SurvivorZ: Grave Harbor

98

MAUREEN

Through her borrowed spyglasses, Maureen surveyed the rising smoke from her rooftop vantage. The devastation was a grim monument to the colonel's final act. Considering the horrific end that awaited him, she couldn't say how she felt about his sacrifice. She could only hope that if a similar fate befell her, she'd face it with the same degree of courage.

Word had spread quickly about the colonel's brazen incursion into enemy territory. The minute she heard what was going on, she rushed for the wall to see for herself. She found Milton Hewes watching from the northwest tower by the time she got there. He was muttering while observing the colonel's progress through a pair of binoculars.

She caught a few words as she approached. "Impossible... How..?" It wasn't until she was almost beside him that he started at her presence and stopped talking to himself.

"I heard that the colonel... Is he out there?" She marveled at the scale of the undead army. "In that?"

"They're... I can't explain it," he replied. "The dead aren't even looking at him. He's passing straight through them."

"What is he thinking?"

"He's going after the leader on his own. I never imagined they'd let him just walk through their lines like that." Milton said. "How is he doing it? Pheromones? He never mentioned anything about you people having a way to make yourselves invisible to the dead."

"It's not..." Her oath to her patient made her hesitate, but only briefly. She figured the colonel wouldn't object under the circumstances. "He's dying. The reason they aren't touching him is because they can sense it."

Milton gawped at the undead masses below. The creatures showed more interest in the gunfighters shooting from the west wall than in the lone individual weaving through the crowd.

"Remarkable."

"Do you think it'll make a difference?" Maureen asked.

Without responding, he gave her a furtive glance. She read the doubt on his features.

Milton returned to watching the colonel's progress through his glasses. She stared at the horde meandering in the diminishing light, wondering which shadowy figure below was the only one with a functioning heartbeat.

She thought she might have received her answer a few minutes later, when a bright flash of light erupted from the other end of the parking lot.

"Christ! What—?"

She looked to Milton for answers, but the man was a statue. He stood with his binoculars lowered, staring in disbelief at the flames engulfing the dead around the explosion.

"What happened?" she asked.

He shook his head. His gaze skimmed the vast assembly still untouched by the blast. "It's not enough," he whispered. "There's so many."

"Hey, what just happened out there? The colonel—?"

He brushed past her, pushing the binoculars into her hands. "I need to think," he muttered, heading downstairs.

"Where are you going? What's—?"

Since he wasn't forthcoming, she peered through the binoculars, seeking answers for herself. All she found amid the smoke and flames were more questions. There was no trace of either the colonel or the alpha ghoul. She could only deduce that the explosion had taken them both.

Everything went still. Only a few unruly moans from the foot of the western wall disrupted the silence. Time seemed to hold its breath, until the moment that a terrible screech from the darkness kicked everything into gear again.