After taking the guards' extra ammunition, I finally loaded Kossa's pistol and Betty with a full mag; eight and seventeen rounds, respectively. I felt a little better having more ammunition before leaving the building, unsure whether the vectors were already inside the mall, but it wouldn't hurt to be more prepared. A picture slipped out of one of the dead guard's jacket, Daniel, and I caught a glimpse of four smiling faces, him standing in front of the Disneyland entrance in Anaheim with a woman and two children, which I presumed to be his family. I frowned, putting the picture back inside his pocket.
I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned around to find Logan standing over me. "We have a situation. Er, kind of."
"What about?" I asked.
Logan gestured for me to come along, and he led me down to a hall, stopping two doors down. "I think someone's inside the room. I heard shouting earlier, and I thought they're vectors, but I'm pretty sure they're human," he said.
I hesitated for a moment, took out my gun. I didn't know whether to shout or knock, but I ended up doing the latter. It didn't take long to hear not one but several voices inside.
"Please," the voice shouted. "Let us out!"
Peter and Charlie walked over to us. "That's the other prisoners," Charlie said.
"You said there's more than fifty of them?"
"Yeah. The troublesome ones get sent here, sometimes, to, um, re-educate them. The others are in another special building."
I tried to think about what to do with them. For a second, I thought about leaving them there, but then my gut twisted violently, and I knew I couldn't go through with it. There, I made up my mind. I picked up the keys I had seen from Daniel's belt, walked back to the door, and unlocked it.
"I need you all to stand back, okay? No funny business," I said.
Peter tugged at my arm. "Bren, what are you doing? We don't have time for this."
"I can't leave them in there. Besides, we have the keys now."
"They're dead weight."
Logan was about to intervene, but I gestured for him to stop. "They're not going with us, but I sure as hell am gonna give them a fighting chance. It's the least we could do."
I could tell by the look Peter gave me that he wanted to argue more, but he decided against it. He took a step back and equipped his rifle, and Logan did the same beside me. I opened the door.
I aimed my flashlight. Four black men stood by the far wall in a dark room, their faces sunken, stares blank and curious, white armbands wrapped around their biceps as they shrank away from the light. Only one stood his ground, a man who looked like in his late forties, studying me. He must've thought I was not a threat because his shoulders relaxed, whispered something to his companions that I couldn't hear, and they also calmed down. I caught a whiff of sewage to my right, turned, and found a bucket halfway-filled with pee and fecal matter, covered (and failing at that) by a single, flimsy sheet.
"We heard what you did. Though at first one of them did...something to the others," the man said, and something in his voice told me that it happened often than I could imagine. "Are they dead?"
"Yes. Well, the guards in this building anyway."
The man looked me up and down. "Are you here to help us?"
"We're here looking for our friends."
"Ah. The three that came yesterday."
"You know them?"
"No. Didn't have the time. We can come with you if you help us free the others and take down the Alphas."
"You're not coming with us. As for the Alphas, they're already dealing with a large horde of infected. A big one. Something they might not survive from."
"Something tells me that's your doing?"
I didn't answer that. "Look, I advise you not to head for the northwest gates. Take east or south and get out of here. And you can have these." I threw the keys to him, and he caught it midair. "You can free the others yourself."
"But we don't have any weapons!" One of the men cried out.
I looked around and realized he was right. They certainly couldn't run from the Alphas, much less the horde, armed only with kitchen knives and broom handles. I pulled out Kossa's pistol from the back of my waistband and handed the gun to the older man. It wasn't much, but it would still make anyone think twice once fired. "Here. Take it."
"Thanks. This will help. I know where their armory is, so maybe we can raid that once I free the others," he said.
"But that's heavily guarded," Charlie said, "and it's in the middle of the plaza."
"He's one of them," one of the men spat and made a move toward the kid.
I blocked their path. "No, he's with me now! He helped us get in," I said.
The other man ignored me. "Out of the way!"
Logan and Peter both shouted warnings at them, raised their rifles, and aimed the barrels at the four men. Meanwhile, I was calling for them to stop. But then, the older man extended his arm out and grabbed the guy by the collar. "Enough, Caleb. We don't have time for this. Let's grab the others and get the fuck out of here. The demons are coming."
The other man pushed the other's hand off his shoulder, grunted. He glared at Charlie before grabbing the keys from the older man's hand and strode out of the room in a huff, still pissed. "Fine. Whatever." As he walked past Charlie, he bumped him by the shoulder and continued down the hall without looking back.
I started walking toward their stairwell when the older man stopped me. "Hey, kid! I want to say thank you. And good luck finding your friends." Behind him, Caleb was already in the process of opening one of the doors.
"Yeah. You, too."
"I didn't get your name. I'm Elijah."
"Brendan. I go by Bren."
"So...are you him? Are you the Devil Wolf they kept on about?"
I didn't answer, turning around, and continued toward the stairwell door. "I hope you make it all out, man. Stay safe."
"Just wait. If y'all survive this, I guess I'll be seeing you out there. Maybe we can join forces together? The Alphas keep their vehicles on the East. One of my friends works there, fixing their engines. You should head over there. Maybe you'll change your mind and help us out?"
I thought about it for a second, but we might not see each other again. "Yeah, sure."
——
Like hundreds of crackling thunder and fireworks, they reverberated so close my teeth and bones rattled from the sound. The fire had engulfed the Northwest side of the mall, but I had no idea whether the vectors had managed to slip past their defenses. All I knew was that we were no longer safe in the parking lot filled with the infected in a few minutes or less.
There were still hundreds of people in the parking lot, though they weren't running for shelter anymore. They carried with them luggage, boxes, and a bunch of other crap, all heading east. Some were even fighting over scraps I couldn't make out in the darkness, and I was sure I saw a couple of people on the ground, bleeding, either dead already or were still fighting for their lives. One woman ran between the trailers where another woman suddenly jumped out and then started stabbing her on the back as the other screamed. A man in a cowboy hat shot another man on the chest, spat on his corpse, and ran away. A pickup truck sped down the drive lane to my left, too late to notice a man crossing the street. The car ran over the pedestrian, swerved and crashed into a storefront nearby, and hitting two more people inside.
It was chaos. I realized they were turning on each other.
Every man for himself.
I started running when a man suddenly stepped out from a pavilion ahead of us, a box in his arms filled with valuable loot: clothes, food, and weirdly, a golden candlestick. He studied our faces in the dim light.
"Charlie?" He called out. "Is that you?"
Charlie didn't answer. He didn't have to when the man's gaze fell on me. He recognized me instantly, and I did, too, a vague, boyish face in the crowd of hunters from the lake resort. He dropped the box and reached for his holster, but then his head exploded, blood exited at the back of his skull as Peter shot him in the face. He fell back on top of his loot.
"We're not safe out here," Peter said, scanning the lot for other hostiles. He strode toward the body and took his gun from his grip.
I turned to Charlie, mouth gaping by the sight of his friend's death. I had no time to shake him out of it. "Where to now? Is there a safer way to the mattress store?"
It took him a second to answer me. "It's, ah, direct path...if you follow the parking lot and then to the drive lane. There are still a few checkpoints from here to that side of the mall. I doubt the guards are just gonna let us pass. Carl is gonna put up a lot of spuds on the watchtowers to help spot the infected. They'll see us right away," Charlie said.
"So, what do you propose?" I asked.
He pointed up. "We can always use the roof."
——
Charlie led us to the fire escape ladder at the building's side when I realized the vectors had reached the fence.
It wasn't the approaching gunfire getting louder that clued me in, but the unmistakable noise they made when they're bunched up into a large horde: moans and shrieks that a human could never produce from their throats, building up to an unholy crescendo.
And then the screaming started.
They'll buy us time at least, I thought to myself, albeit grim as it was. The Alphas would be our meat shields, keeping the vectors busy by acting as their easy prey. I calculated that we had about five to ten minutes left to spare before the Alphas were completely overwhelmed and the vectors advanced into the main mall. However, I'm basing this off on how fast the Albany walls fell with trained soldiers, so we might have less than I considered.
It was another three-story climb up the side, Charlie leading the front while Peter protected our tail. We reached the top, and Charlie headed northwest right away without waiting for the others.
"Carl hates it when people smoke around him, so some of his men sneak up here for a cig. The rooftop doors are locked from the inside, so we can't use it to go down," he said.
"And I'm guessing we're gonna use another ladder there? It'll be too dangerous with the vectors nearby."
Charlie shook his head and grinned sheepishly. "We don't have to scale any ladders at all. There's a skylight above the back warehouses. We can use that to go down into the third floor since there are office spaces there. Carl might have kept your friends in one of them."
"Okay. Lead the way."
The Alphas had used the roof as another living area. Since the surface was flat, they had built a small greenhouse, water towers, solar panels, and a bunch of tents, though all of them were now abandoned; the people fled inside, leaving most of their stuff scattered all over the gravel-covered floor. Still, I readied my gun, expecting trouble to pop out from one of the shacks.
"How far?" I asked.
"Beyond those HVAC units ahead. We'll just do a turn here, and...there it is!" Charlie pointed to the skylight windows.
It was an opaque, rectangular-domed skylight with little metal handles hidden under the rim to open the glass panels. Peter quickly swept the area in case there were Alphas positioned nearby, and a couple of minutes later, he gave out the all-clear. Logan walked over to the rooftop door, and as Charlie said, it was locked from the inside.
"Bren! Uh...You should come and see this shit!" Peter shouted from the edge.
Logan and I shared a look of confusion and walked over to where Peter was, crouched behind the low safety guardrails. The roof overlooked the northwest gates sitting at about two hundred feet ahead, connected to a roundabout that led to a small parking lot littered with traffic barriers wrapped in barb wires, chain-linked fences, and two watchtowers. Hundreds of armed Alphas stood up the construction scaffolding lining along the borders. The gate itself was already blocked and stacked by vehicles, odd furniture, and just about any heavy object the Alphas could throw at it to stop the horde ahead.
Beyond those gates, thousands of vectors were clamoring to get inside. The Alphas kept on shooting at them, but their bullets would run out eventually. It made my skin crawl just seeing them all pile up over the dead vectors, slowly forming a rampart to the top of the wall. It looked like they only had six feet left to go.
Logan gasped beside me. "Holy shit. That's a lot of them."
"Yeah...I think that's not gonna hold," Peter said.
I gave him a dirty glare. "Ya think? They're gonna just climb up that hill of bodies and walk right in like it's Christmas!"
"Hey, guys!" Charlie called out behind us. "Found the opening!"
Charlie opened up the last glass panel on the far end of the skylight by removing it altogether, unscrewing the plastic hinges with his bare hands. He placed the glass panel on the gravel.
"Is that it?" Logan asked.
"Uh-huh. A week ago, we opened these up to let some fresh air in after...Carl got carried away with a prisoner, and I was assigned to do them. This part right here opens directly below the third floor. The rest overlaps beyond the railing. I wouldn't go down that way unless you want a one-way ticket to the first floor."
The hole directly led down to the third floor, as Charlie described. However, the railing was right beside it. If we jumped down, one of us could easily make a mistake, missed the landing, hit the railing a couple of inches to the right, and then fell to the ground floor (with minor fractures, if we're lucky).
"Um. Who's going down first?" I asked around.
Logan quickly put his finger on his nose. "Yikes, not it."
Peter did the same. "Uh—Not me."
I sighed. "Seriously? Fucking hell. Alright."
I looked down the hole again, about a twelve-foot drop, debating whether I should just jump in and hoped for the best. I already experienced what it felt like having a bullet on the leg, which left me bedridden for weeks. If I missed, I'd break more than my legs. I am not looking forward to spending a whole month or two on a fucking bed again.
I walked back to where the Alphas had camped and found what I was looking for. Next to the solar panels was a clothesline, which hanged freshly-washed bedsheets and linens. From the summer heat, they had dried clean. I took a few of the bedsheets and tied them together into knots using the corners, making sure they were long enough before I secured the rope on the sturdy HVAC unit for support. Once I was done, I threw it down the hole.
Logan let out a whistle. "Ah, that's more like it."
"Kinda wish I took gym class more seriously," I said.
Logan shrugged. "Better late than never, I guess. Uh...ladies first—I mean, youngest first?"
I pushed him away. "Asshole." Technically, I am not the youngest between the four of us (it would be Charlie), and one look at him, I knew he was not going to volunteer. He almost jumped when he heard Logan mentioned for the youngest to go first. Anyway, I wasn't even sure if he should lead without a weapon.
More gunfire erupted, but it didn't come from the gates since it came from behind us.
"Oh, no. Did they get inside already?" Charlie asked worriedly.
I shrugged and strode toward the edge again. Below, half a dozen men just shot up three Alphas hiding behind a stack of crates, riddling them with so many bullets I could feel the hate seeping behind the trigger. I realized the shooters were wearing white armbands around their biceps. I quickly recognized Elijah among the crowd, screaming against the hail of bullets as he fired another volley to two men coming out from a storefront.
"It's the prisoners! They're fighting back!" I said to the others.
A group of freed prisoners led a few women and children out of a building and then helped them climb into the trucks. Three prisoners took over a watchtower ahead, and it didn't take long before they overpowered the sniper inside, took his rifle, and started taking out the Alphas hunkering down across the parking lot. Logan let out a cheer when he watched beside me, and I couldn't help but smile watching these bastards reaped what they sow. The Alphas guarding the checkpoints were screaming on their comms for backup, a squad now moving toward that direction. I did not doubt in my mind that the Alphas were going to lose tonight, fighting a two-front battle.
If I learned anything from Nazi Germany, fighting a two-front war was one of the causes of their inevitable fall. The irony was that these racist fucks were going to taste that same medicine.
"That Elijah dude sure knows how to whip up a frenzy," Peter said, not bothering to hide his amusement.
"Yeah, karma's a bitch," Logan chuckled. He threw both his middle fingers at a group of Alphas running for shelter into the storefront beneath us, which was the mattress store.
I tapped his shoulder. "Come on. Let's go get our friends while everyone's distracted."
I took off my backpack and lowered myself into the hole.
Halfway in, I stopped before I let go of the windowsill, feeling naked and vulnerable for an attack. I would hate it if I got shot in the ass while descending. I studied the corridors, waited for a few seconds, but saw no one—not even a shadow—passing by. I gave it another few seconds anyway to make sure I didn't miss any movements or sounds. It unnerved me how quiet it was below, but then again, most everyone who could fight was probably defending the gates (or hiding, or busy killing each other for supplies).
I continued my slow descent, careful not to make too much noise, eased my breathing, and concentrated on carrying my body weight. I was afraid my muscles would fail me, or the feeling of my spine hitting the top of the railing, cracking it into two, and then would leave me paralyzed. I tried not to imagine the vectors finding my broken body, still alive and barely breathing, yet fully aware of his surroundings, especially when the vectors would proceed to inflict every painful way from their hands.
Suddenly, I felt pressure on the tip of my shoes, found I had touched the laminated floor, and let out a sigh of relief. Logan threw down my backpack, and I caught it.
"Who's next?" I asked.
Logan sighed, hoisted himself into the hole, and lowered down the rope.
——
There were no guards outside the hall, probably too busy defending the walls, fighting against the angry prisoners below, or most likely making a run for it. We checked every room that Charlie thought Carl would keep his prisoners in, found them empty. I was beginning to worry when we ended up in the third hallway with a lone door at the end.
"What's in there?" I whispered.
"That's Carl's office," Charlie said.
I gestured for the others to keep quiet as we snuck toward the door. I gathered at least two people inside the room, basing on the shadows crossing through the gaps underneath the door. Logan and I flanked the door frame, pressing my ears against the wall, and heard two men talking to each other. Another voice popped up—so there's three—and both I and Logan's eyes widened when it dawned on us who the third one was.
"But I need to pee," Yousef said.
"Boss says you're not going anywhere, so you're staying right there and don't make a fucking move you'll regret," a man seethed, thick with scorn behind his voice.
"You can piss on your pants if you want to go so badly," another man, earning a chuckle.
"Yeah, your friends have had it worse."
"Well, I doubt Carl's gonna like it if I just pee in the middle of his office, right? This carpet certainly looks fresh. Sure, he'll be angry at me, but he's going to blame you two as well for not giving me a proper bathroom break."
A brief silence in the room. I turned to Logan and Peter to make sure they were all set, rifles ready, saw them give me a curt nod, also listening in to the conversation. I had no clue of the layout inside the room or how many men there were around Yousef. I might accidentally shoot him during the fight, and I hoped he had the extinct enough to duck and cover. Or one of the guards might have the stupidest idea of taking him hostage.
All these little scenarios ran inside my head before I took Betty and moved in front of the door.
"Let him have it, Tommy. I remember Carl likes this rug," one of the men said.
A low grunt. "Fine. Here. Piss on this." Rustling inside the room, quickly followed by something being dragged across the floor, a metallic ding hitting another thing.
"Thanks," Yousef said.
Peter gestured for me to stop. He pointed at himself, motioning he'd go right, then pointed at me to go left. I nodded. He then gestured to Logan to protect my back while Charlie stayed behind.
Here we go.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck...
Drawing a deep breath through my gritted teeth, I kicked the door open.
I let it crashed on me then, the adrenaline coursing like a wave at high tide, letting it guide me into the room. The swell of fury bloomed, splinters of wood shattering as I busted it open, hinge locks bent, the door swayed awkwardly. Like a pinhole, I saw the man standing to my left, leaning against the partition, mouth agape, hand back to reach for his gun—an instinct built long ago under his skin. He'll be trouble. There was no hesitation at this; Betty raised center-level, took two shots where one entered him by the shoulder and one to the head.
One down.
I lurched further to the left, past the body, past the partition, crashing through the couch, and jumped behind it, not knowing yet how many men were in the room aside from the two (and I could be wrong). Heard someone curse, a loud thud, and Yousef's screams. Sliding to the couch's corner, I saw Yousef was already on the floor, arms wrapped around his head. He had tipped the chair he was sitting on over to the side, bringing it down with him.
There were only two guards inside the room.
The second guard fumbled to grab his weapon, forced to run behind the office desk, but Peter stormed in and shot him on the back twice. He went down, breaking a lamp on his way. He was dead before he hit the ground. Just to be sure, Peter strode toward the guard now lying on his stomach and shot him at the back of the head.
"Sef!" Logan shouted, rushing toward him. I went over to him as well. "Oh my god, did they hurt you, man? Are you okay?"
It took him a couple of seconds to focus his eyes on us peering down at him, then, as if the shootout never happened, Yousef let out the widest grin I had ever seen on him for the past few weeks.
"Aside from pissing myself now, yeah, I'm fine. Nice to see you all, guys. What took you so long?"
"Kinda busy with these assholes, but sorry for the hold up there, bud," Logan laughed.
"I'm glad you're okay, Sef," I said, smiling. "Oh, shit. Did they do this?" I gently touched his bandage wrapped around his shoulder, realized it must be from the arrow that had pierced him.
"Their docs patched me up. Seems good so far," he said.
Logan and I helped him up. Then, Yousef looked up, though he was about to cry, and like a snake, he struck out and wrapped both his arms around us, pulling us into a hug we couldn't quickly avoid. I let it happen, anyway. I was glad he was safe.
"Who's that?" Yousef asked after a few seconds into the embrace.
I followed where he was looking at where Charlie stood only a few inches into the room. When he felt Yousef's judgmental stare, he shifted awkwardly, made a little wave. Logan and I untangled ourselves from Yousef.
"Oh. Um, that's Charlie," I said. "Used to be one of them, but he's cool now. He helped us infiltrate the camp."
Yousef looked around and frowned deeply. "Is...Is Alfie okay? I don't see him with you guys."
"Ah, he's fine. He's safe."
Peter interjected, "Hey, I hate to break up this little reunion, but we're kind of in a bind here. You know, vectors at the gates? Nazi wannabes trying to shoot us? Unless you want to get killed right now..."
"Ah...I definitely miss you the most, Pete," Yousef said, a hint of sarcasm laced behind his tone.
"They heard our gunshots for sure," Charlie said.
"Right, right. Next, we gotta find Miguel and Haskell," Logan said.
"Oh! I know where they are! They're only a floor below us, but I forgot what room. They dragged me out of there, and I was too busy trying to fight them off of me to notice."
Peter checked his magazine and put it back inside the well. "Well, at least we know the right floor."
"Where do you think it is?" Charlie asked. "Can you remember how you got there?"
"I remember the guards taking me up the stairwell from the mattress tore, and then once we exited that, it was just the last door of a long-ass hallway."
Charlie nodded. "That's the interrogation room."
"Come on! Let's go!" Peter barked.
I let Yousef leaned on me as we headed for the door.
"You sure you're okay?" I asked Yousef again.
"Got banged up a bit, but other than that-"
"—get down!" Logan screamed.
I had just enough time to see what was ahead of us; a lone figure stood with his revolver raised, stepping out of the corner, aimed the gun, and fired.
Peter took cover beside the door. Logan threw himself at Yousef and me, found ourselves a second later in a tangled mess of bodies on top of each other by the couch as another bullet wheezed past, taking out a cherub bust statue behind the desk. Someone screamed. Peter hollered for everyone to find cover. Another shot rang out then, and I scrambled up to my knees, dragging both Yousef and Logan behind the couch. Yousef had his hands around his ears, trying to block the noise as Peter took a couple of shots down the hall. When that didn't stick, he bolted, launching himself over the desk, and hunkered down behind it.
"Only one gunman!" Peter screamed.
One, I thought. Yeah, we can take care of one guy.
"Anyone hit?" Logan asked, also checking himself.
"I...I think I'm fine."
Two more shots were fired from both Peter and the other gunman.
"Yeah, me too."
"Both of you, stay right here," I said and jumped out of cover, sneaking up to the wall beside the open entryway.
There, I saw Charlie's body halfway through the door, eyes staring upward, unblinking. Blood continued to seep out from the side of his neck where the man had shot him. Drag marks on the floor told me he tried to crawl away, but he was shot again on the chest.
"Fuck," I gasped. Sorry, kid.
The gunman stepped into the room then and turned toward me.
He fired.
I ducked under; the bullet passed an inch over my head and hit a cabinet behind me.
I smiled, glancing down at his revolver.
I roared, "Six fucking shots, asshole!"
I saw the panic set in, his pupils dilating. I took out the axe from my belt, swung wide, and cut off his hand. He shrieked, taking a step back as he dropped the revolver with his hand still attached. He tried to hold me back with his other arm, but it was already too late. I got a good chunk of him on the shoulder, pulling the blade back again and cleaved through the same spot as I fell on top of him.
Without stopping for a single breath, I hacked and hacked, letting the fury explode, of snapping reflexes, tapping into some dormant instinct deep inside my bones, waiting to be unleashed, the booming surge to smash and bite and hunt and fuck...
I didn't know how or when, but I managed to hold back at the end, finally aware of my surroundings, probably blacked out for a few seconds there, found myself drenched in the man's blood. Logan and Yousef stood behind me, watching in horror. Peter had crouched beside Charlie, running his fingers over the boy's eyes to close them.
"You done?" Peter asked me.
The man's face was barely recognizable, like meat thrown into a grinder. I stood up, wiped my face with the hem of my shirt, and strode toward the door. I took a moment to look down at Charlie's form, looking peaceful, as if he had merely fallen asleep. Then I was reminded of his wounds, and I knew there wasn't anything I could do to save him. I didn't know if he lucked out that he would not face the horrors waiting outside the building.
——
It was easy to spot the guard waiting down by the stairwell, hiding behind the door frame. I knew he was there when I heard the squeak of his sneakers scraping against the concrete floor and heard it when I was coming down the stairs. He decided to ambush me.
But I saw him first.
I stopped, waited, aimed Betty in his direction. The others hung back behind me.
There was a moment of hesitation on his part, and I was almost impatient with him, but then his head carefully peeked out from behind the door, and...
Bang!
The man fell back, caught the yelp of another behind him. I lunged over the railing and dropped to the ground. I imagined myself like water, moving with grace and speed and not letting the doubt creep in from behind. I pressed my back against the wall when I caught the other man entering the stairwell with his gun raised. I grabbed his wrist, but he managed to fire a shot, almost made me deaf from the loud echo rattling throughout the enclosed space. I kicked him by the back of his leg, made him drop to one knee before I pressed the gun against his temple, and fired. I turned to the door, gun raised again, moving swiftly into the hallway, but found it empty. I gave the others the all-clear.
Once Yousef was down on the second floor, he managed to remember the way to the interrogation room, albeit it took us a hot minute to do so. A lone chair stood outside the door with a Nintendo Switch left laying on top, opened to some Zelda game. I realized the two guards (and probably the one that killed Charlie) came from here, guarding Miguel and Haskell. I still listened in to make sure no surprises were waiting behind the door. Peter and I shared a nod before opening it.
The stench was what got me first, thought that perhaps the guards had murdered them. I quickly found the lights near the door and switched them on. I found both Miguel and Haskell zip-tied to a radiator, both heavily wounded and battered but very much alive. They moaned, shrinking away from the blinding light after spending hours in the darkness. I put my hand over my mouth at the sight, almost taken aback when Yousef rushed in, pulling me out of my daze.
"Peter, Logan, watch the door. Here. Let me," I said. I pulled out my knife and proceeded to cut through the heavy-duty zip ties.
"Bren? Is that really you?" Miguel croaked with only one eye looking at me; the other was tight shut from swelling.
"Carl did this," Yousef spat. "He showed them to me to scare me off, threatened he'll do the same if I don't tell him about you."
"He wants to know about me?" I asked.
"Yeah. I think it's because...well, do I have to explain it?"
I shrugged. He did have a point, so we left it there.
"Is that Gauthier?" Haskell whispered. "You're alive?"
"You sound disappointed."
"I was kind of counting to make it out without your help. This is embarrassing."
"Well, I'm here to save your worthless ass. Again."
"Aw, fuck you, man. I was having an alright time not having you around for once," Haskell said. He tried to laugh, but he suddenly winced, putting his hand on his chest. "Ah, that freaking sucks."
"Don't put too much pressure on that," I said to Haskell. "Steady. Don't come up too fast, or you'll lose your balance."
"How's it looking out there?" Miguel asked.
"Uh...there might be a huge horde coming our way, and probably breaking down through the gates as we speak, and is going to storm through this building at any moment?"
Miguel blinked with one eye and shrugged. "Well, tell me a thing I don't know."
"We found a new friend," Logan said.
Peter scoffed. "Actually, we found two, but one died along the way."
I shot Peter a dirty look, and he shut his mouth. I turned to Miguel and Haskell. "Alright. Let's get you both out of here. Logan, We'll switch weapons. I'll take that rifle, and you'll help carry Miguel over here. Yousef, you take Haskell." Logan and I exchanged weapons, and he went to Miguel's side, helping him hoist himself up to his feet.
"You know, I'm happy to see you, Sef," Haskell said as Yousef pulled him up.
"Ah, so the day finally came..." Yousef shook his head, guiding Haskell's arm around his shoulders.
"Carl..." Miguel hissed. "That's these assholes' ringleader. He did this to us." I could see Miguel clenching his jaws, his hands curling into a fist. "They're treating other people like slaves, Bren. The prisoners...they did things to them."
"Don't worry, Miguel. Once we get out of here, we'll hunt the bastard down and let him pay for it."
"Good." Miguel's gaze darkened. "I look forward to it."
Seeing them in this state made me angry. But I put the rage away, like putting a cookie back in the jar, gentle and cautious not to break it into crumbles, making sure I'd let it out in full force for Carl to endure.
Yet, I can't help but feel a little happy that we were all back together again.
Miguel and Haskell had a little trouble walking at first, but once we got them started, it became a little easier as we progressed down the hallway. I could practically hear their bones creak with each step they made. Still, I tried to be patient even when I knew we couldn't move at this pace and outrun both the Alphas and the vectors. We needed a vehicle.
I led them down to the ground floor. I smelled the smoke first, wood ablaze over some open fire, but then there was also something else, like roasting meat and metal, realized the latter was gunpowder.
"Ready?" Peter asked, hand on the handle.
I gave him a curt nod.
Peter pushed the door open, screeching wide from the hinges. A vector's shriek cut through the noise, mouth drenched with blood and gore, crouched just a couple of feet ahead with a screaming woman underneath him. He launched himself off of her, sprinting toward us. I raised the rifle and shot him on the head. The screaming woman got up to her knees, desperately trying to stop the bleeding on her shoulder with her bare hands. She was about to ask us for help, but I shot her in the head. She was already infected.
It was total carnage. The vectors had already breached the gates, pouring into the store where dozens of people hid between the mattresses and tables, probably hoping that the vectors wouldn't see them. Some had stacked a poorly-built barricade of mattresses on the doorway, but the vectors easily barged through the barrier. Blood was everywhere, on the sheets, on the walls, on the floor, and even on the ceiling. The roasting meat I was smelling was the dead vectors (and people) who were unlucky enough to end up falling on top of the burning coals in the middle of the room. I couldn't even tell if the dead were made entirely of soldiers, civilians, or both. The vectors were on top of them, tearing them apart. Still, there were pockets throughout the store where survivors were making their last stand.
"There's too many of them! We can't get out this way!" I said.
Another vector, a woman, burst out from a bathroom and darted toward Peter. He shot her dead, but the gunshot drew more of them to our area, smelling fresh prey.
"Back! Back! Back to the stairs!" I screamed, taking out two more of them coming from the side.
We closed the door behind us just as the first vector reached for it. Their screeches turned my bones into jelly, knowing that there's only a flimsy door separating me from them.
"There's no lock on this thing!" Peter screamed. "Someone has to hold the door while the others go up to the roof."
"No. No way. I'm not leaving anyone behind," I said.
"Guys! Guys! You can both let go!" Logan said.
I glared at him. "Are you crazy? They're gonna get it in!"
"No, look! It's a push bar. The vectors don't have any from the other side, so they can't open it."
Logan started pulling Peter and me away from the door. I hesitated at first, doubtful that the vectors wouldn't be able to open it from the other side, not knowing what other tricks they had up their sleeves, but I decided to trust Logan. I let go of the door first before Peter, who was still debating whether he should do it. I gave him a curt nod, and he spat a curse.
"If I'm dead, I'm gonna haunt you both." Peter let go, taking a step back as he aimed his rifle at the door. I did, too.
But the door held up.
Logan grinned. "Ha! See?"
"That's not gonna hold. Look at the hinges." Peter pointed at them rattling, fighting against the vector horde behind the door. Cracks were beginning to form on the wood.
"What are you guys waiting for?" Yousef screamed above the second-floor railing. "Run!"
We didn't have to be told twice. Even though we put some distance behind us, their shrieks reverberated across the stairwell, growing louder and louder as more joined their ranks below, making me think they're right behind my back. I could even hear the wood splintering from the door frame, the metal buckling against all their combined weight, until...
Boom!
The door let go, knocked down. A huge stampede poured like lava into the ground stairwell, a mass of clamoring bodies trying to fit through a small, narrow gap. I peered down over the railing from the third floor, and half a dozen pair of hungry eyes looked up at me.
"They're inside!" I shouted.
"We have a problem," Logan said. "Charlie said the rooftop doors open from the inside, right? Well, this one has a push bar, see? They're gonna get up to the roof by just leaning on it, especially with them clustered together pounding against the door. We don't have anything on the roof that can hold them back."
"But we can still slow them down from here," I said.
I then pulled out my last remaining Molotov from inside my backpack.
Logan raised his brows. "Uh...yeah. That works, too."
I gave the Molotov and the lighter to Yousef. "Peter, Logan, you're gonna help me stack some bodies at that landing over there, enough to block some of the vectors from coming up. We're gonna make a human barricade. Sef, I'll give you the signal when to light the bottle up and hand it back to me, okay?"
Yousef nervously grabbed the Molotov and the lighter and gave me a shaky thumbs-up.
The vectors reached the second floor.
"Bren, we can still fight, you know. Give us a gun."
I smiled at him. "You never shy away from a fight, huh? Here. Take this."
I gave them some of the extra weapons that I had looted over the past two days. I handed Miguel the revolver, but I let him know to make every shot count since there were only four rounds left. Peter handed Haskell his pistol, which had a full mag.
"They're coming up!" Logan hollered.
We stood at the top landing, the rooftop door wide open right behind us, the summer night air caressing the nape of our necks, sending goosebumps. Adrenaline at full force, I fired the first head that popped up above the handrails. A shriek went off, a dying one, the vector falling over the ledge and landed on top of two vectors.
One down.
It didn't take long before we were firing at a good pace, stacking up bodies at the mezzanine landing, racked up only when a few daring vectors were adamant at climbing over their dead comrades to get to us, sometimes scaling up the handrails instead. One or two managed to slip past the line, but not before I put a bullet on their face mere inches away from where we stood.
Then, the vectors' bodies started piling up, blocking about half of the stairwell and made it harder for the rest to go past them. They were more like crabs than a pack of sardines, clamoring over each other on a deadly competition who got to climb over the grisly barrier we made.
It was time.
"Yousef! Now!"
Yousef lit up the end of the fabric, the blaze growing as he handed the bottle back to me.
Make it count. Oh, please, let this one stick.
I threw the bottle in the middle of the pile. I could feel the heat enveloped the entire area, could feel it on my cheeks, the glass shattering into pieces against the mass of bodies engulfed in flames. Some of the vectors tried to escape the fire, jumping into the second-floor door. But the fire spread quickly, and we had no choice but to retreat to the rooftop and closed the door behind us.
I coughed hard, felt like a wreck as I tried to get the smoke out of my lungs. I didn't think I could forget about the smell of burning human flesh.
"That'll buy us some time," Peter said.
"So, what's next?" Haskell asked.
"That prisoner we met mentioned the Alphas kept their trucks on the east side. Maybe we can try there?" Logan said.
"How can we be sure they hadn't driven off already? There might be none left!" Yousef said.
"We don't. But it's worth a try, yeah?"
"He's right. That's our only play now," I said. "And besides, it should be easier to get to using the roof."
The vectors' dying shrieks behind the door grew fainter now, but it was quickly replaced by the ones who survived the fire, sounding more pissed off than before.
I moved away from the door and started leading everyone east. I hoped there's still a car left with our name stamped on it.