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| Jackson |
The smell of ash and blood filled Jackson's nostrils. His ears were ringing, and the world was spinning. He opened his eyes, and although his vision was a little blurred, he could make out the faces of the people laying around him.
His heart started racing as his body tensed up; he watched his packmates grunt and groan, gripping their heads as they slowly sat up. Jackson's first thought was Damon, but in his search for the Alpha, his eyes instead located the incoming horde.
Fear ensnared him like a starved snake, constricting tighter and tighter as each second raced by. There were too many of them, and the swarm wasn't just made up of humanoid zombies, but of cadejo, too. And they were coming in fast.
"Damon!" he called, but when he tried to get up, pain shot through his leg, and he grunted in startle.
He looked down and saw a large shard of glass sticking out of his ankle, and his blood formed a small puddle at his foot.
"Jackson," came Tokala's voice. "Are you all right?"
Jackson looked at the orange-haired man, who just helped Rachel and Dustu to sit up. "Y-yeah, I..." he answered but then shifted his sights to the horde. "W-we gotta go!"
Tokala looked over his shoulder and out the open van door. "Holy fucking sh—"
"Alpha!" Lance called in a panic.
Jackson saw him trying to help someone up—it had to be Damon. With an irritated grunt, he pulled the glass from his ankle and moved past the recovering pack, trying to get to Damon. But that was when he saw Wilson. His best friend lay unconscious close to the doors; his wrists and legs were bound in rope, and there was a small cut on his forehead.
No one was helping him. Why would they? He was just the target.
Lance and Bly tried to help Damon sit up, but the Alpha whined in agony as they moved his body.
"Put him back down!" Tokala exclaimed, hurrying over there.
"They're getting closer!" Julian suddenly called, pointing out the open door. "What the heck are we supposed to do?!"
"Calm down!" Alastor snapped.
"Oh, shit...guys, look," Wesley stammered.
Jackson was about to head over to Wilson, but when everyone started gasping and panicking, he looked at Damon again. Wesley had moved the Alpha onto his side, revealing the hilt of a dagger sticking out of his back...and the blade could only be inside.
"We can't move him," Bly said, shaking her head. "If we don't pull that out properly, he could be and remain paralysed."
"Then what the hell are we supposed to do?!" Julian shrieked, waving their hand out at the horde, which was mere moments away. "Sit around in here and wait to be eaten?!"
What were they supposed to do? Jackson felt a cold sweat spiral through him. He watched the blood ooze from Damon's back while Bly and Lance argued about what they should do about the blade. And Jackson's fear started overwhelming him.
Was Damon going to be okay? They'd be able to help him, right? He'd heal—he had to heal!
This was all his fault. He never should have signed that deal—he never should have let any of his packmates come with him. All of this was happening because he was so selfish and stupid and thought about no one but himself. His idiotic need to find Wilson was going to get everyone killed. It was going to be the reason he lost the man he loved.
Was this it, then? No one was coming...Damon was too hurt to do a thing, and even if he could fight, there was no way he and the pack were going to be able to fight off the undead.
Tokala shook his head and held up his hand, silencing everyone. "Someone help me pull this door shut—now!"
Jackson snapped out of his thoughts and hurried over with Brando and Alastor. He gripped one of the two handles, and as he prepared to pull, he stared in horror at the tsunami of corpses. Where the hell had they all come from?
"In three," Tokala said. "One, two, three!"
They all pulled on the door, forcing it back into shape as they heaved it shut.
Jackson tried his best to keep as calm as he could. There were already too many of them freaking out. "What about the windshield?" he asked, looking at it.
Tokala moved past everyone and grabbed one of the pistols which must have fallen out of someone's bag. "We'll kill whatever crawls in, and enough of their dead bodies will block access."
"And then what?" Leon asked. "W-we just...we just sit in here and wait for them to tear the van apart and pluck us out like worms in a log?"
The Zeta didn't seem to have an answer.
But then Damon grunted and panted. "The...the driver."
Everyone looked around the van for the driver.
Something hit the van. Something scraped at the metal and thumped the outside walls.
Savage growls and pained groans began surrounding them.
And an undead humanoid stumbled in front of the vehicle and started crawling in through the broken window.
Without a moment's hesitation—and as if this wasn't his first time using a gun—Tokala shot the creature's head, and when it flinched violently, exposing its chest, Tokala shot its heart, and it fell silent.
"Four of you, get up here and help me," the orange-haired man commanded. "Jackson, do you see the driver?"
Jackson looked around, but there was no sign of—
Horrified screaming came from outside the van. Something hit the snow with a thud. And then several savage snarls accompanied the sound of tearing, oozing flesh.
"I...think that was our driver," Jackson said.
Damon then grunted and coughed. "Check the dashboard."
"Fuck," Wesley uttered through gritted teeth as two zombies crawled in through the windows.
Tokala's group shot them, and once they were down, the Zeta moved closer to the front seats and looked around. It looked like he found something, and as he reached for it, a snarling, hissing cadejo burst in through the window beside him—
"Shit!" he shouted as several of the pack whimpered in fear.
Wesley and Brando unloaded several bullets into it as Tokala kicked its face, and after a few more shots, the monster whined and backed off.
Tokala quickly returned to the back of the van, and as he did, Jackson watched as a thick sea of both humanoid and wolf legs flooded the view through the windows.
They were surrounded...and the ocean of corpses was probably growing thicker and thicker by the second. How the hell were they going to get out of this?
"Chief," Tokala said. "You think we can call for backup?"
Jackson turned to face him, and when he saw he was holding a radio, a glimpse of hope flickered through him. "Here," he said desperately, moving over to the Zeta. "I can probably work out how to use it."
Tokala handed him the radio.
He desperately switched it on as Wesley, Brando, and Enola shot at the corpses trying to crawl past the lifeless bodies which were starting to block the windows, just as Tokala said they would.
The radio clicked and made a static noise.
Jackson pulled it to his face. "Hello?" he asked, holding down the broadcast button. "Is anyone there? Hello?!"
The radio beeped. "Uh...this is Silverlake Home receiving. Who is this? Over."
"Oh, thank God," Jackson breathed as several other relieved murmurs came from his pack mates. "Uh, this is the, uh...the group that Lord Caedis sent out! We need—"
"Uh, please specify via codename, sir. We have too many groups in the field to—"
"The group with Sebastien!"
The guy on the other end went quiet, and the corpses outside started banging so fiercely against the walls that the van started shaking.
"Hello?" Jackson pleaded.
"If Officer Huxley is present, please pass the—"
"He's not here! We got attacked by a swarm of zombies and we need backup!" Jackson interjected. "They're everywhere!"
"Where is Officer Huxley? Over."
"We lost him in the woods. Can you send help?!" he exclaimed, almost shouting into the radio.
"Uh, that's a negative on that. We can't authorize anything without command from Officer—"
"Give me the fucking thing," came Heir Lucian's voice, and after the sound of a grunt, a struggle, and disapproving mumbles, he spoke to Jackson. "What's your location? Are you in the van?"
"U-uh, yeah, but it's flipped over, and we're surrounded," he answered.
Something huge then collided with the van, and as everyone screamed and yelled, the vehicle skidded across the ground and hit something else.
"What the fuck was that?!" Ezhno called.
"We can't get out!" Jackson told Heir Lucian.
"All right, I'm sending over reinforcements now. Do you have the target?"
Jackson glanced over at Wilson, who was still unconscious by the closed doors. "Yeah, he's here."
"You get anything out of him?"
"No, we were attacked before we could."
"They'll be with you soon. Do whatever they tell you and don't try to defer. Understand?"
"Y-yeah, we got it."
The radio then beeped and went silent.
For a moment, Jackson stood there and stared at it, expecting to hear something else. But that was it.
"How long are they gonna be?" Julian asked desperately.
"I don't know how much longer we can leave this in his back," Bly called, shaking her head. "Alpha, are you still with me?" she then asked, looking down at Damon.
Jackson looked at him, too, and watched him nod with a pained grimace on his face.
Something collided with the van again, and again, and again, like it was bashing its head against the side in an attempt to break it open. And then a creature started clawing at one of the doors like a cat. The bodies blocking the windows were shifting, and when one of them was yanked out, a seething, snarling cadejo burrowed through and tried getting inside.
"Tokala!" Brando called as he and the others shot the beast.
"Keep shooting!" Tokala said as he crouched beside Damon. "Alpha?" he asked.
Damon grunted in response.
"Help's on the way, okay?"
Jackson made his way over to Damon, too, and when he kneeled beside him and saw the puddle of blood beneath him, he scowled in dismay and gently took hold of the Alpha's hand. "Damon?"
The Alpha opened his eyes to look at him.
"It's gonna be okay," he told him. "They're sending help."
But Damon didn't grip his hand in return. In fact, for the first time ever, the Alpha's skin felt cold to the touch, and Jackson didn't understand why—he didn't want to know why. He just wanted to focus on the fact that Heir Lucian had sent help.
"I'm right here," he told the Alpha, moving as closely as he could without touching his body. He didn't want to risk hurting him more. "They're gonna get here, and then we're—"
The creature outside crashed into the van again; the pack yelled fearfully, and Damon groaned in pain as everyone was abruptly flung around. Whatever was doing this started pushing, and the left wall started bending around the tree it was stuck against.
"We're gonna die in here!" Julian panicked, backing into a corner. "We're all gonna die!"
"Shut up!" Wesley yelled.
"Calm down!" Tokala ordered.
But Julian kept panicking. "They're gonna get in here! They're getting in!" they cried as Wesley and Brando kept shooting the cadejo trying to get inside the van.
"Shut up!" Dustu insisted, gripping a fistful of his hair as he gritted his teeth and looked around frantically.
Jackson's heart was racing. His fear was increasing as he watched everyone panic in their own way. The creature was still banging, the van was bending, and now another cadejo was trying to burrow in through the dead corpses.
But then he heard Damon mumble something. He didn't catch it, so he looked down at him and frowned. "Damon?"
His eyes were closed, he looked paler than he did a minute ago, and his jaw was moving as though he was trying to say something. "I...I can't..." he whispered, his voice breaking.
"You can't...what?" Jackson asked anxiously.
"Can't...breathe."
Terror struck Jackson. "C-can't you do anything?!" he exclaimed, looking at Bly. "Help him!"
She shook her head, stuttered. "I-I can't risk it! If I pull this out wrong, it could kill him or paralyse him for life! I'm not going to—"
"He can't breathe!" Jackson insisted as Damon started suffocating.
"Alpha," Bly said firmly, moving closer to his head. "I'm going to move you a little so it's easier to breathe, okay?"
He grunted in response, gritting his bloody teeth, and when Bly gently adjusted his head and then pushed his body a little so it was slightly titled, Damon choked and gagged. Blood sprayed from his mouth, splattering all over Jackson's trousers, and then he groaned painfully.
"What did you do?!" Jackson snapped worriedly, tightening his grip on Damon's hand...and this time, he felt the Alpha grip back. He took his eyes off Bly—her reply drowned out when his terror was pushed aside by a feeling of hope—and he stared at Damon's face. "Damon?"
The Alpha slowly moved his eyes until they locked with Jackson's. "Don't...don't leave me," he breathed.
Jackson frowned in confusion and shook his head. "I.... Why would I leave you, Damon?" But that probably wasn't what the Alpha needed to hear right now—that wasn't what Jackson wanted to say. "I love you. I'm not going anywhere, ever. I promise. Just...hold on, okay? They're coming."
"Wilson," the Alpha said through gritted teeth. "He...he's...." He exhaled shakily, and when he grimaced, blood sept from his mouth again.
"Why is there blood coming from his mouth?" Jackson questioned desperately, looking at Bly and Lance.
"I-I don't know, I can't tell until I can get a better look at him, but—"
"Jackson," Damon pleaded.
Jackson stopped listening to Bly and stared at the Alpha.
Damon scowled painfully as he grunted, "Your friend, I...know...what...what he—"
The banging creature smashed into the van once more time, and the wall behind Jackson gave way. As the metal split and the tree's trunk cut inside, Jackson was launched forward, and all he heard when he hit the floor were several screams, snarls, gunfire, and a horrific roar.
But there was something else. A thumping sound grew nearer and nearer. At first, it sounded like a creature running through the snow at lightning speed—either that or it had a dozen legs—but once the disorientation he received as a result of his collision with yet another wall, Jackson was sure the noise was helicopter blades.
Helicopters.
The sound was over them in seconds, and among the confused voices of his packmates, he heard soldiers barking orders at one another...and deafening gunfire.
"Jackson," came Heir Lucian's static voice. "Hello?"
Jackson shook his head and scrambled over to Tokala, who handed him the radio. "Y-yeah!"
"You're gonna feel a bit of a jolt, so tell your friends to hold on to whatever they can."
There wasn't any time to ask questions. The second Heir Lucian finished talking, the sound of something metal wrapping around the van cut through all the commotion. Then, what sounded like a wire tightened, and the van started shifting.
"What's going on?!" Julian cried.
"We're moving?" Leon questioned as he gripped one of the handlebars.
"Everyone, grab on to something!" Tokala called. "Bly, Lance, make sure the chief's secure."
They did as they were told and gripped whatever they could, and when the corpses started slipping out the windows, Jackson looked outside. The helicopter was lifting them away, and below, at least fifty soldiers were fighting off the horde.
He looked down at Damon. "It's gonna be okay, just hold on." Then, he glanced at Wilson, who Tokala was holding down to keep him from slipping as the van moved.
Everything was going to be okay, wasn't it? They'd get back to the Venaticus and they would help Damon, right? They had to.
He couldn't lose Damon; if he died because of this stupid mission—if he died because of Jackson's selfish need to find Wilson—then not only would he never forgive himself, but he also felt like he'd have nothing left to fight for.
He couldn't go back to Dawnward; his life was here with Damon.
And if he lost him, what more did he have?
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