
mother.
*
Helen watched Ty Cooper scramble for
his shotgun. He didn’t seem to realize
that it was on the other side of the room.
Before he realized that he was also packing a sidearm, Helen shot him
once in the head. He’d always been a
creep. She’d heard stories about his
father. Before she’d felt kind of sorry
for him, but now she was glad to put a twisted family legacy to rest.
“Don’t look at them,” Helen said to
Sarah.
The girl was already grabbing the
nearest firearm when Helen addressed her.
She’d struck Helen as nervous, but she was handling herself well. Helen had been a wreck after she’d been
raped.
Perhaps
it’s because I stopped him from going all the way.
This room wasn’t important. She had to see where Cooper had come
from. She wondered why there weren’t
more troops invading the fourth story.
When she peered out of the window,
gunmen below immediately fired on her.
*
Reed hadn’t been humored by Sam’s
remark. He slashed at Sam’s stomach, but
he was able to step away from the strike.
Reed came forward with a strong offense, to which Sam countered by
retreating backwards. He was outclassed
in hand to hand combat. Without a gun,
his fight seemed to be a lost cause.
It was a good thing Sam was too busy
trying not to get cut to ribbons to think about how stupid a move he’d made.
Mindful of the wall, Sam kept moving
backwards, trying to keep a circle. His
plan was to grab one of the guns, but each time he came within reach of one, he
didn’t have the time to grab. The
pattern continued. Sam walked by one of
the guns, maybe his foot would nudge it.
He’d bend his knees to move for it, but ended up dodging the blade
instead.
In the movies, two combatants in
such a situation would banter back and forth.
Reed, however, remained silent and focused. He was dedicated to absolving Sam of his
sins.
This
is ridiculous, Sam though.
He waited until the sword slashed
by, then sprung forward. He tried to
plant a first in Reed’s jaw, but the one eyed man sidestepped the blow and
planted his own fist right under Sam’s left eye.
“Shit,” he said. “That just healed.”
Before he finished his comment, the
sword flew at Sam and he twirled out of the way.
He dodged several more jabs before
trying to attack again. This time, Sam
flung himself forward and grabbed Reed.
He slammed his forehead into the Cyclopes’ face as many times as he
could before Reed broke Sam’s grip and swung an elbow into his face.
Sam didn’t back off. If he kept the fight in close quarters, the
sword would be useless.
*
“Stay down and follow me,” Helen
barked.
Sarah obeyed.
She calculated that the fire escape
was three doors over. It was likely the
most dangerous place for them, but someone needed to cover it and Helen assumed
the men who’d been there were dead.
As they moved past the doors between
them, Helen could see the oblivious snipers firing out of their windows at the
threat below. It would have been so easy
for Cooper to sneak behind each of them and slaughter the men.
When she reached the room where she
believed the fire escape was Helen was shocked to see an animated corpse
kneeling over a dead man, eating his intestines.
Sarah gagged. Helen shot the ghoul, putting it back to
rest.
“Don’t look at them,” Helen
said. As she took a firing position, she
told Sarah: “Watch the door. Make sure
nobody sneaks up on us.”
Jack was on this floor. Helen hoped he was okay.
*
Though he was able to deliver some
good blows close up, Sam still received the blunt of the battery. On the bright side, Reed had discarded the
blade. Now he nailed Sam with a series
of furious blows from his feet, knees, hands, and elbows. At one point, Reed had tried to take a bite
out of Sam’s face.
He backed off, quickly realizing his
mistake. Reed lunged for the sword. Sam lunged for Reed. They went through the second story window.
As soon as they cleared the ledge,
Sam let go of the man in the red cape and the dropped at different angles. Sam landed closer to the building. Reed landed about ten feet away. He grunted but was able to get up. Sam on the other hand couldn’t stand.
“Oh fuck,” he shouted.
Pain blinded him as soon as he
looked down at his leg. He couldn’t see
bone jutting out of his flesh, but he saw the blood soaking his leg. Even if the men in the tower could get him
away from the undead below and to safety.
Even if he didn’t die of blood loss.
There was a good chance that they’d have to amputate his leg.
None of that mattered though, as Sam
was able to look around him. He spotted
hundreds of ghouls converging on his position.
As Reed sprinted away, Sam felt
stupid. Very stupid.
*
“Oh God no!” Ted shouted.
“What?” Jack asked.
“You don’t want to look.”
Before Ted or Turnbull could pull
Jack away from the window, he spotted the man in red trying to run fro the
undead. Then he looked down closer to
the foundation.
“Sam!”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Ted
shouted.
“We have to get down there.”
“We’ll never make it.”
“He’s practically been a father to
me. He’s watched out for me since Dad
died. I can’t let him die like this.”
“Then don’t,” Turnbull said.
Jack turned to run out of the
room. If he could get to the fire
escape, maybe he could make it down.
Before he made it two steps, Ted tackled him.
“Jack. Sam wouldn’t want you to get killed trying to
pull him out of a hopeless situation.”
“They’ll be on him in a minute.”
“That’s less time that it’ll take
for you to get down there. There’s only
one thing we can do for him, and if you don’t want to take the shot, I will,”
Turnbull said.
“No,” Jack whimpered.
Turnbull rose to the window and took
aim.
“NO!” Jack shouted.
Ted tried to restrain him again, but
Jack was at the window with his rifle raised in a flash. By the time he was there, the ghouls were
already on Sam. One of them pulled at his
broken leg. Another tore at his arm with
its teeth. Before any more of them could
assault his mentor, Jack fired. Sam
stopped thrashing and the undead kept feasting.
“That son of a bitch!” Jack shouted.
He fired wildly at the man in red,
who was desperately trying not to be grabbed by the undead.
“You’re not getting away.”
*
If Reed could make it to the other
side of the building, he would reach his men.
However, fate seemed to be against him.
Snipers from one of the fourth story windows had focused on him. Their bullets flew wildly, but they were
still a threat.
His thought was proven right when
his kneecap was blasted out from under him.
Unarmed, Reed had nothing to fight off the undead with. Ignoring his pain, Reed continued to crawl
away from the undead, but they enveloped him.
He cried out as two of them grabbed his legs and pulled in opposite
directions. Another pair of ghouls tried
to scamper away with his arms, but they wouldn’t come loose.
He screamed as what felt like a
thousand teeth dug into Reed’s flesh, all over his body.