I just killed four people.
My mind reeled from the realization.
I fucking killed them.
My heart still hammered against my ribcage. My knuckles turned white as I gripped hard on the steering wheel, putting more weight on the gas as I sped down the road, not minding how fast I was going. Alone in the car, I screamed. I didn't know why, but I just knew I had to, and it felt good. It felt good to hear myself bellowed a cry deep in my throat and in my lungs.
I tried to wipe the blood off of me, both my hands covered in dark red, all the way to my elbows. I could feel it on my face and in my clothes, soaking through. They wouldn't come off, and I was shaking. Realizing some of this blood could be mine, panicked seized me like a freight train, and I searched all over my body, hoping, praying I didn't get shot. When I couldn't pinpoint any searing pain (remembering the feeling of how Ramos shot me), I sighed in relief. I'd hate to get hit again.
The others were going to catch up to me eventually, and now that I thought of it, I should have destroyed their truck. I had a spare bottle of Molotov left in my bag, and I should have burnt their car to the ground. It was right there!
"Stupid, Bren. That was fucking stupid," I muttered to myself, banging the back of my head against the headrest. I looked at the rearview mirror, but there was no one behind me. I put Kossa's pistol on my lap, just in case.
If I had destroyed their vehicle, it would have saved me from going through hell later that day, the things you would never forget; one you could never come back from.
Keeping one eye on the road, I opened my bag and pulled out the map, unfolding it. It didn't have an accurate depiction of the town as I saw only the major roads' outline, some blocked by the drawings of the tourist sites and their bold-letter fonts, and it didn't tell me any back roads I could use to lose the group chasing me. I realized I had to get there and do it on my own.
Every town has a Main Street, so I started there. All I needed was to keep turning left on the streets of Kelter, Monroe, and Gulch for three blocks each, and I'd head straight on Hamilton toward Main. I put back the map into the bag, memorizing the streets.
I glanced at the rearview mirror, and my body went rigid. They were coming, merely a dot from the rolling hill, but they're coming. I looked around and realized that there were no back roads to turn to, choked by dense forests on both sides, and only a straight line directly into town. I couldn't get the truck to go faster.
Then, up ahead, a glint of reflected metal under the sunlight. As soon as I crested over the hill, I saw two more vehicles coming our way. One was another pickup truck, two men standing by the truck bed, and I could already tell they were carrying weapons. The second vehicle was an SUV. I reckoned they were coming here for me. Someone had radioed in about the resort, and they were the backup.
There was no option but to fight.
A faint memory crept into my mind, one of my dad's poems that he always read, sometimes even to me. I'm not a man of poetry, nor do I have any interest in starting it, but my dad was the first to pop into my head as I stared death in the face. This might be it. After all that I went through, this was not how I expected to go out.
Alone.
"Come on." I punched the roof of the car, realization setting in. I wiped a tear streaming down my cheek, sniffling.
The two vehicles were sixty yards ahead.
"Half a league, half a league," I whispered, stepping gradually on the gas. "Half a league onward. All in the valley of Death rode the six hundred." I pulled the safety off from Kossa's pistol.
Forty yards ahead. The two vehicles were getting closer. The two men standing up on the truck-bed studied my car, and I reckoned they were unsure whether it's me.
My voice rose as I secured my seatbelt. "Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die." I rolled down the window next to me.
Twenty yards ahead. We were playing a game of chicken, and I prayed the truck would move out of the way. The two men's faces fell, startled, and they started shouting at each other. Finally, they realized it was me. They raised their rifles, aiming forward.
Twenty yards ahead. I ducked as the first bullet missed, the second hit the roof, while the third shattered the side mirror to my left. I thought the truck wouldn't budge, and we'd end up colliding.
I dared not make a move. "Into the valley of Death, Rode the six hundred." I pushed more on the gas, the speedometer reading ninety miles per hour.
Ten yards ahead. Suddenly, the two vehicles swerved out of my way.
Yes!
Pulling myself upright, I grabbed hold of the pistol and extended my arm out, firing at point-blank as I hurtled past the truck. Windows shattered, hoping that I at least took one of them out. Both men from the truck-bed were hit and fell over, and the vehicle lurched into the shallow ditch. Some of my bullets hit the SUV, which skidded to a stop right next to the truck. I heard a click; Kossa's pistol was empty.
"This all you want, huh? You want a fight?" I cackled, my mad laughter filling the entire cabin. "You want a piece of me?" I pound my fist against the ceiling again.
From the rearview mirror, I saw the truck drove themselves out of the ditch, much to my dismay. Bean's crew passed by them, now in the lead. The other two vehicles turned around, tailing them. They never stopped to collect the two men's bodies.
"Come on, motherfuckers! Come on!" I pounded the roof again. "You wanna fucking kill me? Work for it, assholes!" I sneered, my voice rising, watching them get closer and closer via the rearview mirror. They were only thirty yards back, letting out their hoots and laughter as they brandished their weapons, taunting me.
"Come on! Fucking kill me. Fucking try, you bastards!" I screamed, working myself up.
My truck's back windows suddenly shattered. Someone fired their rifle at me, punching a wide hole through the passenger side's windshield. I ducked, but they didn't fire another round. I could hear their taunts now that one window was broken as they got closer. I saw Bean sitting on the passenger seat, shaking at his driver, Porter, and then pointing at me. I reckoned he was telling Porter to go faster.
Two more shots fired, the first missed while the second punched a hole through the passenger side's window, shattering it entirely. The SUV sped up, now racing next to Bean's truck, until it ultimately passed him. One man opened the passenger's side door, face seething with rage, telling his driver to go faster.
I scoffed. Well, I certainly made someone angry.
In my rearview mirror again, Bean's truck took my right side. I realized they were going to box me in.
The SUV inched closer and leveled out to match my speed. A sour, acne-ridden face of a man hurled insults at me, straddling the side of the vehicle, intending to jump on mine. I looked to my side, and the people on Bean's truck were planning the same. I reckoned they didn't want me dead right away. They wanted to kill me slowly and then watched me bleed.
Shit.
Acne-man was right next to my door, his eyes fixed on me, though. He kept glancing down now and then. I realized he meant to jump on the step bar running at the side of my truck, calculating his leap. A quick hop and he'd be right next to me. I could hear his friends inside the SUV cheered and cried for my blood.
Do it, Cole!
Fucking gut him!
Shoot his dick!
For Mark and Raul! Gouge his eyes!
Jesus. Well, too fucking bad. I had no intention of dying today. I grabbed Kossa's pistol, but I remembered I was out of bullets.
I shifted on my seat to grab Betty from my holster, but Acne-man—Cole—jumped onto the stepping bar and reached in, grabbing a mindful of jacket's sleeves. The men in the SUV yelled and clamored, opening their windows to get a look. His other hand grab for my steering wheel.
I pulled out the pepper spray from my pocket and pressed down on the little red lever, straight to his fucking eyes. Cole screeched, clutching and clawing at his face with both hands. With nothing to grab onto, he realized his mistake and thrashed in the air, and before he knew it, he fell.
His friends screamed, the driver tried to swerve out of the way, and he avoided him. Via the rearview mirror, Cole was still alive on the road, badly injured, screaming and still clawing at his searing face. However, he didn't see the other truck coming straight at him until a split second before it hit him. Cole stretched his arms out (as if he could stop the impact) and went under the wheels.
"Come and get me, assholes!" I shouted back.
I felt a shudder on the steering wheel, though not from the engine. I looked back too late, finding that two of Bean's men had already boarded the back of my pickup truck. Two landed on the truck-bed, the same men who went with that Moira-chick, Diggs, and Fuller. Diggs, the only one with a gun, dropped his weapon during the leap, and it fell off the vehicle. However, they still had a freaking baseball bat, Fuller with a machete, and some knives sheathed on their belt.
"Stop the car, bitch!" Diggs screamed as if that would work. There's no way I'm going to stop it. He tried to squeeze through the shattered back windows, but the frame was too narrow. All he could do was poke his head in.
Seeing an opportunity, I whirled around and blasted the pepper spray directly to his face. Diggs reeled back, shrieking like the vectors, shouting, "My eyes! Fuck! My eyes!"
The roof let out a metallic groan, but before I could figure it out, the machete's blade pierced through the ceiling an inch away from my face. I screamed. The machete slid out quickly as it went in, and this time, I ducked out of the way a split second sooner before Fuller thrust it back in and would have stabbed through my skull. I accidentally turned the wheel to the left, bumping the side of the SUV. I heard Fuller bellowed curses as he held on from the roof, the people from the SUV screaming and shouting. Another thump from the back, someone landing on the truck-bed.
Now I had three on my back.
I pulled out Betty and aimed at the roof, firing twice in quick succession. I heard a heavy thud, and Fuller's body toppled over the side without a scream.
The men in the SUV grew impatient and started firing at me. I could hear Bean's voice crackling through Diggs's radio, ordering them to stop, but they didn't. I guessed Bean still wanted me all to himself, but the SUV had had enough. Seeing how they lost too many men, they wanted me dead quick.
As I turned a bend on the road, I saw the town of Colby from downhill, its bell tower peeking over the trees. Finally, I was close! All I had to do was shake these psychos off my tail.
Suddenly, the passenger side's door was pulled open, and a lithe man vaulted in. I didn't have time to aim my gun before he knocked it off me, clattering onto the floor. The man grabbed the back of my head and slammed me against the steering wheel, smacking against the horn. Black and white spots danced at my periphery.
That's when I saw him pulled out a knife.
I had something better.
I slammed on the brakes, and without a seatbelt on, the man smashed his head hard against the dashboard, breaking his nose and jaw. I quickly changed shift and sped up again, but this time, I now had the upper hand. With him disoriented, I looped my fingers around his grip, striking it against the dashboard until he let go of the knife. The blade was now in my hand. His eyes widened as he realized.
"Fuck you," I said, and stabbed him.
The man put out his arms, desperately trying to hold me back, but he was bleeding profusely, blood splattering all over the car's interior, turning its white-gray cushion red as his gurgling screams filled my ears. Pure adrenaline seized me, and I lost count on how many times I stabbed him. I knew he was dead around the ninth.
Because I briefly stepped on the breaks, Bean's truck and the SUV were now ahead of me. To my left, we passed the WELCOME TO COLBY sign at the side of the road, and before I knew it, we were speeding into town.
The SUV was right in front of me. The back hatch opened, revealing two men with their rifles aimed at me. I ducked behind the dashboard as they fired, riddling my windshield with bullet holes and cracks as electrical sparks from the dashboard flew everywhere. I put all my weight on the gas pedal, held on as the truck lurched forward, heading straight at the SUV's rear. I didn't even feel the impact, or how one fell and went under the wheels of my truck. I could hear the adrenaline pumping my blood with some gusto, thumping loudly against my ears.
I couldn't see anything past the shattered windshield, which looked like millions of spiderwebs suddenly clumped up together. Blind, I turned the wheel to the right, hoping I wouldn't crash into a building, or through an abandoned vehicle, or that the engine would quit on me. I realized the SUV had slowed down to flank my right side.
"Stop the fucking car!" Diggs screamed from the back. I almost forgot he was still there. I glanced behind and saw him holding onto the side rails, eyes shut tight, still riding the burning sting of the pepper spray over his eyes. I got him good. It didn't last when a bullet punched through his face; his body was thrown back across the truck-bed. The SUV guys started firing shots at me again.
I veered the truck to the right, fully intent on hitting them. When bumping each other's sides, the funny thing about cars was that it didn't work like in the movies. Once you hit each other, it's over. It's difficult to regain control, and lucky for me, my pickup truck was heavier. Physics did the rest.
And idiot that I am, I didn't realize we were driving through a fucking overpass.
The SUV and my truck clipped the side rails. More glass shattered, and everything flew into the air. My stomach dropped when the truck lurched off the overpass's side railing, letting out a scream as I brought my arms up to protect my head. The airbag blew up, and the next thing I knew was the horrible crash; it felt like Mount Everest sat on my chest.
I must have been out for a minute because I was already upside down when I woke up, held by the seatbelt. I tried to pry the buckle out, but it wouldn't budge. I had to use the lithe man's knife to cut me loose. I smelled gas somewhere, but I didn't bother to find it, not wanting to press my luck. It was already a miracle I came out somewhat intact, though with minor bruises. It was a miracle that the Molotov didn't break, and perhaps that's the gas I was smelling. Though, I still wanted to get as far away from the truck. I quickly gathered my backpack and Betty, shoving Kossa's pistol inside the bag. I also pocketed the knife before I crawled out of the wreckage. I hunkered down behind the truck for a moment, listening above the overpass, I heard Bean's voice above the rest.
"We're going to have to go down there," Bean said.
I froze. For a second, I thought they had seen me, but they didn't. I stayed where I crouched behind, listening.
"Jesus Christ, they're all fucking dead, alright?" A man bellowed.
"No way I'm going to leave it to chance. He killed a lot of our people! He has to pay," Bean said.
"We got him now, can't you see? Let's just all go home," a woman squeaked. "It's too dangerous out here. We haven't cleared this part of town."
"You go down there if you want him so much," the same man said.
"That scum killed my brother," Porter hissed.
"And he killed my dog!" Bean screamed.
"Nobody cares about some damned dog!"
I heard a loud bang, screams, and shouting, and a body suddenly dropped from the overpass. He hit the pavement with a sickening crunch.
There was silence for a moment—Only for a moment.
"Grab your gear and your weapons. We're going down there," Bean ordered.
I saw their shadows retreat away from the side rails.
I didn't have much time to get out of here.
My truck fell upside down between two abandoned vehicles below the overpass. I found myself on a four-lane road, flanked by two embankments with cars arbitrarily scattered all the way up an incline, which I presumed lead into town. I looked over to the side to find where the SUV ended up.
The SUV wasn't as lucky as me. They had smashed right through the back of a cargo truck's container, metal buckled upon metal, a bungled mess of blood and steel. The driver was dead. Two men were still alive, albeit injured, crawling out of the wreckage until their eyes locked on me. Bean and the others found a fence they could climb over to get down to our street from above.
"He's still alive!" One man in the SUV shouted.
I started running.
"Shit! He's running!" Charlie screamed.
"Get him! Don't let him get away!" Porter roared.
I glanced back, and Bean and the others were already running down the embankment. The two men from the SUV had pulled themselves free and were now chasing after me.
Before they could do anything, however, a familiar shriek cut through the silence. A man in a bloodied white shirt burst through the bushes from the right embankment, saw me running, and sprinted toward me. But once he judged I was too far away, he veered off, locking his sights on the two men chasing after me instead. He tackled one man out of my view, and once I heard him scream, it was enough to push my legs to their limits.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" I muttered.
More shrieks came from the right embankment. There must be at least three dozen of them!
"Fall back! Fall back!" Bean barked. He and the others ran back to the fence and climbed over, taking about half of the vector after them; gunshots rang from behind.
Up the incline, more vectors stormed the street.
I did not have enough bullets to kill all of them.
"Shit!" I turned to the left, having no choice but to climb up the embankment. I was glad it wasn't steep, or else I'd get trapped. I heard shouts and screams behind me, and I made a mistake of glancing over my shoulder, saw a horde streaming from the opposite embankment, chasing after the last of the SUV men. I ran out of luck when the idiot thought of climbing up after me, leading the entire horde to my direction.
I climbed faster.
As I reached the top, I found myself on a large railroad, looking like metallic snakes and ladders, trains still sat unmanaged, abandoned. I saw warehouses from a distance, sitting next to a rail yard filled with crates and shipping containers. I ran toward it.
The horde's clamor attracted more vectors into the rail yard, coming from all directions I lost track where to run. I kept the warehouse as my landmark, navigating between the abandoned trains and sometimes going through the open carts or crawling under the trains. I hoped I lost the horde doing it, but when I glanced back again, it was all for nothing. The other guy kept on following my trail, and though he lost his drive to kill me, in return, he brought the horde with him instead.
I was running on a dead end. Up ahead, I quickly noticed there was a chain-linked fence blocking my way to the warehouses. But I didn't have anywhere to turn to. All the vectors were converging onto my location. Without a beat, I took off my pack and threw it over the fence. I jumped, like a spider latching onto the walls, catching myself midway up the fence. It took me a moment to get the hang of my grip before I climbed over and falling off to the other side. I grabbed my bag from the ground.
"Hey, boy! Help me! Shoot the bastards off as I climb!" The man cried out.
I peered behind him, but I could already tell he wouldn't make it. He didn't even get his bearings up when the first vector caught up to him, pressing the man against the fence, and started tearing through his shoulder. The man screamed. More vectors came and crowded around him, trapped there like some skewered meat against the fence as the vectors latched their teeth onto his flesh. All I could do was watch in horror, his screams drowned out by the horde's roar.
The chain-linked fence buckled from the dozens of vectors pushing against it. I whirled around and kept on running, saw an open warehouse up ahead, one of those loading dock doors. Suddenly, a loud crash as the fence gave way, opening the path for the horde to chase after me—the last meat.
I climbed onto the platform and went through the warehouse. There was a giant metal door across the entrance, but I quickly realized I needed electricity to open it. I fervently looked around for something to close the loading dock doors instead. Yet again, without electricity, I couldn't push the red button on the control panel to close the loading dock doors, so I had to pull on the chains dangling by the side. Right away, the docking doors slowly descended.
The horde was thirty yards away.
I kept pulling on the chains, screaming, "Come on! Come on! Come on!"
Twenty yards. The docking door was only halfway through.
It wouldn't make it.
"Fuck!"
I ran away from the loading docks just as a vector climbed over the platform. I burst into an office room to my right, quickly locking the door behind me. The problem was, half of the wall was made of glass, and the vectors streaming in saw me right away. They all headed for the office.
Shit! Think, Bren, think! You're not going to fucking die here! I thought to myself.
I looked around, and there was nothing to fight except for the usual office supplies, desks, cabinets, printers, and computers. That's when I looked up.
At the right corner of the room was an HVAC unit—an air duct. It was small, maybe not a grown man or the size of Logan would fit through, but I'm short and lean, and I guessed I could squeeze right in. I climbed over the filing cabinet, swiping off the papers, folders, and the printer off the surface. I shook the grating loose just as the vectors slammed against the windows, beating it until it cracked.
I'm running out of time.
I put my bag in before I crawled inside, ignoring how stuffy, dusty, and I felt like the walls were about to collapse on me, but I pushed through. My lower half was still outside the entrance when I heard the glass shattered. Panicking, I clawed against the walls, over every nook and cranny, anything that would give me leverage so I could pull my way in further.
The vectors' shrieks got louder now that they're inside the office. Someone grabbed my leg and tried to pull me out of the shaft. Screaming, I flailed, kicking with all my might until my heel landed on someone's chest, throwing them back, though I lost my shoe. The momentum pushed me further into the hole, and I heard a loud metallic crash, thinking the cabinet might have tilted over to the side.
I was trembling, crawling on my stomach to put as much distance from the entrance as I could. The vectors didn't follow me, and I guessed they couldn't reach the air duct any longer without the filing cabinet. Relieved that the vectors couldn't get to me any longer, I pulled out my flashlight and continued crawling.
I didn't know how long I was in there, but my head was swimming and heavy from exhaustion. I didn't realize until now that because there was no electricity, the HVAC fans were not working, which meant no air was coming through the narrow passage I was crawling, and I'm slowly losing oxygen.
I kept my wits with me until I reached a dead end.
I huffed. "Are you freaking kidding me?"
This part of the HVAC duct went narrow, so narrow that no human, not even a child, could fit through. Air ducts varied in size from room to room, accommodating the building's architectural design, and I'm guessing I'm above that needed them hidden.
It was also the transitional part between the duct sizes were the support cables were the weakest, the part I was putting too much pressure on.
I tried to turn back; perhaps I missed a turn when the entire duct buckled under my weight. I heard an awful clang of metal being ripped apart, and in a split second, a hiss of air entered the passageway, blowing dust everywhere before the wall stack violently pitched down. The air duct spat me out like vomit.
I fell, flailing in the air until my back hit the floor, or rather once my mind cleared, on top of a warehouse pallet rack, thirty feet from the real ground...and merely ten feet below the broken air duct.
I stared at the ceiling. "That...was a close call."
While I lay there, I looked around. I was in a warehouse, alright, more massive than I had expected, with rows upon rows of pallet racks still piled high with untouched packages and containers, some were from UPS and Amazon deliveries, waiting for shipment.
It was quiet.
No sound.
No vectors.
Only my shallow breathing.
I got up to a sitting position, looked around for my bag, and found it a few feet away from me. If there was a vector here, they would have gone into a frenzy by now from the crash. I kept the silence, not wanting to disturb it. It felt nice, leaving me alone in my thoughts.
So, I reached Colby. What now? I had lost track of where I was or how far I am from Kelter Street. I am surrounded by vectors around the warehouse, and if I survived and got out of here alive, then I had to face a town full of crazy people.
I thought this hostile group I'm facing was big enough, but this was far beyond what I expected. Three cars full of them were chasing after me, and I horrible thought occurred to me that this was probably not even their full strength! They were armed and well organized, and from what I gathered up on that overpass, they controlled most of the town. If I am ever to navigate its streets, I had to be extra cautious. They could have lookouts everywhere, and that's what I was afraid of. If one of them had a sniper rifle, which was given how armed their militia was, then that's it. I'm gone.
I hoped Logan and the others were still okay.
I got back on my feet and unsheathed my hatchet. I checked the bullets on Betty, saw I only had seven left.
"Okay. Find Logan. Find the others," I muttered like a mantra. "And then get the fuck out of here."
Taking a deep breath, I climbed down onto the pallet rack. I didn't even get halfway down when an arrow pierced through the box a foot from my head.
"Don't move," a man said calmly, his deep voice echoed in the darkness. "Sick?" He asked.
"Uh, no," I said, holding on to where I was. I felt like the rack was going to tip over and bring me down with it.
"Alpha?" He asked. I could hear the notch of his bow stretching, aiming an arrow at me.
"A what?"
"Alpha."
I had no fucking idea what he meant. "Nope."
He was quiet, judging me.
"You one of them?" I asked.
"No," he answered right away, and I caught a hint of anger behind his voice.
I tried to turn around to get a good look at him, but then he whispered, "I said, don't move." I recognized a thicker accent there, unlike anything I heard. He's not from these parts, I realized.
I only caught a shadow standing at the foot of an empty pallet rack across from me.
"I'm not. I'm—look, I got cornered by these crazy people, and then the vectors, I mean, the sick people, chased after me here," I pointed up to the broken air duct. "I crawled through that to escape them, and I ended up here."
"Where?"
"By the loading docks."
"No. You."
It took me a moment to understand. "I'm not from here, just passing through."
"Not safe."
"I—It was all secured. The doors are all locked. They can't get in if that's what you're saying."
"No. Town is not safe."
"Ah, yeah, I get that now after they tried to shoot me off the road."
He didn't bite. "Come down," he said sternly.
I scaled down the rack until I reached the ground. I put my hands up just in case he got any ideas. I didn't want to get shot by an arrow, making it looked like a bullet was pleasant. "May I turn around?" I asked as a shot in the dark.
"Yes."
I turned around. He was a lean man around six-foot-tall, black hair and dark brown eyes with Korean descent, or perhaps he was from there. He carried one of those modern-looking compound bows that they used for archery competitions on TV, the arrows' fletchings poking from behind inside a quiver.
It was then I noticed his clothes. He was dressed all in white, or rather it was once white, now tattered by dirt, mud, and dried blood. I could see Adidas' brand name written in blue on his right chest, specks of red inlaid around his clothes, and small words written in Korean by his left chest, partially covered by the only thing non-white he wore, an orange nylon jacket. It could be his name, but I didn't understand Korean.
"I'm Bren," I said, slipping out of my tongue. I mentally smacked my head for giving it out.
He studied me for what felt like minutes. "Lee Jun-Seo."
I nodded. "Um, do you know a way out of here?"
Lee Jun-Seo suddenly walked off. He stopped when I didn't follow, confused about whether I should.
"Made traps," he said without looking back at me. "Watch your step."
I merely nodded and hurried over toward him, watching his steps closer, and followed it without a stumble.