Vectors were everywhere, heading for the burning campus.
I dashed behind a van, catching a shadow stumbling out from the side of a house, a woman dressed in a tattered red blouse, dried specks of blood already caked her skin, mouth, and her long blonde hair. I quickly came up behind her and pulled hard on her hair, bringing her down to her knees. I didn't give her a chance to scream as I drove the hatchet down onto her neck twice, almost decapitating her.
I took a step back. So tired...No. I shook my head, trying to keep moving forward. Keep it together, I thought. People are counting on you.
Tired...
I glanced at the massive billows of black smoke rising from the school's left-wing, now becoming a rallying point for all the vectors around the area. Soon, the campus was going to be overrun. It worried me that I didn't hear gunshots from inside, only the wind and the fire.
There should be something, some gunfight, screams. Nothing.
Logan, Peter, I'm almost there! Guys, just hold on! Don't be dead!
Tired...
I didn't want to think how I'm surrounded by these monsters, where one could pop out at any moment, trapping me. How their teeth bared on my flesh, tearing out my muscles and bones, my pleas lost to their mercy. They had never been merciful. Would I still be alive then? Would I watch myself ripped apart before my brain seized up in shock? Would I watch and scream or close my eyes and let fate decide?
They'll get you one day. One bite. That's all it takes, Bren. Make it not this day, another voice at the back of my mind lingered.
Luke.
You must survive.
I shook my head. I didn't want to leave anyone behind.
You must. You promised me.
I...I did. I remembered.
Yes. You must survive. Your father taught you everything. He will understand, even the hard choices.
I saw the bridge to my left, still intact, leading out across the river; The woods sitting invitingly just on the other side. The Alphas already reached the school's entrance and could count at least a dozen of them gathered around there, opposite the wing where the fires roared. I realized if I had to get to my friends, I had to kill them, too. I had to get through twelve men.
One bullet. High risk. It will get you.
I could fight.
One bullet.
I could still fight.
One bullet.
One bullet.
One bullet!
I...I can't.
No, you can't—too many.
Twelve men.
Outnumbered. Outgunned.
But...my friends. They're still in there.
Dead.
No. If there's a chance...
Do you have to? You can stop the killing, Bren. Survive. Run and prevent more blood on your hands.
How many had I killed already? I could still feel their blood sticking underneath my fingernails, how futile it was to wipe them off my hand. The smell of gunpowder overpowered my nostrils as men screamed close to my ears. If I drew the knife out, my pistol...would I hear them scream again?
More will come. If you fight, you will draw more blood.
Keep it in. Keep it at the back of my mind. Tuck it like a petulant child at the corner. Don't listen to it!
No, the woods! You don't have to kill them. Run.
I looked at the woods. I could...
Yes...
But to abandon them...
Survival of the fittest. No longer of the old...everything before is dead.
No! I refused to be frightened any longer. I'm done with the running, to fear these sick people and these psychopaths, for them to reduce me into a monster like them. They had been in our tail from the start. Maybe it's time to face them head-on, vector, and human alike.
No, you will not survive. Keep running. You are not like the others. You are a survivor.
I am.
You are.
But many had abandoned others for the same thing, and I had seen how people shoved into such hard choices. Nat. Bobby. Joe. The Katingers. The entire country for dropping a bomb on a city that had survivors in it, hoping to be rescued, unbeknownst to them that the people they trusted had already abandoned them the minute the pin dropped. I had seen it in Albany and General Clemons, building up those walls to not only keep the monsters out but the refugees too, treating them like animals, made them as an other.
You can still stop killing by running away. The woods are there, Bren. Go to it.
There were other ways to survive. Not this. Not watching and leaving people to die all the time. Not the running and always looking behind your shoulder for the next bloody fight.
You can still survive. They can't. Run away.
Stop it.
Your so-called friends will abandon you, sooner or later.
But if there's a chance, even if it's small, I had to take it.
No...
Yes. You're right. I am nothing like them. I am nothing like the others who had made these choices. Fear was a force of nature, mindlessly destroying everything on its path and others let it guide them. I refused to let it tell me to abandon my friends. I hadn't from the start.
Then, you'll kill more. You'll kill, and kill, and kill...
Tuck it away. Keep it hidden.
You'll kill these men. Them who have brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers...Kill! Kill! Kill! How many, Bren? How many will you take? How many will be enough?
I ran faster, whacking a vector stumbling into view. He was dead without noticing me.
More deaths...Dead. Dead. Dead. Gone. See? Who will you become, Bren?
Two vectors entered my periphery. One saw me right away.
Great.
I slid between them, quickly kicked the first against the car, driving the hatchet on the other underneath his chin in a sickening crunch of a broken jaw and flying teeth. He dropped to the ground in a heap of blood.
Who will you become, Bren?
I whirled around, driving a high kick that sent the first vector spiraling backward. His head connected against the hood of a car, and blood splattered onto its surface. He didn't move after.
Who?
A truck roared down the street toward the school, and one man from the entrance jogged and opened the chain-linked gate and let them through. They parked right in front of the entrance, joining the other two trucks already parked there. Three more men came out and joined the gathered group.
Fifteen men. Fifteen armed men.
I tightened my grip around my hatchet, running up toward an infected woman who heard the commotion from earlier. She tried to grab me, shrieking as she did, but I already swung the blade out, slicing across her arm and sent it falling limply to her side. With another swing, the blade found her throat. Blood gushed like a fountain, and she stumbled backward, clutching at her neck.
How many is enough?
I took out Betty from my holster. I'm close to where the Alphas were by the entrance, who hunkered down behind their trucks. A chain-linked fence separated them from a dozen vectors, school buses blocking them from view. The vectors hadn't noticed their presence yet, unless...
How many?
A small squad had entered the building, a few salvaging what supplies they could find inside. Some would hunt down the others if they're still alive. One man barked an order to three men, who then came out of the fence, the other closing the gate behind them. Vectors were too stupid to use gates. At first, I thought they were onto me, but I quickly realized they were trying to weed the path out of vectors. They started killing the stray vectors from the main horde.
How many?
I crouched down behind the abandoned vehicles, moving closer toward the entrance. A man with his rifle slung back appeared from view mere six feet ahead, sneaking behind a vector. I hid behind a car, watching as he took out his knife and slammed it on the vector's skull.
He hadn't seen me. Yet.
How many?
An opportunity. A way inside through the guy mere six feet away from me. He still hadn't seen me. The man's eyes intent on the vector moving close to the horde, trying to join them.
How many?
I readied my hatchet.
How many?
Three feet away.
HOW MANY?
I took a deep breath and clenched my jaw. Until I fucking said so.
——
LOGAN
Logan slammed the cafeteria door shut behind him.
Vectors. Vectors! Not again!
He coughed out the smoke, burning his lungs as he inhaled too much of it. He felt like a pillow smothered him. He wanted to pull out his lungs and scrub it clean. A sharp, tickling pain pierced the back of his throat when he coughed, which only made him cough more.
He lurched over to the side and vomited. He looked down and saw there was already a puddle of vomit from someone.
Alfie...Logan droned.
"Logan!" Alfie screamed from behind. Logan turned around and saw him running toward him, and it took him a moment to recognize what he had on his hand.
A mop.
"Uh, Alfie? There's no time...um, what are you going to do—"
Alfie shushed him and put the mop through the door's handles, making it like a door bolt. A few seconds later, three men ran for the barred door and struggled to open it; the stick clanged against the metal hilt. Logan peeked through the narrow window on the double door's center and saw none of the men was Pete. Gunfire still boomed from above on the second level, probably coming from the soldier.
The men screamed at them to open the door.
Logan froze, staring at the handle. Alfie did, too.
"Should we..." Alfie started.
"No," Logan said, surprising himself. "If we open it, they'll kill us."
Yes, he was sure of it. Those men would kill them with their guns once they had their back to them, and Logan was the only one who had a rifle with two bullets in it. They stood and watched the men shouting at them with wide eyes.
Fleeing would be the best option, but they had no idea if Pete was coming down this way, fearing he'd be trapped, or maybe he had found another door from the second level.
A man pressed his face against the glass. He pulled out his revolver, threatening to shoot them if they didn't comply. That only made Logan backed away from the door and stood behind the locker for cover, and that's when he caught several shadows rushing in from behind them.
The vectors surged around the gunmen, pinning them against the door as they tore through them.
Logan ran. He didn't know how long those doors hold, but they had to get out of there and find Pete some other way. He tugged on Alfie's arm, pulling the other man from his shock.
"Come on! Let's get out of here!" He shouted.
As he ran, Logan fumbled into his pockets, pulling out one of the bullets, and tried to open the rifle's chamber. Eventually, he found the latch after multiple tries and just pure good ol' luck and dropped the barrel open. He slid the bullet and pulled it back closed.
A loud crash sounded up ahead, and a screaming man stumbled out of another set of double doors, tackled by three vectors from behind, who then started biting at his right arm and legs. Smoke rose from the open entryway as the fire continued to spread inside the cafeteria. Logan almost smacked himself on the head, thinking that there were several entrances!
The man cried for help, raising his hand out as if expecting Logan to drag him away from the vectors' clutches. One of the vectors- a woman—jerked her head upward, following the man's gaze, and landed on Logan.
She bared her teeth and lunged for them, abandoning her prey to the others. There's fresher meat still in the hall.
"Run!" Logan cried out, and Alfie darted off to the right, entering another corridor.
Logan raised the rifle and pulled the trigger. The woman shrieked as she flew back into the air, the bullet having entered her chest, and her skull cracked against the wall, splattering blood across the white paint.
One bullet left, he thought with dread.
The two other vectors heard the shot and their lips curled as if they were angry that Logan had killed one of theirs. They left the weeping man on the ground—and who would soon join their ranks—as they stalked toward Logan. It would take too long to reload the rifle.
Logan turned around and ran after Alfie.
——
The man hadn't had time to scream as I embedded the blade into his flesh, and I used the momentum's opportunity to slam him against the car, dazed him momentarily, and grabbed his rifle off of his shoulders.
The man tried to fight back, but it was already too late. I pulled out the hatchet, his intestines pouring out of the sliced midsection there, and the man, realizing what was happening, helplessly tried to put them back.
I drove the hatchet's blade on his thigh, and this time, he screamed.
The screams of a wounded prey echoed loud and clear, and the vectors all turned around to the source like hounds closing in. They started running.
I ran too, away from the screaming man, clamoring to get up to his feet, eyes wide with terror as he watched the horde coming for him. He stumbled back toward the gated fence, toward the entrance where the others hunkered behind the trucks. I could already hear one man screaming at him to stay away. They didn't dare shoot him down. If any of them did, the vectors would find them.
Good job. Lead them for the kill. Lead them to your friends, I thought, keeping down the fright bubbling up my throat for entertaining such thoughts.
His two other companions who went out with him realized what was about to happen, and they ran the opposite, disappearing into the Dalewood neighborhood, abandoning the others, two less to worry about.
"Help me!" The man screamed, but no one answered him. However, it only drove the vectors into a frenzy. Calls of prey, they're probably thinking. "Fucking assholes! Help me! Shoot them down!"
Too many vectors. Too many risks, I thought. They wouldn't dare do it.
A trail of blood led to the man limping toward the gate. He tried to open it, but he was too weak, crying out, cursing at his so-called friends who wouldn't come to his aid.
"Open it. Almost there," I muttered.
The man almost had the latch open, but then, a familiar figure stepped out from behind the truck, carrying a crossbow.
Bean.
Suddenly, it all clicked, the faces hiding behind the vehicles, how one of the trucks looked familiar. These were the same people chasing me on the road less than five hours ago! They all survived. I had hoped the horde by the railyard had gotten all of them.
This was bad.
Bean. Charlie. Porter. I still had Kossa's pistol with me, Porter's brother. Would they recognize me? A dreaded feeling crept at the back of my mind, my finger closing in around the rifle's trigger. I wanted to shoot them and finished the job I started on the road, loose ends which would not stop hunting me down for what I did to their friends. If they knew I was here, they'd come for me. They'd hurt my friends if they knew I was out here.
I wouldn't let that happen.
Bean stepped out and aimed the crossbow. The arrow flew off, wheezing past the fence, and slammed onto the man's chest. The injured man got knocked off his feet, landing on his back, screaming in pain.
In a split second, the horde descended on top of him, tearing limb and flesh, his high-pitched screams impossible to come out of his throat, and I realized it was his vocal cords being torn apart—just as my plan fell apart.
Shit.
——
LOGAN
Logan had no idea where they were going.
They should find the entrance, that should be the easy part, but everything on campus seemed so twisted and warped, as if the builders built all of this up from a five-year-old architect, and coupled with running away from murderous vectors, Logan and Alfie were officially lost. The school was huge and a fucking mess.
"Left?" Alfie hollered back. "Uh, left."
Logan shrugged and followed. They're lost anyway.
They turned to the left when they reached a corner, and suddenly, everything spun. Air escaped his lungs, and he flew forward, skidding onto the concrete floor. Logan was afraid that he might have broken his nose from the rough landing; the thump on his forehead felt like it wasn't severe enough to have a concussion, but it still fucking hurt.
Then, in a fit of panic, he realized the vector must be on top of him!
Logan screamed, fighting back against the vector's grip, but when he rolled over, it was a man—a human—in his mid-thirties, pinning him against the floor.
"Got you now, motherfucker!" He seethed between his awfully grinning face; his eyes glinted with the satisfaction of having caught the runaways. "Wait until Carl gets a piece of you!"
Logan looked over. Another man had Alfie pinned against the lockers; Alfie screamed at him to let him go. Logan caught the man's swift movement as he pulled a knife out from behind his belt.
Alfie!
And then, the shrieks of the two vectors followed not far behind them.
Now, it was Logan's turn to smile.
Bracing himself, Logan powered upward and drove his forehead against the man's nose. He felt the awful contact like a battering ham on his brain, heard the nauseating crunch as he broke bones, the spritz of something thickly wet landed on his face, supplanted by the smell of iron.
The man screamed and let go of him, immediately putting his hands over his bleeding nose. Now loose, Logan shoved him off, sending the man staggering backward, still dazed from the hit. Logan didn't hesitate to kick him in the balls.
The man whimpered pathetically, flailing backward into the arms of a vector, who then sank its teeth onto his neck. More blood spurted out of the man's newly-torn flesh.
The second vector tackled the other man pinning Alfie there, pushing him to the ground, and beat him with his fists. Logan heard more bones snapping under the intense ferocity of the infected. Alfie ran toward Logan, picking up his shovel on the ground.
Alfie helped Logan up to his feet. "They came that way!" He pointed to another hallway. "Exit?"
Logan didn't want to stay while the other vectors were busy with their new victims. From his periphery, the man who tackled Logan pulled out his pistol.
"Get cover!" They started running down the hall, dodging the gunman's shots, who, even though a vector was tearing out his throat, was still hellbent on killing them.
These people are fucking crazy! Logan mused as he turned from hallway to hallway.
Finally, they found a door that led outside, but a thick set of chains wrapped around the door handles, a padlock dangling on its end.
"Fuck!" Logan screamed in frustration, desperately prying and pulling at the chains, but he knew they wouldn't budge without a key—and finding it would be impossible.
"Find another door?" Alfie suggested.
"Yeah. Let's go this way," he pointed north, or what he thought was north.
They followed the same hallway, knowing that the classrooms to their right faced the outside. They even tried to open each door, hoping to climb out the windows again, but the classrooms were all locked tight. Logan realized the gunmen must have used the school's lockdown protocols (usually used for school shootings), so they couldn't access sections of the building.
"What about Pete?" Alfie asked behind him.
Logan paused. "He'll survive," he said. "He's a tough son of a bitch. What do you expect?"
Alfie didn't answer him.
They found two more doors, but they were also locked down tight by chains and padlocks. Fortunately, they found a map and realized they were only two hallways away from the school's main entrance. Thinking that maybe that the gunmen kept that open, they headed over there, only to turn back around when they heard the shrieks of vectors around that area.
"Let's head up the second floor," Logan suggested.
"Are you crazy? We're close to the exit!" Alfie said.
"I'm sure the second floor follows the same blueprint as the first floor, well, at least for this wing. We can go up and go around the vectors. Hopefully, we'll end up so close to the entrance doors."
"How about the vectors from outside? I remembered there's several of them wandering about. They would have heard the gunshots."
"And the fire..."
"Yes."
"Well, they might have all been inside the cafeteria already, maybe burnt to death."
"I hope so."
"No, they are."
"But what about the smoke? I can smell it from here. The building's burning and more of those things will come to us! The smoke will attract more of them."
"All the more reason to go up the second floor, find the other stairwell close to the entrance, and get the fuck out of here. Come."
They headed up the stairs.
Perhaps Logan was optimistic that the second floor would be clear of vectors since he saw them broke through from the main level, and yet he was surprised to find a male vector wandering about in the hallway. Logan reckoned this one came from the cafeteria with half of its arm boiled, warped, and reddened—signs of burns. Most of its clothes had been torn and scorched, and yet the vector didn't let it fazed him as he continued to hunt for healthy hosts.
Logan put in another bullet into the rifle's chamber—the last shot—while they hid, careful not to make too much sound.
If Logan shot him, there was no telling a few more vectors might be waiting beyond the corridor, hidden from his view. He'd be out of a bullet, and he wasn't confident he could fight them with only a maul and a screwdriver, or with Alfie's shovel.
"Logan. Look here," Alfie whispered. Logan turned around and saw him almost halfway through a door. "This one's open."
He looked back down the hall where another vector came to view, joining the burnt vector.
Fuck. More of them. He nodded to Alfie, and he followed him into the room.
It was an office, not a classroom, with the reception area propped at the middle, sandwich between Xerox and fax machines, printers, and the typical office supplies. Guidance counselor rooms were at the right, some were of teachers' offices and staff rooms opposite of that, and then one door leading into the main principal's office. One to their left was mainly labeled radio room...and it was slightly open.
Logan crouched down and moved toward it. He caught a voice from a man, and after waiting and listening for a few seconds, he was sure there's only one inside. Logan gestured for Alfie to get ready with the shovel as he held tight on his own weapon. Logan peered through the narrow gap.
A man was hunched over a table, realized he was tinkering with some a device, desperately calling for help. Logan quickly realized it was a radio when the man moved slightly to the left, revealing a box-like size instrument sitting on the table.
"We're under attack! Multiple freaks are already inside the building. I don't know how many are dead. I repeat, Dalewood outpost is under attack! We need further assistance. Over!" The man said, which he reacted over and over.
Logan slowly opened the door. He felt Alfie tugged at his elbow, but he shook his hand off of him.
Quiet, he wanted to tell him. Don't ruin this, or else he'll see.
Logan caught sight of a pistol holstered at the man's belt, and he could easily pull it out and shoot him if they made noise.
A noise crackled through the radio, followed by a woman's voice. "Hang tight, Dalewood. We're sending three units in. Have you neutralized the threat?" She asked.
"Negative," the radioman answered.
"Bummer. Alright. Tell your men to retreat and hunker down. We don't want you all separated. Do you get a good view of the attackers?"
"No. Must be the runaways, right? The ones caught in Elk Mountain Road, or else it could be a trespasser. They're heavily armed, but...I don't know. We heard there's trouble up the mountains..."
"Shit. Yeah. One of them gave us hell by the resort and the rail yard, killed several of our men. Did any of your guys report his description? Short guy, red hair, skinny, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old..."
Bren? Logan perked up. You're alive.
"No. The men haven't reported anything since ten minutes ago, but they told me the infected got into the compound, so expect multiple hostiles. I already sent two men to find out what's going on and find survivors."
"Well, if you see the kid, Carl says to shoot him on sight. Grab the body, and we'll make an example of his corpse. We'll show it to his companions."
"Copy. Will do," radio man answered.
Logan snuck up quietly behind him. Radioman was about to turn around, but Logan was already up to his feet, swinging the maul—on the sledgehammer side—and slammed it against radio man's temple.
Bones cracked audibly, and the radioman merely let out a croaked grunt, no scream or anything, and he keeled over to the ground, twitching from the blow. Logan bashed his head again if he was still alive and then grabbed the gun off his holster, checking the magazine. It was full.
Alfie walked into the room, stepping over the body.
"Bren's alive," Logan whispered.
"I heard. He's in town then, looking for us."
"Yep." Logan grinned. "You know, no matter what we try, we can't seem to get rid of him."
Alfie snorted. "He's tenacious, that one."
"Yep."
"I'm beginning to think he likes us too much."
"Word."
Alfie chuckled but then stopped, a guilty look on his face. "Ah, fuck. Why are we laughing about this? Pete's still could be in danger?"
"Did you hear the dude?" Logan pointed at the dead man close to their feet. "None of his guys reported in."
Alfie took a moment to think about it, then let out a sigh. "Ah. Typical."
"Pete will get here soon."
Alfie strode toward the window behind the table. "The entrance is just below us!"
"Any sign of the others?"
Alfie looked down, looking at every corner. "I don't see anything. If there were, they might be drawn by the gunfire and went to help. Then..."
"Killed by Pete or by a vector," Logan grumbled. He didn't know which one was a worse fate. It irked him to think that death by vectors seemed more merciful.
Though, Logan couldn't drop the smile on his face as he checked around the room for anything useful.
Bren's fucking alive! Ha! Take that, universe bitch! You can't kill him that easy!
"What the hell's this?" Alfie muttered, pulling him out of his thoughts.
"Hm?" Logan sauntered over to the table where Alfie was checking for useful supplies. Logan looked over his shoulder, and his mouth hung open.
"You think these are useful?" Alfie asked. "These look like..."
Wheels squealed and skidded to a stop outside the window. Logan ran over to the windows and looked down to where the trucks were. Multiple armed men hopped out of the vehicles, and several marched into the school.
We can use those trucks, Logan thought, if we can wrestle it off from them.
"Grab that duffel bag by the door, Alfie. We're bringing all of those with us."
——
New plan. Improvise. Keep going.
Bean was already out of sight. So was his men, but I knew they were still hiding behind the trucks and had probably radioed to the others not to come out of the school. They were going to wait out the killing. Sooner or later, once the vectors realized they had killed their prey, they would wander back to the blazing fire, drawn by its crumbling noise.
Improvise. Improvise!
I'm going to force them to engage with the vectors whether they liked it or not.
I dashed across the street toward a house. Based on the CRA 'X' symbol on the door, it told me there were no vectors inside. I scrambled up to the side fence and hopped over. It took me a moment to find an open window that led to the kitchen, climbing up a vine-covered trellis and crawled inside.
The house was empty, yet I remained cautious as I cleared out the first level and headed for the stairs. I could still hear his dying screams outside, and the vectors' frenzied shrieks even through the boarded-up windows and the walls blocked the noise. I reached the second level, heading for the bedroom overlooking the street and the school.
It was a Remington 7000 bolt-action rifle I stole from the man, with an extended magazine for extra ammunition and a scope. I counted at least nine 0.22 cartridges in there, the tenth already in the chamber.
I strode toward the window and cracked it open a little. Some vectors had wandered over to the blazing fire again, trying to climb up the broken fences there where others had gone inside. From this high, I could see the men hiding behind the cars, especially Bean, seemingly relieved that they didn't draw the horde's attention.
"I'm sorry I killed your dog," I muttered. "And then you tried to kill me and took my friends. I won't let that slide."
I knelt and looked through the scope, the crosshairs resting above Bean's head. I wasn't confident if I was going to make the shot. I had never been good a sniper even when my dad took me hunting into the woods sometimes when I was a kid. Taking a deep breath, I prayed I'll hit my target, hoping that if skills were ever hereditary as people claimed they were (unlikely), then let my father's talent with a scope—and killing—take charge.
Bean's head popped out a little, taking a peek at the horde out front. He started talking to someone over the CB radio.
I took another deep breath, aiming to his left.
How many...
And fired.
The side window I was aiming at shattered, shards of glass flying out and blew right on Bean's face. He staggered back, yelping, clutching his face. I realized specks of glass had entered his eyes. He squirmed and thrashed on the floor, barking orders at the others.
I didn't stop there. I aimed for the windows, shooting them down one at a time, exploding into shards before catching the vectors' attention, and they rushed toward the gates.
It worked!
I didn't want to kill all the Alphas just yet. I couldn't take them out on my own, but I could use the horde to thin their ranks. However, some of the vectors started running to the house I was in.
"Can't let that. No one's home here, fuckers," I grumbled.
A woman crouched behind the hood had her knees exposed from the corner, enough to get a good view through the scopes. I took the shot, taking her out by the kneecap. She screamed, blood spurting out as she scrambled (more like desperately crawling) toward the entrance. Her screams, together with Bean, rang the dinner bell.
The vectors running toward the house turned back, following the cries of a prey.
"Keep them busy, boys," I said. "That's it. Keep them busy."
The Alphas panicked, trying to kill as many of them as they could; Gunfire roared in the air. I lost sight of Porter and Charlie, must have gone into the school for shelter when I was busy shooting. I saw two already swarmed by vectors, yet the men still desperately fought them off with knives and hammers.
But there's only twelve of them against at least three dozen vectors. With their weapons, they could kill half, and if they're lucky, perhaps all of them, though most would get bit one way or the other.
Blood. Blood on your hands...
Keep it in. Tuck it away. Keep it in.
I watched in silence as the Alphas were overrun with the infected, ignoring the cries of the dying and the living.
——
LOGAN
Gunfire rang from outside. From instinct, both Logan and Alfie scrambled down to the floor. Screams of men soon followed.
Alfie gasped. "Vectors at the entrance?"
Logan gritted his teeth and crawled toward the window. What now? What if they're there? Where would you go next? Where was the next way out? No. He must not allow himself to think of dire expectations. Those kinds would get you killed.
Be optimistic, idiot.
Finding a moment between the gunshots, Logan peered out of the window and saw the gunmen in complete pandemonium. A horde of vectors had knocked over the fence guarding the school's front entrance, and some had come for the men still hiding behind the trucks. Several vectors were already dead. To his right, two men were losing the battle as they were swarmed in seconds.
Hopeless. It's all hopeless. Logan stared at the oncoming horde with shock and awe, almost wanting to curl up at the corner and let them all take him.
"A horde. They're... they're coming through the gates!" Logan gasped.
"No!" Alfie put his hand over his mouth.
We're dead. We're so dead!
Then, he saw the driver's side window of one of the trucks suddenly shattered; the gunshot didn't come from the gunmen below. Another window exploded from the same truck when none of the gunmen fired their weapons, and he deduced it came from one of the houses across the street!
"Someone's shooting at them!" Logan exclaimed.
"Pete? He's... he's outside already?" Alfie asked, bewildered. "How?"
"No. I don't think it's him."
As the vectors continued to swarm the front, pushing back the gunmen into the claustrophobic mazes of the school grounds, Logan was transfixed on the vine-covered house at the end of the street.
There, a shuddering reflection on the second floor. A window slowly opened, and a small, lanky boy crawled out onto the roof of the patio, briefly pausing at the middle, standing imposingly with his rifle held at the ready, a bloody hatchet dangling by his belt. He watched the carnage with grim intensity, his red-brown hair flowing against the wind, his clothes—and his face—soaked in both fresh and dried blood.
None of it seemed to be his.
Logan grinned wickedly. "You fucking madman..."
Below, men started pointing up to the patio's roof, shouting and barking orders at one another. One tried to shoot him, having found a break in the horde's flank, but the boy already darted off the roof, sliding down a column, and disappeared into the abandoned vehicles scattered and all over the clogged street.
Cries became a cacophony of: "He's here! Kill him! Carl wants him dead!" and "Run! Run!" or "Let's get out of here! I'm out!"
One cried out, "The devil! The devil's here! He's here!"
The horde's unrelenting advance drowned out their shouts, and the men disappeared from view as they ran into the school.
Logan leaned against the wall, laughing.
Alfie gave him a confused look.
Logan heaved a sigh. "You'll never believe who I just saw."