It had been about a week since the nightmare incident. Despite that, Ghost was no more likely to speak to you in the light of day. It was fine, though, the others were friendly enough. Luckily you’d been able to confirm your suspicion that they were military—something called SAS at one point, then converted to a special task force called the 141.
You wanted to get them to expand on what they did, seeing as the SAS wasn’t a thing in the U.S., but it seemed it was just a whole lot of ‘CLASSIFIED.’ You’d assumed that maybe that would’ve ended—given the whole apocalypse thing—but they were still pretty tight-lipped. Some more than others.
Despite the midnight bonding, you’d barely been able to get a full conversation out of Ghost. When he did talk to you, it was mostly pragmatic. Open that door, flank over here, grab this. He wasn’t…unfriendly. Once you overheard him spewing some stupid joke to Soap, you knew he probably just didn’t trust you. Which, all things considered, is fair. You don’t really trust them either. But…you think you’d like to. The peek you got that night into who Ghost might actually be under that mask only motivated you further.
From what you’ve seen, from how they’ve treated you, you’d like to think they’re good people. But you’ve been wrong before. And that wasn’t a mistake you could make again. Even if they had been decent pre-apocalypse, something about all the rules going out the window turned people nasty. Most people revealed this quickly, only a few had the foresight to be deceptive, and you’d gotten close and personal with one of those. You weren’t interested in doing it again.
So…arms length for now. At least that’s what you told yourself you’d do, but the sergeants were actively putting holes in that plan. Either way, it was nice to not be alone anymore. You got to sleep more now that there were more ways to split watch (big bonus), and the conversation (with those who would humor you) wasn’t half bad. Soap was a funny guy and Kyle was warm. You trusted the captain’s judgement. So far he hadn’t made any decisions that led to terrible outcomes, and it seemed his team trusted him implicitly. Like you said, Ghost was a harder nut to crack, but even he wasn’t treating you poorly.
Like that one day you had needed to do a longer trek to not get stuck in bad weather and you’d barely been able to rest or drink or eat. He must’ve seen you swaying, and honestly he probably just hadn’t wanted to deal with you passing out, but he threw you a granola bar from his stash before you could ever complain of hunger. He didn’t acknowledge it and neither did you…you’re not sure he’d like being thanked. It reminded you of the way he was after taking your watch. He seems more like the ‘silent caretaker’ type. You hope in the future you could prove your usefulness and come to some sort of agreement with him. Only time would tell.
You’d made good progress. Almost out of the mountains. They’d told you that they were trying to get east, but not where exactly. Spewing the same ‘classified’ B.S., but you weren’t exactly in a position to press, so you just guided them to the best of your abilities.
You’d just hit the last town before the final stretch of highway out of the mountains, so you were stocking up before it was only wilderness.
The captain had commanded you split up to cover more ground, but close enough that you could all bail together if need be. You were starting to gather that he was a paranoid man, but given the state of the world, who wasn’t?
You and Soap were going around the back of an old grocery store to the docking stations. Price’s theory was maybe some of the trucks still had product. The rest of them were scattered checking the store itself.
You turn the corner to the back of the building to see a couple of semi-trucks, sides colored with food advertisements.
“Hm, guess he was right.” You say more to yourself than anything.
“He often is,” Soap smiles at you, taking the first steps to approach the trucks.
After the first week, you’d apparently proven you weren’t trying to kill them in their sleep, and they had graciously given you one of their handguns. You pulled it out now…just in case.
You both stopped in front of the first truck, angled and parked with the driver’s door open, like the driver had been attempting a deliver right when shit hit the fan and immediately got the hell out of dodge.
You jerk your head in the general direction of the tail end of the truck, “I’ll check the back. Check the glove compartment?”
“Aye.” He agrees, climbing into the front.
You make your way to the back, giving a quick glance under the truck just in case. You take in the big expanse of the cargo door, dirty from many trips with some smudges in the shape of hands, presumably from the driver closing the door. You put your ear to the metal…you hear nothing.
So, you grab the lever and turn the lock on the large door, grabbing the cloth strap to jerk it up and open. As soon as you do, you know it was a mistake.
The tell-tale grumble of the undead fills your ears as the door slams into its open position, revealing the trunk filled to the brim with hibernating undead—hibernating no more. Now they’re awake.
“Shit!” You can’t help the exclamation. Perhaps you’d gotten soft in the many months that had gone by without seeing one, but this sight was gnarly even by normal standards.
There were so many of them. You don’t even want to fathom how they all got in there, and how they stayed so quiet. Did someone figure out how to trap them all in here…or were they alive when they were shut in?
The mangled limbs overlap each other, getting tangled. You can’t help but think of a Rat King, some disturbing phenomenon you’d learned about pre-outbreak. The group certainly looked irreversibly entangled, and yet they were each snarling and grasping out, trying to reach you. And the smell…
One somehow breaks free from the mass of bodies, lunging out of the truck and for you.
It hasn’t even been a second since you made the mistake of opening the door, but Soap must’ve heard the snarls was in action with no hesitation. From seemingly nowhere, he appears and grabs you, pulling you away from the straggler, jamming his knife into its skull, and starts to run with his hand in yours. You know you shouldn’t, but you glance back. More are falling out of the truck, snarling and climbing over each other at the prospect of food. There’s way too many.
That gets you into gear. You start running with more fervor on your own, but Soap doesn’t drop your hand.
“Shit!” You think the fear has reduced your vocabulary.
“Keep running!” Soap offers.
Soap reaches for his vest where his radio sits, a good find from a previous town. You only had two, but it worked for splitting up like this.
“Cap! Contact, we gotta go!” He doesn’t try to hide the urgency in his tone.
“How many?” Price’s voice crackles back over the radio.
“Too many—too fuckin’ many, cap. Haul ass, now!”
You manage to scoff despite your desperate panting. You’re never not shocked at how he manages himself in crisis. He doesn’t even sound concerned…but that may just be because he hasn’t seen what you’re dealing with yet.
You and Soap are still sprinting wildly next to each other, the squelching foot falls of rotting flesh gaining close behind. In your peaceful winter you had maybe forced yourself to forget both how fast these fuckers are, and how the feeling of fear and adrenaline clouds your judgement. Because the moment a cop car comes into view, a very, very stupid thought fills your head.
You shake your head just a little, telling yourself the impulsive thought is resoundingly not the best solution to the problem. But then you and Soap round the corner to the front of the store, finding the others anxiously waiting, and their faces drop as they realize how utterly fucked you all are.
You’ve been moving on foot until now, and there’s so many behind you, and the undead don’t get tired.
You take a stuttered breath, glancing one last time behind you and back to the men who had helped you when they didn’t even know you…and you break off, ripping your hand from Soap’s and sprinting toward the stupid cop car.
You can’t even pinpoint who yells what because they are all yelling, various shouts and stops and declarations of idiocy. One stands out, definitely Ghost’s voice, “told ya at the first sign of danger—“
You’re going to choose to ignore that. Hopefully when everything goes according to plan, he’ll be proven wrong.
From the corner of your eye, you see Soap try to run after you, only to be pulled back by Ghost. They start to run in the correct direction, but there’s no way they’re outrunning the hoard.
This is so stupid. So stupid. What if the car doesn’t start? What if it’s out of gas? Your brain is going a million miles per hour thinking of all the things that could go wrong, but your legs are still moving. One thought prevailing: making sure everyone gets out of this alive.
Similarly to the truck, the driver’s door was left open, presumably mid-outbreak the cop left the car in a hurry and wasn’t lucky enough to return. You slide into the seat, stragglers who broke off from the main hoard hot on your heels. You have to stick a leg out and slam it into the chest of one to stop it from catching a ride, roughly closing the door behind you.
If there’s one thing Graves taught you, it’s that they’re attracted to sound. He’d performed something incredibly reckless like this before, and as much as you loathe to admit it, you’re trying to channel him right now.
If there was another thing Graves taught you, it was how to hot-wire a car.
You pull out your knife from the holster on your thigh, prying the steering column off. You spare a quick glance up to check on the others, who are successfully outpacing the hoard. For now.
You look back down, you need to do this fast. Identifying the right wires, you use the knife to strip them, twisting them together. You jump as the radio abruptly crackles to life, loud white noise filling the cab. You refocus, grabbing another wire and touching it to the twisted ones. The rumble of the engine trying to start fills the air for just a second before it stops.
You try again, sliding the wires against each other and hoping it’ll spark the engine to life. You spare a glance through the windshield, they’re getting further away, but they’re only barely managing to outpace the hoard.
The engine roars to life.
“Yes!” You can’t help the exclamation.
Your foot finds the break, hand ripping the gear into drive, and then you’re off like a bat out of hell, running over the stragglers that decided clawing at the hood of the car was their best bet for a meal.
You take off toward the main body of the herd, wanting to get close before you continue your stupidity.
When you make it to around the middle, you flick the sirens to life.
They drone weirdly at first, like the battery has gotten used to not powering anything, before the familiar whine of the cop siren is blaring fully.
You can see the shock on the team’s faces as they register your thought, but just as quickly they realize you’re doing this for them, and they’re back to sprinting full speed.
The hoard registers the noise and starts to stumble toward the car, arms outstretched like they can stop it. You push the pedal further, rolling down the window as much as you can without letting anything in, and yell out to them.
God you hope they can hear over the sounds. “Mile 14!”
It’s not a lot for them to go off of, but you had been looking at the map that morning and had noted that around mile marker 14 would be a good stopping point for the night. You just had to hope that they understood your meaning—and god—that they’d actually wait for you.
What if they don’t wait for you?
The thought suddenly slams into your mind as you send the car careening away, taking most of the hoard off onto a wild goose chase.
You look out the rear view and see that some had stuck with the guys, but it was few enough that they could deal with it. It had to be.
What if they never show up? What if they don’t make it to Mile 14 and you end up all alone again. You have the map, what if they can’t find their way? What if you just killed them?
You can’t think like that right now. Right now, you have a hoard of undead on your ass, a quarter tank of gas, and no plan. Right now you needed to worry about yourself and think of your next steps.
Mile 14. You’ll see them again.
